justicespeared

[justicespeared]

“Radiant? Are you just making fun of me? I look so silly!” Gerome could be such a jerk sometimes. And his jerkery continued as he took the photo from her.

“Hey! Just ‘cause it’s bad, that doesn’t mean I don’t want it!” She leaned over to grab it, forgetting she had the button still in hand. She heard the clicks, but she didn’t really pay them any mind until she got the photo back from Gerome.

“Heh, safe and sound,” she said, before noticing the booth was spitting out a whole bunch of photos. She picked one of them up - oh gods, they made her look so much worse than the original photo. Yet Gerome remained as cute as ever.

What a jerk.

phun with photos

( non mission task — showcase )

[justicespeared]

Hook, line and sucker! Cynthia giggles, delighted. She’s successfully trapped her prey. She’s got rope in hand to bind them and take them to the archbishop. It’s going to be great. This is how she’s going to prove herself.

From inside the box, she hears the person speak. From out here, it sounds familiar. It’s probably just the way the box warps the sound.

“Nope, not a zoo animal,” she says to the box. “You’re just a criminal.” She kicks over the box, and reveals her criminal.

Hey, wait a second.

“Gaius?!” Of course he remembers Gaius - he’s one of the heroes of old, and one of Chrom’s weird friends. Oh, and she supposes they fought together, that too. “Holy- what are you doing here?”

something about candy and babies

[justicespeared]

When they have a family together. Cynthia’s stomach swooped at the thought. It wouldn’t be now, or even in the next five years, but it would happen. Maybe they were moving too fast. Maybe they were being rash. Maybe they both needed that security that they were certain about each other, no matter how long they’d been together.

The baby’s cries pierced her thoughts.

“Oof, that’s horrible.” She held the doll away from herself for a moment, as if that would help the sound. “Real babies don’t cry this much, right? Or so loudly?” How would they cope with a child of their own? Would they cope?

No, she was certain Gerome would. How would Cynthia cope? If she already couldn’t stand the doll, what about their own child? The fear crept up so slowly she didn’t realise it was there. As with all things, Cynthia swallowed down her fear and pushed on. There was no use standing there and moping. She held the doll close to her chest again, and tried gently bouncing it.

“You’d think this would come with instructions, right? It’s not like we know babies,” she said.

parenting for the parentless

[anniversary 2024] faith +1

[justicespeared]

Cynthia was laser-focused. She was going to go into the shop, buy the closest wyvern she could find to Minerva, and away she’d go. After everything that happened, Cynthia figured Gerome could use a gift. She also figured he’d never go into Forge-A-Bear with her, so instead, it would be a surprise.

Except all this fell off when she entered the shop and saw the equine section.

She was only going to look. She wasn’t going to buy anything. She was going to be good, and only look. Oh, but the pegasi were so soft! As were the horses, and… unicorns? Huh, okay, adding in fantasy creatures; why not?

There was a guy standing in front of the horses. Hey, maybe she can make a new friend! She slid up beside him.

“Horses are pretty good, but you can’t beat a pegasus. Look at these little guys!” She gestured to them. “Er, I mean, they’ll be cuter when they’re stuffed full of fluff. The lifeless sack is kinda unnerving, right?”

@heliacalrisings

Build-A-Buddy

[ TOA anniversary board - restoration ]

[justicespeared]

Build-A-Buddy

[ TOA anniversary board - restoration ]

[justicespeared]

There was someone stealing sweets from the cafeteria, and someone had to catch them. Of course, this was a task that only Cynthia, the bravest hero, could accomplish! (It was low-stakes enough that faculty thought there was no use sending the knights in.)

There were many ways to approach this. She could shake down every student at the Academy, but that would take far too long. By which time, the culprit would have gotten away with it again. No, Cynthia had a better way.

She laid out a plate of sweets in the dining hall, all too tempting. However, if one weren’t careful, they couldn’t notice the booby trap hovering right above their heads. One step too close and, bam! They’d break the string, the heavy box would trap them, and Cynthia would be the hero! Heheh, it was perfect.

So, she sat in hiding, waiting for her prey to take the bait.

