#Leonard Echowatcher

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Tribune Echowatcher of the Blood Legion

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"Glint believed in us. I believe in you. Together, we're going to save the world—and kill the Crystal Dragon.”

I almost forgot to post this fdghgfh what an adventure this was

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Scar meme for my gw2 character. Hes been thru a lot as u can seen

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Fake Gw2 comic book cover of my best friend’s @remnantofahero Commander Conlaeth and my character Tribune Leonard Echowatcher

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Might as well post this on here! Test charm design of My character Leo and @remnantofahero 's Connie

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High and Drunk on Ego

Word count: 7,424

People change and the world keeps turning.

(Snapshots from the shared career of former Pact Commander Conlaeth, and Blood Legion Tribune Leonard Echowatcher; spoiler warnings for: Out of the Shadows, A Star to Guide Us, All or Nothing)

This turned into a bit of a behemoth so just for the sake of not crashing people’s mobile apps when the “read more” doesn’t work, I dumped it over on AO3 instead. Leo belongs to @the-travelers-light, who also wrote The Letter in the final section

Fort Marriner, Lion’s Arch - 1325 AE

Commander,

I hope this letter finds you well. I have drafted it to accompany the arrival of Tribune Leonard Echowatcher, who you may recall was one of the Priory magisters integral to the reclaiming of Claw Island. I have been in contact with the Black Citadel, and seeing as Echowatcher has secured the rank of Tribune for his service with the Pact, they have appointed him as the primary Citadel representative and asked that he serve directly under your command during our campaign against Zhaitan. Keep in mind that while he will be following your orders going forward, he will be making regular reports on our progress to the Black Citadel, who will likely be hoping to use any knowledge we gain to bolster their efforts against Kralkatorrik.

If you have any further questions about the specifics of Echowatcher’s assignment, I am at your disposal.

-Marshal Trahearne

Conlaeth leaned back, rested one elbow on the arm of her chair, and propped her chin up on her hand as she idly flipped the paper over to examine the other side. When she found no additional comments there she skimmed the letter once more, all but completely disregarding the charr who stood shifting his weight impatiently on the opposite side of her desk. Only when he finally cleared his throat, apparently hoping to jumpstart the conversation, did she look up, fixing him with a bored look as she extended her arm and dropped the letter onto her desk. “Tribune Echowatcher,” she said, her tone indeterminate--not a command, or a question, but more like she was simply testing out the sound of the name. Nevertheless he nodded, then squared his shoulders in preparation for whatever order she might issue next. He faltered when all she said was, “let me ask you a question.”

“Of course, Commander,” he conceded quickly, though his ears flattened with visible unease.

Conlaeth did not immediately continue, but flicked her gaze back down to the surface of her desk, as she reached out with a casual air to straighten the letter until it was roughly aligned with the wood grain. Then, equally casually, she said, “what makes the Black Citadel think I’m in need of a babysitter?”

(continued on AO3)

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Gw2 memes to deflect the pain of the recent ls. Featuring @remnantofahero ‘s Connie!

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[X]

@the-travelers-light always comes through with the best shitpost suggestions

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ssoooome episode 4 fic, in the interest of posting some Original Content other than just commissions lmao originally I just wanted to write this because I had feelings about Connie and Almorra interacting again but it’s also just kind of a meandering rewrite of some of the first instance accounting for Connie’s uhhhhh unique circumstances.

Something was wrong.

Yes of course something was wrong. The summit was as good as wasted, the fortress was coming down in chunks around their heads, a shatterer was at their heels, and, judging by their trail of awakened corpses, each twisted and bristling with brand crystals, they now had to worry that Kralkatorrik had a whole new reservoir of minion fodder. But beyond that, Conlaeth couldn’t shake the feeling that something was fundamentally, cosmically wrong. Even without knowing what it was, yet, she felt unbalanced, anxiety prickling up her arms and roiling behind her eyes in a way that she was becoming all too accustomed to as of late.

