The constant buzzing of boisterous conversations layering over each other only added to the throbbing in my temples, all of them competing for volume in the overcrowded room. A chorus of never-ending clanking from empty mug after empty mug being picked up by bar maidens with flushed cheeks provided an underlying rhythm to the thick noise — punctuated by bouts of raucous laughter and the clinking of coins into the barkeeps fattening worn leather pouch. A vibrant cacophony of life was happening all around me. It was all music to my ears. A familiar song that I found an odd sense of comfort in. It didn’t matter what tavern you found yourself in on any given night. The sounds were always the same. Reliable and unruly.
Several months had passed since I had last stepped foot into the soothing chaos of my favorite inn. In my absence, the sweltering haze of summer had grasped the middle of the continent in its humid, unforgiving grip. Being inside the lazily named Wanderer’s Inn actually made the oppressiveness of the outside air desirable. A fire roared in the hearth on the wall behind me, close enough to where I sat on a rickety, old wooden stool at the bar to feel the edge of its scorching flames. Streams of sweat dripped down my back every few seconds from the powerful combination of stifling body heat generated by the dense crowd of patrons, the blazing hearth roasting a meaty pig, and the layers of clothing under the worn leather armor that covered nearly every inch of my dirty, unwashed skin.
My appearance had alarmed only those that were newcomers to the inn. The dozen or so regulars offered me no more than a brief glance as I strode in at dusk from my day-long ride across the stretch of unclaimed, wild territory just south of the thick forest that the inn had made its home in. Other patrons, those seeking a hearty meal and needing a rest after traveling like myself, had been throwing uneasy glances towards my perch at the bar all evening. I didn’t need to turn my head to see there were several pairs of eyes piercing into my back at various times over the several hours I had sat and quietly sipped on mugs of ale.
After all, I was the only person in the entire room who wore long sleeves, long pants, thick boots and a hood drawn over their head in the middle of the ever-loving summer. Thick, well-worn leather armor was strapped to my shoulders and the outsides of my arms over a dirty and loose used-to-be-white long-sleeved shirt. More dark brown leather covered half of my torso, to just under my disgustingly sweaty breasts. The fabric of the hood draped over my head also helped to keep wandering eyes from boring into my chest. My thighs were fitted with more leather armor strapped on over plain, fitted dark green breeches. New, near knee-high leather boots were by far the nicest piece of clothing I wore, since my plethora of fine blades appeared only as lumps on my back under my hood, or invisible beneath my leather bracers and inside the tall leg of my boots.
I smirked to myself as I raised the fresh pint of ale the barkeep placed before me to my lips. The wary patrons might learn to keep their judgmental eyes to themselves if they knew I was armed to the teeth. Capable of spinning around and throwing six razor sharp daggers within a breath, followed by unsheathing the two ancient blades hidden beneath the long, flowing drape of my hood, giving them each a habitual twirl as I eyed up anyone else who dared continue to stare at me. But, I thought to myself as I finished the ale in one long sip, that violence would not be unleashed on them. No, that violence was currently being reserved for one patron in particular.
Tipping my head back to get the last few drops of ale while being careful to keep my hood up, I placed my mug down with measured force next to two other empties sitting in front of my crossed arms. Being careful not to draw any more unnecessary attention to myself, I subtly leaned forward onto my forearms as I dropped my head down slightly, letting my shoulders hunch. My eyes slid to the far left side of the bar, where a drunken patron was relentlessly harassing one of the bar maidens. Grabbing at her backside, breasts, any part of her body he could reach. Trying to pull at her skirt and yank on the laces of her bodice. At first he had just been devouring her shamelessly with his eyes. That alone was enough to make me want to gut him. But over the past hour, my blood had been brought to a boil as I watched his behavior deteriorate into nothing more than that of a filthy pig.
My eyes narrowed on him as his harassment had finally morphed into slurred, verbal vulgarities.
“Why dun ya come ere’ lassie and lift those skirts ore’ me lap! Come on, dun be shy! With tits like them — ”
The deafening, buzzing ring and simultaneous silence of focus began to pierce my ears as I pushed off of my stool which emitted a squealing scrape against the worn wood floor. I could feel the swirling darkness rising up from my core, coating every nerve and muscle in my body. There was no denying that it was fueling the insatiable anger pounding in my chest. Every single pair of eyes in the room rested on me as I strode around the bar to the drunken pig. I kept my stride even, a casual saunter. All conversations fell into soft murmurs. The small quartet playing in the corner even quieted their music as they gawked on with everyone else. The barkeep, the owner of the inn, looked on with pleading eyes. Sorry that he couldn’t do anything because it was bad for business. Sorry to his daughter that was harassed night after night because he couldn’t afford to throw out paying patrons — no matter how atrocious they were.
