#helswathed

The booming voice hits her ears out of nowhere, so loud it could have come from any direction. Somehow, though, Fee knows it's spoken to her, and she spins around in search of the source of the familiar voice.

they get a baby because lex accidentally knocked up some random lady, who then spitefully keeps the pregnancy to dump the child on him. jokes on her, he loves being a father so much and he loves his baby girl.

they name her Laura. lex jokes 'Loren' because lex + soren but they genuinely can't think of anything better so settle closer to Lauren, or Laura.

soren ends up doing a bunch of research on holy blood to try and understand the best way to raise a holy blooded child. lex is like babe chill the whole time. soren ends up understanding more about the subject than lex.

still, he doesn't let Laura handle full-sized, bladed axes until she's ten. lex is fine with it, and uses it as a good excuse to keep his daughter safe. "your daddy said no, kid, sorry."

soren is "daddy" because lex thinks it's funny. lex is "papa" because it melts his heart

Laura ends up becoming a huge flirt. she's sneaky about it. soren complains about it to lex, but lex brushes it off. he knows it's happening, but he wants to let her have her fun.

she's interested in becoming a big time mercenary for fame, but ends up leaning on her holy blood more than anything else. she makes soren go gray early.

personality wise, she's like a mini-lex, but with soren having been responsible for her education, she's a much smarter lex and he is very proud of her.

Laura becomes a poet! then a bard. then an author. then a poet again, then she writes speeches for some minor lord, then she goes back to poetry... gets some published... does that make her an author again? whatever. she is very happy.

Happy Day of Devotion babe ♡

(Arm wrestling result: 20, ft. @helswathed)

When she set out to look for her husband, Ayra was already resigned to the fact that she would find him up to his usual antics. To see him in a wrestling match could have been a relief — this was, after all, a far better way to pass time than climbing the ship’s mast —; except that he just had to run his mouth before the match and then lose in spectacular fashion.

It was to her credit that she didn’t interject as they began (she would have thought he would have known better than to judge his opponent by height or gender)... and that she didn’t wince at any point during the match. She leaned back and watched with her arms crossed, stony but keenly attentive, in stark contrast to the racuous cheering from the sailors.

Perhaps it was that stoniness which drew the lady’s attention, or perhaps it was the intensity of her gaze. Regardless, the challenge was more than welcome: She would have sought a match if the woman did not. Lex may have gotten what he deserved, but as his wife she couldn’t let that humiliation stand... Not least because he made her choice of a husband look questionable.

And so she brushed past him without a word, a quick glance his only acknowledgement, to exchange introductions with the brawler. Once that was done, it was time to show him how to wrestle... and Panette as well, apparently.

“Oh?” She offers a lift of her brow in response to that boldness, cool as ever, before a smirk of her own follows. “Let’s see what else you are capable of, then.”

Not much, as it turns out. It is a valiant effort, Ayra will grant her, but while she’s tapped into the last of her strength the swordswoman has just warmed up. It’s in the blood, naturally... but this strength, which has been called “inhuman”, stems from devotion as much as from holiness.

(It helps, of course, that she’s wrestled scores of soldiers. It was a popular sport in Isaach, a more informal counterpart to duels; and in Verdane a woman warrior was so novel they couldn’t get enough of challenging her, the imbeciles. Then again, in Verdane she was already changed — hardened — by the need for strength, devotion serving as her whetstone.)

Not that she’ll ever tell Lex her devotion extends to as trifling a matter as this. All the same, when she slams Panette’s hand down her smile is a touch sharper than it would have been if she did not feel vindicated.

“Thanks,” Ayra replies. Rather than waste her breath on false compliments she finishes with a simple, “I look forward to our rematch.”

"Hey," Lex addressed Andrei casually once everyone had been given time to tend to their wounds. "Thanks for the help back there. I dunno if we'd've made it out without you."

"You fight just as one might expect of a scion of Dozel."

Andrei's voice teeters on the edge between compliment and condemnation, remembering the sight of Lord Lombard upon the battlefield, the Holy Helswath slamming down upon his enemies without a hint of mercy. Even without major blood, Lex had shades of the same skill. Just as Andrei had—

(Would the two of them have been more similar, had Lady Sister never disappeared?)

