Tatton Wiltswoe, known as Tate around the Prancing Pony and the taverns, is a Breelander. This is what he tells himself with pride as he walks through the cobbled streets, his leather cloak draped over his meticulously pressed and finest burgundy tunic. The sun bakes his shoulders under his cloak, but he seems not to care about the discomfort of his overdressing. He greets every familiar face with a cheery wave, repeating their names to himself because he wants to remember them, he wants to *know* them. His cheer and care have never been false. His flaxen hair and (also leather) boots gleam almost as bright as his grin. The scent of rosemary clings to him everywhere he goes.
Tatton is a Breelander in the sense he has lived in Bree for all of his young life. Since he was a babe he knew what it meant to live on the outskirts of both town and society, laboring in the noxious fumes and grime of his family’s cabin. He lives with his uncle, Har, his aunt, Bessa, and two older cousins, Datura and Ferna. Together, they run the Wiltswoe Tannery. Tatton labors relentlessly as a tanner, but his favorite task is being a salesman. He is suited well for it simply because he bears his family name and his trade with the deepest pride and deeply enjoys meeting others and conversing with them.
Being a salesman is his favorite task… and his most dreaded. When he makes deliveries to the outskirts of the Bree Fields he watches travelers and their horses disappear beyond the horizon. He imagines the winds carry them safely to their journeys, all the while wishing he knew what their adventures were so he could live through their words. His heart aches and he knows well the reason why, but his burning love for his family keeps him always turning his steps back to his town, to familiar streets and stones he honestly wouldn’t mind never seeing again.
Too much keeps him bound. He *lets* too much keep him bound.
Tatton Wiltswoe is a Breelander in history, but his spirit has never been. Always his spirit speaks to him in dreams and his dreams bid him to run, father than his feet would carry him. He has dreams of ancients gates on the edge of both light and shadow. He dreams he can read the scroll of elegant and unknown script he has memorized in waking life, and that it leads him to legends and peoples and beings he has only heard in silenced whispers and child’s tales. He dreams of a solemn, wisped, terribly ancient voice that speaks of peace through violence, of healing by rending first every wound and anointing them with darkness. He dreams of iced forests and emerald caverns, of feathered ships that sail into the Sun. He dreams of darker things, of twisted things that make the taste of copper and rust linger on his tongue upon awakening.
He would banish all his dreams, save one, his deepest desire and most dearest to him: His dream of touching every corner of the world and still keeping his family and tannery and everything he loves right beside him. But that cannot be. He must always choose between the two and his choice is always the same. So his dreams stay dreams. He will do anything for his family. He has done many things for them he will not speak of.
Tatton, truly, is not a Breelander. But he will be one, he tells himself as he returns home, weary from a day of fruitless sales that he knows will be nothing compared to tomorrow’s success. He will be a Breelander that bears the Wiltswoe name with pride, even if he has to fight himself and beat his desires deeper within him where they have no chance to surface. But as passionately as he seeks challenge and as skilled of a fighter he can be, one fact threatens his resolve: Tatton has never actually liked fighting. And he has *never* been good at keeping any hidden thing buried for too long.
