Post your fanfiction here

[CheekyChiki]

To bring it back to topic (GASP who would've thought it'd be ME) ^^; How far are you on the fanfic Adilink?

[NoBaka]

YAY~!

. . .

I was being spammy?

[SummerWolf]

Yes, you are. Stop spamming already.

Now, considering that in the morning I couldn't write jack squat to save my grandmother, how did this come to be? Let's just say I found a soundtrack from the past that greatly juiced up my writings and inspiration.

Once Upon a Fanfiction, Part...urm....Ten? My chapters used to be on the same page....

Silesia…a land of snowstorms and howling blizzards, where white mountains rivaled diamonds as they blazed in the sunlight, blindingly beautiful. Glade after glade of forest turned to crystal trembled under the beats of the wild pegasi wings, magnificent white horses that roamed the skies haphazardly, calling to its tamed brethren to join its flock. Streams and lakes frozen solid like mirrors with girls and children dancing, skating, flitting on the ice like ghostly spirits of memories long dead. Footprints in the snow, the howls of hunting wolves, the sweet wind summoned by the caste of mages in cities of snow and stones, they coalesced into song and fragrance. Ethereal frost painted mirrors and metals with dragons and clouds that trickled away at the touch of a breath, the pressing of a heartbeat. The forests blazing in white, all waiting for the magic kiss of spring to break the spell and return green to the land. It was all Fee had ever known in her life.

Velthomer…a land of green and brown, where prairie winds met desert dust, inviting, menacing, mysterious, the ancestral home of Grandbell’s fire mages. The air wasn’t particularly hot except in the summer when it became searing and the sand could tear flesh off bones in its storms. When the heat met the relative cold of Grandbell it transformed into life-bearing rain, and rain into flowers. Red and blue and gold danced across the green meadows like tapestries, blowing their petals in the wind like ephemeral mirages. Life was difficult there at times, perched at the edge of the great Yied Desert, leading the fire mages into a life of secrecy and reserve. The flowers in the wind reminded them that life was beautiful still.

Yet…compared to Silesia’s open skies it was alien...beautiful in its way, but still discomfortingly so. The snow of Fee’s mountains would melt away to mere trickling streams under the scorching heat, and she felt uncomfortable, like she herself could dissolve away in an instant.

The Pegasus Knight was walking along one of the castle’s many balconies, enjoying some rare cold wind blowing from the north, from home. Velthomer was, like any desert dwelling, designed with ventilation in mind and it showed in the storied levels of balconies and balconies, hanging gardens, indoor waterfalls…anything to cool up the scorched rocks. She remembered being thoroughly wowed when she and Arthur first stepped into the main keep, as the design was above and beyond everything she’d seen even in the capital of Silesia. He was surprised, too, being a creature of frost and snow himself, even more than her. The lord of Fire grew up in the snowy reaches of Silesia’s backwoods, in crystal forests encased in ice, whereas Fee at least had called the warm hearth of Silesia Castle her home.

And in loving each other, both of them had deserted the only place they knew for...well, a desert. To say that they had trouble adjusting would be a grandmother of an understatement.

Sighing, her eyes almost involuntarily went to the direction of Silesia, to the northeastward skies she knew so well. She couldn’t see it, but it was there. It was still waiting there. Fee knew that Arthur missed it and had considered asking him to return many, many times...but she didn’t. Arthur wanted to heal the land of Alvis and Yurius, wanted to know the place his father grew up in, and she joined him willingly. Gladly, in fact. Homesickness wasn’t going to make her regret that choice.

Then she frowned. Pegasus riders have sharp eyes from long training for spotting things on the ground, and she had picked up something approaching from the east. It seemed to be a lone horse with a lone rider---certainly not a trader, then---running at full gallop.

Full gallop?

One doesn’t ride their horses that way in long distance travel unless it was a full emergency. And she’d heard enough about trouble of bandits being about.

Cursing, Fee leapt off the balcony and raced to her personal stables. There wasn’t enough time to tell anybody, not now. Not when somebody’s life was in jeopardy. Fee took off on Mahnya and soared.

-----------------------------

Velthomer was six days' journey away from Freege, but for some reason it took Teeny seven, and she was so exhausted she could just fall off the horse and roll over, preferably not to wake up in the foreseeable future. But she had to get to Arthur as soon as possible. Even one minute counted.

