#i finally found a way to get the highest quality images lol

[every-sakura]

[seychellse]

First of all I cant believe I really wrote this and said, “yeah, I’m gonna post this” this is just one of many stupid things I should have left as a dumb 2am thought

There is some violence mentioned so I’m flagging it just in case ok ok

Thought: would you kill the love of your life for a lifetime supply of breadsticks? How about baguettes, freshly baked? Able to be ordered on demand, any time you felt a flight of fancy coming on. Chocolate traybakes? An unending supply of sweetmeats of your choice?

Eren for sure would, little hesitation on his part. But he’d gauge how good the lifetime supply is before merking you at least, and would demand samples, would make you try them too as a final olive branch before you die. I headcanon that he doesn’t like sweet stuff much and he’d be way more motivated by savoury offers, so cake is out for sure. It would probs be something shitty too - he would tempt you into acquiescing to his demand to die by plying you with challah and pita, but he’d switch up the SECOND you’re gone and opt for like soda bread or pumpernickel, something that would make you fully regret giving up your life lol

Surprisingly, Annie and Historia would too 🤔 The latter would maybe be more reluctant but for both of them, all they need is some convincing from the terrible influences in their lives - that’s always enough to spur them into making bad decisions lol. Annie would do it for carrot cake but would prefer red velvet or maybe the quintessential chocolate chip cookie (the crumbly, foil packet type, not the melt-in-your-mouth soft kind). She’d also murmur apologies over and over again as the light dims from your eyes and you exhale for the last time and she would ever so gently carry you to your grave, making sure nobody knew of her sin of greed and mariticide. She’d pick an easy way for you to go, so she can feel less guilt for her decision. Anyways, Historia is another one for preferring savoury over sweet, so she’d go for any kind of bread that would pair well with a good, soft cheese and, queen that she is, pulls the soft, warm baked dough from its crispy crust oh so gingerly. She’s delicate with it because she’d also be trying to push out the parallel image of her gazing down at you screaming out for help, for redemption or at least an end to your suffering while you, too, were torn apart.

Connie would do it but he’d regret it for sure - you can only fill the void with sweet Danish pastries and savoury bruschetta for so long I guess. Niccolo would help him make some ciabatta to help him get over it on Sasha’s request but she’d just sneak in and eventually he’d tell em to get lost with their lovey-dovey nonsense and break down, regretting his moment of greed for the life he had made forfeit. Connie it’s honestly OK; grilled cheese made with rustic-style slices of granary white bread and skinny Swiss cheese will take the pain away :’-( plus it’s free! Free forever! For his own sake and not to insult your memory and sacrifice he’d get over it eventually, but the taste of bloomer loaves will forever feel hollow to him.

Jean is 100% the opposite fr fr. He’s got you, boo! No way he’s giving you up for some fucking bread. It’s actually very sweet how heated he gets about it so you make sure nobody tries to bring it up again in case he actually blows a gasket. But you’ll clutch him at night, perplexed as to why he’s so rigid and stiff the closer you get. The reason? He’s tormented by the thought of hastily refusing the offer - like, sure, bread is whatever. Not good enough to end a life for sure. But: he deadass could have had an on-demand supply of madeleines... Viennese whirls... petit beurres... butter biscuits of the highest quality... the thought of what could have been will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Mikasa would kill anyone who even asked her that. How dare they?? She, who lost her original family, her adoptive family, her found family, AND the people she tried to find comfort and community with afterwards??? And now you’re asking if she’d give up the one person she clung to in her moments of weakness, the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?????? Are you insane. No amount of crumbly loaves are worth your life. Pita’s a favourite of hers (she’ll insist with such passion that it’s not just bc Eren’s partial to them too), along with herby breads like garlic bread and focaccia, but even the promise of a lifetime’s amount of them will never sway her. She’d kill whoever had the nerve to ask before they could even finish the question tbh. #traumabonding #justgirlythingz

Armin is SUCH a sweetie - another for the ‘no’ pile. His tastes start off a little juvenile, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Everybody loves shortbread, after all - same with macaroons. But as he gets older, his tastes also shift from sweet to more savoury sweetmeats. It’s worth it to keep racking up a bill for the leagues of cheesy croissants and oatcakes he becomes partial to, if only because he gets to experience you waking him up every morning and feeding them to him with a smile and a fresh cup of espresso. Best boy 💯

