Jhymes sits atop a rock in the gathering dusk, patiently grinding out new nicks in the edge of his sword.
Some paces away, his Destrier Anatomical shifts restlessly, fluffs its plumage, and tucks one leg up under itself in roosting posture. Its colours are fading from age and lack of maintenance proper; the road, indefinite, is an unkind way to live.
A Knight of the Round, it is Jhymes' oath to serve. He is cursed, he knows this, although the particulars escape him; by whom, and why, and how exactly. The particulars of many things escape him; whom it is, exactly, he serves, for example, and how they should prefer him to. He know he would like to go home, to rest; that his Destrier is long overdue for such consideration, and the rejuvenating attentions of the Tree-of-Plenty. Where his home might be, or how to recognise it if he comes across it, escapes him.
None of these deficiencies of knowledge trouble him particularly; they lie within a drowsy, summery feeling, like an afternoon of sun and naps and lack of responsibility. This, at least, he is very familiar with.
Finally satisfied with his weapon — or as much as he can be, in the failing light — he cleans and sheathes it, and rolls himself in a blanket on the sweet grass beneath the shelter of his Destrier's bulk. The long sighs of its respiration lull his sleep.
In dreams, Jhymes finds his feet lodged at the initial step of a labyrinth, a single path carved into lush fog-misted turf, a ribbon of exposed black earth. A single magpie, wings fletched blood-red in place of usual white, restlessly cocks its head to regard him from the grass.
"Sir Jhymes," is says.
"Sir bird," Jhymes says gravely, and bows formally and sincerely to it, even though it is only a dream, and only a bird. Or perhaps neither of these things.
"You memories, as always," the magpie says—
"—Lie within the maze," Jhymes finishes. "As is the curse. That I might wander into my own home unknowing, a thousand times over, and know it no better than a stranger, even if my own family — should I have any — clutch at me and weep. That I truly know neither myself nor my purpose."
"Until you defeat the maze."
Jhymes does not know how long he has wandered the road, outside his dreams. If there is some specific bent to his oath to serve, it lies neglected. He does the best he can, raising his sword to defend those he sees to need it; bends his back to labour for those lacking the strength. His kindness, such as he knows, for those in sorrow. And in his every dream, the maze.
"Sir bird," he says. "My regrets that you're bound to this task until I succeed; I'm not certain, but it seems to me it's been some time."
"No longer for me than you," the bird says.
The maze, Jhymes knows, is not a simple thing; it writhes over the earth like an angry worm, never the same twice. It dulls him with cold, resists his progress with wind and mist. The earth will turn waterlogged and suck at his feet.
In the way of magic, he suspects some ironic metaphor; that the gauntlet which challenges him is the task of knowing him, with which some past version of him rebuffed all others' intimacy. And in his endless failure to surmount it, he grows a hard place in his heart for whoever that man was.
Perhaps he will never find himself, and so his memory and his home. Perhaps, he thinks, if so, that's not the worst thing. But still; he has a duty. He's sure of that much.
"Ere our next meeting, then, Sir bird," he says. "Pleasant skies."
"Fare well, Sir knight," the magpie says, and Jhymes draws a full dream-breath of cold air, and sets his feet to the first curves of the winding path.
