[Aegle Verdant]

The campfire spat and popped quietly in the stillness of the night. Fanned by a soft breeze that blew through the silent camp, the embers within glowed with a deep inner redness that cast the surrounding trees in a hellish light. It was strangely pretty, Aegle thought, in a way that seeing the same scene upon the sterile starkness of a television screen couldn't capture. She stared into the trees, and all seemed motionless save for the gentle breathing of the flames, the soft flickering of their light. As a painting, daubed thickly in reds and golds and blacks, the forest stood motionless on all sides, everywhere she looked, with a rough texture she felt she could nearly reach out and touch. Which was not to say the forest was silent; Beneath the quiet pop and babble of the dwindling flames was a chorus of sound as soft as it was wholly ubiquitous. The shrill trilling of insects in the brush, mostly crickets, was a sound so sonorous and constant that she scarcely noticed it when she wasn't actively listening for it, while the occasional flutter of wings added occasional punctuation to the quiet cacophony. She tried to experience every part of the sound, bit by bit. She tried to isolate each noise in her mind and hear it completely. She had been doing it for what felt like hours, and still had not run out of sounds. Aegle felt like she could have gone the rest of her life, listening, and still not heard it all.

It was sort of surreal, when she really thought about where she was, what she was doing, and how she was experiencing it all. As she listened to the muddled sounds, trying ceaselessly to unravel one from another, she marveled at her own ability to do so. At the idea that she could even be having these thoughts and experiences, and that she was able to experience them at all. Did many people stop and think about that, think about what thinking actually was? She was not a smart girl, anyone looking over her choices of the last year could see that, so she had to imagine she could not be the only person to ever stop and think about thinking. Did those same people ever really consider what the things their eyes saw were, or about how their minds interpreted those things. Did they think about the sounds they heard, really think about them? Or was it all taken for granted? Most people spent their whole lives seeing and hearing, likely couldn't recall a time when they hadn't seen or heard things. Most people had never had much cause to imagine what not seeing or hearing might be like. Was it the same with thinking? Was there a person for whom thinking was not so familiar, that they could stop an appreciate it the way a blind girl might appreciate color? She supposed it must be so because, even thinking about her thoughts, Aegle was unable to make much sense of her own wonderings. She felt like she was trying to lift something too heavy for her, thinking about thinking, wondering about wondering, like she was trying to hold sand in her hands, and her hands were no good for holding anything. The thoughts slipped through her grasp, intangible and refusing to be held. She felt on the verge of understanding something profound, but could never quite bring it into focus.

Aegle touched the hoodie that lay across her lap, its orange fabric ripped and torn with half-a-hundred slashes. In that thoughtful frame of mind, even her sense of touch was novel and alien and strange. What would it be like, she wondered, to not feel? She'd spent her whole life feeling, so could not imagine its absence. For that matter, could she even imagine being blind or deaf? She could close her eyes and stop up her ears, but those organs were still present and functioning. Aegle half smiled, and rested her head against the truck at her back, and looked up into the hazy shadows above her head. It hadn't been till she was fourteen that she realized not everyone could hear their own hearbeat. Even with her ears stopped up, she could still hear it. She couldn't imagine living without that sound. Had she ever truly heard silence?

The day had put her in a pensive mood, alright. It had her thinking thoughts she'd not had since before the operations. Was that why she hadn't gone to sleep when Qiu'li did? She lowered her eyes to the hazy outline on the other side of the campfire, and watched the slow rise and fall of the big man's shoulder as he slept. She was tired, and doubtless she could have used the sleep, but sleep had not come easily for a long time. Now, sitting in the forest with only a campfire for light, with only the sound of the night for company, sleep did not want to come at all.
'Or perhaps it's simply me who is unwilling to sleep.'
Aegle lowered her eyes to the hoodie across her lap, and pulled snug the blanket across her shoulders. Long, deep, ragged tears had ruined the cloth, and its vibrant orange was stained all over with the rusty brown of dried blood. Her arms, beneath the blanket, itched where the ursa and the creeps and the boarbatusk had cut them. So too did her stomach and her chest, where they were visible through the tears in her black tanktop. Sullen redness and the pink of freshly healed skin crisscrossed most of her upper body in fact, where the days fighting had marked her. She wondered if those fights had something to do with her contemplative mood. Doubtless so, she decided; The fight with the boarbatusk, especially, had brought certain details of her existence into cutting sharp focus.

It had been that fight which had set her to wondering about thinking, and how she could not know what not thinking felt like. What not feeling felt like. She wondered, and not for the first time, if she was crazy. Not stupid, or reckless, or even merely different, but whether there was something inside her fundamentally twisted or broken, if her mind was not as crooked as her shambles of a body.
'But I can't know how anyone else thinks. I can't ever know if they think the same way I do.'
She grinned; It often seemed like they didn't. Other people often felt an utter mystery to her, enigmas which she was incapable of solving. She got on well enough with most of them, had been treated very well since coming to Haven in fact, but she never felt like she understood anyone. Even her fumbling efforts to understand Carmim and get closer to her had proved strange and bewildering. Like the two of them were speaking different languages just barely similar enough to mistaken for one another, but where the words didn't quite mean the same things.
'I like you, Carmim...'
'I like you too, my friend.'
Part of it was her fault, and Aegle knew it. Her fault for not saying what she meant half the time, and not being clearer when it was obvious her meaning had not been taken the right way.
'What do I want?' She wondered, 'Not just from Carmim, but from everyone; Everythin'... What do I want? Why am I here? Why am I doin' this?'
Questions without answers or, at least, not answers she could admit to.
'Can't even be honest with myself.' She thought back to the fight with the Boarbatusk, to the fight with the ursa, to the fight in Shadecloak's class, 'It's no wonder nobody can figure me out.'

Her eyes lingered on the torn and shredded remains of her hoodie.
'Paeon gave me this,' Aegle ran her fingers across the ripped and stained fabric. It was the brightest, most hideously eye-scorching color he could find, 'So people would have to notice me when I wore it...'
She had worn it every day since coming to Haven. Whenever she had not been in her uniform, she had it on.
'My armor.' Aegle thought, thinking also of Reynard and their meeting in the quad. 'That's what armor is. It keeps you from bein' hurt.'
It was all bloody now. Her blood stained it in daubs and streaks where the Boarbatusk and the Ursa and the Creeps had cut her.
'Some armor...' She giggled, and pulled the ruined hoodie up to her chest, hugging it close, and returned to watching the forest, and trying to soak in every detail, just as though it might be her last chance to do so.

---

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[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.
For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

It had not been, Erytheia thought, a good day.

Oh, to be sure, she had easily surpassed her goal of killing more than the bare minimum of five Grimm, even if most of them had been fodder that weren’t much of a threat to speak of. Creeps were easily dispatched with a quick combo from her twin blades, and didn’t present much of a threat with only their speed being the only thing she needed to be mindful of. Ursa Minors were more tedious than truly dangerous, but as she wasn’t quite at the level of speed she wanted to achieve yet, she’d been forced to resort to abusing their lack of vertical mobility by running around the environment while maintaining constant bolts of electricity into their weak underbelly - or just hitting them with it when she could. Beowolves, travelling in packs, were harder to handle, but as long as she minded her angles and didn’t get flanked by more than three at once she could turn Airtafae on them simultaneously, maintaining the charge until they were fried to a crisp and dissolved into oily black stains in the vegetation.

She had gotten a fair number of scrapes and bumps in her time venturing out to take on said Grimm, but had retreated more than a few times to her little outpost to rest and recharge her Aura, never letting it fall below forty and only setting out when she was at least on eighty percent full. Safety margins were important, after all, but if she didn’t keep some risk within the procedure to keep herself from becoming complacent it would defeat the point of the exercise. It was a good thing she did, however, because when she had returned to camp it wasn’t safety she found, but a pack of Ursa, including more than one Major. While not that low on Aura when she’d saw the pack, Erytheia knew better than to start fights she could win. Not even attempting to fight, she simply turned and ran as fast as she could while they chased after her, leaping away into the trees with little more than what she had on her, and leaving her backpack and sleeping bag behind.

