[h3]Sir Yanin Glade[/h3]

	Usually, people lied for personal gain. In more deplorable cases wealth and power, in more unfortunate cases just to preserve rightfully earned possessions, health or life - their own or loved ones'. What would be the motivation behind lies here? Stolen valour would, perhaps, be the obvious answer. Contraindicated by the fact that Freagon could have sincerely earned enough of it by deed. He was capable enough, there was no disputing that. So why? 
	Naturally, many others before him would have noticed the discrepancy - and Freagon seemed well aware of it, yet he continued speaking in the dead knighthood's name and following its ways. Not in an apparent attempt to re-found it - there would be more transparent means of doing so -, but as someone who simply claimed to [i]be.[/i] To still stubbornly go through the motions with no cause when everyone had already concluded you were operating on false claims would be delusional.
	One'd expect the nightwalker to [i]think[/i] there was a difference, even if circumstances couldn't seemingly be made to make sense. The burden of proof would, naturally, fall onto the claimant.
	[color=f7976a]"If it didn't matter and no one believes it, then why bother?" [/color]Yanin's tone of voice didn't seem to have changed, but he turned his head a little bit - presumably to be able to see Freagon properly, rather than from a slit by the corner of his eye. There was a short pause, followed by the obvious question. [color=f7976a]"The Knighthood of the Will is supposed to have been extinct for more than a century and a half. [i]How?[/i]"[/color] 
	Nightwalkers lived longer than humans - but not so much longer to still appear middle-aged after nearly two hundred  years. 

	'Time is running out' was an all too familiar sentiment. 
	Time for saving the healer was running out, if it hadn't already. Time for the members of his family he actually cared about could be running about -  Sir Jeran especially, now that several of the other older siblings, himself included, had moved out or been effectively banished. Javien was still there, though he didn't seem to give too much of a damn. Too convenient, perhaps. [i]Safe.[/i] Strange dark beasts had been seen lurking back in Etlon. Heck, time for the peoples or Rodoria could be running out, either by the Withering or war. [i]Time for what was running out for the nightwalkers?[/i]
	For most of those things plaguing the human knight, the exact deadlines were indeterminate. Some expected to arrive sooner, some later, but ultimately still unknown. The timing was odd. This year? This month? This week? [i]Today?[/i] Not before, not in the evening, [i]now,[/i] in the brief intermission between tasks. It implied hurry. 
	[color=f7976a]"When will time run out for you?"[/color] [i]Did he himself know?[/i]

[h3]Jordan Forthey[/h3]
	There was a brief shadow over the nightwalker once the talk tuned to his - or Jordan supposed their - past. One that didn't go entirely unnoticed. 
	Jaelnec's childhood seemed ... nice? Almost to the level where they could be the sort who sent a child to study with an actual knight, as opposed to just sticking with one out of sheer stubbornness when older. 
	Not that Jordan could complain too much; it was only after his younger siblings were born - after six years of suspecting that he might remain an only child and his mother had been rendered barren by his birth - that things started getting tighter. 
	His oldest sister had been barely enough to carry food for the chickens, the two-and-half and one-year-old obviously couldn't do much, and then his mother was heavily pregnant with a fifth sibling and [i]also[/i] couldn't do much. So his father and him had to do all, and his father couldn't both work the fields [i]and[/i] earn money... 
	With the Withering, the demand for many things you could produce to sell with a dozen cattle, some birds, a horse and a couple medium-sized fields had gone down. Butter, young cattle, milk could still go for enough to be worth the effort, vegetables less so. Every year, it felt like enough farmers dropped that there were just fields of crop no one was left to care if you took from, until a couple further years had turned them back into wilds, domain of snakes and hares. 
	But they needed money. Salt, tools, cloth, fat for soapmaking if they didn't butcher any of their own animals, the horse was getting older... So that was that. He was off to work somewhere that made money and didn't spend the family's own fabric, leather and food. 

	It was only when Jaelnec continued that the reason for his dampened mood became evident. He wasn't with Sir Freagon out of his own free will, or that of his parents. He was there because his parents were dead and the knight had happened to be there and took him along. 
	[i]Oh.[/i]
	[color=00aeef]"I'm sorry,"[/color] the human squire noted, sadly. [color=00aeef]"I can't say I saw much of my family one I was placed with the Glades - not until first my middle sister, then my father fell to the Withering and mother started demanding I go back..."[/color] Which he, a fresh squire back then, had not, and what for? His mother could manage the household, and his remaining siblings were old enough to help out now. They'd furthermore lose most of their income, which was, ultimately, his paychecks.[color=00aeef] "Can't imagine having gone back one day and them being [i]all[/i] gone, with no warning, just like that."[/color] Sometime during his reply, his head had dropped slightly and his eyes had fixed themselves onto a particular pebble in front of his feet. 
	
	Owing someone your life, being in debt like that... Was a dangerous thing. Maybe. Perhaps. Especially if ... the someone might have been a not entirely nice person. Jordan stopped scrutinizing the particularly interesting pebble and looked up at Jaelnec once more, once more with a mildly apologetic smile. 
	[color=00aeef]"As for how I ended up with Sir Yanin, then that is a mess of entirely my own doing. Sometimes I still wonder what did I get myself into, since I for certain couldn't last a whole ten seconds against [i]my [/i]master. Maybe if he was only allowed a wooden butter-knife and no armour, and I was allowed to keep everything I have on now."[/color] He shrugged. [color=00aeef]"He used to get around a fair bit earlier on - and the first year after I became a squire. Mostly Rodoria and Wegam Fermos. The last two we've been mostly stuck in Etlon, serving as Fadewatchers... I don't suppose Sir Freagon is the type to stay in one place for long?"[/color]