The battered and weathered toy boat rested now on one corner of Hudson?s desk. He hadn?t repaired it, leaving it to its broken state. Lines of numbers danced on the page in front of him, and he squinted, and then rubbed the base of his palms hard against his eyes. It was only after the sparkles of that cleared from his vision that he realized how dim the light had grown. The lantern across from the toy boat provided the only light in the room, any moonlight that might have come in the window hidden by fog and mist.

He flexed his fingers, stiff in the chill of the near-empty warehouse; worked his scarred hands against each other to restore flexibility and ease their ache. The quiet in the warehouse was enveloping, a thick blanket of stillness. Rhys had dismissed the workers hours before, and himself shortly afterwards. The guards were on post outside, but inside the only person still working was Hudson. He looked at the pages of accounting and then stacked them into a neat pile before pushing back his chair.

Standing, several steps took him to the window, where he looked out over the harbor, unable to see anything but swirls of mist and shadow broken by the bright patches of streetlamps. He had been spending long hours in the Yransea warehouse, and the silence was fast becoming an old and comfortable friend. The arrival of the ship which had kept him from the Winter Market was so far the only major disappointment of this job.

Instead he had visited the Marketplace the next day, finding gifts for Sianna and her fianc?. A toy shop with a brightly painted kite in the window had drawn him in, and he had looked about at the assortment of toys with a bemused expression until the clerk came to ask if he needed assistance. Such toys as he had known growing up were made in the village, and limited in variety.

Oddly enough, he had left that shop only with a few small things such as he might have found among the Fraiser. A small tabor drum and pipe, a set of carved alphabet blocks in a small box along with a floppy stuffed lamb, and a bag of marbles of fine alabaster. The purchases had been impulsive, but not in the least regretted. The only doubt he had lurked in the back of his mind; that it would be too forward to offer the small gifts for Sylvia?s children.

The toys were neatly wrapped in plain brown paper now, and rested along with one more gift on the seat of the other chair in the office. Hudson had purchased a box of the apple tea Sylvia favored some days before, but buying the small book bound in blue leather at the same time had been as impulsive as the purchase of the toys. It was the tale of Deirdre, printed so that a page of Gaelic faced a Common translation of the same page. He had wrapped the book in with the box of tea, and added it to the pile of gifts.

Hudson turned away from the window and sat back down at the desk, pulling over a clean sheet of paper and a pen. He wrote a short note and sealed it with red wax, pressing in the center of his brooch to leave a stag?s-head imprint behind. That done, he set the letter with the packages and left the office, locking it and then the warehouse behind himself. He would watch the sunrise and then take the parcels and letter to Yearling Brook, so that they could await the return of Sylvia and her children from Yransea.

Caraid,

I hope that these small gifts for you and your bairns are not unwelcome. The story of Deirdre is, like most of our tales, a sad one ? but I could not resist the translation, so rare to find here. T?ann an saol thart mar a bheadh eiteoga air; life goes by as if it had wings. I look forward to speaking with you again, and hope to see you and the bairns at Hogmanay.

- Hudson

((Note: For the curious, a link to the tale of Deirdre and its translation is here.))