BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

Of course, she can hear the words of gentler souls telling her. A lodestar, her night sky, the sun she so adores no matter the turmoil it incites in the boy before her. Those precious people whom she loves, who make life worth living, whose hearts she has slithered into like a worm in a pretty apple. And the voices behind them whisper no, no, no.

Work harder -- atone. You haven't done enough. Stop trying -- give up. You've already done too much. Can she be so sure her love isn't manipulation? Perhaps she subconsciously weasels herself into the comfort of their affection. Some days she thinks Eremiyah turned away from the good in her; other days that Marth only turned away from the bad. Has she atoned enough yet to be unhappy? To want more?

"I..." Katarina brings her fingers to a conscious stillness, gray eyes pinned to the ground. "Can I... ask you a question too, then...?

Leif will never have all the answers, and he certainly does not whilst he is still so young and green around the gills. But for what answers he lacks now, he still holds beliefs and convictions.

“If you had to earn that, then nobody would listen to each other and learn. The world would never improve that way.” He holds the belief that these are the steps he must take, and if he were to doubt his ability to take them, he knows he would never move at all.

He remembers a time when Dagdar used to joke about how they all played house, with a hint of something to the man's words that Finn had never really puzzled out. He'd denied it then, of course. It felt strange to label Eyvel's generosity as such, and Finn's exhausted eyes had been too focused on the future for those kinds of thoughts.

He'd never stopped to consider what Leif or Nanna might have thought, only that they were housed and fed.

Finn frowns. Does he even not? But he frowns in response to the confession, trying to understand why. "…why would you have wanted me for that?'

Because Finn had been there. But if it had been another in his place, it would have just as easily been them. It is not that he wants Finn, only that the knight fits into a hole in the puzzle piece. The image is all wrong, but it's good enough.

"I…I have no right to think I might even attempt to stand in your father's shoes." Compared to the shadow that Quan casts, Finn is still a boy learning how to fight, that fails his lord, that has no business carrying the weight of such a responsibility. "It would have been an insult to you and his memory to attempt such a thing."

For the boy who wished to keep on dreaming, he could never say it to the one who he pictured in the center of that very dream.

“...of all the men in my life, you were the one I liked the most, Finn.”

Yet still, Leif tries to explain himself anyway even though he knows this dream is ending. One last farewell: a note to end it on with sincerity rather than his anger and his jealousy.

She barely has a moment to consider reacting to Leif's admission about his own experience with the Finn Mints when he abruptly turns the spotlight right back onto her. A brutal tactic that heats color into her cheeks.

"NO!" She answers too loud and too quickly. "It was just one dance. That's it."

Their uncle had called her out on it, too. Had that been before or after Finn approached her. Had she even danced with Minerva at that point? The events of the evening blur in her memory as she tries to piece everything together to figure out Finn's motivations. Had he seen it? Had Sigurd told him about it? Both options are equally horrifying.

(Better not to embarrass her if she's this insistent now.)

So he lets her be, letting her control the pace of the conversation as she pleases, silent until she poses her own question. It's not an unreasonable line of inquiry; a man as serious and unfun as Finn hardly seemed the type to play matchmaker. Selphina would complain to anybody who would listen (and those who won't) about how indelicate Finn was when it comes to matters of the heart after all.

But that's not to say Leif thinks there's NO fathomable reason Finn would put himself in that position...

And in the end, the conclusion he comes to is partially right. She does not want to be alone. They had both confessed to the same wish in different flavours last year. She wants to spend what time she has with those she cares about as often as she can.

But no one will paint Mitama after today, and no one will leave her portrait to find its place in history. If this will be the only evidence years from know that they knew each other and were friends...then it seems shameful to waste that chance.

"If you understood that already, then you should have just done so." And though she continues pouting behind her bouquet, she is not a good enough performer to mask the pleased excitement in her tone.

Not for the first time, Leif gives her no chance to understand what he suggests before picking her up. Mitama squeaks and has to catch herself with a hand braced on his shoulder, but she falls into a fit of laughter soon enough, loud enough that a few curious glances go their way.

"Alright, alright! You have done a wonderful job at showing off!" Boys and their feats of strength... She shakes her head fondly.

It is...so different from last year. She is glad for him. Even if both their wishes are still works in progress, even if they have many years ahead of them to work towards making them come true, it feels like a small step towards that. She may not understand what it is that he says, but that is alright. Maybe one day she will know. For now, she is content with the emotion of it, returned silently in full.

