Brande had set off the very morn he’d awoken.  
He’d begun East of the Wisdom Mountains, and walked in the sierra’s shadow for most of the first day, his cloak bound tightly around himself as he’d paced through a whispering rain, wetness on the first breaths of Autumn. 
It had been constant, and somewhere further South it was undoubtedly washing away chunks of charcoal from the seared silhouette of Serifina Heights. Shedding another layer of charred skin.
Brande had thrilled to the experience, though: the rainfall threw a sort of pallor over the mountains to his west, and made him feel as though he were walking the spine of some felled behemoth, like a hero of old. 
When the first night came, the rainfall sang him to his sleep, as it pattered rhythmically against the knotted branches of a kneeling willow tree that Brande had made into a makeshift tent.
In the night, he’d heard the distant clamour of thunder, out towards The Crimson Sea: he wondered aloud if it were a storm, or a beast, before he’d finally set about sleeping.

The next day was drier, and humid. It was only in the light of the new-born morn that Brande realised his willow, wilting towards the west, was beginning to take on the likeness of rust and amber. Fall was fast on his heels. 
He’d shaved and washed in a nearby stream, and moved along with a greater urgency. The landscape was still wet and shifted uneasily beneath his feet in places, particularly when he came into the North proper and began trekking the dirt roads. 
He made it to Jeorvo by midday, and rested there for a spell. Brande was a finely bred, but nonetheless penniless, wanderer- hence, those he’d come to know as passing acquaintances had dubbed him [i]The Vagabond Prince[/i]- and so made due on the kindness of strangers, particularly when he paid them a kindness in turn.

Jeorvo was a sordid hive of crime and poverty, and in it Brande had stuck out like a sore thumb. In actuality, he was probably the poorest man within the city’s walls: but he also took care of himself, and had learned young to live well off of the land. This, along with his ostentatious cloak and sterling blade, made him an immediate target.
Said blade also made him an immediate threat. Even if he hadn’t lived and breathed the life of a wandering swordsman, Brande wouldn’t have had to worry: when he stumbled upon a tavern owner being shaken down, all he’d had to do was sweep the nearest thug’s ankle with the broad face of his rapier to make them scatter. 
In turn, the tavern offered Brande a meagre hot meal and a warm, nameless ale: and with that he was satisfied. 
When night fell he made camp west of Jeorva, against the banks of a lake. By late morning, on the third day of his journey, Brande had washed and made his entrance. 

Jeorva struck a hidden chord with Brande’s inner aristocrat, a petulant thirteen year old who wanted nothing more than to strut through the town like he was still the last heir of a powerful, dying family. 
The Vagabond Prince chuckled to himself at the thought, and scratched absentmindedly at his beard: how the mighty had fallen. But he’d never have been able to appreciate the city’s grandeur as a child, not when ostentatiousness was the norm.
He was lost, for a few moments, in a sort of golden haze as he wandered the city’s streets. His mother had grown up here, his father had once told him: a promising disciple of the sword, with a questionable upbringing and a bad attitude. She’d married much higher than her station, but ultimately never lost the spirit of an urban troublemaker. 
He wondered how long ago it was that she’d been bouncing around the alleyways, through the scented mist of cooked food - which to a rolling stone smelled of ambrosia- and autumnal dew. 

And yet despite his vicarious nostalgia for the city he’d- until now- never seen, Brande felt somewhat disappointed, because he knew Jeorva wouldn’t be where he fought his [i]perfect[/i] fight. 
True, the architecture was exquisite- and in places so old it made him homesick for the first time in half a decade- but he’d always pictured the ultimate duel to take place in a space more open, more freeing. Like a plateau in a forest-ridden mountain range, or a field of thematically appropriate flowers. 
Perhaps against a wise-cracking, handsome rogue with an eye patch, or a powerful Elven woman with a broadsword in her grip, and all to the operatic score of a howling mountain wind or the raucous applause of cicadas.
When and wherever it was he’d dreamt of it taking place, it wasn’t here. An exciting skirmish, perhaps. A memorable fight, certainly… but not a [i]perfect[/i] one.

But that didn’t mean there’d be no fight at all. It didn’t take an experienced swordsman to spot the menacing orcs roaming the otherwise idyllic city centre, breezing through the shades of Autumn like plumes of smoke through a countryside. 
So Brande hovered his hand expectantly over Esmeralda’s pommel as he walked, and stewed in his own bias.
His mother had once told him that no race was born bad, but he’d yet to meet an orc he liked, and it didn’t take long for him to find [i]another[/i] to take issue with.

It was moving steadily into late noon, an hour before dusk, when Brande began to home in on the academy, and found himself promptly caught up in another debacle all together. 
Coming down a narrower street, he stumbled upon an orc, grey like slate and much bigger than even himself- who stood at 6’4” but felt 5”10 in its presence- and a young woman snared within its unsavoury grip. 
He cast a glance around: indifference, if anything. Self-preservation at the cost of others.
[i]“[color=#DC381F]Well now, that just won’t do, will it?[/color]”[/i]
Then there was the shifting of leather, the fluttering of his cloak and a tell-tale flash of white and silver: rapier drawn, Brande closed the distance… 
But he didn’t strike. That was where Brande drew the definitive line between a killer- like an orc- and a duellist- like an Ashbell.
A duellist got no pleasure from an easy kill.

He fell into stance, and pressed the tip of his blade into the back of the orc’s neck, lightly. 
“[color=#DC381F]I don’t think the lady wants to dance, amico,[/color]” he greeted, calmly, tilting his head sideways so as to look at said lady from beneath the orc’s raised arm, “[color=#DC381F]But is it alright if I cut in?[/color]", he asked her,  "[color=#DC381F]I won’t be long.[/color]”