Gareth didn't find Sir Walden in his office, so Gareth assumed the big man was elsewhere in the castle. He sighed and turned around, and Harker headed to the great hall. There he found himself lucky, eyeing Walden across the room, and Gareth strode over the floor to the middle table at the front of the room where he caught a seat next to the mammoth of a man. "G'day." He poured himself a glass, hand almost shaky with temper.

"Good day!" Walden responded, taking a long swig from his mug of ale. He placed the mug down, and noticed that Gareth definitely seemed much more reclusive than his normal nature, "Is there something wrong, Mister Harker?" Walden asked, a concerned look flashed onto his face, "Anything you need to tell me, lad?" Walden shut his notebook, and placed it back into his pocket. It definitely wasn't Gareth to start with a simple 'G'day'. That seemed far too short and curt for his friendly nature.

Wallace watched the entourage leave with raised eyebrows. He'd grown so used to certain overprotective details that watching them simply leave a crown royal for a 'night in the tavern' was equal parts refreshing and surprising. It wasn't as if the boy prince was in harm's way in Mullen castle, however. Wallace motioned for Noah to follow him with a gentle wave, and began to trod off towards the Great Hall's large exterior doors, talking as he went. "King Bard is tucked safely away somewhere with his knights, he will make himself available when he finds it suitable to do so. Or rather, when his guards see fit." He grinned to himself, recalling the fervor with which the Thistle Knights kept their liege in safety. They'd come out when they were ready, whenever that was. It gave him more than enough time. "For the moment, there is only me, but I would like to believe that you will be able to deliver your regards personally before too long."

"Thomas laid claim to the role of Commander of the Thistle." Gareth took one long drink, clearing roughly an eighth of the drink in one go. He felt uncontrollably furious, for he thought himself stuck under the headlock of a cocky, stuck-up knight's orders. He wasn't satisfied being ordered around by some bastard with an ego, and he intended to make it clear. "Why is he in charge? The trial is proof alone that he is no levelheaded man!" Beyond his personal convictions around whom he would prefer to serve, he showed clearcut consternation, not wanting someone so brash leading with his unguided leadership style.

Walden shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Gareth posted, "It might not look it right now, especially since you haven't known Thomas as long as me, but he's done plenty for the Order, and for the Urien family. You might have valid complaints, but Sir Redwyne Cole named two successors to act if he were to die, or become incapable of leading. Sir Thomas, and Sir Tyler. Sir Thomas was the first one the Order rallied behind." Walden explained, speaking as if the proverbial wind from his sails had left, "Thomas killed that woman. Everything suggests he had a violent urge, and killed a woman like a bloody madman, but Thomas has a thousand good deeds to wipe away that one particular bad deed. We can't judge Sir Thomas, as he has been declared innocent, and has served faithfully the entire period he has been with the Order. That's why the Order assumed he was going to be the Acting Commander." Walden finished, leaning back in his seat, causing it to creak once more. "I've known the man for 10 years, and I've never known him not to place the king and his safety above everything else. You can't condemn the entirety of a man's reliable service for one bad action." Walden added, taking a long drink from the huge mug, burping once he was finished, "His action was a vicious thing, but nothing suggests things didn't go as Thomas said, and Thomas has never lied to his superiors before."

Noah filed in, right beside Wallace, marveling at the Palace's structure fully. "Well, I will pray that King Bard is being taken very well care of." Noah responded, turning his head to fully appreciate everything the sights of the courtyard and Palace had to offer. "How old is the King?" Noah randomly asked. His father had not told him much about the man named Bard, but his father did tell him that he was the third son of a previous King. Noah assumed that meant the King would be in his early twenties, although Noah this was probably not the case, as he was just hoping the king would be young so that he could build an actual friendship with the King. The Palace and courtyard that Noah strolled through was much different from the capital of Cressen. A snow-capped fortress with 6 metre thick walls, and a barren courtyard. The south was definitely as pretty as his father had made it out to be.