Now, sitting on a low thirty percent and with her purple cloak tattered and torn, as well as covered in plant debris from all the forest she’d rushed through, the Hellebore heiress was feeling distinctly put out as she wiped away the blood flowing from a gash that she’d taken on the forehead in her flight to escape and lose the Ursa tracks. ‌The small wound would heal in a few minutes due to her Aura, but the blood still remained where it had been. Erytheia rubbed at her forehead with a sleeve and took stock of the situation, and what she had. It wasn’t exactly hard, considering how little she had to do it with. Her Scroll, her last remaining vial of Air Dust, a half filled canteen, her weapons, and her hooded cloak.

That was it.

On the bright side, she’d eaten dinner before her last expedition, so food wouldn’t be an issue. And her cloak, even as tattered as it was, would ward off the worst of the night chill - and even if it didn’t, she could always make a fire with some liberal application of her Semblance. But water… water would be a problem going forward, especially without the additional galleons in her pack or the purification tablets in her first aid kit. She’d just have to ration herself. And she would need to find some place where she could set up again, if she could - someplace safe to rest for as long as she could to recharge her Aura in preparation for the next fight. She had no illusions about the Grimm leaving her alone for the rest of the night, so she needed to rest while she could.

The thought of pressing the emergency call on her Scroll didn’t even cross her mind. Neither did the possibility of failure. She was better than these minor setbacks. Hellebore blood wasn’t so easily daunted, even if it flowed weak in someone like herself.

Standing tall, back unbowed, Erytheia started off again. The first thing in order was to find a clearing so that she could get her bearings by checking the position of the stars, and then make her way from there. There was a particular stretch of rocky land that would make for a decent shelter she knew was somewhere in the southern part of the forest. She didn’t need a roof, just somewhere defensible where she could rest for a while. Airtafae sparked between her fingers to give off a wavering red light that she held just in front of her, casting flickering shadows in the trees. A small application that didn’t take much Aura, but enough to see her way through the dense undergrowth safely.

She walked.

It was quiet, but not too quiet. The occasional rustle in the undergrowth as a nocturnal animal scurried away didn’t scare her, nor did the occasional hoot of an owl rattle her nerves. She only had one thing to fear in the forest, and they were a lot more direct than that.

Up ahead, the flickering light of a fire dancing between the trees. The Hellebore heiress perked up ever so slightly, and quickened her pace. If it was a single person, she had perhaps shelter for the night - and if not, she could at least ask if they had extra supplies she could borrow.

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[Aegle Verdant]

A new sound joined the quiet cacophony, and Aegle noticed it precisely because it was not as ubiquitous as the rest. A quiet rustling was coming from somewhere to her right, deep in the trees. Branches swaying and the soft fall moving. Her heart slid up into her throat, and all those pretty, philosophic thoughts went sliding out, replaced by a sudden coldness felt from her head all the way down to her heels. She'd been in three fights that day. Four, if the second showing of creeps were reckoned a separate engagement to the fight with the Ursa, and that was not so few as to make her eager for another.

Remaining low, Aegle got her feet underneath herself and peered into the shadows as deep as she could see. Hours at the fireside had rendered her nightvision near enough to non-existent, so she could make out next to nothing beyond the glow of the campfire. She could hear it approaching though. Her heart began racing. Furtively, her eyes flicked to the sleeping Qiu'li. If they were about to be attacked by some monster in the night, doubtless he'd have appreciated being woken up for it. Something made Aegle hold her tongue though. She thought of the fight with the boarbatusk, and her fingers itched. Her whole body itched. If it was a beowolf or a creep, for it was surely too small to have been anything else, would she even need Qiu'li's help in fighting it? Did she even want his help?

Before she could decide though, Aegle caught a glimpse of that which she was lying in wait for. A flash of gold by the firelight, and cloth in place of pitch, steel in place of bone. Her relief was immediate and palpable, but not alone. Joining the feeling was an unexpected, unlooked for disappointment, that she would not be fighting a grimm. That shocking realization followed fast on the heels of another.
"Theia~" Aegle hissed happily, even as she sprung up to her full height and let her blanket drop from her crooked shoulders. She was so relieved, not to mention pleased, to see a familiar face that it was several moments before she realized she was standing essentially naked before the heiress. Dressed in the same scuffed and torn cargo pants she'd been wearing all day, Aegle's upper body was as bear as it had ever been in Thiea's presence. Which was to say that all she wore was her tank top and her ever present brace. Her arms and her shoulders were bear, with knobly joints and crooked bones plainly visible by the flickering campfire glow.

With the awkward haste of the suddenly embarrassed, Aegle crouched down and grabbed up her blanket, which she flung about her shoulders in a hasty effort to hide her shame. Then, one hand holding the blanket closed before her chest, she sprang at her friend and caught her in a tight, on armed hug, just as Erytheia was escaping the tangle of brush into the clearing.

Aegle did not, as a rule, like to hug people, and anyone who'd been hugged by her would know why. They were weak, bony, uncomfortable things, full of rough edges and blunt points. That was why, despite Aegle's best efforts, it only lasted a couple of heartbeats.
"I thought you was a monster." She whispered, pulling back from her friend, to gaze up at her in the stark firelight, "M'glad y'ain't though."
Only then did she see the blood. Erytheia's face was stained with it. All the way from her forehead to her chin, there were stripes of it, where rivulets of blood had obviously flowed.
"Y'hurt." Aegle observed, and with no small amount of concern. Taking Erytheia's hand in her own, she half lead, half dragged the taller girl towards the campfire. The more light there was, the worse it seemed. Theia almost looked as bad as Aegle had, before she'd cleaned and stitched up all her cuts. It was clear her day had been no less trying, nor busy, that the crooked girl's had been.
"Y'alright?" Aegle asked, with concern. "Come on, sit. I've got some water 'round, I can clean that cut." She kept her voice quiet from habit, still not waiting to wait Qiu'li, but her concern was plainly palpable.

---

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[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.
For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Airtafae winked out in a small sigh as she approached the firelight, the flickering of shadows approximately man sized and not Grimm sized reassuring her that this was, indeed, a safe place. The Hellebore heiress relaxed, letting down her guard slightly - and then in the next moment, she was surprised by the sudden tackle, tensing up for the barest of moments before she realized who it was, and relaxed again with a small, weary laugh, bending down some distance and leaning into the hug as she wound one arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders and returned the favor, pressing the side of her cheek to Aegle’s before straightening up as the younger girl pulled back. The small smile on the heiress’ face was tired but relieved, and clearly having been born out of the sensation of finding a new, yet familiar face.

“Hello, Aegle. I, too, am glad that I am not a monster.”

Something like worry flickered over the younger girl’s face when she looked up and saw the Hellebore properly for the first time, and then she was pulling at her towards the fire. Belatedly, Erytheia remembered the dried blood on her face, and patted lightly at the hand clutching her own with a gentle touch. The cut itself had healed as much as it was going to, with her Aura, and had scabbed over a while back, but the blood was still dried in little streaks on her face. She hadn’t spent much more than a distracted sleeve wipe to get most of it off, after all.

“Aegle,” she said, softly at first, and then a touch more insistently, accompanied by another few more pats from her other hand, “Aegle.”

“Aegle, I am fine,” she tried again, still smiling, still touching at the hand holding on to hers until they were in the camp proper, and she seated herself on a log around the campfire, holding on to Aegle’s arm before she could rush off and busy herself with medical supplies.

“Aegle. You are a sweetheart for the concern, but the cut is minor, and has already healed over, as have most of the other injuries I have suffered. It looks worse than it is, that is all.”

Her words were quiet, as they usually were, and she glanced over at the sleeping Qiu’li on the other side of the campfire before looking up to the smaller girl with a slightly mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Your partner for this exercise, Aegle?”

She couldn’t stay long, she knew that. The rules for the exercise had been very clear - those within the Dandelion group weren’t allowed to camp or travel in groups of more than two. Whether or not points would be deducted for it in addition to the condition that Grimm being slain while in proximity to more than one other person simply wouldn’t count wasn’t clear, but she didn’t want to risk being struck from the whitelist of approved Huntress trainees because of such a technicality. It would be quite irritating to be held back because she spent too long in the presence of others and it counted as “camping”.

