River's End--a good, peaceful town; it is a town that can scarcely be called a town, but that is beside the point. In River's End, everyone knows one another and life is good; dull, but good. It is a small town, with only a couple hundred people calling it home, but nobody goes hungry and most everyone tries to pull their weight for the good of the community. The river for which the town’s name is derived from runs directly through the middle, cutting River’s End in half; fortunately, it was nothing a set of bridges could not fix and if one follows the river to its literal end, they will find themselves before the wide-open ocean, and the local dock, which serves as the town’s lifeline to Mercoras--and Sigma, as a whole.

Originally, when River’s End was first settled, homes and businesses were built around a central location, not far from the mayor’s own home; however, as time went on and the population grew, development started to spread out: more and more homes were built away from the town center and closer to the dock, giving the town an outwards spiral-like design. Disregarding this unorthodox design, however, the town is pretty typical and otherwise uninteresting, save for one small detail: not far from the before-mentioned dock is a large, tower-like construct.

The tower is cylindrical and composed mostly of bricks, but reinforced with some iron, too. Up the length of the lighthouse is row after row of blue stripes, ending at a large light and balcony at the very height of the building. In no way is any of this peculiar, however; in fact, buildings of this type are pretty common all around the world. The oddity was in the fact that just a few hours prior, the lighthouse was a place of mayhem and sound: since River’s End was established and the lighthouse built, it has always been in the care of the Bernard family, and while that remained true, it was somewhat-kind-of-commandeered by the current keeper’s friend, Roland Dufort.

Entering from the bottom floor of the lighthouse, the first thing to catch a person’s eye would be the countless youths passed out on the floor, some lounging on furniture, others sleeping in corners, and even some who had fallen asleep on one another. Local musicians with Greoul-imported instruments had somehow been talked (or threatened) into playing for the party and somewhere down the line a barrel of wine had conveniently ‘fallen off’ of a ship and found its way into the party, too.

In the end, when it came down to it, not many people knew or cared how the party started, but they couldn’t be faulted for it: life in River’s End was good and peaceful, but it was also pretty boring.

Lighthouse: A tower designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses from a fire to aid in navigation for pilots at sea or on inland waterways.

Such buildings as these were a necessity to ocean side towns like River's End. With so much water surrounding the town anyone could assume fishing was a way of life, be it small family owned boats or giant ships. Imports and exports were brought in and out through the sea, it was the center of trade and an important source of nourishment and employment for almost the whole town.

Needless to say, all of this would go crashing into cliffs and rocks without the light house. It was an honourable position well respected by the community, not to be taken lightly at all.

Yet it's current keeper managed to reinvent the very definition of lighthouse overnight.

Lighthouse: A tower to impress the bitches with the magnificent view of the ocean while you boned them. If a party is held in a lighthouse but nobody is around to hear it, can it still make a sound? Henri knew the answer too well while he waded through the heap of drunken teens with a swagger of his own towards his pal Roland, heavily intoxicated and red around the eyes. He grinned goofishly while he struggled to come up with something to say to his friend, but he could hardly hear himself think over the music.

"Roland!"

The answer was no. Nobody could hear it. Welcome to the party zone.

A proverbial brick wall-of-a-man grimaced and covered his ears at the sound of his name being called so suddenly. The noise bounced painfully all around his head for a moment before residing, but from the look on his face one would think he had been stabbed.

“The hell’re you yelling for!?” he shouted back, another grimace moving across his face. “Party’s over!”

And true enough, there actually was no more music playing, the band had either left or crashed somewhere amongst the other youths, and this left Henri yelling ... Well, for no reason at all.

“Just how drunk are you, anyways?”

Roland gripped onto the railing for the stairs that spiraled up from the first-floor; he was pretty afraid of letting go, actually, because he was not entirely sure he could maintain equilibrium if he moved even an inch. A funny dilemma, too, because he had to piss like a race horse, and that was the only reason he roused himself out of his drunken stupor sleep to begin with.

"Heheheh....huh??"

The goofy grin slowly transformed into a confused expression, squinting his eyes at Roland as if he was struggling to see him through a thick fog. The sound of the band's playing still clamoured in his ears, only their playing seemed to have a sharper echoeing ring to it, like some bastard was constantly playing their violin at the highest C note. This song sucked.

"The music! It's still...." But when he turned behind him he couldn't really find the band at all. Only a few members scattered around the building on the ground in odd positions. The party seemed to have ended while he was on the can. Either he was in there for longer than he thought, or it ended real quick.

