#for the record tiana is significantly taller than her husband

[iturbide]

Can I have some Headcanons on Claude's parents? Like how did his father ask his mom to marry him (or how did his mom ask?)

OHOHOHO MY TIME HAS COME

So I actually have an extremely elaborate history planned out for Claude’s parents, which I have been hiding in the wings for months because this is the kind of thing I think about in my downtime.  So just be warned that this is long and, like most of my headcanons for the game, takes nothing from Cindered Shadows into account (though I will grudgingly use the names that it lays out).

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Tiana von Riegan was never a proper noblewoman.  She was certainly beautiful and stately, tall and elegant and poised, with quick wits and ample intelligence...but it was all offset by a razor-sharp tongue and a ferocity few hardened warriors could match.  She and Judith von Daphnel were a well-matched pair, and spent the better part of their time together causing trouble of some sort until they ended up called to the Locket to help repel Almyran invaders.

Back before the Gonerils had troops enough to defend the Locket full-time (and had Holst as their star general), Alliance members would send small detachments of soldiers or hired mercenaries to help out with the fort’s defenses.  Tiana and Judith made a point of always going together, so when one got the call the other invariably came with her.  And oh, they were forces to be reckoned with, both of them: Judith may have earned the moniker ‘The Hero of Daphnel,’ but Tiana was no slouch herself -- and as an aspiring Great Knight, she had no trouble fighting back the Almyrans heckling their border.

It was in one of those skirmishes that she met the man who would eventually become her husband, though she had no idea about that at the time.  He was just another Almyran, at first sight -- but unlike the others that she’d faced down, in that battle and all those before, he didn’t retreat when she bested him...because for the first time, she met a fighter she couldn’t best.  They were evenly matched on the field, meeting one another’s blows with blocks and parries and ripostes, but neither one ever managed to gain the upper hand.  And when both sides retreated, she wondered if she’d face him again, because that was a fight she wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.

As luck would have it, they kept running into each other on the field in the months to come.  Some days she almost thought she had him -- and some days, she almost feared he had her.  But they never managed to claim victory, and they both always walked away alive, if somewhat worse for the wear.  She started looking forward to seeing him, and moving to engage him when she happened to glimpse him out there -- and, maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she saw him searching for her, too, and grinning when he caught sight of her in the crush of skirmishing forces.

And then, one evening while she was on watch atop the fort, she saw a lone man slip out of the trees near the Locket.  Understandably, she took up her arms, ready to sound an alarm...but before she could, the man pulled out a white flag and raised it over his head in a gesture of truce.  It got her attention, to be sure...so she slipped down to investigate.  And who should it be but her Almyran rival, holding a wineskin and tucking his white silk sash back into his belt as he bowed and invited her to celebrate their hard-fought battle.  It...seemed kind of weird to her, but he took the first swig without hesitation, so she hesitantly joined him.

He introduced himself simply as Kemal, and she returned the gesture with just her first name.  They just...talked.  For quite a while, sharing that wineskin until it ran dry, and then a while after that before parting ways.  And then, after the next engagement, she ended up watching the trees just in case he came back for another ‘post-battle celebration.’

He did.

Over the course of the next year or so, they met dozens of times in the late evening.  They shared bits of their history and heritage and language (Kemal’s very stilted Fodlan started getting more natural the more they met, and she started picking up some Almyran curses and signs in turn).  Tiana found out that these assumed ‘raids’ were, at worst, skirmishes and training exercises for Almyran fighters, or sometimes hunting parties mistaken for fighters, since the pass itself had once been Almyran territory and a fertile hunting ground that helped supply nearby settlements.  And sometimes they even talked about their friends and families: Tiana groused about her overbearing father and older brother and told all kinds of stories of her exploits with Judith, while Kemal laughed about his own younger brother and how both he and Nader had to keep the boy from rushing headling into battle to prove himself a warrior. 

It was good for what felt like a long time.

But then it ended.

The Twisted had been working on experiments to control Demonic Beasts for a long time, and began their test runs around this period; in years ahead, these experiments would give rise to the plot that killed Tiana’s brother and that Count Gloucester used to prey upon Riegan merchants...but in these early tests, the control methods were still hypothetical at best.  But they approached the commanders stationed at the Locket, offering them a Demonic Beast to lay waste to the Almyran raiders that continued to threaten their borders.  It sounded rather too good to be true, but they desperately wanted to put an end to the fighting once and for all -- so they accepted. 

