This choice: Lysithea's sword training with Catherine • Go Back...Chapter #9Annette, You're Not You When You're Hungry by: Silverhammer   (Spoilers for Catherine's supports with Lysithea. One of the choices also spoils Cyril's supports with Lysithea.)
Recovering from her accidental run-in with Caspar, Lysithea went about her busy day. After quickly stopping by Hilda's room to apologize for blowing off the makeover session and send her Marianne's way (giving the pinkette a better outlet for her creative energies and the bluette some much needed social interaction), Lysithea made her way to the training yard, where a grinning Catherine was waiting for her.
"Hey, little sis!" the knight greeted cheerfully. Lysithea smiled and blushed. When she and Catherine discovered how much they had in common- having both the same crest and secret pasts neither liked to talk about- Catherine joked that they were like sisters, and Lysithea admitted that she rather liked the idea. Catherine apparently decided to run with it, to the little mage's delight and occasional embarrassment.
"Good afternoon, Catherine," Lysithea nodded. "Thank you for taking the time to train with me today."
"Sure thing," Catherine shrugged, handing Lysithea one of the practice swords that she was carrying. "We knights are always willing to help students when we have time. Fair warning, though, we might need to cut things short if Lady Rhea summons me."
"That's fine," Lysithea agreed. "So where do we start?"
---
"WHO STOLE OUR COOKIES?!" Annette demanded. "I'll KILL them!"
The girls of Blue Lion House had just returned to their common room after being told by a confused Professor Byleth that no, they hadn't been called for a meeting, only to discover that the cookies Mercedes had baked were now gone.
"Whoa, Annette, calm down," Ingrid held her hands out to try and calm the short, temperamental redhead. "They're just cookies."
"No..." Annette corrected with a growl. "They were MERCIE'S cookies. Which makes them the best cookies in the world! This was going to be the highlight of my day!"
"I can always make more, Ann," Mercedes reminded her friend.
"Yes!" Flayn agreed. "And the next batch of cookies can have fish in them as well! That will make them extra delicious!"
"Flayn, we've been over this," Mercedes sighed tiredly. "Fish and chocolate don't go well together."
"Not with that attitude," Flayn countered. Mercedes remained silent, refusing to get drawn into the Fish Cookie argument again.
"I bet it was the boys," Annette concluded. "None of us have seen them all day. They probably stole the cookies, and are hiding somewhere in shame!"
"That seems out of character for them," Ingrid noted. "Felix doesn't even like sweets. And Dimitri, Dedue, and Ashe wouldn't eat someone else's food without permission. Or if they did, they'd at least stick around and apologize for it."
"What about Sylvain?" Annette countered.
"He'd have stayed to hit on us when we came back," Ingrid replied. None of the other girls could fault her logic.
"Then who stole the cookies?!" Annette demanded.
"One of the knights gave us that message that Professor Byleth was looking for us, correct?" Flayn asked Mercedes.
"Jon, yes," Mercedes nodded as she remembered the knight. "Oh! If that message wasn't from the Professor, then whoever told Jon to deliver it must have done so to trick us into leaving the room."
"So they could steal the cookies!" Annette caught up to her friend's line of thought. "Come on, girls! Let's track down that knight!"
"Shouldn't we be worried about the boys?" Ingrid pointed out. "If they aren't gone because of the cookie thing, where are they?"
"Oh, wherever they are I'm sure they're fine," Annette dismissed.
---
Lysithea frowned as her stomach gurgled. Maybe eating a plate full of cookies just before training was a mistake.
"Everything okay, Lysithea?" Catherine asked, noticing that her trainee had stopped her exercises.
"It's fine," Lysithea assured her. "My stomach's just acting strangely."
Catherine frowned. "I know you're a fan of sweets, Lysithea, but if you're going to be doing more physical activity like sword training, you need to have a more balanced diet."
"I-I know," Lysithea stammered, blushing as she avoided eye contact with the knight. "I'm not a child."
"Good!" Catherine grinned brightly. "Then I expect to see you with a great big plate of veggies at dinner tonight."
Lysithea huffed and resumed practicing her sword strikes.
