Hues of Uncertainty
“What are you then? A hero or a villain?”
The light above us swung on its chain as the waves buffeted us this way and that, sending shadows dancing across the creaking walls. The flame seemed to catch on his green catlike eyes and I was aware that he was observing me just as intensely as I was him.
“What do you think?,” he asked back.
“I’ve heard the stories…”
“So then why ask a question you already know the answer to?,” he demanded with a scoff as he leaned back in his seat.
“…but you saved my life.”
The light swung towards him and banished all shadows from his visage for only a moment as we stared at each other. He seemed so still in that room of perpetual motion, the only point of stillness aboard the whole ship as if the waves had no effect on him. It was that contrast more than his clothes of brilliant green which drew all eyes to him for he always seemed to be the single point of stolidity upon any horizon. It was also that contrast which drew the eye ...

His Heir
“She was my daughter!”
The silence which then fell seemed to ring following the previous cacophony and we stared at each other from opposite ends of the room, various emotions flickering in our eyes.
Our people were no strangers to hardship and loss. I was so young when I saw my first procession up into the mountains, countless torches illuminating a stranger’s final journey into their tomb, that those nightly rituals had become as much a part of me as the language which I speak. No, we were no strangers to hardship and loss, such were commonplace in our lives, but still we feel their sting.
Perhaps I’d let my grief get the better of me, perhaps my people had been removing me from their own ranks for so long that I’d started to remove myself, or perhaps I’d seen my grandfather as only an advisory for so long that I’d let myself forget the thing which connected us. I’d let myself forget that she had been kin to us both and that our shouts hadn’t been our usual back and ...

Snowfall
The wind was biting as it kicked up heavy drifts. It was that time of year in which eager children press their faces to frosted windows and fires are lit early in their grates. She was an older woman, her hair greying, dressed in many layers even as she sat before an alluring fire. She sat back in her rocking chair, swaying to and fro, her latest knitting in her lap. Every once and awhile she’d glance towards a window which sat in the far wall, its frost earlier banished by a steady hand, and she’d watch as the snowflakes fell in their thousands. She’d imagine that she could see each in perfect detail, entirely unique. They were like glass, cold and sharp but beautiful with a bewitching quality all their own. She knew them and their magic as they traveled the winds, blanketing the earth and weaving their spell. Come morning she knew that flocks of children would descend upon them, their laughter like bells as they frolic. Within and watching their families would be ...