@lollipop-bribes

something about candy and babies

[justicespeared]

something about candy and babies

[justicespeared]

during the fall of Garreg Mach, Cynthia basically grabbed Gerome and got the hell out of there. While the two may have found their friends and helped others along the way, Cynthia feels immense guilt that she didn't find Selena. She didn't look hard enough

You'll notice she might be trying extra hard at the moment to be helpful and cheerful and work a little too hard. The hero thing is back in full force because she's back in a headspace she never wanted to be back in: the apocalypse. So she's ignoring it the only way she knows how, by being too cheerful and too heroic

(but hey, this might have awakened a new idea in her for what she wants to do with her life)

[justicespeared]

Cynthia expects the man to barely thank her. She expects him to tell her to go away. What he doesn't expect is for him to hand her the sewing kit again. Jeez, some people just don’t accept help. She’s about to accept this graciously, when-

Can you…?

She knows what he’s asking for without him finishing the question. Of course she can fix it. His hands are shaking as he holds the box, and her heart sinks for this man. She can’t imagine what’s gotten him so riled up.

She takes the little box, and suddenly she remembers whose it is: Gerome’s. He doesn’t have many possessions, but this is certainly one of the few items he has. Neither he nor Cynthia owned a lot. She looks back up at the stranger, and she’s starting to suspect his attachment to that scarf is familiar. It’s familiar, she thinks.

“You don’t need to pay me, silly,” she says. “If you really wanna help me, pay it forward, you know? I don’t need money or anything.” Sure, it would’ve been nice, but she can’t take this man’s money. There’s something about it that feels wrong.

“I can do it right now, I don’t think it’ll take that long to fix. I’ve got all afternoon.” She was going to help with patrol, but she’d never gotten around to signing up. “Unless you’ve got somewhere to be, then I can have the scarf back to you later.” She holds out her hand. “I promise, I’ll be so careful with it, you won’t even know I’d touched it.”

sew handy

[justicespeared]

“Fragile isn’t what I’d call you, but you’re just… a person.” It isn’t meant as an insult, just that Nasir seems more of a civilian than anything. Not a knight, not even a professor at the academy anymore. Just some guy who lives in town or something now. “Besides, you don’t have to be fragile to mess up and end up killed stupidly.” It’s a fact of life one learns when they’ve seen enough death.

A shrug. “I dunno, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Besides, why would anyone want you dead?” Not that she knows Nasir terribly well beyond the handful of classes he’d taught before leaving. Still, she can’t imagine anyone actually wanting another person dead. “Wait, granddaughter? Aren’t you like, thirty?” Then again, there’s weird stuff all around Fódlan. Heck, she’s one of those weird things - she shouldn’t even be alive, yet.

Actually, she might be alive. She hasn’t asked her moms yet. It feels weird to write home and ask if she or her sister are born yet. 

She crosses her arms. “I don’t think I’ll be unremarkable. Just ‘cause you only saw the embarrassing stuff, it doesn’t mean I’m not cut out to be a world-renowned hero.” Not that she achieved anything beyond ‘Ylissean laughing stock’ yet. She’s not telling Nasir that, else he’ll just make another unnecessary mean comment.

Oh, maybe she’s starting to get why people don’t like him. It takes more than that for Cynthia to dislike someone.

“A… major side character?” What the heck is this guy even talking about? You can either be a main character, or a side character. Unless he means one of those annoying wise guys in novels (usually an old wizard or something) who just exposition dumps on the main character. Ugh, she hates those guys, and they’re pretty prominent.

“What a weird thing to wanna be,” Cynthia says. “But I guess it could work. You, at my side, constantly telling me the plot instead of letting me just enjoy the plot.” Okay, she’s projecting a little of her dislike of those characters on Nasir.

once more with feeling

( mission board - distress - authority +1 )

[justicespeared]

Well, Elise doesn’t have to be a psychic to read what Cynthia’s thinking about. Even so, she has been thinking about her older sister a lot recently; it certainly doesn’t help that she’s right there, even if she’s in a whole other class. Still, it confirms they’re not psychically linked. It would have been cool; they would have been a great duo out on the battlefield or something.

Shame they’re not in the same class, but it doesn’t matter, since it isn’t happening.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” Cynthia nods, fuelled by Elise’s indignation. “I guess we might not be psychically linked, but we think the same. Maybe that’s what’s gonna make us great friends!” Of course, Cynthia remains undeterred on her quest to befriend Elise.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to get to know each other the old fashioned way, instead of relying on magic or bonds or whatever.” Cynthia grins at her new friend. “C’mon, let’s do something together!”

bowtiful girls

[justicespeared]

Cynthia wonders who she could be asking about, but the girl never specifies. She wonders if it’s even a boy at all, or something else entirely, but she doesn’t ask. It’s none of Cynthia’s business, even if her curiosity burns.

