A thump on the door and the blacksmith, a brown-haired young man with loose hair down to his shoulders, glances up from his book. Clutching it in his hand, he rises. A cream-coloured dog skitters across the room and barks.
"Erm, who's there?"
His name is called and he frowns.
"How do you-- Who is this?! I'm armed with a bleeding book and I'm no' afraid t'use it!"
"Aha! A book! Aren't you supposed to be a blacksmith?" The one knocking asks, "Go fetch the hammer!"
A scowl follows. The man throws the door open and throws the book into the other's face. The other man falls onto the floor like fallen timber. He reeks of alcohol.
"Ooof.... haaaagh.... did I fall over twice, just there..."
The first man gasps. He kneels and checks the fallen figure. The large, lumbering man on the floor is caked in mud and very visibly drunk, his clothing and auburn hair stained by mud and rain.
"... You?!" The blacksmith asks incredulously, "What in Barly's bloody name are y'doing at this hour? You're drunk an' y'look like a wreck!"
The second man begins to grin. He rolls over onto his back. Waves his hand, "Ah! Ah, ah! I'm not really quite there, that's why I was... hoping you might be able to help me out with that. See, the Pony just closed..."
A flask is procured from the depths of the auburn-haired man's coat. He frowns, "This won't be anywhere near enough, oh no!"
The first man quickly swipes the bottle out of the second man's hand. He points at the chair and prods at his side with a foot, "Sit. I've go' some leftover ale but that's all you're getting."
The second man stumbles onto his feet. Water trails behind him as he sits upon the offered chair. His blue eyes are bleary, "Oh, and... good evening. Been a while, eh?"
"Enough for me t'wonder where you've bloody been. What's going on? Y'look terrible."
The first man casts a worried glance. He retrieves two tankards, sits back on the table. Looking at the other expectantly.
"Is there something going on?" The other replies, "I haven't for the life of me found it! Bree-town is very quiet this night. Not at all like I left it. Clearly something needs to be done. You look a bit messy yourself."
The first stares pointedly at the second, "It's the middle of the night, of course I look messy." A pause follows -- "No, I mean, what are you doing here? Y'go off with your brother for weeks at a time, an' now you just suddenly show up drunk off your arse at my doorstep?"
The second utters an awkward noise, "Ah, well. I still remembered where you live, you see. And... I didn't know where else I could go."
"You're lucky no one else was here... - Nowhere else to go? What happened?"
The first man, the blacksmith, pours ale into the tankards. The second man takes a swig of his.
"I can't find him." The auburn-haired man says, "Nowhere I go, he's gone and vanished somewhere. I don't know where."
"What? How long since you last saw him? You're sure he's not off trying to lay with some woman in a tavern on the lonely road or summat?"
"It's been months now. He went off north, it was said, to work. For her sake, he claimed. I asked, I asked some more, all I could hear is that he 'moved along'. I think... I think he really did it, you know? Moved along. It's what he wanted, never had a care for all this setting down roots talk." The second man frowns. His expression is pained, "It's my fault."
The first protests immediately. He stands up, strides over to the other man, and lays a hand on his shoulder, "What? Of course it isn't, what makes y'think that? Y'didn't do anything. He was always someone who'd make his own decisions from wha' I remember of him."
"But I was always part of it. We made those... decisions, together. Always! We shared everything... when did that change?"
"I... don't know. I didn't know him that well. Jus' enough t'know he could be quite the prick." The blacksmith sighs and squats down, looking at the other man sitting in his chair dejectedly: "I wish I knew how to help."
"Well, there was that. He could be. At times, ah, or most of it. Where do I go from here?"
The second man looks at him with a grin, but his eyes are empty of emotion. The first looks up, thoughtful.
"Probably no' jump righ' into jestering again for a good while." The smith tells the other, "An' letting you turn into a drunkard would be awful as well. Y'should try find something to take your mind off everything. Where's your fiancée?"
The other man recoils. "I no longer see her."
"Wha--" Shock, followed by the blacksmith giving the other a pat on the back, "Life's no' been very fair to you, has it? I hope you didn' do something awful again."
"Something awful? Like-- oh. No, no! I didn't, not this time! It was... a bit different than that."
"Oh aye? Couldn't be with each other anymore?" The first man rises and pulls his chair closer to sit next to the other, "Barly's Beard. It's got t'be terrible if your last resort was t'go look for me, of all people..."
"I haven't got all that many friends here in Bree. A horde of acquaintances! But friends... ah, that is a shorter list." The second man rubs his jaw, "She told me that we couldn't be."
"Well, considering what you did... I wouldn' blame her for being worried you'd betray her again. S'not something that's easy to forget."
"No. No, of course it's not. I knew that. And after my brother left his woman! What was she to think? Do you really think he left? That he would leave me behind like that?"
The first man looks at the second in dismay, seeing his frustrated expression, "Leave you behind? I don' know. Her? Yes, probably. I didn' think he'd really be content settling down with her."
After a moment the blacksmith swallows, a visible uneasy settling around the room. "She's dead."
A chair tips over. The second man recoils, stumbling into the nearby wall. His tankard clatters to the floor and spills ale in numerous directions, "What do you mean, dead?"
"Dead. Gone. They say brigands murdered her... I wanted t'go to her funeral but I couldn't...."
"Oh. Well. That's..." The auburn-haired man frowns deeply, "... There's nothing left, is there?"
Silence. The first man purses his lips and squints his eyes shut as the second man slumps down onto the wooden planks.
