Rán

         Rán padded to her window and stretched away the drift, after all, it was late in the morning.  Opposed to common belief, her dwelling was not filled with riches, or adorned by the gems of kings, but simple and stoic – of hard work, and tides, and disciplined things.  She leaned on the rail of a stone arch window and beheld the calling of the sea; a beauty much like hers, best approached cautiously.  Her raven hair waved upon a gentle breeze as her chin perched on her fist.  What in the world was she to do?

         Her house has been for a thousand years, a sentinel of the sea, but change has come in form of a man who has brought its undoing.  She’d miss the strong stone walls, selected to reflect the seafloor, of granite, marble, and flagstone.  She’d miss the steeple on south-end where she would smell a salty breeze aft a thunderstorm. All her memories were linked to this grand place: the raids of a rambunctious child to many a mothers’ birthplace. She loved this house more than anything, until recently.

         The hook!  Love was magic all its own, the mast on which her dwelling sat.  It was a single stone, a sheer cliff on all sides, with only a set of stairs that emerged a hundred feet below.  There, out in the ocean, that is where the stories grew.  When she was younger she would raid pirates to keep the innocent safe, but the innocent saw not innocence.  A pirate of pirates must be the worst pirate yet!  She snatched the pirates to teach them humility, and set them on a land afar.  Oh, she never harmed a single soul, but the world’s fear drove her to disappear.  Her reclusive nature fueled the flame and so was the ‘Legendary Saga’ born, a passage from which now worked in stone above the entryway beneath:

"The red ring here I hew me
Once owned of Halfdan's father,
The wealthy lord of erewhile,
Or the sea waves undo us,
So on the guests shall gold be,
If we have need of guesting;
Meet so for mighty men-folk
Amid Ran's hall to hold them."

         She moved softly to the west-side balcony, her footfalls mere whispers to the crashing sea, but light and free to endless hammering.  She wore robes of light blue silk wove by the finest hand, slightly translucent, and breezy; accenting unmatched beauty.  Clothes were her only vanity. The afternoon graced her home with such splendor and played against her island’s character: where beautiful trees on North Hill allude to a green blanket on gray stone, the light stressing certain points to appear a giant sleeping, and hanging moss sway in the breeze, trying to cover his pate, but a large gray swath on the eastern end where his combing missed completely.

         That is where she met him, Aegir, when the moon was high in a midnight sky and the waves lapped contentedly. His strong arms could break the very stone, his patience unyielding, his love liquefied her resistance, and his eyes, like the moon, brought weakness to her knees.  Should she abandon her home to the sea for a taste of loves keen sting?  Her nostrils flared, how could he force her to choose between future and memory?  No right has he!

         His hand touched her and she flinched, from behind no less, he was spared a slap, but not much less.  Her glare took him aback satisfactorily, as he rearranged his hair and clothing, and then he shrugged helplessly.

“My love, I mean not to distress, but what’s the meaning for this?”

“I love my home, and you wish to take me from it!”

“I see.  Love is not a singular thing.  You cannot love something entirely.”

“But I don’t wish to see it go.”

“Then fear not, for if on the Moon’s road with me you walk, on the other side it will be.  For your love and for your families – it is why this home was made.”

In tears of joy she tipped to toes and brushed a kiss – his sacrifice earned it.

“I’ve heard that many families have begun within these walls,” askance his eyes snared her yet.

She nod, “The mothers out at sea.”

“Well, let us journey to the light beyond and one more this house will see.”

He took her hand and stood by her side as tide went to and fro, until the coupled lovers strode down Rán’s moonlit road.

Word count: 752