#interaction: chryssaetos

[sunncutter]

[ GARDEN ] - The Viscount has a greenhouse attached to his estate, hosting his collection of flowers both normal and enchanted, imported from a variety of places and modified by his own hands...

Sin had his contrivances with the party as a "Knight" on duty, certainly, but he hadn't quite expected a storm of this caliber to bear down upon the lot of them. Had Father Sky also been displeased with this arrangement...? Or is this only coincidence? Either way... Well, he's soaked.

and thoroughly, at that... it feels incredibly odd to not have his head covered, but the cloth had somehow gotten soaked through before he got inside, so... whatever. has his hair gotten a bit longer?

In any case, the Viscount had the sense to allow them all to take refuge within his home, and his attendants have been ordered to provide them with food and drink while they're trapped. It's more than he expected, but were these not the circumstances in which Lady Sue was taken captive during the war? In the end, he must always remain vigilant.

...That being said, he has his own agenda to attend to.

"Lyn of the Lorca..." He says, simply, with only the faintest warmth. "Well met."

She isn't hard to find; when he had heard of the Viscount's spacious garden, he had thought he could find her there, surrounded by the providence of Mother Earth. For his part, Sin finds it a strange place, and perhaps she thinks so too. But it isn't his place to ask.

"I understand these things are... Painful. Now, most of all. And I will never weigh your shoulders down, clanswoman." His head is bowed, and the faint scratch of leather against the floor is the only sound that fills the space between them. "But I want to know. Of you. Of the Lorca."

When I think of Sacae, of the way things used to be, my heart aches unbearably. Sin doesn't say. The pain is so acute, it threatens to topple me. Please allow me this one selfishness.

It was easier to take a breath, she found, when she was not so surrounded by people. Well, it was perhaps not the people's fault - she had not felt quite so discomfited on march, nor even she had to admit when she was in her own household at Castle Caelin - and although she could not blame them the circumstances, it was the panic and the press that brought a static to the fringes of sensation.

She had only intended to take a moment, but when Lyn found herself surrounded by nature, it ended up being rather more than one moment. Plants both familiar and common, to outright rare, to ones she thought she might never see again - and although it was encased in the high glass walls of a greenhouse, she simply felt more at home in this moment, than any other that night.

"Hm? Ah, Sin of the Kutolah," she greeted, with a dip of her head, and a faint smile. "I see we have the same instincts. I hope you've been enj - "

Ah, but it seemed as though he had not, she could see it in his every movement, and the heavy tone in his voice as he brought up the one faraway, painful thing they both seemed so strongly to yearn for.

She didn't realize that she had sat down when he spoke, but she found herself on the low wall, hands knotted in her lap for a moment. It had been different, with those Sacaeans she had met in her army, and on march with Eliwood and Hector - they had appeared to know, the word of mouth passing quickly as to the fate of the Lorca. They had understood it a subject carefully trodden.

Sin seemed to know this, too - but more forward than the other Kutolah, wasn't he?

She cleared the lump in her throat, nodded once. "It is painful," she admitted, pausing a moment to allow the heat that formed in her chest to dissipate before continuing. "I'm...the last that remains of the Lorca. There was a...a great tragedy, and while those responsible have fallen, it..."

The heat traveled upward, pressed into her throat. "It isn't enough. I know that...I've been told that I should move forward, but..."

A tear slipped down her cheek, furious. "But I find that difficult, as well. Sin of the Kutolah."

[sunncutter]

She had not known this man for long, but there was a trust there that could not be broken. It was something that was not forged, not earned through the work of delicate steps in the way that these Fodlaners, or even the Lycians did – but a trust that was as innate to her as breathing, as opening her eyes to see the light of the sun, of knowing who would welcome her on the plains and who she could welcome in turn. As time went on, as tradition held or shifted, as tragedy struck or kindled, this instinct grew stronger and more fierce, simultaneously understanding and selective. 

Lyn heard the shift in his tone of voice, however subtle – the Kutolah men were not known for their emphatic expression of face or voice, but she had picked up a thing or two, she thought. 

She knew before he could even begin his sentence that he bore with this shift in tone a heartbreak. 

"Invaded?!" She was on her feet immediately, the only storm to her ears now the thunder of her heartbeat. They were no longer in the midst of a party, taking no part in merriment – her teeth ground against her cheek, her fingernails digging crescent moons into her palms. 

