Alaytar
To heal my heart and drown my woe…
Jade doesn’t know what to think when I tell her not to lock the door tonight. She is more astonished when I pick up my cloak and begin to leave.
“You went out last night!”
“I need to go out again,” I answer, though I am slightly ashamed at my weakness. I want to make her see that it’s not a big deal, that I will be alright and probably sober by morning. So I say, “Jade, don’t be alarmed if I come home with a woman on my arm.”
She takes me seriously, and whams me across the face with her hand.
I allow her the benefit of a doubt, and hurry out of the palace.
Jade doesn’t understand the pain Ëarendil and I have though she often asks how I stay sane. This is part of the answer: an escape on the grimmest, darkest nights.
I frequent the bar that Ëarendil and I met in last night.
I was actually joking about bedding a girl tonight – I can honestly say I have never done it since Kassandra – but that doesn’t stop dozens for girls from swarming me as soon as I enter. Most of them don’t know me more than my name and my face. It doesn’t stop me from talking to them, either.
Between shots, I let the prettiest sit on my lap. I close my eyes, run my unsteady hands though her thick, black hair, and kiss her blood-red mouth. A conscious thrill racks me as she settles against me and lays her head on my shoulder. I pretend she’s Kassandra, and the thought gives me comfort and even pleasure as I caress her.
We’re all here, the men and he-elves from the council, abashed at our weak hearts but driven here by necessity. One by one, we lose our sobriety, reason, control of our passions but most of all our pain. No one will admit it in the morning, and the same men who I’m laughing with now will refuse to acknowledge my existence tomorrow morning.
That’s the life I have not lived since I was married because I’ve never needed to so desperately before. I drank the night after I lost Kassandra, and in my rage I almost slept with a girl to mock Kassandra. Thankfully, I thought better of it, and I’ve never drank myself into stupidity since.
Cheers, fellows, until the next calamity.
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Wanderer
FantasyShe never dreamed that she would have to give him up. He only dreamed of going. Earendil the Mariner is in love with the sea. It dominates his waking his hours and his dreams. It's beginning to take over his life. He's got to choose what's more impo...
