girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

New England Fog. Jamestown, RI. 2023-12-26.

I really value when people use violence for me, it's actually one of my love languages.

Erres ek Englion/Ioannes - Erres, returning from a campaign, is coming back to a home for the first time. For @neptuniite

As he walks he pushes the thought of Ioannes from his mind - Ioannes framed in the light of the door, catching the warmth of the lamps in the wrinkles of his face. Perhaps returning to the barracks would’ve been easier, but his feet had taken him deep into the city, searching for the comfort he cannot bring himself to name. He had thought the dog would be distracted by the taverna they passed at the end of the street and the warm light and laughter spilling from inside. Certainly a quiet pup could find a scrap or two passed his way in there. But the dog had kept following him, cautiously at a distance like they did patrolling the camp’s perimeter. Ioannes comes to mind again, without invitation. He thinks surely Ioannes won’t let it inside, the filthy dust coated thing that it is. Pity it with a crust perhaps. The stale taste of it rises in the back of his mouth. 

His feet come to a halt before his eyes focus on the right door. It is already cracked open, and swings wide when the boy that had been peering out spies him with a yelp and scarpers. Then, like the dawn, Ioannes.