Windfall Island

[Caira Ayryn]

Silverrock Town, Pardise Bay

In the streets in the center of town, bells rang from town hall’s steeple, merely marking the time of day, yet chiming delightfully throughout the town with an incredibly immaculate sound. The air had warmed from the gentle kiss of the sun, and the man let the rays seep into his aged skin. As he walked, he stretched his muscles, glancing up at the changes the town had made since he’d last visited. It was growing, and there were more decorations, such as plants in windowsills, fresh paint on doors and side panels of houses and shops, each with a familiar quaintness that reminded him of the family he’d never had.

After strolling the streets a bit, Thomas neared the door of a shop and was about to enter when a little girl came up and tugged on his pants. Just prior, she had dashed away from her parents and raced down the street yelling, “The old man is here, Thomas is here! Yippeeee!”

It was natural for for kids, or for anyone, to get restless on an island, he supposed. The world swirling in a completely different sense of time than the rest. Thomas looked down at the child, who was now smiling and saying hello. “Why hello there miss Charlotte, how have you been, keeping up on your grades, I hope?”

“Yes mister,” she said obligingly, and looked up at him with bright blue eyes, eager for his next answer, “Will you tell me a story? What did you do since you’ve been gone? Did you battle an entire fleet of the Empire? Or did you steal some gold from some evil pirates?! Orr! I bet you killed a man by the name of Senior Crimson, the worst pirate of all, he deserves it!”

“Oh, Charlotte my dear, no one deserves that,” Tom said, as though imagining a past life, “But I’ll tell you a real good story, after I go in this shop, can you be a patient good girl and wait? All good captains have the ability to be patient, no matter how eager they are to get to their destinations, if they aren’t things can go very wrong.”

Of course, he knew the little girl’s dream of somehow escaping the island to sail the open seas, she had told him when they first met. Now, the two were unlikely companions, living at the opposite ends of the same story. Charlotte, stood there while the door jingled open and Captain Tom went into the same old shop she saw every day, walking down the same stretch of street. The eleven year old wondered why he even bothered going in, but maybe, it was just special for him. She liked him, Tom, he represented all she didn’t yet have, and all she could become. He was an inspiration and an idol, he was her dream. She wanted to become him, and more, the best pirate, sailor, to sail the Vasty seas. She, who saw the world through eyes of adventure with every decision, every action, she ever made and she carried it around her, in the air she breathed.

Charlotte was eleven years of age, and she stood, waiting, with anticipation thrilling through her body as she waited for Captain Tom to come back out. While she did, she took a sweeping look at the town, and then down at her own clothes. They were dungarees, splattered in whatever traces of adventure the day had brought. Hers, relatively new for the morning, carried only traces of soil and smears of grasses, were a nearly spotless canvas for the start of the day. The blonde’s hair was back in a braid that looked like it had been left in for a few days, and had a few pieces of dry leaf trapped in its cords.

All the same, the scraggly girl had a very pretty face.