In the quiet moments, he worries.

The Dale is certainly quiet today, as autumn stretches its fingers across the treetops, leaving a kaleidoscope of color to spread as far as the eye can see. The sun gilds the warm palette until it seems like heaven itself has descended into their valley. It is beautiful in a way that makes one’s heart constrict from the absolute splendor. One should count himself undeniably lucky to witness such a view, but Ramiel seems to look beyond it. From his vantage point on a hill high above the river, he watches the silent scene and worries.

Talk of war is all he ever hears on the breeze. It is like an ever-tightening noose the collective citizens of Beqanna have worn around their necks for too long. For Ramiel, it had been a loop he’d stretched his neck into willingly the day of his coronation. He’d had naïve dreams of soon rending it off and throwing it from the highest peak. Once gone, it would be buried too far down to ever surface again. But of course, that had been years ago. He’d been only a boy, then. Now he is a different man altogether.

He knows that it is inevitable, but he is bitter all the more for this reason. The ghost-king is intimately familiar with death (which this war will certainly lead to). He knows that it doesn’t take its victims easily, knows that life is wrenched like a spine from a back with little care for the one who’d stood tall because of it. Death takes what it wants, when it wants, with no ear for protestations against it. Sometimes he thinks he can hear Death coming for them in the night, and His footsteps sound like the langoliers. The CLANKING and CRASHING fills his head, fills his memories, fills his dreams.

When he wakes at night, covered in a thin layer of sweat, he prefers the silence.

But here and now, in the golden light slowly leaking away into the grey of winter, he wishes he heard more. He longs for the laughter of children splashing in the shallows. He yearns to hear Ea’s stony voice clashing against the hills, telling him she was ready to be soft and sweet for him, for the Dale. He craves the crunch of the leaves under his hooves as he races Joscelin or walks alongside Weir. He wants to hear life in all of its trials and tribulations – anything but the silence before the storm.

It isn’t long before he gets his wish.

Gentle footsteps sound behind him. “Hello,” Ramiel says before turning, his voice easy and untroubled. For his kingdom-mates, he has to be strong. He has to keep any signs of doubt or worry scrubbed from his face. Even if the future strains him; even if the bugles of battle play a discordant duet in his head alongside the clanking of the langoliers. So when he meets the other’s gaze, he is the same unflappable stallion he always is. His is bright and alert and eager for conversation. He is not worried. He is still worried.