#sacrificialspear

"Nanna." The stiffness in his posture can likely be seen from a mile away. How should he do this? What is he meant to say here? All he can think of is how this is not his place, not really, and yet, if that man tried to take it from him, Finn might see to his death a second time by his own hand. He is not her father, but his daughter looks beautiful. "Your dress is...nice. You look lovely in it. Did you make it yourself?" She has always been talented like that in ways he never imagined. In a battlefield such as this one, she shines the brightest to his eyes, wonderful in a way you would have to be blind or a fool not to see. "I hope you enjoy yourself." He doesn't really want the flowers that have been hoisted onto him, but he's glad for them now. He pulls one of his orchids free and offers it to her. "Here, if you would like it." Don't forget me too soon, now.

How does she tend to a garden that would stir blue upon hearing the voice of a ghost? Nanna sighed. She couldn't. She would focus only on the carefulness of a man who had crossed battlefields without hesitation, now standing uncertain before a girl he had raised. She would focus on his hands, stiffly clutched around orchids that matched her own. She would play a blind little girl, and pretend her own light would pry open his shell. The sight of him in his fondness, in his awkwardness—touched her so suddenly that she feared any immediate reply might crack beneath the weight of it.

“…Father,” she said softly, and the title carried all the warmth he had spent years earning without ever asking for it. Her smile bloomed slowly after that, tender as candlelight.

“Oh, you are quite cruel...!” There was gentle laughter tucked into the words, teasing just as much as rescuing him from the solemnity threatening to settle between them. “Yes, I designed mine, hahaha! I could have designed yours too, if you had asked me!” How dutiful. A father with the bluest, saddest eyes and a uniform to cover the scars around his heart. It struck her in equal parts woe and affection.

Still smiling, she accepted the orchid from his hand with unmistakable care, and plucked her own to trade. Her fingers brushed his briefly as she did, and her expression softened once more into something quieter.

“…Thank you." Could she emphatically, wholeheartedly confess with only two words? She wondered if it would ever come through to him.

She lifted it toward the light, admiring the pale bloom before tucking it delicately against the ribbons at her waist. Somewhere it would not be lost in the evening’s dancing. Her eyes cinched with affection as something else caught in the light.

"There is much commotion about this 'White Heron' cup..." The name strikes her with a great deal of curiosity, and perhaps a bit of offense. Why herons? "Do you plan to participate, Sir Finn?"

Erma stands at the edge of the ballroom alongside her colleague, watching the different pairs prance and twirl about the floor. This level of extravagance was unsuited for her, but if Lady Yuni or Joachim were to request her presence...

She would do all in her power to make the experience a positive one for them.

"If so, I assume it shall be with your daughter?" Unless Sir Finn had a partner she was unaware of.

Altena's frown deepens when Finn approaches her. Of course he's here. Leif is here. Leif always comes.

"I didn't realize we could just wear regular clothes here." She tugs awkwardly at the hem of her dress. Had it been this short when she bought it? Surely not. She can't imagine having chosen it if it was.

Then she remembers how under dressed she felt at the art exhibit in Leonster. Maybe this was the right call.

"I look forward to fighting alongside you." He tells her. "Suddenly having unfamiliar weapons thrust upon us is quite a challenge to present to students. Should you need any assistance before we begin, please don't hesitate to ask."

When the man approaches with a stare toward her person, Yuzu does not shy away nor attempt to sheathe the blade she idly observes in her hands. Rather, the swordswoman takes the opportunity to observe her (supposed) teammate’s own assigned weapon. Perhaps she should’ve expected not to recognize it, just as how foreign her steel is. But with her widened experience in her time, there was a sliver of hope of a familiar design. 

Then there’s the “unfamiliar weapon,” as he puts it. Although it holds a standard appearance of any other sword, its heft is one Yuzu commonly tends to avoid. Not to mention the excessive girth when it comes to its guard…

Regardless, Yuzu swallows hesitation and manages to get a fair-enough grip of the blade in her right hand. Respecting the distance from her ally, she even goes for a short, brief swish. While it does feel lighter than its appearance may imply, she is quick to lower it as she raises her head to directly address the blue-haired man.

“I’ve challenged myself with a wide variety of weaponry many times prior…though none have been as styled like this one,” the girl confesses, not to belittle her senior’s concern. “Mayhaps I would ask the favor of performing 1,000 practice swings before the round starts, but I fear our time is far from lenient.”

Finn knocks softly on the doorway of the dormitory that he has been assured (hopefully correctly) belongs to the one he's looking for. "Nanna?"

The month of silence had been odd, but not new. He's gotten use to the loss of their presence since they had left Leonster for foreign shores. It felt odd though, for their positions to be reversed. For Finn to be gone while they were at home. Only a short time reunited, and he kept wandering the monastery's halls, expecting to hear one of them chasing after him.

