Gift for Unraelated

[nastyboy]

"And here I thought Sargon could look miserable," Claude says, as he stares out past the railings of Rhodes Island, towards the border of what are technically Iberian lands.

Honestly, he's getting the best view of this place from atop the deck, he has to say. As far as landships go, it does hold its own pretty well, even if it's not as towering as any one of the many mobile cities which populates Terra. Maybe, in some way, he shouldn't be wholly surprised. Rhodes Island is practically a city unto itself, massive enough to hold various vehicles that can delve out into the barrens which make up so much of terra, and with even its own private massive garden tucked away inside of it. It has to be, to house all of its employees and patients the way that it does.

And yet, still, he looks at it with all of Sargon in the back of his mind with its endless deserts and bursts of green jungles, lands more inclined to hunker down where they can... and he wonders if they'll be able to recreate something like this. If it will give him the edge to push back against his scattered brothers.

"I mean, at least Sargon has sunshine more often than it doesn't," Leonie says, foot braced against the railing and one hand held to her eyes. As if maybe if she looks hard enough, she'll be able to see the horizon of the ocean from here. "And your people are pretty rowdy, right? Honestly, having taken a couple of missions there, I prefer it, even with all the heatstroke that threatened to get me." She reaches up, then, fingers rubbing up against the back of her neck, up to her pointed ears. Just ears, and nothing else - no ears or horns or feathers or tail. The things which will give her away as an Aegir.

It says a lot for someone that was meant for life underneath the water that she'd prefer the dryness of deserts and the humidity of jungles rather than her homecountry.

"Still, I'm sure there's something to it," Claude says reassuringly, looking back towards the stretch of land. There, somewhere unquantifiable save for the words of men, is a boundary they are not to cross. Normally, it's nothing that can actually be seen, but Iberia seems to be a little different. Seems... grayer, somehow. Darker.

Maybe that's just because of the clouds overhead, or the mission that they'll be going on, or... something else.

Something even harder to quantify than the imaginary boundary which makes up countries.

"I mean, it helped produce you," he says, and grins even as Leonie shoves him playfully against the shoulder. "Anyway, Lysithea and the others should be nearly ready right around now. Let's go, and get that last minute briefing so that we're all set to go."

In an ideal world, they'd have someone more familiar with the country and especially a nearby city be their guide to help them not get in trouble with the Inquisition. Especially with Leonie being a part of their squad, considering the treatment of the Aegir within Iberia's borders. However, as things are, well, they'll have to rely on her to do her best in her vanguard duties. Everyone else from Iberia is already well and truly busy with things there.

Also, from what Claude has heard, one of the other operators from Iberia is a former Inquisitor herself, and most of the others are Abyssal Hunters from Aegir with an... interesting view on how Iberian law applies to them.

It might actually be safer if they just go in with the papers that Doctor Byleth and Kal'tsit have provided for them, and hope Leonie remembers a lot about her homecountry.

"It took about time for you to get back here," Lysithea says, her horns curving around the side of her head like a wreath. With how comfortable Rhodes Island is with Sarkaz, and how Iberia seems to direct its hatred to a different race, her decorating it with a small veil that falls over her pale hair is more a form of habit than anything else. "Enjoy the view up there?"

It was picture perfect," Claude says, winking at her even as he makes sure that his bow is firmly in place. Besides him, Leonie already has her traps and bow of her own in place. "Everything all packed and ready?"

"It took a little bit of time," Lorenz says, even with a critical eye still on the back trunk of their ride, the tip of his long Lung tail still flicking back and forth. No doubt Hilda had him help her put down all sorts of things into her luggage again. "However, we should be fully prepared for whatever Iberia may throw at us."

Raphael's voice comes echoing down the docking area. "We're not done yet!" Claude turns his head to see him and Ignatz both jogging back towards the vehicle, the pair of Lupo carrying various packs and containers. Well. Ignatz is carrying a backpack. Raphael is carrying literally everything else, which, somehow, does not hide the rapid speed at which his tail is wagging. Most Lupo Claude has met can generally keep theirs under control, but not Raphael. "We got food for the trip ready!"

While Marianna hustles over to help take some things off of Raphael's hands, Hilda sprawls out from where she's already seated in the vehicle and props her cheeks up in her hands. Her eyes seem to shine almost brighter in amusement than her halo does in light. "You know, they do have restaurants in Iberia, even with all the rumors."

Raphael's ear twitches. "Well, yeah, but - we're visitors, ain't we? Wouldn't be right to go visiting and not have anything of our own."

Yeah. Yeah, this is the sort of thing which had Claude step out from Sargon, and he grins. "You know what, you're right, Raph," he says, smacking a bicep that's bigger than his entire head. "We can't be rude, huh? Although sorry, Lorenz, but it looks like we're going to have to refigure out the packing situation again."

Lorenz sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It doesn't last long. Refusing Raphael Kirsten is something of an impossible task.





It takes less than a day after joining Rhodes Island to have your eyes opened to how much bigger the world is than you thought it was and that's assuming it didn't happen because of their actions before joining. That's what Claude has learned, both from his own experiences, and talking to so many other operators that have been hired by the company.

It can be good, on one hand - realizing the inherent goodness that so many people carry the capacity for, the cleverness they can pull out to get through challenges, all of that.

But at the end of the day, Rhodes Island is a pharmaceutical company that often doubles as a hospital treating patients.

So tragedy is another common sight. So painfully common.

Claude thinks of such tragedies as their vehicle makes its way across the barren lands which make up that which has been claimed by Iberia, some which is simple and plain dirt from which the dries corpses of shrubs occasionally push out of. There are patches of grasslands as well, sometimes, but not as many trees as hee would expect. Maybe he should be used to such sights, with Sargon being the way that it is. It's just, it feels different, somehow. Feels different when it is a place that at one point may have been thriving. Feels different when this seems like the remnants of a natural disaster in some way.

When they make it to the first settlement, it hardly seems any better, honestly. Of course, at least they can enter without any problems, since it's one attached to the plain earth rather than on a mobile city, so that's something. Yet, much like the entire feeling of the place... It feels so very gray.

"At last the people are cheerful enough," Ignatz says, trying not to smile too much at the way that both Lorenz and Hilda have collapsed onto the chairs of one of the rooms they've all had to rent - practically taking up the entire little inn in this town. "I didn't realize that they would have such an intense reaction to seeing a Sankta and someone from so far east..."

Hilda jolts forward, absolutely frazzled from toe to the tips of her bright pink hair. "I'm not even a priest!" she groans dramatically, and slumps forward against the table. "Seriously, I knew that Iberians were weirdly religious even compared to Laterano, but that they'd get all worked up just because they see a little halo..."

"At least it's understandable why they'd be all a-fluster," Claude drawls, gaze sliding over to where Lorenz looks half dead. Poor guy. At least he just had to deal with children unable to rest the draw of curiosity. And hey, Lorenz always takes such care of his scales and fur down there exactly so that he can get attention. This is really a success! "And hey, on the bright side, they were all so fussy over the appearance of a Sankta, and a pretty rare foreigner, that they completely looked past Leonie!"

There's a small chuckle from Leonie, but it hardly matches that wide grin of hers in the slightest. "Well, some of them who came up afterwards were Aegir too, you know. I think they were really happy that you two were so sweet to them."

Hilda's pout is elevated to truly incredible levels when she turns her head to look at them while not lifting it up from the table, cheeks squished against poor wood. Lorenz, at least, does his very best to straighten up like a respectable young man of wealth from Lungmen. "As... tiring as they can be, with all the energy that children possess, it was not as though they spoke ill of us or purposefully treated us wrong," he says, as though he isn't utterly exhausted. "It would be beneath any person of decency to treat them poorly."

And that is why, in the end, they're all the perfect choice as a squad to have come here. Claude smiles all the more, wondering if Lazard and Hilda are too exhausted to realize the truth in it. "Perfectly said. Anyway, you guys take a rest - and Ignatz, Raphael, I take it that the two of you want to stay here a while as well, right?"

"Yup!" Raphael announces, thumping his chest with his broad hand. "I'd really like to thank the inn owners for letting us take up so much space! So I'm going to help them with food. It's why we brought so much!"

"So that's four of us accounted for..." Claude taps his fingers along the side of his leg, and then looks over to Leonie. "I know we just got here, but, let me guess, you plan on scouting around to make sure that everything is up to code, right?"

Leonie cocks her head to the side, smiling. "Well, I am the Vanguard for this operation, aren't I? If I don't go out to see how the surrounding area is doing, and how the townspeople are feeling, then I'd be doing a terrible job. Besides, it'd be better if we could finish all of this up quickly, and find our missing troublemaker."

Indeed.... An operation that can be finished quick and quiet is the best kind of operation. As someone who survived by hunting both land and sea, Leonie knows that the best. And Claude knows it, too.

Well, this works out just great for him. "Do you mind if I tag along?" he asks her. "I want to see just how different Iberia is for myself. I'll not get in the way or anything, so you don't have to worry about that much." People tagging along behind a Vanguard can just cause problems, sometimes. Although... He reaches up, gesturing towards the bow that he's still holding. "I mean, if anything, maybe I can keep an eye out for things while you're looking around."

Just saying that is enough to get the others stirring a bit, even those poor exhausted pair over at the table blinking as though waking from a nap. Considering he's the squadron leader, well, it's not as though he doesn't understand that kind of reaction.

It's just, for a little preliminary searching around, it's fine if he does this much, isn't it?

"Um, if that is the case..." He and Leonie look away from each other, over to where Marianne steps forward with her ears flicking slightly. "Would it be alright if I could come along as well...?" Her hands wring together where she has them set before her. "I heard from Lumen that there are unique plants that only grow near the sea... so I was hoping to bring them back. For Lena, and Mercedes."

Lena isn't a surprise - the clever Vulpo woman is the one responsible for the magnificent inner gardens that Rhodes Island has. For most of those who would go to a place like Iberia, getting some plants would be the last thing on the list, if ink could even be spared for such a thing. So it's little wonder that she wouldn't have had time to ask until now, and that she'd approach a nice girl like Marianne. For a perfumer like Lena, rare flowers like that could do a lot - and that's not even talking about medicine.

Yet as for Mercedes...

There's no point bringing it up right there in front of everyone. "Well, if you don't mind keeping up with all of us for a bit," Claude says, although he looks over to Leonie. "What do you think about it? I mean, again, we're the ones stepping on your toes as a Vanguard."

