Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today.
The Stray Children of Light and Sorrow
Written By:
Perenelle Windsor
Act I:
Lifeblood of the Valorous
Scene I:
Water
Hot blood comingled with sweat on the marble ground of Bern's Water Temple. The sound of smashing steel and frenzied screams echoed in the half-aquatic battlefield, and rebounded from the high vault of the ceiling so that a man could hear every dying scream made in the arcane sanctuary. Corpses, all with the same insignia of black and red stitched upon the breast of their uniforms, lay scattered on the ground and some face-down in the water that, long ago, had gone dark with blood.
Any Bernese man worth his life would have recognized the emblem on the bodies - the stigmata of the once benevolent Black Fang, now gone down the dark road having betrayed the common men they had served. It would be doubtful, though, that any common man would know the name of the woman who led the assassin's guild into battle that December dawn – a golden-eyed witch who very well may have been a demon, Madame Sonia Reed.
The sort of tactics employed by the opposition were one of the most basic (yet effective) battle plans used by Lycian generals of old, yet the Fang's antagonist was by no means a proper army. It was the sort where the tactician was a young man of barely twenty-five, and far older than the generals he commanded, and the sort where Etrurian nobility put their lives on the line for a Sacaen mercenary (though, be not mistaken, it was not the utopian organization those words might have implied).
The head of the campaign against the Bernese devil-goddess was barely an adult at seventeen, but of noble blood and vitality, and had fought well beside any soldier regardless of stature. He was the sole child of Marquess Pherae, and the only heir to that post in light of Lord Elbert's recent death. As he surveyed the battlefield with disgust in his languid blue eyes, he steadied the grip on his rapier. The sounds around him were dulled, slightly, by the pounding of blood in his ears.
From where he stood, upon one of the magically-sustained passageways that threatened to disappear at any moment, Eliwood would wager that it was the Pherean army (though he was reluctant to call it such, considering they held more loyalty to him than to his father's fiefdom) who would emerge from the carnage as victor. He could see two swordsmen - one Sacaen by the long viridian braid, and the other a monster by the way he cleaved a Wo Dao through a man's skull - carving a path through the men (who were excellent soldiers, but probably poor assassins) that served under the Reed family. The panicked, echoing prayers of Anima and Holy magic that echoed revealed that Lady Priscilla was still intent on fulfilling her task of making sure not a single ally of hers perished.
Closer towards him, the Heiress of House Caelin was gnashing her teeth together as she swung her faithful sword through the neck of one man and side stepping the gush of hot blood and bone fragments that threatened to spill over her. With reserve that could only come from a childhood of constant vigilance, which one needed in Sacae, Lyn looked away from the young man she had killed tactlessly and wiped blood off of one of her homeland's most treasured artifacts.
They, the army that was, were several hours deep in the swamp of a battle. The Sacaen woman, though, (although she was of equally Lycian blood, Lyn preferred to think of herself as purely Sacaen, for a number of good reasons) was not very badly injured. There was a cut in her side from an arrowhead and a gash on her arm from horseman's lance, both adding blood to the already slick floor. They weren't wounds that terribly concerned Lyn, however. She had, after all, suffered far worse in this war, and recovered from them all by the blessings of Mother Earth and Father Sky.
She stepped over bodies of assassins that had met with the steel of her blade, or the metal of many other's weapons (sometimes even their own allies, if they thought the death would be more merciful). She surveyed the familiar world around her, although Lyn had never before been inside of the Water Temple. Battle was a thing that was becoming second-nature to her, as it did to any soldier, no matter if they wanted to or not.
Her bluish eyes found Eliwood standing knee-deep in bodies, some cut down by his own sword and many by others. He was statue-still, and had he been lying on the ground, Lyn might have mistaken him for a corpse. However, she saw his blue eyes were darting frantically around the battlefield like a mouse trapped in a cage, or a hawk hunting for its prey. It seemed out of character for him to be so vigilant.
"It's almost over, isn't it?" she asked of the redhead lord, sounding as friendly as her adrenaline-fueled body would allow. Her words pulled him from his pensive stupor and, quick as a striking bird of prey, he raised his rapier defensively with a mask of grim determination. Upon realizing it was her, Eliwood eased some strain off of his grip, but did not relax it. He was within safe company, but no safe environment. Lyn would have thought him a fool if he had relaxed his hand completely.
"Depends," he answered back, looking to the still-locked doors of Sonia's throne room. His voice was an odd mix of weariness and energy, a man sleepy and yet at the same time knowing that sleepiness would be his killer, "There's a vanguard of Wyvern Riders guarding that room, and they won't go down too easy, never mind the amount of magicians, and these accursed bridges vanishing and reappearing all the time."
Almost as if on cue, there was a collection of horrible screams from the northern portion of the temple as at least a half dozen splashes of men and women plunged to their watery graves. It put a bitter taste to Eliwood's mouth and a dark scowl in his eyes when he knew that Sonia did not care a single bit about any human who died today.
Lyn nodded in bleak agreement. Her lips had parted to give another reply that hung half-formed in her mouth, but silenced as a deep voice bellowed out; "Duck and cover milady!"
Neither had much time to comprehend their actions and, had war not made them quick and twitchy, the two members of Lycian nobility might not have made it. A barrage of lightning, white as alabaster, shot by a mage alone on isolated tiles had missed the Sacaen noblewoman by the skin of her teeth before disappearing into the indigo tiles, leaving nothing but a coal-black scar to mark its existence.
The unnatural lightning did manage to slice a slit of electrical burns down her leg that smoked, the gray tendrils stinking of cooked flesh that drew bile up into Eliwood's throat along with the meager contents of his stomach. Lyn hissed curses nastily, using a few phrases that were obviously only vulgar on the plains and Eliwood grabbed her shoulder so she could bend to the left to check the extent of the injury. It would scar, and it would render her limp until it was healed, but it was nothing that invoked more than a few tears and a few choice words.
"Lady Lyndis, are you alright?!"
Copper-haired Kent, who had yelled the warning to Lyn, appeared now behind them, with his hose's eyes wide and terrified from the sounds of battle. The same look lingered behind a film of cold bravery in his own eyes, and his brow slick with sweat and blood from a slim cut at his hairline. She nodded without looking at him, and grabbed a vial of vulnerary at her belt so she could spill the elixir down her leg. The skin mended in seconds, leaving only a single brown and white scar that would remain for a few days. Elixirs and their lesser cousins were marvelous little creations of magic, but they weren't miracles in bottles.
"Get that mage killed," she hissed to the Crimson Shield, who nodded without question, "And where, in the name of all that is good and holy, is Mark?
"Further back, with Nino and Jaffar," Kent told her almost before Lyn had finished speaking. Eliwood turned to him with an eyebrow raised. Nino was young, but she was a good fighter, and Jaffar needed little explanation. Before the Pherean could voice his question, Kent explained in the same jerky-quick manner, "Nino's unconscious; the injury is nothing serious, but somebody is going to have to look at her after this is over."
"So we're without a tactician for now," Eliwood said dejectedly, and grimly Kent nodded. The flame of hope that had begun to grow inside of him, the same little bit of hope that sparkled during every battle when they were winning, died down. Mark was vital to their success and morale, perhaps too vital, as the world had not yet tested Eliwood and his fellow "generals" (although they had never been named such) with the task of completing a battle without their tactician's aide.
Regarding the other generals, Eliwood knew that Hector was alongside Florina and her sisters with the northern battles, and turned back to see where Lyn was. The Caelin Lady left the two of them without a word (not an uncommon practice for her), moving quickly up the tile bridge towards where the mage that had attacked Lyn stood. She slid a little in the blood and water pooling on the ground, but it hampered her not as she pulled her bow and a goose-feather arrow from the quiver slapped against her back.
From where he stood, Eliwood could spy the lone mage on the tiled isle running a finger down the pages of his tome as he prepared to cast his spell again. He looked up from his tome just in time to see Lyndis positioning herself tentatively on the edge of one of the bridges, taking careful aim with her bow. The shot was clean, and pierced directly through his throat. With no enjoyment on his behalf, Eliwood watched as the mage went milk pale as another arrow rendered his lung to fleshy ribbons. In a crumbling arc, the mage twirled and landed in the blood-poisoned water of the ancient aqueducts, silencing his magic forever and sparing one of Eliwood's and Lyn's soldiers a horrible death by electrocution.
Turning his attention away from Lyn's latest kill, Eliwood carefully stepped over two corpses of a Pegasus Knight and her mount. His foot, however, disturbed the girl's corpse and turned her face upward towards him. A long, bloody slash across her throat had been the cause of death, which had made her skin turn gray and eyes white. He winced as he saw the panic imprinted on the girl's face, lingering even after her soul had gone to Elimine's Paradise. He might not mind (although that was miserably poor phrasing, considering he did mind greatly) cutting down the brigades when they were after his throat, but he didn't prefer seeing the fear on their faces or in their filmy eyes.
The battlefield was no place for sentiments, however, and he had to remind himself of that fact.
"My lord!" called Marcus's familiar voice, sounding unusually audible over the clamor of the fighting. Eliwood looked to see the loyal Pherean general (who actually deserved the title, unlike Eliwood who had unofficially been labeled such) before him with a noticeable wheeze in his breath. Isadora and Harken were by his side, faces expressionless or unreadable, and Lowen soon behind the other Knights of the Realm. Marcus looked down at his liege with something that was probably concern. "Perhaps you should fall back a bit; we can handle the remainders. There is no need for you to further risk your life."
"Not with the Wyverns up there," Eliwood told the general, watching as Marcus's eyebrows knotted together, as they always did when he was displeased, "We need to wait for Lord Pent and Lady Louise before charging; they can get the Riders out of the sky, at least, and buy us some time." Eliwood would be the first to admit he was no tactical genius, but the plan was simple and made enough sense that Marcus gave a half-nod in agreement.
