The glittering stars were mirrored in the maiden's sea gray eyes as she stood, gazing silently into the midnight sky. Although the celestial candles flamed steadily, unflickering and unchanging of their forms, in the maidens eyes they shimmered as the reflection of the stars shimmered that same night on the vast reaches of the Center Sea. Then slowly, very slowly the trembling star waters were gathered together and forming themselves into a single drop spilled out of the eye, rolled down the pale young face and dripped off of it with a whispering sigh, as the sigh of a wind from the sea that finds itself lost, never to be found again.

Few can hear the sorrow of a falling tear, and fewer still of those who can understand what it is, or what it whispers in its single sigh before it breaks with a last sorrowing breath. But those who can hear and who do understand, must also care. Yes, care so much of what is and feel so much the sorrow of what was, never to be again, that they likewise care to answer the last sigh, or lament the last breath, small though that may be.

Of such manner and mind was the maiden, who at hearing the tear's sad sigh, stretched out her hand and caught it before it broke on the ground below. She then lifted it close to her face and, with a sad smile, whispered,

“I am sorry, I will not do it again.”

The tear glistened for the last time, in the light of the stars, as it dripped from the maiden's lowered hand. Again she heard it sigh but the words of the sigh were changed bringing more tears to her eyes. Unbidden and yet all true, for a tear of true sorrow does not lie, the tear whispered as it fell,

“Ah, but Elinna. You will.”

And with a last sigh the tear broke over the stone, on which Elinna stood.

Elinna lowered her gaze and looked quietly at the little wet spot on the stone where the tear had broken. For a moment she could think of nothing but the tear's last words. Finally, she shook her head, and lifting her eyes once more to the South-east. Why did those little whispers affect her so? Sometimes Elinna less than appreciated her gift to hear the thoughts of things that could not speak in tongues of voice. And yet was it not simply that they had not much to say that kept them from speaking to others so freely? Or was it that they deemed Elinna, so deprived of sweet sounds and good council as she was, to need these good things, and thus they wished to share some of theirs with her?

These thoughts and others on the nature of the voices often occupied Elinna's mind during the moonlit and starlit hours when things of the day were seemingly too far away to be even thought of.

As Elinna's eyes wandered slowly over the South-eastern expanses of the high dark sky, her gaze halted on the moon wherefrom she heard, as she saw, another thought. The silver sliver of the waning crescent shone with a pale, gentle light as it quietly called to her:

“I die yet to be born anew.”

Elinna smiled as she read the thought in the moon's shrinking face. But she wondered why the moon deemed this such a joyful thing, for the first half of the thought did not appear very pleasant.

“And yet, beautiful moon,” Elinna whispered, “first thou must die. But maybe dying is not fearful a thing for thou who hast done so, so very often, and wilt do so many times more before the world hath found its end.”

“In the end, it may be just this,” Elinna sighed, “that to die more than once, many times even, doth turn death into a great joy, for though thou diest, in thy death thou knowest that thou shalt be born anew.”

Thus spoke she who knew more of sorrow than a thousand deaths could bring. A dark cloud crept towards the moon. Like the creeping of a cat that is about to pounce on its prey, it slunk nearer and nearer, then just as it looked like it would pounce the cloud turned into ink and stretching out its snaking tendrils, wrapped them around the fading moon.

The moon seemed not to notice as it was being swallowed by the darkness; but then it had been swallowed so many times there is little wonder that it thought more on Elinna than its own plight.

“Ah, pitiable mortal child! If I couldst I wouldst call thee up to me, so oft' hast thou been a quiet companion for me in the passing hours of night. But no, thy lot as one who shall die but once may be a blessing beyond compare, if thou livest thy one life all for Him, and if in death thou, through the hope of the life that cometh after death and judgment, hold that peace. Then assuredly thy one life may be greater than a thousand of mine. Remember, and dwell on that day, but dwell e’en more so on Him.”

And with these last words the moon disappeared, leaving Elinna alone in the night.

She answered, though she knew the moon would not hear,

“I have thought, I have remembered, and I shall do so again.”