Four young men sat a thick, sturdy, round wooden table in a tavern, drinking ale and shrugging away their collective fears and grievances. One of them, a strong young man called Devan Stone, sat limply, not touching his ale, and not saying a word to the others as they worried about him in very loud whispers, had silent tears streaming down his face. His green eyes were dull even in the light of the fireplace and the numerous candles sprinkled throughout the tavern, and his dark brown hair was hidden by the shade of his pulled up hood. Ever so swiftly, his friends turned to watch him with worried eyes as he slowly got up from the table and headed up the tavern steps to the inn above. Before he could reach the first step, a slightly drunken man sitting at a table near a window shouted out in a loud voice, "Hey boy! Why you crying? You should be celebratin' seein' as them dragon riders just won their first battle against the Shadow!" Devan turned around and glared at the man, hood still pulled over his face, and slowly took it off to reveal his recently slashed, angular face, green eyes, and dark brown hair.
He snarled, "My friends might have won that battle, but I didn't."
The man gasped and looked taken aback. "I- I'm so s-sorry sir, I didn't see it w-was you! I am very sorry for your loss!"
Devan looked back at his friends and gave them an injured, but apologetic look; he had blown their cover with his brash ways. He headed upstairs, but not before beckoning one of his buddies to give the drunk man a little scare.
One of his fellows, Erick, obliged, and told his female dragon, Lyrica, to stick her gargantaun, round yellow eye in front of the tiny window near the stairs, and she did. She sidled up to the window and peered into it, and Devan heard the drunk man yelp with fear before Lyrica slid away. Devan smiled mischievously. It was ok to be just a tad rude sometimes, to take a break from being too kind.
