#blarflame

He doesn’t quite consider himself lucky for it, but he’d recognize the back of that head anywhere.

“I should’ve known you’d be here, too,” Niles greets, slipping the book—some duty tome detailing the history of Faerghus, it would seem—back into the shelf before he approaches. “Though, just how you managed to get here before me remains a mystery…”

Because he refuses to believe that Odin, for all his virtues and strengths, had found out where their missing liege had gone before Niles did. He refuses to believe, even more so, that Leo could have possibly told Odin where he’d be, but not Niles. Odin is a force all on his own, of course; despite his penchant for theatrics, he’s a tempest, a whirlwind, a world of terrifying magic humming beneath his fingertips. He’s a good retainer, all things considered, because he can do his part in keeping Leo safe.

(…But—surely, surely, it’s not to a degree where Leo has found everything in him that he could not find in Niles. Surely, Odin has gotten here first out of sheer, dumb luck and not because their lord had told him, specifically; him, only.)

“Odin.”

starter for @blarflame

“Oh, Saint Seiros… there’s two of them!”

The book falls to the ground, pages fluttering close as the monk releases a heavy sigh. Ophelia doesn’t move -- she can’t. She can’t. Her gaze locks with the elder’s, but by the gods, she can’t move. There’s something pounding in her mind, resonating between her ears. It’s loud -- it’s unbearable. A hand is placed upon her right shoulder but she… she doesn’t move.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just had a few encounters with someone just like you. A coincidence it may be, I suppose.”

Her tone is sugary -- sweet and fleeting. Like a bird’s song… like that of someone holy. 

Someone holy.

She swallows, nodding as slowly as possible. An attempt to null her mind of the pain. No, she’s not hurting. Anything besides that… she’s elated. Her fingers curl around the monk’s wrist and she blinks. “S-Someone like me? A man… right?” Her voice doesn’t match the lady’s in front of her. Breathless… hurt… weak. Fate dislikes her -- she knew this moment would come. There could only be one chosen. As she flaunted the title around, prettied exclamations and flashy gestures, fate had been preparing her public execution. This was it… this is what she had been waiting for.

There could only be one chosen. 

And that was her father.

“Correct, he’s a… er, ma’am, are you okay?”

Ophelia doesn't cry. She can’t -- when was the last time she shed mournful tears? Her face is clear of solemn traces, but she can’t help but feel… odd. The monk, of course, helps her to her room and shares as much information as she needs. Yet, there’s something about the way her eyes dimmed at the mention of her father. Did this lady know something that the heroine didn’t? Was there something wrong?

It’s only a few hours later -- underneath the wings of darkness -- that she hears him. Hearing before sight. Her eyes snap open and she swears that her heart must have stopped. His voice is the only thing she hears… the only thing she can hear. It’s him. Gods, it’s him. 

He speaks of declarations from a legend he’s suffered through that she knows too well. One of his stories he whispered to her during her sleepless night, one she had written again and again and again as a script. As their script. 

Her words are lost as ashes in her throat, leaving simmers along her tongue. She doesn’t speak. Instead, Ophelia steps out from the shadows and seeks her own comfort. Wrapping her arms around his waist with nothing besides a joyful sigh. It’s too much for her newly bloomed mind -- and it’s evident when she does so little than look at the man in arms.

“Oh father, it has been quite a delayed arrival from my end but… I’m delighted to know that you’re well and healthy! I can’t possibly think of my time here being pleasant without your --” 

The heroine’s gaze raises, and her words die. They crumble like the pathetic bunch they are. She stops, her mouth agape and eyes narrow. She stares. 

“You’re… you’re not…”

Ophelia doesn't cry. She can’t -- when was the last time she shed mournful tears? Her face is clear of solemn traces, but she can’t help but feel… odd. Her father, of hidden pasts and marked skin, doesn’t look… aged. As if years were taken off of his body, an ever so young face. No, this had to be him. This had to be Odin. Surely… surely, she wasn’t wrong. Why did he look so…?

“Odin?”

event starter for @jehannanmage, @hungrymage, @blarflame, & @shrinethief

Hubert hadn’t really expected anything to come out of Morgan’s theories. Dark magic leaking out of the ground? The reactions of strange flowers? Nonsense, if anyone had bothered to ask him (though he’s certain his expression had said more than enough). However, it was perhaps more surprising that anyone else had even bothered to humor, let alone draw a whole crowd. He had joined only to see what the huge fuss was about.

When he opens his eyes, the entire city has been pulled underwater. The saltwater burns at first, and he searched futilely overhead for the shimmering surface he believes should be there. But the ocean stretches on into endless blue. His chest tightens when his breath begins to fight its way out of his lungs, but still he wills himself not to panic even as the bubbles rise in a flurry before his blurred vision.

He can’t die here. Lady Edelgard--

He exhales sharply on instinct, but the flood of salty water does not choke him as he expects it to. Something constricts around his neck. A necklace, his fingers assess. Somehow, he can breathe here, and this must be the reason.

