Are
The cobbler grimaced at yet another crack of the whip, one well deserved. Testing the waters was associated with drowning after all, but this time, the man kept afloat.
It still brewed inside him, but kept under a wrap of boisterous slights and stubborn pride. Only betrayed by the creases at the edge of the smiling eyes. The heart wrenching words took what little pride he had left and held it under icy waters until it all but stopped kicking, drowning in a hole in the ice he'd cut with his very own axe. He felt right back at home again, reveling in the feeling of guilt eating away at his gut. Some true pain for mistakes he'd whipped himself over once every hour ever since.
A boiling point was drawing near. His mind simmering with the will to lash out, to again do something equally hasty and ill planned to what had put him there in front of the white haired bard. Thoughts that when let out would had him cut to ribbons and left for the dogs again. Instead the tankard became the victim of the building tension, slowly buckling under an iron grip tightening with every. Single. Ice. Cold. Steel. Sliver.
At last it broke, the tankard and the man with it. Buckling under the pressure. Caving in and left a caricature of its former self, broken, useless. Laughing.
Are laughed. Warm, friendly, thankful, and soft. Not the roaring triumphant laugh of a warrior victorious in battle, but of one mercifully left at the brink of death after the dust had settled.
"I tell you, friend." he said as the beaming smile subsided, Are sinking down in his seat as if left deflated by the reaming. "I tell you that there is no one left alive done me a greater service." he paused, breathed deeply, relaxing his clenched jaw and with a groan at his pounding head he sat up again. "To care enough to give me a beating I've not had since I came home with a cross to my mother, that is something." again he smiled, shaking his head and smiling at Jigano. "You are strong, all of you, far stronger than this cowardly oxen ever could dream of. Your words are all true..." another pause, another chuckle, another tear. "'cept one thing. Would anybody but a friend strike with such passion, would one just tolerant teach a fool?"
It still brewed inside him, but kept under a wrap of boisterous slights and stubborn pride. Only betrayed by the creases at the edge of the smiling eyes. The heart wrenching words took what little pride he had left and held it under icy waters until it all but stopped kicking, drowning in a hole in the ice he'd cut with his very own axe. He felt right back at home again, reveling in the feeling of guilt eating away at his gut. Some true pain for mistakes he'd whipped himself over once every hour ever since.
A boiling point was drawing near. His mind simmering with the will to lash out, to again do something equally hasty and ill planned to what had put him there in front of the white haired bard. Thoughts that when let out would had him cut to ribbons and left for the dogs again. Instead the tankard became the victim of the building tension, slowly buckling under an iron grip tightening with every. Single. Ice. Cold. Steel. Sliver.
At last it broke, the tankard and the man with it. Buckling under the pressure. Caving in and left a caricature of its former self, broken, useless. Laughing.
Are laughed. Warm, friendly, thankful, and soft. Not the roaring triumphant laugh of a warrior victorious in battle, but of one mercifully left at the brink of death after the dust had settled.
"I tell you, friend." he said as the beaming smile subsided, Are sinking down in his seat as if left deflated by the reaming. "I tell you that there is no one left alive done me a greater service." he paused, breathed deeply, relaxing his clenched jaw and with a groan at his pounding head he sat up again. "To care enough to give me a beating I've not had since I came home with a cross to my mother, that is something." again he smiled, shaking his head and smiling at Jigano. "You are strong, all of you, far stronger than this cowardly oxen ever could dream of. Your words are all true..." another pause, another chuckle, another tear. "'cept one thing. Would anybody but a friend strike with such passion, would one just tolerant teach a fool?"
