"where's all the treasure?"

“Oh yeah, I was!” (But how would he know that? Does that mean they met in Magvel–) Oh. (He literally just said his name.) Lyon. As in– Ohhhhhhhhhhh. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so that’s how I know you! You’re that Grado prince! I thought you died.”—bewilderment, free of distaste, before realization—“Urgh– sorry– That was probably insensitive– Um–” (Just take a deep breath. You can fix this!) “Well, I can’t say I really knew you well before”—he waves his arms about—“all that, but it seemed to me that Eirika always thought you were a good person, so could you have really been that bad?” “I mean– maybe, but I dunno. I don’t see you trying to blow up the place or anything.” (Again, he offers his hand.) “We can be enemies without anyone being a bad guy, y’know?” “So?”

lyon blinks and stares at the younger man. that's... that's not the reaction he expected. not the casualness of it, much less being quickly apologized to.

"not at all," he manages to interject with a shake of his head, astonishment of his own likely matching colm's. lyon takes no offense in voicing such an assumption; there's no reason to. why would he when he had closed his eyes in what seemed like finality, believing it had been it? it's only understandable no one from magvel would have anticipated his survival...

ah. eirika. while lyon's heart aches at the mention of her name, he focuses on something else colm mentions. his brow furrows. eirika thought he was a good person? but why...? hadn't ephraim disclosed everything he knew to her? that their friend had commited every atrocity out of his free will? unless... ephraim hadn't told his twin sister for one reason or another.

"..."

lyon knows he could tell colm he's not a good person. he's not kind or anything else eirika may have said. but opening his heart to a near stranger, now an acquaintance, has never been him. thus, lyon doesn't.

Which is a good thing, he thinks. After all, if being enemies was a thing of the past, that meant they weren’t enemies anymore—and that was always good. Peace, like his namesake, was something Colm valued after having fought through so much war.

“Say, Lyon—(actually, do you prefer Prince Lyon, or nah?)—have you tried any of the pastries they have here? They’re really good! A friend and I tried a bunch of them earlier and they were super tasty! They’ve got all kinds of flavors, you know.”

“We should try them!” Colm huffs, proudly. “Yup! That’s what we’re gonna do!”

“Uh…… I’m decently lucky, I think?” the boy muses. Really, though, he was just mad skilled. (Skill isn’t really all that helpful here though, is it?) Skill probably isn’t what saved him in Lark either.

“…Well, lucky enough, at least.”

The thief shakes his head before suggesting, “We should steal their training techniques! It can’t all be talent, so they have to practice somehow!” With elaborate hand gestures, he continues, “All we have to do is tail them, watch them train, and then use their secrets to get super good in time for the contest!” With a punch to the air, he punctuates:

“They’ll never know what hit ‘em!”

Of course, that’s when fortune smiles upon them, with one of the other locals approaching to help. (Sure, there was always going to be the stealing secrets plan, but even Colm would admit it’d be better to source their knowledge elsewhere, if possible.)

“That works too!” he exclaims, clapping his hands together. “So, where do we start?”

“Well, do either of you have any experience with surfing?”

“Nope,” Colm deadpans. “Not at all.”

Colm nods. That would hurt, and he doesn’t even want to imagine the pain that would inflict. A massive metal bolt falling on, like, your toes or something? Tables are bad enough! Ballista bolts are just like that, but. You know. Just one leg. And metal. Yeah. That’d definitely hurt. He gets a similar satisfaction when the bolt is finally wound up, although he shakes his hands far more violently then Teach does. (He’s a delicate little guy with delicate little fingers! He doesn’t like yard work.) Having done it as part of a pair, Colm has decided that solo-navigating a ballista is indeed impressive. (Wow! Who would’ve guessed?) It’s a bit of a surprise to hear his partner is a knight of all things. (Or, maybe that makes sense?) The instructor seems to be a pretty chill guy, so Colm would’ve guessed his partner would have similar vibes. Complementary and all that, right? Knightliness works too, he guesses. Like an opposites attract sort of situation? (Could that be why Teach was even a Teach at all?) Hm. Brain food. The remark about him being a crybaby gets a chuckle out of Colm though, for sure. The boy’s gaze follows the instructor’s, landing on the same targets as well. “That is sort of how war machines work? You aim them at folks.” Then the realization kicks in, given. well. he hadn’t really given it much thought. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I hope. not…………”

Python blinks at the target across the field a few more times, until its sloped edges become abstract enough that he stops imagining a student’s uniform adorning it and allows his sense of reason to catch up with him. An elite academy wouldn’t cull its own student population down like that, anyhow. There’d be far too many angry lords knocking down its doors for cutting down their lordlings.

His fingers glide over the solid, heavy wood of the trigger mechanism, crafted to hold the tension of the massive bolt until its released. It’s antithetical to everything that he knows about archery to aim with the weapon already tense and ready to fire—the only benefit he can imagine to assigning an experienced marksman to this thing is his sharp vision. He glances over to his current protégé, taking in the way the boy’s gaze cuts from one target to the next across the field.

“You seen a lot of these in use before?” He looks past the boy’s eyes now, taking in the rest of his features: messy dark blue hair, a face that still holds the softness of youth at the edges. The kid is young, but he speaks of war like he’s seen it with his own eyes. “Can’t say they’re common where I run around these days. Most villages can’t afford to pay somebody to lug one of these monsters up on their walls, I s'pose.”

He’s supposed to be the instructor here, he remembers, and he leans an elbow against the device with a sigh.

“Not a whole lot,” the boy supposes, memories drifting back to his year or so before the monastery. There had been just a few battles in particular where ballistae had made themselves known. “We didn’t really purchase them either,” he clarifies, “It was more like the villages already had them, and we used them whenever they were available.”