“Well, never mind that for now,” Erytheia smiled after a moment, patting the log next to her as an indication that Aegle should take a seat as well. A little time to catch up, and to catch her breath, and then off to find another place. She would have to find another place alone, some place defensible she could wait out the night and into the morning - and soon. But for now, she could catch up with a friend, and unwind some from the long stress of the day.

“We have not seen each other all day, so it is a relief to find you well. How are you? Have you managed to complete your objective?”

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MADE BY MIZO

[Aegle Verdant]

"Aegle." Theia whispered as she was tugged towards the fire, "Aegle, I'm fine. Aegle." Abruptly, Erytheia seized her around the arm, tugging her to an abrupt halt. Aegle looked back at her friend, some surprise creeping in on the concerned expression she continued to wear, only then seeing the gentle smile on blonde's lips.
"You are a sweetheart for the concern," Said the heiress, "But the cut is minor, and has already healed over, as have most of the other injuries I have suffered. It looks worse than it is, that is all."
Aegle saw it was true. Looking more closely, it was clear that most of the blood was already dried, and that what wasn't would soon be as well. No fresh blood was seeping out from the cut, no new glossiness that required any immediate attention. It didn't entirely allay her concerns, but it certainly put them to rest for the moment. A soft sound came from the humpen mass that was Qiu'li, and Erytheia paid the sleeping huntsman a glance.
"Your partner for this exercise, Aegle?" She asked.
"One of them." Aegle answered, putting on a somewhat awkward smile, "I've had a couple, aye?"
"Well," Erytheia cast her a charming smile, "Nevermind that now."

She drew Aegle down beside her, seating herself before the gently smoldering firepit. Aegle had to shift around her blanket a little to fit; The log her friend had chosen wasn't an especially spacious seat, they were practically sitting atop one another. It would almost have been pleasant, had both of them not been terribly worn out and cut, and scraped and bruised and unwashed. Not that Aegle particularly minded Erytheia's smell, there was something honest in a bit of body odor after all, though she was more than a bit self-conscious of her own. She'd been in three fights that day, four depending on how one counted them, and deodorant could only do so much. She hoped she didn't stink too badly...

Not that Erytheia, with her fine breeding and even finer manners, would make any mention of it if she did.

Seated beside her blonde haired friend, Aegle cast about for her canteen, which she found not far from where she'd been sitting before Erytheia had shown up. Wordlessly, she tore some linen from the ragged wraps on her wrist, and wetted the cloth.
"We have not seen each other all day," Erytheia was saying, as Aegle adjusted the sodden bandage in her hands, fumbling with the canteen beneath her drape of blanket, "So it is a relief to find you well. How are you? Have you managed to complete your objective?"
It was a bit of a distraction, trying to hold the blanket in place and close her canteen and hold onto the cloth, all at the same time. Annoyed, Aegle released the blanket, which immediately tumbled from her spare frame, and finally closed the lid on troublesome container. Her arms were red with recently healed cuts, some as much as an handspan long, not to mention the dried blood her brief efforts to wash up had failed to clean away. Her tanktop was similarly sliced to ribbons, revealing glimpses of pale, cross crossed flesh beneath. Only her sports bra was still intact, and wasn't that a joke? The one piece of clothing she didn't really need, and it was the only thing she wwore that didn't have half-a-hundred cuts in it.
"M'alright..." she said, an answer wholly at odds with the remnants of dried blood that stained her tank top and her arms, "And I reckon I might be near enough t'done too." She still wasn't sure if she could count the ursa or the boarbatusk as a confirmed kill, but the creeps must have counted, surely.

Turning, she hesitated. Her brace was in low power mode, so only made the barest whisper when she moved, but it was still conspicuous for just how much of it was visible. Two metal arms encircled her own, with a bulky battery pack between her shoulder blades and a thick, articulate spine following the crooked curve of her own, like some mechanical insect had latched itself onto Aegle's back. Her pants covered the rest, fortunately.
Aegle swallowed, once again feeling exposed before her fair haired friend, but she soldiered on.
'When you're scared...' She heard Aaron say, and so she pretended, as best she could, not to be bothered about letting Erytheia see the wasted flesh and steel brace her cloths so often hid.
"Here," Aegle shifted and lifted herself and, laying her thumb across Theia's eyebrow, "Sit still."
With her other hand, she dabbed softly at the dried and not-so-dried blood, smearing it all away as best she could, while her thumb kept the water from running down into Theia's eye. Doc had done this for her enough times that Aegle knew the trick to it.
"Y'have such a pretty face. S'a pity t'have it all sticky with blood."
She got the worst of it, whatever didn't want for scrubbing out, and moved down to Theia's cheek and the side of her face next. Only when she'd got the worst of it, did Aegle realize what she'd just gone and said.
"Y'alright though, y'said?" She asked, with an embarrassed cough, as she tossed the soiled cloth into the fire, where it promptly blackened in the furnace heat, "How's your mission goin'. Good, I hope. M'sure y'already well past what y'need t'pass, yeah?"
She was sitting very near to Theia, Aegle noticed. So near that she was getting almost as much heat from the blonde as she was from the fire. She thought of Carmim then, and certain realizations associated with her red haired roommate...
'She really is quite pretty...' Aegle thought, looking at Erytheia, illuminated in the firelight, 'Even if she looks like she ran through every briar in the forest t'get here.'
If anything, the hard used look only made Theia more attractive. It was a rough sort of look, at odds with her regal carrying, like some warrior queen from out of the stories.
Aegle realized what she was thinking, and immediately turned to face the fire, hoping its red glow would hide the sudden heat in her cheeks. She gathered up her blanket again, suddenly doubly conscious of the twisted, cut up, bloody, emaciated body it was intended to hide.
"Sorry..." She said, though she could not have said what for.

---

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[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.
For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Her younger friend had responded in the affirmative when Erytheia had asked after her wellbeing, but that didn’t ease the Hellebore heiress’ doubts quite as much as they should have. Aegle had garnered for herself quite the reputation of doing reckless things on a semi-regular basis, so it would be quite within character for her to pretend that she was fine when she really wasn’t. Moreover, the girl was just kindhearted as a rule, so there was also the distinct possibility that she just didn’t want her friend to worry about something that she couldn’t do anything about. It was an admirable trait, but it could also lead to complications down the road if the heiress didn’t do her due diligence in ensuring that Aegle’s words weren’t divorced entirely from reality. So it was that after listening to her, Erythiea tilted her head ever so slightly one way, then the other, carefully looking over the younger female’s face in the flickering firelight. Her crimson gaze drifted downwards for the briefest of moments, to the myriad cuts and tears crossing the fabric of her shirt and the skin of the torso underneath before a gentle hand pressed itself to her face.

There was a start, a small noise of surprise, and what had been a searching gaze now looked back up with faint astonishment, mouth starting to open as if to ask what the smaller female was up to - and then closing when Aegle started to speak and wipe at her face with a damp piece of cloth, the expression of slight confusion turning to understanding.

It felt… strange. Erytheia was not a person accustomed to physical contact, especially out of combat, and those feelings were only further exacerbated by the events in her past. Whether it was with her mother or her former fiance, human touch had never been something she looked forward to, nor was it something she had ever sought out on her own - and that didn’t change just because someone she thought of as a friend was the one doing the touching. Strange indeed, that the gratefulness at the attention she was receiving was offset by the discomfort she felt at the very same. She wondered what that said about herself, and held very still until Aegle was done, tossing the cloth into the fire. Relief flooded her, though barely noticeable through the placid exterior she’d maintained to not give her friend the wrong impression.

“Thank you, Aegle,” she smiled over at her friend, channeling the relief she felt into appreciation. If Evangeline’s smiles could be likened to the noon sun on a summer’s day, then the one Erytheia showed now was like an autumn sunset, fading and nowhere as radiant - but softer, and warm all the same.

