raven. a mercenary.

Likes in the same manner in which Ursula likes anything— in the way that is learned and thus chosen, a machination of the emotionless creature from which she was taught it. She sees in him purpose and, more importantly, a use. Of course it may be preferable to sink her talons into something softer, squishier, someone weak-willed and easily moved by the material. Money, sex, power— the usual suspects. It's the fact that he isn't that endears her to him, makes him something interesting. A challenge, something to pick apart and appeal to in a manner far more fun than the worse of men who might have been in his stead.

Ursula is silent as he speaks, eyes half lidded and smile unmoving, fox-like. She watches the clumsy entrance of a boy who, for all of the Lord Raymond's most impressive work of making the furs upon his shoulders fit, tells her all the places to look where it wears poorly. Tea is poured, an antique cup weighted comfortably between her fingers. As Raymond speaks still, she turns it gingerly in her hands, inspecting. A style that the waiting ladies of higher houses are likely to tease the others for keeping, perhaps fine decor for a cabinet in the memory of a mother. It is a sign that it remains in the home, one of the few niceties still left.

"I believe that you are deserving of honesty, my lord."

Her gaze slides up from porcelain to where his gaze awaits her own. Unhurriedly, she brings the cup's rim to her lips and drinks, a long slow sip punctuated with a pleasant 'hm' as her eyes reopen.

"You should not surprised by mine or my superior's interest because of your size or, frankly, your standing. What instead I implore you to be concerned with is that I am your first visitor and, if I am to guess, your only." She sets the cup down without looking away from him once, movements all languid and easy; a predator's. "You are weak." Her head tilts. "Or, at least, you are seen as such. To be thought of as weak makes you exactly that, for it is how you will be treated and what will be believed until disproven. Those in power should be clamoring to bite at what presents as an exposed throat, or to assess a new threat should they not find their new prey so willing."

The chair complains when she settles back in it, hands folded delicately upon her lap. "This means that the question is answered already, don't you think? That those who may have sat here before me have decided you a threat or unworthy of their time already. And if that's the case, which way do you figure the scale has tipped?"

She allows a pause only long enough to punctuate her words before humming.

No one who offered full honesty would proclaim it as such, and certainly not in the same breath as ignoring a direct question.

Raymond did not need to be told that his position was weak, that he was considered a liability to the Lycian Lords who sat council - these grown men who had watched as his father played pretend at success, masking the frayed edges that began to wear until it had been too late for anyone to turn a blind eye. More than ever, he felt it with sharp clarity that he was to their eye still a child.

His jaw ground, but he said nothing for a moment, lifting the teacup without drinking, simply pressing the porcelain to the firm line in his lips as though it might bring him some comfort, to think of it as his mother's hand on his shoulder.

Neither did he need to be reminded that she had been his court's only visitor, that these grown men had made him come to them to negotiate - to beg, in truth, clinging white-knuckled to his dignity with the force that might allow it to suffuse into the memory of his departed parents and their public shame.

His eyes narrowed. Perhaps she had answered his question, but he had been too naïve in the moment to notice it.

It was his weakness that was attractive to her.

"Connor? My…vassal. He - " Hesitated here, knowing the answer to her question, and knowing abruptly why she had asked it. 'You are weak.' "He is sixteen."

We grew up together, he did not add.

Not her, of course. In her opinion, it’s all for the greater good. Many benefits to be found in her hard work.

“Oh, wonderful! Worry not—as a member of the clergy, I am never in the business of leading anyone astray,” she sweetly reassures. In the back of her head, she does consider that some attendants might be inclined to lie for the sake of a final sale, it looks so good on you, perhaps you would consider it in two colors for different occasions or both of them are so flattering—if you buy both, we can offer a discount; Poe had no such inclinations, and would tell the truth as it were. So, she is well and justified in her dedication. Now that she is here, following through is as much her duty as reciting psalms.

That enjoys evaluating, poking and prodding for reactions, doesn’t factor in.

It was different, he thought, from being circled by the sharks of girls looking for a smart match, to elevate their families’ status with an heir to a Lycian lord - their eyes had devoured him, it was true, when he was younger and less stern and more naive to the machinations of the world, but this felt less like being seasoned for a meal and more like being batted around, a feather toy for the barn cat.

