on_holy_ground | TM - 100 - Boats in a harbour picture

There were some mornings, when the city of Paris was still mostly sleeping, that Darius would leave his sanctuary and take a walk along the quiet city streets. He always started before the sun had risen, when fog still curled through the streets near St. Julien’s, and the stars were slowly disappearing from the sky. The path he took would differ each time he took one of these walks, mostly because he didn’t want them to get routine to the point that someone could easily find him if that was their intent, but no matter which way he went, he always ended up on the banks of the Seine just as the sun was rising into the sky.

He would stop for a moment as he came close to the river, listening to the sound of the water lapping against the banks, and watching as the sky slowly lightened. Then when the sun rose, nothing more than a pale white disk through the fog that still swirled over the water, he would look out across the river and see the towers of Notre Dame rising through the mist. The sight was always beautiful, no matter how many times he saw it, and yet that wasn’t why he came down to the water’s edge.

There was a man, who still lived within the priest, that on occasion still longed to see the sea. And when that longing came upon him, he would slowly walk along the banks of the Seine and he would remember a distant promise he had once made to himself, and to the men who had followed him. It was a memory that Darius had often tried to push away over the years, but he had never really been able to manage to refuse the call that the ocean seemed to have upon him. An ocean that he had never even seen.

So instead he had started to walk the banks of the river, and in so doing, sooth the sometimes restless spirit within himself.