Chapter Text
“I thought these cravings would stop once you came out to this world,” A woman laughed as she cradled her plump baby. “Yet, I continue to have such a devout sweet tooth. I could mistake your cheeks as sweet buns.” She reminisced on her recent pregnancy cravings prior to the birth of her child. Almyra has given her the most decadent indulgences from the most perfect pistachio baklava to the most rich kanafeh, soaked in extra rosewater syrup for her delight. Her favorite was her husband’s family recipe, a honey cake. One bite gave the warmest hug in spices with saffron’s floral notes worthy to plant an entire garden.
The woman gazed down at her beautiful baby boy, caressing his beautiful tanned skin. She played with tiniest of dark brown, almost coal colored curls decorating the crown of his head that he inherited directly from his father in contrast to her brilliant copper locks. But he had her eyes. Dark emerald eyes that glittered with chartreuse freckles in the sunlight.
“What a pity, Shahad was such a pretty name for a girl. My honey.” The woman tore her gaze away from her baby as she looked out of their palace window. The softness in her gaze hardened, a look her Almyra subjects knew to be more familiar than the tenderness she displayed moments ago. While Almyran still did not flow as well on her tongue as Fodlan did, the language held sentiments that she still clung to. She thought it would have been a nice sentiment to picture her child sharing similar names with his half brother. Shahad and Shahid, she could call. Yet the reality produced a bitter taste in her mouth that no sweet could erase. A pit grew in her stomach, thinking of the intricacies of her husband’s other children. The idea that their love between two people of different lands was radical enough to warrant threats on her newborn’s life. The understanding that as soon as her precious child could walk he’d have to learn how to run if he had a chance to survive the trials of survival as one with royal blood. She raised her baby to her face, her forehead touching against his. She closed her eyes as she relished in his innocent coos and feeling of tiny hands that did not know the feel of steel.
Perhaps she craved sweets to quell the bitterness that sat at the pit of her heart.
“Khalid, I pray to the Goddess that you find a sweeter life we can give.”
“Tiana, my love. We must move.”
“My deepest apologies, Bernadetta!”
Claude stood over his fallen peer, hand outstretched to provide immediate aid, after he had “clumsily” bumped into her.
Bernadetta anxiously peered up at Claude, feeling a sense of dread as she beheld how brilliant his smile was compared to the contrasting darkness of his eyes. Despite Claude belonging to the Golden Deer, at that moment, Bernadetta felt like she was a vulnerable fawn who found herself in an open field for hunting.
“Come now Bernadetta, I’m sure there are more comfortable places to be,” Claude insisted, taking Bernadetta’s hands in his own as he guided her to her feet. Bernadetta couldn't place it, but there was an aspect to Claude’s voice that left like his congenial cadence was one pitch away from being a threat.
Before Bernadetta could profess out loud accusations of Claude’s alternative motives, Claude cheerfully waved to Bernadetta making his way past. “See you around!”
That was it? No threat to her life for inconveniencing him? No sinister scheme to ensure her demise? Bernadetta immediately felt a sense of guilt overwhelming her. She thought of Leonie, a close friend she’s made at the academy who happened to be Claude’s house mate. She always spoke in positive regard for the Golden Deer house leader. More dread clawed at her conscious - Claude was going to tell Leonie how much of a terror she was.
Kicking the dust on the ground as she fought with her flurry of voices ringing with anxiety, she saw a small potion bottle on the ground with gold adornments similar to Claude’s earring.
“W-wait! You left something behind”
For someone with a long stride, Claude didn’t actually make it that far down the corridor. Only a handful of paces away, Claude turned around, a quizzical look on his face. Sheepishly, Bernadetta scuttled forward, handing the bottle back.
“Oh you’re a saint! I would have been in a tough situation if I lost that,” Claude laughed, his palm still held out to Bernadetta as he gave her thanks. Curiously, Bernadetta took a look down at what was so special about it. Her heart stopped as she read the script written on the parchment label. Mild stomach poison.
Bernadetta's eyes widened in horror. Immediately, she let out a blood curdling scream as she ran past Lorenz.
Claude turned around to watch Bernadetta sprint down the corridor, letting out a whistle in awe. He made a mental note to avoid Bernadetta in battle, she was fast.
