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Laird of the Land (buttefly0408/kolath)

He smiled and shrugged a little at her comment about her own horse. He pulled out the blanket and food packages carrying them over to a nice shaded spot. “What can I say, I like you riding with me. And it seems the stallions like having your mare around, she is a lot more fun to watch.” He smirked cockily as he spread out the blanket for her and then placed the food in the center of it. He settled down on the blanket smiling at her before turning to look around the clearing. “It is beautiful, Linette told me about this place. Not sure why but she seemed to think you would love it.”
 
She rolled her eyes a little at his commented about her mare and the stallions, "I see that your stallions are much like the men around this place..." she commented though there was a light air in her voice and smile on her lips.

Once the blanket was laid out, she took her place upon it, not really paying attention to the food laid out before them really. Her eyes were fixated on the scenery around her and all at once, she pulled out a piece of her paper and started to work, seeing an interesting tree not far that had branches that twisted and reached for the sky in such and interesting manner.
 
He smiled at her come back about to say something about the men at the castle and them looking at mares but decided against it when she was quickly lost in the scenery. He looked across the way at the tree she was looking at seeing it as interesting but not seeing art out of it. he poured her a glass of spiced wine and set some of the fruit and cheese next to her so that she could pick at it while she worked knowing the meats would be to messy. He leaned back against a tree watching her. he pulled out a knife and picked up a short stick started to slowly cut at it as he watched her.
 
Blair was so intent on what she was doing that she was not able to really start any kind on conversation between them. Perhaps if he had started it, she could have been able to talk and to draw at the same time, but her focus was not on starting such a thing as small talk. When she drew, she was often in her own little world. Others could reach into it and visit her but unless started by them, she was lost in it. She worked rapidly at the drawing until the once blank page was then covered with the image of the tree, looking so real one would swear the wind was blowing through the leaves on it's branches. Smiling at it, pleased with herself she at last turned and held it up in his direction, "What do you think?"
 
There was something about watching her, sitting there in her own world that made him not want to bother her. he sat there watching her draw his hands moving over the piece of wood. It was slowly taking shape into that of a horse head its mane being tossed in the wind. When she turned around and asked him what he thought the horse was only half finished because somewhere in the beauty of the clearing and the heat of the day he has drifted into sleep. He now reclined there against the tree his hands in his lap the knife and horse just laying to either side, breathing easy.
 
There was something about the sight that greeted her as she turned around, seeing him laying there sleeping that first took her breath away and then she found herself inspired but it. The peacefulness of his face in his slumber, that relaxation in his face that made his handsome features stand out somehow even more... she quickly put a new piece of paper in front of her and started to work on drawing him. Yes she had been a bit sick of drawing people but there was something about this that drew her to capture the moment on paper the way she saw it. She worked away at, making it so very detailed...
 
He wasn’t asleep very long just a short nap really. About half an hour later he woke up his eyes slowly fluttering open as he looked for her. he rubbed his eyes smiling at he saw her still drawing but now facing him. “Hi, sorry about that I seem to have fallen asleep. What are you drawing now?” he stretched a little and was about to get up and come over to see what she had drawn.
 
The image was not fully completed when his voice broke through that sort of could she had up around her while she worked, but in the moment when he woke, she looked down and realized with a blush just what she had done. It had seemed to just be an instinct to draw him, she didn't think about how awkward it could become when and if he woke and she'd have to show him how he had captured her interest. "Umm.... you just looked so peaceful resting...." she explained before she turned the page around to show him her mostly finished image of him though it was not as polished as the rest of her images. It would have to stay that way too for there was no way she could capture the moment again now that it had passed. She wondered as she waited to hear what he had to say about her drawing by she felt a little shy and anxious to know if he liked it or not.
 
He could see that it was the drawing of the tree behind him but then came closer looking at it. he came down to his knees and looked at the tree and at him sleeping underneath it. he smiled and nodded slowly. “It makes me wish I hadn’t woken up so that you could finish it.” he smiled and brushed his finger over the lines lightly careful not to smudge them. “You do really really good work Blair, I love it.”
 
She smiled a little and could not hide the blush on them from him. For some reason, his approval of her work really made her feel like she had accomplished a job well done with this drawing, even if it was only half done. "It could be better," she commented as she put the other picture of the tree on top, "See?" She was trying to show him what she thought was a better image, but any fool could see that the image of him had a vibrant life in it that her tree, while very nice, was without.
 
He smiled and nodded slowly. “I can see how this one is better because it is finished. But this one.” He smiled and shook his head slowly smiling. There was the clear skill of capturing life in the still form in the one that she was drawing of him asleep. “I feel bad for waking up and ruining your model. I only wish you could have finished it…” he thought for a moment and then looked over at her, “May I have this one?” he asked clearing meaning the one of him asleep as he handed the tree back to her.
 
"I... guess..." she said as she watched him take the image of himself from her pile of papers. Something about him holding onto that image touched her a little inside and she tried to bury it. Even if the only was to do that was with a hint of light humor. "It it technically your paper after all. I just drew something onto it." Putting aside her drawing materials at last she when to sit on the blanket and actually began to pick at the food.
 
He moved back over to the food sitting with her and offering her a fresh glass of spiced wine after he has tossed out the one that he had poured her before. “I’m glad to see that you are enjoying yourself so far. I hope the food hasn’t gotten too cold while I dozed off.” he smiled and pulled out the meats and other foods from their packages the scent of hot food wafting up to meet their senses and overload them with a powerful hunger. He picked up a small pastry of meat leaning back on his elbow and slowly starting to eat it as well as sip at the wine.
 
