Obscene Symphony

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

During training…

Poking Hornets’ Nests

Jorah’s face was twisted into a sympathetic grimace at the sight of Kellens inaccurate-enough-to-be-dangerous shots, though he yanked it into a smile just in time for the boy to turn back to him. “Maybe not yet.”

Yeah, maybe not. For everyone’s safety.

A few thumps coming from his target diverted Jorah’s attention from the pitiful display, revealing a much more interesting result as three arrows sank into the same holes as his own.

"That would certainly provide more of a challenge," said the culprit, tossing her hair and giving him the side eye. Jorah raised an eyebrow in response, an inquisitive grin tugging up the edge of his lip. Oh, so that was how it was going to be? Count him in; Clarissa could attest, he had a lot of fun with ladies on high horses.

“Very nice!” he congratulated her, rising from his squat. He sauntered over at a leisurely pace, buying a bit of time to remember her name. She was the… Adrestian…? Right? Yeah, yeah, that had to be it; hair that black and looks that bitchy only came from one country. And only the highborn could afford that “lazy” mindset, as Michail so boldly pointed out. Oh, duh; she was the prince’s intended, wasn’t she?

“And here I thought the royal ladies preferred promenades over hunts,” he teased, brandishing his bow. “I’m impressed! Although, it seems your target is still unaccounted for.” He tapped the arm of his bow on his chin in mock contemplation, but drew it after a moment, tossing Ver… Vera… Veronica! Tossing Veronica a smile. “But please, allow me.”

Jorah nocked an arrow and took aim, but paused. Winking at Veronica, he suddenly pulled his bow high upward, aiming into the sky, and loosed; the arrow flew up and out of sight, and lingered in the sky long enough for Professor Lysander to notice, make a face, and duck under the roof rimming the arena for cover. After a few seconds, the arrow finally whistled back down, sticking vertically into the top of Veronica’s target with a satisfying thump.

Veronica rolled her eyes at Jorah’s words, though she decided to watch before speaking. She openly scoffed, whisking up another arrow as she looked at her target. An idea came to mind, and she let out a long breath, looking at the man wearily.

“The worthy ones can do it all,” She stated simply, pulling back the string. “Anyone that claims otherwise is useless.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly, though she adjusted herself, clearly intent on putting power into her next arrow. Once she released it, it zipped through the air, striking Jorah’s arrow and cleanly snapping it. What remained of his arrow fell to the ground, and the girl flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“You didn’t ask permission,” She told him cooly.

Jorah raised an eyebrow once more at the display, as well as the spot where Veronica’s arrow struck a stone pillar at the edge of the arena and fell to the ground, a few feet from where the professors stood. Ah, there was that highborn Adrestian charm. He could have sworn they all carried on like vipers assessing a threat - except Kayden, who apparently chose to rebel by being a danger to everyone around him.

He couldn’t help but chuckle, though. He’d recognize that tone of voice and the hair flipping a mile away: this was a woman who was accustomed to having the last word. They were a dangerous game, but a fun one; some hated to be challenged, but some secretly craved it. He’d never know until he poked a little at the hornet’s nest.

“I prefer to beg forgiveness,” Jorah excused with an exaggerated bow, before shrugging as he looked over to his own arrow-ridden target and back to Veronica. “But you didn’t ask either, so I’m happy to call us even.”

Smiling, he did point to the spot where Veronica’s arrow lay, a dirty look from both Lysander and Euphemia just beyond it. “Maaaaybe don’t shoot at the teachers, though. They don’t seem too pleased,” he teased, holding up a finger. “First rule of shooting: know your target and what’s beyond it.”

The brunette paid little attention to his advice, though she slung the bow over her shoulder so she could cross her arms. “I’m shocked you care about where the arrow lands,” She mused out loud. “So long as no one was hurt, there’s nothing to fear. Or do you truly doubt me so?”

Jorah almost cringed as the voice of his childhood archery tutor rang in his ears, repeating the gospel of shooting safety that had almost literally been beaten into his head. But he refrained, more interested in what that exceedingly ignorant comment said about the speaker. Veronica had either been so spoiled growing up that she’d never been scolded for this sort of thing, or she was the latter type of queen bee: the type who definitely didn’t like to be challenged. In fact, it very likely could have been both.

Fun!

“Ah, but how brutally true is your aim at the hearts of men!” Jorah loudly lamented, stumbling back and clutching at an imaginary arrow stuck in his chest. Yanking it out, he approached the girl quite closely, leaning toward her and directing her gaze at the teachers on the edge of the sands.

“But of course, it isn’t you I doubt,” he explained less-than-sincerely, running his finger along the path surrounding the arena. “It’s the people beyond who might stumble in behind your target and get themselves stuck.” He backed up a step, putting his hands on his hips. “Now, me? When I shoot, I just want the arrow to stick into something impressive, and the last time I bagged a servant on a hunt it wasn’t well received.”

Raising an eyebrow, for a moment, Veronica didn’t seem to follow. “It sounds to me like your aim isn’t as good as you think it is,” She stated. “If your arrow doesn’t land where it is intended, then the blame lies on the archer.” In the distance, Euphemia let out a very heavy sigh. The brunette ignored it and continued with, “If your servant was hit, then you either did it on purpose or he got in the way. So which was it?”

Jorah was tempted to sigh too, but he settled for a playful shake of the head. The way this was going, Veronica was turning out to be one of the queen bee types who simply wasn’t any fun. “We call it a joke, my dear. Perhaps my friend Clarissa can arrange to have some shipped to Enbarr.”

Veronica’s eyebrows flattened over her eyes. “Do make sure to send the humorous ones, because your material isn’t working out for me,” She replied dryly.

Taking a step back, she supposed she may as well get an arrow on her target. She took a look at Euphemia, who was watching the pair, though she wasn’t interested. Instead, she simply drew the arrow back, eyeing the target, and let it fly. As expected, it hit its target, and as Veronica gave Euphemia an expectant look, the blonde seemed exasperated.

Veronica scoffed. “We could have at least rode on horseback if they wanted to see what we were capable of,” She muttered.

Ugh, okay, fine. Jorah knew when to admit defeat, and Veronica simply refused to be any fun. In hindsight, he’d have been better off soliciting the Lion boy for conversation, although the scatter of his shots still made Jorah feel much safer standing a little farther away.

Returning focus to his own target, he set about leisurely shooting his way around one of the target’s painted circles, but paused when he heard Veronica’s comment about horseback. He had to agree; he’d have loved a good morning ride and some shooting to boot. Stationary targets, especially at this paltry distance, were way too much of a bore. But he couldn’t hold himself to ending his conversation with Veronica when something came to mind that was too good to let pass.

“I didn’t know Adrestian women rode horses,” he commented absently, loosing an arrow and nocking the next. “They never want to open their legs wide enough.”

The string that Veronica had been pulling back nearly snapped at her gasp, the arrow clumsily spinning off and landing with an abysmal thud. She was in complete shock for all of two seconds, though it was quickly replaced by irritation. She threw down the bow in frustration, turning on her heel and grabbing Jorah by the collar, pulling him down to her level.

“In what Leicester sinkhole do you come from to make you think it’s appropriate to joke about such matters?!” She practically yelled in his ear, clearly furious.

Though he flinched at the screeching in his ear, Jorah burst into laughter, stumbling over Veronica’s dropped bow as the iron maiden dragged him down. Wait, did that response mean that what he said had some truth to it? Maybe Veronica could be fun after all!

“Hey now, did Clarissa teach you that?” he asked between breaths, prying Veronica’s fingers from his collar. “And that would be Derdriu; I can give you the address if you’d like to visit,” he added with a wink.

Veronica scoffed once again, crossing her arms tightly as she glared at him. “Clarissa this, Clarissa that, have this Clarissa teach you manners!” She snapped. “Goddess help that girl, she clearly has her hands full with you!”

“But she handles it with such grace,” Jorah mused. He could feel Clarissa yanking his ear off now. Spreading his arms, he gave Veronica a performatory smile, adding, “But there’s no need to be jealous, gorgeous, there’s enough Jorah von Riegan for the both of you.”

She handled what with such grace? Veronica’s question ended up dying in his throat as Jorah approached her, and every hair on the back of her neck stood. Was he mocking her? No, it was worse, he thought he had free reign to just approach her! And he was getting closer! Veronica backed up every time he stepped closer, though eventually, she realized how cowardly she looked. In a fit of rage, she stood her ground, though she ended up outright pushing him back to reclaim her space.

“Jealous? Me? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?!” What should have been an indignant snap was little more than a squeak.

Jorah gave Veronica an incredulous look as she shoved him with all the force of a brisk wind, taking a step back for the sake of it. What was that for? She came up to him and yanked him close! He was no stranger to a shove from a lady, but usually it was at least him who did something to deserve it!

This girl was growing too hard on the ears to even be fun to poke at anymore, so he was considering leaving it there and putting Kellen back between them. However, her last comment was just too enticing; one more, he promised. Just one more jab and he'd be done, cross his heart.

“...Vera..?” He replied cheekily, emphasizing his uncertainty with a stroke of his beard. “Ah, but what do names matter anyway.”

The final nail in the coffin had been struck, and as to add more to Jorah’s confusion, Veronica stomped up to him, jabbing an accusatory finger onto his chest. “It’s Veronica! Veronica von Gerth, future princess consort of the Adrestian Empire!” She likely thought herself calm, but her voice was basically little more than a screech at this point as she practically shook with fury. The nerve! The audacity!

After a few seconds, she scoffed and backed off, turning her back to him once and for all. With bow in hand, she made sure she had as many arrows as she possibly could before beginning an assault on her target, likely imagining it to be an idiotic Leicester noble.

Jorah’s veil of confusion cracked at the comical sight of a skinny little noblewoman stomping at him, and once she started yelling again, he outright dissolved into a fit of giggles, hunching over with laughter as she stormed away.

“I… I'll keep that in mind, Highness,” he stammered out between breaths, scooping up his bow from where he'd dropped it at his feet and snickering back over to his own target. Oh man, okay, he took it back; that was so worth the ringing in his ears. And probably the tongue-lashing he'd get from Clarissa when she heard, too.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

_{April 10th—Afternoon}

---

It took a concerted effort on Emi’s part not to bury her face in her hands at Naomi’s response. What did she just say?! She suggested that they avoid going all vigilante and cooperate with the administration to speak to offending students and find the source of their unrest—and somehow all Naomi got from that was for them to go ahead and revert to the plan the rest of them had just went to great lengths to oppose. Emi couldn’t help but feel like the administration was going to be disappointed in what little help the Student Council could offer if this was how they coordinated their plans.

Whatever; at least Naomi revealed some useful information with her weird proposal. It was further confirmation that Yamamoto’s behaviour was decidedly out of the ordinary—and further evidence for her own suspicion that Shadow activity might be the culprit. It was still too early to make conclusions, she reminded herself, but the pieces were there; that counted for something.

Nakano stepped in with some authority, to Emi’s relief. Hopefully Naomi would listen; if she was right, and Shadow activity was behind this unrest, Naomi overturning the wrong stone in her aggressive push for answers could end in disaster—disaster Emi wasn’t sure she could deal with on her own. But she tried to take a page from Kudan-kun’s book and cross that bridge when she came to it: mulling over that disheartening prospect would do her no good until she was forced to face it head on.

At Nakano’s dismissal, Emi said her goodbyes and started making her way out of the school, her pace slow as she thought over their conversation. However, all of a sudden, something in the air profoundly shifted, and she stopped in her tracks right there on the stairs. It was as if a weight had been lif— no, that wasn’t quite right. It felt as if a tangible tension had been suddenly released, like a quick breeze of fresh air had dispelled a bit of the dark cloud hanging over the school. It was a strikingly familiar feeling, one that formed a painful lump in Emi’s throat even as she breathed what she realized was her first easy breath of the day; this was what it felt like after a hard-fought battle was won, when she and her friends stood panting and exhausted over a newly-closed gate, and the Shadows were beaten back for one more day.

