#thread: cough cough milord

[artificidel]

Observing human behavior and learning from it was one of the most intrinsic things to Ephidel. Any time the morph could find a subject in their most candid state, he took particular care to study them.

Light-footed as he was, it was not long before Selena sensed his presence and turned with sharp reflexes. She clearly had the skills of a well worn general, but Ephidel did not flinch before her sudden attention. He merely blinked owlishly as she asked her question.

"Indeed," He spoke softly, stepping forward and beginning to roll up his sleeves for work. "I am a deacon of her faithful, well versed in the healing arts. So I was asked to assist in preparing medicine."

Chemistry was admittedly one of Ephidel's weakest areas of healing knowledge--lacking taste and bodily functions to metabolize tinctures made such work difficult--but he had begun to learn more of it from Lady Deirdre.

The morph joins the Fluorspar then at her invitation, taking up an area for his own work, and regards her one last lingering time. Staring for perhaps an uncomfortable length of time.

"... There is a meticulousness in your work." He observes, not meaning it as either a compliment or insult.

cough cough milord

apollyon ouranos; team theta making medicine; +1 public opinion per post; one concoction every 5 posts

[rambleverse]

((The following is a response to this piece.))

“Gnareth,” says an elf crouched over a pile of crusted silks, linens, and the odd bit of burlap. The pile stinks of salt, wet wood, and beer.

“Gnareth,” the elf says getting closer still. With the butt of his pike he taps at the mass like a cat at a long dead fish. He pulls back. Here in the alley beside The Rusted Hole he drew little attention, but glancing about in his blue and yellow livery, Tunerdric “Turney” Helfaen spent the last of his worried patience. Jabbing the pile square in the center, he snaps:

“Gnareth. Fucking wake up.” he says through clenched teeth.

“Hwah!?” says the pile, revealing itself to be an elf after all. Rising out of the silks like a startled half-drowned gull, his head swivels as he gulps in breath. The air of Mistborn Harbor stings his eyes as his nose roils at his own pickled beard. He gets to his elbows coughing and sputtering, black hair a mop wide and weedy strands.He is thirty seconds sober, indebted to three pirate captains, a cheat at dice, and the most ambitious man in the Gilded Lands.

Gnareth Saderis, heir of the Silver Coast, Mistborn, and all the threads out of Silkwater greets the day by retching on to the gray-black stone of the alleyway.

“Fucking–what time, what’s the time?” he asks.

“Three, my lord.” Turney responds.

Squinting at Turney and then to the sky, Gnareth nods in agreement.

“That’s fair.”

Turney takes Gnareth to his feet, with the latter swatting him off. Gnareth sniffs, passing a hand down his beard to scrape the chunks.

“There a reason you woke me up, Turney?” he asks.

The young lordling’s chaperone and stooge takes his charge into the back of the Hole, walking him to a prepared heated basin. The sight of their hold’s heir turns few eyes in the dive, and as Gnareth quickly scrubs himself ready Turney drops the bundle of clothes on the side table.

“Your ‘da’s calling for you.”

“My Lord Father is always calling on me–what’s the problem, Turney?” Gnareth says, bringing a fingernail to his teeth to scrape out the gunk. He presses his tongue to the back of his teeth, then runs it across their fronts. He spits.

“Just hurry.” Turvey says, putting eyes to the side as Gnareth rises from his bath.

Toweling himself off, Gnareth squints at his soldier. Once dry he opens the bundle laid for him, inside are clothes prepared for some kind of apology. A blouse in the colors, an appropriate cloak and chain, a comb, pants. Gnareth squints at these too, but the effort of the morning pounds the inside of his head.

Once dressed he nods to Turvey, grabbing a bit of tough loaf from the top of the bar as they pass. He spits the bite into the ground as soon as they clear the door. Sour. Fucking sour bread? Sour grain? Gnareth’s tasted worse before, he himself could hardly be savory, but sour bread? Hungry and sobering by the minute the pair walk the streets of Mistharbor.

Where a Lord might walk with entitlement, the heir Saderis sauntered with ownership. Cocksure with the thump of his boots, hands scratching at his beard or loosening his chain, Gnareth moves with uncomfortable familiarity between the high stone byways of Old Dock.