“You. Just what are you up to?” Claude let out a small scoff recognizing the unique voice that belonged to none other than his most reliable housemate. Wasn’t there any greeting that Lorenz could greet him with? Claude turned his attention to Lorenz, a different smile on his lips. It didn’t seem as charismatically curated, rather it was more natural, comfortable even.
“Oh you’ve caught me again, whimsically wandering the monastery grounds, as usual.”
Lorenz narrowed his eyes in a glare, and Claude’s smile widened with genuine amusement. Claude relished picking at Lorenz’s nerves, especially with his own words as weapons. Lorenz could never accuse Claude of never listening to him. Lorenz never failed to provide him one of the most sincere interactions he’s had at the academy.
“With the mock battle upon us, I sincerely implore you to take preparations more seriously. Here I, with the most patient and pious heart, thought that maybe our house leader was truly collecting material that would benefit our preparation and here I find you tormenting our peers with your impish pranks-”
“Impish pranks?”
“Impish pranks” Lorenz said, returning Claude’s words, snatching the potion bottle from Claude’s hand.
“Is this your glorious plan? To fool others of poisoning? Why would you label it mild? How is that even threatening?”
“You think I would spend my precious time simply just fooling our peers?” Claud questioned, letting out a feigned gasp.
Lorenz let out a genuine gasp, hand delicately hovering over his precious rose, as he always did when he had heard the most blasphemous thing.
“Claude, pray that the Goddess does not hear such blasphemy. How could you even dream of ruining the Alliance’s reputation with such a baseless tactic?”
Claude took a step forward, closing in the distance between the two. He guided Lorenz’s hand that held the bottle towards Lorenz’s lips. “Take a taste, perhaps it could be a good reason for you to sit out choir practice. I’d be doing you a favor really.”
Lorenz’s jaw fell open as he felt the personal attack on his singing. Claude has gone too far. Lorenz broke out of Claude’s gasp and spitefully downed the contents of Claude’s ‘mild stomach poison’.
Silence filled the air as Lorenz took a step back clutching his stomach. He didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but if he did he wanted to brace himself for it. Claude watched on curiously with both of his hands on his hips.
As the initial anxiety dissipated, Lorenz licked his lips realizing the contents were sticky and sweet. Lorenz looked down at the bottle, noting the golden hue. Honey. He let out an irritated groan. “You are absolutely at your wits end!”
“Mad is more like it,” Claude winked as he took the bottle back and capped it. “Rhododendron ponticum, a rare but invasive plant found on the mountainside of a single territory in the far east. The most beautiful hue of magenta, a flower most definitely to your taste.”
Claude began pacing around his fellow Golden Deer and Lorenz groaned at the uninvited lecture, though one again, Claude was simply giving Lorenz the energy he often received from the heir of House Gloucester.
“Bees attracted to its pollen create the most brilliant golden honey laced with grayanotoxin. Mad honey. A simple drop can warrant light-headedness or hallucinations. A mere 15 grams induces loss of consciousness, vomiting, cardiac arrest, or worse”
Claude stopped himself, looking back at the bottle. “This held approximately 30 grams … and you seemed to have consumed well over half. Hm.”
Lorenz wasn’t sure if he was truly feeling light headed or if Claude was telling the truth. Lorenz began to sweat.
“You mean …”
“I mean,” Claude leaned in, poking Lorenz’s chest. “You would have been dead … if I knew how to get my hands on some pretty magenta flowers.”
“Claude! Lorenz! Stop kissing already! Everyone’s already at the market!” Hilda called down the corridor.
Lorenz stumbled backwards, a blush blazing across his cheeks. He pointed an accusing finger at Claude for his mockery but quickly turned his attention to Hilda after the outlandish accusation she just publicly called out. “There was no such intimate contact between that fool and I!” Lorenz shouted storming off in a hough.
Claude let out a satisfied laugh following Lorenz. He stopped for a moment as he neared the end of the corridor, letting out a theatrical yawn and stretched. He casually craned his head around the marble pillar to find Ashe tucked away in the corner.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” Claude smiled, the same smile that he gave Bernadetta.
