between the motion and the act
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Takes place between chapters 1 and 2 of FE3, hence spoilers for the that chapter. Also, angst.
The captain said the bed was the finest available, specially designed to absorb the pitch and roll of the ship and fool a sleeper into believing he rested upon solid earth.
"Your Highness shouldn't feel the waves; the night'll be smooth as silk."
It made no difference. Marth couldn't sleep on the open water, and neither the costly bed nor the placid sea would serve to change that. He felt all right until the dark coastline of Grust vanished behind them, the land meeting the sky and sea in a gradient of hazy blue. After that, he couldn't ignore what fragile and lonely things their little ships were- three jumbles of men, horses, and cargo bound together by wood and canvas. And when the evening sky faded to star-strewn blackness and the calm waters became an inky void without border, he could not stand to look into that darkness. Marth went to his quarters, where the sturdy furnishings and sputtering lamps created the illusion of safety, of security.
The illusion that it was perfectly normal for a man to lay down his head in the nothingness that lay between Grust and Macedon, out where the albatross flew and the great whales sent up eerie music from the depths. But that fancy couldn't be sustained, not just on account of the creaks and wobbles but because of the odor, the taste, of the air in the cabin. A mixture of grease and salt, of dead fish and something indefinably sour.
The taste of the air below-decks was the taste of fear, of cowardice.
Of failure.
Don't come near! We'll kill ourselves!
"The girl loathed me on sight," he said to himself. "I told her she was wrong, that I didn't mean them harm. She had me right though, she truly did. I hadn't come to save them."
Two children. Their mother dead in wartime, father dead in disgrace, their country in ruins. Nothing left to them but empty titles and the faith of those men who died to protect them. Both of them thirteen... soon to be fourteen.
"I'd just turned fourteen."
He remembered the jolt from behind that nearly shook the breath out of him, the pressure of the hands that restrained him, that kept him from running back for his sister. Not so different from the pressure of Jagen's hands, steering him away from the sight of General Lang and the twin heirs of Grust. Away from the sight of the girl with her young face livid in anger, of the boy with reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
He'd been telling himself for days that Lang was all talk, that the general was putting up a show of force and didn't truly mean to execute those children for the crime of carrying their people's hopes.
And every time, he remembered the command of another dog-faced man, whose bearded lips gave the order to behead a child for that very same reason.
Marth told himself that Emperor Hardin would never allow such an act to take place.
And he remembered what Lorenz had said before falling on his sword: You think the Emperor would send a man like Lang here for no reason?
He told himself that as soon as things were settled in Macedon, as soon as he'd dealt with this revolt against Princess Minerva, he'd go straightaway to Grust with a complement of Macedonian troops at his back and finally do as Lorenz had asked. He'd take the twins from Lang's custody, would shelter them until the chaos in their own country subsided. He'd keep them in Altea, perhaps, protected by his own people. That was right, wasn't it? He'd look after the heirs of Grust, the way the king and people of Talys had sheltered him when Altea fell prey to misrule and darkness.
Back when you first understood that failure tastes of the air below-decks, that failure is a ship bound for nowhere with everything you love in the blackness behind you and nothing ahead but uncertainty.
And the mission in Grust was nothing if not a failure. What did it matter that he'd rounded up a handful of bandits and distributed a few bushels of food when he'd left Grust and its people in the hands of General Lang, a man who spoke so easily of burning villages and sowing fields with salt? An man who spoke so casually of executing "prisoners of war," regardless of age or guilt...
But what could he have done, with so small a company of knights to set against Lang and his army? It would have been a losing battle, a foolish and suicidal one, and old Jagen had recognized it in the moment he pulled Marth back from the brink of conflict. They'd have ended the day as dead as poor Lorenz otherwise, leaving the two children no better off. If Minerva would lend him some of her knights, then Marth would have a chance against Lang.
If she isn't already dead.
A brigade of pegasus knights- or better yet, dracoknights- would completely turn the balance in his favor. It would be much easier to spirit away the children-
If they aren't already dead.
He couldn't entertain those thoughts. Minerva was not dead, and Lang hadn't harmed the children. Scared them for certain, put them under house arrest without doubt, but their lives would be safe at least until they were of age. The girl, Yumina, would be safe in any event, as even the most unscrupulous of men wouldn't harm a cleric.
Not as long as they could get some other use out of her.
The children were fine. They'd be fine just long enough for Marth to deal with the Macedonian issue. It wasn't thinkable that he'd return to Grust to find the twins slain...
Just like your mother.
Not possible.
Because you've never fooled yourself before. You've never been too late before. Have you?
The air below-decks really was sickening. He'd have to mention something about it to the captain.
Marth retrieved his mantle from a peg on the wall. He tried to fasten it properly, but his hands weren't quite obeying him, and so he draped it loosely around his shoulders and headed up to the deck. It was dark there, so profoundly dark that it took a moment to even see the lanterns of his other ships, and it took even longer to notice the stars and the white trail of the galaxy above him. It was cold, too, but the air tasted clean and breathing it in seemed to clear his mind. It made the echo in his head fall silent.
After a time- ten minutes or more, Marth supposed- he could see a faint greenish trail in the wake of his ship. A glowing band of light, almost a reflection of the Milky Way, the light of small creatures disturbed by the wood-hulled intruders traversing the sea. It formed a wavering green arrow pointing backwards to Grust. Not an omen, exactly... just a reminder.
Marth stared at that trail of light upon the water, feeling quite certain now that, once he'd dealt with the Macedonian rebels, he would set a course for Grust and retrieve the children from Lang. They might not like Altea at first, for they'd miss their homeland, but they'd grow used to it in time... just as he had grown used to Talys in the end. And, at least, the twins would have one another for company. As hard as it might be at first, they'd learn.
Given time, the girl would learn not to shout. Given time, the boy would learn not to bother with tears.
Marth stared at that trace of light on the water as the ship made its way south. He could sense the darkness at his back, the formless nothing beyond the ship's prow, but did not turn to face it. He stayed there, fully awake if not entirely aware, until the sky brightened with the opal hues of dawn.
The End
A/N: The Grust twins subplot is among the most disturbing of the many disturbing things of Monshou no Nazo. And on initial readings of the script, it didn't quite sink in that Marth doesn't succeed in any of his actual goals in those first chapters. He doesn't talk Lorenz out of suicide. He doesn't rescue the twins, either then or in later chapters. Ogma saves them. He doesn't save Minerva- Michalis rescues her. Marth is just there to clean up and do a bit of damage control... as he gets farther and farther away of Altea itself, leaving Altea vulnerable for invasion. Which was, of course, the plan.
As for his relationship with the twins- wait, what relationship? He has none. And that bothered me, too. I would have thought that Marth would be able to sympathize with a couple of orphaned royals in their early teens, a pair of kids with the Bad Guys after their heads. But, no. He's upset over what happens to them, certainly, but he doesn't bond with them at all that we ever see... perhaps because the kids are astute enough to grasp that he wasn't the one to save them. Oh, I guess you could say he makes it all right in the end... but that, I think, depends on one's view of splitting the kids up after the war. A very odd and disturbing subplot overall.