#blaydiud

Unscripted starter for @liegebound @blaydiud @princessmacedon

The forest loomed before them, eerily quiet. Perhaps the tamer wildlife and songbirds had been scared off by whatever lurked within, the concepts of demons shapeless and unsettling in Roy’s mind.

Roll: 3, B12-B15

Roll: 1, no demons

He walked at Sveinn’s side, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. So far, there was nothing but their own footsteps. It almost would have been better if something had leapt out, but they continued on high alert, barely pausing in a clearing to scope out the area and then moving on.

Roy glanced behind him at Lord Kent, Dimitri, and Maria. He gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile, genuinely happy to be with them. This Hunt was to protect them all and the country’s people. It was not just an honor, but a necessity to drive back whatever hoard lurked deeper within.

He turned his attention to Sveinn and Lady Meaghan. He yearned to think the best of her, yet her role as villainess and the sensations of coughing up blood and cold hands small than his resting in his own lingered, souring her jauntiness in their memories together.

Who else could it have been, though? Hm.

Were it not for the tension in the air, it would have been a serene walk thus far.

The children of this town take up jobs in the quarry to earn some pocket change. It’s dangerous work, but as you enter the bounds of the quarry, it’s just another day on the job. Some of you are perceived as “younger” children and are tasked with chipping away stone and sweeping up chalkos. Others are perceived as “older” children and get more responsibilities for their trouble, supervising the young ones and detonating explosives to make way for them. 2d3 Stone, 1d4 Chalkos, 1 Obol for every post. @blaydiud & @freedomarrow

On a scale from one to what in Naga’s holy name, Lucina would likely rate the scene before her a solid seven.

She is already mid-swing of a pickaxe she has never seen before now, startled by the way the way her strike reverberates up her arms as it connects -- as though she had not known she was doing so until, well, it happened. 

Huh.

Stone from the wall chips away, clattering to the floor. She stares down at it a moment before a familiar commanding voice shouts her name from somewhere a bit further down and she resigns herself to hefting the tool upwards again. 

Her pickaxe strikes again and she allows herself a glance around. To her left are two familiar blonde faces, both with their own assigned tasks. Eyes zero in on the thing in the nearest one’s hand.

Dreams can harbor many things — Ideals, wants, and desires. They are also a place for the unexpected and unimaginable. Her eyes are open to this very sight, but she does not dare close them. A sweeping feeling of relief encompasses the princess as their foe halts in its tracks, hoping this is the finale and she is no longer faced with such battlefield ridden dreams.

The dream did not end. Instead, it fogged itself into a gloomy-filled dream. Once more does Elice clutch tightly onto a recover staff, eyes scanning the plethora of rather odd enemies before her and her group. She doesn’t recognize them in the slightest nor what they are supposed to resemble. That in itself raises many questions, the most alarming of all being that she cannot predict what they might do. It fills her with a dread she cannot ignore, but her utmost concern is the safety of her allies.

Their last battle left them with more injuries than she would prefer— Before these strange pieces of menacing metal with undecipherable weapons can even attack, she begins her supportive work.

Elice heals Randal with Recover. Roll: 9. +6 HP. Randal’s HP: 9/10

“Stay on guard, everyone.” She speaks to her new friends in a calming voice, wearing a tiny smile to rally their spirits. For, she feels this is what she can do best. “I cannot decipher what they might do.. For now, please take care.”

Split off once more, Lilina finds herself in some room that is familiar in some way—some place she’s visited earlier in the dream maybe, only a tad bit more unsettling be it from height or the grim scene they had seen just days prior. By her side Dimitri and Emil. She knew little of either, but she was sure they would be valuable companions on their shared journey. She passes a glance over at them. Asking if Dimitri was alright would be redundant as he looked worse for wear. 

          “Well, it is in our best interest to rest up here while we can, we don’t know what lies ahead of us.” She offers Dimitri a small smile meant to be kind, but she can feel herself grimacing on the inside at his current condition. Perhaps Emil would be kind enough to lend them aid while they have a moment before the chaos.

          In this moment of peace, the conversation she had listened in on before they had set out sat with her. To lose a child... Stumbling was quite the word for it as she recalled the memory to be much more gruesome than that. But she supposes it could serve as some cruel metaphor for how quickly childhood innocence was thrown aside. Literary devices aside, she knew well how it felt to lose someone dear at a young age. Death was inevitable, but despite knowing this, the pain never truly goes away.

          As if musing to herself, she says aloud just before they begin their descent, “I wonder if we’ve been looking at this in the wrong way. Maybe she just needs time to heal. Or I wonder if there’s anything we may do to alleviate her grief.”

*steals @blaydiud’s pegasus and runs*

When Claude first met a pegasus, it should have been in Fódlan. Creatures hailing from the coldest reaches of Faerghus are out of place where he grew up, the dry plains of Almyra that few wyverns even nest in. But his mother had been a pegasus knight in a previous life. While she was determined to leave her old life behind in Leicester, her pegasus Risey was one of the few exceptions. 