“Claude! D-don’t mind me I was just-”
Claude made a show of digging into his deep pockets, a favorite feature of his personally chosen house leader uniform, and produced a glass orb with a beautifully bloomed flower with delicate magenta petals. He handed it to Ashe, leaning in with a whisper. “I’ve been harvesting them for a while. I thought Dedue would enjoy this rare beauty”
Ashe’s eyes grew wide as the realization settled into what was in the glass orb he was now holding, creating a confession of understanding Claude’s implications while Claude’s smile cracked wider across his face as he confirmed there was an audience to the interactions he had with Bernadetta and Lorenz.
Claude bid Ashe a farewell as he made his way towards the market, the corners of his mouth falling from a crafted smile to a neutral line of calculation. Going the route to poison his classmates prior to the mock battle was low hanging fruit, and quite honestly, an anticlimactic plan to execute. It reminded him of something uncreative that Hubert would do while looming creepily in the corner.
He relied on deception as insurance, not as a strategy to execute. Lies did not sustain in the battlefield.
Bernadetta would cry to the Black Eagles but the messaging would drown out with her other proclamations of danger rendering the intimidation short lived. Ashe would confide in Dedue and Dedue would know to immediately call Claude’s bluff as the plant was just a simple hydrangea and not a plant that could only be sourced from Almyra. His own Golden Deer would hear aboutd Claude’s failed antics from Lorenz and laugh, finding the supposed lesson to just give it their all and have fun, just like they always did. By no means did Claude look down on his housemates. If anything, he found that the Golden Deer was remarkable in its adaptability and variety of skills. But supposedly having a majority of commoners in a class gets confused as a weakness at the academy and Claude, for the interest of survival, capitalized on weaponizing that perceived fragility.
Compared to the two other house leaders, who is a newly announced heir to an alliance compared to the future King of the Kingdom and Emperor of the Empire?
There were several morally compromising tactics that Claude contemplated when strategizing for the mock battle, but when the systems of nobility drenched the monastery walls and overflowed in the cups of his peers, he found that he did not need to lift a single finger in sacrificing ethics.
“As long as we can pull off the win, it doesn’t matter how.”
Claude's plan for victory was simply to tell the truth.
He let concerned whispers find the ears of the precious prince of Fargheus regarding how some of his closest confidants treated his vassal. What kind of leader, what kind of friend, would let his vassal suffer such cruel words? A crack in trust led to the prince being over protective of said vassal leading to a break in a meticulously planned formation.
On the other side, it seemed that whispers of sympathy reached the ears of a young duke who fell on the shards of his pride when he found out his consultation was seen as inferior to his house rival. What a pity. Your direction should have been listened to. Your housemates will simply be treated as pawns during the mock battle. A righteous act of proving one’s worth and assumption of acting in favor of his peers led to a confusion of orders.
Claude led the Golden Deer through the cracks the two other houses left in a scramble to recover ranks. Claude scoffed at the blind faith given to his two fellow house leaders in the same way that they were given to the gods. The Alliance stood as it was because it valued individualistic goals. In the absence of Claude, they were able to adapt and overcome their opponents with their own strength. They also knew when to run away.
Sprinting through the field surrounded by immobilized bodies, Claude looked over his shoulder as he was being pursued by a Black Eagle archer. He dodged the arrows, familiar with the sharp sound of the arrow leaving the bow. But that meant if he could hear it, they were getting dangerously too close. Claude took in a deep breath, clutching his bow, taking note of his surroundings. He ran towards Raphael brawling with a Blue Lion. Claude slowed his pace, timing it just right as he halted in his steps, turning around to immediately strike the Black Eagle with the body of his bow.
“Raphael!”
Claude dove immediately towards the ground as the Black Eagle pummeled forward, meeting their demise at the hilt of Hilda’s ax. Claude smiled in satisfaction at calculating the time Hilda would be running from the opposite end to meet them.
The celestial horns from the Church’s soldiers filled the air signifying a winner.
Elated at the victory, the remaining Golden Deer present jumped for joy. Raphael grabbed both Claude and Hilda into his arms, swinging them around in delight. Claude let out a genuine laugh, appreciating the advantage he had seeing his classmates celebrating while also shielding his face from Hilda’s hands which were trying to claw at him for cutting it too close.
