Laughter - GBE2 Prompt

Her laughter called to him. Alone on the shore, enshrined upon a rock, wallowing in his sorrow, her laughter swept in, freeing him of misery's grasp. He slipped booted feet onto moon-washed sand, scanning the beach, searching for the source of ringing joy. She appeared to dance out of the waves, auburn hair flying, twirling around her body. Her movements were sinuous, sensual, utterly abandoned. He was helpless before her.

Her dance flirted with the rushing sea. She danced out, sky-blue skirt flecked with fluffy white foam, whirling back as waves chased her toes, feet bare, flashes of bare calf tantalising him as he fled after her. She ignored his calls to wait, fluttering lashes hiding playful glances cast over her shoulder, laughter echoing, rebounding between dunes.

Still turning, reeling, stepping to some internal rhythm, she bent, scooped handfuls of minute shells and tossed them into the air. They fell about her, sparkling shards of confetti, moonbeams flashing from nacre in ghostly rainbows, filled with a myriad shades of white. He saw his chance, closed the distance, snatched for her elbow as she skittered away. Ever after he wondered who was caught in that instant. Then, all he knew was her cool skin under his work-knotted fingers, her peals of laughter as she drew him into her dance.

“Who are you? Where do you come from, you who dance in the moonlight on my shore?”

She giggled, then frowned, her question direct as her hazel-eyed gaze, their feet cavorting as their words tangled.

“You think to own the land which sustains you, princeling?”

“Twas my father's, and so comes to me.”

His grey eyes misted, his voice became weak. He felt the urge to pull away, hide weakness, his devastation at the loss of this father, but she would have no such disguise.

“Think you I know not grief because I laugh and dance? I grieve that men such as you think to own this world. Seek to carve her up with lines none can see, soaking her with blood in battles over these invisible lines. Come!”

Lying on his deathbed, decades hence, he could remember every second of that night. She sped her dancing feet, backing into the waves, his initial shock at the chill dissipated , shocked into history as she stepped up, following the path of the moon on the waves. She danced ever up and back, slowly, steadily drawing them higher. He trembled, his glance drawn inexorably down, fear seeking a hold as he realised he could no longer see waves, the sea or shore. She laughed, telling him to hold her gaze, to look only when she told him it was safe, but he could not resist. The path they trod glimmered, glistened and sparkled with every turn of her bare toes upon it. To him it appeared they danced on ghostly white moon roads, studded with gems of stardust.

He never understood how she danced them through time, across the sky, over continents. Or how she halted them, hundreds of feet in the air, standing calmly on a gleaming path of silvered moonlight, whenever she had something to show him. Not once did she free his hand from her bronzed touch. Eventually he forgot it, heedless of his perceived peril beneath the weight of her wisdom.

“Look down, princeling. What do you see?”

For long moments he could no more speak than understand her magics. He simply stared at the moon-washed emerald of the world beneath his floating feet. Mile after mile of empty land filled his vision from horizon to horizon. The only barriers to movement were rivers, streams, lakes and waterfalls. She made a convoluted gesture and he knew a moment of nausea, his vision suddenly zooming in, allowing him to observe the creatures of the world. They run hither and yon, not once heeding the lines his mind tried to impose upon the landscape, lines drawn by his father, his ancestors.

“Your lines mean nothing to them.”

“Where are the towns, the people?

“Come back.”

She reversed her earlier gesture and he battled sickness, drawn up once more, his vision expanding with discomforting rapidity. They fled over the world, their shadows playing tag below, the shades of giants, gods and monsters to the few folk who chanced to see strange visions in the night. Amongst the vastness of the fields, forests, deserts and natural spaces, tiny pockets of light began to appear. They were swamped, drowned in green, awash amid the encompassing blue. The pockets of humanity were tiny, insignificant, of no moment to the world.

“There are your towns, princeling. How important they seem, no? How vital to...”

He was unsure how long they spent dancing from beam to beam, spinning and whirling through starshine, ever reeling up and down, closing on creatures and fleeing back to continue their travels.

“...that hare?”

The creature continued to sleep beneath a hedge, oblivious as they whirred away.

“...To that fox?”

Burnished fur and bushy tail ignored the ephemeral shades, intent on pursuit of a mouse, crossing man's lines with impunity.

“...to that owl?”

Perhaps it was the owl, feathers whispering in graceful flight, soaring above the land, owner of nothing but content, at peace with the sleeping world, but something changed in the heart of the man. Forever after he would seek to break down the barriers between men, to erase the lines drawn in strong black on maps which bore no relation to reality.

Suddenly, his senses scrambled, she soared, whirling, dancing, waltzing, reeling, faster and faster, higher and higher, her joyous laughter streaming behind then, bubbling over her smiling lips as freely as water over falls.

“Remember this night, princeling. Remember that you. are no-one. No more than another creature hunting the land as do the hawk, the wolf and the bear. You have no more import than the smallest of mice. The land no more belongs to man than it does to an errant breeze. Hold these truths in your heart.”

She dropped like a stone, clutching him tight against her. Her hair entwined around his body, his laughter finally burbling up, flying as free as hers.

They landed gently back upon the shore. She stepped lightly, free of his grasp, her smile gentle.

“Take this and cleave to it when you falter, as you will, for you are but mortal.”

She placed a pale moonstone pendant in his hand, he clutching it to his heart, aware he was about to lose her.

“Will I see you again?”

“When it is your time. I will come for you. Remember that. And that I am always out here.”

“Your name?”

She smiled, dipped a graceful curtsey, already beginning her wandering, eternal dance back into the waves.

“I am the ocean gypsy, the world wanderer, she who is and will always be.”
A wave rolled in and she vanished within its foaming embrace.