#4!

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Chester is a bit more complicated. He wants to say that it’s the scarf he wears, a birthday gift from Ami before Mars’ soldiers killed her, before everything really. The last thing she had ever given him that survived the fire and destruction of Toltus. But he knows it not. Knows that if anything, it’s his bow.

It hadn’t even been his bow originally either. It had been his mother’s first. Now, both his parents’ had been merchants. Travelling between Toltus and Euclid and Venezia, to deliver and buy goods of all sorts. But his father had been the merchant really, his mother had been more of the muscle as it were. Making sure that the beasts and monsters stayed far from the cart with her pin point accuracy and deadly aim. If Cress had always wanted to be like his father, than Chester wanted grow up and be his mother.

And whenever his parents got to stay home with him and Ami, his mother would always take Chester out on an archery lesson. Showing him how to properly fletch arrows, to take care of a bow, how to hold the bow steady no matter the danger. It was his most fond memories of childhood. And then the brigands had caught his parents unawares when they were returning from Euclid through the cliff pass. From what he had been told, as he was handed the bow that had once been his mother’s, that she had fought bravely. Nearly taking out every single one herself before succumbing to her injuries.

He spends the next few years determined to live up to her legacy, practicing with the bow everyday. So when it was lost and he thought destroyed in that first battle with Dhaos, he had been furious. Just one more thing that Dhaos had managed to take away from him. And then they were in the Elven Village, and watched Cress hand over the broken bow to the elven bowsmith and when he got it back, it was like it had never been broken. It was still his bow—his mother’s bow—no question about it. He would never forget the feel of it in his hands, but it was stronger now, more accurate, more deadly. And as he used it, he had never felt closer to her in his life.

When he finally becomes too old to use it, he hands it down to one of his kids, the one that had wanted to be a hunter just like him. He hopes that they too will pass it on.

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Like Cress, Mint has no hesitation about what her most favoured gift is. It is her hat. And like Chester, the hat was once her mom’s as well. She remember’s watching her mother work hard to save lives, to heal the sick and injured, to calm their souls. Remember’s learning under her careful and wise guidance to first heal small cuts and wounds, and then cure more powerful ailments of poison. In her young eyes, Meryl Adenade had been the pinnacle of clerical skill.

She hadn’t even wanted the hat in the first place. The unicorn earrings she always worn had been so pretty, and had wanted to try them on. They looked just as pretty as her mom did. Meryl had laughed at that, called her sweet to think so. But had promised her that just like her mother had given her the earrings, she too would pass them onto Mint when the time came. In the meantime, she had taken off her white cap, and placed it reverently on Mint’s head.

Mint had laughed at the time. It had been so large on her small head, nearly covering her eyes and blinding her to the motherly smile on her mom’s face. And Meryl had laughed with her, telling her that though it was too big for her now, she would grow into one day. Just like she would one day grow up to be a great Cleric, like her mother, and grandmother before her.

Unfortunately, the hat would be all she would ever receive. Meryl was killed by Mars, just like he had killed Cress’s parents and Chester’s sister, so she would never get the earrings as she had been promised. But it’s fine. The hat is more than enough. It is a sign of her station, that she is a healer first and foremost.

She will wait until she has her own daughter to pass it on too. And then watch as she grows into the hat just as Mint did.

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Despite being so different in all sorts of ways, it seems that Mint and Claus do have one thing in common. Like her, his favourite gift will always be his hat. But unlike her, it was not a gift from a deceased parent, but rather Mirald, though she had gotten it from their missing friend. 

It had been not long after he had truly been evicted from the Alvanista Royal Academy for his studies on spirits and the possibilities for humans to use magic. Furious, Claus had started doing everything he could to prove those entitles assholes who had their head so far up their asses that they hadn’t seen the sun in years wrong. He found everything he could to confirm his theories, their theories. Sat through the agonizing pain as an old fortune teller painted magical seals onto his skin. Wore jewelry and odd clothes that would attract the attention of the spirits, to strengthen his bond with them. Anything to prove that he had been right.

That Mirald had been right. That he had been right.

She gifts the hat to him nearly ten years before Cress and Mint pop into his life and prove everything they had known to be true. Mirald tells him it’s to keep the sun from cooking his already baked brain any further. They both know its to cover the real reason, that he would want Claus to have it.

He swears that he will never pass it on. It wasn’t his to do so. It shouldn’t have even been Claus’s in the first place.

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Now, Arche knows exactly what people think hers is: her broom. It’s obivous isn’t it? She’s never without it, and hate’s to walk anywhere, preferring to fly. They would be wrong. A lesser few people might assume the blue ribbon she uses to tie her hair up. It’s closer to truth, but still not right.

The correct answer is actually the lone blue earring she wears in her left ear.

Her father had told her, that before her mom had died, that she had left the earring for Arche to remember her. To know that she would always be with her even if she wasn’t there anymore. She is seven when she finally convinces poor Bart into piercing his daughter’s ear so she can wear the blue orb all the time.

She does find out that her mother actually isn’t dead, just forced to leave her young daughter and husband behind to go back to live with the elves. The thing that clues her in isn’t the strange elven woman running out shouting to spare Arche’s life, nor the odd similarities in their faces. But when being escorted out, remembering seeing a blue round earring, identical to her own, in the elven woman’s own ear.

It turns out that even though Bart may have been lying about Luche’s death, he had at least been telling the truth about the earring. So she never takes it off. It’s her one constant after hundreds of years of living. Brooms may break down and turn to dust, ribbons tatter and fade over time, but the earring never loses it blue luster and Arche plans to keep it that way.

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Suzu is harder to pin down. There’s so little about her that stands out when compared to the other ninja’s in her village. And that’s they way it’s supposed to be. A ninja must be unseen, and blend in with the environment before giving the one fatal strike needed to kill her target and fleeing before anyone knows she was there. The only singular thing that differentiates her from the other people of her village, is the pink ribbon keeping her hair tied back and out of her face.

And even then, most would probably look over it. She’s only a child after all, nothing unusual about the bright color of a ribbon. Except there is. Suzu is a prodigy after all, the heir to the village clan, it will be her that stands up to lead it one day. And so she takes to her duty and training with a seriousness unbecoming of most eleven year old children. So the almost girlish ribbon is an oddity.

And truth be told, it was a gift. From her grandfather in fact, just before Dhaos returned and brainwashed her parents. He had given it to her and praised her for all her work, how proud she is making her parents and all her teachers. But had also reminded her that it’s okay to be a little girl if she needs to, that there’s no shame in any of it.

Suzu thanks her grandfather for the gift and his wise words, and tosses it into her room and forgets about it. Until, that it, her mother and father flee the village with a large portion of the higher trained ninja and kunochi. She knows that it is her responsibility to stop them, they are her parents after all, but before she leaves, ties the pink ribbon into her hair. A small, childish part of her hopes that they will recognize it, recognize her, and come to their senses.

They never do, not until they are on death’s door and they apologize for what they have done her, and to the clan. She keeps the ribbon in anyway. Keeps wearing it until long after she has outgrown it. It’s fine, she decides. The colors nice, its sweet.