Chevaleresse

L8 shoot Cavalier

Shoot Soldier 1

Rhian's satisfaction at driving off her foe with a well-placed shot was interrupted by the dragon flying over her head and alighting just behind her. She glanced back at Ceridwen atop her steed. "Greatest blacksmith of the Dragon Knights, eh? The armor looked well-made at this distance, she had to admit. Almost flawless, actually, as far as she could tell, at least from what she remembered from growing up, before things changed. She frowned at Ceridwen, before shaking her head. More important things to pay attention to than her, right now.

Myrd-er the Knight with my Heavy Lance

Arturia still wasn't entirely sure what Lilith meant. Was it a voice in her head, some kind of hallucination? Some kind of weird split personality thing? Unless there was some real weird supernatural possession shit going on - maybe "mommy" was Layla? Though that had some disturbing implications about her future. . . Whatever. She had to do something for Lilith right now, regardless. Arturia wrapped her arms around Lilith, pulling the smaller girl into a tight hug. "Lilith, listen. You're right, you're not alone. I'm with you, alright? You can stay with me, we'll figure something out. I can talk to, uh, Miss Katherine, she'll help us work it out, alright?"

"I don't know. . ." She really just wanted to go home. His warning about her being tracked home sounded right, but she was sure her father could handle it. She hadn't asked for any of this; Viola had aspirations, of studying and eventually becoming one of the Sages, and it didn't seem like getting embroiled in international politics and messing with weird dark rituals was very conducive to getting back home in one piece.

N8 after Fallon moves, and bow the fighter

"I do not know." Hiroki shook her head, the motion muffled but still discernible through her cowl. "Slumbering Giant is with Aries. The rest. . ." Where had they gone? Given up? Three had shown up to the audience chamber, and one had betrayed them; she hadn't fought with Strider yet, but that wasn't liable to happen at this point anyway. She hadn't watched where the other participant had gone. It was hard to tell, but Grima got the feeling that the individual before her was looking at her fully once again. Queen sent her? She doubted Queen had much in the way of ill will. . . but what was this Valkyrie supposed to do? Fight her, she supposed, but unless Grima was much stronger than Hiroki expected, it wouldn't do much for her growth. "Where is Queen now? There is something he should hear."

Bolster her strength? "I'm strong enough." She didn't need anyone to help her. Opponents, maybe, to build up even more Favor and try to challenge a god again. And obvious reasons. . . what, her loss against Lord? She was better, already better, cutting the fat out of her build, and unless this Valkyrie was some kind of freak, she wasn't going to be strong enough to challenge Hiroki realistically. Unless she meant the tournament effectively coming to an end, but how could she know that? It's not as if it was common knowledge, given that it had just happened. "Who sent you?"

Arturia pushed back her hair, trying to think. "Uhh, shit." Lilith couldn't stay at her house. Maybe a dorm? It'd put her closer to Arturia, at least, but that paperwork would take a while. She did have an in, however. Arturia wished she could just explain everything to Lilith, but she wasn't sure how much she could say around Knife, and how much was too much for Lilith to take in; it was dangerous, apparently. Her ponderings, though, were interrupted by Lilith's question. A question that made her more than a little nervous. "Lilith," she began hesitantly. "who is your mommy?"

"So you want me to go all out, huh? I can do that." She put an arrow to the string of her bow as she started moving, suppressing a sigh at the amount of shouting coming from the team. Rhian to M6

The bits about nothingness and everything flew over Alwine's head a bit, and she wouldn't be ashamed to admit it. She didn't consider herself unintelligent, and she thought deeply about some things, but by and large she preferred to just take the world as it came instead of thinking about it spiritually, or whatever this was. "Curiosity about the people I've fought beside, I s'pose. You aren't part of my squad, obviously, but you also don't strike me as a resident of that village. I'd give you your same question back; how did you end up here?"

Alwine promotes to nomad, obviously Knight! She gains the Personal Skill "Do I Have Your Attention Yet" and Bludgeon proficiency, as well as a bonus 5% STR progression.

"Whatever works for you. Easier for me to focus on putting holes in people when I'm less concerned about them putting holes in me. Though I 'spose it doesn't help much with the type to cook you in your armor instead." "If your questionable choice in personal protection does get you killed, though, I promise to take the chance your death offers to stick the one that did it with a good shot while he's distracted with pushing you off his sword." Her tone didn't sound threatening, even if the content of her speech was rather. . . grim.

Alwine spotted Shiro off at the bow of the ship. It looked like she was trying to meditate, and the woman stood where she was for a moment (she'd been wandering the ship, idly checking up on everyone), considering continuing on her path. Still, she barely knew any of the people from the town, and this one was doubly a curiosity, as by her looks and mannerisms she was from somewhere else entirely. Shiro's primary warning was the sound of a heavily-armored individual clanking toward her, then stopping and sitting down heavily on the deck near where she'd positioned herself. "Thinking about the battle, or something else?"