Straightening, he released a long sigh, and began the work of toeing his boots, shucking coat and trousers, and contemplating his options.

And there were options, weren’t there. They had made sure of that. Mahogany, for his complexion; ivory and cream in satin and linen and silk; frills here, cutouts there, and sharply placed darts such that if it were not so broad in the shoulder he might have suspected it was made for someone of a shapelier constitution.

Eventually, Raven’s fingers found the curtain again, and he lifted his arms to display: the smartly fitted leather trousers, an ivory top that fit a little snug around his biceps, despite his efforts to fold and shift the way they fell (with conveniently matching mahogany leather arm garters), and saddle shoes.

“Great, perfect, right? This should do.”

Well, it's the contents of what he's saying that stuns her more than anything, stealing her words and any noise she could have made before it's all given to the laughs of the drunkards instead. They take the volume, and with it, they cut Raven off entirely.

At least, that's what she thinks until after a moment to collect himself, a moment to collect something to chew, his words find him again. He's not quite the same composure-wise as the man who just a minute earlier looked distantly away from her, voice aching with some wound she hadn't realized prior...

“What I do with it...” Lapis repeats after him, fitting the idea into her mind by force, wondering about it.

“And what do you do with your worries?” she asks after a beat, wondering if it might be a bit much to do so. Perhaps he, just like her, didn't know what the right answer for that was yet. It is clear that what he has said so far has been hard, has carried some darkness within his heart for him.

But for it, she knows he doesn't say anything just to humor her. He has always had strong thoughts, she finds in the time she's known him, and now, she gets the impression they come from somewhere— somewhere that has his throat in a vise and fogs his eyes with tears he blinks to hide.

Nobody cries for nothing, she wants to believe. The tears that didn't spill tell of a man who worries perhaps just as much as she does.

"I think that I was supposed to," he replied, voice low and soft. A gesture, to the surroundings, as though that could clarify. "All of this."

It would have been advantageous to everyone involved, he knew, if his family had made a stronger connection before the shame came to light, before the rot had corroded from the inside out and had taken its pound of flesh from the heart of everyone he had loved, left him with the cavern of their absence in his own.

The sounds of laughter, of stories being exchanged and songs being sung, swarmed about him but did not quite penetrate, waves against his stony face. He might have remembered a time or two in Tintagel, or amongst another's castle, but it wasn't the same.

Not enough that he could get himself lost.

As though he were ever anything but.

Clearing his throat against the familiar prickle of heat in his chest, Raven reached forward for the tankard of ale and took a swig, glancing away and into the thriving crowd.

"It's good," he repeated, "that they have each other. That they'll have this memory of overcoming hardships to fall back onto, when another arises. And another will arise, in time - they always will, I think. There's no part of life where adversity ceases except death, and it's better always to have someone at your side to remind you of that."

Another pause, gentler this time, and indeed more of a pause than the threat of swallowing silence.

Instead she is to arrive in weather perhaps better suited to the truth of her cause. Warm and still and out of place, promptly unsettling. Reprieve from an uncomfortable season only to promise another soon to come, obscuring that honesty beneath the relief of all those who had waited out the last. Dry grass crunches beneath her gelding's hooves, her movement towards the castle seemingly the only thing moving about the world at all.

It is all routine from there, a series of steps that make every different castle feel the same. Ursula dismounts, reins already relinquished to some stablehand she glances only once at. She lowers her hood with both hands as the shadow of the structure envelops her and offers a closed-lipped smile to the serving boy that remains. The weight of her cloak slips neatly from her shoulders and into his arms, and she does not bother to ask him to speak up and repeat the muffled greeting he gives. Her eyes roam appraisingly about the manor as she is guided through it, an air of superiority about her expression.

The place reeks of vulnerability. In everything she can see the circumstance, the boy-marquess come into power too soon. Luxuries sold by his former to repay debts she is certain now weigh upon his shoulders instead. A pitiful fate to be left in the husk of a noble home without even the ornaments to make it feel noble. It's a wonder he has any attendants to see to her at all, likely on contracts that pay in something other than coin. She wonders idly at what generosity this particular boy may be here on behalf of, assessing him as he stops before a door.

"Thank you," she says before he can speak to instruct her forward, "that will be all."

