The tall and broad man sits quietly at the wooden table towards the back of the pub, tucked behind the bar where no one could see. He has slept there a few days now, homeless as a stray. Though it is only so long before someone finally found him, leaning over the table flipping through the pages of a leather bound book. It’s a young lass, a Bree-Lander, wandering around, tipsy and curious. She plops down in front of him and slurring she asks, “Whatch’ readin’ big guy?”
Vulphe calmly responds as his eyes of different hues scan through the pages, “A fiction work from an undocumented scholar...he fell ill and died before he finished.”
The other patron hiccups and looks at his blue and nearly yellow brown eyes, “Whoa...tha’s a’bit odd, eh?”
Vulphe hums quietly in agreement as he continues reading, seeing nothing impolite about keeping his nose stuck in a book.
But nearly drunken Bree-Landers are quite often pushy and very infrequently give up when faced with a distant social interaction, “Wha’s’yer name feller?”
Vulphe flips the page with a large set of fingers, then pushes the new parchment open forcibly by running his thumb down the inside of the spine, “Vulphe.”
“Strange.” She says before pestering him further, “Odd eyes, strange name, wha’s’yer story then, eh?”
Vulphe finally gives up, reaching his hand to scoop up the book and closing it fondly in both hands before setting it on the table to give her the attention inebriated folk often require, “Well if you must know, I shall say. When I was very young, my mother’s mother used to tell me a story whenever I asked her of my name, my size, and my eyes. See when she was young as well, my grandmother was a huntress…” He begins as the woman puts her head in her hands to listen as though she were a toddler.
He smiles as he endures her attitude and perseverance, seeming not to mind it, in truth as he spews, “One week, she hadn’t found anything for days. She was starving, on the verge of death, nearly falling ill when she managed to poach herself a coney. It wasn’t much but it would keep her pleasant, the hide for money, the money for some broth, the meat for a stew. On her way back through a shortcut she had yet to have explored, straight back for Bree she heard an old woman screaming nearby. When she went to investigate she found a little old shambled hut. Inside there was a crone being cornered by a large black wolf with a yellow eye, and a blue eye. My grandmother raised her bow, ready to fill the beast with arrows when the crone cried out for her not to. “Wait!” She said, “It’s my pet, please don’t hurt him! He’s just hungry, please!” She begged.”
Vulphe pauses here briefly to make sure the Bree-Lander has not fallen asleep. She hasn’t, so he continues, “My grandmother frowned and with a heavy heart and an acceptance of her fate, handed the coney over to the wolf, appeasing it and allowing the crone to calm the monster. The crone smiled at my grandmother, fed her a warm soup from a cauldron as thanks and told her that the first male born from her blood would be strong, with great different colored eyes like her pet. My grandmother laughed, remarked that she would not have children, thanked the crone for the soup and went home. The next day she came back to visit the cottage, but it had vanished, and she could not find it.”
He takes a deep breath and resumes, “Of course, after a while my grandmother did have children. Having been a superstitious woman as she grew full, she had five children in an attempt to have one boy, but it was all for not. She spent most of her life wondering if the crone had ever really existed. Then finally, her youngest child had an abnormally large baby boy. His eyes were strange, one like sap and one like a storm. She demanded they called him Vulphe, for the wolf of the old crone. My parents must have liked the idea and accepted, and that’s how it came to be.”
The intoxicated Bree-Lander burps before wiping her nearly drooling mouth and looks up to him, “Tha’ true?”
Vulphe smiles and opens the leather bound book again, “Of course not…” he says, “It’s just a story. But it’s a good story.”
The woman argues, “But i’s’a lie!”
Vulphe raises a finger to shush her before she ambles off, “It’s a story.” he corrects, “And I think stories are important. They all make us feel like more than we are...like something special. People need to be reminded of that sometimes.”
His lecture falls on deaf ears but he smiles as the woman stumbles to the nearest place to lay down, having finished her drink by then she has become quite smashed. He sighs quietly to himself in content with the interaction, and picks up right where he left off, looming over the table like a small giant huddled in a corner.
