Dominick Fletcher

The days were growing shorter, already, as if things were not bleak enough in Blaminster, already.  Dominick noted the dark clouds scuffing by overhead without judgment, however, merely accepting it as a fact of life.  The north was the only home he’d ever known and in truth, he considered any trip more than fortnight away a long trek, indeed.  It was, after all, the furthest away he’d ever been.

Trudging through the snow as he always did, his tools in a sack slung over his back, he moved towards Soarhall where he was constructing a scaffold for Rowlin’s coming of age ceremony (a day of which the entire north stood in dread).  It did not take Dominick terribly long to clear his path, accustomed as he was to the entire ordeal.  Familiar faces coursed in and out of the great manse about their work and Dominick smiled to a few as they passed.

Coming through the servant’s entrance, Dominick inhaled the sensuous scent of Tom’s cooking, his lips looping into a smile as he ducked into the room and gently let his sack of tools onto the floor.  Glancing around the room, he didn’t see Tom or Isolde, a fact that took him by surprise, but quickly spotted Danyl and instantly shook his head, a smirk touching his features.

Dominick grimaced, yanking what was left of the cabinet door from its hinges.  He quirked a single glance towards Tom, half-jocular, half-apprehensive.

“What did you do to this?” he inquired.

The cabinet was admittedly rather large.  Large enough, Danyl had once joked when the topic had come up, a man could live inside it.  It was also under the tender care of Tom Reston who, up until this moment, Dominick had always known to be careful and conservative with the goods under his care.  However, Tom’s urgent - anxious - request that Dominick come in and fix the cabinet door at once had shattered all expectations when Dominick had arrived to find the cabinet door not only splintered but also off-kilter.

Wresting the broken piece away (and staggering backward with the effort as it broke off), Dominick shook his head.  “This was Danyl’s work, wasn’t it?”

It was clear to Dominick, whose mind was half-suspicious and half-perceptive, that whatever Danyl was up to, it wasn’t entirely on the up and up, but Dominick wasn’t one to pry.  In cases such as these, he found, it was generally better not to know.  Still, this was a story and he had to admit he was rather curious.

“Something about tearing doors off their hinges just seems...more Danyl to me than you,” he chuckled, shaking his head.  “Unless Danyl was flirting with Isolde, again?” he added, glancing towards Tom with an arched brow.  “Couldn’t really blame you for taking a shot at him, if so.  Besides,” he added with a smirk.  “That might still qualify as his doing, you know.”

He drifted into the tavern around closing, wading past the patrons who dutifully filed out, acknowledging those who acknowledged him.  Mostly, however, even as the lights were slowly put out, his eyes found Amia, the brilliance of her smiles eliciting small beams of his own.

Dominick wasn’t here to eat or drink or make merry - though such inducements did occasionally draw him there.  He was there because he’d noted the drifts of snow piling up along the walls and the trees, and he’d noted they did nothing but grow and grow and grow.  Any true northerner knew how to cope with such extremes, but a westerner?  He’d thought of Amia instantly, his heart clenching and, with Gresilda’s blessing, he’d decided it might be best that he walk her home.  Even if he couldn’t get her that far in these conditions, he was certain he could get her somewhere warm and safe to wait out the worst of the storm.

He did not rush as he came forward, enjoying the heat that suffused the tavern, even as it seemed almost to scald his skin by comparison to the frigid outdoors.  Coming up to the counter, opposite Amia now, he smiled softly.  “Good evening, Lady Amia,” he began.  “I was working at the castle today,” he began, gesturing towards the edifice, hoping his nerves would melt away in the heat of the room - and finding they did not.  “Your sister dispatched me to see you safely through the storm.”