But could it possibly be? That would mean that she was right and wrong all at once: that there was Shadow activity riling up the school, but that she wouldn’t be facing it alone. Had her friends found their way back? Could it really be? No, surely what little bit of Euryphaessa’s power she had in the real world would have sensed that—but there was no other way! Emi caught herself on the railing as her knees threatened to buckle beneath her, but nonetheless, a surge of hope energized her more than ever. She must have been right! Her friends were trapped in the Reflected World, just like William hinted at—and they must have finally made some progress!

She let out a giddy laugh right there in the stairway, the hopeful sound bouncing endlessly off the concrete walls. Trapped in the mirror wasn’t ideal, but progress was! And being alive definitely was! Oh, how she wanted to sprint through the school and search for them right then. But if they were still trapped on the other side, it was pointless; still, she could at last rest easy in the knowledge that her friends must be alive somewhere, and fighting back at last.

Ha, if she could even rest at all!

---

The Velvet Room

"Welcome to the Velvet Room."

Once more, Emi’s heart swelled with hope as William stood in front of her in a dream. Despite his polite greeting, however, Emi could feel his mood was more dour than before. "Despite the Awakened's efforts, the corruption remains. It will likely find a new host before the day is done. While they rest, I suggest you find it before it is too late."

He tapped some paper on a table. "That said, time is on your side. You will have until the day after next," He assured her. "If you find yourself with no clues, I suggest you try finding my door in your world. It will not open until every Awakening has occurred, but you may find something useful until that moment happens. It is located in a place consumed by flames that should be no more."

"We will meet again, I am sure. Until then, take care of yourself."

---

_{April 11th—Afternoon}

---

Emi was abuzz from the very second she woke up, and hadn’t calmed down yet. She completely skipped class, her attendance record far from her mind; instead, she spent her day prowling around the school picking up the latest gossip. Of course, it was all about Yamamoto and nothing else apparently seemed to be new, but she chose to take that as encouragement: everyone thought he was acting weird. She was extremely tempted to test that theory for herself, but even if she did want to completely disobey her own advice from yesterday and confront the boy, she couldn’t find the bastard to do it.

Even so, that didn’t put a damper on her mood; if he was causing so much trouble, she was confident she’d find her way to him one way or another. Instead, once she realized gossip hunting wouldn’t teach her anything new, Emi took some time in the resource room with the braille typewriter, making a list of everything she knew so far. Ito’s message on the board, Yamamoto’s incident, the accident in the gym, of course every word William said, and the release of tension yesterday—it was all listed out, along with any and every other minute detail that might have even slightly coincided with anything suspicious. She had quite a few pages when she was done, and by the time she pulled it all out of the typewriter, the end-of-day bell was clanging in her ears. Wow, time flew faster than she thought.

After collecting all of her notes into a folder, she flicked out her cane and made her way out of the resource room, contemplating her next steps. William’s words still echoed in her mind: The corruption remains. Time is on your side. Try finding my door in your world. Ah, just thinking about it was enough to distract her with glee—there was no way the “Awakened” he was talking about weren’t her friends, fighting valiantly in the Reflected World to banish even more Shadows—but she had to focus. But what to do first? She wanted nothing more than to leap into the mirror and use Euryphaessa’s full strength to track her friends down, but another attempt this morning showed her she was still trapped on this side for the time being. Look for William’s door, then? He said it wouldn’t be revealed until every Awakening had occurred, but that condition was already satisfied, wasn’t it? She and her friends had all awakened their personae over the summer or before; but William’s messages definitely updated with time, so why would he say something that was out of date?

Unless… there were more Persona users?

Emi frowned at the concept, deep in thought. She supposed there was nothing she knew that eliminated the possibility of more Persona users, but the very concept sounded so bizarre and unlikely it beggared belief. How could another Persona user be present, and she and her friends not know about it? Emi assumed Euryphaessa’s power would pick up on that in a second, but was that a fact, or did she just assume that because she could pinpoint her friends so easily? Well, William did say that whoever it was had yet to Awaken—maybe that’s why she didn’t sense them. Or maybe she was totally off-base with all of it, who knew? This was normally the time she’d bounce those ideas off her friends, weigh Mineri and Hanami’s outlandish proposals with Reiji and Makoto’s more measured suggestions, but unfortunately for now, she’d have to figure things out on her own.

Who knew all those kid’s shows about the power of friendship had a point?

Her mind was running circles around the issue when a weird tension tugged at her third sense, asserting its presence strongly enough to interrupt her thoughts. Pausing for a moment, Emi turned a few times, trying to determine the direction it was coming from before taking off down a hallway toward the source. It seemed she was right, and the feeling got stronger and stronger until the tight thread of tension snapped, and a scream echoed down the hall.

Startled, Emi rushed toward the noise, her cane tapping a feverish rhythm until she found the source of the noise, coming to a sudden halt in an unfamiliar doorway. “What ha—ah!”

She interrupted herself with a sharp gasp, her breath catching in her throat as a new feeling altogether barged its way to the forefront of her senses. There were four people in the room in front of her, but two stood out starkly from the rest; she couldn’t quite describe it, but it was like their presences screamed to make themselves known to her, and something inside her rose its voice to meet them. What shocked her most, though, was that the feeling was frighteningly familiar—that was what it felt like when her friends were around.

“I—s—sorry,” Emi stammered after a long moment of silence, suddenly remembering there were actual people around. Her mind was on fire, racing to explain what she felt—that had to be the feeling of Persona users, right? Dammit, she couldn’t know for sure, but part of her was certain! But what was she supposed to do now? Start rambling about mirrors and Shadows and oh by the way, had any of them seen five other Persona users stuck on the other side?!

“Sorry,” she repeated, trying to recover even as her heartbeat in her ears threatened to deafen her. She cleared her throat, standing upright at last from where she’d caught herself on the door frame, cane in hand. “I, uh... I heard a scream. Is everything okay?”

---

_{@Hero @Scribe of Thoth @Lord Orgasmo}

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_{@Scribe of Thoth @Achronum}

Funny, Lienna could have sworn she’d told Auberon not to wake her up at the crack of dawn for some Saints-forsaken training exercise. In fact, she was quite certain she’d made herself clear. Which, of course, begged the question: Why was she up with the sun anyway?

If she wanted to be charitable, she supposed she could admit that it wasn’t really Auberon’s idea to tear the Rose Unit out of bed before the sun was even up. And sure, that knock on her door before the light was probably just Auberon trying to be courteous. But Lienna wasn’t feeling particularly charitable, so it didn’t much matter to her whether it was Auberon or Professor Michael behind subjecting the Lions to this. In this case (and most others), one cocky blond could be substituted for another.

She did try her best to shake the last vestiges of a drowsy scowl from her face as the professors droned on, but chilly in the damp morning air and tired to boot, it was proving hard to stick to her newly-committed-to resolution of trying her best to be pleasant. Hells, she could probably count the hours of sleep she’d managed on one hand, having spent the night tossing and turning, unable to banish the strangeness of her meeting with Tomai from her mind. Try as she might to remind herself that all this “Crest of Indech” nonsense was the result of a broken Hanneman machine and nothing more, dread and doubt still managed to creep into the back of her mind, like icy winter chill worming its way through the boards of an old door. It snuck back up on her even now. The professors wanted demonstrations of ability, but what if that Crest symbol popped up again? What if her classmates noticed—or, Goddess forbid, the faceless chaperone watching over her in her fiancé’s stead—and they dragged her as a liar? She’d be ruined, never to show her face in Gautier again, maybe even arrested the moment she set foot back in Faerghus for the crime of faking her way into a marriage contract with a Count! And “attractive Crest” or not, she somehow doubted her chances of finding an Adrestian nobleman to take her in after nearly impaling their future queen.

Stop it. Everything is fine, she scolded herself, hauling herself out of the spiral she swore she’d tumbled down a dozen times by now. Whatever was going on, it was obviously out of her control, and fretting over it would only make her look more suspicious.

To be strong is to be flexible, she reminded herself, her Oma’s old words echoing in her mind. Be like water. Water always finds a way.

Easier said than done sometimes.

Lienna drew a shaky breath, her throat tight with bittersweet memories as yet too painful to recall—but at least they’d gotten her mind on something else. Blinking away the pricks in her eyes, she turned to her classmates for a distraction, where a diminutive boy in heavy robes was just about to hit his target with something she could only paradoxically describe as “bright darkness”. She looked on in naked fascination as he created the… thing between his hands like it was nothing, and followed it as it shot forth into the target like an obedient beast. She couldn’t help but stare; she’d never seen anything like it! Was that magic? Well duh, of course it was, no earthly thing looked like that. What that was exactly, though, she could hardly even fathom.

The girl she’d traded rooms with—Cassandra? Clarissa!—was next, fabricating a matrix of runes in the air before her as easily as if she’d drawn them there in charcoal. A flick of her wrist was all it took to complete the spell, and her target was bathed in light, Clarissa herself showered in a shimmering glow when it was finished. Unlike the boy’s magic, which in retrospect had an air of malice to it, Clarissa’s felt strangely benevolent. A healing spell, then? White magic? Once more Lienna was taken aback by how foreign it all seemed; she obviously knew on some level that white magic was a thing, but she’d never seen it in person, and whatever the boy had done was beyond her words to describe. By contrast, she had always believed (apparently foolishly) that magic was a command of the elements—her own proclivity for ice, for example, or her Oma’s trick for lighting fires. Not… whatever she’d just watched, at least at any level below the most esoteric of masters. Were these two that much more advanced than her, then, or was this just another example of all she’d missed?

Suddenly self-conscious, it was her turn to demonstrate, and Lienna used Clarissa’s attempt to start a conversation with the boy as her chance to do her bit without the eyes of more refined mages on her. But when she closed her eyes to take a breath, as she’d seen others do, the magic within her barely bothered to stir, and her breath turned into an irritated sigh. It always did this! Fortunately, as she’d seen at Luin, her magic deigned to move when it really counted, but Oma had often teased that her spirit was like a bear—it only bothered waking up when it had a reason to be angry.

Remembering Oma was painful, but if calm focus wasn’t going to help her, then perhaps her thoughts could lead her to something that would. Given the least allowance, it was easy for her memories to turn from her Oma to Hima at large, the harsh, rugged landscape of Northern Gautier, and of course, to Sreng.

Soon enough, the daunting glare of fire raged in her mind, choking black smoke muffling villagers’ screams and shrouding the monstrous forms of Srengese barbarians as they cut and tore their way through the settlement. A familiar flash of anger roared up inside Lienna to meet them, and when she opened her eyes, she set a murderous look on her target as if it were one of those monsters in the darkness coming for her.

In sharp contrast to the careful movements of her peers, Lienna threw her arm unceremoniously out at her target; a thin column of icicles burst out of the ground in response, zig-zagging its way across the arena like a jagged bolt of lightning under the sand. At the other end, the icicles only clipped her target, stabbing up under one leg with such force that they launched the target into the air, spinning until it landed on its side a few feet away. Not content to rest, the column of ice took a hard left and ripped into the neighbouring target, stopping only once the wood was reduced to a grotesque sculpture of frozen splinters.

With eyes as big as apples, Lienna carefully resisted the urge to gasp at the display, straightening her posture as casually as she could as she did her best not to look as shocked as she felt. She didn’t need Tomai’s critique to see the problem: the spell was impressively large and powerful, sure, but it was wild—the only sign that she had any control over the spell was the fact that the ice went forward and not into the line of students beside her. She swallowed self-consciously, suddenly acutely aware how lucky it was that she’d been able to get away from the Luin bandits in one piece—and not accidentally dismember a princess in the process.

