Sitting in a chair that sat in the far corner of his room, Lance allowed one leg to cross over his other. The room assigned to him originally stood clean with nothing but a bed, table, and dresser, but now that he had spent his time in service, the bedroom was anything but clean. Papers, journals, and quills covered over the floor and lined along the rustic wooden walls. Pictures of men fighting covered many of the papers that hadn’t been folded or rolled up accompanied by scribbles in Lance’s own poor handwriting to explain everyone of his sketches. Stains covered the top of the dresser that sat beside him bed from the many bottles of ink that scattered over the surface. On the far end of his bed opposite to the dresser were outfits jammed up against the wall where the illumination of the candles couldn’t reach to shed light upon. Along with all the clothing and papers, large collections of weaponry accompanied the clutter of his room. Swords, axes, spears, and so on all leaned against everything from furniture to the walls.
At the table that sat in the corner adjacent to the door to his room, Lance sat bent over a parchment with a quill in his hand. Ignoring the strands of his short black hair that had fallen into his eyes, his focus lingered onto his scribbling. The three candles glowed just bright enough to light the middle of his table and parts of his room as the rest hid in the shadows. His writing momentum caused the end of his quill to swirl through the air in fluid motions as his concentration droned out the scratching sound of the tip. Suddenly, the feather drifted against one of the candles and the flames caught onto the soft hairs on the feather. Heat of the fire began to stretch down to Lance’s hand forcing his eyes to snap up from his work.
"Oh shit!" Lance exclaimed in shock.
Lance leapt to his feet and reached his hand out to dunk the quill into a mug of fluids that sat on his table. Steam began to roll up into the air from the now burnt quill thanks to the distinguishing flames that had ignited on the feather. A soft breath of air escaped him and his eyes wandered to the paper he worked on just moments ago. Somehow, in Lance’s flurry of panic, the bottle of ink splattered across the page and blurred the words he had written. His shoulders slumped at the realization that he had to start back over again. He didn't want to start over, but thanks to the lovely candle, he had to. After a moment in his silent dismay, a sound of bashing against his door filled the room once, then twice, and then thrice, each one more pliable than the last.
The sound of the banging forced Lance to jump up in his spot ever so slightly with a jerking motion of hand. Clashing filled the room and replaced the knocking as the mug flew over the edge of the counter and smashed against the floor of his room. A pool formed in the mugs wake and the ink spilt on the table began to drip down onto the shattered mug. Steam continued to rise from the once ignited quill that now sat blackened and ruined in the puddle that only spread over the wooden ground. Lance let out a sigh now as he realized he had to see to the man outside his room (Assuming it was a man because only men slept in the barracks as far as Lance knew). He took two steps to the door before extending his hand to the handle of the door to force it to crack open. Streams of light shot out of his bedroom and began to illuminate the main room as he peeked his head out. It took him several moments for his eyes to adjust to the darker lighting. But when it did, he saw Captain Aedren standing before him with his shirt slung over his shoulder and his brows lifted ever so slightly. His shoulder rested lightly against the wall next to his door and his exposed chest came into Lance’s full view. The dim lighting of his room shined on him just enough to cast a shadow over his specific features, but Lance had to stop his eyes from straying over his well defined, lean shape as he already felt a flutter inside of him. He couldn’t let him see his eyes fall over the attractive features of his body for it would cause an uncomfortable scene. So instead, he focused onto his face that gave the appearance of having just awoken from his slumber. That sent a needle of guilt through his chest.
"Can I help you?" Lance’s voice murmured out in almost a whisper.
Aedren’s eyes squinted ever so slightly at him in their own struggle to adjust to the light. Looking him up and down slowly, Aedren began to chew on the inside of his lip and pushed his forearm off the side of the wall. "What are you doing in your room so late?" Aedren asked as he pulled the shirt off his shoulder and lowered it down over him in order to cover his chest, "You woke me up… I think."
After a moment of his blinking, Lance shook his head and pushed off the door just enough to turn his head and look over his shoulder at his own personal mess at the cost of allowing Aedren to see it as well. His cheeks puffed out for a moment in his frustration as he finally came to the ability to assess the total damage now without the layer of shock to skew his perception. Ink continued to drip into the pool of tea with a soft drooping sound as the less viscid liquid on the floor splashed up and rippled out. Then his eyes flickered back to Aedren when he suddenly realized Aedren could see at his own clumsiness as well, which forced him cheeks to flush a soft shade of pink involuntarily.
"I was trying to work, but then almost started a fire and then well..." Lance’s voice stopped and the mess to spoke for the rest of his sentence.
The sound of Aedren inhaling snapped Lance’s attention around as he saw Aedren peering forward at disastrous and somewhat hazardous room. After a somewhat awkward moment passed between the two, Aedren breathed out and spoke with an offered empathic smile. "You don't seem as professional as you try and make yourself out to be." Lance could hear the mocking in his tone as he tried to joke around, "I haven't been the most productive today either, though. I managed to sleep from the afternoon to the evening, not exactly professional of me... What were you working on?"
Lance hesitated for a moment. The contents of the letter were something vastly personal. A letter addressed to a man named Levian from his past. Lance’s mind wandered back to the memory of the words that carried heavy emotions of his own burden. Emotions of his lies that force him to pretend to be something he was not and the emotions of his fear. The fear that weighs heavily in his heart for he knew his fate led to nothing but an execution if others revealed his secrets. Papers upon papers covered his room as tangible proof of his overly obsessed work to hide his own reality. But none of this could be said to Aedren as he stood before him in the doorway.
So instead, he responded to the question with the answer of "A letter… A more personal letter to someone I use to know. I have been working on it all day.”
Deciding to be friendly, Lance then pushed his door fully open as if inviting him in as he turned away from him.. Reaching out to grab a few towels, Lance dropped them down and stepped on them to press the rags on the tea as he carefully picked up the pottery shards on the floor. While he began to work on cleaning up his mess of the ink with rags and towels, he murmured out mostly to himself, “Although seems I have to start over."
His voice escaped him in a neutral flatness. For anyone who wasn’t looking at him at that moment would have assume by his tone that he didn't put very much care into his failure in work. But due to the ever so subtle slouch in his shoulders, Aedren could see his slight signs of dismay as he stepped into his bedroom. After spending hours of working through his emotions in the format of writing, Lance had to do such again. Perhaps he’ll wait before he attempted to do such again. For now, however, he had to set aside his emotional turmoil and struggling pain of having to relive the things he had spoken of in his ruined letter once more to socialize with Aedren who now stood in his room.
This writing session contained the help from the player of Aedren via RP