"I had not known – Djute? And Bulgar?!" The capital was a well-regarded town, a hub for travelers and merchants and natives alike – that it would have been invaded was not merely an act of violence, but a declaration of war. 

"In the future? I don't understand – if there is violence against Sacae, then we should not be here. We will need to travel back immediately. I...Eliwood is here, we have stopped calamity before – surely I, we - " 

It felt almost ridiculous, to be enjoying a foreign lordlings birthday party, in that moment, when her beloved home was burning. The fine gossamer cloth of her dress, something that she had allowed to be selected carefully in preparation of the event, felt silly, and never before had she so missed the weight of a blade at her side. 

"You need not even ask my assistance. I do not know the scope – oh, I wish that Rath had told me - !! It doesn't matter. If Sacae is in danger, then we must rescue her. Immediately. We cannot allow it to fall into further destruction – she has seen enough of it!" 

those black flowers, from which the poison of love was made.

(continued from here.)

[sunncutter]

Spotting the woman from across the way, there's a brief spark of intrigue that lights up inside Sin's chest.

It isn't the easiest to tell, but he swears he can see Sacaen patterns on pieces of her clothes, the same as the ones that mark his collar in shape, if not in color. They draw his eyes to her, in the hope of finding something from home.

...Sin is willing to admit to himself that he's been terribly homesick, lately. He won't let it get in the way of his duty, of course, but he can't deny that he's been longing for the plains he's always known, to retreat back into what is familiar and leave all this behind him.

But he won't. To run would be to betray his lord, the most important mission he's been given. And tt's that shot of remembrance that leads him right to her side.

"...Are you from Sacae?" he says, quiet, already unhooking a pearl from the thread along his neck into his outstretched hand.

"Sin. Of the Kutolah." He can feel his voice strain a little. "It doesn't matter if our tribes are different... Know you will find respite in me, if you need it. Take this as a favor."

It was, undeniably, a lovely night, enchanting in all the ways she expected that their host was hoping for – the night and the sea created a shimmering inky canvas for the cascade of stars, shimmering distantly, and the glistening sands under the warm light of torch and brazier. To say nothing of the attendees, each magnificent in their own ways, made all the more vibrant by their desire to be here, to enjoy the magic of the night.

And Lyn still wished that she could have been on a blanket under the expanse of sky, feeling the blades of grass prick against her skin and to know that no matter where she turned, the long reach of Sacae would be there to embrace her.

Her time in Caelin prepared her, and simultaneously could never properly train her expectations for how massive a truly noble event could be – and all for a birthday? All for a dance? She had seen some gatherings in Lycia, but none to this degree.

There was always the faint sensation of someone hovering just over her shoulder, and she wasn't quite so surprised to turn and find that, indeed, there was someone there. Halfway prepared to curtsy, as she had been taught, Lyn's face brightened instantly to hear the name of home, precious home.

"You are of Sacae?" She spun to face him properly, and she could see it, she could see it in the set of his eyes and the angles of his face, and taking that pearl from his hands felt the same as accepting a piece of that precious earth, exchanging it for her own star, plucked from Father Sky himself.

"The Kutolah! I have a dear friend of the Kutolah. He was rather taciturn as well," she added, a gentle tease. "My name is Lyn, of the Lorca. Sin of the Kutolah, you may consider me your clansman, if ever you need call on me."

[loyaldeserter]

continued from here @chryssaetos

The intense feelings in the Sacaen man's eyes are apparent immediately, his stance tense and his words moreso. Heath cannot blame him. Bern has committed atrocities, getting worse by the day, and he would not be surprised if this man has been affected by them.

"I am Heath. I serve the Church as a knight, currently." He motions to the attendant to continue without him. Hyperion whines, but it would not be fair to leave this interaction so abruptly. And he would prefer for what he is about to say to only fall on the ears that need to hear them. "Your eyes and ears do not deceive you. I am formerly of the army of Bern."

This far from Elibe, Heath shouldn't assume that revealing his desertion will place a target on his back. Not one that puts him immediately in peril, anyway. But there are many from Elibe at Garreg Mach, and part of him will always be on guard for those who may see him as an opportunity for reward.

"This...may not soothe you entirely, but I am a deserter. They ordered me to slaughter innocent civilians, and my unit refused." He does not have to say this, but the way this young man looks at him like a cornered prey animal makes his heart sink. Bern, land of his birth, once again shows why he forsook it. "There were...few survivors. Such is how Bern operates, even upon its own."

He doesn't really know what else to say.

the light shot diamonds from his eyes