#concept: g.aius gathering id cards on deceased imperial soldiers

[heirbane]

Other than the visor from his suit of armor, Gaius only has bits and pieces of who he used to be and where he came from. Not all of the leftovers are clearly Garlean, and none of them were carried with him from the Praetorium.

He had visited the wreckage once, just to see if there was anything to salvage. But there wasn't. Not even his dignity, as he withdrew from the grave of soldiers, friend and for alike, and promptly threw up so harshly that it brought stars to his eyes. It was a humorless reminder of how he laid, dying. He left and never returned.

The box of cigars in the bottom of his rucksack carry the insignia of the Empire and the smell of tobacco and evergreens. He had not asked the merchant how he had obtained them - or, rather, off of what body. It was half empty when he bought it, and the space left over was swiftly filled with Thavnarian cigarettes, rolled thin and filled with tobacco and spice.

He only has smoked one of the cigars, with two remaining. He split it with Severa one night when they were both more homesick than sane, passing the cigar back and forth like two people could exchange secrets.

"These are usually saved for celebrations," he had noted.

"We're still alive," Severa had offered, shrugging one shoulder.

(Was life a celebration or a curse, he still was uncertain.)

The Thavnarian cigarettes came and went, however. He and Valdeaulin smoked them on more frequent occasions, often alongside a beer or two when they had gathered enough coin to warrant an inn stay. It was another celebration, he supposed: a hot bath, a hot meal, and a warm bed. Worthy enough of a smoke.

The small glass bottle he kept in his bag, half-full with an amber hue, was also Garlean. It was recovered from an abandoned encampment, one of many things they stole from the dead in the name of staying with the living. They had slept in newer tents and newer bedrolls that night, passing around the smoky whiskey and grimacing.

Someone had watered it down - it's owner, he assumed - and had turned the bottom barrel spirit into little more than piss water. Severa had been the only one not to complain, a forlorn fondness in her expression.

Her father had watered down her first drink as an adult, she explained, barely fifteen and still spindley like a child. He had wanted her to have one last good memory before she went to basic training - lest she not make it home.

It was thin and nostalgic, bitter without the sweet, and he had placed the bottle and it's last dregs in his pack. It reminded him of Allie, this second-hand memory.

The last few pieces are ones he recovered from his own home. What had once been a high rise building, full of apartments and studios for soldiers and students, now resided on the ground - bent and broken, doors and windows wide open as if to sob and cry at the disgrace of it all. Gaius couldn't be certain any of it was truly his. It had been more than five years since his death; the city had likely repossessed the property, desperate to reclaim a fraction of the wealth they had poured into Gaius as a soldier.

What remained in the ashes and blackened steel was a handful of coin, embellished with Solus's face on one side; half of a ring, the gem ripped from it's clasp; and a fireproof safe, the top cracked and dented in.

The combination was like muscle memory, the date of his enlistment, and with the aid of brute force, the door creaked open.

He had kept very little in that safe - but the adoption certificates for all of his children were the most important.

Despite the most having perished, he was able to keep some modicum of proof that they had once lived, and that was more precious than anything else he had ever kept.