It was a misty, winter morning in the fair village of Towerglan. The sun shone brightly across the pale blue expanse stretching above the hills, gentle sparkles of reflection shining in turn from grass and cobble as frosted dew had begun to melt. Amidst the quiet air surrounding the settlement stood Dagramir, his dark-clothed frame sticking out sorely in the light of day as he settled outside the front door of his little cottage. A pulsing sensation threatened to burst forth from the confines of his forehead; a sickly-sweet reflux working its way up and down his gullet. Pale beads of sweat beaded across his forehead as he attempted to retain his bearings between the flushes he had been experiencing all morning. Pained since he was so rudely awoken to the chirping of morning birds.
It had been a while since he had consumed so much alcohol, it was true. A delectable night spent in the company of the red ribbon maiden having ensured that his current state was made unavoidable. Despite the throbbing pain that burst across every motion that his head had to offer, in a way, he was thankful for the experience. The life he led within the expanse of the Bree-lands was one comprised of distraction after distraction. Substituting slow, painful experiences with fleeting moments that burned fast and brightly. He knew no other way to live, truly. A life spent on the run, chasing targets and goals with a flaming desire to find success to an end he didn’t quite understand. He had held the success of a warrior, fought countless battles and spars to varying degrees of achievement and wealth. Squandered previous attempts pertaining to that of matrimony and domestication. The most immediate of his time spent wandering the surrounding fields searching for some form of spiritual balance. Nothing, however, could quite prepare him for the matter of fatherhood.
He had fathered bastards before, to the best of his knowledge. The unavoidable consequences of enjoying the fruits of one’s labour a little too much. In fact, only one babe had he bore within the confines of marriage - that being a girl belonging to the Kolten family. Fate had played with the Gondorian, taking his wife and child from him so quickly after they had arrived. A violence embedded into the fabric of the world that he had taken years to fathom. Losses that left him cold; a shadow floating its way through the lands using the drunken embrace of ephemeral lovers, and cold glass bottles, to attempt to fill the cracks that had threatened to crumble him to a pile of rubble. He could feel himself slipping back into old habits the more time he spent within those damned walls of the local inn, his struggles with the devil’s water frothing to bear. Time flowed as the Baranduin. To their likely dismay, no man would ever stand eternal. As the months passed him by camped in the hills, he had attempted to come to an understanding that perhaps he was cursed to wander alone. Domestic bliss naught but an illusion, a convenient distraction to tempt him to dull his senses and lose his discipline. That understanding shattered when he finally found himself face to face with his Raven once more.
“…Mister Audun, sir? Ye were sayin’?”
Dagramir found himself blinking for a few moments before he was thrust back into the harsh glare of reality. A wince fastened to him with a painful prominence as he turned to address the man who had so rudely removed him from his disjointed ponders. The young Bree-lander came into full view, his neatly trimmed auburn hair and glowing skin putting his own ghostly appearance to definite shame.
“Yes! That should be everything, Mister Beckett, thank you. Feel free to enter the house when you arrive to properly disperse with the crates, I’ll be along shortly.”
“Are ye sure ye don’t want a lift? There’s space in th’ back?”
The man named Beckett would have jabbed a thumb towards the cart and horse that lay waiting towards the end of his drive. The boxes and odds of furniture arranged in such a way that could provide him with a seat. A kind gesture from a man being paid little for his services, all things considered. Dagramir bit at his tongue with muted dismay, however. He was no man at all were he to succumb to the annals of pity provided to him by a concerned local.
“That’s quite alright, thank you,” would come the usual measured response, the pale man regarding his companion with a friendly smile. “I’ll be fine with the walk. Ashforde is only a few hills over, is it not? Besides, I’d like to make my peace with the land.”
“Suit yoursel’…” would come the sarcastic response of disbelief, a tone of voice that, while inflammatory to some, Dagramir could find the humour within. Regarding him with as wide a grin as he could muster as the man turned to mount his steed and set off for their shared destination.
