Fire Emblem on the Forums: Stellar Margin [IC]

[rokubiraijuu]

Part of him wants to say yes, but then hesitation flickers across his face, and he shakes his head. "Nah, think I'll, uh . . . head in for now. Rather be left alone, no offense to you or nothing." He stretches his arms up towards the ceiling, scrunching his nose with an exaggerated yawn, blinking blearily for show. "Yeah, kinda sleepy. I'll catch you guys in the morning if you don't head off somewhere without me." He's still not so sure about hanging out with official-y knights, but he's got nothing better to do, and he might as well tag along for the ride until something suits him a little better. Even he knows that a kid like him isn't likely to make it far on his own.

[Zetaark]

"Hah, don't worry, I won't keep you. Go get your rest," Marcus responds, having done enough talking for the night.

[Twinwolf]

"Well, I'll be seeing you then..." Elise says, standing and stifling a yawn, and picking up her book. "Good night." she says, heading upstairs (unless someone stops her, of course).

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

lt was certainly getting rather late. Perhaps time to retire for the night. The sky... was rather beautiful. Glittering stars strewn across it, diamonds of the sky. Dancing lights in the dark. She remembered all those days she'd lie under the stars in her youth... before things had taken a turn for the worse. She wished things could be that simple again. But, her mission took precedence to that. Though... it didn't mean she could no longer enjoy the little things. She was still human... she had to keep reminding herself that.

She'd been known as a demon for years, she'd almost been too used to it. But, she knew she was still human at the end of the day. So, for now she'd enjoy the beauty of the world the Mother had made. She'd sleep this night under her children of light, just like she once had. Like the times before she was a warrior, when she was just any other girl. Luckily, she had the foresight to bring her hammock with her. Never really thought she'd end up using it, espcially not this early. There wasn't much opportunity to use it in these cities, so might as well take the ones she did get. Finding two trees to tie it on wasn't too difficult, though with only one arm she did struggle getting it done for a time. But she eventually got it.

[rokubiraijuu]

Serenity settles over the wharfside inn as the inhabitants retire, one by one, to bed. The last lights in the front dim and then, finally, flicker out, and the calm darkness of the night permeates the area, lulled by the soft lapping of the river water against the quay. The events of the day drift further and further from mind, and whatever is occurring now in Lorelle following the death of the duke seems worlds away.

 

At some point, long after sleep has descended over the inn, a lone figure emerges from the trees. His footsteps are quiet through the underbrush — not from care, but quickness. His breath comes in hurried pants, evidence of a long and harrowing journey at a frantic pace. Wide, frightened eyes search the area before he spots the inn. With a quick thank you tossed breathlessly to the Sun Goddess, he rushes from cover and moves to the front door, rapping loudly on the wood. "Open up! Please open up! It's urgent, please!" He doesn't stop knocking, glancing left and right and behind him all the while, until the frazzled innkeeper unlocks the door, still bleary with sleep.

 

"What's going on? At this hour — "

 

"The Queen's Knights. Are they here? I need to speak with them. Please, it's the capital, they're overrun."

 

"Queen's Knights? What are you going on ab — " Suddenly, she connects the dots. The young man at the counter earlier that night, who'd been so secretive about who they were. All of them had come in armed and clearly of status. She pales. "Oh, y-you don't mean — ohh . . . "

 

"I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't have time to explain. They need to come quickly."

 

Hastily, she moves to assemble them, rousing them each from their rooms and bringing them down to the entryway with apologies and assertions that she doesn't know what's going on. Finally, once they're gathered, the young man — a messenger, it now becomes clear — begins to speak hurriedly. "Queensgate is in danger," he begins. "The Gossian army moved in after you were dispatched and took advantage of the weakness. The Knights that were left behind are holding the palace, but . . . " He swallows. "It looked bleak when I was sent to find you, and now that it's been more than a day, there's no telling what else might have happened. They hadn't intended to strike Lorelle during the Games at all, but instead the capital while defenses were divided." A risky plan, given Queensgate's tight security and more than competent defenses. No ordinary rebel army should have been able to launch such an offensive and hope to succeed.

 

But somehow, it sounds like Gossmys just might.

 

Without further ado, the group agrees to awaken the manager of the nearby shipyard and board the fastest vessel they have from the wharf, sailing upriver as quickly as possible to hopefully reach the capital before it's too late.

