If You're a Seascape

After a while, the machete man left and two equally interesting and other-worldly men walked in.  A few minutes after them, a woman walked through the door.  She looked out of place in the run down shack filled with ruffians and pirates, but at the same time she didn’t.  She had wavy darkish blonde hair that fell to her mid-back, she had on a navy blue tank top and a tan pleated skirt with slats of wood sewn into it; a fashion I had never seen before.  Woven bracelets of a multitude of colors, some with shells in them, covered her wrists and one ankle.  On her upper right arm was an ornate gold cuff that was dull due to too much outdoor exposure.  Her feet were housed by the leather straps of gladiator-like sandals.  That is what she reminded me of: the gladiators I had read about in the world archives at The Council building.  A dagger sheath of some sort rested on her left hip.  She stood for a few moments right inside the door, taking in the situation, scanning the room, her eyes darting from one person to another, and yet she didn’t draw any attention to herself.  She walked casually to the bar, but she had a strange walk, like she was off balance.  It almost seemed like she was drunk but I could tell that’s not what it was.  Then I figured it was like the other seafarers, on the ocean so long that they don’t know how to walk without the motion of the waves.  However that would be impossible because there are no women seafarers.  Even the Islanders follow that tradition.

This is an excerpt from a little fantasy tale I've been writing over the past three or four years.  The idea came from a drawing I did about eight years ago.  I didn't really have a plan when I started, but now, over sixty-five pages later, she became the central character.

Maybe near the end of the story, the plot will jump into modern times and she'll look like this.  

(photos by e.hunt, and collected from fashiongonerogue)