Work Text:
Caspar ran through the dormitories of Garreg Mach. He full-body slammed into the door to see Leonie, Petra, Seteth, Flayn, and Raphael laughing and talking in Raphael’s room.
Seteth stood. “Alright, Caspar’s out of class, let’s go over the game plan,” he said. “Tonight is the night, so we’re going to have to strategize. This night comes around once a month.”
Raphael was quivering with barely contained excitement. Petra smiled, and Flayn’s eyes sparkled.
“First off, we’ll go in pairs, starting with Flayn and I. They know us at the location, so we can’t go in a big group. Not after “The Incident.”
“Sorry, but this is being my first time for this mission. What is The Incident?” Petra asked.
Leonie sighed. “So we aren’t the ones that started this tradition. We actually picked it up after The Incident.”
Caspar spoke up, now that he was no longer winded. “So the Faerghus Four. You know them, right? Ingrid, Felix, Sylvain, and Dimitri. They ended up going to the Gautier Crab Shack (no relation) and demolished the entire bar in close to an hour. Dimitri ate all of the Cheddar Dock Biscuits, and Felix and Sylvain ran them out of butter, but the real culprit was Ingrid. Ingrid ate five pounds of crab on her own.”
Petra’s eyes sparkled.
“That’s not a challenge.” Seteth said, catching her attention. “We don’t want to get kicked out.” Seteth sighed. “Again.”
“Besides, no one can eat more than me!” Raphael said.
“That’s beside the point, though. We have to plan. Since we can’t go back to the Crab Shack, Flayn did some asking around and found the Shrimp Hut. If the Shrimp Hut knew we were Garreg Mach students, we’d be turned away at the door. Everyone knows about The Incident. It’s been passed around every inn and buffet in the region. We also haven’t told the Faerghus Four. They can’t be trusted to be responsible!” Caspar said.
“Which is precisely why we are going in staggered. Flayn and Seteth will arrive first and find a table, and then it will be Petra and Caspar, then me and Raphael. Once inside, we can pretend to meet organically and sit together. They serve the shrimp on giant platters, so we can eat our fill and it won’t be as obvious as standing in a line and piling up all those empty plates. That, and it will look less suspicious when they take away a lot of plates.” Leonie said.
“We also can’t gorge ourselves, no matter how much we want to.” Raphael said. “We don’t want to get kicked out, so we have a rule. Two pounds of shrimp a piece.”
Petra nodded, saving all of this to memory.
“Are we ready then?” Seteth asked. He’d never say it, but he was pleased that they were applying their tactical brains. That’s why he was party to this endeavor in any capacity. That, and he was a secret lover of the deep-fried bass nuggets.
They all nodded and he smiled, then they left Garreg Mach and headed to town.