"FINE! LEAVE THEN!" he thought, raising her unfinished wine glass to his reddened, wine soaked lips.
Once again, his wife had told him that she supported him. But when he had a real problem, or when he felt upset or angered, she was always the first to get up and walk out on him straight away. "Supports me when it suits her" he grumbled to himself. By now, his friend Bridghet had arrived, and in his inebriety he had commanded her to sit with him. Probably rude, and rather out of character for him, but he was angry. And when he felt this way he wasn't exactly reasonable.
"Did you get my letter?"
"I did"
"So, are you interested? Now you haven't got that badge, you could really change things round here. And it's a chance at vengeance".
It didn't go down well. In response, she'd got him a drink of water and had told the bar keep to cut off his drinks for the evening. Raging, and when some common pleb at the bar decided to throw mucky looks and tutting disapproval his way he lost it, and walked out the Pony.
Typical of his luck. He'd even advised Bridgh to let bygones be bygones, and that they were actually a reasonable bunch, Idathiel and her associates, and without the badge she'd probably get on with them. But then it seemed clearly bygones weren't bygones, and the threats they'd made against him were very real, and he was right back in the mire and the thick of it once more.
Moreover, he was alone in this, and he was vastly outnumbered should they make a move against him. Even his old mentor had betrayed him, and there was nowhere he could turn. Filled with that familiar feeling of resentment and insecurity that he had felt when he'd first started out, mixed with the desire to leave Bree behind once again and run from it, but also mixed with anger and that stubbornness and grit he'd had to learn when he'd gone South the first time.
He was indeed torn, and as he twizzled the ring on his finger and thumbed it thoughtfully, he found himself looking South in indecision. Run, south, get caught up in the war, likely perish. Or stay, hope it smooths over, likely perish from a knife as he slept. Or take them head on and bury this grievance once and for all, whether metaphorically or with bodies. And almost certainly perish.
Wanting to scream in frustration, he clenched his fists, feeling more alone than the time he spend a night in a Bush near the Isen, wounded and hiding from a patrol. This whole thing was madness.
Part of him wished his healer friend Ashwyneth hadn't ventured south, for she always had offered wise advice prior whilst stitching his wounds up for his stupidity and showed him paths he hadn't thought of. It'd be madness to travel south just to seek her out, though.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Madness" he whispered to himself. "That might work". Grinning, he pondered. If anyone could help him out here, and was both mad enough and genius enough to come up with something and also take it on, it'd be her. Smiling a little broader, he thought aloud to himself that he might actually have a shot at surviving this. He just had to find her.
Turning his horse back around, he rode back home, thinking to himself. "I ain't dead yet, and if you come for me you half-wit beggar thieving b*stard, I'll be waiting". He might not just survive this; he actually might, for a change, come out of this on top.
