Mace was accustomed to rising with the sun. He’d done it nearly every day, for as long as he could remember – begrudgingly stumbling out of bed to feed animals and do his other chores as a boy, dutifully swinging his feet out from under scratchy blankets and onto a cold barracks floor as a young man, and now...now he woke compulsively, habitually, when the first pale threads of light crept into the sky. His internal clock was by now so finely tuned that he would wake on time even in windowless rooms.
It was easy, but lately it was not pleasant.
There were countless things weighing on the Captain’s mind. Security, obviously, had become a complicated problem since the creature officially made its appearance, and Mace found himself overwhelmed with obligations. There were weapons to be ordered and inspected, troops to be trained or retrained (now that they were all without magic), war councils and strategy meetings and reports, reports, dear God the reports. He spared as much time as he could, every day, to write to the princess, but it wasn’t much. A letter, a brief conversation in passing as he left the castle or she left the Pantheon, a glance held longer than he could reasonably justify. She was there, in the back of his mind, but he was forced at all times to divide his attention with other things.
But when he dreamed, at least, his mind could conjure her without interruption. He’d wake with her face emblazoned on his mind, savoring the lingering image before forcing himself to rise and dress.
Today, however, would be different. Today, he had scheduled time to begin Tristan’s training, and left two hours – two hours – of unscheduled time following it. As long as the prince’s lessons went according to plan, he’d finally be able to talk to Morgana.
With these plans in mind, Mace watched Tristan’s approach with a mixture of anxiety and sympathy. This was not a boy who had grown up ordering his life around the dietary needs of farm animals. He was obviously tired, and the captain could not blame him for it, but his lethargy did not bode well for the schedule. At least he was awake enough to crack wise.
“For the foreseeable future, you’ll call it training time,” Mace said levelly, with the faintest hint of a smirk. “Looks like we need to get your blood moving. One lap around the caste, to start. You can tell me about your training up until this point, while we run.” With that he took off at an easy pace, expecting his charge to match his stride.
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