2 Ert and Peep

A refuge swordsman questions his future.

2 There is a long establish and honourable tradition of starting storeys from the beginning and generally I believe it is a good idea to follow it, however an attack upon a small village by overgrown demoniacally possessed carrots dose not seem a good way to get this one taken seriously so I shall skip over this grave event and place the record needle of narrative down upon two survives of this raid on a sunny day in a busy and only slightly stinky market town on the north-easterly hills of the Redhair Kingdom:

In a rickety lopsided room above a herb store Ert was bored. His girl friend Peap still sleeping soundly on the straw mattress. He’d realised he wished he had a job to do some time ago. This had surprised him because he’d bean quite a lazy boy (at least when it came to house chores or schooling but not when it came to exploring the woods or setting rabbit snares) and had enjoyed his first few days of relaxation as an adult. But there were no jobs in the town at the moment not unless you were a trader or a craftsmen or served beer or food to traders and craftsmen. Ert wasent any of those things, what was he now? A adventure? A beast slayer? It seamed ridicules to even think it. Those descriptions were for hard men covered in scars with no future to risk and no past they cared to remember, who’s mistress was the road and who's only loves were there sord and the plunder it brought them. Well perhaps not all of them were like they were in the storeys but he was priy sure they weren’t meant to have a fresh young face and come home (if he even managed to go out, this winter was bitter) everyday to a cosy apartment and a warm broth made by there darling fiancé.

And yet he did have that scared past and the coin in his pocket had come from the nests of beasts, bringing news from the wilderness and a reward for slaying a daemon!. He laughed at himself he didn’t even dare relieve his boredom by practising with the sword in case someone saw that he didn’t really know how to handle it, he’d just bean in the right places at the right times. He still had difficulty of thinking of it as his sword it was just something that had bean at hand when that bush demon attacked and then the store owner had let him keep it, proclaiming loudly his gratitude and his merchandise’s role in the “heroics”. He stared at it in its scabbard against the wall, he didn’t know what he was, he didn't know what he wanted to be be or how he was going to become anything. He wondered if he was destined to become a follower of the God of Indecision.

He heard a slight rustling of hay bedding. Well there is one thing I am sure about he though as he looked over at Peap steering gently while her dreams slowly left her. It still makes me glad to share whatever my life is with her.