"Well your....mother is over." He mumbled to himself, this time no longer yelling. His voice constantly shifted in volume, as if he'd lost control of his vocal cords altogether. "And I'm not drunk, you're DRUNK! The hell are you on...theshtephs fer anyway!?" Only employees were allowed up there, which meant only Henri himself. It was secluded from the rest of the crowd, quiet...he only went up there to fill the lamp, light the thing, and turn the gears. Unless he wasn't alone, then it would be the perfect place to.." Y-ya didn'T, YA knoW?"

While Henri speculated what filthy dirty things he could have done up there (even though the light had been turned on hours ago and they couldn't do a damn thing without their eyeballs melting out of their heads) Roland's dilemma wasn't apparent to him, since he didn't seem to different from everyone else at the party. He kind of just stood there.

Roland closed his eyes real tight and shook his head, opening his eyes again: "Wha-? I was jus' sleeping or ... something. "

Shuffling cautiously down each individual step, he would try and make his way to the floor, being equally careful with every step as the one before it, and almost appearing as though he was pretty well-practiced at avoiding breaking his neck in the clumsiest way possible.

When Roland finally managed to free himself from the clutches of the spiral-stairway he would run a hand through his hair, disheveled as it already was; he was dressed pretty much as always: a pair of blue denim jeans and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned due to last night’s festivities or possibly in his sleep. Who knew? Certainly not Henri, thankfully.

Regardless, it had been a while since he had made the effort to come downstairs, and he had to admit, even at first glance he was kind of impressed with how things ended: trash and people covered the entire sitting area of the room. A lot of people were passed out in large groups and there was vomit and other things randomly dotting the room, too, and then there was the smashed furniture and the barrel the wine had come in; it was kind of funny, now that Roland thought about it: he had no idea who had brought the couch, but someone did and now it was smashed and stuffing from the cushions had been shaped into the form of a man; it was hanging from the wall.

Well, he thought. I throw one hell of a party.

“This’s going to be a mess to clean.” he admitted as he continued surveying the room, nodding in an almost sage-like manner; it was pretty obvious that Roland did not consider this his problem at all.

"Ya mmmm-me toOo..." Henri was definitely sleeping or something. He watched Roland stumble down the steps, still straining his eyes to see through the alcohol induced blurriness, thicker than a jar of peanut butter, covered in traces of something that night. Strands of long brown hair clung to his sweaty face, the sweat seemed to act as a sort of paste that held him together with his shirt mostly unbuttoned and plastered to his figure. Only one suspender was being worn properly, the other hung limply at his side and he was missing a shoe. Toilet paper stuck to the bottom of the other shoe. Either he was in the bathroom having an excellent time, or was stuck in there vomiting violently for longer than he could remember.

Henri was such a mess that he looked like part of the scenery, like living breathing proof of how awesome the party was.

When Roland made his way down the stairs, his friend wouldn't seem to notice or acknowledge how carefully he took each and every teeny tiny baby step down. The things Roland said took awhile for him to process and his responses were heavily delayed, and inappropriate. Offering Roland a sage like nod of his own, he placed a hand on his shoulder (after few tries) the same way a doctor breaking bad news to a patient would.

"Just like your mother." It was pretty obvious that Henri didn't notice it was a problem.

"I'll remember that." he shrugged Henri's hand off and stepped scrambled over some of the passed out people, somewhat-kind-of-skillfully making his way towards the front door of the lighthouse. Each person that Roland climbed over made a distinctive oomph! and augh! sound, but he was much too determined to really hear or care about them. Really, if they did not want to be used as stepping stones, then they would not have fallen asleep on the floor, and they most definitely would not have done it so close to the damn door, right?

At any rate, it was pretty obvious that Roland was not anywhere near in bad a shape that Henri was, but it was equally as obvious why: Roland was quite the size bigger than Henri, taller and more muscular; likewise, he had slept for a while already, and regardless, the point of the matter was, Roland was far better at holding his alcohol than Henri; he would have to remind Henri of this fact later on, when he was better capable of comprehending it. Well, if Roland remembered.

“Let’s--Let’s go, uh ... Damn, what time is it, anyways?”

Henri watched Roland wade through the crowd of drunken teens, and didn't even realize until he was at the door that he was leaving. "Whuh...wheeerRREeee are you going!?" It was a slurred sort of pouting and whining, with Roland on one end of the room and Henri at the other, almost exactly like a child throwing a tantrum, refusing to leave the park or grocery store. But it wasn't because Henri wanted Roland to stay,it was because he had no idea where they were going. He was exhausted and too boozed up to put two and two together on his own. Let's go? Go where? Roland would have to be very clear and precise with his words.

