#LIEGEBOUND. — private rp blog for kent from fire emblem: blazing blade, written by n ( he/him or she/her, 24 ), established june 2022. unaffiliated faculty. affiliated with the officers academy.
portrayal notes
kent is written post-game, taken from his unpaired ending. after becoming a servant to ostia, he had begun to feel plagued by his failure to find a new reason to exist, devoting himself so wholly to caelin and knighthood prior, and subsequently escaped by ripping himself away from elibe in general.
kent serves as an unaffiliated faculty member at garreg mach, specializing as a riding professor who hosts seminars on the topic on the weekends. during the weekdays, he instead acts a substitute teacher for the three main houses, and in his spare time, he aids with various tasks for the knights of seiros, being forever a busybody and trying to find stability and identity with his work to the monastery and rhea herself. further hcs on kent’s teaching style can be found in the quick blog links section below!
despite the nature of gba supports being limited, i have elected to treat kent’s supports as more free than that for the purpose of characterization and having a larger wealth of canon memories to pull from. however, which supports he reached to what ranks are treated on a case-by-case basis. currently, his a-rank support convos with sain and wallace are both canon to toaverse as is his c support with lyn.
i take notes from both eliwood mode and hector mode in terms of “what happened” for the events of fe7, though typically for simplicity sake i refer to said events as “kent fighting underneath lord eliwood’s banner.” however, little things like his dialogue in chapter E19 / H20 and the hector mode-exclusive characters fighting in the same army are still treated as real to me.
i primarily take my characterization of kent from just the game itself, though i do take influence from both the eng and jp versions of his dialogue. additionally, i take minor inspiration from the fe7 light novel, though i do not treat any of its events as strictly canon, merely letting small moments of it color very nonplot-relevant headcanons only.
quick blog links && miscellaneous: dossier / stats / supports log / teaching hcs / previous pinned post / under the cut is my tag dump / pinned post graphic by lina !
⚜ › saved. ( when i rb a post/interaction without adding anything to it for archival purposes, excludes thread closers )
⚜ › drabbles.
⚜ › hcs & metas.
⚜ › gallery.
⚜ › mun’s art.
⚜ › mien.
⚜ › shitposts.
⚜ › housekeeping.
⚜ › queue.
⚜ › prompts.
⚜ › dash games.
all of these tags came into effect starting around the full implementation of the beta editor. for older posts, please reference my old tags navigation page.
@sacaeblade sent: After the most recent mission, the infirmary at the monastery had been packed to the brim. Only now is it beginning to thin out, various injuries healing to the point that the wounded could be safely discharged. In fact, one of those patients being discharged is the very reason Lyn is at the infirmary today so early in the morning.
The present in her hands is less of a get well soon gift and more of a birthday gift, though she merely gives a lukewarm smile to anyone else in the infirmary assuming otherwise. The bouquet of daisies really does give the wrong impression, though.
On the day they had returned back from the illusion, Lyn had returned virtually untouched, but Kent had come back near death’s door. Back in the labyrinth, they had passed each other in the corridor and he had been fine at the time, but she had no clue about what happened after opening that door and falling into the darkness. What had transpired to leave him and so many others in such a state?
Their last conversation in Lilium had veered dangerously close to him promising to die for her again, a memory that had bubbled to the surface as she watched Kent, bloodied and bruised, limp his way back to Garreg Mach.
Brushing back the curtain separating Kent’s cot from the rest of the infirmary, the man laying there no longer looks to be on the verge of death. He is alert and awake, despite the early hour, not that Lyn can say much considering that she is also awake at this time. She can’t even chide him for not resting, because she knows she would also be going a little stir crazy confined to a single room like this.
“If only the infirmaries in Lilium had been this nice,” Lyn muses, sitting at the edge of Kent’s bed. There is a chair provided for visitors, of course, but it goes largely ignored. “Really makes you grateful to be back, doesn’t it?”
(“I’m not sure if we could have saved you if we were still in Lilium,” goes unsaid, but it still weighs heavily on her mind. The infirmary here is well-stocked, but after a month of everything that could go wrong going wrong, it’s hard not to be anxious about such things.)
She does not pass the gift to Kent as he might expect. Instead, she takes the present out of the bag herself. It’s a much smaller bag than last year, containing only a braided bracelet woven of two different hues of green rope and a red beaded tassel. She fastens the bracelet to his right wrist, just loose enough to dangle slightly, and presses her hand into his.
“Our birthdays always seem to come at such awful times, Kent. Did you notice this?”
Either during or after missions, it seemed. Regardless of whatever harrowing experiences they had, life continues onward afterward. The sun rises again in the morning, just as it always had. Normal things like birthdays come and go, irrespective of anything else that has happened.
Lyn intertwines their fingers. Kent’s hands are warm where their skin touches, a sure sign of life. She pulls his wrist to her lips, feeling the pounding of his pulse.
Alive. Alive. Alive. Nervous at her touch, but very much alive.
