HereComesTheSnow

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

It's been three weeks. Maybe brushing upon four, now— and I think I'm beginning to grasp it. I've been hard at work over this first month after I've walked free from whatever shackles, be they heavy black iron or solid imperial gold, there were 'round my mind, tying me in place to what I had grown into. I haven't nearly seen the full breadth of things, being Copper-ranked until five days ago— but I think I've run enough of the gamut, even in my low station, to arrive at the edge of something.

A thesis. Indeterminate in it's shape still, but I can feel at the bounds and start guessing for how I can pull it into the light. What I'll do then, I'm not totally aware. We're gonna be playing this thing by ear for a good minute, so skip to the parts with some color if you get bored.

I get, it's no skin off my back.

I close my eyes and lift the horn to my lips. Ale flows freer than water underneath this roof, and it's a mildly bitter, stale bread taste that washes over my tongue as the world turns black— and red is still splattered across it, like a stain on canvas. The din of a bawdy guild hall, filled to the brim with adventurers, is something that doesn't take me off my guard the way it was when I roused into it, but today a fair few voices in the higher and shriller registers are cutting through the dull roar I'm used to. It's fine. My own voice, for this piece, is something I can hear clear as day, unmuddied by the chorus of Memory singing out of tune and out of time. It's a blessing in that regard, but in broader views I wouldn't exactly leap to sing its' praises.

I set my drink down, and catch an unfamiliar face in the reflection— after plucking free a summer bug that picked a bad time for a swim. The face eyeing me is lean and hard, with a lot of straight lines and a vacancy in the eyes that's impossible to ignore once you hear why it's there. His hair is green like the dry grasses of spring, though I'm not exactly sure how in the hell I'd know that. That was the last guy's deal. I've only ever known summer.

The shrieking continues, and it bids my gaze upward— the Paladin that charged in not too long ago's squawking something about not being child, like if you look at her it wouldn't be a common mistake, when she only comes up to Magnus's beltline. In terms of height, the Ingvarr ain't much better, but their people tend to be endowed well enough to make up the difference, so it's a losing battle no matter how you slice it when, like Hrefna, your opponent feels like rubbing it in.

I've learned to just wait for her to get bored with it. Usually takes thirty seconds, we don't really know eachother well enough to indulge in shouting matches. But, these two are good lodestones for this thing I'm working on, if you squint at it.

Why do we need any of this? Why are there adventurer's guilds, why are there paladins, why are there Gods that people need to begin with? Rather existential, I know, navel-gazing at it's finest, but I'm at the point now where immediate concerns like food, shelter, and another domestic light beer are all easily sorted out. Iron rank is where adventuring 'becomes a thing' is the quote I'm basing this on, and so far it's held up fine. I've lead my horse to water, so it's time for the easy part. He'll either drink or he won't. Since I'm drinking, we may as well run with it. See where this goes. Because I'm beginning to think it all ties back fundamental truths about life.

They type you don't need to live very long to see, the type if you live long enough you might find reason to forget. Weakness, ugliness, There being no aristocrats of the soul to be found. Everybody, fundamentally, slots somewhere on that line, and I know I can't be all that different. There are ways I'm weak, there are ways I'm ugly. There are ways the Gods will surely look down on me, and see every flaw carved in. Carved in my heart and body, no matter my mind. That's what I think I'm learning to discover in others. It's what I'll have no choice, one of these days, to discover in myself. Not exactly looking forward to it, so mark that down in "weakness", I guess.

I rise. Board isn't going to get any less crowded, especially now that there's a whole damn lamia taking up half the approach. Business is booming, and we're all eager to profit off the backs of those that can't as those that can. I'm not here to question it, I need to eat too, but it's hard not to note down when you're learning these things all over again.

"Doubt she's gonna be any happier if you pick her up like that," I mention, while quickly shuffling my feet over to the rightward edge of the throng's perimeter and maneuver my club between me and that bunch. It's not that I expect a fight to break out, but I've had to learn firsthand how ornery stray cats get when they're manhandled like that— and I know that if it were me, already mad, and I were hoisted around so casually, I'd probably hate somebody chiming in when it was already enough of a scene.

She might throw things. Big hammer on her person might go flying, maybe her drink if she filled up before her tilt with the blood-trailing Ingvarr— I'd rather have a heavy elm branch between whatever projectile my empathy for weakness (thus implicit acknowledgement) earns and me than stuck uselessly in my other hand. I've been told it probably cracked my skull, and I've felt what it does to Goblins'— in tactile feedback, it's hard to beat. Gives the senses a rush, the same way alcohol slows them.

Point is, I'm confident it'll handle a flying tankard. If the hammer goes, I'll content myself with her swift ejection from the premises while I take stock of how bad I need to annoy the healers about my ribs. Far as I can tell, I've got alright ribs.

"Why what?" I murmur as the first question floats by in fed-up hiss from somewhere close, still keeping my eye out for how roped-into-this the collection of Paladin, Lamia, Hrefna, and now Reeva's intrepid ass intend to have me now that I've hustled over to what I understand as "safe distance". That's my reasoning for why I can't place who I'm responding to— I've got the stiff brown overcoat of the teacher lady in the corner of my eye, but neither the direction nor the pitch isn't right for it to have been her...

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

"Now look what you've done," he groaned theatrically as Chisato took the bait, casting his gaze into the chandelier and pinching the bridge for show. "That day is why Halvor doesn't want me back on a boat— dis it you or Lene I should ask to talk him down from that ledge? Really..." As chuckles, additions to the story, and lightly made-and-countered corrections flew about the table, it seemed they were in the clear for the moment— successfully pivoting away from the worries that he might find his arrangement challenged by those not present— or, as it happened, that those that were would try and sink it so deep he would be left with no recourse but to either abandon the party, or abandon the hard work of his host. "Yes, a Siren is very troubling if you meet them in their territory, even if you're a steady hand with monsters— so, see when I fell overboard, for all my gallantry, I got a fairly comprehensive reminder as to water's relationship with acoustics..."

Saying nothing of whatever wedge that might drive between the lot of them, given that the future Baron Cadon seemed to take little objection with the thought were all presenting a somewhat-united front towards the task of keeping Halvor from thinking he had pitched a complete dud, but if Esben wanted to, he could have done much more to steer the conversation away from the path it had taken. And as for Lene, across from him...

She didn't seem to hate the idea, which came to Rudolf as a bit of a shock. He wasn't the greatest at reading others, and had never quite learned what one of these arrangements looked like, even if he knew about them, but to his eyes it seemed that he was at least an "interesting curiosity" to the young lady. Even if she happily called out the discrepancy between whatever image of him had been foisted onto their family and the...

Kinda fucked up looking dog?

The war-torn, rough-living, kind of fucked up looking dog¹ that sat across from her in reality, even if he did clean up passably enough. The night had rolled on in earnest after he'd accepted taking his licks, but with continued courses and continued pairings of wine, Rudolf had found his parts swelling where hers slowly receded, until...

Where Halvor sputtered, Rudolf too suppressed a small urge to flinch, surprising himself— even if it wasn't him that had lead the charge on this deception, he could feel it pulling at the seams, not too different from those nights in Osprey that seemed a year or more past by now. The ones where he could feel the others all waiting for their explanation, after he'd fed them ample evidence contrary to what he'd sold himself as. The Kirins had all very dutifully managed to either avoid or be redirected away from the mammoth in the room with them, and even he'd almost forgotten its tusks poking him in the back until then.

The wine.

It had sanded off those edges where he worried about those things, those concerns existential and ethical, but now it had sanded away some of his reason— not enough to play court fool by any means, but enough, at least, to quietly pull down the careful wall he'd put up at the start of the dinner, holding back those acknowledgements that did him no good moment to moment. It left him wondering, wondering things he had no need to. What did he want from this, when they got out of Halvor's hair? What did he have to offer somebody, beneath each lie, be it little and white or big and black, when they could both dispense with the mutual charade? When this all came down, would he be as lucky to get out unscathed as he had in Edren?

He didn't know. With how sudden it all was, he had no way of knowing. She was a nice girl, he'd learned that much— surely, something genuine was what she deserved, no?²

It was with comparatively little theater that he sighed his relief, a small, quiet thing beneath the breath, as she answered his quiet contemplations with a reassuring smile for the party at large, and the moment of turmoil passed. Even knowing that her prospective betrothed wasn't exactly measuring up to the tall tales Cadmon had spun through Halvor, she was still willing to see where it all went, rather than drop the guillotine on their poor associate's head— and Rudolf's by extension. These things could be forgiven were it the right person, eh?

"Of course," he replied, mustering a polite nod and a smile when her eyes met his for the final time that night. There was no trick in them, nor resentment. Just blue... and the smallest reflection of himself still seated, looking up into it. The light of the chandelier overhead seemed to soak into her blonde hair, framing her look of expectation. "I'll be there. We still have a lot to talk about while we can."

