Despite the deep shadows and the puzzling illusion of passing shapes, Gloomshane’s senses told them they passed through a field. On either side, a meadow stretched into the distance. The plain was brimming with some type of plant, but the lack of lighting made it impossible for a conclusion to be reached as for its name.

“Grab my hand,” Lucas told him, and Gloomshane hardly had the chance to grasp the proffered palm, before Lucas went leaning over the edge of the carriage. He reached down into the darkness, and it was Gloomshane’s strength that kept him from being expelled.

“Good thing I’m not angry with you at this particular moment.” The human counterweight mused aloud.

“If you drop me, I will not be amused.” The other male growled. “Now pull me up.” Lucas said, and was leveraged back into his seat. The king peered at the guard’s catch, and recognized two dandelions, otherwise known as wishing plants. All at once, he knew this to be what the meadow held. “Here” Lucas said, and passed him one of a pair.

“This again?” The king laughed.

“Wish something.” Lucas told him, motioning to the awaiting head of gray fronds. “And this time, don’t stare at it until the wind does your job for you.”

They connected gazes, confident the horses held enough intelligence to follow the roads patterns solitary. Green speckled gold eyes flickered with mischievous conspiracy, while misty blue eyes burned with inner bemused accusation. Something was exchanged, something tangible despite its vagueness, yet mentally visible to both involved.

“Alright, I can’t pretend any longer.” Gloomshane sighed, slumping against the back supports.

“Whatever do you mean?” Lucas asked, his face painted varying shades of puzzlement. The king glanced sideways, hoping the truth shone radiantly enough in his pupils that he would not be forced to speak it. As if an epiphany had descended upon him from a deity built upon its pupils, Lucas let out a laugh boisterous enough, Gloomshane was sure it traveled to the shore beyond the ocean’s horizon. “You don’t know the tradition!” The warrior continued his mockery of the king’s ignorance. His delight in this revelation drew a rolling of his fellow’s eyes.

“Stop mocking me already.” He groaned.

“How can you not know it?” Lucas smothered further laughter, perhaps for his own sake rather than his companion’s. “The entire kingdom knows it as well as they know kissing blossoms beneath mistletoe.”

“I don’t typically attend those types of celebrations.” The king’s voice had sunken to gruffer notes, and the sadness that never gave him peace, began rippling across his flesh, causing him shivers that reached his soul. “You know my childhood Lucas. I was raised by the traditions and lectures decreed appropriate by my parents. Anything that’s only advantage was emotional pleasure, was a delight that went untaught.” His eyes had slid shut without his permission. “Such is my life.”

“Such ‘was’ your life.” Lucas corrected him. Gloomshane did not object to the statement, nor did he agree to it.

“So tell me of this tradition.” The request was reluctant.

Lucas settled into the tale with the same familiarity that a bartender would exhibit as he poured good whiskey for awaiting customers. Eyes lighting up with fire that shed no physical warmth, the guard’s lips began the dance of a story relayed to him by many previous. His hands lay in his lap, reins slack as the human muscles.

“In years past,” his words began to spin. “During an afternoon spent in the good company of females, I was told a tale. They spoke of yellow growing things, dandelions they explained. The name conjured an image to my mind, a mind already muddled by other pictures, ones of a different sort.”

“I can only imagine.”

Lucas ignored the statement as if it had fallen on deaf ears.

“Memories I hadn’t meant to recall, rushed in doors that had opened without my authorization. I remembered afternoons from our childhood, hours spent in a meadow with yellow growing things. You and I used to lie among them, feeling concealed by that which was little more than skinny stalks with yellow tops.” Gloomshane nodded. “I knew what the maids spoke of, however, I did not know of the wishing.” A grin slipped onto his lips, openly displaying to all who observed the memories revisited. “They told me of the change, a shift similar to that of the season’s cycle. It’s a transformation that shares similarities with one of a butterfly…”

“We’ve witnessed it, us both.” Gloomshane broke through, then smiled innocently, with a apologetic lining.

“Don’t interrupt.” Lucas admonished, voice aghast. “Really Gloom! Did your parents teach you any manners at all?” The king didn’t resist a broader grin.

“Apologies.” He spoke. “Precede.”

“Anyway,” Lucas said, returning his eyes to the passing countryside. “The dandelion heads change colors, they told me, like the leaves do at the command of the fall. Their yellow peels away and is stolen by the winds greediness. Gray creeps in, like it does to parents possessing children with rebellious souls. They tell me of a wisher and the wish. They say for the act, a wisher must attain a gray head, a wishing reed the maids called them. Next they speak a mental or verbal wish to the breezes, and immediately thereafter, the wisher exhales with strength. The combination of the breath and the winds draw away the gray threads, sweep them into the air. From there, the wish is carried into the oblivion of mystery, where the wisher hopes it finds The Granter.”

“Awfully complicated.” Said the king, wary of his interruption.

“That is nothing compared to that which is still unsaid!” His eyes twinkled, as if withholding some bit of mischief. “The maids finish telling me of these wishing reeds, and I ask the innocent question of what sort of wishes they sent out. They exchange eyes with each other. I can’t imagine what must have happened, Gloom, for perhaps I blinked, because next I know it, they are all glancing at me and bursting with giggles.”

