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“She’s going to catch you staring again,” Jose mumbles.
Sylvain, struck, looks down suddenly. Jose’s eyes aren’t even open so Sylvain’s not entirely sure how he noticed that he was staring. Frowning, he carefully scratches the top of Jose’s head, digging his fingers into vibrant orange fur. Jose’s eyes blink open and then narrow to pleased slits as he leans into Sylvain’s touch. His bushy tail flicks once before it stills again.
“So what if she does?” he replies. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Jose finally looks at Sylvain. “Maybe not, but much more and Brandl will just whisk her away and then where will you be? You’ll have no pretty friend to stare at.”
Sylvain rolls his eyes. “I still think you and Brandl both were less obnoxious before you settled.”
Jose blinks slowly and then he stands, stretching out his front legs. If Sylvain wasn’t looking closely, he might have mistaken the red fox for a very large cat. The cat had been one of Jose’s favoured forms before he settled as a fox, leaving Sylvain with the eternal dismay of having a daemon that almost perfectly matched his hair colour.
Sylvain looks away from his daemon, glancing across the courtyard to the woman he had been admiring before. Ingrid is seated atop one of the tables, her back to him, as she converses with her own daemon—a pure white pegasus named Brandl. Sylvain knows that as annoyed as he gets with his daemon, he at least has a size advantage over Ingrid. The mere size of her daemon means that buildings can often be inconvenient. However, thanks to this fact, Ingrid and Brandl have better control over their separation than almost any pair Sylvain knows.
Sylvain continues staring at Ingrid’s back. He can almost picture the long braid that she used to wear before the war made everything complicated. The short hair suits her, he thinks, but he still misses watching the utter concentration on her face as she twisted the long locks into her signature braid.
Unfortunately, Jose’s prediction comes true sooner than Sylvain was hoping as Ingrid changes the angle at which she’s sitting and Sylvain makes eye contact with Brandl. If a horse could scowl, Sylvain knows that, right now, Brandl would be. Ingrid, obviously noticing the change in her daemon’s demeanour, turns and looks over her shoulder, noticing Sylvain.
Jose lets out a noise that’s part chuff, part scoff. “You’ve done it now.”
Instead of being dragged away by her daemon, Ingrid actually gets to her feet and walks towards Sylvain. Sylvain stretches his legs out in front of him, digging his back into the hedge behind him and takes a short breath.
“Sylvain? What are you doing?” Ingrid asks. Brandl follows Ingrid, stopping a pace back, ruffling his wings and looking agitated.
“Just enjoying the nice day,” Sylvain says plainly, flashing her a smile.
Ingrid’s eyes drop to Jose on the bench next to him. “Really?”
Jose jumps off the bench and stalks forward. He steps around Ingrid and lightly rubs the side of his head against Brandl’s leg. Ingrid’s daemon twitches in response—the best greeting he can offer given the size difference between the two.
“You look thoughtful,” Ingrid says. She steps closer to him and eyes the spot on the bench that Jose had just vacated.
Sylvain scoots to his left a bit, leaving the position open for her to claim. She does sit and then she watches their daemons for a moment. The two have taken to chittering back and forth in daemon speech—neither Ingrid nor Sylvain can understand them when they get like this.
“I’m not really thinking about much,” Sylvain admits. “Just how everything seems to have changed since we were young.”
Ingrid’s lips press together. “You’re not just talking about the war,” she correctly guesses.
Sylvain nods. “I talked to Annette yesterday.”
Ingrid’s hands knit in her lap and Sylvain recognizes that she’s trying to stop them from trembling. “She and Lysithea have been through a lot together.”
He studies her face. Her lips are pinched into a thin line and there’s a very melancholic, almost lonely gleam in her eyes that betrays something deeper than the happiness that she is trying to project for her friend. He doesn’t fully understand her grief—emotionally, he just doesn’t know what that feels like to have had and lost that kind of connection—but he knows it must be strange to hear about their friends’ bonding.
Bonding, the act of complete commitment to another person, is usually only done with one partner in your lifetime. When it happens, it requires one to lay a hand on the daemon of their partner which is, quite literally, placing your hand upon the soul of another being. It creates a very deep bond between people which is why people are taught that touching someone else’s daemon is a taboo act.
Annette and Lysithea announced just yesterday that they bonded.