Head ducked, he shuffles off. Ursula's gaze lingers on his back, thoughtful. He had been young still, younger even than his new master. And would the late Marquess Cornwell not have preferred a girl of the same age instead? Her lip curls, amused. Had the father a taste for boys, then? Does the son?

The door groans beneath her palm as it opens and she steps through. Immediately her gaze falls to him, Raymond, not even twenty years of age and draped in the garb of older, uglier men. He does not suit it at all, still too young around the eyes for attire better tailored to drinking one's weight in ale and barking at wives and sons and servants all the same. Ursula moves to stand before him, presents herself with shoulders straight and hands folded in front of her.

"My lord," she greets with a smile and a respectful dip of her head, "it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Ursula, though I imagine I need not remind you for whom I come on the behalf of." A cant of her head. "I admit I am delighted to be meeting the young marquess so soon, you are the subject of much talk."

"Be welcome here, Ursula, within the halls of Tintagel, my home." He did not seat himself when she did, and remained standing, tall and straight. This, too, would be judged, no doubt - no less than if he took a seat beside her too hastily, he was sure.

"I have to admit that I'm…a little surprised to hear that your employers have…taken such an interest in the affairs of - " His mouth twisted here, a scowl that he found more and more lately that he could not help, the affectation of a rage barely controlled, when it was indeed all that he had remaining to his name - that rage, that control; "A small march in another country."

His steps took him a bit closer, arms coming to clasp behind his back. "The reach of the Black Fang is impressive."

More, perhaps, than the Lycian League of Lords might have been aware of. Had his father conferred with these Bernese that conducted within the shadow? Did Uther?

Connor popped his head back into the room, and Raymond stiffened. His valet scurried forward, struggling under the weight of the serving tray bearing tea service, the weight unused to of being vassal to a lord proper, rather than the lordling child's playmate.

"Er, excuse me, miss, milord."

"Leave it," Raymond said, gesturing to the low table in the center of the room.

"Oh, but I can surely serv- "

"I said leave it. I will serve our guest. Dinner?"

"Ready in a couple hours, milord."

A nod, a dismissal.

"You must be fatigued after your journey here. I have to apologize for the poor conditions - although I suspect an outlander would not consider the sun bright in the sky to be such, would you? We are normally rather more temperate."

The tea filled the cup with deep amber, his mother's service, heirloom to the name Cornwell itself, intricate porcelain with tableaux as green as the forests that surrounded them. Raymond set the tasse before the woman, this Ursula, and here finally did he seat himself opposite her, cradling his own tea in hand, elbows on his knees to lean toward her.

"Rice!" Byleth says in surprise. "But that doesn't look like grains. And even if cooked wouldn't crushing it just turn the rice to a wet mush?"

Grabbing the hammer, they ashen demon raises it above their head before bringing it down with a satisfying THUD. It reminded them of the work they'd undertaken at the blacksmith, learning to repair weapons.

"It's a bit like hammering on the anvil right?" That too was to soften and shape the metal. They wondered if the paste would likewise be heated between beatings. Then Raven mentioned something about fillings, coatings and presentations.

"A whole day out of doing this!" Byleth says in surprise. "Will it take that long, how will we know when it's done?"

But there was more than surprise there, it was nearly delight - in any other person, they might have been aglow, and the thought crooked a corner of his lips upward and softened the edges around his eyes as he reached a hand in to press and fold the mound of rice that was coming together to form a paste before Byleth could bring the mallet down again.

"I suppose it is like hammering on an anvil. To hear it from the natives who know the most about this dish, it brings itself together through the work. It becomes soft, but not a mush. I cannot pretend that I know what it's supposed to look like at completion, just that I've been told it takes…quite some time to get it there."

Working the smithy, too, was a task that took all, if not multiple, days - if either of them had experienced it in brief, it was not quite the expertise to contextualize the hard work required. Just the same, neither of them were master chefs of any sort, that much was clear.

Suddenly a horrible chill runs down the boy’s spine as the heavy silence is broken by the sound of a little pebble. For a brief moment, he wants to get his hopes up. That everything is fine and there are people living here.

If only it were that simple. From a distance, close enough to see a shape in the mist but too far to truly discern any features, a humanoid figure shambles forward before suddenly stopping.

“W-What… what the heck is that….?” Ewan says in a low whisper, pointing towards the unsettling figure. Suddenly its neck twists, and two red lights glow where the eyes would probably be. It’s staring at them, the offensive scent only becoming worse and worse.