"It wasn't one bad action that caused it, sir!" Gareth was fuming at the ears. "His soul is rife with self-righteousness!" He stuck by his psychoanalysis—Thomas gave him that impression at the trial, and there was no other conclusion. Thomas made a snide remark at Jezin as though Jezin's testimony were a stain on his perfect honor, and Gareth, by now, was greatly disconcerted by the Order's blindness to such a character defect as that. Sir Morgan had no humility, and it didn't matter what reputation he had with the Order; leadership was not meant for someone with traits like Thomas's. More and more Thomas seemed like a sycophant who only performed tasks for the Order to redeem himself, not to help the Order. "Bloody brown-nosing..." Harker grumbled. "Posing socialite fake..." He sighed, clearly exasperated.

Walden laughed at Gareth's frustration, patting the young man on the back, before taking a long drink of ale. "Yes, Sir Thomas is self-righteous. He's 34 years old, and as been a knight since he was about your age. How did you think he'd react to a foreigner's accusations?" Walden replied, his laughter calming down, "Not every man had the leadership abilities of Sir Redwyne, and everyone in the Order of the Thistle knows it, but don't worry, lad. Tomorrow, the culling will begin. For the next three days, every member of the Order of the Thistle will meet for 4 hours, twice a day, to debate on whom the next Commander should be. If Thomas is still selected to be Commander, then he shall remain as such." Walden added, taking a long drink of his ale. "All I know about Thomas is that he's the most excellent swordsman the Order has right now, after Sir Redwyne's passing, and is the most likely leader. Thomas has gone through things, and experienced things, that few men have ever experienced." Walden capped off, his laughter and booming voice now dying down, "'No action taken for the safety of the King is a crime'" Walden said, reciting the age old maxim of the Order of the Thistle.

As they entered the great hall, Wallace did his customary once-over of the room, picking out a few of the more important faces to remember where they sat. The hall had cleared out significantly even since the morning, it came as no surprise that most of the guests had no interest in sticking around in the wake of the 'festivities.' He sighed, mulling over the new information as he turned back to Noah. "The king is enjoying his early thirties, although he has the look and the mind of a younger man. He still demands to do things his way. I cannot say I blame him, given the months of legal wrangling that has lead to his coronation. The man deserves a rest," he said. It was a rest he was more than happy to provide. Wallace turned and motioned broadly to the great hall and the lavish leftovers of the celebration. "Make yourself at home, your grace. Keilaudrin is honored to accommodate you if you do not mind waiting for our king. The guardsmen answer to me for the moment, spare the Order of the Thistle, and if you choose to make your lodgings here they will show you to them. I should explain to you, there is a misconduct investigation underway, and the palace is on war footing. The people are tired and tense. You've already seen it at the gate, but try not to mind them."

Gareth glugged down half the glass before him. "I cannot see power fall into the wrong hands..." His brow was set and his mouth was pursed, but not for long, for pure salt followed after a brief moment of silence. "...In the face of battle, it is the side most competent that wins. It is not the skill of a single swordsman, or the might of a fearsome brute..." He paused once more, taking another drink. Just as he seemed to calm down, his voice came down ominously again. "...and we need composure, not recklessness. The king is in more danger now than he was before her death, for we have no intel on our enemy beyond a bloody billfold meant to lead us on a goosechase." If there was anything else he noticed during that trial, it was the ridiculous nature of that particular piece of evidence. 'What foe would be blind enough to leave the names of their command on a single officer? What foe would leave such an obvious taunt? No,' Gareth thought, 'it was certainly a ruse.' "The investigation is doomed because a bloodthirsty knight decided to abandon standard protocol and enter the interrogation room alone out of incompetence." The Order could've held her prisoner and obtained key information from her. By a more thorough investigation of Lexine, the Order might've been able to learn more about the oncoming assassination plot. "There are others of her kind here, and God knows where they are or who they are, and we'll be damned if that billfold spells out their names for us." He knew it wouldn't. That sort of document couldn't possibly have the right names written on it. It wasn't true, no it wasn't. It didn't matter that it appeared to be an official Arcarti script, it was there to fool the Order into looking in the wrong places for the wrong people. The names of Arcarti officials printed there, even if they could be verified, wouldn't be the names they'd use in a foreign land they were plotting war with. Who would be so naive? Gareth kept up this internal dialogue as he grew silent, intermittently sipping his drink after his rant, wherein he spilled his entire summary of the situation with Lexine, came to a close. Being one who feared the imbalance that would come with the king's death, he couldn't let the joke continue on. He didn't want to serve a bad leader, he didn't want the output of the recent string of events being the king's fateful end, and he didn't want defeat in war.