Claude grabbed Hilda’s hands and shook them in cheer. They won. They won a silly class battle. The Golden Deer were strong and skilled, but real war didn’t care for the simplicity of whether you were enough. It thirsted for how much you could take. It was moments like these, in the height of happiness, Claude felt the most anxiety. He needed a plan, he didn’t know for what, but he knew that if he waited too long someone else would find the opportunity to seize steps ahead of him and then he’d truly be cutting it close.
Stumbling down from Raphael’s grasp, he clumsily grabbed his friends closer. His hands shook for a moment before he gripped tightly onto the fabric of his classmates, “Gather around!”
The Golden Deer huddled intimately as they curiously looked to Claude’s sudden assertion of leadership. Claude leaned in, his lips twisting in a mischievous smile, welcoming the familiar ache in the back of his temples that signified he thought hard enough about contingencies to quell the anxieties scratching in his chest for the time being.
“Victory is ours so we know what we have to do. Meet in the dining hall at midnight,” Claude said with a mysterious wizard caricature of a low voice. Everyone nodded solemnly in a promise to rendezvous. Breaking the huddle, they all looked around at their peers picking up fallen armor, broken weapons, and vacating the field. The adrenaline seemed to instantaneously drain from their bodies as the threat of battle was removed. Collectively, the Golden Deer collapsed from exhaustion.
“Oh this grass feels so nice when our lives aren’t being threatened on it,” Claude sighed as he stretched out. He let out a slight choke as he felt his caplet suddenly be tugged. He glanced at Hilda who was resting her head on the yellow fabric.
“What? You expect my face to touch the ground?” Hilda yawned.
“I, too, must protect my precious features if I should take rest, which I should,” Lorenz said, laying down next to Hilda. Hilda, half conscious, scrunched her face in disgust as she pushed Lorenz towards Claude. Eyes widening, Claude quickly shed his uniform jacket to avoid Lorenz rolling onto him.
With Lorenz and Hilda commandeering his uniform jacket, Claude sat up looking around at his companions. Leonie and Ignatz were each scrunched in their own ball, mirroring each other. Marianne, usually insisting on being more distant, was peacefully sleeping cuddled next to Lysithea against Dorte as support. Raphael was sprawled out, his snoring ringing high into the clear blue sky.
Claude scratched the back of his head, feeling the anxieties creeping up to gnaw on the tranquility of his surroundings. He let out a sigh, leaning over Ignatz to take off his glasses to avoid them being crushed. He laid back down, resting his head against his outstretched arms. In this moment, amongst the numerous truths that were locked away in his throat, he chose to live in the truth that he was simply a student amongst friends who earned a well deserved nap.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :. ───
“Boo”
Out of the shadows, Claude reached out and grasped Lysithea’s shoulders from behind. Lysithea let out a shriek and immediately hit Claude, pulling the cloak of his hood over his face for revenge. Claude bursted out in laughter grabbing Lysithea into an embrace.
“Let go of me at once!” Lysithea hissed, clawing at Claude’s cloak.
“You let go! I’m just protecting you from the ghosts you hate so much.”
“Is this not supposed to be a secret engagement? Wake up the entire monastery why don’t you,” Lorenz scolded coming from the shadows wearing a similar cloak. One by one, each of the Golden Deer came into the candle light of the dining hall dressed in conspicuous attire, other than Hilda, who refused because that type of fabric was heavy, itchy, and most importantly ugly.
After making a truce, Claude let go of Lysithea making his way to the head of the long dining table at the center of the hall. Pulling back his hood, Claude motioned for his friends to come closer in gathering. They all stared at the empty table before them.
Lorenz, putting a hand on his hip and quipping his brow. He opened his mouth to profess skepticism but Claude slung his arm around Lorenz’s shoulders, quieting his criticism before they were spoken.
“Claude, why have we gathered if there is nothing to gather for?” Claude said in a high pitched tone mocking Lorenz’s voice.
“Well, my dear Lorenz, we’re missing a crucial component,” Claude said. He took Lorenz’s hand with his and held it at the center of the table, motioning others to do the same. Bewildered, but obliging, everyone hovered their dominant hand over the table.
