Dorian, the poet

The crimson envelope sitting on his desk, on top of piles of inked parchment, demanded his attention. Dorian eyed it with caution, as if something might sprout from it at any moment. There would be a boom and the whole study would be destroyed in a strike of fiery lightning…but it was only an envelope and those were simply his fantasies. The day had just begun, he wouldn’t be freed of work just yet.

Tsk. Why couldn’t the besiegers at the gates burst in already and end his misery.

He shifted in his chair, finding the most comfortable position before refocusing his attention on the book in his hand. Dorian let himself be lost in it until the church bells rang thrice. In a flurry he tossed things around, a chaotic organization only he could understand. He was already at the door when he remembered the envelope. Dorian shoved it in a drawer. Hoping it wasn’t another declaration of war he’d missed or worse.

Midday found him dancing between the legs of some pretty thing from the lower city. She was married, he didn’t know. He was nursing a swollen eye at the local tavern before long.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dorian looked up from his soup, a pained look on his face. “I’m a pacifist, I let him hit me.”