A/N: Yet more Path of Radiance silliness! Props for this one go to Ash, who figured out who the narrator was before I did. Love ya, girl!
I don't own Fire Emblem. Which may be a good thing. But to me, this is TOTALLY CANON.
An Extract From The Journal Of A Sometime Member Of The Crimean Liberation Army
I can't honestly say that my time with the Crimean Liberation Army was the best time of my life; after all, there was a war on, and we were all fighting to survive, which is never pleasant. It was, however, definitely the most interesting period of my life to date. In or out of battle, there was always something happening; travelling with those people, you simply couldn't be bored.
I've heard it said that an army marches on its stomach, which is certainly true enough judging by my own experience. Woe betide the man foolish enough to get between a soldier and his dinner. But I sometimes think that that particular army must have had a second stomach; one that digested not food, but gossip. Talk, talk, talk, day and night, sometimes that was all anyone seemed to do; who was friends with who, and who was enemies; who knew who from way back when, and where they knew them from; who was out to get who, and what they were going to do to them when they caught them; and, of course, who had a crush on who, who was sleeping with who, and(this last endlessly speculated about)what they were like in bed; all this was grist for the rumour mill.
Two of the hottest topics were always the private lives of our leaders and figureheads, Commander Ike and Princess Elincia. Well, no surprise there; leaders always have that fascination to them, because they're always in the public eye, yet always slightly separated-however friendly and fair they may be-from the troops below. A kind of mystique, really, and that sort of thing will always attract talk. The fact that they were both damn good-looking didn't exactly hurt, either.
So speculation on what those two might be doing in their free time-and who with-was rife. Quite often you'd hear a lively and cheerfully ribald conversation suddenly quiet as one or other of our esteemed leaders entered the room, and see a lot of embarrassed looks as folk did their level best not to look the subject of their talk in the eye.
Ike got the worst of it. The Princess, now, she was royalty, and as such out of the reach of common folk, even such an uncommon lot of commoners as we were. But Ike, well, he was just a garden-variety mercenary with no last name, even if he had been given a Lordship, and he certainly didn't have any ambitions of getting any higher on the social ladder; that was evidenced much later, after it was all over, when he dropped the title as soon as he could, faster than if it'd been a dead rat. The only person in the army who ever accused Ike of social climbing was Shinon, and really, Shinon would accuse anyone of anything, just to start an argument. Someone once nicknamed him 'Contrary Mary'-I forget who, but it stuck.
So Ike was deemed a target within reach, and that was why at any one time half the women in the army and no small number of the men would be not only speculating about Ike's love life but doing their damndest to make it more than just speculation. (The poor fellow began to acquire quite a hunted look.) And that, probably, was why it was Ike who was prime subject of Gatrie's infamous Book.
The Book was born when, during one session of gossip, Makalov turned to Gatrie, who happened to be sitting beside him at that moment, and said "I bet you ten gold pieces that Commander Ike's doing the Princess." From there the whole thing snowballed. Gatrie took Makalov up on the bet, and was instantly presented with myriad opposing wagers. He yielded to his role as bookkeeper with only token signs of a struggle, perhaps reasoning that while the late Commander Greil's death had been a tragedy, the upside was, he could now do something like open a book on his son's romantic chances and get away with it.
The rules of the Book were simple.
1. The bookkeeper determines all odds.
2. No-one may bet on themselves.
3. Anyone who informs Ike or any person likely to tell Ike of the Book's existence will be In For It.
Nobody ever did tell Ike, at least not until-But I get ahead of myself.
Princess Elincia was a fairly popular choice, as was Mia, but there were also plenty of folk willing to back an outside chance. Jill wrote down a list of names and stuck a pin in it with her eyes closed, and ended up betting twenty gold pieces that Ike would end up with Astrid, of all people. Ranulf bet fifteen gold on Lethe-he got ten to one odds-solely for the purpose of annoying her. When she found out, she immediately got revenge by doing the same thing to him. This backfired, as Ranulf was one of the several army members with designs on Ike, and he did not at all mind people betting on him. Janaff also put money on Ranulf, possibly out of laguz solidarity, possibly because those two always were pretty good friends. They shared a way of thinking, a kind of madcap logic. They understood each other-which was good for them, I suppose, because certainly nobody else did.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the rest of us, Ike was making his own arrangements.
