Character name: Thom Almana
Login account: DemonicRabbit21
Daylight.
It fell through the unshuttered, open window, lighting the dust as it hung in the air and illuminating the crippling hangover that was beginning to creep over Thom's senses. His deep groan was an avalanche rumbling across his head but he felt it was important that the day understood his feelings towards it. Squeezing his eyes shut he began to make a last ditch effort to convince his brain that they were lying and that it would be wise to go back to sleep. Groggily, he moved a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose but was distracted instead by the fact that it seemed to be a completely different shape than he remembered it being. A dull ache began to force its way to the forefront of his attention as he gingerly fingered what felt like a severe case of bruising around the top of his nose and the base of his right eye. Attempting to open it confirmed this suspicion but brought with it new ones. Had the room always been this upside down?
Slowly glimpses of memories began to float back to him from alcohol riddled parts of his brain. Wherever he had been, there had definitely been a chair. The image of it streaking through the air before connecting so squarely with his face was now painfully clear in his mind's eye and slowly the looming figure of the enraged mountain of a man that had been swinging it was beginning to take shape too.
"Oh Gods". The words habitually fell out of his lips before he could stop them. "Did I really call his mother the Whore of Calimshan?". He laughed despite himself before groaning again and clutching his side as pain pierced through him. A second period of experimental prodding revealed an almost certainly broken rib and two other sizeable brusies across his stomach.
"Feels like I got away lightly for that one" he thought to himself.
Eventually, after resigning himself to the fact that the sun wasn't going to stop shining simply because he wished it would, Thom decided that there was nothing else for it but to get up. This thought was significantly eased upon the discovery of the half full bottle of wine that he still clutched tightly in one hand, the other half of its contents he had apparently shared with the bedcloths. Pulling his head up from where it had been lolling over the edge of the bed was difficult, but the real pain struck as he attempted to sit upright, his rib screaming protests with every jerking, uncoordinated movement. Eventually he managed to wriggle himself up against the wall for support, his breath releasing in a haggard sigh as his hand instinctively uncorked the bottle. "Well, atleast I have breakfast" he muttered to himself as he raised the bottle to his lips. The wine was as sour as his mood and warm from where it had been lying in the sun but it felt good as it went down and so Thom drank deeply. Other memories from the previous night began to come back to him. He remembered the fistful of silver pieces he'd won playing dice and the serving girl he'd bounced on his knee by the fireplace in celebration, her blonde hair flowing down in loose ringlets, glowing orange from the reflection of the fire. He remembered opening his second bottle of wine and spilling most of it on himself as he danced across a table top singing "Don't You Fear What's Beneath The Dwarf Girl's Beard" and bragging about how he could shoot the bartender's bald spot with an arrow from a hundred yards, so long as he'd give him a free drink for it. He could not remember where exactly the chair wielding maniac had come into it but he most certainly remembered the painful result of their brief meeting.
The heavy sound of a fist beating against the door of the room broke Thom's reverie. A muffled yet angry voice shouted through between hammerings. "Thom! THOM! If you're still alive, get your sorry hide out bed right now so I can kill you myself!"
Thom sighed again. "Go away, Jehl. Enough of me is battered and bruised already, I don't need you to come in here and give my conscience a beating too!".
"For Torm's sake Thom, open this door or I'm kicking it down!"
Thom laughed, ignoring the pain from his side. Teasing Jehl was worth a little pain. "Go ahead and try, I've seen Kobolds kick harder than you!" Standing, slowly, Thom walked to the door and began undoing the latch. "Little girl kobolds, in little kobold dresses".
He opened the door wide to reveal Jehl, fist raised to start hammering at the wood again. "Well, I'm glad to see that man didn't beat the wit out of you" he said dryly as he stalked into the room.
Thom gave him a bright smile despite the pounding between his ears and said "Good morning!" in a sing song voice. Jehl was dressed in a faded green tunic with a belt drawn across his stomach, brown woven leggings and a well crafted pair of soft, well worn leather boots. An insignia of a black bow drawn with three arrows atop a yellow shield was stitched into the left breast of the tunic, though Thom's eyes made every effort to skim over that part. His normally fair half-elven features were drawn into an expression of frustration. "Don't you good bloody morning me, Thom. What on earth were you thinking last night?! You're a mad fool!"
"Oh, come off it, I was just having fun. Drinking a little, singing a song or two, chatting with a serving girl, there was no harm done! Wine?" Thom said, offering the bottle to Jehl, the small amount of wine left in it sloshing about.
"No harm done? Thom, your face looks like a bugbear took offense to the shape of it. For all I know, that guy WAS a bugbear! I had to drag you out from under him and carry you out myself! And the fighting didn't stop there either, Gods no! The Deaf Dragon looks like it's HAD a dragon in it!" Jehl shouted, his voice rising with every sentence.
