The Otter

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

Even without having a clear view of her face, it was remarkable just how expressive Ciradyl could manage to be; the voice was obvious enough, but her mood was remarkably easy to discern as it shifted back and forth from the body language that accompanied it. Squirming under the combined gaze of all the rest, shifting back and forth–locking up like she'd been struck as soon as Hien's entrance became obvious, and, slowly, relaxing as first Esben and the others all spoke in turn.

"You see?" he whispered as Rudolf began to speak, leaning back over her shoulder once more. "Most of us are too familiar with this way of doing things to hold too much of that against you." He fell silent again as a flash of light caught his eye, reflected off of Rudolf's knife...as the swordsman observed his own reflection in it for a moment. Hmm...

He turned back away from the rest, leaving Miina to give her comfort to Ciradyl, heedless of Eve having moved up next to him except to continue keeping any important information on the papers out of her sight, and pulled his buckler back off of his belt. While the outside had long since lost its polish through use, the reverse, especially beneath his grip, still maintained its mirror finish. He set the papers face-down in his lap, held the buckler just so...

Brought up a free hand, shaking soot and who-knew-what-else out of his hair as best he could. The dust and grime showed just as clearly in his blond locks as in Rudolf's stark white; he'd expected it on all his clothes, certainly, though despite his own relative lack of involvement in the fighting proper–and the amount of time he'd spent with his hood completely up to block the tell-tale shine of his hair–it seemed it had gotten all over.

Well, at least Ciradyl was well coated in Mizutani's blood, so he wasn't terribly worried about that. Galahad was busy pointing out what none of the rest of them had, yet, as well, and with everything else he doubted that she'd even noticed; if anything, she was likely more concerned with how much any of the rest may speak up in regards to the astoundingly poor decision to try using them all as a distraction rather than actually trying to work alongside them.

Still, though...

"Eve?" He hung his head forward a bit, turning so that the girl could get a look at the back of his head. "Not too messy in the back, am I?"

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

Esben turned, glancing at Ciradyl as she confirmed what Mizutani claimed...and offered no further words to explain herself. Arton's outburst went almost immediately ignored—even if he didn't listen to Izayoi, the others would be enough to contain him—as he pulled out a few of the papers he'd been reading, holding them back over his shoulder towards Izayoi, who read them over quickly and came to what sounded like much the same conclusion he had.

"She still feels guilty about it all, why else?" he replied in response to Izayoi and Hien's questioning. "A popular musician turned rebel leader, forced to make all the sorts of decisions that one of you learned to later and the other has been raised from birth to make? It can't be an easy thing."

He held up the rest of the papers in his hand over his and Ciradyl's shoulders. "Certainly not having to work with someone like Mizutani Tane to get the work done, but that's beside the point. General Hakamichi was one of the first to perish in Valheim's invasion, but his lieutenant, Mikado, managed to avoid immediate death. Neither one was particularly known for military prowess, even as far south as Skael, but Mikado started gathering together whoever he could with the goal of making another push against Valheim or dying in the attempt. A waste of lives, much like Izayoi described her own presumed last battle. Better to siphon away those who weren't fanatics and let the others waste themselves, it was early enough to expect such as Valheim was cementing their rule.

"Or one of the provincial governors, Ikezawa, who had been one of those during the war with Edren calling on the common people to be ready to take up arms and fight to the last, fostering fear and rage in equal measure, and primed to do just the same as Valheim came to her door. She'd sooner scorch the earth and wipe her people out than swallow her pride and fight for the future. Better to have her poisoned and claim what resources could be recovered before she committed everybody she had to a pointless death. Ibarazaki and Tezuka, both known for their rivalries during the war with Edren, who were attempting to each play Valheim against the other while trying to consolidate their own power bases...and were sacrificing villages' worth of innocents to do so. Drug them, kidnap them, and hand deliver them to Valheim while rescuing those who could prove actually useful to the cause, and let the rest run into hiding or waste themselves in singular efforts as they saw fit. General Satou—"

"That one shirked his duty to the Emperor and the nation during the war," Izayoi cut in, disdain evident in her tone. "I do not recall him commanding in the field." Esben nodded once, before continuing, almost certain he'd be interrupted again, "And his lieutenants, Setou, Mutou, Nakai, and Shirakawa—"

"Useless city samurai, the lot of them. Unworthy to command, much less fight." Esben was almost certain he'd caught the hint of a nod from Hien at that interruption, as Izayoi's disdain passed into outright derision. "Ja. All five had seen fit to declare themselves rulers all their own, attempting to carve out their own little fiefdom where Valheim's rule was weakest. Certainly, the citizens of the area welcomed local rule, but they didn't know what they were going to be dragged into had such ill-formed plans been given any time to come to fruition. If such ill-formed rebellions as those were left to proceed as they would, then Valheim's shackles might instead have been a noose on the populace." He tapped Ciradyl on the head with the papers in his hand, turning slightly to look at the rest over her shoulder.

