Topic: A Homecoming

Jonigan · Date: 2016-07-21 08:51 EST

When you never really call a place home, new faces are something you see on a regular basis. Relationships never get past the superficial stage. Your smile and wit are the only things others ever get to know about you. Knowing you'll soon be resting your head in another town makes it easy to let those frail bonds snap.

But everyone always has that one place they claim as theirs. Where you found it hard to move along, and the people managed to worm their way deeper into your life.

Returning to find that the streets have changed and the faces you knew are long gone never gets any easier.

Jonigan wandered the unfamiliar landscape in a sort of daze. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he was last here. Every now and then a landmark would jog his memory, people whose names had faded flitted through his mind. It would only help to increase his melancholy nostalgia.

But one thing never seemed to change in this shifting landscape. The Inn.

It was time to discover new faces and stories. And maybe this time he wouldn't let himself get to entangled with the locals.

Right.

Jonigan · Date: 2016-08-05 10:11 EST

It was because of a girl. It was always because of a girl that he ended up staying longer than he intended. But this time was different. It wasn't due to a passionate romance or intense love affair.

Sylva was young?or so he believed. Even without his deeply skewed perspective on the passage of time, she possessed an appearance that made a person wonder if she was still living in the age of innocence or if she had seen enough of the world to know better. Though he came to learn that innocence wasn't something the girl ever had much experience of.

Something about the slightly grungy girl who wandered into the Inn had struck a chord with him. And his natural inclination towards music always made him pay attention when chords were struck. It was probably the somewhat lost look she had about her. As if she weren't quite sure what was safe and what should be avoided. That, and the fact that she looked like she was ready to eat a table leg if that's all she could get her hands on.

Despite all he had been through, his heroic flame had never been fully extinguished. Plus, he had a deeply ingrained sense of chivalry. So he had no choice but to charge to Sylva's aid and make sure her belly was given a morning to remember. A good deed for the day to help one of RhyDin's struggling masses.

And with that he had been snared. Their paths would cross again. He would learn of the mystery about the girl. Of the good heart overshadowed by a wicked history. How at one moment she was frighteningly capable, and at the next wholly unprepared to cope with the world. It wasn't in him to abandon someone who needed so much.

He wasn't prepared for how quickly and deeply she would weave herself into his life. That he would care so much for this strangely wonderful girl. How she would see in him the things she refused to see in herself. Forcing him to realize that, for the longest time, he had been just as lost as she was.