[Open] The Weary Return

[Elgee]

Dragonmount Forums

 

Dragon Reborn Role Playing => Tar Valon (DR) => Topic started by: Pumonca on 13-08-2010, 21:17:04

 

 

 

Title: [Open] The Weary Return

Post by: Pumonca on 13-08-2010, 21:17:04

 

The wheels of the wagon creaked as iron rivets ground through swollen wood. The road was damp, and mud suckled to the turning planks as though it wished to delay him every second possible. Vaerdeth was too weary to mind it. He had reached a position of mental trudging. He continued to hold the reigns merely due to his physical fortitude and mental stamina. Gone were the higher thought processes, diluted were his perceptive capabilities. He was weighed down by a year's days, and his shoulders sagged with wear and tear. He was so close, now, as small shops inched past his wagon tracks. Even the ox carrying the tiny, dilapidated cart he had mounted nearly twenty hours prior took steps more akin to that of an automoton than a living, spirited creature. The White Tower rose into the sky, scraping the darkened clouds which lurked forebodingly about its pinnacle. Winding streets, while being well endowed for diffusing any enemy invasion's surge, wore on him as he often turned about, appearing to head almost away from the Tower, until his course was corrected by a turn down a sidestreet.

 

He had spent so long in so many cities that his time in Tar Valon had faded to a mist-shrouded memory. He had gone through training in the city, and he still remembered plenty of public houses, yet he had always been so drunk or inattentive that he had no cognitive map of side streets and short cuts to take. He felt more like a tourist than a former denizen. The leather reigns, softened by oil and sweat, dragged over his fingertips, sending his skin to tingle with sensation as he drew the ox and cart onto another main street. The Tower's bridge and gate rose up before him, and he wondered who was left here. This was no homecoming. He was returning to a place where his friends and allies were constantly leaving, dying, or too engrossed in their own mattters to loiter about with anticipation. His scraggly beard had stopped itching his face with its coarse fibers. If it were not for his unique weapon, and his overall size, he doubted anyone would even recognize him. He was one lost to death at the hands of trollocs long ago, and he wondered now if he even should have returned. Perhaps, unbonded, he should have settled somewhere into a mundane life. The wagon's frame shifted as he went over a small bump before drawing his path up over the bridge.

 

He was tired enough that he did little more than grimace at the jostling's assault to his hip and ass on that unpadded plank of wood he sat upon. He was hardly the steeled man he once was. Perhaps he should simply forget his backpay, forget his old life, and let the oath he had spoken long ago die on the lips of a shade. As a ghost, he was reboarn. And yet something bound him to his path, and his course was set, unwaveringly. He was a guard of the tower, and he would pay for the sins of his father with his life. There was no other choice, no other route. Eventually, if he hid, the behemoth of Tear would be recognized for who he once was. He had no choice but to return. He drew his form aloft as he sat. His broad shoulders squared and his jaw set as he drew strength from within. Who had died? Who was missing? Was his mentor even around, or would he fail to ever see a Heron on his head? The world was an unknown. It was a looming Other with a vacant face more like a myrdraal's missing features than a friendly adventure. What lurked, waiting for him. A bit of history, of death, fo failures and accomplishments of thsoe he had once called brother and sister would be told to him? How many were gone or forgotten of him when he spent those cold nights huddled against branches, mud, and rock struggling to return, wanting nothing more than a helping hand? There was much he questioned of life, but he was not the Weaver. Vaerdeth Val'a'Shar was but a strand in the loom.