Suddenly it doesn’t feel as quiet anymore, the way he can now hear his heart beating a mile a minute.

The figure stares for a moment longer.

The tension wound about him, coiling uncertainty so tightly that the sword was out of its sheathe the barest moment that the creature lurched forward, its fingers grasping the spot where the boy had once been.

Although his blade struck true and clean, making neat incisions along bicep and torso of the figure, it barely stuttered, and the scent that erupted from it was so foul it made him jerk backward himself, lifting the inside of his offhand elbow to his nose.

“Back up - it isn’t - what - ?”

Chunks of the thing sloughed to the ground, and spattered along the stone path, disintegrating nearly instantly into a fine powder, nearly a smear of dust as shambling feet continued to guide the thing toward them.

“Move - run!!”

He didn’t wait; Raven hooked his fingers beneath Ewan’s armpit, and he dragged the boy away from the thing, running through the gate and further into the town, over the rough and uneven cobbles beneath their feet. The chill crept closer, wrapping around them with the crawl of fog, and Raven felt his breath coming short in spite of himself.

He was not an unfit man, and the altitude was not so great - what was happening?

what a sight they both make, with their salt-streaked hair plastered to their faces and their lips drained of all color. exhaustion lines the corners of their eyes, which squint against the ferocious sun, and drags their mouths into tight frowns—and still, it is as raven says: keep moving.

dorothea coughs into her arm, trying to ignore the gusts of wind that blow through her soaked clothing and prick her skin. despite these miserable circumstances, there's gratitude in knowing she’s okay, and that her partner is, too—though whether that’s true, or if he says it only to ease her mind, she can’t seem to tell from a simple glance.

a mental note is made to fully appraise his condition when they’ve finally settled.

as they trudge toward their would-be shelter, she leans down weakly to retrieve whatever spare driftwood litters their path. even this proves to be too much as she nearly sways from a loss of balance, huffing forcefully to catch her breath. keep moving.

"i do." she can’t say the entrance to the cave looks all that appealing, what with its foreboding depths unknown to them and jagged rocks that could pierce them with one wrong step, but she concurs it’s by far more preferable than sitting out in the open, at the mercy of the elements and other foes. dorothea drags herself to a dry patch and sets the pitiful scraps of wood she’s collected down, filling her lungs with much-needed air before slowly, and painfully, easing herself into a kneeling position.

“We will. But this is enough for the moment, while we regroup.”

Raven licked his lips in thought, eyes narrowing at the spark of flames before them, to use them as grounding focus, to concentrate.

“Beathe will remain in the skies as much as she can, searching for me. I don’t think that she’ll land if she can help it, unless they continue shooting at her.”

Which they would. It was irritating, but unavoidable. His wyvern was more than skilled enough to avoid the flurry of arrows by simply flying higher, and she was intelligent enough to parse this out - but she was hotheaded, and he wasn’t at her side. Her first priority would be to find him.

“We need to take as little time as possible to find their location. I didn’t see any ships on the water when we arrived, so they must be beached, most likely on the other shore of the island. Their supplies will be limited, but we can’t rely on how limited. Better to snuff the threat out at the source immediately. If they take Beathe down…”

He didn’t want to think about it, and ground his jaw.

"Oh, tell us everything!" someone chirped; but his eyes were pointed up toward the foliage and the skies, unable to trace the voice to a name. "With who? Here, in Pearl Shoals? Who is the lucky person—?"

Another voice chimed in: "How long have you known each other? How often do you visit? What were the discussions—?"

And the third: "Is the mask relevant to the engagement? A man of mystery you must be, Reynold, hiding your true self except only for your lover... oh, how romantic—!"

...Anyway, Bruno was absolutely going to need the drink. Maybe a second one too, so as he set his head back down with the cup, he only nodded in gratitude as another shot was poured.

If this was where they were headed, then fine. So be it — church mission be damned. Bruno managed a small smile, covering it with his glove to feign shyness. The blush wasn't too difficult to fake, given the embarrassment, but what was more difficult was finding a way to falsify pity, to let his smile falter into something more sad despite the subtle frustration that bloomed.