He had shared little with the man in his current employ, save for the notion that he had enjoyed a few drinks too many. His silver tongue was becoming forcibly more disciplined in its wandering nature, having caught on quickly to the latest quirk that had begun to offer him unwanted trouble. An inability to avoid sharing his passing thoughts. Perhaps it was a feature of age, an internal solution his mind had created to avoid a certain self-destruction. Since learning of the existence of a son, his son, his state had become one borne of an absent mind. He had expected a quick dismissal once his eyes had reached the back of that familiar, slender frame. The raven-hair and confident gait. His charm ineffective in shielding him from the blows he was soon to receive for his choice to leave; to better himself in his own company, lest he be torn in twain by lies muttered through gritted teeth.
His love for her had not died, nay, it had been nurtured in her absence to become something much greater than a tangible, inexplainable hunger for skin to meld as one. Seeing first-hand the woman she had become, the power she now wielded both through her hands and her words, he had felt a quiet swell of pride fill his chest. His journey had finally, after all this time, brought him to her feet - but the path beyond lay shrouded in fog. The cobbles only becoming visible once she had revealed to him the secret she had been keeping buried beneath her feathers.
Arthur.
The name brought a smile to his lips, a warmth to his bones. The mere notion that he would come to meet his son one day soon was what kept him driven, milling around a town which he had held no initial interest to be in. Spending each of his days finding new forms of mischief he could land both himself and Jegauer into, much to his old friend’s stern disapproval. It was these aimless wanders that led him to share those potentially expired bottles of indeterminable spirits with the maiden. Their spar of wits interspersed with the sloshing of foreign liquids and oh so casual glances. Those subsequent drunken stumbles led him on a path to be held upright by the shaking hands of the huntress before he could crash his way into the calming black of the unconscious. A darkened memory shrouded in ambiguity, followed by a few fleeting moments of embarrassment to the state at which he had found himself in. He found himself praying to whatever existed above the skies that his lips had held taut in her presence, for both their sakes...
The man would rasp an unsteady sigh to himself, heaving out a plume of white air that danced pleasantly through the morning light. With a grunt, he found his mouth smacking with an unpleasant dryness that led his feet to stumble away from his previous address and down to the freshwater lake that flowed nearby. He offered no final consideration to his home as he meandered away from it, no long look of goodbye. A cottage that held, within, a mountain of memories from pleasant times now past. Those moments belonged to a different man, a man he no longer recognised when faced with his reflection in the water to his front. With each ripple of the water beneath his boots, he could see his figure morph. A brief glimpse with each lap at the younger rogue of old, a fresh-faced charmer burdened by nightmares and unrequited love. Between each image lay an older truth, one gritted in the reality in which he stood - an older, more assured ne’er-do-well whose scraggly beard and weathering features demeaned his beauty. The soft, cerulean eyes and the well-rehearsed smirk, however, was the one constant that threaded through his states of being.
After a few moments of recollection, he would wet his face with the waters below; cleansing him of any further doubt that this wasn’t indeed the right thing for him to do. To leave the village he had held his home within for so many years. Departing each memory he had spent there, leaving them to dust within the pages of an unread chronicle. The Dawnhall had grown decrepit in its state in his mind, neglected in its abandonment. Any friends he had once held there had left long ago, leaving him behind to wallow in infamous self-pity. And now it was his turn. A turn of the proverbial page. To attempt to maintain this new vision he had for himself, he required somewhat of a fresh start. Nothing needed to burn, but he certainly longed for the change of scenery. A larger home to tie him closer to those that still existed in his recent memory - the ones that made each day he spent dawdling around, waiting for notice that it was time to see her face once more, worthwhile.
There were no words needed to be said as he turned to depart his lake, his home, his past. He could spend eons considering items relevant to history, but what good would it do him now? Nostalgia was only worth consideration when it led to a betterment of one’s self and their current situation, a representation that minutes once enjoyed could most certainly be enjoyed again. The moments in between, the times like these which provided the catalyst for change, were the ones to be cherished the most. His head continued to ache, and nausea continued to root deep in his belly. The friends whom he held company brought forth laughter and joy that he had not felt for years. And a child of his own creation lay tantalisingly within his reach, as did the dimmed embers of a love he hoped to rekindle. Gods willing. Were he ever to fail in his various endeavours, to succumb to his past tendencies, at least he held peace in that it was not through a lack of trying.
Time would be what he would make of it, of that he was now certain.
