Haru was impressed by the impeccable timing of the woman who greeted them. Though he supposed he couldn’t expect anything else considering the fact that she was staked out, waiting for their arrival.
It wasn’t until they drew within the gates, now closer to the woman did Haru realized how familiar she seemed. He offered a stiff smile—not because he disliked her but because he was just a stiff smile kind of guy and was trying to be friendly.
“Alina, right?” He confirmed in his baritone. “You haven’t changed a day since I saw you last.”
He scanned her over, in search of the one item he remembered her for. She was, as he recalled, an archer, but he wondered why she was still here at the academy. The last time he was in the mountains she was already one of Ryou’s newer but older charges, a woman that (based on her age) might have been some war widow from the east.
“You still shoot, right? Where’s your bow?”
He then took a look around the land beyond the gate. Everything was just how he left it since his visit 10 years ago. Ryou did have a way of maintaining things -- buildings or friendships. While Haru chose to isolate himself from the other guardians after their tragic failure so many years ago, Ryou never really let him live in complete solitude. There would be many a time when Ryou would hunt him down. He'd be so persistent that Haru found their encounters to be less of a headache if he just went ahead and visited Ryou every now and then instead of letting himself be found at the most inopportune times.