((This is so so so so so very late. As usual! Thanks for this prompt anyway!))

I thought the candlelit dinner was too much. I didn't know this guy and I didn't have any intention of getting to know him in any meaningful way.

I'd crashed into him while running away from a crime scene and he'd been brave enough (or stupid enough) to ask me to dinner while he was laid out on the ground. It's really not every day that I'm asked out by people I've just injured… and I was hungry… so of course I said yes. Yes is almost always the more interesting answer. Yes tends to lead to good adventures and even better stories.

I expected to hear the usual: You are so beautiful. You're so fascinating. Are you with anyone? Order anything you like. You know, I live nearby…

I know those words like they're the chorus to an old song. They'd probably work better on me if they were sung rather than recited.

But he didn't sing or say any of them.

Instead, he rolled up the sleeves on his shirt, and very matter of factly said, "Everytime I see candles I imagine knocking them over and setting everything on fire."

Thank you so much for the ask! And a special shoutout to @holyja for letting me borrow your girl! :>

Takes place somewhere between 3.0 and 3.1, enjoy~

The first thing Serella felt was the swaying.

Back and forth, back and forth, she was rocked. After so long serving in the Maelstrom and traveling besides she half wondered if she was aboard a ship, even as she couldn’t place why she would be. In her half alert state she struggled with piecing together what had happened before she had lost consciousness, but her thoughts were as tangible as smoke. Cloying, acidic nausea roiled her gut from the swaying, even as she faded in and out of awareness.

The pain made it almost impossible to think. Scorching, searing, it felt as though her torso were on fire, though the ice that had claimed her limbs told her of blood loss. She’d been fighting, then. But what? What had she been doing?

When she tried to take a shuddering breath, the pressure on her chest became more prominent-- she was splayed across something-- or someone --that was responsible for the rocking motion. The scent of brimstone and steel burned in her nose. Like smelling salt, it broke through the fire, the ice, and the pain to remind her of what she had done. What they had done.

“Stay awake.” Hyana grunted, and the rocking was interrupted when she jostled the much heavier Paladin splayed across her back.

When Serella shifted-- or attempted to --she felt the dragoon’s hands on her forearms squeeze to keep her still. She shivered at the icy wind that whipped at her face and wondered if they had managed to get back to Ishgard-- and if they did, how.

They’d gone back to the Aery, after all, attempting to save Estinien -- or barring that, free him -- though they had done so in haste; with wounds from Thordan and the Heaven’s Ward still on the mend, though their fight with the shade of Nidhogg had been valiant, it had ultimately been in vain. The last thing Serella could clearly recall was being picked up bodily and flung over the edge of Nidhogg’s domain...

“Arcbane, did you hear me? I said stay awake.” Hyana jostled her, though she could tell that the Dragoon had staggered under Serella’s considerably larger frame.

Serella forced herself to rally enough energy to crack her eyes open. Cobblestone and wrought iron, snow and shadow, the warm glow of well lit window panes and the pale chainmail of the guard glittering in the dark. Ishgard. Home.

“Y’should’ve left me.” Serella mumbled into Hyana’s shoulder when she stumbled, teetering dangerously toward toppling over.

“Shut it.” Hyana snarled, though Serella could feel pain radiating off of her, too. She was not without her own wounds...another of Serella’s failings.

Pain that was at last too much to grit her teeth and bear, it would seem, when the Dragoon at last buckled and took a knee. Despite her best efforts at holding onto Serella, she only succeeded in spilling the Paladin to the floor in a broken pile of armor and agony.

Serella’s jaw popped she clenched it so hard to keep from screaming.

“M’ dead weight, Geriel.” She ground out.

“Stop.”  The dragoon spat, voice strangled. “You...you are never-”

When the stars swaying in front of Serella’s eyes faded, she rolled her head to look at Hyana.

Her constant companion through all of their trials, her friend, the spark of fire in her heart that warmed her when all they had was frostbite and betrayal. Her beloved, had Serella ever thought herself remotely worthy of such love. Hyana clawed through earth, stone, and steel to bury her heart and hide it from the world, but it shone bright in those garnet eyes of hers.

Like a violet after a rainstorm, Serella’s quivering arm rose and bent toward her radiance. It was almost too much, the heat radiating from Hyana’s skin and scales, when Serella’s fingers brushed against it but she paid it no mind; pain was to be expected when touching someone divine.

Distantly, Serella heard the low din of far off voices shouting. Among them, one stood out to her.

“By the Fury- Lucia, double back, ready the chirurgeons!” Cried Aymeric, another unknowing owner of her heart, from some distant somewhere Serella couldn’t muster the energy to place.

