"You look positively atrocious, dear." Camilla reached over and smoothed the hairband that had fallen across Corrin's eyes. "Did you forget the time last night?"
Corrin had no answer to the question, save to untangle the mess that her cloak had become and attempt in vain to shake the sleep from her eyes. "No. It's complicated. But rest assured, I kept Xander safe." No physical harm came to him, anyways. There was the small lie in her words, but she doubted that he was one to complain to Camilla about his feelings.
They had passed each other in stony silence that morning. It stung a little to see him pick Jakob as a sparring partner, but that was to be expected. Both of them needed as much space that a prince and his guard could get, under their specific circumstances.
"So how was the rest of your night?" Corrin asked briskly. She had noticed that Camilla enjoyed sharing her thoughts, and did so easily. As long as the conversation didn't turn to Xander, things could be fine if only for the course of one morning.
"Oh, I caught up with my adorable little brother and sister. You can see that it's obvious they're enjoying having new friends. They don't have the easiest of lives, because of father's expectations." Why was it, thought Corrin, that everything that she avoided bringing up emerged again in some form or another? She mumbled something resembling assent and took her position behind Xander. If he had noticed her arrival, he said nothing about it.
A visibly exhausted Jakob, albeit from preparations and an impromptu request for sparring practice, nestled himself next to Corrin along the back wall of the booth. "If I fall asleep during this, nudge me awake. I can't afford to have people speak badly of our liege." His voice was gruff. It had seemed that neither of the prince's retainers were in good spirits that morning. She was thankful that the King and his concubines, along with the loathsome sorceror, were seated in their own separate box.
All eyes turned to the stage, including, Corrin noted, the many guards positioned in uniform and in disguise throughout the plaza. She exchanged looks with Beruka. Then she looked at Effie, Elise's retainer, who was in plainclothes and heartily chewing on a drumstick. Odin, who usually guarded Leo, was perched over a watchtower. He narrowed his eyes as he swerved from left to right, eager to play lookout with as much fervor as he did just about anything in life.
The sound of polite but cheery applause drew Corrin's attention from her check of the other bodyguards of the Nohrian royal family. She watched the stage as the princesses finally walked out.
Elise gave a small but excited wave as she bounded out on to the stage, having swapped her troubador's uniform for a simple black gown with a shrug. In her satin-gloved hands were a finely carved violin and a bow of rosewood. Next to her was Princess Sakura, who wore a robe-like, dawn-colored dress embroidered with flowers and a silvery elaborate hairpin. A long, stringed instrument called a coto had been set out on the stage, where she knelt down and set her fingers upon the strings. Sakura glanced over at Elise, who nodded and sat down at a chair that had been set out on the opposite side of the stage.
Elise played out the first low notes of the duet, drawing out the crisp cold air of Nohr's winter days. Sakura plucked in the music of the koto in turn, surrounding the square in a stillness that evoked the mild, sunny climates that Hoshido was known for.
As Corrin stood and took in the music that cut through the square, she closed her eeyes and let the idea of missions, nations, swords and kings slipped away. She allowed herself to take a deep breath, and let the worries knotted up in her go. It wasn't enough to fix everything, but she didn't need to fix everything. As long as that was true for even the briefest of moments, it was enough.
Her peace was cut short by a sharp, strangled cry from above.
Corrin's eyes jolted open and she looked skyward. In the watchtower, Odin reeled backwards, clutching his arm. Piercing it was the shaft of an arrow, with a red ribbon tied just near the feathers.
"That's my tome arm!" He wailed. "I'm bleeding on the pages now!"
She rolled her eyes. Alive, annoying, and not the first priority. Odin's safety could likely be guaranteed later. What was more alarming was what it had meant— that the red-ribbon bandit had returned to Nohr's capitol city.
"Corrin!" Xander called, jumping to his feet from his chair. He pointed to the stage, where Elise and Sakura sat, unarmed and vulnerable to attacks. As spirited as ever, Nohr's youngest princess put herself in front of the quavering shrine maiden.
Mired in her presently foul mood as she was, commands to protect the royal family were something that not even Corrin could ignore. Sword in hand, she leapt from the boxes and into the rapidly scattering crowd. Arrows adorned with red ribbons that the assailant were firedoff towards bystanders to ensure that no one neared the princesses. More bandits streamed from the alleyways, cloaked and masked, wielding swords and dark mages' tomes.
"To arms, knights and soldiers of Nohr!" She heard Xander call out, drawing his sidearm— a ceremonial blade, but one that would do in a fight nonetheless. Camilla already set off running towards the stage and let out a sharp whistle. In moments, her wyvern, black as knight and menacing everyone but its mistress, swooped down and plucked her skywards, just as Corrin had seen her do dozens of times. But Camilla had a gleam in her eye that spoke nothing but relentlessness now. She brandished a spellbook in her hand, forming sigils of power and sending bolts of thunder towards the nearest pair of bandits. Leo had sped off somewhere into the crowd as well, tome in hand and followed by Prince Takumi, who drew a deadly-looking bow that glowed with an otherworldy energy.
