Character Evaluation of Chasing Dragons: Vengeance: Uncle Emmett


I've decided to give insights to the characters of  my book, Chasing Dragons: Vengeance. A personal view of how I see each one and the land they live. It may help you to see what I see, or it may be an interesting difference in how your perspective is compared to mine. I will be writing one a day until each character has had his or her moment in the light.

Who should be first? A main character or a secondary, or the least important. Actually, each one is important. The one who seems the least may find they are the most later down the road. We shall see.


I think I shall begin with Uncle Emmett.

Uncle Emmett is always the busy man. Details only matter after the fact. It is these details that help him decide how things are to be. He keeps a keen eye out to those who interest him. The sun blared bright at high noon the day Olivia Sanders and her three young children stroll down the dirt road that would pass by his home. He was waiting for them. He knew they would come. What he didn't expect was the love that he would have for this young family that would become his own. How could he? Love left him long ago when his wife died. He is different than other men. Most would forget the painful loss of a spouse, some might have even welcomed it. And most assuredly, most men would find another woman and fill their days with her and not pine over their loss. Not Uncle Emmett. Part of him died with the passing of his wife. It was only when Olivia and the children came into his life that he noticed the loneliness that had filled the long, empty hours over the years. A single man with no family vanished that day, reborn to a man who loved a woman like his sister and her children as his own. When I say 'he knew they would come,' it is meant he knew there would come a day when his past would be reconciled.

He has a love for old myths. Particularly, dragon myths. He feels a wonderful sense of satisfaction when the eyes of a child light and stare at him in awe as he tells his tales when there was a day in their history that dragons once roamed beside them. And not just any dragon, but shape shifters. His most beloved story of all the dragon myths: Bayden and Esa. An ode to an unhappy ending to a very happy love story. He shares a close affinity to these two. Retelling what happened to them helps him to express his emotions that are wrapped up in his own loss of his wife. It is the only time that one is aware at how sad his heart really is. Otherwise he is a pleasant, jovial man.

Physically he has a bit of a limp, an awkward gimp as he travels. His hair, even his beard, are aged to almost white, but his skin hints he is not as old as he seems. And at times, his eyes twinkle as if he knows a funny story that no one is privy to. And sometimes they sigh a dull tiredness that he wishes everyone knew.

And if he has to, he will let his hand fall, releasing the secret that is his. He almost had to when the gloomers threatened them. Can you guess what it is?