Status Updates From World Without End (Moontide...

He felt a kiss on his brow—so soft and full of tenderness that it was almost a word. And then another on his cheek, and then, even more softly, on his lips. Three words.

Water running over stone like an ancient song, the rock so worn now that the song had almost returned to its natural form. Still, there were vestiges of the regularity that the even steps had imposed but this was in the background now, a quiet harmony.

“Colder than starlight on midwinter’s night,
Dark, dark. My thoughts eclipse the sun.
The silence comes, stealing, o’er the heart.
But hear in the distance, the sea’s tumble and run.”

Tristam lay in his hammock, listening to the sea gurgle and splash as it passed over the hull outside his cabin. So varied was the vocabulary that he almost found himself trying to understand, listening for words, attempting to sense the mood of this discourse.