awoo means i love you

"I know Robin," she replied, smile touching her tone. "We've had the chance of meeting before."

Where they had met before though, Lianna would keep close to her chest. She'd learned that not everyone knew about their time in Aytolis, even if she remembered everyone clearly. It was a bit sad... but it wouldn't do to dwell on that sadness.

"If there were archers in the forest, even if my fliers were in range of their arrows while in flight," Lianna hummed, continuing to answer Henry's questions, "it's easy enough for them to dismount and send their pegasi and wyverns out of range while they deal with any enemies up on top of the cliff, thereby removing their vulnerability to arrows and wind magic."

"You're going to have to tell me where you come from, whenever you have the time. I've been hearing about a ton of wild places, but each one gets less and less logical the more I look into it."

Henry scratched his chin philosophically, not thinking too hard about the logistics of it all. "That said…" He was polite enough to let Lianna do her thing, guiding the pegasus knights off their mounts and onto the ground to ensure that they weren't made for easy pickings. "Huh. Guess we never really considered dismounting… Usually in the heat of the moment, everyone just plows in gungho and hopes for the best. Clever, clever~"

"Trust huh? You probably arm your soldiers with a game plan before they split off…"

"Back home, we organize ourselves into duos, who lead battalions of our own. Guess you're uncomplicating the process, huh?"

He stops polishing his sword with a sigh, glancing at the man a ragtag group of trainees have brought to him. He's not suited for discipline, but they had no way of knowing that.

"Not really, I'm not much of a commander type," He could take care of himself, protect innocents with his body and sword, but he was not the kind of man who was able to give orders to others the way Ike or Micaiah was able to.

He sheathes his blade, not wanting to seem threatening, leaning against the nearest wall casually. The sky is still alight with an array of a thousand colors, glimmering like the sparks between two swords as they collide. It's impressive, beautiful and full of a certain mystique. Certainly not something that Zihark would think is worth being punished over.

But he can also see how young upstart trainee knights would want to put a stop to any danger that may occur. It looks like it's happening through some sort of magic? He couldn't tell, he didn't really know the first thing about magic.

The lights are still running their course, glittering in ways that resembled ephemeral stars. A touch and go light, here one second and gone the next. He wondered if it was a crime to be beautiful in a dying way. The upstarts and eager rabbits in cadet clothing certainly thought so.

He tilted his head, picking himself up off the ground and dusting himself off. Thoughtfully, he mused on their colors, as diffused light faintly traced over his white hair before fading away. "Distance casting? Heck yeah there is. You want to give me permission so I can show up whoever's show this is? I betcha I can do you one better, ahaha~"

Whirling his finger as a joke, Henry laughed as all the cadets straightened their backs and put on their worst scowls.

"Don't you think about it! The folks behind these fireworks have been at large since the last weekend, lighting up loads of illegal fireworks and other explosives in the area. Sure, they may've stuck to shows but just yesterday, a firework hit a stand and lit the thing on fire. And guess who has to clean it up!"

"Not my problem, bubs! You clearly have the wrong guy, since the show is still going and all." Henry whirled on his heels, walking right up to Mr. Not Much of A Commander, with a smile the size of a shooting star. Another light burst from the sky behind him, lighting them both under a faint green light. "Come on, my guy. My name's Henry. I uh… teach here. You gotta believe me…"

"And if you don't, I can at least promise you that we'll catch the perps faster with me on your side, you know. It'll be fun. Whatd'ya say?"

Did he even teach any classes?

Surely she would remember having a class with this professor.

Digging her nails into her palms, she forced herself to focus. It was clear that he was asking about her poster, and about the disturbed graves that had prompted its creation. She’d been hoping for someone who seemed a little more sane… But she supposed this would do.

And perhaps this sort of task required someone less sane.

She cleared her throat, smoothing her palms over the sides of her skirt. “What I saw was deep scratches on the gravestones in the graveyard.”

She did end up waving her hands, although it was entirely unconscious, as she tried to simulate what movement she assumed had led to such gashes. “They were deep, like no animal I’ve ever seen before. And the graves were disturbed, the soil dug up around the graves.”

The more she spoke, the more her confidence dipped, dragging her down like iron shackled to her wrists. Scratches on gravestones and upturned soil was not necessarily evidence of foul play, was it? Would the professor believe her? Would anyone?

She had to think about the people resting in the graveyard, their souls denied their peace. She had to think of their marred gravestones, their disturbed rest.

It made her uncertainty easier to bear, no heavier than twine easily discarded. She would not lose her resolve now.

If no one believed her, she would make them. 

“I don’t think it’s just an animal, either,” she said, hoping her voice sounded firm, sure. “But I have no evidence other than what’s happened to the graves. I was hoping to find someone willing to watch them overnight and catch whoever has been defacing them.”