"Brut is too kind," he started, quiet. "For all the years that I have... looked after him, he has sacrificed plenty for myself as well. It must be difficult for him, you see — I had asked our father to accompany me, but he had fallen ill, so Brut became the next-best option."

Eliza lifted a hand. "Difficult?" she echoed.

Not here, though.

Here, he suspected, the spark of delight and relief that bloomed within him would have been so malapropos as to have gotten the both of them discovered immediately - but what a time for this man to finally begin playing along and finding himself to be of use, whether he knew it or not. Raven assumed that the mention of this false betrothed being a former lover of Raven’s was supposed to get something more out of him than a simple pat on Bruno’s hand, but the masked man would have to be disappointed.

It was, frankly, the perfect opportunity.

His eyes fluttered shut and he affected a delicate sigh, curled his fingers gently enough around Bruno’s that it could have read as threat, and replied, “If my sacrifices are what it takes to keep you free of your wretched burdens, then may I sacrifice again. It is…enough to keep his eyes in my life.”

The eruption of gasps, of gentle murmurations could not have been better if he had planned them himself, and if Raven were the type to smirk then he would not have been able to help himself while they fawned and cooed over whatever beautiful fraternal affection they were concocting in their heads.

“That’s so beautiful-”

“Would that someone would say that about me!!”

“Perhaps someday, my dear-”

“Oh, and are you threatening to leave me for it?”

More giggles, and shows of affection of their own, beginning to loosen about their edges as they poured another round of shots, Raven swapping his refilled tasse with one of their empty ones in a smooth motion and a dry chuckle.

“And what is his name?”

“Ah?” Raven blinked, cocking his head to find the glassy eyes of the girls now on him, watching him with greater interest than before. “His name? Ah…I don’t believe I’ve spoken it in some time. It was…is…Theodore.”

“Eeeee-!!”

This seemed to delight them all the more, squealing and giggling and kicking their feet with rapture as they turned to chatter amongst themselves, discerning whether they knew this man whose eyes had captivated Brut and Reynold so deeply.

“You know, I daresay that he was at my father’s fundraiser!” The girl Courtney gasped at the realization, and here, for a moment, Raven did feel the corner of his lips quirk upward.

And even so, she feels herself hold her breath for a moment in response. In the silence that follows, absent even of breath, no response is made. They wait, they linger, but in the end, she releases her held breath at the same time that Raven shuts the window.

Perhaps that is why she misses whatever it is that he hears.

"Hmm?" Rather than listen right away, she looks down the hall to the side. She sees nothing at a glance. Just the dark shadow that consumes the second floor, eating away at all the light to leave nothing but a great, empty void. It feels almost like standing upon the precipice. That, if she were to just take a step towards it, she would fall in and be gone forever.

She rushes into the room instead. She makes it about midway to Raven when the door of the bedroom suddenly slams shut behind her. The sound makes her jump and spin around, with half a spell already lingering on her fingertips. The door looks the same as before.

The yawning of the darkenss seeped through the crack beneath the door but did not venture entirely within, but simply simmered, simply ate at the floorboards and the outline of the door itself, a cruel facsimile of hall light inverted only to show the black. After a moment, the shaking and rattling and scratching found a new fellow to add to their chorus, a faint and miserable moan seeping through the wood, spilling onto the floor and creeping toward them like blood.

In spite of himself, Raven gasped, the tiniest sharp intake of breath, at the continued and abrupt dip in the temperature, and the slam of something heavy upon the door.

CRACK - !!

The wood shivered, an echo of itself vibrating in place, enough for him to realize that they were trapped within the room, that there was no where to go, the window had locked and the door and the axe form the shed had just been sharpened - 

“Nnghh-”

He reached a hand up to cradle his temple, wincing at the sudden vivid bloom of pain that erupted there, and the smears of color and life through eyes not his own that followed.

Those words of conviction (of promise) were not conveyed by her own lips. Perhaps they should have been. 'We'll find it', she heard. There was no uncertainty; no hesitation. That was the assurance this land needed. It brought the neutrality of her eyes into a semblance of surprise and welcoming.

A hand sauntered to her chin. "Considering what we've seen, this is no coincidence. What if we look at it from another perspective?" From the corner of her vision, the family duo faded behind them. The boy seemed to be whispering words to his mom. He managed to smile, in the end.

It might have shocked someone who didn’t know him, the depth of the venom in his voice, but he paced along the edge of the reservoir like a beast in its cage as though the statement were enough.