Leonie scratches the back of her head, knuckles bumping into her ponytail. "Well... I mean, since you want to come along too, Claude, I suppose it should be alright? But in that case, you'll want to change your shoes, and be careful - sand will show up a lot more the closer that we get to the sea."

Well, it's best to listen to the master in this case, isn't it? Fortunately, Claude was prepared ahead of time for such a thing, with boots specially made from his own Sargon that know the nuisances of sand quite well, and he's made sure all the others are just as prepared. He has to say that he and Marianne look quite dashing in them, really, as they slip through all the little alleys that make up this town. Leonie travels through them easier than he would have thought - she tells them that it's because sometimes people are just all the same in Iberia. That goes for architecture too.

Claude supposes there's a sense in that. So long as you know the people of a place, as long as you know the culture and tendencies, well, architectural habits aren't too far off.

"I didn't realize that the sea would be so close here," Claude muses as they avoid most people all the way to the outskirts, and set out again on those barren grasslands where even shrubs seem to be struggling on occasion. Even the air here smells nothing like he's ever smelled before. In theory, Sargon also has some lands near the Cluster Sea, where the jungles and rainforests tend to prosper, and that's about it. Even then... It's just a little bit different, he thinks, although in such a subtle way it's hard to pinpoint. "You can even hear the waves..."

"We'll probably see the ocean over the next hill," Leonie tells him over her shoulder, a trap already prepared in one hand. The perfect kind of thing to leave behind her as she runs from threats, and that can immobilize even the biggest tuskbeast, thus leaving it wide open for her bow. "You guy should stay just a bit under the crest of it, and I'll make sure all's clear."

Considering that is Leonie's job in moments like this, well, there's really no point in arguing. Hills definitely provide an awkward position, after all. Perfect for getting the best view and defending yourself, and, yet, by far easily making someone an easy target in full sight. Terrible for stealth.

So he sends Leonie off with a waggle of his fingers, and then folds his hands behind his head to wait her return. Things seem peaceful, so far, so... Hopefully it really won't take that long.

It's as him and Marianne are just standing there, listening to the sound of distant waves crashing along the shore, does she speak up. "Do you really think he will have come down this far south?" she asks, her head tilted back so that she can stare straight up at that gray and gloomy sky. "It's so far from where he was working with the Sami people in the Infy Icefields... What could have happened for this to happen?"

Claude takes in a slow steady breath, feeling the way it fills his lungs, stretches them out. Exhales, letting it all go empty again until it strains with it. Just like he does in the training rooms, when he gets to his bow in order to clear his mind.

"Well, it's our big lead as of right now - Dedue has been talking with his hometown and not having any luck, last I checked, and the only other idea on the table would be Ursus... And you know what it's like trying to deal with them." Claude scoffs a little bit underneath his breath, hands flopping right back down to his sides. "I mean, Leonie says Iberia is pretty bad, with how it isolated itself after the Profound Silence, but at least it's not nearly as hostile as Ursus." Sometimes, it really makes him wonder how Dimitri and all the others managed to live through it like they did, even without all the internal politics at play which nearly tore the country apart...

And yet it's still such an intimidating powerhouse after all this time. Enough that its specter still haunts so many other countries who have to deal with being its neighbors.

All save Sami, which has managed to slip through like a snowflake caught in a tempest.

"At any rate, this is far from the strangest thing that we've had to deal with since working with Rhodes Island, right?" he says afterwards, trying to smile like this doesn't bother him at all. "How does Phantom manage to slip past top of the line security systems all the time? What lets Mudrock hear the voices of the earth? Why is Doctor Byleth capable of chowing down on dried ramen and pouring boiling hot water down their throat without batting an eye? And that's just what happens on the ship. Our operations can get all the stranger. So, you never know! A stubborn guy like Dimitri, I could absolutely imagine him pulling a Ceobe."

It's just... He never should have let that happen in the first place. He never should have done something that the wild little amnesiac which is Ceobe did before getting stationed aboard Rhodes Island.

If it really is Dimitri who was spotted here in Iberia... Claude has so many questions. Just what could have happened so far up north to get him in a state like this?

And yet even for as worrying as thinking about that is, even with all the questions that would be brought up and how Dimitri could manage for so long and what might have happened to him in the meanwhile... Claude still far prefers that to the idea that Dimitri wasn't spotted down here in Iberia at all. To the idea that he's still somewhere out there, and no one knows where.

Of course, he's doing his absolute best to keep a cool head about it all, and not worry his own teammates. In fact, Claude would say that he's doing a fantastic job at it.

Just, apparently, not enough of a fantastic job to hide his feelings from Marianne. Or, maybe it's because she's worried as well, for someone she views as a dear friend. She hesitates for just a moment before reaching out, only daring to place her fingertips against his arm. "I am sure we will find him," she tells him quietly, as though Rhodes Island doesn't have an entire section dedicated to funerals and death and turning them to simple ash. "It's Dimitri. So we will find him."

"Right." Claude smiles back to her. He has to be a realist in these sorts of situations, he really does, but.... there's a little bit of a fine line between naivety and hope. Optimism. Hopefully he can ride that line. "And we won't know until we find out, right?"

The whistle of a seabird rides high against the wind - only it's not a seabird. It's just Leonie's excellent birdcall skills, letting them know that the coast - quite literally - is clear.

Side by side, he and Marianne make their way up the hill and, for the first time, see the ocean stretch far off into the horizon.





Him, Dimitri, and Edelgard all met in Columbia, right before Rhodes Island picked them up as operators. Claude would never say that he viewed the three of them as bosom buds who would never face any hardship in their lives together. For one thing, that's not how reality works. For another, every single one of them from that day onward had personalities as bold and stubborn as anything.

Even him, although some would possibly be rather surprised that such an easy going and flexible person could be stubborn about anything.

(Lazard would probably snort upon hearing that, but this isn't about him.)

Yet, still, Claude isn't sure he could have said how it all fell apart. That it could have imploded with such violent force. That it would have left Edelgard off in some unknown place, with six good friends that the rest of them had come to be fond of in the time they'd all spent together.

Even Hubert, despite the looks he would give Claude and Sylvain during the weekly chess nights.

Since then... Claude's always gotten the feeling that Dimitri was standing on fragile ground. Fortunate, honestly, that Rhodes Islands has trained therapists and psychiatrists on staff, and that there are people who aren't afraid to reach out. True and proper professionals, really. So, it's no doubt that, with their help, he's been able to deal well enough with his own issues without imploding completely into himself.

It's just... Claude knows his boyfriend. He knows that sometimes Dimitri manages to pull off looking completely fine unless you really know him well, enough to see that he's just one really bad day from breaking like a glass pane falling from the fiftieth floor of a building.

("Which is why you should absolutely focus a little more on him than me," he's tried to say multiple times to Rhodes Island mental health staff. At best, he gets a polite nod that masks the utter dismissal he's getting. At worst, Gavial nearly dislocates his entire spine in smacking him on the back to tell him to stop pulling bullshit.)

Anyway, all that is to say that he has a reason for being out here in a miserable looking country, helping pick various plants alongside Marianne. "So what do these do, anyway?" he asks Marianne, squinting at some of the strange pale plants he's been helping her gather. He's never quite seen anything like them, even with what he's seen brought from the jungles deep where some of the more isolated tribes of Archosaurians and Savra bother to do trade with the rest of Sargon. "I didn't think plants could grow well with so much salt water, either..."

"They help treat nervous impairment," Marianne says, already carting around jars and bundles of the stuff in her bag. He's not sure if anyone actually told her that she had to bring so much, but, well... Better to be prepared, he supposes. "Or, ah - I suppose another term is neural impairment...?"

Just by that name alone, he has to admit that he's kind of interested in this plant already. It really sounds like the sort of thing he would find handy in his own experiments - not to mention a certain Iberian and fellow poisons lover back on Rhodes Island. "Is that something that fish have to deal with a lot out here?" he muses, stopping his investigation of the plant so that he can tuck it into his bag alongside all the others. "Although - right, I guess there's some operators who have that kind of effect, right?"

"And there are definitely creatures out here which are capable of the same," Marianne murmurs. Off to the side, where she's keeping a careful eye on both land and ocean, Leonie grimaces. Personal experience, or just tales she's heard from her time spent in Iberia? "To make it easier to disorient their prey."

"Nervous impairment stings like your hand is getting cut off," Leonie finally adds. "And it makes you so dizzy that you can't do anything for hardly a minute."

"Pleasant!" Claude says chipperly.

However, there appear to be no such worries along the coast as they gather the plants that the others back at Rhodes Island asked for. Nothing watches them from the waves, no creature crawls out in an effort to devour them as is the natural way of things. There's only the sound of the tide, dragging along the sand, and the wind which rustles past them into the barrens and the hills. So quiet that it's actually eerie, making the scales on the back of Claude's neck want to stand up.

If only he had the ears of a Cautus; it's hard to say if those long ears are truly and intrinsically better than any other races but there's no doubt that there's a use to being able to swivel them so completely like that. As it is, his simple pointed ears just twitch in response to every little sound.

At least his tail is under control, gliding smoothly along the sand as Claude walks further down the beach. Behind him, he can overhear Marianne talking more to Leonie as they exchange tips on the different ways to us the plant in treatment - just chewing it off the stalk is fine enough in a pinch apparently. He's pretty sure a proper mixture would do better as an antivenom but, that's besides the point. Good to know, he supposes.

Especially with the feelings of this place... Making his way to some of the rockier portions of shoreline, Claude looks out to the vast expanse of water which rests right at their feet.

Iberia has no boats or ships, not any longer. Their seafaring days are long over, from what he's read in books and heard from Iberians such as Irene. The golden age of Iberia will never return - at least not in this fashion. So, probably, if there's one thing to be reassured by, it's that at least Dimitri wouldn't have been able to go any further south than this.

Small blessings. Right. Small blessings.

Maybe they should have brought a hound along with them, Claude ponders as he starts finding more of the plants scrunched inbetween crevices and little hidey holes. Might have made this entire little search far easier. Then again, it's not as though Rhodes Island really has a dedicated hound section. Just a bunch of very nosy people, himself included, and a variety of bizarre talents -

A screech warbles through the air, distant but sharp to make up for it, and Claude pauses there on the rocks.

Not an animalistic sound, he realizes after a second, but a sound that he's nonetheless heard before. Not out in the wilds, necessarily, but anywhere there is strife, anywhere that would have a person raise their weapon against another to meet resistance. The sound of metal grinding sharp and hard against rock, or concrete, or even the metal of an entirely different weapon.

