Old Steel

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:59 pm

I




I sit outside an empty house. Its silence presses upon my shoulders. The open windows whisper about nothing.

With my back turned and my eyes closed, I know this house. I know it to the bones. My hands placed every brick and built every wall. The mortar is a mixture of dreams and love.

From here I can smell and taste a thousand meals cooked in the oven, the kitchen ever pregnant with laughter and comfort.

On my skin is etched the touch of bedsheets, the warmth of a bedroom shared for decades. A lifetime of secrets told by gentle lips, promises sealed by naked bodies.

I know each toy that sleeps under a small bed in a small room, a place where my hugs could dispel any nightmare and my calloused hands dry every tear.

I sit outside an old house. A house that has become too big. Inhabited by ghosts and memories, kept alive by my reveries.

Above the mantle on the wall hang two blades and a shield. They make me ponder. They speak to me of past deeds, they ask me if it is all over.

Am I to rust and fade away, to give up my life to dirt and dust?

I sit outside my own house, but I stare at the sea. There is a calling there, beyond the horizon, a hint of something left to do. A last chance to feel alive before death is all I see.
Last edited by Borin Drakkmurl on Sat Nov 27, 2021 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Sat Nov 27, 2021 4:55 pm

II



Sixty eight years of life packed into a small bundle, the house of my dreams disappearing behind me as I walk down the green hill.
The weight of the sword at my hip feels as comforting as it ever has, like an easy-going friend that reassures me by simply being there. A companion that makes the open road feel less daunting.

It’s not that I fear it. I know the road well. My feet still bare the calluses of a childhood spent running, shoeless, through hard streets. My legs have not forgotten the countless miles marched, tirelessly, through every corner of the continent.
My boots are a soldier’s boots, made to conquer the world.

It’s the lack of a destination that gives me pause.

It is a strange thing, all this freedom. Nothing to hold me back and nothing to push me forward. I am at the mercy of my own whims and they are far from being clear.
The only thing I am certain of is the need to move, that forward motion is what keeps me from a solitary death.

So I walk. I trust the road to do its job and to deliver me wherever it feels best, hoping that clarity can be found somewhere along the way.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Mon Nov 29, 2021 12:15 am

III




I find myself avoiding other people.

A nod of the head and a wave of the hand. That is the best that I can muster.
I don’t care to meet new faces. Everyone I’ve ever wanted to know is gone.
So I hug the edge of the path and stick to the solitude I know so well.

Which isn’t to say that I walk alone.

My ghosts follow me. At times the landscape blurs and I am elsewhere for hours.
Conversations that are decades old echo in my head.
I am back in the land of the living but wander through it like the undead, belonging to neither world.

The changing view does hearten me and the hollowness between my ribs feels less empty.
I find that my skin welcomes the sun, that my legs remember their strength and that my eyes are less hazy.

I even manage a smile from time to time, as if I was twenty years younger.

As if life still held some kind of promise.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Tue Nov 30, 2021 2:03 pm

IV









The gates of the city swallow me into a madness of streets, voices and smells.
So much has changed, yet all of it is the same. The same hurried steps, the same excited faces, the same worried eyes and loud laughter.
It is all somehow both refreshing and daunting, like diving into a crashing wave.

Which I do.

I wander aimlessly for a while, even if I know where my steps are taking me. I pass by several places that I recall from years past, old hangouts that remind me of friends and of the days when all of it was new, but I do not linger. The streets keep turning and twisting in the same direction, the whole city working together to deliver me to a very specific door.

I hesitate before knocking. What awaits me on the other side is, in many ways, unknown. I wonder if I’ve been forgotten. I wonder if it is even worth the try.

I knock.

It is not long before the door opens and reveals a small face with wide bright eyes. A face I have only seen once but that I could recognize anywhere, no matter the distance, no matter the time elapsed. Soon after, I am led inside.

I sit and face my son and my son's son. It never ceases to amaze, how much of me I see in each of them, despite my absence. How much I know I have not seen, because of it.

It is a quiet meeting. I have most of the talking and most of the explaining to do.

Forgiveness is up to them.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:39 pm

V





It is an emptiness that burdens me as I make my way to the docks. A heavy feeling of having depleted myself to a point of no return.

Nothing will ever be the same again. By leaving that house I have crossed a threshold into a new world. A new life, free of the unresolved pains and the lingering doubts, free of all words left unsaid.

Over the rooftops, the gently billowing sails seem to dance with a warm allure, reddened by a setting sun. The seagulls’ cries sound to me to be full of longing, of a deep desire for the sea breeze and its salty sting.

The footsteps that echo mine long for something else. I hear it in the way the heels touch the cobblestone. I sense it in the way the silhouettes stalk the corners of my eyes.
I could flee. I could run to a crowded market or enter a busy tavern.

Instead, I walk into a narrow, darkening street.

Two men follow, and I turn to face them.

Bums, both of them, with eyes desperately bright that stare at my sheathed sword, both holding shiny blades made for gutting.
They snarl threats that I barely pay attention to.

The excitement is all that occupies my mind.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
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Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:36 pm

VI




The most important thing is to keep that excitement in check. To keep a clear mind, so that the body can do what it has been trained to do. The muscles may be older, the joints may ache in ways that they did not use to, but if the mind is sharp, everything else falls into place.

A well timed pivot on the ball of a foot will always beat a desperate swing.
The right amount of leverage and pressure will always break a forearm.
The sight of a calm adversary will always crush a weak man’s spirit.

And Fear is the true weapon.

Pain is but its herald. The cold-hot touch of my blade as it cleanly slices through skin and flesh is only a detail. It is the dread of incoming death that guarantees victory, it is the feeling of being powerless in the face of it that turns the tide and makes a man run, leaving behind a bleeding, broken friend.

I call it victory, but I won nothing.

This corpse ensures only that I get to keep living.

That I get to stand where so many others have fallen.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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Borin Drakkmurl
Posts: 263
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2015 1:07 am

Re: Old Steel

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Mon Dec 20, 2021 7:41 pm

VII



The swaying of the ship as it braves the waves lulls me into mindless thought. Nothing in particular fills my mind, but a míriad images, emotions and recollections meld together into fluid meditation.

Everyone else is below deck. Hiding. Cowering in their bunks, their knees shaking and their guts crawling up their throats. Afraid of the incoming storm.

Which I welcome.

The dark clouds looming over the horizon draw closer by the minute. They roar as they prowl across the ocean, towards their victims. Towards us.
The sea spray whips me across the face and the swelling waves crash all around the ship. They hammer me down with cold anger and only the ropes that tie me to the railing prevent me from falling.

I laugh.

I laugh at it all.

At the thought of me, old and white bearded, drenched and helpless.

At nature herself, for thinking that this would, finally, do the trick.

At the hope of something better, beyond the incoming wall of darkness.
Past characters: Daedin Angthalion; Lurg Norgar; Urebriwyn; Ubaldo Ferraz; Erodash Uzdshak; Borin; Belchior Heliodoro; Orestes Fontebela

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