“Sure! It’s really easy; it’s something my mom taught me.” She drops the weird flower halves, and grabs another nearby. This time, it’s a daisy - she thinks. She doesn’t know much about flowers beyond how pretty their petals are when she throws them for her entrances. Nothing goes to waste here!

“So, what you do is you ask a question - it’s gotta be yes or no, because flowers don’t talk.” Boy, she’s tried. “Lemme think of a question.” Test scores? Eh, bland and easy. Will class be boring? Probably, she doesn’t need to ask that. “What aboooout… hey, will I ever become a real knight?” Not just something she calls herself, but part of a real knighthood, with warriors - not just scared kids who played pretend.

“Then you pluck a petal. A petal for yes, and another for no. Yes,” she says, plucking a petal, “no.” She plucks another. “Then you keep going.” She does, muttering ‘yes, no’ with each petal, until she reaches the last one. “Last petal plucked is your answer.”

She plucks it.

“It’s a yes.” She smiles at the little petal as if it’s all the evidence she needs in the world. “Anyway, easy, right?”

flower, sender gives receiver a flower.

( actions speak louder than words ; accepting )

It’s a warm, sunny day. There are flowers growing in all the grassy areas of Garreg Mach; wildflowers, most likely. Cynthia isn’t good at identifying flowers, but she does know which ones are the best ones for flower fortunes.

She was doing them by herself initially, but then some other students asked her for their fortunes. She can’t remember them all; there was an arrogant guy who wanted to know the results of his grades, a young woman who wanted to know if the girl she liked would like her back, and someone who just wanted to know where they’d placed their necklace. Well, Cynthia can’t help with the last one: that’s not what flower fortunes are for.

Another girl joins her. She has bright pink hair, and stars in her eyes. No, literally - stars! She’s seen eyes like those before actually: maybe it’s a race thing? Heck, there’s people here who can turn into all sorts of creatures, so it wouldn’t surprise Cynthia.

Right. Back on task.

“Hi!” she says. “Pick a flower, any flower, and we’ll get started. It’s more accurate if you pick, cause then the flower is calling to you for your fortune.” Is that true? Eh, it’s all for fun anyway. It’s what she told everyone else, too.

Cynthia takes the flower offered to her. “Ooh, good choice!” Plenty of petals, vibrant and full of life. It seems almost a shame to have picked it, but the petals left behind will all come in handy. “So, what would you like to know? I can tell you if your next mock battle will do well, or if that special someone will say yes if you ask them out.” An eyebrow wiggle follows those words - really sell it, Cynthia.

“It’s never steered me wrong. Every time I’ve done flower fortunes before a battle, I’ve come out of it totally fine.” She still does them now, as a sort of ritual. It gets her in the right mindset.

[justicespeared]

He wasn’t trying to push her away anymore. Cynthia was so relieved by that, she had to try not to cry again. He was willing, even if not entirely eager. She never, ever wanted him to feel like that again, to look as he did again. She understood how close he had come to his end, and she couldn’t bear it. She would not lose him, too.

“Before I found you, I heard about this place.” It felt so weird to talk about it now, too jovial of a topic. They couldn’t stay steeped in this shadow forever. Eventually, she would need to tell them where her plans lay, because she couldn’t imagine Gerome had any good plans.

“It’s really far away - heck, it’s not even in Ylisse.” She almost left Ylisse without ever seeing him again. That thought struck her like a kick to the stomach. She pressed on. “It’s called the Officers Academy. It’s where nobles go to train up to be better nobles, you know, that kind of thing. But it’s also a good school if you wanna be a knight. I know we’re probably a little old, but, heh, not like there was school where we’re from, right?”

She wasn’t helping.

“Anyway. I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere in Ylisse, you know? I don’t feel any closer to being even half the hero I know I should be. So, that’s where we’re going. You and me, we’re going to Fódlan - together.”

Together. She would not let him out of her sight like that again. She swore on all that she was that she would not let him get like that again.

- thread end -

before it all began

[justicespeared]

Cynthia watches him panic, and she's seen that panic before. She can't place how, but it's familiar to her. She's smart enough not to comment on it. When he asks if she's got a needle and thread, she presses her lips together. No, she's sure she doesn't. She pats down her pockets, and there's a little box.