I pulled a knife from a cutting board filled with various meats and cheeses from one of the tables I passed as I neared the drunken fool. The patrons at the table scooted back slightly as they watched me pull out the sizable knife and twirl it effortlessly in my hand without looking. I stopped right in front of the man, who was wobbling drunkenly on the stool, placing myself directly between himself and the bar maiden. It allowed her to quickly move away from the man and continue picking up empty mugs from other tables, a deep red flush filling her cheeks. It took the man a few seconds to even realize that I was standing in front of him, flipping the knife lazily in my hand. His perverted gaze followed the maiden until I had to intentionally step closer to him, cutting off his gaze entirely and forcing him to look at me. The overwhelming stink of booze and body odor assaulted my nostrils, forcing me to swallow back a bit of bile that rose in my throat.
“Get the ‘ell outta my way, you freak, that lass and I need to get to — ”
“Leave her alone.” Unless you want to push me. Unless you have a wish to taste steel.
His brows furrowed as he eyed me up and down, his gaze slow and uneven as he swayed on the stool.
“Who the ‘ell are you to tell me what ‘te do?”
“Leave the bar maiden alone. She is not here for your pleasure. Leave her alone.”
A sick smirk crept across the man’s face, revealing rotting brown teeth, some chipped, some completely missing. He grabbed his pants at the knees and pulled them up slightly as he spread his legs wide on the stool.
“Aw, I get it love. You just want to take a ride on ol’ Barry’s cock. No need to be jealous, love, take a seat right ‘ere.”
The music stopped a few moments after the hilt of the knife landed in my palm and stayed there. I extended my other arm out to the side of my body, and moved to drag the edge of the blade across the tender flesh of my spread palm. I made a show of wiggling my fingers and examining my woundless hand.
“Well would you look at that. Not even a scratch! It seems to be your lucky day. This blade is as dull as you are.” In one swift movement I stabbed the knife right into the small piece of exposed wood on the stool between his spread legs, my eyes locked on his. As I leaned into his face, our noses almost touching, his trembling intensified. I nearly recoiled as his foul breath blew shakily into my face through his cracked lips, but I managed to hold my ground as I delivered my warning in a low voice, nearing a growl.
“You will never harass another woman again. You will leave this inn and not come back for a good, long while. If you so much as think about touching a woman without her consent, I will find you. And I will chop your dick and balls off with a dull knife, just like this one.” His trembling was so severe that he nearly fell off the stool. I placed my foot forcefully on one of the horizontal supports, keeping him steady as I finished my threat. I wondered if there were shadows dancing in my eyes.
The unyielding rage that welled up inside of me, it always felt palpable. Like a brand behind my retinas.
I gathered a clump of his sweaty shirt collar in my fist, right under his quivering chin, and in a flash of movement I had the tip of the dagger from the sheath on my torso pressed firmly to his precious male parts.
“You know, I’ve actually done it both ways. This razor sharp little dagger of mine has castrated a few other slimy perverts just like you. Now get the hell out of here before I use a combination of both. Get out!”
The smell of urine burned my nostrils as the man stumbled backwards off his stool and hit the floor with a thud. He was out the door in a few seconds, stumbling into everyone and everything in his path. The music resumed and slowly conversations started to fill the air again. I removed the dull knife from the stool and stabbed it back into the charcuterie-covered cutting board as I walked past. A full mug of ale was waiting for me back at my spot at the bar. As I turned to face the shaken face of the barkeep, I noticed that not one person dared look in my direction. Fast learners.
“Thank you, again, for — ” I held up the palm of my hand before he could continue.
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“No need. You know me, Jin. I did what I had to. Sorry about the piss on the floor.”
“It’s quite alright, Vex.” As I reached into one of the pouches at my waist to pay for my drinks, he waved me off. “It’s on the house. Please.”
I fished a few coins out of the pouch and set them on the bar as I slammed back the lukewarm ale. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I adjusted a few straps on my gauntlets as I nodded to the coins on the bar and responded to the furrowed brows on Jin’s face.
“For what the drunken pig didn’t pay, Jin. Least I can do.” With a departing smirk, I gave the bar a pat and strode casually for the exit. No eyes dared flicker to me as I navigated my way through the tables that lined the path to the door. Conversations became hushed as I sauntered past. But just as I was about to clear the length of the bar and reach the door, some unfortunate fool of a man decided to mumble under his breath as I passed him.
“Fucking cunt. Oughta teach you a lesson.”
Before I could think twice, and before he could so much as breathe, I pivoted on my heel, grabbed the thinning rat tail at the back of his filthy, sweaty neck in my hand, and slammed his face into the bar top. Once for the lesson he deserved, twice for good measure. The silence that met my ears after I let his disgusting, scraggly hair go was thick. Palpable.
