Empyrean Headcannons in no particular order
Dain knows how to cook. Nobody knows. His father insisted he learn basic survival skills including cooking (basics) and he enjoyed that part so much he kinda went overboard.
When extremely plastered (in Aretia), Sloane Mairi suddenly decided that the dragons looked lonely and needed hugs, so she naturally when to do just that. Dain was the only one who succeeded in dragging her away from a very exhasperated Thoirt, an amused Andarna and a long suffering Cath who all decided to "sacrifice" themselves so she wouldn't get roasted by a far less amused dragon. This happens at least once a week, less often when in Basgiath, but only because it's harder to get to the dragons.
The only reason Sloane can get hammered so consistently is because all second squad first years meet once a week for a "game night" that devolves rapidly when someone suggests something a bit more fun.
Avalynn drinks the most, Aaric is a two and done cause someone's gotta be responsible. Lynx provided the alcohol and drinks a quarter of it minimum. Baylor is a lightweight and Kai is a horny drunk.
Speaking of Lynx, he has no less than 15 bottles hidden in various clever hideyholes in his room plus a few more around both Basgiath and Aretia. Dain knows where all of them are. Dain pretends not to know and occasionally swipes one of them as compensation if the first years have been particularly trying that week.
The morning after "game nights" Aaric wakes his squadmates up with hangover tonics and breakfast in bed. If in Aretia, breakfast will include the fluffiest most delicious pancakes known to mankind, promptly commandeered by Sloane, who will actually bite anyone attempting to take a bite of her pancakes. Dain may or may not have made the pancakes himself. Sloane will never know. Aaric takes credit. He might have been bribed to do so. Allegedly.
The whole subterfuge over who actually makes the pancakes (and the rest of the Aretian post game night breakfast) gets discovered two days before Dain graduates.
When Dain graduates, he passes onto Rhiannon the knowledge of where all of Lynx's bottles are because "you'll need it".
Aaric demands to know how Dain actually gets Sloane to cooperate on getting away from hugging the dragons, because every time he's tried he's been unsuccessful and the two times he saw it in a vision, the dragons taking off drowned out what was being said. The answer? Tyrrish. You gotta talk in Tyrrish.
The first time Aaric attempts this after Dain has graduated and happens to be on a mission somewhere, Sloane promptly breaks down in heart wrenching sobs and Aaric has to physically carry her back to her room, bridal style. After a bit, still sobbing, a still very much sloshed Sloane manages to get out that he did it wrong. When Aaric tried to get a now hungover Sloane to explain how the hell did he speak Tyrrish wrong (his accent was flawles, his grammar impeccable) it took 3 hours and a lot of blushing to explain that, essentially, he wasn't Dain and therefore didn't sound like Dain. And also he used the wrong terms of endearment. Aaric didn't get the chance to get it right, as Sloane stopped going to hug the dragons.
Once a bit more comfortable with each other, Jesinia decides to teach Sawyer how to sign a full sentence without telling him what it means. She doesn't tell him until he can sign it properly. The phrase is make a professional whore blush level of inappropriate. Jesinia does this to get Sawyer to blush cause she thinks it's adorable. She does it twice more (different days) before Sawyer decides to take the erotic sentences as requests and proceeds to fullfill them to the best of his abilities. By the time they're married this has become a fun way for Jessinia to request some more salacious bedroom activities that she may or may not have read in a book somewhere. For educational purposes of course. If he's already familiar with the signs, Sawyer feigns ignorance until she explains.
At some point during the war, Jessinia does something heroic that impresses the dragons (defending hatchlings or something equally big, dragons aren't easily impressed) and recieves a gift as gratitude. Sliseag does the honours (that's his rider's mate thank you very much). She gets marked in both arms in a similar way to the apostasy kids, except hers are the same shade or Red as Sawyer's relic, and go from just before her elbows down to her wrist and in a vaguely arrow like shape on the back of her hands.
The gift allows her to speak with Sliseag in a similar way Violet could speak to Sgaeyl. After she gets used to this for a bit, Sliseag points to the little pathway that connects her to Sawyer, giving Jesinia a way to fulfill her biggest wish: to hear Sawyer's voice.
Sawyer is delighted when he discovers this side effect of the gift. They use it often so Jessinia can hear sounds she's been curious about but mostly so she can listen to music. Ridoc joked once about his own voice luring Jesinia away because it was just that sexy. Jessinia responded with something along the lines of "hell no it's not" but bitchier somehow.
Sawyer writes poetry. He has it in a little notebook he keeps on his person at all times, mostly cause he doesn't trust Ridoc not to go through his things and find it. He'd never let him live it down.
The poetry notebook falls to the floor one day as he climbs Sliseag when he has to take off fast for some mission or other and he doesn't notice. If Sliseag notices, he doesn't say. Jesinia notices and picks it up, intending to give it back later.
She really didn't mean to snoop, honest, but she's a scribe and she's curious and after taking a peak at the first one she kinda can't help herself. It's good. Really good.
