❛❛ well, i’m not a knight. not yet. ❜❜ / @sentinaels ( dutiful )
❛❛ nor are you ever like to be, considering that you are sole heir to the six dutchies. ❜❜ the words are not meant as a rebuke, though my treacherous tongue cannot help but add an edge where softness ought to be. i silently curse myself for it, though i know better than to try and curb that sting now. what's said was said, and any efforts made towards fixing it were likely to do little more than prickle at the boy's well - worn pride.
stubbornly, i turn my gaze from him, focusing my senses instead on watching the road, casting out with my wit for any sign of beast of man alike — and finding nothing.
thoughtlessly, my hands tug at myblack's reigns, and with only a moment of fight she stops. there is a wrongness in this, one that eats its way to the very depths of my soul. the wood is silent, devoid of life on a day that should be full of birdsong and the shuffling of small animals. hopelessly, i cast out again with wit and wolf - sense alike, and again i come up empty. ❛❛ my prince ... ❜❜ my voice is low, barely more than a whisper, but still it feels overloud against the morning's stark silence. and with it, my worries seem overloud as well, an old man's fears weighing down what should be a fit and fine morning. still i cast about, seeking a way to put my fear into words and failing miserably. ❛❛ do you sense that? ❜❜
