Testing the Perimeter.
It was the kind of night that was too quiet. Too calm. Too easy. That made Matthias particularly uneasy. He felt like a troubled teen who’s life was going too well and was forced by some cruel call of human nature to do something to ruin it.
The man was, of course, far too responsible to jeopardize anyone else’s safety for his own self-destruction. He could have spent hours going back and forth with his conscience, yet it was terribly less challenging to slip the bottle of whiskey out of his bag. It took less than an hour before his drinking turned into restlessness. As simply as he’d grabbed his bottle, he slipped out of his lonely tent. Beyond the make-shift barricade of thick wires and bells.
The leader was prepared to wave and dismiss himself to any guard sitting watching, but the need never came. He was too good. Or his guards were terrible. Matthias stalked around the wood, careful to watch his feet as he stepped. The ground was blurred and his body didn’t always move as he expected it to. A consequence, he realized, of drinking so much so late. The man was constantly impressed with himself, however.
He was not travelling far--he kept within a circular perimeter. Testing the defenses, he was ready to say to anyone who stopped him.
