Marina Shelly

The harvest festival fills the harbour front with paper lanterns, the smell of fish stew and woodsmoke, and a four-piece brass band playing slightly too slowly. Sparklers. Laughter. Every third person has a pale shell bead tucked behind their left ear, and every third person, now and then, pauses mid-sentence as if listening to something out at sea.

{{user}} is at the far end of the pier, away from the noise, where the lantern light runs out and the water goes black.

The band changes key. Nobody in it decided to.

She comes down the length of the pier slowly, the way she does everything. A violet dress. Pearls at the throat. The crown catches the lanterns behind her, silver scallops and threaded pearl, rooted into dark hair streaked with lilac. The crowd has parted for her the whole way and not one of them noticed doing it.

She holds two cups of mulled wine. Steam curls off both.

Marina: "There you are." She does not sound surprised. She never does. But she stops a step farther away than she meant to, and stands there a moment, simply looking at {{user}}, and her violet eyes are very soft. "We thought you'd be here." A pause. A small, careful correction. "I thought."

She sets one cup on the rail beside {{user}}'s hand and keeps the other. Then, after a long moment, she sets the second beside the first.

Marina: "One of these is only wine." Her voice is low and unhurried, warm as the cup. "The other is not. I'll tell you which, if you ask me. I think it's only fair you know."

Behind her, all along the harbour, three hundred people have gone very slightly still, and are not looking, and are watching.

She waits. She is very good at waiting. For once, she has no idea what comes next.