“We are gathered here today - tonight? Tonight.” Claude corrects himself, recognizing that it had been a long day from participating in the Battle of Eagle and Lion in the morning to having to spend the rest of daylight journeying back hours to the monastery from Gronder Field. “We are gathered tonight to celebrate our victory, and gather in arms-'' Claude paused to wink, which resulted in groans and sighs around the table at the terrible pun.
“To honor the Leicester Alliance … and some more formal jargon I’m forgetting but who cares! Go Golden Deer!”
Lorenz cringed at Claude's botchery of the opening remarks and stepped forward to once again try to gain some civility in the room only to shrink back in shock.
With a snap of Claude fingers, a burst of golden sparks lit the table and produced a cornucopia of curious delicacies. Claude did not have a bright future as a magic user, but if it’s for the sake of theatrics he’d learn a spell or two to enhance his sleight of hand. The table was littered with a haphazard collection of goods stolen from the kitchen and items from the market that was received in trade for secrets, favors, and a little flirting. Claude thrived on planning extravagant feasts whenever the opportunity arose, but considering that the turnaround time for this feast left little room for flexibility, Claude had to get creative. In the middle of the table, sat a large simple carved bowl. Gingerly picking it up and raising it high, Claude grinned at the main event.
“Bring forth your offerings,” Claude bellowed out in a sing-song voice in an attempt to mimic a grand old king.
“CANDY SALAD!” Everyone cheered out loud, except for Marianne who tried her best to raise her voice over a whisper.
Truthfully, candy salad would make all of the nobles’ ancestors who were present roll in their grave. Shout out to you, Grandpa, Claude thought idly as he passed the bowl to Hilda. This gathering was a bastardized take on an honored Leicester Alliance tradition where after a victory has been achieved, houses of the round table would gather to provide an offering of food to symbolize the commitment to feeding the Alliance’s future as one. In the most devout observance of the tradition, the offering vessel would be the most ornate, handcrafted artwork made of the most precious materials. The food would be offerings of crops from a region that prided itself on a specific produce or a luxurious find that was scouted across the lands. Yet, in the hands of budding young adults who are students in an officer’s academy, decorum could be subjective. The presence of commoners at the table meant for nobles in itself seemed like a radical concept - yet here was the Golden Deer, creating their own path.
“May the Alliance ever be abundant,” Hilda said, reciting the lines that were engraved on her tongue from years of carefully rehearsed pomp and circumstances. She pulled out a small burlap sack and poured in pink heart shaped gelatinous candy. “I brought-”
“House Goneril offers,” Lorenz corrected.
“Oh my how unladylike of me to use the incorrect words. Someone as knowledgeable as yourself must know what these are. I brought them especially for you.”
“Oh for me?” Lorenz asked, blushing at the sudden gesture.
“They’re collagen candy for your skin. We could all benefit from more elasticity, y’know. Your skin especially looks a little…” Hilda said, intentionally trailing off as she examined her nails nonchalantly.
Lorenz houghed at the suggestion that his skin and skin care were not already meticulously unkempt. With a flip of his asymmetrical bangs, Lorenz seized the bowl and took out a glass jar. “House Gloucester humbly offers,” Lorenz said, emphasizing being the only apparent civilized person in the dining hall, “our time-honored contribution of candy roses depicted the beautiful roses found in Gloucester territory. A true delicacy made from the finest artisan confectioners! May the Alliance ever be abundant!”
Lorenz passed it onto Ignatz, who nervously took the bowl. “I-i brought uh … I mean, um, the V-victor family…?” Ignatz paused for validation of his word choice. What were commoners supposed to say? It felt like playing at a bigger game considering he had never actually participated in such feasts. This Alliance tradition was known across the lands, but when it came to commoner households there was no formal decree. It was simply a gathering of friends.
“Are we really supposed to introduce ourselves?” Leonie asked, addressing the awkwardness in the air. “If it’s coming from us it seems like we’re just playing castle.”
“This tradition belongs to the entire Alliance, don’t you have pride-” Lorenz began attempting to be inclusive in intention, but fell short on impact.
“Lorenz is right, we all come from the Alliance-,” Claude interjected, his tone bright to encourage a sense of camaraderie, but choked after the words left his lips. Did we?