---

Earlier That Morning

The next morning after the dinner, Esben—awake and moving exceptionally earlier than he would otherwise have liked to be, given that they were at least put up in a decent location and not immediately at risk of any attack or otherwise—left his room, taking the few steps down the hall to the one that had been kept for Rudolf for much of the last half decade, evidently. Weekends spent with Halvor had always been surreal in some way, and the last couple days, whichever point of the week they were actually in, had proven to match such expectations with no trouble. He'd known of Kayliss's association with the Earl Demet and others of Edren's nobility, after all; and he'd known a bit that Halvor himself had some communication with the same. That all that should combine in some way to result in the younger man he'd been travelling with being put forth as a potential marriage option for his younger sister, was...

Shocking didn't quite seem adequate to describe it.

But as he'd figured during the dinner, and as he'd figured for quite some time before, Lene could think for herself, and make her own decisions. Obviously she was aware that there was something going on with Rudolf beyond the stories that Halvor and Cadmon had shared, and no doubt she was going to ask after them, and just what both her brother and provisional-husband-to-be were doing. He highly doubted he had to stress to Rudolf that, if there was any time for honesty, now would be it; he'd rather not drive a rift between them if they were to continue travelling together and relying on each other to stay alive, and something that could read as such an obvious lack of trust would be the perfect thing to put them at odds for the remainder of their journey.

He sighed once, and knocked thrice on the heavy wooden door to Rudolf's room. ”You're awake, ja? We have a bit more than an hour before breakfast, let's go talk with Lene and Anders.”

”Yeah,” a decidedly-groggy-at-the-edges voice sounded through the door, before it opened to reveal the provisional-husband-to-be in question, hair liberated from the slicking back of last night as he rubbed at his temples for a moment. ”Yeah, let’s get into it.”

He stifled a yawn. Ideally, he’d have snagged a cup of coffee to nurse with breakfast after the wine through the dinner and his nightly routine thereafter, but getting the blood moving by marching down the hall would have to serve in its place at this hour. Luckily, he’d already gotten himself most of the way there… at least far enough to talk. He always did rouse quick.

He met Esben with a nod and a thumbs up, motioning for him to lead on, and they started down the way in earnest. Rudolf was dressed much more plainly today, in preparation for the road ahead—simple dark cloth, so much less golden trim.

The trip to the suite Lene had been put up in was a short one, steps Esben still knew well from multiple childhood trips to visit with Halvor. It was the same one that their entire family had often been put up in when they came to visit—indeed, he'd been a little surprised he wasn't put up in it to start with, though with Lene and Anders arriving that made a bit more sense—and he was half convinced he could still pick the lock if he wanted to, just to try and surprise his sister.

With Anders on the other side, though, that was probably a bad idea.

The elder swordsman had evidently been expecting them around that time as well, if not heard them walking down the hall, as he already stood ready with the door open as they rounded the corner. ”Early for both of you, it looks like,” he remarked blandly. ”We have some seats by the fireplace. Come in and get comfortable.”

“You got me. Morning.”

Esben grumbled some sort of half-inaudible reply for being made fun of, leading the way to the sitting room at the center of the suite. Lene was unsurprisingly already well awake, sitting by the fireplace with a glass of water and a book that she'd just closed. ”Good morning!” she greeted them cheerily.

Esben stared flatly.

”You're supposed to say something back, Esben.”

”You know I hate waking up this early if I can help it.”

”Good morning, Lene.” Rudolf dutifully mustered from off to the side, raising a hand. He didn’t much like rising this early if he wasn’t under the sun either, but he had less room to gripe than an elder brother did.

”See, he's a polite boy,” Lene chided her brother, with an approving nod in Rudolf's direction. Anders took a seat near her, and Esben settled into one of his own. ”A dutiful sister wouldn't force her weary brother up at the crack of dawn,” he fired back, and the two shared a wry smile.

”You've questions, I'm sure, though we know about as much about all of this as you do. Probably less, even.”

As the siblings had their bit of banter, Anders peered over at Rudolf where he sat. Before they could keep going, though, he spoke up himself: ”You look like you slept less even than Esben,” he observed bluntly. ”And you have some dirt on your trousers. Been outside already?”

No reason to lie about it now, away from prying eyes.

“I train late in the night. It’s an old habit from the days I spent in Sagramore. I focus better with the day behind me, and it’s time away from questioning.” He blinked, before continuing his explanation. “Not like this, I mean—more regarding the arms I carry. They see a sword you don’t use often, they bug you about why. That kind of thing. After the dinner drew to a close, you can imagine I had a lot on my mind— and a lot of wine in my blood, too.”

He pulled back, as if testing how the cushioned seat held him. Near the hearth like this, he almost worried he could fall asleep again if he wasn’t careful, almost. Unscrambling his own narration, so far, was proving engaging enough. At the foot of his seat, the two Crane Wings leaned against the coffee table. The armament in question, however, was absent. Too big to lug around for a chat.

“I’m the type that turns to movement to settle both, I suppose I’m getting at. Forgive me, I must have stayed out there later than I’d thought.”

”Sagramore?”

”An Edreni town,” Esben explained. ”Proud of their martial tradition. Many of them take up work as mercenaries or itinerant monster-hunters, at least for a time. A bit of a rivalry with the Dragoons, there, though they're less specialized.”

”Hardly the place for a sickly boy.”

”It is if you mean to strengthen him. Crucibles, and all.” Rudolf noted, not exactly challenging the man’s implication.

Lene turned to Anders with an irritated huff. Evidently, she wasn't quite getting what she expected out of their morning conversation, or at least it wasn't going quite how she’d wanted. ”What are you getting at?”

”Only that I have my own duties here,” he replied levelly. ”Both to your family and beyond. Questioning all of this is both.”

Esben took a sip of water himself, as his sister, thoroughly chastised, leaned back in her seat. ”Perhaps we sideline that for now,” he suggested in the silence. ”What else were you hoping to talk about?”

”What have you been doing?” came Lene's second demanding question in the last minute.

”Ah.”

”I haven't seen you since you left for that so-called school, and you were always bad about writing back home anyways—but now, months without anything, and then you randomly show up at Halvor's place where he's supposed to present me the match he's trying to make?!”

She pointed an accusatory finger at both him and Rudolf. ”One who supposedly never left Solitude, one who has supposedly been here for a long while, and then you start telling stories making it sound like you've been galavanting around half the continent! Meanwhile, we hear nothing from you, we reached out to the Garden and got nothing—”

Esben's eyes had started to slide over to watch Anders’ reaction. ”Nothing?” he interrupted, with a small shrug from the old man.

”We were told not to worry, and that we'd be personally informed if anything should change.”

”That's nothing!”

Unfortunate. He hated making his family worry so much. ”Well, that's expected,” he muttered as Lene sat back again, now having thoroughly expressed her displeasure. ”But as I said, without mother and father I would prefer not to get into too much of this...”

He trailed off as he felt Anders’ stare on him. ”In their absence, I am acting in lieu of your parents. I am to veto all of this if I have any misgivings. Speak at whatever liberty you may, both of you.”

The silence that followed was broken this time by a sigh from the younger man across from them.

“Then I’ll cut to the meat of it for my part— Yes, you’re both right. I don’t know what exactly Cadmon has sold me to you as through Halvor, but the story of my warding with him on account of poor constitution exists largely just to explain to public inquiry why I’m never off to the eastern plains of Edren, with the rest of the household. Disease did nearly take me in the crib, I am the weakest of my brothers by a fair margin, slow-learning and unsuited for the family craft,”

He took a deep breath, and for a moment, looked between the three seated around this little table. Esben in search of unspoken guidance, but between Anders and Lene it seemed to be an attempt to decide between them.

He chose the young lady as he leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting upon his knees and hands clasping one another. The one this concerned more than anyone else. He continued on, even-toned as he could manage, intent on leaving as little out as he could. Having already broken this dam once, he noticed how much more easily the words came this time. Still uncomfortable, still bitter, but he could look his audience in the eye.

“But the truth of it is…Internally, I’m in effect persona no grata. My family and I had a severe falling out when my father and brother returned from the war with Osprey—the swordsman village is where I spent those five years I was supposed to be here. I’ve not lived as the second son of anyone in that time. Cadmon had told me that he was working behind the scenes on something relating to what was to become of me in the wake of this informal exile, but I hardly expected it to be a betrothal arrangement. It’s turned into a hell of a mess now— One you don’t deserve to get wrapped up in this way. Before anything else: I’m really sorry for the deception.”

Lene looked to Anders, and then to Esben. Esben shrugged; that was truth enough, he figured. Little need yet to get into just why the falling-out had happened. ”We met when I was travelling north, to Osprey. Earl Demet had sent him along for much the same reason.”

”Explains the lady commander.”

”Do you know everybody from Solitude?” Lene cut in peevishly at Anders.

