notes. 200 word drabbles through the eyes of those who met Shepard. Little piece to drive off boredom.
1) William Shepard, father.
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"She's not a pretty baby."
William Shepard knew his wife. Contradicting her was a bad idea, insulting her was worse. Roses always made her cave in and the way to apologize would include a dinner out after a free day. Telling her after twenty-three hours in labor that their brand new baby girl was ugly would require a week of vacation far from the colony. But the unnamed baby was. Wrinkly and thin, not a trace of hair on her head, silent like death after that first gulp of air. Nothing at all like her older brother had been.
So ugly, he thought. Until her eyes opened. Brown, almost black in the low illumination of the hospital room, instead of the dull grey which would eventually turn into blue. Brown, a dark tone not unlike the earth he worked every day. Such pretty eyes; so much more beautiful in that baby than they were on his own face, every day he stared at them in the mirror.
"What did you just say?"
He had forgotten all about his wife and the way the couch was about to become his permanent resting place.
"She's Jane," William corrected softly. "And she's beautiful."