<br/>It had felt good to have the hug of a good friend in this time of great upheaval. He watched after her as she left, noticing the ornaments on the door she refreshed and he gave a faint smile as he turned to task himself with gathering the materials for another charm ritual. He had taken the charms off the dead horse, thankful that they had not been eaten by whatever had disemboweled it along with much of the rest of the horse. He figured that the Queen would be very anxious to replace the regal horse soon, so he prepared the charms for reattunement. He began crafting a few more stones with the enchanting gems for the ritual for the captains charms. He seemed to remember that they were once made already before, but perhaps they had been used for someone else in his stead for lack of the required parts. He had heard that the captain was perhaps overworked, and probably prone to lose track of small details that would seem less important than protecting the King and Queen. After having prepared the stones, he placed them in a small sack on his belt; he would need to get the parts from the captain and then attend to the smithy for the enchants, and perhaps see if there were any items with requests for his skills. That all would have to be done later after the ceremony of course.<br/><br/>He walked towards the exit into the stable courtyard that was located just inside the castle gates, and stopping at the tack hanger racks grabbed the highest pole and hung his body from his hands and proceeded to stretch his whole body.  He removed his jerkin and headed over to the trough where he dipped his hands into the cool water scooping up some of it. Speaking a few words, the water seemed to stop dripping as his hands began to have a faint glow; he brought his hands to his face and over his head as the glow could be seen transferring to everything he touched and slowly faded with what could be described as the steam from boiling water being emitted. He proceeded all the way down to his toes, and when he finished, his hands appeared to be very dark colored while the rest of him looked freshly cleaned. He dipped his hands in again and held them over the ground, and as he rubbed his hands together the steam appeared again as dark colored dirt dropped to the ground. He repeated the process for his jerkin and then put it back on. Heading outside the stables, he scanned the area to amuse himself with the daily tasks of other people for a few moments. He headed in the general direction of the tavern wanting to get a fairly strong drink in his flask before tackling some town business.