Sailane Scramble

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters

Not to be taken (too) seriously. Fueled by in-jokes and crack ideas off my DW journal and tumblr account. Starts off with canon-blessed pairings like Aideen/Midayle, Holyn/Ayra, and Finn/Raquesis and gets crazy from there. Includes a bit of angst and some body-swapping, again not to be taken as serious exploration of the theme. Mature themes, cough.

"Time for the cold bath, sir."

Azel didn't want to open his eyes. To hell with cooling down; he wanted to lay here in the steam until he melted into a puddle and soaked into the cedar bench like a viscous red stain. He could stay here forever, eyes closed to the world and ears deliberately tuned away from the ordeal Lex was putting himself through in the corner. But the bath attendant had a duty, and that duty involved not letting anyone die in the steam room, and so Azel allowed himself to be prodded in the direction of the sunken pool they called the cold bath. In truth, Azel hated this part. The first time he'd plunged into its frigid waters he thought for a moment his heart had stopped from the shock.

Perhaps today he didn't care if it did. Azel shut his eyes again and let himself fall forward into the bath. The shock didn't kill him, and a moment later Azel surfaced with his hair plastered across his face and deep shuddering breaths passing between his aching teeth.

"How's the water?" It wasn't the attendant's mild voice.

"The same," Azel said as he flailed for the edge of the pool. Lex reached down with a broad hand to help scoop Azel out. Green flecks of oak leaf clung to his hand and his arm, clear up to his shoulder. "How can you even stand?"

"Never felt better," said Lex, and he flung himself into the pool. Bits of torn leaf floated to the surface in his wake. "Yeah!"

"You're mad," said Azel as he wrapped a thick towel around his shivering body.

"Being roughed up by nubile Silessian attendants doesn't catch your fancy?" Lex asked as he did a lap around the cold pool just to show he could take it.

"I don't think nubile is the right word, Lex."

All the attendants on this side of the baths were male. The green-haired nubile lovelies, as Sir Alec dubbed them, were on the other side, where no man might pass.

-x-

After being scourged with oak branches— or worse, juniper— a bather was supposed to partake of a hearty meal of meat, herbed potatoes, and dumplings. Azel didn't have the appetite for it and really didn't deserve to, but he accompanied Lex to the dining room anyway. Since the communal dining hall was an extension of the baths, where rank and bloodline didn't carry weight, conversations could get interesting. No one really forgot themselves and their place, but those in their party with a mind to push boundaries generally did so. It had gotten Dew banned from the baths entirely within a fortnight of arriving in Sailane.

"So there's this big holiday coming up," Alec began, apropos to nothing much.

All the different conversations kept swirling along, and Azel prodded the side of one pallid dumpling with a fork until some green sauce began to ooze out.

"This big holiday when they open the doors between the our side of the baths and the ladies' side."

This time, Alec managed to catch the attention of every man in the room.

"That doesn't sound like an actual holiday," said Finn.

"It's a holiday," Alec insisted. "It's part of their big winter festival. They open the walls between the sides of the bathhouse and then everybody has a… a big party."

"Why do they have a party in the bathhouse?"

That came from Finn again. The young knight from Leonster didn't usually confront people, even irritating ones, but he'd become a little more bold since marrying Princess Raquesis a few months before. Besides that, he didn't seem to like Sir Alec— something to do with Alec being entirely too friendly with Finn's lady, Princess Ethlyn.

Alec just smiled.

"They have the kind of party that involves making babies for the future of the motherland. Something like that."

If Alec expected catcalls and approval from the other men, he was disappointed. Azel gave up picking at the dumplings and looked to Lex, who was staring into space and possibly thinking of nubile Silessian bath attendants.

"I didn't mention the most interesting part," Alec continued, unfazed by how little everyone seemed to care about the promise of an orgy in the bath house. "All bonds of matrimony are, er, laid aside for the night. Anything goes."

That provoked a ripple in the room, from Father Claude's knitted brow to Beowulf's lopsided smile. Lex blinked several times and silently formed the shape of a name with his lips.

Ayra.

Azel didn't need to hear the name aloud to know exactly what was on Lex's mind now, even as his own mind was pulsing with a different set of syllables.

Aideen.

-x-

"Yeah, the Winter Moon Festival," said Prince Lewyn after the hubbub died down somewhat. "It's the first showing of the crescent moon after Midwinter's Day. The basics of it are pretty much the way Alec described it."

"So everyone just hooks up?" Lex demanded. "No strings attached? No nothing?"