They are not the only people Sylvain knows who are bonded, but they are the youngest—youngest surviving anyway. Glenn and Ingrid, though they were just teens, were encouraged to bond to strengthen their arranged marriage. But, with Glenn’s death, the bond was shattered.
Ingrid has never shared what it felt like and Sylvain has never asked.
“I was thinking about how different things were before everyone settled,” Sylvain continues. “It seemed easier, didn’t it?”
Ingrid lets out a half-forced laugh. “At least Jose is a fox, Sylvain,” she points out. She looks at Brandl who, upon feeling Ingrid’s gaze, abruptly stops talking to Jose, and stares at her. “It was simpler when Brandl could just fit in my pocket.”
Jose, with his conversation interrupted, darts over. He does a loop around the bench, the tip of his tail just barely missing Ingrid’s shins as he wraps around. Jose stops on Sylvain’s side of the bench and sits on his haunches, ears twitching.
“At least I can be ridden, My Lady,” Brandl says. “It does make it a little easier for us to get around this way.”
Ingrid’s melancholic smile returns as she stands from the bench, reaching out a hand to stroke her daemon’s nose. “It does,” she agrees.
“Alexandre picked a lion, of all things,” Jose chimes in.
Sylvain shrugs. “Kind of fitting for the soon-to-be king of Faerghus though, isn’t it?”
“Inconvenient for a prince who went on the run for five years,” Jose replies. “After all, that’s how we knew where he was headed. A man with a lion daemon doesn’t exactly blend in.”
Jose has a point. Dimitri’s inconspicuous daemon was one of the main reasons that Kingdom forces were able to track him over the last five years—it’s how they discovered he wasn’t dead in the first place. At the very least, Alexandre was a hunting animal and, therefore, could take care of Dimitri even when he hadn’t wanted to be taken care of.
Ingrid, now standing, looks at Sylvain. “Are you sure you were just thinking about that?” She puts a hand on her hip. “You haven’t touched anyone’s daemon, have you?”
Sylvain feels his mouth open in surprise and he quickly shuts it, his skin prickling with offence. He may be a flirt but he would never be stupid enough to put his hands on a woman’s daemon, no matter how many girls begged it of him over the years. “Of course I didn’t!” he exclaims. “I know how serious bonding is.”
His indignation seems to appease her as she drops her hands back to her sides. “Good.” She pauses like she’s considering something else before she finally adds: “You’ve been better lately.”
He shrugs. Since the war started, it would have been easy for him to bury his dark thoughts and inattention in the willing bodies of any number of women. Instead, he has let himself be pulled into Ingrid’s orbit. He trains with her, watches her back, spends downtime with her, and finds himself quite horribly attracted to his long-time friend.
Jose, as Sylvain’s literal soul, was the first to notice Sylvain’s feelings and has made his thoughts on the matter quite clear. Ingrid is lovely but she is also still hurting from Glenn’s death and the pain that breaking their bond brought. She is, almost certainly, utterly unwilling to pursue any kind of romantic entanglement ever, not just while the war is going on.
But, despite his daemon’s good-intentioned warnings, Sylvain cannot turn off his feelings. He admires Ingrid strongly—thinks she’s beautiful, kind-hearted, honest, and worthy of a great love whether that is him or someone else. He’s just not sure that Ingrid will ever open up to someone again.
“Flirting isn’t exactly high priority when compared with, you know, not dying,” Sylvain replies.
Ingrid gives him a sour look—obviously wanting him to say that it would never be a high priority—but she doesn’t press it because he knows she is at least grateful he’s training at all. Ingrid continues to study him, almost to the point of discomfort, and Sylvain clears his throat, giving her a forced smile.
“Have you had lunch?”
She looks like she wants to press him further, but her stomach growls at the mere mention of food. Heat rushes to her face as she blushes and Sylvain bites back a laugh.
“I’ll take that as a no. Do you want to grab some food? I think Ashe and Dedue were cooking.”
Still a bit flustered by her growling stomach, Ingrid does nod in agreement. “Sure.”
Jose jumps forward, darting ahead of both of them and, once again, almost touching Ingrid. Sylvain’s heart leaps in his chest as he imagines, for one moment, what would happen if his daemon did touch her.
“Hello, Sylvain,” Mercedes greets, her voice soft and almost bell-like, as always.