The final babe that would never give you up for something as simple as a sweet, crumbly thing is Marco. Mmm, he’s a good man. Just like Jean, he would have recurring thoughts about his foodstuff of choice, which is 100% homemade garlic bread; the kind made with a proper butter instead of premade paste and nearly falls apart after being pulled from the oven because it’s so soft, golden brown and glazed with honey. The thought makes his mouth water and his mind drift, but it also reaffirms his belief that the ephemeral dose of dopamine it would give him wouldn’t be worth the lifetime of pain he’d have to slog through without you to mitigate it. BEST BOY HE’S THE BEST

Honestly, Reiner is obsessed with ginger, so he loves gingersnaps and gingerbread in equal measures. It’s not just a Christmas thing with him; he’d eat the spiced biscuits any day, any time. He’ll bring an entire tin into bed, dip them in tea, salivate over designing gingerbread houses just to absolutely devour them like it’s some kind of ritualistic practice. He’s a sugar fiend for sure, but what really gets him going is more out-there flavour combinations. So he’s sacrificing you, but it’s for the sake of bringing lesser-liked sweet treats into the limelight for maximum enjoyment for the masses. Don’t you want people to enjoy what he enjoys? Don’t you want him to be happy? If he did sacrifice you, it would only be during a fit of madness, but he wouldn’t even be able to enjoy his veritable feast of aniseed or Anzac biscuits afterwards, and he’d probably go down with you. Romantic

Bertholdt would. He just would I’m sorry. He’s so basic with his choices too like dang you set yourself up for real? For endless flatbreads? For dry-ass crackers? it’s absolutely shocking. How can he sit there & exchange you for a plain, dry tortilla with his soul intact? That’s why he’d try and be sneaky about it; you’d judge so hard if he murdered you and all he got in return was a lifetime issue of whole wheat. He would have slight texture issues so filled sweetmeats are a no-go, and things like seeded bread are his absolute nightmare. He enjoys sweet things! He would enjoy pan de leche and agege bread so much if he wasn’t so afraid of change. Bertie baby; please for your own good try and push the boat out a little - don’t let your lover die for no good reason

It’s a little difficult to pinpoint exactly what kind of treat Ymir would destroy you for. One thing that sticks out to her is macarons, the brightly-coloured treats are both tasteful and tasty and make her think good thoughts. She likes that - but can’t decide if that’s enough to justify the atrocity she would be committing against you. She’s not too bothered about her own death, but yours...? Hard to say. Despite all of that, whether or not she would actually go through with it in the end, you do know that she will bring the dilemma up endlessly just to taunt you about it. She probably wouldn’t... probably.

Sasha is a total write-off lol bless her this one’s too easy. This is not up for debate in any manner that would make sense. Sasha is bae and she knows you are also bae. This does not, however, change the fact that she would also kill you for a half-empty share box of stale profiteroles fished out of a back-alley trash can downtown that she had to fight off both hobos and dumpster-diving hippies for. So for a fresh stack? A chocolate-covered, berry-topped, sugar dusted, ice cream filled croquembouche? Whenever she feels the urge? Don’t. Even. Bother. Listen - you love her enough to know that food comes first in her life, always. In fact, not only would you would help her kill yourself for her to receive an eternal supply of choux pastry, you would be GRATEFUL for the opportunity. OKAY?!

[daeyeolss]

how I make my gifs: a tutorial

Hi everyone! Just in case someone asks in the future + for those curious, I'm here with a tutorial on how I make gifs! If you have any questions whatsoever, please do send me an ask! I’ll be glad to help! The gif I made with this tutorial is the one right here! 

So... let’s start this tutorial with the programs I use.

Adobe Photoshop 2020 - To make the gifs, majority of the work is done in this program.

TopazLabs (Topaz DeNoise 6 and Topaz Clean 3) - To "denoise" and "clean" the gifs, as the names would suggest. Links for download: Topaz DeNoise 6 & Topaz Clean 3

KMPlayer (an alternative would be PotPlayer, or any other video playing program that allows you to capture the frames) - To capture the frames. - I use an older version of KMPlayer, though I don't know which exact version that is.

Now let’s continue onto how I use these programs to create gifs!

