Lemm retrieves his cache of the Knight's handwriting and combs through all of it. It is not the first time he has done so, not even for this reason. The longer he stays in his shop the more anxious he feels, but another walk around the block does nothing for him either.
He finds none of the comfort he's looking for in their kinder words, and only a rising unease in the implication he may be alone in knowing so many of their truths. It was a point of selfish, hidden pride before, but now it only makes him feel strange and guilty.
In the end it is their final, discombobulated letter that breaks through the tension in his chest. What is he doing? The Knight was panicking when they wrote this - he knows this as surely as he knows their handwriting dragging off the page when he upset them in his shop. They ought to have someone - no, enough of that. He ought to check on them. Dirtmouth doesn't know. No one knows, and he is hiding down here being a tremendous stubborn coward. Enough, then. Enough.
The note he leaves is simple enough: Gone on an errand. Lemm is still rain-damp when the ringing of the Stag Bell echoes through the tunnels, and a little out of breath. Cornifer came from Dirtmouth, so the letter came from Dirtmouth. The Knight wouldn't want him to walk alone. There are still rules.
(The Old Stag does not make a fuss of him riding alone, though he senses the Relic Seeker's apprehension of it. When his passenger disembarks and seems too tightly-wound to articulate himself, the Stag is a little surprised to get a very familiar-looking bow instead.)
1/2
He finds none of the comfort he's looking for in their kinder words, and only a rising unease in the implication he may be alone in knowing so many of their truths. It was a point of selfish, hidden pride before, but now it only makes him feel strange and guilty.
In the end it is their final, discombobulated letter that breaks through the tension in his chest. What is he doing? The Knight was panicking when they wrote this - he knows this as surely as he knows their handwriting dragging off the page when he upset them in his shop. They ought to have someone - no, enough of that. He ought to check on them. Dirtmouth doesn't know. No one knows, and he is hiding down here being a tremendous stubborn coward. Enough, then. Enough.
The note he leaves is simple enough: Gone on an errand. Lemm is still rain-damp when the ringing of the Stag Bell echoes through the tunnels, and a little out of breath. Cornifer came from Dirtmouth, so the letter came from Dirtmouth. The Knight wouldn't want him to walk alone. There are still rules.
(The Old Stag does not make a fuss of him riding alone, though he senses the Relic Seeker's apprehension of it. When his passenger disembarks and seems too tightly-wound to articulate himself, the Stag is a little surprised to get a very familiar-looking bow instead.)