“And yes, I do believe I am. Now all that should be required of me is to survive the night, and I should be, as some say, peachy.”

The look on Erytheia’s face was inordinately proud - some might even say smug - for having mastered at least a part of Haven’s common lingo. After all, the mark of a good leader was someone who could communicate themselves well to their fellow peers, and what better way to facilitate conversation than to emulate how others spoke? Still, that look faded away as she watched Aegle stare into the fire, and then apologize all of a sudden, with no warning whatsoever. For the briefest of moments, she wondered if she’d been unsuccessful in her efforts to conceal her dislike for human touch, but it seemed unlikely, to say the least, especially since the younger girl did not appear to be particularly downcast. The Hellebore heiress looked at her friend, at the scars that marred her body and the exoskeleton frame that helped her move, and then back down to her own hands and the scars they bore - still clad in their gloves that hid any trace of the skin from view, still hidden as a mark of shame.

Maybe she could strive to make an exception for a friend. Maybe. Reaching out with her hand, still clad in the black leather she wore whenever out in the field and not in the safe and civilized environment of the academy’s classrooms, Erytheia let it rest on the lower half of Aegle’s forearm, just above the wrist.

“Whatever for?” she asked gently, smiling to take any possible bite out of the words.

“I feel like I should be the one to apologize here, instead. To come upon your camp and cause you to worry so…”

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[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle looked up, horror struck by even the suggestion of Erytheia apologizing.
"No, no," She insisted, her voice rising a hair higher than the tenuous whisper she'd maintained since the heiress' arrival, "Don't be sorry!"
A grunt came from the sleeping shape of Qiu'li, and Aegle immediately the fell silent, conscious quite suddenly of how vehement and, therefore, loud her protestation had been. She'd turned to face Theia more fully upon the log, had half risen up from her seat, though only the dead knew what she'd intended to do.
Settling back down, Aegle gathered the blanket up about herself once more and, both embarrassed and emboldened by her outburst, more quietly said, "Don't be sorry. Y'can't know how happy I am t'see ya..."
Theia had ever been a bright spot in her life at Haven. Like Carmim and Eva, the blonde heiress had never shown Aegle anything but kindness. She might have even been, beside her roommate, the person Aegle was closest to in the whole academy. The idea that those feelings could be misconstrued, or that Erytheia could apologize for her presence, was something Aegle found especially upsetting, on a level too visceral for her to objectively analyze.

Even when she put the utmost thought into what she said, Aegle's thoughts seldom seemed to come out right. Now, barely able to think at all for Erytheia's presence beside her, she did not doubt her thoughts would come out wholly eligible, if she could even speak them aloud to begin with. Aegle hadn't had friends for a very long time, and it often felt like that dearth of experience had left her as helpless as the illness which had been its cause. Conscious as she was of how pleased she was to be with Theia, that some random chance would bring them together in the lonely hours of night, she seemed utterly unable to effectively express not only her feelings, but unable to handle the interaction in any proper or seemly fashion. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, so obsessed with her own feelings, that she hadn't even considered how her odd behavior might be interpreted, how her out of nowhere apology might make Erytheia feel.

With a frustrated sound, Aegle thumped herself in the forehead with the heel of her palm, knocking twice in an effort to set her scattered thoughts straight.
"M'just glad y'all right, yeah? I was just thinkin' a'fore y'showed up, how dangerous this whole day has been, and..."
She flapped her hand, trailing off and shaking her head, "Nevermind. Nevermind me and my weird thoughts and all the weird things I say."
"Nevermind me and all my weird feelings...'

That hardly seemed enough to excuse just how oddly she was acting, but Aegle was at a loss as to what else she could say. She envied Carmim and Eva intensely in that moment, for neither one of them ever seemed to have much trouble interpreting their emotions or expressing how they felt. She envied Erytheia, for that matter, who was so self-possessed that the idea of her being at all uncertain of herself was altogether laughable. How clumsy must Aegle had have appeared to the regal blonde, fumbling at her feelings the way she was?
'Like a child...'
And why not? Theia was worldly and experienced, details which were made obvious within minutes of meeting her. Shut-up and naive Aegle, who'd spent eight years being sick instead of growing up, could not possibly compare.
"M'doin' it again,' Aegle thought, teeth gritted, 'Why does she make me so bloody nervous?' Why did being around her always remind Aegle how awkward and twisted and inelegant she was?
But Aegle knew why, or at least suspected. The suspicion was a new one and not one she'd had time to give all that much thought to but, at least so far as suspicions went, it felt close to right.

Aegle turned away from Erytheia again, as though afraid the heiress might see the look on her face and divine from it the crooked girl's innermost thoughts. She pulled her blanket more tightly across her shoulders too, as if to hide deeper within its folds. It was a counterproductive effort, one which only emphasized her abnormality by better outlining the wasted frame and steel bracing beneath. After a moment, gritting her teeth, Aegle turned back to the blonde. She worked a smile onto her lips, tried to pretend she didn't feel like a toad in the presence of a princess, though she only really managed one of those things.
"Y'hungry? Qiu'li killed a bear and cooked some for me. I've still got a little t'share." She forced her grin a little wider and added, with an affected lightness, "Still owe ya a half decent supper, after all."

---

words - 831
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[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.
For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Watching all this happen, watching her friend hit herself in the forehead with more force than she was comfortable with, watching Aegle turn back to her with a forced smile after it all - it made the Hellebore heiress more than a little sad. It had been two months since they had first met, in one of the most reputed diners of the cloud district - and since then, Haven had not been kind to her. Erytheia had heard many things, none of them good. Missions gone awry, rumors of cowardice, supplementary classes to make up for her inability to handle the curriculum, and far more time spent in the infirmary than any other student. The blonde young lady had always done her best to help in that regard, but the fact of the matter was that even she alone could do nothing to affect Haven’s general attitude towards those perceived to be worse than the rest.

When they had first met, she had told Aegle that a great strength was within her, and she had meant every word. Anyone could train themselves to be better at combat. It was a skill that could be honed with practice, like learning to sew or to play the piano. But simple dreams, heartfelt aspirations, and a smaller, more honest soul - those were things that couldn’t be bought or learned, things that couldn’t be quantified or put into some professor’s table when it came to judging students.

There were some in this academy who would never fit that criteria, and whom she firmly believed did not belong. The path of a Huntress or Huntsman was long and hard, and many did not live to see it to the end. Many more lost their way and became the very things they swore to fight against - those that did not uplift the weak, but preyed on them and used them to further their own goals. One needed heart and hope to walk this road, and if there was anything her smaller friend had in spades, it was that. It wasn’t something that she could just tell her, however - something that could be said aloud and believed in. Aegle had to discover her own strength, or that strength would falter when she needed it most.

But that didn’t mean that Erytheia couldn’t offer her own shoulder to help along the way.

“Aegle,” she began softly, reaching out once again with her hand to take the smaller girl’s in her own. Leather covered fingers closed over ones supported by metal like a flower’s petals sighing shut, as gentle as she had always been. Her gaze did not move from where their hands met, dark cloth against pale flesh, and the scars that were so alike - one hidden, and one not.

“I am glad that you care for me so. I am glad that my presence brings you happiness. And I am glad that we are friends. As your friend, however, it would be remiss of me to not say anything when there is clearly something bothering you. It is not my intention to broach topics that are private, or not for the ears of those not familiar with them. But if there is anything you would like to say, my friend - anything at all, no matter what words you use or how it might sound…”

Erytheia raised her head then, looking into Aegle’s green eyes with her own crimson gaze, as soft as the crackling of the flames next to them.

“I will listen,” she said simply, giving the hand held in hers a gentle squeeze.

“I will listen, Aegle.”

@ ● 601 words ● 2931 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Aegle Verdant]

Practiced dissembler that Aegle was, she could see immediately that Erytheia hadn't been fooled, not even for a moment. That didn't come as much of a surprise; Before the blonde arrived, Aegle had spent close to an hour alone in the dark, and had spent that hour dismantling just about every defense she had. It had seemed a pretty risk free proposition, when she'd assumed she would have the rest of her watch to herself; There scarcely seemed much more she could have said to Qiu'li, even if he'd seemed the sort inclined to frivolous conversation, that would affect his opinion of her any more than what she'd already said to him.
So why not let her guard down, at least for a couple of hours before bed? Why not take in the sights and sounds, why not open herself up to reflecting on the days events. Except, having taken all her armor off, it was harder than ever to put it all back on. Try though she might to cover up, there remained bare patches, vulnerable patches, for the enterprising heiress to capitalize upon.

