I wrote this yesterday and I'm looking for some feedback, positive or negative
When the war was over, he laid down his sword
And placed it upon the mantle where his father had kept it.
And his father’s father, and his father, and so on.
He lived in his father’s home, drank his father’s wine
While his father’s servants tended to his every care.
Pity that a man his strength and size
Had feeble and decrepit retainers carrying cups and plates to him.
He spent most his days pursuing game he already knew
He was going to catch,
Across fields of which every detail he had memorized long ago
And he drank. Solace he found in wine and liqueur, and reminiscing on more exciting times.
It seemed to him that he remembered the battles more vividly whilst inebriated.
He was poor at collecting taxes, especially from the disenfranchised,
Whose plight tugged woefully upon his heart strings,
much to the chagrin of his counselors.
But he was even worse at using the money once he had it.
He had the opposite mentality required for a merchant.
Or a Diplomat, as he learned when dealing with an upstart lesser noble.
Or a judge, as he fell asleep during trials.
And he loathed formal ceremonies. He had little patience for flamboyant pomposity.
The only possible joy he ascertained from existence occurred during tournaments.
But even this rapidly turned drab and dreary as he only observed the fighting.
As he sat by the fire, late one evening,
He pondered whether or not his life had meaning
Now that the war was over.
Could a man bred by fire and blood
Now subsist on bread and wine?
Could a man who only thought clearly when surrounded by soldiers
Now think clearly inside an empty palace?
The world seemed to him a cruel place.
He gripped the armrests on his chair ever tighter.
His knuckles turned white,
And something in him snapped.
His soul felt empty. It felt weak for lack of excitement.
He sought the rush battle gave him.
What he had been missing from this stage of his life.
The next day, as the Autumn feast filled the hearts
of his vassals and family with joy
He stood atop a chapel, clinging to the cross that crowned the roof.
He looked below.
The ground seemed appetizing.
Could a man forged by war
Now forge a life in peace?
No, he thought. He could not live without it.
And so he let himself fall.
