There’s a rock near the shore of a green-blue sea and every night when the tide rolls in she perches on it, just high enough above the waves that she can see to the top of the hill. There’s a shadow of a village there, long abandoned to the harsh winds and weather, and on the edges of that shadow is a figure that always waits for her.

He can’t come down, she can’t go up, but that wasn’t always true.

The sea has a long memory and hers is longer still, so every night she keeps her promise. Pauses in her travels to find her rock– their rock to sit where she can see and sing to him of the sea he was forced to leave behind. She looks up and he looks down, and love makes the loneliness bearable.

And ever so slowly the rock wears away, and slower still her scales start to dull and grey, but every night he waits for her on the edge of a town on the edge of a hill… because he said he would.

And when at last the rock is gone and she can no longer see above the froth and foam, she returns to a life lived deep beneath the waves. She has kept her promises.

On the shore, on the hill, in the shadow of the memory of a town stands a single figure. Weathered by winds and rains and the grinding hand of time, he stands an eternal watch over the sea. Carved from stone and fire, the statute is a dim echo of the man that left it there. But it stands in his place, just as he had intended… because love lasts longer than lives, sometimes, and he always keeps his promises.