That it wasn’t brought the bile back to his throat.

He tried not to think of the smallfolk in his family’s march, the pains to which his father had gone to ensure that they had what they needed and remained hale - not merely to perform the labor needed to retain income and taxes, but because when they smiled at them as they rode by, it was a genuine feeling of connection. Of responsibility.

Raven’s fingers rose to his chest and gently gripped the front of his chest through his uniform.

“If it were so easy as to storm into the homes of those who’ve taken it to bring it back, then the Church might have sent its knights. Would that it were so simple, to kill a man, and have his ills be rectified.” His eyes burned to glance back at the princess, and he forced himself to take a breath in.

“I suspect this is…some lesson of negotiation, then.” The thought curdled in his mind, but the pieces began to put themselves together. It was an academy, wasn’t it? They knew of the water shortage, and perhaps even knew the cause and solution.

But it made a very poor teaching moment, to reveal everything up front.

Raven hissed an impatient little tsk.

"Yes. Of course. Thank you for your generosity," she replied after a lull of silence. Despite her reservations, the steam from the soup creeped against her cheeks and sought an invitation. With the Duke so carefully watching the two of them, she knew what she must do next. The Imperial heir picked up the spoon at the side of her bowl and stirred it into the soup.

When she brought herself to taste it, she swallowed with a quiet thump. "That was delectable. I lament not being able to duplicate it for myself," she lied. A smile of pleasantries sat upon her face, turning to her companion with eyes that said otherwise. "You have my apologies," she finished without the usual cadence of true remorse. Two, three more spoonful's, until she ushered the bowl away from her person.

Raven stiffened, eyes meeting the Duke’s firmly for a long moment that seemed to stretch on between them, longer than the hours they’d spend here by far, and he felt his breath flare hot as he exhaled with control through his nostrils.

“Of course. Thank you, for the time spent, my lord.”

He lifted the bowl as though in toast, although his affect remained as flat and dour as it ever hand, and he considered the surface - looking for oil in a soup of this kind, smelling for something acrid beneath the onions - before pressing the back of his thumb to his lips and tipping the bowl just so.

The Duke’s eyes remained firm on him, a focus that was nearly unsettling even for someone of his calibre, until Raven set the bowl down softly. The lighting was poor enough that he would not see it was still full, but Raven could deal with that the moment his gaze broke, he just needed the moment.

A beat, a full moment of heavy silence.

Furthermore, it's that which allows her to move past her initial instinct at his line of questioning. Deep within, she has the urge to flee, to deflect and not really answer.

But she wonders if, just maybe, since he's been like this so far, if she might gain more from being a little honest herself too.

“Well, I guess the fact I do worry,”  she sighs.  “Everyone around me always says I have nothing to worry about and that I'm fine. But I've grown up knowing things aren't certain usually y'know?”

She figures her prior examples already give a bit of a glimpse into the various things she might mean by that, so she presses on without being too specific.

So many things in life aren’t free…

It made sense, complete of understanding, why she might be so concerned, and so self-conscious: the wedding itself was a deliberate display of wealth and of power, on the part of those who had held it. Many weddings were, for that was the function of them - but this one in particular, the need for one side to demonstrate that it lacked for nothing, to bolster its strength in testament as example that even though others found the choice in partner undesirable, that it was of no material consequence.

But to someone like Lapis, it merely highlighted the things that she didn’t have, and perhaps never would. Not love, but wealth, and security.

Raven leaned back, arms coming to cross over his chest, then back down to rest hands on thighs with a sigh, leaning back in.

“It can be hard.”

He hadn’t expected that his throat would tighten so completely over the words, and he shook his head, eyes not quite meeting Lapis’.

“It can be hard, especially for the smallfolk, if their liegelord doesn’t pull the weight that he needs to, or makes mistakes in bookkeeping, or is simply selfish.” A crack, gentler this time, and his gaze fixed on the woodgrain of the bench beneath him, gaze hazing with mist that he blinked away before he looked up. “Money and food are material needs, and it’s easy to say that you can overcome not having them, and maybe people can for a time, but after that time something begins to break in you. You make rash decisions, without the input of those who need to give it, perhaps even without input of your own rational mind.

“My father-”

BWAAAHH - !!