He's glad they're back. He hopes she knows as much as he watches from her doorway, looking her over for any obvious wounds. His daughter...how strong she is.

It's not a smile, but his expression does soften somewhat as he meets her eyes properly. "Welcome back. How was your trip? Did you get the chance to visit home?"

---

Post-Expedition

The knock alone was enough to lift her from her seat.

“Father?”

She was at the door before she realized she had crossed the room, fingers catching the handle with a haste she might have scolded herself for any other day. The door opened wide, and whatever composed greeting she had intended dissolved the moment she saw him standing there—solid, steady, unchanged.

Nanna’s eyes searched him first. A habit she had never quite broken. Shoulders. Posture. Hands. Only after confirming he was whole did she allow herself to smile.

“You needn’t inspect me so thoroughly,” she said gently, though she knew exactly why he did. “I am quite intact, I promise.”

There were faint signs of travel about her still—salt lingering in her hair, a warmth in her complexion from southern sun—but no wounds to speak of. She had made sure the right healers had a thorough look before she was home. A princess must never look defeated upon return.

“It was…” She paused, weighing the word carefully. “Full.”

She stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter if he wished, but remained close enough that the distance between them felt negligible.

“I did visit home...” Her voice softened, not wistful but reverent. “The quilts are still folded the same way. The sea is quieter now. They say the pirate raids have ceased for good.”

A small breath escaped her, half relief, half disbelief.

“I rowed out at sunset. Just to look.” Her gaze flickered back to him. “It felt almost indulgent to sit and do nothing but watch the water.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying him in turn.

“And you? A month is not so long, and yet it felt strange not to hear your steps in the corridor. I kept expecting you to round a corner.”

The smile that followed was warmer, quieter.

"I admit that you are not among those that I expected to see here." Last he had heard, Salem had been among those who made themselves scarce following the war. He had not imagined the corner he would run off to to be here.

"You are here as..?"

Perfect Teatime? | no longer accepting

"A student," Salem answers without skipping a beat, then he regards Finn for another moment. The knight had always been tough to read, and they had never been especially close even during the war, so the man's face gives Salem little information about his feelings now. Still, he can take a guess.

"Not what you expected either, is it?" Most of the people he'd encountered so far seemed surprised by his age, but for Finn and anyone from Jugdral, that was probably secondary to the real question: why leave one church to join another. Salem gestures for the knight to take the empty seat across from him if he wishes, although he expects him not to linger longer than necessary. Whether this visit is driven by skepticism or friendliness, it would be over once he had the information he needed.

"It's just a way to pass the time, really," Salem continues after another beat, teaspoon clinking against his cup as he stirs. "I've received an education before, but maybe this experience will shed light on the parts of that education that had been twisted by someone else's agenda."

He dares not bringing it into the conversation by name, but the church of Loptous nevertheless hangs over the table as he speaks.

"You're here for the prince's sake, I take it?"

He looks wary, but not guilty; attentive, but not at all excited.

...In other words, he doesn't exactly fit into the category of people (i.e., students) looking to sneak into a place they shouldn't be, all to do things they shouldn't be doing. If anything, he looks more like he's trying to ensure that those very people don't find their way closer to the tower and get in trouble with the guards stationed around the perimeter.

"Are you looking for someone?" Zephia asks. "If it's that bright-eyed child with the ribbons in their hair, they already made their way up. Whether it was to meet someone already there or to wait for someone else, I wouldn't be able to say."

It hadn't been a student Zephia's at all familiar with, but the poor thing looked rather curious. And what sort of professor would she be if she didn't help a student, even one not strictly hers, satisfy their curiosities?

"If not, I wouldn't linger around these parts more than strictly necessary," she continues. "Someone might get the wrong idea and think that you're hoping to meet someone."

The man — the Knight, as his dress makes well clear despite the setting — is vaguely familiar, a face that Andrei is all but certain he had seen before, if only in passing.

That should not be cause for concern, in and of itself. Despite making his home in the Abyss, Andrei has been here long enough, and has gone on enough missions for the monastery that the majority of its denizens are somewhat familiar to him.

This face, however, stirs something further in the past, and the waltz that they step in time to only seems to reinforce the faint ripple of memory that his presence invokes.

You are Jugdrali, he doesn’t speak aloud, instead keeping his silent, tense gaze trained on the older man’s face, searching for any sign of recognition or hostility when they are in such close quarters. The dagger at his hip sits heavy, still coated with venom like cold reassurance.

(There are so few here hailing from Jugdral, after all, who would not call him an enemy.)

He breaks contact the moment the music ends, and gives his bow, light enough that he does not need to take his gaze off the other. Takes a step back, enough distance away that a sudden ambush would no longer be possible.