She held a hand out at her side as a cavalcade of awakened citizens--in the midst of being rescued--came up behind her, silently signalling them to wait as she took slow, hesitant steps into the next chamber of the fortress. It was suspiciously intact, and unsettlingly quiet beyond the persistent crumbling of ancient stone behind them, and the constant vibrations of the Brand--a quivering, reverberating hum that pinched at the back of Conlaeth’s mind, no doubt amplifying her unease. Still moving slowly, like she feared triggering some sort of trap, she raised her hand to the communicator pinned at her collar. “Taimi..?” she breathed. “Leo? Can you hear me? Is the shatterer… gone?”

She was met with a burst of static and the sounds of scuffling, and her nerves spiked until she heard Taimi’s strained voice saying “Aurene! Aurene you can’t- Commander we’re trying to get her out of here but she really wants to fight!”

She was followed by Leo a moment later, adding, “we’re following a path that should lead to the courtyard. If you head east you can meet us there.”

“Right...” Conlaeth frowned down at the tiles beneath her feet, still feeling like she was standing on the precipice of… something, but she turned and gestured for the awakened to join her as she moved further into the room. “I have-” she glanced over her shoulder, doing a quick headcount, “about eight survivors, we’re making our way… to…” She faltered, anxiety instantly thickening into dread as the sound of heavy wingbeats reached her ears. “Shit- shit! Get away from the walls!” she shouted, the last word swallowed up by an ear-splitting roar and a chorus of screams as they were showered in an explosion of rubble. Conlaeth staggered backward, shielding herself with her arms, and heard the unmistakable snap of massive jaws closing above her head. When the shatterer withdrew only seconds later she was scrambling to her feet again, eyes sweeping the room to take stock of the damages before it could come back.

With the exception of some minor injuries, her awakened charges seemed to have endured the attack, but her sword had skittered out of her grasp and was now sitting half-buried by debris. She swore violently as she hurried across the room, urging the others forward with a quick “go! Keep going, I’m right behind you!” as she set about rolling the jagged stones away. As she struggled to find a firm grip on one of the larger pieces, a second pair of hands appeared alongside her own, and when she looked up she met the eyes of one of the citizens, who looked to have been a middle-aged woman at the time of her awakening. Conlaeth accepted the wordless offer of help with eager gratitude, and together they handily freed the sword and moved on to rejoin the others.

And not a moment too soon, it seemed. As they entered the next room the rest of the awakened were retreating nervously from the other end--or rather, from what lumbered there, taking heavy, menacing steps toward them as their escape route closed up behind it, the doorway crystallizing before their eyes.

Before his demise Hierarch Chikere had done little to stand out in Conlaeth’s mind, beyond proposing the sacrifice of the very awakened she was now rescuing, but she recognized his broad-shouldered form, the glimmer of his Mordant Crescent armor, even beneath the sickly miasma that now curled about his form and the ragged crust of brand crystals growing across his skin. His pace was unsteady but unwavering, bones so recently broken and mangled by the shatterer now ignored as he raised a long-handled hammer over his head, preparing to strike. “Should’ve listened to me earlier,” he taunted, his words coming wet and garbled from his throat. “Now they’ll serve the dragon anyway.”

Conlaeth’s stomach turned but she tightened her grip on her sword, ignoring the unsettling familiarity of his words and the heavy, choking memories that came with them. She was just about to order the citizens back behind her when the awakened woman at her side strode confidently forward. “I don’t think so,” she declared, “no more running. We won’t be chained again.” Chikere brought his hammer down toward her and she caught the shaft in both hands, staggering under the force of it. Conlaeth watched in startled awe as, emboldened all at once, the other awakened sprang forward, setting upon Chikere with fists and feet, with anything sharp or heavy that they could reach. He fought them off with all the blind fury an unfeeling dragon minion could muster, casting them aside one by one, but he could not stand up to all of them at once, and soon they had dragged him down to the ground. He threw two of them off, sending them tumbling backward, but before he could find any purchase Conlaeth came to her senses and darted in, planting a heavy boot squarely on his throat. He writhed and snarled up at her and clawed feebly at her greaves, but she simply smiled back before driving the point of her sword down between his eyes, bone and crystal collapsing with a spray of tar and a satisfying crack.

