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Good ideas always come at the randomest of times and for Sampo Koski, it came during a lovely stroll on a bright and sunny afternoon in the Overworld.
No one bats an eye at his presence, presumably because he’s wearing a perfect disguise to hide his true identity. Such a shame to the people of Belobog too, for their opportunity to gaze upon his handsome facial features has been stripped away from them. An unfortunate byproduct of him avoiding the Silverman Guards’ attention.
As he’s walking through the streets, whistling a jaunty little tune, he spots a familiar mix of gray, black, and gold coming out the trash can. Do his eyes deceive or is that one of the Trailblazers, who’s heralded as the hero that saved Belobog, enthusiastically digging through trash cans…?
He watches as the figure lifts their head out of the garbage only to leap headfirst into another one. Oh Aeons, it really is her.
“Hey there, Trailblazer old pal! Good to see you again!”
Err…what was her name again? He could’ve sworn he’s seen her name plastered all around Belobog at one point in time, but he’s seriously drawing a blank right now.
The Trailblazer looks up from being called to and whips her head around to stare at him, not unlike a raccoon. Or a gremlin. A little trash gremlin. The confused look on her face quickly shifts into one of disgust after her eyes light up in recognition.
“Eww, it’s Sampo. Bleaugh, gross.”
Ah. The metaphorical lightbulb above his head lights up. It’s Stelle! Yeah, yeah that’s it.
Also, she thinks rummaging around in the garbage isn’t disgusting, but thinks he is? What is this ridiculous logic? Is she implying his existence is grosser than literal garbage? Welp, his feelings aren’t hurt. Nope, no siree, not at all.
He’s not salty.
Sampo tries to laugh away the pain, with limited success. “Aha…how cruel of you! After everything we’ve been through together!” he cries out dramatically, wiping away a single fake tear with one hand and clutching at his chest with the other.
But Stelle isn’t having any of it. “What do you want, Sampo? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Doing WHAT??, he thinks to himself hysterically. He rarely feels this way towards anyone, but Sampo is starting to become a teeny bit concerned for this girl’s mental wellbeing. Like genuine concern. No one should be this into trash.
He clears his throat. “Can’t a man simply enjoy a peaceful walk in the city? The air is quite fresh and lovely up here in the Overworld, y’know.”
Stelle squints at him in suspicion, clearly thinking that he’s up to no good. Which, Rude . Though, she’s not entirely wrong since he just scam—ahem—sold another Parallel Universe Printer to an old man earlier. Heh.
“Riiiight. So you’re trying to scam people out of their hard earned money again. You know, there’s plenty of much easier ways to make lots of money. Ways that don't end with a bounty being placed on your head.”
“Oh? Do tell me your secrets, my good friend. I would love to hear all about it!”
Sampo highly doubts she knows a good method that he doesn’t already know. He’s the best in the game. There isn’t a single trick that he hasn't heard of or tried yet.
“Like—There’s this Foxian lady I met on the Xianzhou Luofu that makes a ton of money selling pictures of this handsome general dude,” Stelle says, almost boredly in contrast to the insane words coming out of her mouth.
Say what now?
Sampo nervously chuckles, wondering if he heard her wrong. “Selling…pictures? Ah, you mean like paintings?” Paying for nice art makes sense.
She shoots him an entirely too smug expression for someone who was in the middle of happily ravaging through the city’s trash cans in broad daylight. Look, he’ll admit that the inside of a trash can is a pretty great place to hide from Gepard and his underlings, but his little trailblazer friend here isn’t a wanted criminal (anymore), which means she’s going dumpster diving for other reasons that Sampo cannot comprehend. He won’t lie, she scares him a little (a lot).
“No, like photos,” Stelle clarifies, still smirking at him. “Just regular photos of him doing regular general stuff. Since he’s pretty popular there, they sell out really fast.”
“That’s…really something. Are people seriously willing to throw their money at just random photos of people?” Sampo asks.
She shakes her head. “Not just any random person. A very good looking, super cool general. He’s very popular amongst the people on board the Xianzhou Luofu.”
What the hell, people are actually willing to pay big bucks just to collect photos of some general dude? This is…valuable information indeed.
He wants in on some of this!!!