They never saw it coming.  The Demonic Beast entered the field as intended -- but it very swiftly went berserk, attacking both the Almyrans and Alliance fighters in a rampage before escaping into the forests.  Tiana ended up concussed and generally worse from the wear, though she could still stand and walk (and counted her blessings for that fact)...but not everyone was so lucky: as she searched the field, she found Kemal huddled on the ground, his dominant arm a bloody, unsalvageable mess, doing his best to rouse a young man -- his brother -- who even she could tell would never wake again (but then, Kemal was suffering a combination of concussion, shock, and denial).

Tiana’s not a healer.  She never had been.  But she did her best to at least slow the bleeding, and stayed with him until Almyran reinforcements showed up -- and who should appear first but Nadar, who freaked out as soon as he realized what was going on because A) Kemal, who was in fact an Almyran prince, looked to be at death's door; B) his brother had already walked through it, and C) there was a Fodlan warrior there who, for all he knew, was about to send Kemal through next.  But Tiana backed off when he came rushing up and made no move to either stop him from taking Kemal or cause any harm to anyone, even warning Judith off when she came hurrying up to help her friend in what appeared to be a brewing fight...though, in his delirium and panic, Kemal begged Tiana not to leave him even as Nader tried to haul him away.

Kemal and Tiana both had been very secretive about their meetings.  Judith had certainly teased Tiana about her ‘admirer,’ and both Nader and his brother had mercilessly ribbed Kemal about his ‘secret love’ that he’s gone out to woo so frequently -- but no one expected that their admirers were across that border.  Until that moment, no one knew.  But the cat couldn’t go back into the bag after that.

Understandably, both of them ended up getting the third degree from their friends once they’re better on the mend.  Judith was surprisingly supportive of Tiana once she got the full explanation of everything she’d found out over the past year, but Kemal was dealing with a lot on every front: on top the physical loss of his arm, something that many imagined would preclude him from ever taking the throne (since no one imagined he would be able to fulfill the Rite of Challenge with such a severe handicap), he also lost his younger brother, not to a warrior’s death but to a horrific accident.  But eventually, when he was better on the mend (physically, at least, if not emotionally), Kemal made his way back to the Locket for what he imagined would be his final time, intending to say goodbye to Tiana, since he didn’t imagine he would be able to meet her again, given the circumstances...and in response, she more or less said “fuck that -- pull yourself together! ...and if you can’t do it alone, then I’ll help.”

It was, more or less, a proposal.  Kemal couldn’t mistake it for anything else.

They agreed to meet in a month at the usual time, in that familiar place outside the Locket.  They parted ways, with Kemal returning to Almyra to keep working at his recovery, while Tiana immediately sent word to her father of her intention to marry Kemal -- something her father expressly forbade in his return missive before starting to seek out potential bachelors among the Alliance nobility that might be able to rein Tiana in.  Not that she was going to let that stop her: she told Judith her intentions, got her best friend’s blessing, and on the appointed evening she headed out to meet Kemal, fully intent on going with him to Almyra.

(Kemal jokingly asked her when she arrived if he should carry her off over his shoulder to make it seem like a plausible kidnapping, to which she replied that she’d like to see him try -- and as a former archery star and capable lancer, he did not disappoint and quite cheerfully carried her off.)

Tiana was completely true to her word and stuck with him through his recovery, emotional and physical both; by the time he could start writing legibly again, both were dead set on the marriage.  Unfortunately, Kemal’s father was less than thrilled, given Almyrans’ general feelings about the people of Fodlan -- but, as he reminded his son, the Rite of Challenge still applied: if he could best his father in combat, he could have whatever he asked.  So Kemal leveled the challenge, selecting a light-weight sword for his weapon of choice.  No one actually expected much, least of all the King of Almyra -- but unbeknownst to them, Kemal had been putting a lot of effort into blade training once he was well enough on the mend: in very short order, he managed to disarm his father and force him to concede defeat.

What did he ask for?

His father’s blessing to marry Tiana.

The King, understandably, was quite shocked, because he’d expected that Kemal would demand the throne (as is traditional when the Rite of Challenge is laid before the king -- not to mention the fact that he wouldn’t require a blessing if he were ruler).  When he said so, though, Kemal only shook his head, remarking that he didn’t want to win the throne so easily: this was his father’s one and only warning not to underestimate him when he does come for the crown.

Kemal and Tiana married shortly after, and in the coming year Kemal did in fact level a true King’s Challenge at his father -- but though it was indeed a harder fight, Kemal still emerged victorious and took the throne of Almyra with his beloved queen -- and his father lived a very long life, with many of his later years spent doting on his adorable if incredibly mischievous grandson.

And there I have now written a small novel regarding Claude’s parents thank you for getting this far you deserve a prize.