It's a sound that Claude has heard more than once before in his life, whether in the harsh environment of Sargon or in the safe restraints of Rhodes Island. There's not a single bit of hesitation as he reaches down for his comm system. "Hey," he says, making sure to keep his voice low; there's a reason he's not just calling back to Leonie and Marianne to start with after all. "Did the two of you hear that, or is the ocean just messing with me?"

No response. Not an immediate one, however. Claude fortunately is a patient kind of man; he has to be with the way that schemes don't always bear fruit so quickly. Leonie answers him after a few seconds pause. "Caught nothing here. Get the direction?"

Claude shifts through his memories, tries to remember how it felt in his ears. "...Further down the coast, near to me," he says. "Not out to sea." And that last part is the really important thing, here.

In an instant, Leonie is right there at his side having ignored all of the rocks in her way, and she hops from rock to rock, those sharp eyes of hers focused dead ahead. Claude doesn't follow on her heels. Rather, he stays behind, waiting for Marianne to catch up. Gives him plenty of time to get his bow in his hands too, making sure that every string is in its rightful place and that every arrow will fly true. He says that, of course, even though Marianne doesn't take that long at all, thanks to that Kuranta speed of hers. "What was the sound?" she asks in a whisper once she's next to him, her hand pressing against his shoulder just to keep her balance.

Just to be prepared, Claude notches an arrow. "Sounded like some sort of combat," he murmurs right back. "Or, if not that, a crash of some sort. But Iberia isn't like Lungmen, with cars driving all over the place." Not in a small little town like this, at any rate.

Leonie is already out of sight for both of them, having bounded across the various rocks that make up this section of the beach. More like boulders, honestly. With how high they reach, higher than they actually felt at the time Claude was traversing them, they nearly make a wall separating sand from.... whatever is on the other side of this bunch of rocks. More sand, probably. It makes him a little nervous, simply from the unknown of it all, but he bats down those feelings. Leonie is a professional. She knows what she's doing.

....So, he won't lie, it's a little concerning when she hits them back up on the comms with an uncertain tone to her voice as she says, "I... think I've found Dimitri? But he's on some sort of steed that's part fish?"

In hindsight, Claude thinks he might regret - just a little bit - saying that anything can happen when you work for Rhodes Island.

There is a not insubstantial chance he just cursed himself on that one.





In a twist that is hard to label as either "good news" or "bad news", the person Leonie spotted turns out not to be Dimitri at all. Rather, by a funny little coincidence, it just turns out to be someone else who is annoyingly tall and has a penchant for dark armor. There's also the matter of fact that his helmet holds wings to it - not too unlike Dimitri's own golden wings which form alongside his head.

A little bit of a disappointment? Maybe. Especially considering that it brings them to the actual and very definitely bad news, which is that finding not!Dimitri means finding a whole battle against Seaborn.

"Of course this would be during the time when we didn't bring Hilda," Claude murmurs to himself, even as his fingers remain diligent in their work. Arrow after arrow shoots through the air, pinning straight through the seaborn runners which have been trying to reach him for a good few minutes now. He has to hand it to them - foregoing proper skeletons does seem to make them a little bit faster. Gets those overly massive snapping jaws which may as well be attached to jelly with legs all the closer to their prey.

But as fast as they might be, they're not fast enough to beat Claude's hands. He's pretty sure that they wouldn't be able to beat Hilda's gunshield, either, absurd amount of heavy artillery that it is. The explosion would send these things packing.

Yet it's just him, and Leonie, both of them trying to pick off the Runners with all the speed that they're capable of.

Okay, he'll be fair - it's him, Leonie, their bows, and the taller than should be allowed knight who sweeps his lance in a massive swing so powerful that it smashes half a pack of Runners right back into the ocean. Sometimes not even in one piece.

"How are we holding out, Marianne?" he calls back over his shoulder, taking out another two Runners. They've got to keep Marianne safe; her staff is only for medical Arts and not meant for combat. Besides, with how the Seaborn almost feel neverending.... If anyone is going to rush back to the others to radio in for help, it's going to be her.

There's a burst of brilliant blue from her staff, right in time with a similar one which lights up along Leonie's arm. The blood which was flowing from an open bite wound ceases, which his good. Considering the way Leonie smashes her bow into the small body of a Runner that gets a little too close before she shoots it mid-tumble, that would have just splashed right up into her eyes. "I only have so much energy," she says, voice strained, eyes nearly closed. "Claude - we need to stop soon."

She's not wrong; a prolonged battle like this won't do them any favors. Especially depending on the amount of Seaborn that are there, hiding in the waves. The knight that they're fighting alongside seems to be perfectly fine in wasting the day away just playing baseball with the Seaborn as the ball; they can't do the same.

"If we get to a higher vantage point," he starts to call over to her, "me and Leonie can handle things here, while you-"

Something suddenly pushes through the waves - and yet, only suddenly because they've noticed it, only sudden because otherwise its pace is slow but steady. Patient and neverending. If he weren't so on edge, from the battle that they are waging here, Claude might even have mistaken it for a piece of debris washed ashore by the waves at first.

It is no piece of debris, nothing that man had any hand in creating. Massive and round, almost cylindrical, its shiny carapace captures what exists of the light, and it pushes forward past the waves on jagged but massive legs. Even just at a distance, merely looking at the strange colors warping across it make Claude feel distantly nauseous. Never before has he ever encountered such a creature, whether in the dunes of Sargon or while working for Rhodes Island. Never has he ever needed to for every single he's on his own two feet have to fight just to stay upright.

If they let that get close, if they let that thing anywhere near them...

A blur of black and blue and teal and feathers suddenly blazes across the sandy parts of the short, skipping over slick rocks without a second's hesitation, and slams something long and jagged right against the front of the massive carapace.

As the cloak settles, stark furs on it coming to a rest, Claude spots the familiar dull shine of gold hair, and realizes -

Well. Shit. Lumen was right after all.

Dimitri's legs buckle, after, a pulse seeming to move unseen through the air, but there's that other mystery knight already coming in a swell, and his own lance joins Dimitri's. A crack forms against the carapace - and Claude can see, now, he can see that it's not colors shifting on the creature's body, but they're organs, brightly colored and jolting back from the impact a split second before the entire body is flung away, back into the waves.

Yet it's too late. Whatever effect that massive creature sent out from itself, Dimitri's already suffering from it as his knee hits the sand, the tide. All around, the Runners skitter to a stop, sensing weakened prey. Already some of them are scrambling in the sand to turn back.

Claude doesn't let them.

One arrow is lucky enough to take out two in one powerful shot, one through to the other, and another sends another tumbling clumsily through the sand. He's in the process of notching his bow for a third shot as he leaps down along the rocks, calling back to Leonie. "Cover me!" Marianne is already trying to do the same with her Arts, he can tell, but it's not doing anything. It's not easing up the effect that was unleashed onto Dimitri.

If only they could rely on this other knight. Unfortunately, they haven't even been able to establish communication with the guy, for all their yelling and trying. That he protects Dimitri on occasion seems to be purely by coincidence as he stabs through and flings away some stray runners that make the mistake of getting just a little too close to him.

As long as he doesn't hit Dimitri with that massive lance of his, honestly, Claude couldn't care less. It's exactly because he doesn't have that guarantee that he has to sprint across the sand, sliding underneath the lunges of those massive fangs and taking out even more of the creatures while he runs. It feels like it's the longest sprint he's done in his life, and yet something that's done in the blink of an eye before he's there, right down at Dimitri's side.

Blood splatters across his shoulder, Leonie's arrow taking out a creature that had been going for him, and Claude ignores it. He just focuses on grabbing Dimitri's shoulder, shaking him. "Dimitri -" Wait. Dammit. A single look into Dimitri's one good eye, and he can tell how unfocused it is. How out of it the man is. Him and Leonie are pretty strong on their own, he won't put them down saying anything less, but Dimitri is a pretty big guy, and he's still wearing his full set of armor. That's a lot, and in the face of enemies that might pursue them...?

Wait. These creatures - they're predators. And Marianne, hadn't she said something about predators causing dizziness, and Leonie said they did a sharp burst of pain, all of which could be cured by -

Claude lets go of Dimitri, shoving his hand down into his pack. Some of those plants, yes, they're still there, most of them in jars and such but not all of them. Some simply tied or bundled together, and that's great, that's all he needs. Claude wraps his hands around one stem and pulls sharp, tight. A handful of leaves comes up with it when he pulls his hand from the bag. What's the right amount of these for a fully grown adult man? Claude has no idea.

All he does is shove the entire damn handful into Dimitri's mouth.

Fortunately, while that creature certainly got Dimitri to his knees and unable to stand, his mouth is still able to function just fine. He chews automatically at the presence of something in his mouth that gives way swallows despite how unpleasant it must feel. Some clarity returns to his gaze. Well, that's a good sign, now, isn't it? Claude presses another leaf to Dimitri's mouth. It sticks out a little bit while Dimitri chews on it, until that brilliant blue gaze of his shifts to stare at him. "...Claude?"

It's as though there's nothing else but his voice and the waves.

....Wait.

There actually is nothing else but Dimitri's voice and the sound of the tide, causing Claude to look up. Besides the many little corpses strewn about the beach and along the rocks, there is nothing more of the foes that they were fighting against so stalwartly. It's just them, the knight which is staring out towards the ocean, and footsteps rushing towards him and Dimitri. "Claude!"

Leonie and Marianne's voices are neatly woven together and then, well, there they are! Stumbling to a stop right by him and the two absolute weirdos in armor that they've run into today. Leonie still has her bow ready in her hand, looking around to and fro, just in case. Good. Claude isn't sure if he could wipe his own hands clean enough in time to notch an arrow himself. Marianne, in the meanwhile, just pulls up her skirt a bit so that she can better crouch down besides Dimitri. "It's truly you," she murmurs in pure relief, before her hands reach out. "Hold still - I'm going to do a quick check on you, okay?"

Whatever might have had him run all the way from the Infy Icefields and Sami straight to Iberia of all places, well, it appears to be completely absent from him right now. Unlike some of his prior states where he's been a little difficult to treat, Dimitri doesn't fight Marianne at all. He lets her look into his eyes, check his pulse, all of that.

Dimitri just focuses on Claude. "What... are you all doing here?"