There was an uneasy moment of silence as the body went limp and the awakened stepped back, followed by a ripple of tentative cheers and congratulations as they realized what they had just accomplished. Conlaeth took a slow breath as she examined the room, the apprehension that had ebbed for the moment suddenly beginning to mount again. She felt like a storm was gathering just out of view, something was tugging at her senses with an urgency that she knew, somehow. An instant later Taimi’s voice crackled from the communicator again in a panic, “No- no! The shatterer found us! It’s here!”

“I’m almost there, hold on!” Conlaeth fired back, yanking her sword free and turning her attention to the crystal array that blocked their path. It collapsed with a few heavy, increasingly urgent pommel strikes, and she emerged into the courtyard in time to see Taimi and Leo arriving from another direction, and Aurene scrabbling over the sand, clearly agitated.

She didn’t have time to process that before reality ripped apart.

The rift opened up over their heads with a violent tearing sound, gaping and jittering and pulling at the edges of their world, dragging at every part of Conlaeth’s being as she stumbled forward, gasping like all the air was being sucked out of her chest. Her vision blurred, sound became distant and tinny in her ears as something darted past her and into the air, and something much larger swept over their heads and disappeared into the rift. As quickly as it had formed it snapped shut, with a wave of force that struck Conlaeth like a tidal wave and sent her already unbalanced form wheeling backward, a heavy hand closing around her arm before she could completely lose her footing.

Conlaeth’s breaths came in short gasps as her eyes darted unseeing around the courtyard, her mind slowly beginning to grasp the words that were being spoken around her as she tried to get her feet back securely under her.

“...really definitely ripped apart, and the shatterer definitely flew into the rip... right?” Taimi’s voice, in person now, without the distortion of the communicator.

“You saw that too, then?” Koss. She had nearly forgotten his all-too-timely reappearance during the summit.

“What… was that?” Braham? He must have rendezvoused with the others somewhere along the way.

“No idea..” Taimi admitted. “But the energy readings are- I don’t even know what they are...”

“Leo-” the name left Conlaeth’s lips on a ragged breath and she stopped short, not quite trusting herself to say more.

“I saw it,” he said softly at her side, tentatively letting go of her arm when it seemed like she had regained her balance. His affirmation only twisted her gut even more and she groaned, burying her face in her hands. “It’s gone now though,” Leo added, “it’s okay.”

“No, no no no it’s not okay!” Conlaeth snapped back as she shot him a withering look. “I can’t- I don’t want to go back again!”

“Wait, Commander,” Taimi prompted, “do you know what that was?”

Conlaeth just shook her head slowly, reticent rather than uncertain, but she was yanked suddenly out of her disquieted state when an unexpectedly familiar voice behind her said “it’s not the first time it’s happened, I’ve seen it before.”

She wheeled around with a startled gasp of “General! I uh-” only to falter a second later, hand raised half-way to a salute, when she remembered that she had not served under General Almorra Soulkeeper for quite some time.

“Oh right,” Braham cut in cheerily, “I ran into Almorra and the Vigil on the way here.”

“It’s been a while,” Almorra said, meeting her gaze with a glint of only half-concealed amusement in her eyes. Even in her frazzled state, it set Conlaeth’s teeth on edge.

Still, honest curiosity, and a need to make some sense of the situation, won out over a year-old grudge. “What are you doing…” Conlaeth sheathed her sword, gesturing around their immediate surroundings--intending to encompass both the fortress, and Elona as a whole--”here?”

“We’d been tracking that shatterer ever since Kralk raised it from the dead,” Almorra explained. “Then it downed our airships and vanished through some kind of hole in the sky.” She tilted her head up, toward the spot where just such a hole had been only moments before. “Sound familiar?”

A few seconds passed in uneasy silence, before Taimi piped up again. “So, uh… not to make things like, way worse,” she started slowly, in a tone Conlaeth knew for certain meant things were about to get worse, “but I am getting crazy readings from outside. More of those… things are opening up all over Jahai. The energy signature is insane. And an… entire village was just branded. As in, five minutes ago.”

