[Open] Catch All for January (Some closed prompts)

[unyieldingmarch]

Who: Edelgard von Hresvelg and You!
When: Pre-Snatched Plot, some Post potentially
Where: Dorchacht and Aefenglom
What: A Catchall
Warnings: Possibly discussions of torture, war, and 3 Houses Spoiler Warnings.



Tarnished Reality

[Unsure of what to expect when she stepped through the teleporter, Edelgard had gone fully prepared for the worst, insisting on wearing her scarlet battle armor, with her axe strapped in a leather thong across her back. When she found the city nothing like what she had been told, she'd initially been puzzled, but as it became more apparent that she was not going to be troubled she found herself relaxing fractionally.

Her changes were making it more difficult to function during the day, so she'd come at dusk, well rested and ready to explore the city. Moving among the people, her outlander dress marking her as a Mirrorbound as surely as the unusual battleaxe she carried, the Emperor was quiet through most of her wanderings. The sounds of a scuffle up ahead of her current path drew her up short, though and she stopped and looked around a corner.]

It seems all is not well. [Mumbled, but audible enough for any nearby to hear.] Do you think we should aid the guard?


Bond Lessons

[It's strange seeing other Mirrorbound being pulled up onto the stage, but so far she has avoided being ensnared herself. Watching the goings on is interesting enough, though, but she's still a little uncomfortable with it. So, she slides through the fringes of the crowd towards another unmolested Mirrorbound.]

Eager, are they not?


Home

[Edelgard has made it a point to attempt to win over support from the aristocracy early on, including personally investigating the Mist that had settled in there. The few supporters she'd managed to charm haven't quite turned on her, but when she makes her way out of the district she can feel something building. Tensions are rising, a thing she is extremely familiar with, and that's going to potentially be a problem.

It's not until she leaves the district and makes her way towards the Haven, the cool and crisp night air making her more alert than she might otherwise be, that she senses something amiss.

Eyes narrowed, she pokes her head around the mouth of an alley to see two graffiti artists hard at work. With an exasparated sigh she turns to wave a passing Mirrorbound over.]

Look at this nonsense...


Wildcard

[If you want to plot something out, in Dorch, out of it, a quest, anything else? HMU at intercession and let's figure it out!]

Comments

[unyieldingmarch]

[Edelgard is not normally someone that is easily put off, but when she's sized up by the stranger, that sets her teeth on edge. Crossing her arms, she regards the newcomer with a cool, if not outright hostile expression. She is as stern as a stone can be, taking a cue from Azura that this man...while tied to her friend...is likely someone that would test her patience.

She was out of her element enough, socializing with Azura, so adding another who had a penchant for mischief or inappropriate questions seemed like something she would rather avoid. Yet she couldn't ignore a direct question. So...]

I am Edelgard von Hresvelg. Bonded to Corrin. I hope my presence is not an interruption.

[And she'll leave it at that, given Azura's line in the sand. She's not wanting to get pulled into or worsen any conflict or tension, but she also doesn't like the look Niles has given her. Or his words.]

[cyclopticsadist]

[Niles starts to adopt a mock hurt expression, which snaps to a 'mild regrets' frown in an instant when Edelgard explains who she is. Nope if his nonsense was gonna get back to the person he had to live with peaceably for Azura's sake then Edelgard was suddenly off limits.

A huge shame because that ramrod stiff spine and icy glare are positively challenging. But well, his dance card for rivalries is full at the moment. He gets up with a disappointed huff, crossing his arms as he walks past Azura to the window.]

Alright, I get it. [He leans in to make a more private comment only for her ears.] Apologies. Have fun. [He turns to give Edelgard at least a departing nod, then climbs out the window, neglecting to shut it behind him.]

1/2

[prayerwheel]

[ Okay, she didn't expect him to leave that easily, and it shows on her face. He hops out before she can heckle him properly and she swiftly goes into her bedroom and comes out with a jacket, tosses it out the window after him, and then leans out to yell at him a little like a nagging wife. ]

I know you're a snow cat now, but put on a jacket for me! Don't come home with snow in your fur just because you want to make a hasty exit!

2/2

[prayerwheel]

[ And then she ducks back inside, shuts the window, smooths her hair out, and turns around to look at Edelgard again, face back to stony unreadability like she hadn't just had a complete sitcom moment there. ]

...I wasn't aware Niles was home. My apologies.

