Bree wavers in the distance, a dusty gray smudge clouded by gusting flurries of stinging snow. Flecks of ice chatter against the stiff woolen peak of his cowl, and Aeralhil ducks his head, watching the muddy slush swim past beneath Flindol’s steady hooves.
No frost feels so false as the first, he thinks with a thin twist of his lips.
Fallow fields forlorn with the burden of promise line the Greenway, but there are few houses so near to Bree-town, few homes.
By the time the North-gate struggles into view, the colourless sky has begun to dim, the brooding ash of the heavens darkened to marbled grey. Aeralhil shifts in the saddle as he draws near, nudging his cloak over the long scabbard at his side. He doubts the watchers upon the gate, wretched for want of warmth, will grieve him overmuch for his arms, but discretion is a skill hard-learned and not easily foregone.
The commiserating smile he offers them, along with the brief tale of his thoroughly fictitious wife’s waiting pastries, has Flindol plodding agreeably up the sloping thoroughfare in short order, and the cheer of the lone brazier at the gate quickly becomes little more than a memory to be swiftly forgotten.
Along the wide lane, indistinct passers-by come and go, each dark shape making haste to waiting hearth and home. Despite the lanterns glowing merrily from sill and eave, the chill, it feels, is greater here between the farrier’s and the grocer’s than it had been upon the wide swards of the Greenway.
A tall figure in heavy petticoats bundled near to bursting trots by arm-in-arm with a stout shape staunchly bearing the weight of several large parcels upon its shoulder. Their laughter is quiet, softened by the settling night, loose with the ease of companionship.
The Pony is a long ways away from the gate this eve, it feels.
Flindol ambles on, picking his way gingerly across the slick cobblestones, and Aeralhil touches his heel to the quiver slung behind the cantle. The absence of its weight upon his back unnerves him, as though his bitterly curtailed respite had never been. He tightens his draw hand upon the reins and wills sensation into fingers long stiffened by cold.
The wind rises and tugs his cowl back from his face. He bears its lash for a time, and then he blinks and finds himself suddenly dripping before the hearth in the common room of the Prancing Pony, saddlebags slung over his shoulder, a scuffed iron key warming in the palm of his hand. Absently, he turns to the long tables, searching without thought for a familiar face.
It is a loud, bustling night, and festive good cheer thunders and crashes from flag to rafter and wall to pane with the vigor of the spring-high Snowbourn. The thought sours, and Aeralhil shakes his head with what he hopes is a smile when a rather harried serving girl makes as if to hurdle the nearest table to press some steaming, spiced drink into his hand. Instead, he turns, scuffs his boots upon the coarse mat beside the door, and slips away down the hall, the laughter of ghostly accusation ringing in his ears.
As he winds his way through the warren of halls, the din fades, and he is left with only the quiet rasp of leather on broadcloth for companionship. It is early yet, and the moon only just begun to gleam in a clouded sky, but weariness hounds his heels, dogged and unrelenting.
He finds a familiar door at the bottom of cold, unlit stairs, and slots his key home. The lumpy shadows of stores unearthed for the coming winter crowd the entryway, and Aeralhil tentatively nudges a large barrel with his toe. When it refuses to concede even the inclination of movement, he settles for clambering about in the darkness, making for the far corner of the cellar. There, he finds his memory proven true, and he settles with a grunt onto a small mound of empty, dusty sacks.
Far overhead, the muted rumble of merry-making continues, and weariness and longing together settle into a quiet ache in his bones as he slips his sword belt from about his waist. Stiffly, he curls onto his side, tightening his cloak around his shoulders.
Slumber, when it comes, is not dreamless.
