(Untitled)

[a_lioness]

Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Tortall, but Alanna decides it would be a perfect excuse to follow through on her plans with Mel. Too often, these offers fall by the wayside; she's determined that this not happen here, if only to see Mike investigate the castle's kitchen

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[a_lioness]

Located across from the castle, the stables are perpetually in motion, overrun with people and animals. Horses of all sorts are stabled here, from Alanna’s warriors to saddle and work horses. The stable hands have come to accept strangeness from the Lioness and her odd husband, but they'll undoubtedly look askance at additional strangers who seem to materialize from thin air.

[a_lioness]

No one stares. A solidly built stablehand, shoulders wide and strong from years of shoveling, passes by with a bay colt and tips his hat. A pretty mare shakes her forelock and bites the wooden door to her stall, then turns and sticks her head out a low window. There's only natural light, here. The cold air seems to hit the stone walls and rebound, but it's warmer now than it is when the sun is low.

Down one of the cross-aisles, into the main part of the stables, comes a young boy with sandy hair. He smiles winningly at the stranger and hops up on an overturned bucket.

"Hiya. I'm Stefan. Havin' a look around?"

In the large stall near the back paddock, the redhaired grooming her warhorse, hidden from view, smiles slyly.

[a_lioness]

"I know," Stefan answers with annoying smugness. "I heard all about ye, and yer brother."

He rocks the bucket forward until it pitches him to his feet on the ground, and leans on a stall door like he means to climb a fence. All the while, he watches Raph like a hawk.

"His girl's got purple in her hair. Wha'd she do ta anger the gods?"

[a_lioness]

Hazel eyes grow wider and wider until the boy can't help exclaiming, "Kyprioth's toes! What else's she got?"

Stefan braces his feet on opposite hinges, holds the door behind him, and leans out.

"I bet she's got a tail. A right purple 'un."

Somewhere, a brush thumps against a feed bucket.

[a_lioness]

Stefan is hanging on every word, so much so that he doesn't realize when his hands drop from the stall door and he comes to stand before Raph, looking up with that uniquely keen fascination the young take in horrific tales.

But there is someone paying them mind, and another thump sounds from that back stall. It might be a horse stomping his feet, or something falling.

The boy, however, hears it and blinks, then frowns.

"I'd 'preciate it if'n we could hold that thought." He straightens. "Do ya like horses?"

His expression is very earnest.

[a_lioness]

Deftly stepping in front of him, Stefan tugs on his sleeve.

Earnestly.

"Never seen a camel," Stefan says. "But horses are the best! Ridin's easy. Like flyin'. That leg won't bother ye a'tall." Beat. "Let's go!"

[a_lioness]

"No," replies Stefan, looking up at Raph like he's slow. "'less you want it written in dirt. C'mon. Cloud is waitin'."

Cloud is a small dappled gray horse -- practically a pony -- tethered to a ring on the stable wall.

At the end of the aisle, a stall door swings open, and Alanna waits until Stefan has led Raph outside to start walking with Mithros.

[a_lioness]

"Course!" He screws up his face as if trying to remember something, then grins. "What, are ye scared?"

Alanna pulls up, just out of sight, and rolls her eyes.