[unyieldingmarch]

[Excuse Edelgard while she watches this exchange.

And excuse her again when she has to...pick her fucking jaw up off the floor because that was ridiculous even by her standards. And people around the monastery could be awfully dramatic.]

...It's quite alright.

I take it he is something of a rapscallion?

[prayerwheel]

That's putting it very graciously. If he didn't know to shut his mouth at the right times, he'd be dead from wagging his roguish tongue at every lord, lady, and bandit in either kingdom.

[ a sigh, and she walks back to the kitchen area, busying herself with finding what tea they have and turning on the stove ]

I don't know what made him run off like that. It usually takes a lot more to make him stop once he's found something to start bothering someone about.

[unyieldingmarch]

Well hopefully it wasn't because of something I did. I do not want to cause strife for you, or Corrin.

[Not in the slightest!

She is just somewhat bewildered still, because that was a very...odd...interaction.]

[prayerwheel]

Please, don't worry about it. I'll talk with him later. Despite his nature, he's rather intuitive...he may have decided he didn't want to rile you up after all, for some reason.

[ Despite how she just roasted him 15 seconds ago, Azura sounds more pensive now. Deriding him for his awful qualities and praising him for his good qualities in one breath is the Niles positive CR experience. ]

Anyhow. Seeing as you've just met someone else from my and Corrin's home, I suppose now would be a more fitting time to tell you about our strangely shared history.

[ She pulls a few boxes of tea out of a cabinet and sets them to the side--Earl Grey and Sencha, a weird combo but fitting for this household. Which one does El want? ]

...unless Niles and his disappearing act has unnerved you and you'd rather not discuss our oddities, which, frankly, I understand.

[unyieldingmarch]

I would appreciate that. Please, do go on.

[She taps the Earl Grey and then plucks out one little satchet. She's content to steep her own tea, once Azura has the water ready, and she's learned that Earl Grey is this world's equivalent of Bergamot. She and Captain Picard would share similar tastes in some things...which is the only way the mun remembers it.]

He hasn't unnerved me, not in the slightest.

[prayerwheel]

[ Azura nods and grabs one for herself, going about the process of setting things up and getting out cups while she talks. ]

Very well. Ah, this is a long story...

Valla is the country of my birth, but I've spent precious little time there. When I was a young child, a... [ she frowns, wondering how to summarize the incident succinctly ] ...coup of sorts forced my mother and I to flee. We ended up in a country nearby called Nohr, and eventually, she married the king. I have two step-brothers and two step-sisters from this marriage of my mother's. When I was slightly older, I was taken as a political hostage by a neighboring country, Hoshido, after Nohr had kidnapped a Hoshidan princess.

Hoshido never got back their princess, though, and by that time, my mother had died, so Nohr never bothered to take me back, and I ended up living there. The royal family had nothing to do with my kidnapping, so they were all very kind to me and tended to fill in as my family members. [ a pause, and there's a fond look on Azura's face, despite all the grim things she just said ] The queen and the youngest princess especially. If you were to ask, I suppose you could say they are my adoptive family, of a sort.

[ She'll just let that sink in before she mentions Corrin's role. Why is Fire Emblem like this. ]

[unyieldingmarch]

[Edelgard quietly takes in all of this information. It's complex, but not overly so. There's plenty of twists to it, but at the same time it's hardly too difficult to follow.]

This...adoptive family is the same as Corrin's, then?

[prayerwheel]

Not adoptive, no. The queen of Hoshido was Corrin's birth mother. I'll spare you the details should she like to speak of it to you on her own terms, but the princess kidnapped from Hoshido was her. We swapped families, essentially. She spent most of her life in Nohr, thinking my step-siblings were her birth siblings.

The strangest part is that we never even met each other until around, ah, a year ago, I believe.

[unyieldingmarch]

That is something she mentioned. That she'd been essentially swapped.

[And...strange as it sounds...it is an experience Edelgard can somewhat relate to.]

It's odd, thinking about that. But I suppose, with what she's told me of Nohr, and how absent her father is...it's not that surprising.

[prayerwheel]

"Absent" is...a very, very kind way of describing him.

[ murderous, crazy, possessed by a dragon god, actually a pile of goo, all better terms than "absent" ]

Well, that's most of the story, anyhow, if she's filled you in on her own.