"Where are those other archers, Wil and Rebecca?" asked Isadora calmly, nearly placidly, "They would be able to bring down the guard if they took flight, and if we could bring them up, we would avoid having to risk the lives of the Count and the Countess." It was second nature for knights to put the lives and safety of nobility over everything else. However, both Etrurians would have been insulted at the 'doubt' of their security in battle, when they had given ample proof they could fight as good as any knight or soldier.
There were heavy footfalls behind Eliwood, and he gripped tightly on his sword. Lyn had the unfortunate habit of not announcing when she had arrived, perhaps because it wasted too much time, and it had caused a number of scares throughout the half-year they had been fighting.
"Reinforcements appeared near the entrance," Lyn explained, relaying what Kent had told her moments ago, "And there are enough of them to keep them both busy for too long. There's enough of a guard there, with both Wil and Rebecca and Raven, so we needn't worry." Still, Marcus muttered darkly under his breath.
"Um, shouldn't we get to the throne room as fast as we can?" Lowen interjected, his breathing a harsh wheeze that did not seriously hamper his speech. He went scarlet when everyone turned their eyes upon his half-obscured face, "I mean, everyone's getting worn from all the fighting, and we need as much strength as possible to bring the soldiers . . ."
Marcus's look turned into a dark scowl that silenced Lowen immediately, and his words were harsher than needed when he barked, "And if we move too quickly, the soldiers will make a mistake and we will end up with more casualties than the army can afford. Do you want Lord Eliwood or Lady Lyndis to perish because you rushed your attack!? How would you explain it to Lady Eleanora!"
"That's enough," Eliwood said, and Marcus fell quiet instantly, waiting for orders that Eliwood did not give (mostly because he couldn't come up with coherent orders over the sounds of the echoing battle). Luckily, the Sacaen noblewoman filled the gap in commanding that he had left. Lyn shook her head, most likely to clear it momentarily, and said calmly, "We need to gather as many troops as we can to the throne room. Then, we'll ambush the riders and Sonia. It's the same plan we used against Ursula, in the Manse. What do you think, Eliwood?"
He inhaled to clear his mind and to think – a hard task made difficult by his headache. When he finally spoke, it was slow, more a list of priorities than any sort of plan, but together it formed something that greatly resembled a plan.
"We need to deal with the Riders first, before they come after us. Archers or sorcerers need to be over here . . . Marcus, Isadora, get Lady Louise over here so she can cripple or kill their mounts. Lord Pent could kill the riders quickly afterwards. After that . . . get everybody here you can possibly get and secure the area before we go after Sonia herself."
Both knights were obviously uneager to risk injuring or killing Louise and Pent, and Eliwood was only too familiar with the risks. If the Mage General of Etruria were to fall under the command of a Lycian when there was no military alliance between the two nations, Etruria would have every right to claim retribution for Pent's death, and retribution always seemed to take the form of war.
Yet, neither said a word of disagreement. Isadora saluted and Marcus bowed his head in acknowledgement. The two, along with silent Harken and still-scarlet Lowen, were off immediately afterwards, disappearing into the sea of battle surrounding them all. Eliwood watched them leave uneasily, hoping he had not damned anybody to an early grave. The plan was identical to several others they had used throughout the course of the war, plans that Eliwood knew had proved successful. Despite the growing security in his mind, however, every muscle and joint in his body screamed for rest. Hopefully, soon this would be over, and they could rest easy for a night - a single night of peace, without fear of ambush or death . . .
"Oh by all that is good and glorious . . . by Mother Earth and Father Sky, no," he heard Lyn swear next to him, her voice nearly feverish with horror.
He turned to look at her with his heart hammering in his chest, and found that her once-composed eyes were wide and glistening with something that could only be described as instinctual fear. He followed her gaze with his own eyes narrowing with panic. On another one of the islands suspended by magic stood a bishop, who the Pherean army had left be for the man had lacked a weapon and a threat, maybe even because he was a clergyman.
Now, however, the innocent-looking staff clamped in his hands glittered with a bloody vermilion that shone like a beacon through the stagnant air of the battlefield. Eliwood himself had never been unfortunate enough to see the sort of magic before, but he recognized it instantly from descriptions that Mark and Hector had ominously given him after the battle against Marquess Laus in the Dragon's Gate. It was the sort of godforsaken art that the Church of Elimine forbade, one which eroded a man's consciousness and replaced it with a single, animalistic desire to kill.
An uncountable amount of swear words passed the Eliwood's lips as he vigorously cast his eyes around furiously for who would be the unfortunate one to become bewitched. A numb state had overtaken him instead of panic. He had to find the poor bastard who had fallen under the sway of the bishop's whim, to either kill or incapacitate the soldier (depending on whose colors they flew).
Eliwood had barely turned around on his heels before the blood in his veins froze. His composed face had gone pallid the instant he felt warm, blood-soaked silver pressed itself against his throat. He changed a look to the side, and miserably caught sight of Lyn's face.
Her eyes had gone blank and glossy, her face twisted into half a snarl and half a listless expression - like the remaining emotion on the face of a corpse. The holy Mani Katti was poised to decapitate him in an instant. If he failed to move soon, he'd be dead – by the hand of a woman he called friend, when any and all sanity in her had gone away.
Instantly, Eliwood raised his rapier and ducked. His blade clanged against the quick swing of the Sacaen katana. Lyn rebounded on her heels, staggering backwards, but her expression never changed.
"Lyn!" he yelled at her, sidestepping her wild swings with the Mani Katti. Her swift, precise attacks were gone, replaced with a far more barbaric sort of swordsmanship that greatly resembled the mad swipes of a bear. Eliwood had no idea how to snap her out of the bewitched state the bishop's staff had wrought upon her, and he had no desire to attack her (with the way she fought now, he doubted he could have landed a blow without being sliced in half himself). The only option left to him, then, was to shout, "Lyn, get a hold of yourself!" and other such commands repeatedly.
The horrible demon controlling Lyn kicked her leg across the floor in a low arc, knocking Eliwood off his feet. His rapier slipped from his fingers, landing vertically beside him, and his head collided with the indigo tiles, almost able to fall into the water and become lost forever. White dots twinkled like stars in front of his vision and he felt a trickle of warm blood slide down the back of his neck.
Before his mind had fully returned, he rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being impaled in the heart by the Mani Katti. Eliwood grabbed his fallen rapier, pulling it easily out of the ground where it had fallen, and jumped to his feet just in time to barely block a swing from the languidly smirking Lyn. The lack of a good hold on his sword sent pain echoing through his wrists and arms, and his grip trembled dangerously.
With his teeth tightly clenched and his hands gripped on the sword's hilt so hard that the metal was sinking into his palms, Eliwood backed up, parrying Lyn's strikes as best he could. His boots slipped in the blood on the tiles, and many times he came close to tripping over a corpse and becoming one himself. He shot a fevered glare through the surrounding area, swearing under his breath for sending Marcus and Isadora away so quickly. Either one of them could help keep Lyn at bay until the spell wore off (he forced himself not to add if it wore off after his thought).
However, it was simply Eliwood against blood-hungry Lyn, and it was obvious who would win the battle. He cast a single eye around for anybody within reasonable distance who could lend him aide, but none of his soldiers looked like they could come any time soon.
Several of the mercenary soldiers looked like they needed desperate aide themselves, be it a healer or a fellow fighter. With Sonia's rear platoon of fighters, Lord Erk's hold on his tome was slick with blood from a massive gash in his arm, a similar one on his leg, and he was holding back a yell of pain as he tried to avoid the swings of a pirate's axe and cast magic simultaneously. Canas of Badon, even further from Eliwood and just barely in his line of vision, was trying to blink hot crimson out of his eyes and spit the ichor from his mouth, his skin pale enough to merit a loss of a good amount from both a head wound and a slash across his chest.
Frantically, Eliwood tore his eyes from the world around him, and cast them upon the ebon water surrounding the thin bridge he and Lyn fought on. The canal was deep, too deep for him to imagine in his haste, but the sight of the water brought a half-formed idea to his head that made sense. Perhaps the shock from the water would be enough to snap Lyn out of her bewitchment, without harming either of them?
He dodged another swing of the Mani Katti, which still cut a sliver of a wound on his cheek, and threw all his weight against Lyndis. A monotonous cry that was pure reflex passed her lips as she stumbled backwards, tripping over a corpse and crushing his nose and jaw. Before her body hit the water, she grabbed the hem of Eliwood's cape and wrapped her knuckles with it. His balance gone in an instant, he fell with her, his rapier leaving his hand just before the sick concoction of icy water and hot blood hit him like cobblestone and flooded into his mouth and lungs.
In the distorted world under the violet-hued water, Lyn kicked him in the chest (he was not sure if was an accident or on purpose and supposed he'd never know) as she fought her way to the heavenly air above the canal. The wind knocked from his lungs, Eliwood opened his mouth in an unwilling gasp and swallowed a great deal of water. The heavy taste of blood in the water made him gag, halting his frantic (and futile, considering he didn't know how to swim) dash towards the surface. His mind reeled, far too quickly and nauseatingly than he would have liked, and barely coherent thoughts fluttered in his mind as it shut down.
I can't die yet . . .
The words repeated in his mind like a mantra. Anything else would have proven a waste of energy. He forced his weak and fading mind to listen to the repetition again and again as he kicked to get to the surface. He had never had a proper swimming lesson in his life, considering the biggest body of water in all of Pherae had been the puddles that appeared with April showers, so all he could go on was what he'd just seen Lyn do moments ago. His armor and exhaustion, however, worked against him and kept him far below the surface, starving his mind and lungs as he sank deeper.
The lights above were flickering away, and sheer panic was starting to overtake him. After a long, vain period of clawing through the water as if it were rock, and thus achieving no result whatsoever, Eliwood's body refused to work. Even as he begged his legs to kick, his mind screaming that he was dying, they hung listlessly beneath him, the muscles too tired to obey. Eliwood's mind began to slip into the cold grasp of unconsciousness, even as he tried with all his might to keep water from flooding into his lungs. With no way to cough the element from his lungs, he was choking – dying – on it.
