LECLERC.

“Thank you…” Larcei went over to the gravestones, and placed the bouquet on one of them. She considered distributing them equally between the three, but thought that’d look messy, instead just taking a single flower to place on each the other two. Standing back up, she lingered in front of them for a moment, not turning to face the boy. “I don’t know if it’s that interesting…” She said quietly, not even sure if the other could hear. She took a deep breath. 

Louder now, she began to talk. “I was too young to remember him… or my mother for that matter… not that-” She paused, not wanting to get into it right now. “Just, everything I’ve heard about them is from the people that raised me… my father was just a simple knight. Not the smartest, but he was kind, and good with kids… from what I’ve heard.” Larcei scratched her neck, unsure what exactly to say. “He was part of Sigurd’s army, but apparantly he was always put on guard duty instead of the front lines.” She laughs thinking about it. “The opposite of me and my mother…” 

“I’m not sure exactly what happened, but they fell in love, they married, had me and my brother… they were happy… and they loved us…” A few tears formed in her eyes at the thought. “I’m sorry… I’m rambling…” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and turned to the boy. “So, how about your mother? What was she like… if you’re willing to tell me.” 

He took in everything she said with nothing more than a tilt of his head. The girl was curious, that was for sure; she hadn’t been raised by her parents and yet she seemed to hold so much fondness for her father. He noted how she carefully avoided mention of her mother, but chose not to comment on it.

Yuri gave her time to compose herself, and inwardly he wondered how it was that she could be so truthful with a stranger. Goddess knew he couldn’t be the same.

However… he thought perhaps this was a moment that called for honestly.

“My mother raised me by herself,” he said slowly, unsure how to go about explaining. “She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She was kind, and always willing to welcome people into our home when they needed help. She wasn’t all there anymore, those last few years… She grew ill, as did most of the people from my village.”

He let that sit in silence for a while. They each had their own pain, but Yuri would not let grief at the thought of his mother overcome him.

Damn, busted. 

An eye goes over the board, trailing– the knife, the neat slices of cucumber cut to within a hair’s width of difference on the side of the board– and an internal sigh of relief. The student doesn’t seem to have gone too far in his preparation yet, so that might mean there’s some time for negotiation? He replies quickly. “Sorry–” Apologies first. He’d know Mist would give him utter hell if he’d come in like this, let alone a stranger. A head-shake cuts off his next sentence in reply, and he waits until the student’s done with his following words with measured patience. To his surprise, there’s no scolding– just a query. Ike shrugs. No reason to not tell the truth. “This morning. The hill northeast from here– the one with the fir trees.”  A moment passes, and he adds to it, just in case. “The stringy one’s wolf. Or maybe coyote. It’s not diseased.” In fact, Not sick boar. He’d had that explained to him once! He gives himself a mental pat on the back. Ranulf would be proud of him. Courtesy dispensed, he then slides into a grimace. ‘About cooking for the whole monastery…?’ The student’s probably referring to the fact that the Monastery’s portions are tiny. He probably doesn’t expect to cook more, but– no, he’ll find a way. “Er… Right, I know it’s a lot of work. I’ll do it myself, if you don’t want to plan for it. Just lend me that half over there.”  He’s missing something… Oh. “–By the way, I’m Ike. You are?” 

"Call me Yuri," he says slowly, contemplating Ike's words and feeling as though they're on two different pages. "And by the way? You're babbling." It's said without heat, and with more dry amusement than the situation warrants.

Ike seems like a strange one, he thinks, one of those earnest, overly-literal types… perhaps. Yuri can't be sure yet, but the fact that he'd just admitted to hunting down all these beasts is telling.

Still, he has enough patience to deal with people like that. Goddess knows he's gotten used to the eccentricities of the other Ashen Wolves over the years—with a sly smile, he wonders how this Ike would fare against the beasts Hapi summons with her sighs.

"I don't mind cooking in general," he sets about explaining, "but I'm not exactly used to having a partner. I had a recipe in mind that I wanted to make, although it's none of those fancy noble dishes they usually serve." He raises an eyebrow. "Will that be a problem?'

﹤ send me a ‘ ♡ ’ and i’ll talk about what type of relationship i could see our muses having. ﹥

﹤ for @minorindech. ﹥

Yuri had always considered what happened with Bernie as his first and biggest mistake. The fact that he’d failed to kill her because he’d grown soft was something that stuck with him for longer than he’d care to admit, and when he first meets Bernadetta again he has some resentment towards her, but mostly he feels guilty at what he’d tried to do. 

﹤friends . ﹥ I’d love to see them become good friends! Bernadetta will always be special to Yuri, and leaving things the way that he did never sat right with him. If/when she finally starts to relax around him, Yuri makes it a point to keep her as comfortable as possible.

﹤little sister. ﹥ Whether he admits it or not, at some point Bernadetta will probably become one of his people. If they reach a point where Bernadetta ever tells him about what Count Varley did to her, Yuri might actually??? Kill a bitch????

