Cassius d'Court.

How does one man become defender of the court in a land of combat mages when magic itself refuses to work on him?   What integrity of person leads to that man taking the heart of a witch of the wood a vast span away?   Pure of heart and dumb of ass, Cassius was orphan born. Raised by both his peer group and his teacher, he grew to be both hard working and extremely loyal, and naturally skilled with his fists, improvised weapons and the baton he soon learned to keep at his hip.   When he was brought before court for defending his peers from one of the enforcers of the Grandmother of Attum-Mess, it was with stunned silence that the twelve year old Cassius showed his skills against a trial against a skilled combat mage. With baton and speed and a little of that desperate brutality needed in such a life or death test of faith, Cassius succeeded, though the bandages around his chest and stomach took damage from the mage's staff full of spells. The court was pleased, though King Ochre knew of a use for the youth.   Tested time and time again; monsters, wild beasts and rowdy mage alike, Cassius became the brocade glove of the court as he grew- until he was presented with his greatest challenge at the age of 32: confronting the witch Astrid.  

---

The grand romance.

The witch Astrid had been extending her reach in the last few hundred years - solving problems and making the area around her lands safer and more homely, and with Solaris a nearby neighbour, it was eventual that her solutions started to affect the kingdom. The advisor to the court could see the writing on the wall, and rather than have to deal with the complex relationship the kingdom would have with the witch, the plan would be to send d'Court with the intent to force the defender to take her out, leaving the royal family clean. The web of Aranthme is vast and complex though.   Who can tell who fell first. Was it the witch to the one who haunted her dreams in the precluding days, threat and promise alike after years alone except when needed to solve a problem? Was it the defender of the realm, catching the witch on the road to her hut, pulling her from the path of a racing transporting into that tough Greshire plating that Cassius had fashioned into rudimentary protection.