Sylvain looks up from his letter, lowering his pen. “Mercedes! I didn’t know you were here.”
Mercedes just laughs gently. She is holding her daemon in her arms and Leon’s long ears twitch in greeting. Jose stirs in his sleep as he recognizes that they have guests. He doesn’t make any moves to physically greet Mercedes or her daemon—not like he might for Ingrid and Brandl, Dimitri and Alexandre, or Felix and Hugo.
It’s not taboo for daemons to touch each other, just rare. Jose, Sylvain knows, is comfortable around the daemons of Ingrid, Dimitri, and Felix because they had all grown up together. He is not so well acquainted with Leon, Mercedes’s daemon, no matter how nice he may be.
“Are you writing home?” Mercedes asks, nodding to the letter in front of him.
Sylvain nods. “My mother,” he agrees. “She asks me to write when I can. I think it’s her way of meddling since it’s harder for her to look over my shoulder when she’s up north.”
Mercedes smiles. “It would be, yes.” She bends down, placing Leon on the floor, and then steps closer. “Have you had any luck since we last spoke?”
Sylvain sighs heavily. “Mercedes, I’m afraid we can’t all be as brave as you are. I told her she was beautiful and then managed to run away like I’d lit my own hair on fire.”
Mercedes laughs. “Oh, Sylvain, it’s Ingrid. She’s not going to bite your head off.”
“Brandl might,” he says glumly.
Mercedes puts her hands on her hips. “Brandl is a pegasus and he is Ingrid’s partner. I faced Mayona when I spoke with Dedue. You can handle Brandl.”
Sylvain thinks of Dedue’s daemon, a large, female brown bear. Like Dimitri and Ingrid, his daemon’s size is not of the most convenient, but Mayona has a heart of gold and a motherly instinct that runs deep in her core—just like Dedue. Sylvain almost points out that he would rather face Mayona any day than Brandl even once, but the argument is futile since, after all, he’s in love with Ingrid, not Dedue.
Mercedes sits down across from him at the table. “Well, do you want to talk about it?”
Sylvain sighs. “I guess I just feel stupid when I’m around her. With any other girl, I’d be able to get the words out—tell her that she’s beautiful, that I think she’s amazing—but with Ingrid, it’s like I can hardly talk at all.” He feels a bit silly, complaining about the fact that he’s so attracted to Ingrid he gets tongue-tied, but Mercedes’s smile is sweet and supportive. She genuinely wants to help him and, at this point, Sylvain reckons that he could use all the help he could get.
“We’re marching for Merceus tomorrow,” Mercedes says, “so perhaps after the battle, you can start by expressing that you’re glad she’s alright. If you start the conversation like you’re friends—which you are—maybe that will help you move past the block you’re experiencing.”
Jose snorts under the table. “He’ll still find a way to botch it.”
Sylvain nudges his toes against his daemon’s side. “Aren’t you supposed to be rooting for me?”
“Not if you can’t root for yourself,” Jose fires back.
Mercedes studies Sylvain for a long moment. She looks like she is about to say something when Leon says it for her. “You’re afraid what Ingrid’s past experience with bonding could do to any relationship,” the hare says. Leon’s voice is a soft tenor—relaxing to listen to, just like Mercedes.
Sylvain nods slowly. “It’s on my mind.”
“Well, my advice is don’t think about it,” Mercedes suggests. “If you worry too much about that, you’ll never get out of your head. Besides, Sylvain, there are lots of couples who never bond. Sometimes people just don’t want to and that doesn’t mean they care for each other less.” She pats his hand.
Sylvain musters a weak smile. “Thanks, Mercedes. You always know how to make a guy feel better.”
Jose’s claws dig into the cracks between the plates of Sylvain’s armour as he leaps off, darting between the two Imperial soldiers that are blocking his path. Sylvain doesn’t hesitate. He stabs the first man in the stomach and jerks his lance free, swinging it around to slash the other man through the bottom of the chest and up. Both soldiers crumple and their daemons—a barn owl and a lizard—vanish in puffs of silvery dust.
Sylvain pushes forward, following the tugging sensation in his chest that guides him in the direction his daemon had run. They were fighting across the battlefield in this direction because Sylvain knew Ingrid was over here and, when he didn’t see her in the sky, he was worried. As soon as he catches up with Jose, Sylvain’s heart plummets.
