Things We Lost in the Fire

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

This follows the chronology from the Illustrated Works artbook, with is somewhat at odds with things stated in the script of FE4 and heavily implied in FE5. Many thanks to Raphiael for her assistance on this!

Lachesis thought they'd been getting by with very little until the hour came to pack up their lives. Now that she had to actively take stock of their possessions, she wondered that they had acquired so many things in two short years.

A pair of gloves that no longer fit Nanna. One of Leaf's shoes, kept long after its match had been lost in a muddy pond. A scarf, threadbare to the point of transparency after too many winters. Things that should have been discarded, kept out of the nagging sense that they might some day be useful, be necessary. Kept with the conviction that nothing might be taken for granted- a conviction rooted in experience, to be sure. But while the latest twist in their lives showed the truth of it, the necessity of fleeing Frest with no more than they could carry posed to her the question of what, exactly, they should carry to the next uncertain destination, the next temporary refuge.

Some answers did come easier than did others. Lachesis set the shoe and gloves down on the side of the room meant for items to be left behind, but she planned to keep the scarf, again telling herself that a ruined scarf was better than none at all. Then she looked once more over the piles of their belongings, the contents of both bedrooms heaped across their common room and spilling into the kitchen. If she truly intended to condense these four rooms' worth of goods into something two horses might carry, there wouldn't be a place for a threadbare scarf.

Lachesis discarded the scarf. At this rate, she wouldn't be packed by daybreak. With a sigh, she lifted the lid off the chest that had been under their bed until three hours before, when Finn returned from Bishop Gunna's palace with the instruction to get out of Frest that very night. These were their small treasures- a piece of embroidered brocade, cut from her wedding gown. A white rose from a faraway garden, its petals now as yellowed and crumbly as old parchment. The tracing of a baby's hand and foot, with DELMUD scribbled beside it in bold capitals. Letters of commendation from dead kings and fallen allies. Did they need any of these to survive? No, Lachesis admitted, they did not. They could not eat these things or sell these things or in any physical sense subsist upon them.

But these were the tokens that would explain who they were and what they'd once been- to themselves, to Nanna when she was older, to Delmud when Lachesis saw him again. They would share these things with the children's own children, some far-off day when these trials were over. These scraps of the past were something that Nanna could feel between her fingers, something that gave a sense of reality to the admonitions that she sit up straight and cross her ankles and hold her cup correctly because she was better than her playmates. They proved, as much as anything could, that everything they'd endured over the past six years had a meaning behind it. This, anyway, was what Lachesis told herself as she managed to slip every item from that chest into their luggage. They needed that rose and those letters, just as much as they needed the jewels Lachesis hadn't yet pawned and the medals Finn hadn't yet traded for their value in silver and gold.

As their world became smaller and smaller, and first Nodion and then Lenster grew ever more distant, the Order of the Cross and the Star of Valor had more meaning for Lachesis, not less. And maybe it had been their undoing in Frest, for surely someone here had seen through them. She and Finn had tried their best to live an ordinary life in this middling quarter of the city, amid neighbors who were either artisans on their way up in the world and or nobles on the way down the other side of fate's wheel. And maybe the thread that unraveled their cover had been something beyond their control, something as simple as a neighbor who wondered how two parents with their coloring could produce a "son" with Leaf's dark hair. But maybe it had been some fault in themselves; perhaps a royal lady of Nodion couldn't truly play the part of a Frest housewife, any more than a knight raised at the court of Lenster could pass himself off as a freelancing soldier. And perhaps their little daughter, their little princess... was entirely too much the princess.

And now Lachesis was up to her elbows in fragments of the past that they could not relinquish.

With the small valuables accounted for, Lachesis turned to the next task on her list; she flung open the next chest, one that normally belonged in their kitchen. It held extra blankets for the winter, an extra kettle and some ceramic bowls; all good and useful things that they simply couldn't carry from here. As Lachesis closed the chest up again, she heard three taps in quick succession at the door.

In spite of their signal, she still kept the chain upon the door before checking to see that Finn truly waited outside.

"The horses are ready," he said as she undid the chain to let him in. "I can start packing them if you've finished with any of the luggage."

"Three cases so far," she replied. "I think we'll have at least another before I'm done, and then whatever else we can bundle up."

"Is there time? I don't believe we have have more than two hours left to make our escape."

"There's time," she said. The worst of it had been the hour they'd spent dragging everything down the stairs.

Finn nodded and took the three cases Lachesis indicated as ready; Lachesis locked the door behind him and went back to her work. Her mindset was now less steady, though; it seemed she could feel the time slipping by minute to minute, like drops of quicksilver upon glass.

