If only I were brave, she thought, forgetting that she’d come all this way on her own.

She had been walking for miles, along the ragged shore. The wind had blown and the waves had risen. The cold water had splashed her shoulders. The sun had been bright and yet without warmth. The sun had liked to keep its distance.

The shore had wound almost endlessly behind her. She couldn’t remember now just when she had started on its path. Periodically she raised her eyes from the gray-black stones to see more endless raggedness before her. One day she had started walking and had kept on. She kept on now.

The sun started to move further away, falling back away from her, and she felt it shrink it rays away from her.

“That’s fine,” she said to it without looking back. “I know you like to go. I know you’ll be forced to return tomorrow.”

She kept on and slid a thin wrap around her shoulders. The moon would be coming soon. She liked the moon and she liked to think it liked her, too. Even when it was as high in the sky as it got, she never felt it was trying to keep itself away, like the sun always did. The moon followed her way and gladly lit the unsteady ground before her. She’d walk a little while in the dark and then the moon would come.

If only I were brave, she thought again. Maybe I’d leave this winding path. Maybe I’d swim away into nowhere. Maybe I’d walk inland and find rest. 

“Maybe,” she said into the darkness.

Soon she saw the silver slivers of moonlight start to catch up with her feet. She smiled.

“There you are,” she said. Here I am, she heard in her mind.

Maybe I’m not so brave as to swim away. Maybe I’m not so brave as to travel inland. 

“But I’m brave enough to walk alone under the moonlight on a road that has no end.”

She paused and looked out at the vast water and into the thick trees. She looked back down at her feet and the tumultuous stones beneath her. She nodded and then moved forward once again.

She was walking.