[h3][color=f26522]Paro[/color][/h3]

In Paro's experience, hearty culinary recommendations were an ironclad ice-breaker. Who isn't eager to take a bite of a delicious new taste sensation and spend hours talking through mouthfuls of it? Everybody needs to eat.

Apparently, not everybody needs to speak, though. Just as suddenly as the girl had appeared in Paro's field of vision, she had disappeared back into the crowd. It was altogether...not his worst first impression. However, it did leave him with another problem: it seems not everybody needs berry sauce the way he needed berry sauce, either. The dainty little dish still waited halfway across the banquet table, aromatic and undisturbed.

Well. Paro had every intention of disturbing it. However, the woman in green [i]had[/i] left her plate...If she planned on coming back, he couldn't just steal her seat. Sore as his legs still were, they were underneath a young man with [i]manners[/i] and a [i]sensible[/i] solution.

He leaned over the chair, resting his stomach on the gilded wooden frame, and reached for the ladle with his free hand. Momentarily off-balance, he extended a leg directly behind himself and into the aisle for balance, all the while holding his plate as level as he could manage.

People began to stare at the boy with his leg raised like a yellow Poochyena marking its territory, but his silver fingertips had under an inch until--

[color=f26522]Got it![/color] At least, he was pretty sure he had. The palace's ceramics were lighter than those in his hometown, and felt positively airy in his armored grasp. He tightened the grip of his fingertips around the handle, only to watch it shoot out from between his fingers with an enthusiastic [i]tink![/i]

At precisely this moment, armored footfalls resounded throughout the hall. Paro recognized the calm lockstep of warriors in their own home, but it dawned on him a little later that they were coming right up his aisle. Expertly as expected, the ruby knights of Phoenicis maneuvered around his boot, extended at chest height into their official business. With one last glance between the deep purple topping and the cascade of busy, armored men, Paro lowered his foot in embarrassment and turned his attention to the front of the room.

What he heard then lifted his spirits entirely: from here on out, the people of Atlas were, first and foremost, [i]the people of Atlas[/i]. [color=f26522]Just as summer warms the [i]whole[/i] continent...[/color]he thought to himself, grinning. After years of war, [i]this[/i] was what Atlas needed.