﹤something more?? ﹥ It wouldn’t be out there at all for Yuri to gain feelings for Bernie, and if that were to happen she’d go from being one of his people to being his person. He wouldn’t know how to deal with that. Yuri is someone who very much hates the things he’d had to do to survive, and he’d be ashamed to open up to her about them.

﹤ closed starter for @minorindech​. ﹥

Yuri finds her during one of the rare times she's not in her room, because as much as Bernadetta would like to live her life in there, she needs to eat like the rest of them. He strolls up to her without a care in the world, and before she even notices him, he lays a crown of flowers atop her head.

"So I noticed you've been avoiding me again," he says conversationally from behind her. It's not accusing or anything, just stating a fact; knowing Bernadetta though, she's still bound to take it the wrong way.

keen-kin​:

The scent of the flowers was soothing, reminding her of home. “Thanks… they reminded me of flowers that used to bloom in my home town… well they probably still do, I don’t know why I phrased it like…” Her words drifted off, herself not knowing what she was even saying. “Sorry. It probably doesn’t interest you…” 

Still not moving, her mind swirled with thoughts. Maybe, maybe she should just get them out of the way, even if it was a bother. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask something?” She looked down at the flowers. “This is my first time celebrating this festival, and I don’t actually know much about this graveyard tradition. I… I just thought this would be a good thing to do…” 

Swallowing, Larcei checked to see if the boy even cared about what she was saying. He still seemed to be listening. “These flowers are for my father and…” She thought about her next words. She was going to say something, but it wouldn’t come out. If she said them, it’d be an admission. And even if she was the last person who believed it, her mother wasn’t dead. “And… he’s not buried here. He’s on another continent. Should I put these on another grave, or something?”

“It is a good thing to do,” he ends up saying in the face of her obvious grief, and this time there’s even truth in it. 

Yuri may not be a good man, but he isn’t a cruel one either. He gives her the kindest smile he can manage, small as it may be, and gestures towards three unmarked graves. If he’s remembering correctly, they’re ones that bear the remains of a family, those who had been lost in a fire.

“I’m sure they’d appreciate it. Not a lot of people come to mourn these days, even if it is tradition,” Yuri explains. He clears his throat, unused to offering words of comfort. “If it helps,” he finds himself adding slowly, “my mother isn’t buried here either. I just thought I’d come.”

It’s something he says because the girl looks so lost, and it’d be a lie to say he hasn’t been there before. He lets out a breath, feeling out of his depth for the first time in a long while.

Him. Him.

It was exactly what Bernadetta had expected to hear. Hoped to hear? She wasn’t sure about that one, but now she had the confirmation she was looking for and Bernadetta…Bernadetta…

She swallowed nervously. She felt a bit faint. Yuri. Yuri. She hadn’t thought it possible. She was so sure that he had…her father had been so furious and angry and violent, there had been so much yelling afterwards and her father had gotten so much more severe after that night and the lessons had started and-

“Because you should.” Bernadetta managed. Her voice trembled as it slipped out of her. The fabric of her hood rustled as it strained under her fingers. Her grip was tight. “Because it was my fault. That night that my father….” Bernadetta swallowed. Her eyes began to well up as she flinched away from Yuri. 

He had to be planning something…some kind of revenge. Bernadetta had nearly gotten him killed there was no way he would just move on from that or leave her alone after the horrible things she had done she was awful she ruined everything she-

“B-because you should hate me for what happened…why wouldn’t you?”

Yuri…how many times had she wished she could see him again? How much did she regret it now?

“I…I’m sorry, I need to go!” Her room. She needed to get to her room.

Bernadetta.

She’s running again, but this time it’s away from him. It should be a relief: no one is coming after him; Count Varley doesn’t know he’s alive; he can continue on with his life in Abyss with nothing to worry about. There’s no reason for it to be anything but a relief.

Yuri purses his lips and goes back to what he’d been doing, and tells himself that the heaviness in his chest is relief, nothing more.

﹤ @flowerofgoneril ﹥

﹤ continued from here. ﹥

Yuri doesn’t bother to hide his snort, raising an eyebrow at Hilda’s display. She’s amusing, that’s for sure; a few words and a wink here and there and she’d had those men wrapped around her finger, which is something Yuri can always respect.

He saunters up to the pretzel stand and leans over the wooden counter to whisper in the ear of the guy manning it. He points over at Hilda and says something that makes the guy’s eyes widen, and he eagerly shoves two pretzels in Yuri’s hands, giving him a hearty laugh and a slap on the back.

He hates to say he isn’t paying attention when it happens. Yuri’s too busy watching over the kids to make sure they don’t stray too far from the square; one of them is sure to try and sneak off or stick their grubby little hands into someone’s pockets, which’ll only mean worse for him in the long run. As it is, he barely notices when someone walks up to him, only to drop something onto his head.

Yuri whirls around and nearly clocks the guy in the face. Then he catches whiff of the familiar scent of flowers from atop his head, and he has to stop and stare.

