The winter storms ordinarily did not interfere with the practice of the Feroxi military. The soldiers grew into their tough, resilient natures not simply by the disciplined sparring that they engaged in with each other, but also by the harsh weather that enveloped them in chilling white snow. Veteran soldiers proved their seniority not by the number of years they spent in the army, but by how stained white their black armor had become as they trained through howling blizzards and marched through giant snowdrifts.

As a result, the Feroxi always took to the battlefield with soldiers wearing enough armor to protect them from the cold, favoring typical infantry and heavily armored knights. One would rarely find a pegasus knight in their ranks, and although many wandering sellswords would eventually hack and slash their way towards an audience with the khans, few held the skill to differentiate themselves from the common soldiers. Even fewer had the stubbornness to keep their loose fighting styles which quickly proved disadvantageous during blustery snowstorms.

Those that did stay chose to practice in the dungeons in the lower levels of the khan's fortresses, in damp cellars made aglow by torchlight where Basilio's personal champion devoted himself to mastering the elements of the blade, his strikes mechanically slashing through the air with frightening speed and deadly precision. The wooden dummies before him all split in clean halves, the upper ends flying against the limestone walls behind them. Lon'qu reached for a glass of water, surveying his work as he took a few short sips. His sword had cleanly bisected the stumps at the area he had envisioned, but one look at the uneven splinters made him grimace as he reached for his scabbard and prepared to exit. Slight improvement from the day before, but still a long way towards his goal. It was a start.

He blinked a few times in question seeing the pink-haired dancer in the doorway, who uttered a faint interjection when she realized that he had discovered her. Half her body stuck out from behind the door and appeared to be frozen in place, a blush stuck on her cheeks. Normally Lon'qu felt the presence of observers as soon as they entered the room, but Olivia had managed to sneak in to catch a glimpse of his practice session unnoticed. Gritting his teeth, the Chon'sin swordswoman quickly passed her by and grunted as he felt his body tense into a stiff arrangement of muscles like it always did when he got within a certain distance of women. He had to get out of there. His pace only slackened when he had rounded the corner and had ascended the entire flight of stairs.

Another unsatisfactory day.

Lon'qu knew something had come up when he looked over and saw the flask of water on the stool without remembering the servant boy enter. Someone was standing in the room with him, however, and instead of the traditional bland brown and grey robes that the Feroxi servants wore, Lon'qu spotted the flowing clothes of the dancer, her hands raised up over her mouth as she distanced herself from the jug as if she had just committed a crime.

"What are you doing here?"

Olivia seemed much more interested in the tiles at his feet than looking at him. "I-I was just passing by in the area, and I thought… you might want a drink, with how hard you usually practice, so…"

He wondered if her cheeks even had a normal skin tone.

Lifting the long changdao with both hands, he took a fighting stance, facing the stool and the flask of water as if they had become his next opponent, readying his sword for its next strike. Lon'qu rushed forward, the arc of his arm gracefully shooting forward as the blade extended.

Olivia gave a shriek as the glass shattered, water and shards flying all over the earthen floor. Hmph. Not quite. He saw the dancer quickly backup from the center of the explosion, although he noticed that she continued to stand there, shaking in fear. Given her fragile disposition, he had expected her to take off at the first sound of breaking glass.

"W-why did you do that?" she stammered.

"I'm not quite thirsty today, and I was just about to cut this session short," he said. "So instead of wasting this jar, I might as well put it to use."

"You call breaking a jar full of water training?"

"I suppose its purpose isn't apparent to those who haven't seen the maneuver performed correctly. The West-Khan is able to cut through the flask so precisely that he does not spill a single drop of water," Lon'qu explained. "The task requires perfect execution and demands the highest level of physical ability. Strength, accuracy, agility."

"It sounds very difficult," Olivia agreed.

Lon'qu nearly began to give another vocalized answer when he realized how naturally his last reply came to him. He didn't quite understand why he didn't seize up upon having the dancer in the same room as him in such proximity. Not that he would complain. Still, he figured some other party was interfering here, and it would serve his interests well if he found out. Slightly nodding to her, he gathered his things and quietly slipped past her once more.

Since his flight from Chon'sin, Lon'qu had to use the resources of the world around him if he hadn't found a place to stay for the night. More often than not, he would shiver under the elements without a roof above his head to grace him as he tried to catch that illusive beast he called sleep. Not knowing what the next day would bring certainly didn't help his troubled thoughts.

He rarely had anything to consider a constant in his life, but Lon'qu took pride in the fact that he could count his sword as one. Chi'xin, or the Sword of Seven Stars, always remained by his side, enduring everything from the long passage by sea that the boy took over the ocean to the rocky mountain trails that he crossed, mostly on wagons, sometimes on foot. He had taken meticulous care of the blade itself, although he couldn't say the same for the scabbard, which had suffered a century's worth of inclement weather bearing down upon it. Still, it served his purposes, and Lon'qu didn't feel any need to separate the two.

But when he went to temporarily sheath Chi'xin, he found that Olivia had once again found her way into the room past his vigilant eyes, the scabbard in her hands as she curiously looked over it. When she saw Lon'qu walk towards her to reclaim his possession, she yelped and threw it at him as if the scabbard had spontaneously caught flames. Fortunately Lon'qu had quick reflexes, but a clumsier, less together man might've incurred some serious injuries, especially with a sharp sword in their hands.