Confused, she pulls it out. It's a little box containing a couple of needles, and some threads in different colours. She's fairly certain it isn't hers; she tends to keep this kind of thing in her room. Still, she's found stranger things in her pockets than a needle and thread.

“Yeah!” But it's not mine. She's pretty sure she was helping someone else, and just accidentally took it. When she remembers whose it is, she'll return it. Right now, Scowly Man needs it more. “I can fix it. I'm pretty handy with all kinds of stuff.” Which is true; when you’re as clumsy as Cynthia, and grew up as she did, you tend to pick up a thing or two about mending clothes.

“You wouldn’t believe how much of my uniform I’ve had to sew.” She tugs at the skirt. “You wouldn’t believe there was a rip here, right?” She quickly realises that she’s losing her point. She shakes her head. “Anyway, yeah, unless you wanna fix it yourself? I’m gonna need the box back, though.” Whose is it? That question is bothering her.

“The scarf isn’t too badly ripped; it’s easily fixable, don’t worry.” She doesn’t ask ‘why can’t you just buy a new one’, or anything like that. Clearly, it’s important, for whatever reason.

sew handy

[justicespeared]

“You’re not gonna hurt it?” Maybe Cynthia was being silly for being so protective of the thing. This guy seemed pretty reasonable, right? Kind, gentle, the sort of kindness that people couldn’t fake. She had met a lot of phonies in her life, but this man seemed genuine.

But she didn’t drop her lance.

“What are you gonna do when you find it?” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust that this man was hired by the academy or whatever, but what did they plan to do? She wasn’t in the business of selling people out, though that creature wasn’t entirely a person. She shook her head.

“I want to trust you, okay?” She'd never been one for mistrust. “But if you don't tell me what your plan is, I can't let you go and find it.” She didn't like that he had his hand on her lance, either. Something about him set her on edge, but she was certain it was only because of the situation. She was sure he was a nice man, but she couldn’t shake the tension.

spear no enemy

( TOA anniversary board - lance +1 )

[justicespeared]

The knock to her chest winded her. It didn’t hurt, but it was enough to knock her off balance. Yet Cynthia, as always, did not stay off balance for long. This man didn’t know her, so he didn’t know how tenacious she could be. He didn’t know that once Cynthia had an idea, she wasn’t getting it out of her head, no matter what.

Sadly for Mister Loner, he was about to discover that no only meant try harder.

“You don't know me,” she said. “You say all these things like you know anything about me on a mission, and you don't.” Her indignation hid that she knew he was right about one thing: she was terrible at stealth missions.

“And you're right, I do need an escort. You. You're my escort now.” Could she pay him? No, at least not in anything more tangible than well wishes. Her shoulders were squared, ready to take on this man.

“I might not have a lead on the killer, but you're my lead to get to them.” She'd never suggest that her beloved pegasus could be bait, but she also knew that could also be leverage. She didn't even want to suggest it. “I don't care if you'll let me or not, I'm coming with you. I'll prove that I'm strong, quiet, and an asset. You need me. You can't go alone.”

She glared up at him, hands on her hips. If he thought shoving her would work, then he'd never met anyone like Cynthia before. Too bad for him, regardless of what he wanted, she was going. “You know, it’s easier to just say yes. Then I can follow quietly, instead of loudly chasing you.”

a pegapony princess and her helper

( TOA anniversary mission board - flying +1 )

[justicespeared]

“Harken to huh?!”

Cynthia had been enjoying her nice, uphill walk through mud. Sure, it was difficult, but she was managing just fine. Plus, what was the point in being at a fancy school if she didn’t do these tasks? The sooner she did it, the sooner the harder part would be done with.

But then this guy was talking to her like a knight out of her moms’ romance novels. Who even said harken these days? Even the stuffiest nobles here didn’t speak like that! But, hey, Cynthia loved weird people. She just hoped she never talked like that, should she ever become a knight.

She turned around. He looked pretty tired, beaten by the rain. Aw, poor guy. She did understand though; this wasn’t an easy challenge.

“It’s just a hill, silly,” she said. “Unless there’s secretly a fight at the top of the hill. Even then, I’m pretty sure it’s safe.” Never let anyone argue that she wasn’t confident in her own abilities. “But you look like you need a hand, right?” Oh, she realised a moment too late. This was clearly a weird chivalrous knight thing; he needed help, and instead projected his need for help onto someone else. Well, too bad, she wasn’t playing along.

“We should stick together. Oh, I’m Cynthia, by the way!”

when the heavens cry