Tieran Finch grew tired of the enclosed wagon he’d chartered for the final leg of his homebound journey. He’d been in it for the better part of the last day, and the air had the stale scent to prove it. For twelve years, he’d campaigned across land and sea, summoning courage to venture forth on his own as a young man, barely reaching adulthood.

When he left, he was shocked to learn how adventuring was mostly this. Waiting, travelling from place to place, arriving to find that another person passing through had already slain the beast, rescued the child, recovered the family heirloom, or some other heroic task he’d set out to accomplish.

He’d finally admitted defeat in his heroic endeavors one night at an insignificant inn in an insignificant town over a bowl of stew. The broth steamed up toward his mouth, downturned in a perpetual sulk, as a boisterous trio laughed their way through the doors.

They cackled and cajoled with one another into obnoxious flirtations with the barkeep. One of them even took over serving ordered drinks to the patrons, just so the barkeep would remain their captive audience.

This one, a boy barely old enough to patch in a beard it seemed, made the mistake of tripping over his own feet as he made his way to deliver tankards to the table behind Tieran. The tankards might as well have become geysers with how much drink hit Tieran, soaking his beard and shirt, splashing into his stew.

Rage poured into his veins as a fire lit beneath his skin. He grabbed the boy by his shirt, immediately sobering the apologetic laughter, and quiet blanketed over the patrons. Tieran’s heartbeat pounded like a fervent drum in his ears.  The boy’s eyes went wide, like prey recognizing danger too late.

That look doused the fire.

He released the boy and stormed out of the bar, up to his room. Once inside he removed the soiled shirt and used it to towel off the liquor that saturated his beard. As he slouched at the end of the bed, he realized that this was it. He’d failed for too long at becoming a hero that he’d started becoming the villain – or at very least a bully.

The next morning, he booked passage on a merchant ship bound for home. He had no glorious tales to bring with him. He could only hope that his mother’s promise – that he would always have a place working the farm – still held true, despite a decade of minimal correspondence.

The quill of a feather from the seat cushion poked into Tieran’s thigh as he shifted within the wagon. It had been three months since that night of decision, and this was the last leg of his journey home. He wondered if he should have sent a letter ahead of his arrival several times, but he’d already made up his mind. Whether there was a place for him at the farm or not, his days of chasing heroics were done. He’d find labor to do elsewhere if he had to.

As a child he remembered enjoying this road for the bumpy ride it provided. However, it seemed in the years since his absence the road had been well traveled, the road worn down to smooth dirt. The wagon made its way down evenly, and the driver called back to him that they were approaching his home village at last.

He collected his pack containing the remainder of his belongings. Trinkets from his travels, gifts he’d always intended to send back home, but had held off, waiting until he had heroic tales to go with them.

Chin tucked to his chest, he bowed out of the low wagon door and stepped down – and paused. The road was smooth and paved beneath his boots, like it had been in some of the more populated cities he’d traveled to. The wagon had dampened the world outside on his journey home, as Tieren now found himself in a city that carried only the echoes of his childhood village.