The Schezar Guide to the Holidays

by Black-Inque2002

The holidays have a way of bringing out the best and the worst in all of us; especially if your family consists of a Fate-Alterated Zaibach solider, a socially awkward long lost sister, a recalcitrant ex-Captain, and a very beleaguered knight trying to hold it all together.

The Schezar Guide to the Holidays

The entire kingdom of Asturia was swept up in a great tide of exuberant festivity; houses both lordly and common, in cities and in countryside, were festooned with streamers of gold and blue that waved in the autumn breeze and flashed in the sun. The chapels and temples were flooded with sweet and smoky incense that washed over the pious who had come seeking the favors and blessings of their god. The bazaar swarmed with merchants and tourists from all corners of Gaea peddling their wares and hoping to turn a fine profit from the celebration that was to last all week. Neighbors greeted each other with smiles and exchanges of sweets or protective charms of Jetura to wish their friends well for coming year. And everywhere could be seen the banners of Asturia; draping over balconies and balustrades, waving proudly from rooftops or from the hands of the patriotic, the Royal Coat of Arms emblazoned on fields of ocean blue, for it was from the ocean that Asturia had built her famous wealth and might.

It was Nacional, the raucous and wild seven day feast that celebrated the founding of Asturia seven hundred years ago when legendary mystic Cantabri had been led to the bay where Palas now stood, guided by a divine vision of the dragon god of the sea, Jetura. The feast would finally culminate with the Holy Bonfire at the St. Cantabri Temple, the fires symbolizing the burning away of past sins and the promise of a prosperous and peaceful new year. Indeed, it seemed that the whole of the country had whipped itself up into a giddy readiness for every possible earthly delight.

This, however, was not the case for Dilandau Albatou, ex-captain of the Dragonslayers and the current guest of Allen Schezar.

The word "guest" was a term of mere courtesy, a gentler way of acknowledging the fact that he was still considered Public Enemy Number One, capital letters quiet necessary, thank you very much, despite nearly the turning of a year under Allen's roof. Allen himself had even gone so far as to formally and legally adopt Dilandau as his younger brother to further ensure the boy's protection from those who would be far happier seeing the former Diabolical Adonis dangling from the highest gibbet as festively as a holiday roast. True to the stubbornness of his character, Dilandau had flatly and vehemently refused to change either his surname or the manner in which he addressed Allen. No loving familial terms here. Dilandau still referred to the knight as "Schezar," hoping perhaps to keep whatever distance he could from the man. Not an easy task, considering they now shared the same house.

Dilandau had applied this tactic of emotional stonewalling to Allen's younger sister, Celena, whom held in a special sort of distaste. Thanks to the frightful and particularly gruesome experiments of Zaibach Sorcerers, they had once shared a body. Sharing anything else with her, however, had proven far more difficult and irritating. Celena was like a diluted reflection of himself; lonely, fragile, and worst of all, female. It was a reflection that Dilandau did not like staring into.

Pity for him, then, that morning, when he was stirred from sleep by an excitable knocking on his bedroom door and a small, horribly Celena-like voice crying out, "Wake up!"

Groaning in protest, he rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head in a useless effort to drown out the noise. Try as he might to return to blissful unconsciousness, the knocking refused to allow him passage, rapping out a steady and demanding beat that pulsed its way into his ears and straight to the fuse of his temper.

Growling, he finally threw off his blanket and marched over to the door, jerking it open to see Celena already dressed and staring up at him with saucer eyes, looking for all the world as though she might bolt at the slightest provocation. Dilandau knew she was still terrified of him, a fact that he was quite personally proud of. He knew it would have taken every ounce of her courage to come and wake him up; anyone who tried to wake him before he was ready usually found themselves on the receiving end of a long and inventive string of curses that made Allen's crew seem saintly by comparison. Whatever the reason, it must be awfully important for Allen to have made Celena of all people come to get him.

"What do you want?" he snarled, glaring groggily down at the girl and running a hand through his silver hair. He noticed the familiar shape of Refina in the hallway, as muzzy and sleep-rumpled as he was, and looking every bit as annoyed. She stood with her arms crossed, long dark hair tangling down over her shoulders, struggling to keep her eyes open as she scowled at Celena, who, like Dilandau, she viewed in much the same way as group of popular kids sneer down at the school nerd who shyly asks to sit at their table. She too had been taken in by Allen after the war and passed off on paper as a cousin of some distant relative, a fact that of course fooled no one. Refina had just as much of a bloodstained reputation as her comrade and just as many Asturians wishing to exact their own brand of retribution upon her.

"Allen said to wake you," Celena replied softly, demurely lowering her eyes and shying back a step. Dilandau didn't miss the slight quaver in her voice. "He wants everyone down at the breakfast table."

"What for?"

"I don't know. He said he'd tell us when we were all downstairs."

Dilandau's glance traveled to Refina, who shrugged at him helplessly and shook her head. So she didn't know any more than he did. Great.

"Fine," he sighed, rolling his crimson eyes in impatient dismissal. "Whatever. Schezar can wait while we get dressed."

Celena nodded, eyes still lowered as though looking at him might burn a hole through her, which, to be fair, it very well could have. Ever since his arrival she had been careful to keep her distance from him, skittishly drawing back any time she felt she treaded too close, like a tender young gazelle hoping to slip past a slumbering lion. Which was just as well. It made for one less thing to irritate and provoke him.

Dilandau watched her go, scoffing under his breath and returning his attention to Refina.

"Do you have any idea what this is about?"

"Not a clue," Refina answered, her voice still thick with sleep. She threw up her shoulders again in exasperation. "Might as well get dressed and see what all the fuss is about."

She threw him a sleepy smile and a jaunty little wave before disappearing into her room, leaving him to marvel at just how in stride she'd taken this mysterious summons. Her rest had just been interrupted; shouldn't she be more angry? But he supposed she wasn't like him that way. Refina had always managed to keep her head about her, no matter what the situation or her own personal feelings, coolly taking charge when she knew she had to. It was that coolness that had always left him alternately puzzled and fascinated; while he had often exploded in rage at the mistakes of his own men, Refina had but to shoot her girls one icy glance and they had scrambled to comply with her wishes, often without having to speak a single word. This equanimity seemed as natural to her as anger was to him, and privately he admitted it was something he envied and admired her for.

Not that he would tell her that or anything.

Sighing, Dilandau rolled his eyes one last time and shut his own door, wondering which gods he'd offended to have been cursed to spend the rest of his days under the same roof as a womanizing knight and his pathetic, mewling little sister. The notion that he had probably offended nearly, if not all of them did not cross his mind.

Fifteen minutes later the two ex-Zaibach captains ambled down the stairs and into the dining room, Dilandau a bit more content to drag his heels than his companion. Meals were never a thing he looked forward to and his repeated requests to take them alone were always vetoed by Allen, who seemed bound and determined to properly socialize him like a particularly staunch and unrelenting dog trainer. Of course this hadn't stopped Dilandau from taking advantage of the knight's frequent absences and sneaking off to enjoy whatever moments of privacy he could get.

They were greeted by the excited chattering of more voices that was usually present at breakfast and, indeed, there were the sisters Millerna and Eries sitting alongside Celena and Allen, their faces animated and radiant as they talked. Even little Celena seemed to bask in their warmth, looking far more relaxed than she had a few minutes ago, clearly feeling herself to be out of danger for now in the presence of her brother.

The chattering faltered and then hushed awkwardly as Dilandau and Refina entered and sat across from them, as if they were a flock of sheep who had suddenly spied a pair of hungry wolves slinking towards them.

Allen, true to his noble character, was quickest in the attempt to recover the warmth of the conversation so suddenly snuffed out upon their arrival. He nodded, offering Dilandau and Refina a gracious smile and a polite "Good morning", which neither of them felt inclined to return. Dilandau's habitual scowl sat on his face as though permanently carved there and Refina's face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

"So what was so important that you had to drag us down here?" Dilandau grumbled, his crimson gaze flickering pointedly at Celena as surely as a thrown knife.

"Because today is Nacional," answered Millerna, bravely stepping forward to divert Dilandau's annoyance onto herself. "It's the single most important holiday of the year in Asturia."

"So?"

"So," added Allen, his tone even, but carrying with it an unmistakable firmness that would be brooking no arguments this day. "I thought it would be a good time for us, all of us, to celebrate together and try to be more like a normal family."

