[AW] all this and heaven too

[Sabine]

S A B I N E

flowers will grow from my bones

J

ude Addlestone did not want to get out of bed. He pulls a reluctant glance at the clockface across the wall and stifles a groan that he knows won't get him far; it is 4.15AM and if his father bursts in to find his youngest son tucked still beneath his wool sheets, he'll be handing out fifteen belt-licks across the knee like presents at a party. 

He rises, blinking sleep from the crook of his eye, bothering not to run a comb through his unruly auburn curls. Dock labourers were hardly known for their polished fashion and Jude, even at the keen age of two, was no different. His father always said the harbour left a mark on its men: they did not need to make their own. 

Awake now and resigned to the day ahead, Jude grabs an apple (bruised from the games of catch it had endured) before weaving through the disarray that was the Addlestone kitchen come morning. He flies out the door before a hand could twist his ear or worse: burden him with errands -- out and on he disappears into the blue dawn. 

It is 4.35AM by the time he reaches the docks and the sun is knocking with knuckles too wide for the water to hold. The waves dip and shiver; they rage against a light that seeks to steal the secrets they keep. Denocte has always held the southernmost tip of the isle as her treasure and it is not hard to see why. When the sun meets the sea, when each giant must lose something of itself, the clouds seem to hold their breath. Jude does not think he will ever tire of the sight of it. 

----

The first ship of the day comes into port at 7.00AM sharp and by now Jude is sweating. As he swings the last case of freight down onto the loading bay, he steals a glance at the vessel as his comrades guide her in. He has seen it before, once, perhaps at the beginning of last winter when the leaves underfoot had finally turned grey. Tarin, a big bull of a stallion, bellows into the morning air and slowly the ramp begins to lower. And that is when he sees her. 

A girl -- no, a woman -- standing against the plum-red sky with hair that reaches her hip. A woman with glasshewn horns and forget-me-not eyes and a face that opened something in his chest. He swallows. She moves. Why does he recognise her skin? The curve of her cheek? The way the world sinks as she steps onto Denoctian soil, as though it had been waiting for her all this time. 

Tarin thrusts a chideful shoulder into Jude's flank, urging him to crack on, and for a moment the boy glances away. That was all it took. When he turns back, yearning and hungry, she is gone. Lost to the crowd and the life of the court he loved. His heart sinks, and he wonders softly, if she had ever been there at all.