His world was fading into a soft gray color, punctuated with the transparent indigo-blue of the water, and the dissipating lights from above creating fantastic patterns in the water. Languidly, his eyes blinked and played cruel tricks on his dying mind. Vaguely, he wondered if he could see somebody leering down upon him, unending him as he floated in the water, and - if he focused with some ill-spent energy - he could make out some features of the phantasmal onlooker.
A mocking figure, garbed in blue, a cruel smile of either hope or hatred on their face, stared down at him. Slowly, the mouth (or mouth-like shape) opened and moved up and down, although Eliwood didn't catch a word. What was it they had said, he wondered absently as the water's darkness overtook his world?
Had they said 'You shall not die'. . .?
Scene II:
Fire
The vast majority of the Renaitian countryside was composed of thick forests, old as the tales of the Sacred Stones themselves. Most of the woods consisted of oaks and elms, several hands thick and at least five men tall, so that the entire Brynhildr's Woods smelt of sap and bark in a strangely rustic aroma. Little fragments of dying summer sunshine (which heralded an oncoming storm) barely passed through the canopy of viridian leaves to touch the ground below, and illuminate the large group that attempted to cross through the woods.
It was too dangerous, in their position as insurgents to the reign of the pseudo-King Orson, to travel by the main road, and it had been an agreement amidst the army's Generals (which seemed to change hands between Seth and Duessel, properly knighted generals, Innes of Frelia and Ephraim of Renais) that it would be better to travel under the security of the tree's shadows. Unfortunately, most of the half-mercenary, half-militant company rode on horseback, and travel off the main road proved almost impossibly cumbersome with a company such as Renais's only real, formal army (which, ironically, was a hodgepodge of royalty, soldiers, and mercenaries).
One of the heirs apparent to the throne of Renais – Prince Ephraim, son of the late King Fado II – cast an angry scowl about the Brynhildr's Woods, trying to locate a safe path through the trees that wouldn't take hours to cross. They had been traveling on this set path for the greater part of two days, and Ephraim would have been greatly surprised if they had traveled more than ten miles. If there was a single, clear passage - just one route that gapped through the impassable trees - they could enter the capital city within a day or two and possibly reclaim it within a roughly short time frame. Everybody knew that taking Merchant Road was suicide, guarded by either remnants of the Grad army or bandits who thrived in the anarchy created by Fado's assassination.
But if they could just get to the main city, they could liberate the country, a free Renais would be within their grasp . . . although Ephraim was vaguely disturbed by his own thinking like a conqueror, when in regards to his native land.
"Kyle," Ephraim asked suddenly, turning to the knight who rode to his left. The summons also served as a good distraction to get Ephraim out of his pensive, and rather depressing, thoughts. The emerald-haired knight sat bolt upright, a foil to the half-asleep Forde. It was remarkable (and slightly eerie) how much Kyle resembled Seth in his stance, "Do you happen to remember a path out of these woods, by any chance?"
Kyle paused for a moment, than shook his head quickly. "No milord. I believe the General has a map with him, however."
"A map won't show which roads are thick with trees," said Ephraim with a small, half-concealed sigh. He craned his head to try in vain to see through the heavy trunks of the oaks, but all he succeeded in doing was cracking his aching neck. Hours of remaining in the same position did poorly on his body as a whole, but he had always suffered from a rather stiff neck.
With another sigh that seemed to be becoming a habit of his, he pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted. His guard, really only consisting of Kyle and Forde, halted as well, though Forde only stopped because his partner had pulled his horse to a stop as well. Ephraim preferred walking on foot to mounted, as well as fighting. When it was your own two feet planted on the ground, movements had more control, and attacks had a greater chance of hitting than when you had to rely on controlling a horse. Also, it allowed him a chance to find an actual path through Brynhildr that didn't lose them days of needed traveling, or fighting.
The twigs and fallen branches in the underbrush crunched under his boots softly. Ephraim had to admit was a pleasant change from the other crunching noises he had heard recently. He turned around to speak with Kyle again, only to spot a lithe, teal-haired woman riding up on her own horse behind both the knights, gripping a rapier's hilt loosely, just as a precaution. Her blue eyes – so very much like his own, except softer and sadder – were looking at Ephraim's sudden stop in general curiosity, though her face did not mimic the expression. Eirika's face had never really been expressive except when greatly emotional, but Ephraim was always able to tell what ran through her head by the way her eyes reacted. Anybody with enough contact with her probably could pick up the trick, he reasoned.
"I'm going to scout ahead," he told Kyle, and indirectly Eirika, "You and Forde take left and try and find a clearer route. If you find anything, send Neimi or Colm to come and get me. She's fast with a horse through woods, right?" Forde was the one who nodded, fighting back a yawn.
"I'll go with you," Eirika said before anybody gave her an objection. Most of her words were obscured by the very large yawn that Forde let escape, perhaps hoping that the princess's words would be able to disguise it (they didn't, however). Eirika remained mounted upon her mare, however, and there probably would be little problem. Kenny, the pretty chestnut mare that she had acquired from Jehanna as a gift from the hastily crowned Tempest King, was light on her feet from training to cross heavy sands, and could probably fit through trees well enough. She looked at her brother, the curiosity creeping into her set face, and asked, "Should the rest of the army make camp while we're searching?"
Ephraim shook his head, but took the reins of his horse and tying them tight to a low tree branch. As he did, a faint trickle of sunlight that had managed to find a way through the foliage sent a bright shimmer across the golden surface of his bracelet, blinding him for no more than a second. Ephraim still found it very hard to believe that the bracelet – the trinket he'd worn since he was no more than ten – was a key to the true Renaitian Sacred Stone. Ephraim blinked to clear his eyes of the glitter from the Solar Brace.
"No, but tell Seth to have them rest while we find a path," he told to Eirika, who nodded and turned to go find her faithful retainer. Ephraim drew Reginleif from its holster on his horse's saddle, fondly feeling the familiar scars and indents that the wood held. Several had been made even before the invasion of Renais, from sparring with Eirika and the knights when Ephraim had been younger, in the days of yore that had only become a pleasant memory of his childhood. The lance itself had been given to him by General Duessel who, laughingly, had said that young Ephraim would have made a better mercenary than a prince. Ephraim wholeheartedly agreed with the aging Grad.
Not long after Eirika had first set off to find Seth, she returned with a faint scowl and followed by the Silver Knight of Renais. The scarlet-haired general, although he was barely thirty, was holding onto the hilt of his sword firmly, and Ephraim didn't need to ask to know that Seth was going to accompany him and Eirika. He had heard, from his sister one miserable evening that ended a miserable day not too long ago, that the last words Eirika had heard their father say had charged Seth with protecting her, and knew that the knight would never let that slip far from his mind.
He'd go with Eirika to the bowels of hell, and Ephraim was grateful for that loyal presence when few other anchors remained. Eirika, however, seemed not as eager to be followed on a simple scouting mission, and her brother smiled slightly at her less-than-subtle distain.
With Ephraim leading both she and Seth through the thick undergrowth of the forest, Eirika inhaled deeply the sharp, pleasantly warm air to steady her tired body. The wet, earthy aroma lingered for a long time in her nose, bringing with is a smile and faint nostalgia from her childhood. Unfortunately, the pleasant feeling passed quickly and she was left with the omnipresent feeling of exhaustion. She had not slept well for a long, long time, not since the twin's reunion in the hellish sands of Jehanna, and certainly not since her brother had told her of his travels, of Vigarde's second death, and of Lyon. That particular topic was what kept Eirika up at nights, milling over thoughts and memories with confusion in all of them. The few times she had seen the Grad Prince, in the whole of this war, he had mostly appeared to be the same frail young man she knew from childhood, if not more enigmatic and (though she did not like to admit it) disturbed. Yet, Ephraim had told her of a cruel, perhaps demonic psychopath in the place of their dear childhood friend - the boy who couldn't have hurt a fly, even in the worst of rages!
Why the difference now, in both his behavior and the twin's accounts? Eirika trusted her brother – trusted him with her life, as was evident in several of the battles – and believed he would not dare make up a tale like this. However, she could not believe the reality of the story, not until Eirika saw it with her own two eyes.
She inhaled deeply once again, savoring the faint taste of the fresh, clean air and tree sap on her tongue. For once, her senses were not clogged with the smells of war - blood, steel, flesh - and she could taste what was natural and good with the world. Eirika smiled to herself. How she had missed this smell, especially since they had just come from the wasteland of Jehanna where the only smell had been sand. Her expression caught the sharp eye of her guardian, who turned quickly to his lady with a fine mix of concern and control on his face (his most common expression, as Eirika had taken note of over the past few months).
"Princess, is something troubling you?" Seth asked of her sharply, though not coldly. His words had a way of sounding like orders and a simple inquiry at the same time, and it was a trick that he and he alone seemed able to pull off. Ephraim looked over his shoulder at her, overgrown teal hair framing a face that could've been Eirika's, except with a squarer chin and longer nose.
"Just weary from travel," she said, speaking only a half-lie to them, "It's been too long since I've had a proper sleep and it's taking an unfortunate toll. I'm just eager to get back to the capital, that's all, nothing to concern yourself with." She smiled placidly, which did not appear to fool either of them.
"We all are," Ephraim said, resisting both the urge to run his fingers through his mattered hair and to give another sigh that was increasingly bothersome, "Just as we're all eager to see this war end. The end can't come for a while, though, not with the Sacred Stones in such danger and Renais in . . . Orson's hands," (the expression in his eyes was uncharacteristically furious), "We'll just need some patience, just a bit more until we retake the capital." Seth gave something of a half-nod, and Eirika's mood sank further.
"At least when the castle's reclaimed, we can rest," she said in faux optimism, though the greater part of her did not believe her own words. Neither, it seemed, did Seth or Ephraim, though both chose the wrong path and decided to humor her.
"For a while, at best," said Seth, his eyes relaying the opposite and that was what Eirika began to frown about, "Though it would be unwise to stay too long if we want to reach Darkling Woods before Rausten's fleet ceases travel for the holy season. We'll have to head to Rausten to overtake Prince Lyon." There was a sense of something in the knight's words - an emotion that Eirika couldn't exactly place, except that it was bitter.