Clearing her throat, she looked over to the unfortunate bystander whose target she’d shredded, and it turned out to be the short boy who made the darkness. “...I’m sure they have more targets,” she offered weakly, hoping that the lack of a real apology would make it look like her spell was more intentional than it really was.

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_{@ThatCharacter}

Jorah had always been a fan of the sun, but he’d be the first to admit he far preferred the haze of afternoon and the gentle glow of evening to the stabbing glare of dawn. Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet learned how to sleep through the toll of the early church bells, and even when he pretended to be asleep, sick, or dead in his bed, Clarissa’s impatient door-banging always forced him to his feet far earlier than was decent or humane. Goddess’ mercy, it was like every Roundtable session they spent together in Derdriu; those dastard red curls got to bouncing through the halls of Riegan Manor before the birds were even awake, and she was always dragging him out of bed to join her, decency be damned. Jorah figured the only thing stopping her this time was the fact she was probably less willing to pick locks when they belonged to the Church.

So here he was, still squinting in the post-dawn light, albeit the walls of the arena mercifully kept the full force of the sun at bay. There was no roof, though, and it was early enough that the air in the uncovered arena was still cold from the morning chill, his breath fogging a bit in front of his face as he watched Euphemia try and fail not to fall asleep in front of the similarly drowsy Rose Unit. At least they had that much in common; were he not standing, Jorah would have been tempted to do the same. Not bothering to stifle his yawn, he stretched backwards, yawn turning into a groan as the muscles in his legs and lower back complained. Wow, somehow scarcely a week at Garreg Mach and he was already losing his riding muscles? He could have ridden twice the distance back home as he did last night and never felt a thing! No, no, it couldn’t be him. The Monastery apparently had shitty saddles. Where was all that donation money going, then?

Well, at least the ride had helped his spirits, if not his legs. It definitely helped that the prevailing attitude of the Rose Unit had turned from trauma to fatigue and general early-morning grumbliness, but airing his concerns to Clarissa had definitely helped him get a weight off his chest. As it always did, if he was honest. Couldn’t tell her that, of course; she’d be much too proud of her counseling skills and he couldn’t have that. And besides, it wasn’t like she did all the work; he could think of more than a few times he’d had to coax her out of her room or some forest glen somewhere with some gentle words and friendly reminders that the world has to keep on turning.

Oh, shoot. The professors were talking. Or, apparently, had just finished talking; Jorah missed just about all of it, but the skinny counselor was setting up targets and people were collecting weapons, so he figured he pretty much got the gist. Not having thought to bring his bow, he grabbed one of the steel training bows—the same ones they’d taken to Luin—and got a decent surprise when he crossed paths with the small Lion boy collecting a bow of his own. Hadn’t he been a swordsman at Luin? Kevin was gone before Jorah thought to ask, though he did level the boy with a not-at-all hidden look of confusion before shrugging his shoulders and sauntering back to claim a target.

The others began their little drills in short order—with what energy at this hour, Jorah had no idea—though before the mages did their thing, a glimmer down by the melee dummies caught Jorah’s attention. Not one to let a chance to procrastinate go by, he stepped back from the firing line, hands on his hips to observe what turned out to be the Eagle prince’s demonstration. By the end of it, though, Jorah simply rolled his eyes. He couldn’t fairly condemn the showmanship, but seriously, who had the energy for it this early? There was a time and a place for flourish, and a crack-of-dawn training exercise was more irritating than anything. Not to mention the clumsy execution. He supposed the benefit of an imaginary opponent was that they were both greatly skilled and easily defeated—and of course, Jorah hadn’t forgotten how Prince Hresvelg’s “confidence” had very nearly gotten two of his housemates killed just the other day.

Besides, that little salute was just corny.

Rolling his shoulders, Jorah stepped back into place, setting his sights back on his target. Like he’d noted, it was way too early for showboating; instead, he simply shot three arrows, forming a neat vertical line from the top of the target to the bullseye. Shots to the forehead, throat, and heart, he could say. Job done, he took it as permission to rest, crouching down on the balls of his feet so as not to get his pants full of damp arena sand.

“Maybe next we’ll shoot apples off heads, eh?” he said to no one in particular, though he did turn once again to watch the recently-converted-to-archer Lion. His stomach complained loudly; was everyone hungry, or did these madmen get up even earlier to eat beforehand? Jorah leaned his elbows on his knees, feeling fatigue wash over him once again. Lunatics, the lot of them. It was much more natural to stay up till dawn than to rise before it.

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Hero

With the class dissipating, Jorah decided he’d make himself scarce for a while until meeting up with Clarissa later, offering some nondescript farewell and slipping out of the classroom. The afternoon sun did uncharacteristically little to lighten his mood, and while he didn’t usually mind wandering aimlessly in search of entertainment, he wasn’t used to being so bothered by it. Leaning on a pillar, he glanced around the courtyard and adjoining corridors for anything to take his mind off the increasingly annoying mire raging in the back of his head. There was a bit of a commotion going on not too far off; maybe he could go find whatever that was? The excitement of some students that hadn’t just limped back from battle might lift his spirits again, and he figured it was probably better than waiting around near the Rose Unit classrooms - after all, he was pretty sure if he saw Kayden again before he managed to cool off, it wouldn’t end well for either of them, and he’d already marked his face up enough already.

“I hear Lady Arianthe’s at the cathedral! We should hurry!”

Kaira watched the pair of students hurriedly run by, her eyes following them until they landed on the church. Her hand reached up and touched her ribbon, holding it nervously. After a few seconds, she dropped her hand, intent on getting as far away from the church as possible. Maybe she could retreat to the marketplace or the greenhouse? Anywhere was fine, she just needed to go before any of the clergy came looking for her.

As the thought crossed her mind, Jorah entered her peripheral vision. Despite her initial hesitance, she ended up approaching him. “Hey—ah, hello, I…” She stumbled over her words, unable to form a sentence until she managed to get something cohesive out. “Are you headed somewhere?”

As he pondered over his plans, Jorah suddenly felt the storm inside him start to ebb away, an unnaturally still—yet not unwelcome—calm creeping in to take its place. No sooner did he notice the feeling than Kaira spoke up, the poorly-contained look of worry on her face clashing queerly with the almost oppressively neutral tone of her aura. Jorah couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the shocking contrast; Kaira’s calming aura had been a Saintsend in Luin, but it was beginning to occur to him that the extent to which it stretched was just downright odd.

He remembered himself soon after, calmed enough from his former tumult to offer a charming grin. Conflicted, confused, or otherwise, it would never do to show his bad side to a lady—and he did like a mysterious woman. “Aside from wherever you’re headed?” he replied smoothly, placing a hand on his hip. So much for finding the source of the commotion, but he was pretty sure a stroll with Kaira would be a much better use of his time.

Tending Roses

For just a split second, Kaira was caught off guard. She was so caught up in her own moment that she plain forgot the type of person Jorah was. Still, her mouth ended up curving into a smile as she let out a genuine laugh, her troubles pushed aside for the moment.

"And if I told you I was going somewhere you didn't like? Then what?" She asked him curiously.

Jorah’s smile got a bit more sincere as he watched Kaira sprout one of her own, though to her question he simply shrugged. “I haven’t been here long enough to find the places I don’t like,” he reasoned airily, “Though you’d have to forgive me for nodding off if you take me to the cathedral.”

Slowly shaking her head, Kaira let out a sigh. "And here I was, thinking you'd say, 'Anywhere with you is fine'! I'm impressed by your self-restraint."

Jorah chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Come on, that’d just be re-hashing what I said first!” he laughed, “If I was that repetitive I wouldn’t be so popular.”

"I'll take your word for it; you're the expert, after all," Kaira seemed to agree. She had another comment on the tip of her tongue, but the words died in her throat as a few guards got together, speaking in low tones to one another. Her previous worry came back in full force, though she turned her back to them, looping her arm through Jorah's.

"I won't be taking you to the cathedral, I'm trying to avoid that place right now, anyway," she confessed, lightly pulling him along as she started to walk.

Jorah gave a satisfied nod, and was even more pleased with himself when Kaira looped her arm through his—though that cautious look at those guards was a bit odd. Avoiding the cathedral seemed odd too, not that he was keeping a list. Still, he was happy to let Kaira lead the way, enjoying the soothing balm of her aura as much as the usual cheer of a pretty girl on his arm.

“Avoiding the cathedral, eh? Seems we have even more in common,” he commented once they’d cleared out of the guards’ earshot, the pair of them passing under an archway into a more sparsely populated courtyard. “But I thought you people liked it there? Not that I’m complaining.”

Kaira tried to find the words to explain things better, albeit she did level a look at Jorah. "You people?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Jorah mirrored Kaira’s look with an innocent one of his own, shrugging. “You know, nurses, doctors, chirurgeons, all you medical healy people,” he explained, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t you all trained by the Church?”

"Mmm...I'm...a little different than they are, but...I can see it does come off that way, so I can’t blame you entirely for thinking so," she said slowly. "Most white magic practitioners do tend to come to the Church to train, but I was taught by Lord Asclepius and Lady Arianthe personally since I was a small child." She frowned as she mentioned the lady, letting out another sigh. "But if it were up to her, I'd be put in a room all day with no one to talk to."

Wow, Lord Asclepius and Lady Arianthe personally trained Kaira? Saints above, did Jorah ever not know who those people were. But it sounded impressive! Although that last part did sink his spirits just a touch, his brow furrowing at Kaira.

“Well, we couldn’t have that,” he told her, “I can’t fathom why anyone would want to keep you cooped up all day, away from the world—well, except to keep you away from risky young gentlemen like myself.” He chuckled and gave her a gentle, reassuring nudge, opting to keep the second (less proper) half of that sentence to himself considering the melancholy look on Kaira’s face. Instead, he added, “So, where are we going?”

“Risky young gentlemen like yourself are so much more fun than the stuffy Church people, too!” Kaira joked as she eagerly pulled Jorah along. “But if she met you, she would definitely insist on keeping you away.”

Looking around, she hummed to herself as she tried to decide where to go. She supposed it didn’t actually matter, did it? They could go to the marketplace, but there were a lot of guards stationed there. Going somewhere private wouldn’t do, either—the guards would probably come knocking the second any of them spotted her going to the dorms. Maybe somewhere with less traffic?

“I don’t think you’d be very interested in a pond, so how about the Greenhouse?” She suggested.

Jorah stood a little straighter, grinning in self-satisfaction. Lady Arianthe would want to keep him away? Well, mission accomplished; Clarissa would be far too impressed if he suddenly became the type of man holy ladies wanted influencing their tender young apprentices. However, it seemed Kaira herself wasn’t even sure where to go—Goddess, how much did she dislike this woman to work so hard to avoid her? A slight bitterness toyed at the edge of his mood. He didn’t expect to relate to Kaira on that level, but he knew just how that felt.

“A pond?” he repeated, shaking his gloomier thoughts away with a grin. “Well, unless it’s of a size to hop over to another continent, then you’re probably right.” A greenhouse, then? “Derdriu has a large municipal greenhouse, you know,” he mused as they adjusted their course to the South, “It wasn’t too far from the Roundtable, nearer the docks. Something about the more humid air being good for the plants, I don’t know. But it was really something.”

Kaira’s eyes widened a touch, a small spark clearly having been lit. “Really?” She asked, walking just a touch closer. “That’s right, you’re from Derdiu, aren’t you? I’ve heard that a lot of the plants around there are some of the most beautiful in all of Fódlan.”