[unyieldingmarch]

So that makes the two of you relatives of a sort?

[It's a fair question. How does Azura see her?]

[prayerwheel]

[ good thing she isn't drinking any tea yet because she would be coughing on it right now if she was ]

Oh goodness, I would hope not.

[ that would kind of make things weird

but, like, fire emblem? fire emblem ]

[unyieldingmarch]

Mmm.

[Edelgard wouldn't judge, okay?]

So, you've only known one another for a year? And been at war ever since?

[prayerwheel]

[ A flash of worry crosses her face. Did she say something odd? ]

That's...about the long and short of it, yes. Nohr had been unsuccessfully attempting to invade Hoshido for years, so it was a war of sorts, but there weren't any all-out battles until the two of us met and Corrin, ah...

[ a frown ]

...things escalated very quickly when she was caught in the middle between the two families.

[unyieldingmarch]

That would be the conflict between her adoptive siblings and birth ones, then?

[She's heard a little of this.]

Did the two of you take a side?

[prayerwheel]

[ a nod, and her frown deepens ]

She didn't, no. She couldn't pick one and damn the other, and that made both sides assume she was going turncoat on everyone for selfish reasons.

I'd followed her out to that field, and I thought...I would go with her no matter what choice she made. But I didn't expect her to make a choice like that. Given that two separate armies were after our heads, I ended up taking her and a few of her retainers back to Valla just to catch our breath.

[ going back to a country that was the victim of a violent coup just to flee from two more armies. that. that was an interesting week. ]

[unyieldingmarch]

That...seems like it could have been disastrous. What happened?

[Do go on! This is all news to her...]

[prayerwheel]

[ Azura pauses. This is beyond what she'd intended to tell Edelgard, but it was a part of her and Corrin's shared history, so technically they were still on topic. ]

Many things happened. I can go on, if you're truly curious, but it will involve going into detail about the coup on my kingdom. I...don't mind talking with you about it, but it's a truly grim story.

[unyieldingmarch]

If you wish to talk about it, I am more than willing to listen.

[But...]

I won't pry, if it is too troubling.

[prayerwheel]

It is troubling, yes. But it's something I haven't been able to speak of, no matter how much I wished I could. It's cathartic, in it's own way.

[ she continues, but gets up to check on the kettle when it starts whistling ]

The royal families of Nohr, Hoshido, and Valla are all descended from people who formed blood covenants with deities called the First Dragons, thousands of years ago. They used our ancestors as soldiers in their wars amongst themselves, but gave them massive power in return. It still runs in our bloodlines today.

The problem with the First Dragons, though, is that their minds tend to succumb to some sort of draconian fury after a while, leading them to become mindless beasts. Hoshido's patron dragon and Nohr's patron dragon left the mortal plane centuries ago to avoid this, I believe.

Valla's patron dragon, Anankos, did not. He stayed with us for far too long and began to lose his mind. My ancestors developed countermeasures to quell his violent thoughts, but eventually even they did not work. One day when I was a young child, my father was attempting to pacify Anankos during one of his fits. But he lost his last shred of control and my father ended up dead. I suppose my father's friendship was keeping him tethered to rationality. After that, he forced my mother off of the throne and plunged the kingdom into chaos.

To this day, it's still a very broken country, even if he isn't burning down our villages en masse anymore. It must have gotten boring, because he set his sights on conquering Nohr and Hoshido after that.

[ the tone in her voice when she talks about Anankos is just about the textbook definition of cold rage. She sounds flippant, especially given her phrasing, but oh boy does she wanna kill a dragon. ]

[unyieldingmarch]

[Edelgard stiffens at the mention of dragons. Dragons setting themselves up as deities, saints, and sometimes mere demigods was an all too familiar theme in Edelgard's life. Sothis may have existed, may not have been a dragon, she's not sure and cares far too little for the machinations of the Divine to ponder it overmuch. It matters little, but hearing of yet another world beset by such creatures...hearing the anger in Azura's voice...it's impossible to miss. And not to have her heart go out to the other, as well.]

...why is it always dragons...

[It's barely a mumble at first, but one that gains strength...]

This is not the first I have heard of such beasts setting themselves above humans, with no regard for us. It's similar, in Fodlan, right down to blood covenants. We call them Crests, though.

[And let us not get into that discussion.]