“Story From the North”

Author’s Note: This is a Take Ten to Write story and has not been proofread for errors. If I feel inspired or if there’s interest in the story, I’ll post a revised, edited, and extended version at a later date. Happy reading!

Prompt: “Who is that?”

The first thing I notice when I walk into the town square is the complete silence. Strangely, that hits me before I notice that the square is empty. Of course, the lack of noise makes sense now.

I lead Nessa to the nearest water trough and attach her lead. She starts drinking while I unpack my goods to trade from my saddlebag. I pat her between the ears before hoisting my pack over my shoulder and heading into the most likely place that everyone will be: the tavern.

Sure enough, the door barely has room to swing open. I wonder if I missed an announcement of some big event that was happening today.

A single voice rings out over the crowd, clear and confident. I stand on my toes so that I can see who everyone’s looking at.

A tall, thin man with a strikingly long beard stands at the front of the crowd, apparently having already captured their full attention. He speaks with grand hand gestures, as if those are supposed to make his story more entertaining.

I look up to see that I’m standing next to Gillie. I tap her shoulder and whisper, “Who is that?”

She doesn’t reply, her full attention on the man.

I sigh and move onto the next person. Saeart, the blacksmith.

I repeat my question, but he ignores me too.

I continue through the crowd, tapping each person’s shoulder and repeating the same question.

“Who is that?”

Every single one of them ignores me.

Finally, I reach the bar. Vilarn, the barkeeper, is the only one in the entire tavern who seems unaffected by this strange man’s speech. He’s grumbling to himself as he roughly swipes his towel across various mugs and utensils.

I squeeze into a seat at the bar and tap the counter to get his attention. He looks up quickly and rolls his eyes when he sees that it’s me.

I don’t really know why he doesn’t like me. I mean, I broke that one mug once, but that was a single mug! Do you know how many stools and tables are broken daily by bar fights?!

“What do you want?” he says gruffly, slamming a mug onto the table right beside my hand as if to once again prove that he’s stronger than me.

I choose to ignore his obvious aggression and jab a finger at the man on stage. “Who is that?”

Vilarn glances up at the man and shrugs. “Some trader named Kil. Said he came from the Northern Isles. Spinning some story about a dragon that’s eating up all the people up north. Bunch of nonsense if you ask me.”

Immediately, my interest is piqued. A dragon? Now this is a story I’ve got to hear.

Final Comments: The sentence structures in this one were a bit of a mess… And I was just getting into the story when the time ran out!

Overall Rating: 😑