 

----------------------------------

 

CHAPTER ONE: RED SKY AT DAWN

Barsadian Year 740, 6th of Ovis

 

After over a day of sailing, they're drawing up close to Queensgate. The waters are deceptively peaceful, but for several hours now they have been passing by flotsam — chunks of wood and debris signaling that many ships have been destroyed further upriver, and their remnants now drift downstream past them. A Sathori flag floats by as well, part of the wreckage. 

 

Within another couple of hours, they will be arriving at capital's main docking area. The air is tense with the impending battle that awaits them, and the uncertainty of what they might find. It's now been more than three days since the messenger had departed a war-torn Queensgate: not much time, but more than enough for the tide of battle to turn decisively. 

 

Noah stands at the prow of the ship. He'd come along when everyone else had awoken for the same reason he'd followed them to the inn: nowhere else to go for now. Might as well tag along. Even knowing that more fighting was coming up — fighting that didn't even really concern him. Some would probably say he's stupid for not just splitting now and going his own way, and maybe he is. Well, fighting's one thing I'm good at. He's not afraid of battle. Time as a gladiator weeds out those people, easy. And he's not sure if he's keen on fighting to defend the Queendom that'd put him in his position, but something keeps him from just ducking out. 

 

He decides not to think too much about it, instead taking the time to just enjoy his last moments on a river vessel. Like the kind his dad used to take him on when he was little.

[InnocentSerenity]

 

The sound of whistling could be heard from the crow’s nest, as Rokan looked out towards the sea. Given his training as an Archer, his eyes were trained to see as far as he could, so he thought it best to be on the lookout for any pirates. Still, it had grown dull looking over those blue waves, even if quite calming. He put his elbow onto the railing, holding his cheek in his hand as he whistled the hymns he had remembered. Given his volume, it wouldn’t be unheard of for someone to hear him, but Rokan wasn’t expecting anyone to appear.

[Sutoratosu]

Erce lay curled around her rider in the center of the deck, her weight making the boards beneath her creak with every slight movement but otherwise they seemed to be holding up well enough. Marek had to give the shipyards credit- they certainly made decent cargo vessels, considering the body of water they were nearest to. Not just any river boat could take a full grown river and a load of passengers and the lunar father knows what else, and still keep steaming ahead at full speed.

 

But steaming ahead into what, exactly? It had been three days afterall... of course, a seige could go on for much longer, depending on how well prepared and how determined both sides were, but well... managing to hold on to the walls of a city and keep a foreign army out was one thing

 

Failing to do that and being forced to fall back to the royal palace however, was an entirely different one. On the brightside though, at the very least any reprecushions for standing up to leofric and getting the kid out from under his heel would be delayed for the foreseeable future, if not glossed over and totally forgotten altoghether, now that actual war had broken out- for... this was, beyond a doubt, a declaration of war. Regardless whether the country actually wanted this fight or not, first blood had been drawn, and it would not stop flowing until one side, or both, were beaten and battered thoroughly enough to admit defeat. So... there was that consolation at least.

"Alright look, we've been at this game for hours now-" he spoke the words, not aloud, but internally. On the opposite end of the conversation, he could feel the Elder Ones, patient, stoic, about as emotionally expressive as cold slabs of slate on a winters day. Despite his growing agitation, all they met him with... was nothing. Nothing but a stone cold facade that had shot down most of his inquiries thus far. "either you lot can show me something of what's waiting for us, or we can cut this charade short and stop wasting each others time... Go on, lets try this again..."

 

Damned if he knew why they'd been so difficult about the subject- they'd hardly had much reserve about showing him at the very least a glimmer of what a battle would like during conflicts past... hell, they even had no real qualms about helping in the middle of a fight, whenever he could muster the strength to call to them to begin with...but fine, just one last time. If they still refused, perhaps it was simply something better left seen with his own eyes.

 

Or perhaps it was all already over, and there was nothing left worth seeing. Nothing left worth showing...he pushed the thought from his mind, waiting for a response, any response really...

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Akane was walking to the prow to look at their destination however she saw the young kid there. Awkward... she couldn't just stand there and not say anything, pretend he wasn't there. However she wasn't a fan of talking to people, and it didn't help that with her feelings towards the Gossians. She breathed in a hit of her pipe. She had to think of something to make this much less weird. 

She settled on something that she couldn't help thinking. Hopefully, the kid not take it the wrong way. It was all she could really think of. She walked up, exhaling a puff of off-white smoke into the wind. "You know kid, this fight isn't yours. If you went your own way when we disembarked... I'd not think any less of you. However... who the hell am I kidding? You'd not have come this far if you intended to run now. You'd have never got on this boat if that was the plan." He'd know something was bothering her, Akane wasn't good at hiding her feelings. 