“Yup,” Stelle nods sagely. “It’s too bad you can’t do the same. You’re not beautiful enough, not to mention extremely unpopular with the people, to make even a single credit from selling pictures of yourself. Also, you’re not exactly an upstanding citizen.”
She has a point, but damn that kinda hurts to hear out loud.
“Hey now! Sampo Koski is the handsomest, most gorgeous man to ever exis—”
Wait, hold on a moment now. Beautiful. Popular. Upstanding citizen.
The cogs in his brain begin to turn, as they always do when he thinks of an ingenious money making scheme.
While he very well cannot be the main subject of the hypothetical photos he sells, that would be like selling wanted posters of himself that actually captured his good angle (no offense to the original artist of those posters!), a certain other someone can. Someone who’s beautiful and beloved by the citizens of Belobog. Someone who’s looked up to by virtually every single Silvermane Guard.
Someone who’s a certain Silvermane captain he runs into fairly often enough to be able to take photos of.
Oh, this is simply perfect. Sampo knows what he must do.
“Well, it’s been quite the pleasure speaking with you, dear friend, but, alas! The start of a new business venture calls for me. I’ll leave you to your, uh, trash cans...”
And just like that he takes off, not wanting to stick around when the Silvermane Guards inevitably get called on to deal with the trash can-raiding public menace that is Stelle. He walks a little faster when he hears several voices shouting from behind him, probably the guards yelling at the Trailblazer for “vandalizing public property.” She won’t get in trouble though, so it’ll be fine.
Probably.
Whatever, doesn’t matter. Sampo Koski is a handsome man with a genius plan, and he’s not gonna stop until he rakes in that cash. Or miserably fail trying. Whichever comes first.
Meanwhile, over at the Silvermane Guard Restricted Zone, a certain captain violently shudders. He looks around in confusion, wondering what could be the cause of the bad feeling in his gut all of a sudden.
After getting his hands on a very high quality camera through very questionable (technically still legal!) means, he gets straight to work.
Since he’s practically all but memorized Gepard’s schedule, it takes him no time at all to find the man. Not that it’s particularly hard to spot the guy when he sticks out like a sore thumb with that fancy uniform he's got on at all times.
He flattens himself against the roof to hide, carefully watching as Gepard walks on by, surrounded by other Silvermane Guards as usual. With the patience of a saint, he holds up the camera, aiming it right at Gepard’s very handsome side profile. Sampo waits until the other people have left the frame before pressing the button. The camera makes a quiet click sound, and after a second, the picture comes out.
Sampo takes a glimpse at the polaroid film for a quick quality check and yup, that’s a very nice picture of Gepard on there. The man’s just standing there, not doing much except giving orders to his troops, and yet he still looks this good, looking every part of the regal and powerful captain that he is.
Nice. Time to take a bunch more! Sampo goes through the same repetition of zooming into frame, clicking, and checking the photo over and over again, glad that the ongoing blizzard is masking the shutter sounds of his camera going off every time he gets a pic.
Once he takes what he feels is a good enough amount of photos, he stuffs them into a bag and stealthily crawls away along the rooftops, making sure to remain low and out of sight until he’s a safe distance from being spotted.
Now onto finding some willing customers.
Life’s been going very well for Sampo Koski ever since his selling-nice-photos-of-Gepard business has taken off. He’s never made such easy money in his life and so, so much of it as well.
He knows Gepard is loved and respected by many people, but never in his wildest imagination did he think there’d be this many people who love him and be so willing to throw away their money for photos of their precious captain.
Heck, even the number of Silvermane Guards who bought photos and still buys from him is worryingly high.
And to think all he had to do to get this filthy rich was secretly follow the Silvermane captain around and snap photos of him just going about his daily life.
He’s got pictures of Gepard fighting in the frontlines, patrolling around the city, attending Serval’s live concerts, and more.
He even got a rare photo of Gepard buying little pots of flowers from the local florist shop.
His current best seller though, surprisingly, is a picture of Gepard smiling. Well, to describe it as a smile may be a stretch. It’s not even a full on smile with teeth or anything; it’s just one of those awkward smiles where the corners of his lips are lifted up in an attempt to look happy, but in actuality, he just ends up looking super uncomfortable.
