Arrow Rock Literary Journal

The pub is not welcoming. It’s dark and a little dingy. The only light in the place comes from barely functional oil lamps at each table. The glass panes at the front of the room are filthy from years of neglect. There’s a brick fireplace on the left side, but it’s always covered in a thick layer of soot and the metal poker lays on the floor haphazardly in front of it. As an orc, Dura is well aware she ran off any human and elven customers for at least the first year she was in business. Her shoe clings slightly to the hardwood floors when walking about. Shady business goes on at the booth in the darkest corner. A single sword is the only thing on the walls, mounted behind the bar. But the pub is warm. The ale might be only a little stale at best, but the food is good.

Dura is wiping the bar counter while her last patrons finish up for the night. The bard she employs has already gone off to wherever he disappears to at the end of his shifts. Old Man Reegus is nursing a quarter of an ale at the opposite end of the bar. The friendly neighborhood rogue is sulking at the booth in the corner after a deal gone sour. Once they leave, Dura will be treating herself to stew and half a piece of stale sourdough. Same as the night before and the night before that.

It’s the monotonous sort of lifestyle Dura leads now. One without surprises or excitement that so starkly differs from her adventuring days. She found a long time ago she doesn’t mind. Really. There was a time when she thought the rest of her life would be spent hacking and slashing her way through hordes of goblins or fighting for the spot closest to the campfire among her party.

What Dura didn’t know then was that every adventuring group breaks up. Every adventurer who doesn’t suffer from an untimely death has to settle down eventually.

By the time Dura is finished wiping down all the tables, the rogue and Old Man Reegus have long since been gone. She’s finally able to settle down on the stool behind the bar and eat her stew, a bland mixture of beef and potatoes she keeps only for herself. It’s best to soak the bread in the broth between bites. Otherwise the crust will scratch up against her tusks in the worst way possible.

It’s here she sits when the pub door opens. It sends an unwelcome gust of cold night air into the room. “We’re closed,” she states simply, not even bothering to look up from her bowl.

“Even to old friends?”

Dura stands, stool scraping harshly against the hardwood floor. The slight creek of her wooden leg follows, a sound she has long since stopped noticing— she can’t help but to take note of it now. “What…” she trails off, not quite sure what to say. “What are you doing here? How are you here?” is what she finally settles on.

Lithrin shrugs. There’s a sheepish grin on his elvish features, eyes crinkling at the corners. A scar runs over his right eye that wasn’t there the last time Dura had seen him. He isn’t wearing adventuring gear. Rather, an almost mockingly clean dark green tunic and brown pants with a fancy belt that she’s never seen before, but is just so like him. She takes note of the lack of a sword strapped to his side and that his shoes can’t have been made for more than a mile’s walk. His blond hair is cut short now, not even reaching his pointed ears. But even with everything that’s changed about him he still looks so… Lithrin. His hair is still curly. His eyes are still so, so green. Even after all these years.

She feels almost inadequate now, with dark hair messily braided where it falls down her back. She’s dressed in a filthy tan tunic and dark blue pants that she knows have grass stains on the knees. Her shoe has a coating of dried mud and she purposefully doesn’t move from behind the bar in a thinly veiled effort to hide it.

“A simple tracking spell. Thought I’d finally see what you’ve made of yourself.” Lithrin makes a show of looking around the pub. Dura still knows him too well to not miss the nervousness creeping into his voice, the way his jaw tenses ever so slightly. His brow furrows as he considers everything from the floorboards to the tables to the sword mounted behind the bar. “Have I been here before?”
“Yes and no,” Dura answers after a moment’s hesitation, considering her words carefully. Like she’s afraid she’ll say the wrong thing and he’ll be gone. She’s still openly staring at him; she can’t believe he’s actually here. After the last time, after she left, she never thought she’d see any of her old party again. She never thought she’d see him again.

Brown meets green when Lithrin finally locks eyes with her again and he smiles, this time a real one. Everything in that moment just feels so right. Like she’s back next to the campfire, that rich, earthy scent of burning wood filling her nostrils and a pleasantly warm and spicy taste coating her tongue. Like she was once again drinking and sharing stories with her closest friend in all of the planes of existence, laughing until her stomach hurts. And then she’s smiling, too, before she can even realize it.

“You’ve changed it,” Lithrin says, realization dawning on him. Dura knows he remembers. He remembers the night they met, the night their whole party met, at this very same pub all those years ago. Even after leaving the life, Dura couldn’t leave everything. He knows. And most importantly, he understands.

“I have,” she agrees.

“It’s a little bare.”

“It is.”

“We can work with bare,” Lithrin says and Dura doesn’t miss the way he says we. “I have a loft now, no more than a half mile walk from here.”

“You do?”

He nods. “It needs furnishing.”

“There’s a shop a few doors down. I could show you. If you’d like.”

“Tomorrow?” he asks, green eyes hopeful.

She nods.

Lithrin takes his leave not too long after. Dura sighs and settles back onto her stool. Her stew is cold now but she doesn’t mind, hardly even touching it. Instead, she looks around the pub, taking note of just how much blank space the walls hold. She and Lithrin will go tomorrow to buy furniture for his loft. Maybe she can pick up a few things for the pub. Maybe then it won’t be so bare.

---

Bree Stock is a Junior at Lindenwood University. She is pursuing a major in English with a Creative Writing emphasis. Bree is an active member of the sorority Phi Sigma Sigma and Lindenwood’s Creative Writing Club. After graduating, she plans on pursuing a career as an author and is currently working on her first book. Bree spends much of her free time reading, writing, and drawing. Currently, she has a couple of published pieces and is super excited to get more of her work out into the world.