He was three or four when he first met that pegasus, to him a beast as massive as a wyvern when she stretched her wings. Claude remembers her most by how she felt in his small toddler hands: dense winter fur that came off in clumps in the spring, then shaved smooth in the summer. 

That pegasus is long-dead now, and her Almyran-blooded descendants live in luxury back in Maragheh. Still, the flock back home are lean and athletic, better suited for the climate they were born in. Claude sees an echo of Risey in Grimbelle: stocky and thick-coated, ideal for Faerghus winters and cold nights in Fodlan’s Throat. “She’s a beautiful animal,” he tells Dimitri warmly, already extending an open palm for her to sniff. “I hope the pegasus I end up with is half as stunning as her.”

@blaydiud

Despite his plethora of complaints the moment anyone suggested it to be true, Felix was--by default--Dimitri's keeper. It had been his brother's responsibility before his passing, and Rodrigue made no attempt to hide the pushing of that responsibility to Felix the moment Glenn was put to rest in the family tomb.

So imagine Felix's frustration when, upon his return to Garreg Mach, his training is interrupted by the gossip of fellow students mentioning a certain blond prince rushing to the infirmary upon return from some incomprehensible journey to another realm. Good gods above, he leaves for one season...

He doesn't stop his training early, but his duty compels him to leave the training sword and seek out the prince as soon as the sun sets. Felix assumes he will find Dimitri in his room--just beside his own--and he heads for the dorms, sweat cooling in the evening air as the sun disappears along the horizon. The closer he gets to the dorms, he faster his feet carry him, boots clicking along the paved walkway.

The day of the so-called birthday bash comes far too soon, days passing like pages: in a blur and far too quickly, memories hazy like the words of a book read at the cusp of sleep. Some few moments stick out, but they are islands in the sea of thought, unique in their clarity. And then she is here, clad in the soft blue and softer, flower-decorated dresses she so favors, a silvery-blue mask with a butterfly's wing hiding her face from the world. Somehow, it seems to truly obscure her identity from the rest of the ball-goers. Excepting the others who came with her from beyond, only Sveinn seems to recognize her at a glance; neither Blake nor Meaghan seemed to know who she was until she opened her mouth.

Which means, of course, that when she spies a lone figure standing awkwardly to the side, she recognizes him at once.

"Di-!" Ah, no, even if the face is unrecognizable, the name most certainly is. Still, she waves as she approaches, so much more at ease within a crowd now than she had been back then (back when? ). "Dimimi," she greets him once she's drawn closer, a hand drawn to her mouth, the back of her thumb splitting her smile in twain. He looks different, somehow, his outfit less so ‘regal’ and ‘striking’ and more... more Dimitri. It is hard not to giggle, and so she simply does, for her laughter has ever been fraught with affection; derision is a stranger to her.

"What are you doing here?" Hands fall from her face to settle behind her back, fingers interlacing, a curtain of crimson falling over her shoulder with the cant of her head. "There are so many fun things to do here! Did you know that Meaghan has a knife throwing game? And ponies, tool Hee hee, they'd never have games like this at the academy!” 

Blink, blink. Oh! Perhaps that itself is the problem: there are too many games! Maybe he just doesn’t know where to start? Certainly, it would be her pleasure to drag him through wonder and festivity. Then and there, she decides that his smile is her goal. “Do you want to go and play one together? We could go dancing, too! Oh-- or even apple bobbing! Hee hee, what do you think?” 

He was at the infirmary now, alongside a couple others. All in the same state as him: in pain and wobbly, but with no apparent injuries.

A sniff- and his face was wet too. He reminds the faint feeling of crying moments before the last blow of axe connected with his body and knocked him out, when he thought he was truly going to die only to wake up now.

Someone, a couple cots away- is that Felix?

Dimitri got up with a struggle, weakly dismissing the aid of a priestess who had spotted him trying to sit up, and limped his way towards Felix as he tried to keep the pain in his chest at bay.

"Felix?" He hated how feeble his voice sounded, but anything more than that and his lungs would protest. "Felix, are you okay?"

Death is, surprisingly, not as restful as Felix had imagined. But then, what he imagined of death wasn't much of anything really.

It was the grisly, empty, end. So why was absolution filled with so many dull aches and meandering thoughts? That's what this had to be after all, didn't it? His last memories were of himself lying limp with the vision of dark claws approaching.

(His eyes hurt. Light was shining on them.)

What a pitiful end it was then

(How did he have eyes to see at all? To see how the light eclipsed before them?)

He tries to roar again against his fate, but he whimpers with the pain of a crushed chest.

(His name is called, and those eyes flutter open at the sound.)

It's him. Encircled in the light of the medical tent. For a moment, Felix believes he had been taken too. He saw the prince volunteer for the rescue effort as well, but steered clear of that skin deep façade. But Felix notes the nicks and cuts along his face, and priests scurrying about in his periphery.

A more intimate name comes to mind, with some small relief in his tone. But the gruffness of his voice and the habit on his lips forms another.