“Whenever I end up going back… will you come to Sacae with me?” ( happy birthday kent, 2k24 ! )
Drifting in and out of slumber, tended to so as to ensure he didn't relapse and succumb to the deadly poison that had almost claimed him, it is after a couple weeks that Kent at last returns to some degree of health to be declared stable enough to be released. He might need to undergo some therapy to regain full, proper movement and strength in his limbs, but he has felt far too restless from each time he has been able to be awake for longer periods at a time, seeking to make himself useful again.
A knight, nay— any vassal, swears himself to die in service of his liege, envisions himself doing so someday even if he knows not when, but staying cooped up and on his sickbed idle, feeling the strength he had trained himself for greatly drained from his body all this time and unable to do much about it... it is nightmarish, it is discomforting... it is not how a man like him would have wanted to go out.
But he is alive. He is on the mend, his coloring looking much better, the clerics and priests tell him. Just wait until his last checkup later that morning on the 13th of the Pegasus Moon, and if things go well, he shall be good to go.
He hears the shifting of fabric and the footsteps approaching his cot, wondering if it might be just that, but instead it is a face he has not seen in some time. Of course, in the scant hours he had been conscious from time to time, his thoughts had drifted to her.
(When don't they?)
How was she doing? She had looked in remarkably better condition than most of those who had been sent on that mission when they had awoken in Rusalka's ruins, of that he was grateful, but in knowing she was safe, his thoughts had turned to missing her.
If one's liege lord dies, but you are still alive, then you have done something wrong. He had been prepared at the time of the tear's collapse to meet his end without seeing her again, had been prepared at the time he had faced against the harbingers of the apocalypse to fall just as everyone else had and be glad his lady had not been there to fall with him, but...
Why was it that during his recuperation that such preparation was no longer there? He had gotten what any good retainer should have wanted: the knowledge she was not in harm's way. If he had died to his wounds, then it was in service of making sure that such a threat could never touch her. He should be proud.
But pride doesn't factor into it at all. He just merely wished to see her again. He wished to cling to life for that purpose.
And here she was. Here he was.
Here they were.
“ In a fashion, yes. ” He is grateful to be back, grateful to have been taken to someone who could help restore him to being hale, grateful to live, despite his vows to die one day. He is grateful to hear her voice again, to hear her at times sharp tongue. “ We choose to go out to fight and maintain the peace. It is only natural that a mission or two might fall on one of our birthdays. ”
It is, in a way, a refreshingly normal conversation. Perhaps it wasn't something one might hear in the streets of a castle town, but it is considerably lighter than all the conversations they had had before this in that tear.
But what wasn't ordinary to them was her gift. Just as last year, she brings some flowers (for his recovery or for the Day of Devotion, he wonders?) alongside something more personal for him. But whereas last year she had gotten him something elaborate, something that made him feel guilty for putting her out, something that would inevitably one day have to be replaced from wear and tear, this year she gifts something simpler, something truer to herself, something that might last longer since it won't necessarily need to see the heat of battle.
And unlike last year, she boldly crosses the boundary and enters his space, fastening it to him herself. She is assured in her place in his life unlike how he had been this time last year. She ties him to her again, this time not fearing the leash of loyalty but instead decorating it with her own colors and his too.
His face flushes at her affection, the intimacy of being kissed where his pulse lies feeling all the more intense than a mere meeting of lips or a greeting placed upon one's cheek.
(He is glad nobody else can peek in.)
Not that he dislikes such boldness, but it too lights a fire in him. Does she do so, knowing what it might do to him? How it might make him feel? There is nothing contagious in his system anymore to make his own courage too unwise if he were to truly act upon it, but...
But before he can muster his own, she continues her own advance first.
“ Sacae...? ” he repeats after her, eyes widening a bit. He, of course, knows it as her home, as the place they had first met and where he had thought he would be saying goodbye to her for the last time. Despite having been to its plains and cities before, he had begun to think of it as some far-off place where Lyn retreated and where he could not follow, a land that was never meant for the likes of him.
That when Lyn went there, that would be the end of their relationship, whatever one might call it. It was a land of endings for him, but... here was Lyn inviting him to it, to her side, to a life of new beginnings.
There was no more House Caelin for him to return to, but... in his search of what to do after thinking there was no more home for him, Lyn asks him to see hers as his new home all the same.
“ It will be difficult. ” He knows this. He has been raised to be a man of Lycia, has lived in castles and their kind all his life, sharing a space with many other people and the comforts of such a lifestyle— of what it is like to have one constant place to call one's home.
Lyn no longer has the Lorca, so he would not have that community he has lived all along with. He would have to learn new skills for it, accept a new way of living altogether as a nomad. As a man of Lycian blood, perhaps the other Sacaean tribes would not see him so kindly, thinking him an outsider parading around with one of their own.
Would they have a support system out there? Would he be able to make it and not burden her? As a knight in her time in Caelin, he had been there to guide her where necessary, but this time, it would be him mostly relying upon her.
Kent knows all of this, sees all the danger in such a choice, and yet...