Making a show of brushing my hands off before digging into my coin purse again, I made an announcement to the rest of the inn before flipping the coins in the air over to Jin.
“Anyone else who thinks it’s acceptable to talk shit and disrespect someone behind their backs — take note. It’s not a tolerated character trait of mine. For the mess, Jin.” I nodded to the bar top that currently had blood pooling on it from the unconscious man’s face. I frowned and sniffed the air.
“He might’ve pissed himself too, so have another.” With the flip of one last coin, I turned and continued my walk towards the door, blissfully uninterrupted as the silence of the inn still pierced the air.
My satisfied smirk gave way to a shallow sigh as I pushed the heavy, splintering wood door open with one hand. Stagnant air met my body as I stepped out onto the small, dilapidated wood porch that wrapped around the front of the inn. The air wasn’t cool, nor was it as stifling hot and humid as it had been throughout the day, but it was blessedly cooler than the boiling inferno that had been the inn.
There were no signs of activity, or of that perverted pig, on the dirt lane that sprawled out to meet the beckoning darkness of the woods to both the my left and right. A sigh escaped my lips as I savored the silence that enveloped me. The constant buzz of conversation and music from the inn had left a dull ringing in my ears, although it always felt like the darkness that swirled up inside of me somehow left a buzz in my skull too after those all too frequent bouts of unyielding anger. Now there was only the chorus of insects and the crunching of my boots on the dirt road as I strode toward the lean-to where my lumbering steed stood, half asleep. Exhausted.
Bear looked like shit. Dried mud caked all four of his thick, stocky legs. All the way up to his chest and nearly all the way up his flank. Both his mane and tail were riddled with snarled mats and all sorts of debris from the brush we had hacked through for hours. The only benefit of his disastrous appearance was that it covered up most of the brutal scars peppering his dapple gray coat. I walked up to his head and reached up to give his forehead a firm but caring scratch right between his piercing blue eyes. He barely moved in response to my touch, only bobbing his head slightly.
A breathy chuckle rolled through my lips as I smiled up at the hulking horse, remembering the first time I got up close to him after he nearly killed me. I had thought his eyes looked like the color of a cloudless sky. The color had made my heart ache fiercely for a more simple, happy life at the time. But instead of using my freshly filled coin purse on treating myself to an elaborate spread of breakfast foods, I plopped the weighty coins into the weathered hand of the smithy and took Bear as my own. He had been abandoned at the blacksmith after being thoroughly and horribly abused by a farmer. It took me months to gain his trust in order to get anywhere near him without being kicked at or nearly trampled to death, but ever since the day I laid my hand on his scarred cheek and looked into those clear, depthless eyes of his, we were inseparable.
Not to mention I was immediately impressed by his massive height and dominating build. A draft horse, bred to work the fields, but had refused to pull the plows. So I found that after gaining his trust and breaking him to a saddle and bit, he much preferred being ridden across the varying landscapes of the continent over living out his days pulling a plow over the same fields year after year.
With a few pats to his thick, muscled neck, I untied his reins and gently tugged him towards the direction of our usual camp. “I’ll get you cleaned up first thing in the morning. Promise.” His only response was a half hearted snort that left my hand covered in his spit and some snot. “Oh wonderful, thank you. As if I’m not filthy enough.”
Muscle memory allowed me to effortlessly lead Bear down a small deer trail in the thick woods. The nearly full moon provided us with slivers of light through the immense canopy of pines and towering, ancient trees. After a little over a mile, the woods gave way to a clearing on top of a small hill situated yards away from a narrow, winding stream. Everything was as I had left it when I’d packed up the camp months ago in early spring. The small fire pit undisturbed, the wooden spit I’d assembled still intact. Before going to investigate my small cache of supplies hidden beneath the thick brush of a thorny pine bush, I focused my attention to getting Bear as comfortable as possible.
That included getting him unbridled, unsaddled and fetching him a fresh bucket of water from the clear stream. Fortunately for me and my own aching, tired bones, I accomplished the routine with quick efficiency. Bear greedily plunged his dirt-covered muzzle into the cool bucket of water as I set it down in front of him with a small splash. I gave his neck a few more firm pats and murmured, more to myself than to Bear, that I’d give him a good grooming in the morning.
A small wave of relief washed over me as I found that my stash of supplies, a small wooden crate tucked deep under a thorny pine bush, had been untouched by thieving hands in my absence. From it I gathered a few relatively clean rags and a small chunk of soap that had been worn down with years of sporadic use. Before heading down to the stream, I unbuckled and removed all of the leather armor strapped to me. The sweaty skin beneath the tight leather tingled with relief as it met the air for the first time in weeks. Not once had I removed my armor while I was traveling. It left me feeling too vulnerable, too unprotected. I had grown accustomed to sleeping in it, to wearing it in the blazing heat. A true second skin.
