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He'd not bothered to venture far since coming back to Dol Amroth. He'd told himself he didn't quite know why, but that was another of those lies that people sometimes used when they were protecting themselves from having to face the truth. So the former slave "didn't know" why he'd kept close so close to Amrothos or his crew members in Dol Amroth, having ventured only just as far as the docks where he now sat, gazing out as if he'd see something other than the wind and water, hear more than the roar of waves and calling of gulls, feel more than the hard wood beneath him, the light rain upon his face, and taste more than the salt sea air and this strange uncertainty before him. He had thought returning here, he'd once again touch more. He had thought he would be tasting freedom, but so far that hadn't come.
It was true that he'd made it here, that his family may still remain, if he headed for the coast, not that he recalled their names, he barely knew his own. It was true that he was in no way bound to the ship in the harbor where the sailors slept and where he'd spent most nights in the few months since he‘d been freed, it was true he had the power to travel wherever he wished, even to join the newest delegation traveling to Minas Tirith. Though he did not know many of them well, the trip WOULD lead him to Amrothos, who, for some reason, he could not bear the idea of being away from still, though it had been some time since he’d last seen the man and surely he had a life that did not require its own charity-case tracking him through everything.
Only that was not so much the reason and the man knew it, but the real reason he waited seemed unclear.
Fear? of what did he have to fear now, exactly? True, the customs of his home country were strange to him now, almost foreign in their way, to someone who had not stepped foot in Gondor for over just over half his life, but he'd retained the language well enough, had the feeling he could find his way towards some of the places he had gotten to know in his short time in Amroth...if any of those old places he'd frequented existed still, if any of the people he had known were here. The apothecary he'd once began to apprentice in, the ugly swan statue in the park that he and his newfound friends had spent a whole afternoon mocking...did they remain still? Did he even want them to? Which thing would be easier, he wondered, coming back to a world so changed, or trying to fit into one which hadn't?
Or a home which did not fit him? Everything was so uncertain now, it almost felt that there was no real place to turn. It wouldn't have been true if he'd pursue it, but somehow returning here had managed to make him feel a little less...it was as if the man he'd been back on the ships, the bravado and daring he'd displayed had vanished now. Stolen by the journey here? He was not sure and in a lot of ways he missed the way he'd been.
His former self would not have hesitated to go out and take his freedom, dragging in to Minas Tirith himself if he truly wished it, weathering it through this storm, this…alagos it would be called, if his elvish was correct. This alagos...somehow the word excited him, and though he'd be a fool to say it managed to make all things better, it did bring a bit more confidence, a greater determination to outlast it, be a stronger force against whatever fear it was that still managed to chain him down. A greater, better alagos...So that was what he was, or at least what he'd hope to be.
Casting the chains aside, and turning from the sea, for the first time intent on seeking out, or carving out, or scratching out a life, this same young man, this Alagos took the first step of thirteen years into the great world before him, not knowing what he'd find, but finding that he almost did not care. If he could not yet make his home in Dol Amroth, why should he not see what else there was to find in other parts of Gondor? So be it then, he’d seek out Minas Tirith, and whatever his alagos brought him he’d embrace it.
A new life and a new name. Perhaps a purpose and a destiny would come with time. Until then, there was the storm to weather…
(OOC: Sar's new OC. Yey!)
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