“ But if you would have me all the same, I shall do my utmost to try and learn how to live your way. ” His expression melts at last into something softer, something gentler— something with love. “ The way you have always described Sacae has been enchanting. I should like to see it with my own two eyes one day. ”
With his own two eyes, he'd like to see the lands Lyn loved so much, the lands Lady Madelyn before him had eloped to, discarding the life she had always known prior.
When he had been a young page, looking up at the late Marquess' daughter's portrait in Castle Caelin, he hadn't thought he might one day follow her footsteps, one day understand what came to be, to borrow a bit of her spirit in his own way as he makes his choice now.
To be the Lycian who follows after their Sacaen love.
“ When we are both well and ready, I ask you to show me that which you love. ”
He draws her in closer by a light tug at their intertwined hands, angling their bodies and beckoning Lyn to peer up at him—
“ Show me everything, Lyndis... ”
—before he too pulls her to him, kissing her in the quiet of the dawn as it rises over the monastery.
@princessmacedon sent: Rap-a-tap-tap. “Ser, are you there?”
It isn’t the first time that Maria’s shown up at his office door, basket in arm. She waves once he appears, fingers wiggling in sequence before she disentangles herself from its loop.
“Hee hee, good morning!” Her head cants with the greeting, baring a toothy grin; flour still faintly freckles the crown of her head, and if nothing else, the sweet scent of pastries wafting from the basket dispel any doubt: whatever it is she’s brought to him, it must be freshly baked!
“And happy birthday, too!” The little cleric doesn’t keep him in suspense for long, handing it over to him with sparkling eyes. “Here, this is for you!”
It’s a modest thing, all told, subtly decorated for the occasion with a crimson square of cloth as its floor and a prettily tied yellow ribbon affixed to its ear. Within are two apple tarts neatly wrapped in napkins— aha! the sweet-smelling offender!— (they smell rather nice, actually) — and a glass jar full of elderberry thumbprint cookies. The jar itself also bears a simple red ribbon, being part of the gift itself. Practical and reusable, and if nothing else, an excellent vessel for passing gifts!
The last thing is the most obvious, being a simple wreath of flowers. She leans forward slightly, peering down at it with a pointed finger. Daffodils, daisies, and dandelions — if he looks closely, there are a handful of violets here and there.
“This one can go anywhere, Ser! It’s good as decoration, or even a crown!” A hand darts up to her mouth, a smile parceled into slivers behind her fingers. He doesn’t seem the sort to wear one, but… “It’d be cute on Miss Helena, don’t you think? Hee hee!”
A memory dawns in her eyes, and she fishes something from her pocket exceedingly carefully. “And one last thing! Can you hold out your hand, Ser?”
With the point of her finger, she presses it gently into his palm: a single four leaf clover.
“There! Now it has to be a good day, right? Heeheehee. I hope you have a very happy birthday!” ( happy birthday kent, 2k24 ! )
“ That I am! I'll be there in a moment! ” he calls out to Maria's inquiry, a sense of nostalgia running through him for it. He checks that nary an item is out of place before he hurries to the door of his office and opens it to the princess, smiling warmly as she graces him with a grin as bright as the sun and as sweet as the treats in her basket.
(A part of him wishes to reach out and dust the flour off of her hair, but he holds his hand back.)
“ Good morn to you as well, Lady Maria, ” he greets her in return, taking the basket from her in its cutely decorated fashion. Just as last year, it is her who brings a spot of color to his office, but her remembering his favorite food plus then some is what brightens his day more. “ I see you still make these tarts. Your skill appears to have improved just at a glance. The coloring looks a bit more perfect as does the design atop look more well-crafted. Well done. ”
Well, if he's giving a compliment, surely he can get away with tousling the top of her head now, can't he? He does it, taking the embarrassment of being doting more than the embarrassment of being meddlesome to another's appearance, as if he had any jurisdiction in such matters, and hopes he gets away with it, even as the flecks of flour transfer somewhat to his palm.
“ I see your point. ” He retracts his hand, nodding with her explanation behind the wreath of flowers. Whilst it's not particularly something he might've gone for on his own, he cannot deny the comment he has gotten from a stray knight who has found his office more inviting for the flowers he had put up last year, but also the image of his dear Helena donning it... “ She would look quite fetching in it, wouldn't she? ”
It's also not something he normally would do himself either, but it does take him back to the days of knight tournaments between the various houses of Lycia. Parading vassals and their steeds around, allowing them to pop with color to delight the eyes of spectators as they also proved their own strength...
...it wouldn't be out of place for such an event, he supposes.
“ Ah, more? ” he voices with some surprise but obediently holds out his free hand as requested, shifting the basket into the elbow of his other arm, only to be given something smaller and daintier than all the rest of her gifts.
A token of good fortune, difficult to find in a field of plants just like it yet not quite.
He wonders if it was indeed a stroke of good luck that brought her to it or if it was the product of her own hard work, trying to find a needle amidst a haystack. But whatever the case, she had found it and decided to give that luck to him. It is hardly practical or as large a statement as the rest, but it is still a sentiment all the same and one that even he could understand.
