Fanilly hesitated.
Not only had she experienced the very same dream, but that hadn't been what Dame Serenity was speaking about in the first place?
A dream...
Once, when she was very young, she had dreamt of being a healer. Perhaps it was tales of Saint Anissa the Beautiful that had made her latch onto such an idea. The image of the lovely, silver-haired lady of moonlight, whose soothing touch mended all those whole ailed.
That was before she truly came to comprehend the duty she was to be raised for. Before she understood that being a healer was not such a simple thing.
Still, the desire to help people in some way remained.
"I..." Fanilly tailed off, then took a deep breath, "I did. When I was very small, I wanted to be a healer. Of course, I had no aptitude for it, and beyond that I had been born under a full moon."
Her grip gently adjusted on the hilt of her sword, her legs tensing as she adjusted her footing, her stance widening. A training duel was familiar territory for, though she hadn't directly engaged in one since she had formally entered her position as Knight-Captain of the Iron Roses.
"I... probably thought it would make me beautiful and beloved, like Saint Anissa," she added, sheepishly. The motives of a very young child are very rarely entirely pure, after all. "But I think after that, I think..."
Fanilly trailed off. She wasn't entirely certain if it was purely pressure from without or from within that had caused her dream, her desire for the future, to change. At times she felt so much pressure that it threatened to crush her.
But at the same time, the Iron Rose Knights were an order of virtue and compassion. Protection for the weak. Punishment for the wicked. But not with cruelty, but with justice.
But even so-
"I think... I-"
She was torn from her thoughts when Sir Steffen realized that he had had the very same dream the prior night.
That was impossible to be a coincidence. Two people was already strange, but three?
Before she could say anything to him, however, Sir Lein appeared, with a...
She was already clearly foreign. Fanilly, when she was only seven years old, had once seen a young lady and a young man with similar features at a party. They had been from the distant, faraway land of Akitsushima.
And with them had been two more young ladies with similar features, both incredibly beautiful, wearing foreign, silken, extravagant garb.
And with the ears of rabbits.
The swordswoman who now entered the training yard, shared that particular trait.
"... Ah?"
It was a surprise, to say the least. The visit of some sort of Akitsushiman diplomat or anyone of the sort hadn't been mentioned once to her prior. Surely, she would have been informed...
Her stance relaxed.
"Sir Lein, and..." she hesitated, "You are from Akitsushima, yes? I am Knight-Captain Fanilly Danbalion, and I'd like to formally welcome you to Candaeln."
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