A wounded white pegasus is lying on the ground, adorned in the familiar Galatea regalia, and bearing a very familiar, very unconscious rider.
“Brandl!” Sylvain charges forward until he is just a step away from Ingrid and her daemon. Worried, his hands hover awkwardly, unable to really touch Ingrid without risking touching her daemon. “What happened?”
Brandl’s head lifts at Sylvain’s cry and the pegasus shifts like he is about to stand. Ingrid lurches limply, almost spilling off of his back. Sylvain’s hands twitch forward to catch her, but Brandl stops moving, ensuring that Ingrid doesn’t fall. Her daemon huffs.
Sylvain gives both Ingrid and her daemon a once-over. Ingrid appears the more hurt of the two as she is out cold and bleeding from a wound that Sylvain can see starts over her left temple and moves back into her hair. Brandl is lying down, with one bloodied leg, but he mostly just seems exhausted and worried for Ingrid.
“I can’t carry her,” Brandl says, sounding pained. “My leg is wounded. I could fly, but she’ll fall if I try to do that. I can fly myself back but you will need to take her.”
Sylvain wants to. He wants nothing more than to gather Ingrid’s still form in his arms and hurry her back to Mercedes for medical attention, but he can't. He can’t lift Ingrid without touching Brandl and he can’t touch Brandl, especially when Ingrid is like this.
It’s wrong.
“I can’t get her without touching you,” Sylvain confesses. “Can you reposition or—”
“Do it,” Brandl says, cutting him off.
Sylvain tenses and he can almost feel the prickling of Jose’s fur next to him as his daemon also stiffens in surprise. Brandl’s voice is steady and even. Sylvain holds eye contact with the pegasus for a moment—almost unnerved at how similar the green of the daemon’s eyes is to Ingrid’s.
Shared eye colour is an uncommon trait amongst daemon-human pairings. Having a daemon that is the same gender is also not particularly common, but it happens more in Faerghus than any of the other nations, so it’s not unheard of.
Jose winds through Sylvain’s legs, inching closer to Brandl. He stops just short of resting his muzzle against the pegasus’s neck and Sylvain slowly kneels, closing the distance between himself and Ingrid’s daemon.
“Are you sure?” he asks quietly.
Brandl gives a short jerk of his head that is supposed to be a nod. “She needs help, Sylvain. She will understand.”
Hesitantly, Sylvain reaches for Ingrid, but Jose’s tail lashes, flicking against Sylvain’s calf in warning.
“Stop,” his daemon says. “This is going to be a strange feeling for both of you. Touch slowly first and then get her.”
Sylvain exhales slowly and does as his daemon instructed, changing the destination of his hand until his fingers graze the coarse hair on Brandl’s neck. Immediately, Sylvain isn’t sure what makes this so different from touching any other pegasus, but then a warm tingle sparks against his palm. The warmth spreads up his arm quickly, moving into his chest and filling him with a sense of excitement.
It’s not unlike the fluttering feeling Sylvain associates with Ingrid’s smile, but it is so much stronger.
While he expects Brandl to feel alive under his touch, Sylvain does not expect to feel like he is literally reaching out to touch a happy memory—something warm and alive and peaceful and vibrant. It’s like he’s touching happiness.
Sylvain breathes out in awe, staring at where his palm is pressed against Ingrid’s daemon. Brandl’s eyes closed when Sylvain touched him but they open slowly and Sylvain can feel the emotion rippling through the daemon—fear, followed by contentment and then something that’s warmer and closer to pleasure.
Ingrid, still unconscious, lets out a small breathy sigh. Sylvain’s gaze snaps to her, but she doesn’t appear to be in pain—the noise was a reaction to Sylvain literally touching her soul.
“Take her,” Brandl says, his voice much softer.
Sylvain removes his hand from the daemon’s neck and he can still feel the lingering warmth that fizzles under his skin as he moves forward. He carefully extracts Ingrid from the saddle, minding her injured head and the steadily bleeding laceration he finds on her lower abdomen. The process is simple enough, but it’s hard to ignore the tingling that sparks in his fingers every time he brushes them against Brandl.
Once he has her free, he rises, cradling her in his arms. Ingrid’s face turns into his neck, breathing warm on his skin, as she unconsciously murmurs something. Her expression is relaxed—almost blissful—and Sylvain swallows uncomfortably.
