He was just sitting there staring down in the half empty beer mug. The beer had done nothing to ease his feelings and now the cup was as filled as he was. Half empty. He had got used to death, but back at the station it was different. Soldiers may die all the time and to mourn them was not only a waste of time, you endangered both your own life and the life of the gnomes under you by doing so. It was also different from seeing a knight or a soldier of the order perish to the undead, orcs or whatever evil foe they might have been combating. Then the grief could be stilled by telling yourself that the person had died as a hero. No, this different. He wasn’t sure if it was grief at all.

He swallowed another mouthful of beer. This was not a person he looked up to that had died, it was not a person he trusted or person he loved. This was a friend of his friends that he had always treated with suspicion. Someone that he had been more or less forced to work with, yet it wasn’t someone he despised. He had viewed her as murderer from the day Timmio first told him about her and did so until she died. Maybe he had grown a bit found of her during the time he had worked with her though. Something always happened when she was around, even though he seldom liked the outcome of it. Was it guilt he felt, for not having treated her as she deserved, or was it just the fact that he was missing the chuckles?

“heh, good riddance you mad… friend,” he said to himself before finishing his beer. He was already late and Spike was getting a bit unruly. So he paid the tab and left the bar, perhaps with a few of his question answered, but far from all.