He looks displeased with her answers and Bernadetta swallows nervously, wondering if she should’ve just never talked at all in her life. How many peoples lives would be improved if she just swallowed her tongue and never said anything again and kept her thoughts to herself where they can’t hurt anybody else and

Bernadetta lets out a shrill squeal, hands flying to the hood behind her head. She grasps it and quickly brings it over her head, curling in on herself again. “Do you have to say it out loud like that? Am I not suffering enough?” She wailed. Of course she thought her friend was pretty when she was younger. He was kind to her and nice and smiled at her and didn’t yell. Did he have to just bring that up like that?

“W-wait…” She remembers that day. How hard she had panicked upon realizing that Yuri was bleeding, how she had wailed that she had killed her only friend and thrown herself into a fit of crying. But that had been something that happened all the way in her home, so far from the school. How could he…

“H-how do you know that?” She demanded, ignoring how her voice squeaked with panic. The kids surrounding Yuri glanced over at her curiously, but quickly resumed their merriment.

He tries to quell the panic beginning to rise in his chest again, telling himself it wouldn’t do to have both of them in hysterics. 

“Come on, Bernadetta. Just a little more,” he coos in encouragement, as though talking to a child. Yuri looks at her expectantly but finishes the thought before she can sputter out a reply. “That friend of yours, all those years ago? That was me.”

Yuri figures that she’d known. He figures Bernadetta had written to her father at first sight of him, and that he’s had an axe over his head for weeks now. He waits for her to come at him, hurling accusations or questions or—anything, but what he doesn’t expect is this.

And by this he means her, staring up at him with wide eyes, trembling like a leaf, and hiding inside her hood like it can protect her from the big bad wolf.

Yuri’s amused when he answers, “You could buy yourself one. In fact, why don’t you? But…” he gives her a once over before adding, “I don’t know. You look like you could finish two yourself.”

He’s staring. Oh Goddess he’s staring. He probably thought that Bernadetta was a freak rambling like that and now he was staring at her and she knew it, she knew this was a bad idea she should have never left her room she should have just stayed hidden away and ignored the world and everything and especially this lookalike, what was she thinking-

Bernie lets out a quiet squeak as he suddenly jumps in, flinching as though his calm words were a shout. “I-I…no, you didn’t. I’m sorry!”

Though not letting Bernadetta leave presents her with a new set of problems. She frowns to herself as she fidgets awkwardly, trying to find something to do with all the pent up energy thrumming through her. She wished he let her run, she really wanted to run, but it would be rude to run now that he’d told her to stay. She settled instead for twisting the fabric of her sweater in her hands.

“W-well um…you look a lot like him. You have the same shade of hair and, uh, your face looks kinda like how I’d imagine his would all grown up.” She had to think hard about the specifics and how they’d translate to an adult. Yuri and her were both still young the last time she saw him. “Cause Yuri was really pretty, you know, he just had that kinda face…”

Wait, did she just call him pretty? She tried to ignore how her face was heating up now. “B-but uh…my friend was really nice and sweet and kind a-and…I mean I haven’t really talked to you much but…I wasn’t stalking I swear, you can’t prove it!”

The point Bernie, get to the point. “I-I was being stupid and thought that maybe…maybe you might be my friend from back then? But then I thought about every horrible thing I did to him and I thought there was no way you would want me around if you were, but I still wanted to know, you know? E-even if you hate stupid little Bernie, I wanted to…”

Yuri heaves a sigh, running a hand through his hair, obviously impatient. Most of it’s for show; he’s not actually frustrated and neither is he annoyed, but he has to keep her talking or they’ll be there the whole day.

“Nice to know you find me attractive, at least,” he says, a smile that’s all teeth and more mocking than anything. He wants to get a rise out of her, perhaps see if she does get so flustered she ends up fainting; honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised. “I would’ve been a lot less pretty now if you’d cut up my face with those shears back then.”

He remembers it clearly still: Bernadetta had always been clumsy but even more so that day, overeager to show him one of her new pitcher plants; in her haste to get to him, she’d tripped on a rock. Caught off guard, he’d grabbed her wrists—which only ended up with both of them sprawled on the ground, and left him with a faded scar on his jaw for good measure.

﹤ continued from here. ﹥

Yuri doesn’t smirk, not exactly, but he does raise an amused eyebrow.

“Hm. So I’ve heard.” Multiple times since he’d started venturing out of Abyss. Still, he gives a polite incline of his head. “Nice to meet you. And it’s Yuri,” he adds, almost as an afterthought because he’s more preoccupied with making sure he splits the pretzel straight down the middle.

He takes a bite, and unsurprisingly it’s delicious and to his taste. He wasn’t really the type to indulge in fair snacks, so this is a nice treat—he figures he should thank Lorenz for it by keeping him company and making small talk. Who knows, he might even learn something juicy, although Lorenz doesn’t seem the type to gossip; it wouldn’t be very noble of him to, even though Yuri’s seen firsthand how those in high places are so eager to tear others down.