call them brothers

          “A ROBIN COULD EAT YOU IF IT WANTED TO. Piece by piece, slowly pecking at your insides. Just ripping out worm-sized chunks of flesh at a time.” A truly gruesome image LeFou was painting, but he often did that in front of people he didn’t like. 

          “FEAR IS A USEFUL TACTIC. It keeps people safe, you know? I– I happen to quite like it, even though the fear is painful at times.” LeFou was ruled by the emotion. Everything he did was centered around the fear of harm or punishment.

    “Ha, that would be a very dedicated robin.” Leave it to Adair to find that funny, if in a rather dark way. Maybe it was just the contrast of something as innocent (and a bit stupid) as a simple little songbird doing... that.

          “THOSE AREN’T ORDINARY BIRDS. THEY’RE MONSTERS! They’re statistical outliers! When you say bird sized I expect a robin, MAYBE a cardinal! You’re lying by omission and I will not stand for it, Monsieur!” He spits with the last word. LeFou was a very, very sore loser, and was coming up with every excuse in the book to put more blame on Adair. “T-they don’t really eat people, do they?” He asked, with fear in his voice once Adair tells his story.

    “Your memory is the one that’s lying. I said it was a hunting bird. Who’s ever heard of a meat-eater the size of a robin?” Though that would be a sight to behold, wouldn’t it? A swallow trying to carry, say, a salmon out of the water--he has to chuckle.

          OH GREAT. HE WAS OUT OF JAIL. After he’d been so smug about it too– now he just looked like an even bigger fool! How could Gaston agree to release him? LeFou just didn’t know, and would likely never know– He was just distraught over it, and more than happy to take out his pain and confusion on Adair still.

          “THAT WAS NOT A REGULAR SIZED BIRD! Regular sized birds are eight inches big at most– T-that bird was like a meter! That’s not a regular sized bird at all!”

    (...Okay, it did depend on what kind of bird you were talking about, he had to admit that.)

    “Normal for a bird of prey, then. You must have hawks around here, or something like them.” There were big birds everywhere, weren’t there? If not birds of prey then at least geese and the like. (Probably even meaner than any meat-eating bird he’d ever seen, too.) “Zephyr here is a little on the small side, even. My dad used to tell me when I was little that one would pick me up and eat me if I went off too far. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one big enough to carry a kid, though.”

    Who is Adair if not the most smug man alive when things go his way? Well, at least when things go his way in the more positive sense; technically, having a dragon break him out of jail would have been in his favor just as well, but Eph talking his way out was a much more pleasant way to go about it. (Sure, there had been some conditions, but Adair could live with that as long as he wasn’t jailed.)

    Now all he has to do is wait for Ephreith to finish getting some supplies for the trip (a task easier said than done when he was still trying to figure out the logistics of how Iurian coin compared to whatever the currency here was), then they can set off back to where Unis is hiding out (somewhere in the countryside). In the meantime, Adair is rather busy enjoying a warm reunion with Zephyr, mottled grey feathers fluffed up cheerfully as the bird nuzzles Adair’s chin. 

    And what better way to celebrate your newly-returned freedom than by pointing out all the things you were being completely truthful about to the goon who got you imprisoned in the first place?

her father taught her swordplay, but she’s also a budding mage as a teen, learning the art iurian sealing. originally she was learning from ephreith, who tutored all of the twins’ kids because neither of them really had quite the same education as eph, even shinri. she ends up mostly teaching herself later on because of Ephreith Ruining Everything(TM) and she wants absolutely nothign to do with this absolute motherfucker.