"Anyway, you came to the right place-- or uh, well!! It was probably not the best idea just to pin up your concerns on the board like that. What if it was legitimately dangerous? You coulda gotten yourself killed, or better yet…. turned." Henry never really understood the logistics of the bulletin board in the first place. Who was keeping tabs of it? And what if the professors turned a blind eye and let the kids just go about giving each other more bloodbound tasks to fulfill.

Not that that didn't sound fun, but--

"Still, between you and I, dontcha think we can handle it? Nya ha ha! I loooooooove big beasts and monsters of the undead variety."

But good gracious, she certainly didn't look it. In fact, from the amount of stress she was taking on for just one person, he wondered if she was going to grow a full head of white hair by the end of it. His crackling voice lowered a bit, less obnoxious, more… well. Professor-y. "Look. I believe you. Don't you worry your little head-- these things will occur. In fact, it's a surprise it hasn't happened until now!" He was downright awful at this reassuring thing, but he had come around to it. Maybe he had gotten a little soft around the edges or something. Stars catching his eyes and blinding him a little.

By the time they dug their heels into the graveyard, he pushed the gates wide open just to get a load of all the dirt kicked around. "Y'know, I occasionally had a habit of graverobbin', nya ha ha! But this sure doesn't look like one of those…"

Maybe he shouldn't have admitted to that. Oh well. What's a conscience to a dead man walking?

"Geez, they really hauled dirt around here. Check out the looooooooong claws cutting into the ground… And--"

He neared a grave, thumbing the stone a little to assess the damage. "Y'know back in Ylisse, we have Manaketes and Taguel that could cleave into stone like this. But they're pretty cognizant of their beast-like features, so I doubt they'd just roll around and desecrate a resting place."

The little trick with the teardrop is impressive. Mitama knows well enough to know no real magic was used in that little display, but she smiles at it all the same. "Sweets? Wait, what need was there for storing sweets away if there is a table full right-"

Her question goes unanswered. The hand that does not hold her bowl is taken and the crystal placed gently in her palm. She cannot speak for a moment, until she manages to make herself laugh. "It is not. But I think that it may be a gentler version of the expression than the world allows us to have."

(The crystal reminds her of ice. When she closes her hand around it, the scars appear to stand out more than before.)

"It is good to see you as well." Mitama pulls out a pearl from her brooch. She wishes he had a bird with him she could pass it to. She settles for handing it over, boring and normal. "And I hope to continue seeing you well. I cannot heal you every time you are injured!"

He brightened quite frighteningly—for what, he could not tell. "Can't promise ya that! I think the sight of my own blood is a cherry on top to this whole war thing!!"

"But ya know, you're a reaaaaaaal softie. Every time, or not, that just means some time is still on the table, yeah?"

He called her bluff in the way someone turns over a stone in the garden. Nothing is entirely out of place, but the underside of the stone is now upside. And he liked when a garden had that brand of oddity. (He doesn't know the word for vulnerable, but it's just about on the tip of his tongue, somewhere. Somehow.)

Henry clutched his stomach to laugh. "Well, I'm technically supposed to be the one watchin' you, so I guess you're right. Can't die quite yet!"

He grabbed a handful of pomegranate seeds and swallowed them in one long huff. Hell was a long way from home, but he'd need to go back one day. Until then, he was pretty pleased that tomorrow was a Monday, and a school day at that!

A strikingly normal Monday. They deserved as much.

Of course,  Lissa doesn’t imagine there’ll ever come a time where she’ll be completely self-sufficient.   She’ll always want her older brother to depend on and the strength of her dear friends to motivate her and keep her afloat.   She’s a social butterfly through and through,  she knows that she could never brave the world alone,  nor would she want to.   So,  she’s brought a buddy along for the ride,  her favorite dark mage,  Henry!   It had seemed like a good idea to ask him at the time—with his unbothered attitude, it felt like very few things were capable of frightening him.   In fact,  did anything scare him?   Certainly not many of the same things that made her squeamish,  like guts and gore.   It would be nice to have someone’s arm to cling to as she endured this... what was it supposed to be called?   ‘Exposure therapy?’   Well,  that’s what Lissa had thought,  but she’s starting to second guess this decision...

As the two of them enter the haphazardly set up tent,  she’s already found herself anxiously clutching onto Henry’s arm.   Inside,  it’s dark,  illuminated only by candlelight,  and the eerie ambience does little to soothe her nerves.   The guru,  his upper face shrouded in shadow,  smiles at the pair,  expectant.

