[ With the call to arms so to speak, and a chance to seek out a new adventure in a new place? Duo Maxwell is fast to pack a bag. His little home in Wyver is becoming a bit dusty and cluttered over time with how often the braided gundam pilot spends away from the little tree house he’d gotten while Heero had been back – but a man doesn’t make silver to stuff away like a hoarding dragon by sitting around and feeling lonely. So instead he packs a bag with as much dried food and water as he can carry sensibly through a forest, tucking a gun in to his waist band and a knife in to his boots as usual, prepared for war in the most basic of senses.

He slides down the last few rungs of the ladder to his home with a certain pep to his step, and pats the foot of his gundam as he goes by, as if for good luck, that devil-may-care smile sliding back on to his face like butter melting to a pan. ]

Ready to roll?

[ The very first thing Duo notes about the forest is the heavy atmosphere. He isn’t sure if it’s flashes of his life before coming to Nysa or the smell around him, but anyone travelling with Duo will find he is much less apt to joke and smile at the moment, and always seems to be scanning the horizon for what danger may be next.

The metallic smell, of course, doesn’t help.. Deathscythe’s pilot will wrinkle his nose and mutter: ]

Why the fuck does it have to smell like blood?

I. [ By virtue of all of Duo’s need to pack away necessities as if he’s going away for a long trip, there’s not much he needs. Other than to find the source of all of this, to see if he can figure out what the hell is going on and why people are disappearing. For him, the path ahead seems clear and fixed, even if he takes his time to look around and make sure he isn’t being tailed thanks to that uncanny prickling at the back of his neck that he’s being watched.

He’ll discourage people he passes by from straying from the path, offering up water, berries, dried products as he can coax people back on to the path. ]

Listen, this stuff is hardly ever as easy as they make it seem. Eyes on the prize, uh?

II. [ Barthala’s grotto is a… trip, to say the least. For a Spacer who barely deemed Earth okay enough to step out and experience even a single thunderstorm.. butterflies flying in his face or landing in his hair aren’t exactly what Duo wants. He gives on that lands on that long braid a certainly venomous bit of a glare, but the colorful little insect goes unbothered, and he isn’t vengeful enough for a smashing.

Despite all of that.. he finds himself stripping out of that necessary layer of leather jacket to tuck it in to his back pack, though so far he’s managed to not strip entirely.

So far. ]

I feel like… this is a reward or something. I don’t know.

[ A placated life of the same old same old has never been on Duo’s wavelength. The restless Deathscythe pilot lasts in Dranbu maybe a few days before he’s restless and itching to move, twitching over the chance to go and do anything, everything. Anyone who knows him will probably be unsurprised that his little corner of Dranbu is soon abandoned along with any sign he was ever there, back pack back on his back and adventures outside of Dranbu on the course.

Whilst out in the wilds, other adventurers may happen upon Duo’s camp fire and the boy propped up on his back pack, rocks, whatever he can possibly keep a look out on, keeping warm and.. honestly just relaxing out in the wilds.

Upon happening on either Phares or Stroln Duo doesn’t linger long – just enough to refill his stores and probably a few drinks or flirtacious conversations, but he’s back out in the forest before he has a chance to even think about settling down. ]