Heyo, I'm still around and still writing, yes. This is just to let you guys know I'm not gone. I do, in fact, have a LOT of writing done but this is essentially the ONLY THING ready to be shared right now. Because everything else is still either incomplete, requires loads of editing, or is so full of spoilers you will be hopelessly confused.

So. Here's something simple.

I started with one intention but then these two went another direction.

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FTaBV Omake: Beat of Wings Part 3

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The two cubs didn't follow them so much as bumbled and tripped after them. Ludwig had coaxed them along the entire way by dragging peeled nia fruits behind the two humans, creating a scent trail the little eggbears found irresistible. And whenever the cubs showed signs of flagging interest he'd toss a few strips of salted jerky out. Sophia had to smile at the way he grumbled each time.

"I hope you're right about your friend. They'll never get it out of their heads that people mean food after this." But she saw perfectly well when he found a patch of wild growing berries and picked handfuls of them. And she saw how, after that, there would be berries left with the jerky bait.

"How sweet," she laughed.

"For now, maybe," he said in seriousness, mistaking her meaning. "But we shouldn't drop our guards with them. They're not accustomed to their own strength yet, and can easily damage us or the supplies just playing." He was by that point attempting to set up her tent and simultaneously keep the cubs in sight at all times. "And I sincerely hope we don't pass through the territories of other eggbears and bring adults down about our heads."

Sophia fitted together two poles of Ludwig's tent. "Well, if that happens, we can just throw the rest of the nia fruits in their faces and run." She'd managed to get one end of his tent off the ground. It was a streak of chivalry within her hired escort that made him always insist on setting up her tent. However, that first night Sophia had felt very petulant at being "brushed aside for a weak helpless woman," as she saw it. So she'd grabbed the bag with the other tent and tried to set it up on her own.

She'd still been trying by the time Ludwig had finished. He'd taken one look at her sorry attempt before turning away with a hand covering his mouth. After she'd lobbed a pine cone at his head the man began verbally instructing her, pointing out the loops and ties and where the poles threaded through them. And he'd slept in it, once she was finished.

Her goal every night had been to work at getting the process down until she was the one waiting for him to finish. This might be that night, as the wrestling cubs had just rolled into the tent Ludwig was working on and collapsed it.

"And how," he gritted, trying to shoo away two baby monsters weighing nearly a quarter of his own weight each, "would you expect to get these trouble makers away safely? Adult eggbears won't appreciate interlopers form their own species."

"Then I'd say we'd have to pick them up and carry them." Sophia mustered the most innocent eyes she could when Ludwig dropped a pole and stared at her. "I'm sure it would be good training for a swordsman."

He kept staring, brow furrowing as he tried to figure out whether she was joking. "Not necessarily for a scientist and researcher though," he settled on cautiously.

Sophia affected a sniff. "It's no question that you've obviously never seen a blastia specialist rescuing an experiment from an imminent lab explosion." She broke her straight expression when a giggle bubbled past her lips. "Oh, there was an awful one while I was in classes! Clouds of smoke everywhere, all different colors, and different smells!"

Ludwig cracked a smile as well. "Was this your mishap by any chance?"

"No, an old schoolmate's!" She'd abandoned the tent as the recalled memory left her helpless with giggles. "Two of them, actually. One's experiment began acting up when he wasn't around, and poor Viola had been working at a neighboring table. She didn't clear out quite fast enough, and we discovered that those two particular tests do not mix well together."

"What happened? I hope she wasn't injured."

"Oh don't worry, only her pride was hurt. Once the smoke cleared we couldn't see Viola anywhere. Just the pile of equipment and notes she'd been carrying in her arms, some of it broken. But then a frog croaked and hopped out and it had that ridiculous hat she liked on its head still-" she couldn't manage the rest of the story, too caught up in her helpless gales of laughter. The fro had given them all the most indignant look! But with that felt and lace mess flopping over it's back-!

Somehow Ludwig had retaken the lead with the tents. "How did you turn her back? You must have managed to somehow." The warrior hesitated, casting a dubious glance her way. "Don't tell me you left her in a pond somewhere."