“ U-Uh!   We’re here to... ”   she stammers out in a squeak,   “ ... I heard that you have the power to cure people’s fears?   So,  we’d like to try it out?   P-Please?   I have the gold for it! ”   Holding out a satchel,  jingling with coins,  likely many more than needed,  she hands it over to the guru.   As he counts the gold inside the pouch,  she whispers to Henry,   “ How am I doing? ”

At least, that's what he assumed before stepping into the musty little hole-in-the-wall, with a guru all but melted into a tanned leather armchair. When Lissa had asked him to tag along, he wondered what a princess like her could be scared of, anyhow. Death? Weakness? Blood? All the usual one-notes of humanity, right? So why would she go through the trouble of exposing herself to things like that when war already did the job? Guess the tail-end of the ad really hooked her, line and sinker. Because if just meeting a guru for a day could squander your fears forever and a half, who wouldn't take the chance?

She squawked out a few rubbery notes, as Henry loomed behind her with an eerie, crooked grin directed at the guru. "Yeah! Yeah, you're doing fine." He whispered back, though loud enough for anyone to overhear. He kind of felt like melted wax and a letter-knife, stiff and sharp at the same time. Normally, his chipper mood was unchippable—but whoever was sitting behind the counter had some particularly strong illusionary magic to 'em.

"Nya ha!" Nonetheless, his smile relented. "Well, ya got us! We're here to be suckered, so bring us your best punches, will ya?"

A wispy, knotted hand emerged from the guru's thick sleeves, old as moonlight. The guru's joints were hardened, deforming their entire hand into a broken wing. "……Vvvvvvvvery weeeellll." His voice crackled like grounded glass. Grasping the satchel slowly, like a mechanical hand cricking and cracking, he accepted the offering at the speed of molasses.

"Hey, Lissa-- brace yourself, nya ha ha!!" All the candles in the store blew out simultaneously, and the guru erupted into flame, before his figure melted away entirely.

A thundering darkness swallowed the room, erasing every trace of musty ol' shelves and heavy-woven curtains to leave them with a blank canvas. "…Aw heck! I'm reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaallly gonna have to ask this guy how he DID that, because that was--"

"You are Elizabeth. Not a fool. Nor a hanged man."

A disembodied voice whispered to them from the sky. The clouds shifted and discolored, and before them emerged a fairly young girl with tears streaming down her face as she watched a lone star fall. Her hair was a stark blue, a symbol of the royal family, and she wore a mask that could not obscure her grief. Beside her are other young children, eyebrows furrowed, praying with their eyes open. They all look so much younger now. The sky is red, and has looked this color since they were born.

The children look back at you. At you.

"Yeah... weird"

probably not a good time to say anything else, unless they decide to meet up after the masquerade is over. she lays against the railing to look up at the sky "Its not the hardest thing to work with, maybe you should pick it up again sometime..."

"You sound reliable." There's not an ounce of sarcasm to that statement, as you humbly rest your elbows on the railing beside them. "If it really was that easy, everyone would be doing it, don't you think?" Healing was a league away from the messes you liked to make.

"Don't worry about it! I just thought, if you were gonna stick around, you'd get hungry eventually. Ahaha~ It's gonna be a loooooong night."

The night was still, tonight, but he could feel it in the way the dark sat up there, cradling the moon. "How's about you keep a secret for me. Alright, kiddo?"

He cracked a maddeningly soft smile, though his mask hollowed out his expressions until he was just a basket full of unsung hymns. Pushing himself onto the railing, precariously balancing his weight on its beam, he elevated two knit fingers towards the roar of black sky.

"Don't you love a good spectacle?"

A single flit of light glittered out of his fingertips, flailing until it died mid-air. And abruptly, a burst of unmeasured sparks scattered from his fingers, lighting their masks up with a bright orange-blue siloquette. Flicking his wrist, his fingertips melted gold, blasting one wave of fire after the other, each blooming like poppies and sunflowers over the grounds—a garden, tended to by a horrible, silly man. Each firework was larger than the last, swallowing the darkness until his blood turned to ambrosia, and his rot turned with new leaves.

He cackled, no longer hiding his characteristic clanging laugh, and felt the heat zip up his arm and sear the stars with color. Ichor in the form of prismatic light burst overhead.

It was not a bad thing to be a bad guy, sometimes. And not a bad thing to lean on him either.

He closed his eyes and just imagined the colors running through the sky right now, and thought of a song that flowers would sing.

It's always the hair people go after. To be fair, he'd probably do the very same in their shoes, because low-hanging fruit is no less tempting than the stuff you've really gotta dig for--

and besides, when it comes to the fine art of getting on people's nerves, well, one of the basic rules is that you've gotta mix it up if you want just the Right Impact. Yeah, sure, the easy grab might annoy someone a moment or two, but if you follow up with a one-two punch...

Henry, upon opening his mouth, demonstrates quite clearly that he does not need any lessons in this particular craft.

