GAWAIN

The dog edged closer. Gawain twitched his fingers in encouragement, and then held his hand out flat for it to sniff.

"What have you been up to?" he asked with a small smile as the dog shuffled close enough for him to rest his palm against its cheek. He reached up with his shortened fingers to scratch it behind the ear. Carefully, he pulled away and ran his hand down the stray's leg, took a firm grip around its ankle and lifted its wounded paw from the floor. He made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat as he probed gently at the wound.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do," he muttered, reaching into his back. Gawain produced his canteen and a strip of cloth. "I'm going to wash this out, and then we'll get a bandage on it so you don't get anymore dirt in it." Then he supposed he would need to find whoever the dog belonged to. If it belonged to anyone of course.

Oh Altair would be thrilled if he turned up back at camp with a dog in tow.

Gawain glanced back down at the dog and started. It was staring up at him intently, searching his face with an intelligence beyond that of an ordinary pet. He realised his foolish mistake seconds before the familiar spoke, tilting her head to one side. There was something familiar about her voice, stirring half-forgotten memories in the depths of his mind. Gawain frowned down at her, thinking hard.

Nothing connected. He had tried so hard to forget Shaman in his years away; and apparently his mind had obliged him.

But she remembered him.

Shit.

If she'd been human or fairy he might have tried to bluff her out, to insist she was mistaken. He had spent too much time with Altair and Ambrose to think for a moment that it might work now. Gawain had never considered the possibility that someone outside his family might remember him. He had been a serious, studious and solitary child. He had spent so much time at lessons, or sitting beside his mother's sickbed watching her. And after all, how many people would draw the connection between the scarred weathered face of a twenty-three year old man with the fresh face of a long-lost prince? He was a world away from what he'd been.

He had been silent too long. Gawain looked back at the dog, running a distracted hand through his hair as he considered his options.

"I don't remember you," he replied regretfully, "I'm sorry. It's been a very long time."

He picked his canteen up from the floor and splashed some water on her paw, and then started wrapping the bandage around her foot and ankle, securing it in place with a tight little knot.

"I'm going to need to ask you two very big favours," Gawain said, setting her paw back down gently in the leaf litter. "I'm going to need you to promise you won't tell anyone I'm here. And I'm going to need you to tell me who your fairy is."