"We can afford a week or two of rest at Renais," Ephraim said, but avoided Eirika's face and gripped his lance tighter. The unspoken words 'if we live through the battle' hung heavily in the air, and tainted Eirika's next breath of air. Ephraim inhaled sharply before continuing to talk, "It's a long march to Rausten and we need the time to find a steward to the throne, for a while until one of us can take charge."
It struck him, then, exactly how they were to go about naming a reagent. Renais had been ruled by a member of the royal family for as long as anybody could remember - not a single exception could be brought to the prince's mind, although it had been his sister who had taken to books and history in their youth. There was no procedure to follow, and if there was it was buried in scripture they had no time to read, and that left two options for who was to occupy the throne of the legendary paladin who founded Renais; Ephraim, or Eirika.
To distract himself, Ephraim turned to look around the heavy undergrowth of Brynhildr for any sight of a clear road the company could travel down. A seemingly eternal horizon of repeating trees and shrubs and broken trunks spilled around them, occasionally catching his foot and making him stumble for half a second. Not even a worn traveler's path could be visible, and long ago they had lost sight of Merchant's Road, which Ephraim now wondered about the logic of. The road gave them the clearest route to the capital, and - despite every risk to their lives and well being that accompanied taking Merchant's Road - he was beginning to think it would be better to take it than struggle through the forest another moment.
He stopped sharply, veins filling with adrenaline when Eirika asked uneasily to them, with a hitch of fear in her words, "Do you smell smoke?"
Ephraim inhaled a deep breath full of the thick scent of the trees and foliage, and gripped Reginleif so tightly the knuckles under his gloves were white with fear. There, a faint scent under that of the trees, was the unforgettable aroma of smoke; growing stronger as he stood there. The more he inhaled, the more the smell became familiar until he recalled it entirely with a ferocious swear that no member of society above a pirate should know.
Sulfur, the sort that was mixed with smoke and ash, only came from three places in the world - volcanoes, the gunpowder used to fire ballistae, and fire summoned by mages. As the nearest volcano was in Rausten and ballistae wouldn't have had a chance to burn their powder before the loud mechanics gave away their position, the only thing it could be was a sorcerer - who could set all of Brynhildr ablaze.
"Enemy soldiers are nearby!" shouted Seth as he grabbed his lance and drew it without a sound, "Princess, milord, go join back with the rest of the army before the trees are set aflame!"
"How can you tell?" Eirika asked, ignoring his orders entirely. Just as he opened his mouth to repeat his command, there was the sound of snapping wood in the near distance, so faint that if they had not fallen utterly silent, Ephraim would have certainly missed it. He turned towards what was the most likely direction the sound had come from, his teeth gnashed and his hands tightly gripped on Reginleif's battle-worn shaft.
His eyes were narrowed as they quickly scanned around the bushes and trees for anything that resembled a man with a mage's hat and tome. A flicker of color - a steel gray against the background of green and brown - was all that the Renaitian Prince needed to charge through the thick underbrush, leaving both Seth and Eirika to hurry after him, both not nearly as fleet on horses as he was on foot. He heard, in the back of his mind, Eirika give a very unlady-like swear as Kenny passed a tree that smashed a branch into his sister's face.
It didn't take too long at all for him to come upon a small man was crouched in the ground, decked in a Grado soldier's gray and dark blue. His fingers were flickering through the thick parchment pages of an Anima tome and his whisper-quiet and gravelly voice was chanting a quick incarnation that Ephraim instantly recognized. He tipped the point of Reginleif under the mage's head delicately, ready to sink the steel into the man's throat with barely a twitch of his wrist. There was no fear in the mage's eyes, only an arrogant defiance.
"Who is your commander?" Ephraim demanded of the man, "Are there anymore of you in the woods?" Reginleif pushed harder.
As a response, the mage gave a wry, sadistic smile, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth, and finished his incarnation. Too late did Ephraim's lance impale itself through the man's throat, and he swore at his delayed movements. "Glory to the Grado Empire," the mage sputtered in a bloody wheeze as his eyes turned pale with death, and the brush around Ephraim burst into a ring of flame.
As Brynhildr went up in a cloud of crackling fire, Ephraim backed up and looked around the enclosure he had found himself within. The Elfire spell had hit directly onto a dying tree, which spared no moments in falling and blocking off Ephraim from the route to his army, and spreading fast across the scattered leaves and undergrowth. With a dying man's panic in his eyes and thoughts, clouding his logical judgment (quite a feat indeed, considering this was the same man who stood brave when viciously outnumbered in Renvall), he ran as the fire overtook him and burned a barricade. The only coherent thing that pounded through his skull was the vicious question a voice in the back of his mind spat; How careless can you be!?
That mage had probably tried to lure either him or Eirika (or possibly any member of their company, considering the direct heirs to the Frelian, Jehannan, and Raus thrones were amongst their army's ranks) to kill them, and Ephraim had walked right into the trap. The sanctuary the man had found was the driest spot in all of Brynhildr's Woods, and the only spot that would erupt into a giant cloud of sulfurous fire. Elfire was a spell that only a few of the most highly trained soldiers, previously under the command of General Flourspar, could master, so this man had been no idiot. Ephraim had been duped, as would any man, but rationalizations were a thing of the past. He was trapped inside the circle of fire, unsure of whether or not he'd die a painful death by fire or by suffocating on the clouds of smoke. Which was the worst death, he didn't want to consider.
The orange-red blaze was coming in closer, further destroying anything that resembled an escape route, with flames writhing and twisting as they cracked in the air. Sweat, from both fear and the heat, comingled and blurred his vision as he searched, a pure, instinctual fear filling his heart as fast as the smoke was filling his lungs. Even trying to hold his breath, streams of the smoke found their way into his body, bringing horrible coughs up to his mouth. He had to press the back his hand to his mouth as his body tried to force the ash out of his lungs to no avail.
His mind was starving for oxygen as he stepped back from the approaching fire, and his eyes flickered too frantically around to find a path. Even through his fear, he could tell what his final thoughts were, as they were the thoughts that crossed the warrior-prince's mind at that very moment. Was this how he was going to die? Burned alive, unable to do a damn thing to save his skin, trapped like a useless rat instead of the fighter everyone said he was?
"Siegfried and Latona damnit!" he swore out loud, words that might be his last. The outburst had been a pitiful mistake, as smoke swept itself up into his lungs and made his vision swim to a sea of brown trees and vivid orange fire. He felt panic fill his heart more acutely then he had ever felt it before as he collapsed to his knees, Reginleif (which he's forgotten was still in his hands, having been wrenched from the mage's neck on reflex) slipping from his fingers as he coughed a wheezy heave. Maybe blood was on his tongue from the severity of his coughs, but he really couldn't tell.
Ephraim stumbled back to his feet, keeping the palm of one hand over his mouth and nose. His watering eyes scanned the ring of fire for any sort of escape, even one that would end up in him getting scorched with blistering burns. No, his only escape route was to risk running through a blaze that would only grant him a slow, agonizing death. A tree collapsed in front of him, smattering bits of charred wood up in his face that stung like high heaven. He walked backwards as fast as he could. At least behind him, the flames were lesser, and Ephraim could at least postpone the inevitable – for the moment at least – and give his mind some time to formulate a hope –
His foot hit a tree root, the heel of his boot pulling him down even as he grabbed at the air for support. Ephraim fell backwards into the spreading wildfire, and for a moment felt no pain.
The fire licked his skin and, when the pain finally came to him, he could not help but let out a scream of pain. This was agony.
He clawed at his throat for what held his cape in place, one hand attempting to find ground to prop himself up on and only finding more fire. He screamed again, his eyes shut tight as his body continued to hopelessly find some means of escaping the pain.
In his mind, with the snide voice in the back of his thoughts confirming such, the only consolation was soon, the pain would leave him, and soon he would be of any and all earthly pain. However, Ephraim was a damn better man to accept death peacefully and finally managed to push himself up. He shook where he stood as the fire bit deep into his skin. His hands clawed up the burning trunk of a tree, so he could die on his feet.
Despite his final actions, he wondered how soon his obvious fate would arrive upon him - seconds, minutes, hours – days later as he lay covered in burns?
Even as he fought to die on his feet, his knees buckled and he fell back onto the flaming ground. The pain was beginning to go away, which - despite relief - he knew wasn't a good thing. His mind threw him reminders of the earthly world, perhaps easing him for death (which brought a different sort of panic to his chest).
He saw his mother's face, as he remembered it from childhood, his father's deep voice, a holiday in Frelia where he had first met Tana and Innes, long lessons in Grado both with books and weapons, Lyon before the war, Eirika crying as over the death of their childhood pet when both had been too young to understand death, and again as a young woman relaying the tale of Fado's murder by Valter's hands. Eirika, who had now lost everything and everyone she cared about, who would have to go on to kill a previously loyal knight and her dearest childhood friend, alone.
"Forgive me, Eirika," he meant to speak, but didn't quite know if he had said those words.
Ephraim opened his eyes blindly, trying in vain to get one last picture of the Renaitian sky before he died. He knew he'd be dead in a matter of seconds with the way his mind faded in and out of consciousness, and he knew he'd be dying when Renais was in the hands of a psychopathic traitor, but he'd at least be dying in his own country having fought so very hard to return back. He strained his eyes as best he could to see beyond the fire, up at the sky.
He saw, instead a single person standing above him, and watching him die as one watched a play. Whoever they were, they were garbed in red (or was it the fire?), staring him down listlessly, mouthing something just as Ephraim's sight faded away from him for the final time. His final thoughts were, sadly, on what that person had said to him as he fell into a painless darkness.
It will not end like this, he was sure the figure had said, Don't fret.