As I wended my way down to the stream barefoot, soap and rags in hand, I managed to leave some of my heaviness and tension behind me at my primitive camp. My home. Even as I neared the stream that I had washed myself in dozens of times, there was still uneasiness that nipped at the back of my mind, at my gut. I found myself looking over my shoulder into the tall grass around me, verifying that I was in fact alone. I knew I was. I always was when I was out here. No one traversed this part of the woods because it was too close to the dense forest that supposedly housed magical myths and legends. Fools. The only danger that lurked in those woods were the bears and wolves defending their territory. Creatures that I had been living with under a tense mutual understanding for a decade.
It still took a great amount of concentration to quell the queasiness that accompanied my constant paranoia as I bent down and rolled up my sleeves, dipping a rag into the near silent current of the stream. The time between my washings had grown to well over a month, and the state of my skin showed it. The elegant curls of the gray tattoos that covered my hands and arms were barely visible beneath the thick layer of old sweat, dirt, and dust caked onto my skin. It soothed me as I watched the cool rag wipe away more and more filth with each stroke I made.
A tired smile spread across my lips as my tattoos were restored to their crisp, striking clarity. I had fallen in love with the gray ink and the intricate patterns it weaved across my arms and back since the first day I sat for hours and had them hammered into my skin. The woman who had tattooed me was patient as I had shifted back forth between silent tears and crushing sobs. It took her chunks of time spread out over a week to complete them. A week after my life, along with my heart, had been shattered.
I gasped with a start as I realized my tattooed hands were hanging limply in the water of the stream, tears sliding down my cheeks. Cursing under my breath I slammed the rag back into the water and began scrubbing my face a little too vigorously. Ten years. There was ten goddamned years between me and that night. The night that forced me to shed and abandon my life for an unwanted new one. I damned myself for being tired and weak, for letting those memories slip back into my consciousness so easily. I blamed the heat, the exhaustion. I was over it. I had to be.
After scrubbing my face near raw, I hastily tore my fingers through the single braid of my coarse, dark brown hair and dunked my entire head into the water. By the time I pulled my head out, I was gasping for air. A futile effort to use the water not only clean my skin and hair, but to also try to wash the thoughts concerning my inescapable past from my mind.
I vigorously washed my feet off as I attempted to dry my long, thick hair with another scrap of dry rag I had tucked into the belt slung low around my waist. It was an enormous waste of my time and what little energy I had left to be thinking about that night that was so long ago. As I stormed angrily back up the hill to my camp, feet patted dry and unruly hair still wet, I grabbed Bear by his simple halter made of rope and tied him to a sturdy pine tree a few feet away from where I would be sleeping. Or rather, where I would be attempting to sleep. Sitting down with a huff on a weathered log by the fire pit, I reluctantly reattached my armor to my aching body.
My muscles relaxed a bit as I laid down on my bedroll beneath the slight overhang of the cliff. The sheer familiarity of the position ebbed some of the screaming soreness from my body and joints. Half of my vision filled with ancient gray rock, the other filled with the brilliant simplicity of the night sky. It began to soothe the rage that still lingered in my chest. Home. I was home. After months of constant traveling, defending the weak, the preyed upon. Ten years of it and I had only killed those who were stupid enough to fight back. That had foolishly tried to strike me down. The criminals, thugs, assassins, monsters, who wanted to take from others what they had taken from me ten years ago. My pride. My happiness. Everything that made me light and human. Gone. Stolen away by the claws of a monster. My betrothed. My hope.
Folding my hands over my chest, where they rested upon the two daggers strapped to the sides of my torso, I finally closed my eyes and forced myself to focus on my surroundings, on the present. It always took a tremendous amount of effort to pull myself out of my mind once I found myself wading through my memories. The weight of my feelings from all those years ago was incredibly familiar. Like an old friend. They always preyed on me at night, when there was no one around to defend or defeat.
I must have laid awake for hours, listening to the chorus of Bear shifting on his enormous hooves, the barely audible whisper of the current of the stream, the frogs and insects singing back and forth to each other. Sleep found me eventually, wrapping its tendrils of release around my perpetually tense muscles. Darkness swept over me, leading me into either dreams, nightmares, or nothing. I always prayed for nothing. Just sleep. The prayers never worked, but I prayed anyway. Hoping that one day I would be freed of the weight, of the fears that were always crashing along behind me. I hoped. Somehow, still, I hoped.