"Someone did suggest we get her a nice aquarium and make her the department's mascot. 'Professor Durnip's Polwiggle Prodigies' he thought we should call ourselves." Ludwig choked a little and she grabbed the chance to sneakily pull out one of his stakes in the ground.

"Luckily-or unluckily, depending on your point of view-someone else had an idea for turning her back. It seems there's a children's fairy tale about a prince turned into a polwiggle-or a normal frog, in some versions-and the kiss of a pretty young lady turning him back. The problem up for debate-" she had to raise her voice and speak over his growing chuckles, "was that Viola was certainly not a prince, or even a boy. Did that mean it still had to be a kiss from a girl, or should we substitute in a boy?"

"Oh no..." he groaned.

"Everyone had their own hypothesis of course. Some thought it wouldn't work at all, but they were the minority. Rather than argue all day over it, we agreed it would be much more sensible to test it properly. First a girl kissed Viola, and then one of the boys."

He was shaking his head in disbelief. "How did you ever convince them to kiss a frog?"

"Oh, they volunteered!" Hadn't she tied off that rope already? She double knotted it to be sure. "When a new discovery is about to be made, who wouldn't leap at the chance to have their name attached to it?" The cubs bowled over the tent and ruined her work. "Oh dear..."

Ludwig grabbed a handful of jerky and even some cheese to toss to the other end of the campsite. The cubs scampered for the food. "Did it work?"

"Not at all." She pouted at the mess of water resistance treated canvas and poles in front of her. "But one failed test isn't conclusive proof, you have to try for different variables. Maybe they weren't pretty enough, for example. Or didn't kiss her the right way. The fairy tale mentioned something about true love, but Viola didn't have a boyfriend so we were out of luck there. To be sure, we all had to take turns kissing her. I was number eleven."

There was a twang and whump accompanied by a surprised grunt. Checking his way to see what had happened, Sophia saw him lying sprawled across a ruined tent, foot still tangled in one of the ropes. Oh my! "Are you alright?"

"Ye-yes!" he coughed embarrassedly, face glowing red as he disentangled himself. "So...your first kiss was...with a frog?"

Wanting to have a bit of fun with it, Sophia planted her hands on her hips. "I never said it was my first kiss, did I?" She winked coquettishly (or that's how she hoped she had winked) at him. He spluttered and coughed and wouldn't looker at her as his face burned scarlet.

"Viola did turn back once Margaret had a turn. Though we couldn't decide if that was really the result of Margie's kiss or a time delay from on of the earlier kisses, or if the frog condition was temporary all along. Viola wasn't any help settling the matter. She said she hadn't felt any different before changing back. Are you sure you're alright?"

Ludwig had given up on the tent completely, still lying across it with his face buried in his arms. He shook his head and his muffled voice proclaimed, "I think I must revise my opinion that the strangest people all end up in guilds. They're in Aspio."

"Well of course! You don't make scientific discoveries by thinking the way people believe is normal! They're made by people who aren't satisfied with the way things are, or at least with not knowing why they are that way. Every great invention has a brilliant nut behind hit!"

"What, then, does that make you?" he asked, lifting his head with little trace of that blush left. "A nut unhappy with the world?"

"Hmm..." she twirled a lock of hair around a finger. "Nooo... The world isn't perfect, but I think that's part of what makes it so lovely. The same way a successful test is more exhilarating if the first tries went horribly. Working at it makes the experience...more rewarding. So I guess that makes me the nut who just wants to see how it all works!"

That was the point when the eggbear cubs realized that the very nice man who kept giving them food was unoccupied and probably lonely. They pounced on him, one sitting on his back and whuffling his hair while the other licked at his fingers with a long pink tongue. Sophia cooed happily at the "Papa Bear and his little ones" before fetching some food out of her own ration bag to lure them away.

It got dark long before they ever finished setting the tents up. Giving it up, they slept under the open sky on the groundcloths, back to back for warmth and security. The eggbears snuggled in under Ludwig's arm and curled against his legs in the night.

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Sophia does strange things. In the name of SCIENCE!