Scene III:
Earth
Dark blood and brain matter stained the barren earth of Serenes Forest, blending in with the black muck that had once been lush, rich soil. With each and every step, Ike's boots sank deeper into the ground and squelched like a cry when removed, which became harder and harder each time. The mercenary hitched the laguz woman higher so the tips of her wings did not scrape painfully against his fingers. Despite her amazingly light weight, his arms were beginning to ache after constantly adjusting her position and his grip on a sword.
The woman (or girl, rather, since a glance put her at about Mist's age) had fallen unconscious some time ago, after he and the other members of the Greil Mercenaries had first come across her, looking like the proverbial angel in the darkness. Since then, she had been nothing more than dead weight that kept Ike at the back lines of the battle, unable to do much more than cast a hard blue glare around the sights of the now blood-soaked as well as dead forest and yell commands for the others to carry out. He hitched her up higher so he was gripping her knees rather than her thighs, so that the faint voice in the far back of his mind could stop complaining about inappropriately gripping her.
Of all the battlefields Ike had fought upon since first joining the ranks of his father's company, he thought dumbly as he watched Zihark jab his crooked sword through a coat of chain mail with barely a crunch, Serenes Forest had to be the worst. It was not as though the battle was something monstrous, since Duke Tanas's miniature army was little different than pirates or bandits, but it was the scene the bloody spectacle had been cast onto.
The forest seemed to soak in everything that made fighting difficult and magnify it until it began to make Ike's stomach knot. The charred blackness of the trees and muddy ground matched perfectly with the dark sky so that it became hard to distinguish which was shadow and which was solid, and the air was ferociously stagnant, keeping every smell to the ground and wafting in the combater's faces with every harsh gust of wind. No other scent that wafted around was more prominent than the metallic of the blood, obvious even to the beorc who fought there. From where Lethe stood as Ike's sole cover, he could see the faint flickers of pain the smell must cause to her, though she raised no complaint.
He stooped slightly as the girl's head lolled onto his shoulder, her closed eyes turned up towards the black sky that barely showed the sights of the approaching dawn. Although he couldn't see it, her lips were trembling, as though the nighttime sky made her sad. Ike's attention was focused more on several of his men (it felt odd to hear himself say that, however, even if it was true now and had been for some months) and how they were faring against the soldiers that the duke had employed to find his 'piece of art'; the other heron, who Nasir had mentioned to be a man. With some small pride, he could see the majority of the mercenaries winning their respective fights, perhaps because Begnionite soldiers were not so accustomed to marching through mud when the rest of the country was flatland or desert.
Titania was removing her axe from the body of a Begnionite knight, at the same time prying an arrow from the plates of her armor and making a face at the speckles of blood present on the arrowhead. Her white armor and Puck (the aging warhorse that had stood faithfully beside her since she'd been a knight of Crimea) were smattered with black mud that clung like sludge. Close towards the scarlet-haired woman was Oscar and Rolf. The latter rode with a disturbingly green expression and eerily steady hand when he pulled back the bowstring. Usually, the middle brother of the three hung close to the other two, and Ike couldn't spy the axe-wielding Boyd anywhere.
On cue, perhaps, in the bloody scene, Boyd called out his commander's name and stumbled into view from the left, his axe dangling from loose fingers and brisk slow. It was almost as if he didn't remember they were fighting, for Ashera's sake, but the reason became clearer as he came closer. Lethe's ears pulled back and a strong twitch of pain took over her face. In a hiss, she turned half a head towards Ike and he saw her pupils were impossibly thin and her nostrils were flaring.
"Poison!" she hissed, her words high-pitched and growling at the same time, "Those humans used the holy woods to make poison!" The insults she undoubtedly issued next were lost in a series of cries that made up the Gallian's native dialect.
Unhampered by the heron's weight, Ike moved towards Boyd and noticed, with narrowing eyes, what Lethe had spoken of. Boyd's arm was slit from shoulder to wrist by what Ike could only assume to be a sword, though the blade had missed any vital tendons or veins and did not appear extraordinarily deep. The blood that came from the wound, though, was darker than natural - a blackish color tinted with original red. On inspection with a keener eye, the wound was shown to be surrounded by a thick, dark liquid – the poison that Lethe had mentioned, without a doubt, although Ike was no expert in the field.
"Where's Rhys?" Boyd asked of his commander, his words lethargic - almost intoxicated. It was that, and the glassy eyes and the green-hued coloring that confirmed to Ike that Boyd was poisoned, with something damnably strong and quick.
"With Soren, I think," Ike said quickly. It took a moment for Boyd to realize Ike had answered, since has asked the question again, his voice shaking. It was quite disturbing to see Boyd - of all people, especially - act so much like an ill child, particularly when the timing was the worst possibly one.
Carefully, so as not to drop the girl and injure her (she looked about as strong as brittle glass), Ike sheathed his sword and fumbled for a skin that had been looped around his belt. It was stamped with the overly intricate seal of Manial Cathedral's apothecary. Captain Sigrun had given it to him before they had entered Serenes this final time. Already, it was half-empty. What was inside, though, was strong and should heal Boyd's poisoning completely. He extended it towards Boyd as best he could, with the girl's blonde head falling to press against Ike's chest. "Here, this'll help."
Boyd fumbled with the cap of the elixir, dropping his axe carelessly where it could have cut his foot in half, and emptied the skin instantly. The opaque elixir gushed down his sliced arm and the wound closed almost instantly. The dazed and sickened look did not leave the mercenary's eyes, though, and his grip on the leather skin was shaking horribly. Ike's scowl deepened, but not out of anger. That was damn strong poison if the elixir had failed to cleanse it.
"Lethe," Ike asked, and before he had finished speaking the laguz was before him, doing her best to stand with a soldier's stance and blankness in her eyes, "Can you watch her while I find Rhys?" She knew he meant the girl slung on his back, still in an unconscious stupor with her lips trembling and eyes fluttering with some horror in her dream-world. A little bit of surprise lingered in Lethe's feline eyes, perhaps due to the fact she was unused to beorc doing anything but bark insults and commands at her (not that she did much different, to be honest), but since it was a request and not an order, she nodded curtly.
"Of course I will! I will not let these filthy beorc complete the genocide they began twenty years ago!"
Carefully, Ike gave the girl to Lethe, and the angelical heron seemed to shiver at the Gallian's touch. Whither or not it was because of the change in grip or the fact the girl could sense another laguz's closer presence, Ike didn't know or think of. Instead, his attention turned back to Boyd, who was starring blindly at a spot ahead of him, slowly sinking into the mud. Slowly, Ike spoke to Boyd, "Stay here with Lethe. I'm going to go get Rhys to heal you."
How much of the message the poisoned mercenary received, Ike didn't know, but the dazed nod and slurred, almost drunkenly so, 'Yessir' was enough of a response Ike needed. Drawing his sword from its sheath with a click, relishing its feel in his hands, Ike left the girl with Lethe's capable hands and moved quickly, not staying long in one spot so he wouldn't sink too far into the mud, he reached where Titania sat upon faithful Puck.
Her face was flushed, almost matching her shocking red hair, and her axe's blade dripped vermilion onto the ground, which swallowed the blood hungrily. At his sight, Titiania gave Ike a salute that almost caught him off guard. He still needed to get used to his former commander acting as his subordinate. From the lingering look of sorrow in Titania's eyes, she still adjusted to the absence of Greil to salute to.
"Has something happened to the heron?" were the first words out of her mouth, and Ike shook his head. He kept one eye looking around for anybody who would come to try and claim either his or Titania's life, but thankfully much of the duke's force was centered towards the forest's heart along with the bulk of the ragtag army that the Greil Mercenaries had evolved into.
"No, Lethe is guarding her. I need to find Rhys quickly and bring him to Boyd, do you know where he is?" A gust of autumn wind tore through the battlefield and brought a gag to his throat. The wind stank of corpses, blood, and the memory of genocide by fire.
"Is something wrong with Boyd?" she asked, calmly yet with cold concern. Her sharp azure gaze peered over him towards the ruins that had once been the heron's beautiful civilization, but she probably couldn't make out who was Boyd and what was shadow. The darkness of the forest and the early morning hid everything in blackness.
Ike nodded sharply. "He's poisoned, and an elixir didn't cure it. I need to go find Rhys. If you see him at all, send him to the ruins."
"Yes commander," she said, failing to disguise the bite of worry in her voice. She directed Puck towards the forest's heart and dug her heels into his flanks. The warhorse and its rider were off, though not without difficulty in the beginning. Puck's legs had begun to sink into the mud, and his first few steps were obviously painful as he fought to pull himself from the capturing black earth. When finally he was free (after several horrible squeals from the mud that must have echoed the screams of the dying herons two decades ago), he went into gallop only at Titania's urgings. Ike followed north, but went northwest rather than Titania's northeast. The further he went, the more corpses of Bishop Oliver's guard lay on the ground.
Where there was the dead, there were their killers.
Mia, covered head to toe in black mud and blood, gave a cry that contradicted with her cheery disposition as she charged towards an armored man and barely dented his armor. As the Begnionite soldier lumbered towards the swordswoman, Lady Astrid - whose armor remained clean, surprisingly - aimed her bow and shot with amazing accuracy at the spot between the man's helmet and the top of his armor. The arrow pierced directly into the back of his neck, paralyzing the man with a scream. Gatrie (at Astrid's side, as he had been since rejoining the mercenaries he had abandoned tactlessly months ago) pierced the soldier's side with a fast stab to the side. It sunk in deeper than any blow Mia could have landed and was certainly the strike that killed the man, though Ike didn't stay and watch him die.
His attention had been pulled away by something that caused him to scowl and swear. More soldiers, a lot more soldiers, adorned with scarlet armor and the Holy Seal of the Begnion Empire were making their way through the dead or dying trees of Serenes Forest, their boots squelching through the mud and breaking the blackened limbs. Judging by the size of the approaching platoon, Duke Tanas himself appeared to be coming. If Tanith's and Sigrun's explanation pre-battle conference with him and Soren were much to go by, than Oliver would be hell on his own, never mind the army of reinforcements coming with him.