From their stalls mongers and merchants alike shout out at him,

“You hear what your father’s gone and done?”

“My my, the heir about! Times are dire inDEED.”

“Saderis stands TRUE milord, Saderis stands TRUE. FAITH AND FORTUNE, FAITh and fortu-”

The fuck are they on about? Merchants shouting was nothing new, and with the blockade they erred on mean, unpolite things for a gentle personage like himself. But aside from houses where “official” business kept itself busy people liked to forget Gnareth had a father in these parts, and Gnareth liked them for it. By design the streets of Mistborn flow to the power of the hold, to the docks and its lordly estate, and so within twenty minutes of harangued banter and soapbox edicts Gnareth scrawls together a piece of the events in his head.

The honor of his father did worsened his mood more than his hangover. For all his pomp and holier-than-thouedness Indaris could hardly be blamed for kneeling. Not honorable, but honor had never done old Thathorius any favors. Instead, it was Gnareth’s willingness to humbly drag his father’s name through the mud that kept pirate, scoundrel, and murderous coin coming to this last safe harbor. Seeing the harbor filled with blue and white gulls squawking and pecking about their steam boats and galleons turned Gnareth’s stomach as well, but not for honor.

So long as Alliance held the port whatever advantage Gnareth carved for himself drifted far, far out at sea. The thought of freebooter money drifting out there, alone, turns his head out to the wake. Somewhere the empire all his own waited for him to give the sign. The urgency of testing a pirate’s patience brought him charging to the high iron gate of the Saderis Estate. A pair of elves, purple elves, stop him.

“No visitors.” they say in northern Thalassian typical of mages. “The lord Saderis is on house arrest.”

“And does that mean his son should go begging on the street for shelter and poverty?” Gnareth snaps, “I am Gnareth Saderis, and I demand to see my father.” The look of unimpressed scrutiny screws up his guts as they pass through.

Mistborn Manor, like the first harbor, rose out of the stone itself. Part carved, part mortar blessed by priests forgotten, the trident of his house still flew above the yard. But where the dealings of House Saderis frequently drew comfort from the goliath bricks of its makers, hardly an ear in Mistborn could ignore the shouts inside.

FUCKING-FUCKING HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT-

SENT FOR YOU THREE DAYS AGO GNARETH, I AM TIRED OF ASKING FOR MY OWN SON

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I DO. YOU HAVE NO-

DRUNKEN. GAMBLING. WHORING. IS THIS WHAT I AM TO YOU? IS THIS WHAT YOUR NAME MEANS TO YOU? ARE YOU LISTENING? ARE YOU LISTENING?

Inside the fish goes cold. Vegetables, greens, soup. Fish soup. On either side sits house Saderis. Tathorius, slumped in his chair, rubs his brow. For all his faults he still sat at his own table, still held his own meal, and against his son gave nothing.

“Truefeather will come.” he says, his voice low and eyes dark.

“And what if he doesn’t?” says Gnareth, one foot on his chair, knee drawn to his chin. The glare he bears is legend at every table save this one. In this house he is still only a son.

“He will.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” his son pries.

“Then I will not give Indaris the satisfaction of selling my house like a whore.”

“Our house.”

The hands at Tathorius’ head go to his lap, and seeing the eyes of his heir draws his mouth shut for a moment. A long moment.

”This isn’t about you, boy.” he says over the table. The sound of wood scraping on stone cracks through the vaulted arch ceiling of the manor. Gnareth looks at the portraits of ancestors, the silver earned by any means lining the table, the wine bought with his own blood. His own.

The hour comes to sunset, and Turvey huddles next to an elf cinching saddle over horse. With night on the horizon, the silver of the elf’s armor glints steely and blue.

“What are you doing

What are you doing, hey-”

Heaving atop his horse Gnareth adjusts his riding gloves.

“Thinking about myself, what else?”