And So Erytheia did. Taking hold of Aegle's hand, the heiress' fingers were gentle on her linen swathed flesh. Had her armor been on, had her defenses been up, Aegle would have yanked her hand away, but it had been so long since anyone had touched her in such a caring and careful manner. Perhaps Carmim had ben the last, but it had been Aegle who'd initiated that contact, and she'd done so against every instinct she had, fighting her own hangups all the while. Before that? When was the last time someone had held her hand without Aegle wanting to recoil or pull away?
Aegle didn't want to pull away from Erytheia. She had been wanting, in fact, to do something since the older girl first showed up, and had not known what that something was. Now, feeling a hand upon her own, Aegle thought she knew what she'd wanted to do.
'How long's it been since I let myself hold onto somethin'?'

The touch, wanted and unwanted, gentle and frightening, would have been bad enough, but Erytheia spoke too, and her words were as a sturdy point, finding the gaps in armor and punching deep. Aegle felt her smile fracture, cracking upon her pale face. Felt it chipped away, bit by bit, word by word, to reveal the soft, vulnerable heart beneath.
Aegle lowered her eyes and, unable to meet Theia's gaze, stared at their hands instead. Her's gloved, Aegle's bandaged, strong fingers entwining those unable to make much more than a fist.

A soft sound, too raw to be a giggle, rattled unevenly out of the crooked girl's mouth, "Botherin' me? Whatever d'I gotta be bothered over?"
It had meant to sound flippant, dismissive, a quiet reassurance that she was fine, that there was nothing at all the matter. It didn't come out that way at all though. It sounded ironic, sardonic, mirthlessly absurd. Her lips flexed into a smile, almost as if on reflex to the hollow ache which suddenly gripped her.
'When you're sad...' Aaron's voice whispered, and Aegle, realizing she was trying to smile, turned the expression into a grimace instead.

"Oh, Theia..." She whispered, with none of the glib confidence she'd had just a moment before. She was so tired of pretending to be brave. She was so tired of pretending to be happy. She was so tired...

Aegle had spent that evening sharing her innermost thoughts with strangers; She'd told Qiu'li and Alex things she hadn't admitted even to her family and, impossibly, they had seemed to understand her, when she'd been sure even her parents and her brothers never could. Was it too much to believe, too much to hope, that Theia might understand too?
Little by little, bit by bit, Aegle turned her hand in Theia's and gently held the heiress' in return. Gently, because her trembling fingers could manage nothing more. Had Erytheia not offered to listen, Aegle probably could not have managed even that much.

"I wanna tell ya..." Aegle said, after what felt like an age. An age spent deciding what to say, an age spent trying to find the words. An age, simply to figure out which of her problems she even had the energy to broach with Theia.
"Part of me don't see the point. S'not like y'can do anythin' 'bout it, 'cept tell me things I won't believe, or else start t'worryin' over stuff y'can't change," she shrugged, with some difficulty, "but I wanna tell ya all the same."
Then, as if the shrug had been too much effort, Aegle slumped. Might be, she'd have slumped against Theia, and made literal use of her proverbial shoulder, but Aegle had spent too long reluctant to initiate any sort of physical contact, and even seeking out that basic comfort was hobbled by fears over how the heiress might react to being leaned into or hung off of, especially by someone so repulsive as herself.

For a time, it seemed like that assurance would be all Aegle would proffer. She still didn't know what else to say, what else was even worth saying, so she just sat in silence and picked away at all the myriad things wrong with her, and her life, trying to decide which one to inflict upon her friend. It seemed a pointless effort; Theia couldn't do anything about any of it and, even if she could, how petty and small was Aegle to sound in the sharing of them?

"I almost died today." The words came out without her permission. So divorced were they from her conscious thoughts that it took a few moments to recognize her own voice, and realize she'd said them. Aegle could not believe she'd said it, but found the words came out easily as she tried to say more
"Twice, actually," she giggled and, strangely, her mirth was genuine, "Not cause I was runnin' away, this time, but because I was fightin'. Can y'believe it?"
Aegle shook her head, plainly she could not.
"Before y'showed up, I was thinkin' 'bout that, y'know? Thinkin' 'bout how close I came t'not bein' 'round anymore." She shrugged, "Guess I was tryin' t'see how that made me feel, aye? Seems the sorta thing I ought'a know, how I feel 'bout dyin'.
"There'd be people what'd miss me I reckon. My mum and daddy, my big brothers, Carm and you too. Reckon it'd be sad for all've ya. Reckon y'just proved it, wonderin' how I am the way y'are."
Aegle squeezed Theia's hand, letting her know she appreciated that much, at least.
"S'not a new thought, wonderin' what'll happen when I die. M'used t'thinkin' 'bout that..."

Trailing off, Aegle found she needed to search for the words. Not because she didn't want to say it, but because there was so much of it that was so intrinsic, so ingrained, that Aegle didn't need to consciously consider it anymore. So many of the thoughts that made up the foundation were as much a part of her as her twisted spine and wasted muscles. Even thinking about death, and her death in particular, wasn't remarkable to Aegle anymore.
"One of 'em was a boarbatusk," Aegle continued. The many pink and red cuts that covered her arms and chest had been its doing.
"I couldn't hurt it; Hittin' it just made it mad." This detail was offered lightly. Aegle's inability to hurt the grimm, like her own death, was such a blase detail to her that it barely needed commenting on. It wasn't the point she was building towards, just necessary context for the real point.
"Must've spent maybe a couple of minutes just dancin' 'round it, punchin' it and makin' it angry. Dancin' and dodgin', yeah? Dancin' and gettin' all cut up. Couple of times it would've torn me right open without my aura t'stop it. Would've killed me. Should've killed me. Even while I was fightin' it, I knew I couldn't win, knew it'd just wear me down; Knew my aura would eventually break."
And, if it had, she wouldn't have been there to tell Theia about it. Aegle tried to make herself feel something about it, but the crux of the experience kept the thought from having too sharp a point. The crux, which she was building towards, muddled that point and rendered it indistinct, such that Aegle wasn't at all sure what to think about it.

"I was laughin', y'know?" Aegle shook her head, barely able to believe it, and she'd actually been there for it.
"I was laughin' so hard it made my sides hurt. I was..." She shook her head again, "Y'know, I reckon I was happy. S'been such a long time since I felt so good. Can y'believe that?" From the way Aegle asked, clearly she did not. Yet she had been there, she had felt the surge of pleasure, the glow of delight, the delirious satisfaction, the relief. All of it as sharp as the wounds the boarbatusk had given her, as warm as the blood that had covered her from head to heel. It had made her so happy to be in a fight for her life, a fight she could not win.
"I was sad when it was over, yeah? Disappointed, I reckon. I've been sittin' here and thinkin' 'bout that. I dunno, seems like that should be botherin' me, aye?"

Was it the biggest problem she had? Not even close, but it was the one which was foremost in her mind just then.

---

words - 1,648
total - 5,748

[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.

For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

Erytheia did just as she had promised she would - she sat, and listened. She did not rush the younger girl, nor did she allow the slightest hint of expectation to cross her face. Only a companionable silence and the support of a warm hand did the Hellebore offer, and when Aegle spoke, clearly finding the words easier and easier to speak when she offered no comment, she listened until the end, until the girl had turned to her, seeking an answer for a question that even she had no way of knowing how to reply to.

"I offered to listen, and so I have," she said quietly, reaching out with her other hand to clasp Aegle's own for the briefest of moments, before leaning back slightly and letting said hand rest on her own lap, looking into the crackling flames of the campfire as if it would help her come up with some perfect answer to give Aegle that would help to restore her confidence and the smile that she'd worn so often in the earlier days of their meeting but the Hellbore heiress had started noticing changes in as the days and weeks went by. None came, of course. She was on her own, to offer what she could.