“Yep; we might not head off the Alliance anymore—much to the Duke’s chagrin—but we Riegans still have Derdriu,” Jorah joked half-heartedly, sounding more exhausted than anything. But he perked right back up as Kaira continued, eager for the chance to start telling stories—though his fair companion might come to regret it when she found him difficult to stop.

“But yeah, it’s pretty cool,” he began, “Derdriu might be a city, but it’s integrated with a ton of plants; there are trees on almost every street, and some grow right out of the middles of houses.” He smiled fondly, if a little bittersweet. “Gardens are everywhere, too. Some are just full of flowers, and some have fruits and vegetables that people grow for their restaurants or their families—and who get very annoyed when you nab them, by the way,” he gave Kaira a look, chuckling.

“But more than that, it’s known for the ocean,” Jorah continued, the pair of them approaching the end of the courtyards and a set of steps. “It’s called the City of Water, remember. That’s because half of Derdriu expands out into the harbour. The streets eventually become like long stone wharfs—still with markets and houses and stuff on them, like the other streets—and you can either walk along the roads or go between them and under them with these long, skinny boats. Very handy for slipping nannies,” he winked. “But it’s really something to see if you’ve never been; I think it’s supposed to be that way because there was no room to expand out the back or something, but I like to say that the city tripped and fell into the sea.”

The green haired girl listened intently, hanging on his every word. On the outside, she probably looked like some silly floozie, but really, she was fascinated. He painted a good picture of his home, her head following along to the best of its ability. She couldn’t help a laugh at his comment about slipping away, but otherwise she greatly enjoyed his description.

“It sounds beautiful,” Kaira told him. “I wish we had the temperature for more plants like that here, too. Though I will say, our greenhouse is a little unique in that it has something from just about everywhere!”

The pair reached the entrance of the greenhouse with little issue. No one really gave them more than a passing glance, much to her relief; she wanted to delay going to the Cathedral as long as possible, and it was easier when people weren’t looking for her. Of course, she didn’t want to give them a chance, either, making sure to playfully pull him along. Said greenhouse was a nice size, filled to the brim with a variety of plants as Kaira had mentioned. It was pleasantly warm and surprisingly empty, albeit a small sign indicated that the groundskeeper was taking a small break and would be back.

Releasing Jorah at last, she knelt down as she examined a pair of tiny, barely noticeable bulbs hiding underneath a much grander flower. “I bet they’ll bloom before winter comes,” she said, poking one before standing again. “It’s probably not as impressive, but it does bring on the theme of a united Fódlan, just as Lord Asclepius and Ioannis would like. It’s nice and comfy, right?”

Jorah followed dutifully where Kaira guided him, picking up his step as she sped up toward a tall stone building near the aforementioned pond. The building was gilded with more windows than most, reaching up to the vaulted ceiling with a minimum of interference—aside from the towering silhouettes of strangely-shaped trees and flora. Jorah stayed put when Kaira released him, feasting his eyes: it wasn’t as large as Derdriu’s greenhouse, but no one could deny its beauty.

Looking toward Kaira, he approached behind where she knelt, leaning over with his hands on his knees to peek at what she was looking at. He couldn’t really tell the difference between bulb and soil, but the flower sheltering them drew his eye up along its curves and valleys, until he was able to feast his eyes on the main event of the blossom on top—shockingly like a pretty girl, come to think of it. No wonder they loved getting flowers as gifts!

“Are there any plants here from outside Fódlan?” he asked eventually, peering around at the foliage.

Kaira looked around, a finger to her chin. “Hmm...I think this one is an Almyran blossom here,” she pointed to an exotic looking flower that was roughly the side of a hand with five petals, its pink color bleeding into a white background. “And there’s a winter rose from Sreng, but I can’t tell them from regular white roses—wait, I think their thorns are different somehow…?”

She scrunched her face as she thought, albeit she gave up quickly. “Maybe I’ll study botany next, I’ve been looking for a new hobby,” she mused out loud. “Unless you can think of something more interesting?”

Jorah followed Kaira’s gestures, moving from plant to plant to soak them all in—until the next caught his eye, of course. Almyran blossoms… he almost laughed. So many of his noble compatriots—and many commoners besides—thought of Almyra as a desolate red desert where things only grew on battlefields watered in blood, but Jorah knew better. Enough Almyran travelers slipped into port to wring stories out of, and he’d heard of the flowers in the mountains and the gnarled and twisted trees that lived longer than whole civilizations. The same could be said about every other continent, really. His time on the docks, under the creative moniker of “Torah”, had planted visions in his head of the white sands and crystalline waters of Brigid, and even fantastical landscapes of a Dagda that stretched out three times the size of Fódlan, far larger than the tiny remote island so many thought it to be. Hmm… He had to wonder if anything from Dagda lived in this greenhouse. The one in Derdriu was sadly lacking in that department. Maybe he could ask the groundskeeper one day.

Of course, more pressing matters arose when Kaira’s voice reached his ears once again. Oh, she made it too easy! With mischief glinting in his eyes, he turned and sauntered slowly toward Kaira, meeting her eye. “Well, I know you must be an expert in anatomy by now...” he closed in, backing Kaira up against a low wall and leaning over her, a sultry tone on his lips. “...But I could use a lesson.”

Kaira’s eyebrows shot up—honestly, she didn’t know why she was surprised, she should have seen that coming. Leave it to him to spin an innocuous question like that! He was a little more forward than she anticipated, especially as he closed the distance. She could hear the bells in the distance ringing, the mischief in his eyes giving her an idea.

“A private lesson, perhaps?” She asked coyly, raising a hand to her chest before she gasped. “Oh, we mustn't! What if someone sees? Wouldn’t that be scandalous?”

Jorah chuckled at Kaira’s antics, admittedly a little excited she didn’t totally balk at his advances. Though, considering he managed to get her to that party last week—and everything that happened after—maybe he owed her some more credit. Whatever, it was a win-win for him!

“Then you may pick your locale, my dear,” he purred in response, inching ever closer over Kaira. Eventually he had her off balance enough that she had to sit down on the top of the wall, where he could anchor his hands on either side of her, putting their faces within inches of each other. Jorah smiled, drawing his gaze up to meet Kaira’s eyes. “I’m not a picky student.”

He wasn’t just forward, he was confident! Kaira might’ve been joking before, but she was definitely sure Lady Arianthe would do everything in her power to keep Jorah as far away from her as possible. Especially if anyone saw them like this! It really was too bad, up close like this, she could tell he really was handsome. Honestly, she should have put a stop to things before they got here. But she was having too much fun to stop just yet, having to do everything she could to keep her composure.

The bells finally stopped ringing as Jorah neared, and the sudden change had her accidentally hold onto him so she didn’t outright fall. Her other hand, however, rested on his chest, her eyes never leaving his. She dared herself to get as close as possible, practically feeling his lips brushing hers. Hm, maybe she was a little too close, her heart was starting to pound so loudly she could hear it clearly in her ears!

Unfortunately for him, the game was over.

Kaira placed both hands on his chest and promptly pushed him away in time for the greenhouse door to open. The smile on her face never wavered, especially as she wagged a finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah, that wouldn’t do, now would it?” She couldn’t help but tease him. “We may be around the same age, but you’re still technically my student, you know?”

Jorah drank in every moment, relishing the slightest brush of Kaira’s lips on his—ah, it just never got old! No number of paramours could dull him to the excitement, and Kaira was no exception. He could feel the heat of her skin on his, tantalizingly close, and leaned in until—

Until she pushed him away?!

Jorah was caught so off-guard that he stumbled back, taking a few steps to regain his footing. Aw, man! His disappointment was palpable, but that didn’t stop the laugh bubbling out of his throat. Damn, she got him! But he’d get her someday, too. And get her back extra for that!

“Aw, but I have so much to learn!” he theatrically lamented, throwing his arms out to his sides. “And I admire teachers so much; I admire their legs, their hair, their… well,” he laughed again, trotting back up to Kaira to scoop up her hand and kiss it. “Fine, leave me pining,” he pretended to pout, though his act was less convincing behind a sizable grin. “I’ll just have to seek comfort and guidance in the arms of Professor Euphemia instead—ooh, and maybe Priscilla as well,” he joked, winking.

“You have a better chance at getting acquainted with Priscilla, myself, and the stubborn mare in the stables. Mind you, your best chance is with me at one percent,” Kaira returned his joke with one of her own, cautiously hopping off the wall. Straightening up, she brushed off something from his shoulder. “Besides, I’d rather see you pine after me. I get jealous easy, you know.”

She giggled, ready to chide him once again before noticing that the footsteps that had entered were armored. Her eyes widened as they got closer, albeit she didn’t have to look to know who had entered. The joy in her face evaporated as she turned towards the culprit: a minor knight of the church.

“Miss Kaira, Lady Arianthe requests your presence,” The knight stated.

Her shoulders dropped considerably, and she looked down at the ground. “I see. I’ll be right there,” she replied.

“She asked that I accompany you to the Cathedral.”

“...very well, then,” Kaira said quietly. “I’ll meet you outside, I just need to finish this lesson with my student. Then I’ll go with you.”

The knight nodded, clunking away and standing at the now opened door of the greenhouse. Kaira found it incredibly difficult to look up even when she lifted her eyes, albeit after taking in a deep breath, she managed to muster a small smile for Jorah. “I’m sorry, it looks like I’ve taken enough of your time,” she apologized, though she did have yet another mischievous glint in her eye. “Unless you’d like to run away together?”

Mutely watching the exchange, Jorah was puzzled by the sudden shift in tone—not that he felt it, which was still really weird, but that he saw it unfold right in front of his face. How bad was this Arianthe woman that Kaira looked so downcast to see her—and that she had to be dragged to see her by knights, no less? Jorah’d been dragged before his father before, but that was usually after he dumped a crate of manure on Duke Goneril or had to be wrestled out of the galley of a trading vessel bound for Brigid. The thought crossed his mind that maybe Kaira was avoiding punishment too, but he simply couldn’t imagine her doing anything worth reprimanding—aside from cavorting around with him, anyway.

He humoured Kaira with a wry smirk, but trouble was quick to encroach on the back of his mind. So ended his brief reprieve, apparently. “I hear Brigid is lovely this time of year,” he replied, but stepped back, gesturing with great propriety toward the door. “But I wouldn’t subject you to another ride in those carriages, so I’ll have to postpone the trip until I can get my hands on some Pegasi. Good luck with your teacher,” he added, offering a more sincere smile.

Kaira shifted in place nervously, but nodded. “Thank you. I’ll see you bright and early!” She bade him farewell and joined the knight at the entrance, stopping only to greet the groundskeeper as he returned.

---

_@Hero

Tomai’s office looked more like a miniature library than anything. While one bookshelf matched the desk and was filled to the brim with a myriad of textbooks, the other two looked as if they had been brought in and crammed into the corner, made of a much sturdier wood to hold the impressive amount of bound papers. Said desk was also littered with an assortment of books and loose pages—if they were organized, Lienna wouldn’t be able to tell.

The man walked straight to the middle of the room and stopped in front of a circle on the floor. He looked back at Lienna for a second, gesturing to her to follow.

“This is called a Hanneman device—you hold your hand over it and then it shows you your Crest. Like so,” He explained as he held his hand over it. The shadow of said hand glowed for a moment, and with a flash, the Crest of Lamine appeared above.

Peer Review

Lienna shadowed Tomai through the halls of Monastery buildings she hadn’t yet seen, staying close on his heels and feeling distinctly out of place. Only when they finally reached his office did she give him some space, no longer worried about someone ejecting her from a staff building and very much entranced by the scene before her. By the Goddess, even the church in Hima didn’t have so many books! Tomai’s collection dwarfed those of the classrooms by half or more—although she hadn’t been to the library yet so she couldn’t say whether his was the most impressive collection at Garreg Mach, and she figured it probably wasn’t—and while it was all a storm of chaos to her eyes, it still awed her to see so many priceless-looking tomes in one place. And all those papers—had Tomai written them? What if there was a fire?

