#makeup day!

“Go on. Go.”

Standing on a curve of the ancient road that wound through the Dravanian Forelands, Breandan reached up to grasp the creature clinging to his pauldron like a lifeboat. Gauntleted fingers curling around her midsection and trying to pull her off without hurting her too much.

In response, Lohs let out a miserable squeak, turning her face to the side of his neck.

He took a moment just to let out a sigh.

“I’m going to have to be away for awhile.” He went on, trying to get his grasp back. “I don’t like the idea of you hanging around camp by yourself. I don’t know who all comes that way.”

“Nooooooooooo.”  Lohs answered, a pitiful little wail and found a place to dig in a claw

“Ow! Hey!” Breandan hissed, digging his fingers i  in return. He yanked the little dragon free, only to have her immediately latch on in a death grip to both his gauntlets.

“Come on.” For good measure, he gave her a gentle shake. “These are your…own kind. There a reason you don’t want to stay with them?”

Lohs hung her head with another sad vocalization, and Breandan narrowed his eyes. He’d tried, of course. When he’d first picked her up, he’d left her here and hadn’t stayed around to hear what the Dravanians had thought about it.

She came crawling back to his campsite out here more often than not. Came and went and stayed around. He was sometimes a little concerned some trapper might find her there and get the wrong idea. Peace was sometimes for leaders safe in their cities and didn’t always hold in the backcountry.

“because….I can’t…” Lohs squirmed. She tried to bite at one of his armored fingers. 

“I can’t sing.” She answered with that mournful tone again. “Not like the rest of them. Can…you? Can you sing?”

In response, Breandan laughed, once. A terrible sound, ragged and harsh around the edges. Looked away from her beady eyes on him, bright and searching for something that wasn’t quite available in his profile.

“No.” He answered. “I can’t.” 

After a stilted pause, he went on.

“I have friends who can.” It came out awkwardly, half-mumbled. As awkwardly as the hand he shifted so he could press his thumb to the crowd of her head, giving the scales a little stroke.

“I like to go listen to them. There’s…places. People get up and do it for…mm. Money, sometimes, but because they like to. And even if I can’t, it’s still…nice, yeah? Being there with your friends. Seeing them do things that make them happy.”

His lips pressed together in an effort to keep himself from talking too much. His attention shifted back to her.

They must have been a ridiculous sight, he thought. The small creature twisting in his grasp, sunlight bouncing off the golden gleam of his armor. Taken from a cache that had turned into a grave, reforged and re-enchanted as a gift. Blessed, some might say. How much the action of returning Lohs to her people had counted towards that was hard to tell.

He wasn’t interested in keeping score.

By contrast: the lance on his back that hummed violently to the creatures that dwelled within. The blood and anguish of their fallen kin enchanted to the core of the weapon even before he’d picked it up and started killing with it.

The Dravanians still smelled the blood on his hands first, sometimes, before they picked up any other intent. It wasn’t always easy out here, and it wasn’t always pretty.

“...want me to go in there with you?” He asked, looking up at the triune spires of the old ruin that lay just beyond the bend of the road. Another sigh escaping from somewhere deep at the bottom of his chest.

“Maybe they’ll show us both around.”

His answer was a slightly brighter chirp, as the dragonet finally began to unwind from between his hands.

“All right everyone!” Thosinund called from the top of the western wall. “Are we ready, aye or nay?”

“AYE!” roared the soldiers below. With few exceptions, every able-bodied man and woman of Camp Dragonhead was spread out over the field. In teams of four, behind fresh-packed walls and with ready stockpiles, they had come to make their mark and take their stand…

“Then at Ninne’s count of three we start!” and Thosinund vanished from view, only to come running out the gate and join her chosen three.

Up on the wall, Ninne raised a banner high. “Three… two… one!” She brought it down- and the very first Dragonhead Snowball Tournament was on.

The air was almost instantly thick with flying projectiles from every direction. Arms and heads popped from behind their shelters, threw, ducked, loaded and fired again. No catapults, no magic, nothing but sheer strength of arm was allowed: this was to be an endurance contest. The winner would be the last team standing.

Of course some teams had advantages—being able to throw bigger snowballs, for instance, with more devastating effect. And a maddening blur of coppery braids as the thrower vanished into safety. To her credit, Thosi tried not to use this move too often, but it was almost too much fun to resist. And with every successful strike that chipped away part of another team’s barrier, her own teammates seemed to gain fresh strength.

Until at last, there were only two teams left on the field: Thosinund’s… and Haurchefant’s.

Break was called, no more than a quarter bell, to replenish the stockpiles (mostly out of the wrecked remains of the other snow forts) and take hasty refreshment- a swallow of cocoa here, a mouthful of knight’s bread there.

“My lord, far be it from us to spoil your fun,” Corentiaux spoke over the crunch of packing and stacking snowballs, “but we do not think you actually mean to win this contest.”

“Nonsense,” Haurchefant gaily replied. “I intend to fight with all honor. To the end, whatever it may be.”

Yaelle raised a brow. “Begging your pardon, my lord, this whole affair begins to feel rather a farce.”

This only earned a thrown-back head and hands raised to the heavens. “Ah, but what a delightful farce! Still... we have gotten this far. Come, friends, do not give up now! Or would you have it said that the knights of Dragonhead did not do their utmost to win even this good-natured contest?”

“I think you would have it said that the combined might of the entire camp was no match for a certain adventurer…” 

Oh, the gleeful cackling that rose from their snow-shelter; it carried across the whole field. Some of the chocobos took fright, in fact, and had to be soothed.

“Time!” Ninne yelled.

“Hold,” Thosinund’s voice rang out. “Shall we say last one standing wins for the whole of their team?” 

“If the other team agrees.” 

“My lord, this is madness!” Yaelle hissed, but she knew it was futile.

“Agreed!” Haurchefant beamed. 

“Time!” *** Of course they were the last two standing. Not even the forts could survive such onslaught; the pair had long since been reduced to using the terrain as cover.

“Yield, man! The sun's almost setting!” Thosinund bellowed from behind her tree. “Nobody can say you didn’t fight well, but there is such a thing as enough!” 

“Never, my lady!” came the answering cry from her competitor’s snowbank. Just as it had the last half dozen times. 

“Then come out in the open and face me. One throw to settle all.” 

A wagging finger rose over the bank. “No tricks now...”

“Nay, only snow.” 

There they stood, weapons (as it were) in hand, under a sky starting to flood with pink and gold. 

“Count of three...” 

(Cries from the sidelines. “You can do it, my lord!” “Please, mistress, end this!”)

“One-” (knee bent.) “Two-” (hands readied...) “Three!”

For a relatively soft substance, the snow did make quite the resounding crunch as it hit Haurchefant square in the chest. He wavered once, then again, and toppled almost gracefully backward to the ground. 

“Victory to Team Thosinund!” 

Amid the grateful shouts and the general clamor to get out of the cold for dinner, the victor bent to help her love to his feet.

“Is your honor satisfied, then?” she smirked.

“Perfectly.”