There was an eerie silence that had befallen the fair village of Towerglan. Nothing out of the ordinary, as the sun followed its usual path, coursing gently below the mountainous horizon as it always did. Lights flickered into being among the occupied houses, gleaming yellow candlelight painting misted windows into beautiful canvases, while their occupants slowly wound down for the evening.
The little house towards the conjunction of Chestnut Street and High Road was no different. It's usually darkened frame slowly lit up as its occupant went about his business, business that was certainly long overdue. Deft fingers went about their work, as logs were placed and the hearth within was blasted into being. Dagramir had spent a lot of time on the road the past year, he hadn't quite realized just how much he missed the serenity that a brief spurt of normality could bring. The warmth from the flickering flames brought an unusual ease across his form, one that was almost, dare he admit it, enjoyable. It sure beat the cold evenings he had spent roadside on his journeys. Even more so, it beat the facade of warmth that was supplied to him by whatever other he found to occupy a bed with him in any tavern that suited the moment.
He had been doing a lot of that, of late. Sacrificing his morals for a spurt of faux emotion. Nights laced with passionless passion that led to the same fairytale ending. The handsome rogue leaving under the pleasant cover of dawn, to return himself to his much preferred dose of solace. While he had been busy, collecting the company of whispers that were already beginning to flaunt their uses to his cause, he had found himself relying on the process far too much, and not for the fun but for the distractions it brought. Aye, he was famed for the debauchery, the callous scheming, and infamous tongue, but of late there appeared to be something...missing.
Thoughts of such an all-consuming nature brought him to the curse of the Raven after not very long. How long had it been since he had last heeded the call of the siren? While her form lay absent from his gaze, the more he drank, the more her features still drifted into his dreams. He worried that by answering the call it would reveal more of his psyche than he felt he was privy to. At least, for now. He had been keeping a general ear open in her direction. Heard the whispers of a departure from her office, pondered on the implications of what such a move might have brought with it. Though of all the interest in his heart's complications, he had no more of an ability to visit her as he did the seductress. A year may have passed, but he felt no safer in her arms than he did when he first stumbled upon her cottage. There were few women who had found the keys to his mind so easily as those he chose to avoid. Unnecessary complications of analysis proved fatal in his line of work, as had been proven to him so often before. There were demons that he had chosen not to face...though for how much longer he could last before the call of the siren finally pierced through his walls, he knew not.
Perhaps that was why the distractions of the young girl were providing a better outlet for his angst than the demon drink. A pretty thing, by all measures, yet even he knew enough livelihoods had been destroyed at the expense of trying to save him. His fate was sealed, it always had been. To the Gondorian, life was but a matter of time. An endless cascade of sand that, no matter the cost, he chose to plug the hole with something, anything, that could give him a few more years of eternity. Ignorance was bliss; and there was no greater provider than that of drink or skin. His thoughts meandered down their usual tracks. Something he quickly shook off as he sat at his desk, shuffling his papers into neater piles than they were previously. Predictability was for the old. Something Dagramir could ill-afford to ever become.
The world was one that was certainly unforgiving, he knew that all too well. His black-as-night hair would eventually grey, his athletically-muscular form would ultimately begin to seize, his eyes would wither in submission to all the light, and dark, they had witnessed. In the end, no man was greater than another when laid to rest as a misshapen pile of bones. The ornate design of his casket mattered little when he was not there to witness its decadent glory. Nay, his quest for power did not have the aspirations of leaving a legacy of physical form, more so of namesake. For his sons, and daughters, to be inspired with pride that their father was the once-great Black Viper of Minas Tirith. Yet he had laid more destruction in his wake than that of his ill-fated father. Could a man truly be judged on anything other than his intentions? Perhaps; when the littering of bodies piled high enough to warrant questions, who couldn't blame them?
His eyes scanned the mottled ink before him, reading page after page of all he had written. That which he hadn't already burned in a blaze of momentary hatred. Only a few pages remained to be sifted through this morn. The butcher's work almost tantalizingly complete. Though Dagramir's gently-calloused hands paused as he reached a certain bundle. His barely-started memoirs lay as ragged as they ever had done, glaring up at him. An attempt to place his fantastical story in the earshot of those who hadn't heard the abridged, inebriated version already, when he had consumed one too many glasses of something, or other. What use did they hold now, other than a reminder of the pain that had encapsulated him prior to his ascendance? Little. His blue eyes wandered the yellowing pages for a few further moments, before his pale fingers did the rest. With a quick motion, he tossed them carelessly to his right, each page drifting down towards the ablaze hearth, crackling upon contact of each lick of the flames. Their information lost to the hellfire below. His eyes watched the cinders drop from each letter, and he found a measure of comfort, before returning to his front. Scanning through a few more pages, his fingers pondered the paper, scanning for key words that might save them from the fate that their peers had suffered naught moments ago. His gaze drifted. ‘Merchant.’ 'Coin.’ 'Blackthorn.’
Blackthorn.
Dagramir paused to accommodate a smile. Now there was a name he hadn't heard in years. Once more his thoughts began to drift, musing on what had become of his previous companions. Marsdan and the Shield-Maiden had likely settled, so he could only assume. Ebold, on the other hand, had risen to power so quickly that he, himself, had once been jealous of the man's aptitude. The beast-hunter impressed him in many ways. Boring him in others, but, he was the Captain. 'Former.’ He corrected himself quickly. Not quite believing those rumours to be true when they had first reached his earshot, though the more time passed him by the more he was inclined to believe them. He had stayed far enough away from the Dawnhall to avoid becoming entangled in that particular web once more. His ambitions of returning had waned with each day, and the news that his former companion had relinquished hold ultimately left him...incomplete. His plans, however rough they were, had to be altered, adapted. Just as they had when he convinced Mars to follow them and join the ranks of the ever so infamous Bloody Dawn.
A greater man than he would have followed the short path back to his proverbial 'home', yet the duty to do so still went missing from his mind. When he first chose to pin the sigil upon his breast, he had done so under provision that he was there to make coin, and be done with it. Further complications down the road tied him to his kin, he could not deny that, though if those he still garnered a measure of interest for had waned away...what exactly would he be returning to? The Viper now had no home; and perhaps that's the way it should have always been. He thrived under the scrutiny, and the vulnerability, that being responsible for one's own actions brought. So far, the recent contracts he had undertaken as the silver-tongued Gondorian charmer had been under the guise of a Sergeant of the Bloody Dawn. The mere thought brought his ocean-hued eyes downwards, shuffling the papers away further onto the desk. There, in his breast pocket, sat that infamous silver sigil. Slow, calculated breaths flowed through his trachea, filling his lungs before receding out into the room. Measuring his next steps carefully, he lifted a hand to his shirt, unsheathing the badge out of his pocket with two deft fingers. Allowing the metal to glint in the light, observing the very nature of its battered being, before he laid it down onto the wood to his front. Another breath, settling his hands onto his lap, before a slow smirk sidled on his face.
A new day was mere hours away from dawning over the Bree-lands, and Dagramir was honour-bound to see it spent wisely. It was time to return to the fold; a free man. To make coin again, his way, and have a hell of a lot of fun while doing so. Plans of grandeur might still have rang bells distantly in the back of his mind, however there was still so much to be done. A life to be lived. A woman to be loved. Experiences to be felt through every fibre of his being, allowing his wild heart to roam free once more. As it did so vividly in the few days he spent working under the banner of Blackthorn. For that, truly, was where he was at his best. A gleam shining in his eye, he slid the chair backwards before slithering to his feet. His very destiny was now in the palm of his hands.
And it was now time to answer the siren.