Step 1: After you’ve downloaded the necessary programs, download your video. The way to get the best gifs? Quality videos. That’s the first step. For K-pop performances, I recommend this website (the hq files are in .ts form, KMPlayer should be able to open these). Bookmark it! It’s really handy :) Get the video you want to make a gif from and open it in KMPlayer (or PotPlayer or any other program, but for this tutorial I’ll use KMPlayer). Open your video in said program and look for the part you want to make a gif of. Then press CTRL+G (I apologize because I cannot for the life of me remember if this was a standard shortcut or not)

Step 2: After pressing CTRL+G, you’ll be met with this screen:

I’ll briefly explain the numbered parts, but before that, these are my standard settings and just make sure you have them all the same and it should be good!

1: This is where your captured frames will be extracted to. I have them extracted to the standard folder, but you can change this if you want to. You’ll need this folder later when opening the frames!

2: Like it says, this is the image format. I use PNG in the highest quality, as the name would suggest, for the quality.

3: These are the amount of frames the program captures. Say you put in every 2 or 4 frames, you’ll get more choppy gifs. To get the smoothest gifs, put “every frame” (this in turn will increase the gif size as the amount of frames will obviously be bigger).

Once you’ve put in the correct settings and you’ve put the slider where you want the capturing process to start, press “start” (now, before you do this I recommend putting the video on mute as the audio will start to get kinda demon-y the longer you record lol save your ears pls). Then, when you’ve captured all the frames you need, pause the video, press CTRL+G again and click “stop” and close the pop-up/program.

Step 3: It’s time to open up Photoshop! Then go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack... (for older versions/another version I used in the past this one didn’t work and I had to use the “Load Multiple DICOM Files...” instead. It should work similarly though, if I remember correctly).

You then get a little pop-up that looks like this:

All you have to do here is click “browse” and navigate to the folder where your captured frames have been saved in. Select all the frames you need, wait for them to load in and then click “OK”!

Step 4: Depending on the amount of frames you’ve selected to load in, as well as the beefiness of your PC/laptop, the frames loading part might take a little while. Photoshop is importing every frame as a separate layer into one file, so just... grab a drink or something and wait a bit! When you’re done waiting, if you haven’t already, go to Window > Timeline. This will show you the animation timeline. For older Photoshop versions this is slightly different (I believe it’s called animation). Then click “Create Video Timeline” and click the 3 squares on the left bottom side (in older versions it’s on the right bottom side, not sure). 

Step 5: After you’ve done all that, you’ll want to select all your layers. You can do this by pressing ALT+CTRL+A or going to Select > All Layers. With all the layers selected, you have to go to Layer > Arrange > Reverse. You only have to do this if you used the “Load Files into Stack” option!

Step 6: After reversing all your layers, you’ll want to go to the three lines you see in the following screenshot, and click “Make Frames From Layers”.

As the name suggests, this turns all the layers into frames. I don’t know why but the first frame will always be 5 seconds long, so to make it easy on yourself when you want to check your gif while editing, just put that on 0 for now. You can do that by clicking the seconds under the frame and clicking “No delay”. After this, check to see if you have the right frames and if you need to delete some (you can do this at any point in the process but I didn’t know where to put it in the tutorial oops).

Step 7: Time to crop the gif to the correct size! For this gif I’m using as an example, I’m making it specifically for Twitter, so the sizes aren’t that obvious (for Twitter I usually use a width of 850 px to keep it sharp, for long size gifs (more height than width for example), I add a background so that it eventually still becomes 850x850 pixels). There’s many posts on Tumblr about the correct sizes for gif/photosets, but a brief rundown of my most used sizes: one gif spanning the entire width of the post has to be 540 px in width. Two gifs next to one another need to have a width of 268 px. I use these dimensions the most! For others, you can Google! 

Step 8: After you’ve cropped the gif, you can do either of two things: either you first add the coloring of your choice and then sharpen the gif OR you do it the other way around. I usually switch these two around depending on how sharp the gif already looks before sharpening because I can’t stand looking at 2 pixels while coloring (lmao). For this one I’ll do the sharpening first.

The whole sharpening process is actually quite simple but you need to make sure that you do the following little steps in the right order or else it won’t work! Select all the layers (CTRL+ALT+A or Select > All Layers) and then click this little thingy:

Then you’re going to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters

If you don’t do it in this order, your gif will end up... well, not being a gif and not moving. If that happens, track back in your history to see if you did it in the correct order! :)

Step 9: The actual sharpening process! After clicking the “Convert for Smart Filters”, you’ll want to go to Filter again and find the Topaz Labs tabs. Personally, I usually do it in the order of DeNoise first and then Clean, but this is a personal thing, really.