Her mount had slowed down, and Teeny knew she was pushing it too hard in her haste. Tugging on her reins, the mage changed the pace to a little trot and began to look for a place to rest for a while. If she go any further, she’d end up having a dead horse on her hands...and that wasn’t quite a pleasant business to have.

Then, as she was turning her horse about in search of some shade, Teeny saw a speck of something in the sky. She frowned. It was too big to be a normal bird...and it was coming way faster than natural fauna would.

Teeny reached into her pack and produced a slightly dog-eared copy of Trone. Whatever it was, if it was going to attack, it’d be in for a not-so-nice surprise.

The unidentified flying object came closer, and Teeny readied her spell.

--------------------------

[SummerWolf]

Bookkeeping was never Arthur’s favourite task. He was a mage knight, for Holsety’s sake, not an accountant!

As he sat on his desk leafing through documents signed and sealed by various merchants, traders, and members of the local bureacracy, Arthur couldn’t refrain from a long long sigh. There were literally barrels and barrels of them to read, approve and stamp with his own signet each day, and by the time it all ended his head was always positively swimming. It was one of most cliché’ and cheesy things in the world before, the paperwork-hating lord syndrome, but after Arthur had discovered himself to be one, the joke lost much of its prior humor. He didn’t even have enough energy to peck Fee on the cheek before retiring to their quarters---as for some obtuse reason, they were not allowed to wed by the Velthomer behavioural committee, as Fee called it, until they come of age---the minute he got out of the study, he always crashed onto the bed and slept like a winter bear until morning. That, of course, was the time for the next pile of documents.

Arthur hated this life. He really did. In Silesia, he was a bumpkin wind mage, without fame but without hassles as well. In Velthomer, he was Duke Arthur, Crusader Arthur, and he didn’t even have enough time to talk to his lady. The young man vastly preferred being a wind mage, even if life there was hard.

A few more documents passed under the stamp. One was a trade permit from an Isaacian pepper merchant named Bethran or some such, another the inheritance paperworks from some important local family. He hadn’t learned enough of Velthomer to memorize everything yet, as adjusting alone took up much of his time. The food was different, the climate different, and so many things he’d known to work before didn’t really apply. There were so many things to learn and unlearn that all the work frustrated him. How could he know anything of Velthomer with all this office work piling on top of his time? He didn’t hate Velthomer. He hungered to learn more about it, of his father’s land, of his father. Of the fire blood that burned through him. He yearned to heal the damaged pride of his father’s House, caused by his uncle and cousin. He wanted to learn. He wanted to help. He wanted to heal. But how the heck was he supposed to do that?

Arthur hated this life. It boiled down to that again. He realized that repairing things involves a good deal of paperwork, but what’s a lord who never knew his people, never walked into the streets, never hear their pains or joys? He didn’t even know a decent vocabulary of local swear words, nor what makes them tick. He had no idea of what the people do when they rejoice, had not a single idea of what’s considered offensive and what’s not. What kind of lord was he?

Another document went. This one was about digging a new well in Phenora, and the governor of the fortress had sent the proposal to him for consideration, it being a fief of Velthomer. He sighed. This kind of thing should and could’ve been authorized in Phenora itself, it didn’t need to be sent here. He didn’t really care unless they fail to pay their taxes for three years straight or someone start an uprising. Delay in well-building could be hazardous to the welfare of the people, and he didn’t want that, even when there’s nothing he could do. Arthur didn’t make the rules of government.

Sighing again, Arthur put the proposal down on another pile he’d set aside especially for matters needing immediate delivery. There were already a few documents sitting there, letters to the Velthomer’s representatives in Thracia and other nobles, asking for its help in eradicating the bandits who plague the trade routes. Arthur was quite sure Leaf wouldn’t have any problem consider his request, but paperwork was paperwork. The young duke reached for the next abominable document to scan and stamp.

That was when he paused. Something was decidedly odd with this document. For one thing, there wasn’t any seals or stamps or signatures he could see. The identity of the sender was a mystery, and that didn’t happen everyday, chain letters not withstanding. Arthur didn’t care much for chain letters. The black magic imbued in them were strong enough to cause some relatively harmless incidents with the normal populace. But Arthur was a blooded lord of a great House, and those little tricks could do little to effect him. But the second strange thing was that it was written on a parchment. Parchment. Ever since the advent of paper in the year 750, everyone and their grandmother had been using the less expensive and better quality material, even if they had to import it from Miletos. The rest of his documents were all in paper. He didn’t even know parchment existed anymore.

