Blood. Dagramir had seen plenty of it, but there was something melancholy about the way this particular taboo liquid spurted out of the neck he had just drove his dagger through. Not his own, oh no, he had seen quite enough of his own blood in recent times to warrant at least a break from blood expulsion. No, the blood that now dripped down the ancient wall of stone before him belonged to the middle-aged local whom he held clamped in his grasp. Fingers curled roughly around the other man's collar, and his knife entering one side of his dirty neck, and protruding fairly crudely out the other. The young Gondorian was not fortunate enough to avoid being hit by the spray of severed artery, and as liquid pattered upon his exposed cheek, and neck, he winced.
"Ugh.. Fuck sake..", would be the rather callous groan he emitted, before unsheathing his knife from the confines of flesh and muscle, and allowing the gargling man to slump down to the floor. Life draining from his wretched face. There was always something calming about watching a man's life drain from him, so Dagramir thought to himself. Self-awareness dictated that he should question whether or not such an uncouth pleasure meant he had a few screws loose in his brain, but, such a lust for death was the norm at this point. Especially for a man of his experience. There was more than a few men he longed to stand, watching sink to the floor, losing blood at an alarming rate. Startled eyes that were once full of youthful hubris, and hope, slowly losing their vigour. Their wonder. Glazing over 'til life was naught but a fleeting memory, and their soul was expelled to wander the wastes of whatever lay beyond death. Poetic, life and death were. The only inevitable things one could expect from their existence. 'Lest they be Elves, in which case they were damned to an eternity of watching those die around them. Death. So curious in its warm embrace. Something he had thought about often in his comparatively short time alive. Something he continued to think about as he wiped his bloodied blade upon his sleeve, and swiveled on his heels. Stepping over the faces of anguish, and contorted bodies, that he had left in his wake in order to leave the brigand camp he had just so effectively extinguished.
There was little more to his life now than dealings of macabre. Men like Ebold may know one hundred, and one, ways to murder fantastical beasts of yore, but these were tactics that Dagramir found pointless. He was much more content in his knowledge of men. The human anatomy. Points of pressure to make men squeal like animals being led to the slaughter; the main locations on a body that, once opened with a blade, were notoriously hard to stop exhuming blood; and, of course, areas to position his hands in order to maintain the desired, breathy affections of a woman. He was no master of psychology, but he knew how to read a body much like one may read a book. And thus, he was an expert in his craft. A firecracker waiting to be lit, that no one seemed to take note of. A decade of skilled experience that only now was he just beginning to enjoy utilizing. Perhaps he had reached his apex. He doubted it, but why else was he feeling so content? It was of no fault of Narys, he knew that much. His opinions, and thoughts, upon her as wild as the nights they had spend together prior to her 'betrayal'. Though even that was beginning to drift from the forefront of his thoughts. Ropes finally loosening at his behest to allow his mind to float. To wander. As it so often does. Mayhap it's Ashaia, and the innocent tension that lay between their own shared endeavours. How he did so enjoy spending time with the woman, the only other mind he deemed worthy now to poke around in his own. It wasn't often he found someone whose experiences of life were so similar to his own. It wasn't often he was willing to commit to obligations that neutered his so infamous reputation.
But his wander back towards the safety of those hedge-walls that he dared call 'home' was marred with other thoughts. As he felt his fingertips grazing upon the edge of happiness, there was another whose existence was filled with sorry, and pain. Sairona. Silver. Whatever her name was, she was living a life of anguish, and had now chosen to end it all. His respect for her 'blaze of glory' was unspoken, but he could not sit by and allow it to happen. Of course, if he did, for once he may not have been a hypocrite, and he couldn't have had that. So, meandering his way through the gates, and exchanging a brief conversation of pleasantries with the local man on watch, he makes his way to the oh so familiar market-stalls. He had supplies to collect. A backpack to fill. For there was a journey he now had to undertake, in an attempt to save someone's soul. If his was doomed to be black for the rest of eternity, the least he could do was stop another from suffering the same damnable fate. The young man didn't even have a direction to follow, save for the previous location of a camp where they had warmed their bodies, but, that would have to do. The human psyche, so predictably unpredictable, it would seem. For there were truly no two men alike.
Be it the drifting souls, that have no place yet to call 'home', damning themselves to the notorious calling of death, and the serenity it brings.
Be it the beautiful, inquisitive minds that have not stopped in the face of adversity, and continue to strive for happiness even in the face of certain death.
Be it the tortured souls ripped apart by indecisiveness, absence, and lust, that struggle to cope with the horrors of reality, and stare at death like a wistful lover.
Or be it a mind so full of wanderlust, and adventure, that now lay eerily still, encased in a steadily freezing case of bone and blood. Motionless and white.
But death? Death is certain. As certain as the divine deity that will forever burn a hole of light in the sky. As certain as the aforementioned star may rise in the East, and set in the West. As certain as rivers shall continue to flow with the power of nature herself, and as mountains may forever stand stoic over Middle-Earth like proud Kings over their domain. As certain as failure. As certain as education. As certain as human stupidity. As certain as fleeting moments of bliss...
How difficult it is to rid one's mind of an infection. A plague, a virus, malicious in its intent of driving out all manner of sanity, and replacing it with its own crude take on the world. Love. Love was one such infection. An infection that Dagramir longed for in his life, something pure to call his own, something he had lost since the separation of his marriage, and the departure of his wife and child. He thought he had found it recently, he did, but it seemed to prove fruitless, much to his anger and dismay. It seemed that his past experiences of life had left him more susceptible to opening up than he once thought. That meaningless coitus had not hardened his soul, as he had so very hoped it would. No, he was the same broken man he had been for a long time now. Held together by very little, save for the steady coursing of blood, and a clichéd quest for what was surely proving to be so tauntingly unobtainable. Perhaps helping someone else off the edge of a void was his way of finding his own path. His own trail to take in life. Validating himself to be worthy of a continual. Or, perhaps he genuinely did care for that particular woman's well-being. Either way, the journey was to be undertaken. Following a trip to quench his thirst for alcohol, and clean himself up, at the Prancing Pony, of course..
Oh, life. What bitter surprises have you in store yet?
