* 48 * 7/20/12, 3/20/13

Casavir was worried sick. Lily had not been in the Keep all day, and it was already getting dark. To make matters worse, no one had heard from or seen Bishop since the previous night. He imagined the worst, the Evil ranger finally having decided to take his prize and leave the group for good.

Damn it! If only I had not overslept! Remembering Lily's advice on the words "if only" in this moment only made his feelings of longing and dread worse. He had been so peaceful the night before after his talk with Lily that he had slept long into the day.

Qara was being level-headed about it, trying to calm him down, but telling him to "Chill out" wasn't much help. Grobnar, Khelgar, and Neeshka were the only group members who were almost as distraught as he was.

But Neeshka was trying to be positive in her own backwards way. "Maybe she just got lost and Bishop went to look for her!" she said, little Ounce in her arms. Perhaps she didn't mean for it to, but her suggestion only made the paladin more agitated.

"I hope the lass gets back soon..." was all Khelgar said, his face stricken with concern. Grobnar simply frowned, his brow furrowed.

"She might have gotten tired of being inside all the time," offered Sand.

As he'd tried to multiple times over the past few hours, Casavir made another beeline for the door, but Aldanon stopped him.

"Let's wait a little longer, yes? No point in losing our heads and charging out into the night!"

"That is exactly where our Leader is!" the paladin now shouted in a powerful, booming voice – one he had rarely ever made use of – surprising the others as he scrambled past the old man.

But the door had already been barged open. A green figure hurriedly made its way inside.

Elanee.

"Elanee!" Grobnar shouted. "Any news?" he asked with worried anticipation.

"Yes, I found her...and I found Bishop," Elanee said, looking to each group member in turn, but focusing her hard gaze especially on the paladin. Casavir swallowed. "They were–"

Bishop came in behind her, Lily right on his heels.

"Lily!" Without hesitation, Casavir rushed over to her, instantly alarmed by the soaked and dirtied condition of her clothing. "What happened?!"

"She's fine, and so am I, thanks," came Bishop's sarcastic remark.

Elanee panicked. She hadn't realized the ranger had been so close behind her. She quickly shouted, "They were in the woods together! I saw them! They–! They..." Her imminence faltered when she saw Bishop give her an animalistic, snarling glare.

"I'm okay, Casavir," Lily reassured him, but the paladin was only paying mind to her damp hair, the tears in her shirt, and the dirt covering her extremities in assessing her condition. He directed his attention to Bishop.

"Bishop, what have you done?" Casavir demanded, his voice enraged.

The ranger rolled his eyes. "I raped her, of course."

Without hesitation, the paladin slammed Bishop fiercely against the wall, and Lily heard a sickening crack. "Bishop!" she shrieked. Every pair of eyes in the room shot wide.

"Casavir, no!" She ran closer, but Casavir held her back with an arm. "Please! He was only joking!"

Bishop had shut an eye in pain for a moment due to the impact, but was fine. "That was the quiver. He just got a couple of arrows," the ranger explained in a strained voice, dismissing the elf's wistfulness. Of course, this also meant that the quiver had made quite an impression when it carved a valley into his back, and he had taken heavy damage. But he didn't tell Lily that.

Lily's lip curled, and she took that precious pause to wiggle her way in between the two men, splaying her arms before the paladin. "He didn't do anything to me, Casavir! I went out by myself, and he came with me so I wouldn't get hurt."

Bishop looked away. He didn't like the light the truth painted him in.

Casavir followed the ranger's movements and looked sternly into his face to see if this was the truth. Bishop stood his ground and didn't shy away from looking straight back, but his eyes sheepishly hid a clandestine truth. In them, Casavir saw. He found out about far more than just what had happened. He saw the real truth, the whole truth. This was the look of a man engaging in a guilty pleasure of his. Bishop had indeed protected Lily, but, more than that, he desired her, and perhaps for more than what Casavir had originally thought he wanted her for.

Disturbed, but yet somewhat relieved to find some evidence of actual feeling in the stone-faced Bishop, the paladin released his hold on the ranger. "Your sense of humor is in poor taste, Bishop." With that, he walked away to the other side of the hall in a huff. He would've stormed off all the way to a different room, but he refused to let Lily out of his sight when she had just returned.

"You're going to get yourself killed," Lily chastised Bishop, wanting to shove him but deciding against it; she was still deathly worried about the impact of the wall and Casavir's hard armor.

The ranger shrugged. His confidence had outwardly returned, though he was still wondering just how much the paladin had seen through him. "His fault for taking everything so goddamned personally. Needs to lighten up once in a while."

Casavir bit his tongue. No matter what Bishop did to rouse him, he would not act out like that again now that he knew he hadn't harmed her.

Bishop turned on his heel and walked out the Keep's doors, giving Elanee another highly venomous look before leaving. She looked at the ground. As soon as he shut the door, she retreated to her room.

Lily let him go, used to his tantrums by now, and instead went to stand by the more level-headed Casavir near the throne.

"I'm sorry, Casavir."

"You should not go out on your own, my lady." For how upset he felt, he was doing a good job of masking it from his voice. He couldn't even look at her.

"I know. I just felt very energetic this morning, and no one was up. When I decided to go into the woods, Bishop told me I was stupid and came to make sure I wouldn't get eaten," she said, trying to lighten the mood.

He mustered a halfhearted grin for her sake, but he was off in another world. "If you will excuse me," he said, abnormally gruffly, heading to his room after being satisfied that she was all right.

Lily, her brows furrowed, looked after the distraught paladin, wishing his discontentment would melt away just like that beautiful snowflake had against his profound warmth.