"Now, I would offer words, if you would not mind listening. However, my friend, I am no guide nor counselor, so the only words I can offer are mine and mine alone. I hope you keep that in mind as I speak."

A gentle squeeze of the other girl's hand in hers, as if to reassure her before she next spoke, and Erytheia's crimson gaze turned from the fire back to the small girl beside her, offering a small, melancholy smile.

"Do you remember? When we first met, at the restaurant in the Cloud District? You told me you wanted to be a Huntress, and I told you that you possessed great strength. And we talked. About you and your family, your brothers. Even then, I could tell how much you looked up to them, how well you knew each and every one."

The Hellebore heiress' observational skills had been well honed in more than a decade's worth of fighting on the battlefield that was the social interactions of the aristocracy, and her memory had served her well in those bouts - just as they both served her well when it came to learning more about the people at Haven. Tiny scraps of information here and there, building up profiles and personalities of everyone whom they shared a class with - even if she never had cause to use any of it, nothing bad could come of knowing more about one's peers. From Aegle herself, she could piece together a rough hypothesis from the things she had said and the way she had reacted to certain things - a mentioned history of sickness, her own physical vulnerability, and a limited and specialized training painted a fairly clear picture, if only one cared to look. And Erytheia had cared - had cared ever since they had spoken together that day and learnt that they would be studying at Haven together.

"Yes, indeed. A great strength - but not one similar to what some of the rest do. Theirs lie in the strength of their sword arm, the strength of their Semblance, the strength of their shield - but some of them will never have the same strength you do. That type of strength can only be held by someone who knows weakness. By someone who knows what it is like to reach so desperately for the power to take charge of their own life, yet to be trapped by limitations beyond their own control."

The hand clasping Aegle's own let go at last, reaching down to pick up a leaf from the forest floor. Airtafae caused her hand to spark red, and for a long moment she was silent, holding the leaf up to watch the electric current tracing black lines in fractal patterns across the brown surface thin enough for the light of the fire to shine through. When the slight embers had died down, she shook it once to waft the smoke away, and held it out for her friend to take. When she did, the heiress continued to speak, tugging at the leather that covered her right hand at every finger.

"Rage will burn itself out. Ambitions can be dashed. Glory is temporary. Avarice will see its own end come time enough. But the urge to push back against oppression, the drive to circumvent the decisions of fate, the will to plant your feet like a tree and tell the world to move - that is a decision made by those who know weakness, who choose to fight back against that and gain strength."

The glove had loosened enough now, and the apprehension clear in her eyes, Erytheia swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. It was something she had never shown anyone before - but just as her friend had bared her heart to her, so too would she return the favor. Aegle needed her, and she could not call herself fit to lead if she could not give unto her friend what she had been given in return.

"And I know what it is like to be weak."

Pulling the black leather away from her fingers with the other, she reached out once again for Aegle's own with her uncovered hand, giving it a gentle squeeze like she had earlier. White skin gleamed in the firelight, even more pale than the rest of her, but also the scars, the terrible scars that ran fractal patterns across her hands from the tip of her fingers to midway up her forearm - the very same patterns that had been burned into the leaf that her friend now held.

"I would not dare claim that we are the same, Aegle. My swords, my training, my Semblance… I never asked for them, but I was given them all the same, and that is more than you have gotten. But I do know what it is like to be cast adrift, to be lost - to be as a flower petal cast into a raging stream, carried this way and that by circumstances and forces beyond your own. And I do know what it is like to desire freedom from it."

Now, she turned to Aegle, and the smile on her face was as soft as it had ever been, her affection and concern for the friend she had made as clear as the scars that ran across her skin.

"Death is something that eventually comes to us all. One can choose to meet it as meek and passive as a lamb awaits the hungry wolf. Or, as all of us here have chosen, to rage and rave against it. To not go gentle into the long night, to blaze our light where others might take it up. To take your strength and use it to push the dark back however you can. Can that be called anything but living?"

Gently, Erytheia brushed her thumb over the other's own, and shifted closer so that Aegle could rest against her, to find the comfort that she no doubt needed more desperately than ever.

"I see nothing wrong with that."

AIRTAFAE (SEMBLANCE): [RANK E]

PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RADIX GLORIA (DURABILITY) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: ARBOR IMPERIUM (STRENGTH) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RAMIS MILIA (MARTIAL ARTS) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: LAMINAE CHORUS (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]

IRKALLA ARALI (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 1216 words ● 3147 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle looked upon the pale flesh, run through thickly with unsightly pink scars, and was surprised but how even that unseemly part of Theia could seem strangely beautiful. It was an evocative sight, those scars, suggestive of so much that it was hard to put the resulting questions into words. At a brush, the image of Theia struggling with her own semblance was impressed upon Aegle's mind. She imagined the self-possessed and put together heiress as unable to control herself, which was an image so contradictory to everything that Aegle knew about her that it almost made her want to laugh. Had the evidence of that loss of control not been right there before her, illuminated in hues of pink and red by the fire's flickering glow, Aegle could never have believed such a thing was possible as Theia hurting herself with her own semblance.

Thinking about it though, about their time at Haven together, Aegle knew her friend had used her semblance but sparingly. She knew as well, from second hand accounts, that she'd devastated her own aura in unleashing that semblance against Colton. Funny how Aegle had never considered how at odds that inelegance was with everything she knew about her blonde friend. Now, with that pale hand touching her own, crossed and cloven like broken milk-glass, like rotten ice, in a way identical to the leaf which Aegle held, an altogether more plausible and simultaneously less believable explanation presented itself.

Erytheia's semblance was not entirely under control. It was dangerous, even to her.

All these thoughts, these impressions, filtered through as Aegle considered aught which her friend had said, as added spice to the meat of what all she'd expressed. That Aegle had never seen Theia's scarred hands said it was not something the older girl was comfortable revealing and, in a moment, Aegle realized she'd never seen the blonde without her gloves. She realized how out of place the gloves had been, even at the slumber party, and how she'd wondered about them before being distracted by the rest of the night's events. It occurred to her how deeply personal the act of exposing her hands must be to her self-possessed friend, and Aegle felt oddly ashamed for not having realized that in the instant that Theia first pulled off her gloves. Had she known, she might have treated the gesture with the reverence and intimacy it was due.

Theia squeezed her hand, scarred fingers touching linen swathed ones, and Aegle felt suddenly grateful, but also bemused, that Erytheia had chosen to share this part of herself with one so undeserving and crooked. After a few moments, Aegle set aside the leaf she'd been handed, and let her blanket slide from her shoulders, thereby revealing the crooked frame and sharp, angular metal beneath. Using her teeth, she unbuckled her free hand from the wrist cuff supporting it. Then, with the practiced method of an act often performed, she tore at the linen wrappings that swathed half her forearm and her entire hand, and let the unbound fabric flow freely off, to spool in a pile at her feet.

The hand revealed was a lot smaller than its wrapped counterpart might lead one to believe. Like the bulky pants and outsized hoodie Aegle so often wore, the wraps obfuscated just how shrunken and tiny was the body beneath. Without the cloth, Aegle's hand was barely more than skeletal. Her fingers, without the cloth to reinforce them, curled clawlike, without the strength required to open all the way. The muscles in her forearm, such as they were, jumped and twitched, and those spasms translated to little tremors in Aegle's finger tips, but her hand did not twitch the way it usually did. Without the wraps pulling her fingers straight, they were nearly motionless.

Aegle turned her hand over. Without the wristcuff, the movement was clumsy and awkward, and it took her a moment to properly lay her fingers across the scarred back of Erytheia's hand. In so doing, she exposed the ruin of her knuckles. Months of relentless training had made her knuckles nearly unrecognizable as human, but they had been ruined even before she had taken to beating them bloody on a twice-daily basis. Her hands, like the rest of her, were twisted and irregular. When her muscles had started to wither, they had not done so with any uniformity. So, while some muscles atrophied, others had remained strong enough to distort the joints they were attached to. Like her shoulders and her back, so too with Aegle's hands. The bindings she wore went some ways to correcting the deformity, but only so long as she wore them.