The scowl on Dilandau's face scrunched itself up into a revolted snarl, a harsh scoff slicing through the room at this proposal of feel-good family time.

"Really, Schezar?" he asked, the acidity of his voice potent enough to melt lead. "You really think us sitting in the same room pretending to be happy is going to make us like a family?"

"Yes, actually," Allen returned, the barest furrowing of his eyebrows the only indication of any frustration he felt at the boy's absolute lack of cooperation. "For nearly a year neither you nor Refina have made any attempts to fit in, either in this house or in Asturia at all. "

"Because I could give fuck all about Asturia," growled Dilandau, agitatedly drumming his long white fingers against the tablecloth and wishing desperately that he had a glass of wine to throw in Allen's face. "It's not my home."

"It is your home now," the knight said, low, forceful and completely at the end of the available rope of patience. Still he stared Dilandau down, a feat accomplished by only a few lucky enough to live to tell the tale. And Allen could most assuredly count himself lucky that there was nothing sharp within reach. "Need I remind you that you two are now in my charge and I will not have you sulking about any longer, nor will I suffer any more of this rudeness to me, Eries, Millerna, and especially to Celena. As long as you are in this house, you will behave appropriately."

Dilandau slouched in his seat, holding Allen's gaze in a silent malevolence that seemed to crackle and thrum between them with all the mounting fiery pressure of a volcano on the verge of erupting. Only the calm, steadying touch of Refina's hand on his arm was enough to cool the fire down to a smoulder and prevent an all-out lava spewing disaster.

"We just want you to feel more comfortable here, that's all," Eries said diplomatically. "I know it's not easy being in a new place and I'm sure everything seems strange to you, but please try to understand where we're coming from."

"Comfortable?" Dilandau sneered, his voice beginning to rise once again. "Comfortable? You practically lock me up in this house, and you have the nerve to talk to me about comfortable?!-" His protests were silenced by Refina's rough jerking on his shirt sleeve, earning her a brief, irritated glare for her efforts to curb yet another outburst.

"Just at least come with me to the bazaar today," suggested Millerna, bearing his blustering with a sweet smile. "It would be a nice change of scenery, if nothing else, and there would be a lot going on."

Dilandau and Refina traded dubious glances, weighing the young queen's words for what they might be worth; not much, obviously, but the prospect of actually being outside without any sort of armed escort was beginning to look too inviting to pass up. Finally appearing to reach a silent, mutual consensus, Dilandau turned back to Millerna, scowl still set firmly in place.

"Whatever," he muttered. "Fine. If it'll get you off my back for a while, I'll go to the stupid bazaar."

"Oh! Perfect!" cried Millerna, clapping her hands together in delight. " I'll show you all the best places to go! I just know you're going to enjoy it!"

Two hours later, being jostled about in an overcrowded and noisy bazaar, it was quite apparent that Dilandau was not enjoying any of it. The street performers had been declared a bore, although Refina had laughed a bit at some of the more ribald fare, and the music written off as "provincial." He disliked the thundering mixture of singing, hawking, and laughing and he disliked sea of bodies bumping into him. Twice already Millerna had caught him trying to sneak off to buy vino. In fact, the more Dilandau actively resisted the diversions she pressed on him, the more the little queen seemed eager to thrust even more at him.

Refina, for her part, appeared more at ease within the swarm; having spent much of her life on the streets and working in factories with the loud grinding of machinery had quite obliterated much of her sense of personal space. She drifted behind Millerna and Celena, never quite close enough to share in their enjoyment, but every so often peering at the overwhelming array of wares on display in the rows of multi-colored tents and inside the brightly lit shops. She'd always known that Palas had been considered the pearl of Gaea for its incredible wealth and beauty, but she had never seen it firsthand. The cold austerity of the floating fortresses of Zaibach had left her starved for both color and the ebb and flow of humanity. If discipline and hierarchy had been the lifeblood of Zaibach, this free-flowing and dizzying parade of sound, light, and sensation was certainly the pulse that made Asturia vibrant in a way that her homeland could never have been. Refina found herself surreptitiously reaching out to run a curious finger over some fine texture or other; a soft damask or a smooth jewel, secretly taking pleasure in them for what they were even though she herself had no need of such things, a stark contrast to Millerna who had already begun to load herself down with bags of the stuff.

"Oh!" gushed Millerna, holding up a bolt of deep sapphire silk, its glossy shimmer giving it an almost liquid appearance in the late morning sun. "What do you think of this one, Celena? I think it would look good on you!"

The young girl blushed, timidly reaching out to touch the offered gift.

"I don't know…"

"But you need a new dress for the holidays!" insisted Millerna, waving away Celena's hesitancy. "I'm buying this for you. I won't take no for an answer…"

"Are they still talking about dresses?" came a sardonic voice from behind Refina, who whirled to spy Dilandau regarding the other two women with open disdain and clutching a small cup. (So he'd managed to get ahold of his favorite drink after all.) "How many dresses does one woman need?"

Refina shrugged nonchalantly, ignoring his barb and his bad attitude and nodding at the cup. "Where did you get that?"

"Mmm? There's a stall around the corner. You want some?"

"Gods, yes," she replied, snatching the cup from his hands and helping herself, grinning at his indignant growl of surprise.

"I didn't mean mine!" Dilandau exclaimed, grabbing back his drink with a peevish glare. "Go get your own."

"Oh, please," Refina scoffed, playfully shoving him aside as she went in search for her own cup of wine. "Lighten up, will you? You've been moody all day and it's kind of starting to get on my nerves."

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and making a disparaging gesture at the teeming marketplace. "But following around two stupid girls and watching them try on clothes isn't exactly my idea of fun."

"Well, then," Refina said lightly, again plucking the cup out his hands and taking a sip, dark eyes flashing up at him mischievously. "Let's not follow them."

"What are you getting at?"

"I mean the marketplace is so big and so busy. It would be a shame not to see as much of it as we could."

The glower that Dilandau had been sporting all morning as well as any fashion accessory rearranged itself into a knowing smirk as he grasped her meaning. He shot one last look at Millerna and Celena, who were both bowed over a parure of glittering emeralds, wondering why on earth Millerna would even need to be browsing for jewelry when she was a queen and had more ornaments and baubles that she could ever desire. Whatever the reason, they were distracted, and far too easy to lose in this crowd.

"Yeah," he agreed, chuckling darkly. "It would be a shame, wouldn't it?"

Thirty minutes later and pleasantly flushed with wine, Refina and Dilandau had waded through the rushing stream of merchants and shoppers and were now facing the area of the market that looked to be quite a bit more interesting that what they had seen thus far: the arms and armory section. Where Millerna and Celena had let their eyes be captivated by rare sparkling jewels from far off lands, Dilandau and Refina's eyes were drawn to the gleam of pointed steel from thousands of swords, dirks, and daggers bedecking the tents before them.

"What do you think of this one?" Refina asked, darting towards a pretty little sword in a nearby tent, drawn by the unusual sinuously curving blade and the pattern of golden vines twining around the pommel. In fact, many of the weapons of this particular merchant all seemed to bear these unique flourishes; no two were quite the same, again appealing to her desire for art for art's sake. "I've never seen anything quite like it."

"And you won't, either," came the rough-textured voice of the man behind the display cases, an older man whose bald head, heavy brows and sharp features gave him a hard-bitten look, as though he might be just as skilled at using these blades as well as selling them. "All of these are handmade by myself from the highest grade of Ezgardian steel. You won't find any half as decent on this street."

"It looks too fragile," Dilandau said, peering over her shoulder, assessing the weapon without much interest.

"You think so?" the man returned, greeting this criticism with a lift of his brows and a challenging half-grin. "And what were the swords like in Zaibach then, little Lord?"

Their heads jerked up to stare at him, their faces double masks of stunned horror like deer having just been shot by a master marksman. How had he been able to discern that much about them without even asking? Refina took a cautious step backward, quickly withdrawing the hand she had been reaching out towards the sword and unconsciously beginning to assume a fighting stance, muscles and nerves alert to a possible threat.

"How do you know who we are?" she asked suspiciously.