"H-heeeeyyy wait UUuuuUp!"

Regardless of where he was going Henri decided that he didn't want to be left behind and wanted to tag along. There were so mani kids scattered haphazardly around the room that the simple trip became more like a fleshy obstacle course, that he was failing miserably. People groaned and sometimes even yelped as he trampled over them in a literal swerving beeline towards his friend. Near the end of his journey he took a final trip through some vomit and took a tumble.

"Hwah!" *WHUD*

The impact was from Henri catching himself on the wall, luckily there was no dramatic crash to the ground.

"...." After he paused for a moment to get his bearings, he walked towards Roland and nodded his head. "Kay, letsh go." Completely forgetting or not hearing the question about the time.

Roland pointed at the door in the most exaggerated way possible; it was as though that was an explanation in and of itself, like anything more would have just needlessly complicated things, and that would have just been bad.

“Food--” at first, he had started to relent on his silence, but was forced to cut it short as Henri attempted his interpretation of a sparrow in flight. Often, Roland was told of just how great Henri was at this particular performance, but he had always been skeptical; for good reason, too, it would seem.

“T’hell’re you--, huh? Uh, - oh, yeah. Let’s go.”

It would seem that Roland, too, forgot the question about time, which in the end didn’t matter, because the second he opened the door he got the answer: sunlight and a light breeze flooded the room, and it was pretty obvious it was noon or just about noon.

“Da’ should have some fish by now.”

Their destination was clear, with that: Roland’s father managed the docks and regularly fished instead of doing any actual work; in fact, he was a regular fishing tycoon, really, and the two could easily snag something to roast over a spit. From Henri’s lighthouse to the dock was a short walk, but it’d still take ten to fifteen minutes. Luckily, Henri definitely needed to walk his stupor off a bit.

"GEEZES FUCK!"

It was a dual assault by the wind and sun. Henri shut his eyes immediately as the sunlight tore through his head but the cool breeze stabbed his damp skin. His hands flailed around with his eyes closed, reaching for his shirt and trying to pull it shut against his body to shield himself from the temperature, even though his shirt was just as damp. Nothing helped. Instead of following Roland to the docks, he stood behind for a moment, opening his eyes a slit to stare in bewilderment around him.

Sun, blue skies everywhere.

"WAi-wha?"

Why would everyone be asleep so suddenly? He only left to use the bathroom quickly (or something) and when he stepped out the party was over. All this time he assumed that him and Roland stayed awake the longest during the unreasonably short party and were ready to tuck themselves into bed. But it was the opposite, they were the first people to wake up. Henri didn't just make a quick trip to the toilet (or something) he went in and never came out. He fell asleep in the bathroom. Suddenly the question of time was important again.

"What time...? Oh fuck, ya let's go."

Now Henri was following Roland with an uneven gait, still missing a shoe. The walk from the lighthouse to the docks was short, but it would give him enough time to sober up. If he showed up at his house like this, his mother would kill him, he already left without saying a word to her last night. Fish would settle his stomach and they could retrace last night's events over breakfast.

Familiarly, Roland shook his head solemnly and then put a hand on Henri's shoulder; he contemplated slapping the back of his friend's head, but he fought the urge.

"Quit it, you sissy." He said as he guided Henri not only through the door, but also to the front, keeping him from falling behind and getting lost or something.

To get to River’s End’s dock, Roland and Henri had two separate paths they could take, but there were differences: for one, if they followed the coast, there were several instances in which the beach gave away almost entirely to a jutting cliff-side, and while it was not entirely difficult to get around this, it was a rather large annoyance; especially for two hung-over, slightly drunk teens; it would be kind of bad if Henri somehow found himself out to see, drowning and incapable of making the effort to get back to land. Alternatively, Roland and Henri could take the slightly longer road, which started right at the lighthouse, leading up and away from the cliff’s face, and eventually being nothing more than a straight walk from point A to B; definitely, this was the best, safest path for the two to take.

At any rate, Henri had no say in the matter and would find himself being forced by Roland to take the safer road. Comparatively speaking.

“One day,” Roland grumbled. “I’m going to buy you a freakin’ boat.”

The ground teetered and tottered beneath his feet as if he was walking on a candy road made of jelly, so his steps were slow and methodical like when Roland was trying to walk down the spiral stairs. Keeping his eyes to the ground (and away from the sun) Henri did his best to avoid cutting his right foot on any obstacles, sharp stones, shells or broken glass on the path, because he was missing a shoe. It was a good thing the path was straightforward since Henri was having difficulty walking right in the first place. Never mind up and down treacherous cliffs by the ocean, the last thing they both needed was for either of them to drown. Each other's parents would be blaming each other and quite frankly Henri had his fill of funerals.

