Well, this story will likely go nowhere. As much as I would love to write, I'm not too great at getting things to paper, as you may notice by my history of incomplete works, and even if I were to finally take it up more often, this would not likely be the story I would choose. I have plans for two other FE7/Tactician stories, one which I've started and would re-work, another crossover which I've started but not posted, and I left the notebook with that at school when I came home from break. And a post-FE7/post-FE6 series is in planning. I also have ideas for original stories rather than fic', but fic' is good practice. Anyway, this is mainly an experiment based on an idea I had for the "tactician," for which I must credit NoxUmbra's "A Brilliant Mind." One line stood out to me in the first chapter, not even a whole sentence and not even relevant to the story it is in, but it sparked this whole thing. So if you'll bear with me a moment longer, I will begin.

And now, our feature presentation:

Prologue: A Girl From the Plains, A Life Bathed in Flame

He lived in cycles, it seemed. Not day and night or waking and sleeping, no perception of these came to him. He lived in periods of heat and dreams, or pain and darkness, one always accompanying the other. No thought, no memory, just itching and panic and fear of the heat that put him in this state.

It seemed an eternity.

The heat retreated, and the dreams, and through the pain and darkness and fear he could feel himself breathing. The sensation brought tears to his eyes as feeling returned to him. His kinesthetics told him he was alive, the sensations on his skin, alternating between coarse discomfort and flaring pain, told him he was hurt. His vision was still dark, and he did not know where he was. To the notes of a distant lullaby, he drifted off to true sleep.

The tears returned when he awoke, and he groaned. Something was not right. Things did not feel right. His groans must have alerted someone nearby, as they were greeted by a flurry of sounds: motion by his side, and a light voice, full of worry. "Are you awake?" it asked. "Can you speak, or open your eyes?" Something damp touched his face and he flinched away. The way the water rolled down his cheek disturbed him, and he sobbed again.

His eyes inched open and were met by light, blurred though it was, for the first time in ages. He opened his lips to speak, but parched as they and his tongue were he could only sigh. "Let me get you some water," the Voice said, feminine and young and more confident than before. A shadow came before him as a wooden bowl was pressed to his lips and he drank as much as the Voice would allow.

When the bowl was taken away, he at last managed to croak out his first words since waking. "Where…am I?" he asked, the first question that came to him.

"You are safe, now," said the Voice, the Woman. "I found you unconscious on the plains. I feared from your injuries that you might…it is a miracle you are alive. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember your name?"

Name? What was he called? A sound rose in the back of his mind that felt right. "Marcus…I am called Marcus."

"Marcus? A strange name to my tongue, though no doubt a good one." There was too much pity in her voice. Why was there so much pity? "I am Lyn, of the…of the Lorca. No doubt my name seems as strange to you. What can you remember?"

His mind from before the darkness awakened, and he saw. He was young, he knew, an apprentice to a merchant in Etruria. They had joined a small caravan to cross Sacae, to trade in Bulgar and in Bern. The days were long and the sun was hot, but in the early evening one night when their sight was weakening they were attacked. The bandits seemed everywhere. He saw his master killed, stabbed through the gut and out the other side. He remembered being hit in the head and dragged. He was thrown into the back of a wagon, his head dazed. And then the flames. The wagon was lit with him inside, the heat suffocating, the light blinding, and he crawled as the fire licked his sides.

The tears returned yet again as he raised his hand to his gaze. Still bandaged in parts, the rest scarred and warped, he knew, from the flames. "You…your right side was burned much worse than the left, but there was still damage. I did what I-"

"My face?" Marcus interrupted. He never had so pretty a face, always plain, but it was always who he was. His identity.

"Some of the right side. Your cheek and jaw. The burns almost reached your eye but I could not tell if it was damaged," she responded, worried and unsure again. At last he tilted his head and turned his gaze to her.

She was young, he supposed, perhaps younger than himself. One of the tribespeople, though her voice told only the hint of an accent, and fairer than the other women he had seen of their folk. Fair, yes, and thin, perhaps too thin. Her hair was dark and long, and flowed down behind her dress, a simple affair, though blue as the sea he thought Sacaeans never saw. Marcus closed his left eye to inspect her with his right. "It works," he said, and the girl, Lyn, smiled for a moment.

"Ah! I just remembered," she said as she suddenly moved out of his sight. "Your clothes were…destroyed, so these are for you. They are not much, but it was the best I could do on short notice." She reappeared then with a green and brown bundle that Marcus supposed were replacement clothes.

