The Long Road Home

[Snake Plissken 637]

It had been three days since Athirius Owl heard of Emperor Godfrey's death, three days since he'd finally decided upon his return journey. Thirty years ago he was mortally wounded and the monks of the Wilven Sanctuary had brought him back, but he was not free to leave. He was tainted and suffering from a dark curse, and it took many more months for the monks to cure and rehabilitate him. By then, the people of Oren thought Athirius deceased and he felt that he was then indebted to assist the monks due to what they had done for him. For thirty years he'd served the monks and their false gods, assisting the people who flowed through their temples and reading a very large number of books and scrolls. He was old now, he wasn't quite sure how old but he knew it was well over one hundred. He didn't feel it though, and for this he praised his cursed Adunian blood.

 

 

He didn't have many possessions in his room at the temple, and what he did have was now packed neatly into a pair of boxes on his bed to make it easy for his fellow monks to clear out once he was gone. The possessions he needed were all in a neat satchel hung on the knob of his room's door, apart from those that he needed only take at the latest moment that was. And now was the last moment, he finally felt prepared. Athirius grasps the frame of his bed and pulls it out from the wall. Stepping around, he begins to feel around the wall’s base, looking for the bricks he has loosened upon his arrival at the new temple. After roughly thirty seconds of crawling about, pushing on each individual brick in the wall, he found the two he was looking for. Pulling the pair of bricks out of place, he reached into the hole they had left and felt around for what he sought; his old traveling robes, shortsword, and dagger. He pulls the items from the hole one by one, laying them all out on the floor.

 

 

As he stares down at them he runs a hand through his thick and matted beard, now running down past him belly button now, realising that was something that had to be attended to. He bends down and picks his dagger up off the floor, sliding it from it's sheath, inspecting the black handle and dark grey blade with the Eye of Iblees carved into it. Placing the razor-sharp edge up to his cheek, he begins to shave.

 

 

 

 

Hair falls to the floor en-masse, leaving Athirius's face via his dagger and floating down through the air. He leaves his hair hanging down to the base of his neck, tying a part at the back into a ponytail and gathering what was left of his beard into a small braid. Once finished with grooming himself, Athirius sweeps his old hair into a pile and scoops it into the hole in the wall to dispose of it. He then puts pair of bricks back in place at it’s opening, sealing up the compartment that had hidden his old possessions for so many years. Finished with the hair issue, the old man undresses from his monk-robe and begins the slow process of loading on the many layers of his traveling clothes. He finishes by putting his old, blue knight belt over his shoulder, wearing it as a sash. He then goes to look in the mirror. Staring into the sheet of reflective metal, Athirius can hardly recognize himself with the extreme lack of hair he had built up over the previous three decades.

 

 

 

 

Now ready for his final departure, Athirius slides his shortsword and dagger into place on his belt and slides his satchel over the opposite shoulder to that with the knight’s belt. He reaches down and checks his old leather boots are on tight enough to not blister his feet, all the while wondering what has become of his family home in Oren. Had his sons risen to become a knights, were they living in a gutter somewhere, had they died? Had House Owl crumbled back to the nothing it was when he was a child? What had become of his friends the Elendils? He could not know for sure, and these questions all played on his mind as he prepared for the journey.

 

 

Standing up straight again and grasping the doorknob, Athirius opens the door to his quarters and sets off on the long journey home, flicking up his hood as he exits the temple...

 

 

 

[Snake Plissken 637]

 

Exiting the temple grounds, Athirius finds that to his surprise the area is completely deserted, only the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees can be heard for miles all around. He puts this aside and continues on down the path, stopping to look at each and every sign he passes, exploring the world he has seen so little of. Half an hour down the path, he approaches an intersection and stops to read the sign.

 

 

Seeing one sign directing him to an archery range, Athirius heads off down the path is points at, hoping he can brush up on his long-neglected archery skills by making this quick detour, though deep down he knew that archery had never really been his strong point anyway. After a shot walk through the forest, the old knight comes to find the archery range, and whilst the targets were all there, the range possessed an extreme lack of bows or ammunition.

 

 

Unable to practice his marksmanship, Athirius heads back to the intersection, slightly disheartened by the lack of travellers about. He'd been alone many years, and even now when he was heading back to civilisation, only more loneliness seemed to be awaiting him. By the time he'd got back to the crossroads, night was falling over Anthos and the old warrior was forced to settle down for the night in an abandoned camp just a bit further down the path.

 

 

After cooking dinner on the fire, Athirius sits down and warms his hands on the open flame, taking a book he'd brought with him from the sanctuary out of his satchel. He spends several hours embeding his mind in the book, soaking up it's information and enjoying the company the words the book contained gave him.

 

 

As the moon rises further and further into the sky, the old Owl grows tired and finally retreats to one of the tents, laying down to prepare his body for his second day on the road.

 

 

[Turns out the roads of Anthos are abandoned :L]