Rayburn Auttsley hated mornings. They reminded him of his past life, one filled with 4 a.m. wake ups, cold coffees, no breakfast, and two hour drives to a smoke-filled fluorescent nightmare. Could he have stopped time when he lived among the ill-informed to indulge his love of sleep?

Yes.

Did he?

Twice.

But the job of a member of the Council came with no weekends and no days off; he was constantly watching, preparing, and ensuring. The well being of all creatures of Reason and Reflection rested on his worn, scarred shoulders.

He had just come out of the red door after having fallen asleep, a book on the Refinery being his pillow. Words of the book were impressed on the side of his face, blotchy cursive in reverse creating gibberish on his deeply wrinkled forehead.

As he approached the living room, the early streaks of dawn streamed in, brightness hurled at his face. He banished every ray of sunlight away. The fire still burned and under the glow of the white hot ambers sat a catatonic Captain Stormholden.

Rayburn sighed remembering all the effort he had had to exert to get the captain to this state and he hadn’t even made him whole yet. The captain sat, still as a picture, on the green couch, grey in tone and empty eyed.

Rayburn sighed and turned toward the coffee maker. The captain had been covered in a thick slimy mess of intricately woven magic that Rayburn had to trudge through to find the man's true coloring. This had been a messy venture, causing Rayburn to take two hot showers to rid himself of all the gunk.

The man grumbled as he stared down at his hands, remnants of the slimy magic were under his fingernails, writhing with a life all its own. The color and consistency of the magic always told you more about the sorcerer then they probably wanted you to know. And Rayburn was overly familiar with the magic that had coated the captain.

He sighed again, memories turning to knowledge, that knowledge becoming failure as he let the situation really sink into his belly. He had taken every precaution, doubled -even tripled- his efforts to ensure his eldest child would be safe.

But here was her creation, colorless, coated in slimy magic, and reeking of piss ale from the Refinery. When she'd been little, he’d even tried to steal her memories, something he was against doing to anyone let alone his own flesh and blood, but he did so for her sake.

But Peneloper -maybe the magic in his blood was to blame- never forgot the boy of colorless eyes who had helped her when she’d run off and gotten herself lost. His magic had transformed her memory of that encounter, that gift, enough to make it seem like a fleeting dream she had put to paper and ink.

All his wards, seals, memory wipes and Grumbles couldn’t stop Peneloper from meeting Gideon again. It was their fate, and it had been foretold  long ago to Rayburn, though he never stopped hoping he could change it.

But sorcerers had limits on their outstretched hands and fate was ever just slightly out of reach. He couldn’t change their meeting, but he could damn well intervene and he needed Captain Stormholden to do so.

The man returned to the captain’s side, leaning towards him for closer inspection. He looked nothing like Rayburn and this made the man grimace. He had hoped his darling daughter might have housed a secret complex for him, but looking at the man with dark blonde hair, sun- kissed skin, and a strong jaw and nose, he knew he had failed.

A part of him wanted to lament but then his duty surfaced, interlaced with his overwhelming desire to protect his child from the claws of the void, and he set out to color the captain.

If only such a task could have been as  easy as splattering a blank canvas with primaries, secondaries and terciaries sprinkled thoroughout.

But returning someone's color was an intricate task, one of many layers of deeply sophisicated spells. He would have to mix the colors masterfully, taking in to account everything that made the captain, the captain.

And Rayburn had never attempted such a feat on a living creature let alone one that resided in the Retelling. Everything then, presently, and here after, would be a complete guessing game; the stakes raised to the highest capacity.

****

Two emptied bottles of whiskey later, and a tiny cabin covered in splatters of green, blue, and black slimes, Captain Ire Stormholden sat in front of a roaring fire, a flush coming back to his cheeks.

Rayburn stretched out on the couch- his third bottle of whiskey clasped tightly in his exhausted hands. He had wanted to sleep a month’s worth of sleep. He had gone through a lot- including a harrowing journey into the refracted where he was sent to close some voids- and still, coloring the captain was by far, the worst thing he’d ever taken on.

