Staring at the three horses that stood outside of the cobblestone fencing around his house, and beside those horses were four men.
Jeffrey knew horsie very well, despite those three being the same colour as horsie, they weren't the same… It was a shame to get his hopes so high. He lowered the rope he held in sadness, it seemed horsie isn't coming back today.
However, Jeffrey's singular action of lowering the rope and looking down in "disappointment" made the scout leader frightened.
As he scrambled to try and justify himself for whatever wrongdoing he committed, their guide spoke up first.
"J-Jeffrey, my man, you really scared me there," their guide was another farmer who lived nearby here, he sometimes spoke to Jeffrey during market days, though their relationship was nothing more than superficial. His name was Jim.
"Wait, this is Jeffrey!?" the scout leader blurted out.
I know you said he looked sketchy, but I didn't know he'd look this sketchy!
Gods damn! He nearly had a heart attack!
The sketchy figure, now identified as Jeffrey nodded his head.
"Mhmm, hi." his muffled voice sounded even sketchier now that the scout leader was paying attention to it.
…
Jeffrey lived in a small house, with the front door leading directly into the living room which also contained the fireplace and dining table. To the immediate left was the kitchen and through the kitchen was a storage room. Next to the entrance to the kitchen, straight from the front door was a hallway with a room on each side. One was for Jeffrey and the other for his father.
Sitting around Jeffrey's dining table, there were only seats for Jeffrey and the scout leader, the rest were left standing.
"So, let me get this straight. You didn't see any dragon?" Jeffrey didn't know what a dragon was, let alone seeing one, this scout leader must be cranium damaged or something.
"Then tell me why your fields are all scorched?" Wasn't that due to the flying lizard? Wait, could it instead have been a dragon that did it!?
"Was it a dragon?" Jeffrey was genuinely confused.
The scout leader felt like flipping the table, he was the one asking questions yet this guy was just asking them back! He wasn't here at the time, how would he know if it was a dragon!
"Sigh, anyway, it's best that you leave here, it seems that there really was a dragon here though we're not sure if it left yet."
"Doesn't matter, we finished our job, there was definitely a dragon here. Now, let's head back and let someone else take over our jobs, how about it?" The whiney scout once more, whined.
"Hmm, I'm afraid that there is indeed nothing left for us to do here,
fine, we'll return."
"Huzzah!" the whiney scout's exclamation earned a hard glare from the leader.
As the scouts prepared to return to the fort city to report, the scout leader asked Jeffrey once more.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us? Your fields are scorched barren and your livestock have all been killed, you have nothing left here. There is also a chance that the dragon may come back to kill you."
These words struck deep at Jeffrey. All he knew were these farmlands, so how could he abandon it so easily?
Then he remembered the wise words of his father long ago.
"Jeffrey, there may come a day when something happens to this farm or me. But I'd like you to know that the world outside is big and you can always return here when you feel homesick, it's not like anyone's gonna rob a farm all the way out at a frontier." He remembered his father looking off into the distance as the sunset in front of him as he said this, his father looked like a hero from fairytales.
That's right, Jeffrey wasn't abandoning this farm, he would come back eventually, perhaps when he got homesick as his father said. There was also the matter of the "dragon" roaming around here. According to those scouts, it was a hyper aggressive red dragon that could take on hundreds of men at the same time and could topple a small city if they were caught unprepared.
This didn't seem like something Jeffrey could take, and although Jeffrey loved these farmlands, he also knew how to value his life. It was a valuable lesson that took his father years to teach him.
The scout leader only said those previous words out of courtesy but surprisingly after a couple of seconds, Jeffrey nodded.
"I'll take your offer."
"Wait, what,"
The scout leader who was turning around to mount his horse froze midway.
He expected someone like Jeffrey who was still staying on scorched lands for all this time to stay stubborn and refuse his offer.
But he couldn't refuse to take Jeffrey, he was the one who offered in the first place!
Now he had to take back someone who looked like they committed numerous felons! What would his superiors think of him!?