"What, there's another one?!"

Ugh... My head...

"What do we do now?"

Whose… Whose voices are those?

"Well, we can't just leave him here, can we?!"

Augh… Good god... Please refrain from shouting when near the man with the hangover - it's common courtesy... Man, what did I have last night?

"Is sleeping in the middle field some new messed-up trend these days?"

Oh. Right. I turned nineteen last night! Happy fucking birthday, Lucas! Hope you like your present!

"Well, it does look pretty comfy."

Man, I am never drinking ag – ah, who am I kidding? I'm gonna go get a beer right now. You know... as soon as I can get up off my ass.

"Yeah, but – hey, I think he's getting up!"

Man, my bed feels weird. Maybe I really should drink a little less…

"Hey, are you all right?"

Wait. There are people talking. Right above me. Wh-what are people doing in my apartment? Unless… I woke up out of town again?!

I jump up for a second, but my legs aren't able to support me with such little notice, and I fall right back down.

I let out a painful groan.

"Yeah, he definitely needs help."

The ground feels soft. Is it grass? Yeah, it's definitely grass. Guess I woke up in the middle of a field again. Man, what did I get myself into last night?

I sit up, rubbing my temples. Stupid hangover…

I try to open my eyes. Everything looks blurry. Does that man have… blue hair? Did... Did I end up making friends with a random group of cosplayers? Oh god, I hope none of my friends took any pictures...

I pick up my hand and slap myself. Partially to try to distract myself from the headache, partially to try to clear up my vision, and partially to punish myself for getting myself this drunk.

"Here, let me help you up."

There's a hand in front of me. My brain must be working really slowly if it takes it that long just to notice that. Still, it knows to accept help when it's offered and, embarrassingly, needed, so I grab the hand, and am once again on my feet.

And I'm now face-to-face with a video game character.

The man in front of me is Chrom, from that Fire Emblem game that I wouldn't put down for so long.

"How are you feeling?"

I hold up my finger, and mutter, "Hold that thought."

I slap myself again.

Hard.

I do a three-sixty, and fall back on the ground. Am I still here? Shit.

There's a moment of silence, and then I hear a voice, "I'm not helping him up again."

There's silence until somebody sighs. Then, a high-pitched voice comes in, "Fine, I'll do it."

Something grabs my arm, and forces me up. Now, I'm face-to-face with that royal little princess named Lissa. She's looking at me like I just told her that I was Santa Claus, and that I raped her grandkids.

Okay, so maybe I'm not dreaming. But, just to be sure –

I'm back on the ground. I've slapped myself a third time.

"Okay, Frederick. Looks like it's your turn."

"No! No! I'm fine!" I manage to croak, helping myself up.

Before I know it, I'm back on the ground.

Good god, my face stings.

I look up. Right in front of me is the overpowered giant of a knight known as Frederick. Oh, how I loved you in Lunatic mode.

"Sorry, I just assumed you'd be doing it yourself, so I thought I'd spare you the trouble."

Heh. Who knew you had a sense of humour, Freddy? I think I may actually prefer you as the strict gym teacher that you were in the game.

"Thanks. I appreciate it." I get up for a – one, two, three – fourth time.

Okay. So, either these people here are really incredible cosplayers, or you're having some crazy dream about Awakening. Whatever the situation is, you haven't exactly made the best first impression so far.

I take a quick millisecond to try and process everything that's in front of me. A guy dressed like Chrom, a girl dressed like Lissa, and another guy dressed like Frederick. Other than that, I see the generic field that comes with the beginning of Awakening, as well as village in the distance.

Man, if these guys are just cosplayers, I've really got to commend their commitment - they've clearly gone through some serious work to pull their look off. They got the exact costumes, that guy definitely had to dye his hair blue, that Frederick armour certainly doesn't look cheap. Hell, they even applied the whole 'cartoon and two-dimensional effect' to the area around them!

...Oh. Right. That's definitely not possible.

So, crazy and insanely-detailed video game dream it is, then. Normally, slapping yourself three times would probably be enough to wake you up, but maybe that's just how much of a dream you're in.

This is probably what happens when you play fantasy role-playing games just before getting drunk off your ass.

I think I heard somewhere that, once you realize you're in a dream, you can control what happens. Just to see if this works, I imagine Frederick getting slapped in the face, just to get back at him.

My god, it worked!

Oh. No, wait. That was just me.

I am so screwed.

Before Frederick can begin to make my life a living hell, Lissa falls on the ground, laughing her ass off. I look at Chrom, and see him laughing, too. Thank god. If they weren't, I'd probably be dead by now.

"Sorry about that," I say with a guilty smile on my face. "But, I imagine that it didn't really hurt that much."

Frederick regains his composure. And then, he puts on the tiniest of smiles.

Yeah, I am so dead.

"It's all right. I suppose I brought it upon myself."

I exhale loudly. I thought I was a dead man. Well, I suppose that dying here would just wake me up, but it's still pretty damn frightening.