"Instead, a certain singer who was known to the general managed to gather information on his and his lieutenants' troop movements when they had yet to drag too many others into their insanity, and leak that intelligence to the new governors at a party hosted by a local, ah, businesswoman. It all comes together quite nicely, and there are names of others in here who are working other jobs in this safehouse right now, or out hunting down other scraps of information and gathering up as many useful people as possible, and it all allowed Ciradyl to ingratiate herself enough with the occupiers to guarantee a measure of safety for all of those to operate within...or to learn Hien's fate and work to avert it."

Of course, there was more than just that all that Esben had been able to piece together from the details in Mizutani's papers, though he figured that should be enough to illustrate it for the rest. Mizutani had thought much of it came down to her benefit, with enough of those that were rescued from a sure death in other ill-advised resistances set to work as moles within the crime lord's own network. It was a well-orchestrated plan, not without its own hiccups, but completed well enough to ensure that someone with the actual skillset and understanding to see it through to the end could take the helm.

"Now, Valheim contents itself with harsh taxation, strict curfews, and occasionally making an example out of criminals not normally severe enough to warrant the effort. Stricter now after what we've done, of course, but that couldn't be helped. Under the guise of a collaborator and with the help of those she pulled around her who did know this world before the occupation, she managed to keep the citizenry relatively safe, and secure one of the rare leaders left in this country who understands the politics as well as the battle. I have little doubt that any of those I just mentioned would have left Hien to die for nothing more than their own egos, not for any worthwhile reason. Any others in these pages that might have attempted a rescue were likely too incompetent to meet with any success in the effort or to try and use the death to their advantage when they inevitably failed. Their records in the war with Edren suggest as much."

He glanced to Izayoi, who nodded back, having spied some of those others the same as he had. Of course, her views on the competence of those already mentioned were much the same; even as useful as some of them may have been in war proper, they weren't built for the sort of work that a resistance required. Neither was Ciradyl, if he had to guess. "Regardless, though, that's quite a bit to have weighing on the conscience for someone who didn't already have years of preparation for making these sorts of choices. As easy as it might be to understand, logically, why Chisaki's occupation exists and that most of the nobility don't have anywhere near the virtue their titles imply, it's another thing entirely to have to dive head first into that world. Most people aren't cut out for it, and usually castigate themselves over it quite a bit." His eyes narrowed looking down at the paper on the top of his now-truncated stack, before he let out a short laugh of appreciation.

"Ah, planting evidence against some of the local nobility who were actual collaborators, ensuring that Valheim removed them for you? That had to be Chisaki's plan, yes? Old trick. Always love it."

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Callum's about to advocate for isolationist foreign policy and closing the borders

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

---

"Would I ask you if I wasn't certain?"

Given everything that he could see was about to happen, it was best to keep the girl away from the mess happening with Mizutani, lest her willingness to work with the group be rapidly diminished. Certainly, she knew that the plan was to kill the crime lord and gather up her head...but such things were rarely so simple, and the sound of the altercation behind him only made that point more obvious. It had the added benefit of keeping her out of the way herself, in a situation that was full of chances for things to go even more wrong than was already bound to occur.

"Come on, then, we'll have to be quick about it!"

A rapid search of the building—except for where the combustion and its destruction proved enough of an obstruction that they couldn't get past—led them quickly down into the basement, and Mizutani Tane's personal office. The documents on and in the desk were swept up rapidly, Esben not giving Robin a chance to see anything more than that they existed, folded and slipped into a pocket on the inside of his cloak, before he turned back to the more obvious valuables strewn throughout the room, grabbing at the goods at random and slipping them into all his other pockets. "Well, now, what to do with all of this? I may get Arton to come down this way and help carry some more of it out. Make sure to grab as much as you can, ja?"

