#flashflames

"If a sword comes at you like this," Wanning said, demonstrating with her right hand. "You can block like so." She turned and the metal band around her left wrist met her hand blade. "The material used to craft this bracelet is stronger than most - there are few blades in the nation that would be able to run it through with a single strike. With good coordination, you could fend off quite a few attacks like this...and then." She pushed down on the bracelet discreetly with her thumb, activating a mechanism that made a sharp dagger shoot out from the side of the plain-looking band.

"The blade is thin but incredibly sharp." She cautioned, showing Keran how to return the dagger inside the bracelet before handing her the gift. "For you, my dear friend." Wanning smiled. "I did make an additional one for Lady Aera as you asked, but...I would be ashamed to present her with something so...unsightly."

Wanning was right to feel embarrassed. House Yue was known for crafting and honing weapons. As useful as her gift was, it was truly one of the most hideous creations to ever come out of a Yue's hands. The metal was dull, slightly crooked, and in a grey color that would remind one of a rock on a rainy day. "Perhaps we could...paint this red and...decorate it with lace?" She offered and then laughed at the silliness of her own suggestion. No amount of effort could ever make this fashionable.

     tournaments in romance novels are always a glamorous thing; it's always a big event with big decorations and simply the perfect opportunity for love confessions and promises of eternal loyalty. it's thrilling in its own way, being unsure whether the main character will win all their matches and get the big prize for their romantic interest, moving their relationship forward further and sometimes even being the turning point for the other part to realize their feelings or even to understand the depths of one's feelings towards them. aera has always loved tournaments in books, forever finding them one of the many epitomes of love.

     however tournaments in real life are a little less glamorous and a lot more scary, even more so when people that she cares about are participating in it. of course that this is a good-natured kind of event since there were rules to be followed and none of them says that these matches should be to the death, how it's designed for entertainment and showing off firebending skills more than anything else. even then, with their prides on the line, of course that individuals will get competitive and disaster, either of low or high degree, is bound to happen; people are bound to get hurt. or maybe it's simply because aera never liked physical combat, never enjoyed it when she was forced to learn when younger, and therefore of course she won't enjoy a real life tournament.

     even then aera still forces herself to watch at least a couple of them, wanting to show support to her family and friends. even when she'd prefer to have volunteered to stay at the medical bays to help the participants after their fights — though she supposes there wouldn't be much for her to do considering she's a healer and not a doctor, her knowledge of physical ailments much more limited no matter how much experience she has in patching yura, geonwoo and even keran up —, she still sits by her oldest sister's side in the audience while praying to the spirits that neither her siblings nor keran will be harmed, at least not badly.