"Heh. Not anyone in this city don't know who you two are," the man replied, his smirk widening in satisfaction at the reaction he'd managed to provoke. However, he didn't seem at all alarmed or otherwise uneasy in the presence of two people who were essentially war criminals, with one of those two people only having a tenuous grasp on anger management at best. Instead he leaned casually against the table between them, regarding them with something not unlike amusement. "I could tell it by your looks and by how you walked that you were no more Asturian than the steel I use. But don't worry, though. Business is business, no matter where the customer's from. I ain't holding it against you. In fact, the war made a lot of smiths a good amount of money. So be at ease, Lord. Lady. I ain't callin' no guards on you. In fact, I'm rather glad I got to see the infamous Zaibach captains in person."

A doubtful look was traded between the two of them, unsure of what to make of this unexpected bit of flattery and equally as unsure whether or not it was genuine or if this grizzled smithy were merely baiting them for his own enjoyment.

Refina, moved forward first, having apparently decided that if this man was going to turn them over he would have already done so and lifted the sword off of the table to test its weight in her hand, liking the balance of it.

"It's so light," she said, stepping back a few paces to give herself room to give the sword a few quick practice swings.

"Light but strong, I assure you," said the smithy, the tone of his voice akin to that of a proud parent watching his child bring home an Ivy League diploma. "Though I hope you won't have a need for it anytime soon."

Refina smirked, gave a thoughtful "hmph" and laid the sword back on the table with a decisive air.

"I'll take it."

"Excellent choice," said the smithy, his grin widening, something not altogether pleasant in the effect it gave his face. In fact it rather reminded Refina of a mole man with the cunning glint in his eyes; he knew the value of his own work too well to be haggled with. "I can have the privilege of selling a Zaibach lady one of my own blades."

"Allen's going to have a fit when he sees that," Dilandau noted slyly.

"So what?" Refina scoffed, tossing the required amount of coins onto the table while the man sheathed the sword and wrapped it with a fine cloth. "I miss having my own sword. I don't care what Allen has to say about it."

"And that's exactly why he's going to have a fit."

She fixed him with a quelling gaze, a slight lift of her lips suggesting that Dilandau was about as concerned with Allen's opinion as he was with a peasant's opinion on which of his pigs would fetch the best price at market and she knew it as well as he did.

"So are you getting one then?"

"Yes."

"Anything here please you, little Lord?" asked the smithy, gesturing at the rest of his wares, obviously quite eager to score another sale.

Dilandau frowned, as much in consideration of his prospective new weapon as at being called "little." He'd have sucker punched anyone on the Vione had they the gumption to say that to his face. In fact, he had, and for far less. It didn't, however, seem wise to do so to a man who was twice his weight and had an arsenal of pointy objects at his disposal. So instead he settled on letting his eyes rove over the selection, on the whole unimpressed with the exquisite craftsmanship before him until the brightly polished blade of a longsword hanging directly behind the smith caught his attention. It was simple in form, lacking the fanciful decorations of many of its brothers.

"That one there behind you," he said, pointing. "I want that one."

"Ah," said the smithy, turning to lift it off of its resting place and presenting it to him. "Function over form, I see. You know, couple of the lads have set aside a sparring ring down the way, just for the fun of it, you see. You two should give it a try."

Dilandau tossed the man his money and snatched up his sword without so much as a parting glance, eager to be rid of his excessive talking and the rather slimy way he'd laid on his praise. However, the idea of sparring that the smithy had planted in his mind had already grown roots and shot up into a frothing forest; a fight, even a fake one, simply could not be passed up.

They made their way down the street, and before long spied a thick knot of men and a few women crowded around a pair of duelists, shouting both encouragements and insults at their favorite and laughing amongst themselves, some of them even exchanging a few gidaru as bets were lost or won. The familiar ringing of steel meeting steel beat out a rhythm they had not heard in nearly a year. They strode forward, exuding a confidence and authority that made the members of the crowd nearest to them begin to subtly back out of their way; it was true what the smithy had said, everyone who laid eyes on them knew them immediately for who and what they were, as the mixture of shock, outrage and awe in their expressions could attest. Refina and Dilandau ignored their stares with shoulders cold enough to rival an Artic ice field, too intent on slicing themselves a piece of action (quite literally so in Dilandau's case) to be bothered by the mood of the common folk. Eventually they pushed themselves to the inner ring, where the bodies parted to reveal two men hacking away at each other with longswords, their movements rough and unschooled, fueled purely by brute strength and completely lacking in form. Refina heard Dilandau make a quiet, scornful noise under his breath as they watched, unable to suppress a grin at his snobbishness. She already knew that he was thinking he could beat both of these uncultured lunks even in spite of their size and strength, and she was already agreeing with him.

"You should show them how real swordsmanship is done," she whispered to him with a nudge.

Dilandau glanced down at her, catching the slyness in her voice and the impishness of her expression, wondering if he could recall a time he'd ever managed to see her this way before, so open and almost playful. It struck him then as surely as a sword-stroke that he hadn't; years of rigid protocol had both left them as guarded as their famously aloof Strategos, whose stiff-upper lip hadn't so much as budged even while he'd watched his own homeland burn to the ground. Or rather it had left her more guarded; Dilandau had been just as renowned for flying off the handle and stabbing vino bottles as Folken had been for simply weathering those outbursts with nary a blink of an eye. He decided he liked this side of her, this gradual willingness to bend the rules, and, as of the last hour, break them.

"Well, well," said a voice then, a voice as rough and uncultured as the mock fight that had just transpired and certainly rough enough to belong to the man currently speaking with it. It was voice that had been born within the greasy walls of seedy taverns and dank back alleys, its mocking smugness custom fit for throwing insults even as its owner was stabbing you in the back for your coin purse. "Look at what we have 'ere, lads. Couple of young pretty things with pretty little toys come to join in the fun."

A round of crude laughter accompanied the jest, a menacing chorus that hinted at the very real possibility of actual violence. The speaker, who had been the victor of the last round, took a few easy steps towards them, his dark eyes sizing them up and apparently finding them as unable to measure up to his standards as Dilandau had considered him unable to measure up to his. He was a man somewhere in his thirties, though the creases in his lean face, chin-length stringy hair and scratchy patches of a goatee made him seem older. This and the thick layer of smarminess radiating off of him sufficed to make him even less palatable than the smithy, a remarkable feat in Dilandau's eyes.

Dilandau's lip curled into a derisive sneer at the man's posturing, stepping forward to meet him in the ring, hand resting easily on the hilt of his very new, and undoubtedly very sharp sword which was in need of a thorough test run. This over-confident thug looked to be about the right size to have his ego chopped into quivering bits.

The man leered down at him, gesturing at him rudely with his weapon.

"This one's prettier than my own wife!" he taunted, eliciting another round of laughter from the crowd. Clearly he was a favorite among them, though it was plain to both Dilandau and Refina that this man's liking for talk was nothing but a way to mask his lack of real skill. "What's your name, lad?"

"Dilandau Albatou."

A hush settled over the crowd at the sound of his name, broken then only by the rapid susurration of whispering and none too subtle pointing as their suspicions about his identity had been confirmed; this was the monster who had mercilessly razed entire cities to the ground, the slayer of dragons, of kings and of anyone else unlucky enough to stumble into his line of fire, as this unlucky bastard swaggering before him would soon find out.

"We know you, Zaibach boy," the man replied, echoing the words of the smithy. "We know you and that little girl with you. And we don't like that you've come to our circle. And I'm going to make sure you won't come here again."

"I can't duel you until I know you're name," Dilandau pointed out with a nonchalant shrug, blatantly ignoring the man's threat as if one might swat away an irritating fly. His impatience lay as clearly on his face as though written there with pen and ink; A year and a half cloistered away in Allen's estate with naught a flamethrower to be found had left him positively salivating for a good fight and this man only continued to delay his gratification by shooting off his mouth. His long fingers tightened on his pommel with a barely restrained temper, which he could already feel beginning to crackle and hiss beneath his skin.

"Name's Fredo," the man replied, settling into a stance that would have made Dilandau burst into howls of scornful laughter if he wasn't already so perturbed. "And I look forward to—"

Whatever it was Fredo was going to declare that he was looking forward to was suddenly silenced as Dilandau leapt forward with a casual animal grace, drawing his sword in one smooth motion and bringing it across in a swift slash, leaving his opponent with barely a moment to block it. The force of Dilandau's strike sent Fredo's body shuddering and stumbling backwards a step or two and bringing a wider smile to Refina's face as Fredo began to realize what it meant to provoke someone who had at least ten times the martial training than anything he had ever experienced in these generally civilized streets. Fredo's brown eyes widened, first with shock and then with mounting anger that his speech had been cut, literally so, quite short. He shoved against Dilandau's blade with all of his strength, but the boy pivoted on his heel, transferring the energy into another sweeping slash, red eyes glittering with maniacal glee as Fredo again only managed to block at the last second.