As the threat of death ebbs away, clarity returns and Hubert sweeps his gaze across the sunken Imperial palace. Is he dreaming, he wonders. There is no way Enbarr could fall into the sea in such a way.

Nearby, he finds his companions regaining their own bearings in the water. He’s glad for his own experience with the ocean, and kicks out to reach them.

If Edelgard had ended up here...

“Can you swim?” he tries through the water and finds that his voice comes out clearly enough. “If this is a trap we’ve stumbled into, then there must be a way out nearby.”

This was no snowball fight.

No, Owain decided, this was a snowball WAR, and one that the swordsman had no intention to lose!

He shakes off the snow atop his hair with a huff, frowning as he hears the mischievous snickers of the student that had thrown a lump of snow at him. No, he thinks, he would not allow this go unanswered to!

Hands work to arm themselves, shaping handfuls of snow into projectiles of ample size.

"One does not simply strike at Owain Dark without having him strike back!" The boy declares, "Fear my ultimate technique! FLY TRUE AND SILVER, O DIVINE BALL OF HOARFROST— w-wait nooooooo!"

It was as though everything was put in slow motion— Owain can see the snowball fly past the dastardous student that had pelted him and continue its course, bound for a certain tactician who had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"SOREN, DUCK LOW! DUCK LOW! DUCK— oh noooo"

Unfortunately for the deerling, it's far too late for any sort of damage control, and the swordsman can only watch in horror as his snowball hits Soren's shoulder with a loud, sickening splat.

Soren was used to tuning out... energetic... people. The Greil Mercenaries had had their share of eccentric members, and others who had aided them later on, so someone yelling absolute nonsense in the distance did little to draw his attention from his book.

However, a hard impact square on his shoulder, enough to physically jostle him, did.

Soren whirled around, tome still open in his hands. The hit had been too hard to be forgiven, and Owain’s late shouts for him to duck did nothing for his mood. That blond speck in the distance would be taught a lesson.

“Idiot,” he hissed. Soren swooped down and quickly packed a ball of snow in one motion, crunching it together in his fist. He came up and threw with all his might—

—and by accident, the tome he’d been reading from Garreg Mach’s library soared through the air instead, missing Owain and landing page side down instead in a snowbank.

With a string of curses under his breath, he threw the snowball too.

The snowball feel several meters short of Owain. Soren stormed towards his tome with clenched fists, figuring the pages were mostly waterlogged and ruined.

Hilda blinks up at Owain not entirely sure what it is he's trying to tell her until pink eyes follow his gesturing toward the ceiling. Of course! Mistletoe! Who wouldn't want a kiss from the lovely Hilda?

She's ready to pucker up and lean in when his tone changes and the completion with Inigo is mentioned. Pink lips curl into a grin. "I'd love to aid you in your victory! I've already sent an ask to kissed Inigo though." Hilda pauses a moment and taps a finger to get chin while humming. "Oh, I know! I'll just give you a better one!"

Send me a 🎄 to catch my muse under the mistletoe this holiday season!

Although it had been many, many moons since Kana had been home and seen his family in person, there wasn’t a face among his friends (rather, his mother’s friends) that was blurred in his mind. Every member of the army held a special place in Kana’s heart, and so he would never, ever forget them—even those that he hadn’t spoken to since the war’s end years prior. 

That being said, there had already been an instance at the academy where Kana confused one of his classmates for someone he knew back home. Dragons know poor Inigo had to deal with being called Laslow for months before his actual name finally stuck. Here was yet another case of the same. Exact. Thing.

“... Odin?” 

Grey eyes blink. This guy looks like Odin. Talks like Odin. Even calls him the same silly (cute) nicknames as Odin. And yet.. there was something off. Similar to Inigo in comparison to Laslow, this guy looked younger than the brightly-colored mage he knew so well. Brows furrow in thought; he nearly misses what not-Odin says, but the mention of a kiss gets his attention back almost immediately. 

“Oh! Right! I don’t know what, uh, celibacy means, but if a kiss’ll help, then sure thing! And mistletoe means kisses, anyways!”

With a loud mwah, little dragon plants a kiss onto the swordsman’s cheek. A moment passes where Kana grins brightly, but it soon falls as a question raises to his lips. 

A Mistletoe Kiss! 

Okay, so maybe he hung some mistletoe around the monastery, and maybe some other students decided to get in on the trend, though he shouldn’t stand here and be yelled at for it! 

Inigo crosses his arms, barely even flinching at Owain’s theatrics. “Nefarious? Owain, please. I am not desperate! Simply taking advantage of the holiday spirit! And if pretty lady just so happens to pass by...well, we have to observe traditions, no?” 

Unfortunately for both of them, Owain was neither pretty nor a lady. “Now stop scaring off all the girls! Don’t you have to go shout some ridiculous names in the training hall?” Inigo’s gonna regret this. He knows it the moment the thought pops into his head. But messing with Owain is just so much fun.