Title: New Light
Author: Kit-Kate Bar
Realm: Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
Characters: Jessica, Shylock
Rating: G
Word Count: 181
Summary: He was not a devil or a monster, just a tired old man the world had scorned.
Notes: Just a little bit of a father/daughter relationship. And yes, I realize that Shylock had left the house when Jessica left, but just…pretend something different, all right?
She snuck into his room so boldly in the still air of late evening. The house was emptier now without the presence of Launcelot and his late night tinkering. Jessica leaned over her father's bed and watched him sleep awhile, examining the way his stubby fingers clutched at the bed covers, how his old skin drooped over his bones, how the lines that sprawled roadmaps over his face told her stories (this one by the corner of his mouth for the grimace he held under the stare of a Christian man, this one streaked across his brow for the long hours of counting money). In this mix of light and shadow he was not a devil or a monster, just a tired old man the world had scorned. She pressed a light kiss to that old temple and whispered sweet partings in his ear. Turning her back to the bed, she slipped out of the doorway like a nymph to Diana's springs towards a new life, a new love, and a new faith.
Behind her, Shylock uttered a heartbroken moan and settled against his pillows.