Games Without Frontiers

So like, Dunban/Radzam but with five times less basis, right? (I'll have to be honest that I haven't yet found the time to actually play Future Connected, but I swear I'm not a fake fan !!!)

"That's interesting." Indeed, Dunban, and why don't you proclaim it so effortlessly, with such impunity, to this man several inches taller than you and several muscles broader than you (even, a whole working arm finer equipped than you) whom you've never met nor even seen before?

Of course, it was interesting: hair, or something that definitely looked like hair, strewn in careless strands about his face, its color a gray-orange hybrid that eventually, if you squinted, approximated to brown.

And speaking of brown, the armor that covered his torso and indeed the rest of him was leatheresque and spangled in grommet-like studs. A discoloration around his left eye, barely visible underneath the careful (yes, Dunban had revised his pronouncement) placement of the part in the hair, was additionally something mottled.

There were also some peculiar protuberances hanging down from what must have been his back; unless the wall he leaned against (although, no, he wasn't quite leaning, he just gave the appearance of doing so) was supplying these mechanical appendages, their threaded cabling must have issued from the man himself.

Ah, yes. The man himself. "What?" Dunban jerked out of his observational reverie. There was something, then; he didn't seem to be particularly affronted by the observation. Well, not that it was out yet.

"You certainly don't look like anyone else I've seen around here."

At this, the second, and perhaps unwilling, member of the conversation arched a jagged, even saw-toothed eyebrow, and Dunban faintly suspected that he heard a creaking sound to accompany the motion, like the battered shell of a scrap driver Shulk had built for Reyn shifting itself in and out of place.

"You're a Homs, aren't you? I wouldn't have thought you'd expect homogeneity so strongly."

"Oh, well it's not that," Dunban waffled, trying to change course just in case that noble fellow would try to pick a fight - in Alcamoth of all places, it didn't seem right, but then there were many things that hadn't seemed right in their journey thus far. "Just..."

"I'm intriguing, I know. Bit of a professional at that, I'd say if I wasn't supposed to be professionally unintriguing and businesslike. I don't know what you five mean with the Lady Melia," he continued with arms yet crossed, "but you'd better know it here and now that if it's anything fishy, you'll have to get through me, first."

It didn't take much of a further studying glance from Dunban to see that that would be a monumental task, indeed.

"I don't quite think I'd like to go through you, or even around you. Might I go with you?"

Now the staunch protector uncrossed his arms and laid a jaunty hand at hip. His right leg slouched out, and there was that selfsame creaking noise.

"You said 'I'. Most ringleaders of a troupe like that would've said 'we'."

Devilishly smart, this one. And yet, Dunban felt himself getting along rather well, all things considered. To this and that point: "Oh, but I'm not the leader - that's Shulk."

"Minoth," the taller man said abruptly. At last, an appropriate identifier. Dunban repeated it to himself under his breath and put a stroking hand to chin.

"And what's your name?" The hand jerked, but not entirely unsmoothly, back down to side. "I am Dunban," the very one responded.

"Ah, very intriguing yourself," Minoth said, letting an appraising smile engage itself on his lips - were those pockmarks? No, almost like rivets, pilot holes.

"Oh? Why's that?" Now Dunban felt at ease enough to prop his own hand on hip, and then their stances were matched, even mirrored.

"Your name means 'dark-skinned warrior' - whoever gave it to you must've had a little foresight on their side for how you'd be cast."

Dunban nodded gravely, hiding his amusement. "Perhaps that's so, Sir Minoth."

"'Sir'? Don't bother being so noble," Minoth scoffed. Not so noble. Check. "Alright then, just Minoth," came the conceding words.

"I never intended to be a warrior at all, but then here we are. The things a war will find you doing."

"Indeed."

"Melia," Dunban started when their group had found time to recoalesce and shore up petty curiosities, "might I ask you a question?"

"Of course, Dunban." Her reply was neutral, even inviting, though he knew she was still not fully at ease with their odd contingent and complement of personalities.

"Who was that man I met, standing outside the throne room near the transporter?"

An extremely clarifying descriptor, of course, seeing as the High Entia were not a single-gender species, and there were quite a few transporters near the throne room. Nevertheless, Melia caught immediately on to the intended person.

