PROMPT:  By @flashflic  Write an open genre story using the provided picture prompt of a woman's hands reaching over the top of a dune with the sea stretching out into the background.

Shivering in her wet shift, Eunice dug her fingers into the grass and soft sand. Her strength was almost spent.

"You survived the Duke, Lady Lady and a shipwreck, get yourself over this dune!"

With a great heave, she hauled her body up the bank.

Laying on the top, lungs burning from the near-drowning, she gasped for breath and cast her eyes around seeking some indication of civilisation.

Grass, then brush leading to trees, trees and more trees were all she saw.

Tears of desolation leaked from her eyes. She'd heard stories of people lost at sea. Never to be seen again. Drowned or washed up on islands to be eaten by savages.

She rolled to her back and succumbed to the fatigue from her ordeal.

Woodsmoke tickled her nose. Her stomach grumbled from something that smelled delicious. A cool cloth on her forehead. Unfamiliar sounds came from nearby. Was someone speaking?

Cracking open one eye, Eunice saw a peaked roof from - what fabric was the wall made of? Certainly not planks.

A soft, warm hand was laid on her forehead.

Turning her eyes up, Eunice saw the upside down creased face of an elderly woman with tawny skin, dark sparkling eyes and a long black braid heavily shot with white.

"Savages!" screamed Eunice and shot erect. The cool cloth on her forehead fell to her lap with a plop!

The twenty or so people around paused and looked over at her.

Eunice stared around trying to comprehend what she was seeing, because it didn't match what the stories she'd been told.

Several families gathered at different spots around the space. Children were climbing on or playing with an adult, probably a parent. Women were sewing clothes together or preparing food.

A toddler in a simple leather wrap waddled over and plopped down in her lap. With the innocence of childhood, she pulled and pushed at Eunice's cheeks.

Unable to turn her head, Eunice strained to see what was happening when the old woman started speaking.

At the central fire, a woman spooned out a spoonful of thick stew into a wooden bowl and carried it over.

The toddler babbled incoherently at her, then seeing Eunice was perplexed, made a show of blowing on a spoonful of stew before eating it. The child prepared another spoonful and held it out to Eunice, who opened her mouth to receive it.

Tears flowed down Eunice's cheeks. Sold into service at a young age, her whole life she'd been treated as nothing more than an object that served a purpose.

It was clear in the friendly smiles of the people around her, who definitely weren't like the stories she'd been told and didn't seem inclined to eat her, that she was just a person. A person of value.

The shipwreck was awful. Finding herself here, however, was worth every second of terror.

WORD COUNT: 500