Ripping her eyes from the shelves, she approached Tomai’s circle on the floor with much less enthusiasm, holding her arms close to her body and squinting down suspiciously. “It’s inside the floor?” she asked, tilting her head at the markings. When a Crest—Tomai’s Crest—flashed to life mid-air, though, her attention was finally dragged from the floor, and she examined the unfamiliar symbol for a moment before it faded from view.

“Within each person’s blood exists an untapped magical source. The origin of this phenomenon is theorized to be the blessings of the Goddess, who bestowed humanity with her gifts. These gifts are known to us as Crests,” Tomai launched into an explanation almost immediately. “Crests flow within our blood and are omnipresent within our magic, and this device reads them. Nowadays, the devices can even tell you if it’s a minor or a major Crest. You can tell by the thickness of the lines of the Crest—if they’re thin, it’s a minor Crest, but if it’s thicker, then it’s a major Crest.”

He put his hand over it again to give Lienna a chance to see his Crest once again. Amid the wispy magical lines, the Lamine Crest was thick and bright before it faded away. “I have the Major Crest of Lamine, as you can see,” He clarified. “Any questions? Is this all clear to you?”

Tomai always seemed to have an explanation handy, though Lienna would keep it to herself that despite the professor’s great knowledge and expertise, her eyes started to glaze over a little every time he went into that dictionary tone of voice. Luckily, it seemed she got the short version: she already knew Crests were blessings from the Goddess laced in people’s blood, and the fact that the machine could determine the magnitude of a Crest was neat. She had to wonder how people could differentiate Major and Minor Crests before the machines were upgraded, but that would open a whole line of inquiry into pre-Hanneman Crest detection that she wasn’t really too concerned about at the moment.

She watched the second demonstration closer, noting the thickness of the lines in the symmetrical Crest before it faded away. Simple enough, she supposed.

“Clear enough,” she conceded, slowly extending her hand over the circle, “as long as it doesn’t want to test my blood by drawing any.”

“I do the bloodwork separately, my equipment hasn’t come in yet,” Tomai brushed off the comment, gesturing to her to continue. There was an additional comment he wanted to make, but it died in his throat as the Crest appeared. For a few seconds, he said nothing, simply staring at the spot where the Crest had come to life. Once he moved, though, he strode over to his desk, rummaging through the drawers to pull out an elaborate quill and ink. He snatched a torn page and placed it on the desk, quill skirting over it, and once he was finished, he held up the Crest that had appeared.

“The Crest of Indech. One of the Four Saints that fought alongside Seiros during the War of Heroes,” he stated, weary. “Not Gautier.”

Lienna winced at the bloodwork comment, but her attention was quickly monopolized when the Hanneman machine flashed to life. Her eyes widened as the symbol in the air before her became clear, and a stone dropped in her stomach: not the familiar, lance-bearing circle she knew to be the Crest of Gautier, the image floating before her was instead a thick-lined symbol resembling a staff with downward-falling antlers—one that, now that she saw it, was eerily reminiscent of the rune she’d seen flash before her in her battle at the caravan.

She snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned, confusion and dread written all over her face as the supposed Crest faded back to nothing. She shook her head mutely for a moment, trying a few times before she could speak. “No, no— that’s the rune I saw in battle, not my Crest. Your machine is broken,” she insisted feebly, looking at Tomai and hoping this was all some cruel trick he was playing.

“That’s your Crest,” He corrected her as he placed the scrap onto a candle, waiting until it caught on fire before disposing of it. “We could check with the cathedral’s device, but I can’t guarantee any privacy.”

He rubbed his chin as he thought to himself for a moment. “I don’t think you have too much to fear, Major Crests are highly desirable and rare to see,” Tomai threw that much out loud. “I’m sure your intended wouldn’t mind.”

Her shock starting to subside, Lienna turned on Tomai with a look that could have frozen water before ripping her gaze back to the Hanneman machine in the floor, staring it down as if to intimidate it into cooperation. Her intended wouldn’t mind, he said! Hadn’t she just finished explaining to him that she was about to marry into the single most Crest-selective family in Faerghus, who needed not just any Crest, but their family Crest to continue their tradition of squabbling with Sreng? The Crest of Gautier was the only Crest in the world that could guarantee her position! Without the Crest of Gautier, she might as well have none; she’d be passed over in a moment for the heiress of some real family who at least had money and soldiers to offer as a dowry, if not a Crest.

Lienna shook her head once more, stubbornly crossing her arms. “I have a document signed by a Deacon attesting to the Minor Crest of Gautier,” she reminded Tomai, “and a second test in Hima besides. And the only other Crests within a thousand miles are Fraldarius and Blaiddyd; ah, that’s it!” she exclaimed sarcastically, “Maybe I should just reveal myself as a distant relative of the King, if we’re content to go with any old Crest.” She scoffed, waving her hand over the machine again. The same Crest—the Crest of Indech, apparently—flashed before her again, earning itself a nasty look in the process.

Tomai listened, more amused than anything, albeit he matched her scowl at the end. “The Crests of the Saints haven’t really bled into the Faerghian Royal Family for some centuries, and even then, Queen Eloise had a Minor Crest of Cethleann. Though, despite a majority of the Saints’ Crests manifesting in those from Adrestia, it isn’t entirely uncommon to hear them all over Fódlan,” He explained, circling back over to his desk. “Also, you’ve forgotten about the Crest of Daphnel. If you’re marrying into the Gautier family, I kindly suggest studying some geography so you know of their allies. I think a Galatea is attending in your unit, too.”

The urge to throw something at Tomai was growing, but Lienna largely ignored his long-winded and point-missing retort in favour of glaring down the Hanneman machine. The professor might have been irritatingly confident in his machine, but Lienna was equally sure of her position: it was impossible. Machines could break, they could miscalculate surely, but she couldn’t think of any possible way for a Crest other than Gautier or maybe Fraldarius to make it all the way up to balls-frozen Hima. What little bits she could piece together about her mother didn’t paint a flattering picture, but what manner of far-flung vagabond would she have had to find for an Adrestian Crest to wind up in her family tree?

“So what explains my readings in Faerghus, then? Do you think I’m lying?” she asked accusingly, pacing around the circle on the floor in thought. She began repeatedly waving her hand over the circle, as if enough repetition would change the result. “Or do you think two different machines were wrong? I mean, they probably weren’t one of these new fancy major/minor-detecting ones, but they were still—”

Lienna cut herself off mid-sentence when the next result of the machine flashed to life before her, this time in a wholly different configuration than before: a circular marking with outcroppings on either side like lances held aloft, drawn in the air in thin, wispy lines. The Minor Crest of Gautier, just as it should have been all along. Her vision swam from the wave of relief that rushed over her, but she still managed the breath for an indignant, “Ha!”

Watching until the marking faded just to be sure, Lienna then turned back to Tomai, raising her chin triumphantly. “See? I told you. Your machine is broken.”

Tomai’s assurance practically evaporated as the second Crest came up—as the correct Crest appeared. His expression was blank, baffled at the revelation. After a few seconds, he slowly walked back around, trying to think.

“It isn’t broken. It’s...I made this prototype myself,” He uttered, finally breaking his silence. “I refined the process, corrected previous theories—it isn’t broken.” He repeated, more to himself than Lienna. “My theories are foolproof, there aren't any mistakes when it comes to the Hanneman devices. It’s been centuries—”

He caught himself, shaking his head. “There are explanations and science to explain this,” He stated, much more assured this time. “If the machine is wrong, then I’m going to find out why. And you’ll be my ever faithful guinea pig.”

More than a little satisfied that it was finally Tomai’s turn to be flustered, Lienna was about to retort that the “explanation and science behind this” might be that his machine was broken when his “guinea pig” comment caught her off guard. “Excuse me?” she blurted out, taking a step back as she bristled, “If you think you’re going to stick me full of needles and Goddess only knows what else—”

“You’re forgetting that this little hiccup has just as much to do with you as it does with me,” Tomai cut her off, gesturing to the ashes of his drawing. “What’s to say that it’s only this machine that’s wrong? What if Count WhatsHisFace wants to check one last time for your Crest, and Indech’s comes up instead of Gautier?”

Lienna’s response died in her throat at that, the girl reluctantly crossing her arms in thought. Could that be a possibility? Tomai said it himself, this particular machine was of his design—who was to say the problem wasn’t limited strictly to his specific model? Or could it have been an error any machine could make, however rare? Had that staff of Michail’s made some kind of imprint on her, branding her with traces of a foreign Crest that the machine was picking up, maybe? Was such a thing even possible?

Regrettably, Lienna didn’t have the knowledge or experience to even consider such questions: whatever the problem was, she’d have to depend on Tomai’s expertise. But the prospect of being experimented on felt like she had swallowed an eel, disturbing mental images of tarnished restraints and the gleaming edges of knives and needles rushing to confront her at the mere mention. But what choice did she have?

She looked Tomai up and down suspiciously, keeping quiet for a long moment as she weighed her options. Tomai was right in one thing, at least: if rumours started that she had a different Crest than she’d promised Count Francis, on purpose or by happenstance, she was as good as homeless.

“...What exactly do you need from me?” she asked at long last, still not entirely on board.

“Same thing you did now—put your hand over the machine after I disassemble and reassemble this machine and steal another from somewhere that it won’t be missed,” Tomai replied, quill in hand as he sat down at his desk. “If it truly comes down to it, a loose hair or two, but otherwise that’ll be the extent of it as I’ll have to revisit my work to see where things went wrong and why.”

Lienna remained not entirely convinced, but Tomai’s reassurance did help ease her concerns enough for her shoulders to finally relax. “Fair enough, I suppose I can manage that,” she conceded, subtly peeking at what he was writing—not that it did much good. “Is this going to affect my magical study?”

Tomai stopped writing to look up at Lienna, an idea coming to mind. “Crest Theory and magic studies don’t normally correlate, but listening to a few lectures may help in solving this mystery,” He was elated at the idea. “All we’ll need is the basics, I don’t think you’ll find the machinery side of it interesting considering it’s mostly an assortment of crystals and magic.”

Only after he finished speaking did he realize she was trying to see what he was writing. In a show of good faith, he revealed it to her. “I won’t be telling anyone about this, so you don’t have to worry about that,” He assured her.

Lienna wasn't thrilled about any of this—her future hanging over her head by a hair wasn't a fun prospect no matter the contention—but the mention of Crest Theory did prick up her ears, the girl admittedly intrigued by the prospect of learning more about the mysterious force that held such sway over her life. She had next to no real understanding of Crests—the preceding conversation ample evidence of that fact—and as stubborn and irritating as he could be, Professor Tomai seemed like an authoritative voice on the subject. Plus, she could probably keep Auberon off her back about missing the occasional morning spar for meetings with Tomai if she told him it was because she was taking an extra class.

“That sounds… interesting,” she quietly replied, nodding again when he explained that he wouldn't tell anyone about their situation. She couldn't make out his letter from her angle, but there wasn't much else to do than trust him. Besides, she could imagine he might not have been too keen on advertising a potential mistake on his part around the Monastery either.

Through the thick walls, the muffled toll of the cathedral bell rang softly, reminding Lienna of just how much time had passed. “Do you need anything else from me?” she asked the Professor, moving to leave.

“No. I’ll see what I can do tonight and let you know any theories I come up with by the end of the week,” Tomai settled the page down as he continued to write. “For now, this will stay between us. In the meantime, if you feel any symptoms that aren’t typical for you, do let me know.”