“ I thank you very much, Lady Maria, ” he tells her, folding his fingers over the clover. “ Before you go, would you be amenable to coming in and sharing one of these cookies with me? I should like to give my compliments to the chef right away... ”
@allyphase sent: The tactician follows Kent like a shadow, after one of his classes ends. There is distance in her eyes, yes, but certainty. She’d been avoiding her companions, since they came home from the dream. Hiding herself away, waiting for the wounds to heal on their own. But birthdays are important to Mark, so she stands outside the door, watching for her moment. Finally, she steps into the light, forcing a smile to her lips.
“Um, happy birthday, Kent!” Practiced words slide from her tongue as she holds out a small box. Inside is a notebook, small enough to slide into a pocket and sturdy enough to withstand travel. A journal of sorts, for whatever he wants to fill it with. Her smile fades a bit as she looks away. “I, um, hope you’re alright. After the mission...” ( happy birthday kent, 2k24 ! )
The adjustment from recuperating on bedrest in the infirmary to trying to acclimate to daily life anew again is a bit of a restless endeavour. It's a weekday, so all he needs to do is act as a substitute professor for one class, relying on the materials laid out for him prior and try to apply his own knowledge to help supplement it but...
(Facing death one moment and then being a teacher the next... is odd, isn't it?)
It's a normalcy that he can't quite fit himself into, not even at a military-based institution like this. He decides to move on the moment his class is over, but he can feel a pair of eyes on him. They had been on him during the class too, but the fact they linger now...
“ You can come out now, Mark, ” he calls out to her, certain it's her following him. If it was a question she had about the material, that was one thing, but he doubts there's much he could tell her about tactics that she didn't already know, and from the notes laid out, that seemed to still be her focus for this month.
(So what is it?)
He doesn't ask aloud, but his carnelian gaze asks it all the same. She reveals herself out of what shadows the pillars and walls provide her, and to his surprise, it's not a question or comment of any kind that she has to give him but instead a wish and a gift.
(She's a bit louder than she usually musters herself to be, isn't she?)
“ Ah, so that's what you wished to speak to me on. ”
He nods, everything clicking into place more logistically now.
“ I am fine, but I thank you for the concern, ” he states, unwilling to tell her anything to the contrary as per his knightly code. “ I presume the same is true of you since you are up and about and not in the infirmary?
“ In any case, I humbly thank you for thinking of me. May I? ” he asks, taking the small present box from her. Upon recieving her consent, he opens it, unveiling the notebook. His eyes light up a bit to see it. “ Ah! This came at quite the good time, actually. My old one's pages were nearly full now, so I had been meaning to make plans to go out into town to replace it, but now I need not. ”
He performs a small bow at the waist to her, clutching her gift to his chest.
“ Remarkably practical, ” he says as a compliment. “ I shall make sure to make good use of this! ”
Active: 2024-02-13T00:00:00Z to 2024-02-13T23:59:59Z
To accompany the start of Birthday Battle: Kent, Kent: Crimson Shield will be part of a 5★ summoning focus!
From the Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade game, Kent: Crimson Shield is waiting in Special Maps for Birthday Battle: Kent!
When Kent awakens again, it is not to the ruins of Rusalka for a third time. Drifting between illusion and reality, each affecting the other, he worried he might be stuck in a loop. It had happened in Lilium and then the subsequent dissolving tear after all. Who's to say he was really free after that?
But this time, he recognizes the ceiling above him and that strong medicinal scent, having passed by here many times before, situated in the faculty floor as it was.
(So he was the patient now, was he?)
Visions of the ghastly figures atop their equine companions come to mind again. The various nicks his experiences had given him had healed, leaving behind only the one new scar, but to say he didn't feel the least bit nauseous after having such corrosive poison flood his system so violently...
...he can at least try to rise out of the cot and grab some water however. It is late at night, the majority of the staff having left for the night, and the ones who remain having fallen asleep beside some of their invalids' beds, but there is one figure that moves with energy that betrays the hellish battle he knows they had gone through not too long ago.
“ You move remarkably well for a man who almost died alongside me, ” he calls out. Even in the dark, he finds himself able to at least make out the face that had braved through the worst of it all with him— unable to forget the visage of one of the men so pivotal to their strategies. “ You shall find me envious if you keep pacing so! ”
...He was being made fun of a bit here, wasn't he? Despite how incredulous the situation was, Kent forces a bit of a wry smile in response to hearing it. He... thinks he understands a little bit of why Sain got along with this person then.
After all, Sain flourished when it came to banter, didn't he? Meanwhile, Kent was only able to bring it out with the likes of him.
Nevertheless, Kent listens to the explanation of the flower he had misinterpreted (misremembered?) back then. Preserves rather than protects, he repeats in his mind.
“ If not from a spell, then how did you manage to come out unscathed then? ”
Even if he didn't understand the exact nuance of the flower, (for crushing versus wilting, it dies either way, doesn't it?) he follows along enough to understand that it was not the plant that spared this person's life.
But then what did?
