Alors qu'ils fuyaient, Brande Ashbell et la femme qu'ils appelleraient sans doute plus tard sa «complicité», le monde semblait se moudre, et lent, comme s'il traversait des eaux invisibles, étouffant ses mouvements au point d'être presque immobile. Brande s'est demandé depuis combien de temps il n'avait pas été aussi giddy.
Dès l'instant où il avait percé sa boîte d'allumettes avec la pointe de sa lame, il avait senti une sensation étrange et tendue s'étendre de sa poitrine : son souffle s'était senti plus court, ses yeux plus vifs et son pouls beaucoup plus féroce. C'était familier, quoique distant, un sentiment dont il s'est souvenu, mais pas assez vif pour se rappeler les circonstances de l'époque.
Au début, il avait supposé que c'était de la peur, de la panique: parce que seul un fou aurait ressenti autre chose, après avoir volontairement choisi de se battre avec chaque Orc dans un rayon de trois milles. Était-il en train de revivre sa mauvaise retraite de Serafina Heights, trébuchant, du moins dans l'esprit, à travers les landes de minuit, encore une fois?
Mais alors qu'il continuait à courir, il lui était apparu qu'il pouvait entendre quelque chose d'étrange, dans ce monde nouveau et plus lent. Une syllabe répétée, longue et venant de très, très proche...
Il riait, et il ne s'était même pas rendu compte.
Parce que ce n'était pas la peur. Il savait maintenant que c'était de l'excitation. Il s'est réjoui de la poursuite, une souris aux dents pointues dans une maison de chats enragés, et a reconnu que cette excitation était la même qu'il avait ressenti quand il avait d'abord verrouillé des épées avec son père, il y a tant d'années. Il était enivré par un cocktail de danger et d'excès de confiance. Son père l'avait supposé une fois parce qu'il avait trop de sa mère et ses manières d'enfant sauvage en lui.
Et ça m'a fait du bien. Ce n'est qu'au fur et à mesure que Zanna et lui-même ont fait de grands pas en avant, dans l'œil de son esprit, qu'il s'est rendu compte qu'il l'avait eu trop facilement, ces dernières années. Un combat simple ennuyait les sens, mais dans cette excitation Brande semblait être plus aiguisé qu'il ne l'avait ressenti depuis longtemps. Il se sentait comme le protagoniste dans une histoire d'amour véritable et d'aventure élevée - aujourd'hui n'apporterait pas avec elle la bataille finale, glorifiante qu'il cherchait, mais il s'était néanmoins transformé en une grande aventure.
Brande reprit sa main inoccupée, et tira le capuchon de son manteau sur ses cheveux dorés, afin d'obscurcir sa lueur de la vue. Puis il a entendu Zanna, à peu près en même temps qu'il avait sonné l'académie - comme le rêve lui avait dit. Est-ce que c'était le destin depuis le début?
"Nous-nous devons nous cacher!"
Et elle avait raison.
Brande a pris conscience, alors qu'il commençait à percevoir une fois de plus la vitesse de ses propres pas, que ce n'était probablement pas la moitié aussi palpitant qu'il était terrifiant pour son nouveau compagnon peu disposé. Elle n'avait pas l'œil d'un sabre, donc sans doute, pour elle, le monde se déplaçait trop vite, et c'était le chaos.
Pendant un instant, il s'était imaginé sculpter leur chemin vers la liberté - ce n'était pas la première fois qu'il avait marché sur le bord d'une épée pour traverser la vallée de la mort - mais Zanna avait peur. Il pouvait le sentir dans sa peau : palpitante, collante, froide. Elle n'a pas partagé son étincelle, l'électricité dans sa propre sueur. C'était injuste de sa part de supposer qu'elle serait venue pour une balade aussi dangereuse, peu importe à quel point il pensait que c'était amusant - aucun grand sabre n'a mis un civil à ce genre de risque.
Plus loin dans la rue, il a coiffé une paire d'orques, et de retour en temps réel, Brande a tiré Zanna autour d'un coin, courant devant l'Académie.
C'est alors qu'il a repéré la cabane qui l'a flanquée, alors qu'ils couraient. Il pensait qu'ils pourraient disparaître, s'ils étaient arrivés assez vite, et comme il flanquait l'Académie, c'était un scénario à deux oiseaux, une pierre.
-- Vous avez raison, amica, lui dit-il, dans une sorte de murmure fort et dur, de peur que son accent, avec les influences étrangères distinctives de la lointaine patrie de sa famille, ne lui donne à tout autre volume, « De cette façon! »
Il la tira enfin de l'autre côté de la rue et passa devant l'académie, aussi vite qu'il le pouvait, et à l'approche, il vit la cabane couverte d'artères vertes saines de lierre et de mousse, mais entourée de feuilles d'automne, d'or et de cramoisi. Il pensait, pour un instant, que d'une manière abstraite ces nuances d'automne ressemblaient presque à un feu qui entourait l'endroit, une couronne de flammes allumée pour éteindre les habitants de la cabane. Il a choisi avec tact de ne pas dire ça à Zanna.
Il a serré la porte... "Aïe!" - avant qu'il n'y fasse passer Zanna. Il avait chuchoté quelque chose comme "Les dames d'abord, amica", mais la chevalerie implicite était jetée au mieux, étant donné qu'il venait essentiellement de la pousser dans un hangar illuminé.
Il entra après elle, ferma la porte, et tira son épée, bien que plus pour sa propre consolation que la sienne.
Puis il lécha les lèvres - il put goûter la teinte métallique familière du cuivre - et laisser aller le poignet de Zanna, essuyant son propre front avec le dos de sa main.
Puis il lui sourit, brillamment, respirant fortement, mais autrement dans de bons esprits, « Croyez-le ou non, j'ai fait de pires introductions », a-t-il insulté, comme s'ils n'étaient pas simplement devenus des fugitifs. Puis il s'inclina, poliment, comme s'il n'avait pas encore eu toute la noblesse battue hors de lui, « Mon nom est Brande Ashbell, le dernier des Ashbell. Quel est le tien?"
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)