[ WP ] [ CW ] Make me fall in love with a character in 200 words or less .

He was tall, the person you would notice first among a sea of others. He spoke with a stern tone, hard-won from experience. Your opinion was valid, weighed and measured, but his was the final say. Should you see eye to eye with him, you were considered more wizened than himself in his mind. His confidence was apparent when you saw him. The crow's feet around his eyes told the story of the son he raised with a loving wife. This was the man you saw behind the helm. 
 
 The man he saw in the mirror of his private quarters was shy. He was heartbroken, from a son lost at sea. He was lonely, from a marriage separated after years of pointless therapy. His back ached from hours of standing straight. His service medals were carefully hidden, not for the sake of humility, but for shame. He slept uneasily, he woke in starts. He continued daily to guide his crew, for the service oath he took as a young man was as much his bastion as it was his millstone. 
 
 If nothing else, he was a man of his word. 