"I'm pretty sure that's a question we're supposed to be asking you," Claude comments wryly. "Dimitri, you're all the way in Iberia. How'd you even get here?"

Well. It's always a good sign when Dimitri just stares through him, clearly in a completely different state that is apparently not the physical present. "Iberia?" he murmurs at last, underneath Marianne's palm upon his forehead. "That's... Oh."

If there's one good sign, it's that Dimitri isn't snarling and trying to shove them away, make a break for it. In some of his worse states, he gets completely antisocial, and it's a problem. Like this, it's a bit easier. Like this, it means that whatever happened, it isn't happening now - whether it was something in Dimitri that got him here or something else entirely.

Reaching over, Claude pats Dimitri's hand. Considering it's covered in black metal, it doesn't really mean much, but, you know. It's the thought that counts. "Let's get you back to town, alright?"

"But, my companion-" And Dimitri finally seems to move of his own accord, with battle over and all of them crowded around him, looking up to the knight that still stands there in the shallows. "Sir, will you and Rocinante manage well in your hunt?"

As with them, there is no proper answer from the knight. Yet still, there is more of an answer than with them, considering the slight way the knight turns his head in what's the closest to acknowledgment that literally a single one of them has got. With that done, he finally starts to stride forward, crashing right back against the waves as though daring them to stop him. The strange aquatic creature that Leonie initially saw him with surges out from the water as well, letting him atop it. Just like that, the pair dive towards open ocean, and then below the waves.

"A fine companion," Dimitri says, a little bit out of it judging by the drifting quality to his voice.

"Okay," Claude responds, reaching over to haul one arm over his shoulder, "we are going to have such a conversation on what's been going on the past month."





"Here, have this!"

"Oh, thank you, Raphael-"

"And you gotta have this!"

"It looks very good, thank-"

"And you've not been eating anything good while out there, I bet, so try this too!"

"Oooookay there, Raph, I think he's got enough on his plate now," Hilda says indulgently, one delicate hand lighting atop the massive brick that is Raphael's wrist. "But I think Lysithea's been looking pretty hungry! You should help her out, too, you know?"

Lysithea looks absolutely betrayed from where she's been standing. Unfortunately, it's too late for her. Raphael whirls on her with a wide cheerful grin that makes it impossible for anyone to refuse him, and that's it. That's it. He's dragging her over to the massive amount of food that he's brought with him, happily pointing out everything by his recommendation. And his recommendation, you see, is everything.

It's fine, it's fine. Lysithea's sacrifice is for the greater good. In this case, the greater good is letting Dimitri get a little bit of breathing room, now that they're all back at the inn, safe and sound. No seaborn or anything of the like. Just a roof over their heads, some fish, and a whole lot of questions.

Funnily enough... Not all of the questions are for Dimitri. Instead, even as he's standing over to the side trying to think of how on earth they're going to handle a whole lot of things here, Lorenz slides up to him. While he was given a little bit of wine from the inn owners a while ago - Raphhael was right in that bringing a lot of food over makes fast friends - it clearly hasn't been touched. "We should leave for Rhodes Island right away," he murmurs to Claude to start off with, brow pinched tight. "If there is such a danger as the Seaborn so close to a populated town like this... We simply aren't prepared for that sort of risk." And then there's the question, because Lorenz is always questioning things, really. Especially now that he's grown in to himself, far away from his father's influence. "And just what on earth were you getting into?"

"You're scolding me like I meant to stumble onto a terrible little scene like this," Claude comments, shrugging while he nibbles on his bread. Made with love, straight from Raphael's heart, and only needing a short time in an oven before it's nice and warm again. "We were just searching for those plants, like Marianne wanted."

Poor, poor Lorenz. He looks as though he's going to get a migraine, with how he pinches the bridge of his nose. "And yet you find the missing Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd - who we did not even truly know was here, countries away from where he was last seen - in almost no time flat."

"To be fair, it's more like he found us."

"Did you even manage to get an answer from him on what exactly he was doing, here in Iberia of all places?"

Honestly, he'd thought about it... But Claude shakes his head, in the end. "We told you about the state he was in, Lorenz. Recently impaired by that neurological effect the Seaborn sometimes come equipped with, and clearly having been surviving in the wild for all these months... I didn't think he'd be in the proper state for any conversation. Besides..." Claude shrugs, with just one shoulder. "We had no idea when the Seaborn would come back. I made the decision for a strategic retreat. Safer that way, wouldn't you agree?"

Lorenz purses his lips, but he doesn't argue. In a situation like this, where the only guard operator is himself, Lorenz knows that they're treading on more a strategic scouting ground than anything. The idea was that maybe they'd find Dimitri only after days of searching.

It's why they both know that there's no going right back to Rhodes Island, because they're meant to meet up with the massive landship only when it's on the way back around this location. Their little vehicle meant to cram all of them inside of it can be pretty speedy when it wants to, but, well, there's no way that it's designed to catch up to Rhodes Island's speed. That's just the fact of the matter.

"Well, since we're here, we can just do some generous Rhodes Island work," Claude continues, rolling his neck from side to side. "I know that it's a little awkward as it is for Rhodes Island to move freely into Iberia, or at least as much as would be for the best of everyone... Even if we do have a literal Saint or two on our side." Which is saying something, considering how religious Iberia is. Well, that's alright. Things in life are rarely so easy. "While we get some answers from Dimitri, we can work on spreading the good will here in town. Maybe it can make it easier for us to visit again sometime."

Especially considering that, depending on Dimitri's answers to everything they're wondering, they may end up visiting again sometime soon.

Claude pats Lorenz's shoulder. "Anyway, you don't have to worry. I've already got some things working out as we speak-" He really doesn't. "And we'll manage well enough, okay? We have some time to waste as it turns out, which means we should probably - if only for our own benefit even if not for all of these innocent townspeople who may not have ANY idea that there's something suspicious lurking beneath the waves around here."

That's a little bit of an exaggeration. With what happened so many years ago with the Profound Silence event, there's no way that the native Iberian isn't paranoid as all hell about every little thing. Even with the benefit of Hilda's presence and the novelty of Lorenz's, well, he'd seen a few suspicious glances sent their way.

Lorenz's hissed out sigh says, even before he lets slip any words, that he knows Claude is right. Claude likes to think he's often right, but it's nice when Lorenz's frustration backs him up on this. "I suppose so. Yet, still, try to see if there is a Messenger Outpost here in Iberia that we can access in some way. If there is a way that we can get in contact with Rhodes Island again to let them know of our progress, that would be for the best. Considering that we just left them less than a day ago, they can't have gone too far..."

Not too far in comparison, really, but - Claude will grant him that. "I'll see what me and Hilda can dig up in town tomorrow," Claude says. "But that can be for tomorrow. For now, just focus on getting a good dinner and some rest, okay?" He snickers. "If we do run into Seaborn anytime soon, I really would like to have a Guard on my side instead of it just me and Leonie scrambling to keep our distance."

While Lorenz huffs a bit, Claude leaves him to his own thoughts. Letting him get all worked up won't help with that sleep Claude advised him on.

Instead, he goes a quick look around the rest of the room. It's more than a little bit cramped, considering that his entire squadron is in here plus Dimitri plus two entire tables full of food that isn't even enough to fit all of what Raphael brought... But in some ways, that at least makes it easier for him to see where everyone is. At least it's obvious to make out where Dimitri sits, having sequestered himself away with his plate on a small bedside table and himself seated on one of the beds. It's not often that he looks awkward in what he wears but, well, anyone would in Raphael's spare clothes.

Raphael, Hilda, and Lysithea are all still together, too, so that's good. For all of Lysithea's grumbling, she seems to be having a good enough time as it is, even with Hilda poking her cheek. Leonie and Ignatz are sitting at the other table, since the one with all the main dishes is kind of packed as it is. All together, they make for a noisy lot; hopefully the inn owners won't mind them too much.

Well, since Dimitri is all on his lonesome, who better to keep him company? Claude snags a plate of pasta that will probably put him into a coma with how much is slathered into the sauce, and plops right down next to Dimitri on the bed.

"Look at all this food," he says, nudging Dimitri in the side so that he'll remember to start eating that nice cheezy bread Raph so thoughtfully gave him. "This is how long we were prepared to stay in Iberia searching for even a trace of you, you know! You should really show some appreciation to us."

Getting him off that beach, away from the ocean, and into a place where he could be essentially hosed down and fed has really done a lot for Dimitri, honestly. It's made his gaze a little clearer, and, even if it's wholly superficial, he seems a bit brighter too. Certainly the way he laughs, quiet and under his breath, is bright as anything. "Ah, and here I thought it had been packed along because Raphael is ravenous, and holds the belief that food is the way people forge connections with one another. I truly am honored, in that case."

Cheeky boy. Claude chuckles along with him, before easing back a bit as he shoves in a forkful of lasagna. Lets himself savor it all before he speaks again. "So, what happened in Sami? Your last report seemed to indicate that things were going pretty well - your earnest demeanor winning over a couple people and all that."

"You overly praise me," Dimitri murmurs, which isn't entirely true, but they can get into Dimitri's psychological state and how his past traumas affect that later. "What I did was half in thanks to Dedue's own connections and efforts."

This is almost certainly true to some extent; Sami is Dedue's own homeland after all. Of course he would know a little bit more about it, and be able to introduce Dimitri to a person who would know a person who could vouch for him. Regardless, Claude knows it's more than that. He knows that Dimitri is too stubborn and sincere to want to skate on by like that.

"Well, how much was you and how much was Dedue is kind of besides the point," Claude says back. "Again, what happened? The icefields and the Iberian coast are months of travel away from each other on even Rhodes Island. Smaller travel could be quicker, sure, but... Listen. Just tell me."

Dimitri's fingers grind slightly against his fork. It's just a simple wooden thing, good enough to scoop up noodles, all that a town like this can manage for now. That's fine. That's all they need for now. "It is not something that I would feel comfortable speaking of, during such a joyous moment," Dimitri says, and Claude can tell what words flow underneath the undercurrent. It is not safe to speak of with so many people here. "But - for what it is worth, I did not intend to end up in Iberia as I did."

"I'd hope not, or Felix might strangle you and not stop this time," Claude says with a snort. "Did you know he actually went to go inspect thigns in Columbia, just for you? I think he's yelling at a Rhines Lab representative."

There's a pause, where Claude can literally see the gears clicking together in Dimitri's head as he recalls every single thing he can about Columbia. "Rhines Lab...? But, why would he go there, when I was working with the Maylander Exploration Society...?"

