The harsh cold of night met with Alasdair's flesh, stealing the fire from him by creeping under his cloak and furs. Its unwelcoming bite was a thing he knew all too well. The month of Hailfrost was to be the bleakest and his least favourite.
The blowing of ale-fuddled breath came into cupped hands, to warm already numb fingertips, and his trailing sigh appeared within the frost as a whitened puff of fleeting warmth. The man truly despised the winter.
"I need to piss…" Alasdair spoke to the night as he travelled homewards.
The free-sword staggered down a narrow alley fluttering with the light of an oil lantern; under which sat three middle-aged men in soiled furs, huddling for warmth upon frozen stone. He approached the men on wobbly legs and reached into a pocket hidden within the fell of his tunic. They watched him with desperate eyes as he pulled out his hand and uncurled his numb fingers.
"Wait, ain't you that free-sword who was once —" The vagabond squinted.
Alasdair looked down with strained focus and counted the last of his gildings, counting thrice to triple check the ale hadn't got the better of him. He gave each a silver and nodded with a smile, but they returned each silver to him as he walked away. The gildings hit against his back and jingled upon the frozen cobble.
"Yet again…" He whispered as he bent to his knees, struggling to pick up the silver.
"We don't want your cursed coin! Mutt of Wal Gerrig! You never cared for the filth in Squalor Town all those years you sat on your arse in the Kirk doing jack shit!" One had spat at him.
"You caused my suffering… my home, family… I was a tradesman before the Quiet Rebellion…" They had stiffened their shaking meekness, throwing at him words of hate, but he refused to pay them from the charity of his time, as he had done from the charity of his empty pocket. The stumbling free-sword bit his tongue and instead gave command to his legs to find his home. He had grown used to the world being against him; having forged it to be such a way after all.
Alasdair climbed the white steps to travel a path of stone and ice. He floundered by a rounded tower and came to a well-built quarter of Wal Gerrig, where the many craftsmen and stonemasons of the wen lived. The man found himself slumping against a wall of rimy stone, eyes spinning from the fresh air, jaw slacking from the motion it brought. A sour flow of bile crept from his throat and had him heave until supper came to brim from his gullet. A burning spill of ale and half-digested pork pottage spluttered against the cobble and curdled with the pureness of fresh snow.
Alasdair retched, gagging on the bitter bile as it dripped from his nose. He pushed himself from the wall and wiped the purge from his chin and lip.
"C-Creator's s-sake!" He hissed just before retching again.
From the stillness of the frosted stone came the drumming of running feet, a sound to echo its faintness throughout the dead silence, to arrive and disturb him from a disgusting moment. Alasdair's heartbeat rolled in fitful thudding as the sound drew closer; his anxious mind teasing him with danger.
They met, as he stumbled from the wall of rimy stone and as they bounded across flagstone; as he bumbled to get his bearings and as the stranger leapt towards him. He drunkenly reacted and reached for his sword, but they were much faster with theirs.
"C-Creator! N-Not into hellos then?" he said lightheartedly. A short sword had arrived to kiss his throat with cold metal; he knew it could only be of Avarri design from the blade's sleek curve, the hilt's remarkable bone carving and the gold etchings, gilded masterfully to glimmer in moonlight.
A darkened mask came to shroud their identity, and so his drunken eyes could only grace the curves and nuances of a face. He had caught the dusk of foreign skin and the unbridled adamance in strange eyes of golden saffron.
"Your eyes…" He said. They were like two distant fires as they glistered under the silver moon.
"You look a little sad, might this free-sword cheer you up? I know a few good jokes," he said. How the man dared to push his limited and almost nonexistent luck. But the person said nothing, merely ignoring the free-sword. Alasdair looked about in disbelief and inwardly chuckled as hands roamed his body, patting him down as it searched desperately for something. The frosty winds blew past them and upon it danced a perfume, a sweet scent of honeyed desert flowers and fragrant spices. It was a new thing, strange and unknown to him, but that had only made it even more alluring.
"You know," he began, "I won't be able to help it if something below my waist —" The stranger's blade's razored edge came to deepen into his throat, and a stray drop of blood dribbled down his neck. His hiss fell into a quickened chuckle.
"F-Fuck… you mustn't like the beard? I've been growing it for the cold," he said with a smirk but his eyebrow withered from the sting. The thief pushed the smug man against the wall of stone and he found his boot in the pork pottage and ale purge.
"Never done this kinda thing before, have you?" Alasdair went to reach into his tunic, for there was a hidden pocket they had yet to feel.
The Avarri's eyes widened as he went to move, but Alasdair held up his hand and pointed inside his tunic.
"As much as I'm liking this little frisk, I'm too bloody tired. I'd much rather go home to my bed if this ain't going nowhere." His sigh came white in the frost. The stranger looked up at him with uncertainty in their gaze, which only came to irritate the free-sword.
"There's a hidden pocket inside. Can you hurry it up and rob me? I also need to piss and really don't fancy pissing myself in this cold. I've still got a way to walk." He did a little jiggle and cupped his crotch. They hesitated at first, but then reached under his worn fell and took a few coins. And just as swiftly as they came, the stranger had left him.
"Are all folk from Dravar as rude as you? You could've just asked!" He shouted through the cold streets. They looked over their shoulder and adorned the drunkard with a sided-glance.
"Do all Elynirish men reek of drink and death?" She finally spoke, her Avarri tongue dripping with venom.
"Creator knows! But the jokes on you, because I'm not Elynirish!" The free-sword's laughter filled the streets. He was a child when drunk, always needing the last word.
Her abhorred glance retreated so as not to show any further interest in whom he was, and she ventured forth, onwards into the pitch of night.
"The first time I ever meet an Avarri woman and she mugs me, Creator… why do you curse me so?" The man whispered to the nipping winds.
Alasdair untied his leather drawstrings, flopped out his cock and began pissing up the wall to someone's house. A sigh of bliss came. He looked around to notice a few folk staring from behind their windows, awoken from slumber by his drunken bellowing.
"Sorry about the mess!" Alasdair nodded to his splatter of sick whilst fumbling with his drawstrings, being too drunk to tie them up.
"I'm sure it'll rain tomorrow!" He shook his head before blowing his warm breath into his hands.
"Or snow… I fuckin' hate snow…" He continued his journey home, to the empty bed, eagerly awaiting his aching body. He needed a kip. Jorge and Taryn would be waiting for him by noon tomorrow for another day of free-swording.