Balthazar moved stiffly as he hurried to the place where he'd been attacked. Three hundred years of keeping Merlin's ring safe and he'd allowed it to slip out of his coat, there was no excuse for that, even if he had been fighting several Morganians at the time.
"Sir?" a small voice sounded from behind him.
"What?" Balthazar growled as he spun on his heel to see the speaker better.
"Um . . ." The little boy that had spoken looked terrified of him, and Balthazar face softened at his frightened form.
"What do you need?"
"I, I saw you drop this earlier, and my Mother told me it was wrong to keep things that are not yours . . ." the child trailed off as he pulled the chest that held Merlin's ring from his satchel.
Balthazar eyes widened at the sight of it and he silently knelt down to the boy's level to gently take the chest from him. "Thank you, this box . . .it's very special to me." Balthazar looked up from the chest and met the boy's eyes, "tell me, would you like to see what's inside?"
XXX
I always wondered if Balthazar ever misplaced that box, he did keep it for 1300 years after all, and it's kind of small.