[rokubiraijuu]

Spoiler

d20 roll: 5

 

Muffled flashes of image are all Marek receives in return when the spirits at last respond to his insistence — reluctantly, they divulge brief snapshots intermixed with the unfocused haze of magical static. Bursts of muted color fill his cerebral vision, detonating like canon fire. A flash of green eyes, the pale color of lichen, sears behind his own retina with the sudden intensity of looking directly at the sun. Then all fades again.

 

----------

 

Not having picked up her footsteps, Noah starts when a voice suddenly speaks out and he turns around, exhaling when he realizes who it is. During the battle, he hadn't gotten to see her up close, but at this range, the scar running across her eye beneath the eye patch stands out. Part of him can't help but be curious about how she got the injury, but even he knows it's not really polite to ask.

 

"Yeah . . . guess I'm just along for the ride."

 

He turns back to look out across the water. She'd gotten straight to the heart of what he'd been thinking about himself. Kind of creepy. She sounds a little miffed, though, like she's trying to say more than what she's saying, or something. "What's it to you?"

[Sutoratosu]

"Pale.... green eyes..." He shook his head as the vision passed, rubbing his temple with one hand "and... those blooms... the way they flared... spells, maybe, or cannons more likely... or hell, maybe a mix a both..." he thought back to the snippets of conversation he had overheard in the day or so prior, back in the tavern before the Nogu fellow had lost his shit and went on a paranoid tirade. 

"heh, maybe that talk about Rune Cannon ain't such a rumor after all... I just hope for their sake that it is. If those two were actually right....well, it would be a small wonder as to why the city fell so quickly." He got up from his spot, leaving his lance and his wyvern where they lay as he paced in thought, hand stroking his chin "Pale Green eyes though. Thats what they put the most emphasis on...and they were pretty striking regardless. Belonging to an enemy commander, maybe? or perhaps someone who's holding out somewhere in, eh either way, It would be easy enough to recognize them I suppose... guess we'll see then."  

    with that said, he turned his attention back to the elders "Aight, I figure this is about the most you're gonna give me about this... well, its better than nothing, the suspicious flashes of color at least could prove useful... so I'm done bugging ya about it. Thanks."

 

he walked along the railing for a bit, staring out over the rapids. Every so often yet another bit of wreckage floated by... there was one thing that struck him as odd though- where were the bodies? Surely at least a few crewman had gone down with all these wrecks, yet he hadn't seen so much as a single man floating down with the remains of their vessels... yeh sure, some of them may have escaped, survived and swum to shore to either flee or try to regroup... some might've just been captured... but... 

 

but the damn whistling from the crows nest was really starting to become an Ear-sore. He was no music critic, but by the Lunar Father and all the ancient ones, that damn Archer from last night had a voice like shattered glass and rusted nails as far as he cared.

 

"Oi, ya sound awfully cheery up there mate. You uh, you mind just humming that mess to yourself instead of aloud though? No offense but you're no opera singer... or even a common street performer, really"

Erce grumbled an affirmative on that point, looking disdainfully up at the archer. She was honestly at least half hoping he'd have something small and nasty fly into his mouth up there and gag in the middle of his tune

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"Nothing. Your path is your own. You choose to walk where you do. Free to flow as water." Water was surely the affinity of his soul. A cerulean blue was the impression she got, funny... water shared a lot of properties as her old soul... wind. She'd nearly shuddered at the confirmation. However there was one difference between the two of them. Her revenge still festered in her chest. This boy didn't have the time for such to happen. He had already enacted it. She wondered how it felt. Further... she wondered if she'd feel anything at all once she got hers. She almost felt jealous... but the feeling was so numb and far away she wondered if she was actually feeling it at all.

"I can't stop one from walking they path they so choose. Just understand this... you might be walking into the very jaws of death. Or perhaps you'd better understand it this way. That's hell you're walking into. Don't live solely to fight. Don't make it but your only purpose in this life. It's not worth it." at the moment she went to refill her pipe, Noah would notice that she didn't remove it form her mouth while doing so. Not something typical in the least. It was much more difficult to do that way. You could just hold it in your other hand instead. After all that was so much easier... further proved by the fact that she knocked it from her mouth. Her pipe scattered to the floor, spilling out the contents she had managed to get in it. "All Mother's Tits..." something Noah could only assume was an expletive of some sort.

