#casshilde

Fandom: Soul Calibur

Pairing: Cassandra/Hilde

Hand-Holding Prompt: 22 (Grabbing the other's hand to pull them back from something)

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"You know, we don't do a lot of mushroom eating back home," Cassandra mused aloud. She and Princess-Regent Hildegard were out and about in the forest near Wolfkrone Castle, and she noted how pleasant it was to see Hilde wearing something other than armor for once. Given, Her Highness was still wearing rather fine clothing for something so menial as trudging through the leafy detritus of a forest floor to forage for mushrooms, but she was clearly relaxed and enjoying herself instead of looking ready to fight at the slightest provocation.

"Is there a reason for that?" Hilde asked, showing off her half-filled basket, lined with a cheesecloth and carrying a pile of bright, golden yellow caps and stems she had plucked. "Mushrooms are delicious and very healthy, especially if meat is scarce."

Cassandra glanced at her own basket, noting how much emptier it was than Hilde's. "Well," she explained, "the heathens who used to worship Dionysus, the god of wine, would drink something called soma, and the drink was made with six ingredients. The first letter of each ingredient spells 'myketa,' which is a very old word for mushroom. The main ingredient of soma is a mushroom with a red cap and white spots–"

"Oh!" Hilde interrupted. "You speak of Fliegenpilz! They are a poisonous mushroom that brings visions and madness, and eventually death to the eater." She made a small chuckle. "If the worshipers of this Dionysus regularly drank them, it is no wonder your people have lost their taste for mushrooms."

"Right."

Cassandra felt rather torn on referring to followers of the old gods as heathens, but worship of them was banned and punishable with death, after all. With how predominantly Christian she had seen the Holy Roman Empire being, Cassandra was uncertain whether openly admitting that she showed reverence to something other than God would earn her Hilde's ire, and that was the last thing she wanted to test out with her new lo– er, her new friend. Yeah, that was it. Hilde was a friend.

'Dammitall.'

She pushed such thoughts away. Now was not the time to be afraid! It was the time to enjoy spending her afternoon with Hilde! Reaching down, Cassandra made to pluck one of the golden mushrooms growing from a fallen log. Rather than the mushroom's stem, she felt Hilde's hand wrapping tightly around her knuckles, hard enough that she momentarily thought Hilde was going to break her fingers, and she was jerked upward. "Oww!" Cassandra cried out, feeling pain in her shoulder from Hilde's great strength. "What was that for!?"

"You were about to pick a Dunkler Ölbaumpilz," Hilde informed, "not a Pfifferling. I do not wish to make you, Gerhilde, and Garibrand ill, Cassandra."

Cassandra looked at the mushroom she was about to pick, unable to figure out what Hilde was on about. "How can you tell?" she asked, and Hilde responded, "Pfifferlings grow on rotting wood in singles. Dunkler Ölbaumpilz, on the other hand, grows in clusters. The Dunkler Ölbaumpilz is different in color as well; see how it is darker, and turns brown in the deeper part of the cap? Then there are the different gills; Pfifferlings have thick gills with lots of crooked forks, while Dunkler Ölbaumpilz has thin, straight gills that are close together."

Standing back up after the short mycology lesson, Hilde looked into Cassandra's basket and sighed. "...You have been picking quite a lot of them from logs, haven't you?" she accused, and Cassandra whined in disappointment. "I'm sorry! I was just trying to pick what looked like the ones you were getting," Cassandra said as she dumped out her basket. "These... these wouldn't have killed you at least, right?"

"No," admitted Hilde, "not unless we ate a great many of them. But they will make you very sick, and you would be stuck on a latrine for days with a bucket in your lap, puking and shitting until you wish you had simply died instead."

Guilt racked Cassandra, and she fought the urge to cry. She almost ruined her friendship with Hilde and the others just because she wasn't paying attention! What kind of friend would she be if she got them all poisoned?

"There there, be well," Hilde said as she pulled Cassandra into a hug, Cassandra not having realized she was hiccuping with tears until she was in Hilde's embrace. "You made a mistake, but it was seen before it could hurt someone. All is right, and you are innocent, yes? There is no need to cry, friend."

Looking up at Hilde, her eyes glistening with teardrops, Cassandra asked shakily, "A-are you sure?"

Hilde gave a gentle laugh. "Of course. I already have enough mushrooms for you and I to make dinner, anyway. It will just be for us, this time."

Fandom: Soul Calibur Ship: Cassandra/Hilde Hug prompt: 20 (Cuddling) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The mountains near Athens could get quite cold, especially near the top, and especially at that shrine where Sophitia spent so much time praying, but back home was still at the coast of the Mediterranean. Even winters were relatively mild, and spring and summer were delightfully warm.

Cassandra had absolutely no idea how the people of Wolfkrone didn't all freeze to death every damn winter.

Tightening the thick wool cloak she traveled with around her shoulders while sitting in near a campfire, Cassandra gave a shiver at the bitter cold of the frosty air in the Black Forest. Princess Hilde had taken her, Gerhilde, and a small retinue of her closer fellow soldiers on a boar hunting trip, both for food and sport. Hilde had, apparently, been on several trips before, and had displayed remarkable strength and courage; when Cassandra had made a fool of herself by questioning why everyone was so impressed with the princess having fought a pig and taking it down entirely on her own, Hilde invited her to come along and see what the fuss was about, at least once everyone else had finished laughing at her.

Sure, there was the legend of the Calydonian Boar Hunt in her homeland's ancient folklore, but that was a divine beast sent by Artemis, not just a regular wild boar. Where could some hog in the woods compare to the fury of the goddess of the moon and the hunt?

