Veritas was the identity this body had assumed.
He was provocative, rash, arrogant, a known thief… Yet the man always managed to elude punishment.
As long as he didn't do something inexcusable, like murder, the patrols didn't even fully attempt to capture him.
They saw it as too much of a hassle to chase the 'great' Veritas when knowing he'd most definitely escape.
Ixion puffed out his chest and looked around the dark room where only a few beams of sunlight peered through weathered cracks.
Ixion spotted a skewered rodent over a fire, held by a little kid. Within that rodent, Ixion could sense something off…
'Poison?'
Ixion shot over to the boy faster than any witnessing eye could follow and took the gored rat off his hands.
"I see you've prepared a gift for me. How generous!"
Ixion grasped the rat and squished it in his hands, letting the guts spew about.
"Oops… I broke your gift. It's okay. You can prepare a new one, and I may deign to forgive you."
The girl with a scar over her right eye shakily stood and stepped between Ixion and the kid.
A glint of fear in her eyes, she brushed her hair to the side while staring into the brown eyes of Ixion's vessel.
She, nor anyone else, really knew anything about Veritas other than he was an asshole whom the patrolmen couldn't deal with. One that appeared like a phantom and wrought havoc for a day, only to disappear for weeks at a time.
"Veritas, Lance hasn't eaten in a week, and you dare do that!"
Ixion crouched and looked at the kid who began clinging to the hem of the woman's skirt.
"Lance? Is that his name? Well, good luck on your search for a better gift for me!"
But, of course, Ixion already knew the boy's name — as he did with most, if not all, of his subjects.
Ixion wasn't all-seeing, per se, but he was 'well-informed.'
In fact, he already knew the name of the girl confronting him, as well as all of the onlookers.
Names which in time only he'd remember.
Names only he would have the luxury to forget.
The woman grit her teeth and shouted:
"You bastard! Make recompense! He's a kid! He needs to eat!"
Ixion stood and looked at the blonde-haired girl in tattered clothes.
"Is that any way a fallen noble brat should be speaking?"
Her fierce eyes softened and went wide.
Ixion knew what the woman was thinking…
'How does this man, the Great Veritas, know that! Something only my trusted advisees know?!'