#it's very hard for him to look interesting and cool when aventurine just talked to serval and lynx for like an hour

[fortifice]

"Oh, what a quaint little place this is." Aventurine smiles in the city center of Belobog. "Your family sure is lovely~" He waves goodbye at the guitarist and young girl standing behind the captain a ways yonder. "Say, you're a pathstrider of The Preservation as well, aren't you? Blond too. I can totally fit in, don't you think? How old are you Captain Landau? Wouldn't you like a dashing older brother?" Aventurine laughs.

Their home had been segregated for centuries, receiving outsiders after rectifying the stellaron crisis still held with it an imposing surrealness. to witness those streets once traversed in solitude by those hailing from the planet toured by the IPC’s ambassador left him with a stark sense of incongruity, never within his years had he thought there might be a dawn where new presences would breach the rampart set to protect their people from the fragmentum. Gepard knows he is to present himself as affable and yet it does not come to him without effort, in that sense is Serval not a saviour to the ever solemn captain, sweeping their guest up in blithe conversation. she was good with people in a way her brother could not hope to imitate, her penchant for friendly banter felt desultory when he ventured to try his hand at it. Deciding he would rather not make a dreadful impression upon Aventurine he assented to being ushered into her workshop alongside the promise of warm drinks to ease the cold, those who had not weathered it for years woefully unprepared for the inhospitable chill. It was better like this, he thinks; he does not doubt that the meticulously composed speech he had earlier prepared encompassing belobog’s historical landmarks would have felt prosaic juxtaposed to Serval’s effervescent enthusiasm. He reminds himself to offer her his gratitude later, extricating him from an undertaking he believes would have been as exhilarating as watching paint dry. If they were to host other guests in the imminent future he would have to determine ways to embody the way she could immerse her audience, perhaps he should ask her for tutelage. he sighs, softly, hopefully unnoticed as his sisters wave them off, the IPC’s envoy being the most recent friendship added to his sister’s notched belt. “Thank you, my sister has a talent for engaging others.” which did not extend to her brother even a modicum, determined by him, not that she hadn’t reassured him that if he strove to improve he would find his relations far less constrained. the innate relation from captain to subordinate was easier to navigate because it did not rely as heavily upon variables like likability and geniality, while he fostered decorum and benevolence he could not wear affability in the carefree way Serval did. “ even before she employed those skills in her music she was capable of captivating those around her.” the compliment was one his sister deserved, he could not have recounted the sheer number of dull narratives that were rendered riveting because she told them. A pathstrider of the preservation - he was, they were similar in that regard. “ with how the three of you got on I would not be surprised if they welcomed it.” he could only envision the grand adventures that might await Aventurine if he were stolen away by either of his sisters. “ my age ? I am twenty eight.” he adjusts himself as if it were a query upon his status, he had spent a great deal of his life in service to belobog, he wondered rather dismally if that delineated him as unexciting. in contrast to the colourful lives led by his sister’s perhaps his was a narrative of predictability. “ I cannot say I would be opposed to it, I feel that my sisters would not be so forgiving If I were to say otherwise.”