“What in the flames is going on,” Leo growled, fur bristling in agitation. Conlaeth just sheathed her sword and took a slow, intentional breath--she couldn’t let herself spiral, not now--but when she spared a glance down at her hands, she noted with dismay that they were shaking. She cast Leo what she hoped was a meaningful look. He nodded, and shifted his focus to the others as she turned on her heel to put some distance between herself and the rest of the group. “Taimi, our first priority is finding Aurene,” Leo began. “Take whoever you need and see what you can do. Braham, you and Conlaeth should scout out the village for information, I’ll look into the rifts…”

Their conversation faded into a dull murmur as Conlaeth walked, until she was far enough away to push it out of the way of her own thoughts. Leo could be trusted to coordinate their next efforts, she knew. Maybe more so than she could, in the moment. If she was honest, all she really wanted was to sit this one out, but if that wasn’t an option, Leo knew better than anyone what she could and couldn’t be counted on to do.

The sound of footsteps stirred her back to awareness, but when she turned to see Almorra approaching she had to hold back a frustrated grimace. With another deep breath to steel herself, she said, “what can I do for you, General?”

“You never used to be quite so stoic,” Almorra remarked, cracking Conlaeth’s controlled mask ever so slightly. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever have the opportunity to tell you this so I’m taking the chance while I have it.”

“Look I really don’t think-” Conlaeth started, but Almorra held up a paw to silence her, and proceeded like she had not spoken, as Conlaeth’s cool demeanor continued to degrade.

“You know I’m not at liberty to say much to you now about how the Pact conducts its business, but I can say… if we’d known then even a part of what we know now, the debate over your career might have gone a little differently…” she paused, tail twitching as she weighed her next statement. “And maybe… you’d still be wearing Vigil colors.”

Conlaeth gave a short, bitter laugh. “Well, that’s cold comfort now, isn’t it?” she scoffed, giving up on formality entirely. After all, as Almorra was so pointedly reminding her, she didn’t answer to anyone here. “But it’s probably the closest thing to an apology I’ll ever get so I guess I’ll take it.”

“That’s entirely up to you,” Almorra shrugged, unaffected by Conlaeth’s acerbic reaction. “But you have the full support of my order out here in the field, so I hope you’ll use it.”

When Conlaeth’s only response to that was to roll her eyes and mutter “oh your order,” Almorra gave up on her efforts to make peace. She was turning to rejoin the others when Conlaeth spoke up again. “Wait- can I just ask you one question?” Almorra stopped and faced her again, her ears pricked slightly in curiosity. Conlaeth hesitated again before, with a sharp inhale, the name tumbled from her mouth in disbelief. “Logan Thackeray? Really?”

Almorra bared her teeth in an expression Conlaeth only realized was a smile when it was followed by a peal of of gruff, uproarious laughter. “Ah, cub!” she chuckled. “I promise you of all the prospects we considered he was the best fit for the position.”

“He wasn’t even in the Pact,” Conlaeth insisted.

“He had the expertise we needed. He knows how to coordinate, how to manage resources and command troops. From well behind the front lines,” Almorra said, with a pointed weight on the final point.

Conlaeth just huffed, shaking her head as she shrugged defeatedly. “You made a mistake,” she declared, to which Almorra just growled, though laughter still rippled beneath the sound.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Another momentary pause, as Almorra regarded her thoughtfully. “You know,” she began again, “we’re already formulating a plan to take that shatterer down for good. We’ll canvas the area, find a spot we can turn to our advantage, then lure it down and hit it with everything we’ve got--golems, griffons, wurms, the whole unrestrained force of the Vigil.”

“Sounds like it’s going to be quite a fight,” Conlaeth said, her tone guarded and uncertain.

Almorra nodded, her eyes gleaming with dangerous excitement. “I intend to send Kralk’s lieutenant back to it bit. By. Bit. You know, just to say ‘thank you.’ But I think you should join us, Commander. For old time’s sake.”

