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Date & Time: Backdated before the last mission.
Location: City outskirts
Characters: Nash & Elza
Summary: Happy reunions!!
Warnings: N/A

Exsilium was a heavy place, filled with noise and cold and fog. People were crowded close on the sidewalks, by the street stalls. But not Nash. He walked through the widest parts of the street, the nip of the breeze sometimes catching at his scarf.

He had the suspicion that someone was following him. But he was used to that.

He whistled, anyway.

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The confirmation, in its own minimal way, did much to settle the gunner. So, the kid had lived once he'd returned to the Guild? She didn't expect Nash to know what happened to Clive within, as Guild matters rarely reached the world beyond the tower, but just knowing that he was still alive fifteen years later made her exploits all the more worth it.

"Heh, so the kid made it," she muttered before finally half-turning herself away. Giving every indication that Nash could leave if he wanted, Elza glanced down the opposite end of the alleyway. "You must be pretty high up to be privileged to such information, Master Latkje."

Privileged. That was a loaded term. He wasn't privileged at all, not the way he used to be. And when it came to information, he didn't care much what he was allowed to find out. Secrets in his experience, didn't care much either.

"I work directly for the bishop. I can order people around, if I want." He shrugged. "But only certain people."

Oh and didn't she know it, which was the reason to why Elza had said it in the first place. Finding her attention shifting back to the Harmonian, her lips quirked up subtly in satisfaction.

"Somehow I can't say that I'm all that surprised that you do," the gunner murmured. Considering Nash's origins, training, and capabilities, it wasn't all that difficult to consider such an outcome. Perhaps that was why she huffed lightly in amusement before she spoke. "That's quite the change from when we last met. How are you enjoying it?"

"It wasn't my idea." He thought back to that dark night: Lena, old cobble-stone steps, and his freedom. Nash wasn't sure if he'd ever had that.

"But there are worse things. I like to travel, you know." And he did, even if he took a while to figure out it didn't have to be the same thing as running away. "Maybe not this far, but I like to travel." He shook his head, he was always speaking in gestures.

"I don't have any illusions that what I do is good work. But at least it's interesting."

It was rare for anything to ever be on their own terms. Elza knew that better than most people, but much like Nash, one had to learn to adapt or else find themselves on the wrong side of a barrel.

There was an amused breath at the mention of travel. That was something she could understand. "Where's your sense of adventure?" She was teasing, and he would know, but the gunner found some level of comfort in Nash's over-enthusiastic gestures, even if she knew well that he wasn't the man she once knew.

"Good's overrated." There was a shrug accompanying her words before a she sent a glance back in Nash's direction. "So long as you think what you do is the right thing, then what does it matter? It's the right thing for you."

"Such confidence! It must be nice." When the currents got strong, Nash wasn't sure he had the conviction to steer anywhere at all. He wasn't sure if he was right, or even if he was doing the best that he could do.

But he'd gotten used to that.

She glanced at Nash with the other's reply. Of course she had confidence in her own decisions. It didn't matter to her what happened to others so long as what she strove for was completed if things she'd discovered here was anything to go by.

"Heh," Elza grunted before glancing away again. "Always the same."

"You need to make up your mind about that. Because I'm not going to." He wasn't sure if people ever really changed, or if they just shifted angles. The way a diamond glinted different colors when held up to different lights.

Mostly, though, he wasn't sure.

"Where's the fun in that?" Elza asked in return. Whether she actually would or not though she hadn't decided, but Nash wouldn't become aware of it even when she did. Instead she turned back to face him before taking a few more steps in towards him. Her movements were more like a saunter as she murmured, "We once shared more than a meal, but it seems that you're afraid of me far more now than you were back then."

Whether he'd answer her veiled question was up to him, but that didn't mean she wasn't curious to know what had caused such distrust throughout the years to him.

"I'm married. I have to be afraid of other women." It was half of it this place— Nash was used to standing on quicksand, but he always knew where he was putting his feet. Even back in those lost days, he knew enough about what he was running from to tell where he was running. But here? There was no Holy Kingdom, no House of Latkje, and as far as he could tell, there never had been. It was all of it unfamiliar. Except the people they kept bringing through who he could sometimes recognize. From his past. Ghosts.

He didn't like it, it reminded him of how much he didn't know. But it was exciting, too, and that was, in a way, just as bad.

But he didn't flinch at her approach.

The answer left her huffing lightly. It was such a cop-out in her opinion, but she was generous enough to let that pass. Well if that was the way he wanted to play it, then she would respect his decision. Obviously the moment they had shared out in that forest was simply that, and now that the gunner was aware of it, she knew well where they both stood.

"Heh, then I best not give you anything to fear so long as you don't cross me," Elza finally offered in return as she stopped a few paces shy of where Nash stood.

Oh, it was definitely a cop out. Nash was more comfortable being slippery than straight. And, well, maybe he was more guarded now than he was fifteen years ago. It was hard to say, he could never see himself from the outside.

Did Elza want him to be confessional? He couldn't tell. Maybe he was rusty.

"What makes you so sure I'd fear you even if I got to crossing?"

Well, apart from the fact that she could probably kill him if she really tried. But that didn't sound as good.

"Did you not say just a moment ago that you have to fear all women?" Elza teased in return. Regarding him with that same playful look, it was difficult to tell when she was being serious or not at times like these. "I think we both know how you'd feel if it truly came to that."

"I'm allowed to contradict myself. I'm contradictory." He waved his hands, a gesture of openness, of surrender.

Nash wasn't going to answer the second part. Because he did know, and so did she. There was nothing to say.

"Is that so? I'll have to keep that in mind for the future then," she said in return. Somehow she didn't think that it was just married life that had changed him that way, but given her situation back in their own world, Elza knew far too well that she'd never discover anything further either.

"So who's the lucky woman?"

He shakes his head. "You don't know her."

And then, after a thoughtful pause. "And lucky is a stretch."

A slender brow rose up at his initial answer. Well, there was no doubt that he was right there, but given the information he'd been seeping out, she couldn't help but find some level of curiosity within.

"Oh? And why might that be?"

"Well, you know what happened to the last Mrs. Latkje, right?" He shuddered inwardly at his own joke. "I'm a catcher, not a catch."

The implication of the joke didn't go over her head at all. She supposed that he had a point there, but the gunner had a feeling that there was a lot more to the story than that. Yet she held enough respect for Nash not to pry, at least not to such depths anyway.

"Well I suppose that I should commend you for able to catch yourself a woman then?" It was a change of topic, but not for her though. While she was known for not caring much for anything beyond her own self-interests, she didn't have an interest of pulling out painful information or memories from those she had nothing against... well so long as a job wasn't involved.

"It's better than being lonely." After a minute, though, he thought better of it. "Marriage doesn't always fix that, though."

She didn't say anything in response. Such a normal life was something that was never meant for her, even if her death had never occurred. Did she care over such a fact? Not really, as Elza knew well that before the betrayal of the Guild's Elders, she had had something far more important than something as simple as a marriage.

"You'd best be careful, otherwise I might start mistaking you as a sentimental old fool, Master Latkje," Elza teased while her expression appear to reflect her amusement.

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