"Do you mean Minoth? He is my bodyguard. When Aizel, Hogard, Garan, and Damil can-- Could not be with me, such as when they were occupied on some professional court business of their own, he would always remain there in the corner, keeping watch. In my corner, as it were."

Her princessive face drooped only the slightest amount as she described her lost companions, but Dunban refrained from the possibly, even likely, intrusive action of laying a steadying hand on her shoulder. He felt that he should be in her corner now as well, but all things in due time.

"He is incredibly steadfast and respectful, as well as being highly intelligent and an appreciator of the arts. Did your meeting with him proceed in accordance with that description?"

Well, half a yes and half a no. Dunban, never one to be caught swooning, still felt himself compelled by something else beyond a mere pre-extant commonality as twinfold men of culture, or some other such.

"I found him...very interesting. He noted that I was a Homs, but he never went into detail about whether or not he himself belonged to that race or any other."

"Ah," Melia said vaguely, gaze momentarily occupied by the change of some palace guards. "Ah?" Dunban prompted.

"He is indeed reticent about his origins. I can only tell you that his past was somewhat tragic, and that we share an abstract identity in our half-blooded natures."

She tapped the quiet toe of her boot on a surprisingly spotless floor tile. "You will not let this dampen your impression of him, I hope?"

It is simultaneously far too easy and far too difficult to alter a first impression which has already been set. "No, of course not," Dunban answered her. "Our revelation about your heritage has taught me much, and still changed not a thing about how I admire you."

Melia raised a single eyebrow and quirked her lips; there was a sudden resemblance struck between her and her purported mysterious guardian. "Not a thing?"

"Only onward and upward," he replied with tone and tempo just as cryptic as the mood did suit.

A little later, perhaps a few days or even a week, the very thing a war found them doing was eating together in a side garden of Melia's quarters while the rest of the traveling troupe gathered various and sundry supplies for the city residents out on the verdant shores of Eryth Sea.

"You know, I find it very interesting how you were so quick to call Shulk the leader. You seem like an upstanding enough fellow - how come it's not you?"

Not many had asked him this, and certainly not many found beyond the bland pales of their fair Colony 9. "It's not my quest. Not...not truly."

"Fair enough," Minoth said lazily, leaning closer around the side of the makeshift place settings. "That Shulk...he's not quite as dashing as you."

Closer, closer, closer he leaned. "No," Dunban answered, feeling quite unsteady, "I suppose I wouldn't describe him that way."

"Not quite the main character I would have chosen." His hand, gloved but heavy, was laid offeringly next to Dunban's now.

"No? I suppose not."

The hand poked its presence known, again.

"Do you...want to hold my hand?"

Minoth grinned. "Sure I do." He was about to continue his insouciant diatribe when Dunban interrupted him: "But what does this have to do with Shulk?"

The hand clamped. Again, heavy, and yet obliging. Strong in a human way Dunban wouldn't have expected. There was silence in the royal gardens.

Then: "What does this have to do with Shulk?" Minoth parroted in a voice inflected with upper-crust rumble quite unlike his as it had rolled out thus far.

"You don't see me asking what this has to do with the Lady Melia, do you? You think anybody like me with a brain in their head would look at your group and keep looking to see Shulk? No, because that's Dunban over there."

Dunban, over there in his chair, worked his eyebrows and accompanying forehead through a variety of displayed emotions. Indeed, this was not a wholly unexpected maneuver, except...it very much was.

"Do you care to elaborate on that, Minoth?" Minoth shook his head, biting his bottom lip and causing a sparking sound as he did so. "Just shut up and kiss me, you beautiful idiot."

He tasted like metal. Dunban was confounded. In the spirit of curiosity, and not quite all things being in due time, he decided he'd do just that, and kissed him again. And onward and upward, and all that.

I sprinkled in as many details as possible to stitch this together, but without completely rupturing canon, I must simply tell you here that Minoth is a failed Face pilot who was initially fully Machina before becoming the first to undergo a reverse retrofitting procedure and now needing his little SATA cables (I ADORE his little SATA cables) to keep his ether flow peachy. Have not checked this with the CEO of Machina but...yeah.