#bonus entry

#0815: Cinderace (Gigantamax Form)

           ‘Dauntless in Devotion’

Silvaineaux ran his fingers over the embroidered letters, the familiar motto on its banner below the crest of his House. The tapestry was far older than he was. He could remember passing beneath this fabric long before his fingers could have stretched up to find even the delicate scrollwork of the border. He was tall enough now that his fingers could count the first few beads of the rosary in the hawk’s talons above the words.

           It was the words he always came back to, though. He had run his fingers across them just so, like a talisman, the night before he had ridden out to the war in earnest. He had carried that simple motto with him in battle, a shield and a reminder alike. And now with the never ending war somehow ended he found himself coming back to find the words again. He reached up to touch them on his way down the stairs on nights like this when his dreams were almost worse than the war had been and sleep betrayed him as his courage never had.

           It was, he could not say easy, but simpler to be dauntless in battle. There was no time in the heat and rush for fear. He could throw himself into it and let the roar of his own blood carry him like the wash of a tide. He had to move and fight and think, to try to give direction to something that could not really be controlled. On nights like tonight he thought peace was harder to live in than war. He woke safe in four familiar walls surrounded by warmth and comfort and his hands refused to steady. His heart raced as if his dream battles had been real.

           His fingers lifted to find the letters again. He did not need to look at them to know their shape. Dauntless, spelled out in fine black thread, when even sleep felt daunting and the morning insurmountable. In Devotion. To the Fury, to Ishgard, to his House, to whatever fingers had run over these same threads before his. To the hands that had embroidered them long ago and the hands that sometimes reached for his now.

           He took a deep breath, and found it steadier when he released it. Tonight had only been a dream. He was awake and reality was a silent house, the lanterns dim and the soft tick of the clock in the hall below loud in the stillness. Reality was a bed he could return to, with clean linens and warm blankets. There was no war here but what he had brought with him. If he would not be daunted by the reality of battle he would not let himself be cowed by his own thoughts.

#570: Zorua(Hisuian Variant)

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#475: Gallade (Mega Form)

#150: Mewtwo (Mega Form X)