The great storm had long since subsided, its wrath somehow appeased. When she had guided the boat deep enough onto the bosom of the sea, Tara overturned it, letting Aille sink like a stone and return to his element.
Then she swam back to shore as best as she might, and found a place to sit on shore rocks slimed with seaweed. She rested, panting for breath, waiting to see if the salt water would revive her young sealover, or whether he was too far gone for that.
A time later, he broke water, whipping back slick wet mane with a toss of his head, eyes sparkling, laughing with renewed vigor.
“Land-woman, you have saved a son of the sea!” he called to her, shouldering through the soapy foam. She smiled and waved.
“And the bountiful mother of my kind, the sea, repays all favors!” he cried, tossing her a rounded thing which she caught in one fist and cradled.
It was a pearl the size of a cat’s skull, round and moony, glimmering and shimmering with cold fires. She stared at it entranced: there were princes here in Twilight that had lesser a treasure than this.
With a joyous shout and one last wave of his hand, the Merling sank into the surging foam and was gone forever from view. Leaving Tara with a treasure beyond price, and the memory of a brief love that would not soon be forgotten.
She rose and made her way through the shallows to the slope of the beach. Where the wild wind and wilder waves had carried her, the Starhoenne could not say. But all the wide world of Twilight lay before her, and she was young and strong.
She set forth through the woods into another day.