Jonathan sat at his chair in his study, silently studying a report in front of him. A flood had hit the nearby town of Haldum and was proving to be just one in a long line of disasters that had hit this particular part of the countryside. Haldum had seen its fair share of unrest before, followed by a spate of bandits and now flooding. Jonathan moved his hands to his temples and continued to pore over his report. A niggling thought kept jumping to the forefront of his mind: what if the problems in Haldum were far deeper than he had originally thought? What kind of problems would they even be? He simply had no idea.
His thought-pattern was disrupted by a knock at the door. Jon heaved a sigh and straightened himself up in his chair, he smiled as Daine and Numair were admitted into the room.
"Ah there you are, you two!" Jonathan calmly ushered the pair to sit. "Glad you managed to find Daine eventually, Numair. With so many animal friends, our Daine must be hard to find at times!" He smiled warmly at the wildmage, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable. 'And so many human friends too, male human friends, to be precise' thought Numair. He was spared any need to respond as Daine interjected,
"I'm so sorry! I had no idea you were looking for me! I was just talking to Cloud in the stables…" she trailed off. It occurred to her that going to talk out problems with her horse was probably not something nobility did very often. Jonathan, however, didn't seem to notice anything amiss and merely continued,
"No problem at all! I just needed to ask you both a favour, really." He described the problems at Haldum to them as quickly as he could. "My problem is, Daine, that the flooding has taken out a lot of the livestock there and the residents need the help badly. They've lost their horses for trade and their oxen for the fields…"
"…and the rest of it, to eat" Daine added
"Well, I'm afraid, yes Daine. But I'm not expecting you to help with anything like that. I need your help to see the surrounding area, find out what happened to their livestock – it can't all have simply 'disappeared' in the flood…"
Daine nodded and slowly looked towards Numair. He was thinking deeply, she could always tell. He was staring into middle-distance, one hand absent-mindedly by his face. It made her long to take his hand in hers and force him to look her in the eyes. She yearned to look up into his eyes and understand everything about him, though she knew it could never happen. She was broken from her reverie by Numair's reply,
"It does seem rather strange that so many things should befall one town within so short a time span… especially if so much expensive livestock is now missing…makes one almost think…"
"And that's why I need you there too, Numair. I need you to check whether this flood was indeed a force of nature or of a decidedly more human origin. We can decide on a more definite plan of action once I know what we're up against here."
The mage nodded slowly. It seemed to him to be the best course of action. The meeting ended once the pair knew all their duties and they both took their leave of Jonathan.
"So…" Daine begun once they were out of the room "first thing tomorrow morning, then?" She smiled hopefully.
"Just as Jonathan said" Numair replied. "Goodnight, Daine" he murmured, before turning away from her and making his way to his own quarters, leaving a confused Daine in his wake.
