A Century of Boots

[ichigomaster98 632]

[ OOC Warning: This short story / excerpt is from the perspective of Boots. It will not be happy. ]

Inspired by: Post 207894 by Javert titled 'Self-Loathing'

 

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Spoiler

Some music I thought was fitting.

 

 

A Century of Boots

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     It was the fifth year of his life when a young man would last see his mother alive. It was nearly fifty years after that before he felt anything other than anguish, before he smiled again. Now, fifty years past that, the young man finds himself significantly less young and significantly less happy than ever before.

 

     Boots Anarórë sat alone in his windmill looking at his sword laying across his lap, and he thought. He thought of the century. He thought of all the loved ones who were no longer alive, he thought of all the loved ones who still live but have left in other ways. He thought of all the battles, of all the avoidable loss, of all the pain and hardships which are so hard-fought and so quickly forgotten by their descendants. He thought about his homeland, which had fallen to greed and brother fighting brother. He thought about all of the mistakes he made. Though he was still alive, he was not living. Not really.

 

     After what felt like a century of thinking he looked up, first out the window across the fields of wheat which may hide threats behind any stalk. Then around the room. The walls covered in paintings by his hand, most of them of his wife when she was happy. Some of the paintings were of landscapes lost to this world save for their location in his memory and a few strokes of paint. A few of the paintings were not finished, having lost the motivation to finish them long ago. Thoughts of the paintings and the memories they represented drifted through his head, though he tried to push them away.

 

     He looked to the wall across from himself, at the prayers and charms to ward off evil he had etched and placed. They did work, he supposed, though only when inside his home. He looked past those to the weapons stockpiled in convenient places that worked whether inside the home or very far from it. He thought very briefly what a wonderful world it would be if all that was needed were prayers and charms.

 

     He looked to the corner of the room closest to the prayers and charm, where a bed and some stuffed animals sat ready for his daughters Vunlea and Eilika, whenever they decided to come home. Though only one was his by birth he had been the only parent to either of them. He thought briefly about his son Jon, the wild child who lost his parents to one of the many avoidable wars. He thought of Inga, the greatest bear, also lost to war at an age too young to truly show the world her greatness. He thought of all the friends and family he had lost, too many to name. If only he could talk to them once more. If only he could have died so that one of them may still live.

 

     Boots, the stoic old man who many had never seen express any amount of emotion, felt his throat choke and his eyes burn as he thought of everything lost. It is unfair that he still be alive! Why should those that brought smiles and laughter to the world die when he only ever seemed to bring death and loss and sadness wherever he went?

 

     The house was still, the only sounds being ragged sniffles and the occasional chirp from his bird Jebediah. He preferred it this way, he tried to tell himself. He is still alive because he made himself too hard to kill. The quiet means he has killed anything which could kill him. He looks out the window again to make sure of it. Why couldn't they have done the same? Why must they all die so easily? Anger welled up in him as the tears started to blur his eyes. In the blur he almost thought he could see someone. His hand gripped the handle of his sword, his other hand wiped away the half-formed tears, yet he found himself looking at the same cold room, the only change being the snow beginning to fall outside to add to the cold.

 

     He looked down to the sword in his hand. If only he had been stronger. If only he had been a better soldier, or friend, or husband, or father, or son. That was what stung the most, he knew. The scars that hurt him the most were not the scars from battle, but the scars on his heart and mind. The missing pieces where people had once occupied and filled with warmth that now only made him more cold. He didn't know how to handle those wounds. Nobody had ever showed him how. It was very likely nobody ever knew, his facade too thick, sometimes so thick he could even trick himself. He took his sorrow and squeezed it tightly into a ball, and he shoved it into a jar with all the rest, a jar so full it seemed like it would burst at any moment. But it wouldn't. He would make sure it wouldn't, for he was too strong.

 

     He looked at the sword in his hand a moment more. If nothing else could kill him, then why shouldn't he try? A century of sorrow is a century more than he wanted already, and the next century would surely be a century more of sorrow. However, with a sigh he set the sword back down on his lap. He had made a promise to a friend when his wife left that he wouldn't be the one to end his own misery, and he refuses to ever break a promise even if it was the very last thing he did.

 

     He looks around the room again, starting the whole cycle over, only serving to make himself feel worse until he was sure he deserved the anguish.

 

     What was it all for? He was a failure in every regard he cared for. He had always thought that by the time he was a century old he would finally be happy, but now it seemed he was going to spend his loneliest Solstice Armistice and the end of his first century with the only gift being more misery.

 

     Suddenly, breaking the silence of the mill is a small knock and an even smaller voice. "Gramps...?"