The huge, ornate clasps on the opening side of the book rattled as Ren unfastened them, the silver cool against his fingers. Glancing up for a moment to check around, he placed the book on one of the low tables and took a seat before it in an armchair whose upholstery was patched in places, especially along the arms.

Ren didn't mind, however - he'd sat and read in far worse conditions.

In the light of the rising sun, the dust on the tome's cover seemed to brighten and become more visible. Clearly, this tome hadn't been read in a while, though given it was in Romain's library, he didn't think their host would need to brush up on this topic.

The book was titled 'The Complete History of the Kingdom of Milisevre until the year of 1492 DR, by Geoffrey de Troyes.' Ren didn't know the writer by name, so he quickly made an educated guess that Geoffrey must be a Milisevran.

The 'de' just before the surname seemed to be a feature of their nomenclature, though what exactly it meant, the wood elf hadn't yet figured out.

One thing at a time, he supposed. And besides, his brain seemed a lot more active this morning – chiefly because he'd slept better after both their fine meal last night and their battle with the chimera, both of which had exhausted him to the point that, before bed last night, even lifting a limb was painful.

Ren had fallen asleep the instant his head hit the pillow in his room. The nightmares had come, as they always did, but they were less severe, so he was able to get more than whatever rotten few hours of rest he could squeeze out of his nights before the sun came up.

That must mean it was further away now. Ren hoped that his pursuer had lost his tail completely now... but he'd dared to believe that before, and it never came to be.

The attack on the inn was no coincidence; Ren could feel it in his bones that the monster who haunted his nights and dogged his every step was behind the gnolls somehow.

Even after all these years, he wasn't free of... it.

His fingertips began to shudder as a chill shot through them, like he had plunged his hand beneath the surface of a frozen lake. Tremors then began to quake inside his arms, and every meagre patch of hair on Ren's smooth skin stood on end. He felt his windpipe clamp down upon the air he had just sucked in, squeezing and squeezing as though that creature's very hand was locked about his throat.

'I will not think about it...' he said as he desperately tried to regain some semblance of control over his own mind. 'I will not.'

A small burst of something warm flared within his heart just then, but it was not enough to banish the icy touch of fear. Hoping to distract himself, he twisted his head about on his scrawny neck, eyes searching for something to make his mind wander.

The room he was in within Chateau Toussaint was small, compact and rather cozy in truth – two windows on the north side of the building bathed the chamber in the warm light of the rising sun, and on top of that, there was a fireplace that could be lit for reading on dark winter evenings. Seven double-sided bookshelves filled to the brim with tomes, some of which were nowhere near as dusty as the history book Ren had picked up, indicating that their host read them somewhat regularly.

Romain's library was nothing to scoff at, especially for a knight. It didn't compare to the great arcane archives that Ren had visited throughout his education, but it was still far more than he'd expected to see.

From his experience, most knights and warriors took a dim view to academia, seeing it as nothing more than worthless rubbish practised by wimps who didn't have the stomach for bloodshed and violence. In fact, some of the people Ren had come across in his travels after he departed Waterdeep hadn't even been able to read... and a few of them, when they learned that he could, gave him sketchy looks and spat as he passed.

'I imagine all I do is confirm the stereotype...' Ren thought to himself. He had no delusions – he wasn't a mountain of a man like Technus, nor a strapping young stud like Sir Logan and Sir Romain. He was thin as a reed, with a voice to match.

Still, not all had treated him unkindly. Clerics and acolytes has extended hospitality to him where he could find them. Not to mention the only reason he was still breathing because Logan and Arabella saw him as worth saving, and was only in this very library because Romain had been so kind as to offer them hospitality.

Romain... beautiful Romain...

Trying not to think of the knight was hard, especially when sitting in his home and his library. Both of which were almost as fine as he was.

Ren began to smile to himself then, both at the thought of being near the handsome blonde knight and the realization that he had found his distraction.

Most of the books in Romain's collection were histories and tales, from both Milisevre and beyond, but there were also many rolls of arms showing the sigils and heraldry of the other knights of the kingdom. Ren had flipped through one of those earlier, taking note of the sheer volume of nobles houses, many descended from common men who had once received the honour of knighthood. Page after page after page of coats-of-arms, depicting every kind of shield design, sigil and device imaginable. Lions, stags, wolves, flowers, krakens, castles, spiders, skulls, mockingbirds, manticores - there must have been thousands of them!

'There must be a deluge of landed knights in Milisevre...' the wood elf ruminated. 'Is there even enough room for them all?'

