Hi there. This is possibly the shortest thing I have ever written.
I realise that for a lot of you this will make little sense. I began a story called How We Were a while back, and somehow I let the opportunity for that tale pass me by. I'm now unsure if I will ever get around to writing it, much as I would love to.
But, for those who expressed interest, here is a little something describing Tida's caravan and the scenario for the story as I imagined.
Takes All Kinds
There are two kinds of Selkie.
There are those who always tan, and those who never burn.
Je Enar is the first of the two, skin browning as soon as he steps off the caravan. In the middle of a highland winter the boy can pick up some colour, or at least a colour that isn't blue. He is wiry, lean, tough, walking through sheets of rain with no evidence of anything but enjoyment even though he is soaked to the bone. He makes the most out of life, because no one else will do it for him.
Ama Mae, on the other hand, is the second kind. In the harshest glares of sun her skin remains ivory white, smooth as cream apart from the scars on the backs of her hands. She is like the moon; her imperfections are visible only to the close observer. To all others she is the brightest beacon in the night, a silver orb of perfection lighting the way.
There is only one kind of Lilty.
Perhaps it's genetics (although none of them even pretend to understand Magorian when he talks about that). Perhaps it's upbringing. Perhaps it's just the weight of that historical stereotype pressing down on them – this would also explain why they're a little short. Whatever it is, all Lilty children are the same.
Rhudra is loud, proud and talks with her knuckles. She gets angry very easily, especially about things she doesn't understand. There are a lot of these. But she is brave and strong, and, while ignorant, not stupid. She says the things that need to be said. Her truthful unkindness is, in its own way, a kind of love.
There are many kinds of Yuke.
To the untrained eye, they are all the same. Magorian, true to expectations, is quiet and scholarly. In measured sentences he spells out the truth of the world. If he cannot find the truth he does not speak at all, instead researching intensively into the night until no one can stand the innocent crinkle of turning pages any longer.
But, if one looks closely enough, it is very easy to see that Yukes have many faces. Otherwise, why would they wear their masks? The helmet is a trick, a gimmick to make people think they are all the same, to make them disinterested, to stop others from reading them as they might read a treatise.
Magorian is not aloof; he is just lonely. Years of being the nothing-special middle child have taught him to be quiet unless he has something worthwhile to share. He is not silent out of wisdom, only awkwardness.
Eventually, they will come to understand that.
Je Enar, Ama Mae, Rhudra and Magorian all think there is only one kind of Clavat.
Each of them, born and raised in Tida, have been bullied and beaten and ignored by the race preached of as peacekeepers. Within their own tribes, sectioned through the town, they have closed ranks in self-defence against Clavat supremacy.
This deliberate severance from each other has made them blind to the possibility of friends, suspicious of teamwork. Ironically, it makes it easier for the Clavats to target them. When you are alone, isolated from other minorities, it is easy to forget that they can help you.
It also makes it easier to assume that every Clavat is no different from the rest. It takes Gwen to change that.
Gwen is small. She is frail, she is sick. She is best loved by her father for being the image of her mother, but most useless of his children as she cannot work. Despite this abstract sense of failure, Gwen is autumn sunshine. She is warm and golden-hearted. She does what is right because it is right, and for no other reason.
She joins the caravan. That alone proves she is different from the rest.
Just like the rest of them, she will fight until she can fight no more – not for home, not for Tida, not even for her father, but for her friends, because they are all she has.