Cold. Dreary. Bleak.
Furley’s boots scraped along the wet cobbles and sloshed through the puddles, his cloak wrapped tightly about him as he made his way through Bree on his way home. He sighed, and breathed out deeply, every breath he took seemingly lowering his mood further as the rain came down upon his well-hatted head and soaked him through.
His stomach burned with the feel of too much cheap brandy, and it had not even managed to warm him through. He kept his eyes cast upon the cobbles, not caring to look up at his surroundings, or hold his face up to be battered by the ever-growing breeze.
Sighing again, he came closer and closer to home, but it still seemed an age away as he left the south gate. Trying to close himself off, it avoided the weather of memory washing over him and consuming him in its downpour, and it helped him avoid him thinking of distant lands again.
She walked through this gate, he thought. She walked the East Road as we all do, and she left me beyond the horizon.
Looking up, angry at himself, he growled, quickened his steps and shook himself like a dog, droplets of water flying off his sodden garments and hat as he tried to banish the thoughts from his mind.
Some time later, he made it to his door, and his shivering, shaking hands pulled out a rusty key, which turned noisily in the lock as the dry hinges of the unvarnished oak door creaked open, and he stepped into the darkness of his home.
Not caring enough to wipe his feet, he flicked his boots off and left them in the middle of the floor and moved straight into the small room, not bothering to light the sconces. Instead, he shuffled to the fireplace and reignited it as the fresh wood he’d placed there in the morning slowly began to take to the flame.
Stripping off his clothes, he wrung them out and hung them to dry close to the fire and pulled a thick blanket over his shoulders as he sat beside the fire. His stomach still turned from the brandy, and it burned his throat as he felt rather dizzy and sick. Truth be told, though, he did not know if it was from the brandy or the pang of emptiness and loneliness he had felt within himself for so long.
He didn’t stare at the fire, as on many a night he would have done. Instead, he stared bleakly at the rack of wine by the door, mentally fighting the battle within him of whether he should reach for it or not. Standing up, he shuffled over to the rack and selected one of the cheaper vintages and uncorked it. He didn’t let it settle or breathe. He merely threw the cork into the growing fire, and put his lips to the bottle, and drank, deeply.
Sitting down again with a thud and a sigh, a splash of water trickled down his cheek, and he momentarily closed his eyes.
There she was. Standing atop the hill, bathed in light and the warmth of a summer day. Smiling at him, a kite in hand. “Come” she said. “Come and join me”. Feeling drowsy, he didn’t open his eyes, and instead drifted drunkenly to that point in his mind. He walked up to her. “Come and join me”, she said to him. “Come to me”. He almost smiled, as he walked closer and closer to her, and felt the warmth on his face.
Until he heard a horrendous, shrill shriek, and her face shaped into horror. She vanished before his eyes, and the light about her instantly dissipated into a pitch blackness. Not even enough time to gasp, a horse ran at him, its rider bellowing angrily at him as his sword came flashing down toward his head, then as soon as it had come it swiftly disappeared once more and his head spun him around to face the other way and a spear flashed through his shoulder, piercing his flesh and bone but he had not even the time to shriek, but he found it had pinned him down and he had become immobile and unable to move, as suddenly his face flared with searing heat and all about him was red and black with fire and smoke and he could smell nothing but burnt wood and thatch.
Then, as he looked in front of him, he saw himself. Clad in Wold armour, sneering at him with eyes black as night, and his own silhouette laughed so deep that he felt the very reach of death emerge from him as he was kicked backward with an almighty slam of a boot into his chest as he was engulfed in fire and searing agony.
“Why would you let me go alone? Why did you keep forsaking me? You always leave me behind!”
Opening his eyes, he flung himself backward, finally gasping and tipping the bottle in the process. Breathing in short and quick bursts, he looked about him and felt his face. He was still sodden, but his cheeks had warmed in his proximity to the fireplace, and as he looked round he quickly picked up the wine bottle and almost cradled it.
He could bury his head in his work, but it only made him pine for a life beyond papers. He went for walks to soothe his mind, but he found himself unconsciously retracing the steps of memory as he ambled upon the routes they had once traversed. He could drink, but that brought him back to the feeling of his former life long ago.
But the latter soothed him for a time. The aching in his stomach abated to be replaced by a sting on the tongue and the reddening of teeth as he drank. Sighing, he looked about him, and focused on the grey dreariness beyond his window and the sound of the pattering of droplets on the pane. He let his mind be filled with the sound, and it brought him nothingness, and he allowed himself to linger in that limbo.
Thinking back on recent events, he didn’t recall them with much pride, but more with an emptiness. A sinking pit in his chest. A dwarf had started a fight in the tavern, and instead of walking away had found himself in a cell for the night after retaliating. Because he hadn’t cared for the consequences. Earlier today, Deorla had found herself (unsurprisingly), face-to-face with a bounty hunter. Furley had stood by her, out of habit more than anything, but he’d allowed himself to get angry.
He provoked the man. Goaded him. Furley had no weapon, so was defenceless against this probable killer. But he hadn’t cared for the consequences, either. In his heart, he had once again begun to freeze over, and had lost his personal regard once again. Looking at the bottle, nearly empty from how much he’d drank and the spillage upon his floor, he watched the floorboards dampen and slowly be dyed by the vintage, and he looked up again at the wine rack.
It was a dangerous road, but he could always reach for another bottle. Let the liquid pour down his throat, into his stomach and fill the empty gaps where he felt pangs and pits, and it would get him through the night.
Shaking his head, he left the bottle on the floor and crawled into bed, curling up under the blankets. He wasn’t quite ready to admit defeat upon himself, or upon her. He’d endure another night, and all the nights that would come after. He would not break his word, and he’d hold onto hope as much as he could.
“Always one more round” he thought, smiling. “I may burn one day for what I’ve done, but I will not do so by my own hand”.
Closing his eyes, he drifted off, hoping that instead of the silhouettes of the past, he would once again see her, standing on the hill, with a kite in her hand and a breeze at her back.