“They are pretty big though—probably expensive too.” They were just full of fancy little parts that could break! “I’m not surprised they were rare back where you’re from, Teach.”

Realizing what he was offering, Colm’s eyes light up, with an excited, “Yeah! I can do it!” Dangerous though it may be, the boy was still very interested in seeing it work. (They’d already cranked it up after all! Why put all that work to waste?) It’s set up a bit differently from what he’s used to, but if he looked closely, it would start to look more like the ones that Neimi used to use. (The thought makes it much easier to remember.) The thief steps into position, aiming the ballista for one of the less human-looking targets, and then, when he is satisfied, he looses the tension. The bolt goes flying.

The target wobbles back and forth, but ultimately doesn’t fall over, instead just letting the bolt pass through. It's a pretty off-putting sight, but that thought seems to be lost on Colm.

All things considered, Lloyd raises a good point—whatever the case was, he was still hired to be here. (Colm thinks back to the other folks he’s seen around–)

Actually, now that he thinks about it, a lot of his professors are just weirdos. (Not Professor Deirdre though! She’s way nicer to him than the others. She was his favorite.)

“Hm.” (Then again, it’s not like any of them have killed him, right?) “Well, maybe the Church is just preparing us to recognize strange people—although, you’re more normal than a lot of the folks here.”

“Which is really weird! Because you’re not really normal either.” (An obligatory finger point!) “Or at least you don’t have normal vibes—I can tell! My eyesight may be my best sense, but that doesn’t mean I can’t read a person’s—” (Here, he waves his arms around in Lloyd’s general direction.) “—you know?”

“An anima lightning user, huh?” (Think, Colm. Did you see anything like that on the battlefield?)

There were definitely magic users—the guy who beat him was a mage too!—but he doesn’t remember seeing Lloyd out there. (They were probably just in different parts of the field.)

“Alright,” the boy smirks. “I’ve got this—just watch.”

With that, the boy ducks away into the other parts of the tent—dodging the purple lady, of course. There wasn’t any guarantee that the person who defeated Lloyd was here yet, but it was worth looking anyway! After all, this quest served two missions.

See, what Colm neglected to share with Lloyd was that this was a perfect excuse to get away from him—and he had the information necessary to find out who beat him! (Here, he would simply have to find them! Colm is really good at finding things!)

“ Er, y-yes. I, um, suppose I follow...? ”  Pelleas replies, pausing his eating to try and follow the thief's line of logic.  “ ...Actually, I don't think I do at all. Sorry. I didn't mean to lie, honest. ”

But now that he was thinking of it, he realizes he does want to know what Colm might've meant by it. What about Pelleas's confession came as a surprise? What kind of impression did Pelleas leave on people?

He knows he's been called many things in this life. Pathetic. Stupid. A momma's boy.

But through Colm's eyes, what did he see Pelleas as? Would Pelleas be afraid to know that answer? Despite that fear, was it right of Pelleas to still feel intrigued?

But the moment feels as if it's passed, Colm showing off one of his knives in a spectacular flourish. It really was hidden.

“ Wow, I didn't even see where that knife came from. That's really impressive, Colm, ”  he compliments him.  “ I, um, used to carry a dagger on me too, though I wasn't nearly as quick as you about taking it out. I couldn't imagine being able to do much with it in battle compared to you. ”

“I mean, spells aren’t exactly the fastest thing,” he continues, rattling off his thoughts whilst thoughtlessly eating another pastry half. (Oh, this one was really good too!) “Even the fastest mages I knew back home were limited by how quickly they could pull out their tomes, and I figure it’s faster pulling out a tiny blade than a big book?” (It’s the size difference, you know? And then you have to bring them around with you– They’d be really heavy, wouldn’t they?)

“And dark magic especially—from what I can tell, it’s the slowest of the… (what was the word again?) the ‘trinity’?” Colm shakes his head briefly, dismissing the term. “Either way–”

Memories are vignettes for one’s past, and often times, they are very telling.

“Oh yeah!” Roy! Colm knows that name! (Though, he supposes that currently, everyone does.) “I’m Colm—not Seliph, like those sheriffs seem to think.” With a hint of laughter, he adds, “Sounds to me like they’re pretty bad at their jobs…”

(Colm can’t say he’s super duper familiar with Roy, but if a tall, fiery-bearded guy was at the monastery, he definitely would’ve noticed.)

“Yeah, I’m a bit of a lockpicking wizard myself!” the boy affirms, his voice a slightly lower volume than usual. “And I’d also not like to be chilling here for much longer. Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?” Although, that didn’t really answer what they were going to be doing with their cellmate. Sure, she could just be a normal human, but who’s to say she wasn’t a magician of some sort? Or a monster in disguise?! She could break out the moment the doors unlock! (And what if she betrayed them or something?!)

That whole allianceship thing wasn’t sounding too bad right now—if only to avoid being negatively impacted by ‘Micaiah’.

“Impersonations?” ‘Micaiah’ echoes, incredulous. “But I am the real Micaiah! Just like how you’re the real Roy, and you’re the real Seliph!”

“Not the real Seliph,” Colm corrects. I literally just said that. (And besides, Colm has way cooler earrings!) ‘Micaiah’ rolls her eyes with a nonchalant, “Sure.”

“My point here being that we all have been wrongfully imprisoned on the assumption that we aren’t who we claim we are—you, as Lord Roy, me, as Miss Micaiah, and him, as– well, not Seliph, so he claims.”

“There’s no need for distrust—truly! We are all on the same side~!”

Now you just sound even more suspicious…