yips

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Ryan is Clover Kingdom born and bred, however his family worked and ran a service as trusted couriers (i.e messengers / parcel deliverers). I say ran a service, as they were noble and didn't usually do the messaging themselves - only organised it and housed a lots of people from the capital's mail in their homes.

In my AU during Spade's war with the Diamond Kingdom, Spade sought allyship with Clover since they were the other closest nation to Diamond. They asked for resources and backup, to which Clover were hesitant to give - but agreed, entrusting it to Ry's family to sort it all out.

Since Ry was getting a little older and at that point was expected to remain in the family business (due to his poor eyesight preventing him from being suitable to most other jobs) they took him along with them - finding it the only opportunity where they could be present since they didn't often go out for this sort of thing.

When they arrived in Spade of course they spent a little extra time there, as the journey through the strong magic region seperating the countries was particularly harsh and unsafe at that time of year. Thus Ry's parents encouraged him to go out and try to make friends with some of the other children in the town while they went drinking.

That's when he ran into where a group of children were having a snowball fight in the snow - Dante, Vanica, and Zenon being amongst them (though Zenon was mostly hiding off to the side with his friend Allen while his siblings tormented the other children lolol).

At this point in his life his vision was a lot worse since generally he was underdeveloped, thus he wore an eyepatch on his good eye to try and get his lazy one to work better. All of this meant he was conscious that he'd likely crash into the other kids and wouldn't have been able to aim very well anyway - therefore he stood and watched the others play for a while.

Eventually he noticed Lucius sitting at the side by the wall on his own, and thus sized the opportunity to talk to him since geeryone else was too busy and ignored him. At first Lucius wasn't impressed and was hostile towards him - giving him the silent treatment, but Ry kept on talking to him obliviously anyway.

Lucius finally spoke to him when he noticed that his eyes were moving constantly, with Ry explaining soon after. They bonded over the fact they were unable to join in with the others over their disabilities, and were self conscious about how visible they were to others - matching each other's freaks whenever Lucius would make a quip about him.

A while into their conversation a stray snowball hits Lucius - sent by Dante (I make him a little shit in the household in my AU, not that I don't think he probably was anyway) - to which he moves to go and punish his brother. Ry stops him and offers to carry him in his back, that way they can join in and throw snowballs at everyone.

I dunno if that would be really realistic, since Lucius' illness(es) aren't explicitly told to us and his personality as a younger child still hasn't been shared, but I thought it would be a cute moment. The whole point is that they become good friends quickly during the week Ry stays in Spade, and they make an impression great enough on one another that they recall their time together frequently in later life.

Of course Lucius knows in the future there's a chance he does get to see Ryan again, and that's what makes him more insistent on choosing the path for Yuno where he's evacuated to Clover.

I decided this was appropriate because Lucius views Yuno as his rival, and would naturally want him to be in the strongest state possible for their grand battle as a result - but he tells us that the strongest version of Yuno (that he could see in his visions anyway) was one where he was raised in Spade as the prince normally.

Therefore, I felt it was an appropriate reason to give him for why he encouraged the coup on Spade over letting Yuno's potential marinate in his birth country to grow up and be a stronger opponent.

He never reveals himself when Julius runs into Ry and they gain a strong bond, since his goal is much more important and he knows he'll get to appear one day anyway - but he still listens in from time to time to see if he's ever mentioned and if he remembers him just as fondly.

When they do eventually reunite face to face after Damnatio figures out the truth and Lucius resumes control of his body, Ry is at first slightly horrified Julius and Lucius have the same body - but it quickly makes sense to him, and he becomes especially accepting of it since he's missed his husband. Lucius of course looks almost identical to Julius - so it's a bit of a comfort after so long, and he likes Lucius because of their shared past anyway, and he hasn't committed any atrocities yet.

Ry is then generally surprised Lucius remembers him (hypocritical since whenever there's snow or someone takes an interest in his magic he thinks of him) and wonders the reason he is able to, since they're both quite different now and he has a different name.

Lucius feels it's obvious why, and merely states to him "Who else has eyes like yours?" - a reference to his unique situation of having Eye Magic simultaneous to poor eyesight. I thought it was just a nice line okay - my heart aches every time I read it. 💔

He isn't immediately insistent on turning Ry into a Paladin, since it was the first time in many years he's gotten to experience and interaction with Ryan first hand, and has built up a lot of things he's wanted to say in that time. He isn't overly talkative and still doesn't come out with everything - because that's just not what Lucius is like - but seeing someone he cares about again makes him pause and cherish the moment, being as Judgement Day wasn't for a long while yet and he could spare the moments while he focused on gathering his magic power.

Lucius is fond of Tolomei - since of course he's been born by this point - and sort of cares for him for a few weeks in a fatherly manner. He knows in the future Tolomei has the potential to be like him, and views him as a successor-like figure to the world he wants to create - thus gifts him some of Astaroth's power early on.

I was gonna talk about the Paladin situation, but I have an ask that's been sitting in my inbox waiting for me to finally actually work on the design for him 😭 so I'll save that all for when I finally do that 🫶

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Seriously mootie tysm for asking cuz like- I wanted to talk about them with everyone coming up with Lucius stuff lately too and the new announcements for season 2, but I still have that nagging 'no one cares' voice in my head so I stay quiet about lore outside of asks. 😭

I love love love talking and thinking about Lucius because he's a morally grey character to play aorund with and stuff so is SUPERRRR fun for OCs and AUs and things.

I kinda wanna share my stuff on an AU I have where Lucius joins the Grey Deer instead of Julius and is an honest guy instead one day, but so much to do so little timeeee. 🙂‍↕️

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