”Perhaps. Continue.”

”Simple enough from there. We fell in with the others of this group and have stuck with them since. None of what we told last night was an outright fabrication, other than having Rudolf continue with the story that he's been staying as Halvor's ward for significantly longer than actuality.”

So that was how much they were going to relay of the king’s dispatch, then. He’d been avoiding the subject in part to focus on his story, but also to sort of kick the buck over to the older Kirin, whose operational security concerns were now the weightier of the two.

“I could tell you both caught how surprised we were as to the reason for our being here,” he admitted. “Until then, we were just trying to keep the Viscount from worrying his head off, I believe Cadmon put it to me. I hope he feels safe mentioning that he’s let me go off to Solitude, now that he’s got proof I didn’t go missing en route at fourteen and die in the wilderness. The man needs a break.”

He frowned after that, before glancing sidelong towards Esben, unsure of what to say next. Everything so sparse and boilerplate as he’d left it… it’d hardly assuage worries.

“Is there nothing more we can give them? I understand information security, but…”

”What were you doing in Osprey?”

Esben frowned. Clearly, he couldn't give direct details of his original assignment, even to family. Ingratiating himself with the Kirins by giving the broad strokes was pushing it close enough. Anders may have been another SEED, likely still was, even if he was ostensibly ‘retired and only doing teaching sometimes,’ but that was still playing fast and loose with the rules. The amended assignment as of Drana Asnaeu, however...

”Valheim is invading. This is hardly news, nor that Osprey has fallen. They attacked Drana Asnaeu recently, which I'm sure has started to filter its way out here, but it was repelled. We've been busy stymieing some of their advance work, or trying to help begin a resistance, depending where you look.” Obviously, it was no secret to anybody in Skael with any semblance of an education just what the Garden and SEED got up to. The roving mercenary groups were just the most visible face of it all, especially beyond Skael's borders. All the same, Lene paled at the implications of just what her brother had been facing on a regular basis.

”As befits the son of a knightly family,” Anders observed, a similar statement to what he'd made the night before. ”I believe that is enough on that front. Any noble family should understand secrets, yes?”

Esben had half a thought that Anders was making fun of the Cadons’ well-known penchant towards complete truthfulness. Lene squinted at him as well. Utterly unbothered by their looks, he continued: ”You've grown hard, boy. Not the soft one you were the last time I saw you. Travel will do that. He looks tougher yet, even if he's a long way from matching that samurai.” His own impenetrable gaze fell on Rudolf for a long moment.

”Your family. This falling out...last night, you were surprised at the implication your father may have agreed to any of this. In spite of that, it seems.”

“I am of the belief that, beyond whatever responses he has to the Earl’s updates, he has washed his hands of me completely. From the sounds of things, age has seen him grow no less stubborn now as he was when he threw me out.” Rudolf responded, dead-eyed in his stare as he met that implacable look of the old man’s. “After sleeping on it, maybe he may have agreed to the whole thing enough for Cadmon to send it… but to express this as blunt as he would, that agreement most likely would have been ‘Sure, whatever’.”

”Isn't his family a merchant one as well?” Lene asked, frowning. ”The Demets. Noble, certainly, but from what you told me, Anders, of what father told you, of what Halvor told him, he's...”

She was obviously fishing for the right way to say what she was meaning.

”Shrewd? A hard bargainer?”

“A two faced piece of shit?”

”Rudolf.” Her disapproval was clear by the glare shot his way.

”You’ll understand when you meet him. He likes twisting his own words around so much you can hardly see straight, let alone those of the people he keeps contact with. I love him, but I might be the only person in the world he spares laconia on.”

”No wonder Kayliss likes him,” Esben murmured. ”I think.”

”Is he unfair, though? Would you, knowing him personally, call him unfair?”

There was a beat that hung in the air.

”Yeah? Not in the way it sounds like you mean, but… yes, often, to his face.”

”...” Lene blinked, once, twice. ”Hva?”

Esben coughed. ”Ah, Rudolf, I think what she means to ask is...Does he mean well? Halvor certainly seems to think so, if he decided to play this game. And it certainly seems like Izayoi expects you to make good on this and to contribute, if need be, and I don't think she'd do so if she didn't see something to trust in it, no?”

…

His eyes fell, studying the carpet.

“He took me in when he had no cause to, in that small way, after everything had happened. My actions had harmed his household as well as my own, but he still pointed me towards a place within his domain I could lay my head, collect myself, and further some kind of learning. He’s kept written correspondence with me as if I never ceased my squiredom beneath him, for no benefit of his own, just guiding me from afar.”

A rueful look graced the carpet, but not a cold one.

“The King’s call to arms was doubtless meant for Cadmon’s firstborn, Wulfric… but he sent it to me, instead. If nothing else, I’ve grown more thanks to that than I ever would have staying there. I probably wouldn’t be here to discuss this arrangement at all.”

His face rose, and he nodded. “He has always meant well. Even if we gripe at each other for kicks.”

”You trust him?” Anders asked, as Lene fell silent after Rudolf's slow response. Esben nodded once, decisively. ”With my life, and multiple times over. Galahad and Izayoi weren't lying when they said we can ill afford to lose him. He may not always make the best decisions, but he's still a work in progress.”

Anders raised an eyebrow, before looking out the window. A window with a great view, unsurprisingly, of where Rudolf had been training the night before. ”We'll hold you to that, then,” he stated, before looking at Rudolf. ”You—that oversized sword you have. You know what it's used for, or is it just something you have to practice with?”

“Protection,” Rudolf replied as though by reflex, sure of it as anything. Anders gave a single nod of approval. “Montantes in particular are favored among bodyguards, for their ability to fend off multiple attackers at once, denying a large space around the wielder or their charge. In formation, mercenary companies in Edren have seen ample use of them both in supplementation and as a counter to pike formations, but I’m rustier when it comes to unit tactics.”

He thought he had imagined it, the feeling of eyes upon him that night—that it was just his nerves, acting up as they always did.

”A bookish answer.”

”That nod was as much as I ever got, and faster, too,” Esben half-complained. Mostly a joke, but he had to express a bit of annoyance at Anders for it.

Lene kicked him once, turning back to Anders. ”What's that about? He seems honest enough to me, and beyond that, we trust Halvor, Halvor trusts the Earl Demet, and he trusts the earl too. There are complications, certainly, but now that we know what's going on...” She turned to Rudolf once, putting on her sternest expression. ”No new scars like that one, understood? And don't let my brother get any more either.”

Cute.

”A moment, if you would. I won't refuse this just yet, that I will leave to your parents, but I have my own stipulations to place on this if I am to give them any recommendation.” Without waiting for any actual permission from them, he stood, walking to his own room, where he began to rummage with something.

Esben listened for a moment, before turning back to Lene. ”How much did you two bring?” She rolled her eyes. ”You know how he is, nothing is ever good enough. He refuses to go anywhere with just his bags.”

“He reminds me of Balder,” Rudolf murmured, finally allowing himself to sit back a little. “Unflappable no matter what you throw at him. Balder, and maybe one of the older knights that serve Cadmon through the Marches.”

Anders stepped back in at that moment, something long and tightly wrapped in a silken bag resting in his hands. At least five feet long, something far larger than what Esben or Lene had ever actually seen him working with. ”Don’t get the wrong idea of this. I will leave it to the earl or his son to determine when your squiring is done,” he cautioned, undoing the tie that held the bag closed and pulling its contents out.

A sword, wooden grip partially wrapped with wire, easily a third or more the length of the blade itself. Quillons curved upwards towards the point, a faceted pommel opposite them at the other end of the grip. As he pulled off the sheathe, a long ricasso and an awl-like edged section revealed themselves of the blade, firelight dancing along the polished length.

Rudolf rose in his seat.

”It's likely heavier than the one you have already, unless you're stronger than I'd guess. But Halvor mentioned something of that one to me, as well, when I woke him last night.” He glanced at the two Cadon heirs seated next to the fireplace. ”Esben says he trusts you with his life. One of my duties to this family is to watch over their children, and when they are so separate, clearly I cannot do that. Lene seems willing to put aside her reservations in return for your telling of things this morning. If I am to do the same, I need you to promise me one thing in return.”

Lene moved to protest, but Esben reached out a hand, pulling her back into her chair and shushing her immediately. ”It'll be important to Rudi,” he whispered. ”Don't interrupt.”

Rudolf, sure enough, was unaware of their interplay, all but lost in the steel. Anders was right, he could tell it would be heavier in his grip than the cross he bore at a glance alone, but beyond that…

“That… Words fail me, Sir. Name your demand, I don’t think I could believe this as a gift alone.”

