The stranger idled on top of his horse for a moment as he stared intently at the small child. The innocent youth softened the corners of the stranger’s heart as he stared, and yet an itching intuition bit at his heels. 

	This wasn’t his mess, nor was it his business to get involved, but at the very least, he could make sure the child lived safely from this point on, and being abandoned into the arms of a place that was just nearly sacked didn’t seem to be the best place for a child that which a dark knight was after to hide in. To the stranger, he thought, it seemed like an inevitable way to run into a problem down the road, whichever road that may be.

	After his quick pondering, he felt his golden eyes tug back onto the image of the youth, and he sighed a tired exhale, but not one of physical exhaustion, but rather of exhausted experience. 

	The stranger swung his leg over his horse and dropped to the dusty road with a poof. The white stallion grunted curiously and the armored man laid an idle hand on its muzzle as he turned to the child.

	He took a few steps forward, blurring all others out of his sight, and out of his mind as he squatted to reach eye level with the cradled child. He lifted his gauntlets and slowly removed the heavy helmet that had caged his head. The thick nauseating smell of sweet lavender permeated from a thick and strange leather mask that was strapped to the inside of the helmet’s facemask. 

	The stranger blinked his golden eyes that sat on his spiderwebbed scarred face, and caught the gaze of the child. A soft and fatherly curve practiced on his ruined lip’s and he spoke gently through a rough throat that had the salt of a commander seasoning his voice, “how old are you little one?”