Bitterroot Valley There was somewhere else you wanted to be.

Etienne walked the world like an old man, and he was not even 4. He was not even mid-age yet. But he was here and he was alive and that was more than could be said of those he had loved. And he supposed that was in part why the sea never took him. She had taken too much, she took and she gave. But why did she keep giving him back. What was his purpose. Because it sure wasn't to love and be loved.

Etienne nodded his head. Dere be muc' to 'eal. Blood, bone, skin all surface. But you can't 'eal de deep wounds, if de soul and de 'eart are sick. Sometimes your body can't fig't wit'out dey soul. and if your soul be 'urt. Well I try, but dat not an easy fix.

If he had been privy to the man's thoughts. He himself would have said he didn't know how he was still standing. And by all the gods on high, he had tried not to be. He had tried to go back to the sea, but she hadn't wanted Etienne. She spat him back out, broken and battered on shores of blood, where his family had lain and cried and died. And he had laid there for days. Finally, moving when even the birds didn't want the healer.

My 'eart always calls to dey sea. But it is a 'ars' place. A place dat 'urt me. I want peace. I want love. I want to be somet'ing to someone, but for now. I be 'ealer. Dat be enuff if de rest is not for me.