The bits of glass glitter across her palm, rolling and shifting like the tides that brought them in, the bright sounds of their contact bringing to mind distant bells, the sounds of laughter swallowed fathoms deep.

Their reflected sunlight is almost enough to blind her, almost enough to make these shores seem like those worlds away; but in the end the sands are duller, the waves less wild, the sun less gold.

In the end, she lets them fall through her fingers, one by one, like echoes; like an offering to a better world.