Hammering a dent out of a breastplate, Castor thought with some wryness, was a whole lot more entertaining when you had a song to sing as you worked. All the more so, he reckoned, if the other fella working in the smithshop beside him was singing too.
This is what I needed, ain't it? A good day of honest work, with no swords, no madness, no risk of life and limb; just himself, his friends, his labours and his faith. There was commotion on the streets this morning - but not the level, it seemed, that the guards and Crusaders would have to get involved in dealing with, and Castor was frankly damned glad for as much. He couldn't bring himself to strap on his armour and disperse a crowd, he thought. Not after the night he'd had. Not after the week he'd had. Not after--
Someone stumbled into the smithy, arms flapping, struggling to catch his breath and bring words out. Castor looked up, words of his song trailing off, the steady, pounding rhythm of his hammer cutting short. The grey habit, the blonde hair, he knew the man well enough, but what was Stephen Lachlan, councilman and friar, doing barging into the smithy in such an awful hurry?
"Cas," he all but croaked, and the young paladin realised now how haggard he was looking. And then he answered his question.
"I've been looking for you."
Setting his hammer hanging off the wall rack, Castor brushed down his apron with gloved hands and approached, frowning.
"Why? What's the matter?"
"It's sister Greene." Anna.
" . . . If I can do anything for you, tell me. Yeah?"
Before he knew it, he'd tossed an apologetic little wave of his hand to his smithing partner and he was pulling off his thick gloves, his heavy apron, and following the friar out of the smithy with urgency in his step. He scooped his cuirass up off the anvil as he went and pulled it on over his shoulders, and he found himself squinting at the morose mass of men and women that Lachlan was leading him towards. Confusion burnt up in his cheeks, but something else stung hard at the back of his throat. His hands worked urgently at the straps on the breastplate's sides, anxiously, automatically, as though he was expecting a fight.
"You're still what amounts to my baby brother, so I -have- to badger you . . ."
When it finally hit him, he hadn't even gotten the armour on properly. It wouldn't have saved him if he did, though.
"Something awful has happened," Stephen was saying, although Castor could barely hear him for trying to make out what the people in the crowd were muttering about. He could barely feel the priest's hand on his shoulder.
"Nothing's been confirmed, but they're saying that . . . "
" . . . paperwork . . . "
When someone broke out crying in the crowd, Castor abruptly got the gist. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't get the words out for the life of him.
" . . . I flee you hooligans now. Work to be done."
He put his head in his hand and squeezed, pushing his fingers through his hair, and turned his face up to the drizzle that was beginning to fall from the murky brown sky. He felt like he was dreaming, all of a sudden. Was he dreaming? The world around him seemed hazy, ephemeral as he sunk down into his thoughts. He hadn't felt the full impact, yet, no - but he felt it coming. He closed his eyes.
"Work to be done," he found himself whispering, sounding strangled. And he'd told her to stop going off alone.