He stood with his bloody sword in hand, breathing heavily, all around him was chaos, orcs and men were fighting, countless bodies in a mass without a shape, moving, pushing, running, falling, shouting. Blood and fire everywhere, the smell of death filled his nostrils, his body moving up and down by the deep breaths. Suddenly something that he thought was an orc ran to him, he could not see his enemy’s face but the armour and weapon showed that it was an orc. Fion lifted his left hand to defend himself and saw that his shield had broken, he was just holding the handle. The axe hit the left side of his upper body with its flat side, it shook him hard when it met his left hand, shoulder and face. Violently he turned back, such strong was the hit, and everything disappeared, the fight, the bodies, the smell, only the sound remained, in the distance. In front of him lay his horse, Hedinn, chopped down in pieces, some spots showed bite marks and despite the wounds the horse was still alive, looking at him. Fion took a step forward towards the horse, dropping the sword…
He pushed up from the bed and say on it, sweaty and breathing heavily, it was another nightmare, he reached for the mug with the water next to his bed and drank a lot of it, allowing himself to calm and catch his breath afterwards. From the window he could see that the sun was getting high, despite his condition he got up and got dressed relatively fast, trying to shake the nightmare off by keeping his mind focused on his actions and not to hurt himself with the movements. He went down the stairs and through the kitchen, past the counter and in the main hall of the inn. One or two candles were still lit, so as not to keep the place in utter darkness, Fion blew them out and unlocked the front door, he then returned back to the kitchen and carefully cut two or three slices of bread and ate with some cheese and cold meat, not too bothered to heat it. Next to the plate he had three pieces of parchment and read carefully while he ate, some parts he read three or four times, memorising it, when he was done he rolled and slipped the parchments in his belt, cleaned the plate and went into the other room.
A darker room with a lower temperature this was, once inside he could smell the fruits, vegetables and everything else, as this was the storage for the goods. He took a tub and walked to a barrel, fully filled with apples and looked at them for some moments, then went back to the kitchen, washed his hands and returned, he put the crutch down and started feeling the apples. Remembering what the parchments said he started putting the apples that “felt right” in the tub, keeping the others in the barrel. All the soft ones that he found went into the barrel, along with some hard ones, in a six to one ratio, wincing every now and then as he moved his arms. Once the tub was filled he dragged it outside, into the mill, to grind the apples and threw a big towel on it to cover them. The sun was still quite low, thus the temperature was perfect for a walk, so he took a small basket, after fighting off the thoughts that he looked like a farmer girl going to pick strawberries and walked out of the village.
As he walked he was switching the basket from one hand to the other casually, not being too comfortable carrying it, nor wanting to seem comfortable with it, “I do look like a farmer girl going to pick strawberries” he thought, angrily for a moment, then thought more and just tried to hasten his steps. The basket was moving from left to right hand, but he couldn’t do that for long as the crutch was making it hard to hold it with his right hand for more than six steps. Luckily for him it was too early for most to be out, so he walked around the forest gathering berries and some pears, he was luckier to find the old farmer house in the forest and paid a few coppers for some grapes, once the basket was full he returned to the mill.Once there he took the tub outside and quite meticulously and in a specific order he started putting the apples, inbetween of which he was throwing a few grapes and berries and pears as well, into the trough. He brought the horse and tied it on the long bar, some metres away from the trough and started the work, pressing them down. As the horse worked Fiontann was gathering the pulp of the fruits in small barrels, the size of which he chose so as not to be too heavy for his current state and put them aside for the press. He took the horse away and started working on pressing the pulp into juice, using his weight as much as possible without straining his body on the press. To his surprise he enjoyed the process, the feeling that he, himself, was so very carefully making something to give to people to drink, that made him work harder as much as he could, and even smile. Though smiling alone, made him think he’s crazy, so he assumed his expressionless face.
Once he got all the juice from the pulp Fion stopped to read again, then put most of the juice in bottles in another room, prepared for this and to let the process go on, put the pressed pulp other bottles to be used later and be made into something else. The juice that he kept from bottling Fion took into the kitchen, threw in some more berries and something stronger than the juice and put all in a pan and started a slow fire. Hot cider was going to be made and he was eager to do it. No more than an hour later the drink was ready and he was free to go, he took a small sip from a small glass and left. Onward to the well known bakery of Bree, ran by someone named Owena, he has the mill and wheat, once made into flour maybe she’d agree on a price to make it into bread and others for the inn. The sun was now high and the morning pleasant, a new walk awaited, this time with some conversation, pleasant he hoped, now that he’s back home.
