[color=#007985][b][h2]Sir Jerel Ban[/h2][/b][/color]The healer was rubbing a poultice into Jerel’s arm with glowing hands. It reeked, heady and herbal. The sort of odour that carried, that you might smell for days after its source was gone. It was not even the strongest smell in the wing.  

“Sir Gerard,” Jerel answered with a level stare. The knight looked haggard, sopping with sweat. Jerel’s mouth twitched, but he could not muster a smile, so instead arched his brows and nodded at the healer as she tied a bandage firmly about his arm and shoulder. With a will too tired to resist, Jerel bobbed with motions.

“‘Tis but a scratch, I’ve had worse.” 

The healer finished what she was doing, scribbled something in a ledger, and hurried off into the fog of coughing and groans and too-easy snoring. 

A silence settled, dust upon an open page; Jerel knew he could end this chapter now, say no more and close the book. But he knew that he wouldn’t, that he shouldn’t. Here was a chance to not sink further into the quagmire brewing in his thoughts. All he had to do was blow away the dust and read on.

“I fear the greater injury was to my pride,” Jerel said, raising his eyes from the flagstones, “But from the looks of you, you know something of that.” Everyone dealt with their stresses differently, and Sir Gerard was far from the only knight to beat them away. He was, however, among the most consistent. Jerel envied those that strove for improvement, for their seemingly unfaltering direction. They were like landmarks muddled into the wrong places, for they made Jerel feel all the more lost. 

The ward curtains seemed ethereal in the light that swam down through thin windows, rolling in the breeze stirred by bustling bodies. 

Jerel pulled on a shirt, restricting the motion of his bandaged arm as much as possible. He stood, and smoothed it down. 

“Have you heard the news?” He slung his bow over his good shoulder, knowing it unlikely that Sir Gerard had, and looked down at his armour, discarded, a shell. A costume.

“There’s to be a ball. Being one of our dear Captain’s chosen, one might expect an invitation is headed your way.” 

With a flick of the wrist, Jerel caught a servant’s attention and gestured at his armour. They nodded, and, presumably, went to find somebody else less busy, trailing steam from a bowl of hot towels. 

“I’m sure there will be plenty of women there who have never held a weapon either.”

[@HereComesTheSnow]