He didn’t kiss her. Something in her face, in the way her body tensed, stopped him. He could well understand why she didn’t want this, he had made everything needlessly complicating by acting the way he had. Did he regret it? As he watched her face, felt her fingers upon his lips, he knew he didn’t. He was not a man for regrets. He was a man for action. That was the reason why he had ended up here, was it not? A local thug, rising in the ranks of a slaver organisation, because he acted and showed no hesitation or remorse.
A fist for hire, a brute easily persuaded by the colour of gold. A slaver
Why did he hope for something more, something else, when at every turn it was denied him? He was stuck, as his father had been before him, in the slums of Denerim. Caring for a wife that did not know how deeply he had fallen into darkness; and three children that hugged him when he returned home, with the sweat of beating people up, still fresh on his brow. Pursing his lips tightly together, Tam stepped away from Cicero, to look out of the window. There was only inches separating them, they stood next to each other, but he felt that this distance was larger than it had ever been.
If he had not acted, perhaps everything would have been as it always had. Her teasing, him silently admiring her, but saying nothing. Status quo would have been upheld, and everything could just have went on as it had for some time. He would never know now. He found no words to answer her, the bittersweetness of her lingering gaze rendering him mute. He put his hands on the windowsill, and leaned out of the window slightly. A breeze would have felt nice, but the air was still. He felt the muscles in his arms tense and flex, good normal feelings that he was used too. His face was passive, and his eyes had stopped burning. Now he was just a man, a conflicted man, burdened by his choices and by the way his life was unfolding around him. The chainmail and leather armour suddenly felt heavy too wear and while he did look after the merchants, it only felt like an added weight on his shoulders.