You had brought me to your gilded house in the sand where your sisters sat at a long table drinking wine amidst candles flickering and the white of cloth and the scurry of maids, gossiping, perhaps, to surmise if I were a decent prize with my fine brown hair and embroidered gown. I was allowed to wander; it was an island after all, down to the sea where the waves pushed up the rocks, foaming in laughter, mocking my fear, mocking me, as perhaps your sisters mocked me in their gilded dining hall with the flames elongating like fingers depicting a speaker here, a listener there.
I am humble, you see, a woman. A prize. You are the one with the desire, or are you, absent prince? I walked along the sand when the waves retreated and the island bore her legs. The long rays of the sun warmed my slender white arms; the beach was a pool of amber. They were searching for him, my bone, my blood, for he had been lost, perhaps taken, perhaps dead, according to Rumour. I would not be permitted to greet my sorrow in my own homeland, mourn him.
In the sand, the rocks were smooth, cobbled by the sea; I bent down to gather them, cradle them in my veil, tie them to my waist. On my way back to the pier laughter could be heard, the waves, far away but not too far.
It was there and then it was not, the jetty into the water, the dark wave, your voice, the wash of crepuscular sky.
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