enter one.
The weather at the Mansion is usually temperate, usually fairly even all year round, enough to be disconcerting: but every now and then it delights in out and out wildness, torrential rain, sleet, and insane winds, just to keep things interesting.
It is during such a midnight that he arrives, and won't be discovered before morning, at the very least. It's truly doubtful whether anyone will notice him right away in the light, or even for a while. Teenage boys do run to lean, but he's so skinny as to look underfed, drawn about the face, having lived off what can be scraped from the land at winter for at least two weeks--the camps having been broken down at least a week ago, and not much to eat before that. His horse is three days dead under him. He's bare-headed, bare-shouldered, wearing little more than the dirty tatters of a beautiful bright war tunic emblazoned with his father's colours; it and the sword at his waist are both so filthy and covered with mud as to be almost unrecognisable.
To add to his inconspicuousity, he's sleeping under a bench in the garden--having arrived at the Mansion late last night, in the middle of the store, and being unaware of it, and exhausted, so that he lay down under the first shelter he came to. Although he's wearing sturdy, albeit filthy, strong boots for marching and riding, his hands are turning white in the cold and his lips have a slight bluish colour to them.
He's got no purpose without his father, no identity without his brother. He can be as clumsy as his uncle Gaheris, as dense as his uncle Gareth, and when he smiles it's as warm and fine and handsome as his uncle Gawain--but he almost never smiles. There's no reason. Most of all, though, he looks like his father, small, dark, sharp, with his father's thick black hair. His face and arms are pale-skinned, and covered with small cuts, all superficial and a week old, though they hurt like stings. There's a larger cut on his palm, but not so big as to be dangerous, just a long thin slice made by a knife or spear-tip.
None of all these things is noticeable without your thinking, and observing, though, and if anyone happens to see him--really the only things that will immediately bear marking are that there's a boy asleep in the garden, and his hands are turning white.
(Melou, slightly younger son of Mordred and Cywyllog, post-everything, post-everyone-is-dead. He is in fact perfectly sane, surprisingly enough, but more than a little muddled. He could use thawing.)
It is during such a midnight that he arrives, and won't be discovered before morning, at the very least. It's truly doubtful whether anyone will notice him right away in the light, or even for a while. Teenage boys do run to lean, but he's so skinny as to look underfed, drawn about the face, having lived off what can be scraped from the land at winter for at least two weeks--the camps having been broken down at least a week ago, and not much to eat before that. His horse is three days dead under him. He's bare-headed, bare-shouldered, wearing little more than the dirty tatters of a beautiful bright war tunic emblazoned with his father's colours; it and the sword at his waist are both so filthy and covered with mud as to be almost unrecognisable.
To add to his inconspicuousity, he's sleeping under a bench in the garden--having arrived at the Mansion late last night, in the middle of the store, and being unaware of it, and exhausted, so that he lay down under the first shelter he came to. Although he's wearing sturdy, albeit filthy, strong boots for marching and riding, his hands are turning white in the cold and his lips have a slight bluish colour to them.
He's got no purpose without his father, no identity without his brother. He can be as clumsy as his uncle Gaheris, as dense as his uncle Gareth, and when he smiles it's as warm and fine and handsome as his uncle Gawain--but he almost never smiles. There's no reason. Most of all, though, he looks like his father, small, dark, sharp, with his father's thick black hair. His face and arms are pale-skinned, and covered with small cuts, all superficial and a week old, though they hurt like stings. There's a larger cut on his palm, but not so big as to be dangerous, just a long thin slice made by a knife or spear-tip.
None of all these things is noticeable without your thinking, and observing, though, and if anyone happens to see him--really the only things that will immediately bear marking are that there's a boy asleep in the garden, and his hands are turning white.
(Melou, slightly younger son of Mordred and Cywyllog, post-everything, post-everyone-is-dead. He is in fact perfectly sane, surprisingly enough, but more than a little muddled. He could use thawing.)