[OPEN;] feeling satisfied, but guilty as hell

[sassgardian]

Who: Fandral sassgardian & you!
What: Good, old fashioned learning about the nightlife (with a healthy dose of denial, because drinking is about fun and forgetting)! Get annoyed by Fandral, mingle with each other, it's a revelry free-for-all.
When: Day 383 | [Following this post.]
Where: Barhopping. Starting at Sky's Prize, maybe moving around (aka: feel free).
Rating: PG-13 to start, but may progress. Adults doing dumb adult things, who knows.


[It's startling, how easy it is to fall into a routine in a wholly unfamiliar situation, in line next to strangers with unknown motivations, complacent around an order (even as framed as it is as a desperate request, the gravity remains). And even easier still is the age-old remedy of denial.

Specifically, liquid denial.

For all of his showmanship, leading to seeming recklessness and stupidity under the guise of "bravery," Fandral also has a penchant for pleasure and overindulgence, especially in the forms of vice and "comfort." Celebration (perhaps more accurately described as an unclever ruse designed to fool himself and no one else) has been known to grow a mind of its own.

He hopes for the latter. Because despite the disturbing ease of complacency even in a home that is not "home," there is still enough strangeness to leave him with a deep, lingering sense of unease.

And so, he drinks to forget. Or perhaps, it's more to remember: to remember that there is a life outside of this. That even, as an instrument of salvation (or potential damnation), it changes nothing about him. Or anyone else.

Hell, he'd probably even toast to that.]

Comments

[sassgardian]

[Excess has rarely truly been a problem, but by most standards, he's still a budding alcoholic, and to argue otherwise would be to play a useless game of semantics which fools no one. Instead, he simply nods in agreement, waves a bartender over anyway, and sighs.

What reason does he give, of the myriad? That his friends are uncharacteristically distant, quiet, and that he worries in spite of himself? That the veneer on this unfamiliar, yet supposedly shiny, new situation has begun to wear when he now feels each day's length like a mortal would? That all this talk of war is some of the most unnerving, and he's been fighting them for centuries?]

Many things. This is all much quieter than I expected. [Especially in the middle of a 'war.' There's been plenty of talk, much of it unnerving in its own right, but the wariness of it is almost foreign when a warrior too used to his brothers-in-arms is all but left to the "one for all" half of the speech.]

[needsnoheadsman]

Savor the quiet, then, while it lasts. [Voice of experience, right here.] I know it may not look like it now, but this city's seen more than its fair share of battles, and will see more so long as this war rages on.

[sassgardian]

[Robb sounds so much more weary than a man of his age--or what Fandral can only assume his seeming-youth implies, being unversed in mortal life-spans--rightly seems he should, and while he cannot quite understand what that solemnity must feel like when concentrated into such a short amount of time, he does have a great amount of empathy. What he can understand are the more harrowing moments and lasting effects of war, of duty and responsibilities, and though it's rare for him to react in such a serious manner (rather than brushing it off, focusing on anything-but), the idea of quickly pushing that solemnity aside hits him nearly hard enough to wind him, and feels like a grievous disservice.]

No smart man wishes for war. Battle, perhaps: there is something to be said for a good fight. But fights are easy. Clear. They end.

[Peace is, indeed, a fragile and rare thing. But it's often mistaken as a solution when it's so often only a matter of time before it frays, or gods forbid, wholly shatters.]

[needsnoheadsman]

Then fight for an end to this war to come sooner rather than later.

[That solemnity's a hard-won thing, if you can count it as something to win at all, with everything he's had to lose in the process. He picks up a glass, waves the bartender over once more for some ale, and takes a sip.]

I know the battles are easy, I've fought and won more than enough of those even before coming here. War is--complicated.

[He gets it, is the thing. Snowball fights, playing at knights and monsters in the yard, fights with wooden swords, even fights with live steel--those are easy, and come to an end soon enough, though the last one's end is more lethal for one or even both. A war--well. It ends too, but it's longer and more complicated, and sometimes you start to lose sight of the goals you had when you started out.]

You could win all the battles, but you could still lose the war with one misstep. [Something that he, regrettably, has more than enough experience in.]

[sassgardian]

You could, yes. [He's no shortage of his own losses, by his own judgment or otherwise. But it gets easier. Frighteningly easier.] But I've a feeling you've grown from it?