If the golden-haired man that lay sprawled out on the beach was a corpse, then he was one of the most exquisite-looking ones that Sonya had ever encountered. The mercenary's brow furrowed as she peered over the short, slight dunes of where the small port town met the open sea.

"My, my….what sort of trouble did you get up to on the high seas, I wonder?" She murmured. As she approached, his features began to resemble something of a statue that she had once seen in the manor of a lord she was sent to assassinate— a work of art carved from marble that resembled a warrior god from a foreign land. Awake, this man could probably whirl to life and wreak devastation with a lance or a sword in his hand.

But what he could do to his foes was of no concern, as the ocean had beaten him onto the shores and left him unconscious at Sonya's feet.

Several days spent in the port town had suggested that whatever his secrets were, the broad-shouldered man wasn't exactly the same as the pirates, bandits, and sellswords that usually lived their lives moving from ship to bar to brothel and then back to their ships. That was more or less the journey that she had planned out for her, albeit with less trips to brothels and more time spent in bars where the information flowed as freely as liquor.

Information was always what Sonya sought— more than money, warm bodies in her bed, or even the fine jewels and exotic cosmetics that she would pick up from traders. If there was a place she could get closer to finding what she needed, she was singleminded about it.

So why had the man on the shores caught her eye?

People were stranded at sea or draped unconscious — or worse— far more regualrly than she cared for across the sea lanes that straddled Rigel and Zofia. Food had run scarce in both realms, and so too did jobs.

She decided the reason that the man had earned her sympathy was that even though his eyes were shut, he possessed a sadness about him that she had known. He possessed a will to live in the manner in which he grasped at the ground where he lay flat on his back, as if anchoring himself there and daring the sea to try to take him back.

Work to get him to safety would not come easily, and her first task was to determine whether a cleric or an undertaker was needed. The brackish scent of the sea clung to him as she brushed slimy kelp plastered to his shoulders, grimacing all the while. Brushing aside a mass of soaking wet blonde hair, Sonya felt for his pulse points and paused.

A faint thrum jolted against the pads of her fingers, warm and sudden.

"Now we're getting somewhere." She grinned.

Sonya had ignored a great many lessons on healing when she took her mandatory lessons from the clerics. She had always guessed that should they have stayed, Marla and Hestia would have made fine priestesses gifted in the healing arts. But she herself was never quite so gifted at it, only knowing how to patch the most rudimentary of wounds with a staff. She had been resigned to her fate, albeit not without enthusiasm, to making sure others needed a healer if they crossed her path on the wrong day. Steading her palms, she pushed against his chest, hands folded as the priestesses did, and felt the give of his ribs.

Her fallen warrior-god stirred, his features convulsing as he coughed out mouthfuls of seawater. Nobody, thought Sonya with a small wry smile, looked handsome when they needed to expel water from their lungs. But it was unfair that as his eyes fluttered open and his chest heaved with newfound life how even weariness was becoming on him.

"I can't fall here—" he gasped out. His voice was deep and inflected with a nobleman's upbringing. So were his clothes, a tunic that was sodden but crafted of ebony wool shot through with patterns of gold.

"Good news," Sonya reached over and took ahold of his hand, helping him sit up steadily.

"You haven't fallen there." She smiled slightly as she did so.

The knight— she was almost certain that he was a knight, or she'd bet her last month's pay away—glanced at her with something that was half-ferocity, half-confusion. Then he wrenched his gaze away and looked out towards the town, then turned and glanced out to the ocean, and Sonya saw sorrow lace his features like an invisble arrow had pierced his side. Whatever it was that hurt him— physically, if not in spirit, had bested him. He recognized nothing about where he was, and had not a single inkling where things were to proceed.

That weariness and uncertainty was the first time she had felt a shred of empathy for anyone that wasn't Marla or Hestia, and it unnerved her. Surely there was a cure, through alcohol or a good job somewhere, that could take care of such afflictions. But fate or whatever gods or goddesses in existence had saddled Sonya with a knight-sized burden, and she decided then and there to try to see it through.

The woman that greeted him when he awoke shifted her mage's cloak to help him stand. He had little idea of where he was as she straightened his shoulders. Feeling crept back into his muscles as he met the gaze of the purple-haired woman.

Memory and recognition was fuzzy, but her eyes shone with a kindness that she likely didn't demonstrate often. It was a rare happenstance that she had crossed paths with him, half-drowning and covered in sand, and decided to check. This he knew instantly.

As they walked across the beach and towards a structure far off in the distance, the woman reached into a leather bag by her side and drew out something plain and light-colored, shaking its folds out. She swept what looked to be a robe over her shoulders and fastened the clasps over the nape of her neck, turning her low-cut dress into a modest cleric's garb in an instant.

"Are you…falsifying a cleric's costume?" He found himself saying, trying and failing to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

"Oh, like you're in a position to judge about this." A small smirk spread across her features. "Either find someone else to help, or follow me and get medicine and something to eat."

At the word 'medicine,' the ache in his limbs almost responded out of instinct. The mention of food brought a grumble to his stomach that what dignity echoes in his mind would have protested. But he lacked dignity in that moment, and he wasn't sure when the woman's moment of generosity would come to pass.

"I meant nothing by it, milady." The words left a taste in his mouth that didn't sit right. This woman clearly was no lady, but perhaps it was true that ladies in different countries carried themselves with sharp words and impersonated members of religious orders easily. Wherever he was, he was far from home and would likely stay that way.

"My gratitude is yours." That, he meant sincerely. Knighthood was not something that was so easily lost, and the muscle memory of horsemanship, lance fighting, and the honor that any paladin maintained was embedded in him as deep as the nerves in his bones and muscle. Feeling that certainty out, his steps steadied as they approached the walls of a temple.

"It's not a whole lie. I was raised and taught in a priory. Once. At some point." As she laughed and drew her face into something approximating pious and quiet, the ridiculousness of the sight lifted his spirits as well.

One thing was for certain for him— whatever had thrown this woman, a tall vision in violet hair and a hidden smile— nothing and no one that he happened across was happenstance.