Sun and ice

Theme date: May 8, 2007.

Set sometime after the end of the PS2 game.

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They were an odd pair, at best: Larsa Solidor, young lord of Archadia, and Basch fon Ronsenburg, the Dalmascan Knight masquerading as the most loyal of Larsa’s Judge Magisters. Of course, Basch’s identity was a closely guarded secret, one that no one else in the kingdom was privy to — the only other people who knew were members of their old traveling party during the war, and were well out of the reach of anyone looking to dig up the skeletons in Larsa’s closet. For the most part, Archadian officials and civilians only saw what was presented to them: Lord Larsa walking through the corridors of the palace, trailed by the tall and dark shadow of a man at a safe distance. They moved together with the ease and familiarity of a pair that had been together for so long that they might as well be seen as a single entity perfectly attuned to the functions of its own body.

Strange tales were whispered in the servants’ quarters, stories, of this and that guard seeing two silhouettes in the windows of Lord Gabranth’s estate, or of this and that gardener hearing incriminating noises from beneath the window of Lord Larsa’s bedchamber, or of this and that maid who had found questionable substances among the bed sheets of both parties in question. A few enterprising officials attempted to press for more details, but they were never successful. In the meantime, Larsa would lie naked in Basch’s arms and laugh about how they had, with a bit of luck and no fair amount of cunning, managed to fool the Senators yet again.