I recommend playing around with the settings to see what fits the gif but here are my go-to DeNoise settings (tip: save these as a preset so you only have to click that for faster giffing!):

And my Clean settings:

Press OK when you’re done with these and then go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. These are my SS settings (just copy these, and again, save as a preset!):

Depending on how sharp you want the gif to be, you can input the same settings or go to this in the layers and change the percentage.

Now that we’re done with these... it’s time to flatten it! Just follow these little steps:

And then you wait. Again. I know.

Step 10: After playing the waiting game, you’ll click the three little squares again and do the same thing you did earlier: “Make Frames Into Layers”. Delete the first frame. Add a coloring of your choice (can be a PSD, can be your own coloring, etc. this is honestly just... playing around with things and see what it can do). After you’ve done coloring, select all your frames (same lines as previous screenshot except now you’ll see a “Select All Frames” option, click it!) and change the time to whatever you like (I usually go for 0.05, 0.06, or 0.07. Again, just play around with this!! Try different things!) 

Step 11: Final step! Saving :) I use shortcuts a lot to make things faster so either press ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+S or go to File > Export > Save For Web. Not much to do here, just copy the following settings and save the file!

!!! NOTE: After making a new gif today I realized there’s a weird dotted border on the top of my gifs, it’s a bit difficult to explain but I had no idea what it was. Turns out that the reason why this showed up was because, as shown in the screenshot below, I had “Transparency” selected. If you’re experiencing this too, UNSELECT the transparency and it should be all good!

Also make sure that the “Looping Options” is set to Forever, or else your gif will play only once and then stop!

Tip: While making gifs for Twitter I at one point noticed that if I added in a white background, no matter what I’d do, it’d show up as yellow-y in the preview box. After googling I found that going to the options (1 in the screenshot) and then clicking “Sort by Luminance”, then double-clicking the lightest color (not the transparent one, 2 in the screenshot) and selecting white (or FFF) will get rid of this! This likely won’t be that useful for Tumblr gifs but just in case you ever want to have a white background...!

Then just... save, and upload to Tumblr! :)

Final note: Tumblr has a mix gif size of 3MB. If you have a gifset of 4 gifs you want to upload, all 4 gifs can be max 3MB each. Keep this in mind! If you’re over 3MB, delete a few frames and try again, or resize/crop your gif!

As it turns out, Tumblr has increased their gif size to 8MB, however, the quality tends to get compressed with larger gifs like that so per recommendation: keep them below 5MB! (thank you @yeoli​ for letting me know!)

I hope this helped! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message and I’ll try my best to answer them.

[ship-ambrosia]

Thicker Than Blood is the Crests They Bear (Fire Emblem)

I’m usually all about the shipping, but that’s not the case here! I cannot believe I wrote this all in one day - one where I had to take Kiki to the vet too. She’s still glaring at me as I post this lol

This is set some time pre-Tragedy of Duscur. The moment Sylvain mentioned all the ways that Miklan tried to kill him, I wondered what his friends growing up would have thought of that.

Summary: In which Sylvain goes missing, and his friends know why.

   It’ll be fun, Sylvain. He had said.

   Just the two of us. Sure, it sounded wonderful.

   Don’t tell father and mother, they’ll just spoil everything. He was right. And Sylvain would do anything for him.

  Miklan never wanted to spend time with him. Miklan never wanted to even be around him. When his brother offered to take him for a horse ride through the mountains, it meant everything to Sylvain. It was everything to him. Finally, Miklan was seeing him for what was true; he hadn’t chosen to disinherit him with his birth. There was nothing more that little Sylvain wanted than for his brother to love him.

  As he lay in the snow, alone and cold in the quiet winter evening, he finally confronted himself. Deep in his heart, he knew it had been too good to be true. He had always known Miklan hated him, and that wouldn’t go away in a single day. Still he had believed him, put all his faith in him.

  Right to the moment that Miklan told him to get off the horse.

  As he watched his brother ride away, Sylvain was angry, but not at him. He was filled with fury and hatred toward the goddess, toward his parents, toward his Crest. This thing he never asked for, didn’t even fully understand. Why? Why had this happened to him? He supposed if he were to die here, at least he’d had some good times. Dimitri, Felix, Ingrid... his closest friends. At least while his parents mourned their heir, his friends would mourn him.