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this is actually a couple of disconnected things I wanted to write after the last LS episode but they ended up connected pretty well SO -jazz hands-

With A Steady Hand

word count: 2,998

Connie gets angry, gets called out, and gets real honest about some things

(Leo belongs to @the-travelers-light)

Conlaeth wasn’t setting a particularly rapid pace, but the rest of their party seemed to be instinctively giving her a wide berth nevertheless--no one was quite sure how to ask what had made her so quiet, perhaps, or they could already hazard a guess. Neither Leo nor Braham were telling, either way, wordlessly agreeing that it was not their place.

It was easy enough for Leo to fall into step at her side, and when she paid him no heed for several seconds, he tried to engage her anyway. “So… maybe this goes without saying, but everything he said back there… you know it’s not true.” She kept her steady, trudging pace, eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her, and for several steps gave no indication that she had even heard him. He had just taken in a breath to try again, and got no further than “you-” before she finally spoke.

“Of course it is.”

It took another few paces for Leo to realize he hadn’t misheard her. He faltered, slowing for just a moment, long enough for her to gain some distance ahead of him. “You don’t really believe that,” he said, keeping pace a few steps behind her now, and in his uncertainty his tone settled somewhere squarely between stunned disbelief and futile hope.

Conlaeth finally stopped. She turned to face him, and for just a second he could see the dull, weary ache written across her face, before she flashed him a patronizing smile. “Tribune,” she began, in the clipped tone that told him she intended this to be a short, formal conversation, “you never met me before Claw Island, before I enlisted, but I know you did your homework. And if you had any doubts you could just ask Indira. I never cared about being…” she grimaced, grasping for the right word for a moment before spitting one out. “Good. About integrity. I cared about power, and I cared about notoriety. And frankly I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to suggest that that person doesn’t still exist.”

“What?” Leo narrowed his eyes, ears pressing back against his skull as he peered at her. “Sure, we’ve had our differences, and I’ve questioned your methods plenty, but that doesn’t make you a monster.”

“Doesn’t it?” Conlaeth laughed, but it was a weak sound, with no trace of humor in it. “What have I done, really?” she went on, taking a few steps back in his direction as she threw up her hands in a shrug of defeat. “I let countrysides be razed to nothing. I sent thousands to their deaths without a second thought. I’ve upset the very balance of existence-” she held up her left hand, the hard light shifting and sparking with rift energy as she flexed her fingers-”in more ways than I can count. All so they would call me… ‘champion.’ ‘Hero.’ I wore ‘dragonslayer’ like a badge of honor, even after we knew it was the wrong thing to do, because I wanted people to remember that that was me. I did that. And today?” She turned, gestured listlessly toward the fortress they had just left, still alive with voices and activity as their forces alternated between celebrating and struggling to make sense of everything that had transpired. “Today I left this entire region in the midst of a massive power vacuum, without ever considering how that would be fixed, so I could settle a grudge.” After a beat she fixed her eyes back on Leo, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet, tired and resigned. “Do you think they’ll call me a hero for that tomorrow?”

A low anxious growl rumbled through Leo’s chest, and his tail lashed as he weighed any possible answers he could give her. He doubted any would have been right. In the end he settled for, “I think we’ll find out when tomorrow comes.”

Conlaeth just smiled bitterly. “Well I know better. So don’t you presume to tell me what I am. Or what I’m not.”

She hesitated then, and for just the briefest moment she seemed to be watching Leo, searching his eyes for something, but he remained silent, uncertain. When she didn’t find what she was looking for she sighed, turning away to start back up the hill. It was then that Leo found his voice again. “What do you want from me?” he pressed, and she stopped in her tracks again. This time she didn’t turn to face him. “Do you want me to tell you you’re wrong? That you haven’t ever misjudged, or done something you shouldn’t have? If you want so badly to believe you’re the villain here then fine, that’s your choice.” Conlaeth shrugged wordlessly, like she was accepting that judgement, before Leo went on. “But what does that say about everyone who’s willingly followed you up to now? Trusted you? What does that say about everyone in Dragon’s Watch?”

