Knight-Errant

A Word: Ibid.

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The Dark Knight is a legend spoken of in whispers on the streets. His name spoken in awe, anger, reverence, and hate in equal measures. The sworn knight of the King casts a broad shadow over the kingdom. A nameless, faceless man dedicated to nothing more than upholding the laws and bringing those that break them to justice. Some call him a golem, others a demon. Few ever call him human. Not him and not the other knights he mentored in his ways, starting a tradition that has more weight outside of the kingdom than it.

Jason's not thinking about the Dark Knight or his legacy at all the night he steals the man's horse.

The horse isn't even tied down, just left lurking in the shadows of an alley, and Jason would never have seen it if it hadn't snorted just as he was passing it. It's hide is pitch black, and the tackle it wears is dyed the same color. Even the metal is black, goblin iron so dark it seems to suck in the faint light around it. All of it brushed down so that there isn't so much as a hint of a shine to any of it.

Jason's never seen one before, but he's sure that this is a war horse. It's built up bigger than even the farm raised cart horses that he sees occasionally in the market. It stands there, completely still even as Jason cautiously makes his way over to it. Dark eyes regarding him almost haughtily. No flinching or even nervous shake to give away that it finds him threatening. It snorts again when he puts a hand out, and Jason freezes as it tosses it's head.

He clicks his tongue twice and curls his fingers the way he's seen stable hands do. It's a very specific curl that he's seen them all do, no matter where they work, and the horse seems to settle. Head going down to sniff his hand. Jason eases his other hand in the bridle and clicks his tongue again as he pulls. He makes no move for the reigns, and keeps his hands where a stable boy would. The horse goes along with him docilely, and Jason grins as he walks it away from the alley he found it in.

He's not sure what he's going to do with the horse. It's a war horse, it won't tolerate any rider but the one its been trained to carry. The horses usually die with their rider, because the only other use they have is as breeding stock. The gear on it is another matter entirely. Goblin iron is a costly bit of material. The purer and darker it is, the more it's worth. The tackle won't fetch as much, the leather work too distinctive to sell as a whole piece, but Jason's fairly sure he can get something for selling it off piece by piece.

Any little bit helps now that Jason's alone and doesn't have his mother's occasional help to rely on. The loss still burns even though he's known it was coming for a while now. Her eyes getting more distant and foggy, the times she spent asleep getting longer and longer. Her death had been a long time in coming, but Jason still doesn't have to like it.

Jason leads the horse into an empty courtyard of a silk merchant's warehouse. The guard hired to watch the goods is a drunkard more likely to be sleeping it off than watching anything. It stops obediently at another gesture and Jason gets to work taking off the tackle. Grunting under the considerable weight of the saddle as he hoists it over his shoulder. There's bags hanging from it too, but Jason doesn't look through them just yet as he slides the saddle blanket off as well. It won't fetch much but winter is coming soon and Jason always needs more layers.

The horse doesn't move when he leaves it in the courtyard, and Jason wonders if it might be worth it to try and sell it to the butchers if it's still there in the morning. They'd pay less if they had to kill it themselves though, and Jason doesn't think he's quite up to killing a horse that's probably trained to crush the heads of anyone trying to harm it though.

Jason puts the horse out of his mind and focuses on getting the gear back to his rooms. The same ones he lived in for so long, and that he is now considering giving up. It's not worth the cost to have them when it's just himself paying for the rent now. There are smaller, cheaper options that would help Jason stretch his money more. Also, the possibility of a being on the ground floor, and attractive option as he lugs the heavy saddle and bags up three flights of stairs.

The gear clatters to the ground and Jason starts to inspect it after lighting a stub of a candle. It looks finer in the light, and Jason ups the estimate of what he can get even for the saddle. The first bag he inspects is filled with provisions, and Jason immediately tears into a crusty round loaf as he sorts the food around. Most of it will keep, but there's some that he's going to have to eat soon. Not a hardship for Jason, his stomach feels like it's been growing lately and he can never seem to get enough to fill it.

Jason's opening the second bag -mouth filled with bread- when a breeze fills the room. Jason swallows the lump of unchewed bread in his mouth before turning, because he doesn't leave the widow open when he's not in. He wasn't thinking about the Dark Knight earlier, but as the darkly armored man seems to fill the entire room he suddenly is.

The knight is covered by a thick leather cloak that's been brushed down just like the saddle he's sitting on, and the helmet that obscures the top half of his face is the darkest of goblin iron. The slits where eyes should be overshadowed giving him a demonic look that's only enhanced by the animalistic ornamentation of the helmet and the expressionless flat line of his mouth.