---

On his way back up the mansion to reconvene with the others, he'd had a few moments to scan the records that Mizutani had kept by the now-abundant firelight. Business records, mostly, both legitimate and not; but there was a wealth of other information present. Missives from Valheimer officials, more personal dealings, various reports, even a few pages that were written almost as though they were meant to be for a journal than for records such as these. All together, they painted a fairly clear picture of everything that Mizutani had been involved with, including with the occupiers—and implicated Ciradyl in a large portion of it.

Obviously, she'd had something to hide; now it was obvious what.

Once they'd re-entered the safehouse he was able to start delving deeper into them, tracking down more names. Valheimer officials, other local criminals of some repute, rebel leaders and personnel of other cells that were either given up to the occupiers or otherwise rendered unworthy of note...some names that he could recognize, both from news and study of the recent wars and from far more recent events than that. Unsurprisingly, however, the rest wouldn't allow him any time to piece the rest of it together for them before deciding it was time to interrogate Ciradyl over it.

Ah, well. It can't be helped.

As everybody more or less resumed their spaces from earlier meetings in the same room, with noticeable space between them and the Faye that had drawn their scrutiny, Esben broke from the pack. His cushion was kicked over past Ciradyl's, where he sat down, his back against her own as he stretched his legs out and used her to balance against. He lazily flipped through the sheaf of papers he had back to where he'd last been reading, though not without leaning his head back over Ciradyl's shoulder and whispering in a low tone:

"Be honest, would you? Otherwise we'll have a much harder time dealing with all this than we ought."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Fionn MacKerracher

---

Well, it had been a little while since he'd heard that irate voice. He'd almost begun to wonder if he would again, though just as he was about to fall asleep, she managed to answer that wonder and start dragging him back to wakefulness again. It was a shame; Tyaethe did have a nice singing voice...not that she was likely to sing again after that.

Fiadh seemed to be pouting about it too.

"Gertrude," he called up towards the top of the tree. She wasn't very much higher than them, with how low to the ground the trunk had split 'top' was a bit of an arbitrary distinction anyways, but he could see the silhouette of her body against the moonlight as he reopened his eyes. "Why don't you come on down? It's bound to be more comfortable and we can help you find an actual room if you'd like."

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

The 'Protection Against Mental Affliction' fad is over, 'Cross-Continental Instantaneous Travel' is all the rage nowadays.

@Izurich

"Man. It's way too hard to keep up with all of this stuff."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Fionn MacKerracher and Tyaethe Radistirin

---

It was strange to think that there had been such a major improvement in the order’s combat strength in such a startlingly brief period of time. Oh, sure, part of it was simply being handed another pure mage when they’d been having to manage without any sort of heavy magical presence for so long… but more importantly, a small but significant number of their members had immediately been provided sufficient training to hold equal to most of their senior peers.

It was something that Tyaethe could tell was going to cause a bit of a divide going forward. What criteria had Merilia used to pick who would or would not benefit from the opportunity? Why didn’t she pick everyone? Oh, and of course, there was a risk that one or two of the seniors might be offended that their skills earned over the years had been equalled almost overnight.

The complainers could deal with it, in her opinion. Lilianna was probably the only prodigy amongst the current active knights… if this opportunity would let some of them really hit their potential in the near future, that was great. They were mostly younger than her or her peers had been back when the Iron Roses were new, there was time.

And if you’d missed that chance, maybe you should reflect on your own performance.

Still, it seemed that they remained mostly grounded… that was a shame, in her opinion. Maybe it was just the bias from being always so exposed to magic; the notion that the body had no real limit came quite easily.

Or maybe Merilia just hadn’t let such things truly develop? Hard to say.

Speaking of… riiiight, she could see one of them now. Which was, given the time of night, somewhat less than ideal as she was looking outside. Maybe she could take the glasses off and pretend she hadn’t noticed… no, she should probably go do something, it might be warm out there, but trees weren’t the best things to sleep on.

Which was why Fionn was woken by a tiny finger poking him in the cheek. “Oi. Get up, this isn’t a bed.”

Fionn stirred slightly at the poking. His eyes cracked open slightly, catching the dark sky up above through the limbs of the tree that he’d fallen asleep in, stars twinkling between the leaves. He closed his eyes again, despite the small hand insistently poking at his face.