As Arthur was beginning to look at it, he heard hurried footsteps coming to his room and he sighed, putting the thing down. There never was any interruption when he only had the drudgery. Now that he’s got something interesting, something just had to turn up.

A person wearing an apprentice’s mage robes rushed into his room, reddish-gold hair fluttering wildly in his rush. The boy almost didn’t manage to brake himself in time and nearly crashed into Arthur’s working desk.

“Eaizer,” Arthur acknowledged tiredly. For some reason, this squire-apprentice-whatever-it-is of his always managed to almost hit his desk. Having an apprentice who’s only a few years younger than Arthur himself made him feel quite awkward for quite a few times and if not for the fact that Eaizer had a bunch to learn about practical spellcasting and was incredibly useful in dealing with desk jobs and archival tasks, he’d probably consider getting a new apprentice. The boy also greatly admired Alvis, and Arthur’d always had a headache on how to deal with that.

“My lord,” he replied, panting and bowing at the same time. “There’s a visitor from Freege to see you, sir.”

“Freege?” Arthur frowned, even though his heart was leaping. There was the vain hope that it was Teeny, even though he tried to have it suppressed with the knowledge that it was probably just another trader.

Eaizer gathered himself together, looked at him in the face, and grinned. “The Lady Freege herself, sir. Lady Fee had verified this.”

For the next moment, Arthur felt very much like hugging his apprentice. Instead, still having some wits about him, Arthur said a few thank-you words that he wasn’t sure of in content to the younger mage and dashed off to the great hall of Castle Velthomer at a great speed. Teeny. It was Teeny. Dear Narga, how he missed his sister! Their last letters were mostly in business about the various joint ventures and discussions of some resources-sharing prospects. That was Lady Freege. He hadn’t seen Teeny in such a long time.

Eaizer scratched his head. Was he supposed to tell his master that Lady Teeny had just about singed Lady Fee quite badly with her lightning spells? Or was it fate and destiny that he didn’t have the chance?

Nah.

Walking to Arthur’s desk, the apprentice mage shuffled the papers around, as if in search of something. A few minutes later he picked up one unmarked, unsealed, unstamped parchment, and a satisfied expression stole its way into his face. The parchment still in hand, the boy walked over the brazier standing by the office’s door and stuck its edges into the glowing embers, watching as it slowly burned away and leaving nothing behind but blackened ashes.


NOTE : Why is Arthur using "Holsety" in his swearing? Remember that he grew up in Silesia. ^^;;;

And yes, he's a bit of a dork. Or something. In Japanese, that is. The seriousness is.......something of a stiffness in translation.

[TogeKiD]

Natsu said:

Yes, you are. Stop spamming already.

Velthomer was three day’s journey away from Velthomer, but for some reason it took Teeny four days, and she was so exhausted she could just fall off the horse and roll over, preferably not to wake up in the foreseeable future.

Velthomes is three day's journey from Velthomer? ^.^;;;
I'm sure you mean Freege..

[SummerWolf]

Yes, I meant Freege. Edited now. Thanks for pointing that out....

And to think I read that over twice.....*sweatdrops* Me and my speed reading....just skipped over most of the names....*beats head*

Also edited a little timeline after remembering my map of Jugdral. Damn, it CAN'T be three days. It's too far. So, I changed that too.

[NoBaka]

::bows::

Once again, I bow to your mastery of writing Natsu.

Thank you for your time and effort.

. . .

Sorry for spamming, I don't even know what you mean by that . . .

[TogeKiD]

Yeah.. except for the little mistake it's a Wonderful chapter! ^_^
Keep up the good work!

[Eaichu]

I just read all of the work that Iris' and SummerWolf just put up. All of it was a wonderful job, and I thank you both for putting such excellent effort into these fics. ^_^ I'd love to see more work soon enough.

NoBaka, spamming is when you post junk messages that are off-topic. It's okay to do it certain places, but here.. it really isnt needed, refer to Iris' post on the previous page for the reason why.

[NoBaka]

OK. Sorry.

Iris, I read your fic.
It was all I was hoping for!!

Yay for Finn!

He doesn't get to talk enough in the game . . .

