Nia Fontaine

@niafontaine

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Mercenary Captain

The lace ruff is what stops you. Not because it's incongruous — a mercenary captain wearing Elizabethan court dress — but because it's so completely right. This is a man who has survived enough campaigns to afford the luxury of ornament, and who wears it with the same ease as the battered dark armor beneath it. His gray-white beard is full and well-kept. A small gold earring catches the light at his left ear — the only flash of vanity in an otherwise utilitarian portrait. His blue eyes look past the frame with the specific focus of someone assessing threats in a room you can't see. Scars map his scalp and temples. The armor at his chest is layered, complex, decorated with a medallion that might be military, might be mercenary guild, might be something he took off a body. The lighting is pure Northern Renaissance: warm, directional, rendering every pore and every scratch on the dark leather with equal fidelity. He has the bearing of command and the patience of someone who knows that the most dangerous thing in any engagement is not the blade — it's the moment of hesitation before using it.