“Leo-” The single word was a warning.

“Or about me? Indira?”

Conlaeth's hands tightened into fists at her sides, tension suddenly clear in every inch of her posture even with her back to him. “Leo, stop,” she breathed.

“What does that say about Ubon?”

And she wheeled around with a roar of outrage, digging her fingers into her hair as she forced a sharp breath into her lungs before turning all her fury on him instead. “Stop! How dare you!” she spat.

“Are you prepared to answer that question?” he growled, unshaken by her outburst.

“No I won’t answer that fucking question Leo and you know that!” she shot back, advancing on him again. He stood fast and stared her down, daring her to act. Instead she just took another ragged breath as she met his gaze. “How dare you,” she said again, but her voice cracked on the hard edges of the simple phrase. “What do you want from me? What do I say to satisfy you,” she continued. Her fire was sputtering out, the anguish starting to show through underneath even as she held her ground like she had every confidence in her words. “He was right. I burned everything down just to prove I could. It’s my fault. All of it. I thought you of all people would be happy to hear that--Rytlock’s off the hook, right? Congratulations!”

Leo just shook his head with a frustrated huff, and wondered if perhaps this conversation should have waited, or if it was already coming too late.

“Alright,” he conceded, and in an instant all Conlaeth’s remaining ferocity seemed to drain away--her shoulders fell and she stared up at him, wide eyed and defeated. “So everything up this point is your fault. What are you going to do now?”

Conlaeth raised a shaky hand and combed the loose fronds of her hair back away from her brow. She breathed slowly and deliberately as her gaze wandered, down the bridge toward the fortress and then up the road to the camp. At length she simply shrugged, letting her eyes fall to her feet. “I don’t know.”

“Leo agrees. He thinks all of this is my fault.”

All Indira offered in response was a dry chuckle. Conlaeth scowled across the table at her as she settled onto the bench on the opposite side, and was placated only slightly when Indira set two tall glasses down, then popped the cork out of a bottle of stout and split it between them. “I don’t think that’s what he said,” she said at length.

“You weren’t there,” Conlaeth muttered as she raised the glass to her lips. “How would you know.”

Indira folded her arms on the table in front of her. “Is that what he said? ‘Yes Commander, everything that’s gone wrong in Tyria is your fault, you monster?’” Indira pressed, but before Conlaeth could respond she added, “or did you shout him down until he got tired of arguing and just gave you what you wanted?”

Conlaeth sputtered inelegantly as she choked on her drink. “What I wanted?” she rasped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Yeah.” Indira picked up her own glass, taking a slow sip as Conlaeth gaped at her, visibly baffled. “You know, for someone to justify your self-hatred so you could wallow in it.”

“I’m not wallowing in anything!” Conlaeth instantly asserted. Indira said nothing, just glanced between their drinks--Conlaeth’s glass already approaching half empty--and their surroundings--the mess hall conspicuously empty but for the two of them, and dim despite the afternoon sun outside the Fortune’s hull. “I’m not,” Conlaeth said again, at which point Indira’s gaze came to settle on her again, brows arching in a look of indulgent interest, as if to say alright, convince me. Perhaps not expecting to be given that platform, Conlaeth faltered, hiding her uncertainty behind another pull of her drink. “It's not like it was news to me,” she said eventually, her tone becoming quietly resigned. “I’m not-”

“You’re ‘not a hero.’ Yeah I’ve heard that line,” Indira cut in noncommittally as she drank. Then she added, while Conlaeth was still grasping for a reaction, “well I'm glad you're handling it so well. A lesser person might be, I don't know, mildly disturbed by the implication that they've single handedly made the world worse than they found it.”

Conlaeth set her glass down with sudden jarring force. “Wh- you're unbelievable,” she spat. “Do you really think that?”

“No, I don't think that!” Indira laughed. “But why are you so upset when I say it? I'm not going to waste my breath trying to tell you shit you’re not ready to hear. I know you, you blame yourself when things go wrong, and then you come down on yourself hard until you find something else to put all your focus on so you don't have to think about the past anymore. Nothing I say to you now is going to change that.”

