Pendant ce temps, dans le hangar d'un gardien...
Quand Brande posa les yeux sur le rouge qui enrobait la main de Zanna, la même nuance se draina du visage, et il perdit son air d'enthousiasme sauvage.
"Oui, c'est ça - Bien sûr. Ici."
Brande a jeté un coup d'œil à travers la vitre incrustée, pour s'assurer qu'ils étaient maintenant en sécurité, avant d'enfiler sa lame avec un shhh métallique... et de balayer la plupart de l'enclume du banc de travail.
Puis il parlait calmement, mais il y avait une sorte de faiblesse à sa voix : Brande ressentait une sympathie douloureuse pour ceux qui étaient enfermés dans des batailles qu'ils ne pouvaient surmonter avec une lame rapide et une réplique pleine d'esprit. Brande avait perdu beaucoup dans sa vie, mais il avait toujours eu sa santé.
"Ce n'est pas grand-chose, mais ça devrait le faire."
Il lui sourit, d'une manière qu'il espérait au moins réconfortante. Puis il a atteint dans son sac, a déplié son kit de rasage et a foncé environ jusqu'à ce qu'il a réussi à sortir son tissu du visage. C'était une petite tache de blanc, au coin de laquelle étaient ses propres initiales, B. A., écrit dans un fil rouge. Elle avait l'air plutôt fantaisiste, mais sa valeur était largement sentimentale.
"Et ici, utilise ça - arrête de ruiner ta robe."
Il lui a remis : "Ça va aller?"
Zanna s'est assise sur le banc de travail, tout en toussant. Elle a hésité avant d'accepter le tissu.
« Merci, dit-elle, ses yeux s'arrosent visiblement un peu. Elle a pris un souffle clair et il semblait que sa toux était passée. Au coin de sa bouche, elle soupirait : "Ça va aller maintenant... Désolé que tu aies dû voir ça."
Brande avait mouvementé pour dire quelque chose dans le sens de « Je ne suis pas étranger au sang », mais l'avait pris dans sa gorge, en réalisant que ce n'était pas un sentiment réconfortant. Il l'a joué comme une toux de sa propre, dans son poing de balle.
Il s'est dit simplement : "Ne soyez pas - Je suis désolé que vous ayez dû passer par là. Depuis combien de temps êtes-vous mal à l'aise?"
Zanna a regardé ses mains en tordant le mouchoir de Brande autour de ses doigts, "Depuis que j'étais très jeune. Ça a empiré ces derniers temps. Je ne suis pas censé être sorti du lit." Elle a essayé de glousser nerveusement, mais elle s'est cassée en petite toux.
Une plaie de culpabilité l'a percuté, et il a piqué comme une épée à travers la joue. Elle n'était pas censée sortir du lit, mais il l'a fait courir dans la rue.
Alors, il pensait que c'était mieux que dans le lit d'un orque. Ça pourrait très bien l'avoir tuée.
-- Eh bien, nous allons devoir vous ramener à la maison, ou au moins à un lit voisin.
Brande envisagea cela un instant, puis regarda par-dessus son épaule, jusqu'à la porte de la cabane : « Y a-t-il quelque part près d'ici où vous pouvez vous reposer? »
"Je suis assez familier avec les ruelles arrières et je ne vis pas trop loin d'ici. Ça ne devrait pas être trop difficile de...
Zanna se tenait hors du banc, pataugeant la surface avec insouciance à côté d'elle au fur et à mesure qu'elle se déplaçait. Un regard d'alarme lava sur son visage et ses yeux balayèrent rapidement le sol. "Ah... Je l'ai laissé là-bas", a-t-elle froncé, la main sur la joue.
Brande s'est cogné un sourcil, "À gauche quoi? Est-ce quelque chose d'important?"
"Mon sling-shot..."
Brande la fixa un moment en silence, comme s'il s'attendait à une réponse avec un peu plus de gravité derrière elle, et n'était pas tout à fait prêt à réagir à quelque chose de moins.
"Un coup de fronde?", demanda-t-il avec ardeur. Puis ça l'a frappé, comme une tomate dans la poitrine.
"Ah - le sling-shot que vous avez utilisé pour frapper l'orc, n'est-ce pas?"
"Oui...", le visage de Zanna a bouffé une profonde nuance de rouge, "C'est... ce n'est pas vraiment le mien. Je l'ai emprunté à quelqu'un."
Il jeta un regard sur son épaule, comme s'il regardait en arrière dans leur passé articulaire. Dans l'excitation, il a dû manquer qu'elle l'ait laissé tomber.
"Ils vont devoir en trouver un nouveau - ou attendre quelques jours, et espérer qu'il n'est pas volé."
