Taalkar sits in the overcrowded common room of an inn. His pallor grey, his head hung down. He rests slouched in the chair staring at the dusty floorboards. The throng occasionally brushes him and a careless step often lands on his feet. Still he sits, unmoving, ashen faced, a stone warrior cast in marble.

So many dead, he mumbles to himself, his lips dry and split from the weather, his beard caked with gore and filth. All dead while I ran, ran from my home, ran from the giants, ran from the screams.

Those screams of death still rang in his ears. The hollow cry of his helpless family as they were slaughtered. The shrill scream of hopeless soldiers separated from safety by a few feet of stone and unhappy circumstance. The low crying of pain as limbs and lives were overtaken by cold in the night.

Once he had purpose. Once he had life. Once he had fire. Now he wasn't sure he would find either one again.

There was his brother. Working to save those that he could. The cold stone. The steady stone. He never wavered or broke. Perhaps he could learn a thing a two from his ever-faithful brother.

He harrumphed a loud sigh, his cloudy thoughts further darkening his spirits. His head nods a hair lower as the fatigue of battle and travel take over.