pockets-full-of-bees

[pockets-full-of-bees]

I figured this fic would need to spend a little bit of time in the timeskip phase to establish characters. 26k words later it’s finally caught up to the prologue. I may be bad at pacing and/or planning. That, and this one leans more heavily on head-canon than anything else I’ve published, including personalities for TWSITD who aren’t focused on in canon.

The main pair haven’t even spoken a word to each other yet. Seiros did spit on her boot though! So that’s a good start!

Distant Blue Skies on AO3, in which Shez complicates a perfectly straightforward post-CF story by falling into it like a lit stick of dynamite then doubling down.

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Byleth

Jeralt never told them what chess even is, but they win anyway. They nearly lose once, but turn green and pull out a win before passing out.

They need to be reminded by Sothis that there are no “enemy phase units” and that they can’t put every piece on a wyvern. They give little gold stars to pieces that do well.

Shez

They stumble into a tournament, get to the finals despite not being registered and insisting on playing two games at once, one per hand. It doesn’t make them play any worse, but it doesn’t really make them play any faster either. They love trying to aura farm by flipping their pieces mid-move, but they just look like a dork at all times. Half of the time they throw their pieces to move them.

They need to be reminded by Arval that yes, chess has turns, no, you can’t move most pieces past each other, no, you can’t and shouldn’t eat the pieces. They’re astonished that each side only has eight pawns and not several hundred.

They challenge Byleth and lose game one in a fool’s mate, turn orange for a minute, and swear revenge. They win game two but pout that other than taking the king, they “lost in just about every way you can lose.” They draw game three when Byleth turns green and becomes really racist for some reason. They draw game four and call it a day, shake Byleth’s hand, and leave to make out with them.

Sothis

Cheats.

Arval

Also cheats.

Edelgard

Starts a game, makes one move, does nothing for five years.

Really really loves taking consecutive pieces with her queen. Is pleased whenever she can promote.

Cannot win a game against Byleth to save her life.

Assumes Shez is cheating, but won’t openly accuse them. Apologizes later, kinda.

Hubert

Poisons his opponent, unrelated to the game.

Keeps accusing Shez of cheating to their face, even after Edelgard tells him to knock it off.

Ferdinand

Plays well, but announces his every move with bombast befitting his noble personage.

Dorothea

Flirts using the pieces. Is a lot better than she lets on.

Petra

Does not have knowing of the rules before she is playing, but snatches victory with much swiftness. Explains that Brigid has a game with much sameness, but it is having poison.

Linhardt

Naps, still manages to win most games.

Caspar

Has nobody to remind him not to eat the pieces. Does not chew.

Bernadetta

Plays by mail. Most of each letter is a scratched out apology.

Monica

Has painted her queen to look like Lady Edelgard, refuses to endanger her.

Ladislava

Eliminated in round one. Everyone is really sad about it.

Randolph

Eliminated in round one. Everyone is really sad about it.

Fleche

Sneaks into the tournament to yell at whoever beat Randolph.

Dimitri

Loses a piece early, declares revenge on whatever piece took it and every piece it holds dear. Calms down when Dedue gets back from weeding with “lunch.”

Does not think Shez is cheating, even though they themselves aren’t sure if they’re cheating or not.

Dedue

Castles right away every time, tends to trap his king.

Felix

Doesn’t have time for this nonsense. When he does play, he never defends his pieces: if they die, that’s their own damn fault.

Ingrid

Stares wistfully at her knights every time she touches one.

Sylvain

Flirts using the pieces, but badly.

Ashe

Stares wistfully at his knights every time he touches one. Gets really sad when he has to sacrifice a rook.

Mercedes

Would rather be playing Pandemic, but doesn’t make a fuss about it.

Annette

Comes up with a song to narrate the game. It quickly goes off the rails and becomes about a bear. Mercie loves it.

Rodrigue

Tells his opponent a story about how when he and Lambert were kids they would get in these very serious snowball fights. He misses those days. Felix rolls his eyes the entire time.

Claude

Keeps alluding to a trick he has up his sleeve. It’s just en passant. Tries to sneak extra pieces onto the board. Leaves halfway through the game.

Tells Shez he wants to play against them, and keeps saying he’ll be right there for two years. When he finally shows up, he tells them they’re actually playing against all of the Adrestians in five minutes, but he’ll pay them a lot of money to do it.

Does not care if Shez is cheating because he assumes everyone is.

Hilda

Makes it incredibly racist out of nowhere, doubles down.

Lorenz

Refuses to let his pawns do anything, heaven forfend they take a piece on his behalf!

Raphael

Loses, doesn’t mind, gushes about how his little sister plays chess, eats an entire ham.

Ignatz

Stares wistfully out the window every time he touches one of his knights. His chessboard is beautiful.