“And since when are you such an expert on how I think?” Conlaeth scoffed.

“Ohh, Skipper,” Indira sighed, smiling at her like she would a child. “It's been twenty years, you don't think I have a beat on you by now?”

Before she answered Conlaeth took the time to drain her glass, then upturned it on the table between them. “No,” she said, curt but without an ounce of conviction.

Indira snorted. “Okay. Listen, you're not a villain, but you are a gods-damned dramatic piece of work and you don't know how to do anything in moderation.”

Conlaeth stared, fumbling for a reaction and apparently too astonished to even be immediately angry.“I’m n- why did I even come here just to have you berate me?” she grumbled, leaning back as if she was about to stand up from the table. She didn’t.

“Your guess is as good as mine. You can leave.”

They sat in silence for a breath before Conlaeth relaxed slightly, reaching over and idly twirling her empty glass. “You got any more of this?”

Indira smirked with satisfaction. “Actually,” she said, getting to her feet again, “I can do you one better.” She collected the glasses--despite having only drained about half of her own--and the empty bottle, then disappeared into the galley.

She returned shortly, now with two smaller glasses and a long-necked amber bottle. The silence stretched on just a little longer as she poured a couple fingers of rum into both glasses and took her seat again, then without hesitation Conlaeth took one of the shots and held it up as she said, a smile tugging at the edges of her weary expression, “one dog, two eyes, four legs.”

“Barks in a park in Lion’s Arch,” Indira finished with a smile of her own, picking up the second glass. She clinked it against Conlaeth’s and they both drank.

“... you really think I’m dramatic?” Conlaeth asked, taking it upon herself to fill the glasses again.

Indira didn’t quite manage to stop the chuckle that bubbled up in her chest, and Conlaeth shot her a cold look. “After the Splitblade went down,” she began, “the rest of your operation was still completely intact but you couldn’t deal with people even suggesting it was your fault, so you abandoned the whole thing, ran off to the Reach, and somehow ended up in the Vigil instead.”

Conlaeth’s brow remained stubbornly furrowed as she downed another shot. “Okay, but that worked out great.”

“Y-yeah..?” Indira laughed, cocking an eyebrow at her companion as she wondered whether that had really been an earnest statement. “Until you couldn’t stop your CO’s catastrophic battle plan, and you were so consumed with guilt that you took off into the jungle, knowing full well you were uniquely at risk of corruption, so you could single-handedly clean up his mess.”

“That’s-” Conlaeth hesitated, grasping for another defense. “I wasn’t alone. And I had a plan.”

“You had a team of five, several of which you picked up along the way, and your plan was ‘kill Mordremoth somehow.’” Conlaeth rolled her eyes as Indira paused to catch up to her and then fill the glasses a third time. “And that cost you your career and your reputation. When you couldn’t handle that, you became obsessed with killing the rest of the dragons, and that cost you your arm.”

Conlaeth slapped the table, then pointed at Indira with a triumphant look. “It wasn’t just the dragons. I was trying to stop Su Qinhe from murdering me.” She swallowed another shot, still grinning like she had just won the argument.

Indira narrowed her eyes, considering the defense for a moment just in case it really did win the argument. “I think... being hunted down by the vengeful ghost of an old business competitor whose death you orchestrated makes… my point, not yours,” she said at length.

“Tch- Fine! Okay, yeah! So what is your point exactly? Everything I’ve ever tried has backfired spectacularly and everything I care about falls apart?” Conlaeth shrugged nonchalantly, but although she left ample time for a rebuttal as she reached out and claimed the remaining shot, Indira had faltered into silence, caught off guard by the sudden candor. “Including me,” Conlaeth went on, gesturing with the empty glass toward what remained of her left arm. “Including Amnoon, including Dragon’s Watch. You think I haven’t noticed the pattern? Why do you think I told Ubon she should go back to Kryta?”

“Oh,” Indira breathed, her eyes widening slightly as she rocked back in her seat. While she was two shots of rum and half a beer behind Conlaeth, it still took a second for another thought, stirred by the sudden shift in topic, to press its way to the front of her mind through the subtle haze. “Right- actually, what’s going on between you two?”

