The news didn't come as a huge shock, not as some dreaded or devouring remorse that washed over him; it was not the aftermath of a fresh death, nor was it the incapacitated heartache that he suffered. Oh the agony was there, it was deep down inside, buried beneath of ages of sorrow, shoved and shoveled beneath of walls of melancholic depression. The grieving hardship and mourning. The remembrance of her, of Evangelline Lillybrook, once Bane of Bree Town to him, a lover and a friend, a companion and a mate, died giving birth to his child but never did her remembrance die with her body. Perhaps innocent and alone, her wails echoed her passing that night while she sank into the oblivious depths of death, the inevitable and perhaps merciful end, but there were those that mourned her passing. This is perhaps of one of them.
Gorlen knew for a few months, as she locked her door, refused to answer his desperate calls, him drowning his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle or the last drops of ale, that she has left him. There was nothing left for him to do, he tried his best. There were times he thought of her, of her laugh, her smile, her touch and her voice. He thought of their time spent together up in the Comb and Wattle, how they planned what they might call their child if they should have one, what cruel joke irony can not play. He remembered a lot of things in that time spent in a half haze of drunken melancholy. But as time spent on, the elicit thieve of our lives, moved on and days started to blur into weeks, months into months, Gorlen's mood grew darker, more somber and depressed. The thought of her in that room, pregnant with his child and pushing him away caused old wounds to flare and burn back from a past seldom revealed. Yet, could it prevent the heartache he felt when he heard of her death?
Gorlen sat in the middle of the field, the bottle of brandy lying next to him. Just the previous evening Piperel had to escort him to her apartment after Tim and himself had a few ales at the Pony. Tim left early after Gorlen gave him his sword, being the blacksmith of The Bloody Dawn, while he carried on drinking, perhaps because of the topic of their discussion, the fiery past of Tim's loss made Gorlen think back upon his own.
The croak of frogs echoed through the otherwise still night, crickets in the summer evening sounded out their calls. “Fuck her! Fuck her for dying like this!” he shouted at the top of his lungs up into the black heavens, falling down on the wet grass and mud. He was first angry then sad, thought back upon her refusal to see him, then how she died, then at their time together. “And that's how you go? Just like that? Never a goodbye, never a glance, and this is how you go?” He didn't know what she has gone through, but neither did she at those times.
Half his side was a mess; wet and splattered and smeared by mud and dung, where he drunkenly fell down near the outskirts of Combe. He went back into the Comb and Wattle after Amoryl left. Although he was grateful for being there and stopping Amoryl's murderous intent on killing the barmaid, Lizbeth, and that she was there for him when they heard the news, he needed time by himself. However, he could not imagine finding out the news without her support. The time was spent in remembrance, not loss. It was spent as a tribute to who she was. For Gorlen, that was all that truly mattered, memories. He thought little of riches or of gold, of possessions and property. He had his blades and his thoughts as a man, and he was content with them as it was, at times. And that night his thoughts were drowned, it was dulled to the oblivious depths of his mind. Numb and intoxicated he passed out next to the pond where he fell down, half his leg still in the calm waters that reflected the stars, silently watching from above.
At least he had Piperel, was his last thought. And she's not Eva, he reminded himself. There was still something that kept him in Bree.
