Who: Uther and Chase (what, again?)
What: Monster plot!
When: Night
Where: The castle yard
Rating: C for creepy, possibly actually scary
Status: Private, complete (!)
The weather had warmed, this winter a strange undecided thing, and what had been snow and ice two days ago was now murky water swelling the pond, spongy soil made of mud interlaced with the sodden roots of grass. Uther picked his way across the courtyard, his boots squelching through the mess. The courtyard, normally familiar and friendly, had become a treacherous terrain, some places pocked with deep holes of viscous mud, others rafts of matted, dead plant matter. Each step had to be taken with care, and with the descent of dusk, the false warmth of the sunny day had returned to the skies, and now where thin layers of melted snow had gathered, sheets of ice, brittle and slick, lay in wait.
There was only a short distance to traverse to reach the hall and its warming hearth, and yet to Uther the courtyard seemed desolate and lonely, that distance strangely vast in the greyish light. He could hardly see.
He wanted to hurry, to be indoors, and he headed fixedly for the light in the window. It went out. He put his foot down on something that was neither mud nor ice, and there was a wrench and a twist and a giddy sensation as though the earth were falling away and cutting him loose and then he was on his back, looking only at a sky in which the stars were remarkably bright.