Run: 2026-09-23-01M36WBFNK9DKGBCPNA8MYB740

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Welcome (Version 1)" data-color="red"> I guided Thunder toward the stables, the clatter of hooves echoing off the cobblestones. A broad-shouldered man leaned against a wooden post, arms folded across a breastplate scarred with the marks of a hundred battles. His beard was streaked with silver, and his eyes — sharp and grey as winter steel — studied me as I dismounted. "So this is the boy they've sent us," he said, his voice like gravel rolling downhill. He extended a gauntleted hand and clasped mine with a grip that could crush a walnut. "Sir Roland. I'll be the one keeping you alive long enough to be useful." I opened my mouth to speak, but he was already walking, motioning me to follow. "Lads who talk too much on the first day tend to die by the third. Come. Your quarters are in the east tower, and your real training begins at dawn." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Welcome (Version 2)" data-color="green"> The stables smelled of hay and saddle leather as I led Thunder inside. Before I could find a stall, a knight in a mud-spattered tabard appeared in the doorway, carrying a battered helm under one arm. He grinned wide beneath a crooked nose that had clearly been broken more than once. "Frederick! We've been expecting you — well, I have. No one else bothered to write it down." He set the helm on a barrel and wiped his hands on his breeches before offering one to shake. "Sir Roland. Some call me 'The Reluctant' on account of my tendency to arrive fashionably late to everything. Dinners, meetings, wars." I couldn't help but laugh, and the tension in my chest loosened. He clapped me on the shoulder and steered me toward a bowl of stew warming by a small fire. "Eat up, lad. Training is a cruel mistress, and she expects you fed before she breaks you." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Welcome (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> Night had begun to bleed across the sky as I steered Thunder into the shadows of the stables. Torchlight danced along the walls, and there — still as a statue carved from old oak — stood a knight watching me. His armor bore the crest of a black dragon, and the firelight caught something ancient and weary in his gaze. "You ride well," Sir Roland said, though his tone carried no warmth. He stepped forward slowly, each footfall deliberate, and placed one hand on Thunder's neck. The stallion, who shied from every stranger, stood perfectly calm. "Your mother's eye for horses, I think. She always could read an animal's heart better than a man's." I stiffened. "You knew my mother?" His expression shifted — something private and painful moving behind those eyes. "Knew her. Rode beside her. Owed her my life." He turned away, gazing toward the tallest tower where a single candle burned. "This castle owes you more than you know, Frederick. I only pray it doesn't consume you as it did her." </nc-section>