Moonspear i’m on the dark side of a hollow hill

The silence extended between them, leaving him to think back on the past.

"A long time ago, I had wished to steal your sister away from this place."

He let the statement dangle in the air purposefully, recalling their chance meeting among the evergreens. When nothing more had extended before him but an open road and limitless possibilities. Where the road had parted between he and his siblings and their great unknowns. He knew not what of had become of them and doubted he would, but like the reserved acceptance of his counterpart, he had come to believe that was the way it was to be.

"There was something about her that I liked when we first met, perhaps that indomitable spirit she has. She seemed the sort who I thought would add a splash of variety to my life, someone who would make the journey all that more interesting. This was not the idea I had in mind the first time I let her bring me here... I am not, or I was not, one particularly fond of being held in one place for too long." But things had changed; he felt as though he did not need to say so in so many words.

He could long for that notion of freedom all he wanted, but even he knew that it would be a long time before he ever graced the open road again. If ever, though that did not occur to him. Dirge didn't know how the journey would end and rarely entertained such; he was content with his lot in life in that precise moment, could not imagine turning away from it. Least of all her and the children—he strove to be better than his father before him, and thought he had managed so thus far.