But I was wondering, Nanna stays in Lenster with Leif and Finn, so that means that Lachesis stayed there for about a year right?

Yay for brief instances of romance. I like good fics with romance.

[SummerWolf]

Yes. Yay for Finn. ^_______^

IIRC, and I should RC, Lachesis left when Nanna was about three. So that means..........around three-four years.

Rar. I wonder about one line, though. Should Finn say sorry for not going? If he went, he'd be dead. =P (I am joking out of adoration) That kid has some instant promotions. ^^

[Satoshi]

Hmmm... nice work.

[Iris]

But I was wondering, Nanna stays in Lenster with Leif and Finn, so that means that Lachesis stayed there for about a year right?

I inadvertently screwed up the timeline on this, actually. Nanna should have been born already. *sweatdrop* But...I suppose writing a FinnLache means I'm already messing with canon, so to hell with it. Fitting all those kids in gets incredibly sticky.

[SummerWolf]

Errr.....excuse me for this chapter. I honestly don't like writing this kind of stuff and I honestly suck at it. But it pretty much needs to be done. *winces*



Once Upon a Fanfiction, Number Eleven

Nanna tossed around in her bed, sleep deciding not to come willingly. Seeing the Archer’s Stars dipping back into the horizon she knew it was past midnight, but her mind refused to sleep. Things ran back and forth in her head in a disorganized marathon, bumping into each other, falling, not making sense, then slipping away in the darkness.

Well, so that was simply a verbose way of saying her brain wasn’t making particular sense that night, but that can rot in dragon dung for all she cared. Nanna just felt bad. And she wasn’t going to feel better.

She remembered chasing a panic-stricken Leaf down the hall, and that felt bad. She remembered reading the parchment, and that felt worse. She remembered all the happy little moments during all their prior hardships, and it made her feel more guilty still. Stupid girl. You should’ve believed the most important person in your life, always believe him, stand beside him in times of trouble. You don’t go chasing him with a big mean-looking sword.

Lynn’s letter sat crumpled by her bed, near her hair ornaments. She’d read it for many times, pouring over its contents and thinking, thinking, thinking. Lynn was right. And she really did have an idea. Even if that idea in particular was the reason Nanna had her thoughts happily slamming into each other.

The princess of Nodion closed her eyes and sighed, then got up and drew a robe around herself. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well not try. Between her nightgown and the robe it was a little chilly, but nothing she couldn’t tolerate. There were fiercer cold and lesser warmth in some occasions of their childhood, the times when they were on the run in the countryside. Father would build a little fire to warm them up, cover her and Leaf with as much cloth as he could manage and recount the old little tales of Lenster’s past until they fall asleep. Nanna remembered looking up above the roof of trees above her and watching the pale, nearly illusory moon sailed across the sky on waves of clouds and stars. She didn’t know anything then, and everything was so simple and peaceful even though they were running for their lives.

Nanna walked to her window and flung it open, letting the stream of midnight air enter the room. Outside, the moon had risen. It was just as it was before: pale, almost ephemeral, gliding gently in the sea of clouds.

She stood there, watching, for a long while.

-----------------------------------------

It was sometime past midnight, and Leaf’d almost ran out of candles.

Under the flickering light of the tiny flame, the young king was writing letters. Or at least trying to. Dozens of crumpled sheets of paper lay strewn on, under and around his desk, thrown away in frustration. A couple of empty inkwells were tucked here and there as a testament to his current inability to write, if one ever needed that.

“I love you,” Leaf muttered under his breath, quill moving to form the exact same words on the fragile paper. “And that is why I must go. I want to prove myself worthy of you...”

Cursing in frustration, the boy crumpled the paper, threw it away and took another one from his dwindling stash.

Touching quill to paper, he began again, haltingly. “Dear Nanna...I realize the grief that everything that’s happened recently must be causing you…”

----------------------------------------

Nanna stood in front of the door of her wardrobe, carefully lifting a small jewelry box out of the topmost shelf. Not bothering to close the the door or rearrange the the fallen clothes and dresses back into the closet, she took the box to her bed and put it down to the moonlight falling from the windows.

Gingerly opening it, the girl slowly lifted out a small pearl tiara and watched as the light danced on it, glowing and glittering. Like memories. Like teardrops from the moon.