Zanna était silencieuse. Ses yeux dérivent à l'angle de la pièce tandis que son esprit erre évidemment, s'inquiètent de creaser son front. "Je suppose qu'il va découvrir que je l'ai emprunté sans demander," a-t-elle gâché à l'aise, "et que j'étais sorti du lit..."
Brande se sentait soupirer en interne. Pourquoi avait-il pensé que ce serait aussi facile que de dire "trop mauvais"?
Il maudit tranquillement à sa propre conduite quixotique pour jouer le héros qui se lave : « Je- Ne semble pas si inquiet, d'accord? Nous allons... trouver quelque chose."
Ses yeux se sont déplacés vers Brande et elle l'a regardé. Difficile. "Pourquoi m'as-tu aidé là-bas?" Elle l'a dit tout à coup. Sa voix s'accompagnait d'une puissante rafale de vent qui fit battre doucement les feuilles de lierre entourant la cabane contre les fenêtres sales.
Ce n'était pas le mot qui a surgi, pas plus qu'il n'a été déconcerté. Brande s'est soudain senti comme s'il avait des ennuis, pour avoir fait ce qu'il croyait au moins être la bonne chose.
"Un... le code d'un sabreur. Chez mon père. Pourquoi sinon, si ce n'est pour défendre la vertu, amica?"
Ses yeux se ramollirent dans un regard de pitié, bien que ce soit la pitié destinée à Brande ou elle-même était moins clair. "Oui, mais... C'est moi qui ai tiré sur la tomate. Vous n'aviez pas besoin de vous causer autant d'ennuis."
Brande tourna la tête vers la faible lumière de la fenêtre, et, pour un instant, il fut silencieux, introspectif. La lueur sombre du soleil sur la terre a jeté des lignes sur son visage. Pourquoi a-t-il sauté à sa défense?
"Les orques en ont assez pris. La tomate était votre petit acte de rébellion - c'était l'un des miens."
"Rebellion...", Zanna a mordu sa lèvre en s'approchant de la porte, attendant Brande, "Vous pourriez l'appeler comme ça, je suppose..."
Name: Brande Ashbell, "The Vagabond Prince."
Element: Fire/Heat
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Appearance: Standing at 6'2", with broad, powerful shoulders and an equally powerful gait, Brande Ashbell has spent his life working towards what he perceives to be his profession's perfection. He is toned, but not particularly muscular, and light on his feet: his physique is tailored for quick combat, after all. His features are bold and angular, his cheekbones defined and his jaw pointed, and the same is true of his hair: a finely trimmed, blonde ducktail beard-and-moustache, tailored to a point, and a head of flaxen hair, combed meticulously back. His eyes are cool, and grey, a familial trait for which the Ashbell family were named.
In terms of outfit, Brande wears a banded, tanned leather cuirass, and a pair of complimentary leather wrist braces, over a black ruffled shirt.
A set of similar leather grieves compliment the ensemble, as does a sterling, silver rapier, which hangs from his belt. His pants are made of a light, baggy material to enable quick lunging movements. When travelling, he conceals most of this beneath a long, black cloak which he binds with a long, copper-coloured thread. On its hind, outlined in silver, a sword faces downwards, its tip piercing an eight-pointed star.
Theme Song:
v=WCaaJPEdAzQ
Nature: Brande is a force of nature, consumed by an obsession to meet and duel his perfect match, driven by his lifelong commitment to live by the sword, and die by the sword. Like his father before him, all Brande aspires to is the final, perfect fight. If you defeat him, his loyalty is yours... if.
He is the eternal showman, and like the element he's come to serve as avatar of, this beautiful flourish is part of what makes him dangerous: a combination of skill and recklessness.
Outside of combat, he's sharp-tongued but good-spirited, and once his loyalty is earned it's banked for life. He's a very friendly, very jovial man... until you draw your sword. In which case, "Are you feelin' lucky, amico?"
Backstory: Brande Ashbell is the son of Fiam Ashbell, who in turn was the son of Aviur Ashbell, one of the last knights to lose his life at Xaviar.
The Ashbells have a grand legacy, of fighting (and tragically, often perishing), in stupendous battles. For as long as their name has been floating around Coake- since the first of them arrived, from a distant, Mediterranean climate- the Ashbells have always been known for their military service, and their ferocity with a blade.
It is a long lived family, proud and- before darkness swept over the land- large. But most of them perished in the war, fighting to the last breath... most of the survivors were only children at the time, and many of them didn't start families. His father was the last Ashbell father
The Ashbell lineage dies with Brande.
