Besotted Adjective
1: Blindly or utterly infatuated
2: Intoxicated or stupefied especially with drink
"To save broken hands, one must travel to far off lands". This had become her mantra, her reasoning to be so far from home. The hawkish overbearing attention of her father, and those paid by him, not solely to, but who watched her, became stifling. Gone were the days when she was tiny, sat upon his lap to be regaled with tales of the stars being diamonds, or those of winged beasts that horded treasure. She had grown, much to his dismay, from that small, wide eyed child into a young and comely woman.
Stropsy was his name, rather, one bestowed upon him by the other miners, for he always seemed to be in a strop, angry with the world and his place in it. The name did nothing to improve this. His work ethic was lacking, for instead of hewing ore from stone, a jewel had caught his eye, one in the form of the mine owners daughter. She did nothing to dissuade him. At seventeen springs, she knew what she wished, what most wished at such an age, the attention of the opposite sex. He was, in her eyes, perfection. Hot, dirty, sweaty perfection of muscle, shaggy black hair, and as the days went on, shirtless, to tease her as she watched him work from afar. He was also her senior, twenty five years of age, but to her it did not matter, for she had become besotted. He on the other hand became bolder, stealing moments to talk with her, only to be summoned back by an irritable foreman over and over again. Her mood had changed in the coming days, for now she sung, albeit badly, from the moment she woke to the moment she slept, or so it seemed to her suffering fathers ears. There was a joy within her, a loneliness banished, and in her heart she felt she had found a love that rivaled any other for even the moon and stars would be jealous of them, two lovers, destined to be with one another till they died. Stropsy on the other hand, was simply eager to know her young body. So it was, one day, hidden or so they thought, they embraced behind a bunkhouse. She would ask of him promises to keep, all of which he readily agreed to as long as she did not stop his lustful advances. Yet, stopped they were. A rough hand from a man much larger, pulling him away from her, dragging him down into the dirt where he was kicked, punched, battered and beaten till blood ran from his once charming face, to the muddy puddles beneath him. Her shrieks and protests did nothing to stop the assault, only to add more injury, for her father was now alerted, and so Adrians..rather..Stropsys fate was sealed. The overbearing form of her father, a man aged by sad circumstances and fueled by anger, ordered a hammer was brought forth, one that had seen much use, heavy, crude, a working mans tool. He weighed it in his hand, spat at the man now held down on the ground by two other workers, two that despised him for all his anger and propensity to start fights. He berated him, warned him, cursed him, then he brought down the hammer, smashing the bones in one hand, the screams not deterring him from doing the same to his other. No one would be allowed to touch his daughter, they all knew, Adrian knew yet still did. So, he was cast out, with assurances he would never have the full use of his hands ever again, he would never work in the mines again, and he would be blinded if he so much as looked at his daughter again.
Years passed and it took much time for her father to trust her, to be assured that not every man lusted after his child, not every man was a Stropsy. Though in this time, she learnt many things, things he had withheld from her in hopes of keeping her like the young girl who was once fascinated by his bed time stories. One day she would be wed to someone befitting, someone from a family of a similar trade, a merchants, a miners, but most importantly a man who would contribute to the wealth of the family, a prosperous union. A man who would care for her in the manner he saw befitting. A man he would ultimately choose on her behalf. She was his ultimate jewel, he too was besotted.
So she set forth, traveling directly to the Bree-lands. It was not terribly far but far enough to smell freedom, to embrace a life of her own, to reap the riches...to fall...for he was correct, in all his anger, he was. There were Adrians. They became besotted.
