#forbiddenhunter

"I appreciate you trying, Nata, really." He smiles with a quiet exhale. How did he word this without making it seem suspicious or like there truly was something to hide? Even though, often, there was.

"... Sometimes, the Guild keeps information on a need-to-know basis." He begins slowly as he works the whetstone over his greatsword's edge. "Usually because the species is rare, and the last thing we want is for poachers to get any concrete information. That's not the only reason, but with how delicate the ecosystem here can be? I'm sure thats the case."

Oh, right. Greatsword main. He's never been anything other than a Greatsword main. He can use any weapon you give him in theory because I imagine Hunters are trained to do so, but he'll honestly suck at it.

His thoughts on Zoh Shia are mixed. Honestly, his thoughts on Wyveria as a whole are mixed.

On one hand; the Guardians are fascinating. They have just as much of a right to exist as any other creature does, even if they are genuinely implied to be mildly mentally unstable at best. On the other? They are unstable. At the very least, their dependance on Wyvern Milk limits their range, and they do have natural predators like Xu Wu.

Zoh Shia? Yeah, no. He knows what that thing is made of. It isn't like Arkveld. Its a thing that should not exist and if it is allowed to keep existing it will cause absolute destruction. He's encountered Fatalis before, and he recognised the signs in Zoh Shia pretty much the second he got a good look at it.

I want to highlight these tags from @wylkstone because its something I try and work into my portrayal of The Hunter.

They're a veteran who has been through so much shit. They're a walking extinction event in armor who self-regulates through both a respect for the natural world and binding themselves firmly to the rules of the Hunter's Guild (with the exception of Zoh Shia).

That isn't to say even if they didn't they'd run around killing everything, but to a certain extent Francis is very much a thrill-seeker. Hunting is his entire life. It would be very easy for him to find a less-than-ideal reason to hunt and he knows that about himself, which is why both Alma and Nata function as his impulse control simply by existing (admittedly in different ways).