Walden nodded, as Gareth spoke, "You speak wisdom, and have obviously thought about the situation, Mister Harker. But when you are protecting a King's life, it's not about what you can guess, or conjecture from evidence. We are bodyguards first, detectives second." Walden replied, taking a solemn sip from his brown ale. "Even if the billfold was just to throw us on a goosechase, it would not matter, as they did not give us enough evidence to chase after anyone else. We can not pursue Arcarti's, nor can we assume the people with these names are instantly guilty. Thomas knows this. The things that are certain is that Thomas cornered an enemy of the state before she could enact her full plan. She is dead, and we lost whatever information we could of gathered, but that is a moot point in the grand scheme. The point is that Thomas stopped someone who could of had the potential to kill more people in the Palace. Call it ruthless, call it bloody, call it dishonorable, I would of done the same thing to someone who endangered my King." Walden took another long sip from his ale, "Thomas, and the rest of the Order, is acting on evidence we have so far, and no farther. A Lyoki snake killed Redwyne. Thomas is questioning the Lyoki's. A possible threat by Arcartus, who has conquered many other countries on the continent, has been answered by putting the Palace on warfooting." Walden went on, sipping on more ale, "We can dwell on the nature of Miss Lexine's death all we want, and how brutal Thomas was in his dealing of her. It does not change the facts we have. Those in the Order say Thomas could of restrained her. Those in the Order say that she would of killed herself before being captured. Those in the Order say that she only went in the interrogation because she wanted to be in there. None of this matters to me. We have to focus on what we have now, and what is out there, ready to show itself." Walden finished.

Gareth took one last bitter sip and put the glass down with such force, almost enough to either break the glass or leave a mark in the table, and on the outside, his boiling rage showed in the form of balled up, shaking fists and a tense posture. He sought to be free of the chain of command then, for since birth he tried to find glory in freedom and independence. Harker didn't like this at all. Thomas didn't stop to explain the happenings. Gareth felt cut out of the loop—nobody informed him of Thomas's assumed position of power, he felt cheated. He tried hard, and he panicked in that room in the morning trying to save Redwyne, who, before succumbing to death, grabbed the half-elf's arm for dear life. He and his thoughts fell again into confusion and disorder and began to trivialize his emotions. Was he right to be upset or angry? He decided then it was wrong for him to allow himself to be consumed by his passionate feelings, and thought himself without self-control. Harker frowned, and, looking down and away from Walden, bolted from his chair to utter with what little courage he could manage. "I am a human first, squire second. And, damn me to the netherworld, I can't be the hero you want." Again, for the third time, he crumbled into his despondency, speech turning into a blubbering mess hindered by choked noises and tears he quickly wiped away. "I can't fix myself, and I have no idea of what the hell is going on here. But that bastard let me fall further when the first of men I came to meet was sent to trial and didn't clarify anything for me when I felt terror. I am not a hardened man, I am a scared child." With that he confided what little he could piece together of the spell of madness he was under ever since night of the second day. Gareth turned on his feet and started for his quarters, hiding his face from passersby.

Walden's face turned to an instant somberness as Gareth emptied everything he felt, and everything he thought onto him. Walden took a long drink from his ale, before standing up from his seat, and walking after the young man. Walden had seen this happen before, but not in someone as young as Gareth. Gareth walked at a much faster pace than Walden, but Walden attempted to keep up. Walden was determined to talk to the squire, and calm his emotions. Walden did not yell after the troubled young man, despite every bone in his body wanting to shout out. He would simply follow the young man to the place he planned to run to, and talk to him there. All the while following Gareth, Walden possessed the grim and dark visage of that of a man, deeply troubled himself.