At their own question, Kent rushes. “ Ah, I forgot myself. Right. My name is Kent. I am a professor at the academy! ”
The normalcy of an orthodox introduction does not dispel the despair of the situation however. For a lesser note, he finds with his story, he couldn't possibly actually ask this other person's name whatsoever. After all, Sain would have logistically told him in this false story, wouldn't he have? How would Kent be able to explain that he knew this person's appearance but not their identity?
But on a more grandiose note, they bring up the notion that Kent has someone to return to.
“ ...He will understand if I cannot return. Of course, I don't intend on this being the case but... ”
Anything can happen in a mission. The wounds he keeps building without even taking a step into proper combat was a testament to that.
“ ...We both have someone important to us here. I intend to protect her where he cannot. He would expect me to do the utmost in this manner. ” A thoughtful pause. “ Of course, you are also a charge of mine while we are on this mission now. I will volunteer my protection in your service to you too then where I am capable. ”
"Perhaps it was a message, why I was left unscathed." Thin fingers marred with little scrapes and cuts long scabbed grazed a stave dull and lacking of it's former lustre. "How is not as important that I am in able condition to watch the city fall to a calamity and have the equipment to preserve what of it is left. Faulty as it may be."
There was little point dwelling on miracles when the they could still taste the smog on their tongue. If he was searching for a saviour from this ruin, he would not find it in them.
"Professor, hmm? Well, it's a pleasure to officially meet you Kent." The mirth in their tone was frail, it was normal to have an edge to their words that made it difficult to discern whether they were teasing or the words were simply blunt with meaning. It was why even with their soul slipping from a mask they held it close all the same.
Moral was a lifeline, Arval had learnt. When it withered and waned, lives would start to drown along with it. There was an argument to had that desperation was a saviour, but they had only ever seen desperation harnassed in the face of greater loss. It was for that reason they slotted so many small smiles and easy taunts into interactions, the act of being untouchable by the choking grief of a desecrated city.
When he made an offer of protection for their well-being, that face slipped. Eyes averted the moment they felt the shift, fingers curling around cool metal and breaths taken deep to settle their clenched chest. Arval didn't want to know how he saw them, of any innocence that festered guilt so sharp it stung, of how it was fortunate a student was spared when now more than ever they wondered how committed they had become to that front.
"Well, aren't you sweet? A declaration worthy of a knight draped in silvers and glory." If Arval could not find levity in the situation, then they would make it. The lull in their smile had been casted out in favour of finding new teases, waving a hand to beckon the other to follow as boots clicked against rubble smothered pavement.
"Come now, you can hardly achieve any of that by wasting your time fussing over little old me. Survival will place itself in no one's lap, so let's do all we can to ensure it, shall we?"
Cold Kinetic Heart ( Sain ) - 1,111 words ➜ Mission Prompt: Heavy Armor +1
Apollyon Ouranos Knowledge Gem - Any +1 ➜ allocated to Heavy Armor +1
Activity Check - Any +1 ➜ allocated to Heavy Armor +1
Skill Changes:
Heavy Armor - B ( 1⁄2 ) ➜ A
Learned/Obtained:
Pivot
Allied Defense
Wisened
Ambrosia
Gospel of Zayin
With the healing of Lyn's injuries calm returns to the city street once more. Although she cannot deny the twinge of guilt that the medicine might have been put to better use at the infirmary, it is something of a relief to feel the pain begin to ebb. Kent, too, looks far more relaxed (as relaxed as he can get in this situation) to see her in good health, enough to release her hand from his vice grip.
She nods at his offering, "I do have a spare sword I can rely on, but Mulagir is in no condition to be used if anyone tries to attack me at range."
Pulling against the bowstring to test it's tautness, the bow isn't in the best of shape, but a functional bow is better than no bow at all. It's no legendary bow, just a mere mass produced weapon, but she isn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Her promise (threat, really) to protect him doesn't mean a thing if she doesn't have a weapon.
roll: d6: 3; lead found!
And so to work they return as Lyn tries to ignore the blood on her hand that has just begun to dry. It's easier, safer, if they put some distance between them, but she stands shoulder to shoulder with Kent.
Digging into one of the crates that had toppled from the pile, Lyn says, "The last few times the quake, no, the mob appeared, it happened out of nowhere with no warning. Now that I know what it is, I can be prepared. The next time it happens, will you point me in the right direction? At the very least I can fire off a few arrows even if I can't tell where they are."
“ That... is a bit difficult, ” he starts before he realizes what he might be coming across off as. He then rushes, putting a hand up defensively. “ That is not to say I am trying to make trouble for you, at least not on purpose, but both times they've attacked me, they come out of nowhere and then surround me on all sides. That is why I've found it difficult to escape them. ”
At that point, Lyn would be better off just shooting at him, really, the moment she feels the earth begin to shake.
“ There's another peculiarity to these two attacks I've noticed. Besides growing in number and intensity, I've started to feel as if their aim is to shove— drag?— me down somewhere... But this city is just normal ground beneath our feet, is it not? ”
He grabs some of the clutter near the top layer of the crate, helping Lyn dig even deeper.
