The lines of text in front of Kent's eyes started to take on the characteristics of the flames of the candle by which the paper was illuminated. Kent's head involuntarily drooped as he stared at the large block of black, what he remembered as "Article IX," that he wrote five or so minutes ago. It was a draft for the proposal to increase discipline in the army. He longed to discuss the details with Fiora, but he thought it imprudent to ask for her help on such a night. It was supposed to be a night of rest, in preparation for the journey to Bern, and he did not wish to disturb Fiora. Still, the urgent need suggested by the scene he witnessed just today pressed him, and his enthusiasm would not let him sleep, knowing that he had yet to begin the draft for the proposal. Another minute passed in silence, broken once by Kent's grunt in shifting his position and squinting his eyes. It was no use. He had stared at the page for too long under the dim light of the candle. He needed a break.
Kent got up. The chair creaked with the release of strain that was placed on it. He walked to the window and opened it; it creaked at the hinges. He was immediately assaulted by the cool air, which restored the temporary loss of visual capacity caused by long meditation upon his proposal so late into the night. His eyes wandered towards the sky, at the stars. He saw that the tail of the Whale had reached the hilt of the Sword, and Hanon's Belt was precisely aligned with the point of the Plow. From these astronomical formations, Kent divined that it was a rather late in the night. Having been reluctant to divert his attention away from his duties when he stood guard during the night, Kent had little knowledge of the formation of the stars in relation to the hour, a fact that he sometimes regretted, but to no great degree. His eyes turned east, stopping when the constellations of the Pegasus and the Archer came into view. The head of the Pegasus was turned towards the Archer, facing almost exactly the tip of the arrow, almost as if watching for the right time to zoom out of the way. The poetic possibilities of such a frequent arrangement of two opposing objects escaped Kent as the former formation reminded him of another.
"Fiora," The name escaped Kent's lips in a hushed whisper, almost as if he was afraid that others would hear her name and steal her from him. Yet to come to such a conclusion would be a mistake. The knight was hardly aware that he had uttered the Pegasus knight's name, occupied though he was with thoughts of her. He was recalling the first major skirmish in which he observed her.
A large bolt, fired from a siege engine, flew past Kent. Though it was far enough that he was in never in any danger, Kent felt the wind generated by the object as it flew. Before he could even turn around, a loud crashing sound was heard as the bolt hit its mark. As Kent finished his turn, he saw the fate of the bolt.
It lay in two large pieces, broken near the middle, on the ground. Before the bolt was a large figure in orange, clumsily trying to get on his feet. The bolt had found its target in Oswin. It rammed into the Ostian knight, pushing him against the wall—or, rather, as Kent realized after he saw an arm in blue armor holding a shining axe behind Oswin,, into Lord Hector, who, in turn, collided with the wall. To the credit of the smith who forged the formidable Ostian knight's armor, it was not pierced. Instead, the head of the bolt was dented, and the projectile itself was rendered in the state in which Kent saw it. Lord Hector was quite well, as Kent could discern by the loud obscenities emitted from behind Oswin.
Kent allowed himself neither chuckle nor grin. He turned back towards the gate. The siege engine was placed with the purpose of damage rather than concealment. Kent saw it, along with the archer loading another bolt onto the machine. Kent gave his stallion a spur, and the two charged towards the enemy archer. Kent, sword drawn, was just crossing the boundary of the gate when a shadow swooped over the archer. Shortly, the man, who was just winding the ballista, gave a sharp cry, a javelin buried in his chest. Kent looked above the falling archer to catch a glimpse of white, blue, and aqua. It was the Pegasus knight, Fiora.
Kent's reverie was interrupted by a rather dull clang that came from the hallway outside the door. It was the sound of steel clashing against the stone wall. Without a thought, Kent turned his body towards the source of the sound. In a few seconds, the dull clang was repeated, this time against the wall on the side of the door. A realization dawned on Kent, and he walked to the table, though with no great haste. He took the parchment that was vexing him for the night, rolled it neatly, and placed it in the traveling bag. He then closed the lid on the ink container on the table. During the course of his action, the clanging sound repeated, though at no regular intervals, and it sometimes rang against the far wall, sometimes the near. Kent walked to the door.
Momentarily, a thud came from the door, made by the abrupt contact between steel and the door. Some shuffling sound came from behind the door as whoever owned the piece of armor searched it. Kent opened the door quickly. Just as the barrier was removed, a rather heavy person fell into Kent's arms. He did not need to look down to know that he will find a ruffled mat of brown hair. It was Sain, the green lance, returning from his promised excursion of the night.
"Good evenin', K..." Sain greeted his partner in a gurgled voice, barely coherent.
"You are drunk," Kent said as he helped Sain toward his bed. The smell of wine diffused from Sain as the two walked. From the scent, Kent gathered that it was rather cheap alcohol, watered down so that it barely had the taste of the liquor advertised. Sain must have consumed a prodigious quantity of it in order to reach his current state of stupor. "Have I really stayed up until 5 in the morning?" Kent thought, with a touch of self-reproach at sacrificing his efficiency tomorrow in order to complete the draft of the proposal—their proposal, he would have liked to say. He knew when his partner usually returned from a night in the town.
The two reached Sain's bed. Kent dropped his partner on it without ceremony. Sain began to fumble with the cords that tied together his cuirass, without much success. Eager to save whatever time he had left for sleep, Kent helped Sain. The difficulty lay not within unfastening the cords but brushing away Sain's hands, which continued to reach for the buckles, having received commands from a master who apparently had not realized that someone else was unfastening his armor. As Kent worked, he felt distinctly that something was missing from the attire of his partner. What this something was, he did not know, and it bothered him but little.
Despite Sain's lack of cooperation, the cuirass was unfastened in under a minute. It was to Kent's relief that Sain had enough sense left in him to take off his boots without much difficulty. That task accomplished, the green lance fell on his side, and he was asleep in a moment. Kent placed his partner's cuirass on the ground, and he pulled the blanket over Sain, tilting the other knight's body a bit so that the ventral side faced the bed, though at an angle. Though the green lance was of great constitution, Kent feared his vomiting after the consumption of so much liquor. Having made sure that Sain was in a proper resting position, Kent proceeded to blow out the candle that gave him light during his vigilance.
The room was not quite dark after the stifling of the candle's flame. As Kent returned to his bed under the slight illuminations of the stars outside his window, he realized what was missing from Sain's company.
It was the odor of cheap perfume.
Author's note: I prefer to refer to the characters by their occupation rather than the class name, hence the title knight for Sain, Kent, and Oswin.