No matter what he likes to do, he does still want his outfit to remain in-tact for all the effort he put into wearing it today.

(Unbeknownst to him, this would not be a wish he'd be granted tonight.)

So in the end, he lets her down, their image captured in full. For it, he's granted the flower he didn't actually anticipate getting once he'd been rejected it once. He takes a moment to register this truth, blinking dumbly at it before he at last asks:

“Are you sure?”

Perhaps it's a silly thing to ask. She and he are both clearly aware that there are not an infinite number of hours in a single night, and each minute of it counts when competing to exchange with as many people as possible. It's a neverending revolving evening, faces coming in and out, mere drops in an ocean's worth of people.

It's the natural way the world, indeed this life, has worked for Leif. For as long as he has known hunger, he has known this newness at its breakneck pace.

“If it's selfish, that means it's because you wanted it, right, Mitama?” Leif takes his flower, once rejected, and puts it in her bouquet at last, taking that certain step closer to do so, to press his advance and make it known even when such closeness is unnecessary; at times, to drive a point is more important than the point being made at all, he finds. “If that's what you want, I can spare you a bit more time. I don't mind.”

The point tonight is also a point he drives more so for himself: that he is competent enough now to not turn faces into just mere memories, that he can afford to take a stop longer than he used to before.

“Even with our trade done, that doesn't mean I have to be done with you, Mitama.”

"I..."

Leif's abrupt protests give him pause as both volume and colour find themselves in possession of the younger. Finn stares for a moment, then frowns. He thought it had been fairly obvious what he had been talking about throughout this discussion.

A fully familiar picture now, the slightly new one faded and replaced within a blink of an eye.

Leif clears his throat, trying again.

he doesn't say she isn't weak— so it's true. he really does...

"it does matter." she mumbles, staring at her feet. if she isn't strong she can't be a good dragon like the divine one. it matters way too much.

but when she looks up and she sees the expression on his face, she stops thinking about how strong or weak she is for a second to worry about him.

Because, when one's weak, it really does feel important. It feels all the more important when you can see what you can lack— even if not for who you wish to save but instead who you are yourself.

It keeps him quiet, uncertain of what he could even say to be convincing as a result. But before he can find his words, Veyle apologizes anyway.

“...I'm fine, Veyle,” he snaps himself out of his thoughts for the sake of answering her, realizing belatedly the inappropriate nature of his reactions. To her, he's an Emblem, and with it, a stronger and more heroic figure than he actually is. To speak his frustrations, to speak a sliver of his heart, would be to shatter any illusion. “But...”

Words fail him as a result. He forces his hand to unclench, doesn't shake off the way she reaches out, but his expression remains that moue of frustration bleeding with melancholy.

“Ah! Don't slow down!” a voice farther out, closer to the bridge leading to the northern part of the monastery, cries out in the night. “We'll never make it to the Goddess Tower like that!”

Leif turns his head at that. They're not voices he recognizes, but he can't say they're ones he wants to get in trouble. But when he looks back at Veyle, he makes his concession, weighing her ego over any false sense of altruism.

Because at the end of the day, that was something he wished to protect too for her.

"What makes them inedible?" The little cleric's question floats alongside her, balancing on her fingertips when she stretches out a hand to watch its reflection touch a tide pool. Scurrying around to a wider side of one, nearer to their dutiful guide, she brushes her dress against her legs and crouches. Her gaze settles on the algae, and after a beat-- "Hello, Miss Lady," she whispers, wiggling her fingers at the silent tide, "Or whoever's there!"

With a flourish she springs back to her feet, pivoting on one heel and allowing the other to spin through the air. A wave to Ronan as she passes him, and once she's wandered a few steps further, another outstretched and playfully thrown toward Leif.

"That's right! I've never been fishing before." As far as grand little dreams went, it wasn't entirely off the list, though it rested quite peacefully below a great many other things. Perhaps if she made time for it, she could see that legendary golden fish one day... Oh, but the ocean is too beautiful today to keep plotting for tomorrow.

She laughs as she spins, and she spins as she laughs, a short-lived thing that swings her smile squarely upon the others.

"Yeah -- I want to hear, too! And if you guys are willing to teach me, then it's my turn to be the student again! Right? Hee hee... edible or not, I'm really looking forward to it!"

