The tavern buzzed with warmth. Lanterns swung gently, and the scent of roasted meat mixed with spilled ale. At the center, a bard strummed a lute, his voice carrying a story older than anyone in the room.
Thalor sat in the corner, tankard in hand, jaw tight. The poem reached him, cutting through the chatter:
"Two lovers, parted, yet never gone,
One blind to sight, the other to fate's song.
The hands that built, the eyes that paint,
For the first and last, creation's restraint."
Thalor muttered under his breath, voice tense:
"If only it was like that…"
He drained his tankard, eyes scanning the room, uneasy. The words clung to him, a reminder of the connection he could never have—the author, blind to the world yet shaping it; the artist, painting life into his creation. He knew the longing, the weight of what was lost.
The tavern doors shifted. Shadows moved faster than the eye could follow. Drifters slipped inside, silent as the night.
Before Thalor could react, blades cut the air. Chaos erupted—tables overturned, mugs shattered, the bard's lute screeching against the floor. Thalor dodged, parried, but they were relentless.
"Into being is to become, to fall,
To rise, to weave, to answer the call.
The work of hands, the stroke of heart,
Creation and loss, never apart."
Thalor shouted, fear and rage twisting his words:
"Stop! Who sent you!?"
No answer came. The drifters circled, strikes measured and merciless. Pain lanced through him, his tankard clattering to the floor.
"If… if only it were like that…"
A shadow struck, and he fell, the firelight catching his last expression—anger, fear, and the faintest memory of love.
The tavern went silent. Smoke and splintered wood hung heavy. From the shadows, a group stepped forward, serious and businesslike. They knelt, hands on his temples, drawing out memories, knowledge, connections—everything he knew of the attack, everything linking Gulbob.
One finally spoke, calm and certain:
"Selkaria awaits. Gulbob must answer."
Thalor's eyes, now lifeless, still seemed to whisper:
"Past and future… hollow in hands…"
The tavern, once alive with song and story, echoed only with the soft clink of broken glasses. The bard's poem lingered faintly, a ghost of creation and love—of author and artist, separated by fate, yet forever bound in what they had made.