Turq | Tide's Coming In

The following is a vignette of backstory for my D&D character, Turqoise Stormwave, a water genasi paladin. Enjoy!

“What are we going to do about the boy, Mari?”

The voice was soft, a low rumble barely heard over the sounds of tonight’s rain as it tumbled down outside. Sitting beside him in their bed, Mari listened to her husband’s frustrated sigh and laid a hand over his. For a moment, rather than reply, she simply sat beside him. The storm tonight was especially beautiful, and she watched it intently, as if reading an answer in the water and the wind.

“What needs to be done, my love?” she asked after a time. “He’s strong, he’s healthy, he’s happy. It’s more fortune than many see.”

“You’re right about that much, to be sure,” he said. Placing his free hand over hers, he let out another, smaller sigh. “But I can’t help but worry a bit nonetheless. He’s approaching an age where people will start to…expect things of him. I can guide him, and I will do what I can to help the others understand, but some customs, some laws…”

He paused, frowning.

“He’s a son in a noble house, and there’s only so much that my influence can shield him from. He’ll be needed for court functions. For diplomacy. I love him dearly, Mari, you know I do, but we both know that’s not where he belongs.”

Mari smiled, nodding in the dimly lit room and nestling closer, laying her head on her husband’s shoulder.

“They’re certainly not ready for someone like him, are they, Balt?”

Balt chuckled for a moment, then sobered again.

“I just want to spare him from the kind of treatment he might get when all the arrogant pedants in that stuffy chamber decide he’s not good enough for them.” He kissed his wife’s forehead and squeezed her hand. “And he doesn’t deserve it. He’s too good for them.”

Despite the low light of dusk, Mari reflexively rolled her eyes. “The council can scuttle themselves for all I care, Cobalt. They only think in platinum and policies. Sure, Turq isn’t fit to be a bureaucrat, but that’s no more of a problem than a turtle not having gills or a salmon being short a shell. It’s not what he was made for.”

Thunder crashed outside, and a series of flashes lit up the sky. The pair took in the scene through their bedroom window, watching the ocean roll and rock in the downpour. For a few moments, they sat with their thoughts, enjoying each other’s company. Cobalt eventually broke the silence with another low sigh.

“I just have to figure out a way to uphold the laws for a knight of the kingdom without forcing him into too much paperwork. For his sake and the council’s.”