The contents of the next coffer she opened seemed faintly silly. A string of bright glazed beads from a victory parade, a memento of the days when there were victories to celebrate and towns cheered on Sir Sigurd and his forces. A paper fan, the souvenir of a festival in Silesia. Lachesis spread out the fan and looked at the spray of blossoms painted across it; the face of the blond knight of Chalphy who'd given it to her was already blurred in her mind.

Orders and jewels were one thing, but how long could she continue to carry these trifles around? She didn't remember which town it was that had thrown the parade anymore, didn't clearly remember Sir Sigurd's poor knight. The next time she had to sort through all their belongings, would she recall what either one of these items meant? But they were small, and so Lachesis put the string of beads around her neck and tucked the fan into her belt.

Lachesis wasn't done with that coffer before she had to let Finn inside again; she'd laid aside everything she couldn't identify in hopes that he could tell her what they were.

"Is this one of your old school-books?"

"It was Lady Ethlin's. I kept it for Lord Leaf."

Which meant the book was coming with them. Ethlin's ghostly touch on its pages turned it from "not needed" to "essential," no matter how inconvenient.

Next Lachesis showed him a small covered basket of filigreed silver, now tarnished. It contained a scrap of silk wrapped around a tuft of brown hair.

"And this is some of Leaf's hair?"

She understood the impulse to keep that bit of feather-soft baby hair, but if it came to either finding a safe place to carry a tuft of hair, or escaping with their lives...

"It's Altenna's."

The sense of wounded surprise in his voice took Lachesis aback. She put the silver basket into her own purse without any comment; if she could keep the fan Sir Noishe had given her, there was certainly room for one solitary link to a little girl who'd now been gone for longer than she'd been alive. At least, there was room for both this time, during this particular hasty departure. They could carry those shades just a little bit longer...

"I'll go check on the children," Finn said, his voice even again.

"I hope they're asleep," Lachesis said as she scanned the room for anything else essential. "I haven't heard a squeak out of them."

She wished she were sleeping now, in truth; her head had begun to ache and her mouth was dry. Lachesis began to recite to herself all the things she'd packed- the clothes and shoes, the small items of value, and then all these... sentimental objects. Cheap beads and baby hair and painted frills of paper. Had she missed something, something they'd regret dearly when they realized it'd been left behind to save room for a paper fan?

Fatigue brought on a kind of paralysis; Lachesis hadn't answered any of her own questions by the time she heard Finn descending the stairs.

"They're wide awake, all three of them," he reported.

Finn had brought Gunna's young grandson back with him from the bishop's palace; Lachesis didn't have the space in her head at present to contemplate how the care of another young child was going to tax them. The bishop had provided them shelter in his city walls, at the probable cost of his own life, and they would take on little Asvel by way of payment. That Gunna envisioned a fugitive's life as a better path for his grandson than keeping Asvel in Frest said everything Lachesis needed to know about the chances that the Empire would spare a seven-year-old child.

"We won't get far this morning, not with three sleepy children," Lachesis replied, knowing full well she wasn't in much better shape.

"We can get far enough if nobody sees the direction we take. To manage it, though, we'd best leave at once. I don't believe there's an hour spare any longer."

Lachesis thought he'd shaved half an hour or more off their window for a safe departure, but she'd lost track of the time herself and couldn't prove it. And, really, it didn't matter.

"One brief hour before our good neighbors turn up at the door with pikes and torches at the ready?"

"And Imperial soldiers behind them."

"And then the only question is whether they execute us on the spot or drag us into Alster for the spectacle," Lachesis added as she twisted up her plait of hair into a knot for the journey. "I think Blume would prefer to forego the spectacle, but that queen of his may have a different view on it."

"The spectacle of our bodies dangling from the gates of Alster will send enough of a message to anyone seeking to vex the Empire," said Finn, and he set his mouth in a pale line. "If we don't leave Frest under our own initiative, I don't expect we'll depart it alive."

Lachesis thought of Lex, how he'd been taken alive after Bahara and executed without delay. She hadn't thought of Lex in years, but she could still remember his voice. It surprised her that he'd been captured, as she always thought him the type to go down swinging and shouting...

"It'll be close to painless if they catch me." Her voice sounded strained to her own ears as Lachesis touched both hands to her throat. "My neck is not very thick."

Finn took her hands between his own. His hands weren't very warm, Lachesis thought; he already had his gloves on. And he was holding her as though she were glass. He didn't sugar-coat his words any, though.

"Please don't make light of this. We are dealing with men under orders to execute a child. There is no limit to what they may do."

