Solitary Island

Far to the south, miles away from the nearest inhabited land mass, there's an island. No one knows exactly when or even how this little piece of land came to be. It has no name, doesn't appear on any of the maps from the old world.

No one lives on the island, but there are signs that someone might have at some point, long ago. A ramshackle house, more rotting planks and creeper vines than structure. What might be the remains of a landing-stage, reaching out from the rocky beachside towards the ocean.

The most damning evidence of human activity on the island is the grave. It couldn't be anything else -- a patch where the earth the grass is decisively thinner, marked with a wooden cross. The cross, made out of what looks to be planks torn straight from the ruined house, has three letters carved into it. A name.

At the northern edge of the island, constantly tormented by the ocean winds, stands a cliff. Marking the island's highest point, the rock-face casts a looming shadow over the rest of the island. A thin path leads up the cliff, winding up and up and up.

It ends, the path, in a narrow plateau near the very top of the cliff. An observer would have the cold stone of the cliff at their back and full view of the ocean, endless and all-consuming, on all sides. A thick carpet of weeds covers most of the base of the plateau itself, clumps of grass and wildflowers growing stubbornly until the very edge where feral winds prevent them.

Here, lodged firmly into a tuft of, stands the second proof that the island might not be as unknown and unexplored as it seems. A sword.

It's a rather curious thing, the blade cut from something not-quite-metal that gives it the appearance of being made out of glass or crystal. A long piece cloth is tied tightly around the hilt, a torn banner fluttering in the wind, the fabric a bleached memory of its original, distinctly purple colour.

The sword might have been pretty at some point, before winds and salty air and opportunistic lichens got to it. Now, it could easily be mistaken for being part of the cliff, just another piece of rock.

But when the sun begins to set, and darkness prepares to engulf the little island completely, something happens. The last rays of the sun hit the strange blade just right, and for a brief moment, the sword glows, bright as a star against the darkening sky.

No one knows who the sword once belonged to, and the owner is never going to come back to reclaim it. The wielder herself is never coming back for it, but every now and then, she'll see a reflection of the sun somewhere, shards of literal starlight dancing across her field of vision.

And she will remember, with equal measures of joy and sorrow, the little island where she died and was reborn.