As might be expected for a nation that reveres Bahamut, many of them had metallic dragon motifs... including the sigil of King Charles, of the de la Fontaine family.

It was the first one depicted, as a matter of fact – a platinum dragon standing triumphant over the carcass of a red one, wings spread wide in triumph, upon a field of resplendent gold.

Ren had looked at this sigil, seen Charles' name and many more, and wanted to learn more about each of them. After all, a few of them would likely be showing up at this tournament that Logan and the others had sworn to enter. Those he saw, he committed to memory, the images before him captured and stored in his brain for later.

For better or worse, memory was one of the few things he had left. And he had a very good memory.

At that very moment, there was a creak from the direction of the library entrance, and Ren's ears twitched before his head snapped in the direction of the noise. The spherical brass doorknob was twisting, and as the wood elf's eyes watched the wooden frame be pushed open, flashes of sunlight dancing off polished steel hit him straight in the face, along with two gleams of gold beneath a wave of black.

Logan had pushed open the door, and as the two met gaze, the paladin's mouth curved into a friendly smile.

"Morning, Ren," he said in his deep voice.

Gaze flicking down for a split-second, Ren returned the smile even as he found it hard to keep eye contact. "Logan..." he said shyly.

"How are you holding up?" the black-haired man asked.

Ren gave a slight shrug. "Well as can be expected..." he said aloud. He then glanced up and asked Logan "How about yourself?", but as he did so, he noticed that Logan's large, strong hands looked different. Instead of sun-tanned, like the rest of him, his knuckles were white and his palms and fingers were pinkish red, their surface covered with what looked like a spider-web of dry skin that was flaking off in places, especially around his fingertips and short-cut nails.

Despite this, Logan seemed unbothered. "I'm doing alright," he replied. "Just finished painting up Finnan and Stalk's shields for the tournament, and afterwards, well..." he paused slightly. "I thought I'd come and check on you."

There was a slight intonation at the end of the paladin's sentence that Ren didn't know how to feel about. Normally he would get a bit excited about the idea of a strapping young man coming to check on him in private, but Logan's voice was flecked with an air of... not quite suspicion, but certainly caution.

"Well..." Ren managed to speak after a moment, "... I'm here and I'm alive, just about. There's not much more to say about myself, to be honest."

Logan blinked his golden eyes. "Will you be coming with us to the tournament?" he asked.

"To take part? No..." the wood elf replied. "But to cheer you and Romain on? Absolutely!" He felt the gloom that hung over him brighten up a little as he said that managing a small smile.

As said smile was reciprocated - Logan seemed to approve of his answer. "Fantastic..." Logan said. "Though if you do want to help us, Ren, you need only say the word."

His words were kind, enough to make Ren's heart pulse in his chest... but they were also unrealistic.

"Don't know if I'd be much help, Logan..." he said before lifting his arms and holding them aloft either side of his body as if he were a bird... or Finnan. As he did so, the sleeves of his robe hung loosely from his limbs like washing draped over a line, emphasising how stick-thin he was. "There are probably children with more muscle than me; and who'd probably be better in a fight on top of that..."

Logan's expression then shifted to one of compassion. "Don't be so hard on yourself..." the paladin said. "If not for your wind spell, me and Stalk would still be choking our lungs out in a cloud of poison! Not to mention it was your Catapult spell that freed Romain!"

Ren felt his cheeks warm up as he heard those words, and that warmth became a raging fire as he heard another familiar voice speak from the doorway.

"C'est vrai. It's true..."

Another gleam of gold flashed in the corner of Ren's eye, and he and Logan both turned to see Romain strolling into the library with a cheerful smile on his handsome face. As he did so, he continued to speak, his words as flustering as his exotic accent.

"I owe you my life as much as I owe Logan and all the others, Ren. Possibly more so..."

