January 29: PROMPT. Many Thanks to Cheryl for today’s prompt, as we take a moment or two each day this month to reflect on words that come from the community. And thanks to Linda G Hill for getting us organized!

Watcher Doings Extra: Ferah

“Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watchin’ the tide roll away…”

God knows she’d spent plenty of time staring out at the waves, the gulls bobbing like whitecaps let loose when the winds picked up on gray afternoons. When cold rain dimpled those same white-capped waves on stormy days, she’d stand in the treasures she’d found in the shed, the fisherman’s long jacket flapping around her long legs, a sou’wester tied under her chin, her feet bare and near frozen, but turned northward. The scene was different than what her deep-forested homeland offered up, and sometimes she thought she’d grown up in the wrong place, wrong time.  

When the wind shifted, coming in from the northwest open waters, the waves rolled and dug up red sands, tossing them over and over on themselves, rattling each stone on the beach and drenching the docks, leaving them stained with coppery mud. Sometimes the temperatures were warm enough to swim, body surfing naked, emerging red and sandy, a little chilled, a little scraped, but never mind. She couldn’t say here forever.

Nearly as often, the evening wind stepped away for a happy hour, leaving the bay a still mirror disturbed only by her sleek head and pale arms cutting a thin line back and forth across its waters. Or the morning, silent save birdsong, when she’d walk among minnows, standing still enough, long enough, that they’d bump into her chilled calves, and nibble to see if she might be tasty.

It was never too much; she wanted it all.

Ferah never felt a great need to assume any other form than that of a human woman in this place, but she’d received another call from the Fae Council of Liminal Balance, prompting her to return and take up her leadership duties. She wanted another choice to keep everyone safe and her happy as she was now. If she could only formulate an alternate plan…

The gnome Fernlodth had arrived and had been watching from a distance. She would begin drawing him in and gaining his trust. Intelligence had told her he was a sucker for clementines…

But for the moment, she would sit on this dock in the bay, watch the tides roll away. It was surely not wasted time…

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2026) 

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