”Because it is no gift at all,” Anders interrupted Rudolf. ”I expect as long as you carry this sword you'll remember what I'm telling you today. I can't ask that you defend Esben with your life, though from the way you carry yourself I've little doubt that you would. But in return for my good word to Matthias and Ada, I need you to swear that you will defend him up to that point, and should it prove necessary, that you be willing to sacrifice your own honor to guarantee his and your safe passage from any hopeless combat. Moreover, should this arrangement stand after you meet with them—I need your word that if our places are ever reversed, or should we stand shoulder to shoulder, you will do the same and more. What say you?”

Rudolf’s jaw worked, wide eyed and dumbfounded.

“Aye. I’ve always held honor as the refuge of the strong… I can scuttle it if it means seeing us home.” He breathed, fighting his urge to kneel— the man had just told him he had no bearing on his squiredom… and if his suspicions were correct, that was not said out of inability. “Esben is already a brother to me, in all but blood. By the fire Himstus sparks within me, I will protect him as such.”

”And the rest?”

Putting aside the matter of how little he knew, when you got right down to it, of how on board he was with this arrangement so soon…

When he thought of it, he thought of if he could say the same of Suzume, had she survived. Of the Laruelle family, who he time and again had wished he wasn’t keeping Elly from. Of even Robin’s ‘father’, who had broken rank and stolen away the very night of the plague that had fallen upon him.

“Of course. Whether they approve of Lene and I in the end or not… Esben’s family would be safe as I could keep them.”

Anders nodded, and held the sword to him, hilt first. ”Then, in the name of the Mother and her House, I charge you with this blade and the duty it represents. Keep your vow and return the blade to me, or have it returned to me if elsewise is unavoidable, or else hide your face from the world and abandon any hope of knighthood yourself. Swear it.”

Rudolf’s eyes narrowed, filling with steel. His scar caught the heat of the fireplace, feeling alight again. He reached forward, gingerly, but surely.

”I’m sick of hiding. I swear it.”

Anders released the blade, allowing Rudolf to take it in his hands. ”Good.” He looked to the pair still seated. ”That settles this conversation, then. Breakfast will begin before long and all three of you need to get cleaned up a bit.”

”I am hardly—” Esben pulled her down again, and she shot a sullen look his way. ”Your hair is still a little messy, and I know you wouldn't let yourself get caught at the table without fixing it,” he observed.

Honestly, as always. ”And none of us want you fretting over it and rushing yourself. We'll find time to come see you after we’re done with what we need to do here in Skael, I hope. Rudolf, shall we?”

“A moment,” he negotiated, finally freeing himself from the urge to test the caliber of his new recruit— as much as one could in the confines of a room. “Admittedly, after accepting the task I just have, this feels like it rings hollow. But…”

He reached down, the greatsword resting in its sheath, and produced his two companions picked up in Drana Asnaeu, holding them up for Anders and Lene to see. “When I heard that we were likely due at least one more meeting, I got it in my head that I should promise I would return for it with more than just words.”

Ah, dammit, it did feel embarrassing, following that up with this half-baked idea.

But… in for a gil, in for the goose… he’d already started it up.

“I picked these up in Drana Asnaeu. They served me well in that time. A local style of blade, suited well for the brush, and as it happened, the Valheimr we faced there. They’re called Crane’s Wings, if either of you are familiar..?”

”More than you likely know.”

A thick sigh of relief, letting out more tension than it may have looked he had

“Oh, thank Imir, that makes this easier.” he breathed, before thrusting the rightward blade forth, towards his provisional fiancée. “The legend attached to them states they must always be paired, returning to each other swiftly when parted. They bring good fortune when they are.”

”Huuuuh?” Lene seemed clearly at a loss for words with what was being presented to her. ”Take it, Lene,” Esben prodded. She reached up, gingerly taking it in hand. Unlike everybody else in the room, it was clear she had never even handled a sword, and seemed to expect it to be much heavier than it actually was. ”Safekeeping, then...Be quick about it, will you? The longer you're both away, now I'll have two people I have to worry about for not hearing from them.”

Rudolf had managed to stop quietly looking like he wanted to crawl under something and die by the time she met his eyes again, once she put the pieces together. The laughter in his head was all but deafening.

Instead he smirked, nudging Esben with his elbow.

“Don’t worry. Push comes to shove, I’m better about writing in than it sounds like this guy is.”

Esben rolled his eyes. Lene glared at him, before turning back to Rudolf, meeting his smirk with a gentle smile. ”Well, you'll just have to make up for where he lacks, won't you? Consider that my addition to everything Herr Anders put on you today.”

Rudolf chuckled, before playing along with an Edreni salute and a half bow. “I solemnly swear it, Milady. I just hope you like sketches to go with.”

She raised an eyebrow. ”I'll have to hope you're good,” she replied with a nod. Esben stood up, patting his sister on the shoulder. ”I'll make sure he knows where to send everything, at least,” he promised, Lene sticking her tongue out at him in return. ”Now, shall we?”

”Let’s. If I had any more of these lined up I don’t think I’d make it through them.” Rudolf joked. Esben nodded, and with the four of them saying their (very temporary) farewells, led the way as he and Rudolf left the suite, Anders shutting the door behind them.

Once they were safely beyond earshot, though, he turned, whispering conspiratorially at the shorter man: ”Giving her a sword to seal the vow? Didn't you tell me once that that's basically a Sagramori proposal?”

Rudolf kept walking, silent as the crypt, but paled about four shades as the realization hit him in turn.

”I thought this wasn't supposed to be at the official-contracts stage, yet.”

“Shut up shut up shut up neither of you chuckleheads stopped me shut up I wasn’t thinking of it shut up”

---

He was adjusting, more or less, to the newfound distribution of weight on his person— lighter at the hip, as one of his wings now roosted with the young lady calling upon him— a promise beyond flowered words of sure return. Heavier at the back, where her loyal retainer had parted with one of his family's finest, to empower him as he set forth. Finally, a sword most suited to the training he had favored since boyhood that bore no curse. Even if it wouldn't do to completely show it, part of him was just about over the moon.

"I don't know, milady," he hedged in good humor, glancing back over his shoulder to eye the long hilt, the hefty pommel. Despite not quite matching the infuriatingly clear exemplar of swordsmithing that it replaced, it was a handsome sword nonetheless, and its surer weight and fuller response had felt a hard-earned relief in his hands, for the few practice swings he had been allowed. It fought him a little, compared to the ghost of a blade wrapped up in Goug's cart— but taming it meant it would cut sure and true. "I may come to like it so much they'll have to fight me to get it back to him."

Anders, of course, wasn't going to budge even if he mistook that for provocation— just calmly keeping an eye, all the while, on the errant vagrant that his charge had been matched with. He probably would have gotten on well with Balder— both old hands at handling cheeky upstarts with unruffled feathers. The words the two had exchanged earlier that morning were all too solemn for anything else. Whatever it was he had seen, beneath the shell Rudolf was so cognizant of... he had found worthy enough.

He allowed himself a brief chuckle. "We can handle it when we next meet. Keeping safe's the plan until then.³ Always is— We'll all be keeping an eye on eachother. And Halvor!"

He called across the way, a little closer to the gate— where the haggard blonde lord stood quietly by, content to let the two lovebirds jaw at eachother now that he'd done what he could for them. Rudolf shifted the weight of the sword's harness on his shoulder, before favoring him with an apologetic, but altogether warm grin. One of relent, just as he'd worn in the man's study two nights back.

"I've given you a lot of grief these past five years running off all the time, haven't I? Wayward, distant, impossible to keep up with. Acting like I don't even know myself, right?" he intoned guilelessly, before bowing his head. Like a weight had lifted off of his shoulders— and would soon lift off the older man's. "I'm sorry to always cause you trouble like this. Thank you for putting up with me."⁴

---

---

• _{1. Damn, I didn't think he'd actually use it. You know how ironic this is, coming from me?}
• _{2. No, you're to supposed to say it's you that wants the G E N U I N E . You're fucking this quote up; just pull back on the reins, this is a tragedy waiting to happen and I no longer find it funny. I'm blaring Izayoi telling you to "lock in" in the back of your head until you get the idea.}
• _{3. Famous last words.}
• _{4. Raise so many flags we can't knock them all down quick enough, sure.}

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

Name: "Sticky Pete" (Birth name unknown. Earned the "Sticky" appellation by way of the heavy elm branch found at his side by the adventurer who roused him from his catatonia, earned the appellation "Pete" by way of it being the name that hit his ear the best after "Sticky".)

Age: ??? (Could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-three. Point is, he's young enough to handle himself in a brawl without growing too tired too quickly.)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Rank: Iron, recently promoted from Copper after a streak of five successful jobs of largely menial grunt work, capped by the extermination of a goblin hive.