“Claude?” Hilda whispered, putting her hand on Claude’s back to check in with him. Catching himself, Claude forced out a laugh waving his hands in an attempt to be sincere. “But what matters is that we’re all Golden Deer! Woo! Go ahead, Ignatz - show us what delicacy you brought!”
“I brought black licorice!” Ignatz said excitedly emboldened by Claude’s encouragement, dumping a wooden box of black licorice in the bowl.
“On purpose?” Lysithea scowled, utterly insulted by Ignatz’s offering.
“Well House Raphael is serving up some fruit leather!” Raphael said excitedly tossing in a few pieces of fruit leather. Truthfully, he had gathered more prior to arrival but he had gotten too hungry waiting for everyone to share what they brought. He ate half of his offering.
“I don’t think you guys understand what candy is,” Lysithea pouted, taking the bowl. She produced a bag full of duck shaped marshmallows dusted in different colored sugar. “These are what the people want!”
“This bowl is missing some punch,” Leonie grinned, dumping in a bag full of citrus candies that she bartered for after winning an arm wrestling match down in the market. She passed the bowl to Marianne, giving her an encouraging pat on the back. They all knew it a daring task for Marianne to share such proximate space with her peers, especially late at night.
“Um… I made these…,” Marianne whispered, taking out a basket full of small rectangular cakes of toasted wheat strands. Hilda gently took Mariane’’s hand and shook her head softly.
“We talked about this,” Hilda whispered. “We’re not eating Dorte’s treats.”
“Oh… I mean …,” Marianne fidgeted for a moment reaching into her pocket. Producing three sugar cubes, she put them in the bowl.
Claude’s face was lit up with amusement, leaning over Hilda to take the bowl from Marianne. He took one of her pocket sugar cubes and popped into his mouth with a wink to ensure that Marianne didn’t feel insecure of her offering.
“Last but not least, I brought to share with my lovely classmates, an indulgent sweet treat: honey drops!” Claude exclaimed, pouring in a glass container of honey into the bowl, the amber orbs making delicate clinking sounds as it hit the bowl.
Hilda scrunched her nose, “Why would you bring those?”
Lorenz rolled his eyes, “Oh good, more of his poison. Is this concoction more potent?”
“Woah, woah, woah, what is this blasphemy against honey?” Claude asked, genuinely perplexed at Hilda’s reaction while ignoring Lorenz’s.
“You don’t eat honey, Claude,” Hilda said not as a question, but as a statement.
“Claude is allergic? How allergic?” Ignatz asked, immediately reaching out to the bowl in a panic to pick out the honey drops out of consideration.
Claude smiled wide, but the light in his eyes darkened. The familiar ache of several thoughts clawing against his temples were back along with a feeling of anxiety telling him to flee as far away as possible. Hilda was right and Ignatz’s franticness was justified. One could say that Hilda and Ignatz actions just now signified the genuine connection of friendship - to have people care for you so much that they end up learning things about you. An endearing perspective, truly, and a perspective that was ripped away from Claude in his upbringing. The fact that his classmates could be so perceptive of him meant that they were watching him closely. They knew one of his weaknesses. Claude watched Lorenz’s expression shift from annoyance to confusion, recollecting their encounter the previous day. Why would Claude carry around a bottle of something that would harm him?
Claude was witnessing his motive of hiding weaknesses in a plain site unraveling before him and the unanticipated factor of care that was now displayed before him. How long until this dull chronic ache turned into a splitting migraine? Think of something. No, thinking of something is not enough, you have to act. What is our strategy? You’ve been quiet for too long. Speak. SPEAK-
Claude took a honey drop from Ignatz’s grasp, holding it as if it were a jewel. “So allergic, that consuming this will kill me.”
Claude tossed the honey drop in the air, opening his mouth. Ignatz let out an anxious yelp, Hilda and Lorenz were closing in on Claude to push him out the way, and for the second that the honey drop hung in the air, Claude glared at how his life could be threatened with such simplicity like this. Jumping upon the dining table, Claude snatched the honey drop. He held the honey drop over one of the buttons on his uniform. “We are gathered here in celebration, but we must not forget to stay sharp. There were many things that happened on the field that could have got us the victory sooner. Shall we partake in another Alliance tradition?”
