Just a few days before Drubainbess and Stitches were separated, and she went missing, they met for a final time. It was another chilly winter afternoon, the fractured sky gilded with sparse clouds that decorate like a menagerie of spirals and cracks, a compendium of golden to lilac, from a twilight to a brilliant vermilion.Stitches was left off the evening shift and came straight to Bree in search of his friends. A feeling had been tickling him all day in the fields, and it urged him that something was incredibly wrong.
Stitches and Drubainbess met up in the Prancing Pony, when Stitches could locate no one on his way there or even once he entered. Ciruthdyl seemed to have vanished, giving him mild concern, and he had not heard from Piernost in quite some time since talk of that crazy fellow Reaver had ceased yet again. Stitches nearly possesses a spot in the well known tavern of Bree, the barrel set right to the left of the bar when entering. He wouldn't claim as much that he did, but no one else perches atop it like he does. Drubainbess hadn't even noticed him up there when she entered, the nerve! After a munch of small talk and a snippet of awkward interaction, it comes to a point of him questioning if she had returned safely home the other night. When she mirrors the question, his response spurs the events of the night.
"Oh. No I went to..." Stitches begins to explain, but he cuts himself off mid sentence and taps his bare and pale chin as he often does before smiling down at her from his barrel height, "I went to a special place. It's sort of the only place I can call my own." Besides perhaps the barrel, but this is debatable. He pauses then asks, "Would you like to see?"
She is hesitant, but once he explains it's only a matter of time before they find themselves down the steps of The Prancing Pony and heading out west gate. It isn't too long before they near Stitches stargazing spot. His place atop the hill where he visits often to speak to the Lady In The Stars.
Stitches leads her up a small hill just as the sky changes from purple to a deep indigo and he sits in a spot with grass that seems to have been pushed down often in a nearly oval shape, suggesting he had been here many times before. With a huff he plops atop the slant of the hill, looking out to the west with a smile, "Right here." He says to her.
Drubainbess sits down beside him, taking in the beautiful view with a smile of unadulterated appreciation. "I can see why this is your special spot," She comments softly.
Stitches has a one track mind, and seems far too eager to show her to respond to this. He points up into the night sky at a batch of stars, they don't seem to be in any assortment, but he smiles in wonder at them as his finger encircles the cluster anxiously, "Do you see it?" He asks her vaguely.
Stitches inevitably has to lean closer to her and point them out in a connect-the-dots fashion to show her the astral face he sees in the stars, pointing to a few as "the eyes", "the nose", and so forth. His companion determinately follows his finger with her eyes, finally piecing it together. "Oh! I do see her now," she says excitedly. "My...she is so beautiful." She smiles softly.
Stitches smiles happily, seeming at genuine peace for once. His insecurities and worries are just gone here. He tilts his head at the lady in the stars with a nod, "Yeah..." He looks then to Dru and pauses to look at her face before painting his face with the same smile, "She is."
Dru asks him if she had been named, to which Stitches admits he didn't think he was worthy to do so. The conversation progresses to him admitting that to him The Lady in The Stars looks in fact, like her to him. They disagree, clearly, but Stitches is stubborn even in his state of 'blank slatedness'. He tells her of how because she is his closest friend, he has considered bringing her there for some time. They wind down for an hour or so, simply laying and staring up at the stars, both able to find a moment of peace they would be happy to cherish in the very soon future. However, it wouldn't be a night alone with Stitches without making it entirely awkward. He ends up staring at Dru. His reasoning?
"You are...nice to look at."
He tries again.
"It is...you are...calming to watch."
Good save Stitches.
(End of Part 1, Part 2 picks right up)
