We met thirteen centuries ago, when you came in from the sea. You were from an island to the west of my village, and one day when we were both very small, the fishermen brought you to us - they had found you floating in the sea. I watched you from afar as they laid your soaked body on the rushes. The fishermen said you were good as dead, they should have left you there amidst the waves. It was my mother who rushed to you, and smothered you in warm woolen blankets. All the while you slept, and my mother stormed off to keep The Mothers and Grandmothers at bay - oh, they really didn't like you at all, did they? Called you a bad omen. A portent of tragedies to come. But fierce was she, and fiercer were you - she managed to abate the mistrust the others showed, and you fought through the fevers and the bad dreams.
Not long after you'd woken up for the first time since arriving here, and after you'd eaten halfway through our stores, you disappeared. No one knew where you were, we just assumed you'd left. Maybe you wanted to brave that sea that brought you here, hoping that you'd be borne back home. I prayed you didn't do like the elders do, after they lived a long life and wade into the sea, to be carried by the undertow. Some weeks later, though, not very far from where we'd first seen you, I found you, sitting by the shore, the waves ebbing to and fro calmly. I sat down by your side, and we stayed there in sacred silence.
Hours passed, and as night fell you finally spoke. You asked me if I had a name. I replied, 'Well, my mother calls me Pistis', to which you chuckled heartily - something I had not yet seen. Your whole body shook with glee, and then you said 'What kind of name is that?', and I don't know, I had never thought about my name before. It's what people called me, that's all. But... then I remembered something my mother told me once. 'My father', I explained, 'was a soldier, and when they passed by here, he and my mother met. My mother said they fell in love as soon as they saw each other. But they didn't speak the same language. Though they tried, they just couldn't fully communicate with one another, and soon after he had to leave. He left me in her belly and a word in my mother's lips. I think it meant 'faith' in his language. Faith that he would one day come back. To her. To us.'
That left you feeling pensive and somewhat sad, and we lapsed into silence again. After some minutes, you broke it, and asked me where my father was. I shrugged, and said he was probably since dead in some battlefield or the other. I had never cried about him, though my mother often did. She still hoped to see him coming down the hill where they saw each other last. But I was crying now, and your hands reached out to my face and you wiped away all my tears. You told me you didn't remember your name. That you'd forgotten everything when you were lost at sea. And I told you that we would find the right name for you. It was late now, and I had to go back. I knew I would be worrying my mother by staying out so late. I asked you if you wanted to come home with me. My mother wouldn't mind, but you said no. 'Can I come back tomorrow?', I asked, my heart pounding against my chest. 'Would you mind if I visited?'. 'Always', you said, 'come back always'.
I can't remember how I got home, my head swam with thoughts and images of you. I recall my mother serving us supper, and she asked me where I had been, but what my reply might have been I could not guess. I wanted to sleep, to dream of you, and then to wake again and rush to you. Sleep, though, did not come neither easy nor quickly, and those long waking hours seemed to stretch into infinity. I wondered how you were, and what you had eaten for supper, and where you slept. We couldn't spare much, for winter would soon be at our doorstep, but I decided to take some food with me the next day.
And the next day... the next day I didn't find you there. My heart sank. Had you left for good? Had I scared you away? Had something happened to you? I sat by where we'd been, lost in thought. A part of me imagined that I would never see you again. And then... then I hear your voice, calling out to me from a distance. You were running towards me, something that I couldn't make out what it was jangling about in your hands as you ran, your voice shrill in the air. 'PISTIS', you bellowed, 'PISTIS! - LOOK WHAT I GOT FOR US!'. As you approached, I saw that you had somehow wrangled a pair of crabs, maybe from the nearby rocks, though one of them seemed to be somewhat on the smashed side, and maybe missing a limb or two. 'Crabs!', I cried out, and at this you stopped abruptly and a quizzical look crossed your face. So close to me, and yet so distant, you asked 'What do you mean?'. I was confused, what did I mean by what? You asked me what I'd called the crabs, and I said '...crabs? Are they not crabs?'
Again the laughter, and this time mine joined yours. 'Is that what they're called?', you asked. And I nodded yes. 'I mean, everyone says they're crabs, so I always called them crabs.'. You stood there looking at me as I spoke, and your head nodded in agreement. 'Crabs...', you intoned in a sing-song voice, '...yes, let's call them crabs!'. I noticed then that you had some blood around your lips, and your right thumb was swollen. I inquired at once what happened, worried to my core. You lifted the mauled crab proudly, said that it had pinched your finger and in retribution you had smashed it against the rocks. 'And look at this', you said, lifting your upper lip to reveal a missing tooth on the side, 'I tried to bite it but my tooth fell!' - and I... I knew that I would have to be by your side for as long as I lived. Even at that young age I knew. I already knew.
I upended the small package I had brought with me on the sand : some vegetables, apples, mushrooms and some dried meat. While you picked the crabs apart, I lit a fire and we sat by it, roasting the food over the flames. Night came far too soon, and again I asked you if you wanted to come with me. Again you declined. But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, you started to venture into the village again. The Mothers and the Grandmothers still shunned you, though my mother loved you with all her heart. You had changed, and grown, and you had something mysterious about you - almost divine. It was the fishermen first who started to pay tribute to you : they'd leave a portion of their catch for you. Then others joined. The smith made sure to forge you a sword and shield. The masons and the carpenters built you a hovel. Children looked at you in awe, though you were not much older than them. Our spearmen asked you for their blessing, for as we worshipped the gods of old, we saw in you the potent spirit of our mother, the great queen Diana.
But you were not a goddess to me, or the child of one. You were whispering to my heart the same song mine sang, and which was now complete. And I knew that our destinies were bound forever. We never knew your age, but you seemed to be close to mine - and the arrival of your womanhood confirmed it. It's now my sixteenth birthday, ten full years since first I saw you. You still didn't have a name, you were still looking for the right one. That was ok - I knew only that to me your name was love. We sat down on the beach where we had spent all these years together, and we lay together close on the warm sand. 'One day soon', you said, 'we will be here with our daughter and we will show her what you showed me once, and then every year after that, when winter comes. She shall see the Pleiades shine in the night sky, and then she too, shall be here with her children and we will be by their side.'
No words need break the silence that enveloped us, a cloak of love pulling us closer. The twilit sky gave away to dusk, and then to night. Amidst the christening stars that illuminated us, we joined our lives, our souls entwined like vein upon the white sands of Aperlae.
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