1D6 ROLL: 2 + 3 = 5, CUMULATIVE 8
“ Regardless, based on this information, I wager then the best place to shoot would be either directly above my head or to the 'air' next to me. The moment you feel the ground... ” He pauses a moment to remember how she described it. So it comes across as an earthquake to her since she can't see or her the mob, is that it? “ ...shake, distance yourself from me and take aim. Understood? ”
"You and I were the only people here during the quake," Lyn reaffirms as Kent helps her to her feet. "I didn't hear or see anything besides you."
In any other situation, those might have been the playful words exchanged between two lovers, but here they represent only dread and the chill that runs down Lyn's spine. Their hands are not clasped together at the simple joy of unity, but rather a desperate ploy for comfort.
Lyn squeezes his hand back, but she isn't sure if he can even feel it anymore.
"I believe you. I may not be able to see them, but I can tell that something attacked you and it isn't like the enemies I fought outside of the city."
Enemies that are invisible to the naked eye and unable to be heard. If they were to come for Lyn instead, she would have no idea they were coming until they had already struck. After all, how can one fight that which does not exist to them? Is it even possible to fight what had felt to her like a force of nature?
But even in the face of this, he tells her to treat herself first. Lyn's own injuries are mostly stable now, unlike Kent's actively bleeding wounds. If it is a question of which of them looks worse, both of them look terrible. Bruised, battered, and covered in a coating of dust and ash, the two of them look three or four steps away from death at most.
"They have not come for me yet, but..."
Lyn unscrews the cap on the medicine that she had opened only minutes prior to inspect. There is no later for the dead.
roll: d10: 6; Lyn 9.5/10HP
"In exchange, you have to use the next bottle of medicine we find. Promise me this. If you don't, then you accept that I will be the one protecting you."
I believe you. They were just three simple words on the surface, but in that moment, they were some of the most relieving things he has ever been told in his entire life. A part of him remembers being dismissed at General Eagler's estate...
We've worked so very hard—
—and yet you have no proof.
Yes, but...
Then our talk is finished!
His thoughts return to the past as they so often do on these missions. He had thought he had feared being plagued by the faces he held dear... but to instead see these faceless foes, to have no proof that they exist except for his own testimony...
He knows he's in a precarious position then. He has already been branded a traitor.
(Again.)
His word holds no weight. But even if they don't, what does is the weight of her hand in his. He knows Lyn would not tell him a lie just to comfort his ego either.
She must genuinely believe him then.
To his surprise, it continues. She takes his proposal and makes good on it, using the very medicine he had planned to force upon her if need be. But there need be no force in their relationship.
He need only trust.
“ Alright. I give you my word, Milady. Though you lack weaponry right now, do you not? ” Sol Katti has certainly seen better days. He separates from her grasp at last, moving to scrounge around, and as if the very heavens themselves were on Lyn's side, what he finds is not a weapon that would fit his hands but instead hers.
she hadn’t spoken to sephiran since her return, and veyle freezes upon the realization that this information she’s carelessly let go of might get said man in trouble. “oh, uhm—“ she opens her mouth to speak, to make some kind of excuse for sephiran to keep him in kent’s good graces. she has none.
a helping hand is given to her in the form of concern for her health. veyle has to fight to keep the sigh of relief inward as she looks back up to kent. “yes, yes i am.” she nods quickly, thankful for the topic change. still, remnants of her nerves remain in the way she shifts on her feet, refusing to look the man in the eye. “i’ve hardly done anything to help yet anyways, even i’d be concerned if i was struggling right now.”
“ That is fair. My apologies... ” Uncertain quite what amount of caution to treat the dragon, he does peer over her as she helps sort. After a few moments, he speaks up again to explain, tone finding difficulty in grabbing a sure footing compared to how he had been when doling out orders and questions.
“ It is just difficult to reconcile in my head how to handle you, given how little I know of your situation. You were in the infirmary for a reason, but you stand somewhat before me now. The dragons of legend were fearsome creatures to make up for their slower rate of reproduction, but the dragons I've met were extremely fragile in battle when they donned human form... ”
He frowns.
“ As a commander, I needed to know the limits and strengths of those who worked with me, but... dragons have always been a... contradiction, one could say, to me... ”
For the second time that day, the edges of her vision begin to dim and the world shakes. It's another quake; nothing that Lyn has not experienced before. The suddenness with which it happens manages to knock her off her feet (and make an iron lance come tumbling out of the debris) and she stays on the ground until the world stops shaking.
It should be clear cut: wait out the quake until it stops and then continue doing whatever they had been doing before.
It would be, were it not for the bloodcurdling scream that Kent lets out. He screams as if he is dying, the sound filling Lyn's veins with ice. She should keep her head down, out of the way of any falling debris, but the sheer terror in his voice makes her snap her head up to check on him.
But there is nothing there but the man himself, screaming at phantoms only he can see.
Green eyes watch in horror as she watches him scream and thrash, thin lines of crimson appearing on his skin even though he stands untouched. The world shakes violently (or is Kent the one shaking?), scattering drops of blood here and there on the rubble.