”Why are you poking me for help? It’s not a hard climb, like,” he muttered, not yet fully awake. Certainly, for anyone capable of getting up and walking on their own two feet, he was correct; the tree he was in had long since forked and split very low to the ground, growing out almost more like a large woody shrub than whatever tree it was meant to be.

Of course, over the last few days, two of its limbs had altered their course somewhat, not to mention that fresh branches from it and vines from some other plant in the garden had woven themselves together between the limbs to make a little cot a short ways over the ground.

Fionn reached over with one hand, grabbing at the wrist of the small hand that was trying to awaken him. ”Honestly, Fiadh, this is a new level of laziness...” And he lifted the girl it belonged to, flinging her up and over the edge of the branches and himself, planting Tyaethe right in the middle of the raised mat with one arm draped over her...

Right between himself and the Niyar he’d just named, whereupon he promptly settled down to try and get back fully to sleep.

”Oh, hello! Fionn has been so insistent that the knights aren’t like this, but it seems he was wrong. Or lying. I hope he wasn’t lying, that’s very naughty.” It seemed that the fairy was awake. Or had never fallen asleep in the first place? Tyaethe wasn’t sure, the habits of fairies were hardly her specialty.

“No! I was trying to wake this one up because people don’t normally sleep in the garden!”

For instance, if it started raining, that was still a good way to get a cold or something,

”How odd, it’s a very nice little garden. The tree needed barely any work at all.”

“People are generally more comfortable in beds.” Although, she had to admit this little bower thing wasn’t the worst. It was actually quite an enjoyable place to sleep… although she’d never admit to Fionn that he made for a relatively comfortable pillow too.

Speaking of, she’d really like to get back inside even if he was happy sleeping out here with the fairy… which would probably protect him against getting wet or the like anyway.

So she elbowed him. As hard as she could without magically boosting her strength, at least—so, not that hard.

”Bloody—”

He’d been moments away from slipping away completely, only to be rudely brought back to the edge of wakefulness by an even more forceful attempt to wake him up. He opened his eyes to glare over at the one he was sharing the woven bed with, wondering just what her issue was on such a comfortable night—

Saw the green-tinged face of the Niyar, smiling at him briefly before looking back down at whoever was between them.

Wait. Between? That’s not supposed to happen.

He glanced down further, taking in the bright white hair gleaming in the moonlight, the small form—smaller even than Fiadh’s—nestled between himself and the fairy girl.

Fionn blinked twice, trying to catch up with whatever must have happened to lead to this scenario...and noticed the elbow, cocked and ready to dig into his ribs again, that meant he had to think fast. ”Tyaethe?”

She seemed irritated about something.

He rolled over onto his back, pushing himself up into a seating position on the springy nest-bed he’d been, up until very recently, so comfortably resting in. She wasn’t the only one who got to be a little irritated at the whole situation, he decided. ”It’s a bit late to go raiding the kitchens, don’t you think, Shorty?”

“Don’t go calling me that!” the vampire shot back, crawling up to a seated position of her own. “You aren’t even that big anyway!”

No matter how accurate it was.

Pouting, she seemed to have forgotten why she had come out for a minute, just sitting there glowering at Fionn until she noticed a tugging at her hair and gave a confused look at the fairy instead.

”It’s so long and pretty! I want to braid it. Can I? Pleaaaaaase?”

“Um… sure…”

”You realise you’ve just agreed to sit there for...probably the next hour or so while she plays with your hair.”

“It’s not like I have anything else to do tonight.” Sure enough, the fairy was already starting to comb her fingers through the white strands, an eager gleam in her eyes. “I only came out because I thought you were going to get sore or something sleeping on a tree trunk…”

”...Then why’d you climb into this yourself?” Fionn asked, brow furrowed in confusion. ”I don’t see how that keeps me from getting sore, like.”

“I poked you and you pulled me up here!” The offended pout was back.

Fionn blinked again. ”That was you?” That at least made more sense than Fiadh being exceptionally lazy, he had to admit. ”Well, I appreciate the concern, at least. Even if it does leave me a bit curious wondering what’s got you actually looking around enough to notice rather than reading a book or...whatever else you do when you’re still awake in the middle of the night.”

“I… just looked out the window?” Well, she had been thinking about maybe practising the written form of the rabbit-swordsman’s language, hence the glasses that she was wearing and how she had seen, but it wasn’t as if it was a particularly challenging thing to spot. “I was going to practise Akitsushiman when I noticed.”

