Omake 478 words
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The garden of the academy were almost empty at this hour, most of the students staying indoors, either already asleep or still discussing the event of the days. It was precisely this topic that marred of a frown the usually smooth face of Mari Aust. Slumped against a wall of her dormitory, she vaguely heard the snores of Jael coming from the window above, but even the horrific results of her brother drunken revelry couldn't wrench her from her thoughts.
Mari Aust loved cards games , playing them had always been a fancy of hers and with time this peculiarity had acquired a new, more practical, dimension. The same way her brother's interest in all martial pursuits and weapons served their ambition, her proclivity was a supplementary stone put to the edifice they sought to build. In fact, they complimented each other, as siblings such as them were wont to.
Weapons, as all instruments, were built with intent, to serves a purpose, a mean to an end. Thus her brother often knew the answers to the hows involved in their line of work.
Her games taught others lessons, most had rules more or less ironclad, they delimited the space in which players could act, and knowing them was important, but more important than that were the players themselves. Their habits, their tells, the way they bluffed, sweated under pressure of became impassible when luck turned in their favor. How they reacted to loss or success, what the anticipation of either produced in them, what enticed them to play in the first place.
Being able to predict the thinking of their future adversaries, but more than that, divine the desires and expectations of potential patrons ? That would be the backbone of their future operations. If a mercenary company needed strength of arms to thrive and the best equipment it could afford, information and a mind to interpret and understand them what the ultimate condition of success.
Which brought her back to her present thoughts. She didn't anticipate Sesus Ullysian.
The mortal had not surprised her : the heights he could reach were unexpected as his showing against her brother indicated, but the character motivating his actions, the duel proposal among them, that was something she had little difficulty to theorize. Constructing a model of the likely causes of his almost suicidal determination was far from difficult considering his social position and his mortality, and so she didn't dwelt on it.
A mistake on her part.
One she intended to rectify now, at least in the small measures Zao and Ivory would afford her. Certainly she wouldn't be free to discover the intricacies of the plan behind this whole situation but the mind that could give birth to such a performance ? Bear the strain of such role and play it so masterfully ? That she would not be denied.
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awesome swords are awesome...not sure what to choose yet. It seem that Ambition would be more appropriate if our blade was in the care of Ivory/Pearl.
