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Short Story S:2 P: 4 - "Journeymen"

     He was a blacksmith's son, a weaver's lover, a nobleman in his dreams.
     His skin was the shade of night, his spirit a Wanderlust, and his body a riddle of chiseled lines earned through hard work with long travels upon the land and sea.
     There had never been a song on his lips or a ripple in his pains that gasped with each beat of his heart. He knew not the swell of despair or the ache of lost that rattled bones.
     But the day the Knights rode in to the small port he had just spent his last dime to reach, his skin tingled with a pulse of something he could not place but felt so deeply it spoke of truths unseen.
     There, as they trotted past, a single pair of stormy grey eyes surrounded by gleaming gold in the light of the fading sun caught his own. They grazed him with phantom touches as they swept up and down his form, then returned their focus to the ships docking in the distance, but he had already been undone.
     The fire that licked at his knees threatened to buckle him, but he held his ground, his hazel eyes following the unit until it was out of sight and long after before he could finally will himself to move. Stumbling towards the nearest Inn, he settled at a table deep in the shadows of its small ale stained walls and quivered with emotions twisting his guts.
     What kind of Witchery was this?
     Had those eyes, so much like a turbulent sea on a hazy day, cast a spell upon him in their single flickering?
     His loins burned with an ache he did not quite understand, his nerves pulsed with a need he could not name and his mouth fell dry begging for a thirst that no mere drink could quench. He had thought his desire to seek out new lands and new trades had been the most powerful draw he had ever known.
     But he had been wrong.
     He could not stay here, not if there was a chance the unit would pass yet again through town and his need to see those eyes again beckoned him like a Siren's song. No, he could not stay, he had to go. He would ask where the nearest village inland was and head there now, no matter how quickly night was falling.
     As he stood to leave though, the door to the Inn opened and he found himself caught up in those eyes again--as if they had known he would be here, hunted him down like wounded prey--and he froze where he stood.
     "We are in need of assistance in our travels," a voice like honey carried to his ears and he quaked.
     "A Journeymen, preferably, who could tend to our horses and supplies while we guard a caravan on its way to Inner Lands," continued the heavenly words dripping from a mouth barely exposed by the broad helmet. "We cannot pay you, but if you prove your worth then you may remain with us on our quests"
     "I am your man then," he replied without thought and he swore the yearning was not just his own as those eyes swung towards him.
     Time stuttered to heart beats as they stared at one another across the crowded room and his remaining fear of being tempted by a creature of such magical draw faded away. It mattered not why he felt such a summoning to this being's side, it drew him like a moth and he felt--no he knew--he would not survive another day without knowing the honesty in the flame.
     "Then follow me," the voice swayed and he moved to join this new path with the hunger of a starving man.


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