[bardiicinspiration]

an old thread with @lionhxrts that i edited into something a little more readable. all chrom content is theirs, and all robin content is mine. 

fandom: fire emblem: awakening

word count: 1969

warnings: death, blood, injury

If one were to ask Chrom who he least expected to fall in battle, his answer would be easy: Frederick. He's a one-man army all on his own, and while it is quite impressive (and a bit terrifying), Chrom had come to find a second answer to the query, one not as obvious—not as easy to see. She was a force of nature, all on her own. With lips pressed into a grim line, sword in one hand and tome in the other, she withstood every attack with strength that was very different from that of Chrom's retainer. He never saw her fall, not once. He never believed he would. He should have known better than to tempt fate as he did.

He didn't see it. She had placed him far from her on the battlefield, paired with their son. Morgan was good at ranged combat, while Chrom was more suited to close-quarters: a good pair, Robin insisted, and he believed her, even if having her so far from him was terrifying. She fought alongside Inigo. He forced himself to trust that the young man could keep his wife safe.

Gods, please. A cry from the man ( not even more than a boy, really ) awakened his deepest nightmares. Falchion at the ready, he spun fast enough to see one of Virion's arrows impale a soldier as Inigo was stooping to catch Robin as she fell, white-platinum hair fanning around her. He caught sight of red staining pale strands, and he was running, Falchion falling from a gloved hand and a scream tearing itself from his chest. “ROBIN!”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The single thought repeated like a mantra in the tactician's head. It was all she could manage to think for a moment or two, what with most of her focus on the sudden pain piercing her chest. Her knees buckled, and a pair of arms caught her: Inigo. The panic on his face prompted her to steal a glance downward at blood soaked tips of pigtails and the protruding end of an arrow. Strong arms were replaced with grass once she had been relocated from the direct line of fire, and then arms were back under her, hoisting her to rest her back against a tree.  Her fingers curled around blades of grass, ripping some free from the ground as she audibly gasped at the agony searing every nerve when she tried to breathe. The pain was dizzying, but through the onslaught of disorientation, she could make out the unmistakable sound of Chrom's voice.  Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought to herself again. She had been careless. A tactician of her caliber ought to be able to avoid things like this. It was her fault for being ignorant, and now everything was going to fall apart. Chrom was vital to their success, but Robin hadn't had the strength necessary to force the sentimental fool back out onto the battlefield where he was so desperately needed. That didn't mean she wouldn't try.  "What do you think you're doing? Get back out there!" She coughed, blood dripping from the corner of pallid lips. "They need you!"

She was right, and he knew it. but he couldn't allow himself to just leave her there. “No!” he cut her off sharply, gathering her in his arms, one hand supporting the back of her head so their eyes met directly. “Damn you, Robin, I'm not leaving you here. Not you. Not now.” He cried for a medic, offered a prayer to whatever god was listening. He could hear the shouts for Lissa over the sounds of battle and the screams of dying men. One hand fought to grab Robin's, gripping it tightly, so tight that he might have feared it would be painful, if it were any other circumstance. “I'm not—I'm not leaving you.” He forced the words out, hand gripping hers tight as he clung to her, as if that alone could fight off the hand of death that he knew—as clearly as he'd known with Emmeryn—was coming. “Open your eyes, Robin. Open your eyes! I'm not— I'm not letting you go, not now! ” Fate was cruel, and while he'd defied it for so long, it was impossible to defy such fate as this. He could hear Lucina working to rally the troops, to form a barrier between Robin, Chrom, and the enemy, while their allies cut a path to get Lissa to them. He prayed that she wouldn't be too late. “I'm not leaving you. I can’t.”

"Listen to me," she rasped as firmly as she could manage, "you're an idiot. I love you, but you're an idiot."  She willed herself not to cry, for she knew if she did, any attempts to convince him to let go would be in vain. "You—you're the exalt now. You have to be there for your people. This is war. You and I both know that. When someone falls, you step over the bodies and keep going until you can't fight anymore. You don't waste precious time weeping over them."  He was becoming blurry in her vision, and she wasn't sure if it was from impending tears or blood loss. It was most likely both.  "Chrom, our children are out there. You must go. You can't—" she paused, choking on the lump in her throat along with the coppery taste that washed over her tongue, "you can't stay with me."

