Lord Sigurd already knew very well who Leif was. The fact he had called him Lugh but seated him where Leif Faris Claus was meant to go at the banquet proved it. There was no running from this truth.
Yet still, Leif felt a bit too odd at the idea of going up to face the man himself after it all. Was it shame? Was it discomfort? Was it regret? He didn't know, but he wish he did. Maybe it would be easier to figure out how to get over it and face the man when the time came to do so if he knew, but here he was, left in the dark still by the time of the Winter Festival.
So he avoids showing his face and instead slips his gift for the man in the hands of a church member, asking it to be delivered to Lord Sigurd in his stead. The nun finds him and holds out that wrapped present box, saying it came from a student, and then she was on her way.
The present box was far from the best wrapped. An effort had been made, but it was not done by any delicate hands. Nevertheless, upon unwrapping it, Sigurd would find inside its box was a floral tea pot with two matching cups and saucers. He might recognize the design of them as being identical to the ones they had served at the cafe he had visited some moons prior— the same one he had met Lugh Faris in that fateful day.
Lugh Faris does not leave much of any sentimental letter at all, hardly being one for such gestures, but he does leave a small note nonetheless with it, one that simply says, 'For the Winter Festival, Lord Sigurd. From Lugh.'
It was not so unusual that Sigurd would receive wintertide gifts, from this allied lord or that old war buddy, although there were markedly less of both nowadays. If he sat long enough to consider it, he might have acknowledged that there may have been a reason for it to do with the abrupt cessation of hostilities on that fateful day in 760, but while the fact of his death and the deaths of others on or around the same time registered in his mind as facts indeed, they were rather more afterthoughts, something that he needed specifically to remind himself of.
Ah yes, I have died. After the second and then third time, it was a strangely unremarkable thing to Sigurd, despite that he wished not to relive (or redie) the experiences.
So when he found the parcel waiting for him, his first thought was that it had been rather mishandled, slapdash as it was, although he could not have held it against the gifter, as he was no deft hand with those small details, himself.
Seeing that it was from Leif - or Lugh, rather, as he recalled that his nephew liked to be called, though under which circumstances he could not have said in specific - piqued his curiosity. His sister's son had not seemed to type for open displays of affection, which was fine, and Sigurd found himself heartened that he was thought of at all.
Confusing lad. His eyes creased into a smile, slightly bewildered, at the teaset. He faintly recognized the pattern, and he faintly remembered the interaction, but...
"He will be disappointed if his impression of me is some aficionado," Sigurd said aloud to no one with a laugh, gently taking one of the teacups from the package to inspect more closely in the light. "I would be surprised if I even remember how to make a pot properly."
Deirdre would be delighted, surely, with the floral motif. He could try to master the art for her sake.
Perhaps Ethlyn would oblige him in a holiday lunch, for the practice.