”That’s beside the point.” Fionn’s eyes narrowed down at Tyaethe, as Fiadh continued happily...combing through the girl’s hair. It seemed like she hadn’t even gotten it all separated out enough to start braiding yet. ”Normally I’d expect, if someone got sore or sick, you’d tell them to either get over it if it was minor or to quit complaining if it was their fault it happened, not proactively try to make them not. Something on your mind that me being out here was more interesting than learning a new language?”

“What do you take me for? I’m not going to be mean about things like that…” Tyaethe actually seemed a bit hurt about the accusation. Well… it wasn’t Fionn’s fault that illness was still a bit of a sore point for her, even after two hundred years and change of vampirism. “I do care about my comrades’ well-being.”

Fionn placed his head in one hand, rubbing at his still-bleary eyes with a long-suffering sigh. ”Not mean, just blunt. There’s a difference, especially if you’re rightfully pointing out when it’s the person’s own fault, something I doubt you’d have too much trouble doing, especially if they managed to annoy you enough about it.”

She certainly hadn’t ever shown too much trouble being blunt about nearly any other topic with the rest of the knights, after all.

”Careful when you pout and whine like that, the accent gets even more noticeable than usual.” Or at least it seemed so to him. Had any of the others ever noticed, they’d never mentioned it where he could hear, but she didn’t seem to hide it near as much as Cyrus had implied.

One disadvantage of being so pale was that it was impossible to hide a blush, and even in the dim light of the moon, Tyaethe had lit up amazingly. “I d-do not have an accent!”

Of course, now she had overcorrected in the exact opposite direction, the enunciation too precise, as if she was preparing to give a speech.

”You don’t? But how are you speaking, then?” The fairy added unhelpfully, having finally started on separating the hair out into the necessary strands.

”You stutter?”

Fionn had latched onto an entirely different part of that exchange than Fiadh had, apparently. ”See, when you do that voice it starts sounding fake. ‘We’re teaching you to talk like this so that you don’t embarrass us’ like.” Although, if he thought about it a bit more...that exact outlook internalised so young would probably be the exact explanation why she didn’t like to let people notice her normal accent.

”Is that why you have to get drunk before you’ll sing?”

Honestly, if Tyaethe grew any redder, she’d be in danger of combusting. Possibly literally, given the abundance of mana that she had at any time. A strangled noise also wasn’t much of a comeback… nor was the stuttered denial that she’d sing at any time thank you very much, she just didn’t feel like it and it would be rude to sing at night so don’t you dare ask for proof otherwise they might wake somebody up.

With Fionn continuing to stare, Tyaethe squirmed, pinned in place by the fairy happily starting to braid behind her. “A-anyway, how would you even think that? I know I haven’t sung the entire time you’ve been here!”

Well, he knew he couldn’t answer this one entirely accurately; to do so would fly completely in the face of the geas that Merilia had put on him, and given how she had described things, would probably be a source of distress for Tyaethe more than it could be anything positive. But there weren’t many ways around a question like that either, given that none of the living knights with more tenure than him had said anything to the effect of Tyaethe’s singing...if they even knew.

Fionn shrugged. ”Oh, someone in the know told me.” Truthful enough, and over the last few days she’d already heard enough ‘blame Merilia’ justifications for all sorts of things that she may manage to add that phrase in herself. ”Also helped out with a bit more explanation of why you’re so abnormally short. Was your mother actually on the taller side?”

“Uh…” the question left a flummoxed expression on the vampire’s face, which was at least a step up from the blushing. “I… think so? I remember she was taller than daddy was, and I guess she seemed huge, but I don’t know how much of that was because I was even smaller. That was… a long time ago, though.”

Quite why the topic had changed from—presumably—Merilia spreading all the embarrassing stories that she could to the height of her mother was lost on her. It wasn’t even like that seemed connected, why would the height of her mother matter for… anything? How did that possibly come up under any situation…

Fionn raised an eyebrow at Tyaethe’s particular diction, slipping back towards her natural accent...and sounding like the little girl she always looked like even more than usual.

And rapidly, he decided it was probably best not to comment on that. ”Well, I knew you’d already taken a liking to me, but I didn’t realize it would be this easy to keep you talking,” he observed after a moment. ”Of course, it’s not like you’re busy tasting my blood for magic or worrying that I’ll get myself killed by a giant boar right now, I’m sure that helps.” He looked up, catching the top of Fiadh’s head just over Tyaethe’s own.