 A ragged sob tore at Chrom's throat, tears rolling down his cheeks as Robin spoke. The words struck him to the core, and — gods help him — they were true. He could hear Lucina and Morgan in the fray, his daughter's shouts of forced bravery and his son's cries of fear and rage; his children, fighting a war that they should not have to. Hadn't he told Lucina that she deserved more!? More than a father's legacy and a heavy blade, a war-torn world, but Robin's words tore at him like knives, opening bloody gashes in his soul. “Damnation—” he choked out, pulling robin against his chest. With his body curled around her, he let tears fall all the more. And then he heard it: a singular phrase, spoken in a low, stern rumble over the cacophony of war. ‘”Milord, you must leave her.” He yelped as gauntleted hands tore him from his wife, pulling him away, and he watched her fall, watched her be taken away by one of the archers, pale hair falling over a crimson-stained chest, hands white and limp at her sides. She was dying as they took her from them. His soul screamed and his heart cried for her, even as he was torn away. He needed to stay with her. She couldn't die, she couldn't, he needed her too much. They all knew who really led the army, and it wasn't him, it never was him, and he wondered why they couldn’t have killed him instead. He shouted and fought, because gods be damned, FATE BE DAMNED, he would NOT LEAVE HER— Reality struck hard as the blow Frederick delivered to his cheek. It was an open-palmed slap, one that shocked him to his very core. Tt reminded him of something, but what, he couldn't remember wholly, only flashes — Sumia's face, a gauntleted fist, Emmeryn... Emmeryn was missing. Frederick stood above him, speaking. He barely heard, but he heard enough of his harsh, clipped words. “You are the exalt. You cannot afford to lose yourself to sentimentality.” He wanted to snap back, to snarl. That was his heart that had an arrow protruding from her chest, not some other unknown soldier, but he knew it was useless — Frederick was right. Robin was right.

He was the exalt. Morgan, Lucina, Inigo, Owain—all the children, and their families, and his soldiers depended on him. He wasn't Emmeryn, but he needed to try to be. Falchion was pressed into his hand, and he clung to it like a lifeline as he trudged to where robin was laid out. “Alright...” he murmured, kneeling and pressing a kiss to her forehead. He stilled, brows furrowing as he struggled against tears again.

For Robin, his outburst hurt a thousand times more than an arrow to the chest ever could have. Her clouded vision and muffled hearing caused impairment, but not to the point where she hadn't known what transpired, and she recalled her unspoken sort of agreement she shared with Frederick. They knew the reality of war and what it took to emerge victorious. Neither of them would allow Chrom to fall victim to his own sentimentality.  Spending the last few moments of life in Chrom’s arms would have been ideal, certainly, but the reassurance that he would continue to fight and protect those dear to her brought a sense of peace. She even found it within herself to smile when she felt a sense of deja-vu.  "This is just like the first time I saw you." The remark was hushed, a mere whisper from the tactician peering up at him from the ground with fluttering eyes. "I suppose there are better places to take a nap."  When soft laughter shook her chest, the accompanying shudder was evident and the cry, pitiful. How she longed to grasp his hand or cup his face, but her hands were limp in the grass beside her. She supposed she'd have to make do with what she had.  "You know, even after writing dozens of battle plans, you were the only thing I've really ever been sure of, and I still am. Go, be extraordinary. I expect nothing less of you."  Salt mingled with the taste of blood as tears cut tracks in the grime on her face. "If you ever feel alone, remember what you said when you proposed to me. You called me the wind at your back, remember? I thought it was awfully cliché at the time." She drew a shallow breath, giving up the struggle against her heavy eyelids and allowing them to close. “I’ll be the wind. You may not see me, but I’ll always be there.”

 He couldn’t help the ragged sound that slipped from his lips, through gritted teeth. Gods, but she had to tear him apart, didn’t she? Her cry had one of his hands gripping hers tightly, pulling it so that he could clasp it to his chest; one final show of affection, perhaps, but he needed it more than he needed air. Listening to her last words, kneeling over her, forcing himself not to shed more tears even though he desperately wanted to. This was more than he could bear. But he bore it, as she wanted. “There are better places,” he agreed, giving her a half-hearted smile, faked for her benefit. “but I’ll let you get away with napping here just this once. ” A call from Frederick roused him from their small moment, and he lifted his head, catching a report of the battlefield and a request for him to rally the troops. He wanted to break. There wasn’t enough time, it seemed, to tell his love what all she’d done for him. She probably already knew. She always did. She was scary that way. Blue eyes shifted back to the woman, and he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the odd pattern on the back of it for a lasting moment. “Goodbye, Robin,” he whispered, before he was pulling away, dropping her hand and standing, weapon held in a clenched grip and a shout rousing in his lungs.

