#NaNoWriMo : The Brennin Memorial

Here is a small piece from Alasdair standing at the graves of his parents:

Alasdair looked at his mother: her aspect was so demure and lovely. She was young when she had passed, her features tinctured by the stain of ill health, and so the hand that carved her likeness had given her all the unkindness of lines about the eyes and mouth. They had only given her a more sagacious air, however. She might be nearly fifty now, had she lived; his father, too, might be the same age, but wherever they were now, he hoped that they had not seen the horrors of his brother’s reign. They should have been mortified to have born a son so ill-judging and cruel, and he could only hope that they noted his efforts to wipe away any remaining tinge of wrong. His benevolence, his munificence, and his good nature had been inborn, but is expression of it was, he hoped, to a level which his family would have found acceptable. He could not be as openhanded as he liked due to the nobles at court, but he would be as caring as was possible despite how decided he knew he must aspire to be. He had all the confidence of his grandfather but all the apprehensiveness of his father in expressing it, had his father’s handsomeness with his mother’s unawareness for it, had his father’s good humour with his grandfather’s ability to compose and collect himself: he was the legacy that they had left, and all his consternation was performing as well as was expected.