| 'I was not waiting here in this canyon for long,' she said, 'I was only teasing you when I said, "where were you?"' 'The song was not teasing,' he said, 'I felt, hearing it, that we have been waiting, for how long I do not know.' 'Oh, that is certainly true,' she said, 'we have all been waiting that way forever, I only meant I hadn't been standing here in the canyon for long. I didn't want you to think that some dream you had along the way had caused me any inconvenience, had caused me to get tired or cold,' and she said those last words as if she were telling a fabulous joke. He did not know what she meant by it, but still the sentiment came through clearly enough, she spoke to him with laughter in her voice, with light in her heart, and he understood that, his heart was light as well... But they had not come to that place to fool themselves, she said, 'It does not happen this way, you know... not where the stars are named, not where the roads are known, there is no map to this place, and in my world, there is no one like you, and in your world, there is no one like me.' And he drew in a breath, and said to her, 'I know. I know, but there is more than just your world and my world, there are stars beyond the shadow of their names, there are ways beyond the roads we know, and you are here before me, and I am here with you, that is true also.' 'Everything is true,' she said, and lowered her eyes from his own. It was as if he had not seen her before she said that, she had been light across the canyon, she had been the look in her eyes, and the sound of her voice, and the song she was singing, but he looked at her now, she appeared to be the age that he was, 'and strong and used to traveling', he thought, and he wondered if she would walk back to town with him, when the morning came... She said, 'Everything is true, but the morning never comes here, and if I am to go back with you, or if you are to go back with me, it will be because that is what we decide, the sun will never tell us that it is time to go... Which star is the sun, after all?' He wondered at this, and asked her, 'Then it is always night here, beyond the horizon?' 'It is always night almost everywhere,' she said, 'It is only day when you are facing one star from up close. Most of the time, you are facing them all, and from very far away.' 'Where are you from?' he said, and he knew it was not a question that he had ever asked quite that way before, and he did not know what she would answer. She thought, and then she said, 'I am a sailor on the sea of stars... so you may say I am from the ocean, or from the night...' 'But,' she said, 'if you mean where am I from originally, I haven't got any more of an idea about that than you have.' She could tell he did not know quite what to make of this, but she wanted him to know what she meant, and knowing how he loved music, she said to him, 'I will sing you a song that we sing where I am from, it is a song that we sing to those we love.' And he knew, as she said this, that his language was not spoken between the stars, and he knew why she had laughed so at her suggestion that she might have gotten tired or cold, and he thought of her, then, as an angel, and beyond his days and nights, and so, though her words were sweet, he was sad to hear them, for how could she love him? And she put her hand on his forehead, and closed his eyes, and he heard her to say, 'My darling, why should I not love you? What do you think you are? What do you think any of us are? Do you think that you are not truly here, just because one day you will be gone? Do you think that your joy is not joy? That your eyes are not seeing? That your laughter is hollow, and your songs are not true? We stand in the fullness of time, and we rise and fall in the same. And if I am here with you, then here is where I am... it is enough, my darling.' 'I want to answer your question, I want to sing you this song, and it is true that I have not sung it in these words, or in this way, before, but the spirit of the song sings in me, it is from where I am from,' and then she said very softly, 'it is from where we are from...' and the songs about the sea keep washing over me I have been lost for a long time I've been late for the world that's gone in the blink of an eye but the questions they come, just when you go and the tides they go out, the ships they come in I say it's all a wash, but it's washing over my life so bring me a dream, tell me a story I'm lost without sleep, I'm lost when I'm sleeping the sound of the sea singing one thousand goodbyes and the songs about the sea keep washing over me I have been lost, but I have been brave I've been saving my sight, the better to see how you shine and a ship's not a stone, nor cannon, nor castle no blood on my tongue, just salt in the water just so you know, just so you know you're alive and sometimes I'm a sail, skimming oe'r the water gone far from the shore, gone like the others and full of the sound of wind over water we fly and the songs of the sea keep washing over me I can't wake up, and I cannot dream of no dream but this one dream til the day that I die and sometimes a ship breaks on the shoreline the sea never does, it just keeps on singing the moon into tides, the land into water all night and if I'm a sail, then where is the wind from and if I'm the wind then where is the wind from and I cannot tell, it's all in the ocean I find and the songs about the sea keep washing over me I have been here, all the long time and when I was feared lost, I was just lost in your mind and still there are ships, sailing the sea and still there are stars, over the water and still there are ships, sailing the sea still there are stars, over the water... 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