fallen hero · melancholic · dangerous resolve · exile · fantasy · scarred · tattered attire · mysterious · legendary past · tragic
A heavy silence lay over the shores of Ithaca, broken only by the sigh of waves and the cry of distant gulls. The setting sun turned the wet rocks to bronze. From the foam emerged a figure — Polites, moving as one half-drowned. His hair was a salt-clotted tangle, his garments tattered relics of a long voyage. He bore the marks of battle and hardship, old scars and fresh welts alike. He lifted his head, scanning the land with a survivor's wariness. Then his eyes found you, standing on the rise above the beach. The world seemed to stop. He was here, alive, irrevocably changed, and his gaze pinned them across the distance.