The ship comes back, and she has died on board, of some creeping carnivorous English disease, and is buried in England. At her funeral, the newly married Rolfes clutch at one another's hands, weeping. John Rolf can barely speak for tears. John Smith is silent. The wound in his side has festered. He does not have long to live.

The two men stand over the grave when all the other mourners have gone. They look at one another.

'She chose me.'

'Yes.'

A long silence.

'You should not have had her buried here.'

John Rolfe does not answer. He merely kneels by the grave, until the ailing man walks away.

Only now does John Smith cry. He lifts his face to the sky, allows the tears to come, cluster silently down his cheeks. Perhaps it would have been better to have never known her. Perhaps.

He goes to his empty house. Lies down on his bed. His wound pains him awfully.

The windows are open

…

John Rolfe kneels by the grave of his wife. Waters it with his tears. Finds an old skeleton of a leaf, placed there by a mourner. Soon it will rot, decompose, melt back into the earth.

He puts his wedding ring upon the soil. It will last longer than a mere leaf.

And he tries to forget how, when she was dead, he has reached to take her hands and found one clasped around the object in the blue silk bag. And he had pulled the fabric away, and seen it was nothing but a rusted compass, broken, glass cracked, ruined and wrecked and worthless.

She must have thought it was something else, he told himself, because she clung to it as though it was an object of salvation. He prized open her hand with shaking fingers and, barely upright with sobs, threw the compass overboard. Then he clutched up her body, and held her, and could not bear to let her go.

He prays to God to receive her soul.

…

John Smith stands. He walks, with halting steps, to the window.

That night she said goodbye.

In his chamber, both of them standing in a shallow pool of moonshine.

He saved me, you see. And he has loved me all this time. And I cannot leave him now – not when he has given up as much for me as I gave up for him.

And he will give me peace instead of passion, and too much of too strong love can bruise, sometimes, and maybe if I hadn't lost you I could bear it.

But I need peace, now. And a sturdy, quiet husband. And I have to keep my promise to him, because I am a woman of honor, and I do love him, you see. He is…a tree. He shelters me. He is a grounding force. I may not be free, but I am safe.

And if I had gone with you I would not have been safe. If we sailed the world, I would have had freedom and adventure – but horrors, too. And sadness. And if we had gone to my people, I think the settlers would have attacked – it was only seeing me living among them that protected my people for this long from their swords and guns.

We would have had freedom. And we would have kept who we are. We would have had a love so strong and deep it wounded us, tattooed itself onto our bones, was more a part of us than our own blood. Free and wild and dangerous as the wind.

But this way – this life. It is better for my people. And it is peaceful. Perhaps the cost of happiness is always liberty.

But know that you gave me back myself. Helped me to remember who I am. Made me stronger, made me believe in myself once again.

I will forever and ever be your countryman. We have the same heart, the same blood. The same kind of soul, maybe. I will always be with you. As you will me.

I told you, once, that we used to walk to same path. That was once, long ago, and I hold by what I told you then – we do not walk the same path, now.

She pressed a single, chaste kiss to his lips, walked away, opened the door –then turned to look at him, head tilted to one side, smiling that overpoweringly joyful, wild smile that is knitted into the aching tendons of his heart.

But we are together in the wind.

...

John Smith stands by the open window. A breeze gussets inside, whips around the room, laden with foreign leaves.

He listens.

He allows the wind to paint the world anew.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed - i don't have much faith in my abilities and it means a lot to me that people enjoy what I write. I think 'Pocahontas fan' said they wanted to use a line in a story - if you genuinely do (and weren't just begin nice) i would be deeply deeply flattered.

Shameless plug! If you liked my style of writing I have written a story called 'the fall of snow' on fiction press. It's basically a retelling of snow white.

Anyway, thank you again! x