Some of you on this website need to understand that you can acknowledge a situation is bad and still be against American intervention at the same time. You don’t have to be dismissive of people’s suffering at the hands of an imperial power bombing them in order to recognize that bringing in a second imperial power to also bomb them would just make everything significantly worse and should not be allowed to happen
@sinisterarrowraids but 1 thing i think is interesting is
chowder ws fairly young whn he first became mungs apprentice & hes only like 9 or 10 by th time th series starts
& mungs been alive & has been a chef 4 hundreds of years
which means th war tht killed off th apprentices parents happened p much right before th show started ((by a couple of years ofc but thts not a v long time))
Working with Those Who Slither has always put Edelgard in danger of being experimented on again. And this is a danger that Edelgard knows all too well, that she is keenly aware of. At the first sign of weakness, they would steal her away, and the surgeries would continue. That she can work at all without breaking down is a miracle.
The five years of war wear thin on Those Who Slither’s patience, and by the time Edelgard moves to capture Deirdru, they are planning something. Edelgard doesn’t know what, but the air feels heavier when she moves, and she’s certain it’s not just nerves.
Capturing Deirdru comes with a hitch. Edelgard is injured by Nader, as she jumps to protect Lysithea, and it is her professor that must bring Claude to his knees. He swears surrender. Though she was retreating, the professor defers to Edelgard as to what to do with Claude - do they kill him? Do they squash any thought of Alliance rebellion, right here, right now?
Of course not - of course not. He had surrendered, and though Edelgard knew it was unwise to believe his promise of paying her back, she took some solace in the fact that he is leaving. Claude was many things, but a fool was not one of them. Besides, he clearly held some standing in Almyra, a prince’s son if she must guess. Enough to summon their general.
If asked, she will say it was simply most advantageous for them.
She isn’t asked, though. No, she’s put in the infirmary, with a firm warning from Manuela that anymore dangerous stunts would only injure her further. While the soldiers celebrate in Deirdru, Edelgard is faced with this familiar sinking feeling, as the shadows in the infirmary grow. She tried to struggle upwards, but it pulls at her stitches, still covered by a bandage; Edelgard cannot fight it, before she is underground once more.
Indescribable panic filled her chest, as the air became hard to breathe, as if her lungs were traitors in and of themselves. Her hands were bound before she woke, metal chains chafing and cutting into her wrists.
Those Who Slither, the masked mages, they never explain - but Arundel did, in hissing reprimands. To let the Almyran scum live, to throw herself before the blade simply for that little girl, she would clearly need to face recourse. Was she trying to make herself into a dulled weapon?
Well, like all weapons, Arundel reasoned, she simply needed to be forged.
Edelgard knows what comes next. They never knocked her out, though she knew they had access to such vials. No, they simply chain her taut, and begin. The screaming, her begging going unnoticed, as if her voice didn’t come out her mouth; the magic forced through her blood, it is all too familiar to her, and she has no power but to maybe twist her wrists, knowing that to thrash only made it worse.
All at once, Edelgard stops screaming. She’s not sure if that’s the same time as the pain stops, or if it’s after, or before, or maybe the pain doesn’t stop. Edelgard isn’t sure anymore. The masked men stare at her - and Arundel, smiling at her like a prized possession - and yet. Edelgard cannot find the place to feel revolted or angry.
She can’t find the place to feel anything, really.
When she wakes in the infirmary, she is met with thousands of questions. Where had you gone, how had you, why - Edelgard doesn’t answer. She stares at them, hazy eyed, blank faced. They notice - her hair is stark white now, not the pale blonde it’d been before, her eyes even lighter, and though they bet she couldn’t get much paler, she looks even more deathly, bags under her eyes.
It brings a new flurry of questions, and a new stint of silence. Finally, the healer gives up, and simply pets her head - Edelgard thinks she would’ve enjoyed the contact, but she can’t make herself feel that joy. It was just her, and the professor, and she finally has something of an answer.
“She’s gone.” Edelgard speaks, self referentially, “Edelgard isn’t here anymore.” Here, in this husk with three crests and no light in her eyes.
♔ — THE END OF BATTLE was always the hardest part. When the adrenaline wore off, the pain rushed in, and oh, this time, Petra found herself on the ground. Even her sword cannot keep her up. The battle at Remire… Oh, how horrible. So many villagers, so many innocent lives, the children’s bodies torn apart in the wastes.
This was it, wasn’t it? This was the life they were preparing for. Petra knows when war is brewing. The air of Fodlan was thick, could be cut with a knife.
As if to scoop her from her melancholy, Penelope pulls her up, the healer already beginning her work. ❝ I must thank you, ❞ her voice is strained, and her voice drops. Petra glances out once more, upon the fires and fear. ❝ The village… Have we failed to save it? ❞
In a sense, the ammonite was correct in their assessment. The annihilation of these soldiers would put him in a better mood, soon enough. Their soft white fur tore easily between his gnashing teeth. His hammer beat senselessly on their fluffy bodies as if he were merely playing a game of whack-a-mole. Viscera exploded across the length of his coat, painting the merciless octopi in an even darker shade of red. He was to bask in the gore of their opponents until his cognizance blackened from the massacre and carnage of it all. An intoxicating escape from seemingly endless troubles looping in his brain awaited him. Brutal killings such as these, without any hesitation, were capable of fulfilling an itch he was never able to scratch in the Blue Sea. His once hidden desire, the unexplainable urge of a Kraken, to maim and slaughter could only be satisfied in the divine Sea of Death.
Once their burden was no more, Fukami breathed out a contented sigh. Sweat fell from his brow as a sickeningly sweet smile appeared on his face, clearly proud of his hard work. His tentacles were still twisting and turning around broken off limbs. The anger had drained from his face throughout the battle; criminal stimulation caused his annoyance to ease away. Instead, he lingered in a state of euphoria: the high that kept him in such a deep state of loyalty for the red sea.
Still, he could not help but stiffen ever so slightly when Sheep draped themself over his shoulders. They were almost as light as a feather, so much so that it brought a single hand upward to caress one of Sheep's cheeks to be sure he was not imagining the embrace. After all, it wouldn't have been the first time he dreamt of being held.
Their touch was welcome. Physical interactions of any variety were always his weakness. Affection was hard to come by. He acknowledged how starved he was of it. No one in their right mind wanted to touch a monster. And yet, their fellow denizen clung to him without a care. Only two other people had ever dared to touch him so casually; one of them was the witch killed by his hands while the other was the ambassador who offered him such a path of deceit in the first place.
He removed his hand from Sheep's cheek before continuing their patrol. "Hm, something like that," Fukami finally answered, as his eyes danced across their surroundings; idly checking to see if there were any fighters he missed on his rampage.
“I shouldn’t be complaining. At this rate, I will never be bored."
Fukami shrugged. "One day, I can thank Princess Tosatsu personally for being so generous...... I've lost track of the body count."