"Oh, the smaller fish are pretty boney. Some of them are poisonous, too." By the time either Leif or Maria look back at him, his smile has been replaced with a grimace over a private memory. He'd found out just how bad some of the tidepool creatures were from experience. But that meant that he had a pretty good idea of which ones to avoid if they wanted to make a lunch out of what they could get their hands on.

Scooping up the buckets and nets, and leaving his back by the cliffs, Ronan half-sprints back to catch up with Leif and Maria, handing them each a bucket and a net as he passes.

"Crabs and clams are usually good though. Do you know what those are?" he asks Maria, then glances into the nearest tidepool. "Oh! Here's one. Look." Taking her wrist, he drops down into a crouch to point to a bivalve shell nestled among the rocks at the bottom, nearly camouflaged. It wasn't very big, but he reaches in to pull it free with his fingers, then sets it on his palm to show her and Leif.

"Just toss these into some boiling water and the shells will pop right open. We'll need a few more for it to be worthwhile though." Kneeling, he scoops water into a bucket and drops the clam in. "If we don't manage to find anything around here though, I've stashed one of my fishing rods nearby. We can take turns casting."

Strange though the moment might be from his perspective, it does make the boy look upon the sand and the sea for any detail he can, chasing nothing more than myths unknowingly in the act of looking for curiosities. Compared to deeper seas, shallow waters here hold plenty for the eyes— a kaleidoscope of life and colors all pooled into the intertidal shore. The rocky ground beneath has each and every shape clearer to see, so close to the surface, and the variety of aquatic life collected here in one spot feels like a miracle. Big or small, a myriad sits not unlike the monastery, Leif thinks, or his own army from years prior.

Leif doesn't find Maria's 'Miss Lady,' but he instead finds a crowd he can touch with just his fingers so long as he looks and reaches out.

Leif's attention is grabbed at the sound of buckets jostling with Ronan's speedy steps, head tilting back up to see their trio returned to be closer knit.

“Who doesn't know what a crab or clam is??” Leif pipes up, brow raised as he takes the proffered bucket and net. “Are there really places that don't have them?”

For as many countries as Leif has been to, he supposes, in hindsight, he didn't take the time to really notice what was or wasn't there, taking these things as a given. The raised brow scrunches along with his other, now in sync, as he mulls over this before he drops to crouch as well. He peeks into Ronan's bucket to get a second look at the clam he'd shown them just before, committing it to memory before he faces the rocks again.

“Mussels are the best,” he goes on to say, looking anew at the shallow waters. “But I never got any before the sea stars took them from me first... Aha!”

His hand shoots out, finding another clam, beaming as his eyes sparkle in the victory, no matter how small the prize in his hand.

This is a man who believed something grim— something beyond what Leif could likely imagine as he was now.

The raven-haired man's subsequent claims about suffering and inevitability only further cements it. In the face of that, did Leif have the right argument to counter it just yet? Frustrating as it was, enough to furrow Leif's brows further, it keeps him voiceless.

That is, until—

“...I don't understand the way you think,” Leif admits. Faced with what he thought was a nihilist point of view, suddenly, Sephiran speaks of joy as if he were not murdering it with his words prior. “But... if I spend time with you, see life through your steps, will I understand it one day?”

Was he teasing? Certainly not, though he allows his voice to carry that gentle cadence as if he were- perhaps the lightness was at odds with what the boy proposed. Would it be better if he understood, or if he never did? A question that had no answer, at least not one he could give honestly.

"But if it helps you find your faith, then I will not stop you."

Spoken as if he did not believe it would- in the end, he wonders if he was a suitable instructor at all, or if the boy would be left more lost than he started.

He finds himself at a loss for how to take this. It's a sweet victory, the relief felt to finally let the bowstring release after what must have been over a decade of keeping it drawn tight. Even before Leif has met Seliph, such lessons were drilled in as important.

A prince keeps his cool. It is around Seliph he thought this lesson one of the most important, but...

(Did Seliph have moments like these when Leif didn't see?)

Perhaps with someone different, Leif concludes. Though whom, he's unsure after his conversation with Deimne earlier that night. Umber eyes watch his cousin shift, all of a sudden overly interested and intrigued yet tongue-tied; the thing to let his tongue go is the direct question aimed his way.

“Ah, we agreed to compete again this year. But now that you mention it, I haven't seen him since either...” Perhaps owed to Leif's own fixation of these new displays of technology. But if Seliph hasn't seen Ares much either, could Leif still be in the race...? A seed of hope blooms, reigniting Leif's competitive side to make up for things in the second half of the night, but at the same time, this new mystery compels Leif to want to think on the why— why might Ares be hard to find?