Noah allowed himself only the smallest of smirks to Wallce's revelation that Bard was well into being an adult, only attempting to hide his disappointment. As Noah was about to question Wallace about the nature of the misconduct investigation, he was jolted to view the end of the Great Hall, where a younger looking man, and a man that would of fooled Noah for an ox if he was covered in hair, had just slammed down a drinking glass. The feud between the two people seemed to end shortly, triggering the younger to stomp off, only to be followed by the walking mountain. "Is the Great Hall always like this?" Noah asked, shrugging his huge cloak forward, in an almost defensive posture. "Everything there seems melancholy, and tense." Noah commented, momentarily proud of himself for remembering to make well-use of his ever expanding vocabulary.

The hot-tempered brunet unlocked the door quickly and slammed it behind him. He really hoped Walden didn't follow all the way, Gareth feeling burdened by his own emotions and his having thrown them onto another person like fruit at one in a stockade. In his quarters he sat on the bed by the window that was there, and he stared at the deep blue in the distance for the little time he had before Walden showed, unbeknownst to Gareth. He wondered what he was thinking, doing what he did back in the great hall, for he merely complicated things for himself further. Truly, he thought, it was a shame he was putting Walden through his melodrama.

Walden could hear a quick slamming of a door, as he rounded the corner. Sure enough, Gareth's door was shut. Walden, still somber in disposition, walked slowly up to the door, and knocked on the door. The knock was far more gentle that what could be expected of a man of such stature as Walden. Walden was used to playing the part of listening ear in his old age. He was good at making friends, and good at giving advice to those that were troubled. Walden cleared his throat, and knocked once more, "Gareth, it's Walden.": He called out, his voice was even more gentle than what would expect.

Gareth sighed past his whimpering, and he rose from his place to approach the door. Before he opened it, he took in a deep breath inaudible through the thick wood, and he briefly meditated on what he was doing. His hand reached forward, and slowly the door parted open, it revealing a boy staring off to the side whose eyes grabbed at the floor. Harker didn't say anything, there were no words he could muster now in his afterthoughts, but nevertheless he allowed Walden room to enter, and he clasped his hands together in front of him while he avoided eye contact.

Wallace's lips curled ever so slightly in a frown as the two stormed out, and he squinted to ascertain who it was although he had made guesses when he entered the room. "It's usually worse. Politics is dreary business but it makes the world turn," he chuckled at his own remark. "It's a rare day we get to hold a true celebration here, and for what it's worth the people put their all into it." Filler words as he considered the strings being pulled and set in the great hall. The smile on his face was slowly becoming more and more genuine as he tallied the repercussions of Thomas' handiwork. It was miraculous, he thought, that Lexine could do so much work even in death. Her counterpart had a lot to live up to, when he resurfaced. Recalling his position, he cleared his throat lightly and explained what the two had seen, in his own words. "That is, however, exactly what I was talking about. There is conspiracy afoot, and I'm sure everyone in this room has their own account and explanation for what happened. My advice to you is to stay well clear of it if you can. As regent, I cannot set aside friends or foes in looking for the aggressors."

Walden slowly walked into the room, closing the door behind up. Walden looked around the room, find a empty chair, and taking seat, "I would like if you took a seat, Gareth, and explained everything you've felt the past two days." Walden said, simply, along with only the slightest of smiles, barely visible under his black beard, "We have all the time in the world." He added, as he leaned back in his chair slightly, causing a slight creak. Walden wanted to laugh, but for one of the few times in his life, Walden could not bring himself to laugh at himself, or some situation.

Gareth sat in a chair by Walden, and Gareth, with deep-seated scarring, couldn't bring himself to talk again. He covered his mouth and bit his lip as he tried to overcome his blubbering. He truly didn't have any words this time around to honor Walden's request, but he managed what he could. If he wasn't quite ready to share all of his emotions, he would at least apologize for what he did. "I-I'm sorry." His voice was quivery.