There had been moments were the captain had turned into a frog from too much green, an abyss eater from too much shading. And a creature-- ten feet tall with razor sharp claws and three sets of perfectly round black eyes-- that had erupted from the house creating the hole in the roof that Rayburn stared up at now. Snow fell delicately on his face and in this moment, his warm and weathered body welcomed their frozen touch.

He chuckled, even the monster he’d created-- who had threatened to eat his head-- came with a silver lining. As he laid down, he tried to recall what colors he had mixed to make the creature for any further use in the nearby future.

But all the colors he’d used just blurred together. The RayFall- which is what he had decided to name the creature as he had narrowly escaped its clawed hands- was a one time failure, preserved in memory only.

When the captain had finally been colored correctly, he looked at Rayburn with wide-eyed terror, a sword pointed at the man’s throat. It had taken him an hour to calm Stormholden down and to assure him that his nature was not the same as Gideon’s.

The captain had finally taken Rayburn’s word when he had told him his last name was Auttsley. That struck an obvious cord with the pirate. The creator of his creator; how did you hope to meet such a figure?

Stormholden had taken to silence- confusion reading all over his young, handsome face- as he sat next to the fireplace, searching for his answers in the glowing embers. Of course they held answers, just not the ones the captain desired.

“So Peneloper Auttsley is my creator?” the captain asked, his voice cutting into the silence, his gaze never leaving the fire.

Rayburn laughed.

“She is though she isn't a god,” he said, exuding a tremendous amount of effort to sit his body upright. He wanted to melt.

Fighting the urge, he continued, trying to help the poor pirate cope with his circumstance as quickly as he could.

“You are written. A man of words and imagination. Everything you are, everything you encountered, your past, and your future were written by her. You are a character and your life is quite literally in her hands.” 

His words were harsh, and the captain stared at him with a look that mixed confusion with grief. Nep must have made this young man  experience tragedy.

“Matilda,” the captain whispered, the look of anger rising to his eyes. “Why would she take her away from me?”

“Because suffering helps to expand you as a character. Plus, readers love to sympathize with a main character.”

Rayburn never thought he’d have to explain how writing worked to a work of written word. Stormholden, finding Rayburn’s words less than comforting, grimaced.

“This Peneloper Auttsley is a cruel creator then,” he spat.

Rayburn loved his daughter beyond words and layers, but he couldn’t help but agree.

“All creators are cruel to their creations. It’s the way things work,” he said, knowing full well that whatever creator had given him life had been a cruel thing indeed, such a heavy burden had been cast on his shoulders.  The captain scoffed.

“So what of Mister Darqish? Is he a demon?”

“Something far worse,” Rayburn replied, distraught a creature so dangerous had turned its eye on his daughter. “And I need you to help me stop him.”

“Stop him from what?”

Stormholden eyed the sorcerer with suspicion. “Last time I trusted one of your strange kind, I ended up-- I haven’t even have a word for it.”

“He wants to pervert my daughter’s course. And I mean to stop him. He’s already in Reason, having used you as a vessel.”

“Save the daughter who wrote such suffering for me to experience?” the captain spat back. And rightly so, Rayburn thought.

“Why did the boy decide to use me?”

Rayburn took a few moments to think. This simple question wasn’t so simple to answer. His face contorted as he thought of his words, dismissed them, and thought of more words. Stormholden thought he would never answer.

“He was written in her notebook when she was little. And then she thought of you and wrote over him. It made him… angry. He took your form out of spite.”

The captain sighed. “I don’t know why I bother to ask you creatures of devil’s magics. You always say things I don’t understand.”

Rayburn got up and knelt beside the Captain. In the most honest words he’d spoken in awhile, he pleaded, “Then let me tell you this. Peneloper is my daughter and because of my duty, my story, I’ve had to miss out on most of her life. Please, help me to save her; it’s all I can do.”

The captain shook his head. “I will help you, for your creator seems to be just as cruel as mine. But you stare at me wrong or wriggle your nose or do whatever it is you do to summon your demon’s magic and I will slice your throat open.”

Rayburn couldn't help but laugh.

“We don’t wriggle our noses. We’re far more sophisticated than that.”