i'll send 'em flying!

“Um, no. I’ve tried a few times, but so far I haven’t had much success.” The boy cringes as he thinks back to said previous attempts. He’s been trying to get the hang of it for a while now, because a knight needs to be well rounded. He doesn’t need to become a master sage all of a sudden, but he should at least understand the basics…

Unfortunately even the basics seem out of reach right now.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t do it though! I’m sure if we study hard we can figure it out.” He might not be the most academically gifted, but much like how he has to make up for his crestless blood, he’s come to learn that the best way to make up for a lack of talent is effort.

Concentrating intensely on the formula before him, Ashe begins to try and cast a spell. The tome in his hand begins to shimmer in response, almost as if it’s working….

“There!” He holds his palm out, expecting a gust of wind to fly from it.

….

….

*pfoo*

???

He cranes as far as he can while keeping his feet behind the line, arm outstretched to wave a hand in front of Ashe's outstretched palm. There's definitely air against his hand. More air than the normal amount? Kiiiinda hard to say.

"Huh. My first heal casts were like that too. Everything lights up but hardly anything comes out."

In that case, he'll apply what he learned about the magic he does know. The power isn't just in practice, but in belief. If confidence is important in everything else, why wouldn't it be here?

Recentered, refocused, feet planted nice and solidly apart, Caspar faces down his own training dummy. He can do this. Fire is simple. He'd worked hard lately to figure out how to use magic to pull people closer, even! His open palm begin to glow as his faith grows. He can tap into that, he can--

--draw a training dummy across a field in a flash, dropping it right in front of him. Oops.

Shannan knew to bite his tongue when he was half this boy’s age, save for those few occasions when he was pushed too far (in other words, when he thought he’d lose or had lost his aunt; she does not dwell). The matter hinges less on youth than it does on privilege. Caspar is closer to her own age when Isaach fell than to her nephew’s; and the gods know how many times she bit her tongue, how many times her pride was spat on and tarnished and swallowed down with increasingly more bitterness.

— How can she hope to convey any of that to a youth who has had the privilege of not losing everything, though?

“Why does he think?” rumbles the wolf. “I could eat him for that, you know.”

Ayra makes no protest. She could not, not with how well she understands the beast.

“ Caspar, ” she intones, her quietness a warning, “ either watch your tongue or let me do the talking. As for your question... ”

She exchanges a look with the beast, then turns to face her student. If it lunges, she’ll be fast enough; but it won’t.

“There has to be a better solution than destroying someone else’s house.” He says it with enough conviction to command the universe into making it true. (He hopes.) “We brought meat, right?”

The scraps in Ayra’s bag look just about the same as the ones given to his father’s dogs after a successful hunt. It was the reward for their help in the effort—they earned it. The enthusiastic feasting might’ve been hunger after a long day, but he’d always imagined satisfaction in it too. It’s like the way water tastes sweeter after pushing through a grueling set of drills, the way praise could turn the ache in his limbs into something he craved to feel again. And it’s just—it’s right, in a way that stealing isn’t.

he follows, though, and that's what matters.

“more like… the goddess tower,” they reply, “but considering how popular the rumors and how adamant the church, it'll be far easier to get away with this in one of the empty rooms.”

he pauses at a doorway of a randomly chosen room and peers inside.  it's too dark to see clearly, but it seems fine enough and linhardt is feeling a little impatient.

“though, i must ask: would you break into the holy tomb with me?  i'd love to have a -”

they pause, smiling, and turn towards their date. “- a partner.  for my research.”

linhardt can just make out caspar's silhouette in the dark, and the more they stare at him, the better his features come into focus, but he's never completely visible.

they raise one hand and gently cross a single finger against his jaw.  it's the suggestion of a caress, but more curious and tentative.  linhardt can't tell if he hesitates for his own sake, or for caspar's.  in that, perhaps, he will let caspar decide.

Caspar’s hands reach out for Linhardt in the dark. Their bare shoulder is cool to the touch. The barely-there brush against his face that makes his own shoulders want to shiver. He swallows, grateful for the low light making the heat in his face at least a little bit less obvious.

“I’d be there for the adventure. And for-” His voice treacherously creaks, catching up with how embarrassed he is by his own words before his mind fully does, “-For you.”

It’s strange to feel so awkward. Living in his own body is usually the most natural thing in the world, but moments like this make him feel like he has to relearn how to make all of his muscles move. Endless hours of practice with running, climbing, swinging, shouting...none of them really help him here. It’s like learning how to swing a blade from the start all over again, tripping over himself and all.

Then again, Linhardt had nearly always been there to heal up his scrapes when he'd tripped. So...maybe it’s okay? He fishes for some bravery, slides his hand a bit, and finds it in the thrum of Linhardt's heart beneath his palm.