He was perfectly compliant when Roland decided for the both of them that they'd be taking the safer path, but less so when he called him a sissy.

"WhaTEEEver yOu're a-WAH!" Just in time for him to yelp like a girl and repeat his sparrow act, like a little birdie hoping around on one foot. He'd stepped on that something sharp and sliced his foot up a smidge.

"Uh....er..." He tried to act like nothing was wrong and maintain his composure. "BuildIng A MoooAAat is a stupid idea anyway."



Offtopic: I struggled so fuckin hard with this shit. Sorry.

Roland reared back and nearly fell over in surprise; he grumbled something of a threat towards Henri before regaining his composure and stared blankly at his friend, and then slowly started looking towards the ground: "Where's your sho--What? Building a moat is only the most awesome idea ever!” he exclaimed, suddenly. Actually, he didn’t even know where Henri got the idea he was suggesting they build a moat, but dismissing it outright was--well, it wasn’t very creative of Henri, was it? No, Henri was definitely wrong in this, and Roland would have to remind him of this later, too; that is, after Henri sobered up quite a bit more.

He’s not allowed to drink anymore, Roland silently decided and took Henri's dismissal of the moat as justification. Only a drunk, he continued in his head.

Disregarding any attempt at coherent thought and vocalization on Henri’s part, a brief silence would overtake the two as the road split up a head, straight was to the dock, which both boys knew, but to the left was the Duncan family’s farm; admittedly, it was pretty common for both Henri and Roland to pass the farm, but this morning it seemed the two eldest sons of the family were standing near the fence and gate that normally blocked off entrance to and from their property: the two men were rather engrossed in conversation, turning and pointing off into the distance, and then back towards their farm.

Either way, at least they were pretty close to the dock now; after all, the Duncan’s land was pretty much the checkpoint between the lighthouse and the path leading down to the dock.

"Pfff second most." He brushed off Roland like he brushed off the tumble, walking obediantly behind his friend, leaving small speckles of blood behind him. If he hadn't been completely trashed, the small cut might have stung a bit, he'd be a bit sore and his head wouldn't hurt so much. "Ungh.." Clutching his head, he stared at Roland, offering him the filthiest look his drunken red eyes could, as if he was the retarded cousin on this entire journey all along. Why the Hell was Roland even talking about moats, what did they have to do with anything? One thing about the fall though was that it certainly knocked some sense into him.

"The...the moat. It would have to be like full of fuckin...whipped cream or some shit. With ladies in it. Naked."

Exactly.

He had no idea how the moat conversation came up, but didn't care too much to think about it. Roland wasn't saying much for the rest of the walk, so Henri didn't try too hard to force any talk out of it. The ringing in his ears finally stopped, silence was welcomed at this point. Since they were near the farm he figured they were almost there anyway. About time too, Henri was getting hungr

Roland almost seemed to marvel for a second, pausing his walk a few steps behind Henri to just stare hesitantly: "Maaaan," he seemed to suddenly realize something, "you would be so lost without me that it isn't funny. That moat would suck, alright? For one, the whipped cream would spoil n’shit, and why would the ladies even be naked around you? Look at you,” he shook his head in an exaggerated, sad sort-of-way. “You’re such--”

“--Can’t believe it’s taken this damn long! The ground split somethin’ like four months ago, and they’re just getting here?”

The larger of the two Duncan’s shouted so loud that it cut off Roland‘s own voice; it was pretty clear that the two either did not realize others were within ear shot, or simply did not care.

“I know what you mean,” the other man replied; he was smaller and quieter than his older brother, but neither Henri nor Roland would have to strain to hear him, even as they continued heading towards the dock. “And the mayor’s promised it’ll get better, but all them people and their equipment?”

“That’s not better,” the first man replied, nodding and folding his large arms across his chest. “Can’t do anything about it though. Hear Ol’third is mighty interested, and nothin’ we say is gonna change that...”

And the conversation would continue, but out of hearing distance unless either of the boys stayed. Still, though: Roland was not entirely interested in what was going on, as a whole, and he really didn’t want to eavesdrop on what seemed like a private conversation anyways, loud though it was; especially when the Duncan’s were the ones carrying that conversation, both men were large and burly, and probably capable of breaking Henri and Roland with their bare hands.