Name: Kin (not in actual fact his name)
Age: older than he looks, and he looks about ten
Occupation: watcher-in-training
Genre: fantasy
Rough description: dark blue, nearly black hair, dark gray eyes, pale gray-ish skin, 4'7"; scrawny, quick and mute

More:
As far as Kin knows, he's the last of his people, aside from the older girl who found him when he woke from the long, dreamless sleep that kept him safe from whatever killed the rest of them. He might be able to talk if he tried, but he's never had the need, able to communicate with his companion without vocalization. They eat what they can forage and travel and tend the nearly-defunct war machines that slog tirelessly across the plains of the lands over which their ancestors fought. He knows very little about them and doesn't much care, content so far with the strange, simple life they eke out, far from the eyes of the peoples who now populate the world.

Sample:
The gargant shifted beneath him, stone moving against stone with a slow, deliberate scraping sound, and he opened his eyes to see the sun sinking below the horizon. His companion reached down to touch his forehead, and he shook his head, watching the sun for a moment more before turning carefully to face her.

Balancing on the shoulders of the stone giants had come as easily to him as it had to her, but it would be just as easy to take a long tumble to the ground if he wasn't respectful of the danger.

"Something's wrong," she said, not aloud, though her voice was as clear to him as if it rang in his ears. "Something's pushed them off course."

Doubt crept into his expression, but a quick glance at their path told him it was true. Ley lines gave a remote tremor when they shifted, and he'd felt no such thing. The gartant simply weren't following their path as truly as they should.

He looked at her again, but her pale eyes were on the path ahead.

"This will take us close to a settlement," she said. "Closer than they've ever come to one."

He reached up to catch her hand, and she turned to him with a wan smile.

"Not close enough to do damage, I don't think."

But probably close enough to frighten them. He looked behind them, where the cluster of gargants tapered out to a broken marching formation.

"Almost certainly." She stood, pushing her wild hair back from her face and twisting it into an unruly ponytail. "I'll go ahead and warn them when we get closer."

He shook his head, but she smiled at him.

"They won't hurt me," she said.

They couldn't hurt her. It didn't mean they wouldn't try. He shook his head again.

"I won't leave you alone," she promised him, bending to ruffle his hair.

He scowled at her.

"I'm going to check the rest of the line," she said, releasing him airily and springing to the nearest gargant with grace and confidence he had yet to match.

He sighed and clambered to his feet, folding his arms and letting his weight shift with the rocking movement of the stone soldier beneath him. The ley lines burned bright against his vision, slender threads that connected the long-vanished strongholds of his people -- strongholds he barely remembered -- and he wondered why they watched the old roads.

But never enough to actually ask.

Back