"Yeah. Well, I mean, it's supposed to be men and women hooking up," Lewyn said with an arch of one delicate eyebrow. "If you're interested in other stuff, that's just an normal day in the baths, right?"

"We're not talking about other stuff," Lex began, but Azel felt he'd heard enough and tapped his friend on the arm.

"Thanks, Lewyn. I guess we'll find out, huh?"

"Sure thing," Lewyn said as they departed.

"I wonder which one of his admirers he's going to be enjoying come this Moon Festival," Lex wondered aloud of Lewyn once they were out of earshot. "Fury, Sylvia… maybe all of them? If the idea is to make a lot of babies…"

"I can't believe Queen Rahna would countenance a festival like this," Azel replied.

"Well, in Silesse it doesn't matter, because everything goes through the mothers for names and inheritance and stuff like that. It's only the royal family that passes things down through the male line— because of the holy bloodline, I guess."

"We're not Silessians," Azel said, as already he was forming some hard and dark feelings over this holiday. "Come on. If Princess Ethlyn joined in these particular festivities, I don't think Prince Quan or their subjects would be very happy about it. Do you?"

"Yeah. I wonder if any of the married ladies are even going to be there."

"They won't be. Come on, let's not kid ourselves."

-x-x-x-

Lewyn found himself a popular man in the hours after Alec first mentioned the Winter Moon Festival. Every man, married or not, peppered him with questions about how this holiday worked, and before long all the fair ladies of Sigurd's party were coming after him too, demanding the truth.

"C'mon, Lewyn, this is all some crazy joke, right?" Sylvia was saying to him now.

"Not a bit. It's the highlight of the year here in Silesse, you know. Long dark nights, nothing but snow outside… what better time for everyone to get cozy?"

He wasn't exaggerating much, for all that his own experience with the festival came down to a few hours of fun with Dame Mahnya the year before he left Silesse for parts south.

"The more friends you make during the festival, the better luck you have for the next year," Lewyn added, and winked at Sylvia for good measure. "Let's see how lucky we get, yeah?"

He was looking to get a reaction from her, but Lewyn hadn't wanted her to burst into tears, aim a clumsy slap at his face, and go running away.

-x-

"Jerk! Jerk jerk jerk jerk!"

The bells on Sylvia's ankles jangled out a string of complaints about Lewyn as she ran toward the chapel. No one was there, so Sylvia went on her knees at a prayer bench, put her head down on her arms, and let out her tears in a warm wet stream until she had vented enough of her hurt feelings to be able to speak to the Lord.

The idea of getting cozy with a whole pile of "friends" made something turn in Sylvia's stomach. Hearing Lewyn say that with a knowing wink and careless smile did something awful inside her; it was like Lewyn somehow took the very special secret thoughts that Sylvia had about him and shared them with everybody all at once. Like he'd taken something fun and made it dirty, just because he could.

Sylvia imagined herself getting passed around from "friend" to "friend" while Lewyn stood there with that smile on his face. She imagined Lewyn sharing himself with every girl in the army, not because he loved them or wanted them but just because for that one night he could and there was nothing more to it.

She couldn't hate Lewyn, but she could definitely hold it against him for wanting to have a good time at this unholy holiday.

"Don't let him have any fun this year," she whispered at last, when her throat was unclenched and her eyes were more scratchy than wet. "Don't let him be sick or get hurt, but just don't let him enjoy himself the way he thinks he will. Please."

-x-

On the late-dawning morn of the Winter Moon Festival, Lewyn awoke to an strange squashed feeling in his chest. He lay there for a while, face buried in his pillow, uncomfortable in his own skin. Some parts of him ached and some tingled, and some other parts didn't feel… quite… there.

Lewyn sat up, clutching the firm and rounded pair of breasts inexplicably attached to his body with the newly dainty hands he'd acquired in the night. They were real, all right— his nails left rosy half-moon marks in the pale flesh of these new… assets. Lewyn stood up and did a full accounting of himself— breasts, girlish hands, equally dainty feet and slender ankles, hair spilling down in waves well past his shoulders…

And no magic stick.

"What minor deity did I offend this time?"

He'd been cursed into an altered state after causing offense to the Oracle of Thove back in his younger days, but this time around Lewyn couldn't imagine what he'd done wrong.

That worried him. If he hadn't done anything wrong, then that meant it was somehow right that he'd awakened in a pretty girl's body right in time for the festival wherein every patriotic Silessian girl tried to get herself with child by the best man she could find.