For whatever reason that Sampo’s unwilling to think too much into, it suits him. Like, really, really well. It’s ridiculous how such an uncharming man in every way possible can look so downright adorable without even trying.
Huh. Maybe Sampo does kinda understand why his customers like collecting these photos of Gepard after all. He honestly wouldn’t mind giving up on scamming people and pilfering artifacts if he can just sell photos for the rest of his life.
(Recently, everytime he stares at Gepard’s face, which is quite often nowadays, his heart annoyingly does a little flutter, and oh boy is he not ready to face that can of worms.)
Unfortunately for him, as with all good things, it comes to an end. Apparently, it’s against the law to take pictures of people without their consent, even more so when said pictures are being sold without the subject himself knowing. Well, until now that is.
Sampo would honestly pay good money just to see the look on Gepard’s face the exact moment when the poor captain found out people were buying and collecting photos of him. He must’ve been so horrified.
And thus, begins what will go down in Belobog’s history as The Great Purge of Photos. The Supreme Guardian herself has issued the order that all photos of Gepard will be confiscated and destroyed and that anyone who resists will be arrested. Needless to say, they quickly figured out that Sampo Koski's the one behind the whole operation, and the bounty on his head increases by several digits.
Is it bad Sampo’s kinda proud of himself? Like damn, everyone wants a piece of him. He’s just irresistible like that.
However, to everyone but Sampo’s great shock, the people fought back against the orders. A whole mob of people were outside the steps of Qlipoth Fort protesting, shouting things like “You can’t take our photos!” or “These pictures are just another form of Preservation, taking them away from us would be blasphemous to the Great Qlipoth!”
Sampo watches all of the chaos unfold on the rooftops, away from all the commotion, trying his hardest to not burst out in loud laughter. He probably can, since there’s no way his laughter could ever be heard over the mob’s protesting, but it’s better not to take that risk.
It takes several speeches from officials, the Supreme Guardian, and even Gepard himself to get everyone to (reluctantly) relinquish their photos. Sampo cheekily smiles as he takes out his camera once again, zooming into a very flustered, blushing Gepard and snaps a photo.
He looks over the photo and nods in satisfaction. Sampo then carefully tucks it into a hidden pocket near his chest, right over his heart.
This one’s gonna be the final photo, and it’s not gonna be for anyone else’s eyes, only his own.
Who knows, maybe one day he’ll get the opportunity to see the real thing up close and in person, but for now, he’s simply content from getting to stare at Gepard’s pretty face whenever he pleases.
Oh, and the money is great too.
bonus:
“Annnnnnd that’s the last of em!”
Serval unceremoniously dumps the last of the photos into their little bonfire, and the flames flare up intensely for a moment, creating a short burst of warmth, before settling down again.
“Gepard…are you feeling alright?” Bronya hesitantly asks, trying her best to not let pity show in her voice.
Gepard only responds with a long-suffering sigh, still remaining in the same position since he sat down, still covering his face with his hands in embarrassment.
In a (horrible) attempt to make her little brother feel better, Serval sits down next to him and pats his shoulder. “Hey c’mon, cheer up Geppie! Look on the bright side of things!” He finally removes his hands in favor of giving her a blank, dead-eyed stare, silently indicating to her that he’s listening. “People collecting nice photos of you means they really, really like you. It’s not a bad thing, really! Take it from me,” she says with a wink.
This does not, in fact, cheer up the captain. If anything, he’s now sulking even harder than he was previously.
“Erm…perhaps we should give you some space.” Bronya looks over at Serval, who’s currently scratching the back of head in confusion, wondering what she said wrong to make her brother feel even worse. “Let us leave for now, Serval. Feel free to take the rest of the day off, Gepard,” Bronya says kindly.
Gepard dips his head lower in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Lady Bronya.”
The two women exit the room, leaving him alone to stew in his thoughts.
Gepard considers himself to be a good, law-abiding citizen. He kind of has to be, given that he’s the literal Captain of the Silvermane Guards. But for the first time in his entire life, he wishes to go against the law and pummel that annoying blue haired scoundrel in the head with his shield.
“Sampo Koski…I swear on my honor that the next time I catch you, I’m gonna destroy you. ”