Outsider

Chapter 1

He looked at her intently. \"Are you sure?\"

Nodding back to him, she sighed, the movement pushing her hair from her forehead before it flopped back down. \"Of course I am, Fenris. You know I can’t do it.\"

He sat down beside her at the table, his eyes never leaving her form. \"But…you said you could yesterday.\"

\"Well I lied!\"

He leaned back some, as if her words were a physical blow he was avoiding. He blinked twice and then nodded.\"So, I guess this is the end.\"

Her tense form slowly relaxed. She sighed again and sat back in her chair, ignoring the ominous creak of old wood. \"I’m sorry.\"

There was a snort from the man, and he shook his head. He suddenly found his lap very interesting. \"No you’re not.\"

\"You don’t have to be an ass.\"

\"Yes, I do.\"

They both chuckled. \"I’m going to miss it.\"

He glanced up at her, watching a delicate hand raise and brush stray strands of blonde hair out of her face. \"Me too….\"

Finally she moved, the chair protesting as it was pushed back against the timber beneath it. She stood and looked at him. \"Where will you go?\"

He shrugged, a bare movement of his shoulders that barely disturbed the sword strapped to his back. \"I don’t know. Wherever I’m needed.\"

\"You were needed here.\"

He crossed one leg over the other, placing his hands on his knees. Why did his hands seem so worn after all these years? He’d never notice that many lines in them or the way the skin seemed as tough as leather left out to cure in the sun.

\"I was needed here,\" he agreed with her, \"but they are dead, and I’m no longer needed. Not even by you.\"

She worried at her bottom lip with her teeth at those last words. \"Fenris—\"

Holding up a hand, he suddenly moved, rising with a grace that belied the way he’d been slouched in the chair. It reminded her of what he was. \"No. That last was uncalled for. I apologize.\"

Just that quickly, their relationship had changed. She could hear it in the tone, much too formal and harsh. It was sharp and quick. She felt something warm in her eyes and blinked it back. She was a widow. She had been one before she met him, and she knew by now how to hold back emotion in the face of certainty.

He raised his eyes to her face and looked at her. He wanted to grab her up and crush him to her, just hold her and convince himself he had heard wrong, that what they’d said and done last night had not all been a lie.

Well, no, not a lie. But it was a momentary deception. No matter how much it had happened, either him or his partner ended up decieved, tricked into believing the words that spilled from their lips in a moment of passion. In the morning, as the sun rose, so did the realization that it was all a fairytale rise.

In the morning, it was always the end.

She raised her chin to stare back at him, and they seemed to come to an understanding. It was an understanding that only two souls like theirs could face. He nodded, and she suddenly moved toward him, her arms wrapping around him securely.

He stood there for a moment, caught between wanting to push her away from him and holding her as tightly as she held him. Finally, his sense of duty won out, and he gently removed her clutch on his leather armor.

He held her at arms length, staring at her face as he soaked in every detail. He would need to remember it on the road. It was a cold and peerless road he had traveled on long ago and continued to travel on to this day. Today would be no exception.

There was some unseen and unheard signal he gave himself. He let go of her, checked his armor and weapons, and turned on his heels. His boots sounded hollow on the floor as he moved past the bar, past the tables with their chairs set around them.

The inn was quiet, as it would be this early in the morning. The tiny village itself was quiet, not quite woken up from a night of revelry and rejoicing.

It was not every day that an Outsider walked into town and killed the demons plaguing it. Espcially an Outsider with such fame as Fenris had. He was known throughout the land as \"the\" Outsider. He had battled everything from Illrond to Illrminniarr. He had killed almost all the demons that had stood in his way.

He did not turn around to look at her despite the eyes that watched him cross the room. Moving to the door, he opened it and then held it against the cold wind that blew past him. It made his bones ache and his mouth dry.

Maybe he was getting old. He never remembered feeling the cold like this either. But he was in prime physical condition. He had to be. He was still able to kill the demons. The end of any Outsider’s usefulness to this world came when they died at the hands at a demon.

He stepped out of the inn and firmly closed the wooden door behind him, knowing that she would move once he was gone, go about the duties that her late husband had left behind for her. She had fed him and housed him and given him a warm night of companionship. He was thankful to her.

He reached for the arms of his wool shirt as if to pull it closer and give himself warmth, trudging down the snow-lined dirt road. He would continue in his original direction. He wasn’t going anywhere; he wasn’t coming from anywhere. He was going north, and that was all he knew.

The further north he went, the colder he got, and the more he aged. He didn’t know it was the road or time catching up with him. Most of the time he did not spare a thought for either. This time was different. This time his bedmate had been the one to end it in the morning, instead of him.

The irony was that he didn’t even remember her name.