The biggest man in the resistance, and about the easiest to find — follow the sound of someone enjoying themselves, or the smell of the cook-fire, and Raphael Kirsten won't be far. He laughs loud, eats like it's a calling, and can carry the load of three men without dropping the conversation. Most people meet him once and file him away as a friendly giant with nothing on his mind heavier than his next meal.

They've got the giant part right.

What they miss is the why. Raphael made himself this big on purpose, and means to become a knight on purpose, because ever since his parents died it's been on him to look after his little sister — and a man looks after his own by being strong enough to. The training, the eating, the knighthood: all of it runs back to that. He doesn't dwell on what he's lost. To his mind, chewing over the past just keeps people hurting longer, and there's always something better to do with a day: someone to help, something to haul, a meal worth sharing.

He's no scholar, and he'll tell you so himself before you can wonder — but plain has never once meant simple with Raphael. He says the plain thing when other people are still talking around it, notices the friend gone quiet at the edge of the fire, and means every word he says, because it wouldn't occur to him to do otherwise.

Take him at face value and he'll let you. You'll get a warm, loud, good-natured soldier who'd carry you off a battlefield without being asked. Whether he ever becomes something more than that to you is a thing only time in his company will tell.