"Something, something, I think Sylvain redirected him to yell at people for an entirely different cause, honestly." Claude waves his fork through the air dismissively. "That doesn't change the fact that you've got a lot of people fussing over you. The tales I could tell!" He laughs, setting his fork down on his plate. "Still... Then, you stumbled upon something in the icefields?" he says, making sure to keep his voice nice and low.

Dimitri closes his eye, and breathes out slow. "I... did," he admits. "It will have to be something that I keep quiet on, however. I... hope that you understand."

"Well, considering the things we've both been through, it's not like I'll treat this carelessly, you know that." Clearly this isn't a conversation they're going to have tonight - or, rather, while they're still surrounded by all of Claude's squad. It's something that they'll have to save for tomorrow, when they know they can slip away to somewhere with no eavesdroppers. Either way, for now, Claude returns to his lasagna. "Still, why not contact Rhodes Island, or find the nearest Messenger Outpost to let us now that you'd gone adrift?"

A wince crosses Dimitri's face. "You'll think me slightly mad, if I say it."

"Dimitri, I've gone with you into the pharmacy before to help pick up your meds, and once confirmed for you that there really was double of another operator once. I know what the signs are, and I know when to believe you. Don't worry about it."

There's a pause, and then Dimitri nods, unable to refute the logic. After all their time together, Claude is one of the best people who knows how to weather alongside whatever it is that Dimitri goes through. He can't just have someone he loves and not get into every little nook and cranny about what makes them, well, them. Claude supposes he's lucky enough that Dimitri finds relief in it, instead of finding him annoying as hell. It's... been a problem before for him, especially in his homeland. "When I - made my way from Sami to Iberia," Dimitri starts, awkwardly avoiding the subject of how, at least verbally, "I suppose it set off something in me. Sent me into a bit of a state."

"One of your usual states, or something that was inflicted on you?"

"I believe something that is a part of me, rather than any outside force." Dimitri shakes his head. "Of course, I could merely be deluding myself with such a fancy, but - it did not feel any stranger than my prior bouts of mania or delusions. At any rate, I fell into a certain belief. I thought that, as I was here, then it meant that the solution to some of my struggles had to be here as well. I thought there a connection, with the Seaborn's presence."

It's not unusual, sometimes, with Dimitri's mental state leaping to things that might not make sense otherwise... but in this case, honestly, delusional period or not, he might actually have something here, and Claude rubs his chin. "Huh. You know, with this and that, it does make you think on a few things."

Granted, they can't really have a proper conversation on this and that. Dimitri knows that well enough, and he shakes his head. "At any rate, I was in such a state for... Well. I am afraid that I lost track of time, as you know I am prone to do." Just one of those fun little things which comes with mental illness on occasion, as if Dimitri didn't have enough on his plate. "I felt rather in a fugue state, even when I met that knight which you came across during that battle. It was only when you were there, shoving leaves into my mouth, that I felt a moment's clarity."

"I keep telling Medical that they should research what effect my dashing good looks have on the average person, but they've yet to take me up on that offer," Claude sighs dramatically, before he leans against Dimitri's shoulder. "Well, I'm just glad that we were all looking into that plant before we ever met up with you. That probably contributed the most in pulling you back together."

And for a moment, they just... sit there together. Peacefully and contentedly together, as the sound of Claude's squad, his friends, surround them like a comforting blanket. Like this, the battle from before, what it all means - that can be ignored easily enough.

Even though it's normal for operators to not see each other for sometimes months at a time, depending on the length of the job they've been sent on, Claude... thinks he's missed this. That he's been just wanting to sit next to Dimitri for a long time now, even before he went off to Sami and the icefields.

All he wants to do is sit with him.

Well, and eat too, because the lasagna Raphael packed really is delicious, and nothing gets a man starving quite like fighting for his life against deep sea monstrosities. It doesn't take much nudging for Dimitri to start shoveling food down too; he's no doubt had it way worse for way longer. "So," Dimitri starts, inbetween bites, "what do you all plan to do now in Iberia? From what I understand, the Rhodes Island landship shall not return to this stretch of land for pick up until at least a few weeks later, depending on if you were to send a Messenger tonight, and they were of some decent skill."

Everyone sure is fussing a lot about what they're going to do, now. Maybe he really should have left Lorenz and Dimitri in a corner together to talk and worry together. "Well, I imagine we can help a little bit here, check on things for Rhodes Island," Claude says, just like he had to Lorenz. Deja vu or what? "I know that Lumen's been worried that Iberia isn't as up to date on how to deal with oripathy as the rest of the world... which is saying something."

After all, if even a sixth of the world were as up to date on oripathy as Rhodes Island was, or gave as much of a damn to the Infected as Rhodes Island does, well, Claude wouldn't say that Rhodes Island wouldn't exist...

But maybe the world would be a little better at handling the terrible and inevitably fatal sickness which causes magic rocks to grow in and out of the body.

That's apparently a lot to ask for.

"Although that's not all we have to be here for," Claude continues. "After all... Seaborn like that don't normally make their way onto land in such a manner. To help make sure this town is safe, we should probably at least look into why they got so riled up in the first place." He quirks up an eyebrow at Dimitri. "I don't suppose you would know anything about that...?"

"Oh," Dimitri exclaims quietly, as if he remembered he left the stove burning, "that would be because of the cultist lab some miles from here."





So the story that everyone knows (so long as they paid attention in their world history class) is that, once upon a time, Iberia was on its way to be one of the greatest nations in the world, on account of it having beat the problem that is the ocean. It had something called a navy, which just about no other country actually has, on account of, again, the ocean being a very large problem.

And then the Profound Silence occurred.

It'd be great if anyone knew what that was, exactly, but that was around the time that Iberia slammed its borders shut. Now, these days, well... These days, it's been so long ago that Claude wonders if the latest generation of Iberians know just what the Profound Silence was, besides an old legend that sent their country spiraling back into ruin and decay.

But they sure do know about sea monsters, at the very least.

"I still don't entirely understand it," Ignatz says as they prepare to set out the next day. Just for a little bit of recon, of course. Definitely nothing that will get them into a whole heap of trouble like Claude did literally just the other day. "That some people would... want to be creatures like that." Satisfied with his weapon preparation, he shoulders it - a massive crossbow that doesn't seem like it should fit a Lupo Ignatz's size. "Leonie, did you ever have to deal with this kind of thing, back when you still lived in Iberia?"

A low hum rolls out of her as she stretches her arms in front of herself, one and then the other, limber and ready. "Honestly, my town was one of the few that had the fortune to be a little more inland... So it never felt like we really had to deal with it too much. But I did have to go visit some of the other towns, when we did trade with each other and the like."

"So those other towns had problems with this cult?"

"Yeah. I suppose because they were nearer to the sea... And also the Inquisition visited them more. So I suppose they were always thinking something might be up with that place. Or, maybe more..." Leonie frowns, arms swinging back down to her sides. "I suppose maybe it was more that the pressure of the Inquisition - nah, I shouldn't say that sort of thing."

Claude has a feeling that that reason that Leonie shouldn't say that sort of thing doesn't have much to do with truth, but, more the time and place. With a name like that, it's quite the organization to be feared, after all... Even if it is apparently one of the only things keeping this fragile and shattered shell of a country held together. "Well, we can have a fun history lesson on that when we get back to Rhodes Island," he proclaims, looking across his squad. With Dimitri in the mix, it's actually almost balanced! What good fortune. "Then, are we all set and ready?"

So two snipers, a sniper basically pretending to be a vanguard, a different sniper pretending to be a defender, Raphael as a proper defender and some emergency medical supplies on hand, their medic, two guards, and then Lysithea as their caster.

Honestly, Claude thinks he could work with a far worse team, no matter how skilled they all were.

To the people in town such as the innkeeper, Claude had made sure to say that him and his team were just there to look into the local vegetation - him and Leonie even had the plants they'd gathered yesterday to add a little bit of sincerity to their words. All their weapons had been tucked away, nice and discreet. Now, however, as they make their way back to the shores, with the town gone past hills and the like... Everything is out in the open.

They won't let themselves be surprised again, after all.

And with them now knowing exactly what they might run into as they start looking through these thick hills - hills which clearly become cliffsides to the sea in the distance - Leonie's steps are a lot more certain when she forges ahead of them. All decked out in her camouflage gear, she's hard for even his eyes to spot as she weaves through the hills and shrubs. Not too long after, and she's disappeared out of sight completely.

"You're sure the directions you gave her were right?" Hilda asks Dimitri, leaning against her massive shield, its gun fixture slightly limp without an enemy to aim at.

Dimitri doesn't look at her. He merely nods, his gaze fixed straight ahead to where Leonie headed off to. "For all that I spent my time in a daze, I knew my surroundings well," he says. "If I did not, I would never have been able to survive in a land so far away from my own."

"I'm mostly surprised you survived with sand getting into your armor," Hilda quips, and Claude snorts into his hand.

Most of the actual journey itself seems to go well enough. Granted, the journey from yesterday seemed to go well enough, and then they were fighting monsters from the ocean, so, you know. They all keep their wits about them the entire way, following the small signs Leonie leaves for them and listening to her instructions via the comms.

Soon enough... They find exactly what they're looking for. Leonie finds exactly what they're looking for, her voice buzzing in through the static of their earpieces. "Alright... I found it."

It would be that would be the carefully covered hole in the hills that Leonie guides them over to once a preliminary sweep shows that there's nothing with too many tentacles waiting around for them. Claude can see how the townspeople wouldn't have seen it before... at least any of the innocent ones. It's in a place that's just a little too close to the ocean, for starters, and in a place where rocks cluster together at the bottom joint between hills more than grass or shrubs. It's those rocks exactly that were arranged in such a fashion that would make it difficult for someone to spot it... if they weren't looking for it in the first place.

Leonie and Lorenz go in first - her because it's her duty as vanguard, and Lorenz because he's surprisingly flexible in combat for his stiff attitude. Handy with arts and all that as much as his weapon. Better than Claude in this case, considering the potentially claustrophobic situation they may be dealing with.

Still. His fingers only loosen up from his bow when he sees that familiar purple head poke out again, alive and well. "Everything seems to be clear," Lorenz confirms for them. "And... it does seem to be large enough for all of us, and then some."