Azama feels an icy chill seep into his bones.

...really going to need some divine intervention if that's a normal reaction from your kid. . .

Brows knit in consternation, teeth grit in a gut reaction of indignation, and he leaves Henry's questions - rhetorical or not - go unanswered.

It's probably better that way for the both of them.

Truth is though, cat's got Azama's tongue pretty good right now. If his eyes were open to the world right now, what would his unexpected assailant see? Probably something like a cocktail of distress and resentment. Guilt?

"Mitama...? In the same sentence as 'a lot of trouble'?"

Were they talking about the same girl???

The Mitama who liked to nap and didn't like to be Troubled™️ if it could at all be helped? Mitama, who had slept through her home under siege? (That was forever ago, granted, but...)

"You're sure about that? I-" I what? What can he possibly say to all of that.

"It would seem I am missing some important information here..." Which he might have obtained if he'd. I don't know. Talked with his daughter, maybe. Azama drags a hand halfway down his face and stops there, contemplative. Then, hand dropping to his side, he fidgets with something on his sash,

something that clinks with as much dissonance as the everything he's hearing in his head,

and so he unclasps a set of the bells and holds his hand out, wordlessly indicating for Henry to take them. He's so tired of these bells, gods preserve him.

Though, he supposed since Azama was absent for all that, he may not have known. Heck, maybe Azama knew a side of her that he wasn't privy to. That's how father's worked, right?

"Well, now that she's back, you can gather your own intel. Your kid's been fighting your wars and other people's wars for as long as I can remember." He could only joke about it because he knows the punchline. He knows the children here are ticketed to war the moment they step under the doorway. "Ahaha~ Isn't fate kinda twisted?"

He sighed rolling one of his fingers in his ears, only half listening to a word that ran through this guy's mouth. He wondered if nagging was hereditary. "Aye, aye, my dude. Are you into picking at semantics like a vulture to a carcass? I don't see it--" A string of bells jingled in his face, stopping him in his tracks. "--Helping."

"But I guess I can draw the line at bribery. That's cool!"

Snapping his fingers, a teardrop crystal disappeared from his headdress and rested in between his fingers like a playing card. He whirled it up and down his columns of fingers, before blowing on his hand and making it disappear. In its place, he shook the bells with glee.

"Just kidding! Fair's fair. War's war. I can guess I'll be seeing you around more often, so when the time comes—brace yourself!"

He beamed enough for the both of them, knowing that he was just a stranger running circles under the moon. And this guy was the real deal. Blood and everything.

Fascinating.

well! he NEVER! what! the auDACITY!

oh, so sennō just goes around giving people a sniff or two, but HE'S the bad guy? look, BUSTER, i've already had my fair share of run-ins with freakazoids today, and you're about to go on that list. don't you test me! i'll turn you inside out! i'll turn you into a dolphin! i'll turn you into an inside-out dolphin, and then everyone will look at you and say, ' good heavens, look at that disgusting little dolphin! ' and then you will feel VERY ALONE! because nobody wants ANYTHING to do with a freaky flesh dolphin! yeah? yeah, are you scared? are you SCARED YET?

of course, none of what he's just thought has been vocalized, because sennō is something of a "silent hater." instead he sits there, glaring unpleasantly from under his hat ( as has become his most common action of late ). once he finishes his little mind-marathon, he decides he'll cautiously play nice---but only because this guy smells, disgustingly yet intriguingly, like dark magic.

he looks at the candies, then back to this freak, then back to the candies, then decides he'll try one to forge this stupid bond for idiots. it feels odd and smells significantly odder, but he figures it's just because of his attachment to hoshidan sweets. always easy on the nose and tongue, indeed.

wordlessly he pops the candy in his mouth, chews, and sits there motionless. then he begins to sweat a little bit. then a lot. then his face contorts into a mix of nausea and abject horror at how a candy can taste so obscenely disgusting!

"Also! I can't sense a whiff of magic on you. You a fanatic or something?" He tilted his head all the way to the side, trying to discipher where all the hot air was blowing from. He still couldn't tell, even with a tilt in the other direction, discerning nothing of note except for his larger than life personality. "If you need someone to really hex you, I'm your man! Just call me up, I haven't had the opportunity to flex the ol' mage muscles in a little while. Ahaha~"

"Oh yeah! And here!"

"Since you hate the candy as much as I do, I guess I should give you something different instead. How's a--" Clasping a teardrop crystal from his chandelier resting atop his head-dress, he pulled it off, snapping the ring that was holding it up. "Crystal sound?"

"Ya can't eat it, but you can exchange it for some goodies, I hear!"

Clapping his hands together, he dusted off the excess rancidity—if that was even a word—and considered his work over and done.