 He would do this. He would do this for her, for their children, their friends, and their people. And gods be willing, he’d see her again when his own fate decided his time was done.

[fluxrspar]

She sets about making herself useful almost immediately upon arriving in Rusalka. Her only pause—forgivable, given the context—was before her liege, one she had thought gone reanimated as himself; a being in his own control.

Being a knight, however, she could not be distracted from her duty for very long.

It is through this determination that Selena finds herself in the village’s approximation of an apothecary. Though the mage could not claim knowledge in the art of developing medicine—she was not even versed in white magic (or as it was referred to in Fódlan: faith magic)—seeing the emperor again, plagued still by the illness that had gripped him in life, she could not help her desire to alleviate whatever he may be suffering behind his smile; anything, she would do in the service of His Majesty.

She learns first by observing, passing along herbs and the like when she is asked; then by actively doing, if just one step in the process. Gradually a proficiency is built, until she is able to work with a fraction of the same efficiency as the other villagers, even if she did not yet know what each aid was for. The knowledge is internalized, fossilized into stone; carried on for when she returns later, alone.

Perhaps it is merely her nature that she cannot remain idle for long; or maybe it is that she does not tire at the same rate as the other villagers. Whatever the reason, the work begins anew—sorting through baskets and using freshly gained information to do more; to assist; to aid.

(A few moments pass; she recognizes the faint presence of another.)

Eyes turn instinctively, an old weapon expecting a threat—and a sharp gaze softens, when she realizes that it is not. “Oh,” is all she says at first, before continuing: “You’re…”

…not quite like the others, but that wasn’t what Selena intended to say. Though his eyes glimmered unnaturally and his presence was as loud as a doll’s, Selena assumed humanity of the man she was looking at. Given all the facts, she had no reason to assume otherwise.

“…one of the clergy members, right? Of the Church of Seiros?” (He had walked alongside them; the long path from the monastery to the tear to Rusalka.) “Are you here to make medicine as well?”

The Fluorspar stands, taking the supplies to her work station and setting them down. “I am, at least. You’re free to join me, if you’d like.”

@artificidel

cough cough milord

apollyon ouranos; team theta making medicine; +1 public opinion per post; one concoction every 5 posts

[fluxrspar]

He confirms her presumptions—a deacon of the church, so he calls himself, and that seemed to be accurate enough. Even if he was lying to her, Selena would not have the knowledge necessary to prove it.

Strange, that that is where her mind drifts to first: perhaps it was the tension in the air, that perhaps he may be seeking an alibi in the development of medicine where in reality it was a poison; perhaps it was paranoia, knowing well what—or rather who—was at stake. Either way, his cadence does not help, nor does the way he stares, ignorant of social norms and unsettling in ways Selena could not put to words.

But Selena would not judge—if he wished to assist in the art, she would not decline him merely on a negative first impression. If it were truly so dire, she could sort through their crafts and determine for herself later.

“There is no room for error when a person��s life is at stake,” she responds plainly, not taking her eyes away from her work. “That should go without saying, especially to a person with experience in the practice.”

Admittedly, the stakes were lower than that of the battlefield—where every move had immediate consequence, where all must be optimized in order to secure the most optimal victory; at least here, where all was just preparation in advance, mistakes could be made, and all that would be wasted would be the resources used to craft them. (That, too, was also not preferred—but it was better than a broken blade on the battlefield, a suddenly emptied quiver, a drained and powerless tome.)

“At the very minimum, I wouldn’t want to waste the villager’s resources. They didn’t have to lend to us, and I would prefer not to render some of it unusable.”

cough cough milord

apollyon ouranos; team theta making medicine; +1 public opinion per post; one concoction every 5 posts