Rather than her usual sword and shield, Cassandra had taken a pair of odd spears with her at Hilde's behest. They had long, sharp heads with what looked almost like the crossguard of a sword near the part where the head met the shaft. "The crossbar," Hilde had explained, "combined with the lengthy and broad leaf shape of the head is so that you can inflict mortal wounds without the boar getting too close."

Cassandra hummed curiously. "How would the boar keep coming towards you with a spear in its guts?" she asked, and Hilde giggled softly. "Cassandra, mein Schatz, wild boars are extremely fierce. When in danger, they simply do not care that they have been impaled, and will run up the shaft of the spear to gore you with their tusks anyway, and both of you will die. And even then, the strongest boars can still break the thick shaft if you do not control them properly, and then they will kill you anyway. We have entire parties of hunters take on a single hog for a reason."

"Didn't they say you killed one by yourself though? How hard was that?"

Hilde raised an eyebrow. "That was considered a truly exceptional feat," she replied. "Even my father, who is far bigger and even stronger than I am, almost died when his entire hunting party had been chased off. The boar was already wounded, and the only reason I still have a father is because he managed to get it in the eye and pierce its brain." She grinned with no small amount of pride and smugness. "When he found out that I had taken my own boar down by myself without injury, he was so beside himself with relief that he could not sleep for two days."

Scooting closer to Hilde on the log upon which the both of them sat, Cassandra leaned on the princess' shoulder. "If hunting a boar is so dangerous, couldn't you wear armor to stay safe?"

With a shake of her head, Hilde answered, "Armor is for battle, not for hunting. If you were to wear enough of it to make a difference, you would be too loud, and scare your quarry away. As well, heavy enough armor to fend off a boar restricts movement, and if the weather is too cold, the metal robs your body of warmth. You would freeze to death before ever finding the beast you hunt."

Hilde's own clothes for the hunt included padded cloth, thick leather gloves and boots, a scarf made of badger pelts, and a cloak made from the cured hide of a black bear. "Speaking of warmth," she noted, "it looks like you could use some yourself." She picked up Cassandra and set the squeaking Greek lady in her lap, then wrapped her arms around Cassandra's shoulders and middle, hugging her from behind and resting her chin in the crook of Cassandra's neck. "Here, have some of mine.

Fandom: Soul Calibur series Ship: Cassandra Alexandra/Hildegard von Krone Kiss Prompt: 18 (...as encouragement)

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From what Cassandra had heard, Princess Regent Hildegard of the small, old kingdom of Wolfkrone was supposed to be a master tactician and strategist, especially for her age. By the look of it, those rumors held mostly true; Cassandra had found herself surrounded by a large number of malfested while heading south through the Holy Roman Empire on her way back to Athens, who thought they had an easy meal. Cassandra, giving credit where it is due, was able to take down a large number of them, but there were simply too many to defeat on her own. A rather nasty wound was left from the blade of one of them, a bleeding gash on her shield arm, and she knew that the other malfested knew she had a weak spot now.

Thanks to the timely appearance of Hilde and her troops, who had apparently been hunting down these malfested for a week now, her injury was far less damning than she initially thought. The soldiers of Wolfkrone were terrific fighters already, but Hilde herself was... she was something else, to be sure.

The head of her spear poking out the other side of one malfested, Hilde wildly stabbed her sword behind her and caught another malfested in the chest, punishing them for being fool enough to think they had a chance; pushing that one to the ground, she grunted as she planted her heel in the gut of the one impaled on her spear and yarded the polearm out of it. "Augh, leck mich am Arsch, filthy monster!" she growled as she freed her weapon. Gerhilde, who was nearby and had just finished off another malfested with some exotic whip-sword, looked at Hilde embarrassedly. "Your Highness, there is no need for such language–" she started but was interrupted by Hilde waving her off with her sword in hand, unknowingly spattering Gerhilde's armor with malfested blood. "Not now!"

"So, uh," Cassandra asked, trying to keep her mind off of how bad her arm hurt, "what does that mean?" A sidestep to dodge one opponent's downward swing, and Cassandra followed up with a slash that cut them across the throat. One more down.

"Don't die on me, and I will tell you!" Hilde called back, an excited smirk decorating her face. She rammed the butt of her spear into a malfested who tried to charge at her, and finished them off with a broad, lunging stroke of her sword. 'Gods, that woman is a beast,' Cassandra thought to herself.

Fate lacked the patience to let Cassandra get away with her wandering thoughts, and she almost didn't block her next opponent's attack in time. She shouted in pain as she deflected the malfested's sword with her shield, the force of the blow ringing through her arm and aggravating her already painful wound. Still rocked by the agony, Cassandra was able to clumsily tackle her foe to the ground and stab them a few times to end them, but she struggled to get on her feet, the combination of pain and fatigue hitting her quite hard. As she took a deep breath to try again, she felt the metal of a gauntlet grip her under the armpit and roughly jerk her to her feet, and found herself looking into Hilde's fiery chestnut eyes.

Cassandra's own blue eyes widened, and her cheeks reddened. "I, um, uh."

Hilde's smile grew, as did Cassandra's fluster. "Ummmmm. Uhh."

"Pay attention to the fight, so that I can teach you every curse that Deutsche can offer when we are done, hm?" Hilde said teasingly. "Ah! A quick cure for many ailments looks to be in order," she added before giving Cassandra a short kiss on the mouth. Were her lips not occupied, Cassandra would have gasped. When Hilde broke off, she teased, "Better?" and got a nod from Cassandra.