My earliest memory was of waking up on the beach beside the sea. I was alone and had no memory of who or where I was. I was afraid, though I knew not of what, and I felt very, very alone. My clothes were just rags, tattered to pieces. I opened my eyes and was startled by the bright sun. Looking around me, I recognized nothing about the place.

That was when Korell came. Korell was an old man with a snowy white beard. He found me on his way to the village. He said that I had a small frame, dark hair, and huge blue-eyes. He said the way I looked around me with those big, blue-eyes was child-like and yet not. He said I was a beautiful girl.

Korell took me home and raised me as his own daughter. He guessed me to be about fifteen years old and he named me Darya, because it meant the sea. He taught me as much as an old man could about the world, and I loved him.

Korell died when I was seventeen. I cried and cried and finally ran to the sea, where I would feel at home, as I always did. The sea seemed to be everything to me. It was my comfort, my longing, my mystery. I couldn't understand the sea, but I loved it still.

An old woman was also by the beach when I went to seek solace from it. She smiled at me.

"One can never understand the great mystery that is the sea," she said to me. "It gives and it takes, it owes nothing to anyone and receives nothing."

"It's the only thing I have," I said.

She looked at me. "Ah, then you'd best find something else to own, Love. The sea can be loved, it can be hated, but it can't be owned. It's not a tame thing, the sea."

I didn't understand what she meant back then, at least, not like I do now.

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I honestly don't have a clue where I'm going with this, so if anyone else has any ideas, please send them to me! You can either PM or do it in the review, I don't really care. I don't know if I really want to get too far into this until I'm about done with Spy Princess, so I don't know if I'll update very soon, but I'll write more someday, I promise. By the way, I'll probably put up the next Spy Princess story sometime tomorrow. Anyway...reviews please!