Between the Veil and Crown

Kylin 12

            The morning found Kylin still in his horse's stall, having collapsed into a corner after seeing that the horse was set for the night, and not having the energy to stand back up.

He probably would have remained asleep through the whole morning if his horse hadn't nuzzled him, reminding him that sun being up meant this horse was deserving of grain. When Kylin opened his eyes and saw that he was face to face with the horse's muzzle, it took him a moment to realize that he did not, in fact, return to his room and his horse had somehow found its way in.

Groaning as he stretched and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he managed to sit upright. With the horse getting excited at his waking, he took a moment to consider his life choice. Particularly the ones he made last night that led to him having a neck with a pinched nerve.

The horse snorted at him, showing little empathy for any pain he was feeling.

"Yeah, yeah." He finally got to his feet and headed out to find grain to meet the demands of his greedy horse. When he came back with the desired grains, he found Marta with her own horse, checking the mare over as she ate.

"Good morning," she greeted cheerily. "You have shavings in your hair, by the way."

Giving his horse the grains, he absentmindedly combed the shavings out.

"As a heads up, Ivelios will want us to back out there and see if we can find anything that would give a clue as to why the trees acted up last night," she said, patting her mare's neck.

Kylin nodded. After a few minutes, he asked, "Has this kind of stuff been happening a lot? It sounded like Ivelios was getting fed up."

Marta shrugged. "We keep getting weird instances. We're still trying to figure out what cause the dobharchus to travel up to the path for one thing. Last week a part of the forest just caved in. It took a couple of nymphs with it. The clan was able to replant one, but they other didn't make it. So that's another thing Ivelios has been looking into. But trees running off? That's new."

Kylin leaned against the stable wall. "Perhaps they thought the ground was going to disappear from underneath them," he said, half-jokingly.

Marta snorted in laughter. "So why did Rei send you back here? I heard that he wanted you available for Ivelios, but we haven't really been hurting for Rangers."

His lip curled at the thought of the reason. "The soldiers are trying to blame me for maiming one of their own, and even killing two others."

"The ones the dobharchus attacked?"

"The very ones."

"So they're blaming you because you were on the path together?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure that's only circumstantial."

"No," Kylin sighed, "they're blaming me because I didn't stick around after bringing back the injured one." He paused. "And because Glae is heading the investigation."

Marta winced at the name. "Should've known it had something to do with him."

"Yeah, well." He shook his head, not wanting to think about Glae too deeply at the moment. "They can't really say it was me. They didn't actually see my face. They were able to describe Wylett here," he gestured to his horse, "and so Glae was able to connect the dots. Rei sent me here to stay out of their way."

Marta nodded sympathetically. "So, you're here indefinitely," she surmised.

Kylin grimaced. "Yeah. Unfortunately."