  ~

  Dimitri, ever the prodigious hard worker, was returning from training for the day when he overheard the conversation.

  “The heir you say? That’s the boy who was friends with Dimitri,” Lambert sighed. “My word... how would I ever be able to tell him?”

  “Tell me what, father?” Dimitri asked, having stepped forward into the room without even realizing it. “Who are you talking about? What’s going on?”

  “Dimitri,” the king, so strong and wise and ever the perfect image of a knight to the young prince, he looked so sad as he kneeled down so he could be level with his son. “How much did you overhear?”

  “Just the last part. I was with Gustave until but a moment ago,” he looked up, toward the man who had been speaking with his father. “I recognize you, sir. You’re from House Gautier. So you were talking about Sylvain.”

  “Ever the perceptive young man,” the man chuckled, but there was a darkness to his eyes.

  “Dimitri,” his father let out a sigh and avoided his son’s direct gaze. “Sylvain went missing about three days ago. Margrave Gautier sent his man to me immediately, so he could have been found by now but... we don’t know. We won’t know until I get another report.”

  Dimitri’s eyes widened in response, as all the breath left the young prince’s body. Something like this... he was no stranger to death. Dimitri had seen people die before, in front of his eyes. He knew his birth mother had died, and that was why his mother wasn’t truly his mother. But to think Sylvain would be claimed in such a way was a thought that had never occurred to him. He had always imagined his friends - Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain of course too - growing up to become knights in his service when he became king.

  Except, the thought had occurred to him before. Once, when the four of them had all gathered not even a year ago at Margrave Gautier’s manor.

  ~

  The clashing of practice swords was a common sound in the Fraldarius household, if it wasn’t Duke Fraldarius’s two sons competing with each other than there was at least one of them fighting an instructor or even more interestingly, dueling their father. For now it was Glenn and Felix facing off, per usual the younger of the two having once again challenged his older brother to a duel.

  With a quick thrust, Glenn pushed the tip of his sword into his brother’s shoulder, just above his heart.

  “I purposely struck above your heart so as to not hurt you. But I think I win again, Felix,” he chuckled.

  “Ngh, again!” Felix snarled. “Another bout! I must beat you!”

  “That’ll be the day, little brother,” Glenn shook his head as he walked off the training ground and sat on a nearby bench. “But I think five rounds is enough for one day. I’m beat.”

  “How is it even possible? I train so much more than you!”

  “What do you think I do in the capital all day? Stare at Prince Dimitri?”

  “No, but it’s not like you and Dimitri can spar all the time! When you’re gone, all I do is train but it doesn’t even seem to matter!”

  Glenn leaned over and flicked his brother on the forehead. Felix yelped and rubbed the spot, narrowing his eyes at him.

  “It’s not about how much, but the quality of the training. If you’re just running yourself until you’re exhausted, that’s not going to do you any good. You need to understand what to improve on, and figure out how to compensate for your weaknesses. That’s why I train with His Highness so much. You and I are too similar in the way we fight.”

  Felix pouted. “What do I need to work on then?”

  “You need to compensate your lack of defense with your speed. You’d be even faster than me I’d bet,” he grinned. “Have you ever sparred with Prince Dimitri? I’d love to see that.”

  “Father won’t let me. He thinks Dimitri and I might actually hurt each other.”

  Glenn howled with laughter for a moment, clutching his stomach. “Ha! Well he’s not wrong,” finally when his laughter died down, he placed a hand on Felix’s head and ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry Felix, it’ll happen someday. You and I both, we’ve gotta get stronger than His Highness if we want to serve him, right?”

  And Felix looked up to his brother, to the person he looked up to more than anyone else in the world, and cracked a grin. “Of course.”

  It was then that the doors to their training yard burst open, and from them came their father, Rodrigue. The duke was a man known by his sons to be rather jovial and cheerful, but the same could not be said about him in that moment. Duke Fraldarius’s entire face was darkened, his brow furrowed deeper than either of them had ever seen.

  “Father? What’s wrong?” Glenn stood up, dropping the sarcastic tone and “old man” greeting he usually gave their father upon recognizing that something serious was happening.

  “We’re leaving for Gautier territory tonight,” the duke’s words were sharp and crisp. “Boys, gather your things.”

  “Did something happen? Did the people of Sreng attack? How could they retaliate so soon? It has only been six years since you and King Lambert quelled their uprising,” Glenn dropped the information he recalled from his studies quickly, once more leaving his younger brother in awe of his abilities.