The first two Begnionite soldiers approaching caught sight of Ike, who stood roughly alone, and one of them seemed to recognize him from the Greil Mercenaries' invasion of the Duke's villa earlier that weak. Snapping something to the other, the soldier raised his spear and advanced quickly (or as quickly as one could run in heavy mud and heavier armor) on the younger commander. Vengeance was in their eyes, a battle cry spilling from their lips, even though Ike had never wronged the men personally.
Nationalism, he thought bitterly.
The first strike was sloppy, either due to the mud pulling at the soldier's feet or poor training, and Ike could easily counter it by snapping the soldier's lance with a well-placed slash. Quicker than the soldier could manage, Ike slammed the sharp edge of his sword through the plates of burgundy armor and, with a soft, sick tear that drew copper blood up to his lips and onto Ike's face, the soldier fell. However, the mercenary commander could not block the stab of another's spear through his arm, though the wound was not ferociously deep. He did yell out in pain.
Blocking the thin weapon with his sword, Ike drew the heel of his boot up with a squelch and kicked the soldier as hard as he could in the chest. Although a slight echo of pain fled through his foot, the man stumbled backwards and fell victim to a swift decapitation from Ike's sword.
Tearing a strip of cloth from his cape and making a poor tourniquet around his wound, Ike's dark eyes scoured the dark forest for any sight of either the redheaded priest or his brunette sister, yet both were far from his field of vision. He did know, though, that Rhys was with Soren, so all he had to do was wait for a flash of magic and follow its light and wind.
Boyd probably wouldn't last that long though, if that poison was indeed strong. Ike hurried to the left, occasionally attacked by an overeager knight of Begnion. Considering any skirmish Ike found himself in ended quickly, he found himself giving a grim smile despite the surrounding battle. Either his swordsmanship was improving, or the army of Begnion had been over-exaggerated all these years.
"There's the leader!"
The Commander of the Greil Mercenaries turned in time to see at least a half dozen soldiers, two of which were on horseback, hurrying towards him. Ike could not hold back a string of very nasty swears just as he raised his sword to block the swing of knight's axe.
This action, however, left him no time to block or sidestep a stab from a lance to his side or an arrow sinking into the back of his right shoulder. Both actions left a hot trickle of blood seep through his jerkin and a sharp pain in both sides of his body. He bit down on his tongue to keep from yelling, an action which caused his mouth to filled with the iron taste of blood.
Ike spun his sword to slice through the soldier's face, smattering the ground with brain matter and blood that only added to the putrid aroma in the air, and kill him instantly. The enemy's death came at the price of another slice from a lance to the skin above his eye, taking a nice slice of his skin along with it, and a second arrow to the shoulder.
"Elwind!"
Sharp winds licked at the blood on Ike's brow, so suddenly that it cut deeper than the lance had. He blinked speckles of blood out of his eye and ran the back of his hand across his brow to clean off the blood. His vision clear, Ike spotted a frail-looking young man balancing a thick tome on his heel of his palm, quickly speaking a clear spell to the stagnant air of Serenes Forest.
Again, the squall winds reared and snapped the neck of the soldier whose lance had injured Ike and enough of a distraction for the mercenary to slice his sword through the middle of a fourth soldier. The blade met too great of a resistance against the armor, and the sword dented near the tip. The both of the horseback knights left Ike quickly as the winds from Soren's magic died down, both in search of a weaker enemy.
The staff officer of the mercenaries turned his crimson eyes to Ike, taking note immediately of the blood on his face and side but saying nothing. Rhys, who stood directly behind Soren with a book of Light magic in one hand and a staff in another, followed the mage's trail of vision intently. Without saying anything, he raised the staff and touched the deep wound at Ike's ribcage with the orb of the scepter.
"Mend," said Rhys weakly. His voice still tinged from a lapse of illness he had suffered the previous week. Ike gave a smile in relief as he felt his skin sew itself together instantaneously, but the smile dropped quickly.
"Thank you," he said to the priest, who nodded his head. Ike continued before Rhys could say anything, "Rhys, back near the ruins is Boyd – he's poisoned badly. An elixir didn't cure him. Get to him as quick as you can."
"I didn't see any of the soldiers hear carrying poisoned weapons," Soren said delicately, in his familiar, half-paranoid manner. Ike's eyes narrowed a tad, not out of anger, but at the sudden pull of the wind blew the stench of death up into his face. Everything seemed so much more magnified in this hideous forest.
"Nevertheless, he looks about to die," Ike responded, if not a little impatiently. Some soldier, whose colors Ike didn't know, had screamed in utter agony and fright. The sound, sounding so much worse in Serenes than it would have on any other plane, sent the hairs on the back of his neck on end. Rhys's pallid cheeks went a bit paler.
"Near the ruins, you said?" he asked quickly. Even before Ike could give a proper response, Rhys's orange eyes were traveling through the muck of the forest floor towards what remained of the heron civilization. There was only a crumbled archway and a standing pillar that may or may not have depicted offerings to Ashera.
"Yes, Titania's –" Ike never would get a chance to finish his sentence.
A female voice screamed out to Ike's left. He dimly knew to be the squeal of the female mage employed by the Greil Mercenaries from back in Gallia – Elaice or Ilyana, he thought. He turned to spy the frail girl falling to all fours with a deep gash bleeding across her belly, her hands quickly stained red as she gripped her abdomen. Her Wind tome went flying across the ground, the cover tearing off as it was engulfed by the black mud. Faintly, the arcane writing in the book glowed jade.
Far more dangerous than the broken book was the magic she had been casting, which had been completed in its entirety. Although Ilyana had fallen, her incantation was complete, and her spell took its full effect. The gale of the Wind spell blew mud, blood and the horrible, horrible stench that permeated throughout the forest everywhere, slicing hair into Ike's face like the strands were miniature daggers. However, instead of hitting the enemy soldier it had been aimed for, the wind spun far off target. The magic – of a lesser caliber then what Soren had cast, yet nevertheless powerful – slammed through a weak tree closer towards the three. Against the dry wood, the wind ignited the base of a brittle tree, and it began to slip from its trunk.
The tree took an eternity to fall. For that eternity, Ike found himself unable to move as if the tree fell in a split second. Paralysis – through fear, surprise, or the mud sucking him down, he did not know – restricted him to the spot. When he would later recall the situation, he could summon no explanation as to why he could not move.
When that infinity ended and the tree took three whole seconds to collide with the ground, he felt the trunk slam against his shoulders and knock him flat to the ground. There was a crack as his shoulder and arm broke to pieces, another few as his ribs broke. Ike couldn't keep the scream of utter pain from escaping his mouth, along with it blood from what felt to be a punctured lung.
He was pinned to the ground, all feeling gone from his lower body and spreading up towards his upper body. His left arm hung, full of agony, lamely at his side, so Ike could only use his right arm to try and push the tree-trunk off of his body. The splinters bit hard into his hand and fingers, drawing blood, but his grip was too weak.
Vaguely he heard people, their voices fading away into blackening sounds but definitely Soren and Rhys, maybe Titania, said something. Ike shut his eyes, as the feeling of the many broken bones was bringing the taste of illness to his tongue (along with the salty, unforgettable taste of blood). When the task of pushing the tree off of him proved fruitless, he set his hand behind him to push him up. Ike sank deeper into the black earth of Serenes Forest. Hungrily, it moved through his fingers and swallowed his arm, so that he could possibly try to pull himself out.
He kept his eyes shut tightly as he remained in the mud. His breathing was heavy, but broken, and each exhale pushed out a great deal of blood. Each time Ike tried to open his eyes, he saw not the dawn-gray sky, but blinding dots of white that swiftly faded to blackness. He was beyond dazed, focusing entirely on his breathing and the life that was dwindling out of him. Miserably, he thought, his final picture of the world above him was that of something – someone, he supposed – that could not possibly be in the geographical scar Serenes had become in the last two decades.
A figure in deep, sweeping colors of a decorated army man, the face obscured in shadow, the eyes glittering with a deep fury. He gave no aide to Ike, though he obviously saw his pain and misery down like a coward on the ground. From beneath the shadows of his face, Ike watched as the man moved his thin lips and spoke something that he did not register. The words had melded in with the fading, popping clamor of the battle occurring all around him. Still, he thought he got the message, which constituted his final thoughts as the mud engulfed him with its blackness.
You cannot die.
Scene IV:
Wind
Bitter winds rattled the leaves on the trees, a thin layer of powdery snow shadowing the ground blown in from the high tops of the monolithic mountains. Bern was known for the cruel, unforgiving hand that Father Winter continually cast upon it. Horribly, this was intensified in the deep pits of the Kerrigan Mountains, far from the capital and any semblance of human civilization and warmth. The only thing that Roy of Pherae could thank Elimine for in the frozen hell of the mountains was that it was still early in the season, and the weather was not as terrible as it could have been.
His fingers curled tighter around his rapier's hilt, and his blue eyes looked darkly over the battlefield the snowy vale had become. Dozens of men with the crest of Bern's glorious Wyvern Riders littered the ground, seemingly creating a sea of multi-colored scales that hid the pure white of the snow beneath. Every corpse that Roy laid his eyes upon had been doubly slain – the wyvern first, full of arrows or magical burns, and the rider by any conceivably means available to keep the Lycian soldier alive. A coat of a bloody and snow amalgamation adorned the heels of Roy's boots, as well as the hem of his cape.
The number of dead riders was staggering, never mind the various other paladins and archers the Lycian Alliance Army had struck down this day. Bern had certainly made ever attempt to keep the army away from the Shrine of Seals, Roy noted with something between a tired sigh and an angry yawn. In the far back of his mind, he remembered his father – who now laid abed back home in Pherae, teetering between life and death – telling him of a similar battle taking place on this ground twenty odd years ago, in December as well. The cause of such an epic battle eluded Roy, as Marquess Pherae had chosen to swear himself to silence, but the irony was not spared on the young general.
He commanded the army, just as his father had, with only a twenty year gap separating the battle.
"Roy! Watch out!"
