She could just leave, she thought, watching the waves rise and fall as the tide swept them in and pulled them out. She could walk into the cool saltwater and swim, leave the islands at her back. She could pray every daybreak and sunset to her goddess to guide her home and, maybe one day, her prayers would be granted. Her eyelids closed and she envisioned it, home. She thought of the happiness that would fill her when she saw father and mother again, and how relieved they would be that she’d come home. They must miss her terribly, as terribly as she missed them. Her heart clenched, anguish filling her.
How many years had it been now? Too many. Avangeline had lost count. It had been too long since she had washed up on the shores of Crossing Isle, confused, lost, terrified.
She’d cared for someone she shouldn’t, she’d cared for someone she’d never told. She’d lost them both; maybe, she wasn’t sure. They were likely still here, somewhere on the islands, but she had yet to cross them again. Maybe she was subconsciously avoiding them. Maybe she was afraid of everything that she felt. Maybe she didn’t want to decide if she wanted to keep wishing for home or settle in this place, this place where she still felt a stranger to its ways. She accepted now that there were other lands, other gods to worship, and places where gods did not exist at all. She kept her truths close to heart and chose to pray to her goddess over and over, desperate to never forget her. Desperate to believe that, one day, she would be guided back home.
A despondent sigh fell from her mouth. She opened her eyes and watched the waves, downtrodden. Even if she swam out to the mainlands and began to wander, she would get nowhere. When she was ready to return home her goddess would appear to her, Avangeline was sure of it. She risked so much by leaving the islands, she risked crossing paths with a brute or growing more lost than she already was. She risked never seeing Al-Hattaal again. She risked never seeing Bjorn again. It had been some time, but she had not forgotten them; her heart hadn’t.
Turning from the beach she walked inland, the moon high in the sky, glowing softly white. It illuminated the dark shape of a figure, a lone stallion in the Falls, and as a victim of her reverie she briefly mistook him for Al-Hattaal. That was a silly assumption, she quickly realized, because he was too thick in build to be her sleek, ink-black savior. Avangeline found herself approaching him all the same, maybe because she was drawn to some form of companionship that night, her loneliness having grown too great.
“Hello.” Her voice was so quiet, burdened by the heavy woes which plagued her heart.
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