democratically elected to an Epic Quest

[pro_patria_mortuus]

The Milliways grounds are limited, no matter how much magic expanse of forest they contain, and doubly so to someone who hungers quietly for a city. Still, they're a change of scene, and a way to stretch one's legs. And they're pretty too, which Enjolras is largely oblivious to, but many people including his companion are not.

So: Enjolras and Bahorel are walking, arm in arm, beside the lake.

Bahorel is attempting to explain something about the logistics of television show creation. In the interests of clarity, he's restraining his (strong) artistic opinions to frequent asides.

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[clayforthedevil]

It's a walk,to the next real village; they're warned of that. It's a walk. 

It's a long walk. 

Not that Bahorel minds, as long as the weather's good; there are fields and passing...shepherds, for lack of better terms, herding not-sheep, the occasional field workers to talk to.  People are wary of a couple young men with no obvious occupation in hand, but then they are messengers, and don't people have messages to take between these little settled islands in the country? Oh, don't they always. It's a fine way to pick up gossip, really.  And such gossip! More than enough to keep them sure they're on the right track , regarding the real road and their own reasons for the trip.  

"I know we set out about the king--of course I mean to see a king brought to accounts!--but the more we hear along the way, the more the local lord sounds like a real ogre. And I do mean a real ogre--Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones,  Iron Jacque In the Forest. Oh, every peasant calls the landlord a blood-drinker, I know it, but here it may be something else again--did you hear that last fellow? Another one who thinks our ghost-soldiers are his fine lord's doing."   He's mostly watching the sky as he talks; this bit of road is a fine smooth wagon-trail, and they're hardly racing. And the sky..."We might look to a patch of woods, I think. Those clouds are coming in faster than I would think clouds should." 


And then they are racing, but the clouds come in faster than they can reach the nearest stand of trees, in fact; clouds thundering overhead with thunder that sounds remarkably like horses' hooves, and rain that almost seems to slice the air.  By the time they reach cover, they're drenched, and their clothes surprisingly worse for the experience, leaning more towards tattered than they've any business doing. 

[pro_patria_mortuus]

It felt like rain on the skin; cold and driving rain, sluicing down, plastering hair to foreheads and running down collars in an icy stream, like the worst kind of early spring day, but no worse than that. It patters harmlessly off the broad blue-green leaves of the trees, too, and puddles on the ground in muddy cold puddles like any rain.

But their clothes look as though the raindrops were made of knives and sharp rocks. Enjolras's coat is in shreds. He might as well take it off, he thinks, irritated; he'd be at least as decent in shirtsleeves and (only slightly less abused) waistcoat. Clearly there's no rain protection to be gained from this coat right now, or possibly ever again. His shirtsleeves are tattered now too, but at least they're better.

He casts a look of baffled, annoyed resignation at Bahorel. (Bahorel shed his coat hours ago, and is casting a look of gleeful bafflement down at himself, in contrast. Then he pulls out his camera and demands a selfie of the two of them, for no reason Enjolras can discern.)

The rain ends just as suddenly as it began. They wait a little while just to make sure of it, but the sky stays resolutely blue. Fine. They'll carry on.

But it's not long before there are hoofbeats -- several horses, around a curve of the muddy road but getting rapidly closer.