“Hm... Is it possible he found one person he's speaking a long time to? They might've gone to the Goddess Tower. That'd give them reason to not be here in the main floor.”

Leif presumes Seliph, in Leif's straitlaced image of him, would never break a rule. Ares on the other hand...

The Goddess Tower.... Although Seliph hasn't had a reason to sneak in there, he has been at the academy long enough to be aware of the 'tradition' among students. Haven't there been whispers of a famous love story?

Ares is disciplined and doesn't entertain nonsense, so he doesn't immediately strike Seliph as the type to break into the Tower for the fun of it. On the other hand, maybe it isn't so impossible to consider? He did see Lene before the lights went out...

"Any time," he nods with a warm smile. "If you do see him, I appreciate it — and even if you don't, don't worry too much about it." The smile grows around the edges. "I think he might just have to go without my support this year."

With a wave over his shoulder, he parts ways with Leif and follows the glow of butterflies.

There is always next year.

But that would be too good to be true, wouldn't it? Even with the boasts in techno-magical advancements at this ball, that didn't necessarily mean everything had advanced. Cleaning techniques still took time, of course...

But he still feels quite bashful to have thought otherwise even for a second. Enough to make his ears go a bit red. However, he still listens to the rest of Minerva's offer, newly intrigued.

“Alright. I'll leave my jacket to you and Maria,” he hands his coat to her, placing his trust with her too. “I can't say I've heard about this new café of yours though. Is it in town?”

Well, if he hadn't heard it before, he's sure he'll hear even more whether it be from Minerva's own lips or someone else's. News tends to travel fast in Garreg Mach after all.

“I’ll make sure that your jacket will come back to you perfectly stainless” she nodded at the agreement, adding few more information about the aforementioned café, “Should be pretty close to the monastery, yes” and she quickly explained the indication to reach it, even though she as well still hasn’t been there yet. It was out of curiosity that she chose that place, or perhaps something more?

“We'll meet there and I won’t let you down on this" and she hinted at the jacket, proud to be able to be truly helpful, for once. "It’s a promise” and she bowed her head in sign of respect, sketching a brief smile before leaving. I wonder if he would like a place like this…

“Fauntleroy would be good in a real battle though,” Leif wryly concedes, looking back over the event that had taken him out. “But... I still would have liked to fight you fully without him.”

Maybe it's redundant to state, but he presses it anyway. When he does, the lightness in his tone returns, dissipating the storm that thinking on his defeat inspired just moments ago.

but maybe leif has a more far-sighted eye for strategy than her. . . fauntleroy's lateness could've been seen as a coup de grace from the gods that helped them win the battle, an appearance that'd caught their enemies off guard. . .

she sighs, properly chastised. he's right. she should learn more from his way of thinking.

which is why his sudden request takes her off guard. "huh? you want. . . to train? with me?" . . . sure, that's fine.

or, no. . . she thinks about it again——it's more than fine. as her heart buoys for some reason she can't place right that second, she breaks into an unexpected smile, voice accelerating into zealous enthusiasm. "of course! i'm so glad you asked. let's do it as soon as we get back to the academy. in fact, i'll spend double time practicing all my best techniques until then so you get the full experience!"

and she's so animated by the idea that she leaves to go do just that before he can protest or get another word in edgewise, thoughts full of the impending training session and the promise of a sparring partner who was just as excited as she was. 　

(If this is how the boy's healing spells usually go, then it's no wonder why Cranberry had taken to him with such eagerness.)

With his path to the exit clear, there should only have been one course of action, before the waiter approaches him. Andrei's fist tightens, very briefly entertaining the thought of turning his newfound skill in brutish fistfighting on the hapless service worker. Is the waiter seriously asking for payment for something he never got to enjoy because of the outrageous display of uncontrolled violence in their own establishment?

He decides to summarily ignore the waiter instead after a few seconds' pause, though, instead turning his attention back onto Leif, still lagging a few steps behind after being in the thick of the fray earlier.

"Hurry, boy!" he growls out.

They could just... figure out how to deal with payment at the door, surely?? Or maybe this would just be a crime on their hands— would either intensely mind something at this petty a scale?

Leif 8/10HP moves 3 Down, 2 Right and Waits.