There were a few other questions that would need settled, somewhat rapidly.

”Fiadh, you ever know another Niyar named Aisling? Back in the days when it was still all one big forest up north. Think she mostly hangs around with the elves and Hundi, though, so probably further east than where we’re from.” He looked back to Tyaethe. ”That question goes for you, too, although I imagine the answer there is just ‘no.’ Think this garden could hold two of them for a few days?”

Tyaethe’s muttered “I don’t mind talking to people I like” was instead drowned out by Fiadh’s answer: ”Oh, no, that’s not a name that I recognise. You aren’t cheating on me, are you, darling? I don’t mind if you ask first, you know~”

“Why would I know any fairies…? Or know how much space they need? As long as the garden doesn’t turn into a forest in the courtyard…”

”But it would be so pretty.”

”...Right. Bit unfortunate that she’s a complete unknown, I suppose, but that’s fine.” Distinctly not fine was Fiadh’s initial thought. ”No, I’m not cheating on you, she tried to make me fall off a cliff to my death. Ended up fairly friendly after that, though, which is why I invited her over.”

He glanced back at Tyaethe, who seemed very intent on him backing up what she said, judging by the look she was giving him.

”And yes, let’s not try to turn the garden into a forest. Better to keep it as a more normal garden...at least for now.”

“... How do you befriend someone sending you falling down a cliff? Wait, don’t answer that,” Tyaethe said, backtracking immediately. It promised to be completely absurd no matter how you sliced it. “And not for now, this is the courtyard of a knightly order, it is not a suitable place for a forest!”

She could almost feel the pouting coming from the fairy behind her. Although, Fionn would see that disappear almost immediately as she happily continued her braiding work.

”A miniature orchard, maybe. Fiadh’s very good with trees, after all, she could keep all sorts of fruit trees alive in here...or maybe cinnamon!”

“I like the trees as they are, don’t go changing them! We don’t need to make our own spices too. Maybe stick to something easier replaced, like the flowers. Something pleasant-smelling.”

”Fruit trees have pleasant-smelling flowers, and you could keep them fairly small while still producing, couldn’t you, Fiadh?” The continued line of inquiry may end up getting him in a bit of trouble, but it was too fun to keep prodding at Tyaethe, especially after she’d woken him up. ”What about...one time you were telling me how you could make one tree make different fruits, aye?”

He’d never much been able to follow the explanation Fiadh had given him. Something about grafting, which he did understand, but instead of grafting the same plant to a different root, it was about grafting closely-related plants to each other. Somehow she’d figured out how to make it work. Had one tree in her own personal garden that made forty different sorts of stone fruits...

”Think you could do that with, like, citruses and such too?”

“One tree. And ask the captain first, it’s not like I’m in charge here…” Even if she did have a copy of the keys by dint of being the one who’d gotten all the locks installed in the first place, especially on the display cases.

Given how easily she could be swayed, that was probably for the best.

”Just citrus? That sounds so dull... but it is nice and warm down here… maybe if someone could bring me the fruit as samples? I can find the trees myself after~”

“There’s a pretty nice variety of orange they grow in Etrial.I wonder if I could make a trip and bring one back… it’s amazingly sweet. And red, that’s odd.”

Tyaethe seemed interested enough in the idea that Fionn was growing a bit more confident about pushing the limits just a bit further. ”Three trees,” he countered. ”One for citrus, one for stone fruits, one for...apples, pears, quinces, medlar, those sorts of things. What do they call all of them in Ithillin? Pomes? One for all the pomes.”

He held up a hand almost instantly to forestall any complaints from Tyaethe, completely prepared to keep talking over her if she started up anyways. ”Should be able to keep them from getting too large, aye? And if you plant them in the right space, we could make another big hammock between the three of them. Nice amount of shade from the sun, should give Tyaethe a good spot to come and sit other than always being in the window, aye?”

“Pommes is just apple, I think that usage was borrowed by Velt…” Tyaethe answered, “Anyway, while all the fruit sounds nice... it’s up to the captain, not me.”

”That shouldn’t be too difficult. She’s pretty easy to get to agree to things like this, even if I might need to get Gertrude to help throw her off her game enough that she’ll agree...”

