#support: lambert

[laslow]

The return to the bunker was more chaotic than he would've been comfortable with, but alas it was time to finally redistribute their spoils. Fortunately their time at the town was fruitful, and the professor hoped their efforts would be enough to at least improve some of their allies’ condition for offense and defense.

First, this sword. “Professor Laslow, correct?” One of the Blue Lions that Lambert had spotted here and there but never actually gotten to talk with. With a quick wave, he offered the Wo Dao to the other man. “I caught wind that you are a sword user and might need a good sword, so I would like you to have this. New and sharpened, hopefully able to fulfill your needs.”

“Good luck out there, and be safe.”

The exhaustion weighing him down is more than solely physical. Too many emotions clamored for his attention in too short a time frame, leaving his chest feeling carved out and hollow.

Dwelling on the memories will only make it worse. Laslow passes out smiles like candy, doing his best to bolster downtrodden faces, even when his cheeks begin to hurt and his sincerity turns perfunctory.

A call of his name offers a good distraction; he nods at this newcomer, noting the faint familiarity but unable to place a name. "Hello there!" Laslow returns the wave, hand slowing as he spots the sword in the other man's hold.

"Oho, what's this? For moi?" Gingerly, he accepts the blade, weighing it in his hands, lightly pressing the sharpened tip into the pad of his thumb. Finally, a useful blade!

Gratitude rushes through him; he didn't realize a part of himself felt missing without a trustworthy weapon. "Thank you, my friend! I've nothing to return your gesture here; perhaps when we return to the monastery I can repay you?"

[knightofgalatea]

[ Dona Dona Fried Set ]

“Fried, friend and…look at that, fried as well.” The professor frowned at the offered dish. It did look and smell delightful and Lambert would be insane to refuse it, but just staring at it made something in his body cry a little bit. Probably his stomach. His memories were feeble, but he did remember he was a man of Faerghus and that in the Kingdom this much fried stuff is not very common.

A student near him seemed much more enthusiastic with the dish, though. A girl that sent alarm bells in his mind- familiar. Something within his brain remembered this person, those green eyes, that attitude, that blond hair. But her name was left behind in the fog, so all he could do was to push back on the slight frustration building at his own inability to remember.

“You seem to be enjoying the menu offered for the party more than anyone else here. That is truly impressive!” Indeed, her appetite was commendable- even if that insistent part of his mind felt a slight sadness towards it. “Allow me to guess, you are a knight in training?”

Ingrid blinked, her hands weighed down by the plate she had been piling food onto. The ball was for dancing and enjoying the night with friends, certainly, but how could she turn down trying the array of different foods spread across all the tables?

It was already hard enough not to take seconds at the cafeteria on regular days, and here there were more foods than she knew the names of.

She’d been reaching for some of the fried offerings, fried chicken dripping in grease, the smell of spices and breading hanging over this section of the table like a veil. And then she’d heard someone speaking, drawing her attention from the food.

Ingrid opened her mouth to respond as she looked up, only to snap her jaw shut again. It was a professor standing nearby, that she knew. She was certain she had seen him from a distance not long after he’d arrived at the academy, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to speak with him.

So surely that was why he looked familiar, wasn’t it?

But no, there was something else there. Something about the cut of his face and the blue of his eyes. It prickled at something in the back of her mind, like a sliver of wood caught in her skin that she could not manage to pick out.

In the end she nodded, knowing it was rude to ignore a direct question. “I am. Or I hope to be at least.”

Now that was more than a sliver she could not free from where it had been buried. That was a bone-deep ache, that rippled through her whenever she thought of her dream to be a knight. The likelihood of it ever coming to pass.

“Training works up quite the appetite, although I must admit whether I had been training or not I would still be trying to taste everything.” She turned her attention back to the fried foods, to the professor still half-turned towards it. “And what of you? Are you enjoying the menu?”