"I'm not trying to be light about it, Finn. I'm just..." Too wearied to think sensibly about something entirely senseless. "And I'll set on fire anyone who tries to lay a hand upon Nanna."

"I know." He still hadn't let go of her hands. "We have to go, Lachesis. Is there anything else to pack?"

"Just what I have by the door. Everything else, we can live without..." And then she remembered something very important indeed, that she'd had in the back of her head, yet not packed. "Where are the weapons?"

"I've stowed them all except for the ones we'll need to keep on hand."

"Including my brother's sword and Lady Ethlin's sword?"

"Yes."

"Which weapons did you set aside for me to carry?"

"Your axe and your Elfire tome, and two healing staves."

"Good." She'd learned the sword first, but these days the axe felt most comfortable in her hands. "I was waiting to pack up the food last. I'll do that now while you get the children ready."

Lachesis had five pouches of food assembled by the time Finn came down the stairs with three fully-clothed and almost fully-awake children. Lachesis slipped a pouch around each of their shoulders- first Nanna, who yawned up at her, then Asvel, whose sea-green eyes seemed more excited then scared. Then Lachesis turned to Leaf, the center of their circumscribed world and the unintentional cause of the danger they found themselves in.

"Here you are, Leaf. There's enough to last three days in here. I don't want you eating it all tomorrow."

"Thank you, Lachesis." He'd stopped calling her "Mother" during the past year; apparently Lenster's little prince was too old for fantasy now. But he was still too young to not see this sudden departure in the night as an anything but an adventure, especially as Asvel was coming along for the ride.

Lachesis crouched down to look directly into his bright brown eyes.

"Now, you're going to ride with Finn and Nanna, so look out for your little sister and make sure she stays awake. All right?"

"Yes, Lachesis."

"Good." She stood and took the other little boy by the hand. "Asvel, you'll ride with me."

"Yes ma'am."

And then they were out the door one last time, into the balmy summer night with stars shining down upon the city of Frest. Lachesis settled onto her courser with Asvel tucked in front of her.

"Are you ready for a journey, Asvel?" She whispered it into his ear.

"Yes, ma'am. Where are we going? Lord Leaf didn't know."

"It's a secret. You'll know when we get there." She, of course, had no idea either. They were going as far away from Frest as they could run, and only that was certain.

But before they left, Lachesis had one remaining task, the reason Finn had selected her Elfire tome specifically for their escape. She balanced the opened tome on Asvel's shoulders as she recited the spell one of her many lost friends had taught her, the incantation to the god Salamander. An orb of fire coalesced in her hand, a miniature sun cupped between her fingers. She could see its reflection in Asvel's eyes.

Lachesis flung the orb of fire in through the opened door of their home, straight into the heap of cast-off clothing. She thought it was the worn scarf that caught fire first, its exposed threads turned to a netting of flame. Within seconds the flames blossomed outward in all directions. It would all burn, she thought, the outgrown gloves and the spare blankets, the sturdy oaken table and the walnut wardrobe with the chipped veneer, the discarded toys and the too-small embroidered dress that made Nanna feel like a "real" princess. Every item they'd ever purchased would burn, and the receipts and slips of credit would burn, and no one would ever face penalties for doing business with a pair of rebel fugitives. And everything that had slipped their minds tonight would burn as well, gone from worldly existence to some realm of the inaccessible, along with lost homes and lost friends and everything else that the Empire's fire consumed.

This is what it comes down to, she thought. We set fire to our own nest before someone else can tear it apart. And next time, the fire might be made from old schoolbooks and letters, paper fans and pressed flowers, the outline of a little boy's hand and a tuft of hair from a little girl's head. They'd burn even those, along with everything else, to keep Blume and his soulless queen from turning the children in their care into a scattering of ash.

But, for now... we hold on to as much as we can. We're afraid that if we let go of it all, we'll let go of ourselves... and then we'll have nothing. Then all this devastation will be for nothing at all.

And since she still had two cases worth of something in her possession, to tell her who she was and what she'd been, Lachesis felt in command of herself in spite of weary nerves and tired eyes. With her newest child huddled up safely against her, she plunged after Finn into the darkness.

The End

A/N: Yeah, apparently they acquired Asvel in Frest and then ditched him in Tahra after Leaf decided that they were all likely to end up dead and Asvel was better off not joining them. Of course, Lachesis herself was long gone by then. The history of this little household gets more complicated with every retcon. In FE4, it was "we hid out in some village," and several iterations later it's this multi-city odyssey with three kids along for the ride. Four, if you pretend that Janne and Nanna exist simultaneously. You'd need a mini-van to haul that many kids around!