The beginning of the end came the day Aimee-from-the-item-shop, acting on advice given her by Soren, attempted to woo Ike with her cooking. Unfortunately for her, the advice turned out to be spurious. She had carefully prepared the spiciest dish she knew, absolutely bursting with green and red chillies, ginger, pepper and cardamom. Aimee, whatever her other qualities, was certainly a good cook, and the dish was a masterpiece of its kind.
Ike, however, hated spicy foods of all types. He wouldn't even eat apple pie if it had cloves in it.
Aimee, naturally, was Not Amused. Especially since she had exchanged the intelligence that Ike 'loved spicy meat dishes' for an extremely valuable Hammerne staff.
After the abortive cookery project had flopped, Aimee took herself off to sulk. On the way she bumped into Gatrie, who noticed her bad mood and tried to cheer her up. (Gatrie always was a soft touch when it came to attractive girls.) He also invited her to do something she'd always refused to do; namely add her own wager to the Book.
Up until then, Aimee had been adamant. If she couldn't bet on herself, she wasn't going to bet on anyone. That day, however, smarting with resentment and residual chilli juice, and recognising competition, she said:
"Soren."
Gatrie nearly killed himself laughing. Soren? I don't think any of us had ever considered the possibility of Soren having a sex life, let alone with Ike. It was like trying to imagine the private life of one of your teachers back when you were a schoolchild. Soren was outside the gossip wheel-he neither engendered it nor passed it on. He was just a little monochrome scrap of a thing, ferociously private, with a glare that could curdle milk and a tongue sharp enough to cut glass.
A little scrap of a tactician, always tagging along with Ike like a second shadow, working for him, protecting him, fighting back-to-back with him, his loyal right-hand man...
Gatrie wasn't convinced. Far from it. And so it was that Aimee-from-the-item-shop ended up placing a hundred gold pieces on Soren ending up in Ike's bed, at odds of a million to one.
That was near the conclusion of the whole campaign, and things were quiet on the gossip front for awhile after as everyone directed their energies elsewhere for a change. Nobody found out anything about Ike's love life, and several people, bored with the whole business, tried to take back their bets and get their money back; but Gatrie refused all of them. And so it went on...right up until the final battle, and the demise of Mad King Ashnard.
Battle is a messy business, and clearing up afterwards is a lengthy job. There we all were in an organised chaos of dead bodies, wounded soldiers, several Daein prisoners who had surrendered once they heard of their king's demise, commanders trying to keep track of everyone, priests and clerics trying to heal everyone at once, a small knot of various countries' royalty discussing what to do next...and at the centre of it all, a very battered and bedraggled Soren hurrying up to Ike, limping slightly from a not-quite-healed injury and babbling something about reporting the results of the battle.
But the results of the battle were not to be reported. Not by Soren at any rate. For before he could begin, Ike gave him a long, intense, unreadable look that made the words die in his throat-then leaned down and kissed him.
Saying it like that-he kissed him-doesn't really convey the impact of it, though. This wasn't just a kiss, it was A Kiss, forceful and passionate, the sort of Kiss that belongs in romantic plays and novels, a bowled-over-backwards, magnitude-ten Kiss. There was tongue. It lasted so long it's a wonder they didn't suffocate. I guess the Commander decided it was a time for secrets to be revealed.
Pandemonium erupted instantly. Cheers, boos, squeals, shouts of disbelief, cat-calls(from Ranulf), wolf-whistles, congratulations, insults, loud and impolite suggestions about what Soren was like under his robes and what ought to be done with him-I don't think I'm exaggerating if I say that it was noisier then than it had been during the battle.
When The Kiss finally broke off, Soren(blushing as red as Titania's hair)tried unsuccessfully to voice a few token protests along the lines of "Not in front of everyone!" and "Are you mad?", but was interrupted once more by Ike 'rescuing' him, slinging him over his shoulder, and carrying him off, presumably in search of somewhere more private-and that was the last we saw of them for awhile.
Unsurprisingly.