“Sign for the happy couple?” A pair of boisterous men, whose standard Raven couldn’t make out, plopped themselves down on the benches beside them and shoved that little book back under their noses, and Raven grimaced as he held up his hand.

“Already did, move on.”

And they were filled with enough joy and drink that they did, heedless of the delicate veil that they had just shorn.

A beat of silence, a breath.

Raven’s fingers reached back to his plate, plucked a piece of bread for something to chew, and sighed.

Perhaps realising that further resistance was futile, a few figures shimmied down from the trees and began running away. Banking sideways, the professor looped through the air swinging their sword with one hand to persuade those below to cooperate. Soon they were corralled into a huddle. It was just like herding sheep.

"Everyone down on the ground!" They shouted waiting for the few to gather in a small huddle. Satisfied that the miscreants were suitably subdued, Byleth landed midnight on the edge of the forest and stood watch over them until one of the knights arrived having climbed down the returned ladders.

"I believe these are some of the ones responsible for your earlier predicament" They told the knight who nodded in thanks before looking grimly at the bandits. "I'll let you take it from here"

Mounting Midnight, Byleth reconvened with Raven. "Thank you for your help" they said upon landing. "I think we earnt a good breakfast!" An indignant whiney behind them interrupted this statement. "You two too of course. Let go eat"

"Well at that point, your experience is hardly human anymore." It was impossible to tell who would and would not chose to become a lingering spirit once their life reached its end. Only their final moments would really be able to tell that. "Regardless, I would be quite upset to discover I had become an onryo. It would be a rather pathetic end to my life."

Not that she hoped what they would find here would be an onryo either, but… Mitama shakes the thought from her head as she follows Raven's lead. It feels as though the house has grown darker behind the shut down. She lingers at the foot of the stairs for a moment, squinting back into the room they just left before following after him. The carpet on the stairs eats the sounds of their footsteps, and yet it is as though no sound has ever been made in the house before. The suffocating pressure only grows as they step onto the second floor landing.

Her breath lightly fogs the air between them as she watches Raven slowly open the door to one of the rooms. Almost immediately, Mitama's eyes are drawn to the open window that now sits across from them.

Just like the open window he'd chased her out of.

Letting out another sigh between his teeth that misted the air, Raven inched forward, ignoring the creak and squeak of floorboards beneath his feet to focus instead on the sharper sounds of air underneath, like the breath of someone frantic and dizzy.

“Hello?”

It felt absurd to call out, to a presence that might not even be there, but there was something in the way that sound traveled, seemed to be swallowed by the thickness of the air around it and simply wrapped back towards him like a short-distance echo.

He did not reach for his sword yet, but moved with calm and deliberate steps toward the window, shutting it with a firm motion. Briefly, he might have expected it to be stiff, to get stuck, or otherwise feel supported by some force unseen, but it moved as any normal window might.

But for the sound of a striking match further down the hall once the frame of the window hit the sill, and the rushing gasp of air from a voice unseen.

Honey, first, as he keeps it somewhere easy to find, and rosemary, common enough that he knew where it was instinctively. “Anything else about this tea that you recall?”

Apricot, dried, would have been generally difficult to come by- at least, there may be some stores that sought to supplement it with other flavors. Briefly, Sephiran wonders if that was why it differed from what Raven remembered.

He, at least, was not stingy with his stores. A few are brought to the table, and he remembers to put the water to boil as he prepares the blend. There were many ways to cover silence, and many more that he knew- though most of them insincere.

"I can wait for you," was how he always replied, brushing hands onto apron after heaving another crate from shelf to floor. The exertion felt nice, something different from the drills, from standing at attention or sitting for lessons. "This isn't so bad."

"Well, aren't you going to ask if I'm hungry?"

"What?" The question came from him in a splutter, a cough that coupled its exhalation with shock, and he turned away from Sephiran for a moment to cover his mouth until the fit passed. The ache did not, even though he gained control over his breath for the time being, clutching his hand into a fist when he turned back.

"My…apologies." A wince at the hoarseness of his voice, a rough swallow that only dragged the ache upward from his chest like a buoy in his throat. "It passes," he added, a false promise.

They had torn from him intermittently, gripped at his innards with thorns, clawing to keep within, and he could not help but find it fitting when he had spat out the first dull petal. He could not even identify it, let alone its color.

