[H3][centre]THALORIAN KESSLER[/centre][/h3]
[right]Forest Grove Base[/right]

For a moment, he could only blink, stunned again, but for an entirely different reason. Her hand wrapped around his, small and warm and unexpectedly firm, and her smile lit up the grove like sunrise through the mist. She called him ‘Thally.’ He didn’t even mind. In fact, the way she beamed up at him with total sincerity, excitement bubbling over in every syllable, it made something old and quietly scarred in his chest stir with strange relief.

[quote][color=FFB65D]"You're a good person, Thally! I've decided! Yes, I [i]will[/i] be your partner!"[/color][/quote]

The words echoed, and somehow, hearing them out loud made the whole world seem a little more real. He laughed, low and breathy, surprised. It escaped before he could think to muffle it.

[color=2E8B57]“Then it’s a promise,”[/color] he said, offering her a small, lopsided grin. [color=2E8B57]“Partners it is.”[/color]

A gust stirred the trees overhead. The scent of pine shifted. His smile faded just slightly, brow furrowing as he glanced southeast, not with fear, but focus. Something stirred beneath his palm, still resting against the soil. Threads of the sanctuary web hummed against the pressure of external mana, not intrusive, but undeniable. A storm of spiritual energy, distant but mighty. He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing.

[color=2E8B57]“There’s movement,”[/color] he murmured, [color=2E8B57]“magic swelling far off, definitely not subtle. Feels like a clash. A Servant, probably, likely two.”[/color] He met her gaze again, more alert now. [color=2E8B57]“Tourbillon, most likely. Someone’s making themselves known.”[/color] He paused in thought, but not for long.

[color=2E8B57]“We don’t have to jump in, I’m not looking to start a war with strangers before we’ve eaten.”[/color] He smiled again, softer, one brow raised. [color=2E8B57]“But if you’d rather not stay cooped up, we could move out. See the battlefield from a distance, get a sense of who’s throwing their weight around?”[/color]

He stood, brushing pine needles from his knees, then offered a hand toward her, palm up. [color=2E8B57]“Or we could scout somewhere else. The Basilica’s not far, and I’d wager someone’s tried to stake a claim there. Whatever you want, Rider.”[/color]

There was no pressure in his tone, only trust. The kind of trust that had already chosen her, long before she raised her fist to the sky.
[@Cocojoe][hr]
[H3][centre]AUREUS DEUS BELLATOR[/centre][/h3]
[right]Tourbillion Battlefield[/right]
Aureus did not answer Rider’s taunts with words. He answered with silence, and in that silence, contempt. Not for the rocks or the crowd-pleasing swagger, but for the man who wielded them with the safety of a sister’s voice always in his ear. A warrior who could not step forward without a handler was no warrior at all.

And then the stone was loosed. He saw it, not with alarm, but with precision. The angle. The weight. Not aimed to kill, but to blind. Dust, of course. That was the moment. The moment everything clicked. The false throw. The timing. The echo of it all, etched across centuries of gladiator’s instinct. He had seen it before, he had done it before, lived it a thousand times in a thousand skins: sand flung before a blade, shame dressed in showmanship. And the Colosseum had always hated it.

As the stone struck the earth and the dust surged up in a choking veil, Aureus moved. Not out of panic, but with purpose, a dive to the side, clean and practiced, performed both to evade and to vanish. Better to disappear into the screen than wait for the killing blow behind it.

Mid-flight, he summoned the trident. Gold bled into the air beside him, the weapon forming just before his hand met it. He landed in a roll, momentum fluid from dive to crouch, cloak sweeping the cracked earth, dust swirling his form. His feet found stone, and the throw came fast behind it, a snap of the hips, a twist of the shoulders, and then the trident flew, tearing through the dust in a direct and uncompromising line.

A challenge, hurled not merely at the man, but at the curtain he stood behind, at the sister who spoke for him, at the spectacle he refused to join. But the throw was the prelude, The charge came next.

[abbr=Theatrical Fury]Furor Theatricus[/abbr] ignited within him, his breath steady, heart unflinching, as the Colosseum demanded more from its champion. Rider had sought to delay. To deceive. To disrupt the rhythm of the duel. And so the Arena answered. Aureus sprinted forward, the dust no longer Rider’s ally, but his own. His silhouette obscured through the haze, heavy footsteps dulled by debris, cloak billowing like the banner of a storm.

The hasta came to his grip, long, solid, built for reach. The parma followed, curved, compact, ideal for the charge. A shield not to hide behind, but to part the mist. A spear not to keep distance, but to close it in one decisive thrust. Aureus was no longer reacting, he was reclaiming the stage, and now the true battle could begin.
[@SSW]