[InnocentSerenity]

 

The calm sound of water, with nothing else to bother him had began to lull Rokan into a sleep. As his eyes flickered open and closed, his focus began to fade. Even as he began to nod off, he continued humming, unintentionally reciting lyrics he had remembered from his old days at school. Rokan couldn’t figure out where he had heard the words, his mind focused more on shutting down. As his eyes began to shut tight, he could  hear an odd crackling sound coming from nearby. Almost as if it had come from his free hand, carelessly hanging from the railing. 

 

But then a rude shouting from a duo of critics woke him from his reverie, and Rokan reflexively pulled his hand back as he felt an odd shocking sensation. In his surprise, he cried out in surprise. “What the heck was that?” He looked as his left hand, no marks on it despite what had happened. “Probably imagining things again.”

Looking back over the edge of the crow’s nest, he saw his two critics, the red-haired lancer and his wyvern. “Hey, I wasn't even that loud!” Rokan spoke back to the man, both hands gripped tightly on the railing. "Eh, fine then."

Rokan sat back down on the floor, arms crossed as he grumbled to himself. “Bunch of uncultured idiots. The Sages love my voice. Said I had some of the best pipes in the village.”

[rokubiraijuu]

Don't live just to fight? Noah doesn't say anything, only watching as she talks. Her voice sounds level, but that's not the kind of thing you just say to someone out of the blue. Funny, were it anyone else telling him this, he'd probably brush them off, tell them it's none of their business what he decides to fight for and that if he wants to live his life for it, then they should buzz off. But maybe it's because, well, Leofric's dead now, and he doesn't have any reason to keep pursuing revenge. Looking at her — eye patch, scarred face, missing arm and all — he can't help but feel like she's cautioning him from experience. He'd noticed that she doesn't exactly seem to fit in with the rest of this group, so what's her deal? He decides not to ask.

 

When the pipe tumbles to the ground, he's the first to quickly stoop and pick it up for her — two years doesn't seem to have beaten everything his mother taught him about manners out of his head — offering it back as he stares at the scattered contents of the pipe on the boards. "I'm not trying to just live to fight or something," he replies, a touch defensively. "But I don't mind it, and I got nothing better to do right now, so why not?"

 

He thinks back to her during the scuffle in Lorelle, the way she'd been so prepared to cut down everyone in their path without even sparing them with the mercy that some of the other knights had offered, the way she'd wanted to race him to Leofric's head at first. "You don't seem like you'd mind living your life to fight, yourself. A little weird you're the one telling me this."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

She placed the pipe firmly back into her mouth. "Thanks squirt." this time she managed to fill it properly. Perhaps, her emotions weren't causing her to shake quite as much. *fttttttttt* she struck a match lightning quick, maybe so fast the squirt didn't see what she did. She was still proud of how quickly she could do it. She'd have to respond to what he said though... or well... she didn't have to she guessed but...

"Wasn't exactly my choice. Not all of us fight because we want to." an off-white puff of smoke broke free from her nose as she exhaled. "Perhaps, it not that obvious with how l am on the battlefield. l accept that. Further, it's not an excuse. Those men choose knew what they were doing. They had chosen that life... or at the least accepted it. Their hearts stained in the darkness of their souls. Men and women like that are the reason people like me, and maybe you, exist. We have to fight because if we don't no one else will. Leofric was your loose end. He was what forced your hand. He's gone now. You can walk away. You can live another life if you so choose. l can't. Even if the reason l fight is gone... l've been forever changed by it. Physically, mentally, spiritually. The person l was before, she's dead. She's just a ghost. As much of one as the people that are supposed to be here fighting in my place. But... they are gone now. l'm all that's left. The difference between us is that your whole life lies before you. You can shape it as you see fit. l didn't get that choice. l never will."

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Bellow deck, the fully armored Arthur hung upside down, his feet gripping on to a support beam on the celling. Pools of sweat gathered on the floor below him, after all he was on his 50th pull up and showing no signs of wanting to stop. This time Arthur knew a fight was coming up, and if he knew it was coming all he could do was train; train as hard as he could, get ready and prepare.

[Bfroger6]

In the darkness of the below-deck area of the ship, a shadow lurked, gripping a long staff, she slit behind barrels and supplies, careful not to disturb her surroundings, as she had been taught. Assassination was difficult. Assassination by poison as well, as she needed to remain fully hidden, as if she'd never existed in the first place. The poison as well. In this case, magic. Sleep magic. And she found a perfect target, whatever they were doing.

