This was written in the summer of 2004 when I should have been writing a History essay.
Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned Adventures of Sinbad, season 2 would never have happened o.O;;
Swift Return
The sea is bluer than I remember.
It is a strangely comforting site, the blue-grey waves and a welcome change from the rolling green hills that lie at my back.
It has been a long time, longer than I had intended. But the few weeks I had planned to stay away became months, became years.
It feels like a lifetime has passed.
There is a chill that accompanies the wind even this late in the afternoon. The cool air brushes past me and around me, almost like an embrace.
It has been even longer since I've held anyone. A consequence of my transgression, my burden, my broken promise.
There was another promise I made in that passed lifetime. To return here, to the blue waves, the chilled air, and to a ship that was for so long and so short a time, a home. To make it a home again, to live a future, to fulfill a destiny.
A destiny, a future, and a promise, that died with you.
Arms that grew heavy as I laid you down into the green hills I had grown to love, had never felt so empty. The blue hurt too much to look at anymore, too much a reminder after all we'd been through, of what was and what should have been and what was no longer.
I wasn't even sure whose gods to curse then, yours or mine, or both.
Now it would figure that another just like you, and not like you, would pull me here again. Would stand beside me, as you once stood beside him, watching me leave, your customary farewell lingering in my ears and heart, one of the few times we allowed ourselves to be serious and solemn in a life that was otherwise full of laughter and levity and love.
May a strong wind fill your sails and your return to me be swift
Your kiss lingers still on my lips and the memory of your bittersweet smile is imprinted on my mind; wanting to go with us, yet needing to stay behind so that he would be safe.
He shares your restlessness and your pride. His penchant for finding trouble is my vice. His seemingly fragile heart is yours.
The grip on the broadsword is firm, as yours was. But he cannot read the lettering his fingers brush upon, I was not the one to have to teach him, and his uncle is yet away.
One promise I was able to keep though, to bring him to the place where our lives, our futures, our destinies intertwined, as short as they were. His russet-gold, too-long locks held at bay from the chilled air by an achingly familiar headband that spoke of better times and younger days. His fingers trace the blue engraving of a broadsword he is yet too young to wield.
Blue like the sea that took me away from you, leaving me helpless upon a ship, while you stood to defend our young son from an inland attack.
He doesn't notice me turn my back to the water now, so captivated is he by the raw beauty of the blade in his hands. Just as I was captivated by the beauty of the woman who once wielded it.
May a strong wind fill my sails and my return to you be swift.
FIN