𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑎𝑤𝑛 | 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐍

29⋆☾⋆How Fast the Night Changes

In between the straw and hay sat a young man, with an apple in his hand leaning against the sprawled out horse looking attentively over his shoulder with pointed ears. She nudged his shoulder roughly, almost toppling the boy over.

He glanced at the big brown eyes of his mare, barely getting it over his heart to say the words. "I'm not sharing, Blaze."

Gilan liked the silence of the stables at night. It felt like the night after the first time he had gone on a mission. He had been scared, terrified even. When Halt was around he joked about the events, about the corpses they saw, earning a frown and a huff from the Grey Ranger. However when the sun went down and he had to lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. The horrors flashed before his eyes and he could not get them to stop. Halt was not the kind of mentor who would let him crawl into bed with him, and Gilan had no desire to do so because he would have felt like a child when he did. So, he did the only thing he could think of. He went to the stables and laid down Blaze whose warmth and steady breathing eventually lulled him to sleep. The scent of horses and wood was forever locked in his mind and he could only associate it with that moment after that.

The sound of clacking broke his comfortable bubble rudely. In front of the stable a red head appeared, glancing over the side of Blaze's stable door.

"What in the name of the gods are you doing down there?" Enox questioned, her gaze flickering between him, Blaze and the various heaps of muck still decorating the box.

The tall knight let out a long sigh. "What do you need from me?"

She eyed the boy and gave a satisfied nod. "There's something that has to be taken care of in the forest."

"Why is that my problem?" Gilan twirled his apple in his hands, staring at the wall straight ahead.

"Because you are going to be my husband. My problems are your problems and at this moment, I have a problem." She folded her hands in front of her deep green dress. The long sleeves flapped around loudly as they hit the wood. It could just as easily have been a fork dragging across stones, the sound had the same agonizing effect.

"Tell me, what is it. I'll decide if it's worth my time." He raised an eyebrow and focussed his eyes on her for the first time. They were hollow and icy, which put Enox at ease. It reminded her a bit of her own country.

"A few of our men got lost in the woods, they were some of our best and we would like them back," she paused and crossed his look, to make sure he was listening. When she saw he had stopped twirling the apple around and had glanced in her direction, she continued: "We know they were visiting their church somewhere in the forest, they wanted to pray for a bit. It's an old Scotii temple."

"What does it look like?" Without wanting it he had asked it, as if it was second nature. Years of briefings and missions had created a natural response to mysteries, like these.

"Oh," the Scotii girl looked at her nails, "just your standard old overgrown building. The interior might be odd to you, but other than that it should be easy to find."

"Thanks for that helpful description," he shot her an annoyed look, while dusting the straw off his dark brown trousers. Gilan waved the stableboy over and told him that he'd be out riding. He slipped him some coins to make sure he stayed silent.

"Was that necessary?" Enox tilted her head slightly.

"I assume," he turned to her, while pulling his Ranger cloak from somewhere in the back of the stable, "that you would not like this to become a large search party?"