I Will Be the Greatest Knight

"Do you think we could catch fish in this lake?" Irene wondered as she sat on the bank with her legs crisscrossed underneath her. "There must be pike or salmon in such a deep lake."

"The only time I've ever had salmon was in the castle," Trenton responded with a short laugh. "Sometimes I forget you were a noble before a knight."

Irene's reddish eyebrows rose as she regarded the massive knight.

"In name alone, I assure you," she hedged. "If you ever met my father, you would know that he doesn't exactly behave like a typical nobleman."

"Noblemen are small," Sir Sven agreed. "Much like Trenton, Arthur is built like a boulder and behaves as indestructibly as one."

"I can understand his plight," Trenton deflected. "We simply aren't built for small enclosed spaces."

However, there was someone far less suitable for subtlety as Sylaron swept down from the sky and landed close enough to the camp to cause the horses to retreat.

The horses weren't the only ones spooked as Irene quickly stood up, unwilling to allow her back to remain towards the dragon when she was active. Sleeping was another story, but when the dragon was moving around, Irene didn't want to be pushed into the lake, which was still a mystery of whether it was a usual lake or not. When it came to mages, she knew better than to trust everything at face value.

"Scared of the dragon?" Felix wondered with a faintly teasing edge to his voice as he watched Irene from where he sat beside the slowly growing fire. He and Bren prepared it for whatever they were going to eat that evening. He seemed far more relaxed than Irene about the magical beast.

"I was close to the water," Irene argued. "I'm not willing to get pushed in when I am unsure of whether the mages have tampered with that as well."

The Commander was the furthest from the camp, quietly agonizing over the scene before him as he reached out to touch the dragon and willing her to settle down. It worked to a degree as Sylaron went low to the ground once she had the attention of the knight she so desperately cared for.

Henry silently sighed. As if he needed another reason for Lady Irene to be wary of him. He thought they had made a bit of progress on that front in Idona, but she had certainly receded back into her shell. For a woman so strong in the face of monsters, he wondered what he must look like to her.

"Have a feeling the stew will be a bit lacking this evening," Sir Sven explained as he stood up to move towards the fire. "Not much of anything to hunt but we do have lentils. I'm not sure if animals can sense mana or are scared of the dragon at this point."

Bren seemed like he wanted to speak up, and Irene acknowledged as much.

"Actually, when Bren and I were in Idona, we witnessed birds flying around the magical barrier rather than running into it. It seems that certain animals have a higher perception of mana than humans do," she explained. "Right, Bren?"

The apprentice seemed eager at this.

"Right! But not horses, deer, or rabbits," he quickly added. "Those types of animals don't notice the magic, but flying ones do."

"I'm sure Siverly has some sort of explanation for this," Irene relented with a sigh. "I'm sure he also doesn't care to tell any of us about it."

The rest of the travelers all seemed to move closer to the fire as the hour grew later and they were finally accepting that their meals wouldn't be hearty—at least they would be well-seasoned if Sir Sven had anything to do with it.

At their proximity, the Commander brought up something he had been wondering for a while.

"You've known Siverly for a long time?" he asked, posing the question to Irene, who felt a bit too warm at the attention and blamed it on the fire she was reaching towards.

"Yes, sir," she responded, hoping she didn't seem as if she was hesitating, but the Commander silently mused that she did answer him far more properly than she did any of the others. "When Stanley first arrived at the Duke's Tower, he brought with him a band of mages, and they stayed for a few seasons. My first interaction with him was having him send a letter for me. I couldn't have been more than twelve."

"You're underselling the situation," Felix interjected. "You and Gunnar saved a bunch of mages in one of the townships. You've always been far more interested in magicians than what's necessary."

Irene shot him a disapproving look.

"I simply believe that they have a lot to offer considering our very own history textbooks as children spoke of a time before our present King when mages and knights worked together—" However, she abruptly cut herself off and shot an apologetic look to the Commander. "Forgive me, I don't mean to speak ill of His Majesty."

Trenton and Felix both laughed lightly at her words. They both knew Henry better than to believe he cared what others said about His Majesty.

The Commander observed her and thought she looked particularly innocent while begging for forgiveness. He tried not to file away that information for future abuse. They weren't close enough for him to have that knowledge about her.

"I think that you overestimate my closeness with the King," the Commander admitted, sure to take out any authoritative tone from his voice. "I'm from a people who suffer under him the most. I have had to look upon his castle every morning as a child, while my family around me struggles to feed ourselves. If there's someone you can trust with words such as those, it's me. You will never see me turn away a mage."

"That's a relief, sir," Irene responded quietly, grateful to learn this information, but hating that it made her feel a bit more eager for his attention.

The rest of the evening went on slowly, and conversations were light even when there was a dragon lurking nearby.

The travelers were getting a bit tired and decided they ought not to wait for Siverly any longer, but just as the Commander began to speak and direct them all to go to bed, he was cut off when the noise of a boat moving through the water was heard and their eyes cast off towards the water where the mage arrived.

In his hand, he carried a letter, but the means to get it had been particularly exhausting.