The Mariner’s Farewell Upon the Cliffs of Ys
A wanderer’s bark did kiss the jagged shore,
His compass spun by fate’s unyielding grip,
To Ys, the isle where shadows breathe and roar.
No hearth-smoke curled to greet the storm’s cruel tongue,
Yet in that desolation, pale and dire,
He glimpsed a figure, wraithlike, fair, and young—
Her eyes twin pools that mirrored dying fire.
“What specter haunts this crag-bound, salt-scarred realm?”
He cried, his voice devoured by the gale.
She answered not, but with a gesture calm,
Led him through groves where twilight dared to pale.
Her name was Liora, of whispered tides,
A soul entwined with Ys’s cursed loam,
Her laughter silver as the moon’s cold guides,
Her sorrow deeper than the ocean’s foam.
Through sunless days, they tread on petal-strewn paths,
Where marbled ruins sighed of fallen kings,
And in her gaze, he drowned, forsaking wrath,
While distant thunder hummed of cloven strings.
“O stranger, pluck no bloom from yonder glen,”
She warned, her fingers trembling on his sleeve,
“For roots drink deep the tears of banished men,
And every thorn guards what the isle bereaves.”
Yet love, that alchemist of reckless hearts,
Transmuted caution into golden trust.
He swore his soul to her, drew crimson charts,
To prove no wave would grind their vows to dust.
But as their hands brushed o’er the sacred spring,
The earth convulsed, the skies unleashed their bile,
And from the depths, a monstrous, scaled thing
Rose, crowned with wrath, to claim its stolen trial.
“Fool!” hissed the beast, its voice a crashing reef,
“This maid is bound to sate my endless thirst.
Her blood must flow, or every leaf, each sheaf,
Shall rot to ash—this pact was sealed and cursed!”
The traveler stood, his sword a futile spark,
While Liora knelt, her fate etched in stone.
“Nay,” roared he, “take my life, extinguish dark,
But spare her breath, let mercy be thine own!”
The dragon’s maw curled, grim and amber-lit,
“A trade most quaint, yet fair: thy pulse for hers.
But mark, fond fool—when Death’s cold blade is split,
No dawn shall greet thee where the void’s hymn stirs.”
He kissed her brow, her tears like winter’s brine,
Then strode into the creature’s molten breath,
His flesh a pyre ’neath the starless sign,
His final gaze defying bonds of death.
The island shuddered, cleansed by sacrifice,
As petals bloomed where once the blight held sway.
But Liora, clasping shadows, paid the price—
Her heart a tomb where sunlight dared not stay.
Now lone she walks the cliffs, a wraith in white,
Eyes fixed on horizons drowned in gray,
While waves repeat his name through endless night,
And winds carve requiems in the cliffs of Ys.
