Chapter V: Preston* West (Cont)

*Preston is a rank in the Azurat military.

Preston Marcus West had grown up in the taverns of Azurat city. His father had mother had both tended bar at various establishments over the years. Since weapons were allowed inside any tavern in Azurat city, good bartenders were hard to come by, or at least for long. At a young age, West had learned quite quickly the problems of the drink and had avoided it like the plague ever since his father was stabbed in the gut by an angry customer. There was no reason for the attack other than the drink, and so West avoided it at all costs.

But the drink would not avoid West. Time and time again, West found his family under the assault of angry drunks who could not contain their homicidal urges. The chaos had gotten so out of hand over the years that, finally, his parents had sent him away to military school, where he’d be safe from the constant tavern scenes that had left uncountable scars on both his mother and father.

After West had graduated with honors from military school and had received his rank and unit assignment, he had gone back to the taverns to find his parents. He urged them to leave the taverns now that he was being paid a good salary by the Azurat Royal House, but they would not abandon the job that they had spent their lives doing. It had shattered all his hopes to hear his parents choose the drink, the chaos, the violence, over a quiet life with him. Rarely did he see his parents after that day, though he still visited from time to time, but only when assigned to keep the peace within the area. Now that he was a Preston, however, he was never assigned to do such remedial tasks and so he had lost all contact. The military was his family now.

He stepped through the doorway, leaning down to get through. He rose to his full height and observed the scene within the ravaged hut. No tavern chaos had ever left such wreckage–such ruin. He reached into his pocket for another cigarette and slid it between his lips. He had inherited the vice from his father, who had seemed so strong whenever he puffed upon a cigar or cigarette. It, unlike alcohol, had never been forbidden in his household and seemed to hurt only the user, so he had found no reason not to start himself. “What the hell happened, here?”

The hut was demolished. The outer walls were untouched, leaving the house to look exactly as it had before whatever happened, but the inside was a different story. Tables were shattered to nothing more than splinters imbedded in the walls. Chairs were burnt to ash, decorative vases and statues were shattered into piles of worthless garbage, and sand filled the house. Nothing had remained intact, save a picture hanging on the back wall, which had been shredded by sand, but remained hanging and together. Shadows filled the house as the windows had been caked with black dirt, though a few points where objects had cracked the window allowed light to splinter through.

“Sir, th…there….there was a survivor, sir,” the young guard said saluting like a lunatic.

West drew the cigarette from his mouth and coughed with surprise, “A survivor? Who could surive something that could do this?” The young guard walked over to the corner slowly and pulled away a tattered window curtain to reveal a small goblin rocking back and forth in the corner, he was clutching something polished and white in his hands and muttering to himself. West sighed, “You found him in the corner and then left him there to get me? Go get someone to take care of the poor bastard.”

The young guard looked down at the ground in shameful stupidity and scuttled out of the hut without a word.

“And find out whose hut this is!” West stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and delicately crossed the wreckage, kneeling down in front of the goblin who seemed to stare off into space. “Hello there….you all right?”

“Couldn’t let it just….couldn’t….no no….that’s not fittin….had to help em….but no no….couldn’t…this all I got of em……all thas left,” the goblin babbled.

“Doesn’t anyone make sense around here,” West sighed. His eyes fell on the white object in the goblin’s hands. Its hands ran over and over the object, turning it round and round in its hands. West snatched it quickly, sending the goblin into a gibbering panic. “Calm down,” West barked. The goblin, not completely lost of its sanity shrunk into the corner and stared at the looming figure of West who rose and inspected it.