  “No, it is not Sreng. At least, goddess I hope not,” Felix stiffened up when his father’s gaze moved to him. “Felix. Sylvain has gone missing. I’m taking you boys with me to help search for him, and so that his friends will be there when he is returned. Count Galatea and his daughter should be on their way, and I believe Gustave will be bringing Prince Dimitri as well. Do you understand?”

  All the joy and frustration building up in his body from sparring with his brother rushed out of him in an instant, and instinctively, Felix looked toward his brother. Glenn was staring straight ahead, eyes narrowed, teeth clenched tight in anger. Like his brother, Felix also looked up to Sylvain who, despite being friends with him and Dimitri and Ingrid, was two years older than the rest of them. To hear Sylvain could be hurt, could be missing, even dead somewhere... just didn’t seem fathomable. Sylvain had made a promise to him; a promise that neither would die without the other. He couldn’t die on him now.

  Staring into his brother’s face however, suddenly the situation became all too clear.

  ~

  Ingrid was silent in the carriage to Gautier. Her hands were clutched together in her lap tightly as she muttered prayers under her breath to the goddess that Sylvain would be found safe before she and her father even arrived. It had not even been that long since she had last seen her friend, loud and obnoxious and exhausting that he was. She found that any time she spent with him was only spent cleaning up his messes, apologizing to people he’d angered or upset.

  She knew Sylvain meant no harm, and she was just grateful they’d gotten to the point where he stopped attempting to flirt with her too; amusedly, it’d taken him saying something in front of Glenn and for the older young man to threateningly tell him to back off to finally do it. Ingrid smiled ever so slightly at the memory.

  The ache in her chest brought her back to reality though, the pain of not knowing what had befallen her friend. Was he dead? Had he been kidnapped? Of course she and all her friends understood extremely well the danger their lives were in constantly; not only were they the children of nobles - Dimitri being the prince and next heir to the throne, and both Felix and Sylvain being the children of two of the highest ranking noble families in Faerghus - but all four of them bore Crests of the Ten Elite Heroes. They were all incredibly sought after for marriage, so she was sure that even kidnapping wasn’t out of the question.

  “Do they... do they have any clue as to what happened?” She spoke up finally.

  Her father appeared to be startled by her voice, looking up at her quickly before back down to the floor of the carriage. “Not from the message I got sweetie, no. But it takes some time for those messages to be delivered, you know. They will probably have some idea by the time we arrive.”

  “Sylvain could be returned safe by that time, could he not?”

  Her father nodded, giving her a smile. “Of course, Ingrid. That’s why I’m bringing you. When he returns safe, he’ll want to see his friends, wouldn’t you think so?”

  She could see it in his eyes though, that her father didn’t truly think that was what would happen. She supposed it was good then, it was a show of his support for House Gautier, that he would travel so far to help them search for their missing heir. And she would help too, as best as she could. She may also have Dimitri and Felix, and even Glenn, but nothing would be the same in their group if Sylvain was found dead, or never found again.

  Yes, their group, the future leaders of Faerghus... who all bore Crests...

  ~

  He wondered how well his friends remembered that night in the manor. His father had thrown a party; for what, Sylvain couldn’t have been sure. Even if he wanted to know, his father still probably would’ve insisted he was too young to understand. The only thing Sylvain cared about was that King Lambert, Duke Fraldarius, and Count Galatea were all in attendance, which almost guaranteed that his friends would all be there.

  There was nothing he looked forward to more while growing up than the days he got to spend with even one of them, so having Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid all together was a dream come true. It helped lessen his loneliness, which suffocated him. Sure, he was friends with the attendants, he could go or do anything in Gautier territory that he so pleased. But somehow, just by avoiding him, Miklan made it a nightmare. He should have known; seeing him surrounded by kids his age, seeing him happy, would only have made Miklan more furious.

  “I cannot believe Glenn is to be your retainer, Dimitri!” Ingrid clasped her hands together as she chirped. “He’s just incredible, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is. I’m very happy to have such a friend by my side,” the young prince answered.

  “Well, I could be a better retainer than him,” It was Felix who spoke up, looking unhappy. “You should pick me.”

  “It was Gustave who picked Glenn, not I.”

  “Besides Felix, you just can’t compete with Glenn!”

  “Oh shut up Ingrid!”