So... what now? I'm in a dream about Fire Emblem... Should I just go with the script, or just try and change everything?

"So, what's your name?" Chrom inquires.

"Hm? Oh, I'm – uh… It's… It's strange, I can't seem to remember." I feign confusion.

I guess we're going with the script.

This captures Chrom's interest, and, evidently, Frederick's suspicion.

"Just like this man, huh?" Chrom says, motioning right behind me.

What man?

I turn around, and see a man with white hair and a large, dark coat.

"Robin?!"

How long has he been standing there?!

Robin frowns at me with a look of interest in his eyes, as if the answer to the universe had just come to him.

"What… what did you say?"

Oh, crap, I've totally messed this up. Relax, Lucas, just go along with it.

"Oh, er… My apologies. It's just… When I saw you, that name just came to me." I don't need to feign confusion this time.

He looks up at the sky. "Yes… yes that name seems… right."

He then looks back at me, beaming and placing his hand on my shoulder.

Heis a strange one.

"Yes, that is definitely my name. I apologize. I'm sure that we must have known each other at one point in time, but I'm afraid that I'm in the exact same position as you are. I just woke up here, with no memories at all, and Chrom, Frederick, and Lissa here found me." He gestures to each of them in that order. Good. That means I can just call them by their names, and not have to explain how I know them.

Robin turns me around. "And I am Robin, apparently." He forces my hand into his, and shakes it vigorously.

My confused face hasn't left yet. "This is… insane." I realize that I'm now going to need to stick to my amnesiac story for the rest of the dream.

Great.

"Agreed," I hear Frederick say. I turn around. "Are you telling me that both of you have woken up in the same field on the same day as supposed amnesiacs, and that one of you," he motions to Robin, "knows the name of our lord and that the other," he motions to me, "knows the name of the other, yet neither of you have learned your own name on your own?"

A lot of pointing and hand motions get put into this little speech.

Frederick turns to Chrom. "Milord, something is clearlyamiss."

"Well, if it helps, I just remembered my name," I butt in.

Everyone turns towards me. I see a flabbergasted look on Frederick's face, and general odd frowns from everybody else. Yeah, that probably wasn't the best time to miraculously remember my name.

There's a long silence. I decide to do the brave thing, and end it. "Lucas," I say. There's no change of emotion in anyone's face.

"My name's… Lucas."

The silence continues.

"Soooo…"

This is almost as awkward as every time my friends force me to talk to a random good-looking girl. Somehow, the instincts I get when I'm in that situation kick in right about now.

I look up at the sky. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"

Smooth, Lucas.

Frederick turns to Chrom, with his arm sticking out at me, making a face that clearly says "See what I'm talking about?"

Chrom shakes his head. "What if they aretelling the truth? We can't just leave them here!"

Lissa finally gets in on the conversation. "Well, what do we do with them?"

Robin stops them before they can say anything. "You may want to look at that!" he yells, pointing ahead.

Everybody turns to where the tactician is pointing. The village. It's on fire. Of course. I should've remembered. It's the first level of the game, after all.

I'm too distracted by my own thoughts to hear what everyone is saying.

Bandits? Attacking the village? Does... Does this mean that we're going to have to fight them? This dream just got interesting... Man, this is gonna be good. Maybe I'll be able to dream up some magic for myself, as well as some awesome sword-swinging skills!

Or, maybe I'll be able to finally wake up as soon as a myrmidon puts his sword through me.

That might also be good.

I swear to god, Jack, you had better not be drawing anything on me...

I look down at myself. I remember that in the game, Robin just somehow had his sword and magic tome. I, on the other hand, have nothing.

Unarmed? Not an issue. Sword - come!

Nothing happens.

...Okay, maybe I'm not that experienced of a dreamer, yet.

"What about these two?" Frederick cuts in, breaking me from my train of thought.

"Unless they're on fire, they can wait! Come on, sis!" Chrom calls to Lissa.

Well, now I can know that they're siblings.

And, just like that, they're off, leaving me and Robin in the dust.

Robin looks at me, shocked. "Wh-what do we do?!"

I shrug. "Do you have any weapons?" I examine him.

Robin pulls out a sword.

Where the hell did that come from?!

He runs off, and now I'm alone.

"What?! But I… You can't just… Good god!" I run after him, having absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

I do know one thing, however:

This is the best drunk-dream I've ever had.

AN: Hello. If you're new here, then welcome to yet another self-insert of Awakening. If you're not new here, and are re-reading this (can't imagine why you would be), then I don't really know what to say here. It's just that I'm sort of trying to revise some of these older chapters, after a year of writing all of this. Turns out that it's harder than I thought it would be. Still, I think that this chapter's better than it was when I first wrote it, so that's something, at least...

Anyway, if you're reading this, whether you're new here or not, then let me just ask you this one favour:

If you see a mistake - please, please, please tell me! I don't care how little it is - even if it's just a single comma that's out of place or missing! Please tell me! It's pretty damn embarrassing when I realize I've made a really dumb mistake, long after I've posted a chapter.