Personality: Even-keeled, earnest, and sometimes naive. Pete is by all accounts a genial guy with a permissive temper— perhaps owing to his lack of remembered hangups from the life before himself. Inwardly, he attempts to approach each day with as open a mind as he's able, all in the name of relearning whatever he may have lost— guided only by a deep-seated bedrock of common morality, he lets his personal judgement revolve around the gut feelings that ethical core imparts upon him, approaching each moment on its own. In sum, he has no creed, he remembers no coda, but the ethereal whispers of right and wrong still live in blood, in bone, deep the pit of his stomach. Whoever he used to be, they surely knew very well when they were doing the right thing, and when they weren't.

Inwardly, Pete worries that he may one day discover the rougher, crasser parts of him, those that don't do well with rookies or take some sort of pleasure in cracking skulls, may have stemmed from a man that was indelibly colored more by the latter than the former. He would be happy to never regain that part of himself, surely... but at the same time, he cannot escape the burning at the back of his head, where that heavy branch smashed through whomever that might have been, that he owes it to them to learn who they once were. Who he once was. It is by no means lost upon him that reviving the first may mean the death of the second. Even so, surely there was somebody there— someone who's missing from every life they touched, so long as he is here now. Maybe there is a way he can honor the man that was, without giving up the man that is— or maybe there's a way the man that is can remain, even when if man that was returns.

Outwardly, he's a bit stiff-humored, in a way that suggests a kind nature. Hardly one to balk at a joke, least of all at his own expense, but he seems to lack the bite that might drive a man to let cutting words fly. Content to admit that there is much he doesn't know of the world, he seems content to give most things a fair shake— even if it may lead to him letting somebody take advantage of his commitment to sincerity. At the other end of this, he's not a great teacher, in the rare instances where he encounters people that know less of anything than he does.

Brief Backstory: Found at dusk outside Venne beneath an old elm, with one of its' heavy branches broken off at his side. There were no possessions nor money to his name that could be found— even the clothes off his back were nondescript rags, as though a man deprived of every worldly possession, right down to his name. He awoke with memories of gray fog, flecked with dancing black sunspots, a massive swell upon his head, and a gaggle of unfamiliar faces standing over him. It was there that "Sticky Pete" would begin his life, taking a few days to recover under the watchful eyes of the adventurers of the guild that had taken him in. Eventually, when he was hale anew, his lack of librans would catch up to him well before his stagnant memory— and with the nearest work available coming from the same roof over his head, it seemed worth the old college try.

Equipment: The same heavy elm branch that robbed him of his memory now robs pests and most problems of their lives. It's half his identity at this point: hard to be "Sticky Pete" without the aforementioned Stick. Beyond that, he's earned enough to put some proper clothes on his back again, and is slowly collecting the adventurer's staples to fill a sturdy leather pack— rope, a wineskin, a prybar, a lantern, sturdy leather boots, sturdy leather bracers. He's saving up for some decent brigandine or a shield, next.

Skills: Tall, well-formed, and fell-handed, Sticky Pete is the beneficiary of a clear head in a scuffle, rarely being taken in by nerves or fear. His calm manner and mild disposition give him an easy time getting along with most people alive— already, he has a few friendships forming. Evidently, he's either literate, or has picked up the general gist of literacy quickly. Fairly dexterous with his hands, seems to know his way around a knife despite not remembering exactly why. Holds his drink well. It's been only a couple of weeks, so he doesn't have a lot to work with, but he budgets well— with money, skillset, and time all alike.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Alright, money where your mouth is, Izayoi... Rudolf thought darkly, swiping his own foot into a warning tap against the Samurai's shin in a rare reversal of their punitive dynamic. For as anxiety-riddled as the Viscount was, Rudolf had already experienced firsthand the sharpness of his instincts— and the hair trigger they sat on. Naked bloodlust of the type Izayoi had resurfaced for his father was going to set a land speed record in tripping every alarm in the former SEED's brain¹. Never minding the implicit agreement with his skepticism.

In roughly the same time as the opposite half of the table had elected to run their forms of interference, Rudolf mustered an affable chuckle, nodding along as his provisional spouse-to-be said her piece. "Ahahaha, it's true, she's very dramatic— so protective of me, it's like I've found a second mother." he conferred, glancing towards the new entrance that Halvor quickly rose to meet, speeding through his apologies for any potential slight this brought. Okay, good enough— best Rudolf could do was leave him with a final note reassurance as he headed out the door. "I'm sure things won't need to come to that."

The door shut, and they were all afforded a moment to breathe. Telling the whole truth, he had near as much cause to worry about that line as their high-strung host— his estranged family were not a monolith, he knew that, but against the marauding Limbtaker they surely would be. The thought of her roving down to their home provided quite ample concern— even ignoring the man named, there was no chance she'd get to him without first having to cut through he wasn't half as upset with.²

At the second mention of 'sickly and bookish', Rudolf perked up out of his quick dalliance with the realm of the hypothetical, and raised his glass a touch to acknowledge Anders' interjection as Halvor worked the doorknob. The old boy was sharp as a freshly-stoned blade, that much was clear— if it were a better time and place, Rudolf might have asked if his scars were earned in duels or the field proper. He didn't exactly begrudge either answer, these days— but more important was offering some of his own.

"You have the right of it, sir. And I've been hard at work the past five years to try and shed those descriptions of theirs, as well— but they can be quite the gadflies about it."

Exhausting, talking like this, more than he'd bargained for. Part of having Lene across from him that he didn't expect was the different ease with which she seemed to navigate the amelioration, the polite upspeak, the works. The difference between second children that stayed in the family and those that didn't, you could say. He'd thought himself to have maintained a fair majority of his etiquette schooling in the time away from "performing nobility", but once he was out of familiar waters and left stranded far from his favored taciturn, staccato military necessity when it was around unfamiliar people... It was proving not quite as simple as slipping on an old hat.

He blinked, and catching the look, exaggerated his feelings a little once he heard the story Esben was spooling up.

"You rogue, Esben." the burned man accused, letting a small hint of betrayal hang on the end of the vowel as his eyes narrowed to a glare. "Don't bring that up now, Chisato wasn't there for it either— she'll lord this over me for a fortnight!"

Chisato, naturally, had barely spared this entire dinner two words more than she needed. But this part was theater, and every hand on stage could be leveraged.

... He missed Robin.

---

---

• _{1. And here we, both of us, foolishly, took her at her word three weeks ago, when she said we'd be mutually ignoring that house, us and them. Her and him. Mom and Dad.}
• _{2. Says here that they'd all be stoked to take their swing at her. Maybe, let her do you the favor. You're terrible at this "accepting gifts" thing, it bears repeating.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage

Rudolf's jaw quietly worked in the blessed gap between moments he may have needed to speak, still reeling internally from Halvor's grand announcement¹. In the moments just after the words had left the Viscount, the black-garbed young man had opened his mouth with a wry smirk, about to genially brush it all off as Halvor getting back at him for all the cheek from the night prior— but had earned a stern warning at the top of his toes from the Mystrel beside him to Shut the hell up, boy. Izayoi's geta were always so persuasive. By the time Eliane spoke up, to congratulate him in spite of detouring her from her family for three whole days behind that impenetrably blank smile of hers, Rudolf had managed to plaster a polite grin over his bafflement and reply with a muted, almost diffident "Thanks, Éliane. This is all pretty overwhelming."

After that, it was Esben who had been called upon to handle further introductions, and Rudolf was bought a moment to sip the crisp and tart sauvignon that had been served and think for a damned second, collect himself again. These days, those seconds seemed to be in ever-shorter supply. So, for the sake of keeping score...

That was one already that he owed this girl across from him for— Lene, her name was. Of all the people he could be suddenly "provisionally betrothed to", the pretty blonde at the other end of the table was Esben's younger sister. What the hell was Vania pulling with this? It certainly explained his guardian's coy reassurances that there was 'something there for both of them', but it had been with a dawning, quiet horror that he'd realized this was more than just a happy little reunion between siblings. Before that, he had weathered her sharp, curious, deep-watered gaze genially, more or less assuming that the scar tissue on the left side of his face was hard to ignore when directly across from you. He could understand the impulse, and blue eyes were nice to look back at anyway. Now...

He tugged at his collar while her eyes drifted along the rest of the Kirins. The damn thing felt stiff as a gorget— he had managed to talk Halvor off the edge of dressing him out completely in Edreni military style, at least— with the way the jacket fit around his frame, he was certain epaulets sized for the bookish ward he'd been sold as would have made for a nightmare to do much more than pose for a portrait in. Still, the customary Red, Black, and Gold made no bones of his heritage— all three being favored by his estranged family even before they had been raised to knighthood.

Now it was his turn to quietly observe, take something like proper measure of somebody the powers that be had seen fit to play matchmaker for him with. In hindsight, it was much more clear that she had known what this was all about coming in— the little laughs, the easy smiles, and of course, the feeling of her eyes settling onto him behind them both, always watching and measuring. The more he reckoned with it, the more he realized that she and her brother, who thankfully seemed about as flabbergasted as he was, operated along similar lines in that respect, despite their presumably very different adolescences.

