[@Sierra]Ayyyyyy!

[hider=Leland Nash][b]Primary Alias:[/b] Leland Nash 

[b]Appearance:[/b] He is weathered. Leland’s a 6’2” tall, bulky man who has been battered and beaten by hard years, rough luck, and stupid decisions. He appears to be gracelessly sailing past forty towards the sad shores of fifty and has a long, square face mostly comprised of sharp angles and deep stress lines. His eyes are blue and his eyebrows are arched. Leland’s medium length, slicked back hair is dark brown and receding at his temples. He tries and offsets his weak hairline with a trim beard and a shapely mustache that are an obvious few shades lighter in color than the rest of his hair. He dresses in a simple attire of a white shirt under a black, no-frills jacket, gray trousers, and some worn leather boots. 

[b]Equipment:[/b] Leland’s got a waterskin and a skinning knife on his belt while there’s a large brown satchel slung across his chest. He also carries a quarterstaff with him, which he insists is only for helping him walk with his nonexistent limp. 

[b]Reputation:[/b] The man is a carpenter by trade, but its seems these days more people come to him to settle disputes more than anything. If two people can’t settle a problem, one of them is going to Leland. In a way he has taken on a sort of role as the de facto sheriff in his town, which is funny considering how Leland neither respects nor trusts the actual law makers and enforcers. Maybe that’s why he isn’t afraid to sometimes act outside of the law if it means doing the right thing, even if the right thing sometimes requires a bit of, let’s say, “hands-on” convincing. Ask around and people will tell you that Leland is either a good man of true integrity and grit or a meddling asshole that bullies honest people for his cronies. The truth is, he isn’t too sure which one it is anymore.

[b]Recent History:[/b]  He was living the dream. Leland had a good home, lived in a decent town, and worked for himself. He had good friends and weak enemies. The children were grown and gone. His daughter had married a city boy that he didn’t completely want to kill, and his son had recently sent a letter to tell him that his career in the military had yet to get him killed. Plus, to top it all off, the hunter’s widow had decided to take a more permanent spot in that normally empty space in his bed. Not bad, considering how hard he had tried to avoid his life ever having such stability in his younger years. Some people even respected him a little. Told him he was a good man. Now that was the most dreamlike thing of them all.

Of course, it was one of those stupid people who changed everything for him. The herbalist came knocking one night with a vigorous amount of persistence, and, when he didn’t back down once Leland made it clear that he was going to get a knocking around for ruining the widow’s mood, the man was invited inside. The herbalist began to tell Leland that he had seen a suspicious character around town; first in his shop, then outside of his home. He had been coming around for nearly a week now. The herbalist said that his daughter had seen the same bald man following her one night. He was worried about her safety. She was just thirteen. He heard Leland was a good man and that he could help. Leland promised the herbalist that he’d look into it if, and only if, the herbalist agreed to never come over uninvited after sundown ever again. 

The next day Leland posted up near the herbalist’s shop, pretending to do some patchwork on the building so he wouldn’t scare off the bald man. Sure enough, the stranger came around later in the evening and hung out on the porch of the pub catty-corner to the shop while enjoying himself a dark pint. Leland watched him as he worked, but the bald man just sipped on his beer and watch the door. Then, the herbalist’s daughter walked out of the store and heading down the way with a bundle under her arm—some medicine to deliver, Leland assumed. After she was a decent ways away, the bald man got up and started to follow her. Leland did the same.

Leland thought that they would either be led to the house of the dying gardener or perhaps to the bowyer’s boy who had a high fever, but as the road turned for stone to dirt and the town turned to farms he grew suspicious. When the herbalist’s daughter turned off the road and made her way to the treeline his suspicions morphed into concern cut with a dash of confusion. Whatever was happening, he highly doubted that he was walking into some star crossed lovers shit. Leland crept through the forest after the bald man and the girl, growing alarmed by the ever fading light. At one point he thought he lost them, and that was when he heard voices to his left.

He came to a small clearing where he could see the man struggling with the herbalist’s daughter. She was on the ground and looked terrified. Leland could see the man’s hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Waiting to see what happened next wasn’t even an option. Leland walked out into the clearing, his palms held up, and demanded to know what the bald man was doing. The bald man gave the much larger Leland a panicked look and said how it wasn’t what it looked like, which Leland suggested would be the exact thing someone would say if it was what it looked like. He needed to talk. Now.

The man explained that he was a seeker for the King’s Inquisition, tasked with looking into rumors for his Inquisitors. The girl had a book from the old academy. He was offering her a chance to live if she turned in who gave it to her. Leland called bullshit. He doubted the seeker would stick to his deal, and besides, there was no proof of the girl conspiring with sorcerers. The seeker gestured to her bag and Leland picked it up. He fully expected to find it full of medicine, but indeed there was an old, archaic book inside of it. A good man would side with the seeker. After all, he worked for the Inquisition and the Inquisition worked for the King. Even if she was just a child, she was an enemy of the state. Leland should’ve just turned around and walked away. Instead, he woke up. The dream was over. He took a step forward.

See, the reality of it is, Leland knew he had never [i]actually [/i]been a good man.

It had been a while since Leland had beaten someone to death with his hand; he would say that he had gotten rusty. He wiped his bloodied hands on the man’s clothes and picked up the book. The last time he had gotten ahold of one of these he had been screwed out of it, betrayed and left for dead. He had never expected to come by one of them in the middle of fuck all nowhere. He shoved the book inside his jacket and turned to the girl. She had given him a second chance, so he’d do the same for her. 

“Tell them I captured you. Took you out here to sacrifice you. That man tried to rescue you. While we struggled, you escaped. Tell them, girl, and just maybe they won’t come for you. Let them know that Ambrose Hawthorne did this,” said Leland, using that awful fake name for the last time after fifteen years. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

He smiled as she ran away. That had been the right thing to do.  
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