The Golden Deer all looked at each other perplexed, but Claude had the natural charisma that acted as a magnet to attract their attention.
“Fancy a game of Assassin?”
A childhood game that was rooted in historic implication, children across the Leicester Alliance played it in large groups. The aim was simple, to take out your assigned target and be the last one standing. At a commoner’s level, it was a creative and engaging activity to play amongst the villages while fantasizing about knighthood or mimicking stories about fearsome mercenaries. At the noble’s level, it was less of an activity for enjoyment, but a necessary activity to prepare for genuine threats. Claude, having grown up in Almyra, didn’t get a chance to experience either perspective, but was so lucky to understand the concept through real life applications.
Leonie, Ignatz, Raphael cheered immediately out of nostalgia. Lorenz, surprised by the suggestion, had a peculiar sparkle of excitement in his eyes at the suggestion of a competition. Marianne and Lysithea didn’t share the same interest, but they both had taken Claude’s mention of improving seriously. Hilda crossed her arms, keeping a close eye on Claude’s sudden proposition.
“What’s the mark?” Leonie, leaning in with excitement.
“Steal a button off of their uniform,” Claude grinned.
Hilda pushed Claude off of the table, taking her seat at the end of the table. “We can play games after we eat. Another second longer and I’m going to simply shrivel up since I’m so petite.”
Collectively, Hilda reminding the others of their haphazard feast growls echoed amongst the stone walls. Between returning from Gronder field to preparing for the gathering, most of them didn’t have time to properly eat. The others took their seats and as graciously as any teenager who was running on an empty stomach, consumed the feast of late night snacks and candy with deep appreciation. They exchanged gossip, stories, displayed talents of poor singing or dance in the confidence of dear classmates, and found comfort in the youthfulness that evaded systems of class.
“Are these lost deer I see? What little event has you out past your bedtime?”
The Golden Deer immediately hushed their celebrations, eyes wide and mouths stuffed as they saw a drunk Manuela stumbling into the dining hall. Exchanging guilty looks with one another, they all nodded in collective agreement.
“Scatter!”
A tried a true method that the Golden Deer have found beneficial both on the field as well as through hijinx, they all participated in a gambit to elude Manuela. Raphael carried Ignatz and Lysithea in his arms, running around Manuela with a loaf of bread wedged in his mouth. Leonie held Marianne’s hand running opposite of Raphael while forgetting miniature wheat squares fell out of Marianne’s basket, leaving evidence of their presence . Hilda hopped onto Claude’s back, refusing to break a sweat, and Claude laughed obligingly as he ran the opposite way into the connecting corridor. Lorenz, horrified at being discovered by Manuela and more importantly related to foolish activity, embarrassingly pulled his hood over his head in an attempt to hide as he ran after Claude and Hilda.
Giggles and rebellious footsteps floated down the dormitory hallways as the Golden Deer found their way back to their own rooms.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :. ───
“You gotta do better than that Raphael,” Hilda laughed sitting on top of Raphael, who was now clumsily splayed on the training ground.
“How am I supposed to take it off ya? What if something pops out?” Raphael asked with a blush across his face.
Truthfully, Claude didn’t anticipate his classmates to take his proposal of Assassins seriously. Usually, when he proposed an antic it would be received with a lukewarm response - yet he watched carefully and intentionally. What started as a way to divert attention from a point of weakness turned into an opportunity for Claude to gain leverage upon his classmates. He needed to study his peers, to ensure that he would not be caught off guard by any surprise observations again. Yet, a more subconscious motivation was to ensure that he could push his friends to get better. To help them survive in a time where death was not simply hypothetical.
He wanted them to all make it together.
As of now, there was a lot of improvement to be had Raphael was too blatant at his approach and he was too timid to follow through. Leonie, similarly, revealed Ignatz as her mark when she tried to ambush him in the library which led to a scolding by Haneman. Lorenz declared his assassination attempt on Leonie early on because of his cockiness, but has been bested by strength alone. The rest of the suspects were still keeping their marks a secret, which, to Claude’s appreciation, gave him an opportunity to enjoy the game as it was, a game.
How many games would they be able to afford to play later on?