J
Jackalope
Guest
Original poster
It was the same old, same old for the evening, with the same ruckus crowd and the same noisy howlers and the same smells of spilled beer mixed with the same mess of food tossed to the floor with one booming sweep of a laughing man's arm. The names and the faces were different, mostly, with the occasional familiar one stuck in among a wave of the untried and excited and the tried and silent. Some of the silent ones he recognized from when they were excited, bouncing brats off to their first murder or their first knighting or their first dragon. They were full of enthusiasm and bold as the young, but their first adventure never turned out quite right and they were back again, quiet and thoughtful with scars on their faces and nightmares in their eyes. He'd seen it all firsthand when he was young and exuberant, but that was so long ago that the sun herself had probably forgotten.
He cracked a grin and snorted at his train of thought, derailing it with the turn of his head as he filled another three mugs, sending them off on a haggard server's tray before yawning and stretching. Drystan was a handsome enough fellow, tall and broad with sharp grey eyes and a crooked grin, stuck in a time somewhere in his mid twenties with the scars of his early years across his body and one in particular running across his face, just to the left of his nose and down his cheek to under his jaw. He was infamously cursed, an unlucky fellow who--in the rising wave of success with the pride of the King at his back--fell victim to a particularly easily amused enchantress who thought it might be funny to let him "get a little age on him".
That was roughly seventy years ago and he hadn't aged a day since. He had come close to death a few times though, and while the skin would heal and never scar, it was a slow and painful process and being able to not age did not mean he wouldn't die horribly. Retirement, he found, was much more to his liking and so instead of going out on great adventures with harrowing tales to bring home, he worked in the inn that belonged to a friend of an old friend. It was boring, no doubt, but he broke up the occasional fight and drank the occasional beer and hell, it worked out just fine.
Drystan hummed and ran a hand through his dark hair, his sun-bronzed skin stuck in the healthy tan of the outdoors man despite his mostly-indoor lifestyle, and yawned widely, flashing his canines and nearly inhaling a bug in the same motion. Coughing loudly he cursed under his breath and spat the fly out to the floor, scrunching up his face as he crushed it beneath his boot before licking his lips unhappily. Business thankfully called in a distraction to the awful taste and he turned back to the crowd, tugging thoughtlessly on one of his earrings as he nodded and filled the order; same old same old, beer and beef.
He cracked a grin and snorted at his train of thought, derailing it with the turn of his head as he filled another three mugs, sending them off on a haggard server's tray before yawning and stretching. Drystan was a handsome enough fellow, tall and broad with sharp grey eyes and a crooked grin, stuck in a time somewhere in his mid twenties with the scars of his early years across his body and one in particular running across his face, just to the left of his nose and down his cheek to under his jaw. He was infamously cursed, an unlucky fellow who--in the rising wave of success with the pride of the King at his back--fell victim to a particularly easily amused enchantress who thought it might be funny to let him "get a little age on him".
That was roughly seventy years ago and he hadn't aged a day since. He had come close to death a few times though, and while the skin would heal and never scar, it was a slow and painful process and being able to not age did not mean he wouldn't die horribly. Retirement, he found, was much more to his liking and so instead of going out on great adventures with harrowing tales to bring home, he worked in the inn that belonged to a friend of an old friend. It was boring, no doubt, but he broke up the occasional fight and drank the occasional beer and hell, it worked out just fine.
Drystan hummed and ran a hand through his dark hair, his sun-bronzed skin stuck in the healthy tan of the outdoors man despite his mostly-indoor lifestyle, and yawned widely, flashing his canines and nearly inhaling a bug in the same motion. Coughing loudly he cursed under his breath and spat the fly out to the floor, scrunching up his face as he crushed it beneath his boot before licking his lips unhappily. Business thankfully called in a distraction to the awful taste and he turned back to the crowd, tugging thoughtlessly on one of his earrings as he nodded and filled the order; same old same old, beer and beef.