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Neav sat cross-legged on the forest floor. His hood was pulled up to hide his pale face. The trees were so thick that they only let through the tinist pinpoints of light, little flecks dancing like fireflies.
It was not often that Neav might be seen alone. The boy always had some horse-friend by his side. And if he was found this deep in the forest it was because he was riding out with a message from the King.
But today was different.

Even when a boy is a Creature of Magic, born with a power that he can never escape, he must pratice his skills. And when he lives in Camelot with its maddened, magic-hating King, such practice is very dangerous. Normally Neav had no free time in the day and tried his magic in the hayloft at night.
But today was different. Following a sickness the night before, Neav had been ordered to have the day off. He had taken the chance to walk deep into the forest, to sit down and pratice Magic.

So he sat cross legged, breathing slow as he had been taught. In front of him lay a small bundle of sticks. Neav's ice-blue eyes flashed silver and the sticks began to rise. A smile danced on his lips. Neav used his magic to bend and twist the sticks, moving them through the air until they formed to make a perfect little model of a unicorn.

Neav's eyes grew wide with curiosity. It was all so... cryptic, he thought, feeling rather proud of that complicated word. He was filled with questions, wondering over what Sir Lancelot could have done to make the Pendragons hate him so much.
It did not occure to Neav that he might get in trouble himself for keeping secret a man who was in trouble with the Prince and King. The blush faded from Neav's cheeks and he gave a shy grin.
"Of course I will care for Sher-Fore as long as you wish it."
Another boy might have sighed about the extra work, the extra stable to clean, the extra hooves to pick out. But not Neav. Working with horses was his delight and he did not care if he spent his whole life as Camelot's stable-boy. He grinned again.

"Are you riding him now, sir? Or do you wish me to return him...?" Neav asked, cautiously. He hoped the knight would give his mount a run or at least let Neav do it. Anyone who had half an idea about horses knew how they loathed to be groomed and tacked up as if they were going for a ride, and then be un-tacked and stabled again.

Cheeks still blushing a fierce red, Neav stared at his feet. He muttered something that tried to be an answer for the question 'how do you know?' but all that could be heard was a soft ...just something about him... and braced himself, waiting to be cuffed for his forwardness.
Nothing happened.

Neav risked a glance up at Lancelot said that there was nothing to apologise for. He blinked. The knight was not angry in the slightest... then Neav reminded himself that he had given up being surprised over what this strange man did.
But even with that reminder, when Sir Lancelot casually suggested that Neav would want to look after Sher-Fore regularly, he gasped aloud.
"Really?" for a moment his eyes shone. Then he checked his excitement. It was a silly thing to get excited. There was no way he could care for Sher-Fore again: the knight was leaving. He had not even wanted to come into the city. He had been going somewhere else.... so what did he mean by his suggestion?
"But... are you not... leaving now? Sir?"

Neav scuffed his shoes, so uncomfortable. The Prince was not accusing him of lying... not yet. But Neav was sure there was only so many questions he could answer before tripping over himself and making the lie obvious.
"I went - went away after all my friends... all the horses..." he did not want to say the words again. And it was true that after the death of the horses he knew no more of the battle. He only knew the rumor that was already flying from ear to ear: Prince Arthur had wounded the dragon so badly that it had flown away.

He swallowed, trying to think of an answer to the second question. Tried to think if he really had been there and had not been seen and had not been hidden by the magic of the unicorns...
"I don't know," he said, rather helplessly. He was almost wishing now that the Prince would catch him in his lie. But that would only start another string of terrible questions and end in death. He sighed. When he had said he would return to Camelot even though it was in danger to his life, he had not really understood what that meant. He saw that he would have to very quickly become very good at lying.

Neav chewed on his lip as though he wished to draw blood. Even to Neav who was so slow at reading people, it was clear that the Prince did not believe. And he had thought he was so clever! This was the problem with lying, even if you did not actually say the lie; people asked questions and then you were forced to invent more and more until you forgot where you had started and were tangled in your own web...

Neav was panicking. Since he had learned of his secret, there had been no trouble hiding it. But now he had been upset and foolish and might have just arranged his own death... he had to fix this somehow. He had to try and complete his lie.

"I - I -" Neav stuttered, looking so guiltly that it was obvious he had done something wrong. "I took Indigo..." he named a young black colt, barely three years old and not yet broken to saddle. "Took Indigo and followed... it was dark and we kept in the shadows and you were racing and never looked behind..."
It was a lie, oh it was such a lie but what else could he do when the truth would mean his death? He gazed up at the Prince, a picture of miserable guilt. If this story was not believed, he did not know what he would do.

Neav and Windsinger were perhaps the most unlikely pairing as had ever been seen in a forest.
Even if you knew nothing of horses, you would see the mare was a princess of her kind.
Her legs were long, slim and delicate. She had the sweet dished face of her Arbian ancestors. She wore the air of a wild thing, as though she were made of the wind and it were only her name that kept her pinned on earth.
She was black as a starless night, her only marking being a white spot on one hind heel. The Abrabian mark of swiftness.