He spun around on his heels just in time to spot a Bernese soldier – his face a bloody mess, and his eyes ravenous for revenge – raise a heavy axe over his head, preparing to cleave Roy neatly into two. The axe was nicked and covered in strings of flesh, better fitting some Nabatan brigade instead of a valorous soldier of King Zephiel, but the weapon's state did not matter a damned bit. Dodging out of the way by an inch, Roy thrust all his weight into a single stab of his sword, piercing through the man's ribs straight to the other side. His armor had been cracked from various other encounters with Roy's men, and made him an easy man to fall.
The soldier sputtered, his axe falling with a crack to cleave his toes from his foot. In an arc, he fell to the ground and Roy withdrew his sword from the still warm corpse. The blood on steel glittered disturbingly in the winter sunshine.
Turning to face his savior as he wiped his blade clean on his cape, Roy spotted the emerald-haired Etrurian Sorcery General, seemingly unaffected by any sort of attack or injury – although the wounds sustained by King Zephiel had limited her to the back lines of the army, on a request by both her one-time student and her blonde colleague. Cecilia sat tall and proud on the back of her mare Freya, and a relieved smile passed her lips when she saw her commanding officer standing unharmed, but breathing heavily.
"Thank you for the warning," he said with a sharp nod of his head.
"Think nothing of it. However, you should keep a sharper eye on your own surroundings rather than those of your soldiers," she responded sagely. She tugged at the reins of her warhorse to keep her from licking the blood off a Wyvern's scales.
"Are we doing well? You can probably see more than me from atop your horse." Roy knew what Cecilia was about to say, judging from the dark grimace that crossed her face and the obvious effort she used in picking her words.
"I would say . . . we are faring decently. The front lines are tiring, and we are severely out numbered. Are you sure you don't wish to send in the reinforcements the King Mordred sent with us? They are well rested and eager to fight."
Roy gave a dark frown and shook his head. It was bad enough that the three greatest Etrurian generals were in battle, alongside the disguised prince, but should too many men die under his command, the traitorous High Court (already displeased with Roy after the fiasco of killing Arcard and Roartz, despite their treason) could demand fair compensation by the war-torn Lycian League. "Don't send them immediately into the fray unless it becomes obvious that we're losing," he told her, thinking quickly as he spoke, "Send word, however, and have them prepare to make up the last defense – guarding Princess Guinevere. If the Wyvern Riders kill more than ten of the rear guard, give them orders to flee for the border."
"Understood." With that and a nod, Cecilia tugged on Freya's reigns and the warhorse began a furious gallop towards the mouth of the vale, where the army's camp and the great force of the soldiers lay in wait. In the far distance, Roy could spy the navy armor of an Ostian knight brigade, whom Lilina had helped bring alongside them.
He turned away from what was behind him and instead forward. A sinking feeling was filling his chest, an odd spike of adrenaline lacing through his veins. Throughout the war, he had these periods of dread, and they almost always foreshadowed danger. His fingers tightened over the wire-wrapped hilt of his rapier and his face set in grim determination as he searched.
Just ahead and at a turn in the valley path, a bloodied Wyvern struggling back to the sky. Its half-vanquished rider was slumped in the saddle but grasping his spear with enough of a grip to kill any Lycian fool to come his way. His footing surprisingly firm in the snow, Roy took off running, kicking up bloody snow into the air. With a cry fueled by adrenaline passing his lips, he stepped onto an uneven piece of ground and into the air.
The rapier met with the silver shaft of the spear with an unholy clang. Roy landed on the hind of the dragon-like beast, causing the beast to snap its head around to glare at the redheaded general. As he landed back to the ground, Roy pierced his sword through the creature's wing, dragging the half-flying animal towards the ground. The Wyvern gave an almighty, banshee screech, pinned to the ground and unable to move less it loose a limb. A single move had made the infamous animal become a little more useful than a pair of boots with fangs. The rider looked at Roy with eyes smattered with blood, a deep cut on his brow leaking the liquid into his vision steadily. He abandoned his mount with a lost, pained look that vanished quickly when he looked back towards Roy.
Before he spoke, he had to spit out a mouthful of blood, bile, and what looked like skin lining the inside of his cheeks. "What manner of monster are you – who tries to kill a man when he's down and dying?" The words struck hard and stung. The Pherean general gave a furious scowl and tore his sword from the Wyvern's wing. The creature howled in misery, twisting its neck around to lick at its blood.
"I am no monster. Monsters invade countries without warning and slaughter innocent people!" Roy snarled, brandishing his blade, ready for the rider to charge with intent to slay.
The rider gave a wheezy, broken laugh, coughing blood and spit onto Roy's face. The young man barely flinched and clenched his teeth. Uneasily – owing to the wide gash in his leg that exposed both muscle and bone – the rider assumed a similar stance.
"Isn't that what the Lycian army did in the Western Isles?" the Bernese man hissed. He had, perhaps, resigned himself to death and wanted a final chance to attack his enemy when his strength would fail to kill Roy.
His temper snapped; a rare event that later Roy was sure he'd deeply regret. Snarling furiously, he charged with the memory of Roartz's manipulation as his fuel. He didn't even feel the spear pierce through his shoulder, crunching bone as it did so, but he felt the hot smatter of blood on his cheeks and hands as he shoved his sword through soldier's throat. The gag on steel and blood was enough to snap Roy out of the state of madness he had slipped into, and soften his eyes.
The sight of the body before him, while not different than all the ones that lay dead in the valley around him, or all the ones that had died in the course of the war, made Roy's stomach turn.
He drew out his sword with his left hand, as his right one had quickly gone numb from the wound in the shoulder. He sheathed his blade delicately, his eyes flickering to anything that moved within a five foot radius of where he stood (minus the dying Wyvern in front of him, which would never recover from the tear in its wing or the stab in its belly, as Roy saw). When Roy was sure there was no great threat before him, he grabbed the silver spear with both his hands very tightly and braced himself. Even preparing himself for the sharp, almost too sharp, pain as the spear was pulled from his flesh, Roy yelled with tears in the corners of his eyes. He tossed it to the ground.
The warmth of the blood flowing from the wound felt like his arm had been engulfed in flames. He pressed the base of his palm to the mess of torn flesh and fabric, and he ground his teeth together in pain. He regretted having sent Cecilia towards the reinforcement camp, now needing her skills with a healing staff desperately. At least the spear was gone from his shoulder, and had Roy taken a better education in medicine, he would have realized the weapon should have been kept in his shoulder so he would not bleed to death. Instead, he thought of who could tend to the wound.
Lilina, he remembered, had talent with the clerical arts, and Lilina always remained in the middle lines. The other healers – Saul and Clarine and Ellen – often flittered between the front and middle lines. Freya would have taken Cecilia to the camp by now and Roy could not catch up to her. The bishop Yodel, generous enough to aid the army in this battle, was following orders that Roy couldn't recall and might have been anywhere in all the mountains. With the amount of blood pouring from the spear's wound, Roy doubted he had the time to go on a wild goose chase for one of them, thus making Lilina his best chance at survival.
His run was jerky, and far too often he found himself tripping over an arm or leg of the dead. As he ran, Roy made sure to keep one hand firmly pressed against the injury. The hand, both back, palm, and the glove adorning it were nearly black from the life-giving elixir spilling out of the tear. His other hand, however, fumbled with the torn hem of his cape to rip off another strip to use as a tourniquet. The wet material proved stubborn to tear in his haste, however.
"AIRCALIBUR!"
Thank you Roland, Roy thought as he recognizedLilina's voice. The fevered, harmonic sound of her Ostian accent was butchered by blind panic and fear. Roy held his rapier, and the task of making a tourniquet abandoned when he heard her scream. The pain numbed back away as epinephrine and dread refilled his body, his boots slamming onto the slushy ground as he hurried towards the side of his childhood friend.
Lilina, the heiress to the proud dukedom of Ostia, was holding onto her magic tome in a white-knuckled death grip. She spat out arcane incantations like they were curses. Three Wyverns hovered over her head, dodging various shots of wind and fire. An archer clung to the back of one of the riders, and he would often fire bolts upon the sapphire-haired lass. Lithe as she was, she was only lightly wounded where a slower or thicker individual might have been dead.
"Lilina!" he bellowed out, charging forward to stand in front of her. An arrow, by almost demonic luck, struck him in the chest, sinking deep into his side and into his lung. Blood pooled up into his mouth, and he tried in vain not to scream (although he did yell and grip the site of the wound). His head swam. Lilina gave a screech of horror behind him as he fell to his knee.
She dropped her tome in a fumble (Lilina was still young, despite her impressive battle record at fourteen, and could not be blamed for such a reckless mistake). She pulled from her back a long, gold-gilded staff topped with an orb the size of a child's head.
"Roy, don't die!" she screamed, almost slamming the staff into his skull and bellowing several words in the magical language that Ellen had taught her.
Cold relief flooded over his flesh, and in a miracle he had always considered a gift by the heroes themselves, Roy watched as his skin mended back together flawlessly. The only thing left behind where the arrow and the spear had struck were white scars on his tanned skin.
"How delightful young love is!" one of the riders cackled.
It was a female, surprisingly, with dark blonde hair and bloodred eyes. By her battle-scarred, gray and red armor, she was a seasoned fighter – a Wyvern Lord, Roy realized with a hissed string of colorful phrases, when he saw the gilded metal epaulettes on her shoulders. She swept low to the ground and disturbing the snow with the flaps of her Wyvern's black wings. Her subordinates echoed her sociopathic laughter.
Lilina's response was simple. She lunged for the tome she had dropped before the female lord had a chance to impale the girl with the javelin. The weapon slammed into the ground and quivered with a sound faintly similar to a tuning fork. Lilina pulled open the creased pages of her azure tome, whilst Roy ran towards a body he saw, spread eagle on the ground. Although he might greatly distain against the act of grave-robbing, the sword in the dead Bernese soldier's hands was a sword shimmering with a hue of indigo that could only be described as magic. Wind magic, to be precise, and the winds would knock the Wyvern Lord to the ground, where Roy could stand a fairer chance against her.