It's easy enough to see why, when they all step inside carefully, one by one - Hilda taking up the front, Raphael making sure their back is well guarded. Every single one of their steps echoes and bounces off of massive ceilings, stumbles into walls that only seem to spread more and more apart from one another. It's hard to say if it's for better or worse that not a single surface is smooth and modern. No... Everything here is naturally made, carved from salt water and animals and the weather of time. It hasn't been touched up, smoothed out, made easy.

A choice made from a lack - of resources, or time, or anything else - or a choice made on purpose? Claude has a feeling that, if it were the latter, he'd only feel all the more uneasy.

The tunnel goes down a good depth, too - deeper than some houses are tall back in that little village, even their church. That is when they as a group are able to stand side by side, in a massive cavern that is still half natural rock formations. The other half, exactly as Dimitri said, has been filled up with all sorts of strange things - various tables filled with stacks of books that could almost put Claude's room to shame, strange pieces of equipment that he can't make heads or tails of, large machines of all sorts. Claude can recognize one of them, at least. It's a generator, probably the kind that can be filled with any sort of originium and last for ages.

It also doesn't look like it's been touched in ages.

That's true for a lot of things in this little hidden away cave, where Leonie has managed to light a few makeshift torches compromised mostly of dried shrubs and sticks. Even the books look as though they're partially crystalized with salt that's filtered in through the entrance, everything in here left to grow damp and rusted and abandoned. "At least we don't have to worry about it being active, probably," he comments, looking through the books. Maybe they could still be salvaged, but... there's a good chance they couldn't be. You never know, right?

Ignatz has had better luck, apparently, as he carefully opens a chest to inspect various diagrams and papers inside. Lysithea is looking over some of the other machines, frowning the entire while. "Even if it's not being used right by people right now doesn't mean it's actively being used," she says, trying to make sense of a complicated series of glass tubes. Time has seen them fog over, become dirty. It's hard to make out exactly what's in them. Lysithea still tries.

She has a point. While a lot of these machines don't appear to be running, that doesn't mean anything. And... the seaborn have to be drawn here for some reason or another.

They're really going to be here a while to try and figure out what it is that's drawing them.

"Hey, I think there's meat in this glass jar thing," Raphael suddenly says, and they all turn their heads to look over to where he's standing in the absolute thick of everything. Just, a massive Lupo, ears all perked up, standing amidst so much delicate glass. "Meat doesn't normally glow, so -"

Just like that, there's Lysithea and Lorenz, rushing over, already begging Raphael to not move a single massive muscle as they navigate all the way over to him. From where he's been sticking close, lance still at the ready, Dimitri tilts his head a little bit. "This was never particularly an unknown thing to me, yet you truly do have a skilled squad at your disposal, don't you?"

Claude raises a finger. Opens his mouth. Pauses. Cocks his head to the side. "Yes, I absolutely do," he says breezily. "Sunflower, keep an eye on things topside for us, won'tcha?"

As Leonie slips right back into the stairs leading back up to the surface, Claude makes sure to start directing the others as well so that they can make sure that there's room for the fun little thing that Raphael has found. Make sure that it can be placed onto floor that isn't uneven and awkward. He has to say... It's hard to say just what exactly it is that they're all looking at here. Even as he crouches down, just staring past the glass and towards the piece of flesh that lays there, wet, limp, it gives him a headache.

"Do you think it's an experiment that was abandoned?" Lorenz offers, one hand tapping along Claude's shoulder to remind him to not get lost in it. "Depending on how well the seal was placed, I imagine it could last for a great amount of time."

"Wasn't hooked up to nothin'," Raphael informs them, which really is pretty helpful to know. "It was just there - well, you know, in some sort of thing, but, more like a microwave than anything else."

Somewhere on Rhodes Island, there are probably biologists and engineers and such who are just dying at Raphael referring to a piece of complex machinery in strange complex system as a microwave. They might not know why they're dying, but, surely, they can absolutely sense it. Well, that's fine. A little death never hurt anybody. Claude finds it to be a much more evocative and descriptive image than anything else he could be told, and he nods. "Maybe they were trying to do something to it, then... Cause a chemical reaction, who knows."

Or maybe, much like a microwave, they just wanted to heat this sucker up.

Not that there is a literal sucker, here. Instead, it almost looks like... It really is hard to describe. Raphael wasn't wrong, when he said it was like a piece of meat. Yet, to Claude's eyes, it seems different, somehow. Almost as if it's.... becoming dry. Like jerky, or tree bark, except not so jagged and torn.

Claude can't say he's ever seen anything like it before, only that it oozes, somehow, even with nothing physical leaking out of it.

"Did you see this before?" he asks Dimitri, turning to look back up at him. "And that's why you said that the Seaborn were interested in coming ashore near this location?"

But Dimitri is already shaking his head, even before he's really finished his question. "I did not know that such a thing exactly was what lay within here," he says. "Only that I have on occasion come in here to shelter myself from turbulent weather, and saw, in the gloom of this place, that which glowed which ought not to. It did not take long for me to realize that the Seaborn have been drawn to this place, although they do not make constant journeys. Rather, it is only every so often, and in small bursts. No true organization, save for that of a pack of animals which has scented carrion."

"I really love the descriptions you guys from Ursus give," Hilda says. "I'm glad we ate before we left."

Claude is glad too, although it has nothing to do with Dimitri's lovely descriptions. Rather, with this thing right in front of him... It has his stomach churning quietly but insistent.

Judging by the pinch of Ignatz's brow, he's not the only one thinking that. "If this is the particular thing here which is drawing the Seaborn... just leaving it here may still put the town at risk, wouldn't it?" he says, bringing to real life the worry that Claude suspects they've all been chewing over this entire time. "How should we handle this? You already sent the messenger off this morning, Claude... Do you think that Leonie could catch up with them if we sent her off in our vehicle?"

It really is a thought, honestly. Maybe, if they really hurried and bolted back towards town right now, they could make it. That would leave them without their sole vanguard, and the person who really knows Iberia, but, well. This is clearly too important a matter to just leave abandoned like this. Plus, if they send Leonie with it, then he could at least rest assured that it would be in dependable hands.

A problem, however, is that they really don't know what they're messing with here. The thing seems to lure Seaborn to it just by virtue of existing here in this little lab. What if moving it stirs up something they don't mean to? What if it sends something after Leonie?

Hell, what if it gets them so aggravated that they end up taking it out on the town when they don't find anything but a faint scent that leads right over there?

He's about to suggest them being a little more cautious, doing a little more research before they mess with anything too much more, when static suddenly crackles there in his ear. "Mamba, we've got incoming."

Of course they've got incoming. Things can never be easy when he's trying to make a decision, can they? Claude presses a finger to the device at his ear. "Reading you, Sunflower. Hostiles?"

"Not our friends from yesterday," she replies back, which isn't exactly the same, and they both know it. "Can't make out their faces exactly. Covered - robes. Using a caravan to get in our direction, but it is straight in our direction."

Cool cool cool. If that isn't a little bit suspicious, he doesn't know what is. He and Dimitri share a glance together, as people used to being squad leaders. It would be the world's grandest coincidence for some random little wagon to be heading right in their direction, especially considering that there's nothing but hills and rocks around these parts. Must be a nightmare for their poor burdenbeast doing all the pulling. So either they've managed to get some reinforcements sent their way by complete accident who are opting to be just a little more suspiciously dressed than even the average Rhodes Island weirdo would be...

Or their new company knew about this location ahead of time, and there's going to be some problems very soon.

"So, how do you feel about a pincer formation?" he asks Dimitri casually, and earns a grin that shows just a little more teeth than some would be comfortable with, those pretty golden head wings of his shifting with clear interest.





"Hello!" Ignatz calls up from their little position in the rocks, the most unassuming a person can possibly be. While he's taller than a good couple of people in Claude's squad, well, something about that sweet demeanor of his just doesn't make it seem as such. This is especially true when he stands next to his beloved friend Raphael, who can make anyone look short.

Definitely not the kind of person who can heft up a crossbow as big as Lysithea and nail a bug to a tree from multiple city blocks away.

But that crossbow isn't visible right now, just like Raphael's shield isn't. Those would be tucked away juuuuuust out of sight behind some of the massive boulders which make up that little valley. Within each grabbing reach, to be sure. You know. For when things inevitably go south.

That's fine. The rest of the squad is down there just waiting for it all to happen. And Claude gets a wonderful listen to all of it as he and Dimitri slip along through all the hills, making sure to creep right up on their new friends.

You'd think a guy with so much armor on his person would make a lot more noise, but, hey, that's modern genius for you. Thanks to what he's got modified from the Engineering Department, Dimitri is as quiet as a squeaker even as his lance is lethal as any sort of tuskbeast.

"Hello," comes a voice that's slightly more distant over the radio, and yet that distance doesn't quite cover up the strange quality to it. Like there's something strangled there in the back of their throat, just waiting to bubble up and spill over their lips. Kind of creepy, if he's honest, in a way that sets off a part of his back brain into survival mode. "You're not from Lorca, are you? We haven't seen you before around these parts."

Technically, it's not a lie when Ignatz replies with, "Oh, no, we were just staying in the town for a little bit, and were looking into the local plantlife!" The absolute lie is when what follows is, "My friend and myself decided to see what plants were a little more inland, but we ended up here, and it's proving a little tricky to get out. Oh - I'm sorry, we didn't introduce ourselves. I don't remember seeing you back in Lorca. I'm Operator Palette, and this is Trowel."

There - Claude can see just a bit of the caravan from the back now, situated there on a piece of hill which juts out just enough to be a little more flat and even. Most of the passengers appear to be out of it now, some of them hunched over. He can even hear a little bit of the conversation being said.

"I see, then I hope you've had a good stay in Lorca. Then, what did you see, down in that tunnel?"

Just a little bit of a whisper through the comms, probably Ignatz shaking his head. "I'm not wholly sure," which is true. None of them have a single idea just what on earth is down in those tunnels or what they should do with it. Technical truths are the best kind of truths. "Although, ma'm, can I ask how you knew it was an entire tunnel?"

There is only the most brief of pauses and, besides him, Dimitri grips his lance all the tighter. Even with his body hidden under clothes and then armor, it's clear to read how every little bit of him tenses in preparation for a lunge, for an attack. "Well, I am somehow familiar with this place, as it turns out, and was coming to check on a few things," the stranger says. "That's why I know that you have made a grave mistake in coming to investigate this little place far away from all your companions, Palette."

Dimitri jerks forward, prepared to hurl himself past and over hills, lance at the ready -

And then, over static, over the comms, over the actual air, there's the sound of heavy metal moving, clanking against the ground, and, oh, he would recognize Hilda's heavy artillery smacking into place from a million miles away. "Well, if you asked for it!" she says, and fires the first volley.