"Fair enough. Bow means I don't need to run around chasing people to get my job done, though, and it's tough to be dangerous if you're dead." She shrugged. "Speed's all well and good, but plate doesn't get tired."

Rhian simply made a vaguely dismissive-sounding noise and crossed her arms. She decided to occupy herself with watching the dragon inspect Michi, an unreadable expression on her face. The knight was aware that she'd gotten a bit angry, and was trying to not let the continued presence of the Dragon Knight continue to grind at her mood. . . not that it had started in the most ideal of places anyway. A moment or two of this, and she remembered that she'd been spoken to by someone else. She turned to face the purple-haired soldier again. "Right, I never told you. Staying light on your feet is all well and good for when things are going well, but good luck surviving a cavalry charge in padded cloth. This'll actually keep me alive when shit goes wrong - and it will."

"Where I'm from, you actually need to earn respect, instead of having praise thrown at you for existing." Rhian said through clenched teeth, before taking a deep breath and seemingly attempting to calm herself down to some degree. There was a lot more she could say, but it would open up far too much she didn't exactly feel like sharing at the moment. "Not that it matters. I've left that place far behind." Or so I'd hoped.

"Won't gut you, but will lay you out on your ass if you want to push your luck. I'm a soldier, not a psychopath." Her eyes narrowed slightly; was he really actually talking about someone else, or just trying to cover for himself? Whatever, it didn't matter. He at least seemed slightly less insane than the other people around. . . even if he was quite obviously seeing if he could get more of a rise out of her. "Rhian, if you didn't hear. And if you were really trying not to piss me off, you'd've dropped that topic entirely."

"What? He acts like a bootlicker, I'll call him one. You didn't do anything praiseworthy besides showing up. I did that too, and all I get is people thinking I can't hear them talking about me." This was said with a significant glance at the purple-haired soldier sitting on the ground. "You wanna actually run that by me, or do you wanna keep trying to pretend you're talking to the air?"

"Somewhere else." Her tone was (perhaps unsurprisingly at this point) rather more irritable than the question warranted, her scowl matching it. "No. Apparently they decided to grab some. . . characters for this mission. Guess you're getting a real sample platter." Her response to the other archer appearing was a short sigh. So far, her favorite out of the group was the one-eyed guy in the corner who hadn't managed to make a fool of himself yet. The new arrival was all the way over there, though, and something more nearby had also caught her ire. "So, Michi, are you planning on offering to lick this girl's boots clean next, too, or what?"

Hiroki nodded, adding a slightly belated "Yes" when she realized the gesture wasn't particularly discernible through her cloak. "I am the Hellfire Knight." It felt odd to just introduce herself as such outside the context of the tournaments and the audiences before them. It was doubly odd to think about the tournament being over. . . just, over. No victor, just a crushing defeat by Lord as if to drive in how unworthy of the title she actually was. There was no real way for it to continue, what with only three competitors even showing up to the audience and Aries's betrayal. Of course, Grima wasn't clued into any of these thoughts, simply left hanging awkwardly as Hiroki lost herself in thought.

An upside down girl that mysteriously appeared and spoke in strange riddles? The upside down part was new, but the latter parts weren't. "Makes sense." It didn't, really, most of this didn't make sense and it might have been stressing Arturia out if she hadn't been occupied with more pressing concerns lately. "So you're some kind of secret agent, then?" She laughed a little; it felt like she'd fallen into three different movies at once. "Sorry, yeah, I've been experiencing more than a little crazy myself lately." Arturia glanced over at Lilith; she hadn't responded immediately to the idea. "Nayo, though, huh. . ." She didn't really want to let Lilith go - not that it was her choice - and it came through in her voice. She also didn't relish the idea of following the other girl to a foreign country, and besides - at least one of the other goddesses was here, and she was trying to help reunite them. Arturia wasn't about to just abandon Lilith either, even if that voice in the back of her head insisted that she kept screwing things up for the girl in the course of trying to protect her. "Lilith, what do you think?" She wasn't sure what she wanted to hear.

The knight seemed startled for a moment, and a strange, unrecognizable expression flickered across her face for a moment, before she settled into what seemed to be her default, rather irritable one, tilting her head upward to get a better view of the person on the great beast. "I'm not Calissian. And no, most of them seem to have their heads screwed on tighter than this. I take it you're the Dragon Knight in this particular unit." A statement, not a question, and a rather unimpressed-sounding one at that.

"Yeah, and I eat steel and shit gold. If you were as scary as you said you are, you wouldn't need to tell me." "I'm not trying to scare you. If you feel intimidated, that's because you're not ready for this." She looked slightly taken aback at the abrupt change in tone, but she couldn't help but smile back slightly at the girl's spirit, at least. "Rhian," she replied simply, returning the handshake with a firm grip. "I'm not here to make friends, either. Only thing I plan on doing is beating the hell of whoever needs it, and then going home." "If someone hates me for being honest, I don't give a damn about their opinion anyway."