But, at least, he will go out with style! Brande is distilled from a long history of swordsmen, all of different styles and disciplines. His father was a saberist, and his grandfather a student of the twin gladius. And Brande among them, a flamboyant disciple of the rapier, as- rarely enough- was his mother before him. The Ashbell were once famous for their massive collection of familial blades, and Esmeralda Ashbell was famous for having married her way into them, when she disarmed Fiam in an honour-based duel and stole his sword and heart in a single parry.
How Brande longs to see that collection again, and his mother along with it.
Brande is a travelling swordsman. Despite his family's past wealth and prowess, he's a rolling stone, and not by choice.
Once, he'd been a wealthy youth, without a care in the world: he'd lived on the family estate, Serifina Heights, an expansive series of luscious courtyards and beautiful, antiquated architecture. It was there his father had taught him the way of the sword. It was an ancient rite of passage, starting when he was seven. To become an Ashbell man, you must pick an Ashbell weapon.
"Pick any blade from my armoury: as an Ashbell, you'll eventually be proficient in them all."
Serifina Heights is gone, now. A burnt ruin that still smoulders lightly in the hotter months. It had been South of Jeorvo, East of the Wisdom Mountains.
For fifty years, his father recounted, no element of darkness had ever stepped foot on Ashbell ground: it was as though they'd been granted clemency.
Five decades, untouched.
It was destroyed in a night. To this day, Brande doesn't know why: but one night mid-Summer, an army garrison descended from The Wisdom Mountains, and decided that Serifina Heights would be their bounty. The Ashbells and their staff, of course, raised arm against them: and had it been a fair sword fight, they might even have won. But when have goblins and orcs ever played fair?
The main chateau had already caught fire before Brande's father had realised he'd never stood a chance. In the final moments before the whole estate went up in flames, Brande was told to run, with only is mother's sword at his side.
Brande never stopped running.
Eleven years have passed, since that day, and the ruins of Serifina Heights are still there. Brande has visited them many times over the years. To meditate, to train. But he hasn't let his past dampen his spirit. Like his father and grandfather before him, his passion is the blade, and with said blade he's still steadily carving his way towards vengeance, and pursuing the glorious final fight his father was denied.
With his family gone, his estate destroyed and his wealth seized, Brande lives his life walking the land, now. Sharpening his skills, and pursuing the fabled "perfect opponent", the battle of his life.
So ill is his fortune, but so unbreakable is his spirit, the people he's passed have even given him a title: The Vagabond Prince.
Over the years, however, Brande's more "classical" approach to sword-fighting has changed, substantially. It as seven years ago, whilst he was camping out under the stars and among the ruins of his old home, that he discovered he had a startling gift.
He'd not long turned seventeen, and had been searching for any remainder of the old sword gallery left un-pillaged: hoping to find even a scrap of his once mighty inheritance. The search was fruitless.
He'd slept very strangely, that night. Most of the details of the dream escape him to this day, but from it he recalls a sudden, deep, agonising heat that had overtaken his body in the night, as though a fire had been struck within.
When he awoke, at first he was startled. But then, a strange peacefulness followed, as the soothing night's breeze assured him all was well. He found he felt a strange kinship with his dwindling campfire, fueled by the burnt beams of his childhood manor. Absentmindedly, dazed still from his vivid imaginings, he'd reached to prod the ashes with his sword: only to find that when he drew the blade back, the fire came with it.
Brande was an elementos. Brande controlled fire.
That was the night he christened his blade, in his mother's name: Esmeralda, the flamelash.
From then on, he took this as a sign that he was to persevere. His inheritance was not a collection of old swords, but instead a weapon all of his own, a flaming point with which to run the unjust through.
Brande has since made it his duty to use his power to the best means he can imagine: finding his perfect opponent. With Esmeralda in hand, he has trekked the land in search of swordsmen who can best him, all the time refining his technique, finely tuning his flaming-sword assault. All the while, dreaming of bigger opponents, better.
Before, he had sought to be the avenging angel of his family: but now he has the flaming blade to play the part, his aspirations have grown. He now wishes to cleave through evil at large, and put his skills to the ultimate test.
Recently, he had another dream, in the same spot he'd learned of his powers, beckoning him Northwards. He left as quickly as he could. Deep down, he knew. This is first step towards his destiny.
Goal(s): To become the greatest swordsman the Ashbell line has ever produced, and carve his way through the forces of evil with his flaming blade, Esmeralda, until he's fought his fated, perfect opponent.
Inventory: 
 One rapier, Esmeralda the Flamelash. When he's near a source of fire, he draws it to this sword's blade.
 A tinder box
 A set of matches
 Handful of cigars (he might be broke, but his tastes are still rich!)
 A shaving kit, complete with straight razor
 One waterskin, slung from the belt
 A messengers bag

Text Colour: Grapefruit (#DC381F)