She’d asked Father, a long time ago, why her name was Nanna. He laughed, one of the few times he ever did after Mother went away and Lenster fell, and told her that it was the name of a Moon Goddess in the ancient empire of Gran, before the twelve gods came to Jugdral. She then asked why, why name her after a Gran goddess, isn’t Gran Grandbell, the enemy? His answer was that the moon was the moon, shining light in the darkness for always, no matter what man do. The moon was always there. That, and that there was no Grandbell, once upon the time. It was just Gran. And the myths, the roots of legend that made up the pillars of history, were still visible in the various countries that were not Grandbell...Silesia, Isaac...and some of the legends of the twelve gods weren’t really different from the old stories. Even though if wasn’t of Gran, Lenster hadn’t changed all that much from the old days and, since Nanna was a child of both Lenster and Agustria, her name hearkened back to the days long past when almost everyone were the same.

She’d asked if it goes the same for Trachia, and Father never answered. Instead, Leaf cut in and said Nanna was just like the moon in the sky, and he liked that best. He said he’d liked that best out of everything.

The pearls on the tiara were so much like tears. They glistened the same. The only difference was that they were hard and cold whereas tears were warm and painful. Nanna could feel that biting warmth falling on her cheeks, gently, bitterly, wistfully. She thought back to that parchment and its terrible content. She remembered losing herself. She didn’t want to believe it, but she remembered believing.

Why did she?

It did made sense. Leaf and Celice were close in the war, closer than many just-met friends she’d seen. It maybe because their fathers were the best of friends, or because they’d risked life and death together. Maybe because they understood the similar pain of living up to a shadow. Maybe because they both understood the pain of growing up in refuge, rightful exiled heirs of a land thrown into despair. Nanna noticed it herself several times, the visage of Leaf with a distant look in his face. She’d seen Lord Celice with the same face once, when she chanced upon him sitting alone one day. Nanna loved Lenster and felt pain in its grieves and happiness in its joys, but she’d always had Father. Maybe she didn’t understand.

It was the fact that he’d let go of some of his quietness in front of Celice, whereas before it was only Nanna. And Father, and maybe Eyvale. Even that side of him that he hardly ever showed her, the weary prince tired of wars and fighting, wishing only for an end. Maybe that was what made she believe.

And she shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have.

The moon glided on in the sky, a light in the darkness, never once losing belief in the dawning after night. It didn’t matter to the moon how much man grieve. It never did. The moon always was.

Nanna looked up at the window, gripping the pearl tiara tightly within her hands.

Trust.

The Nodion princess got up from her bed and opened the door out of her room. She didn’t care if the guards see her in her gown and robes, her thoughts were set on something else. She ran.

And stop in front of an ornate oaken door, flanked on both sides by flickering candelabras. Nanna knocked.

“Leaf?”

No answer.

“Leaf, I’m sorry for chasing you down like that. It took me this long to know...I...I’m sorry,” Nanna said, her lips almost touching the door. Still no answer. Maybe Leaf was asleep, and she couldn’t rightly barge into the king’s quarters without incurring a storm of gossip, even when they were officially engaged. Especially since they were engaged.

In the past, anyway. “Leaf, are you awake?”

Silence.

Nanna took a deep breath and touched the handle on the door and gave it a slight push. Surprisingly enough, the door slowly creaked open. Leaf didn’t lock his room...but it wasn’t like him to be so careless...unless something bad had happened.

“Leaf?” Her heart was beating fast. What if something did happened?

No. Not now.

She gritted her teeth and pushed on the door.

There was no sign of disturbance in the room, no overturned furniture, no signs of struggle, nothing. Even the bed was made. But in the pale light streaming in past the certains, there was also no sign of Leaf. Nanna felt her heart sinking, her knees weakening, and she softly sunk to the floor.

He was gone.

That was when she noticed a piece of paper placed under and empty inkwell, in plain sight on the table. It was as if someone’d left it behind. Gathering some strength from the memories of older times, Nanna walked over to pick it up and began to read.

-------------------------------------

[SummerWolf]

It was nearly dawn.

The eastward sky had begun to glow with a rosy pink, the color slowly spreading from the far-off horizon to the last stars of morning. Leaf watched as black gave away, slowly, into blue and gold, the dancing colors of the new day. The Archer’s Arrow glowed brightly just before the sun overtook it with its first light; the Fox disappeared quietly into its burrows, away from the sun; the Dragon’s Eye dimmed away into nothingness. He could still see the moon then, still gliding across the sky, its color turning from pale gold to milky white, ethereal as a spirit. It was always there, day or night, sunrise or sunset.

