They had traveled through miles and miles of dust, and demons, and philosophies to arrive where they could stand still, together. The moon was dark, or there was no moon, or maybe there had never been a moon. Had there been a moon when they set out so far, far away from the East? They couldn’t be sure. They only knew that they had held each other’s hands on the barge across the sea, and leaned on each other’s backs on the caravan over the craggy borderlands. They had lost something back there, out there on the road. They had probably seen too much. Experienced that kind of wonder that dulls the eyes when feet become stationary. She was no longer she, and he was no longer he. Beneath that though, beneath the identities, experiences, and wonders were the memories that made them they. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the cool sand, and looked out over the unfamiliar that slowly transformed into home with each unwavering second. She pressed the ribbon into his hand, where it cut across his palm even in the black night. Crimson, ruby, brick, heat, devotion – it was everything they had used to moor their dreams in the bundles they had carried. The sliver of silk had been wrapped around the vessel that had been the catalyst of this odyssey. He looked at it with new eyes and saw it for what it was. This red ribbon was her. It was them.