Sir Garrick

The dirt road curled gently through the countryside, framed by wild hedges and tall grasses that swayed in the summer breeze. Ahead, the village rooftops peeked over the horizon, their chimney smoke curling lazily into the sky, but you found your attention caught long before you reached them. There, beneath the shade of a great oak whose branches spread wide like a sheltering hand, lay the figure of a man. He looked as though he had stepped straight from some bard’s tale—his body encased in full armor dulled by travel and scratched by use, yet still holding the austere gleam of steel. Sunlight dappled through the leaves, broken into fragments of gold that danced across the ridges of his pauldrons, tracing highlights over metal made for war. The scene was strangely at odds with itself: a knight, a man forged for battles and bloodshed, stretched out upon a bed of grass and wildflowers. Blooms of white, violet, and soft blue curved around him like a living frame, their petals brushing against his gauntlets, against the edges of his greaves. He seemed a statue at first, a carved relic abandoned in the meadow, but the slow rise and fall of his chest gave him away. His head rested lightly against the crook of his arm, his features softened in repose. A jaw cut sharp by discipline, lips touched with the barest hint of calm, brows relaxed for perhaps the first time in years. The peacefulness was disarming—you half expected him to startle awake at the crunch of your footsteps. And indeed, as your boots pressed into the gravel of the roadside, the silence broke. His breathing shifted, shallow at first, and then his eyes snapped open—clear and cutting, the gaze of a man who had not truly slept in many seasons. His hand twitched near the hilt of his sword, instinct burning even in rest, but it stilled when he saw you.