The Fallen City

|Chapter XIV: Without Regret

For the first time in all his years, Gale awoke with unlimited energy. He threw himself off his bed, even changing the clothes he'd worn for many days now, even between the most recent trip. He found himself in his bathroom, his mirror long cracked from a powerful impact. Gently he rested his fist against the cracks epicentre. His reflection stared back at him, his tired grey eyes filled with the final flares of a dying fire, framed in a withered face covered in a shabby scraggly beard.

"Who have you become?" He asked. For the first long while Gale actually took a look at himself. He could remember the man he once was, the man who he still tried to be in the City.

It was so hard now not to see the world in bitterness it was beyond second nature. To see something but actually appreciate it had become a struggle, one that he had never noticed was happening. The man he had become he would never have seen long ago. He was not the man he aspired to be.

...and he'd been comfortable with it.

He still was, but some things needed to change.

This was one of them.

But that was a thought that would torment him for however long he had left.

"No bloody razer." He grunted, taking a moment before he searched the few storage spaces. Fruitless, he found himself in his bedroom. He opened the top drawer of his bedside, reaching in to pull out the closest thing to the item he searched for.

Gale walked up to the cracked mirror, twirling an old, yet still sharp bayonet. Its black blade was scuffed and tired, its days of glory as long ago as his own. He rested it down in the sink, wetting the blade before drawing through his facial hair.

For the next while, Gale carved away the beard that had taken over his face. His hands were shaky and awkward, not used to this precision anymore. The grey hairs fell into the sink a clump at a time as the rudimentary razer cut through them bit by bit.

He next properly looked his forgotten face over when he was done, he had no idea where the want to at least seam presentable came from. He had it at a familiar length again, the length it was the last time he had properly given himself the once over. He ran his hands through his hair, the long greasy grey locks curled around his fingers.

"Unacceptable now, Gale." He muttered, taking a fistful of his hair in a tight grip. His other brought the blade shakily up, sawing through it with vicious determination. A pounding on his door broke the silence, signalling the arrival of another person to bother him and interrupt his best laid plans.

Not that he cared, for once his hair was the priority, for the moment at least. It didn't take long for the long mane to be cut back to the length he had long ago, the length he has in his City... That was the real reason behind this sudden bout of masculine grooming.

Gale's eyes then drifted to his shower, covered in grime. Years of pooled water sat still and green. Another thing in disrepair.

He ignored the pounding on the door. He ignored the moans of his body, and the state of the water as he reached into it. Years of crusted stillness shifted on ripples, and from its depths he pulled out something he hadn't seen in years.

The memory of the night he'd discarded them had come back to him in a short burst, but it didn't change the shock of emotion upon laying eyes on the metal band once again. He wiped the chain down with a small towel, letting it slightly regain a long lost luster. The gold band was basic, yet it remained still pure after all this time. It had defied the dirt and grime, waiting for its time, a time that will never come again.

He slipped the chain around his neck and in a moment he felt he was back.

With his work done Gale made his way to the front door, casting it open immediately to the sight of his son. What a surprise.