And even if you knew nothing of boys, you would see that Neav was not the best advertisment for his kind.
He was so small that was almost embarrasing to admit to fourteen years of age. His black hair was ragged and had obviously been cut with a blunt knife and without a mirror. His clothes were as ragged as his hair and there were both bruises and mud on his face.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the boy had stolen the horse.

Neav did not look like a Messanger of Camelot.
And for once, he was not supposed to. Since war had broken out, it was not a good idea to ride alone through the forests shrieking what side you came from. Neav had his offical message hidden in a saddle-bag, but that was all to identify him.

The boy stopped watching the mare and gazed at his little campfire. It was night, and they had been riding hard all day. They would not reach Camelot with the reply message for many days, but Neav was not worried. The question and answer were only the same as had been sent out for weeks:
Have you seen aught of the Lady Morgana?
No.
Neav sighed.
"Got to sleep soon, Flute," he said to the mare, using his fond nickname for her. "I can make protections against the wolves and then we will be safe."


Tags: Jade
Timeline: One month into the One Year Gap
Place: A forest far from Camelot...
Time of day: early night
Weather: clear and cold

Neav made a tiny braid through Chance's main, holding his breath in the silence. He hoped that the Prince would not press the question because he knew that he would never be able to express his opinion in the right way. It would either sound like he was lying to be polite, that he was a stupid adoring child or that was trying to suck up to the Prince after shouting at him. So when the question was not pressed Neav could not help but feel glad... untill another one was suddenly asked.

Neav's braiding fingers froze. His face grew white as a ghost as he remembered how, in his angery shouting, he had told of the movements the horses had made. He had told in the order they were killed... information that he had no right to know.
Neav opened his mouth, but no sound came out. What could he say? I know because my Grandfather is Anhora, Keeper of the Unicorn. I know because I am a Creature of Magic and I share my heart with the horses... No. Then he would be killed and while he might not have cared about that a moment ago, the Prince had made him see different. He had a duty to the horses still alive.

But Neav was as bad at lying as he had ever been.
"I - I was... I was..." he began stuttering. Then in a sudden rush he knew what he could say. "... watching. And - and listening -"
And to his surprise he felt tears dancing in his eyes again.
He told no lie, but implyed another truth. It sounded like he had been hiding in the forest, watching a battle he had no right to see. Not watching from the stables, through the minds of his horses and feeling their every move and pain.

Neav stared. So this Merlin was not impossibly stupid, but seemed to think that he was stupid enough to believe his lies! It was pretty insulting, actually. Neav opened his mouth to say that there was no point in trying to trick him because he had seen Merlin do the magic and that he was not some stupid child to blindly believe everything that he was told.
But then Merlin's exuses trailed away, as though the man had figured this for himself.

But when he neatly changed Neav's threat to an acusation, the boy suddenly went pale. It had not been three days since he had learned of his strange magic and he was still getting used to the knowlage. Three days ago he would have said that of course it was not magic to get Redberry to throw him; that most people just did not know how to listen. But now was different.
And Merlin's words made him realise in a wave of understanding the danger he was in. He had discovered the Prince's manservant to be a magician. What if he were killed now for that knowlage? What if Merlin accuased him of magic? Neav had no doubt to which servant to be believed. He swallowed.

"Of course not. I don't do magic," he said, echoing Merlin's own words. But Neav never had been good at lying. "Besides," he continued, trying to cover up in rudeness. "Just because you can't tell the back end of a horse from the front does not mean everyone is so hopeless! They will listen to me because I know how to tell them." But the fear was now dancing through his eyes.

((Note: I am so so sorry about how long I did take to reply. You see I wrote my post some days ago and then deleted the whole thing by mistake. I was so annoyed to write it out all over again that I did not... until now. So I am sorry.))

Neav always woke with the rising of the sun. He tumbled from his next of hay, tugging at strands that had been caught in his hair. Anyone who has spent a night in a hay-loft will know that it is a wonderful warm place to sleep, even if it did prickle like a thousand needles were lost inside. And if the same person had also spent a night in a hard wooden bed that was probably the home to lice, they would know which was the better.
Such as it was, Neav was glad that his home was the hay-loft and not the bed of a stable-hand.

Neav tugged on his second shirt. It was a soft, worn green and had was less ragged than the other. His also wore his second pants, the ones with holes only in the knees. A length of halter-twine worked as his belt.
Neav dragged seft-conscious fingers through his hair in attempt to remove the knots, yelped and changed his mind. Instead he pulled on his boot and swung down the ladder. The whole process took less than five minutes.
Neav raced down the length of the stables, giving hasty kisses to sleepy horses and then he was outside.

Maeve was there, waiting for him. Neav grinned. He knew it was her doing that had saved him a beating last night; Master Williams had said so.
"Maeve!" he cried, wanting to hug her but not quite daring. She was as beatiful, gentle as he remembered. And she had come! A heavy part of him had not believed that she would. She had no reason to, after all.