He was fairly sure that he would have learned by now if Esben had a sister that had enrolled in the Garden after him, for instance. That meant all the signal he was picking up was familial, at the end of the day— the flash in her eyes before her 'chastised-and-demure' routine was all but a dead ringer for something he'd suffered a lifetime's share of in two months.

They look the same when they're making fun of people. So if I can work backwards from there...

He'd caught her appraisal of him in the interstices of the brewing conversation well enough, but now that he wasn't vacantly gawking he noted that there were markedly similar ones snuck Halvor's direction. So, given that the siblings were both saddled with prior understanding of how much of a worrywart the Viscount could be, that meant that she was likely playing some level of crisis mitigation for him, too— at least while he was still hiding behind his genteel facade.

"He's right, Esben," Rudolf piled in, threading the needle between Halvor's scolding and the SEED's put-upon huff with a grin and a gadfly drone. "Bullying me is one thing, but you should take it easy on your family after all this travel."

He did appreciate that, really— for now, just shipping themselves through the opening course without setting off the man breathing down their necks was the course of action to shoot for. Keep things moving, avoid making the mess bigger than it was, and when they had the opportunity, actually come clean about things.

They'd have to handle the meat of what was in front of them a little later, she and he. With the bombshell of arranged marriages suddenly being back on his menu still ringing in his ears, the scarred young man could hardly pull his thoughts about the prospect together— save for that he had a lot of clarifying to do down the road if this was to go anywhere, and that he'd rather do it as quick as possible.

"Really, though."

Even if she weren't the blood of his closest friend, she would still hardly deserve being kept in the dark about the real state of affairs, when it came to the strange northerner she was faced with. Looked a little wrong for a reason. Looked flummoxed for a reason. Traveled with all of these unknown, unheralded faces for a very, very big reason.

"I have to admit, I'm shocked by all this— You say you got my parents to agree to—"

The thunderbolt heel struck the top of his foot again, and it took more willpower than he cared to admit in not grunting or grumbling some invective at the samurai in undertone. But heeding the warning, he maintained his straightest face, and soldiered on, playing it off as a pensive search for terminology. Dammit, wasn't part of this pact of theirs warning him when he was in danger?²

"... foisting their duties onto these two, I suppose would be the phrase for it. My father is a stubborn old gargoyle," he explained, pivoting away from his utter disbelief that the man had anything to do with this arrangement. Their split was sudden and total and five years buried, no matter what Cadmon said about it, to him or to Halvor. "He hates to delegate things, especially when it involves his children. Always been very hands-on, you know how he is."

Slowly, the pressure atop his instep relented, as that had evidently been obtuse enough to satisfy Izayoi's unspoken demands. He wanted to gripe— given that she was evidently informed enough of her field adversaries as to at one point attempt to round up their children a country away, he knew that she probably agreed with his skepticism, at least to a point. It made that element of the charade all the more hollow to uphold.

He cleared his throat, before glancing between his would-be fiancé and the two warriors at his side, favoring her warmly before inclining his head towards them.

"Well, at any rate, we're likewise enchanted, Lene. I do have to admit; your brother, Izayoi-dono, Sir Galahad— the people gathered here, all of them, have been taking good care me during our travels. They keep their eyes on me should I stray, and swiftly correct me when I err. In lieu of my blood, I could hardly ask for better."

---

---

• _{1.—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—}
• _{2. Kick rocks, little man, this is hilarious!}

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Crimson Paladin

The junior knight nodded, not daring take his eyes off the scene yet, burning it into his memories.

"I've dreamed of this since boyhood." he replied first, casting his eyes across the field like a broad fishing net over the lakeside. "Never once did I really think I would live long enough to see the Valours with my own eyes. To be part of it. I'll remember this moment my whole life remaining— so I'm here to take it all in, should I find I'll one day wake from a passing fantasy, and return to war until a senseless death."

Grim words, but lightly said— the enduring vista all the reaffirmation he really needed as he let it wash over him, and sink deep into the heart. Nodding along and following Sir Fleuri's guiding hand, he listened to each anecdote that matched a pavilion, a banner, a hammered-in post to split a field.

"Consider me warned," he snickered, jutting his chin towards the first patch of dirt his comrade had pointed out. "You'll have to point her out to me when the time comes— I'd hardly want to be insulting the wrong lady unknowingly, and draw my senior's ire so."

At the mention of heraldry, though, his good humor faded behind a quirked brow, and a small, unsure fidget. A first crack in that overawed armor his bearing had worn until now.

"Heraldry... Renar's made mention of that a few times, but am I not able to simply fight under the Order's banners? Is such a thing uncustomary, for men... you know, as I am?"

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

"It's like a festival..."

Those were the words Gerard couldn't help but murmur, almost breathless in awe as he finally crested the rise of the little hill, some hundred meters off the grounds, and turned to look over his shoulder. It was bright day out in one the many meadows that sat between gentle slopes like this one, crowned by a gnarled hickory, and those clear skies shone upon a splash of color that put even wildflower fields to shame.

Dozens, scores, hundreds— more banners and pavilions and blazingly proud colors than the coal-haired knight ever dared count, as if the whole nation had gathered here as the Roses did; to enter the lists, to tilt at the horn's call, to win glory for themselves and their homes. Fair maidens' hands were won on days like this, kingly ransoms changed hands, and names were first writ into chivalric legend— none moreso than that of the man whose name this tourney bore, Valours of Ithillin.

It was hard for him to breathe, almost, knowing that he was about to step into such a rarefied air as that— as the knight whose purity of image had been sung to him since boyhood. From his ideal, how many dreams like Gerard's had been sprung? How many men here were more alike he than different, be they noble or common-born, trying to chase one man's legacy, to live and fight and be remembered as Valours did? Royal blue, blood red, dusky orange, midnight black, seafoam green— the knights below those banners, surely, owed so much of themselves to the example his life had wrought. Was he looking down upon them all now, from just beside Reon's seat on high?

But nonetheless, breathe he did. His lungs were full of the magic in the air.

He was here. He was really, truly here. One of them now.

The barely-cool breeze brushed against his skin, carrying with it the scent of grass, smoke, and sun— the same sun that seemed like it was gently embracing his frame, a whisper from his radiant goddess upon the warm hug of sunlight against his skin. "This day is yours, O faithful child," it seemed to say, "This day alone, I give to you.". The plucking of a dozen lutes floated by, mixed in with the sound of voices from the world over, all talking, jesting, issuing honorable challenge.

He laughed to himself, and took a bit of the honey-smoked leg of turkey he had bought from one of the early stalls as when the knights had arrived. It was sweet and spiced— and to his tongue, richer than even the fare of the Princess's banquet, filling him with vigor unlike any he had found before in Aimlenn. His other hand rested upon the pommel of his trusty longsword, worn today at the hip and sharpened, oiled, polished so fastidiously even the beaten steel shone like new.

Just as much as he, his constant companion had no doubt dreamed of a day like this— to rise, finally, truly, from the mud in which they had both toiled so long, so hard. It was one thing to be accepted to the order, it was another to attend the expected soirees— But he could scarce deny what he felt, this clear and open day.

There was nothing that felt truer to that small, wide-eyed, impossible dream that Valours, Agrahn, and Cyrus had imparted upon the boy that had left home at only fifteen years. Every trial, every brush with death, every life he had taken and saved alike at the edge of that same blade... They had all lead to this.

This was his Knighting. This was his Day In The Sun. Everything before, even his ascension from man-at-arms to the Roses, was the preparation— today he was to announce himself to the world as Sir Gerard Segremors of the Iron Rose.

He could scarcely wait for the Melee.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Shilage and Viscount Halvor Breien

---

The night that the Kirins arrived was a busier one than Halvor had been made to endure for a while. Not only did he have to continue seeing to the dinner preparations and other guests he had planned for in the coming day, now he had to make sure enough would be made to feed seven others, plus their moogle and all their chocobos kept stabled; more than that, he’d had to withstand Esben’s protestations after the news had been broken to the rest, before making sure his other staff were set to see to them—mending clothes and gear, the doctor and nurses to see to their wounds, taking inventory of what supplies and goods they could still lay claim to and seeing how to prepare them for when they left...

It was while he was engrossed in such continued contemplation that evening, after having fed the group and seen to their lodging, that he was disturbed by a sharp knock at his door. He looked up quickly, peering over the rim of his glasses, half expecting the door to swing open without any greeting or welcome...but it didn’t. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief. ”Du kan komme inn,” he bid whoever was on the other side of the door, eyes returning to the papers on his desk.

The light’s low. Give it the old college try. One last prank for the road, before you inevitably get into one of your “I’m being very serious, take me very seriously” moods. You won’t begrudge the practice—I can tell you right now, this is going to take some serious work.

