Amber Vein

Anything held long enough stops being kept and becomes part of what holds it.

The gold is no longer a thing apart. It runs in fine veins through the pale blue-white stone, threaded into every crack and seam until the two can no longer be divided. Amber light warms the whole of it from above. This is not treasure resting in the deep; it is treasure that has become the deep.

There is a permanence that only this can give. A thing kept can always be lost, but a thing grown into the stone is held past any losing.

So the vein runs on through the rock, gold and mineral bound into one body, kept forever by having become the very thing that keeps it.