He touched her daemon. The only other person who had ever done that was Glenn. And Sylvain did it when she was unconscious. He has no idea what she’s feeling—if she knows what happens—but he needs to get her to Mercedes because she is still bleeding.
“Hold on, Ingrid,” he murmurs, tightening his grip on her.
Sylvain steps back and then Brandl’s wings extend. The pegasus rises, immediately taking to the air to avoid his injured leg, but pauses as he looks down at Ingrid in Sylvain’s arms.
“Thank you,” Ingrid’s daemon says.
Sylvain nods. “Thank you.”
It doesn’t take Sylvain long to realize that Ingrid is avoiding him. He’s not sure if she knows exactly what happened but he wouldn’t be surprised if she did. She does, after all, know what it feels like to have someone else touch her daemon.
Sylvain wants to give her space but he also wants his friendship with Ingrid back. It started with her simply leaving rooms with flimsy excuses but when Sylvain finds that she has completely changed her training routines—swapping morning sparring sessions for training in the heat of the day.
It’s not fair to Ingrid that her attempts to avoid Sylvain have nearly completely disrupted her schedule. It’s also, the selfish part of him thinks, not entirely fair of her to have cut him out completely without attempting to talk to him.
So, Sylvain goes to Felix.
“No,” Felix says immediately.
“Absolutely not,” Hugo agrees instantly, tail lashing.
Sylvain sighs heavily. “Felix, please, she’s avoiding me!”
His friend scowls, crossing his arms. “And does she have a reason to do so?” Sylvain hesitates for a split second and apparently, that’s enough to sow distrust in Felix. “What the hell did you do, Sylvain?”
Sylvain stares at him. “Nothing!”
Jose scoffs. “Yeah, right. Tell that to everyone who saw you cradling her when she literally almost bled out after Merceus.”
Felix’s eyes narrow so much that Sylvain is tempted to compare him to his black cat daemon. “You idiot,” he snarls. “Tell me you didn’t!”
Sylvain scrubs his hand across his face. “What are you talking about, Felix?”
Hugo hisses. “I’d bite you myself, Gautier. You know what we mean. How could you do that?”
“I needed to,” Sylvain replies sharply. “She needed me, Felix.”
Apparently, something in his tone is convincing enough that Felix’s hackles lower. “You swear?”
Sylvain nods urgently. “Felix, you know me. I’d never do anything to hurt Ingrid.”
Jose makes a short yipping noise that Sylvain has a funny feeling is his daemon laughing at him. “You can’t take your eyes off her, of course, you’d never do anything to hurt her. Except maybe fight her father if he tries to rope her into another engagement.”
Felix lets out a long sigh. He looks down at his daemon and then bends down, lifting the cat to bring him up to his shoulder. “Fine. I’ll help you. But if you fuck this up I will beat your ass, Gautier.”
“Felix?”
Sylvain jolts in his seat when he hears Ingrid’s voice. He stands up immediately rounding the edge of the stack until he’s in front of her. When he sees her, Sylvain’s heart tightens because he sees the way that her face falls when she realizes that he’s the one waiting for her, not Felix.
Brandl is just outside the door of the library, hunched like he always has to be when Ingrid’s indoors. When he first settled, there were many conversations about what was comfortable and what wasn’t for Brandl but, thankfully, the monastery is built to accommodate large daemons. Brandl is watching Sylvain but he doesn’t look as dismayed—or surprised even—as Ingrid does.
“Ingrid?” he says tentatively.
She crosses her arms. “Sylvain.”
He sighs. “Can we talk?”
Ingrid chews the inside of her lip and he watches her gaze dart behind her to where Sylvain assumes she is looking at Jose. “About what?”
He steps closer to her. “You know what, Ingrid.”
She adjusts her arms, moving from annoyed to more defensive. “Sylvain, we don’t have to talk about—”
“Yes we do,” he insists. “You’ve been avoiding me.” He swallows, dropping his gaze to his feet. Around Ingrid, Sylvain feels disarmed like no one else. Maybe it’s how well she knows him, but Sylvain feels like his defences have been stripped back, leaving him raw and completely vulnerable. “Ingrid, I don’t want you to feel like you have to avoid me. I want to apologize. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Brandl grumbles. “You did exactly what I asked, Sylvain.”