Hearing that made Ren's heart flutter like an armada of butterflies, and he immediately pursed his lips while his brain searched for a response. But all that came out of his sealed lips were stifled sounds of uncertainty, reflecting the wreck that was his emotional state like a pristinely polished mirror.

~~~

Watching Ren turn his eyes away and seem to devolve into a blushing mess as he sat in the armchair was something Logan didn't know how to react to. Smiling with amusement, asking if he was alright again and moving to his side were all options that raced through his mind, coming and going as swift as coursers.

Eventually, he settled on letting the man take his time and steady himself after his apparent rush of excitement. It wasn't hard to guess which side of the wagon Ren was in, if you caught his meaning. And while Logan didn't swing that way himself, even he had to admit that Romain was a good-looking man, though he did so in a dispassionate, factual manner.

Speaking of coursers...

"Romain?" Logan asked. "Will we need horses for the tournament?"

The blonde knight turned his way. "Most likely," he replied. "I don't know the specifics of the competitions, as I said last night, but there's every chance we'll need steeds..."

Logan felt the expression on his face begin to fall when Romain continued. "Fear not, however!" he declared in a high voice. "I have a stable of horses we can use!"

That made relief course through the Galehaut like water through a plumbing system. Not only was he fond of horses, and the same with falcons and birds of prey, but every knight worth his salt had at least one steed to ride. Most kept a stable of several, just like Romain; normally a knight would have a destrier, or warhorse, to fight on in battle, a courser, or riding horse, for travel, and a palfrey, or baggage horse, to bear the weight of his equipment.

Logan had none of the above, and he felt all the more unchivalrous for it – a deep fear filled him as he felt he'd hardly look the part of 'scion of one of the noblest houses in Faerun' if he showed up on foot.

Borrowing one from Romain wasn't completely ideal either, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. No pun intended.

With these thoughts rampaging around in his head, it took Logan a second or two longer than usual to realize that Romain was talking to him, asking a question of his own.

"By Volo's beard, man! What happened to your hands?!" the Milisevran blurted out, voice thick with alarm.

Hearing that, Logan looked down at his callused palms, seeing how red they were but feeling not a drop of concern in spite of Romain's shock.
"Oh, that's nothing to worry about," the paladin replied, the mention actually being quite topical given he was thinking about appearances. "I washed my hands after I finished painting the shields, and once that was over, I went to polish my armour."

Disbelief coursed through Ren's body as he blurted out another question impulsively. "Was that all? It looks like you submerged your hands in acid more than anything."

Logan's golden eyes rose to meet Ren's gaze once again. "We're going to a tournament, Ren. I won't appear before all the realm looking like a wild robber knight who just crawled out of the bushes. Especially if the king is going to be there..."

His reasoning made sense, as he saw it, and he hoped that would be the end of things. True, the backs of his hands itched a bit from where he'd worked them near to the bone, but that was all. And besides, scrapes and scratches were as much as part of knighthood as swords and shields.

Whether Romain believed in this lesson, though, seemed to be another matter.

"Still, Logan, that doesn't look too good..." his fellow paladin said after giving them a once-over. "I have some ointments that might help, if you'd be interested. Or I could lay on hands..." Not only was this happening, but Ren had risen halfway out of his seat across the library, his grey eyes alight with attention which quickly turned to concern as he made an inspection of his own.

All of this caused a sigh of exasperation to escape Logan's mouth. So much faff over something so minor...

Entwining his fingers of both hands together, he focused his will and remembered his oath. Immediately, his fingertips and palms pulsed with a golden light, and instantly, the redness faded, the dry skin vanished and the barely perceptible itching slipped out of existence.

His own lay on hands had done the trick. He would have preferred to save the healing energy if he could – as with spells, he could only cast so much every day. But for the sake of his comrades, he would spend it on himself.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the sentiment of what they were saying, but one shouldn't make a mountain out of a molehill. A small amount of discomfort in exchange for taking proper care of his gear was worth it in his eyes.

He was a Galehaut, a griffin of Frostpeak. Descended from so many mighty warriors and heroes. It was his duty to appear as a knight, with all the splendour and dignity that such a position demanded.

He would not bring shame upon his family by doing otherwise... no matter the pain it brought him.

After he did that and spread his hands to show that everything was fine, a quiet settled over the room. Ren looked down at the book before him, a roll of arms, scanning it for a few seconds more before picking it up and returning it to one of the bookcases. Out of curiosity, Logan's gaze fell upon the rows of leather-bound literature and scanned the titles in search of any he might recognize.

And he did. There was a book he noticed that he'd know anywhere.

