((This battle will be, for all intents and purposes, based off my current profile. A little storyline finessing and minor knowledge will be Findelfin's that wasn't present in the profile, but major powers and strengths will be based off that.))
He examined his face in the steel basin, its bowl polished like a mirror, filled with water from the cool stream that ran a mile or so down the slope from the small cottage. The stream continued from where he was another two hundred feet, where it formed a small pool before jettisoning off the edge of a small cliff and running another few miles into the sea. That sea spread before him, wide and inviting, but he paid it no mind. His thoughts were on the face in front of him.
A few deft strokes, the appliqué gliding with expert ease across his face, the powders in his small pouch palette carefully mixed for different colors, purposes. As he mixed he sung, ever so softly. Passersby from afar would see only a man bending down to the river, filling a bowl for his evening chores. But the powders and creams resting against his face, though, shimmered at the sound, and seemed to sink into him. His face changed, tracing the outline of his art, dipping into and out of his skin, settling and moving until the crushed flowers and ground dust in his pouch had become part of his face.
He had to do this ever so often. His arts in woodcraft and enchantment were not the greatest the Raiaerans had ever known, and even they had seen their ability to delude and misguide the eye much degenerated since expelling the last of the Enarlin bards from their courts. Enarlin. He would find them. He had to know the truth.
But for now he had to stoke fires, and chop wood, and go into the small town some miles away on a weekly basis to purchase what small items he needed and small amounts of cornmeal and flour and dried beans to supplement what he was able to trap. He dared not hunt too extensively with a bow and an arrow; his skill with the weapon would be too obvious, and would attract some share of talk. Talk was what he did not want. Too many books to read, too many leads to follow, too many trips in the dead of night to points north and points west, hunting for his quarry.
Finishing up his application and staying his song, he shouldered his basin over his shoulder. From this angle, an observer would note that it was actually an old soldier's shield, emblazoned with the insignia of a Salvaran regular of some minor lordling or another. He had taken it off a body he found in the high passes, pressing his fingers to the man's eyes and intoning the Psalm of Passage as he did. It was possible to despoil the dead without spoiling them.
Suddenly, he became aware of something else. A trick of the light, another might seem, but he knew the signs and they made the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. And a trill in the air, a slight thrumming, as if the grass itself was murmuring a melody only the mindful might discern. The wards had been tripped, subtle wards, keyed to the song in the hearts of the daffodils. A child, perhaps. Or perhaps not. It never hurt to be ready.
The cottage in view, the ground steep leading towards the place, he knew enough of where the wards had been tripped to know he'd already sacrificed the high ground. If it came to that. But perhaps by weaving sideways, as if making for the animal pens, he might give the appearance of normalcy while positioning himself in slightly better footing for confrontation. He hoped it was a child. He would give her a daisy, and smile with a toothy grin that looked for all the world like simply the kindness of a wizened old root of a farmer, and she would never know that she had spooked one who had once commanded armies and who had become a hunter-after-secrets.
His hand crept, ever so softly, to his belt. Beneath his clothes he kept it there, under a glamour enchantment that made it appear a simple belt knife. He fingered the hilt with idle care, and kept walking at his brisk, careful pace. Be ready for anything, he thought, always ready. He hoped he would not have cause to draw Ainalindil today, for many reasons. But one reason ate most steadily at his mind.
Namely, he was out of practice.