Sylvain’s head snaps up and he blinks, looking between Ingrid and her daemon. “What?”
Ingrid exhales sharply and turns away from him, staring at her daemon. The two have some kind of wordless conversation that lasts a few seconds. Sylvain steals a glance at his own daemon. Jose looks just as confused as he feels.
“Sylvain,” Ingrid begins hesitantly, turning back to face him. “You’re right. I’m avoiding you because of what happened at Fort Merceus. But I’m not doing it because you saved my life.” She closes her eyes, shaking her head slowly. “Sylvain, you don’t know what it’s like to have someone literally touch your soul.” Her voice trembles.
He closes the distance between them quickly, reaching out to take Ingrid’s hands in his. “You’re right. I don’t.” He pauses, waiting until she opens her eyes and meets his gaze. Her eyes are beautiful and Sylvain almost loses his nerve, mouth going dry.
Jose, apparently knowing exactly what Sylvain is planning, moves forward and jumps up onto the nearest table, putting himself within an arms reach of Ingrid and Sylvain. Ingrid’s eyes drop to Sylvain’s daemon and then she looks startled.
“Sylvain—”
“I’d let you,” he says. His voice is almost hoarse. He still feels paralyzed by her—struck by her beauty and how much of his heart that she fills. “In a heartbeat.”
Ingrid says nothing as she carefully pulls one of her hands out of his grip. She reaches out and then pauses, her fingers hovering just a breath away from Jose’s fur. Sylvain holds his breath. Ingrid is right—he has no idea what to expect when she touches his daemon. The feeling of touching hers—the buzzing, pleasant warmth—has not left his mind.
It’s cool when her hand presses into the red fur. Sylvain feels like someone is pressing down on his chest and he stiffens. Ingrid lets out a small gasp too and her eyes widen. She’s staring at her hand as she carefully strokes the back of Jose’s neck. As she continues her motions, the coolness fades to a slow, tingling warmth.
Everything he felt for Ingrid tears out of the recesses of his chest, thrusting into the forefront of his mind and Sylvain almost buckles to the ground. His blood feels like it’s boiling and his heart hammers. A flush crawls up the back of his neck and every awkward, silly feeling Ingrid has made him feel is suddenly on his mind at once.
He is in love with her and she is touching his daemon. It’s so bewilderingly exciting that it almost feels like it hurts for a second before it settles back into the bubbling warmth of love and utter adoration.
Ingrid exhales shakily. “This feeling,” she murmurs, “I didn’t avoid you because you touched my daemon. I avoided you because I was ashamed that I liked it.”
“Ingrid,” Sylvain breathes, staring at where her fingers have loosely dug into Jose’s fur, no longer moving. His daemon is lying flat on the table, eyes narrowed to pleased slits as he leans into Ingrid’s touch.
Brandl moves closer, brushing against Ingrid. “You see? This is what it should be like.”
She lets out a faint laugh. “I thought I was stupid, Sylvain,” she murmurs. “How could I fall for you of all people? I bonded with Glenn but even bonding didn’t make me happy like you do.”
Sylvain’s heart soars. “I make you happy?”
Ingrid retracts her hand from Jose’s fur as she turns to face him fully. The intensity of the warm tingle fades but it doesn’t disappear entirely. She grabs Sylvain by the front of his shirt and pulls him even closer to her. When they are nose to nose, she smiles and Sylvain swears it’s the most beautiful thing that he has ever seen.
“Of course you do.”
He kisses her. His lips slot against hers and he chases the warmth of her touch. Ingrid’s arms loop around his neck as she kisses him back. She is warm and steady against him and Sylvain finds himself smiling so hard that they break apart. He chuckles and rests his forehead against hers.
“You make me happy too, Ing. More than you know.”
“Even when I nag?”
Sylvain tries not to feel smug at the hint of breathlessness in her voice. “Even then,” he assures. “Especially then.” He tugs on her waist, trying to close the non-existent distance between them. “Always you,” he reminds softly.
She laughs. “Alright, Mister. You can be sappy later. I’m pretty sure that we have a meeting this afternoon.”
Sylvain kisses her again. “But it’s still morning,” he murmurs against her lips. “I have more time.”
“Oh Seiros,” Brandl growls. Jose barks a laugh.