Summoning as much strength as she possessed, Aegle gave Erytheia's hand a soft squeeze. Her thumb ran along one of the fractal scars in soft, twitchy movements. Then, very gently, she leaned against the older girl, and lay her head down on Theia's shoulder.
"I reckon..." She whispered, after some silent contemplation, "I reckon y'get it. Y'get me."
Somehow, Erytheia had put into words, succinct and complete, the complexity of emotions Aegle had felt while she was fighting the boarbatusk. Somehow, she'd known from where that crazy joy had sprung. Hearing it said aloud, having it divined from what brief and incomplete description Aegle had given, it didn't seem so unusual or unnatural to have reacted like she had. If Erytheia could figure her out, then it must have made some sort of sense.
"Thanks f'understandin'..."

If Erytheia could be so unerring in her observations, then perhaps aught else she'd said could be true as well. Perhaps Aegle really did have some sort of strength, born paradoxically of being weak. She could not imagine how that could be true, but if Theia thought it was, and if Carmim did too...
But no. Aegle knew she wasn't strong, knew she wasn't brave. She wasn't clever and she wasn't skilled. She was a stupid, twisted, half-mad weakling whose only goal in life seemed to be getting herself killed.
"I reckon you're one've the strongest people I know, aye?" It had bothered Aegle to hear Theia even intimate that she was weak, the thought of which contradicted Aegle's image of the heiress almost as badly as the scars on her hands.
"S'it 'cause of these," Aegle touched carefully along Theia's scars, "That y'reckon y'aint?"

---

words - 1,062
total - 6,810

[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.

For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

"These?"

Erytheia's smile in the firelight didn't waver, but the light in her eyes dimmed ever so slightly before she let out a small, slightly sad laugh and put just a little more of her weight to lean against the smaller girl. No, it wasn't the scars that determined why she was weak.

"No. No, not really. Scars in my family are not quite as ostracized as in others - but only if those scars are earned in combat. These scars… well, that is a story for another time. Away from these woods, and away from the Grimm that dwell here. It is not one I would say in company other than yours, either."

Another smile, and a significant glance across the fire at the sleeping Qiu'li. She did not know much about him personally, other than the fact that Evangeline was seemingly infatuated with the man, and that he seemed to have a running rivalry with Deraine himself - and thus, didn't trust him to not overhear the inner details of her life, details she wasn't entirely comfortable sharing even with her closer friends, let alone a complete stranger.

"That aside, these scars are only a symptom. A message, if you will, that power without control, and strength without soul, is just as easy turned upon one's self, and those that one cares about, as upon one's foes."

And to me, an ever present testament to my inadequacy. A reminder that I can never slow, and never stop, until I reach the point where I can have them removed without shame.

"Tell me, Aegle. Do you think it is difficult for me to stand up to the Grimm, or to other fighters? With the strength and training I have received? For any of the others who could be considered strong at this school?"

With a sigh, she leaned back and stretched her legs out, feeling the tenseness from long hours of walking start to relax at last. She looked up at the stars, so cold and distant, and wondered what might dwell in the skies, so far removed from Dust and Grimm.

"It is easy for those with power to face down foes others cannot, if only because it poses less of a threat to them," she said, turning her gaze back to her friend.

"But no power is eternal. Bodies will wither with age, as will Semblance and aura. When I am old and grey, if I should live that long, do you think I could lift this?"

A gesture at her own weapon, the massive slabs of steel in its lance form stabbed into the dirt beside the two of them, and a smile, knowing the answer to that question as well as the other did. She waited for a few moments more in the companionable silence, letting the thought sink in.

"Strength is more than that. More than the sword, the flame, the shield, the gun. If we should define ourselves by only our power, our desire to dominate, to possess - then what will we have, at the end of the day, when it ebbs and is gone from us?"

Gentle scarred fingers traced over ruined knuckles, and red eyes sought out green ones, a quiet melancholy swirling behind that smile. Layers upon layers, previously hidden like those scars had been behind those gloves.

"For me, strength has always been about choice. The choice to stand when you know you will be knocked down. The choice to use your own life as fuel for humanity's light. The choice to wake up every day knowing that only pain awaits, yet facing it anyway."

The fire crackled, spitting sparks into the night air as a piece of wood shifted in the flame. A low howl split the night - not Grimm, but some other animal. A wolf, most likely.

"For most of my life, Aegle, I did not have the strength to choose. To exert any will on my own life. Like a machine performing a command, I did as I was told. Gaining power for the sake of gaining power, learning skill for the sake of learning skill - there was no meaning in my life. Nothing that I could say I was proud of, nothing I could say I was embarrassed of - because I was never the one making those decisions. There was always something - someone else to guide me, to choose the best path I could ever walk. If I had been strong enough to choose, strong enough to be better than I had been…"

Here, she laughed, looking down at the scars that crossed her skin. If her normal laughter was the peal of bells on a snowy night, then this was a muffled toll on a sunset by the ocean, with the fog rolling in - muted, sad, and not at all like it had been before.

"The first choice I made… the first choice I made was to lie. To my doctors. To my parents."

To myself.

"And the second choice I made was to come here. To study. To learn. To choose a path that I could believe in. Now, I am here - and so are you."

A quiet squeeze of the hand, a meeting once more of the eyes.

"You chose to be here, my friend. You chose."

AIRTAFAE (SEMBLANCE): [RANK E]

PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RADIX GLORIA (DURABILITY) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: ARBOR IMPERIUM (STRENGTH) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RAMIS MILIA (MARTIAL ARTS) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: LAMINAE CHORUS (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]

IRKALLA ARALI (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 883 words ● 4030 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Aegle Verdant]

It stunned Aegle to hear her own thoughts repeated back to her with Erytheia's voice. Not necessarily her thoughts on the impermanence of strength, and the futility of its acquisition, but the idea that life was a pursuit for purpose, and that being strong was to have found a meaning worth striving towards. It was a sobering notion, as well as wholly unexpected, that the well put together Heiress could harbor any doubts about who she was, that someone so self-possessed as Erytheia could have been too weak to determine the course of her own life. Yet, having heard her say it out loud, having heard her talk about deciding one's fate, about choosing, Aegle could no longer doubt at Theia had, in some small part at least, felt just as Aegle had so many times in her own ill-fated existence.

That was an upsetting thought. Not merely that someone so outwardly strong could be just as confused and frightened as everyone else, but that Theia had felt the things Aegle had felt. Horrible things, hopeless things, things fit to make a person give up and give in to an ignominious fate. Aegle's heart ached with that thought; She could feel it pressing up inside of her, that empathetic, sympathetic welling of emotion for her friend which no words could possibly have expressed.

If she'd harbored any last doubt that Theia might truly understand her, those doubts had been thoroughly extinguished. Theia did not merely understand, she had walked a parallel path. Somehow, despite all their differences, the two of them shared this one seminal experience, from which their whole world view seemed to have been formed. For Aegle, it had been the sickness. A totally random, totally meaningless chance which had commandeered her entire life. What could have happened to Erytheia, for her to so completely understand how that had made Aegle feel?

Aegle wanted to share with her friend, but Theia had been right. Just then, in the deep woods full all up with Grimm, was not the time to be picking at old wounds. The last thing either of them needed was for the inevitable emotion of such an exercise to bring a whole pack of Beowolves down upon them.

"Choosin'..." Aegle said quietly. She pulled closer to Erytheia, to match the emotional closeness she suddenly felt to the heiress in her heart. She hesitated only slightly when her brace whirred, reminding her of its sharp metal angles and how all of it was on full display just then. Only slightly, because she suddenly felt comfortable in letting the older girl see it and letting her feel the unnatural edges of it along her withered arms, along her crooked shoulders. Erytheia had her own scars, after all, even if none were quite so obvious as Aegle's were.
"S'not enough, I reckon," her voice reminded quiet, but it had grown pensive, "but it's the best place t'start, aye?"