He looked back down at Tyaethe, with her half-braided hair. ”Are you absolutely sure you didn’t have something you wanted to talk about other than making sure I wasn’t going to freeze? I’d hate for you to have to come wake me up again once you remember.”

“Why would I have to have some ulterior motive? If I had anything to say about training or the order, it could wait until morning, and you’re all doing well enough on your own,” the small vampire was back to ‘grumpy’, “I’m quite used to being awake when everyone else is sleeping—”

”I’m not!”

“Yes, well, as I said, I am, and I know how to not wake people up and when not to. I only came out because I was concerned… and that seems to be fine. It’s not like I’m demanding you stay awake now.”

Although, sleeping when the fairy was now humming away as she continued to braid might be difficult. Also when there was a vampire sat in your bed.

Fionn nodded, and, utterly heedless of Tyaethe’s presence or Fiadh’s humming, slid forward so that he had the space to lay down fully again. ”If you’re satisfied, I suppose,” he replied. Before thinking for a moment, trying to work out how best to phrase something in his head...

”Ah, but I do need to say, most everybody’s glad to know you’re doing well and that you’ve managed to make at least one friend. Told me to tell you hi if I could. Oh, and we’ve got to go hunting again, there’s a record to beat. About two more feet at the shoulder, I reckon...”

“Right…” Well, that was… cryptic. She was pretty sure that most people didn’t care about her personal life in any regard, or often recognise that she might in fact have one. It came with the territory of being both undead and a famous figure that spent most of her time doing a furniture impression.

She was absolutely sure that nobody would have instructed Fionn to say hi to her. After all, they could just do it themselves. And she wouldn’t bite without asking.

Nor did she have any idea why Fionn was going on about some record for hunting boar, although he wasn’t entirely wrong—she had hunted one about that size, right?

Well, it would give her something to think about while her hair was braided. Even if she didn’t think her odds were looking particularly good, there.

”Wonder if the two of you know any of the same songs,” Fionn mused as Tyaethe fell silent, before a fresh grin came across his face. ”Sing me to sleep, repayment for waking me so meanly?”

Once again, Tyaethe’s face lit up, and there was a strangled noise of protest. Eugh… maybe she could still remember a lullaby? They would all be in Ithillane, so that ought to avoid any accusations on the accent front.

It still took her a good few minutes to work up to starting.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

it's fighting everywhere right now

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Esben Mathiassen

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@VitaVitaAR

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He had almost been looking forward to a fight with Tane's most skilled guards, although between the gun fire he heard down the stairs, Galahad's sudden arrival, and both the final guard and the crime lord's attention being immediately drawn to Izayoi on her arrival before she cut the last one down, there wasn't anybody present for him to actually fight. With his and Galahad's own words going unacknowledged—and the chance he'd though to give Ciradyl going untaken with the sudden flurry of activity—he sheathed his sword once more, choosing instead to observe the walls in this corner of the room.

Artwork; some stolen, undoubtedly, and probably the better pieces. Those that he figured were actually bought legitimately...he could only assume that there was a link between the sort of mind that appreciated such pieces and chose to become a crime lord for an occupation. Unfortunately, other than its occupants, the only things of note in the room were decorations and fresh corpses.

He had a sinking feeling that any sort of office or the like, containing any of the documents he might have liked to get his hands on, were further below. Hopefully not among the destruction that would have been wrought by Eve and Éliane; regardless, there wasn't much time left to try and find such. The other part of his goal had been entirely derailed by their target not being quite where he'd expected, their path forward blocked until the rest of the team caught up to them after all.

As Miina finished with her questions, he turned back to the farcical hostage situation playing out in the middle of the group. Given the utter dismantling of all of her defenses, it seemed that lady Mizutani Tane was starting to deteriorate before their eyes. "I rather think you're about to be hers," he observed, just loud enough that the panicking crime lord could likely hear...and just ambiguous enough given all the people in play that she'd probably be more confused by the statement than tipped off as to what was really about to happen.

He turned back around, descending the stairs quickly—one hand latching onto the collar of another of the group as he did.

"I think they've got things handled well enough up there. Want to help me hunt something else down back on the lower floors, Robin?"

Arpeggio of Blue Steel: The Phantom Fleet (OPEN)

wait you mean anime/manga is an art style and not a way to say "vaguely east asian" without sounding racist?