Author's Note: This post deviates from my usual method of writing in third-person to narrate in-game roleplay sessions. Due to summer holidays, work travels and so on, the players of Jindir and Kitowyn casually messaged as time permitted. For the sake of story continuity and my own convenience, I am posting our exchanges here unaltered.
As such, the following is not wholly my own work. Half of it is original writing by Kitowyn and is posted with her permission.
Here, at last, have solid bits of character background been revealed. Has it really been over half a real year since they stepped foot out of Bree to begin this story arc? Time flies when you're having fun. Cheers, Kit.
J.
The roughened touch of something warm brushes your hand in the deep part of the night. If you were to look over, you would find that Jindir has rolled onto his back as he slept and his hand has fallen next to yours.
His face is as serene as it has ever been, so his dreams tonight must be happier than usual. Whatever his mind is seeing now, it certainly is easing the cloud of melancholy about him, in this moment.
He's still got his tunic draped over his waist as he sleeps, and though he has made no untoward move this eve, it would seem that his desire ran stronger than he would ever admit to under daylight.
K.
You wake to find Kitowyn curled up against you, with her head laying on your chest and her face pointed up towards yours. Her mouth hangs open slightly, letting out small, peaceful sounding snores. A soft flush colours her cheeks, and she radiates a bit of warmth, despite the fire having died out ages ago. She twitches slightly, but otherwise seems sound asleep.
J.
Something brought him to the grey twilight between dreamless sleep and the rush of light and movement in the waking world - perhaps a gust of chilled breeze, perhaps a nearby chirping cricket. But all he was aware of when he smoothly glided to half-consciousness was a gentle pressure on his chest, the spill of silky hair across his skin, and a feeling of acquainted warmth at his side.
It was all a dream, his mind grasped desperately. The fires, the swords, the screams, the blood. He was lying in his workshop, on his quilted bed, his beloved wife resting as she usually did when they slept. Peace settled over his heart then, and great love. His free arm lifts from the ground to cup the back of your head, roughened fingers entwine with your soft, wild, flame red hair, and he savours the feel of it slipping over his skin.
K.
She had been trapped in a small cabin with a single window, filled floor to ceiling with books and scrolls and other scholarly items; all of it swept up in a raging inferno. As the tiny shack burned all around her, she pounded her soft little fists on the window, begging the man standing outside to let her out. But, as hard and she tried, the glass wouldn’t break. Then, the gentle comfort of your hand on her head slowly pulls Kitowyn from another of her bad dreams.
Her eyes cracked open slowly, registering her surroundings, though she could not shake her confusion. For the first thing she sees is you, looking uncharacteristically happy and at peace as you rest. Assuming she’s still dreaming, she lies as still as she can manage and just watches you with wide eyes. Her gaze takes in each tiny detail of your face that she hasn’t noticed before; scars, creases, freckles, even stray greys in your beard and eyebrows. After several minutes of this, she comes to the conclusion that she must be awake, as her brain certainly couldn’t have conjured such detail. Even so, she remains as still as she can, so she can continue studying your face until you wake.
J.
Slowly an urgent thought begins to form in his still-drowsing mind, even as the utter relief of believing he simply suffered a long, painful nightmare washes over him.
His calloused hand gently leaves the feel of your silken hair and slowly trails down the back of your neck, then gently spirals across your skin when it meets your shoulder. Continuing downward, he traces countless rough circles along your spine before settling his palm into the nook of your hip and thigh with the confidence of familiarity.
An open smile breaks across his face before he mutters something with a cracked, dozy voice. He pauses, his head lolling to the side on which you rest, eyes still closed. Not hearing a response, he mumbles slightly louder and lets his fingers gently knead the flesh of your hip.
“.... there any more of those sweet rolls?”
K.
As the emotions on your face continue to shift, she remains watching you intently. Her small chin rests easily on your chest as she looks up at you, lifting and then drooping with your breath. With a slight tilt of her head, she presses her ear to you and listens for your heartbeat.
Her observations are interrupted, however, as your calloused fingers begin to travel downward, eliciting goosebumps all along her skin until your hand finally settles on her hip. Your movements betray a sort of affection and confidence she’s not seen in you before, and she can only react with confusion. Though she wouldn’t deny what you were doing felt good, her body tenses as your hand traversed it and a thousand questions ran through her head. What are you doing? Why are you doing this when you turned her away only hours before? Is this a cruel joke? Did you eat something poisonous that’s causing you to hallucinate? Are there any plants nearby that can act as an anti-poison?
After a few moments of silence, she speaks quietly, though is not able to mask the confusion in her voice.
“… What’s a sweet roll?”
J.
The hazy response comes delayed, as if it took his mind a while to decipher your words. He murmurs then, “... the ones your aunt sent over...,” and flashes another warm smile for a bit longer.
Then you watch his illusions slowly unravel.
The hand on your hip stops its caress.
His brows knit in puzzlement.
The smile on his face neutralizes.
His heavy eyelids blink grudgingly a handful of times.
And his grey-green irises finally take hold of your face.
It is oft said that eyes are the windows to the soul and in that exact moment, you can see his heart silently shatter into a million tiny shards of fading light behind his. First confusion, then realization, and then a swift descent into his old friend, melancholy, in the space of mere breaths.
His face settles into expressionlessness. Righting his head to look away from you and upward into the reddening sky, he says nothing for a time yet makes no move to push you away. His hand still rests on your hip though there is no grip to it now, and his heart beats steadily under your chin.
Once he seems to have collected himself, his voice deadpans quietly.
“My apologies. I dreamt of things lost.”
K.
The look on her face is one of mixed confusion and worry, though mostly confusion, as she watches you shift back into your familiar melancholy. Though she is slightly relieved she won’t have to concoct a makeshift anti-hallucinogen to shake you from that oddness you just displayed, her brow knits in concern nonetheless.
She bites down solidly on her lip in an attempt to physically restrain herself from asking you what you meant by ‘things lost.’ Thinking back on the other times she’d pried into your past, and remembering the pain you said it caused, she shirks her curiosity and doesn’t ask. She has no idea what just happened, and so she settles on placing her warm little hand gently on your chest and giving it a small pat, then whispering awkwardly, “Nightmares are difficult. I know.”
With that, she sits up and shifts closer to the fire, still barely clinging to life where she’d lit it earlier in the night. Shifting through her backpack, she locates her tunic and pulls it lazily over her head, not bothering with fastening it properly, or putting on pants. A gentle touch dangerously close to the embers of the fire seems to stir it back to life slowly, it’s soft orange glow illuminating her outline in these dark morning hours. Her now ashy hand drags the large book from the Hobbit library out of her bag, and she begins pouring over it in front of the fire after giving you one more puzzled little smile over her shoulder.
J.
He watches you a few moments longer after you look away, then lays his head back onto the grass again, turning his gaze to the quickly waning starlight above. He bounces his head on the ground a couple of times, symbolically kicking himself. Would he ever be at the mercy of spectres?
Yet for those precious few minutes, he had felt pure contentment again. In his bones, in his whole being. That was real. His heart had not fully become lost to the dark; it was capable of retrieving the joy it remembered long ago. But the twin gatekeepers to that happiness were remorse and despondency, and he found them to be formidable sentries.
He sat himself upright and sought his rucksack, then his smokes. Lighting one, he takes a few deep draws before speaking again to you.
“We should make for Scary next.” He does not explain further.
Then, softening his tone, perhaps even sounding indecisive, “Kitten, it was no nightmare.”
His voice trails off, and he inhales as much pipe-weed smoke as he can fill his lungs with.