He's not even trying, Refina saw. Dilandau's just toying with him.

But Fredo refused to acknowledge the fact that he was outmatched. He pushed back boldly, if stupidly, forcing Dilandau's sword off to the side to get an opening, a move which promptly backfired when his smaller and fleeter opponent rolled with the motion and cleanly maneuvered out of range.

"I thought you said you were going to force me out," Dilandau jeered, sporting a supremely self-confident smirk at Fredo's growing ire. "You're doing a pretty shit job, if you ask me."

Fredo growled and charged with a shout of wounded pride, blade hefted over his head, clearly finished now with pretensions and determined to wipe that pretty face into the dirt, preferably with a bit of a blood trail for an extra aesthetic touch. Dilandau met him, beating him back with a series of quick, blunt blows that left no time to counter until the man was driven to edge of the ring. Smirk deepening, Dilandau gave a small, condescending shake of his head, taking a few steps backwards as if to give Fredo another chance to attack, only to bring this sad excuse for a duel to an end with a sudden and vicious roundhouse kick to Fredo's abdomen. The man gave a startled yelp of pain, doubling over onto the dirt alongside his sword.

"Now you know what a real solider can do," Dilandu spat, his face darkening with contempt as he stared down at the defeated Fredo. "I'd think twice next time about trying to take me on. You might not be so lucky."

"If I ever catch you on these streets again, boy," Fredo snarled, pushing himself up off the ground with the aid of some of his friends, "I will end you. I swear by Jeture himself."

"Whatever," Dilandau replied coolly with a roll of his eyes and an arrogant toss of his head. He sheathed his blade, looking no more concerned about a retaliation from Fredo than he was about a retaliation from a basket of fluffy kittens. He stalked back towards Refina, hand at his hip, stride proud and measured like a lion surveying his kingdom, confident that he reigned supreme. Refina met his glance with an approving grin.

"Nice work," she complimented.

"If that's the best they've got around here, I'm disappointed," he sniffed. "I was hoping for a challenge."

Another man broke away from the crowd then, stepping forward and pointing a finger in Refina's direction. He was a bit younger than Fredo and had a thin, wiry, energetic look to him.

"I'll take on that little one," he declared, a leer snaking its way across his lean features. If it was supposed to be an insult, it wasn't a very creative or accurate one, as Refina was nearly as tall as he was. The leer also was hardly inventive and certainly wasn't scaring her, if indeed that was what it was supposed to be doing. Men had bared their teeth at her like that before, and those same men had ended up carrying their teeth home after she was done with them.

"And who are you, girlie?"

She entered the ring, as composed and calm as a still lake at sunrise.

"It's definitely not Girlie," she deadpanned, eliciting a round of appreciative laughs from the crowd.

"Heh," chuckled the man, the sound not the least bit jovial. "This one's got a bit of a mouth on her."

"My name is Refina," she replied, voice just as unruffled as the rest of her.

"I'm Marcello." The man drew his sword, an ugly and battered looking piece of metal that she'd guessed had spent more time peeling potatoes than in actual combat. "But my name is the least of your problems, girlie."

She continued to stare indifferently at him, even as he lunged forward, his moves quicker and more agile than Fredo's had been. His sword, however, met empty air as she whirled aside, leaving him to gawk at her in confusion. Refina merely smiled brightly back at him, hands clasped behind her back as though she were out for a leisurely stroll instead of in the middle of street fight. She hadn't even bothered to draw her weapon.

Jaw working back and forth in agitation, Marcello spat a curse under his breath and charged again, only to be rewarded with the same results; him bereft of a target, and his target still smiling placidly, teasingly, as she hovered just out of reach…and still unarmed.

"You should be careful not to hurt yourself with that," Refina said with mock concern as Marcello sputtered his disbelief that she had managed to evade him a second time. A few onlookers chuckled at her repartee, her tongue proving itself to be just as useful a weapon as the one she wore at her side.

Marcello, however, was not in the frame of mind to properly appreciate well-timed quips; his knuckles went white as his grip tightened on his sword handle, a sure sign that his umbrage had taken enough damage, especially at the hands of a woman. Baring his teeth in feral grimace, he sprinted towards her and dipped into a spin to add more force behind the slash he'd aimed at her neck.

Refina deigned to answer him then, sword sliding out of its sheath in a single fluid movement and easily deterring the blow, glad that the smithy had been true to his word; the blade had not even the smallest of scratches upon it despite the bearing the brunt of Marcello's impact. With a nimble twist of her feet, she danced around him with an airy laugh as she again and again thwarted his advances, relishing in this newfound sense of impulsiveness that she hadn't even realized had laid tucked away beneath her gunmetal surface.

"Stop baiting him, already!" called Dilandau from somewhere behind her. "Just put the poor bastard out of his misery."

"You Zaibach brats sure like to talk big," Marcello snorted, readjusting his posture in readiness for another attack, drawing up his shoulders like a cat about to pounce.

"At least we can back it up," Refina shot back, now wearing a smirk as impressive as that her opponent had thrown at her earlier. Dashing forward, delivering a kick to his wrists and sending his sword spinning out of his grip, but before Marcello could make any move to retrieve it, he found his throat on the business end of a sword tip gently poking the skin somewhere in the vicinity of his Adam's apple.

"What on earth is going on here?" cried a voice from among the throng, a light, feminine voice that sounded suspiciously Millerna-like. Marcello and Refina jerked up to see the crowd ripple as someone pushed their way through it, still locked in their battle stance. Refina felt a flash of irritation that her victory had been interrupted so unceremoniously by none other than the little queen who now stood in plain sight at the edge of the sparring ring wearing a slightly mortified expression, those closest to her bowing respectfully with whispers of "Your Highness". Undaunted by either her unscrupulous surroundings or the piles of bags hanging from her arms, Millerna elbowed her way forward, mincing towards Refina with a dainty, yet unmistakable air of importance, Celena trailing after her gingerly, saucer-eyed and staring like a gazelle in the den of a pack of wild dogs.

"What do you two think you're doing?" she demanded, reaching out with a laden arm to gently but firmly force Refina to lower her weapon, allowing Marcello an opening to scuttle backwards and melt into the crowd.

"Just having some fun," Refina answered, sheathing her sword with a diffident shrug and side-eyed peevish scowl at Millerna "We got bored."

"So you went and started a fight?" Millerna sighed, blowing a stray golden curl out of her eyes in obvious exasperation, much the way a mother discovers her child has once again decided to draw on the walls with their brightest and boldest of crayons. "Honestly, you two! Well, thank goodness Celena had the presence of mind to figure out where you'd go. Come on. We've got all the ingredients bought and we're ready to go."

Not waiting for a response, Millerna smartly turned on her heel and began to march away, assured that her charges would follow willingly, which at least one of them did. Dilandau and Refina, however, hung back, simmering in shared petulance at their thwarted enjoyment. Mother had finally come to take the toys away, declaring that it was now time for all good and obedient children to come back inside. Too bad for Millerna that Dilandau and Refina were neither children nor obedient. They stood, arms crossed defiantly as they watched the two other women disappear into the throng, not the least bit keen on doing what was asked of them. By then the sparring ring had broken up, the onlookers and potential challengers having lost interest for the moment as lunchtime drew near, beginning to retreat towards the welcoming shade of food tents or open cafes.

"Who the hell does she think she is trying to boss us around like that?" Dilandau groused, wearing the same black expression he'd often sported just before giving a few good, hard slaps to any of his men who had dared to question his authority.

"A queen," Refina deadpanned, though no trace of humor showed itself on her features.

"Who cares if she's a queen? That doesn't mean she can just shout orders at us like we're fucking peasants."

But we are, Refina thought, the realization hitting her as swiftly and suddenly as though she'd been tossed into a lake of ice, with the implications behind that acknowledgement just as chilling. We really are now.

"Yeah, well…she's our only way back," she grudgingly pointed out, still wrestling with the fact at just how short their leashes had truly become, and just how easily yanked about by the powers that be. "Unless you feel like sleeping in the streets tonight."

"I'd rather sleep in the streets than be anywhere near that house," he muttered stubbornly. "At least I'd have my freedom."

