video; un: beaumains

[beaumains]

[ Gareth, dressed in surprisingly comfortable looking athletic wear, breathing heavily and pulling from a water bottle, greets the camera with a wave, clearly in the middle of a late night work out.

Stoirm, her wolf companion, pops into frame briefly as well, nudging under her arm before she can even speak. She pants, clearly having enjoyed whatever workout she and Gareth did together, and eventually settles down after some coaxing. ]

Well, sorry about that. Bad timing on my part, I suppose.

ANYWAYS while I'm cooling down from training, I wanted to ask a less, well... pressuring? question? I guess. Since things feel pretty heavy lately, and I figure we could all use something nice to talk about.

[ A few more heavy breaths, another drink of her bottle, and... ]

Okay! So... what is your absolute favorite... baked good!

Cakes, pies, breads, deserts, biscuits, doesn't matter, tell me what it is, and why!

[ She figures it's a thing most people can talk about freely ]

Comments

[beaumains]

Oh! Meat pies are a huge part of British cuisine! I've got to make you an eel pie one of these days!

[withclawsout]

[Huh. That wasn't a combination she'd heard before. Fish, yes, eels, no. They were usually roasted.]

Are the bones left in it?

[Lethe wasn't afraid of bones, but picking all of them out of some roast fish got a bit annoying. Especially when she was trying to do so on her sister's behalf without the latter noticing and fussing at Lethe for babying her. But that wasn't here nor there.]

[beaumains]

Well... no? Certainly not on purpose, though the fillet process can be tricky.

Eel pies are from well after my time, but are considered part of the heart of my homeland's cuisine, so I figure it'd be like making you a bit of home!

[withclawsout]

[That was...quite charming, to be sure. But--]

Afterwards...? I don't follow.

[Before her time, Lethe could easily understand. People took recipes from history all the time.

She hasn't heard about the whole heroic spirit thing.]

[beaumains]

I mean the recipe is from modern times! Well, more modern than my own, anyways. Several centuries ahead of mine. There were eels to fish from the Thames back in my time, to be sure, but they weren't putting them into pies, yet. That didn't happen until other meats got to be too expensive, you know?

[withclawsout]

I see. [Lethe thinks, anyway.] So you found that here.

[In this place, with its collection of knowledge about futures strange and familiar.]

[beaumains]

Not... really. It was part of the knowledge of modern worlds granted me by the Throne of Heroes.

[ Which she realized was just begging to be explained, clearing her throat. ]

I am, in my current state, what is known as a Heroic Spirit. Basically, when my life was said and done, I was granted a chance to join this sort of... collective magical force called the Throne of Heroes. There, we offer up our services to those who might summon us.

[withclawsout]

[Things Lethe expected: none of this.]

[The more the laguz listened, the further her ears came up, and the more she wished Lyre were here. This was rapidly bounding beyond Lethe's understanding. She'd heard of spirit charmers, of course. Not much, but enough to get an idea. But she'd never heard about the spirits themselves, except that they could be dangerous to the mage.]

So...you are something a Spirit Charmer summons?

[This person had never struck her as more than a beorc; one with magic, but magic was now a universal constant in this world.]

[beaumains]

Well, anyone with the proper spell and mana could summon a Heroic Spirit, if there is need of us.

[ A small shrug. ]

It's all pretty difficult to explain. I apologize.

[withclawsout]

The idea isn't...too far from one I'm familiar with, at least.

[It'd still take a moment to wrap her head around it.]

In my world, only mages could bind themselves to a spirit like that. They'd receive a considerable amount of power, but it would damage the soul in return.

[It didn't sound remotely worth the risk to her, but Lethe was maybe a little bit biased and also not a magic user.]

They all had some sort of mark on them; the parentless- [her ears go back in chagrin, and she corrects herself.] -The Branded were sometimes mistaken for them.

[beaumains]

Well, a Master usually is marked after summoning, but the mark does not persist once the contract is fulfilled...