#aeschyluus

          ❝ good, you’re still here. ❞ for his sake, she’d taken pains to cover up a bit too — no glasses like the curious ones he wore, but a cloak of her own, tying back her hair beneath the hood to hopefully keep anyone from recognizing the telltale scarlet. she was curious, yes, but could respect that this was likely more than just a back-alley hustle of the sort he made it look like. no, more than curious, in fact. being fully prepared meant knowing everything it was possible to know ahead of time, certainly more than a hasty order to meet him at the gates when she was ready to depart.

          the shadows of the alley, though a stone’s throw away from the bustling streets of the marketplace, are well-concealed, if today in part by the sheer volume of crowds moving through, making their own supply trips. it was so packed, some bystanders in an alley would hardly warrant a second glance. ❝ i know that you might not be able to explain everything, but any information you can give could be the difference between whether we come back alive or not. sir aeschylus, right? please, at least who you are, where you’re leading us, and any idea of what might be waiting. ❞

Oh. She hadn’t expected to get that far. She’d thought she’d be ripped to pieces and dragged off somewhere the second words came out of her mouth. Hmm.

She shifted awkwardly, trying to wrack her brain. He...he wouldn’t just tell her things if she asked, right? He was an enemy of some kind, right? So she had to be careful about this. What would be useful to ask...

The guards!

[ from here ]

Maybe he was a fool, to carry on despite the punishments - for it seemed this was not the first trophy he’d received in pursuit of his... hobbies? It seemed to him like they could almost qualify as a hobby of his, yes. Or was he more so brave, to stand up in his own way? It seemed a fine line. Maybe both, then.

Crossing his arms - gingerly, mind... quite loosely, given he’d been healed but his arm still throbbed, ached, in memory of that weapon’s sting - Ewan shook his head. “I suppose I should thank you for your pity, then.” Innes had died, but now he was back. Somehow. The sirens sang, not quite yet relegated to background noise. Soon, they would be on the run again, fleeing their brief reprieve. It all grated on his nerves. (That maybe he could have done more. Or that maybe he shouldn’t have done anything, or at the least waited for a better chance - he hardly relished the thought of being back sitting in the cells, but with the way things had played out...

No. The alternative - those bodies, flayed like a damned potato casually peeled for dinner - struck him as infinitely worse.)

He stared at the ground - then up at Aeschylus in defiance. “’Our kind.’ ‘Surface dwellers.’ For a people who have such marvels of technology at hand... What are you still doing down here, anyway?”

He knew he didn’t fully understand. He didn’t have the whole story, only that which he had inferred from the knowledge they had gathered. There was something about this place and its people that just didn’t sit right. The gate was supposedly for their protection, but with what he’d seen inside that facility, surely they had the means to hold their own up top if need be. He pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deep. Then glanced back.

“I’m glad you feel like helping us right now,” in a fashion altruistic or not, “but if you’re gonna change your mind later...” Then maybe don’t bother.

Then, a quick step back. He’d seen how the others almost... doted on him. And truly, he didn’t mean to be so... angry. And he was grateful, all things considered. He just... He just. . . “I’m sorry. I just. Want to see everyone get to go home...” Tired. He was so tired. Without realizing it, he raised a sleeve to wipe a tear, and then two. Ugh.

Bernadetta smiled softly as Aeschylus agreed to come with that. The relief was immense. Aeschylus might be one of them, and he might not be one of them, but when she looked at him that first time after they escaped the lab and saw the splattering of bruises that he now wore...

too familiar

She felt guilty leaving him behind.

That didn’t change the fact that he...probably knew more than he told them. She didn’t blame him for it. They were strangers after all. But...it was better to have more information than not, right? Lady Edelgard and Hubert were some of the most successful people she knew, and they always seemed to know everything.

She wished they were here, and then immediately hated herself for thinking something so selfish.

“Um...you said that you all gave us our Crests, right? Um, your kind I mean, not you specifically...” She was still a little nervous to bring this up. He’d been so mad about the Goddess. If he poked and asked...it was better not to lie, right?

“Do you know what Solon was doing? He um...there was this weird light, and those of with Crests saw them on the wall, and they separated us and there was...” Bernie trailed off. Too much. Too little? She didn’t know anymore.

“Oh...like, physically?” That made sense why they would be able to get information about what was happening there. But if they were close to Faerghus, she wondered why the map had been so detailed in the lands owned by the Church. How far out did they go to scout? How did they scout?

“That means someone would go up to investigate, right? How would they do that? You’re, um...I don’t mean to be rude, but you’d be kind of noticeable on the surface.” Slowly she turned around to see Aeschylus. Just Aeschylus. Her shoulder relaxed a little.

And why just Faerghus and the Church? They hated the Church, so it made sense that they would investigate them a bunch, but why Faerghus? From what Bernadetta could remember of her history lessons, the Empire had fought with the Church and...