There's poetry about everything you can think about. War, loss, friendship, even one that Jessinia suspects is actually about his dragon. There's also a couple dozen at least about love, hinting at some mysterious alluring captivating woman and some seem to hint whatever feelings are being reflected in the pages are not reciprocated. Jesinia is not jealous. At All. She just doesn't think this mysterious tramp deserves him in the slightest. That's all. Really.
By the time she returns the little poem book to him, Jessinia has gone through 17 stages of grief, multiple cycles of self doubt and managed to fret herself into low self esteem. She gives none of that away. Sawyer proceeds to somehow look simultanously embarrased, horrified and hopeful, and his face is so red it's making Sliseag look pink next to him. Jesinia doesn't stay to chat.
Sawyer spends almost two weeks trying to determine if Jesinia has in fact read the poems and what she thinks about them (embarrassment be damned, he actually meant every word) but every attempt to bring up the subject ends with either her pretending she can't see him sign or suddenly being busy or needed elsewhere.
Finally he manages to corner her and sit her down and talk about the damn notebook with the stupid love poems. Turns out it had never occured to Jesinia she might actually be said mysterious alluring captivating woman (the poems don't give enough hints of the physical appearance or anything that would outright point to her) and had been heartbroken thinking Sawyer was in love with someone else and she had misread the situation. Sawyer takes the best part of a whole afternoon showing her how much she had not misread the situation in the slightest before they actually discuss what she actually thought of the poems. He does make her promise not to tell Ridoc about them. Ridoc already knows about them but is saving the info for a rainy day.
Speaking of Ridoc, he's an excellent dancer and more flexible than you'd initially think. Those skills translate well into the bedroom.
The way the squad finds out about this is when a slightly more than tipsy Ridoc attempts to dance with the entire squad, succeeds in dragging an equally tipsy Maren into the center of the room and proceeds to wow all of them. She still refuses to go back to his room for another type of demonstration.
There used to be a rider whose signet was being able to transfer memories into paper, creating instan portraits (much like a camera works). She's the reason why an old colleague of General Sorrengail had a bunch of portraits, that she may have managed to deliver to Mira one way or another. Second squad spends a quiet free afternoon cooing over portraits of a 7 year old Dain with a mop of unruly curls on top of a 5ft pillar smirking in victory and satisfaction at having "conquered" the summit, little Dain and Tiny Violet arms around each other cheek to cheek and smiling widely, 15 year old Brennan trying and failing to look like anything other than an awkward teen, Mira and Brennan clearly arguing about something while Violet pouts next to them, and Dain (from the top) and Brennan (from the bottom) helping Violet get on top of the first pillar.
After the portraits, General Aetos has now 5-6 new plans for an untimely death made for him exclusively because "how can you look at that face and think Imma screw this kid up so bad his anxiety has anxiety?". Sloane's plan is the most violent. Aaric agrees to issue a pardon to her if she sees it through and lets him watch.
Another side effect of the portraits is that the first years (and Ridoc) are now curious about what their wingleader would look like without the beard. Dain refuses to shave it. There's multiple attempts to persuade him otherwise, including coercion and goading. Aaric also tries bribery.
Sloane is the only one weaved into Dain's wards because after a lecture one day she decided to mess with his very carefully arranged stuff and he noticed she was like 25% less aggressive the rest of the day and he decided him being inconvenienced for 10 minutes whenever she was pissed was better than having to physically stop her from fighting half the quadrant every half hour (also because he's totally in love with her and loves having her in his space but he's not admitting to that even under torture).
This and a particularly strong pain tonic after Dain gets injured on patrol, is how the first years get their wish of a beardless wingleader. Someone got into the wingleaders room while he was nearly comatose from the painkiller and managed to shave enough of said beard that the only way to fix the mess was to properly shave it all off. It took a whole week to regrow to a decent enough level and 3 to restore to pre shaving conditions.
Turns out Beardless Dain looks mostly like a very big very muscular very pissed off teenager. Sloane is unaware he knows it was her (or that she was at the very least an accomplice) because Sloane has been operating under the assumption that Dain's room isn't warded.
Cath treats all future Slain children as if they were his hatchlings and will actually let them crawl all over him while pretending to be annoyed. No one believes his protests. He's gentle enough with Liam, but positively soft with the girls. He has nicknames for all 3 children and they get used more than their actual names.
Sliseag treats Jesinia as if she was Sawyer's mate (in the dragon sense). He becomes protective of her in a would be nonchalant way. He also claims if she had chosen to become a rider and had been found worthy she would have surely bonded a red. Reds are the superior choice after all.
Aaric's future wife is gonna be a navarrian scribe or something similar from one of the other countries.
Halden will either not live long enough to become king or get assasinated shortly after ascending the throne (shortest reign in Navarre's history). Aaric is gonna be pissed about this because his moron brother didn't manage to get married, much less reproduce properly before dying (there's rumours of a couple bastards somewhere and Aaric is tempted to just find them and legitimise them).
