#lowerquarterbratface

Today he was only a boy planting flowers. His hands were covered in dirt, skin calloused from years of holding a sword -- yet his fingers sifted so gently through the soil, as if they were remembering something he'd never done before. 

His Father had planted flowers. Asbel learned of it, he'd learned many things about his estranged Father -- and only when he'd died. As it was now, quietly sitting in the courtyard with a shovel, seeds and a water basket, he felt closer to his Father than he had ever been in life. 

It was a sad thing, a humbling thing. He didn't consider himself a good child in the least as a boy, but now, a boy somewhere on that distant road of being a man, he thought maybe his Father might have been smiling. Smiling at him now, auburn head tucked low between his shoulder blades, fingers moving and sifting through the earth with the gentleness of a wiser man. 

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't notice the sudden arrival on his lawn. Lhant Manor was open to all in the town, and to strangers and passerbys. It was a place of safety and comfort, not prestige. At least, to Asbel it was. It wasn't much of a surprise or discomfort.

The young lord straightened a little, hand absentmindedly rubbing at his cheek, leaving a smudge of dirt against skin spent under the sun. two clearly mismatched eyes, one a bright blue, the other a strange, pink-circled violet honing in on the visitor with a wave of a dirty hand, a quizzical blink and a smile.