Lysithea

Takes her turn quickly, reads during her opponent’s turn, has an uncanny ability to take knights.

Marianne

Keeps her horses safely stabled, apologizes to every piece she loses.

Leonie

Apes Jeralt’s every single move, which isn’t really a bad call.

Holst

Sick that day. When he does show up, he doesn’t let anyone challenge Hilda, who doesn’t even want to play. Sounds good doing it, though.

Judith

Is bemused by the boy’s antics but only steps in once he almost gets them all kicked out of the tournament.

Yuri

Sacrifices way more pieces than necessary. Isn’t actually good at games with perfect information. Looks good doing it, though.

Hapi

Loses a piece, sighs, a monster eats the chessboard. She shrugs and decides to cheer on her Coco instead of setting up a new board.

Constance

Aggressive when playing black, passive when playing white, cheered on by her dear Hapi either way.

Balthus

Loses the game, loses all his money betting on himself. Does not have a shirt on at any point.

Rhea

Oddly obsessed with pawn promotion. Burns down the chessboard if thwarted.

Seteth

Laments that he is no longer the man whose mere presence would cause the chessboard to tremble. Insists on playing Flayn’s games for her.

Flayn

Wishes the game wasn’t so violent, but wishes her brother would let her play regardless.

Manuela

Has been playing against Hanneman for two days.

Hanneman

Has been playing against Manuela for two days.

Catherine

Has to be reminded that the queen is not the piece you have to protect.

Shamir

Sacrifices pieces without a moment’s hesitation or remorse, which is perfectly normal in chess.

Cyril

Doesn’t know the rules to chess, leaves to go mop the floors.

Jeralt

Really good despite claiming he’s too old to keep up. Only loses to Shez because his hand cramps up and he makes an accidental move. Byleth is not amused, but calms down when Shez fixes the damn clasp on his bracer.

Alois

Takes the time to make a pun every single turn. Only Jeralt ever laughs.

Jeritza

Takes pieces at every single opportunity, is relieved when he loses.

Aelfric

Loses his queen early, tries to sacrifice everything to promote a pawn, fails.

Thales

Sacrifices all but one pawn to promote it. Nukes the board when he loses.

Kronya

Needs to be reminded that impersonating her opponent and moving for them is illegal. Needs to be reminded that stabbing is illegal. Neither reminder works.

Solon

Traps his opponent’s side of the board in Zahras, still loses.

Cleobulus

Talks up their precious rooks, gets angry when they get taken without really doing much.

Epimenides

Keeps trying to get Shez to have that tiebreaker with Byleth.

Traps his opponent’s side of the board in Zahras with only his king, angrily asks how much more he must sacrifice when this immediately gets him mated.

(Other/barely characterized slithery people)

Lethe

Fixates on a single pawn, sacrifices everything else to keep it safe, stabs her opponent for good measure. Is the reason why Shez can never remember the rules. Never explains anything, dies.

Anaximandros

Calls his opponent pathetic when they lose a single piece, then breaks their arm.

Chilon

Breaks the chair by sitting down, crushes his pieces when he tries to move them.

Pittacus

Throws the game so nobody will be upset with her, slinks out as soon as she can.

The Dolofonos

Nearly disqualified for duplicate registrations until it becomes clear that they’re multiple people.

Myson

His chess set has way too many arms.

Odesse

Gets distracted watching Cleobulus, forgets who his opponent is.

Bias

I forgot about Bias.

[pockets-full-of-bees]

I’m trying to figure out this idiot (affectionate)’s outfit. I figured I had it more or less down minus a couple of oddities, chalking up an odd black patch on her chest to a low-quality shadow on her gameplay model.

So, I checked her cutscene model once I got home and now my brain is broken.

I have no idea what material the middle of her torso armor is made of. It’s got a seam, it’s got a crease, and yet it holds a rigid edge over the little metal/leather plates below it. It could be leather with a very worn crease? maybe? It’s also a little shiny (everything is in this cutscene, since it’s raining—but it’s like that in-game and in other scenes too), but not as shiny as the metal, so it points to oiled leather? I guess?

But that thing on her left breast. It’s rigid, it can hold what looks like a beveled edge. It’s connected to the metal below it with a little… rivet? And that is metal under there, because it’s the same piece as the very shiny piece on the other side of the horizontal belt. And, it’s connected to the armor on her back with yet another little red clasp. Of course.

The best explanation I’ve got is that she once had a chest piece that was pretty similar to F!Byleth’s—it lifts and supports! But then she probably trashed part of it and had to sort of cobble together a bit of another chest piece on top of it. Minus that horizontal belt and the left breast armor, the main part of her outfit makes sense as a whole piece: some metal over leather with an attached thick cloth skirt (with a silly slit up the side but shh. Fire Emblem.)

