“It came on quite suddenly this time,” Mordred agreed, catching sight of the pink flush to her cheeks, “I don’t think you can be blamed. I almost got caught out in it myself.” Of course, if he had, it would not exactly have been much of a problem. He was an accomplished water bender, and could have easily managed a repellent spell. It gave him an idea. He glanced back out of the window as the rain increased in ferocity again, and the wind pounded at the lead-lined glass. It was getting increasingly worse with each passing minute. “Do we need to send a message to anyone to tell them you’re safe?” he ventured, “I don’t think it would be safe to go out again until it eases.” It was a way to learn a bit more about her, to find out who she was. Mordred prided himself on knowing the faces of everyone who frequented the castle corridors, and he was well acquainted with the inhabitants of the Commune. The girl did not belong to either group, and that was interesting in itself. The second interesting thing, was the dragon. He had not met anyone else with a dragon familiar before, a wyvern was the closest, and Angmar had been far from impressed. The boy turned his head to look at Pallas and nodded, “of course,” he agreed, “but I think we can solve the problem of the damp a little quicker than that.”
He took a step backwards and held up both of his hands, one palm directed towards Pallas, the other towards the girl. He took a deep breath and a small blue light began to glow in the very centre of his hands. He extracted the water from the fabric of the girl’s clothes, and from the dragon’s feathers. It travelled towards his hands in floating rivers, wrapping themselves around the ball of light until he held a ball of water in each hand, and both guests were left completely dry, but admittedly still mud-splattered. Mordred turned his hands around slowly, closing his fingers around the globes of water in a claw-like position. In one sudden movement he flicked his fingers straight again and the spheres melted into the atmosphere. In truth, it had not been difficult, but Mordred had ensured that his face held a frown of concentration for the duration of the task. Once it was completed he smiled modestly at the pair before offering Gaiane his arm. “This way, My Lady,” he said, tilting his head down the corridor which was, at that very moment having its lamps ignited by two of the guards.
As they walked along Mordred glanced at her tentatively out of the corner of his eye, as if he didn’t want to be caught staring at her, but couldn’t quite force himself to look away entirely. There was something captivating about her. She emitted something that he knew he didn’t possess, and oh, how he wanted to. It had an unique iridescent beauty that he had not encountered before. She was young, she was naive, and he was a handsome young man with fine clothes, a courtly manner and a sword at his hip. It was as if he had fallen out of the pages of a book, and Mordred was self-aware enough to know it. “My dragon talks a lot less,” he whispered to her under his breath with a charming smile, his eyes taking on a playful glimmer, “in fact, he doesn’t really speak at all.”
They paused outside an oak door, and Mordred reached out to turn the iron handle. It took only a small amount of pressure to admit them, and he lead Gaiane into the room, taking care to leave the door open behind him so that neither she, nor the dragon felt shut in with a stranger. Helping the girl to one of the comfortable seats that were arranged around the fireplace, Mordred moved towards the logs stacked inside the grate and ignited them with a touch of his finger. They began to crackle away almost instantly. Moving back across the room, he reached into one of the wooden trunks that stood against the room’s far walls by the window and pulled out a dress of purple silk, and offered it to Gaiane. “It was my sister’s” he offered, a blush coming to his cheeks, as he glanced anxiously down at the floor before fixing his blue eyes on her face again, “she’s too tall for it now. She won’t mind.” He paused, looking as if he had forgotten something but could not quite remember what it was. Apparently, he realised his mistake suddenly and his eyes widened as if shocked by his own absent mindedness, and embarrassed by the connotations. “If you go through that door,” he said, pointing at one built into the western wall, “there’s a room where you can change in private.” Biting his lip, he finished by offering her an apologetic little smile.
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