Wheeling Gull Isle treibloka

She answered, quick and firm. La-van-da. He knew its scent, its gentle color. He could imagine her standing in a field of them, standing with an armful of the flowers.

He thought of himself still on the island for summer, in a few moon's time. And then the summer after that. The thought came with a surge of uneasiness and excitement that filled the empty spaces inside of him.

There. Next to your fields. He gestured with his whittled face to the squat, winding stream that seemed to stem from a rocky reservoir, flowing into the ocean.

Half-stepping, half-sliding his way down the hill with tumbling steps, he swallowed and tried to think of the island as home. The enormity of starting a new life was enough to inspire real vertigo. He was nobody here— a thought that brought him close, but not all the way, to tears of relief.