#wintrow

[elopewithmemisssprivate]

i love you tenar of the ring i love you harrowhark nonagesimus i love you wintrow vestrit

i love you characters who's identity is intrinsically tied to a place and their role in that place and are then ripped away. who have to learn how to live and who they are outside of that.

i love you characters who's faith is a core part of who they are as a person and deeply interwoven with their sense of self, but who find themselves having to abandon it or challenge it. who still carry it with them anyway, but only in small ways. who retain the values or the little rituals even if the devoutness is gone.

[not-the-dragonborn]

AI generated a video of Malta's and Wintrow's reunion and it's almost good.

Abruptly Wintrow was there, sweeping her into a more manly hug than she would have thought her spindly brother was capable of. But he had grown and muscled, and when he cried out, ‘Malta! Sa himself has brought you safely to us!’ his voice was deep and sounded not unlike their father. The tears that sprang to her eyes shocked her, as did the way she clung to him, unreasonably glad of his strength and welcome.

[not-the-dragonborn]

Someone tapped at his door. He took his hands away from his face. He flipped the blankets back over the remains of his legs. A moment, to compose himself. He cleared his throat. ‘Enter.’

He had expected Etta. Instead, it was the boy. He stood uncertainly in the door. The dim companionway framed him and the light from the stern windows fell on his face. His tattoo was hidden in shadow. His face was unflawed and open. ‘Captain Kennit?’ he queried in a low voice. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘Not at all. Come in.’ He could not say why the sight of Wintrow was like balm to his spirit. Perhaps it had to do with the ship’s feelings. The boy’s appearance had improved since he had been in Kennit’s care. He smiled at the youth as he approached the bed, and had the pleasure of seeing the boy shyly return it.

His coarse black hair was sleeked back from his face and bound into the traditional seaman’s queue. The clothing Etta had sewn suited him well. The loose white shirt, a bit large for him, was tucked into his dark blue trousers. He was small for his age, a lean and supple youth. Wind and sun had weathered the boy’s face. The warm colour of his skin, his white teeth and dark eyes, the dark trousers merging into the darkness of the corridor behind him: it was all a chance composition of perfect light and shadow. Even the hesitant, questioning look on his face was perfect as he emerged from dimness into the muted light of the chamber.

Another step carried Wintrow further into the room. The tattoo on his face was suddenly not only visible; it was an indelible flaw, a stain on the boy’s innocence. The pirate could see the torment in the boy’s eyes, and sensed a misery in him.

[not-the-dragonborn]

Abruptly Wintrow was there, sweeping her into a more manly hug than she would have thought her spindly brother was capable of. But he had grown and muscled, and when he cried out, ‘Malta! Sa himself has brought you safely to us!’ his voice was deep and sounded not unlike their father.

The tears that sprang to her eyes shocked her, as did the way she clung to him, unreasonably glad of his strength and welcome. After a long moment of being held, she realized that Althea’s arms were also around her.

[not-the-dragonborn]

His hands had taken the worst damage, but spatters of it had marred his face. It had eaten into his sailor’s queue, leaving uneven hanks of black hair clinging to his head. She had cut his remaining hair to keep it from lying in his sores. His shorn scalp made him look even younger than he was.

In some places, the damage seemed no worse than sunburn; in others, raw tissue shone wet beside tanned and healthy flesh.

Where the venom had eaten at him, his skin was splotched red and shiny. Bald red patches on his shorn head reminded her of a mangy dog.

He could stand and walk alone now, but became giddy if he taxed himself at all. Even limping to the foredeck was making his heart pound. As he made his slow journey, working crewmen slowed to stare at him, then, with false heartiness, congratulated him on his recovery. Scarred enough to make a pirate flinch, he told himself caustically.

“You look so much better. Though I believe you would have to be dead to look worse than you did.’

Wintrow did not dispute that. He had seen himself in Kennit’s shaving mirror. Every trace of the fresh-faced boy who had wanted to be a priest was gone. What his father had begun, with his amputated finger and his tattooed face, he had well and truly completed himself. His face, hands and arms were splotched red and pink and white. In some spots, he would heal and his skin would tan and look almost normal. But on his hand and his cheek and along his hairline, the dead-white skin was taut and shiny. Likely, it would always remain so. He refused to allow it to distress him. There was no time to be concerned with himself now.

[not-the-dragonborn]

“ DON’T LIKE THIS.’ Vivacia spoke softly, but her words thrummed through him.

Wintrow was stretched belly-down on the foredeck, letting the early sun touch him. He had discarded his blanket during the muggy night, but his shirt was wrapped around his head. The new warmth of the sun soothed the ache in his arm, but the light from it nagged his headache into wakefulness. He was resigned to it. He had to wake up soon anyway. How he longed to just lie still. All the others seemed long recovered from the injuries taken at Divvytown. He felt a weakling that a couple of blows from a club still bothered him. He pushed away the idea that his injuries hurt more because he had killed the man who had given them. That was a silly superstition.

He rolled over onto his back. Even through the shirt and his eyelids, the light danced on his eyeballs. Sometimes it seemed he could see things in the patterns. He clenched his eyelids, and green flashes snaked across his vision like darting serpents. He loosened his eyes and the colour became paler and took the shape of sunbursts.

[not-the-dragonborn]

She was seated in a chair in the corner of the room. There were hollows under her eyes that he had not noticed before. Dark blue fabric overlay her lap while she plied a busy needle. She looked up at him, bit off a thread, turned her work, and began a new seam.

*

She shook out the work on her lap, holding it up between them, her eyes going from him to her needlework and back again. It was a pair of trousers, and she was obviously eyeing him to see if they would fit. He felt like he should say something, but he did not know what. She folded it back into her lap without comment. She threaded her needle again and resumed her work.

*

“It’s dawn,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I should check on the ship and on my father. I need to get some sleep for myself, too. Will you send for me if Kennit awakens?’

‘If he needs you,’ Etta replied coolly. Perhaps that had been the point of her entire conversation: to make clear to Wintrow her prior claim upon Kennit. Did she see him as a threat somehow? Wintrow decided he did not know enough about women. She lifted her work to her mouth, and bit off a thread. Then she too, stood, shaking out the garment she had finished. ‘For you,’ she said abruptly, and thrust the trousers at him.

He started towards her to take the gift from her hands, but she tossed it at him, forcing him to catch it awkwardly. One trouser leg slapped him lightly in the face.

‘Thank you,’ he said uncertainly.”

[not-the-dragonborn]

I'm about 1/3 into The Mad Ship and Wintrow has become my favourite character. He really used to irritate me with his holier-than-thou attitude throughout the first part of The Ship of Magic, but his stand off with Kyle on board the Vivacia (yep, the finger scene) sealed the deal for me.