The light of an opening door shredded through the street shadows as the sound of a body hitting the floor resonated through the empty avenue. "This be no place for a lad your age. And if ye have any sense in that loaded head o' yours, you'll know well enough not to come back!" The bartender, whose burly shadow crowded the lighted doorway, dusted off his hands as if to get the filth from the seventeen year old boy off of him by doing so. The brightness from the door suddenly ceased, leaving the youth shrouded in the darkness.
Riordan, head blurred with liquor, struggled to his feet, as unstable as it felt to stand. His hand, knuckles sore from landing through a wooden stair, ran through his thick, crimson hair, brushing away the strands in his face. What am I doing here? his mind rang, but thoughts did no use now for he was as drunk as a whore with a very generous client. As soon as one coherent thought formed in his tumulous mind it was sand in the wind again and was quickly replaced with an even less intelligible parcel of thought. He stumbled to the side of the bar, using the stone wall for support as he detached the flask from his leg strap. Unscrewing the cap with shaky hands, his dry, cracked lips hurt when they made contact with the cold canister. But he drank amply, thinking, I might as well get as drunk as I want. I don't have anything to live for anyway.
Where was he going, this restless stranger who was certainly convinced he had nothing left to lose. Tarquin had spent years wandering Le'ranna from kingdom to untamed land and had thought he had seen everything. During his travels, he had witness countless deaths, blood, disease, poverty, and suffering and it wrenched at his heart. He was a natural born sympathizer but sometimes his sensitivity made him sick of himself. Sometimes one just couldn't go around life feeling sorry for everyone; sometimes one had to be strong. And that's what Riordan tried to do, that was all he had ever tried to do. He was a walking shadow in life, an unknown witnessing the suffering of others and unable to do a thing. So in order to keep the emotions within him from tearing him apart, he hid them. Hid them behind a visage of stoicism and remoteness.
Readjusting the belt around his waist that held his short sword, Riordan wearily made his way down an unknown alley, his thick-soled boots crunching the loose gravel from it's cobblestone layering. He didn't know where he was going but he didn't much care right now. There was a light at the end of the alley. Stopping briefly, what must have been the light from a store backdoor was all his squinted eyes and blurred vision could make out. He must have been closer than he thought, but none the less he decided to try asking the owners if they could let him stay there or at least point out a local inn to him. As soon as he attempted to move his left foot forward, his boot strap got caught on a loose nail of some kind. He felt the rush of wind as his body hurdled forward, knocking the flask out of his hand. His body crashed hard on the solid ground, causing a cracking sound to come to his ears. Suddenly it came upon him that he had taken his armor off and left it... Left it where. Damn! It must still be back in the bar. Oh well, I-I can come and get it tomorrow.
Riordan pushed himself up with this knees and crawled toward the light when he was struck by the pain in his ribs. The sudden pain made him cry out, holding a hand to his side. Wow, I never thought broken ribs could hurt like this, was his final thought before passing out from shock on the cold ground.
