[h2]Tyaethe[/h2]

That was... certainly an involved dream. Her fingers drummed against one leg, eyes closed. "That... sounds like Flori. He was a friendly, flirty bastard. Always got annoyed if he [i]couldn't[/i] copy someone's style for some reason, although if he could but got forced to use his own style anyway... well, that was always exciting. I think that was why he liked to give people pointers so much, he wanted more people to duel with than me and Lilette."

Which made it stranger. Florian was dead. Very dead. She should know, she was at the funeral, and he'd been [i]old.[/i] It wasn't like a violent death, where you could maybe fake it and slip away to start over somewhere else; it was just the end result of time marching ever-onwards. And he hadn't ever [i]stopped[/i] coming around and giving pointers, right until the end, there was no case of mistaken identity.

But... this woman. Maybe she was overthinking it, but she'd heard the name too much today. Was it really a coincidence? "The watcher. Describe her again." Tyaethe waited for a response. "Not much taller than me? Eyes like ice? Just sitting on the air like it was a nice seat?" 

With each answer, the feeling that some massive headache was waiting grew, until the paladin finally put her head in her hands with a groan. "That was Merilia. I don't know [i]what[/i] she's doing, or why, or how, but she's behind this. It could just be a massive joke on her part, or maybe she's trying to help [i]somehow[/i], but... it can't be anyone else. Lilette is the only one around who knew everyone like that, and she's [i]not[/i] the type."

At least Merilia [i]couldn't [/i]hurt them, no matter what her plan was. That was something.

[@Crimson Paladin]