"You'd be mobbed and killed," she replied, shooting him a look as pointed as the blade she'd held to Marcello's throat. She gave a nod towards where the sparring ring had been. "We didn't exactly win any friends over today, in case you forgot."

"I don't understand how you can be so fucking calm about all of this," Dilandau growled, his voiced heavy with bitter unhappiness and…disappointment? Was he disappointed with her handling of the situation? He must be, and she could certainly understand why, but if he thought that the answer lay in blind obstinacy and burying herself underneath layers of emotional stonewalling, then he was most definitely wrong.

"I'm not any more happy about the way things are than you," Refina argued, careful to keep her voice as free of anger as she could, unwilling to find herself in another fight, a fight far more personal and painful that she would have wanted. Enough of the day had been wasted on negative emotion, and she was beginning to feel herself buckle under effort of keeping up both her spirit and his. "I just don't want to be out in place where I know I'd get my throat slit."

"Like you'd let that happen," Dilandau sneered.

She heaved a sigh, vociferous and resigned. She looked away, suddenly eager to return and just as eager to get away from Dilandau's sulking.

"Well, you can stay here if you want to," Refina said, uncrossing her arms and beginning to follow after Millerna and Celena. "Just don't expect me to come rescue your pretty boy butt when you're outnumbered by a gang of thieves."

She threw him a little parting wave as she picked up her pace, leaving the comment there to hang in the air between them, and him to stare after her apoplectic shock.

"Hey-!" she heard him splutter, then drop a few more creative curses as it became apparent she wasn't going to come back for him. Refina suppressed a grin at the sounds of his booted feet rushing to catch up with her. Oh, how the leashes truly had shortened.

"You're a total bitch sometimes, you know?" he grumbled, falling into step beside her.

Smiling to herself, Refina looped her arm through his, simultaneously giving him a playful nudge and a reassuring pat on his forearm.

"That's alright. So are you."

Back at the house, Millerna and Celena busied themselves unpacking their purchases, dashing upstairs to Celena's room to try on their new gowns and gush over how fine such and such fabric or detailing was and leaving the maids to handle the "ingredients", whatever those were supposed to be. The gentle sound of their tittering wafted down the stairs and into the small library where Refina and Dilandau listened with a sort of perplexed and horrified fascination; such lighthearted sounds were unfamiliar to them. Huddled together on a settee, Refina had a book open in her lap, although reading it was proving to be a bit of struggle because of all of the giggling upstairs, and Dilandau feigned interest in peering over her shoulder while finishing up his pastel snack. Of course, he was more interested in reaching for the nearest bottle of vino to drown out the noise Millerna and Celena were making or further testing out his new sword (which Allen had predictably not been pleased about), but both options had been vetoed by the dual power of Allen and Millerna, who had still insisted on imposing more of this "family bonding" idea onto them, which had only succeeded in putting Dilandau into an even more sour mood than he'd been in when they'd left that morning.

"I think you've been on that same page for the last ten minutes," Dilandau said, swallowing the last of his pastel and tossing a scathing glare at the ceiling, hoping Millerna and Celena could feel its sting.

"It's a little hard to concentrate with them making so much noise," Refina said, narrowing her eyes at the text even though she really wasn't all that interested in the content, which was a semi-legendary account of the life of St. Cantabri. What little she had read was turning out to be frightfully dull. "What's so funny, I wonder?"

"Probably stupid girl stuff," Dilandau muttered, slouching further into the seat cushions, long legs splayed carelessly in front of him. "Fine of Allen to tell us to wait while he's not even here."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. Out getting stuff ready for the bonfire, or something. I'd like to stick him in the bonfire. Burn all that pretty hair off."

Refina chuckled darkly at the image of a bald Allen weeping before his reflection and shutting himself up in his room until his golden locks flowed proudly over his shoulders once again.

" I don't know why they can't just let us mind our own business," Dilandau continued. His lips pursed then before spreading out into a thoroughly rakish grin, about ready to make a decidedly non-family friendly suggestion when he was interrupted by Millerna and Celena swishing into the room, wearing grins that they found horrifically cheerful. That was more than enough to raise red battle flags that something highly unpleasant was about to happen.

"You finally done?" he snapped. "You took fucking forever."

Blithely ignoring his sullenness, Millerna said, "It's time for the best part of the entire holiday!"

"Bonfires?" Dilandau asked hopefully, though not without an edge of sarcasm, which no amount of effervescence could ever eliminate.

"No! The bonfire isn't until much later. It's time to make the Nacional cake."

Total silence greeted this declaration, Refina and Dilandau staring up at Millerna blankly and completely without any comprehension of what she'd just said. The silence stretched on for a few beats, awkward and taut, as Dilandau and Refina's eyes flickered back and forth between the queen and each other with mounting apprehension.

"Cake," Dilandau clarified, stumbling around the word as if he'd never met it before. "As in we're cooking?"

"Well, you are. I'm not," Millerna said, her smile still perched ever so brightly upon her face, making him want to find something blunt to bludgeon it off with. "I have to go make sure Eries is holding up alright with all that paperwork. So nice of her to step in for me today, don't you think? Anyway, you three will be in charge of it."

"Cooking? Are you fucking out of your mind?" Dilandau cried, now bolting upright, eyes ablaze in affronted masculine pride. "That's for women!"

He yelped as Refina cuffed him smartly behind the ear for his chauvinist dig. Rubbing at his now stinging ear, he shot her a caustic glare as hot as any flame he'd used to burn his enemies to the ground with.

"Well it is," he insisted, yelping again as this time Refina reached around to cuff his other ear in retribution.

"I suppose," Millerna mused with a shrug, totally unaffected by the boy's protest, a veritable beacon of glowing equanimity. "But today's just as good a day as any to learn."

"How about I go do paperwork and you can go in the kitchen?" he suggested, now quite tired of having spent the majority of his day around so many moody, estrogen-laden pains in the ass. Barring Refina, Dilandau had never been outnumbered by members of the fairer sex, and this new sensation of feeling henpecked was an extremely unwelcome detour in the machismo-riddled road of his life thus far. He silently wondered if this was what marriage was like, and then vowed to all the darkest gods of the underworld to never, ever find himself anywhere near that hallowed institution.

"Sorry, Dilandau," chuckled the queen, her smile widening, and he'd be damned if she wasn't enjoying his discomfiture. "but politics is my domain and I doubt you'd be familiar with Asturian policy. Anyway, I'll be back in time for supper. Have fun!"

Five minutes later Dilandau, with Refina and Celena in tow, stood in the kitchen, apprehensively eyeing the ingredients laid out on the massive wooden preparation table whose heavily scarred surface bore the evidence of decades of use. The fire in the hearth had already been lit, but no kitchen maid was to be found, no doubt having been given the evening off.

"What is all of this stuff?" Dilandau asked with a grimace, warily surveying the rest of the kitchen with its racks of gleaming copper pots and pans and tools he could no more identify than hazard a guess as to how to use them. The entire notion of cooking, much less being in a kitchen at all was as alien to him as if someone had started babbling in Draconian. Heck, the Draconian probably stood a better chance of being understood despite it being a language as dead and buried as his now defunct military career.

In other words, neither he nor Refina knew what in the nine hells they were supposed to do next.

"It's for the almond cake," Celena explained, prompting both Dilandau and Refina to stare at her in open surprise that she had managed to speak to them a second time that day. Celena, however, unaware of their reaction, glided towards the table, picking up a scrap of parchment with the instructions scribbled down on them. She was careful to keep her attention on deciphering the shorthand that a cook would have had no trouble understanding, already feeling her stomach growing queasy in the presence of two of the most intimidating people she knew. She had spent the better part of two years living in their twin shadows of contempt. How did anyone expect them to get along now?

"Well," Dilandau replied hotly, planting an impatient hand on his hip. "What do we have to do?"

Celena flinched at the harshness of his tone, feeling the weight of his scowl as though someone had poured melted lead down her spine. Struggling to maintain her composure she said, "We have to beat the eggs and the sugar together."

"With what?"

"I guess…this?" She lifted a small contraption with a bundle of wires on the end.

"Well, it's a place to start," said Refina, moving in a brisk and businesslike fashion towards one of the racks and picking up a bowl.

"You know how to cook?" asked Dilandau, the incredulity on his face suggesting that he'd have had an easier time picturing the meek little Chesta with an apron around his waist than his fellow captain. He made no move to assist her, figuring that if Refina wanted to start acting like the hired help, it didn't mean he had to.