It ends just as quickly as it began. The world stills and falls silent as if nothing had happened. Whoever else had been out scavenging with them is gone now, vanished into the wind, leaving only two pounding hearts as the only sound in this ruined city.
"I am uninjured, but..." She accepts his outstretched hand tentatively. "...Who is 'they', Kent? We're the only people here."
“ You... didn't see them? Or hear them? ” Carnelian eyes go wide for other reasons now, struck dumb by this revelation. It does not stop him from helping her up onto her feet however, the motion far more instinctual than anything else.
He need not think. Only do.
“ ...I told you I was attacked earlier, was I not? A mob of people without faces, they came in and rushed me. I presumed them to be people of Lilium, but... they don't not match up with the descriptions of the enemies that Veyle and Sothe told me as well. It could be anybody. ”
Paranoia rushes within him. Despite his attempt earlier to avoid her hand, he squeezes her hand tightly now. He feels no pain of the body, adrenaline rushing him, but he feels a pain of mind, spirit, heart all at once.
Lyn has braved injuries like this times before. He has borne witness to this fact, but—
“ They're getting more extreme each time. Loathe as I am to admit it, even I can do little to stop them. The wounds they incur on me is the proof... But I worry. What if next time they find me, they reach you too? That you are not any worse off this time is a relief, but... Even if you cannot see our enemies, the evidence they leave behind is undeniable. They can strike again, and their attack will be more violent next time too. ”
—but this time, in the wake of his own bleeding (drops that slowly crawl their way down his arm to where their hands join together), seeing her injuries as severe as they still are, makes him impatient and more fearful than before.
“ ...If you insist upon staying with me, I would like your wounds mended before they have another chance, Lyndis. ”
Sothe's nose crinkles in thought as Kent leans forward. The killer axe he held is set aside - a new one is picked up. I'll look forward to seeing you afterwards rings in his ears, an overstayed welcome.
"I guess they just seemed off. With everything going on, most things seem weird, though. I still don't really get it, but I don't have to."
He shrugs, or tries to - he shudders instead when pain again lances through him, reminding him again - does he have a future?
“ Off? ” Kent parrots. “ Pardon me for asking, but in what way do you mean that? I understand you think it all strange, but... ”
Hm. How does he articulate this to try and guide it? Especially when Sothe seemed so content to move past it? Or at least that's what Kent percieves of the moment but he watches Sothe's attempt at a nonchalant gesture turn awry quickly.
“no. it’s okay.” she smiles but it doesn’t quite reach the eyes that return to look up at him. “my papa is dead.” by her own hands. “so i know there’s no possible way he could return— it’s just his presence that is a lot for me to handle.” dark, brooding, suffocating— she hopes that she does not have to face the real illusion rather than just the idea of it.
fell eyes look upon the abundance of killer axes with a barely congealed frustration. the weapon that had almost ended edelgard— it wasn’t easy to bite back and focus on the task at hand. ”yes. they felt different but looked like ordinary bandits to me— and to sephiran and edelgard as well.”
The dead cannot return. That fact of life should be taken as such— the truth. He should take it as unshakeable... But he has seen to the contrary, has he not? Experienced such miracles in the face of another and himself? Agonized over it even?
But he says nothing on the matter. He cannot. He still believes the enemy to not be what they see them as, and to bring up the possibility that her father— her papa— could return...
...It serves no purpose for either of them to insinuate such things.
“ To Lord Sephiran as well? So you've spoken to him since? ” He arches a brow. It did about line up with what Sothe himself had to say on the matter though... that they were 'off' somehow. There was the confirmation that it was the house leader that had been with the dragon as well. “ But regardless, in the end, they were no mere ordinary bandits. Not if they caused such wounds on you to force you all to need medical attention. ”
Not that he knows the combat skills of any four seemingly involved, but they all held connections to the Officers Academy one way or another. They should not be so easily done in by mere bandits.
“ Speaking of, ” he cocks his head slightly to the side, “ you are still fine, I presume?”
Kent is the one to withdraw first. He gently rebukes both her tacit offer for protection and her hand. Once again, he has ruled her safety as more important than his own life.
Lyn's now empty hand clenches.
She listens to his explanation quietly, taking in every word. She had not physically gone near the monument, but she and Felix had been tasked with gathering parts for it. She will not pretend to understand the how and why of the way the blocks work, having never seen them herself, but if she likens them to the kindling of a fire, then things don't add up. Without suitable kindling, a fire will never start no matter how many times you strike the flint.
"If none of the energy blocks were reacting, then how could have such a large scale explosion have gone off without the necessary power? I would understand if it had been a small explosion, but leveling the whole city..."
As they speak, Lyn had gotten up to take down another crate, but her grip abruptly loosen and the box comes crashing to the ground.
“ I cannot say anything about the Upright Man's intention for certain. I am skeptical of them, to be sure, but it is hardly anything I have decisive proof for... But I suspect the monument was never going to come to life. The explosion... it is something able to occur precisely because the monument could not stop it. ”
The crate drops and clatters to the ground with a huge crash, its contents spilling out, but Kent feels a sense of dread looking at it a way he did not the first time. Lyn was agile as ever to dodge its descent, but...