"Your form's still a little off," Catherine said as she approached her. "Here, let me help."
Catherine walked up behind Lysithea, holding the smaller girl close as she corrected her arm placement and posture. Lysithea blushed, embarrassed by the somewhat intimate contact.
"H-how important is form, anyway?" Lysithea asked. "If I'm using a Levin sword, won't I be keeping my enemies at a distance?"
"Well, that's the plan," Catherine admitted. "But anything can happen in battle. If an opponent manages to get close to you, you need to be able to dodge or block their strikes. A proper stance helps with that."
Satisfied with Lysithea's form, Catherine readied her own practice sword. "Now, I'm going to come at you. Focus on evasion and don't worry about counterattacking just yet. We'll get there soon enough."
---
Meanwhile, the Blue Lion girls hadn't had any luck finding Jon the knight. They did, however, find a pile of armor on the floor.
"What's all this armor doing here?" Ingrid wondered, hands on her hips as she frowned disapprovingly at the disorganized mess on the floor.
"It's not Jon's, is it?" Annette asked. "Did our cookie thief get rid of him to tie up loose ends?!"
"Ann, perhaps we should stop at the dining hall and get you a snack," Mercedes offered. "You get loopy when your blood sugar is low."
"It is strange for this armor to be on the floor," Flayn noted. "Was someone supposed to be moving it?"
Meanwhile, unnoticed by the girls, Caspar was frantically waving for their attention from the floor.
"I'll take care of this," Ingrid decided, kneeling down to pick up the armor. "The rest of you get Annette some food and find that knight."
"Ingrid, wait! I'm down here! Oh, SHI-!"
Caspar's profanity was cut short as Ingrid's knee came down on him, crushing him against the stone floor and obliterating him instantly. Unaware of the red stain on her black tights, Ingrid carried the armor off to the knights' quarters while her housemates went off in search of their quarry.
---
Lysithea breathed heavily. As much as Catherine was clearly holding back, the knight still hit hard and fast, and Lysithea had a few bruises to remember her first training session by.
"Here," Catherine said with a smile as she helped the young mage to her feet. "Now that you've survived your first real training session, I've got a surprise for you."
Opening her satchel, she pulled out a sword shaped like a lightning bolt that crackled with electric energy.
"You brought a real Levin sword?!" Lysithea's eyes widened as she grinned excitedly.
"We have to be careful with it," Catherine warned her. "The church doesn't have many of these lying around and they're a pain to repair. But you might as well see it in action to give you something to work towards. Here, watch me."
Focusing, Catherine swiped with the sword. A tiny bolt of lightning zapped a training dummy in the distance.
"It's usually more impressive than that, but my magic's not exactly anything to write home about," Catherine explained. "Yours, on the other hand, might work wonders." She handed the sword to a reverent Lysithea. "Go ahead. Swipe the sword towards the dummy just like I showed you, while channeling your magic through the sword."
Concentrating, Lysithea did as she was told, letting the sword serve as a conduit for her crest-augmented magic as she swung it in the direction of the dummy. To her surprise and delight, a huge lightning bolt obliterated the dummy on the spot.
"I did it! Did you see, Catherine, I..." Lysithea trailed off as she realized her mentor was nowhere to be found. "Catherine? Where'd you go?"
Meanwhile on the ground, Catherine was busy getting her bearings as the world around her suddenly became much bigger. "Lysithea!" She called up to the mage that now towered over her. "Down here!"
"Did Rhea summon her?" Lysithea wondered, not hearing the tiny Catherine's cries for help as she looked around. "I thought she'd at least say goodbye..."
Catherine yelped and rolled to the side, barely dodging as Lysithea's giant boot narrowly missed crushing her.
"Oh well," Lysithea sighed dejectedly, returning the sword to Catherine's satchel, which the knight apparently abandoned in her haste to leave. "I have a lot more things to do today anyway." She had promised to start teaching Cyril how to read, after all. Hopefully, she'd have time to do that before her scheduled kitchen duty
With that, Lysithea left the training grounds for her next task, unaware of the tiny knight that she was abandoning in the yard.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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