They had been the talk of the island, the two lovers. She, a smile none could refuse and curves that the islands men dreamt of only too often. He, dreaming deep eyes and arms that would make even the most frightened feel safe. One day, on the beach with no name, alone with each other at opposing ends, they had met. The sun was setting, almost hidden by a bank of clouds, a bridge built for the sun, east to west, splitting the sky asunder. She came from the north, he from the south. Perhaps they had seen each other straight away or perhaps they had both just wandered to the palms at the centre of the beach oblivious to their surrounds, they never told a soul, not even each other. A word was barely spoken as they came to sit in the shadow of the sun's bridge and shared a coconut while they watched for the cloud gentle sunset. They never saw it, their lips touching for the first time just as the sun dipped beneath the waves. An emerald flash of light caught in their half open eyes, leaving a shared glint that would show for as long as they were together, a sparkle that would come to be described by the entire island as the light of true love.

That night a heavy turtle fought her way up the beach and laid her eggs in the dip where the lovers had coupled. And when sun rose again, finding the west without its guiding cloud, a scrawny boy would dig up more than enough food for a week.

No baby turtles would crawl their way down to the sea from that dip but nine months later a girlchild would be born. She was to have a beautiful smile and dreamy emerald eyes.