“I figured I would catch you ahead of schedule.” a distinctly ought-to-be-familiar voice floated in through the wood, as the knob turned. “I train late into the night, but I’m a bit tired of stumbling into people I meant to talk with in the middle of it—always catches me off guard in the ensuing argument.”

Much being left unsaid about how they evidently became arguments rather than discussions. Nevertheless, the door gently swung open…to reveal no ward, no guest, naught but the flickering gloom of his hallway.

Halvor looked up from his desk as the door creaked open, candles flickering for a moment with the pressure change, only to see nobody on the opposite side. One of the group that had arrived earlier that day, of course, speaking in the common tongue of Ibros. A man, younger, not speaking in quite the manner he expected of a Dragoon of such high class like the young sir Caradoc...Rudolf, then, it had to be.

And yet nobody was there. No way to hide behind the door as it swung into the room, either, no sound of footsteps rushing either further in or further away despite the voice being present. Curiously, he hadn’t heard any footsteps as his visitor had come up to the door, either.

He set his papers down, surreptitiously reaching for a hidden compartment on the underside of his desk. ”If you wish to speak, then you should show yourself,” he advised, speaking slowly to the empty air. ”I’m not particularly fond of people hiding themselves from me when they want to have a conversation!”

…

“Humor me. I’ve been humoring you all day.” the voice intoned, after a moment of pensive silence. There was a token attempt at diplomacy in that youthful timbre, but more pressing was its resonance— distant, muffled. A little off to the right, as though he were in the next room over.

Halvor’s office, of course, was at the end of the hallway.

Halvor’s fingers closed, listening closely, head cocked ever so slightly to try and triangulate the voice better. ”That’s a terrible request to make of a lord in his own manor,” he dismissed. ”Are you intending just to play a game, or have a real conversation? Shadows and air are terrible partners, especially this late in the evening.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Haha. You do like hearing me talk. That’s admitting it.

Another moment passed. The shadows drew long with each errant flicker of Halvor’s favored candlelight, soft, orange, and so permissive of ambient gloom. The doorway hung open still, and he could feel a shift in the atmosphere. Another flicker. The far side of his bookshelf, an old, proud tower of oak and the century’s canon, seemed to be almost oppressive.

And then a sighing relent, this time much clearer.

“I’ve been trying to work on something, that’s all.”

A hand, grasping around the edge, like pulling oneself through a doorframe. The walking headache’s voice was now surely in the room with him, muttering in disappointment.

“Only picked it up a couple hours ago….”

Laboriously, impossibly, Rudolf’s sword-laden frame pulled itself into view. His head emerging around the side, he finally gave the poor man the courtesy of eye contact.

“I am here to talk, though, for rea—”

Rudolf's greeting was cut off with the sound of a blade whirling through the air, lodging itself in the wood of the bookshelf just above his fingers. Halvor, white-faced, had barely adjusted his aim before he seriously wounded his ‘charge’ when he made his attack.

“... You know what, that’s fair.”

Gently, Rudolf pried the knife free of the wood after stretching a leg out to hook the man’s office door closed. Hearing a blade flying through the air had seen him almost dive back into the gloom, until his eyes told him holding steady had the best chance of staying out the knife’s path. A good thing he was still good with ballistics.

Halvor paused, straightened, and set the rest of the throwing knives down on his desk. Wiping his forehead with a trembling hand he sat back down, beckoning Rudolf fully into the office. ”What the hell are you doing?”

The door lightly knocked against the frame as it swung closed, and the young man nodded along dutifully, taking a moment to properly inspect the space he was now in, and then another for the knife in his hands. It was light as it danced along his fingers, balanced immaculately for its job— unmistakably different from the heavy, rigid thing hilted in bone on his hip.

He tossed it up and down as he stepped forward, indulging his curiosity. No wonder the man had so many of these— they really were nice. He actually had to fight the urge, just a little, to try and send this one downrange himself, just to watch it soar.

You’d best answer his question before he gets worried again. I doubt he likes you screwing around with his knife, either.

“I was hoping I could get you to the doorway. Pop up behind you, do a whole bit with it.” he whimsically not-answered, flipping the blade one last time in his grip to hold out for the former SEED to take as he sat down. “Learning to use shadows. Stealing ideas from our ninja.”

Halvor took the knife, setting it down with the rest silently. Having the young man that was supposed to have been staying with him for at least a year suddenly arrive was strange enough, especially considering the extent to which he'd been led to believe this strange boy had been there the whole time; for him to suddenly start stepping in and out of shadows was rapidly approaching the limit of his tolerance for such insanity. Regardless of the explanation that was offered.

He stared for a moment, before reaching back to a cup on his desk, lifting it up and looking into it critically. ”Out of tea,” he murmured ruefully. ”It's as bad as my school days. People changing faces, throwing their voices, jumping out of shadows, me jumping at shadows...”

He shook his head once before burying it in his hands.

”Other than trying to scare me, what are you after?”

“Materia.” Rudolf replied, taking further mercy by getting to the point. “I’m fresh out. I trust the others have mostly communicated their needs to you or your people here by now, but outside of having the smith touch up my harness alongside Galahad’s, my resupply needs are primarily materia. I figure I may as well talk to you about it, since I have something a little bigger to ask for after this.”

The bigger ask would probably be much better received if he let the guy solve a problem first, Rudolf reasoned, before he threw another onto his plate. The predictions from earlier in the day had come true— looking at how haggard and deflated the man in front of him was, one ostensibly intended to be fostering him no less… he was starting to feel bad, after all. Perhaps he’d pushed it a little too hard.

“It feels strange to ask this, even as an Edreni, but what might you have on hand?”

”...Materia?” He looked back up, peering at Rudolf in confusion. ”You figure out how to jump between shadows, and you're asking about Materia?”

“‘Figured out’ is strong verbiage, sir.”

”...” Halvor stared wordlessly again, at a loss for words.

“...Look, you’re already stressed. Just trust me when I say I’m very not good at this.”

His gaze flickered over to the gouge in his bookshelf. Just above where Rudolf's hand had crept around it, sidling out of the shadow where there hadn't even been room enough for a man like him to stand. ”I'd just handed some off to Esben, but...Ah!”

He threw open one of the cabinets on his desk, pulling out another pair of orbs. Much like before, as soon as he had the chance to latch onto something that seemed remotely normal to do, he jumped at it. ”Maybe these? Never had much use for them, not like what I gave Esben, but maybe...?”

“Whatever you can spare’ll work.” Rudolf agreed, holding his palm out. “Utility’s just as good as combative power as far as I’m concerned. Whatever we can do to diversify, and take off of Miina’s plate... Which did you end up giving him?”

”Only the most useful thing for someone like him, more time!” Halvor replied proudly, dropping the orbs into Rudolf's outstretched hand. ”I don't think he'd ever have used these, same as I didn't, it feels a bit wrong...But that doesn't mean they won't be useful to somebody else!”

“You gave him Time materia?” a jealous note in the voice, a raised brow.

”...Please take them? I can't think of much else that would be helpful to you that I have.”

He rolled them in his palm, the two orbs sliding end over end with the sound of marble. One was an earthen brown, the other a miasma of cloudy red. He pushed enough aether into them to get a feel for what they were.

His face felt a phantom burn, ghosts of the flames around his eye dancing with the candlelight. For the love of… was that sensation just his new normal? He’d felt it when wrecking his gravity materia, too.

“Quake. That is up my alley. And…”

He snickered, glancing between Halvor and the materia as an incredulous grin wormed its way onto his face.

“‘Felt bad about it’... Is this because I shadowstepped in front of you?”

”What?” Halvor looked genuinely confused. ”I never liked the vampiric materia, they always felt too strange to try and use...But that doesn't mean some of the others of my cohort didn't make off well with them. Might as well pass it along to someone that's likely to have any use at all, no?”

Rudolf rolled them in his palm a couple more times, indulging in his turn for a flat look—

“Well, I was just messing with you there. You aren’t wrong. I’ll have my share of chances for stealing away a little vitality, evening some scores a little.”

— before rising to click open his trusty pouch, and slot the two spheres of compressed aether into their new home.

I’m such a good influence. Look at us. The family’s whole again.

Halvor was visibly relieved once again. ”I'm glad to be of help,” he replied with a grateful nod. ”If that will be all...?”

“Not quite yet.” he motioned with a head nod to the greatsword in the room— he had carefully leaned it against the side of the bookshelf, opposite of where the knife had embedded, before sitting down. “I have a bigger ask, remember? This one’s longer-term, so I figured we’d square the magic away first.”

Halvor’s eyes were sharp. He’d probably notice, once his attention was drawn, to the fact that Rudolf had contributed no further damage to his tasteful wood furnishing despite the size of the thing.

Indeed, an unsheathed greatsword laying up against the oak bookshelf would be expected to at least scratch the wood, or dent the cover of a book where the pommel was resting against it...but nothing. He raised an eyebrow, looking back over at his young ward. ”It looks like the magic hasn't been squared away at all, to me.”

