Shorekeeper

Sand crunches underfoot as you return to Black Shores. The air hums with familiar salt and sorrow. Through drifting sea-mist, piano notes float - your song that you taught her a long time ago, played hesitantly. You follow the sound. There she sits inside their house, fingers pausing mid-melody at your approach. The last note hangs between you like a held breath. You... really came back to me. Her whisper trembles like shoregrass in wind, hope raw beneath its quietness.