  Even though his friends were bickering, Sylvain couldn’t have been happier to have them there.

  “Guys-“

  A shadow fell over Sylvain, causing him to stop in the middle of his sentence. He looked up to find Miklan standing above him, looking down with that cold expression he was so used to.

  “Miklan?” It was Dimitri who spoke first. He sounded only a bit confused. Sylvain supposed he was confused too. Miklan didn’t speak to him.

  ”Figures you babies are just standing around talking,” his older brother laughed. “All the adults in the manor are busy so you could be off doing whatever you wanted, but here you are. Just a bunch of spoiled rotten children.”

  “What do you want, Miklan?” He groaned.

  “I was just going to take a peek at the Relic... maybe play around with it a little,” his older brother answered with a smirk. “No one’s around to tell me not to.”

  “Well, we’re around,” Ingrid said with narrowed eyes.

  “Right, so are you going to come with me to see the Relic or not?”

  Dimitri spoke up. “We shouldn’t. Hero Relics are extremely dangerous. Our parents only use them after extensive training.”

  “No, I think we should go with him,” Felix said, stepping up beside Sylvain and narrowing his eyes at the older Gautier brother. “What right does he have to touch what’s rightfully yours? You have to prove you’re better than him.”

  Sylvain saw a shadow cross his brother’s face for a moment, sending a chill down his spine. His childish pride wouldn’t let him back down from Felix’s statement though, and he nodded. “Fine, we’ll come.”

  Miklan just grinned again. “Understood. Follow me.”

  Though Dimitri and Ingrid protested the entire way, all four kids followed Miklan up to the room where his parents kept the Lance of Ruin. With such an ominous name, Sylvain had always been frightened by the prospect of having to wield it one day for his family. He knew it was the weapon that kept his family safe, but he also knew it was more powerful than he could ever hope to understand. Sylvain watched as his brother walked up to the case it was kept in, produce the key from his pocket, and push it into the lock.

  “Did you steal that from Margrave Gautier?!” Dimitri guffawed.

  “Sure did little princeling.”

  “Our father is going to kill you if we get caught,” Sylvain exclaimed.

  “He’ll have to kill both of us, since you were here too,” Miklan grinned again that mean smile. “Guess you better hope we don’t get caught.”

  The four children watched as Miklan opened the case, reaching in to grab the pole of the lance. It was not the first time Sylvain had seen it, and it wasn’t the first time any of them had seen in a Relic since both Dimitri and Felix’s fathers wielded their own and Ingrid had already been shown her inheritance, it was the first time any of them had seen a Relic without any adults present.

  Miklan touched the lance, gasping somewhat at the power that pulsed through him at the touch. Slowly, he removed the Lance of Ruin from its case, and all of them present stared in silence.

  “You should put that pack, Miklan,” Dimitri spoke in his I’m-a-prince-and-you-should-listen-to-me voice. Eventually they all would but Sylvain still found it funny, and would have laughed if he wasn’t suddenly filled with dread as Miklan spun the lance around in his hands.

  “You aren’t in charge of me yet, princeling.”

  “It’s your lance! Stop him!” Felix exclaimed.

  Sylvain fathered his nerves, clenching his fists at his side’s tightly. “Miklan! Stop!”

  He watched his brother set the Lance of Ruin at his side, turning to face him with an expression that Sylvain didn’t recognize. “What?” There was a hostility to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

  “I-I think...” he could feel himself losing his nerves quickly. “You should put the Lance of Ruin back, and we should all leave before we get caught. They’re going to notice us missing.”

  “Oh yeah? And I think spoiled little brats like you should learn their place!” In a heart stopping maneuver, his older brother pointed the tip of the lance toward him.

  Sylvain started down the shaft of the pole, never once expecting in his life to be afraid of the weapon he was to inherit would be used against him. “Remember what father said? You can only wield a Hero Relic if you bear the Crest that matches it. We don’t know what the lance will do if wielded by someone who doesn’t have one, and you don’t have the Crest of Gautier-“

  “You think I don’t know that?!” His brother roared, swinging the lance around. “You think I don’t think about that every day?! Because of you! It’s all because you were born! Why did you have to have the Crest; but not me?!”

  “Miklan, stop!” Dimitri yelled.

  “Sylvain!” Felix and Ingrid cried at the same time as the Lance of Ruin came flying from his brother’s hand... directly at him.

