The strange man stopped telling his story. "You children should be off as well. It's really late. The story end there. They all lived happily ever after; there was world peace and all that rubbish."
The children clearly didn't want to go. "Can we come back tomorrow?"
"No" he barked. They all gave him the cutest puppy dog eyes they could.
"Bring meade," he barked again and they happily ran off.
He wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his night. Sleep never came after a trip down memory lane. He needed that meade now.
Stumbling back into his cabin he reached for his only thing of value. The moonlight caught on the blue jewel of the necklace as he wept over it. It hadn't been worn since that day. It still had the large crack it in, gained from when she had been hurled across the room. There was still dried up blood caught in the crack. No matter how much he worked at it, that blood would never move.
If only the story truly ended there. Now he hoped the children would not return, even with the meade.
Innocence is a fickle thing.