Raw Winter

Chapter 20: Love of the Sea

I remember when I was a child, I used to hear stories of fantastic worlds so far away. I would tell my mom I would see them one day with my own eyes. I wanted to go far and wide and become well known, and I wanted my mom to have an opportunity to stop working if she wanted to, though I knew how much my mom liked to work so I didn't think she would need to. I always heard patrons talking about how hard and stressful their lives were, so I guess that's where the idea came from. My mom would tell me stories about people that could become wolves, and dragons that could fly high enough to touch the moon and deep enough to reach the bottom of the sea.

I don't know if I believe those stories anymore. I know my world is dark, and my eyes can no longer take in the world's entirety. I don't believe I will ever escape. It's so dark, deep and cold. I imagined nothing could be as cold as this. Each time I try to take breaths it hurts, and the world is dark. I try to turn, try to see out of the eye that counts, but it reveals nothing to me.

When I was a child, my mom once read me a story about a knight named Rikka who could turn into a wolf. She was the first and most important knight in her kingdom, but there was a rumor she was the bastard daughter of the enemy kingdom. That mattered little to her queen, who adored her. It was said she earned her place on top, but I don't think so anymore. I think she was in the right place at the right time, and by the time she discovered there was something less than noble about her, she was already where she was meant to be. It was fate that gave that to her. I want to believe it's possible to take what you want out of life. My mother was a big advocate for that, but I can't be certain. There are two things I know. She was a wolf, and I am a dog.

Maybe, just maybe, fate hasn't already sealed it.

-Rawintr Wylfric

Hades couldn't rest that night as he walked across the deck of his ship, The Red Liar, and contemplated recent events. He sat down close to the railing and stared out at the calm, black ocean, lightly tinted by the moon's subtle light. It was incredibly calm, and it chilled him to the bone. He knew it was a bad omen, and he grinned sharply like a beast cornered, his dark eyes taking on a bit of the light of the moon. He couldn't help but be impressed with such an evident miracle, such an unmistakable message sent directly from the gods.

The body pulled from the sea was mangled, and why the sharks hadn't torn it to pieces was anybody's guess. Hades, when he saw it there in the water was immediately drawn in, though it sent shivers like static down his spine and if he were a lesser man, he would have turned the ship away, would have hidden below deck and prayed desperately, but he wasn't a lesser man.

However, upon being pulled onto the deck, they were whole. There was no sign of the blood that was in the water, skin smooth and untouched. The only sign of abuse was that left eye, a deep and bloody dent that made his stomach crawl as he stood over the creature he had brought aboard his ship. He had leaned down, wrapping his fingers in dark hair and lifting their head gently to get a better look at the wound.

"What's your name?" Hades asked, though he knew it. It thundered in the back of his head like the drums of execution. Even so, he cradled her tenderly in his arms, feeling a strange kinship.

"Rawintr Wlyfric," she growled out, staring up at Hades, and the only thing more unnerving than the endless depths of the gouge in her face was the intensity of that dark and swirling eye. It stared through him like a spear tip heated before being thrust. It shook him to his core, but it amazed and amused him. This eye was the same as the eyes that stared at him in the mirror each morning when he dared to wipe away the grime. Seeing one in someone else's face made it even more potent.

Hades shivered as he recalled it. He had his legs crossed and folded beneath him, and his hands gripped his knees tighter, which had long since grown stiff and unwieldy.