The years collapsed unexpectedly. Nanna had not seen him in so long that the sight of him threatened to dislodge old memories from their resting places. Once, the sands of Thracia had seemed endless to her, and dark magic stranger still. She remembered being younger then—young enough that a dark mage felt like a thing out of cautionary tales and whispered sermons, the sort of magic spoken of only in lowered voices. Looking upon him now, she found herself smiling at the memory. There had been a time she would have watched him from behind Lord Leif's shoulder.
"...Forgive me," she laughed softly, gathering herself. "I was remembering."
Her hands folded neatly before her as she approached. Time had given her perspective where youth had only offered caution. Salem had been the first dark mage she had ever met. Since then she had crossed paths with emperors, cultists, and men who wore darkness like a second skin. Compared to them, the memory seemed almost innocent.
"I wonder, sometimes, if I ever thanked you properly." The sincerity settled easily into her voice. "For joining Lord Leif's army, and for choosing to stand with us when it would have been simpler to walk another road. I think I understood even then that it was not an easy thing, but I was younger and perhaps less candid than I ought to have been."
"Thracia owes many of its peaceful days to people who chose kindness despite every reason not to. You are one of them."
For a moment she studied him, thoughtful. Then a faint grimace interrupted her composure.
"Though I confess..." The words arrived with a hardened glint. "My encounters with dark mages have remained memorable." Her voice dipped a little at the irony. "Not long ago, in Aed Desert, I crossed paths with a young red-haired mage. Our introduction was brief. He struck me unconscious rather efficiently before I had the opportunity to learn much else."
The recollection was delivered with enough dignity to make it sound all the more absurd. Still, the goosebumps climbing her arm made her feel unequipped.
"If you have encountered similarly in the past, may I ask you to report to..." Lord Leif. "To me?"
"Nanna. What a surprise to find you here." And although Salem had never been much of one for expressing himself, his eyebrows raised slightly with sincerity. It was a surprise to find another person from Jugdral all the way out here in Fódlan, much less a former member of Prince Leif's liberation army. Although she was all grown up now - taller, more mature, steelier in the face, and more incisive in the eye, all the makings of a princess apt to rule her domain with a steady hand - Salem had no trouble recognizing her. Short and shallow though their acquaintance had been back then, for a man who had little in the way of lasting friendships, those he'd met after his exile had made their marks upon his memory.
They were safe, after all, where others from Jugdral required a degree of caution. Even as Salem crossed the courtyard to meet Nanna halfway, his eyes darted left and right in search of an unfamiliar face who might be turned this way. If Nanna was here, then it posed the possibility that other countrymen had made their way across the sea, too.
"You flatter me," he insisted, eyes flicking back to her face in a single breath. "But I'm glad that you find my contributions worthy of your praise. I owe it to the Prince for taking a chance on me. He had every reason not to."
Had he chosen kindness though, as she seemed to believe? Salem didn't bother to correct her. He still didn't know the answer himself. Desperate as he had been then for shelter, one might simply call it adapting for survival, but he knew at least that his heart had not reflected the Church and the evils it committed in its final years.
Yet as if Nanna's presence here wasn't enough of a surprise, her experience in the Aed brought another. Salem had questions - some more important than others, like how she'd survived, or what she was doing crossing the desert to begin with - and appeared for a moment unresponsive, offering nothing in the way of acknowledgment or answer to her request other than folding his arms over his chest to think.
"... There are remnants of the Church still beneath the sands of Aed," he said at last, somewhat cryptically. "Lost sheep without their shepherd, denied entry into society, and so they fiercely protect themselves against anyone who might cross into their territory. But," Salem fell silent again as he searched Nanna's face for her intentions, "they are not evil. Misguided, perhaps, as they have lived in isolation for many years now. You survived the encounter."
Had the young man truly wished her ill, she would not be here speaking to him now, in other words. Salem bowed his head.
"Should I undercover anything else about that young mage, you will be the first to know."
