Lucian stood for a moment to admire the stillness, feet straddling either side of the road, in the grooves carved out by carriage wheels year in and year out. It was funny, he thought, how it all sat unsuspecting and peaceful, not thinking for a second that he lingered just outside.
He didn't doubt for a second that his appearance would come as a shock. His brother hadn't seen him in six years. Nobody, really, had seen him in six years, unless he counted the village folk who had put him up for a while to recover from the shipwreck. That he was alive was a fact few people knew, and now, in a matter of moments, many more would know.
"We've both grown tired of living a faceless life, haven't we, Switch?" He said aloud, and the yearling guardian standing beside him, tail twitching, body all but vibrating to get moving again, let out a little bleat. She cut in front of him and up the front step, dainty, quick and flighty on her feet. Lucian followed and knocked.
-
Logan's family knew a familiar routine. As the sun fell, Ellara would put dinner on the stove while Auriel fetched the firewood, lit the lanterns, set the table. Every night was the same, and they moved with a certain rhythm, worked into them after years of repetition.
And the knock on the door, well, that wasn't much of a surprise either. Logan's associates, after all, tended to be the seedy type, liked to appear after dark, discuss matters under the cover of night.
Their visits came less frequently now, about a year after Knightful's arrival. To say that the doe had bullied them away would be too harsh a word, but the guardian had made her disapproval clear, and most of Logan's associates had learned soon enough to stop calling, or to find him elsewhere. And indeed, his list of associates had grown thin over the last year. Whether that was Knightful's influence of Logan's own doing, it was hard to tell.
This particular knock had the doe up to her feet in a leap, and she seemed to tense. Logan rose behind her with a light touch to her neck. "Don't worry yourself there, lassie, it's just a friend." But oh, what a friend.
Logan's jaw dropped, blue eyes uncomprehending, not noticing that Knightful had slipped out the door beside him and marched up to their visitor and shoved her head firmly into his stomach in a warning. She didn't know who Lucian was, but she had a feeling he meant nothing good.
When Logan finally regained motion, he yanked the door shut behind him and shut his mouth.
"Logan."
Logan shook his head. "No, no, no," he snapped, and he couldn't tell whether it was rage or confusion or something else entirely building up inside him. How dare he show up unannounced like this, how dare he go so long without telling anyone he was alive, how dare he? And yet, even as he wondered, another voice told him: It's Lucian. That was how he dared.
He took a breath, studied the face he hadn't seen in years, still so fresh and so young and somehow unburdened by age, almost unchanged from the last time he'd seen it. He looked down at the little doe dancing at Lucian's feet. He took a breath.
"Not here," he said finally, gesturing to the road. "We'll talk at the inn."
And they went. Neither man said much on the road, the elder still reeling from the news and the younger trying to find the right time to reveal that he needed money and a place to stay for... well, an indefinite period of time. Because that was what Lucian always needed, and Logan should know by now, but somehow didn't.
When they finally reached the inn, Logan yanked the door open and stormed in, looking like he desperately needed a drink.
Soldier of Song