Following Xander, Corrin flanked the sides of the area of the Crown Prince's advance, cutting down men that thought him to be an idle target. Seeing a volley of arrows shot his way, she gripped her dragonstone, feeling its familiar energies wash over her. Screams erupted from the civilians, and a few soldiers looked away as she continued to charge through men that stood in her way.
"Go. Get to them first!" Xander turned around, as a bandit opposite him crumpled, lifeless into ths square. There was no time, though. Both of them knew it. She had talked so much about choices, but when it came down to it, it wasn't any easier to make a split-second decision, even if she hadn't had a throne to inherit.
She heard the screams of the two princesses. Something was attacking them, as well. Corrin glanced between her two choices. She would have to sacrifice the safety of her liege, or the two girls who had strove to forge peace where generations before them had struggled to do so.
There was nothing for her to do, if there was no time.
"Sing with me a Song of Memories and pride, the queen's weapon walks by your side…."
Even in the din of battle, the voice reached her ears as if it only spanned the length of several footsteps. The notes and lyrics seemed to rattle through Corrin's skin and flesh, sinking into her nerves themselves. Droplets of water swirled around her, evoking something within the dragonstone's magic. For a brief moment, Corrin's heart pulsed with the certainty that there were infinite possibilities.
She caught a glimpse of a flutter of a white dress and blue, flowing hair. Of course, thought Corrin. The songstress had decided to, for whatever reason, lend a hand in her time of need.
With newfound swiftness from the song, she braced her hind-legs and leapt towards the stage, gliding into position on her wings. As Corrin landed, two arrows, clearly meant for the princesses, glanced off her. She gored through one and clawed at two more fighters that had leapt for them.
She heard Sakura's scream of alarm.
"It's okay! She protects my big brother!" Elise exclaimed. "Follow me!"
"Get to safety, both of you!" Her voice, strained and watery as it was, was recognizeable. With a confused but determined nod, Sakura followed Elise, who held her hand as she maneuvered down the steps of the stage.
"I got the last of them!" She heard the Hoshidan prince exclaim from far away. But there wasn't time to rest. As her claws became feet once more, Corrin ran after Elise's retreating form. Disaster had struck, and time was of the essence in finding whoever targeted the king's family.
By the time she had looked back towards where Azura had stood, the dancer was gone once again.
Shocked from the events of the day, the King had called his children and the Hoshidans to a private dinner that evening, after a long afternoon of meetings with his council. With time on her hands and space away from Xander, Corrin found herself in her chambers, tossing her dragonstone and catching it again. She lay face-up on her bed, restless despite the fact that she had seen a day's worth of live combat in protecting a family that she had an increasing desire to just get away from. If the Hoshidans took the day's events as hostile, there would be hell to pay in staying in Nohr, regardless.
There was a knock on her door, startling her from tallying up a list of safe topics to discuss the next time she and Xander were in the same room. She had settled on swords, the weather, and horses, and was busily working on a fourth entry.
"Miss Corrin," The elderly knight Gunter's voice cracked like the sharp branch of an aging tree. He stood tall and perfectly postured, a trait only made more obvious by the instances where he corrected younger servants and retainers. "Do you have a moment? I require a bit of assistance this evening."
"Are we at war with Hoshido now?" She asked.
"No," the older man said flatly. "The prince and princess were proud to help fend off the bandits. Theirs is also a family skilled in the combat arts, and as stubborn and difficult to kill as our own royal household."
"Am I being removed from my appointment?"
"No….Where are you getting these ludicrous ideas? The King was pleased with your quick thinking today. You defended several of his children in the face of a sudden bandit attack."
She bit back words about the quick thinking not being entirely her intution at work. Summoning every bit of smarm that Jakob had demonstrated, she stood up straighter. "I am pleased to protect the royal family, Sir Gunter. Is that not the greatest honor a retainer could have?"
"I had hoped to acquire your assistance in identifying the weapon that was used by the bandits today." Gunter spoke with a forthrightness that suggested he was done playing games about it. "Are you willing to assist, or not?"
Corrin followed Gunter into a chamber filled with retainers, Hoshidan and Nohrian alike. At the center of the table was a navy-haired girl that had worn a scowl on her face on the first day that the delegation had entered their kingdom. She peered at an array of ribbons laid out onto a table.
"We've never worked with these in my shop, so they're not Hoshidan in origin," said the girl. "But they're not Nohrian, or the fashions of any other lands that I can pin down either." The detailing on the ribbons, even when worn from battle, was intricate.
"None of my contacts are coughing up anything on this," shrugged Niles. "Face it, folks. We're at a dead end on this."
"I've let down Prince Leo!" wailed Odin. "I must train harder so that arrows cannot pierce me. The great Odin will rain hellfire on his foes before they can even blink!"
Corrin turned back to Gunter. "Is he getting removed from his appointment?"
"I should have left you in your room," Gunter muttered under his breath, likely thinking that Corrin didn't have good enough hearing to notice. But dragons were talented in many unexpected ways, and she wasn't about to let the veteran knight know all of them. Settling down into a seat, she watched as he called the meeting to order to properly sum up what the knights had found in the aftermath of the day's skirmish.