Pondering The Trees

If this island was to be Lost's new home, best make it a worthy home.  In its current state, it was merely another idyllic tropical island - lovely, but functionally inhospitable. The shore would not do; the time spent at sea aboard the Rusty Compass had taught her that waves are unpredictable at best, deadly at their worst.  No, she would have to go inland.  Over her shoulder, she could see the treeline was not far; the water was not all that removed from the local vegetation.

...Unknown...  The unknown was beyond the treeline; the shore had few hiding spaces for the unsavory to lurk, but into the woods...who knew.  Deep breath.  Lost could not survive exclusively along the shore, so to the trees she must venture sooner or later.  It was an easy decision: sooner.  Before nightfall; before that which is unwilling to wander in daylight creeps out under the stars.  Deep breath.  She must face all the island has in store; there is no way off, so best to master it before it masters her.  Looking again with equal parts longing and good-riddance at the speck on the horizon, she rises and brushes some of the clinging sand off.  Deep breath.  Better now than never; timid, wary steps make way for assertive strides across the gap into the island's flora.

Absent

The ship sailed off; Lost was now alone on the island.  The pirates had left with the treasure and the rum, which was entirely uncivilized of them.  As she sat with legs outstretched in the sand, contemplating her newfound solitude, the water lapped at her ankles and sogged up her skirt.  The sun was warm, but it was not yet to the days when its flames would drive her to shaded solitude.  The sound of the ocean drowned out everything but the drifting, shifting, meandering thoughts inside her mind.  Perhaps life will improve without the pirates' tendencies towards troublemaking; perhaps not...  No one can see the future clearly until it is the present, and then it blurs again just as quickly into the past.  Absent now are the lovers, rivals, tricksters, captains, minions, victims, relations, and strangers.  Alone on the island, with sand and waves for companions, perhaps some new clarity could be obtained.

Idle time sitting in the ebb and flow of the tides does little to ease an empty belly, though, so Lost eventually rose and began preparing for some of the possibilities that strayed through her thoughts.