The scent of salt and damp earth lingered in the air, mingling with the distant hum of waves caressing the shore. The island had always sung to her, even as its edges crumbled, even as the tides carried away fragments of its story. Fatutu had once stood where the sand was warm, where laughter and song intertwined beneath the vast canopy of stars. She had danced there, barefoot, with anklets of shells clinking softly against her skin. The past had a way of lingering, like a whispered promise, like the scent of green mangroves after rain.

Now, far from that fading land, she sat before a fire, its embers curling upward like fragile petals in the wind. The flames flickered against her face, casting restless shadows that danced across her skin. Her hair, still woven with hibiscus and delicate beads, swayed as she reached out, feeding the fire with driftwood smoothed by countless tides. The sea murmured in the background, vast and indifferent, yet always listening.

“Funny, isn’t it?” she mused, breaking the stillness. “How fire and water never mix, but they both keep us warm in different ways.” She let out a soft chuckle, watching the flames pulse as if breathing in the night air. “This isn’t a real bonfire, not like the ones back home, but…” She shrugged, her bracelets jingling with the movement. “It’s close enough.”

She pulled her knees to her chest, letting the firelight paint golden arcs along her arms. The scent of burning wood mingled with the crisp night air, its warmth pressing against her skin in waves. A hush settled between them, not uncomfortable, but thick with something unspoken. Perhaps it was nostalgia, or perhaps it was simply the weight of the stars above, endless and cold, watching as they always had.

“I used to think memories were like shells,” she murmured, eyes tracing the patterns of embers swirling into the dark. “Some are whole, some are broken, but all of them are shaped by time.” She reached into the folds of her garment, pulling free a small, spiral shell.