"A little bit," Refina answered, beginning to crack the eggs into the bowl, bright yellow yolks dripping over her fingers. "When I was at the factory there were times we made our own food, but mostly we just ate whatever the foreman gave us."

"You worked at a factory?" Celena piped up, her curiosity momentarily overriding her nervousness. Refina didn't scare her quite as much as Dilandau did. "What was that like?"

Refina paused to offer the other girl a startled glance; no one had ever bothered to ask her anything about her previous life, not even the man who now had legal charge of her. This sudden interest from Celena of all people was entirely unexpected; she'd never imagined the other girl would have cared or had the nerve to ask in the first place. Then again, it wasn't as though they'd ever really had a conversation.

"Hard," she said finally. "Very, very hard." She turned her gaze over to Dilandau, her expression darkening as she took in his stationary position.

"You know, you could get your butt over here and help us," she said sharply.

"Me? Fucking no way. Like I said, that stuff's for women."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

Refina pursed her lips and shrugged lightly, appearing to have dismissed him entirely, and reached for a small tin cup of flour. Slipping it behind her back, she sauntered over to him, eyes averted with such an affected air of innocence that Dilandau knew there could be no innocence involved in whatever she was planning to do next.

"Well, then," she said, breaking into a wicked grin as she whipped the cup out from behind her back and tossed its contents into his face, dusting its scowl in a fine cloud of white. Behind her, Celena looked on, her mouth hanging open at such temerity for a good ten seconds before she erupted into fits of stifled giggling. "Now you look much more ready to help."

Had it been anyone else who'd dared to toss anything in Dilandau's face, the offending party would have certainly found themselves missing a hand. Lacking his usual means of retaliation, he instead settled for coughing and spluttering and scrubbing at the powdery mess, which only made the flour smear further into his skin.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" he shouted, brilliant crimson eyes as glowering as the embers in the hearth.

"To sweeten you up," laughed Refina, pressing her fingers to her lips and shaking her head with amusement at his predictable reaction. "Now you look like you're ready to help."

"You just threw flour in my face! Why would I-" Dilandau cut off his protest as a little voice in the back of his mind suddenly woke up and chimed in to remind him that he'd been in enough war councils to realize that there were always other, more subtle ways to attack the enemy. This battleground, although lacking in the human carnage he was generally used to, required a different sort of strategy to gain the upper hand.

He paused, his temper sputtering like the dying engine of an airship, and treated his opponents to a grin that made a valiant attempt at being playful yet ended up somewhere around the vicinity of feral. ("Playful" wasn't a word that belonged to Dilandau's emotional lexicon. "Feral" definitely was.) Slinking towards them with the languid grace of a cat stalking its prey through the long grasses of the savannah, he snaked one long arm out to lift the bowl of egg yolks.

"Sure," he drawled. "I'll help you."

He dumped the contents of the bowl down the front of Refina's shirt, sending the girl skittering backwards with a gasp, his grin now maliciously triumphant.

"Oh," she declared, shooting him a look of mock exasperation as she pawed at the slimy mess. "Oh, you're just asking for it now."

Jaw set in vengeful determination, she grabbed at the large spatula resting in a bowl of chocolate cream that would have been used to ice the cake if it wasn't now icing Dilandau's hair, Celena's laughter providing a background score to his cries of horror.

"My hair! First my face and now my hair! You're going to pay for this! Both of you!"

"That ought to do it, Boss."

Allen watched as Teo and Gaddes hefted the last of the wood onto the already towering pile, carefully arranging the gnarled branches so as to keep it from collapsing. The twisted limbs stretched skywards as if seeking the embrace of the heavens, bringing to mind old stories familiar to the children of Asturia that in ancient times men had built pyres similar to this one in hopes that the smoke would carry their wishes to the gods and that the flames would burn away all of their past sins.

As Allen stood aside and directed his men, he couldn't help but share in the same hopes of his distant ancestors, that the fire would burn away all of the mistakes he'd made in the last year. And those mistakes had been plentiful.

All he had wanted, truly ever wanted, was to mend the tears rent in the tangled weave of his family history; he'd wanted to find his missing sister and spend the rest of his days making up for all the time they had lost, he'd wanted to grow into a better man than his own father had been, the sort of man who never left those he loved behind. And while he he'd succeeded in finding Celena, his years of chasing after her shadow had unintentionally, though no less cruelly, molded him at least in part into the very same sort of man Leon had been. And Fate, unpredictable and capricious mistress that she was, had seen to further complicate things by delivering two Zaibach children to his door. He'd gotten his family. It just wasn't the family he'd ever imagined for himself, especially since one sibling stubbornly refused to acknowledge any familial relation to him, preferring to instead to keep him at bay with an artillery of snark, and the other sibling remained a total mystery he could not begin to decipher.

Refina and Dilandau. A feared ex-commander with a penchant for pyromania and a woman warrior who kept the key to her emotional safe house buried beneath a mountain of icy silence. It seemed that not even the passage of eighteen months had been enough to foster the domestic harmony Allen had so craved. He wondered if he had been wrong to force them to go out with Millerna and Celena, wrong to have been so forceful. He might have been, but all the same, it wasn't as though they couldn't have used more exposure to the outside world and more contact with the general Asturian public, whose opinion of the two ex-Zaibach soldiers seemed as unswaying and resistant to change as Refina and Dilandau themselves.

Allen sighed again, reminding himself that today was a holiday, a day that was supposed to a time for happiness and celebration, not a time for giving oneself over to worries and mulling over things one was powerless to change.

Well, he mused with an ironic half-smile as he looked again at the woodpile. It would burn long and fierce. Dilandau would certainly like that, if nothing else.

"That'll be enough," he called to Teo and Gaddes.

"Sure looks nice, Boss," Teo grinned in his usual easy-going manner that Allen was both grateful and envious for. Rarely did anything dampen the small man's spirits, and the advent of Nacional with its promise of long days of feasting and drinking was making them soar especially high. "You're gonna have one heck of bonfire, that's for sure."

"Thanks for helping out you two," Allen said, clapping a friendly hand on Teo's shoulder as if he could transfer some of that high-spiritedness into himself. "There's sidra inside if you want it."

"Sure thing" Gaddes said. "But I'll have to pass on the sidra. I don't want to show up to my mother's drunk. She already gets onto me enough about the company I keep."

Teo laughed, the wide mischievous grin on his face reminding Allen of a fox that has just caught sight of a henhouse. "Aw, that's a shame. I'm sure your Mama would like us if she got to know us. We're real gentlemen, ain't we, Boss?"

Gaddes smiled. "Are you kidding? My mother would insist on locking up every valuable she owned and then throw you out on your ear. Maybe even dump a bucket of cold water on you while she's at it."

"Heh. She sounds like a real piece of work."

"She has her moments," Gaddes conceded with a chuckle. "But she's still my mother. Anyway, I should be heading over there now."

"Give your mother my regards," Allen said warmly, bidding his lieutenant farewell with a gracious nod in acknowledgement for his help.

"Will do. I'll see you gentleman in a few days."

"Hmm, that Gaddes," mused Teo teasingly at Gaddes's retreating back. "Always so responsible, thinking about his mother."

"And what are you thinking about then?" Allen asked, shooting his companion a knowing smirk with just a touch of mock reproach.

"Me?" Teo replied innocently, face rearranging itself theatrically into an exaggerated expression of offense as he pointed at himself. Honestly, with a face like that, Allen thought, he should have taken up performance art instead of thievery. "I'm thinking about a tavern girl that caught my eye this afternoon. Wonder if she's still there."

"Well you'd better go find out."

"You're right, Boss. It'd be a total shame if she didn't get to meet me."

"Yes," said Allen dryly, turning on his heel and beginning to move towards the back doors of the mansion, eager to get out of the encroaching chill of the evening. "Think of all the women who haven't had the honor of being graced with your presence."

"True enough," Teo agreed. "Those poor girls. Waiting for their prince to sweep them off their feet! I'll have to do my manly duty and rescue them from their distress."

"Ride then, my friend. Go and find your princess."

"Sure thing, Boss. See you after the holidays. If I'm not too hung over, that is."

"Off you go," Allen laughed, waving him ahead with a lighthearted roll of his eyes.

Teo beamed up at him, his grin incorrigible and wide enough to rival a Cheshire cat for all the impishness it held. He darted inside and not a moment later Allen heard his voice echo down the hallway, textured with the weight of concern.

