They only ever meet on beaches.
When the sun is blinding and the sea roiling with unmet tempests, when the fog is just burning off the air and the sand is warming beneath her hands, he walks from the foam like some deity in Greco-Roman myth.
Except he's left her now, at sea far, far away from her. On a boat, serving with soldiers. The war has hit it's peak, and she can't help but worry when she hears the news.
It used to surprise her, looking up to find a man standing beside her, dripping wet with salt water and flickering like fog in the sun.
She'd give anything to be surprised now.
She's checked every list, scanned crowds for that one face. But she never finds it. She claws at the people around her, pushing her back with a tidal wave of arms and chests, but she rips at them, fights and fights and falls through them, knees hitting the ground in despair and defeat.
Her country may be safe, her people proud and tall and victorious, but her seaman is gone and she cannot join them in their gladness.
The pale grey tiles are cool and smooth beneath her hands, and her hair falls into her eyes like sand. The rush of people has moved beyond her, and she can hear footsteps now, soft and limping. She brushes the hair from her eyes and tries to collect herself, to move.
But a hand is reaching out to her, a right hand, the left tied uselessly to the man's chest, and without the scruff and the sea salt she almost doesn't recognize him. But the blue eyes burn her as ever, and she takes her seaman's hand.
They only ever meet on beaches, but sometimes exceptions must be made.