Though her eyebrows lifted at “symptoms”, Lienna decided to leave that be for now, offering an affirmative—if hesitant—nod in lieu of questions for the time being. “Uh… okay,” she replied simply, moving to slip out of the door. “Good… good afternoon, then.”

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona

_{April 10th—Afternoon}

---

Emi crossed her arms as her contemporaries gave their answers, though to her chagrin, it seemed there wasn’t much to tell. Maybe she shouldn’t have expected so much; it was the very beginning of the school year after all, nobody had seen each other for months, why would they know what was going on? Not to mention Yamamoto. Emi was disappointed in herself for that one. She used to be the one who insisted that regular, everyday causes for discontent be ruled out before they jumped to mirrors and Shadows, and here she was, jumping the gun. Maybe she overestimated herself here; maybe it was just her desperation to find her friends that had her seeing clues where none existed.

Of course, self-aware as she tried to be, she couldn’t let go of the hope—no, the fact—that something beyond the normal stresses of life was riling the school up. She didn’t survive fretting for months with nothing just to wave off a new pattern when it was dangling in front of her face, even if the real-world evidence was shaky. Hell, she and her friends had gone into the mirror over less, right? And those dreams couldn’t possibly be coincidence. There was something to it, there had to be. It was just a puzzle, that was all.

As luck would have it, feeling her way through mazes was something of a specialty.

But for the moment, Naomi’s questioning demanded her attention. Yikes, it did kind of sound like she was a little suspicious, didn’t it? Of course, Naomi had no reason to think there was any supernatural explanation to the school’s recent unrest, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t, say, go around anonymously stirring up drama to make everyone tense. That said, she was a little put out that Naomi could think she was capable of such a thing!

“I don’t know what I know,” Emi blurted out, somewhat unhelpfully. “I mean… hey, for all I know, it really could be the storm working everyone up. Or it might be something else.” Naomi had made a good point earlier; it was strange that the school administration asked the Council to help them with the rise in delinquency. That, at least, was a helpful indicator that unrest in the school was objectively higher than in previous years. Not conclusive, but a decent start.

“...For one thing, it could be that the fires last year are still weighing on everyone’s minds,” she suggested, biding her time until she really had to make herself look crazy. “I know the vast majority of the school didn’t personally know them, but the deaths of classmates have got to carry a lasting burden, whether people realize it consciously or not. Sorry, Nakano-san,” she added at the end, nodding in Nakano’s direction. It was probably a sore topic—it certainly was for her—but it needed to be brought up nonetheless. “Aside from that, we have too little information to say. But I can weigh in on a game plan to deal with it.”

Emi folded her hands together in some imitation of authority, addressing the whole group. “I’m not saying we go vigilante on our classmates and confront them over their actions—like I said before, only the administration has that authority. But,” she held up a finger, “we can try to find the cause of the issue. There’s gotta be something behind it, right? So, I propose that we cooperate with the administration to try and talk to offending students. If we know why they’re lashing out the way they have been, we might find a common thread between them. If such a thing exists, we can deal with the rise in unrest at its source. Thoughts?”

There; a realistic enough approach. But, if she was lucky, she might figure out if the source of all this unrest really was Shadow activity. Her only fear was that it would take the entire school year to find out.

---

_{@Entityx @Hero}

Of Blood and Magic

Max surprised Aaron by replying pretty quick—there was a jab in there somewhere about Max having no one better to talk to on his breaks, but Aaron wasn’t too interested in finding it.

> Dude's a fucking weirdo, got in a spat with the professor that we weren't going fast enough 5 seconds after i almost killed us both going too fast
> How tf do you wear a whole ass collar and then be that idk, brave?

Aaron made a face at the message, shrugging to himself. He honestly didn’t know where to begin; coming to the Academy had been a culture shock above and beyond anything he expected, and even one semester in he could hardly claim to understand much about the various classes of mage and vampire that congregated there.

> I don’t know, maybe the collar’s just a weird fashion statement?
> I mean, collar aside, you’d have to be pretty brave to look like that in public.

“And you think this is how you earn your way into the Mental program? How many times have I had to repeat myself about punctuality?”

Aaron had scarcely hit send before his Master's voice sliced through the quiet night air, snapping his head up and his back straight like he’d been zapped by a wire. That pleasant feeling of tranquility he'd been basking in flew from him like a frightened dove, and all those “other things” to worry about that he’d cast aside came rushing back to take its place—not least of which being the very fragile covenant he was supposed to be mulling over, and which he’d already managed to break. And by forgetting the most basic of Varis’ commands no less! He dared not speak, weathering Varis’ justified chastisement with his eyes respectfully averted in silence, but fortunately, he got off relatively light. Varis must not have had the time or the patience to lecture him further; no need, considering Aaron could compose a lengthy lecture on his wrongdoings all by himself, and moon only knew he was hardly worth the breath.

He followed Varis mutely into the building, silencing his phone and stashing it away, and they’d already reached the classroom before Aaron even thought to wonder why Varis was here at all. He had his own classes to attend, didn’t he? Or had he failed so miserably in every other context that Varis felt the need to personally oversee magic as well? He had to resist a groan of shame; how humiliatingly astute.

Aaron gave Professor Daun an apologetic look when Varis wasn’t looking, feeling ever guiltier when he saw how alarmed the Professor was by the Count’s presence. In a way, Daun’s behaviour was surprising; given the general air of indifferent respect he’d seen so many other professors use last semester, he’d been under the impression that Princess Ryner hadn’t hired any professors who were likely to grovel at the feet of her Noble students. But perhaps that was only the professors who were likely to interact with Nobles, or it was an incorrect assumption entirely. Of course, Aaron wouldn’t deny that Professor Daun’s behaviour was smart, and more appropriate in his view given Varis’ status, but he still felt bad for catching the man so off guard. It must have been embarrassing for him, too. Perhaps he should apologize another night.

Of course, that wasn’t where Aaron’s focus should have been aimed. Varis’ mention of interest in his performance brought him back to the much more pertinent and unnerving topic at hand: not making himself out a fool in front of his Master. Again.

It was impossible for the weight of Varis’ observation not to freak him out, especially under the pressure of an impromptu evaluation. However, once Professor Daun finished fussing over Varis, the quick return to his usual, calm teaching demeanour did wonders to realign Aaron’s focus—and that little bit of praise helped too, even if he didn't deserve it. But for a mercy, it became easier to turn his mind from his Master to his task as the Professor spoke, with his demonstration so realistic it even caused Aaron to flinch. He couldn’t help the smile that broke across his lips at the sight of a fully formed lion, dissolving into nothing as quickly as it came; a dramatic example of the feats he’d been looking forward to attempting himself.

And now he had the chance. Despite the added pressure, his magic buzzed in anticipation; if anything, the extra adrenaline excited it further. Aaron was reminded once again of Salem’s analogy—perhaps the added pressure of someone to please would help him more than hurting him. Of course, his magic on its own didn’t have the all-too-relevant context of his lengthy chain of failures to temper it, but as he stepped into the hoop on the floor and closed his eyes, he tried to push those from his mind and embrace his magic’s enthusiasm.

He took a little longer than usual to center himself, having to resist the urge to work himself up anew over Varis’ observation. Instead, he focused on his breathing, tuning in to the thrum of magic coursing through him, and aligning its will with his; only when it was as attuned to him and stable as his own heartbeat did he continue.

Following Professor Daun’s instructions, Aaron envisioned a ball of light, no different than any other he’d formed. When it came time to choose a form for the ball, his mind’s eye saw shapes begin to jut from it, the ball turning and twisting like clay being molded by invisible hands. It was the strangest thing—he could imagine what it would feel like to shape the light, where each hill and valley had to go, but he could form no clear image in his mind of what the end result would be. Nonetheless, he felt confident in the outcome, and the jitters of stage fright melted away into the calm concentration of knowing precisely what he needed to do.

Opening his eyes, Aaron held out his hands, easily forming a ball of golden light between them. He was careful to keep his breathing steady as he began to shape it, doing his best to keep his hands still and let his will do the forming. His eyes narrowed as the ball began to change shape, condensing into something small and elliptical; the light brightened as it shrank, adopting bumps and corners, until it became a very bright silhouette of something like a shining, golden chrysalis.

But he wasn’t finished. His arms tensed up as he began to feel a pressure between his hands, and he clenched his jaw as he closed his hands further around the new shape, as if he was squeezing a balloon. His hands inched closer and closer together until, almost touching, there was a bright flash; suddenly, there burst from his hands a number of glowing shapes, fluttering out around him in all directions. Upon closer inspection, he’d produced about a dozen small, golden butterflies, glowing as faintly as the fairy lights as they fluttered around the room like falling confetti.

A surprised half-smile crept onto Aaron’s face as he watched his own handiwork, each little butterfly quite convincingly shaped, albeit with a not-so-realistic golden glow. Still, as they winked out one by one, he had to admit he was satisfied with his work. Even if they didn’t quite look “real”, they felt very familiar, in a strangely nostalgic sort of way; they weren’t true to life, no, but he was content that they came out just as he intended them to. He risked a glance over to gauge Varis’ reaction, and offered his Master a respectful nod before looking wordlessly to the Professor for feedback, doing his best to temper his excitement at what he’d managed to create.

_{@Achronum @Scribe of Thoth}

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_{@Scribe of Thoth@Hero}

The rest of the day after the fog cleared was less eventful than Lienna expected. Veronica was full of piss, vinegar, and ominous warnings, sure, but “I hope you don’t come to regret your decision” wasn’t much of a threat when she was already feeling pretty good about how things turned out. The fog cleared to reveal four very unlucky bandits and an angry, but very much alive princess: all things considered, things worked out better than Lienna expected.

The others were shocked at the sight, as one would expect, but aside from a suspiciously short line of questioning from Michail, nobody really had much to say on the matter. All the better—Lienna wasn’t interested in talking about it. Besides, with the entire class somehow limping back in one piece, and with scores of displaced villagers in tow, there seemed to be bigger fish to fry than the quick and unceremonious burial of a few impaled bandits.

But even as they got back to the Monastery and she watched half her classmates shuffle around like ghosts, what confused Lienna was how ordinary everything felt. Sure, the bodies were a disturbing sight, and she’d confess some weakness in the knees after fighting for her life, but it didn’t feel… life-changing. Not the way the realities of bloodshed seemed to hit her classmates, anyway. Could it be that she really was just, tragically, used to it? It wasn’t like she’d ever taken up a place on the front lines, but even the semi-annual raids in Hima, which brought with them fire, death, and destruction, eventually felt routine. Everyone knew what to do: grab your children, run for the forest, try not to be found, and scrape together whatever was left in the morning. The terror in the moment never faded, sure, but the aftermath was simply not extraordinary.

It seemed dark, but Lienna supposed this might be the same. All that really changed was the change of scenery in her dreams, from frozen forests with the glow of fire on her back to idyllic fields marred with blood and ice. She still woke up panting, but that was already routine. Why taking four lives didn’t astonish her more was a heavier consideration than she was interested in getting into, but she decided she’d chalk it up to that lifetime of exposure to violence and the satisfaction of finally holding her ground. It was them or her, after all; she won, she’d earned the right to go on and prosper. Why should she suffer a weight on her conscience when she simply did what was in her best interest?

That’s what she would tell herself, at least.

For better or worse, she got plenty of time to mull over it. Most of her classes were droned out of books she couldn’t parse and filled with classmates who stared into the distance, pallid and still, paying as little attention as she did, so there didn’t seem to be much expectation for her to listen. Hmpf. The “Heroes of Luin” (she didn’t miss the baskets outside the other students’ doors) seemed to finally appreciate the meaning of battle, at least. Still, she was eager to get that day behind her, if only to clear the endless, tedious loop of wondering in her head. At the very least, the day brought a few new things to wonder over: For one, Lienna stepped out of her room that morning to find a letter bearing Count Francis’ seal. Unfortunately her fiancé had written it in that illegible loopy style the nobles had, but it looked like a matter of some importance; her guess was further justified when Auberon approached her later in the day, “asking” her to meet him to talk about some topic he’d only divulge as “politics”. Maybe the Queen chose a new national flower or something; that seemed like something patriotic and inane enough to get Auberon’s feathers ruffled.