That poor hill.

It really never stood a chance.

However, it looks like their new friends are a little more tough than a hill, scattering and fully prepared with the way that they stretch out past the confines of their robes and cloaks. All sickly looking skin, and shimmering scales, and long winding tentacles that threaten to shoot out towards his team even amidst artillery fire from Hilda's shield. That's fine. Even as one of them raises up their tentacles to slam a boulder right back, Claude's arrow is already flying true and straight to pierce straight through.

What a noise that's made, when it pierces through, sends blood scattering that seems too pale and strange. A voice that's too high and keening, nothing like a human's.

Worse is made when Dimitri finishes his charge, and a single massive sweep of his lance sends four of their opponents flying all at once.

Centurion. The word echoes a little bit in Claude's head even as he sends more arrows off towards their enemies, picking off anyone who tries to approach Dimitri. On his own, the Griffin can readily handle even four people with seemingly little effort. It's what he excels best at, honestly, in a way that Claude's always admired. But anymore than just those four will surely overwhelm him.

Of course, that's why he's here, isn't it? Every arrow of his never fails to miss his mark; these guys trying to grow bigger in an attempt to win quicker has only made them pretty fine targets. So many excellent places for his arrows to sink into, it's almost hard to choose!

Almost.

That's not enough to keep his opponents from falling, even as someone of them start releasing other things from beneath their robes - creatures not too unlike those they all fought at the beach, swarming out like parasites. Rather than going for Dimitri, however, or even Claude, the two of them watching each other's backs like they could be one, they start to surge over the hill, back towards the cave, away from the latest explosion and debris.

And maybe that would have worked, if it were only Hilda. Maybe that would have been enough to take hostages, or kill them, or whatever else it is that these people had planned.

Ignatz's crossbow bolt takes out at least three creatures in just one shot, sending them flying up into the air and onto another hill entirely.

Claude can't help it; he chuckles a little bit even as he takes out yet another cultist trying to sneak up on Dimitri. Really, his team never fails to make him proud, and moments like this where Leonie takes out whatever Ignatz can't? They really showcase his reasons for it all.

The little leader of this entire group seems to realize the reason for such pride as well. He can see them, pulling away from where Dimitri is going hogwild. If he had a little more breathing room, honestly, Claude would take a shot over at them just to prove a point, yet he can't leave Dimitri alone like this. Not when Dimitri is relying on him to give him breathing room.

Clearly, that fact is known. It's exactly why their new good friend over there surges over the hill, past the artillery fire that Hilda is setting forth, inbetween the volley shots of Ignatz and Leonie -

There's an explosion of arts, the screaming of the lost and damned, and then the world is just a little bit brighter again.

Dimitri beats down on something that has clearly lost all internal structure, smearing it across the miserable plains of Iberia, and hits him up on the comms. "What - was that!?"

Oh right, Dimitri has never been on an operation with Lysithea before. "Just a little bit of arts, don't worry about it," Claude says glibly right back, hoping his breathlessness isn't noticeable. It's not that he's tired but, well, that's just how it is with firing off arrow after arrow. "Listen, I'm going to clear things up on your left side, get ready to pierce through-"

Or, you know, a long harpoon can pierce straight through many of their enemies instead.

That's apparently an option too.





A battlefield has never looked so clean, Claude suspects, but then not a lot of battlefields have a whirlpool just setting off in the middle of them, dragging every unwilling seaborn straight to the middle, where the gore can be handily set in a nice pile.

"And here I'd been told that we didn't have anyone familiar with Iberia in the area!" he says cheerily, as Marianne double checks everyone to make sure that no one got injured during that fun and unexpected little scuffle. "I suppose I should be glad that whatever it is you were all doing, it lead your squad in this direction, Gladiia."

Well. Can you really call a group of three people a squadron? One really does have to wonder, for most normal people. And yet nothing about the Abyssal Hunters is at all normal, from their skill in combat that absolutely decimated the battlefield to even their appearances. Claude knows that his group and Dimitri all stand out a lot in Iberia, sure, that can't be helped. Most of the population in Iberia are Aegir and Liberi after all. Their group is just full of people who stand out a lot by that metric, save for Leonie and, as long as you don't catch a glimpse of his Aslan-like tail, Dimitri.

In contrast, while the woman in front of him may be Aegir, given away from her lack of feathers or fur or tail.... She is nothing like Leonie.

Claude has to wonder a bit if she's like anyone else in the entire known world, with that dark outfit she wears that clashes so starkly with her pale skin, that pale hair pulled into a long thin ponytail that seems to nearly float behind her. Her height, taller than even that of Dimitri, only makes her differences all the more apparent. In her dark clothing, pale skin and pale hair, eyes so vivid a red that they could be made of blood, she matches her other two companions who mingle in with his own squad.

He'd like it if they could at least be on pretty friendly terms with each other, but, considering the stoic expression across Gladiia's face as she surveys everything, he may have to settle on just polite for right now. "We were simply following the blood of our prey, so recently slaughtered in the waters near," she finally says, her eyes finally landing neatly on him. "Although now we can see what had some of them in so a frenzy. It appears that you have managed to stumble onto quite a little prize in the midst of your own simple little goals."

"Well, even simple things can be pretty important," Claude says cheerfully, ignoring the faint hint of patronizing nonsense he can pick up. Really, he's used to that kind of thing being dime a dozen, often no matter where he's gone or what he's been doing. One of those beautiful things that seems to be a constant regardless of species. "Anyway, so I'm going to take it that you are a little more familiar with what that thing is down in the lab?"

"Oh, nothing that pretty little snakes should fuss over," hums an airy voice, coming ever closer. "You've found your little lost knight on your own, so you should be content with that victory alone."

While different in the tall and imposing way of Gladiia, her companion Specter is strange in an entirely different manner. With that pleased and content smile of hers as though she's really figured out the answer to life, and long wavy pale hair, she almost seems as though she may, at any second now, truly live up to her codename, and -

...Kidnap one of his squadmates?

Because that sure is Ignatz tucked underneath one of her arms, where she carts him about as easily as a bag of groceries. Poor guy has such a befuddled look on his face, pale green ears held flat along his skull and tail drooping, Claude almost feels bad for wanting to laugh a little. He holds himself back, like a good friend, even as Gladiia raises a brow. "Laurentia... Just what little pet have you picked up now?" It's not missing Claude that, when speaking to her teammate, Gladiia actually smiles a bit.

Laurentia-slash-Specter just smiles, pleased as punch. "Why, I heard he was an artist, and so, as one artist to another, I simply had to see his works. They were such lovingly sketched out things, I thought I would take him with me for a commission."

"Aw, look at you, getting side work even when we're off on a search and rescue," Claude says fondly. "Well, as much as I'm sure he's honored by the attention, Miss Specter, I'm afraid we need him for a little while longer. We might have found our lost knight and all that-" He smacks his hand on Dimitri's body armor, ignoring the faint murmur that he wasn't lost exactly. He was lost as far as the rest of them were concerned. "-but we have some other plans for good ol' Iberia here, and those would be helped a lot if we had ol' Palette with us."

A part of him had been sort of wondering if he was being fucked with, just a little bit, and that part only feels validation when Specter settles Ignatz down with a smile. "Well, who am I to rob a squad of its own?" she says, and there's some sort of look that's exchanged between her and Gladiia. "Then, I bestow upon you your fine artist once again." And that's Ignatz, plopped right down. "I shall look forward to our meeting upon fair Rhodes Island."

That much, at least, he's more willing to believe. If there's anything else he's heard about the Abyssal Hunters, besides the fact that they're terrifying forces of nature that can carve through any challenge like it's nothing, it's that there's no shortage of a love of art.

Possibly why Hilda has been making eyes at him from across the rubble of what were once hills, trying to hook him up with Gladiia - allegedly one of the best dancers on the entire Rhodes Island landship.

That can come later. For now, Claude has more important matters to consider. "Well, with that all settled.... What do you guys plan on doing with that thing in the lab? Take it back to Rhodes Island?" That would make sense for any other squad, honestly; it's what they were all considering before they got oh so rudely interrupted. But sometimes, working for Rhodes Island means knowing that a few people are just a little bit over your head in what they can do or who they have to report to, so to speak...

Thus it's not that surprising when Gladiia's expression once again goes cool and collected when she looks to him, nor is it surprising when her answer is much the same as Specter's. "We will deal with such a miserable thing as we see fit. For now, you said you had business to take care of back in that town."

Like talking to a brick wall. Although that's doing Dedue a disservice. But it's fine; Claude merely shrugs so that they don't waste more time arguing over it all. "I guess that's a fair point. This is your area of expertise, so I suppose we'll defer to you in how to handle that particular science experiment. At any rate, do you want to head back to town along with us? We've got the whole inn rented out - three more people won't make too much of a difference." He looks back to the rest of his squad. "And anyway, I think Raphael is making friends with Skadi over there."

Sure enough, she's just been wrapped up in apparently some really indepth conversation between Leonie and Raphael. Conversation that apparently have given her an armful of jerky that she's just holding with absolutely no idea what to do with it. When he realizes that they're all looking his way, Raphael looks back and gives a nice big thumbs up with a smile that replaces Iberia's sun.

After a second, Skadi follows his gaze, and gives a thumbs up with an absolutely flat expression.

It's all just, truly incredible.

Maybe seeing Skadi having some sort of good time - Claude is pretty sure that's what's happening? - sends a message to the other two. If nothing else, Specter seems quite content with the idea, looping her arm through Gladiia's like it's nothing. "Well, even if it is in such a rundown place, I suppose that interesting company and fine art can make up for it, can't it, Gladiia? Let's sup with them, and we can discuss things quite at ease there."

There's still things that the Hunters apparently have to do, of course, and that's actually true for the rest of them as well - it wouldn't do if they returned to the village empty handed of any plants or even something they can hunt. So their two groups go on their separate ways, with Claude folding his hands along the back of his head casually. He can work with this just fine, honestly.

"What are you planning?" Dimitri asks him, once they're sufficient distance away from the rest of Claude's squad, and more than a sufficient distance from where they left the Abyssal Hunters behind. "You're not the type to be satisfied by that sort of thing."

Once upon a time, Claude used to think that he didn't like the idea of someone knowing him so well. It was better to let people believe in the idea of a mask, and he juggled quite a few of them depending on the situation.

