------------- The Longstriders – Ambrose Calladus

She leaned on the man’s chest, smiling inside if not outside. The furs were pulled up around them, not that a display of nakedness would have been out of place here and now. She wondered if the Succubus was watching, somewhere down in the lower levels, jealous of their honest and open coupling. Rose leaned forward and took her glass of wine and noted Miri and Randy still engaged in furious lovemaking on a higher tier of the shrine. She smiled and sipped the heady wine and shared a light kiss with Ambrose.

“I see those two are still at it.”

He chuckled and looked absently out into nowhere.

She pursed her lips and changed the subject.

“You were telling me about how you all got together.”

He looked serious, then smiled a little sideways and shifted his grasp on her shoulder.

“I must say I’ve seen many things since I left my home and estate. Not all of them good. Not all bad either. But it was clear to me by the time I was a teenager that life at court was not the life for me. My faith, however, would not be denied. So when I was faced with the decision of accepting a knighthood and declaring my loyalties to Carellon above all others, I fear I gravely disappointed my father.”

“I went north, hoping to find myself in the wild woods of Shallymyra. It took some time before I realized it wasn’t myself I was looking for but something else. I headed south eventually and ended up in Kibbern on the northern borders of the Pouarr Nation. I met Bryon and his faithful Pouarr sidekick. We started traveling together along the Symballan border. I think that’s where I really started to understand what it was I wanted out of life. It wasn’t long before we decided to form a Venture Company.”

Rose snuggled a bit, realizing she was acting more feminine than any of the Raptors had ever seen. Ambrose responded. He and his friends might claim he was no gentleman. She knew better already. Ambrose Calladus might have abdicated his title as a Carellonian Lord. He might have refused to be knighted in the Order. He may have even given up his Carellonian citizenship to become an adventurer, to wander the wilds and act more like a Ranger than a Paladin. But Rose could tell from his touch, his attention and his soft words,… he was indeed a gentleman, and much more.

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