@Draconian
A heavy fog lay over the damp countryside that John Jameson trudged through. The hour was somewhere between the last throes of the night and the first light of the morning. The sun hung somewhere low below the horizon, giving just enough cold gray light that John could see the fog, but little else. John knew little of the country in these parts, but a farmer had told him that down this road he should find a little in. The man had warned him that it would be a journey of some hours on foot, but John had merely smiled and thanked the man for his directions.
Alone with the distant braying of farm dogs and the gloomy hooting of owls, John made his way through the night, through still countryside and murky forest. It was a long and cold night, but John had walked without tiring. But John Jameson didn't tire like most men. He enjoyed the solitude of the journey; alone with his thoughts; alone with the fragments of his memory. He had nowhere in particular to go. He was simply going this way. It was an aimlessness that was not an uncommon sight in the war-torn land of Connlaoth. Young men who had been soldiers, who had been taught to fight with a purpose, either left by the wayside when they were injured too seriously to fight, but not seriously enough to die. Or else who had lost that sense of purpose, and abandoned their posts. But there was no place in Connlaoth for men who could not fight, or could not work. At least, not for men who weren't born into the upper classes that could live comfortably doing nothing, or else be sent to the university to become a scholar. They had become soldiers, many of them, before marrying and had no families to return to. No children to rear. If they were brave enough to return to their homes injured, they would have to face their family in shame. No longer a soldier, no longer a man. And so a lost generation began to grow across the country, the injured and disillusioned, left with no real future and no respectable present.
And John Jameson? Was he injured, or disillusioned? He truthfully wasn't sure. Had he been injured in the war effort? Yes, grievously. His shoulder was still quick to ache, especially in weather like this, but it was the large, ugly scar stretched across his chest that worried John. When he compared himself to others in his position, John couldn't help but think that - physically - he had come off in decent shape. And the looks he sometimes got as a man of fighting age, who appeared physically fit, was wandering the countryside and not fulfilling his duty as a soldier. And now there was even a draft... But John Jameson's injuries ran much deeper. It was a cold feeling that reached from the strange scar down to his heart. It was the memory of the sound of the first stone that had struck Einid with a sick thud. It was the image of the bloody child he had held for only moments in his hand; the boy who had let out a single wail, and then die. And it was the
change he had felt when Enid, the woman he had called his wife, had died.
Who had she been? And, the more unsettling question he'd been left with...
Who was he?This was the question echoing in John's mind when he finally caught sight of a single lantern light ahead. He breathed a sigh of relief. Even John Jameson was weary after the long night's walk, and cold from the smothering fog. He followed the light, until it led to a small, solitary tavern. Clearly a waypoint for travellers, though there must be a town not too far away. The tavern was quiet at this hour, but outside the door a solitary lantern hung, its candle melted nearly to its base. John pushed open the squat, damp wooden door, and stepped inside.