Her pauldrons look like they’re attached with strips of cloth taken from her scarf, which is a nice touch.

FEH is little/no help. They seem to have just decided that everything underneath her armor is a single tunic: the jacket, left sleeve, and skirt combined. The left breast armor is also a mirror of the right, and the seam/crease in the middle of her side aren’t present. I can’t really blame them.

ANYWAY I am coming out of this feeling even more vindicated by having her stripping be a goddamn ordeal when I write smut.

[pockets-full-of-bees]

Seiros having to protect an idiot

WIP stages below the cut

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:[

I wasn’t going for sad, but when I zoomed out it was right there

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POV: You are looking at SHEZ!

Did more hair practice~

WIP stages below break

Silly shading layers

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Quick (for me) SHEZ! to practice hair

And learned I really need a ref to place her facial features like this. Ended up functionally tracing her jaw but with extra steps (tiny adjustments and squinting)

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Two of my favorite dorks napping (and probably holding hands)!

WIP stages below the break

I’m definitely gonna have to learn to shade hair better than I have been, or Shez’s collar and arm will be impossible to read—they’re not about to just poke each other with pauldrons, after all.

(it has nothing to do with not wanting to draw them no way)

I really do like Hapi’s Hopes design, with maybe the exception of her just slapping on the Dark Knight pauldrons to wear all the time. It doesn’t look bad, but it does make me wish they’d riffed on it a bit more like they did with the waist/hip armor: it’s leather for her, and it kinda works with her chaps.

[pockets-full-of-bees]

Two of my favorite dorks napping (and probably holding hands)!

WIP stages below the break

I’m definitely gonna have to learn to shade hair better than I have been, or Shez’s collar and arm will be impossible to read—they’re not about to just poke each other with pauldrons, after all.

(it has nothing to do with not wanting to draw them no way)

I really do like Hapi’s Hopes design, with maybe the exception of her just slapping on the Dark Knight pauldrons to wear all the time. It doesn’t look bad, but it does make me wish they’d riffed on it a bit more like they did with the waist/hip armor: it’s leather for her, and it kinda works with her chaps.

[pockets-full-of-bees]

[pockets-full-of-bees]

I may be learning to finish lineart before playing with colors

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Late scene I’m cooking for a fic I’m writing.

“Seiros…”

“I know that it is somewhat crude,” Seiros said, “but it is what I could manage. I noticed that your face fell when you would look in the mirror, and…” She threaded the cloth though a rough hole she had apparently made in the remaining wing from her crown, then hooked it under. “I cannot do anything for your hair, or replace your other ornamentation. I know this is not the scarlet you once favored. But, perhaps a splash of color could help.”

Shez focused on the warm hand against her as her friend cinched the cape, bringing the wing flush with her shoulder. It was turned inwards, which made it feel like…

Seiros met her eyes in the mirror, and visibly brightened.

It didn’t do anything to hide her missing arm, but that had stopped bothering her months ago. “Is that why…? Your cape, Seiros.”

Seiros looked down for a moment. “Yes. I admit I wasted most of the material, and so it is somewhat short, but it was all that was available.”

That was true enough: everything in Shambhala was gray, at its brightest. Seiros could have probably gotten away with sneaking some scarlet cloth into one of their supply requests, but—she wouldn’t. And besides, having her cloak over one shoulder, her wing over another…

“I love it, Seiros,” she said.

I love you.

[pockets-full-of-bees]

I might’ve figured out cloth!

By this point, Seiros maybe should have an outfit change, but she’s already got two differences: missing the crown and a shortened cape. (And her bracers, which I still need to add)

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Hooray! I kinda drew clothes and a body!

My favorite dork mid-festoonment

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I was today years old when I realized that “The Enlightened One” is Byleth’s Nabatean name (a la “The Beginning,” “The Immaculate One,” “The Benevolent One”)

And I was also today years old when I realized that a) the four scarves in Shez’s Asura outfit have those marks at the end so they look like arms and hands (very visible in legendary f!Shez’s FEH art) and that b) they have four of them (along with their two actual arms) because Asura.

goddammit

[pockets-full-of-bees]

“The Death of Gravitas”

Portrait of Her Highness Princess-Consort Shez von Hresvelg

Painted in Imperial Year 1187 by Her Majesty Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg, after her wife rummaged around in her closet

Titled by Hubert von Vestra

Displayed prominently in the foyer of the Imperial Palace (much to his chagrin)

“You might have fixed her hair before having her sit for the portrait, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, I could have. But this is a portrait of my wife, Hubert—as she is. Your suggestion for the title is appreciated, however: it captures one of her finest qualities.”

“Your Majesty, that was not meant as a— Very well.”

[pockets-full-of-bees]

Hubert is not having a good day