Once upon a time, in a land not too far away from this one, there lived a girl, with curly black hair. Her family were farmers who lived in a small town near the sea. Most days her parents worked on the farm while she and her sisters helped them. On other days, her mother would take them all on trips to the sea, with the other children in the town, and they would spend all day playing in the golden sand.
It was on one of these such occasions that one of her friends, Zathan, made a promise to her.
"Mahalia," he said, handing her the blue starfish he had found among the rock pools, "this is for you and with it, you also have my promise, that one day, I will marry you."
Mahalia smiled back at her friend as she accepted the starfish, but being only eight years old at the time, and Zathan only ten, she didn't pay much attention to his promise. Certainly one day she would grow up and be married, and there was no doubt that her friend would be a wonderful person to be married to, but for now, such thoughts were simply not worth considering.
And so Mahalia grew up in the town, her curly black hair growing longer every season and spending her days on the farm or at the beach. The blue starfish she had received remained tucked away in a drawer, not unlike the promise Zathan had made to her, tucked away in her mind.
