The Lonely Horseman

The Season of Lights had officially begun at the Lonely Horseman less than an hour ago, with the advent of the Messenger in the tavern doorway. The dancing and singing had begun before the man had closed the door behind him, leaving naught but the smell glowing fires from the town squares in the common room. And although men - even men in these parts - seldom started drinking this early in the morning, they would make exceptions for the Season of Light, and so drinking had started by many in the room at the same time as dancing had for others. Not to be outdone, Gauthier had already been drinking for hours.

To say he was drunk would not have been altogether a true statement. It took a lot to get a dwarf drunk, especially on this watered-down, human ale; especially when they were a dwarf of his stature; and most especially when that dwarf was Gauthier.

In fact, most in the room would probably have never guessed he was a dwarf. Most humans had no idea what a Valenci looked like. All they knew of dwarves were from paintings of small, brutish, unshaven pigmies that looked more like a rotund children dressed up in some mummer’s farce, than an actual dwarf. And although he would consider his mountain-dwelling kin brutish, and unshaven, he thought the representation to be a bit harsh, if somewhat comical. And, now that he thought about it, a fat child may in fact be the closest thing that he knew of to one of them. Maybe the human’s had something there, at least when it came to other dwarves.

But he didn’t totally blame them, most humans just had no dealings with dwarves these days, and his kind least of all. The Sky Dwarves they called them. That was unimaginative, at best. Couldn't they have put a little thought into it. Come up with something grand and beatiful. Probably not, now that he thought about it. In fact, he would not be surprised if the whole lot of them considered him just a myth, a silly child’s story. Everyone knew that Dwarves didn’t fly, even if they did have magical boats. Dwarves lived underground, barely smart enough to clean their own drools out of their long, scraggly beards.

But, he wouldn’t hold it against them. These humans weren’t too bad of a sort. They were hospitable enough, smelled decent, and most paid their bar tabs. That was a good combination in his book. So he drank with them, laughed with them, and mostly enjoyed being around them.

Although he did stuck out like an Adria at court in this Tavern. Not only was he over a full head shorter than any other man in the room - tall for a dwarf to be sure, even for a Valenci, but still short enough to be noticed, even at a distance - but his clothing looked outlandish compared to the dull, southern garb surrounding him. Over a white tunic, he wore a clean gray doublet with his family's sigil emblazoned in a bright blue that matched the traveler’s cape covering one of his shoulders, somewhat modest black riding pants and gray boots turned up at the top. A rather unremarkable outfit back home – his shirt hardly even had any ruffles in it – but around here enough to mark him as a stand out from the masses of stained grays and browns at a hundred paces.

But he was not about to lower his standards, just to appease a few humans. Let people stare, he would take it as a compliment, and go on his merry way, knowing he was better dressed than them, and probably had a more pleasant personality, too.

However, here at the drinking table, all were equal. He looked across at the two southerners that he had been drinking with so far this morning. He didn’t know if they were Lodrians or Adria – mostly all humans looked the same to him – but wherever they were from, they made decent drinking companions, at least as far as human’s go.

No, Gauthier was not drunk, just enjoying himself; taking life slowly and easily in a town, and on a day, where you could celebrate by drinking to your heart’s content. And that, was good enough for him.