“Well, you have me there— that thing is cursed.” Rudolf explained. “Feather-light in your hands, dances like tigerlily on a strong spring wind, but it can’t cut a single blade of grass. Like it keeps passing through space, no matter how hard or how close you swing it to something it ought cut.”

He folded his arms, leaning back a little in the chair as he regarded the most tiresome seven pounds he’d ever lugged around in his life. “Now that I’m here, I’ve been meaning to follow up on my only lead to breaking its potential free. There’s a cursebreaking ritual that’d circumvent the need to hunt down the person who originally laid hex onto steel— but it has material cost, atop getting ahold of skilled mages.”

Miina, even down her arm, was quickly revealing herself to be as skilled as anyone going, near as he could tell, but it seemed like he’d be asking her to do the work of two lifetime specialists in the respective schools. And they’d put so much onto her already.

“Could I…” he began, turning his head to look Halvor in the eye once more. The churlish glint that had always crept into his eyes when he was pulling the viscount’s leg was notably absent. “Possibly trouble you for a diamond?”

Eugh.

Eeeeeeeugh. Beggar. Begging! Shameless! Gods above, how that felt wrong on his tongue above all else— even after all his talk three months ago about honor being cast aside or whatever surly misanthropy he’d been spewing!

“Not one you’d miss, that is.” he elaborated, holding an open palm and then making a fist. “I need to crush it.”

Halvor nodded along as Rudolf continued. A cursed blade, having to try and undo it, it only made sense that he'd have to ask for materials to do it. No matter how difficult it looked for him to do so. ”Of course, of course, breaking a curse, that's nothing terribly new...The right components and reagents and all that...”

“Wait, really?”

He paused, already in the process of sifting through his cabinets, and looked back up. ”A diamond? Have you gone mad?”

Theeeeeeere it was.

For once, Rudolf elected not to undercut himself by hedging that he probably was psychologically unwell, but that in turn was a different thing. His face betrayed no ill-mannered jest.

“It’s diamond dust, or if you could get your hands on a black pearl when oyster diving season’s in full swing. I figured the diamond was the more, readily available of the two I could ask you about.”

”You'd be better off asking Esben's family about that, they're actually out on the water...” the viscount replied dubiously. ”Nothing about how big of a diamond, then...? I, well, maybe...I'll want it replaced, though! Cadmon will never hear the end of it if it isn't!”

The grumbling continued as he continued rummaging through the cabinet, finally pulling out a small tool kit. ”Do you need something gem quality?” he asked pensively, pulling open the kit and showing it to Rudolf. A glass cutter, some drill bits, blades—and diamond. Rough bort with small gem-quality bits sticking out, little off-white ballas spheroids that gave off a similar luster, and even a rough stone that likely could make for a proper gem if it came under a jeweler's skilled hands, though it had clearly had been cleaved across its planes for little flakes, likely for the same scalpel blades that were lying above it. ”These are hard to get, even for me, so I really hope you know exactly what you need...”

“Sadly, we’re on the same level of operating intelligence.” Rudolf ruefully admitted, plucking the stone and idly holding it up to the light to eye for a moment, before closing his fist around it. “The late Grovemaster only gave me ‘diamond dust’ to work with— nothing specific for quantity or quality.”

Since I’m already teaching you things, we’ll circle back to ‘precious stones as aethereal batteries, catalysts, and reagents’ when it becomes more immediately relevant. Primordial Earth is seated in Edren, you really should know these things— I’m gonna get ahead of myself. The point is “Yeah, probably”.

He squeezed, the corners of his jaw tightening as he figured he may as well try and crush the thing like a walnut, right now, just for the hell of it. Whatever he thought of his standing, of his lagging nerves… it appeared true as well that he had certainly never been stronger than he was nowadays.

”Wait, wait, hold on!” While Halvor doubted Rudolf could crush it in his palm so easily, seeing the tendons and muscle in his hand and forearm move, he wasn't about to risk that the boy would slam it into the table or on the floor or against a wall either. ”A Grovemaster didn't tell you anything more than that? You didn't think to ask more than that? Let's—let's write to Cadmon! Even if that Grovemaster is dead, he should know the others, yes? He can get you in touch with another, probably how he did the first, you can get something more specific...Don't just take the rough stone! The ballas are purer, anyways, if that's part of the question!”

“It was a bad week. Isolde and I were not, as it happens, on the same page about much of anything. Not with breaking curses, not with Leviathan, nothing.”

He set the stone down, something tightly contained in the motion, behind the eyes. Halvor Breien’s fears, thankfully, were ill-applied. Rudolf knew better than to try and test stone against wood, after having maybe left a hairline crack in the thing with all the force he could muster— were even that not merely a trick of the light. His bones were sturdier, of that he had no doubt.

His eyes bored into the lot of them as they sat there, hand flexing. At this point, he was slipping into purely thinking aloud, that familiar quiet grumble.

“Maybe he has a rapport with Zacharias that I didn’t— but I know Neve better, and I doubt she’s had a whole lot of time to advance her grasp of such a niche subject in the midst of rebuilding Brightlam alongside the old man.”

His finger began to rap against the wood, in the pause that followed.

If they’re purer they’re better. That’s pretty basically true. Reduces the overhead— you won’t necessarily literally need to go all the way back to Green Hell for your white mage, for example. With what I’m seeing here, we can manage.

“... I’ll take what you’ll part with. If a problem comes up, I’ll find a way to sort it out. I’ve already got some literature I’m consulting from his libraries, so there may yet be some clarity hidden away for whatever moment I can take to get back to reading.” he concluded, slowly gathering the stones one by one. “You’ve already done a lot with this. I know what writing to Cadmon’s like, you don’t have to put yourself through more correspondence than you need.”

The rough diamond was placed back in the kit, a few of the ballas being deposited into Rudolf’s grasp instead, although Halvor looked up again a moment later with a confused raise to his brow. ”Cadmon’s delightful, though,” he mumbled, shaking his head. ”This sword, those scars...I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what happened to the bookish boy I was watching...”

“...”

The once-bookish boy had nothing for that. Nothing could be said without Everything hot on its’ heels.

He shook his head again, glancing absentmindedly away and back down to the papers he’d been perusing before Rudolf interrupted him. ”Is there anything else you require of me? I do need to get back to figuring out what I can give the lot of you to keep you on your travels, Jorunn made it clear that she was leaving that much to me, and I know Kayliss would probably come start sticking her knives in me herself if I let anything bad happen to you all...”

“Jorunn?” Rudolf inquired, buying a little extra time to think. There was something gnawing at him that he couldn’t place, right on the tip of his tongue. One last way to impose. His eyes followed in the wake of his host’s, falling onto the blade he’d leaned onto the shelf.

”My sister?”

The scarred boy blinked once, then leaned forward, flattening his affect to a dull, insincere monotone.

”I’ve never met that person in my life.”

Please, let me get away with playing this off as a bit.

”...”

Halvor looked up at Rudolf silently for a moment, face a perfectly still, unreadable mask. The moment stretched on without any sound save for their breathing and whatever noise came from the rest of the manor, before he looked back down at his papers. ”Just like your uncle. Knew I should have listened when he warned me. First you stroll into my study, trying to frighten me with shadows, wheedle materia and gems out of my grasp, and now this? Fuck off with you.”

Rudolf pried a smirk free from the dead-eyed, head-tilted Esben impersonation the moment had seen him resort to.

“I thought he was pleasant, sir? ‘Delightful’, you told me?”

”Go to bed, boy.”

Chuckling, Rudolf gathered his things in short order, reaching over to pluck the greatsword from where it laid. True as ever, the blade moved as though an extension of his arm, a conduit for his countless sleepless nights of hard labor, of honing meager skill to as fine an edge as he could hold..

“I will,” he reassured with a small nod of the head. “But like I said, I favor the night for training. More room to move, more room to focus. There’s a good spot, out in the courtyard, for me to get my rounds in with this guy.”

A deep breath, a half turn away. A wistful remark, floating in the precipice.

“I grumble about the curse all the time, but you should see how it moves in a trained hand… It’d put anything in the armory to shame. If it didn’t sing so well under the moonlight, I would hardly have such need to beg at your feet.”

Halvor glanced up once. ”We’re all going to have a busy day tomorrow,” he warned. ”I can’t chain you in your room and force you to sleep, but I’d recommend you get the rest you can.”

”Pinky swear.” he vowed, lifting his smallest digit as if as proof. ”I won’t be out there too long. I got too used to the northern warmth. I’ll look forward to whatever this surprise you’ve got planned for me is. ‘Till then…”

He was still much too new to walking through the dark to leave the room by any other means but the door.

“You get some rest too, Halvor.”

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

rejected

Sword and Dungeon: An Adventurer's Guild-based Fantasy RP

Understandable, looking forward to the rest of the concepts that come along