#{ this took a minute sorry asdsgdgsdg energy has been so bad lately... }

[finnuf]

{  * defensive assist  }

finn wouldn't say he expected this, but after losing a war he was raised to endure, he tries to prepare for the worst. no, eyeball monsters slamming through the windows of lotus hall's ballroom was not on his list of assumed events, but...it doesn't surprise him as much as it might most people. some of these people are probably cushy nobles that have never known violence a day in their lives, so horrified by the idea of so much as an injury.

finn is used to fighting, so as people flee every which way, his course of action is clear: fight. most people heed laurelia's advice, providing some semblance of order, but it's still mostly chaos, and finn is glad vivian was beside him for the speeches, otherwise he would be among the frantic trying to find her.

sure, he has an employer; he's supposed to be a bodyguard today, so finding her is also urgent, but finn trusts ziyu enough to take care of herself and sorry, but his sister takes priority. finn has few people left in this world, and besides, ziyu already paid him so handsomely that even if he ultimately fails at his job and word gets around that he's a shitty mercenary, he'll be set for long enough to find something else to do.

vivian is top priority. he thinks it's only fair, after the way he abandoned her last year. now that he has his head on straight again he realizes in many ways it's just them; he and vivian against the world, or maybe he's still being too much of a stubborn idiot. many people he lost are self-inflicted; he ran into leila and yura here again as well, and he hopes they'll be fine.

he can't worry about them, though. right now, it's vivian by his side, and he drags her along with him to fetch his weapon so he doesn't lose her, just as much for how tiny she is as anything else.  

by the time they return to the ballroom, fully prepared to fight, the mogalls outnumber the fighters. finn hopes the numbers will even out as more people gather their weapons, but it seems even more filter in through the windows every time one is felled.

speak of the devil: one locks it's large eye on vivian, and thankfully, the creature isn't too fast. it summons its dark miasma for a moment before it attacks, so there's a brief time to prepare–– at least long enough for him to step in front of his sister as the creature hurls an orb of dark magic. he doesn't know if blocking would help against the magic, but he only partially gets his sword up in time, and tanks the rest of the hit.

it burns, but just a little. "i'm good," he assures his sister, but that miasma forms around their enemy again. "get ready to dodge."

* @ufvivian