For You (manxman)

Confusing

Quentin wonders if it was such a good choice to agree to a trade here up north.

He tells himself that this is a good thing. Winter is coming and there won't be much gold to be had and food will be scarce. Even a small gain would benefit him with what little they gathered this year, the weather has been often unkind to his produce.

Thick mud clung to his boots, proof of recent thunder storms.

He hears joyous laughter behind him and he finds three children toppling over the puddle, kicking, and rolling all over it.

At least, in all these unfavorable circumstances, some are still enthusiastic. He tells himself.

Speaking of enthusiastic, he doesn't feel all that well.

There was a gentle tug at his sleeve, sure enough he finds a child staring at him with wide wondering eyes.

"Hello there, young lady," Quentin bends on one knee, but not enough for his trousers to kiss the soil, "To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

"My friends are asking me if you're a fairy or an angel," The child twirls herself and points at her friends looking at them from where they played at the puddle, "I don't know so I came to ask you."

Quentin laughs lightly, "I am human just like you. No difference."

"But, you're pretty. Prettier than my mum and all the mums I've seen."

If he was in the confines of his home, he'd be laughing himself off his chair. Children are quite kind and always speak their mind, he ponders where their honesty goes once they grow- up.

"Not as pretty as you, little lady."

The child giggles, hiding her laughter behind her hands.

"Trissia!"

He looks up and sees, a middle aged woman who simply plucks the girl from the ground with her arms. The girl laughs and in her mother's embrace, he surmises.

"I'm sorry for the disturbance, my lord,"

He ruffles the child's unruly locks familiarly, "No harm done, madame."

The woman looks dazed for a moment from his smile. It always fascinated the folks how the paleness of his hair matches his skin. It always gave them the impression that a face of an angel, has a personality of one.

She bows nervously to him, and it makes him more uneasy. The woman walks briskly never once looking back while his child waves shyly back at him over her shoulders, he waves back. Rank, he thinks, makes you look like a villain or a saint, and neither pleases him.