She took a bit of the food and after testing it's temperature with a bit, she had to smile, "I'm sort of glad you feel asleep. If the food is this hot not it surely would have burnt my mouth when we first arrived." Downing her bit with a little wine, she sighed and looked around, "I have not had the chance to tell you... your lands are beautiful. When we first came here and I saw bits of it while traveling I thought it nice but sitting out like this, it's really breathtaking."
 
He smiled looking out over the land his smile turning sad as he nodded. “It is beautiful, my father cared for the land and it returned that care with beauty and long life.” he smiled clearing his throat and brushing his hand over his eyes clearing a tears that had been gathering. “It was from him that I learned how I govern and it suites the land to allow me to continue to rule it.” he smiled looking back at her, a slight smirk crossing his lips as he thought about the land returning his father with beauty and long life…it seemed to be doing the same for him.
 
She hesitated a moment as she picked at her food but.... seeing how upset he got speaking of his father and seeing often the same look in Linette and even Evelyn's eyes, she found herself compelled to ask, "What happen to your father? You are still rather young for a laird. Did he pass before his time?"
 
He turned away a little upset that she had asked. Not because it was wrong for her to know or to ask just because it brought up some very painful memories. “Yes…he died before his time.” His voice was choked heavy with emotion and he just sat there for a long moment before continuing. “My family and I had to sit at his bed side…and watch his waste away slowly…he went from a powerful warrior and father to a feeble man that could barely bring his cup to his lips. it….” he didn’t finish what he was thinking just letting the silence hang.
 
The silence hung for awhile before she cut through it again, "Fate is not very fair. Why should it be that your father whom I can tell truly cared for you and the rest of his family had to die a slow death? Why did people that cared for him have to suffer right along side a good man.... when a monster like father was granted an easy way out of this world?" She had not opened up to anyone really about this yet and did not know what Flynn had told him about it, but even he didn't know the matters of it. For some reason, Fergus did not want anything to do with Flynn at the end. Not after Shawe died. It was Blair that had to face his sudden madness. "When the riders returned from what was suppose to be just a normal scouting of the surrounding lands with Shawe's body, my father went mad. Perhaps he had always been a little somewhere inside, but laying Shawe's body in the earth brought it out to the surface. He was more cruel then he had ever been before. I didn't let Flynn near enough to see it since father never left his solar. He kept asking for Shawe. It was like he had forgotten he had buried his son. I tried to remind him and make him realize that he had another son he needed to guide now." She shook her head, "He didn't listen. All along I thought that the keep and the land had been my father's whole world but in the end, it had been Shawe. Father had gotten his hands on some kind of poison. Don't know how or when. I think perhaps he had it all along. He once said it was better to take your own life rather then be in the hands of your enemy. So he thought us all his enemy for he did just that and left us without much of a second thought really. I doubt there was any pain at all. Just a peaceful going to sleep."
 
He sighed looking at her as she spoke nodding slowly at her thought on the cruelty of fate. He just shook his head slowly not voicing his thoughts about what her father did knowing they would not sit well in the air, since it was not good to speak too ill of the dead. “I’m sorry that he put you through that after all the other things he had put you through Blair.” He looked down into his cup of win for a moment before looking back up at her. he couldn’t tell her how much she had just helped him. because even through all that his father had fought through even when everything was over his father never gave up, never took poison and the easy way out even when told how bad it was going to be. He smiled softly. “Thank you Blair for trusting me to tell me that.”
 
She shrugged a little, "I don't know what made me say it now. It just... came out." Realizing with each passing moment just what kind of personal information she had just given to him. He knew something sort of deep and dark about her. Yet in part it felt a little like a relief to have the truth of her troubles out there in the open, even if only to one person.
 
He smiled and nodded, “I understand…some times the mouth knows what needs to be said while our brain thinks it would be wrong to say it.” he smiled and finished off his wine before looking at the food and then to her. “Are we ready to head on back to the castle? Or would you like to stay out here and draw some more?”
 
She glanced at the pages and sighed before shaking her head, "No. I can't really seem to find any more inspiration to draw today. We would just be sitting here killing time when I am sure there is much more you could be doing back at the keep then out here with me." She put down the pages to help him package up the food that was left on the blanket before rising and going to put her papers and charcoal away within the packs on the horse. It was clear that this talk of her father had dimmed some of the joy that had been clear in Blair as of late.
 
He smiled and helped clean up packaging the food back up and then picking up the blanket and folding it back under the saddle bags. He then put her drawings and materials into the bags also before helping her mount and then slipping up behind her pressing against her back as they rode back to the keep. He didn’t have much to say just riding back to the stables and then helping her dismount and taking the horse into the stables. “Would you like to see your mare since you mentioned her today?”
 
She smiled and nodded, her feet already pulling her towards the door leading into the stables, "Yes please!" Making her way into the stables, she found herself walking to the far back of the stable. Her mare was in one of the stalls near the back entrance of the place. Blair had to smile as her mare recognized her at once and started to bob her head and whinny a bit. Blair entered the stall with her horse and started to pat down her mane. "Miss me girl?" And like the horse understood, she whinnied again.
 
Kael put his horse back brushing his down quickly after pulling off the bags and saddle. He patted the large flank of his war horse and then turned to the back of the stable walking back to see how Blair was doing with her horse. He walked in to the stall smiling and reaching out brushing his hand over the mare’s nose lightly. “She seems happy to see you.”
 
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