Would that they had come back in better condition, and with more company. Would that they had not failed. Failed Estinien and Aymeric and Ishgard.

Neither Paladin nor Dragoon moved to acknowledge the approaching voices. After a moment that passed as an age, Hyana clasped her hand tight. How unlike her. Serella could only wheeze a laugh.

“Shouldn’t...care...s’much as y’do...n’this line of work, Geriel.” Serella managed to mumble, words slurred with the dwindling of energy and eyesight.

Hyana shone as a star amidst the encroaching dark of her vision as she lurched forward to weakly clasp at the Paladin’s shredded armor.

“Don’t you die on me, Arcbane.” Hyana hissed through clenched teeth, even as the unfamiliar but gentle hands of a chirurgeon wrapped around her petite frame to pull her away. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

The cloth and breastplate Serella was pressed against smelled of balsam fir and lavender, familiar and soothing.

“Stay awake, Serella.” Aymeric begged her as he began to move her.

Define “romantic” 

“Sometimes” and “it depends on perspective”. While Śūn'ra does have some idea of romantic notions and the things that they entail for people who are not his particular brand of evil, his personal idea of “romance” is also warped by his life of banditry and general inclination towards violence and sadism. 

This is not to say that a person for whom he holds romantic feelings will be the target of such inclinations, but rather that partaking in violence and sadism with him is the fastest way to make his heart go doki doki. 

In a nutshell... Will Śūn'ra randomly take you on a picnic date to watch the sunrise in the Sea of Clouds with a light spread of your favorite foods that he made himself? Yes. Would he prefer it if you invited him to violently mutilate an upstart adventure’s found family instead? Absolutely.

Love as a concept is something that he thinks about a lot, but not in a doe-eyed way. He sees Love as a driving force in a lot of people’s motivations, and as a potential source of power that can be utilized for a variety of purposes, good or bad. Marriage is foreign to him. It is not part of his culture, and he only has surface level knowledge of what it is.

🌈 - You’re getting one of these compliments, anon! For being sweet enough to send compliments to other people! YOU TRIED TO AVOID A COMPLIMENT, AND YOU GOT ONE ANYWAY. IN YOUR FACE! Seriously though, it’s a very nice thing to send love to others. You are an amazing bean as well!

🌈 - Since I have limited rainbows or I’ll be here all week, Ima cheat and squeeze @smol-nevi and @imperialnuisance into one! Because they co-run an amazing D&D game that I’m in and are two of the best DMs I’ve had the pleasure of playing with in a campaign. There’s a whole original world and original gods and just… They’re amazing and talented and creative DMs on top of both being really amazing friends, even when I’ve been at my worst, and I love their faces.

🌈 - And this one will go to @uendwen who is just one of the most incredible friends. They’ve helped me lots as well, also even when I was scraping the bottom of the crazy barrel, and I will always be grateful for their help. Not to mention look how fucking amazing their art is: @uendwen-art! 

“Anemone Nemorosa, specifically the wood anemone, yea? Whole fuckin’ forest floors of ‘em that bloom in the Spring, that you can lay in an’ smell for bells…” 

“… P-plus the bees like ‘em, so.” 

One could argue that Sun’ra is “crazy” because he murders people and derives genuine pleasure from said act, but that is not really the case. He does not fit either of the medical definitions of being a sociopath or a psychopath. The bandit has a conscience, and can easily, sometimes even intensely, empathize with other people and how they are feeling. 

Sun’ra is fully aware that most of his deeds are wrong and cause people intense pain. He could, if he so chose, simply not do any of the things that people hate him for. Often in fact, he mimics traits that are associated with actual sociopaths, because that label is easier to explain and for others to wrap their head around as opposed to the truth.

The ACTUAL thing with Sun’ra though is that he is highly sensation-seeking. To a degree that is almost hard to put into words. Pleasure, pain, fear, anguish, joy, love, hate, etc. He craves the experience of these things, and demands mental, emotional, and physical stimulation in nearly all actions, relationships, and experiences. Everything he does has a sensation value to him, and he gets close to people based on the amount of whatever unique sensation he believes they can add to his life. This is why he is close to a variety of different people who fall within all areas of the alignment spectrum; they all have their value, their use, and they all, in their own way sate a desire that not even he would be able to explain. 

At the end of the day, it is just that he has found that “doing evil” allows him to experience the widest range of stimulation in the most intense way when compared to “doing good.”

“I have always loved lilies,” Syerra answers with a smile. “Though, I also have a fondness for a certain rose bush in my garden. It was a gift from my oldest and dearest friend.”