Back in Sargon, he wore the mask of a flatterer - someone who could make people think less of him, people who liked hearing what he had to say, people who figured that even if he couldn't be the master warrior like his brothers or wasn't as strong as his parents, he could still at least be around as nothing more than eye candy.

When he went to spend some of his school over in Victoria, they loved the mask of the charming foreigner, the person who had traveled all over. Those nobles back there, amidst all their petty interpersonal wars and greed for power, for riches, they needed some entertainment, and his tales sated that hunger at least a little bit. It's kind of funny, in hindsight; he'd felt more in control in his mother's country than where he'd grown up in his father's.

Yet it is the mask he wears at Rhodes Island that sometimes has felt the most complicated to don. The one of the operator Mamba, the relaxed and cheerful sniper who made sure to always bring his team back. Complicated because he suspects some of the therapists on board don't exactly believe someone can be that all the time. Complicated because he's pretty sure that people like Doctor Byleth and others have seen through it completely. Complicated because he still has so much of himself that he tries to keep hidden under wraps.

And what if he's made up of so many masks, that there's no longer a face underneath any of them - only the gaping hole of a person?

With Dimitri, he'd worn one mask, and then transitioned to another, all while in his presence... but he isn't sure if Dimitri ever even noticed. Or, rather, that's not right.

Dimitri had never seen straight through him like all the others had. And yet, in some ways, he'd never quite fallen for the masks that Claude had put up, either. Instead, sometimes Claude... thinks he might have always have seen something more than what the masks really were. Were more than what he sometimes felt he really was at times, with how it seems as though, no matter where he's gone, he's been looked down on.

He looked straight at Claude, and said with nothing less than pure admiration, "How hardworking and clever you are, to do so much so quickly."

And he'd meant it.

Not like those of his siblings or so many complete strangers in Sargon who had figured he was good for his pretty mouth and nothing else. Not like those in Victoria, who'd say similar but only as lip service.

Dimitri, some five years ago, had looked at him, praised all the parts of him that Claude would thought never get recognition past all his pretty words, and then promptly decided that he would make only the finest of friendly rivals. Just boys being boys.

Five years now, Claude goes to take Dimitri by the hand so that he can tug him down for a kiss.

"Well, that goes without saying," he murmurs against Dimitri's lips, and smiles perhaps just a little cheekily. This is the sort of thing that might get them in trouble in the future - the near future, depending on if they can slip around the Abyssal Hunters or not, and the far future depending on whenever Doctor Byleth does. "But for all that you said you were half mad when you thought this might help you with our own border problems, I think you still may have been onto something there. If nothing else, it's certainly worth checking out."

Dimitri's brow furrows; this isn't a surprise. More and quicker than anyone else, Dimitri doubts himself most of all. "Are you certain?" he murmurs back, their voices barely audible whispers they exchange between one another. "With those border problems of ours... Could they truly be solved by something like this? What ideas could we get?"

"We won't know until we do a little bit of poking," Claude points out. "But you know as well as I do that we can't afford to stay stagnant for too long with the methods that we've been using thus far. All it would take is one person on either end of the continent to go nosing around-"

"Like you did?"

Claude ignores that statement, even if it may be very much true and exactly how he found out about the secret at Sargon's far south borders. "All it would take is one person on either end to go nosing around," he says, finishing his sentence properly. "Then things will spiral out of everyone's control. I'll agree that the Seaborn that Iberia has to deal with aren't anything like our particular problems... I imagine some might even go on to say that the Seaborn are a downright trivial matter compared to the north and south borders."

Foolish words, really. It's why Dimitri's gaze drifts back out towards the dark ocean which they travel alongside. "People who can say such things have often never had to deal with such trivial matters," he comments.

"Well, that's a given," Claude agrees idly. People always seem to think the struggles of other people are somehow less. "But that's besides the point. What I'm saying is... Maybe we can still find something here that will be of help. Our little border problems might operate outside of sense, but, in a lot of ways, so too don't the seaborn? Don't they also have a way of perception that is completely different from ours, an existence that apparently humans have been failing to understand for decades? Probably, if we let it go unchecked, that lack of understanding could go on for even longer."

"If they gave us that much time."

Hmmm. Claude nods. "If they gave us that much time indeed," he murmurs, and shifts his lead so that they had a little further inland. Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't be tempting fate so soon. Not with that eerily colored blood staining the soil and rocks that are but a few minutes run back. "But... Do you see where I'm coming from?"

A weary sigh slips out of Dimitri, before he perks up at the sight of a lot more plants scattered there on the horizon. Nothing that would have the locals look twice, probably, but very good for their own purposes. "I think we've found what we're looking for!" he calls back to the rest of Claude's squad. Probably he should be more offended on Dimitri acting on his squad like that, but he really isn't. For starters, he's not the kind of fussy squad leader that gets territorial or anything. Secondly, Dimitri isn't even giving an order. He's just making an announcement.

He's also, very handily, ensuring that they'll continue to get a little more private time together for this delicate conversation.

"Let's at least try to pretend like we're here do a nice day's work!" Claude adds in a jaunty little call, grinning wide. Once they collect all the plants and samples they need to here, well, that will hopefully mean that will clear their schedule up for a while so that they can focus on more important things. Some of those things might even be beneficial to Rhodes Island work as a pharmaceutical company and general charity. And the other things?

Well, no one else needs to worry about what he and Dimitri get up to.

Everyone scatters off to do their own things, keep watch on the various directions - especially towards the ocean - and have conversations of their own. Him and Dimitri go off to collect plant samples as well, because why wouldn't they? They're not the kind of squad leaders who will just let the squad do all of the work.

Ensures it's only them, too, when Dimitri starts talking to him again. "I can't deny that you may have a point," he murmurs. "In some ways, the ocean itself seems as though it may not be of this reality, with all that goes on within it. What does life look like beneath the waves? The Aegir seem to have made cities down there, and yet I cannot imagine it at all... nor what conditions could lead to those Seaborn which lurk within, adapting so swiftly to our own land."

It's a question that Claude has wondered more than once, too. Aegir is a little known city to most of the current generation, and even those of old likely knew little about it - Iberia seemed to take most of the credit for its Golden Age after all. And yet, sure enough, it exists. Those such as the Abyssal Hunters are proof of that, and how they can dive into water without need for air.

It's just... difficult for him to imagine, what kind of technology might allow that. "I've asked Leonie about it, once, but her parents were immigrants," he tells Dimitri, shrugging with one shoulder while his free hand plucks a flower from its root. They should be fine if they dry the flower for storage; he has no doubt one of the others will get a better sample with roots in it. "So I have as little an idea as you do."

Dimitri shakes his head. "It is besides the point."

"You're right. The point is that I have a point, isn't it?"

Truly, there is a fantastic smoothness to the way Dimitri rolls his one good eye. Or maybe because there's only one, it's all the easier to notice when he does it, assuming you're on his good side. "Yes, my most beloved," Dimitri says patiently. "You do have a point." He reaches over to tap Claude straight in the middle of his forehead - which Claude is pretty sure he's picked up from Dedue, honestly, although few rarely get to see it. "But we are going to have to do some work to make sure that we do not run into the Hunters for all of this. I doubt they would appreciate our nosing about."

"I mean, that's why I invited them to come with us to town," Claude points out, smiling. "It'll be easier for me to work around them if I know where they are prior to us running off."

"...Claude, with the way you are speaking, it suggests that you want us to run off tonight to go investigate that lab."

Claude winks, and taps one finger to his lips. "Well, the early bird gets the worm and all that, you know. Besides... I don't have a doubt that the Hunters will get rid of everything as soon as they possibly can - probably they're already in the process of doing it. With that under consideration, we'll want to move really fast. Exposed to ocean air, treated so roughly... We'll be lucky if we manage to get even a little bit of the research in that place out in just one piece."

For some mysterious reason, Dimitri just raises an eyebrow at him. Claude meets the blank stare right back, not one to let his poker face fall apart. That means it's Dimitri who has to shake his head, and say what is on his mind. "And here I had thought you to already slip some of those papers into your pockets before we were so rudely interrupted."

Oh, how far they've come. Once upon a time, Dimitri wouldn't have thought to keep an eye on him like that. "Listen," he says, raising a finger. "It was just one tiny notebook. Do you know the sorts of things that are in little notebooks? It can barely contain a whole research paper, really."

"And here I thought the old saying was quality, not quantity."

"Who let you be so sassy?" Claude demands playfully, and feel something of a quiet delight at Dimitri's smile. "Have you been hanging around Felix again? That man is a bad influence on you, I swear."

Another forehead tap. "I really cannot let you go off on this venture alone. Who know what sort of trouble you will get into without me?" Dimitri shakes his head. "Then - I will be your lance, tonight, when we set off."

It's funny. When he was little, still just a child in the grand scheme of things, he learned to mistrust the people who told him those sorts of things. He'd realized it quick, you see - that humans could be bought off and often for a cheaper price than you'd ever imagined. There was nothing stopping them from taking a more immediate payment than having to deal with babysitting a kid for who knows how long. In fact, some would say that is the far more preferable choice. Children are so annoying, after all, and so many wanted him dead to begin with... Wasn't it better that way?

And he won't pretend Dimitri hasn't raised his lance at him, on occasion. For a couple different reasons. Maybe that alone should keep him on his toes, put him back into that wary state of mind where, like with so many others, Claude always keeps an eye on him no matter the smile on his lips.

But he doesn't.

Instead, when the two of them slip out of the inn at the dead of night, dressed as best as they possibly can be, weapons together... Dimitri briefly, but steadily, presses his hand along Claude's back, and something settles there deep into his chest.

I will be your lance. The words echo there, from the placement of his fingers at Claude's spine, and they ring true. They practically sing it, a truth of the world as much as the ground beneath their feet and the weight that rests on their shoulders. Claude lets that steer him bright and true all along the coast, back to that cave.

Before them both lays a vast ocean with depths they cannot imagine, filled with creatures that are forever evolving against the methods of land.

Behind them, in their respective homelands, lay creatures which cannot be given name or mention lest they grow stronger, which prowl the dunes of Sargon or lurk in the blizzard-born fog of the icefields past Ursus.

But, next to him, there is Dimitri. There is Dimitri, who he will never let slip out of his sight like he had again.

Dimitri, who raises his lance and bats aside all the foes who would hold them back as they venture into the night and towards a brief flicker of hope.

Claude notches his bow, and returns the favor.