#rosetricks

[flamesfated]

@rosetricks​ asked: “   if  you  don’t  take  your  butt  back  to  bed ,   i  will  carry  you  there  myself .   ” from yuri!

hurt/comfort sentence starters!! -- accepting!!

“Are you threatening your emperor, Yuri Leclerc?”

Rank is a title she only calls upon for rare occasions. The first being at the War Council table. The second when dealing with unfortunate allies like her Uncle. It’s always important to remind Lord Arundel of who she is, regardless of the powers lent to him by that organization. Every day that the Imperial army marches closer to Fhirdiad is a day that she approaches finally taking that man’s life.

That aside, any member of the Black Eagle Strike Forces know that Edelgard desires that, insists upon, her generals speaking to her as equals. (Yuri even more so, as her beloved.)

Thus a comment as this directed toward him is nothing more than a playful jest. Mostly. It is in part a warning. Unspoken words:

I have no intention of going back to bed.

Edelgard is hardly surprised he’s found her. It’s not as if she can sneak into abyss’s shadow library unnoticed. Sleepless nights are commonplace for the emperor. It’d been easy enough to mask when she issued commands from Enbarr. It’s vastly more difficult from Garegg Mach, when all of her closest allies are under one roof. Or underground. 

Purple eyes shift from the page she’s about to turn to the man she loves.

“I suggest you reconsider carrying me anywhere.”

[flamesfated]

@rosetricks​ asked: ‘  what’s  the  deal  with  you?  ’ from hilda!

question starters!! -- accepting!!

“What an impossibly vague question, Hilda,” the Adrestian Emperor responds coolly as purple eyes meet pink. Claude’s retainer and friend. A friend he trusts well, at that. Edelgard can’t quite say she holds the same opinion, no matter how much she’s come to respect Claude.

Hilda is a perfectly capable woman as far as she has seen. When she bothers to apply herself, she produces results that far outmatch others. But those moments are too few and far in between for Edelgard to overlook.

Such a person... How will Hilda exist in the new dawn she intends to forge?

“My deal, as you’ve so eloquently put it, is that the ways of the world are archaic, brutal, and utterly unsustainable. Countless lives from all walks of life are forced to suffer over the notion that bearing a Crest is reason alone for certain families to hold immeasurable power over the rest of Fodlan. I intend to do away with system, and create a world where one will rise and fall from their own strengths and weaknesses. I must.”

She knows that isn’t the answer the other seeks. Edelgard’s intentions for the future have been known for sometime. Hilda wants to know why. She wants to know what could possibly have motivated Edelgard to go to the lengths she had, before the Adrestian Empire and the Leicester Alliance allied themselves.

“Should you consider applying yourself to our unified cause, I would be more willing to discuss this with you.”

[crescentstarred]

 @rosetricks memed: 

“   i’m  sorry  to  wake  you  up ,   but  i  really  need  someone  to  talk  to .   ” from hilda!

❯❯❭─( meme )──➤   ⋙  { hurt / comfort sentence starters.}

Claude sleeps lightly. Past experiences made him do so, and life in Fodlan had not done anything to shake his paranoia -- instead, at every turn, it'd been proven. People here hold knives behind their backs, never obvious until too late. At least in Almyra it'd been more of a mix; people cooing over him just to have a dagger at his throat. Assassins late at night, the glint of an arrow in the moonlight the only warning he'd get before an arrow struck the bedding where he'd been seconds ago.

Is is a wonder why Claude wants to distance himself from people so much? But in Fodlan, that hadn't even mattered; poison had been Fodlan's tool of the trade. Killing even from a distance further away from an arrow's range -- how sneaky, how deceptive, how interesting. Of course Claude had wanted to know all about it.

That's why he'd jerked awake at the softest creak of the door, footsteps padding into his room, the touch on his shoulder -- it takes a short while for him to truly shake the grogginess out of his brain as he looks up with squinted eyes at Hilda, then yawns. the hand beneath his pillow relaxes, slides out as it he hadn't done such a thing, and he rubs at his eyes.

"Hilda?"

He says, a beat late, but he's more awake than he seems. He fumbles for a match, strikes it, then lights up the lamp at his bedside. Sitting up, pushing the blanket off of him, he scoots closer to Hilda.

"Ah, looks like someone had a bad dream." He starts, yawning again. But green eyes blink more alert, looking at Hilda with his usual smile, seemingly unflappable. "Just kidding. if anyone has 'Wake up the Alliance Leader' rights, it's you. Something on your mind?"

Pulling the blanket around him once he notices a chill in the air, then wrapping it around Hilda's shoulders too, if she's sitting on the bed. If not, he’s not going to pressure her to - but there’s a very obvious empty spot next to Claude that isn’t covered by the blanket, should she want to do so.

[crescentstarred]

@rosetricks memed:

“   you  want  me  to  punch  him  in  the  face  ??   ” from yuri!

❯❯❭─( meme )──➤ ⋙  { hurt / comfort sentence starters.}

Eyes widen in shock, then a burst of laughter sounds when Yuri offers; any other time, he might have told Yuri to calm down. But he thinks he knew Yuri well enough by now to think that this was just a joke.

... Right?

 ( Yeah, no. Yuri’s definitely serious. )

"I appreciate how concerned you are for me, but don't." Claude says instead, voice even, as if he hadn't just survived a poisoning attempt. But a smile is back on his face. It’s indistinguishable from any of his other ones, and yet, perhaps -- the weariness in his eyes is less now. A hand slides up into his hair, carding it back, then drops to his side. "As much as he's a pain in the meetings, Gloucester and the minor lords in his region have a fair reason for being the way they are."

Poison in his tea hadn't been the most creative attempt to get him out of the game; he'd scented it before it'd reached his lips. Though, Claude doesn't drink a beverage given to him by others, anyway. Paranoia and his own bow skills keeps him alive, nowadays.

“Besides, it’s me that you’re talking to.”

Me holds many meanings. Schemer, Tactician, Leader of the Alliance. Claude realizes the circumstances he’d been born with is incredibly unusual -- not many had the chance to hold this much power from birth.

( But isn't that what he'd wanted all those years ago? Power? And hadn't he jumped at the chance to get it? )

How lucky he is. He calls it fate.

Main and center on the political stage -- Claude's smiles could blind, if he wanted them to. All eyes are on him; Claude grabs attention easily; is scrutinized every second he spends in the Alliance. All his words are careful, thought out, intentional; no action ever wasted.

Yuri knows this.

"But if you're planning to stay in the Alliance a little longer, I could use a helping hand or two."

 As someone that could navigate the shadows, as the only one he could trust to do so.