color your judgment

Chapter 3

"That's when I miss you the most. When you're here. When you aren't here, when you're just a ghost from the past or a dream from another life, it's easier then."

— Shadow, from American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

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The next morning, I found myself occupied with responding to a request for a quotation, the absurdity of last night's encounter long cast aside as nothing but an unpleasant reunion. Some young, excitable lord from a nearby town apparently wanted to build a new home for his new bride, and as the only architect in his vicinity, I had immediately received a letter of inquiry.

As I put together the details of my reply, I sighed partly from exhaustion and partly from a sense of gratification. While the lord's request felt like an added weight to my already mounting pile of job orders, there was no denying that having such a heavy workload meant a growing reputation. Having built this life out of nothing, I didn't necessarily have any complaints.

Things like opportunities never come easy for the underprivileged, after all. So when they do come, I have to take them and make the best out of them. What I have now began with getting what basic education I could from the charitable initiatives of the Church of Light. After that, I remember working multiple part-time jobs just to sustain an architectural scholarship I secured in Eruditio, and from being a draftsman that jumped from firm to firm across Avalor just to make ends meet, I had eventually managed to start my own practice in the outskirts of Aberleen, a misty duchy just south of the Empire.

While I still have a long way to go, I took much pride in having gone a long way. Life was becoming... good. A chance meeting with a ghost from ten years past was not about to derail me from making it any better, either.

Honestly, I didn't even know what to make of what happened. After getting home at around midnight, I had immediately collapsed into a deep sleep, too tired and hungry to feel. By dawn, I was back on my drafting table, smoothing out the final details of my latest project, sparing the meeting not another thought.

What else was there to think about, even? It's been ten years. We had only been eighteen. We met one midsummer night in the tavern of a little port town as it held its famous festival. I had been on vacation, then, and I had intended to make the most out of it before my career path took the best of me.

I'd caught him staring. And so young, drunk, and very much naive, I had come to him. Asked him to dance with me. He'd obliged. And then after sharing a kiss on the dance floor, we'd slipped into some dark alley and got frisky. Needless to say, one thing led to another, and I remember inviting him over to the seaside studio I had been renting.

Being each other's firsts, I could still distinctly recall how clumsy we had been. I knew that the whiskey that had been pumping through our veins at the time had been our only saving grace. By the time I had woken up, I remember being pleased to find that the boy had already left, because that was all he was supposed to be—a one-night stand to get the experience over with.

But I was wrong.

Even ten years later, the memories that overcame me remained as vivid as yesterday.

Much too sore and hungover to even attempt cooking, I had resigned myself to putting on some clothes so I could go out for breakfast. Summer mornings in that town had always been clear and bright, so it was never a bad idea to take a stroll.

Outside my window, the ocean waves lapped at the shore, their languid susurration a soothing balm to the remnants of my fatigue. Entranced, I had allowed myself one moment longer to listen to their song, before making to leave.