[center][color=#b3ccff][h2]Esben Mathiassen[/h2][/color][/center]
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Esben had known from the outset that he would hate travelling through the desert, though he'd never have guessed anywhere close to the extent. The sand was annoying enough—one misstep led to a shoe full of it, and a good breeze blew up enough of the dust to fill any open space in the rest of his clothing and provide even more constant irritation. Clothing he'd made sure to arrange and layer as carefully as possible, trying to block sun and wind both without stifling himself, and it was never enough.

Too much or too tight, and he'd overheat rapidly. He was far from comfortable as it was, but at least he wasn't literally roasting himself alive. Relying on ice from Miina had helped make the desert heat slightly more bearable, but not by much. Too loose, and there was nothing to stop himself from getting abraded in multiple places as the sand and dust infiltrated any place it could find and refused to shake back out easily. However, no matter how constant an irritation they provided, they were far from the worst.

The first day after they'd reached the desert proper, he'd thought to brave the trek with his face uncovered. Breathing the air freely, as unconcerned in it as he normally was anywhere further south; sure, when the wind blew sand in their faces he'd cover up with a scarf, but he'd just as quickly drop it to respire without restriction as soon as the moment came. By the time the sun was setting, his voice was already sounding twice as strained as it had after an entire day of talking shortly after he'd come to the larger group. When he awoke in the morning, it was with a fierce, grinding cough, a voice that was almost entirely gone, and blood caked on his upper lip and cheek from a nosebleed in the middle of the night.

For someone who had grown up in a coastal place, such dry air was intolerable in every way. His lips and skin soon followed as they turned dry and cracked and peeled, even after he decided to wear his scarf as a veil across everything below the eyes—a veil lapped twice over, to try and preserve as much of the moisture of his breath as possible. There was no way he could just dip into their water to try and soothe his parched mouth and ravaged airway, and even that wouldn't help his stinging eyes or itching skin.

He bore it as well as possible, falling even quieter than usual, but before long on the second day it became clear that he was continuing on out of stubbornness to keep up with the group as out of any actual ability to endure the climate. Perhaps it only made sense that he would suffer so much—he'd already made it plenty clear to the rest that he was a spy, an infiltrator, and at times a duellist, not a soldier or warrior. While he wasn't unaccustomed to travel, it wasn't travel like [i]this,[/i] in such a punishing location.

By the time they came to the Valheimer encampment they'd set out to investigate, he was too fatigued to try and counsel against approaching too close—until the second he heard Izayoi's indignant words towards what Valheim appeared to be testing this deep in the desert, snapping his focus back to the present rather than on whatever he may have been thinking to distract himself from the heat.

[color=#b3ccff][i]"Hva faen?"[/i][/color] he hissed, blinking tears out of his eyes as he realized how blatantly they'd presented themselves, before biting back further cursing at his own lack of attention or useful observation. His buckler and sword were drawn instantly, hands as steady as ever thanks to the adrenaline that had just shocked him back to reality, the moment before the armored giant fell into their midst. He stepped backwards smoothly, the kick passing harmlessly by a finger's breadth away from the ribs it targeted, but his own responding thrust was stayed as Éliane was swept off her feet instead, passing right in front of him before she was thrown down.

He retreated another step as Galahad stepped in to retrieve their now-prone comrade, mind running in overdrive to assess the situation and what [i]he[/i] could manage in it. There wasn't much opportunity for tricks like he'd just been able to pull on Reisa, and there were too many others around to fall back on his skills as a duelist—at least some of the others had learned to fight in tandem, whether by pairs or by formations, something his own skill set distinctly [i]lacked.[/i]

But hesitation in such a circumstance could never benefit anyone, and even Ithar's own luck couldn't stop that from being taken advantage of. The beast before them had a natural inclination to combat, and it could tell that its only hope to escape the coming retribution was to break out of the wall of bodies surrounding it. Naturally, it moved for the weakest link; Esben ducked under one rapid slash, was forced to step off to one side as a second attempt to cleave him in two slid off his raised blade towards the sand below. As adept as his defence may have been he couldn't make space like he would have liked, whereas the hulking warrior had managed to close in with each strike, taking advantage of both his momentary indecision and his fatigue.

The shoulder tackle that followed slammed into him hard, barely mitigated by the forearm and buckler he'd just managed to place between it and his chest and face before it connected. He was thrown from his feet instantly by the force of the blow, sent rolling end over end into the sand backwards before finally coming to a stop, silent and unmoving but for the fall of his chest and a light groan as the last of the air left his lungs. At that point, he had only to hope that he'd frustrated the creature by not succumbing to the first strike, and delayed its attempted evasion enough that the rest of the attacks coming its way were sure to connect.