"Uh, Boss…you might want to get in here!"

Allen felt his smile fall as quickly as if it had tripped off the edge of a mountainside, his mood in no less of a hurry to dash itself upon the stones of weary exasperation. By the sound of things, something undeniably bad had just happened. And there was only one person on the entire face of Gaia that came prepackaged with the label "undeniably bad."

Dilandau.

Huffing irritably to himself, Allen strode angrily in the direction of Teo's voice, eventually spotting him standing at the doorway to the kitchen and noting with a bit of confusion at the bemused expression on the other man's face.

"What happened?" Allen demanded, edging around Teo and following his gaze, blue eyes going wide as he took in the extent of the devastation that lay before him.

Pots and pans lay scattered haphazardly about, their contents splattered on nearly every surface as though in a vibrant exercise of abstract art, their colors swirling together in intricate whorls that would have made Polluck blush with envy.

As for the artists themselves, they were heaped on the floor, drunk on mischief and just as vividly adorned with their work as the rest of the kitchen; chocolate, flour, sugar, and egg spattered liberally all over their hair and clothing in patches of white and brown. His sister sat right in the middle of an oozing puddle of chocolate frosting where she had landed after a botched attempt at decorating Dilandau's shirt with chopped almonds had sent her slipping, giggling up at him, face flush with a mix of guilt and merriment. Allen was taken aback in spite of the anger he was beginning to feel boiling up inside of his chest; had he ever seen her look so carefree? She'd smiled and laughed before, certainly, but always with an air of restraint, as if she could not trust herself, or was too afraid to express the full depth of her emotions. And now here she sat—splayed really—alongside the very persons she had up until this point been far too terrified to approach willingly. That, and the fact that she seemed to be enjoying herself on top of it was enough to give anyone pause.

She lifted one chocolate-stained hand to wave at him.

"Would you like some cake?" Celena quipped, prompting a fresh round of laughter from her companions. "We made it just for you."

"I think you should probably keep the wine cellar locked from now on," whispered Teo with a conspiratorial nudge to Allen's ribs, though at that moment Allen was giving more thought to keeping Dilandau and Refina locked up from now on.

"What in the name of the gods happened in here?" he exclaimed in horror, taking a cautious step forward and wincing slightly as his boot squished on an egg yolk.

"You guys told us to cook, so we cooked," Refina answered with an offhanded shrug, she and Dilandau clambering to their feet, holding on to each other's arms to keep themselves from skidding over the slippery mess.

"Maybe you should leave that stuff to the maids," Dilandau added smugly; a flustered Allen was a perfect end to an otherwise uninteresting and profoundly annoying day, and the smirk gracing his flour-encrusted face could very much testify to that. Anything was worth enduring just to see Allen riled up, even if it had meant spending time with that weirdo sister of his. "You know, the people you actually pay to do this crap."

"This is a disaster!" Allen cried, pointing an accusatory finger at them. "And look at the three of you. You're a mess! Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to clean this all up?"

Celena rose to her feet, dainty and composed, though not without nearly losing her balance a few times along the way, calmly rearranging her skirt as though it weren't coated in layers of frosting and flour and met her brother's scolding with a tranquil smile.

"You should take it easy, brother," she said archly, reaching for the long icing spatula which still held a lingering glob of chocolate. Dilandau and Refina watched, eyes glittering with wicked anticipation as Celena executed her cake-decorating skills by slabbing the lump of chocolate down Allen's reddened face, bursting into peals of laughter as she did so. Dilandau, Refina and Teo quickly followed suit, poor Teo clutching his heaving sides at the rare sight of seeing his captain, usually so well-groomed and so collected, looking decidedly less like shining knight of heaven and more like a mole man who'd spent far too long face-first in the mud, coughing and spitting out bits of icing. "Have some cake."

"Celena, I do believe those Zaibach captains have had a bad influence on you!" he gasped, wiping at a stray tear that had welled up in the corner of one eye.

Two hours later when everyone had been cleaned, supper eaten, and a certain knight's dignity restored, Eries and Millerna at last rejoined them for the evening's finale, the great bonfire, the promise of which had kept Dilandau relatively civil, much to everyone's surprise. Everyone that is, except for Allen, who could only smile inwardly as he watched the boy give the tall pile an appreciative glance, obviously keen on incinerating it as quickly as possible.

Now they were all gathered around the pyre behind the mansion, cloaks wrapped around them to guard against the cooling air and clutching at cups of sidra, a sweet, mildly alcoholic drink served usually only on feast days. Dilandau had, of course, taken the opportunity to scoff at how it had failed to give him a buzz; he had already chugged half a bottle by the time they were outside and didn't seem to be any worse for wear, though few people partook in such an avid quest for alcohol-induced Nirvana, not even the famously hedonistic Teo.

Allen bent to pick up the torch, reaching for the tinderbox in his pocket; the sky had already deepened to a milky blue. Best to get the fire going before it got too dark.

The torch and the tinderbox, however, were wrenched from him as he rose by a pair of long pale hands that already set to work on igniting the charcloth wrapped around the top of the torch. Allen sighed quietly as he watched Dilandau's dexterous fingers struck flint against steel with the ease of long practice, a tiny spark flickering for an instant before blossoming into a small orange star that swiftly grew as the flame ate at the charcloth with a voracious appetite.

Of course. He should have known the boy would want to be the one to light the fire. The ardent, almost manic expression on Dildandau's face as he gazed into the flames said as much, though considering his history with getting caught up in the destructive passion of razing enemy territory to ash, Allen just hoped he wouldn't set anything else on fire and reduce the festive mood into an ash heap not unlike what he'd done to this very city a year ago.

His worries were luckily unfounded, at least for the time being. Dilandau apparently was not in a razing mood; he seemed content enough with simply tossing the torch into the pyre and watching the tongues of fire greedily lick their way upwards, bathing them all in a heated golden glow.

"I have to say, Schezar," he said, his voice the calmest Allen had heard it in a long time. "This day was a pain in the ass, but this fire is a nice touch."

"I'm glad to hear it," Allen replied a bit bemusedly, quietly telling himself to take the compliments when he could, disguised as they were in cloaks of passive-aggressive sarcasm. And it certainly was good to see Dilandau finally mollified, even if tomorrow he was back to his usual belligerence. Perhaps he could count this as step in the right direction.

"Is there any more sidra?"

Well, that didn't take long.

"I believe either Eries or Millerna has another bottle," Allen said, resisting the characteristic paternal urge to caution the boy about having any more. Dilandau was legally an adult, and therefore legally entitled to drown himself in as much vino, sidra, or brandy as he wanted, and he'd already seen the firsthand devastation of attempting to put his foot down; the kitchen would still have to be scrubbed from top to bottom by the maids tomorrow morning despite all of the cleaning up that—mostly he- had done. Allen decided that for now, it was probably better to get through the holidays with as little conflict as possible; if nothing else it would give him time to work with Eries on how best to civilize this new little brother, something he knew she'd had far more years of experience with in the ten years she'd spent almost single-handedly raising Millerna. It dawned on Allen as he thought about this that being both elder brother and father figure to Dilandau was going to be akin to climbing the steepest and highest mountain on Gaia without the benefit of a sturdy pair of climbing hooks, a really strong rope, and a wizened yet colorful guide to cheerfully point out every pitfall.

As if it hadn't already been like that.

Dilandau nodded, rounding to go in search for more alcoholic comfort, the dancing flames of the bonfire making his shadow writhe an undulate in a vaguely serpentine manner, suggestive of the wyrms he used to hunt. Allen's gaze followed over to where the women were clustered around each other, Celena having donned the new blue dress that Millerna had bought for her earlier today, the firelight rippling across its silken fabric as she leaned in to whisper something in the young queen's ear, which Millerna listened to with an amused expression before giggling into her hand. He felt himself smile along with them, infected with their good cheer and grateful for the friendship that had blossomed between the two young women; Millerna had taken Celena under her wing with as much enthusiasm and devotion that Dilandau and Refina had emphatically lacked. Without her to shepherd and school his sister in the finer nuances of Asturian society, Allen doubted she'd have made as much progress as she'd had.

But what was this he was seeing now? Was that Refina standing near them…and…was he imagining it…smiling? Had he ever seen her smile, ever seen that steely façade yield to the softness of emotion? But it wasn't a hallucination, no trick of the volatile and inconstant light cast by the fire. She was smiling, and her smile grew even deeper at Dilandau's approach, her dark eyes reflecting a fondness reserved only for him.