Narrowed eyes focus warily on the older man, though he senses little in the way of insincerity when it comes to his earlier comments. His shoulders relax a fraction.

“Hey, kid,” Lex greeted the man who appeared to be roughly the same age as himself. “Give me a hand with this, will ya? I dunno a damn thing about ships, but I think we gotta tie these ropes down before bad weather rolls in. I hear people saying something of the sort a minute or two ago.”

Whether or not what he was doing was effective or, well, correct, Lex couldn’t say for certain. It felt right, though. That was the important part. If he didn’t do it correctly, then surely someone else would come along and point that out, right? Until that itme came, he would just mosey along doing the best he could.

expedition: holy war / embarking!

"huh?”

that unfamiliar voice has shiro looking up in surprise, leaving him to appraise the person who’d suddenly approached. it’s no one he recognizes beyond having been assigned to the same team—nothing known about this guy’s age, or where he was from, or what his name even is.

shiro shifts his footing, coming to a gradual stand beside the man. inexperienced as he is, he's at least got the sense to think about friendly relations, especially since they’d be working together for the month. it helps that this stranger seems easygoing enough. and while being addressed as “kid” by someone who isn't sporting crow's feet might have thrown anyone else off, to him, it merely comes across as familiar.

( you know the feeling when your own folks + their friends are only a few years older than you? yeah. he sure does. in any case, that’s not something to bring up with a new teammate over dinner. )

“i’m no ship expert either,” shiro confesses as he bends down to pick up his end of the rope. “but sure, no sweat. we’ll have this done before we know it. plus,” he offers a good-natured grin, “tasks like these get pret-ty dull if you’ve got nothing but rope for company.” with that, he straightens up, winding the thick cord around his arm as he begins to survey the area. only then does it dawn on him that both their inexperience just might prolong these efforts after all.

Despite the gulf that lay between them, Lex took his place at her side naturally. So naturally, in fact, that for a moment she forgot said gulf altogether. It was as though he belonged there, there and to her time, so the smile she gave him along with a sideways glance was unburdened.

Then he spoke up, and the moment passed.

She looked away from his face, gaze settling on the horizon, and wondered what it was he saw there. Home, of course — but the word always carried different meanings for them both, even before this rift was rent open by the whims of fate, or the dragons, or what have you. In truth, Lex had been her home before, or the closest thing to home she had outside of its ruins; but now, they were out of step with one another.

Yes, she mused as she placed her elbows on the railings — an indulgence as small as this would not hurt —, she too was out of step with him. It might have been easy to think that he did not remember and leave it at that, but it would not have been fair to place the onus of their present circumstances entirely on his shoulders. This was no fault of his, or of anyone’s, and besides...

Perhaps it was not Lex who remembered too little, but she who remembered too much.

However she framed it, though, her struggle to navigate the difference in their times remained. It was frustrating. Surely she should have been used to that difference by now, after years in a world that had left her behind...

But then, that was precisely the issue. She was used to being a ghost, a relic of the past, yet to her husband she was in the future — or perhaps in a future, for there were many years she had not lived; many years that weren’t hers to speak of. And yet, who else did he have to ask...?

It was her, or those who were even farther away from him... because she had left him behind too, however unwittingly, and — although she could never have resented Shannan or Scáthach or Larcei for, simply, time flowing — she hated that she had. She hated that the gods would see fit to have her fail everyone, past and future both.

Still, it was her or it was her, and knowing that Ayra reached for his hand.

“No,” she told him without preamble. No point to softening the blow. All the same she turned his hand in hers, laced their fingers then unlaced them. “There won’t be anyone waiting for us, and the home you left definitely won’t be the one you find... It won’t be the same for me, either.”

This Ayra said with a rueful smile. She would be the first to admit it was poor comfort, and in her want for something more substantial turned his hand over in hers again. Her gaze never met his, flitting from their hands to the horizon not for fear but for thought of his comfort... Still, she would do well to elaborate. Better to prepare him as well as she could than to worry overmuch and do them both a disservice.