"Oh gods, what did I do this time? Or....is it something that you did or didn't do? Something you forgot to do to me while I was unconscious?"

A thick cloud of irritation that felt remarkably like a headache had been building in Artur's head, and the elf's chatter was only making it gather all the quicker. He took a deep breath, which jostled his rib, and tears sprang to his eyes. He looked away. Apocalypse was panting, rolling, and Revelations had paced away and begun to nose at the muddy ground.

"I'll shut my trap now." Well, thought Artur, the elf didn't look too dangerous, and he had helped kill the demons in the village. The priest rose with some struggle and walked over to the elf until he stood over him. He twisted his face into yet another variation of the stern looks his Counselors had worn at the Temple when chastising young acolytes and made up his mind.

"Elf," he began, then reconsidered, "Monsieur Medraut," that was the right title for a male in these parts, right? "I can see without knowing your personal history that you are in need of guidance and guardianship, and as a Priest of the Order of the Guardians of Light, it is my duty to provide these things for you. However," he lowered his dark, thick eyebrows to seem more threatening and underscore what he was about to say, "if you give me any reason to believe that you are lost to the clutches of the Other, or, Gods forbid, that you willingly serve it, I will have no choice but to deal with you as a Guardian must. If you are lost due to the misfortune of your . . . predicament, you will of course receive last rites and proper burial. Traitors, however . . . " he trailed off, eyes still drilling into the elf's. It was nice, for once, to have the upper hand, and he was proud he hadn't stammered once, though he could feel his cheeks were flushed and his hands trembled with something other than exhaustion. Years of being the smallest, the baby, the pretty one, and now, a chance to be recognized as the fierce Priest of the Order that he was. He was going to do the best he could to vanquish the No-God's hold on this creature.

With that he crouched and fumbled at elf's restraints. Halfway through, he realized that he probably shouldn't remove them entirely, and turned them into hobbles. The elf could freely walk, but not run or ride, and his arms could hang naturally at his sides, but spread no wider than the rope connecting them allowed.

"Is that good enough?" he stood, and without waiting for a response, walked to where he had laid the elf's possessions out, "I'll be keeping these. If you can heal my stallion, I would be ever grateful, and happily to return some part of them to you," he said, bundling the trinkets into a piece of cloth, which he his in one of the hidden pockets of his robes after making sure his back was to the elf. The wand he refused to touch bare-handed, wrapping it in another cloth and hiding it in his saddlebags, well away from anything holy. The sword, when he touched it, seemed oddly warm and familiar. So familiar, in fact, that for a mad second Artur felt as if he was picking up his own sword, and he automatically went to hang it at his back when he realized that his sword already hung there. He stared dumbly at it. Of course it wasn't his, the stone set into the pommel wasn't blue, and the inscription on the blade . . . 

Artur stopped again. No, the stone wasn't blue, but [i]there was an almost identical stone set into the pommel at the same place where his would be[/i], and though the inscription was different [i]there was an inscription[/i]. He could count on two hands the masters who had inscribed their swords, and on one the number of inscribed swords that remained in use. Lost in his stupor, back still to the elf, he drew the sword. The motion was the same, the balance, the length, the weight the movement. If he didn't have eyes, he couldn't have told it apart from his own. 

"Elf," he said, forgetting his manners in his fascination at the blade, "Where did you get this?"