"Calm down, it can't be that bad. You're just exaggurating."
"Exag- " The word died as Jehl exhaled sharply in frustration, shaking his head. "Thom, you're going to get yourself killed if you keep on like this, and I can't keep protecting you. Why do you think I brought you here, to Manerous?"
"It certainly wasn't for the strong sense of civic duty, I got pickpocketed twice this week" said Thom, trying to soothe the bruises on his face with the cool glass of the wine bottle. He could feel a lecture coming on. His head started to ache more.
"Thom, this isn't a joke! I brought you here so that-" Jehl lowered his voice to little more than a whisper, his eyes darting quickly to the door and back "-so that we could lay low. Look, they've got half the rangers out looking for you. They'll kill you if they find you here! And probably me along with you if they find out I helped you escape! Well they're not gonna have much trouble finding you if half the guard knows your face, are they! For Torm's sake Thom, they're not going to go forgetting what you did anytime soon. You deserted, and
killed that poor-"
"I know what I did!" Thom screamed, suddenly furious. "I KNOW what I did!" he screamed again, tears appearing unbidden at his eyes. He turned to face away from Jehl, wiping the tears and the shame from his face. "You don't think I dwell on it every day?!" he said after a pause, his voice bereft of his previous anger. He felt tired again all of a sudden, and his head was pounding hard enough to burst.
"Look, Thom, I'm sorry but you're gonna have to face it sooner or later. I know it was an accident, I do, but they won't see it that way. We're half-elves and they've never really trusted us because of it, they'll never give you chance to explain anything. Look, this is the only way we're going to give them the slip. We're both good at hiding and covering our tracks, and we can hunt as well as the rest of them but you know they'd find us in half a week out in the woods. But whats the use in me looking out for you if you're just going to go and get yourself killed at the hands of some drunk in a bar?" Jehl's voice was rising again.
"...I deserve this" Thom said, under his breath.
"You can't keep acting like this, Thom" Jehl warned.
Thom whirled back around to face him, his face stricken once again with grief-turned-fury. "Don't you tell me how to act!" he screamed, his voice bellowing out around the room. "You don't know ANYTHING! And I don't need you looking over my damn shoulder all the time!". A sudden rage flowed through Thom's body, fueled by Jehl's lecturing, his stricken grief and this
damn hangover. Deftly, Thom spun the bottle in his hand so that he clasped the neck and within a heartbeat it was flying at Jehl's head, the last remnants of the wine streaming out in a crimson spiral. Only barely did Jehl manage to dodge out the way, his head moving quickly to the side as the bottle sailed past, exploding against the wall behind him. Small shards of glass pierced the skin of his cheek and neck but the pain was nothing compared to his surprise. He stood staring wide eyed at Thom opposite him, breathing heavily, his face showing nothing but anger, his fists clenched and ready to fight him.
As calmly as he could, Jehl stood upright. "I'm the only friend you have left, Thom" he said curtly, trying to keep the anger from his voice. "I'm the only friend you have left who doesn't want to kill you. But I can't keep doing this." He walked towards the door and held it open. Thom remained still seething, not turning to follow him, refusing even to turn his head to look at him.
"I'm leaving, Thom. I'm going home. Try and stay out of trouble. I hope for your own sake you do. You won't have me over your shoulder next time".
With that, he left. Thom heard his footsteps recede down the corridor and the dull, gentle thud of the door as it drifted shut. After a while he finally opened his fists again. His knuckles were white but his palms were red where his fingers had dug into them. He hadn't realised he'd been gripping them so hard. He looked at them absentmindedly, not really seeing them at all. His mind was thinking back to when he'd first came here, stealing into the city in a trader's wagon so that no-one would see them entering, and back further again to the whole reason he'd come here in the first place. That boy. That poor boy.
Thom sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. He walked over to the bedside table and pulled open the drawer, revealing the half full bottle of whiskey he'd kept there for good luck. Lifting it out, he walked over to the open window and leaned against the sill, the sun warming his face as the city bustled below him. His head still pounded, and his face and ribs felt no better for the events of the morning.
"And today started out so well" he thought to himself. Looking down at the bottle of whiskey in his hand, he turned it over a couple of times, admiring the way the light played on the deep browns of the liquid inside. A small surge in the droning, undulating tone of the city noise made him look up as a cart rumbled past the inn and he drank in the view of Manerous, teeming with life, people already busy about their days. Despite what had just happened, despite his pain, despite himself...Thom smiled. He uncorked the bottle with a pop and raised it up to the city.
"Cheers" he muttered.
This is my first character development post, so let me know if there's anything that doesn't fit or needs changing / adding or if there's any extra information you need about Thom