Brow pinched, he focused on Sephiran's face for a beat of silence.

Darkness fills the room as Raven's spell is extinguished. Not all consuming, but enough that the shadows of furniture become more daunting than they had been previously. Mitama sighs, turning to the window and walking over to to it. "Death comes for everyone, eventually. It is part of the human experience to learn how to handle that."

Throwing the first half of the curtains open kicks up a cloud of dust into the air. Mitama winces and starts to cough, having received a face full of it. While she struggles to recover, she throws the second half open too. The windows are not clean, having been forced to face the years alone. The light that filters in is not as bright as it could be, but it is better.

Mitama coughs one loud, final time as she turns away and shakes the dust for her form. "Whoever it is, they are long past their time upon this earth. It would do them well to learn how to accept their own end and pass on already."

Despite the dramatics, she does not feel anything in this room. She crosses back over to where Raven is and stops by the door frame. A charm is peeled free from the bundle she carries and placed up the wood. She smooths it out with her hand, then rests it atop the center. The ink briefly lights up before fading again. Satisfied, she nods and turns to him.

"Might you take the lead to the next room, this time?" She raises her arms limply. "I am quite a frail thing, you know. Not at all suited for the task of tussling with what the spirits might physically throw our way if we are not careful."

It was a more cavalier attitude than her might have expected from her, even based on prior interactions - where it was one thing to be so incautious as to test an unknown spell on a person, it was another entirely to dismiss death.  It wasn't quite grace that she said it, but it didn't appear to be wholly bitter, either.

There were many who struggled their whole lives to come to terms with such finality.

He certainly had.

Eyes flickered up to the second floor, tracing the path that the sound took and holding it against the map he'd made in his mind, attempting to place the movement to a familiar room or window that they'd been able to see from the outside.

"I would expect that becoming a wraith to haunt a house isn't the typical part of the human experience," he replied instead, wry, turning on a heel and canting his head, a gesture of acknowledgement; "Stay behind me, then."

Raven shoved a shoulder against the door, finding that it had jammed in the slamming, the same creak and groan as a house with wood swollen before a thunderstorm, and pushed them back out into the hall towards the staircase. The spell came back to light in his fingers, more certain this time, stronger with practice, though the farther upward they traveled the darker it seemed to become, swallowing them despite that it had been relative daytime when they'd entered the house.

Colder, too.

"Careful," he said, and the breath steamed out as they landed on the second floor, and with the single word the shutters to the bedrooms gave a great shiver in near unison, and from behind the door to their right he heard the pages of a book riffle, as though blown by his breath.

Fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and for all the fuss, it opened smoothly before them, allowing them to step forward into a sparsely furnished bedroom: armoire, side table, poster bed, and a desk by the open window.

A frown.

Barely maintaining her composure, Sanaki shook her head. "Don't concern yourself over that. Sephiran is a captivating damsel-in-distress even without dress and veil." A considering pause, and then she added: "Goddess knows he's no good at playing the hero, anyhow."

The enigmatic smile and the half-served explanations were yet another set of forms she had learned from the man in question, but she decided to let … Raven … puzzle that out on his own. "Though if you do decide to both fully commit to the costumes," she clasped her hands girlishly once more, "then naturally I would be delighted beyond measure."

… A princess in a tower, hmm? Seemed fairly simple. Surely Raven could just fly up there?

Personally, Sanaki thought the man had nothing to fear. It's not like Sephiran had anything better to do at a ball like this, not when all he had done so far was stand around, looking a little more cheery than usual. "I'm happy to hear it. Off you go, now!"

"Naturally," he parroted. He didn't see the appeal, himself, but Sanaki had proven herself more and more to be someone who entertained the flights of fancy that young girls were oft wont. Silly as it sounded to him, he wouldn't begrudge it of her, and inclined his head at her dismissal.

It had been a strange conversation, but there was a lot of value in it as well. For all that Sephiran had spent these years holding himself apart - and for good reason, if Raven were in his position he suspected that he would retain the same arm's length to everything around him - there was something that he was close to.

Someone, who not only cared for him, but did so with aggressive aplomb.

"I'm on it then. I'll…report back, when the job is finished," he said, tone a mite flat, but only to mask the quirk upward of his lips as he turned on his heel, and made to find the subject of their conspiracy.