  The next heartbeat later, Sylvain was staring into the familiar face of Felix’s older brother, Glenn. The Fraldarius heir had him pinned to the ground, breathing heavily as though he’d just experienced a very intense workout. When Glenn registered just exactly what had occurred, he took a deep breath and smiled at him. “I cannot believe... I made it in time...”

  As he stood up and offered a hand to Sylvain, the younger Gautier brother took in what had occurred. The Lance of Ruin was wedged into the wall, at the same height as Sylvain’s head where it had been only a moment ago. Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid were on the other side of the room, all looking shocked with their mouths agape. And Miklan...

  Miklan hadn’t moved an inch, staring ahead of him with no intention to look at his brother.

  All six noble children stood there in silence until some time later when they heard footsteps, and several adults cane burst into the room. At the front of the group was Margrave Gautier and his wife, looking madly between their two sons and the Hero Relic they protected. Sylvain listened quietly as Glenn explained calmly what had happened to everyone.

  He’d seen Miklan provoking the four younger kids, then watched them all leave and decided to follow. Glenn had wanted to step in and intervene with the others when they insisted Miklan put the lance back, to tell his brother he was wrong, but the scene escalated quicker than he could have anticipated and leapt in to push Sylvain out of the way of the lance at the last moment.

  And that memory, that one small situation in time, was how when they all thought about it, Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid all came to the same conclusion as to who could have caused their best friend to disappear.

   He wasn’t actually trying to kill Sylvain, the adults had all said. He was just angry about the Gautier Crest and acted without thinking. That’s how he’s always been. But they hadn’t been there. They didn’t know. They hadn’t seen the same smile that Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid had watched cross Miklan’s face after he realized he’d thrown the lance.

  “It was Miklan who made Sylvain disappear.”

  ~

  By the time each of them reached Gautier manor, Sylvain had in fact been rescued. Ingrid, having left first, arrived ahead of the others, and was sitting next to her friend’s bed when Dimitri and Felix arrived together. Sylvain was awake but still advised to stay in bed, wrapped up in several blankets with a fire going in the hearth at the other side of his room.

  Sylvain had spent nine hours alone in the cold, on the side of that mountain. It was a miracle by the goddess that he was still alive, they all knew that. It was an unspoken understanding amongst the four of them that under any other circumstances, he would have died. So they were more than grateful to sit by Sylvain’s bedside, to talk with him as long as they needed, to pretend that hadn’t just been the worst three days of all of their lives and that their friends’ brother hadn’t actively meant to try and kill him.

  “Dimitri believes Miklan is behind this,” King Lambert informed the others.

  Count Galatea was taken aback. “Ingrid said the same thing.”

  “So did Felix,” Duke Fraldarius nodded. “And Glenn seemed inclined to agree.”

  “I see,” answered the boys’ father.

  “I understand that there may not be hard proof for this,” the king continued. “But I believe the children may all be referring to what occurred at that party a year ago with the Lance of Ruin.”

  “It’s just one incident after another,” the duke shook his head. “Even if there’s a chance that we have grossly misunderstood this situation, you must make it clear to Miklan that he cannot put his brother in such danger.”

  “And even if his anger is only directed toward Sylvain, next time it could be my Ingrid caught in the fire,” Count Galatea added. “Or His Highness.”

  Margrave Gautier nodded. “Of course. I understand very, very much. It will not happen again. As of now, Miklan will be disinherited completely from the Gautier family.”

  ~

  He felt that pain in every enemy he cut down with the Lance of Ruin in hand. He saw his brother’s grinning face, heard him call him “you Crest-bearing fool” over and over in his head whenever the lance was in his hands. Watched him scream and curl in agony and transform into the monsters that he slay on the battlefield. In that way he understood the ghosts that tormented Dimitri very well. Miklan never left him alone.

  But it was the Crest Stone embedded in the lance’s surface that reminded him he had to keep fighting. It was the reason he carried on, for the Crests. To do away with them once the war was over, to make people forget they were ever important in the first place. He hated his blood, which carried his Crest, which could be passed down to one of his children some day. But Sylvain had already made up his mind; no matter Crest or not, his firstborn child would be the legitimate heir to House Gautier.

  They charged into another endless battle. The lance glowed red in his hands. As red hot as his fury, all his pain, and all the blood he had spilled. But it was fine, because it meant that he would never forget that which was most important.

  He hated his Crest almost as much as Miklan had hated him.