It is not the only thing to fall.
1D6 ROLL: 4 + 3 = 7, LEAD FOUND !
Another box falls, followed by the shifting of all the others as the ground moves against a tremendous force, a cacophonous sound unleashing in threat, and Kent realizes it's yet another stampede— another riot—
(But for Lyn, it is another quake— another tremor—)
“ Death to ██████. Death to ██████. ”
The chant comes in a choir of voices as a faceless mob enters from seemingly nowhere, surrounding him in an instant. The rift between him and Lyn feels so far, growing ever larger as the people (the earth's trembling) push her aside (down) and overwhelm him instead.
“ Death to ██████. Death to ██████. ”
He tries to deflect them as best as he can, but he knows their numbers had done him in last time. Their nails dig into his skin, creating thin lines of scarlet as they seek to suffocate him and drag him down.
Their hands move forward, move to cover his mouth and push him down to the depths of hell—
He screams, fighting his way back up and out only to find himself standing just as he was, but still, he grasps for breath all the same, hands grasping the side of his head. He takes a moment to breathe before he brings his arms back in front of his own eyes.
Across his flesh still show the proof he needs that something had happened to him again.
Lines of blood.
( -1HP ) Kent's HP: 4/10.
He looks back up. “ Lyndis, are you alright?! Did they get you?! ”
He rushes over to her, holding his hand out now in that grand fit of irony, ignoring the way his heartrate remains that dangerously accelerated pace, the way sweat beads down the side of his face, the way his blood drops to the earth below them.
“ They did not lay any further hand on you, did they?! ”
sephiran went with sothe on patrol? her heart stumbles in her chest at the thought, but she doesn’t dare bring up that meant sephiran went out not once on patrol but twice. she didn’t need to contribute anymore to kent’s panic than she already had.
and then the knight mentions what kind of enemy she sees leading the forces here. sombron’s face comes to mind, along with the cold chilling aura that she wishes she could forget the memory of.
“i…” she swallows thickly, gripping her hands back to her chest and losing some of her previous excitement. “i see the enemy as my papa.” comes her meek voice as she looks at her feet. “he was a fell dragon like me who almost brought the world to destruction.” kent had kept it brief, so she decides not to explain her relationship with him any further unless he asks for more.
“ I... ” Her 'papa?' It immediately strikes him how rustic that term of address is. Not a single member of the Lyndis' Legion had ever used such a term for their own parents, not even Lyn who had grown up far divorced from the courts of nobility her blood had tied her to. Father, she said, just the same as the rest of them.
And she, of them all, loved her parents the most.
So to hear that term here, endearing and personal in the face of the comparatively cold and neutral, 'Father' he was used to...
“ M-My apologies... I didn't mean to overstep like that... ”
A dragon that almost brought the world to destruction. What she describes is not too unlike the Scouring and its Ending Winter...
Kent shudders to think of it.
“ But... you can at least take comfort in the fact our enemy most likely is not actually your father. Whatever threat he posed is not the one we face here. ”
Then again, he doesn't know what sort of threat to fully prepare himself for. Illusory soldiers after all could be anything...
Looking at the piles of their supplies, he asks, “ Ahem. May I presume the enemies you faced were the ones all these Killer Axes came from...? ”
“right.” she nods in determined agreement to his sentiment. she shouldn’t give up where she is now.
“i didn’t even know that sothe went out to patrol…” veyle replies with a concerned expression. he hadn’t said anything to her— no, focus on the task at hand!
“uhm.” the fell dragon clears her throat. “i’m not sure i would describe them in the same way as him.” she tilts her head, bringing her hand to her chin. “to call them shades would be the same as assuming they were dead, but they were very much alive.”
they didn’t feel like humans, but they didn’t feel like dragons or the corrupted either, so what were they? “oh!” she slams her fist into her palm at the realization that storms her mind like soldiers sieging a castle. “what if they were illusions sent by pasithee?”
“ He said he went with Lord Sephiran, ” Kent quickly elaborates further, seeing Veyle's confusion. So they truly did all go at separate times then. He imagines this must have meant Veyle went with whom looked like the Black Eagles house leader based on the injured bodies in the infirmary.
The enemy was alive, not dead. He sees the way Veyle and him interpret the same word comes differently... perhaps just the same as the woman who wielded the lance and him saw their enemy as different figures?
“ Yes, that would line up with my theory as well, ” Kent for the first time in this conversation breaks out into a smile, pleased to have added a piece to his puzzle using Veyle's testimony. “ I believe I might have met Pasithee on my previous mission actually. She used illusory magic to pretend to be my best friend, so I hold no doubt she could do exactly what you say here. Either that, or she is obfuscating one enemy to look like something else to us all. ”
He stares Veyle directly into her eyes, asking her next:
“ I wager you likely also see the one leading the enemy forces as different than I do. I see a man with a large physique, violet hair, and yellow armor. He is a man I have a history with, but you likely see another person, do you not? ”
