A compact, darkly cloaked form glided from shadow to shadow along the dirty alley behind the sleeping town’s main throughway, avoiding both sprawled out drunks and dying torchlight alike. His fingers twitched hungrily as he moved; it was well past time for his nip of smoking-weed, but he needed solitude.
To be away from the sounds and smells of the merchant estate whose side awning he had appropriated as his own, until either he was discovered or he moved on.
To be away from sweet Kitten, who was dozing on the soft unkempt grass, wrapped tightly in her new cloak whose gain he still questioned yet would not argue further, she being exhausted from when their bodies entwined.
The traveler winced at the reminder of his weakness. Yet another failed hatch mark to his name. Ever would he be at the mercy of consequence; the entire situation was precarious for her young life and what was left of his fractured heart.
A grimy hand palmed his face and wiped across his eyes, physically forcing those thoughts out of his incessantly working mind, and the man quickened his footfalls towards the crumbling stone ruins in the old section of Bree.
Perched atop the sturdiest remains of the ancient masonry, the traveler inhaled deeply the fiery, pungent smoke, holding it within as long as he could go without replenishing his lungs with a breath of pure air, willing its warmth to flood the rest of his body.
Exhaling a long, thin line of grey cloud into the darkness he likewise envisioned sending his broken soul out into the world, perhaps to seek greater refuge elsewhere.
What now?
He flicked ash from his smoke, the dying embers extinguished before they touched the ground below.
He had no business with Bree and indeed longed to be gone from it forever, yet he intended to return Kitten to safety after their travels together and so here he was again. It was an unremarkable town in an unremarkable part of the wide world, in his opinion, and the place seemed to only bring him troubles of the sort that could not be righted by blade or flight.
Imladris.
He chuffed under his breath at the thought of the journey Kitten insisted on attempting, with no provisions and no maps and worse yet, no invitations. It was a failed cause and they should be lucky to remain alive after the attempt, but for all her naivete the girl could never be dissuaded from her chosen course of action once set upon.
Just as he was yet another set-upon course of action, to her. And she got what she wanted then, too.
A nasal grunt, and then he dropped the fading nub of his smoke into the surrounding blackness below.
The man sat on his heels a time, the gentle breeze caressing his worn face, dark eyes seeking out what stars-signs he knew above, piecing together images out of haphazardly scattered distant white glints across the midnight sky.
A cough beset his thin frame, another of those wet hacking sorts that were coming on occasionally. Perhaps if it got worse, he would see about scavenging some herbs in the field for it, but it came and went with irregularity and troubled him little. He spit; lungs relieved, the traveler returned his gaze to another beast of legend crossing the wide heavens above.
The night hid the blood-tinged glob of spittle, and he thought nothing more of it.