“Nothing! What?” Conlaeth froze, half-way to pouring herself another round, and stared at Indira with wide, startled eyes.

“She wrote to me about a month ago to say you’d stopped answering her letters. I had to reassure her you were still alive this time.” The mortification that immediately overtook Conlaeth’s expression might have been funny, if Indira hadn’t shifted so completely to a state of earnest concern. She leaned forward, softening her tone slightly. “Skipper, what are you doing? First you push her off to another continent, now you’re trying to ghost her?”

“No, I-”

“Do you really think she’s going to be satisfied with that?”

“It’s not-”

“Do you think she deserves that?”

“Of course not! But-”

If you-”

“I didn’t think she would actually come!” Conlaeth burst out, startling the words out of Indira’s mouth once again.

“What..?” was all she could manage in the moment.

Conlaeth took a sharp breath, looking equally surprised by the revelation as she slowly set the bottle down and dropped her head into her hand, her gaze falling to the table’s surface. She dug her fingers into her hair and just breathed for several long seconds, before she dared to speak again. “When I was first leaving for Elona, I thought I was so clear about what might happen, I thought it would scare her off, but she came anyway. And then I- I died, I faced down a god, I made an enemy out of Palawa Joko, and there’s still a super-charged dragon out there and we have no idea how to deal with it! I thought if I- if I gave her the chance to back out-... I don’t understand why she’s not scared!” She finally looked up again with another ragged breath, her voice cracking as she added, “I’m scared, Indira. It never ends, and I’m- I’m scared all the time.”

“Do you really think she’s not scared?” Indira asked softly, admittedly relieved by the sobriety of her tone. Conlaeth’s brow knitted together as she frowned, not quite following yet. “We’re all scared. The stakes are impossibly high and we’re in so far over our heads we can’t see the surface anymore. But we’re in together. Forcing people out of the fight doesn’t make them not scared, it just makes them powerless.”

“I never-” Conlaeth’s words caught in her throat. She grimaced, screwed her eyes shut, and laid her forehead down on the table, letting her hand come to rest on the back of her neck. When after a brief hesitation she tried again, her voice was muffled and devoid of energy. “I never wanted to force her out. I just wanted to protect her.”

“From what?” Indira sighed, though she suspected she knew the answer already.

“From me.”

Indira nodded silently to herself. She straightened the empty shot glasses out, lining them up next to each other, then topped them off one last time. “It’s not your call to make,” she said frankly. Conlaeth tensed, and a second later lifted her head, furtively wiping at the corners of her eyes. When she finally met Indira’s gaze, Indira raised a glass and added, “if you love her, trust her judgement.”

[entering--hyperspace]

I needed to practice Charr anatomy so have even MORE Leo doodles aka people questioning his relationship choices and him trying to be an intimidating tribune

[entering--hyperspace]

Heres some quick sketches of Leo throughout his life!

[antisocialxconstruct]

I saw these stills and was consumed by the thought of Connie’s team seeing her and Indira for the first time after the two reconnected during PoF.

(Leo as always belongs to @the-travelers-light)

[entering--hyperspace]

L3, E1, and O3 for leo obviously (get it, l, e, and o, like his name...)

L3. are there any foods they hate?

Anything even remotely healthy Leo probably hates. You are what you eat, so Leo eats nothing but beef.

E1. does the way they do things portray their internal personality?

Definitely. Everything from how he fights to how he commands his troops gives away his personality. He is cautious and more diplomatic than most so I try to portray that when writing him.

3. are they good at giving advice?

I like to think so. Leo is a real down-to-earth kind of guy, and would both comfort you while also dishing out some realistic advice. Leo is all about helping people, in fact I would say one of his main personality traits is empathy. Short answer: Yes, Leo both loves giving advice and is very good at it.

Thanks for the asks!

[entering--hyperspace]

I realized i STILL havent posted Leo’s history on the character page...I’m also wondering when it would be a good time to introduce his warband + mom...