<div class="floatright">(http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h418/icsyhyat/40e8c4474627b711a671a193dbb59a47-1.jpg)</div>The water's arms are outstretched, inviting her to return.  It is a mad lover, one that rages sometimes, but every other day is tender and kindly, generous... cradling, sating.<br/>The water begs forgiveness for last night's fury.  The water laps guiltily at the corpses on the beach, drags sand and water through their cold, stiffening limbs.  Teases at the crabs that have begun their feasts, the trails of ants that form like signal arrows toward dead flesh.  The water says, "see..?  I'll make it better soon.  I won't ever do that again."  It is like the mad girl that stabbed Jax Scorbos in the thigh because he danced with Cala Vinzet...<br/><br/><i>Oh wait,</i>thinks Tivyrne,<i>that was me, before...</i><br/><br/>She is sitting in the shade of a broad-leafed palm.  Her clothes are spread on the rock before her, and she is letting them dry while she waits in a torn shirt-- the only thing she found that was still white and clean in a trunk plucked from the sea... she'd also found a chain shirt. which she immediately spread to dry, knowing what seawater will do to iron and steel.  She figures it has a half-week of life left, unless she can find oil to clean it.<br/><br/>She then hears the wind carry a high, clear note-- a bird perhaps.  A distant gull.  She listens... it persists.  It is nothing but a man, she thinks... no island bird, no trick of madness... she is not alone.  Her boots still sodden and limp, her black leathers ruined and scattered, she abandons the gear and runs. barefoot, toward the cry.  The oversized white shirt trails behind her like a robe, gaping at the neck, but she doesn't care-- she stretches her bare legs and covers distance on the sand as quickly as she can.  Then, she finds it-- there on the beach, a cluster of humanoids-- she's about to dive into the undergrowth when she recognizes a few figures-- people from the boat, people she studied from her quiet corner of the hold, people she had heard joke and seen grow seasick and shared meals with.<br/><br/>Sand plumes behind her as she runs to join them, carrying no spear, no arrows, no blade.