A Song for Winter: Family Time

It was starting to get harder and harder for William to spend time with his family. The ongoing war with The Matriarch had him being pulled in multiple directions at once. Armies needed orders with strategy meetings to figure out what those orders were going to be that week. Despite being a welcoming village for any and all refugees, there were quarrels as different cultures clash. These clashes often called on William to be a mediator to make sure a larger dispute didn’t break out. While the armies or one of his generals took care of most of the portal network defense it still fell on William more often than not to take to the frontline. He just wanted a week off to spend with his family so he made it happen.

 

In the early hours of the morning, William gathered his wife, Violet, and kids, Jaina and Liam, and summoned forth a  portal. On the other side of the portal was the beach where William and Violet had met the otter druids earlier that year. The sun had just begun to light up the ocean with brilliant colors. Sea druids greeted the family with necklaces made of fragrant flowers. A small hut not far from the beach had been put aside for William and his family to spend the week in. This was their first family vacation and it would be memorable. 

 

William taught Jaina how to swim in the ocean while Violet and little Liam splashed around on the edge of the beach. After some coaxing, William was convinced to try a sport the otters called surfing. At first, he wasn’t sure how he was going to balance on a board of wood as a wave raced towards the shore. However, with some practice and a little help from some air magic William was soon able to surf well enough to stay on the board, most of the time. Jaina began to build sand castles with the otter kids. In the beginning, they worked by hand with pails and small shovels until the castles grew too big for them to reach the tops anymore. That was when they broke out the small bits of magic they all knew to make the sand castles grow even higher. Violet enjoyed sunning herself on the beach when she wasn’t showing everyone that she was a faster swimmer and better surfer than William even without the aid of magic.

 

All kinds of exotic foods were eaten by the family that week. Everyone enjoyed the fruits like watermelon, pineapple, and coconut. William and Violet may have also enjoyed those fruits with some exotic liquors. Seaside barbeques were a nightly occurrence along with mighty helpings of ice cream. On the last night before the family left a firework display was put on as part of one of the sea druid festivals. Fire dancers performed along to the beat of dozens of drummers. William didn’t want this special family time to end but in the end, it had to. When the time to go back home came he took a deep breath, stored the memories to keep forever, and stepped through the portal.