"Is that The Chronicle of Isteval?" Logan asked Romain, noticing a purple book with the title done in gold, the sun sigil of Lathander engraved either side of the words.

Romain turned his gaze from Ren as he heard that. "Oh, yes!" he exclaimed before tilting his head slightly, features pulled into a quizzical expression. "You know of him?"

Logan was already reaching for the tome when he heard the question. "Are you kidding me?" he asked jovially. "He was one of my childhood heroes!" Pausing for a moment, his outstretched hand gently pulling back before he asked "May I?"

At that, Romain grinned and swept his arm wide in a gesture of generosity. "Of course! I said that my home was yours, did I not?"

"In a manner of speaking..." Logan replied with a grateful smile before reaching out and lifting the book from the shelf, doing so gently so that his gauntlets wouldn't risk damaging the cover. Then, as he cracked the book open and his gaze swept through the pages, a wellspring of nostalgia burst forth from inside him, warming the deepest cockles of his heart and filling every inch of his soul with childlike joy.

It was as if he was ten years old all over again, combing through every book on the heroes of old in Frostpeak's library.

Isteval was a Cormyrean, born from the same country as Logan, within the town of Eveningstar. But despite his humble beginnings, his impeccable character and distinguished record of service in the Purple Dragons, Cormyr's army, meant he was soon known far and wide. And all this was already before he became a paladin of Lathander, god of the dawn, vitality and rebirth.

As a child, Logan had wiled away hour after hour in the archives of his family home reading about Lathander and all the great heroes of both his own family and beyond – he might have jokingly said he spent half his life learning about the legendary heroes of Faerun, and the other half training with sword and lance on how to be one himself. When he turned sixteen, he had sought to emulate both Isteval and Uncle Oren by joining the Purple Dragons himself – specifically, the Purple Dragon Knights, as was expected by a Cormyrean nobleman.

His stepmother Margret had forbade it, however, and had her personal guard escort him back at spearpoint twice; first when he declared he would go regardless, and second when he tried to sneak away a week later. As ever, she felt that both martial and scholarly pursuits were beneath a nobleman, instead preferring that her stepson learn the ways of currency, trade, intrigue and cutthroat politics. With her, only two things mattered: ways to make House Galehaut richer, and telling Logan who she expected him to betray to make House Galehaut more powerful, even if they were amongst his friends or allies from other noble families.

Logan was proud to admit that he had chafed at and refused her lessons at every turn throughout the years he had to endure her, until he became his uncle's squire. By that point, he had achieved his dream of military service, though he didn't hold it for long before he had to leave home. And with Cormyr mainly at peace, as he was too late to join the wars against Sembia and Netheril by this point, he and his uncle had mainly been doing their own thing to protect the innocent, though Logan had learned military tactics and spent a good chunk of his adolescence in army camps and fortresses.

But that was all before his uncle's death. And not long after the funeral, he had coincidentally received an honourable discharge despite not having requested or done anything deserving of one, so far as he was aware. But given that she had opposed it from the beginning, he had no doubt the discharge was Margret's doing, attempting to bribe or manipulate the right people to get him out of Purple Dragons and the chance to have a service record worthy of a Galehaut.

And so he'd left. If his stepmother would not let him uphold his family legacy, he would do so on his own terms.

Lifting his gaze to scan the innumerable stories upon the shelves, a thought slipped into his head:

'Maybe one day, stories about me will be found here...'

Romain seemed to catch on Logan's joy at reading the book again. "Have you read that book before?" he asked, a knowing gleam in his eye.

Looking up, Logan replied, "Cover to cover, a thousand times over. Isteval was one my favourites to read about as a child." He then blushed slightly as he said "He still is now. I could listen about his exploits from dawn til dusk. Same with my uncle and High Harper Jaheira..."

Nodding understandingly and smiling all the more, the knight of Chateau Toussaint replied with "Good choices all around. Although for me, you can't beat Sir Louis Leoncoeur, the Lionheart, and our present king, Charles the Dragonmarked!" His tone was one of poetic exaltation, like a bard strumming his lute, and he paused briefly before adding "Oh, and Drizzt Do'Urden!"

Hearing that caused Logan to make a face – one of mild dismissal and disinterest. "Really?" he asked.

Romain's expression was suddenly thick with confusion. "What do you mean?"

Unable to stop the corner of his mouth from twisting upwards, Logan allowed himself to smirk while he gave a playful, teasing response.

"I got one word for you, buddy – overrated!"

Normally, he would not be so brazen, but the feeling of kinship he felt with his host and fellow servant of Bahamut made he could get away with a friendly jape.

And it went down well! His words made Romain break into a laugh that was both joyous and offended. Reaching to pull a book of his own from the nearby shelf titled The Crystal Shard, the Milisevran brandished it at him like a sword and declared "Oh, it's on now, mon ami!"