By the time Ike and Soren resurfaced, opinions on the whole matter were fairly evenly divided. There were the people who thought it was the cutest thing ever seen; the people who thought it was the funniest thing ever seen; the people who thought it was the weirdest and most disturbing thing ever seen; the people who were about ready to die of jealousy(including Stefan, who denied everything when pressed, but who alternated between moping about like a wet weekend and saying to himself in self-righteous tones that it surely couldn't last-thereby hung a tale, I suppose); and the people who just wished everyone else would shut up and talk about something else for a change(including Shinon, whose opinions were not polite and whose language was to the point and who nobody took any notice of anyway).
And then there was Aimee, who was definitely one of the 'jealous' faction, but who was also a merchant to the core and knew how to recoup her losses; thus, having spent her time so far in high dudgeon, she strode over to Gatrie and demanded, "So where's my hundred million gold pieces, then?"
Gatrie went pale and desperately flimflammed, "What hundred million gold pieces?"
Aimee opened her mouth to retort, but said nothing. A hush, in fact, had descended over everyone.
To say that Gatrie was not very bright would be like remarking that the ocean was quite big and rather damp, that the Tower of Guidance was a touch on the high side, and that Lethe could be somewhat irritable. Even he, however, could not fail to notice the ominous silence; nor the fact that Aimee was no longer looking at him, but past him. At someone standing behind him.
Two someones, in fact.
"Yes, Gatrie," said Soren, even more dishevelled than he'd been when we'd last seen him, with a slightly more pronounced limp that perhaps could not be put down to battle wounds, and a very suspicious-looking mark on his neck, but nevertheless quite as utterly terrifying as he'd ever appeared. "What hundred million gold pieces?"
And after that the cat was out of the bag and there was nothing to do but explain.
Ike alternated between annoyance and mortification. Soren was just furious, and not shy about saying so. Gatrie whined and whimpered and cringed and begged for mercy and generally came off like a puppy that had just done a mess in the house. Aimee interrupted at intervals, stating firmly that she'd made a bet, won it fair and square, and she'd like her prize money now, please. After she'd repeated this demand for maybe the tenth time(the conversation kept going round in circles)Soren got a rather odd look on his face and said:
"I agree. Gatrie, pay Aimee her hundred million gold pieces, like you agreed to."
This was met by an anguished wail of "But I don't HAVE a hundred million gold pieces!" (In fact, Gatrie had very little money at all, having spent most of the betting pool on food, and equipment of questionable efficacy. The rest had been stolen by Shinon and exchanged for a very great deal of ale; and, it later transpired, a quite fancy embroidered silk corset.)
"Nevertheless," said our esteemed tactician, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly, "you made a bargain and you have to fulfil it. You'll just have to give her what money you have and owe her the rest."
Ike started to grin worryingly, and added, "We'll just send your wages straight to Aimee instead of giving them to you, till you've worked off your debt."
"But that will take a long time," Soren commented sadly. "Of course, you could always try selling some of your possessions, that might help...if you had anything to sell, of course..."
"I found a Super-Ultimate Shield earlier," offered Gatrie, looking suddenly hopeful.
"It's another frickin' castle gate, douchebag!" shouted Shinon, from offstage.
"And Princess Elincia's going to want it back," pointed out our Commander.
"And no, you can't sell it to her," finished his newly-revealed lover.
Gatrie drooped. When every last coin in his purse had been handed over to Aimee, and every last one of his possessions had been examined and declared to be completely worthless rubbish, he drooped further, and began sobbing that he just didn't have anything more to sell.
"Oh," said Soren, "I'm sure we can think of something."
And that, more or less, was how Aimee-from-the-item-shop became the proud owner of a piece of parchment claiming to be the deed to Gatrie of the Greil Mercenaries's firstborn child and immortal soul, signed illegibly by Gatrie himself, and witnessed by Ike and Soren. If you go and see her in the shop she set up after the war you can view the deed itself framed on the wall, in pride of place; she still gets all of Gatrie's wages delivered to her monthly, and if she ever needs any heavy lifting doing she just sends for him. I myself was just there last week; if you don't believe me, visit her yourself.