A Rose Unit meeting to debrief the battle seemed like an appropriately uninteresting end to an inappropriately uninteresting day. With no frame of reference, most of what was said went far over Lienna’s head, although she did concede an inward groan at Auberon’s recognition. Just what he needed, a further inflated head. The withdrawal of some students she couldn’t remember was as unsurprising as everything else had been thus far, though the introduction of a new addition to the Unit was interesting, although if the “von” in the new kid’s name denoted Imperial heritage rather than Leicesterian, Lienna suspected the two might not get along. Hells, she half-expected Veronica to rally the Black Eagles as a whole against her. Of course, she was hardly intimidated; doubly so when the new boy revealed himself to be so insignificant looking the eye practically slid over him.

Lienna was impatiently waiting for the meeting to come to an end when Auberon turned around and addressed the Lions, her brow raising in response. “Can’t let the Deer outperform us”? She had to wonder if he hadn’t laid eyes on her garden of bodies when he got back after the battle. It had been totally unexpected, sure, but performance was performance, wasn’t it? Or perhaps he was just insecure that he was the only Lion applauded and the other two scolded in the debrief.

“Fine,” she tepidly agreed, leaning an elbow on the desk in front of her. “But don’t bother coming to get me for another ‘sunrise spar’.” She just barely resisted rolling her eyes.

Across the room, Tomai looked over at Veronica, who was looking right at him. Letting out a sigh, he stood from his seat with a book in hand. He mechanically walked over to Lienna, knocking on the wood of the desk to catch her attention.

“We need to talk. Come,” He stated simply, taking off as quickly as he came.

What are you, an expert?

Lienna blinked when a knock on the desk grabbed her attention, and she followed the offending arm up to see Professor Tomai, looking not entirely pleased. Wanted to talk, did he? Confused as to why he wouldn’t have brought whatever this was up at the end of their earlier black magic class, she glanced around the room for a possible cause, only to find a murderous-eyed Veronica pouting across the room. Ah. The Imperial Rose was still mad, and pressuring her countryman to do her dirty work. It took all Lienna had not to openly sigh, but she stood regardless, making her disinterest known—at least to anyone who was looking—as she followed Tomai out of the room. What exactly did Veronica expect out of this? Expulsion? Well, probably, but it was Veronica’s word against hers, and Lienna had a sneaking suspicion that the four bodies outside of Luin and the (mostly) intact Princess fell more on her side of the dispute than Veronica’s.

But rather than be frogmarched across the Monastery like a prisoner out for questioning, she picked up the pace a bit to fall into step with Tomai, straightening up to look at him. “And where will we be talking?”

"I'm going to my office, but we can talk on the way and get it over with. If we finish before, great, if not we finish there," He stated, though he decided not to leave her in the dark for too long. "I'll admit, I took you for a shrewd one, but using other people as bait did end up surprising me."

Lienna’s eyebrows raised in surprise that he’d just come right out with it, but her expression quickly turned outright unamused. “Bait?” she scoffed, “Like I said before, it was—”

"You knew the cover of the fog was just enough that you could escape your enemies, and in an opportune moment chose to get them all together to take them all out at once," Tomai cut in, deciding that he wouldn't hear whatever excuse she had. "Truthfully, it’s a practice best used when you have the edge over the enemy. That said, when you enact such a plan, someone usually volunteers to act as bait, they don’t get thrown in unawares."

Lienna’s mouth was still open to continue her explanation, but after a second of thinking she closed it, narrowing her eyes at her professor. “Fine,” she conceded, dropping her innocent act. She crossed her arms, straightening her back a touch as she turned her face resolutely forward. “I suppose the excuse that there wasn’t much time for explaining won’t help me, so what’ll it be, then? Expulsion? I shall write to my fiancé. Or do you mean to throw me at the mercy of the Imperial guard?” She wasn’t sure if such a thing existed, but surely there was some branch of the Adrestian military responsible for disposing of would-be assassins.

Tomai openly rolled his eyes. "Spare me the theatrics, will you? I had enough having to listen to the princess consort's tales, I'm not in the mood to listen to more babbling," He ended up replying flatly. "I have to assume you're old enough to realize when you're in the wrong, and despite protocol stating that I need to bring this up to Michail, my time is more valuable than his, so I'd rather nip this in the bud as soon as possible."

He opened up the book he had, withdrawing a page to read off. "Truthfully, I'm more concerned that you don't have as much control over your magic as you believe. The princess consort was injured in the process, but with the strength of the spell used that each bandit was dealt with, I can deduct that while you cared little of her fate, you weren't actively looking to kill her. Am I correct?"

Resisting the urge to groan, Lienna looked off somewhere in the other direction, though curiosity drew her eye back when Tomai produced a page from his book—not that she could read it. Where she expected a dire warning, however, she got something much more baffling. Tomai didn’t think she had as much control as she thought? It took all she had not to burst into laughter. She was lucky any of those icicles went in the right direction! She only trusted her life to her magic because she had only a split second to think and no other options; no way in the seven hells would she ever have thought that she was good enough to go toe-to-toe with four murderous bandits, however dull they might be. Preserving Veronica had been an afterthought at best; it was a miracle she didn’t get skewered with the rest of them.

“No, of course not—” she began to answer, though as she finally looked Tomai in the face again, her half-lie died in her throat. It wasn’t like she owed this man any explanation, but… well, there was something piercing about him that she wasn’t sure she could hide from. Tomai always gave her the impression he could see right through her, so she sighed, deflating a bit. It would be pointless to lie to him.

“... well, I was really more focused on dispatching the bandits,” she confessed coldly, ripping her eyes back to the path ahead of her. “But no, I didn’t intend to kill her.”

He gave a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement, never really taking his eyes off her. “Glad to hear it,” He muttered, clearing his throat. “But in the spirit of fairness as the Goddess so loves to decree, I would like to hear your side as well.”

Well, that was a lot tamer than she expected.

Lienna looked to Tomai in surprise, though if he was content to get right along with the conversation, she certainly wouldn’t stop him. But what was there to say? She’d given Michail all the highlights, and Tomai read between the lines all on his own.

She glanced up at him suspiciously. “Are you asking as an investigator, or as a professor of magic?”

“Both,” Tomai replied bluntly.

Narrowing her eyes, Lienna stopped walking, weighing her options for a moment. If Tomai really was acting at Veronica’s behest—and not Veronica the student, but Veronica the future Princess Consort—then she wasn’t interested in incriminating herself further. But, at the same time, she couldn’t see Tomai interested in wasting his time to placate a noble of a country he didn’t even appear to live in anymore. And, well… she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t itching to get his insight into what she’d managed to do that day.

Staying in her spot, she tapped her chin for a moment, putting her thoughts in order. “Well, we were alone with the carriages,” she began. “Veronica went off into the forest for a moment, and while I was alone, those bandits approached on horseback.”

She paused a moment as a chill crept up her spine, the fear that struck her in those long approaching moments still fresh, even in memory. “When I realized they weren’t going to pass by, I hid in the weapons’ cart and tried to arm myself. They came closer, so I activated that wand Professor Michail gave me, creating the smoke.” She twined her fingers together, eager for a distraction. “I had a bow, and when they opened the cart, I shot one of them. I thought I got him, but I later learned that the arrow just glanced off his helmet. In the confusion, I jumped out of the cart and tried to distract them.”

“But the injured one found me first, and by then, my weapon was gone.” She swallowed. “He, uh— he grabbed me, so I stabbed him with the wand.” The last few words came out as a humourless chuckle, the image of a frail girl stabbing at a grown man with a stick ridiculous even to her. But as her thoughts turned to what happened next, the tint of distress that was creeping onto her face melted into an expression of pure concentration, her eyes focused in the distance, as if on the man she’d killed in the fog.

“I squirmed out of his grip and moved back. And since I didn’t have anything but the wand, I focused into it, and cast Blizzard.” Lienna waved her arm out before her, miming the motion she’d taken with the wand. “A rune flashed before me, and the spell resolved stronger than I’m used to. The area of effect must have been at least twice as large as normal.”

Her voice turned monotone, calculative. As if she were examining the evidence herself. “The other ones heard the commotion and approached; I hid, and made a run for the edge when I got the chance. I didn’t expect to get so lucky again, let alone take them all at once. And then, well,” she shrugged. “You know the rest.”

Tomai ended up listening intently, his eyebrows raising a few times, but he otherwise remained completely silent. Whether or not he was looking for something was unclear, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to say anything until Lienna finished. Once she did, however, he remained quiet for a second, thinking to himself as the two of them resumed walking.

Taking in a breath, he finally decided to respond. “So the reason your magic was greater than usual was because of that ‘rune’—which would be your Crest,” He started there. “It may have been an unconscious decision made under duress. Interesting...did you feel anything different? A surge of power, a chill, a change in your subconscious?”

Lienna furrowed her brow. “My Crest?” she repeated disbelievingly. Really? She’d lived with this thing her whole life; she was under the impression that she didn’t have any of those fancy superpowers some people seemed to have with them. Or was magnification of magic something all Crests could do?

She chewed her cheek in thought, but finally replied, “I suppose the magic felt more… willing. Like it jumped out of me rather than being pushed. I thought it was the wand, though; it felt like it was pulling energy from me when I used it for the fog.” She looked back up to Tomai incredulously. “Are you sure it couldn’t have been the wand? The rune wasn’t familiar to me. Or… I don’t know, maybe a little, like I might have seen it in one of those tomes of yours or something. But I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the Gautier symbol. Or is the rune that appears when that happens not necessarily the symbol we draw to denote a Crest?”

“The wand’s gem would have given you a small boost of magic, yes, but not to the magnitude that I saw when we returned,” He corrected her on that much first, albeit he was a touch confused on her second point. “If you have the Crest of Gautier, then that is the symbol that appears before you. Are you certain that you have said Crest?”

“Yes,” Lienna blurted out, almost laughing. “What other Crest would I get that deep in Gautier territory? Besides, with the rumours I heard about some of the Gautier men in history, it’s a wonder every peasant up there isn’t red-haired and promiscuous.” It was a crude joke, fine, but it got the point across. She would certainly hope it was the Crest of Gautier she had, seeing as she upended her whole life for—she held up a hand, remembering something. “Oh, and when I arranged my engagement with Count Francis, he had a priest from his territory confirm it with one of those machines the churches have—a Hanneman machine,” she corrected herself, recalling the Professor’s explanation at the start of classes. “Lots of people would falsely claim to have Crests to get the sort of deal I got, see.”

She twined her hands behind her back, getting back to the topic at hand with a thoughtful frown. “Why would a different symbol appear before me, then?” Hopefully there was some small detail they were overlooking—it would be embarrassing, to say the least, if it turned out she simply couldn’t recognize the symbol of her own Crest after all.

“If you have the Crest of Gautier, then the Crest of Gautier is what appears whenever your Crest is activated. That’s just basic Crestology,” he insisted. “Other Crests don’t appear on accident, this is the only consistent part of Crests that’s been confirmed for hundreds of years.”

“Then are you sure it was a Crest I saw?” Lienna shot back, crossing her arms. “What if it was just a rune? Runes appear when some spells are cast; maybe it was a remnant of the cloaking spell within the wand. Or maybe the combination of my Blizzard and whatever the fog spell was ended up casting something different entirely?”