~~~

The phrase Ren heard was like a challenge, almost making him fear that swords might be drawn. But instead, as he sat back down to the sight of Logan and Romain having a fierce debate about whether the legendary drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden was deserving of his accolades and honours from among the people of Faerun. However, despite them being in disagreement, the debate bore no signs of hostility, and soon spiralled into a riotous stream of verbal exchange as the men argued over which hero was better, which ones were their favourites, and which ones had the best stories. All taken from how much they loved and revered them during their respective childhoods.

Both these strapping young knights were acting like dorks and bookworms... and Ren relished every second of it, unable to stop himself from grinning as he watched.

It wasn't a hard sight to look upon in the slightest; Logan and Ren were both handsome in their own right... but not quite equally so. They went about it in very different ways.

Ren would describe Romain as pretty to the point of being beautiful – slim as a willow tree, with a head topped with a cascade of blonde curls, his skin so pale and smooth and his features so fine it was as if they had been sculpted from marble. His eyes were large and lively, and his long, slender face had a gentle jawline.

Logan, meanwhile, was more sturdy, more rugged. He was a head taller and four inches broader than Romain in the shoulder, as well as far deeper in the chest. His skin was bronzed, and coal-black collar-length hair crested a face with craggy, rough-hewn features that were both stronger and harsher than Romain's, like his square jut of a jaw and straight nose.

But those eyes... gods, you could get lost in those rippling rings of molten gold for all eternity.

However, in was in that moment that another flash of gold caught Ren's attention, his gaze flicking towards the door where he had seen it. Behind where Logan and Romain sat talking, Arabella was walking past the doorway, stopping for just a moment as she noticed the discussion before a smile appeared on her full lips and a look that silently said 'boys will be boys' flashed in her eyes before she moved along, the only sound that of her shoes on the stonework.

For a moment, an impulse flashed inside Ren, bursting like the last gasp of a fireplace before he went out. He had a very good memory, and he remembered how sharp and standoffish he had been with Arabella when she asked after him on the road, before they encountered Romain and the chimera.

It took a few seconds of shuddering in sheer uncertainty, but he finally motivated himself to stand up and make for the door. Thankfully, she had not gone far.

"Arabella!" he called, blurting it out as he half-stumbled through the stone arch.

Golden hair whispered against silk as the high elf turned to face him, the lower half of the robe she wore billowing out as she did so. "Ren!" she replied pleasantly, a smile flitting across her face before it suddenly turned to a look of concern. "Are you alright?"

Heart pounding, Ren deflected her question with one of his own. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Not at all." Arabella replied. "I've just helped Finnan prepare for the day ahead, and I was just on my way to get changed," she told him.

Hearing this, Ren nodded. "Good..." he managed to say. "Because I... I... wanted to apologize for when I was rude to you. On the road here, I mean..."

He struggled to get the words out, but Arabella was very understanding, showing as such as she took two graceful steps towards him. "Ren... I only asked after you because I wanted to check that you were okay..." she explained. "You'd been gored by that gnoll, and even after Logan and I patched you up, that's a lot to go through."

'You don't say...' Ren thought to himself before telling Arabella the truth of "I've been through worse. But it's not just that..." he paused to take a deep breath before he went on. "I wanted to ask if you could just leave me be from here on out."

Arabella was silent in response, but the expression in her eyes told Ren that she didn't seem to understand.

And so he went on, not bothering after all he'd been through to attempt honeyed words.

"I'm not used to being doted on, as it were, so I'd prefer if you just left me alone. I have some other things to be focusing on, and I..."

His words then trailed off as he saw Arabella's reaction.

He was expecting her to wait until he'd finished speaking, then say something to the effect of 'Looking after you is no trouble at all, Ren' or 'Sorry, it's just that caring for others is my nature...'

But she didn't do either.

Instead, the blood drained from the high elf's face, and her beautiful features seemed to become like a pale, tense mask, still as stone while her eyes were full of emotion. He even noticed her elegant fingers begin to shake, as though she were shivering from a sudden chill that had gone through her.

Her eyes made that seem all the more true, for behind her sudden icy expression, her turquoise irises rippled with a thousand feelings and a thousand traumas. Sadness, confusion, anger... rejection.

And yet Ren made no move to apologize, feeling both alarmed by the sight and yet too afraid to say anymore. It wasn't like he could make anything better anyways.

Some would call him defeatist. He would call himself a realist.

After the sound of her taking a small breath in filled his ears, Ren watched as Arabella straightened up and said "I accept your apology," in a flat, rather cold tone that made a chill go through him as well. Then, as she raised her chin and Ren thought he glimpsed a wet shimmer in her eyes, she turned and walked away, leaving him behind.

What Ren had done wrong, he didn't know for sure. But all of a sudden, he found a new fear creeping into him as he stood in the hallway.

The fear of whatever pain he'd unintentionally awoken inside their cleric... and how deep it clearly went.