Then Aegle chose to do something. She chose to do it and, despite her fear, she pretended to be brave.
"I like you, Theia."
Brave did not mean loud however; The words came out as barely more than a whisper, the same as they had when she'd said them to Carmim. Not quite with the same meaning, but near enough that she was afraid of how the older girl might react to them. Near enough that, if Theia had pretended not to hear, Aegle might not have had the nerve to repeat herself. Still, if her fight with the ursa and the boarbatusk had taught her anything, it was how many things she'd left unsaid in her life. Things which, had events turned out a little differently, she might never again have the chance to say. Choosing, as Theia had observed, was a powerful thing, and so Aegle chose to say the things she'd wanted to say but hadn't the guts before. It was time for her to be the huntress, and not the prey, as Nick would have said; For her to act, rather than react.
"Y'a pretty incredible person, I reckon. Not just pretty n' strong, but kind. Y'are one of the kindest people I know, yeah? M'real lucky t'have met'cha..."
Very slowly, Aegle turned her hand in Theia's, and gripped the other as tight as she could. It wasn't very tight; a child could have squeezed harder, but there was a trembling intensity to the gesture.
"I reckon I ought'a thank ya, for bein' such a good friend to me, so thanks. Thanks a whole lot."

---

words - 759
total - 7,569

[Erytheia Hellebore]

The noble warrior stood, and the people looked to her.

For she was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only human.
Within that truth there was great promise.
If one could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.

In her hand the warrior held a Rose. And her aura burned bright.

❝

It is," the Hellebore heiress nodded, her smile as soft and welcoming as it had always been as the smaller girl shuffled closer and leaned into her a little. It was good indeed to see the change on Aegle's face from tired exhaustion to considering her words, however slow that change might be. Not because she wanted to be proven right, but because she had, in some small way, managed to do something to help her friend with what she was struggling with. Aegle's next words, however, had that smile slowly fading - not because Erytheia was displeased or irritated in any fashion, but because she was struggling to find a way to react.

How long had it been since she'd received a compliment of any sort that hadn't happened in the confines of a gala or event that she had no particular desire to be at? How long had it been since someone had said such things to her out of appreciation instead of lusting after her family's money and power - or her? Not since Sanctum, where she had the closest things to friends she ever had until coming to Haven. More than that - not until Sanctum. And then...

The Fall.

All those lives gone, all those lives snuffed out before they were allowed to shine as bright as they could. Those who had gone to Sanctum went on to Haven as a general rule, with a precious few going to the other academies that made up the Big Four. And those students, those few whom she'd managed to create some semblance of a bond with, those who had promised to see her in Haven when the time came - had all been claimed by the Fall. It wasn't fair.

But it was how things were.

"No. Thank you, Aegle."

The words were quiet, but Erytheia's smile said all that she did not. Melancholic and wan, yet grateful and with a quiet joy at the same time, it was a smile that was accompanied by the sudden shimmer of wetness in her eyes, gleaming in the firelight. Those words, so easily said and heard to people all around Remnant, and yet to her they were more precious than gold, soothing an ache that she didn't know she needed to be soothed. Words from the heart, to the heart - was there anything else that needed to be said, if one but opened one's heart?

Alramadi had never said anything of the sort.

"It is my pleasure to be your friend," she said softly, leaning into the other girl. The smile was back, but less composed, less regal than it had ever been before. A warmth that was similar to, yet distinctly different from the warmth Erytheia had expressed to Aegle up until now. The warmth of someone who had been calmed, been given strength, instead of the warmth of someone who had been giving it. That was what brought this smile forth instead of that, a reflection of her inner thoughts that she didn't need to mask with decorum and formality.

And so there it was. The strength she been lacking, and the same strength which blazed so strongly in Aegle now, in the tremors of her hand and the shaking of her voice.

"And I like you too, my friend."

With her other hand, the one that had not been revealed from its own glove, she held the hand that had been freed from Aegle's brace and linen wrappings, clasping it between both of her own. A memory came to her, then, of how those same words had been spoken to her the first time they had met, in a restaurant not so far from these woods, and she couldn't help but laugh a quiet laugh, eyes shining no longer with wetness but with gentle amusement.

"After all... it would be remiss of me to call you a friend if I did not, no?"

AIRTAFAE (SEMBLANCE): [RANK E]

PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RADIX GLORIA (DURABILITY) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: ARBOR IMPERIUM (STRENGTH) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: RAMIS MILIA (MARTIAL ARTS) [RANK F]
PRAETORIAN ET ROSA: LAMINAE CHORUS (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]

IRKALLA ARALI (WEAPON): [RANK F]

@ ● 653 words ● 4683 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle was trying to remember the last time she'd been so open with someone else, who wasn't one of her brothers. Doc, probably, came closest, but it wasn't the same. With Doc, much of what Aegle had said and done had been said and done with the Haven's resident sawbones already well appraised of what Aegle was. That hadn't been openness so much as an admission to a truth which Doc already took for granted. Aegle thought about that, thought about how there were only six people in all of Remnant who knew what she was, and how only one of them was at Haven. She wondered how much Erytheia's opinion of her might have changed if she became the seventh.

Not that Aegle was prepared for that, nor would she have ruined such an unexpectedly pleasant conversation by bringing it up. Certain things, as Theia had observed, shouldn't be discussed in a Grimm infested forest, and Aegle's boldness could only take her so far. There were things she wasn't ready for any of her friends to know, things she'd sooner they never learned, and which only the contrivance of fate or the inevitability of time could make her share.
'Will have to tell her, tell all of 'em, eventually, though,' Aegle looked up, saw Theia's smile glimmering golden red upon her lips, 'Aye, but not tonight.'
She wondered if Theia might be the first. Not because she was closest to Theia, that remained Carmim, but because she thought Theia would take it the best. Carm might not understand and Eva... Best not to think about what Eva might do. Theia though?
'Don't reckon it'd make her happy, but reckon she'd at least be able t'handle it.'
It made her feel guilty, somehow, like she was plotting some great betrayal rather than planning to unmask a lie she'd let them all go on believing.

Aegle lowered her eyes to Theia's hand, to the scars that crossed it from elbow to finger tips, and she understood that Theia was hiding things too. That she too had things she didn't want those around her to know.
"Theia..." Aegle's voice was strangely subdued, cautious even to her own ears, a strain of something which was not quite worry running through it. Aegle swallowed, feeling suddenly absurd and awkward both, at the idea flitting through her mind. She rallied well however. She hadn't imagined it after all, and she couldn't possibly be wrong, not about this. Not after finding out, much to her surprise, just how much she and the regal huntress had in common.
"I know we don't know each other all that well. We're friends, sure, but I'd be a right fool t'think y'didn't have others y'trusted more 'n me..."
This wasn't going well.
'Gods, but it sounds like I'm tryin' t'guilt her or something.'
Aegle switched tact, "Point is, I'd ken why y'might not talk to me 'bout somethin' what were botherin' you, and I realize now would hardly be the time nor place for that sorta thing either way..."
'Rambling. I'm Ramblin'. Get to the bloody point, will ye.'
"What I mean t'say is," Aegle swallowed, cleared her throat, suddenly afraid of how Theia might react to what she said next. "What I mean t'say is, if y'ever need someone to talk to 'bout it..."
Her voice faltered. It was too much, Far too much. She was a broken person, twisted and half mad; Theia would need to be mad herself, to think of confiding in her. Aegle couldn't stop herself. As though listing her pedigree, she rambled on a few more steps, as though to convince the older girl she could be relied upon.
"I know what it's like, havin' some part what you'd rather keep bottled up and all tucked away. Maybe not the same as you, but I reckon..."
What did she reckon? Aegle didn't know anymore. Every word she said made this seem ever more like a bad idea, like she was offering her shoulder for Theia to lean upon, when she could scarcely stand up on her own. The hypocrisy of it was monumental, to say the very least. So much so, that Aegle almost wanted to laugh.
Aegle cleared her throat again, "Y'know, I reckon, that maybe I'd understand. Mayhaps not all of it, but enough. If y'ever did wanna talk 'bout it."

---

words - 731
total - 8,300