Jason, he can admit this freely to himself, is an idiot. Anger bubbles up in him as he realizes that this is probably the last thing he's ever going to do before spending the rest of his life working on a chain gang in a rock quarry. It's not really fair. Jason reaches back into the saddle bag and pulls out the sausage he'd been planning on saving for later. He takes a vicious bite out of it and glares defiantly at the silent knight.

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Yesterday, Jason woke up on a pallet of blankets that weren't too clean or soft. He was hungry and sore from a fight he almost didn't win the night before. His shoes didn't fit right, and his shirt was starting to fall apart on him despite his best attempts to keep it from unraveling with a bit of bone whittled into a needle and the thread he'd pulled off a blanket. He hadn't known where or when he was going to eat, or how much pain it was going to cost him to get that meal.

Today, Jason wakes up on a mattress filled with straw and covered by a pallet stuffed with feathers. Two blankets over him to keep him warm through the night, and a brocade pillow to rest his head on. It's all clean and softer than anything he's ever felt before. He's hungry but there's a tray on the small table at the foot of the bed wit food already on it. Slight curls of steam come up off it, and Jason's stomach overrides his gut instinct that recoils at the thought of someone being able to enter the room without waking him. There's enough food there to stop the pangs of an empty stomach for the first time in a good long while.

There's a set of soft shoes that fit him perfectly, but Jason doesn't really like them. They're too soft and will tear the second he tries to run, but he supposes it's better than going around barefooted. The shirt laid out for him also fits and feels every bit as soft as the shoes do, and it's colorful in a way that Jason's only ever seen on really rich merchants and nobles before. He feels like a fool pulling it on, but would feel even worse trying to go out without one. His own clothes were stripped from him the night before when he was all but dumped into a metal tub of water and scrubbed till his skin stung by an older man who kept insisting on referring to him as 'Lord.'

Jason still doesn't know where or when his next meal is going to be, or how much pain he's going to go through to get it. It makes Jason wonder, as he stands in a single room that's larger than the two he used to have put together, if he might not have been better off fighting harder when the Dark Knight decided to haul him back to the castle the night before.

A knock at the door jolts Jason out of his thoughts and he turns even as the door is already opening. Letting in a tall man with long, dark hair and a smile that looks ready to swallow his face whole. "Good morning, Jason!" The man's voice is cheerful and rounded with an accent that isn't local. He's wearing fine clothing and moves with the type of grace that Jason associates with street performers as he circles around Jason once. Blue eyes sharp as he studies him critically. "A little rough but you should do just well."

Alarm flares up in him and Jason feels his fists curl up tight as he growls. "Do well for what?" The Dark Knight had not been very communicative when he took Jason with him the night before, and Jason -as angry as he'd been- hadn't felt like prodding the man for answers. He'd simply followed along and determined to take whatever was being handed to him when he wasn't immediately escorted immediately to the dungeons.

Maybe he should've fought harder and asked some questions then, because Jason's heard rumors about what the rich and mighty tend to do to the poor people they scoop up off the streets. Not all of those rumors end very happily.

"My birthday present," the man says and doesn't seem to even notice when Jason goes very, very still. He's picking at the covers on the bed and looking around at the mostly empty room thoughtfully. "I have always wanted a little brother, but Bruce always said I could not have one. Something about not wanting to encourage a civil war for the crown when he eventually dies."

"The King?" Jason repeats and then gapes at the man on the bed. At the prince smiling at him and implying- "What do you mean brother?"

"He did not tell you anything at all, did he?" The prince says with a smile that turns wry and knowing. "I am not surprised in the least, he tends to do that a lot despite what we all try to tell him."

"Yeah, alright," Jason doesn't move but he's very aware of the door behind his back as he tries to remember the proper address for the man before him. The words trip awkwardly off his tongue, "Can you explain why I am to be anyone's brother, Your Royal Highness?"

"Richard, or Dick," the prince says immediately and with the kind of casual dismissal that would get anyone on the streets beat if they copied it. "Since you are to be my brother, titles will not be needed between us. Not once Bruce is done declaring you as his second son. He was quite impressed with you last night," the prince, Richard, Dick's eyes gleam with suppressed laughter. "No one has had the gall to actually steal his horse before."

His horse? His horse, or his horse? Jason stares at the smiling man -his brother apparently- and can't even begin to wonder what kind of mess he's gotten himself into this time.

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