The Wind On Your Face [Illya, Rafaela]

He chuckled while leaning forward to turn the meat with his bare hands and sit back. Illya was content to settle himself while taking a moment to think about the little lady to this side.

"Sounds like some lofty ambitions there. Careful not to wear yourself out with 'em. Travellin's good and all but sometimes it's tiring work, head a ways home and settle for a bit. Can't say it's all for fun though, lookin' for a woman."

Ah, that probably could be misconstrued but he'd said what he said so might as well stick to it but the blonde giant saw that some of the smaller bits of meat were cooked and reached in to grab some and hold it out to the girl to his side.

"Looking for a woman, huh? That's not a bad goal for a man of your standing, I'd say. I haven't really thought of getting married myself."

She went with the flow of the conversation, not at all bothered by his angle. Rafaela was a good Catholic woman, after all, so she understood the importance of a good strong man finding a wife for himself. She'd probably like a husband in theory, but there was a little too much to work around on that front.

"What sort of woman are you looking for? If you're out here traveling, I can't imagine it's just some pretty lady from the courts or anything like that."

The meat he'd offered to her was certainly a welcome gesture, and she took it with a big smile. Rafaela hadn't been looking forward to cooking, though now she almost felt like she ought to make up for it somehow. What did she actually have that didn't need much cooking...

"Bahahaha."

She gave him a good laugh there, especially when she continued so earnestly with the topic of him getting a "woman". That wasn't exactly on his mind either, something that he never really gave much of a thought about.

"A lass like yourself'll need quite the man to keep up with you I imagine."

It probably had a few implications for a statement about her character but they weren't on his mind. He spoke his mind quite freely.

"I'm lookin' for the woman that saved my life as a kid. Not much luck with that huh? I guess I haven't really thought about a woman to settle down with. I guess that Oksana back home was pretty alright but dunno what she's up to nowadays. I'll see what she's up to when I get home I suppose."

"Think so? That's probably true."

Of course, Rafaela really didn't expect to get married. She had too much to do when it came to work, and besides, getting married meant having children. That was a whole other matter she really didn't want to ruminate on.

"Oh, a woman that saved your life, huh? Well I definitely understand that! I've been hoping to find someone like that, too. What's yours look like? We can trade notes!"

Rafaela's mood had lightened once more, now that things were squarely away from her professional life. Besides, she didn't often get a chance to talk about what'd happened back then.

"Don't fret lass. It'll come eventually, sneak right up on you and then bang."

He took the probably as uncertainty and so the man of the plains tried to give her a bit more of a peptalk. Probably not what she was exactly fishing for though. But hey, can't expect the guy with one eye to have the best foresight now can you?

"Lookin' for a raven-haired woman with dark eyes like the night sky and a body covered in scars which could've been carved by a thousand different monsters. Can't say I've ever ran into her despite gettin' out and about. You'd think someone with such a distinct look would pop up somewhere but alas, no success."

"Hm... Can't say I remember anyone quite like that."

Rafaela pulled her investigation logs from her bag and began looking through each page, sifting through anyone that might have fit the bill. But that sounded pretty distinct, and while she had plenty of people in her books with scars, she hadn't come across anything quite that intense.

"I'll keep an eye out, though. She doesn't sound like she'd be too hard to recognize if she's as distinctive as you're making her out to be, so she might be traveling around even more than you or I do..."

She may not have been the brightest in a lot of ways, but Rafaela was still an investigator, and she thought about these things when they were presented to her.

"Where'd you meet her?"

"Wastelands. Woulda died if she didn't show up, Cossacks didn't really have much to give me either on her. It's pretty much just what I remember from my head and maybe I just imagined it because I was on death's door but no chance I somehow got there on my own so good enough for me. Heading back there now actually."

He responded and reached in to grab his own bit of food to delve into, a good chunk of meat was always good to keep up your strength though Illya was never the picky one among his peers. Last to complain and last to collapse. Guess that made him the opposite of Rafaela, if she was first among equals then he was the last among them.

"What about you? Said someone saved you too, right?"

"Wastelands, huh... Pretty much everyone goes through there, so that doesn't help narrow things down too much either, huh?"

Still, Rafaela had already begun sketching out a few avenues of investigation on this particular matter, attaching notes here and there in her writeups for a few locales. She couldn't go out of her way for this or anything, but she'd gladly look into things when she was in the area.

"Ah, yep, I didn't go through anything that intense though. When I was little-- well, when I was really young, I was pretty sickly. A Hollow came right into my town, and I couldn't run nearly as fast as other people could. Only reason I'm here today is because of a woman who came in and saved me, but she left right away. Didn't see her face, so all I really remember is a lot of green, and she had a sword kind of like mine."

Rafaela hefted the weapon she carried everywhere, the curved, single-edged affair that at least looked to be a genuine sword, even if it was simply gilded and ornamented wood.

"Sounds like one of 'em shinigami, if I had to venture a guess."

He just heard hollow and she said sword like her's, made him think of those shinigami he sometimes saw or it could've just been someone from the East. Really didn't narrow much down for the wandering vagrant to work with but he figured that neither of them really had much in the way of information to give the other.

"Guess childhood heroes are just difficult to find, huh."

Grabbing at his cloak made from one of the wasteland monstrosities he tugged it off and laid it next to Rafaela. Save her the trouble of making her up anything proper for settling in for the night since she was a friend of the old man.

"Shinigami does make sense, but I'd like to hope it's not the case. They seem like they just come and go, so I might need a long time before I can just find one in particular."

And that was all assuming she hadn't died in the war or something. In hindsight, she almost wondered if she'd missed out on her chance when the Gotei had been more involved in Italy during the war. But sticking by them would've been a waste of effort. Even if she would have liked to meet her hero, she didn't regret her actions.

"Oh! Thanks."

Rafaela certainly appreciated the gesture, though it only made her double down on looking through her bag for a minute before she pulled a small wooden box out of her bag and held it out for him.

"Here, it's the least I can do for dinner. They're candied lemon peels from back home, some of the best in the world. They're not super sweet or anything, though, so don't go in expecting that."

She didn't actually care too much for sweets, and the lemon peels she was sent from home were prepared specially for her to be much more subdued, which leant themselves to tasting much more of lemon proper. Realistically, nobody but Rafaela even had a snack like this.