Jonathan was a bit disappointed when Ariana didn't come back that night, but she'd said she might not, so he didn't worry. In the morning, however, he realized that he needed to go into town himself. He could put it off a bit, but... why not go meet her half way? So he hitched his solitary horse to the cart and set off. "Morning" was very early indeed on a farm, and the sky was only just lightening when he set out. The sun had risen by the time he was half way to the village, with no sign of Ariana. He shrugged and continued on. He reached the small hamlet and was just pulling his cart into the village square when he saw her. She was coming out of the inn with a young man. Tall, redheaded, he was obviously a fellow adventurer, or something of the sort. He wore no armor, but his clothing was not the clothing of a farmer, and he had a jewel-hilted dagger belted at his waist. He and Ariana were talking, and she smiled at him, and then hugged him. Jonathan felt like his heart had shattered, to see it. The man hugged her back, warmly. Then they parted, he going north, to the road out of town, Ariana heading south, towards the road where Jonathan had just emerged.

He almost tried to turn the cart around, and just go home. He had known that she couldn't possibly love him, and here now he saw it. This man would be her lover, no doubt, and she had only been staying on the farm with him for some inexplicable reason all her own. But he couldn't turn the cart fast enough, and she'd seen him already anyhow.

"Hi!" she called out.

He just looked at her.

She slowed, looking puzzled. "What's wrong?"

And then his heartbreak suddenly flashed over into anger, to see her so careless of him that she would not even know what was wrong. "What's wrong? You come stay at my farm, you give me smiles and you hold my hand and you make me think that maybe you might love me, when you obviously don't, and won't stay! I wish you'd never come!"

"I..." she looked stunned. "What?"

"I saw you with your fellow there, your adventurer. He's more your type than I, I know, but it was cruel of you to make me think, to hope..." he had to hold back tears. He would not cry!

"He... you... he's not 'my fellow', he's my brother! I haven't been leading you on here, I've been as sincere in my feelings as you!"

"Ha!" Jonathan couldn't believe that. "There's no way one of the Queen's Own would care for a farm lout like me. I knew that from the beginning, and I should have remembered it."

"You, you...!" her green eyes snapped with fire then. "You haven't been a farm lout to me, but you're acting like one now! What do I have to do to make you believe that I'm sincere here?"

"Get the lost jewels of Irdua," he snapped, naming something long known as an impossible quest. "But no, that's what people like you do," he said then, "Is go on quests. You'd have to give up your sword and live as a farmer for real, before I'd believe you, but there's no way you're going to do that!" And with unnecessary force he snapped the reins, startling the old horse into a trot, and drove away from her.