Just as he was wondering if there were different names for the night moon and the day moon, a voice broke him from his revelry. “I can get you only as far as Phinora, sire. Silesia’s Pegasus Knights do not take kindly to flying visitors, and we haven’t negotiated for station within their borders yet. You’ll have to travel a small length of the Yied desert on your own.”

Leaf turned to the dragon knight sitting in front of him, thought of the purpose of his travel and sighed. He didn’t want to go away from Nanna and his responsiblities, but what choices did he have? Slim to none. She was killing him, his reputation was going down and furthermore, he might be able to get a lead or two about the roots of the whole matter in this trip. “I understand. Return to Lenster immediately after this, though. I’m dragging you out of your services and I have to apologize.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea, your Majesty?”

“Yes. Why do you say that?”Leaf said, giving him a puzzled look, even though the knight didn’t turn back to see it.

The other man visibly tensed. “Sir...I know it sounds odd, me being a Thracian and all...but it is the Yied desert you’re talking about. It brings no good. Even the Princess Althena and Lord Arion have expressed their concern over this.”

Leaf raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say, you’re worried about me? Don’t. I know how to take care of myself, I’ll be fine.”

”If you’ll excuse me for being blunt, that would be precisely the thought your lord father had when he took his forces across the desert, sire. Or when Princess Nanna’s lady mother took to Isaac,” the man answered with noticeable difficulty. Leaf went silent. He’d never thought of it that way. It was always just Thracia, Grandbell and the Loput sect, never the image of the desert itself.

Finally, he shook his head. Finn had more reason to be wary of the desert than he, but the knight still went into it. “The Yied’s changed, lieutenant, like everything else. What was a threat ten or twenty years ago doesn’t exist now...tell everyone not to be worried about me.”

For the first time, the unnamed Dragon Knight turned back to look at him. “You can’t change evil, your Majesty. Now if I’m allowed to be blunt, I never liked Lenster. They always had the advantage, being on fertile lands with plenty of food and all.”

This time it was Leaf who visibly tensed. “What do you mean by that? And why do you say it all of a sudden?” he asked, hand ready on the hilt of his sword, even though he’s pretty sure he’d be unable to control the dragon if worst comes to worst.

The lieutenant chuckled. “Just what I meant, sire, I never liked it. Still don’t. It’s only because it benefits Thracia and it was Lord Arion’s command that I ever got myself there.” He chuckled again. “I didn’t even liked you. Now, things considered, you’re my king, and things are pretty good. You’ve been kind to our people in a way that the past Lenster kings and princes never were.”

”I’ve had some experience in Old Thracia.”

”Just so, sire,” he said, turning back and grinning. “Let’s just say that I’ve grown somewhat fond of you and your reign now, if you’ll excuse the insubordination. I’ve never really learned the royal talk, see. I might even begin to like Lenster for a change, it doesn’t seem so bad when you spend day after day in it,” the knight continued to Leaf’s astonishment, then his voice turned serious. “I wouldn’t like to see history repeat itself, your Majesty. The Yied desert isn’t a kind place, even close to civilization. Be careful.”

Feeling something warm rising in his mind, Leaf nodded. “I’ll take care of myself.”

I guess he hasn’t heard about the parchment yet. Figures, if he’s as disconnected to the Lenster commonfolk as he says.

But it was nice to be believed.

The sun had peeked over the horizon then, brilliantly turning the Thracian Sea into the spun, sparkling gold of sunlight on the waves.

--------------------------

Once I have proven myself worthy of your trust again, I will come back to Lenster.

Nanna felt her eyes misting. Her Leaf. And she made him go. It was all her fault. If only she could take back the time...

Don’t worry, Nanna. There isn’t anywhere else that I can go to.

She frowned. There was something slightly off with that sentence.

If we work together, I’m sure Celice and I will be able to find something out.

Until then, Leaf.

The letter fell from her hands. Celice and I. Celice and I? Celice and him? In this time and age, in this troubled hour, in the midst of everything, and he dared?

For a moment, borrowing General Hannibal’s greatsword didn’t seem like such a bad idea.