Well, now…that was something he'd never seen before either, and it begged a closer inspection. Allen wasn't unfamiliar with those looks; enough women had cast such admiring gazes at him when he'd arrived at court to begin his career as a knight, those fluttering lashes offered up to him from behind lace fans in invitation to partake of sweeter gifts. He saw Dilandau refill his cup and the two of them begin to wander off together as they so often did to stand in the outer reaches of the circle of light, evidently seeking a bit of privacy among the deeper shadows.

Something was kindling here, and it wasn't only the bonfire.

Did I miss this somehow? Allen wondered, staring dumbstruck at the spot where they had disappeared. Since when did Dilandau ever…

I've been absent too long.

The signs had been there, certainly, though their subtle hints had gone unread by his regular absences his position demanded, and the pieces were finally beginning to click into place. They'd arrived here together, sought solace in each other's company, and where one went the other was never far behind. Allen had naturally assumed this to be the product born out of a long professional association with each other, and a fierce determination to stick with what had been familiar and refusing to embrace that which was unknown. While he was mostly correct on that assumption, he'd failed to either examine their emotional roadmaps, which had been littered with very pronounced declarations of DO NOT ENTER in sizable bold fonts. But tonight those selfsame roadblocks had lifted, if only a little, and offered him a deeper glimpse into their psyches. For the first time, he began to suspect that there were real people lurking beneath the Zaibach solider surface.

Allen Schezar, at last, began to understand.

On the other side of the lawn in the furthest reaches of the firelight, Dilandau found himself a seat in the grass, wrapping his cloak tighter around him as he did so, careful not to spill the remaining sidra. Refina followed, her arm brushing gently against his as she took her place next him, and, oddly enough, he found that he did not mind the contact, even though such a small and accidental breach of physical boundaries would have earned a ringing slap in the face had one of his Dragonslayers ever let himself get so careless.

Watching Celena and the others, bathed in the warmth of both the firelight and familial affection made the sudden remembrance of their loss all the more poignant and the wounds all the more fresh. They would have liked this, he knew. They would have liked the chance to spend a week being nothing more than normal boys enjoying the smaller and simpler pleasures of life, and he would have liked to see them enjoy it. What he wouldn't give to be surrounded by them again as Celena was now surrounded by those who cared the most about her, those who would protect her from anything.

Dilandau broke his gaze from them, suddenly feeling sickened both with longing for the company of those he would never see again, and at the uncomfortable idea that he might be harboring seeds of envy towards his sister-not-sister, seeds he felt very strong urge to crush beneath the heel of his hubris. He was not, you understand, not at all envious that she had the devotion and support that he had had cruelly stripped from him. She had nothing worth envying. She was a stupid, empty-headed, and above all, weak little girl; it wasn't as though she had done anything special to earn that devotion, anyway. She was no commander, no strategist, no warrior. Why warrant her any special attention?

Why give her any love?

He felt Refina stir beside him, a surreptitious shifting that again made her arm brush against his, and in that insignificant movement he felt the pain gnawing at his heart begin to lessen, reassured by the immediacy of her presence. She may not be a Dragonslayer, but she was still cut from the same cloth as he, and it was difficult to deny that being near her was…soothing. Awkward, vexing, and at times infuriating, but he was beginning to find that he'd rather have her around than not have her at all.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about this. He wasn't even sure he wanted to think about how he felt about this.

"This is nice," he heard her say, her voice breaking into the darkened corners of his thoughts as neatly as an accomplished thief. He cast a sideways glance at her, noting with surprise at how content she looked as she stared into the wavering glimmer of the fire, fingers curled loosely around her now mostly empty mug.

"Nice?" he echoed, jerking his head towards the other four with a note of disdain. "Even with them?"

"No, not them," Refina replied. Self-consciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she then hastily added, "I mean, I guess they're not terribly bad. I mean…Well, that wasn't what I meant. I meant," she waved her hand to indicate the both of them, "I meant this here was nice."

"You should say what you mean more often," he muttered, though his voice lacked any of its usual terseness, instead reminding her of the old days when he used to take potshots at her for being more composed and serious than he had been. And it was to a degree still true. Refina didn't not like to give voice to her thoughts or feelings unless she had a reason, a strong tendency to reserve that she still struggled with. But having Dilandau sitting so closely to her, a possibility she had never even conceived of once upon a time except in the privacy of her own fantasies, seemed quite reason enough, and there was already far too much that had gone unsaid between them.

"You're right," she conceded, a self-depreciating half smile tilting up the corner of her mouth. "Perhaps I should." Her smile then took on a slightly more playful air. "Shall I tell you now, what it is I'm thinking?"

Dilandau finished off the last of his sidra, appreciating the slight burn it gave his throat as he swallowed, and turned his head to give her a prompting nod.

"Yeah? Well, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that you shouldn't be so negative all the time," Refina answered. She set her mug down and rearranged herself into a more comfortable position, legs stretched out and leaning back on her hands. "And that even though neither of us is where we really want to be, we should make the best of our circumstances. After all, they can't keep us here forever."

Her words had him at full attention, specifically that last suggestion that they might one day have the freedom to truly go where they pleased, a suggestion that left Dilandau starting at her with little lines of incredulity creasing his brows.

"Don't you think they can? They've done a pretty fucking good job of it already."

"Why should they?" said Refina calmly. "Once it becomes clear we hold no real threat to anyone here or the rest of Asturia, why would the queen bother to uphold the Noble Council's decision? What exactly are they afraid we'll do?"

There were plenty of things Dilandau would have liked to do that the Noble Council was right to be afraid of, grabbing hold of a flamethrower and setting fire to their council chamber just for the sheer insult of locking him up with Allen Schezar being foremost among the many vindictive fantasies he'd indulged himself in over the past year. But of course he saw Refina's point, her level-headed practicality deftly pulling aside the curtains of his anger to reveal that sans the backing of 100,000 troops and a full fleet of airships, they truly posed little threat to anyone now aside from violently annoying pseudo-siblings, disgustingly cheerful little queens, and, as of today, kitchen equipment.

"Hmph," he mumbled thoughtfully, taking her words and turning them over in his mind briefly before storing them away for further contemplation. It was getting late, and he'd felt he'd had quite enough mental and emotional gymnastics for one day. "You might be on to something."

"We'll just have to try our best to convince Allen to let us go," she said. "But we're going to have to be patient, because you know he won't agree with it at all. But in the meantime, though, I wouldn't mind just sitting here. Just for a little while."

They lapsed into companionable silence then, Dilandau beginning to feel the knot of tension that had coiled itself so insidiously within his chest unravel like so many loose threads. Was it really so awful here? Allen might have been a drip and Celena pathetic, but Allen had been the only one to step forward and give them shelter in their time of need. No one else would have been as merciful. He might very well have been dead by now if it hadn't been for the knight's protection. Or wandering alone in the ruins of what had once been Zaibach.

Of course, that still didn't mean he had to like any of them.

And yet…

And yet, he wouldn't mind just sitting here too, at least if it meant being near to the only person who could offer him anything solid and meaningful in this new life that had seemed so meaningless. Refina was right; they would have to play their cards carefully without giving Allen the chance to see their hand if they wanted to make an earnest effort to win their freedom. If that meant having to bide their time here while they did so, Dilandau supposed he could have had far worse company, or no company at all, to spend that time with. He at least was grateful that the gods or Fate, or whatever was out there controlling the universe, had graced him with a piece of home, a living link to his past that gave him the strength to face his future.

He felt her fingers flex against his in the grass, a restrained, almost shy movement that seemed totally incongruous with the girl who'd been so ready to draw her sword earlier that afternoon. But weapons were an easy thing to deal with; there was nothing nuanced or complex about what a sword was. It operated on far more straightforward principles than the human heart, principles that usually led it to piercing said heart. But there were some things in life that simply could not be hacked or sliced through. Some things had to be met

He slid his fingers over hers, feeling the slight tremor of shock quiver up her arm at the unexpected contact, accompanied by a soft indrawn breath. He felt her shift closer, pressing her arm to his and slowly, very slowly, rested her head upon his shoulder.

Yes. Maybe he would sit with her like this.

Just for a little while.

AN: Just wanted to give a special shout out to jenovacells. If you're ever reading this, know that this was inspired by you and you're awesome blog.