Tomai leveled a flat look, coming to a stop. They had reached the long bridge, and he figured this was as good a spot as any. Looking around, he made sure there wouldn’t be anyone else walking towards them as he extended his hand. Several runes appeared in a magical circle, slowly gathering power; it was obvious that he was charging up the spell to specifically show off the circle to Lienna. He carelessly fired off the spell, turning back to her without looking at where it went.

“That is a runic circle—you can’t do anything with a single rune, you have to weave them together in order to create a spell,” He explained before closing his eyes. Holding up a finger, he concentrated hard, a flash of a Crest appearing before him before fading away. Opening his eyes, he opened his hand as he gathered a small amount of magic, the same Crest appearing in the center.

“And this is a Crest, same symbol that appeared before, and this is specifically the Crest of Lamine. There’s a clear distinction between the two,” He stated plainly.

Lienna peered carefully at Tomai’s demonstrations, but was no more moved in her evaluation. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t my Crest that appeared before me. And it wasn’t that one either, for the record.” She chewed her cheek, puzzling over the problem despite having none of the knowledge required to solve it. Could single runes “break” off of larger matrices and fly out with a particularly strong spell? Did that even make sense? She paced a little in place, trying to come up with something useful to suggest.

“And I know what the Crest of Gautier looks like, before you ask,” she added defensively. “It’s… it’s like— like a circle holding two lances, one up and one down.” She vaguely drew out the symbol in the air before her, and crossed her arms once more, clearly frustrated.

While he was willing to listen to her, it was clear that Tomai wasn’t swayed. “I’ll agree that that doesn’t sound like the Gautier Crest, but as I said, if you have that Crest, then that’s what showed up. Either that, or you were mistaken in the Crest you initially identified with,” He stated calmly.

“Shh!” Lienna hissed, quickly looking around the area for anyone who might overhear. She froze for a second, hands curled up to her chest like a panicking grandmother, before throwing them down and stepping closer to Tomai.

“I-I mean, please don’t go saying things like that like it’s nothing. Someone could hear,” she explained, her voice barely over a whisper. She felt a little foolish for spouting off like that, but it made the situation no less dire. Nonetheless, she straightened her posture, and did her best to wipe the sudden panic off her face.

“Listen, Professor. I’m sure it’s not surprising that my whole arrangement here hinges on me having a Crest,” she continued. “But Count Francis won’t just take in a peasant from Hima and send her to the best school in Fódlan for someone else’s Crest. You don’t understand, the Gautiers are the most Crest-intensive House in Faerghus. They disown their own children for it! And they don’t just need a Crest, they need their Crest, Gautier’s Crest, so they can secure a strong bloodline and wield the Lance of Ruin and—”

Lienna cut herself off when she noticed her voice was rising. She took a slow breath, bringing her hands down in front of her, and her tone of voice as well. “I don’t know what’s going on, but there must be some other explanation because I have the Minor Crest of Gautier, okay?”

“There really isn’t any other explanation,” He replied, albeit in a lower voice. “The study of Crestology has its rules laid out, there really aren’t any exceptions or rarities in the basics. While the study of the secondary abilities are still in question, never has there been a case where the actual Crest appears as another.”

Despite having said his piece, he figured there was another way to confirm. “But if you’re so certain, I have a Hanneman machine in my office. Let’s go ahead and confirm it for ourselves, shall we?”

Lienna shifted on her feet, glancing around the area once more. The logical part of her brain told her to drop the issue, let Tomai puzzle over it on his own, and pretend nothing ever happened. Something in her wondered if she’d put her hand over Tomai’s Hanneman machine and really see another Crest pop up, and thereby watch the life she’d so carefully built for herself go up in smoke. But that was impossible, right? She’d been tested on not one, but two Hanneman machines, and even if the dusty old one in Hima’s rundown church malfunctioned, surely the newer model Count Francis requested himself wouldn’t make the same mistake. Other Crests were all but unheard of in that area, and even if one managed to weasel in, the odds were overwhelmingly in Fraldarius’ favour. It would be foolish to even agree, and let whoever was watching her witness that tiny sliver of doubt in the Count’s contract.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t those logical voices that won out, but the burning curiosity behind them. She drew a shaky breath, but nodded. “Alright.”

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Achronum

The time after the giant fell crawled slowly. Fueled by the adrenaline and indignation of battle, Jorah’s first instinct was to march over to Kayden and punch him in the jaw for his tomfoolery on the backlines; fortunately for both of them, Euphemia tore him away before he got the chance, leaving him fuming in the saddle of a horse, rounding up carriages. But too soon the anger faded, and in crept… no. It wasn’t as gentle as creeping. As soon as the last red haze of battle cleared away, it was like Jorah was thrown into an icy lake, submerged and drowning in the heart-rending grief and sorrow of a village destroyed. People crying out over burning homes, livelihoods ruined, and loved ones taken too soon, or worse, those who stayed like statues as they steeped in hopeless grief—so tightly did the icy fingers of abject sorrow grip his chest, it was a miracle Jorah could draw breath at all.

The eventual trip back to Garreg Mach was no better. The desperate cries of upended souls might have been muffled in the shelter of a separate carriage, but they weren’t gone—and that was to say nothing of the somber mood inside the carriages themselves. Happening upon a gruesome garden of impaled bandits back at the caravan did nobody any good either, and for the first time, Jorah spent a carriage ride in silence. There were no songs, no off-colour jokes to lighten the mood, not even a hushed conversation with Clarissa; hells, in the hours they rocked and reeled back to the mountains, it was all he could do to keep his lips from quivering.

He thought—and hoped—that things would get better when they got back. With the displaced villagers dispersed around the monastery instead of all clumped together, Jorah thought their grief would lose its volume, and he could find refuge in some distant corner of the Monastery (or better yet, a seat in an alehouse in the attached village), to cleanse their sadness from his mind. It was borrowed, after all; their plight was tragic, but he’d lost nothing in the blaze—though not for Kayden’s lack of trying. But it was no use. Even in the midst of evening merriment at a nearby tavern, regaling war stories to a pretty girl on his knee, the drunken happiness of others couldn’t quite permeate his gloom. His mind was stuck in a deep, dark rut, and if drink and songs couldn’t get him out of it, he wasn’t sure what could.

An after-class meeting was just as well; the sleepy auras of bored classmates were a better alternative to steeping in cold gloom somewhere else on Monastery grounds, and Jorah had little energy for troublemaking. But he wasn’t exactly the most attentive student. He vaguely heard Michail’s tepid admonishment of Kayden’s recklessness—and his baffling recognition of him of all people—but it was far away. He didn’t even think to joke about the impending doom of the Alliance if Duke Riegan heard his son was being leaderly. He barely heard Clarissa get the recognition she deserved.

The thing that had his attention instead was the scab on his cheek, where that one bandit’s arrow had grazed him. That was what his thoughts always seemed to wander back to, and his fingers as well; whenever he caught himself brooding, he always found himself touching that mark, running his fingertips over the rough line that miraculously wasn’t a hole through his neck. Kaira had offered to finish healing it, and Clarissa after her, but he’d refused both times. “Ladies love battle scars” was his excuse but in truth, he wasn’t sure why he kept it. Maybe it would make good proof to his father that Jorah von Riegan wasn’t fit for leadership; maybe it was just a reminder that he escaped death by luck and the grace of the Goddess alone.

Yeah, some leader. And now Michail had “high expectations” of him. What a joke. It was a miracle that whoever was dumb enough to put him in charge didn’t have Golden Deer blood on their hands.

Jorah was bitter by the time the meeting drew to a close, shooting the new boy a harsher look than he meant—once he managed to find the kid, anyway. Cethleann’s tits, this one looked even more a mess than Kevin. It would be a wonder if Kayden didn’t trample him underfoot by accident, boar that he was.

Before Jorah’s mind could descend back into the spiteful depths he’d been swimming since Luin, Clarissa’s voice pulled him back to the surface, proposing an afternoon ride. He had to grin; just like Delia, Clarissa always seemed to know what he needed, even when he didn’t. A somber thought crossed his mind that he’d miss her when he was gone, but that was a conversation for later.

“Yeah, of course. That sounds good,” he agreed clumsily, feigning his usual, carefree self. Probably to no avail; Clarissa always saw right through him. “I’ll swipe some dinner from the dining hall and meet you at the stables later.”

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Hero

As hostile footfalls drew near, Lienna bit down hard on her lip, working hard to keep the curses inside her body lest she reveal herself too soon. With nowhere to go and the bandits closing in around her, she slipped underneath the carriage itself, lying prone and watching through the wheel spokes as the feet of bandits became visible through the fog. She held her breath as she watched them, three sets of feet shuffling blindly around until they found each other, exchanging words and curses alike as they searched for their fourth comrade.

Three, Lienna repeated in her head, already creeping to the opposite side of the carriage. But her eyes were locked on the bandits, whose legs faded into barely distinguishable dark spots as they receded into the fog. Moving towards… shit.

“Goddess be good, what is that?!”

“Cethleann’s tits, it’s a monster!”

Shit! Lienna cursed herself, inching faster to the other side of the damnably wide carriage. She hadn’t considered what would happen when they found their comrade’s body—she hadn’t thought anything at all aside from how to escape with her life! And now she didn’t have the luxury of being underestimated; then again, the terrified whimpering she heard a short distance away must mean something. Maybe if they were scared of her, they’d cut their losses and leave the caravan.

A sharp smack rang out through the fog, and the whimpering ceased abruptly. “Don’t be an idiot,” a rough voice reprimanded, “it’s not a monster, it’s magic. Remember? Like the boss uses? That girl is just a mage.”

“But shouldn’t we—”

There was a rustle and some clinking of metal. “If you’re about to suggest we turn tail and run, I will kill you myself,” the rough voice warned. There was another rustle, and then the thump of something heavy falling down. “Use your brain for once. If the boss hears we found a mage like that and didn’t bring her back, we’re as good as fried.”

Panic gripped her at that, and Lienna was done listening. An awful, awful feeling stirred inside her, screaming at her with disturbing familiarity to get as far away as possible. She didn’t waste any more time: while the bandits discussed, she shimmied out from under the carriage and broke into a sprint straight out from the caravan. She’d find the edge of the fog cloud and keep going and… and… well, she didn’t care how she did it, but she’d get away somehow. Maybe break into the trees or jump into the river, it didn’t matter.

She just ran, footsteps thundering much too loudly in the grass.

She could already hear the bandits start to shout and move as she saw the light of day begin to penetrate the fog, and she burst out of the cloud like a woman possessed, searching frantically for cover. The forest was ahead of her, and—Veronica?!

Lienna skidded to a halt in front of the brunette, only narrowly avoiding bowling her over. “What the hell are you doing?!”

The brunette threw a scowl Lienna's way, crossing her arms. "Looking for you, what else?" Her response was oddly calm. "Either the carriages have given you trouble or something is afoot, I thought I would give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the latter."

Lienna didn’t really hear Veronica’s words, her mind racing as she looked frantically between the princess and the shouts inside the fog. As the silhouettes of bandits began to distinguish themselves from the mist, she made a snap decision, grabbing Veronica roughly by the arm and throwing her, with all her might, towards the fog.

Veronica yelped as she was thrown, stumbling forward and disappearing into the mist. The dark splotches of bandits converged on her immediately, and Lienna watched with hard eyes as the silhouettes moved, raising her wand when she heard the sounds of struggle.

“Freeze!” she shouted, thrusting the wand forward. The same unfamiliar symbol flashed before her, and a powerful burst of magic sprang forth again, icicles stabbing up from the ground and racing through the fog. There was a short chorus of yelping, and the disturbingly wet sounds of flesh pierced by ice. Then all she could hear was her heart in her ears.