Lyn placed the clothes aside again by his bed, ready for him when he is well enough to move about. "It is hard, I know, but will you tell me your story?" she asked, her voice on the border of comforting and pleading. Grappling with his emotions, Marcus' thoughts were interrupted by a crash of wood and raucous laughter from outside the tribal tent. As he glanced at his companion, a dark look fell over Lyn's face. "Wait here for me, Marcus. I will go see what is happening."

It seemed she hardly made it past the mouth of the tent before she was back inside, frantically uncovering a large chest and digging through its contents. "Bandits," she explained as she drew a sword, curved in typical Sacaean fashion, from the chest. "They must have come down from the mountains to raid the villages in the area. I…I think I can deal with them, but I want you to stay here where it is safe," she told him, trying to downplay the danger. It was likely bandits that had caused Mark's injuries, and she didn't want to worry him too much.

When she looked at him to gauge his reaction, however, Marcus was not withdrawing into himself as expected, but was pulling himself out of his sick-bed and forcing the clothes she had given him over his bandages. "What are you doing?" she cursed at him.

"I cannot let you go alone. I owe you my life and I cannot let you go when I could help you," Marcus muttered back as he stumbled forward.

"You are barely well enough to walk, let alone hold or wield a sword."

"So let them see that I am weak. They will become overconfident or I could distract them for you," Marcus countered. "I will find a way to help you. If I cannot do that then I have escaped death for nothing, Lyn. Let me do this."

Lyn grimaced. "If…if I let you, at least take this sword," she replied and passed him another blade from the chest. Marcus took it weakly with his left hand, unable yet to use his burned right. "Stay behind me and I will guard you."

"Lead the way," Marcus responded, though half-supporting himself on the sword as if it were a cane.

The pair exited the tent and Marcus was blinded, accustomed as he was to the darkness of his recovery, and then that of the tent. Lyn pulled him away as his vision cleared again, leading him by the arm.

"Over here," she whispered, her voice a breeze over the plains they were faced with. "I will protect you, so stay close to me." Marcus nodded behind her as they crept around the tent, her grace contrasting with his stiff gait.

And with the sight of the bandit and the heat of the sun came again that fear that hounded him in the darkness. The fear that would fly forth from every hearth until his memory failed and darkness of a different sort took its place. A fear that rooted him to the ground, bound as if by the strongest weights.

Fear was lost on his savior, as her sword transected the beast of a man as the bandit's sword had pierced Marcus' master. It seemed before the bandit had fallen to the ground she was off already, tearing over the ground towards the larger of the two.

But the ease of the ordeal ended as she was knocked aside, no more than an annoyance. The pair traded blows, his savior and the monster that towered above her, until in a shower of both their blood, the bandit's from his neck, the monster fell.

As fast as the fight had occurred, just as slow did she walk back to him, clutching her bleeding side. "I am sorry if I worried you. I will need to be stronger to survive."

"Strong enough that no one can defeat me."

No other words passed between the pair.

"What- what will you do now?" she asked him, as he bandaged her wound. As she had bandaged his. This, at least, he could do.

"I-" Marcus' hands stopped with his voice. "If I can, I could go to Bulgar. I could find another caravan, one that could take me home." His hands resumed their work, clumsy though it was.

"Would you allow me to travel with you?"

It was sudden, he thought. He has seen no one else around. She had saved him.

"Yes. I would like that."

Lyn made no fire that night.

End Prologue

Okay, so I actually started this…last year, maybe? (I also wrote the pre-chapter author's note before I did any actual writing here) Despite the time difference, this was really only written in two writing sessions. You can probably pick out the switch, but basically it was "everything before the battle" and then "the battle and after". I'd probably write more if I didn't have to deal with battles. I'm not too good at action and it threw me off. The end would probably have been more traditional (as far as FE7 is concerned) if I hadn't done the battle, or had someone else do it for me.

Anyway, like I said, this is unlikely to be continued. Anything I write is unlikely to be continued, but I went into this with a one-off mindset too. If anyone else would like to continue or adapt this tactician, though, feel free. Or hell, if someone who could write battles wanted to do a co-op, just send a message or something. Doesn't have to be for this story.

Oh, and I thought "Mark" was a little too informal a name for the character. Besides, what are the chances there's only one dude on the continent named "Marcus," right?

I'd like to thank NoxUmbra (again) (and I hope you continue your work, haven't seen an update in a while), and… well anyone on my favorites list I guess. Voltaire22 recently (spent the last week reading all your FE stuff, so you're on my brain). And tons of other authors on the site who are not on my favorites list as well. Hell, leave a review and if you're one of the authors I'm talking about I'll reply to you.

"Adelessa still felt stiff, as if her skin wasn't as pliable as it usually was, but the sickening agony had faded into a dull ache."