And giving Tine space to once again retreat into her own mind.

How long is this going to last?

Almost definitely long enough; she will need more clothes, a place to stay, and, as such, a job, right?

There's an irony: she's supposed to be competent to lead what amounts to a small country.

But the only thing she could define as job experience is killing people.

She must be really drifting off before she realizes Caspar is back with the spare clothes promised.

So do the clothes work for her?

She's unfortunately unsure if the two of them are of similar stature, but they still seem a bit baggy.

But while she's by no means dry, her clothes don't look blatantly soaked, and she feels //somewhat// presentable.

"Ah- I'm sorry for wasting your time, but would it be okay if I just left my armor at your room for safety and borrowed the towel?"

She doesn't want it lost or destroyed, not when it so suddenly became one of the few connections she has to home.

"I am very thankful for all of your assistance, but could we please go and explain my presence?

(Oh, but she’s apologizing again. Does he seem impatient?)

“You apologize too much. I like spending my time feeling helpful, so don’t worry about it!”

The towel will be a small loss, but he can make do. It’s not like he hasn’t scrounged for something clean to bring along with him to the training grounds before. There are more important things to focus on—like getting Tine to meet with the monastery staff!

“We’ve actually got other people from Jugdral here, so your situation isn’t totally unheard of. Besides uh, the part where you suddenly dropped into the pond.” He starts toward the door, ready to lead her to the last stop on this pseudo-tour. “The people at the reception hall will know where to send you. C’mon!”

he can hardly blame him, though.  even just a small glimpse of that vandalized portrait had been unsettling.  the scribbles on the woman's face had been passionate, and their location had been a disturbing disfigurement to a human face.

when anxiety kicks in, linhardt leans on logic.  their anxiety has yet to surge half as much as the jitters have set into caspar, but they're already making excuses for the coincidences experienced.  a gust of wind puts out fire, and is commonly cooler than still air.  it could move the curtains easily.  linhardt doesn't know exactly where the draft had come in from, but that hardly matters.

even with the curtains open again, the room is dark without firelight, so linhardt casts a small spell that brings a shimmering orb of light to hover above his head.

her hand hovers over the book hesitantly. far be it from her to declare herself a seasoned mage, though there's no shaking the wary feeling that creeps into the pit of her stomach—discernment honed from a lifetime of reading intentions, and a familiarity with angry figures like the one she suspects is behind lenora's disfigurement.

...or maybe it's just anxiety? dorothea cannot discount that about herself, nor the fact that she might be influenced by tales of ghosts roaming mittelfrank's halls and productions heralding tragic sightings of apparitions who wander the earth. perhaps she is biased. perhaps she is just overthinking this?

cautiously, her fingers skim the edges of the pages. before she can flip them, however, the book shudders, and as if caught by a heavy gust of wind, the worn pages flip through themselves intensely, causing her to retract her hand in alarm as it finally lands on a blank page.

temporarily blank, that is, until dorothea watches in horror as black ink begins to seep through, forming letters:

Bravery comes easiest when he dives right in, so he does. With Linhardt’s light filling the room, Caspar can easily locate a pen and ink. Right beneath the current text, he writes: Why?

A stray droplet of ink drips onto the page while his hand hovers for a breath, considering how to put his next thought to written word. His first one melts into the parchment before he gets the chance.

“Hey, wait-” The ground shudders. Or is it the sky? Caspar’s head spins the way it does when a sound digs into his body without permission like this, and it makes it hard to tell. There’s a clatter of glass—he’d thrown his arm out to steady himself without thinking and knocked the inkwell onto its side. When he looks down, though, the spattered liquid across the table and his skin looks alarmingly….um….red.

Oh, boy. He twists around to place the rest of his body between Linhardt and the mess he’s made of the table.

“Don’t look! I mean—uh—I’m not hurt! So you don’t have to look!”

“yeah,” they reply, because it's true.  and caspar isn't wrong - those are valid worries to have.  healing can take a toll on either side of the equation when overdone, and caspar is right that white magic can be used to damage as well.  none of his thoughts are inaccurate nor uncalled for.  that's caspar, for you.

“you always overthink the important things,” he comments, “but they're important questions.  if you try to heal something that doesn't need it, you can do more harm than good.  that isn't how the damaging spells work, just so you know.”

linhardt bumps back into caspar, though the impact of his arm to caspar's shoulder is much lighter.  it's more a reminder that he's there, and that this isn't such a serious situation to be overthinking in.

“So I’m the one with noodle arms now? Arcane noodle arms?”

His hand goes to the cuff of his sleeve, tugging it back past his elbow. Getting his real, flesh, non-noodle arms ready to do some work is the easy part. Lin is right—if a tree doesn’t go down in one swing, you just have to keep going until you get it done!