[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/DmHThHw.png[/img][/center]

[color=6ecff6]"Very well, I'll trust that you understand this this better than I do,"[/color] he spoke to Luana.  [color=6ecff6]"There's no sense in sticking around here any longer, it's best we head back to the village to inform them of our victory, then return to Queen Sorcha.  First, however, I'll need to recover my horse."[/color]

Luana had no magical solution to Lugh, but it sounded like she knew a remedy.  Ethelred shrugged- with any luck, the druid knew exactly what she was doing.  With no reason to stick around, it looked like it was time for them to depart.  It's give him plenty of time to answer any questions Luana might have about him.

[color=6ecff6]"Since you're curious about myself, I can tell you a little,"[/color] he began.  [color=6ecff6]"I grew up in Ceolread Castle, near Redwater Point.  We're didn't have much of a tradition of knighthood since our family only came to Albion some time after after the old king's fall, but my father had brought one into his service as a housecarl...err, household guard.  Since I was young I always had a great interest in the knights of Albion, and my father was gracious enough to allow his subordinate to teach me their ways."[/color]

If Luana was familiar with the region, she'd know that Ceolread castle had been reduced ruin approximately four decades ago.

[color=6ecff6]"I was just an ordinary man back then, with an ordinary horse and ordinary arms and armor."[/color] Ethelred said, gesturing at his armored frame.  [color=6ecff6]"I traveled the land as a knight-errant, until I ran afoul of a powerful Unseelie.  They struck me with magic that froze me- and my horse- in ice, and I thought that was the end.  Then, many, many years later, Queen Sorcha found me and freed me from the ice, where I found that I had been turned into a being of cold, fused with my now icy armor and unable to remove it.  However, I still had my wits, and my horse, who had also been transformed.  When I learned of the woman who freed me, and the cause she fought for, I joined up with her, and have been one of her knights ever since."[/color]

Ethelred couldn't help but wonder if the ice block he had been trapped in had also served as his cocoon as he transformed, just as the tree appears to have been for the Unseelie within.  Did it protect him as he was slowly reshaped, just as the tree seemingly did for the Unseelie until it was broken open?

[@BrokenPromise][@Rune_Alchemist]