His rapier back in its sheath, he wrapped his fingers about the Wind Sword's hilt. Caught off guard by its weight for a moment, he stuck both hands around it and lifted it up with a massive heave and a faint groan. The power imbued within the silver of the blade hummed against his fingertips and he raised it high above his head, shouting out a phrase he'd heard Lilina utter millions of times since both aristocratic children had been nine years old.
"Aircalibur!"
The slicing winds of the magic in the blade bit into Roy's cheeks, but it received the effect that brought a sick grin of success to his face. It combined with the same spell that Lilina had summoned, and the gale alone snapped the neck of one rider and tore the gossamer wings off of two of the three Wyverns. The effect was horrifyingly amazing.
The blonde Wyvern Lord leapt out of the saddle of her faithful beast, landing to the ground with a crunch. The high heels of her boots cracked the fingers of a dead man's hand; a sound Roy would have been very glad never to hear again. Her hands tore her javelin from the ground, and she spun her lance in a dramatic pattern. The spin blocked Roy's strike effortlessly as he slammed the Wind Sword against the silver.
Too late did he realize that the blade's hilt was still humming.
The second magical blast, summoned wordlessly from the blessed blade, recoiled against the metal on the spear's staff. While the Wyvern Lord sank deep and back into the snow, her face bleeding from numerous scratches from the sharp winds and friction burns, Roy was flown backwards by the force. He sailed through the air before slamming – with a sick, nasty crack – into the trunk of an ancient relic of a tree. It felt like ceramic tile against the back of his head and on his back.
Roy ground his teeth painfully together, his body numb and limp, and felt a vein of blood slide down his back. His mind was dazed, unable to comprehend exactly what was going on before him any longer. Between the blinding stars of white twinkling before his eyes, he spotted the Wyvern Lord waltzing up towards him, a malicious smile licking her lips. He tried to grasp the hilt of either the Wind Sword or the rapier, but his fingers wouldn't respond to a single demand from his brain.
Roy could only look up at his soon-to-be killer, damning his own sheer, rotten luck that he was to die as helpless as a child after surviving so many battles as a man – a general, no less. The whiteness of his vision blocked out most of his surroundings now. Roy did not feel, however, the sting of the spear piercing his flesh, but heard Lilina give a scream that faded in and out of volume.
"ELFIRE! AIRCALIBUR!"
The Elfire summon hit its mark with near perfection – a testament to Lilina's decade of training in the magical arts. The female Wyvern Lord gave an unholy scream of pain, and Roy could even feel the heat coming off her cooking flesh. Her body fell to the ground, writhing and twitching at the toes of Roy's boots, still screaming as she died. The second spell had been pure overkill, however, and failed to hit its intended target.
His paralysis left him all too quickly, only in time to feel a strange sensation over take every inch of his body; weightlessness. Roy blinked furiously, clearing his eyes of the white in time to see a sight that brought all the meager contents of his stomach flooding into his mouth.
The squall of winds Lilina had summoned had thrown him nearly fifteen feet into the wintry air above the battlefield. The mountainous winds snapped his hair into his face and his cape around his body. The sight was one that he would remember for the rest of his life. He spotted a monstrous scene displayed before him, corpses and fighting intermittent between the sea of trees, Wyverns and Peagsi flying through the air – along with a tooth-and-claw battle between Nabatan Fa and a demonic fire dragon. Roy watched, and one of his attacks of oncoming dread hit as he fell back towards the ground.
Air whistled in his ears and burned his skin as gravity slammed him back towards the valley. His mind, which had remained logical during even the most heated of battles thus far, had fallen into a hysterical, panicking blank when only childish fear was heard. Roy could only shut his eyes and tense every muscle in his body, preparing for the sick crack of all his bones breaking when he slammed into the soft ground and snow far below him.
It was not the ground that finally collided with his skin, but rather the dagger sharp twigs of a tree. He landed on his arm on a tree branch, the bones in his arm cracking by the sheer force of the fall. Roy could not help but swear and scream loudly, his voice echoing all around him. The cursing was broken off immediately as the tree branch cracked. The wood splintered, unable to hold his weight. His heartbeat stopped momentarily as the branch separated completely from the mother trunk.
Again, he fell, and this time there was only the ground beneath him to break his fall. Seven feet from the branch to the ground remained, enough of a distance so that, if his luck ran low, he could certainly be killed. The ground came far too quickly for Roy to do anything other than shield his face and hope that – by some miracle – this didn't kill him.
He landed face down in the powdery snow and underbrush. Twigs snagged against his face, and the hard ground cracked the bones in his palms and the one leg that crumpled beneath him. By the grace of Saint Elimine herself, the fall had not robbed him of life or limb. With a faint smile at this realization, Roy gingerly rolled onto his back, savoring the idea that he was still alive.
However, the minute his eyes turned skyward, they widened violently, and as a reflex he brought his hands up to defend himself.
The Wind Sword, which had flown up with him, had not yet touched the ground. When it finally hit solid, it was through Roy's chest – so close to his heart that he was damn sure it was going to kill him.
Pain, slow and mounting pain, overtook his body. Within seconds, paralysis returned, so that he could not move a single inch of his half-broken body. He lay on the forest floor, helplessly pinned there by a sword that had gotten him into the situation in the first place. His eyes (the only part of him that he still seemed able to manipulate) starred up at the surprisingly pure, azure sky as his world slowly turned to gray. In his mind, with nothing else to do, Roy began to count down how long it was taking before the gray faded into a cold, inky-blackness.
What was that picture, standing in the middle of the haze of gray? Was it a person, a Bernese soldier, or one of his own men? If it was the latter, he failed to recognize the hard features on the face (female, was it, or simply that of a very young, feminine boy?), or the long sweeping coat of iris indigo, swept up around the body by a strong zephyr. The eyes were furiously, and a gleaming color that reminded him faintly of somebody . . .
The lips on the face moved, the last image before cold darkness took Roy. In his last moments, he made out a message on the lips – though whither the figure had spoken, or if he had read the movements correctly, he had no energy to fathom.
You shall live yet.
Scene V:
Aether
"I was supposed to the job. You didn't have any right to send your shadows to catch those bastards." The First voice was whining immaturely, with contained anger in the words.
"As I may be so inclined to remind you, Your Honor, you were in no hurry to expend any time or Commissioners on your behalf to get the job done. In fact, it was all my doing that had the job done." The Second voice was haughty.
"We all cannot spare as time as you, Your Excellency. My point was that it was my task to do the deed, which you stole and I want compensation!" spat the First voice.
"Enough! Your conversation bores me. If everything is in order, I would like to retire to my Maze and rest. It is cumbersome traveling all the way to meet you all. Perhaps we should consider changing the location of these meeeeetingss . . ." The Third voice trailed away with a wide yawn and a snore.
"We'll proceed as planned. And I can get my hands on that goddamn brat, right? He's got more than enough guts in him so that I can finally get my hands on that goddamn little bi -"
"Patience, Marshal, patience. You wouldn't want to get ahead of yourself now and lose your temper? Haha, what a little sight that would be!" There was a sound of leather against flesh as the owner of the Fourth Voice slapped the Fifth's cheek. She laughed melodically, a pleased sound.
"So we're done here, then? I'm sure I have a wonderful . . . something to attend to back at home. A something with food. And drink. And damn well more riveting aspects of cultured life you blathering fools wouldn't understand." The Sixth voice was horribly insulting, and the Fourth gave a roar of fury and there was a repeated sound of slapping and shouts of pain.
"That's enough! We have better things to deal with, things to collect! All of you, have you forgotten why we have done this? We have kingdoms and soldiers to collect and imposters - thieves and heartless bandits! - to destroy! Off your knees and off of her, you damn fool! Would you rather fight an ally instead of the one who robbed you of everything that should be yours!"
The Seventh voice was silencing. It remained quiet for a long time until, at last, the Second voice broke the silence with fury.
"We serve you not, Your Majesty, and I will not stand to be ordered around by the likes of – !"
"I don't give orders, I give reminders! You remember the wrongs done to us and what is rightfully ours by birthright and by blood! We have no use quabbling amidst our allies and friends when we have kingdoms to reclaim! I will be damned before I let our birthrights slip between our fingers, and you be damned if you let it happen!"
Again, the silencer quieted them all, until a melodic chuckle escaped the Fifth voice. It spoke huskily, perhaps due to the wounds inflicted by the owner of the Fourth's. "And we have no right to be damned, robbed of everything . . ."
"We deserve to take revenge."
They all chorused in agreement.
Disclaimer:
I do not own Fire Emblem, as the series is copyrighted to the good people of Nintendo and Intelligent Systems. I also do not own the opening quote; it is a belonging of the mind of sir Friedrich Nietzsche. However, I do own this story, and all original characters within it.
Author's Note:
Yes, this is a reposting of an old fic I took down some months ago. I spent a while debating about whether or not I should repost and revise it, but I finally did and had it undergo some major editing – both grammatically and plotline wise. I sincerely hope that my time was not spent in vain, as I do like the idea greatly.
While I would be a liar in saying that I wouldn't want all my chapters to be this long, this is probably the longest one I'll post for a long time. I had considered breaking it up into four or five short chapters, but it seemed like a waste since all the scenes connect and separating them would just be nasty.
In regards to the content of Roy's sections, I'm using the names which I've found to be the most common translations. I'm perfectly willing to change a name so that readers will be able to understand which character I'm referring to, and (hopefully) his sections will be simple enough to understand to people who haven't played his game and/or know the story. I will not, however, drop his sections for the sake of convenience.
For those who are curious but don't know, the scene titles are the five classical elements of alchemy. Aether (which is probably the least known, and often spelt as just ether) was thought to be the substance above the earthly realm. Its other name was quintessence.
With that, I'll cease my rambling and ask that if you have read all this, please review. I'd consider it a personal favor. Also, to anybody interested, I am in need of a beta reader.
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(Because I know you care)
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