“Time and tide, wait for no man…”
The words left her lips in a low, warm voice. She stood on the shore, sand parting below her bare feet. She smelled of seas forgotten and tasted like secrets of old. No one ever spoke her name, one of deep blue gazes.

She stood and watched. Strangers passed her by. They dared not ask her.
“Whom do you wait?”
No, they were all afraid of her marbled skin and the soft green stone that had embraced her calves, a discreet form of imprisonment. Slowly, the waves rose with the lonely moon. Black waters rippled about her, not touching her skin, not making contact, she was not of this world, even the sea in all her cruel beauty paid her respect.

The seamen kept her company. Long years amidst the waves have steeled their courage. They were her most trustworthy of vassals, silent, they looked at you with knowing eyes and lips that parted only to tell stories, to the younger. They spoke the words of teachers in voices filled to the brim with pride, not for what they had accomplished over their long years at sea. No, pride for what they had seen, pride for the woman who had given birth to it all, the sea, the fish, the myths and stories.

“Time and tide, wait for no man…”

She stood, and she watched. The years passed by. New waters replaced the old in an endless, timeless circle. The sailors left, bewitched by what others have claimed to see beyond her waters. When they returned, if they returned, they were not the same men. Their eyes were darker, their faces paler.

“No!” they said with passion.
“No glory to find. No golden mist.”
They shook their heads in unison with frightened expression in their salt-worn faces.
“There’s only silence beyond that sea of ours I tell you! We have been tricked. No monsters to fight no land of pale green stone.”
Then, they would sigh, as if their sky had darkened.

Then, they would pray.


For the entry's title all credit goes to Robert Jordan and his great novels.