Gloomshane weighed the option of telling the guard what he must already know. He discarded the idea, deciding that were he to speak this explanation, he would be admitting something. He didn’t know how he knew this. It was just an instinct that dwelled somewhere near his gut, and which knew no name that dwelt within his vocabulary.

The king turned a gaze heavy with contemplation upon this little plant. Indeed, how many hours did the man spend with the maids? Apparently enough to warrant womanly giggling. Gloomshane grimaced at the flow of images that would explain this warrant. He had a pretty clear notion as to the maid’s wishes.

“What wishes do people bestow upon these….wishing reeds?” He asked, feeling a lack of competency he couldn’t explain.

“Oh, any old anything.” The reply was neither helpful nor meant to be.

“Then you be the first.” The king urged, and the suggestion was met with sarcastic defiance.

“I seem to recall earlier this evening that I cast a wish first, and you did not follow.”

“That is not my fault.” The king contradicted.

”Excuses.” Lucas waved the words off like an invisible insect. “Now cast a wish before I expel you from this carriage.”

“You wouldn’t.” Gloomshane gasped.

“I would.” Lucas smirked. “Now cast the damn thing.”

Grumbling, he submitted. He gave the dandelion his full attention, more focus than he’d given the one previous. His mumbling grew silent, as his brain grew chaotic. Wishes flitted through his mind more swiftly than summer fireflies. Like Alish’s lectures, they skipped into one ear, and emerged from the opposite side without leaving any residue inside. And as it often was with those lectures, it was after they finished, that the truth filtered in. So once the frenzied mass of thoughts had calmed, silence permeated temporarily, the answer drifted down the mental river and onto quiet lips.

“Dear wishing receiver, I haven’t the experience in these things, but my friend, my silly, foolish friend here, tells me that new things can strengthen a man.”

He peeked from the corner of his eyes, glimpsed that Lucas had begun his own wishing. The contrast of the guard’s serene posture and smirking mouth was cause for easy amusement.

“However,” Gloom went on mentally. “Unlike my companion, I do not wish the frivolous. I ask a wish of safety, for this is the wish of a king.” He exhaled, and realized his wish was not befitting. Lucas had said this to be a tradition of free delight and enjoyment. A request of safety was a king’s wish, not a man’s. Perhaps frivolous, unlike most moments, was a permitted allowance tonight.

“Please grant this soul’s wish for future dandelion nights, sharing in the company that pleases it most.” He asked, and sensed the rightness dwelling within it as clearly as he knew it within his name.

His eyes slid open with the simple grace of forefathers whose images had vanished into memories long untold. With this opening, came the exhaling. The puff of air caught the gray threads, and whisked them away. They caught a current, and were carried into a darkness the thickness of bear’s fur. Satisfied, he turned to find Lucas staring at him, brows raised in curious irritation.

“Pleased to see you’ve returned.” His tone dripped sarcasm’s dagger. “First I can’t get you to cast it, and next I’m worried you’ve stopped breathing.” Gloomshane shook his head, the jest visually clear.

“It was in the choosing.” He explained, throwing his reed to the roadside. “It is a complicated affair.”

“Only to those who do not taste of them often enough.” Lucas pointed out, chuckling softly as he shook his head. “And I am known for my skill in the tasting.” He finished, and ran his tongue over his lips.

“That is a story I can live without.” Gloomshane said, reclining against the back supports once more.

“Ah,” Lucas shrugged. “Too many tales to be told anyways.”

“That’s long been my assumption.” The king murmured, but the guard let the whisper go unanswered. Instead, Lucas yawned, and rolled his shoulders as if they ached. “Tired?” The blond was asked by the king.

“Indeed.” He replied. “The hour was early when I rose this morning.”

“Shut your eyes the remainder of the journey then.” Gloomshane instructed, and saw lips open in argument. “Do not fight me.” He reprimanded, and held out his palm for the reins. “There is not even an hour’s riding left.” He supplied, which caused Lucas to hesitate, then submit. The guard surrendered the reins, and then stretched out best he could in his position, adorned in the armor, and with the absence of head support. He tilted his head back, and shut his eyes.

“If something happens…” he began.

“I doubt you’ll sleep through it.” Gloomshane interrupted, and saw his friend smile.

Silence descended again, blanketed the entire front section. The king couldn’t even detect the other warrior’s murmurs, though that might be due to the night noises of owls, bats and crickets.

Thoughts soothed by the lack of conversation, he feared the midnight would press sleep into his body and mind. In an attempt to defy this worry, humming slipped through his lips. Tunes without names, and songs with missing lyrics. Ones that spoke of child’s games, and others of boyhood courtship.

Cheeriness fending off weariness, his eyes slid sideways.

Lucas did not snore. Never had. His breaths were the regularity of a scholar’s scrawling quill. His blond hair had fallen from his ponytail, and lay in tangles upon his shoulders. Eyes shut, blond eyelashes his only feminine feature, Lucas’s slumber was as peaceful as a baby’s first sleep or an elder’s last.

Gloomshane reached out to grasp Lucas’s gloved hand. It was a palm he recalled grasping many nights as a young boy, when he’d woken from terrible nightmares of the childishly unspeakable.

“Please,” he thought to himself, and felt his soul rise to listen. “Grant this soul’s wish for future dandelion nights,” he paused to connect with Lucas’s dreaming eyes. “And of sharing in the company that pleases it most.”