Herrman stopped, looking at the man-bat doing vertical push-ups. If he could not endure her assault then he wasn't prepared to fight. Slowly, she held her staff up, silently...until the boat rocked and she screamed, a barrel nearly toppling over her.

Dropping to her knees, she started sobbing, loud enough for Arthur to notice, rolled to her back, holding a staff to her chest, it started glowing, encasing her in the soothing aura.

 

And she began to snore.

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Arthur dropped from the ceiling, onto his back rolling forward to his feet as he heard a sound. On instinct he got in a combat stance, arms forward ready to grapple or attack. Slowly he approached the area where he had heard noise from, and found the sleeping Herrman. He sighed and relaxed, the girl must have fallen over in her sleep. "Has she been sleeping here the whole time?" He scratched his hair, thinking something was amiss. "Hey, wake up. This is no time to be sleeping." He shook her with his gauntlet. 

[Bfroger6]

Herrman napped quietly.

However, when Arthur shook her, she instinctively slapped his face with the staff's bottom end, making a red mark of his nose unless he did something to dodge the strike.

She laid on the floor still gripping the staff when she noticed what she'd done. "O-oh, Mr. Arthur! A-are you ok?"

[rokubiraijuu]

Listening to her talk, Noah doesn't interject, but as she continues, he finds himself growing more and more incredulous, to the point where by the time she finishes, he has to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "You 'never will'?" He scoffs, turning around to face the wide stretch of river in front of them, listen to the quiet waves lapping at the wood of the prow. "Tch, you even hear yourself? You don't know what's going to happen — what, you some sort of fortune teller or somethin', convinced that what's gonna be is just gonna be?

 

I get that some shit happened to you; you don't have to talk about it, and maybe it's worse than what happened to me or whatever. I ain't here to play the Pain Games. But that's pretty dumb, to say that no matter what, you can't ever change again. It happened once and you think that's just it, it's over, you're done changing? How come I can and you can't? Unless you're plannin' to die sometime soon, you've got life before you too."

 

His voice starts to tremble slightly towards the end, so he stops before he can get anymore worked up. Once everything's quiet, though, he feels a little embarrassed — he barely knows this strange, foreign woman; all he knows is that she's a menace with a sword and has some backed-up baggage. After a moment, he shrugs, as though to mitigate the intensity of his earlier tone. "Ma'd say it's not my place to tell others what to think, so — eh, maybe I shouldn't have gone off like that."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"I..." Akane didn't really now how to respond to that. She never really thought about life after... Was she even allowed to return to the world as she once had? Her old life had already ended. The young girl she once was... she buried her along with her people. She performed the funeral rites just like she had for every other departed soul that day. She touched her arm... or what was left of it. Proof that young girl was dead. She touched her eye... further proof. She removed her eyepatch to do so, showing underneath just how extensive the scarring was. The ruined flesh perhaps even more ghastly then Noah would've imagined.

"No you're right. I've... definitely made an error in my words. Perhaps I can. But, I've lost sight as to how. There's no noble reason I fight. I do not fight to protect something... I don't fight for reasons that are even my own. I fight cause I'm the only one left. If I don't, my clan will never receive the justice they deserve. I don't know if this anger... this vengeance, the wrath that burns inside me is my own or someone else's. I don't know who I am anymore... and once I finish my mission, I no longer know what I will do. I no longer have a name. I am only the "One Armed Demon". My only purpose in this world is to enact revenge for a clan that's been dead for twenty years. Once I fulfill that purpose... I no longer will have one. All my life is, is that of a tool. A tool of vengeance... what's left for me afterwards? A tool is made for a purpose. If it does not have one... why does it exist? If I lost my life on this journey, no one would mourn. There's no one left to grieve. Surviving would be more of a curse than a luxury. I'd damn myself to a purposeless life. One without a name, a home... or a reason to go on other than to exist."

[rokubiraijuu]

Hearing her go quiet, he realizes he probably had overstepped. Without his parents . . . he doesn't know what to say is right. And I thought I knew everything when I was with 'em. Thought they were always wrong. Tears burn in the backs of his eyes, and he swallows and tosses his head to push them away. Making himself feel sad again isn't going to help anything, isn't going to bring them back. 

 

He doesn't know what to say to her. Sounds like she could use some of her own words — don't just fight for revenge. But who's he to tell her that? When he'd first become a gladiator, he'd thought he had it worse than everyone else. He was always ready with something to say, some lesson to teach the other fighters, some martyr complex to put on and prove that no one could ever understand him. Yeah, two years of being looked at like the kid he was had shaped him up eventually and left him with some things to think about in terms of how he talked to other people.

