Need a Little Ray of Sunshine

After the hunt, Paladin had decided to go out. Not far. But he’d been through the stocks and had noticed a lack of Blue Flag, or Iris. It was winter, quite later than was ideal for gathering the roots, but he went anyway. He carried with him a rabbit hide for the roots if he could find any.

He decided to check the lake. At one point, during his puphood, Celestial had held a claim on the lake, but now, it seemed Regulus had switched to the Moor. Paladin didn’t mind; the Moor held a lot of useful plants, and from what he’d seen in Solveiga’s alcove, they were plentiful.

He padded along the edge of the water, eyes searching for the signs he was looking for. The rabbit hide he held in his teeth was rolled up for now, to avoid dropping it and losing it in the snow. Admittedly, he could have waited for the weather to clear up, but he wanted to clear his head, and it wasn’t a serious storm. He was so deeply worried for his mother.

She was so listless and despondent. It took so much effort to get her to eat, and she would only eat small amounts. Not only that, but his father and Valor, and now Fable, were well and truly missing. His happy return to Celestial was turning out to have so many metaphorical thunderheads darkening its sky.

"Cén fáth ar féidir aon rud a bheith simplí agus éasca sa saol seo?" He asked aloud of the sky, pausing to drop the rabbit hide and gaze up at it as though it may hold the answer. He’d spoken without thinking in the Old Tongue, and the feel of it in his soft baritone over his tongue calmed him slightly.

The sky had no response, except to land a few fluffy flakes of snow in his face, and he blinked away one that had nabbed him in one sapphire and amethyst eye before turning to look down at a likely specimen to collect. It was a start.