Oh the time, how it had flown. Fourteen years since these tiny hooves had first touched these sands. They hardly seemed fourteen hours, although busy hours they had been. Two broken hearts. One best friend for not-forever. Two home sweet homes. Four children birthed, one child adopted. Four blessings raised, one blessing buried. Yet still she stood alone on this beach. It was like some kind of torture equation, where x plus y equalled bittersweet. And yet she returned. The Lost Islands’ pull was magnetic – they pushed her away when she got all turned around, but once righted they pulled her back and held her as tightly as before. There was some sort of elastic connection between her and these lands – they would pull her back here until she snapped. And though bowed and bent, she had not snapped yet. For a long time she had been close, her heartstrings little more than threads of fraying cotton. For years the fates had seemed to conspire against her, throwing every misfortune at her like poison daggers, as if to break the golden spirit of pure joy that she had once embodied. For a long time she had been unhappy, but over the past few years she had taken the time to heal herself – to lick her wounds and nurture her soul. She had made peace with the atrocities that she had suffered. She had chosen to be happy again. And where did happiness lead? Home. It was early morning when Ava emerged from the ocean, the sleepy clouds still tied up with ribbons of pink and gold as the sun peeked tentatively over the horizon. The air was warm, but the salty breeze that tried to lift her heavy charcoal tresses was cool and biting. But she did not shake the water from her coat. She took solace from the shiver down her spine – she felt alive again. Reborn from the same waters she had stood in all those years ago – drowning inside and almost out. It had a kind of perfect circularity to it. Her golden pelt glittered in the gentle sunlight, and liquid diamonds glinted as they rolled down her petite wet curves. Her eyes, bright green emeralds no longer lost and glassy, gazed along the beautiful beach. She had raced along these shores, been assaulted on these shores, fallen in love on these shores. Her life was in these grains of sand that shifted with damp whispers beneath her hooves. There was a smile on her lips at the memories. She had changed so much since then, and yet not at all. So much had happened to her, and not so long ago this sight would have brought her to her knees, trembling and weeping, but now... now she smiled. She had found herself again. One might have thought the years would have changed her, their heaviness weighing her down, but the gift of youth had always been hers. Ava had come to these Islands as a child, and though there was a certain refining of her features and an easiness in her skin that came with age, there was no grey hair in sight, no swayed back, no aching bones. She had been suckled on the teat of vitality, and she glowed. A piece of pocket-sized perfection. She stood there for a moment, gazing out at the island that was her heart’s true home, her golden sides rising and falling in rhythm with the heaving ocean at her back. Then she threw her head back, dark hair tumbling back against the orange backdrop of the sunrise, and she laughed. Oh, how she laughed. The sound was bright and soft and golden. It fell from her lips like dewdrops disturbed from windblown leaves. She was radiant. She was home. |