 

Realizing he'd sunk back into his old bitter ways just then, acting like he knew better than her, fills him with a kind of guilt. Finally, he turns to face her, and grimaces a little at the sight of her now-revealed scarred eye socket. He's seen some grisly wounds ( and inflicted some of them himself ), but it's not a pretty sight, for sure. "If you're lookin' for answers . . . sorry, but I don't think I have them," he replies quietly. "Be honest, I'm not so sure what to do with myself either. Ha . . . " He gives a dry, humorless laugh. "Like great, I killed Leofric, so . . . now what? I mean, I always knew killing him wouldn't bring 'em back, but I thought I'd feel satisfied or something. And I guess I do, kinda, but now what? 'Cause of my ma's situation, we lived in hiding, so I didn't have any friends. Now that they're gone, I . . . " He's quiet for a long stretch of seconds, gazing out at the water again. And then, in a shaky voice, he finishes with another pained little laugh: " . . . I guess no one'd mourn me either.

 

— But I mean, whatever," he quickly adds, giving another shrug as a show of dismissiveness. "I'll figure it out. I guess you'll figure it out too. Make my own purpose, or . . . something."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"I would." she added after a rather long silence. She placed her eyepatch back over the place her eye had once been. "Perhaps our lives have taken... a turn we did not wish. Forged in the fires of vengeance and pain. I'll be honest. I thought to ask you how it felt. How taking the head from his shoulders felt. It's why I didn't try to win. I'd deny you the thing I myself seek. I wondered if somehow... finishing my quest would give me purpose. But... it's seems it wouldn't. But, I would mourn if you gave up your life. I'd mourn for a life that knew naught but suffering. One that was never given a chance to blossom. One seen as less than it was... unjustly. I'd add your name if I knew it to my epitaph. As I've added my own. Who I was died. But... who I am still lives. Whoever they are. Maybe I will find a purpose. Maybe l'll understand who I am one day. Maybe we both will." She paused for awhile, before taking a deep breath.

"You know, your soul is as blue as the waves we are staring at. Crystal. Sparkling bright like the sun. Symbolizing water. Further... I know it's your soul's original origin. Despite everything you've been through... you've never let it break you. You're stronger than me. Water symbolizes freedom, change, wisdom, life... purity. There is others but they aren't quite as important. What is, you stand at a crossroads now. I can't make that choice for you. I just want you to be sure this is what you want. You've been forced to stand and fight thus far. You don't have to anymore. But once again. I already know what you're answer will be. You'd not be here I said as much myself. I guess all I can do is watch over you now... another lost soul without a home. I feel like the Mother of the World is trying to teach me something that I've been unable to on my own."

[rokubiraijuu]

"Yeah, well maybe she should've sent you a better teacher," he jokes wryly, already feeling his spirits begin to lift again because of her words, but also because moping doesn't solve problems. Mother of the World, huh? He's never heard of anything like that, but maybe it's common where this woman's from. He would ask, if it wasn't clear that her past was a bit of a sore spot.

 

He doesn't know anything about whether he's stronger than her either ( though he likes to believe he's tough — watch out, world! ) but what she says about his soul catches his interest. Blue, like water? His soul's origin? It sounds like the kind of voodoo nonsense his dad would've just laughed at, but he's always felt a kinship with water, so maybe it's not all bogus. 

 

"I've always felt most at home on a boat," he says. Part of him wants to elaborate, but the words catch in his throat, not quite ready to come out. His happiest memories of childhood flicker back through his mind — mostly impressions; hardly any of them are concrete images. "Guess we'll just have to see what happens."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Spoiler

 

 

"l think she has it out for me. l swear..." she said a small smile creeping on her face. Accompanied with another puff of off-white, she exhaled heavily. She let go of the the pent up emotion in the breath. Maybe she didn't know what to do now, but she had time. She had time to find her purpose. One beyond the vengeance for her lost clan.

"Hmmm, l thought you might be. l suppose it's not true of all those that embody water, but many of the ones l've known over the years have loved the open sea. Water dances free without a care in the world, and boats are the best way to see their performance. And we will. Our journey is a long one. Our paths for now intertwined. l don't know what we'll see on the way, or if in the end our destination is even the same. But, the road there is perhaps the more important detail."

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Arthur recoiled back instinctively, taking the hit on the chin instead. He rubbed his chin the place where he had been struck, trying to readjust it. "I'm fine, I can take a hit. I should ask you, what were you doing napping there?"