"What were you doing with my scabbard?" he wanted to know.

"Oh! Uh, well, I… nothing, really," Olivia struggled to reply. "You seemed to get used to me coming in here to, well, watch you practice. And you didn't act scared like you usually did with other women. So I guess I started getting comfortable, too, and somehow I… I ended up looking at the scabbard when you just threw it over in my direction." She took a step back after she finished her explanation, anticipating some kind of violent lashing out.

"The second flask of water, did you bring that too?"

Olivia nodded. "I figure it, uh, didn't matter too much if you wanted to drink it or not, since you could use it as practice."

Lon'qu pondered the situation. She wasn't wrong, admittedly…

Crash! He sent his sword in a horizontal arc towards one of the flasks, again seeing if he could cut through it without breaking it, but the glass instantly shattered upon impact. Olivia jumped a full yard back in surprise as he predicted, but at least this time she had kept her scream in.

"Another failure. How long must I keep at this..." he muttered.

"Er… hey, Lon'qu?" Olivia caught his attention.

He arched an eyebrow.

"I don't know anything about swinging swords, or the techniques of myrmidons, but I don't think I've seen another soldier in this army work as hard as you," she offered. "I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that motion is, but I'm sure that if you keep at it you'll eventually succeed!" The dancer seemed intimidated by her very own confidence, as her voice dropped before speaking again. "...At least, that's what I think."

Lon'qu couldn't quite put down the uneasy twitching in his hands that the dancer made him feel. Where did her kindness come from? He had done his best to interact with her no more than necessary, thinking that if anything, his indirect hostility might drive her off, but she had somehow become more comfortable around him instead. And she didn't exactly agitate him either. Perhaps her knack for invisibility had something to do with it. "W-well, that's…" He cleared his throat. "Thank you for your encouragement."

The Chon'sin warrior walked over to the extra jug of water, raising it to his mouth and taking a good long drink from it. "You weren't going to use that one for practice?" Olivia asked.

"No, not this one," Lon'qu replied, setting it back down. "It would be rude to shatter the object of your thoughtfulness."

The metallic sound of the door opening seemed much louder to Lon'qu, and he turned towards the entrance expectantly. His lithe pink-haired shadow entered, carrying a long object in her hands.

"Usually I fail to notice you until my practice is nearly completed," Lon'qu said, the corners of his mouth curling up as he managed a small smile. Her presence had begun to relax him, knowing that her safety couldn't get much more guaranteed so long as Khan Basilio kept her around.

Olivia smiled back. "Well, this is a little heavy, so my feet might have dragged a little as I entered." She presented a beautiful scabbard, made almost completely out of leather with a steel tip at the end in which Lon'qu spied two small jewels, ruby and emerald. "This is for you."

"It's certainly a product of high quality," he marveled, refusing to take it from her hands. "But I don't understand what sort of occasion would prompt you to go out of your way to do this for me. It must have cost you a good deal of money."

The dancer grinned even further. "Don't worry about it, it wasn't much trouble. When I told the khan that you were in need of a new scabbard, he said that he would get the court artisans on the job right away! Not to mention, this is the season for gifts. The Christmas spirit, you know?"

Lon'qu paled as he realized that he had not paid attention to the calendar as the days went by. "R-right. I got so caught up in my training, I hadn't noticed that Christmas had already come."

He took the scabbard from Olivia, marveling at the exquisite content of the leather. "Back in Chon'sin, I didn't have a proper place to call home. The winter didn't make me think of the holidays, of spending my time amongst friends and family…. all I thought of was finding some shelter warm enough where I could sleep without freezing over."

Olivia's happiness quickly evaporated. "Oh dear, that must have been horrible…"

He waved his hand. "It doesn't matter now, although I regret that I have no way of paying you back. Your gift is beyond any value I can place on it. But you need only give a request and I will begin working towards it."

The dancer giggled. "Lon'qu, you don't have to do that for me. I was already fortunate enough that you let me in to watch your practice sessions. Seeing the way your blade danced and wove through the air was just like one of my troupe's dances… it was truly captivating.

"But I suppose, well, there is one little thing you can do for me. When we next perform, I would very much like you to attend. You wouldn't believe it, but I can get the worst cases of stage fright, especially performing for people I don't know. If I can find your face in the crowd, it would be reassuring to know that there's somewhere out there that I can consider… a friend," she said.

Her words came blanketed in kindness, yet based in a strong inner conviction that surprised Lon'qu. And despite his ill-fated history with women usually giving him misgivings, the demons of his past did not haunt him whenever he spoke with Olivia. "It is the least I could do," he agreed. "Consider it a favor."

Olivia pulled her hands close to her chest, her familiar blush coming up again. "Oh… t-thank you, Lon'qu."

But it had been her doing everything for him. Once again, he found the weight of responsibility squarely on his shoulders. Yet if any path might bring him atonement, Lon'qu supposed he might find it trailing in the steps of this dancer.

A/N: did this for a contest on serenesforest, might as well post it here too. it was themed around winter holidays, so I picked up Lon'qu who's really fun to use, realized that both he and Olivia are from Regna Ferox, and here we are.

some of the content (read: a lot) is taken from their support conversation material but I tried to make it more than just a glorified dramatization