She managed to make it out of the tavern despite her inebriated status, nearly walking into a town guard as she blundered through the door. Her vision was blurry to say the least, and she could not find the stairs, but she could just barely recall where they were. Not well enough to prevent a wrong step from sending her tumbling down a short distance and onto the cobbles of the main square. She got on all fours before she could return to standing on her two feet, idly wiping a little blood trickling down from her nose as she stumbled and swayed her way towards what would soon become her best friend for a good period of time: a ripe, solitary green bush.
That’s what it was anyway, before she decided to empty more than words and curses onto it. Her hand instantly reached for anything that could sustain her better than rolled paper, namely one of the bush’s stronger branches, as her stomach decided it didn’t want the mixture of alcohol and whatever it is she had consumed earlier – including cold soup slipped into her mug while she was blissfully unaware – anymore. The whole ordeal lasted for a short while, thankfully with no eyes spectating such but her own, whenever they weren’t sealed in an unsuccessful attempt at holding back tears that forced their way out.
She breathed heavily, panted, swayed sideways, pulled and pushed onto the branch to adjust her fickle balance in vain, and looked right down in front of her, in between the sullied vegetation and her feet, and then her knees. As she lowered herself onto them, her right thumb moved to the relatively fresh scar on her left cheek, one reminiscent of old and recent times alike. Her head also lowered, several images, memories, and voices flashed right through her mind. She shook her head to shake them away, failing to do so. The bliss and forgetfulness that alcohol had given her abandoned her far more quickly than she had hoped.
She saw her home, or rather the closest recollection to her old home that she had; the closest replica of her parents that her memory dug out for her to view and hear; her first blade, her first parrying dagger, her first lessons and experiences on the field. She flailed her arms and hands, attempting to catch them as they flew right in front of her, but whatever action she committed to would prove fruitless. She had no power over herself, and as she told herself that, the memories began to fade. Her vision darkened. She saw fires, fighting, coins; bandits. Her vision reddened. She saw more bandits, even more bandits, bodies piling around her, bodies piling around them, blood stains on them, on the ground, on her, right into her eyes and visions, and she shook her head once more and snapped out of it. She violently jerked her head back, grasping it with both her hands, nearly sinking her short nails into her skin.
She breathed heavily, panted, swayed back and forth, the branch having been snapped from the rest of the bush at some point during her trance-like state, and slowly raised her reddened eyes from the ground. As she rose from the ground, her right thumb moved to the scar once more. Thoughts were now sparse, and suddenly more focused. How long had she been out here? It felt like a few seconds and an hour at the same time. She rubbed her sleeve against her eyes, fully opening them as she walked back towards the Prancing Pony, her path’s shape still nowhere near a straight line. A glint of resolve bolted through her mind; her past would not leave her alone, she thought, but perhaps it was about time she threw it off the carriage and left it on the side of the road to wilt and die. Alongside some individuals she had no intention of forgetting anytime soon.
