thewarprivateer:
He pulls the cap further down upon his face and smile - an innocent, oddly pleased little curl of his lips as he clicks his tongue and rubs his hands. Once upon a time he’d walked these streets and been met with nothing less that praise and respect. The third son of Cidolfus Demen Bunansa went not without infamy. But the world is different these days and he has done all he can to make is so.
Fingers curling before the fire he gives a little hum, wondering if he truly does look enough like his father that without coat and cap she might know him. A part of him wants to doubt it, but there is another, crueller, harder part of him that accepts the facts: He is irrevocably his father’s son.
"An old friend," He murmurs, the gentle turn of his lips broadening into something more pleased, more taunting. "One who has not set foot on these grounds in this guise for far too long."
Perhaps she would know him more readily were he causing a ruckus? And yet he wishes not to, not in this exact moment of this exact second. How odd.
"But I suppose you will remember me more as enemy? Nuisance, perhaps?" Briskly he rubs his hands together and turns, the silver in his ears clanking together with small, metallic chime. “I trust you would not clamp me in irons, Lady Drace, for to do so to a Bunansa would be very unfortuitous.”
[she's watching him carefully, now. sure, the wind is cold and bites at exposed flesh too hard, but there's something suspicious in not revealing one's own identity. he seems harmless enough, yes, but... he's called himself friend, for one thing. drace can count the number of friends she has on one hand and still have fingers left over. judge magisters do not have friends. not even bergan or ghis ever found true companionship, though she does not doubt they bought it often enough. she has a strange accord with gabranth, but she is sure that even that is not friendship in its truest sense. and a friendship lost, disappeared from archadia entirely? it's laughable, at the very least. the only letters she sends are in shorthand to different bureaus, asking them for things only work-related. she's carried envelopes between departments herself for other people, too, but even those have had no focus on the personal lives of any. her mouth is set in a thin line and she's all set to brush him off as a liar and a nuisance when he speaks again. if it were anyone else, she doesn't doubt that she'd ignore his words and call his lies out, but there's something in his tone that's so self-sure that it gives her pause. she wonders what the face under the cap looks like. /cocky, no doubt./ it's the name that stoppers her breath in her throat. for a moment, her eyes widen, and the wind chooses that moment to pick up again. she resists the urge to brush the wetness away; her gauntlets are too cold for that.]
... Bunansa. [it's murmured wonderment. she's not heard that name in a long time - after the mess that was post-war archadia, the world seemed intent on scrubbing it from common knowledge, though the efforts were in vain to those who knew better. there are wounds too strong to heal and scars too prominent to fade. she should know; one of her own rests under her armour. when she speaks again, it's slow and careful.] ... Bunansa is a name that most would avoid, should they know of it. I dare not ask why you would wield it so casually - and to a Judge, who ought know the stigmas attached to it. [she frowns, and changes her grip on her helm.]
The doctor is dead, and his sons either faded into obscurity, disappeared, or turned fugitive. So which are you? The last, the least, or the lost?