Lewyn sat back down on his bed and pondered things for a while, until he realized he'd been playing idly with one of the breasts and both it and he were enjoying the sensation.

"Well, at least I wasn't turned into a horse this time."

Three days as a talking pegasus had taught him a lesson about being disrespectful to holy people, but at least the Oracle was appeased by Lewyn's sincere apologies. Now Lewyn wondered who needed appeasing… and, worse, what he'd have to do to lift the curse.

Unless it really wasn't a curse.

But it had to be. Maybe this was his punishment for being an unworthy son. Yes, that made sense. He was doing wrong every day by not going to the capital and apologizing to his mother, so he got changed over to female form to… feel more keenly his mother's troubles? To get into her skin and understand the thwarted love she felt for her only child?

Being a pretty girl didn't mean that Lewyn didn't sweat. At the idea of what he might have to do to know his mother's pain, on the night of the Winter Moon, Lewyn began to wish he'd become a pegasus again.

-x-

When Sylvia realized that her prayers had an effect on Lewyn, she was delighted— for one moment. A heartbeat later, she was terrified at herself and her powers. The Lord above had listened to her tears and turned Lewyn into a girl so that he couldn't enjoy himself at the festival. What else might happen if she asked for it? Sylvia never planned to go to the horrid bath festival anyway, but now she holed up in the chapel, praying that the Lord would restore Lewyn to his normal self for the good of Lord Sigurd's cause and all Silesse and poor old Queen Rahna. When she was done praying, she hid there for hours more, because if Lewyn realized Sylvia had been the one to change him, she'd really be in for it.

"Sylvia, I don't want to disturb you, but you're troubling me. You'll need something to eat."

"Father Claude?" She blinked up at the tall golden-haired priest. "Aren't you goin' to that festival, Father?"

"No," he said, as solemn as death itself. "There are many ways to pay tribute to our Creator, but for the head of Saint Bragi's church to take part in a pagan festival would be improper, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess," she said. She was getting pretty hungry, or maybe all the tears were just making her stomach hurt. "Are you sorry to miss it?"

"Not at all," he said, and something in his voice now made her smile a little.

"I need help, Father. I think bein' around Prince Lewyn all the time and thinkin' about him too much is turnin' me into a mean person, and I don't want to be."

She'd said some pretty bad things to and about Dame Fury, too.

Father Claude got down so his eyes were on the level with hers.

"I'd be glad to give you help, Sylvia, but right now I think it's best you dry your tears and eat something."

"Yes, sir," she mumbled, and rose to her feet as gracefully as she could given her knees were like jelly from kneeling so long.

-x-x-x-

"They really did open the walls."

An entire section of tiled wall between the two halves of the Sailane baths was gone. The complex now seemed cavernous rather than intimate, with some areas ablaze in torchlight and others bathed in shadow. Azel felt he didn't recognize the place, and all the people wandering around unclothed added to the sense that none of this could possibly be real.

Of course everyone was always naked in the baths anyway, or at most wearing a towel. But nobody had on a towel now, and all the bared breasts and bared bottoms wandering around in the torchlight was just a little too much. Or a lot too much.

"Any glimpse of Ayra?"

"She's not coming, Lex." They'd gone over this a thousand times in the preceding two weeks. "She's not here, Holyn's not here. A marriage bond is sacred and nobody from Isaach, especially not royalty from Isaach, is going to change their mind because Silesse says you can take it back for one night a year."

Azel was beginning to wonder why Isaach was singled out as a barbarous nation. Nobody else was sticking to their principles about it. He felt his cheeks burn a little as the curvaceous little figure of Princess Raquesis flitted by with her husband Finn in tow.

Part of his shame was directed at himself, though— he was looking for Aideen, with or without Midayle.

"Heeeey, is that her?" Lex nudged Azel in the ribs.

Azel let the vision of a woman wearing nothing but spiraling locks of golden hair register in his eyeballs for a few moments.

"It's Briggid," he said. He could tell the twins apart from a distance.

"But isn't she with Midayle?"

"Yes," said Azel, for the green head pressed to Briggid's thighs was unmistakable. "That's Midayle."

So much for sacred vows. Lex whistled, long and low.

"One twin's not enough, then?"

"Apparently not." Azel heard the tension in his voice and spun away from the sight of Sir Midayle making his wife's sister happy. "He's going about it the wrong way if he wants Briggid to have his baby, though."

-x-

Midayle giving pleasure to Lady Briggid while Aideen was who-knew-where engaged in who-knew-what set the tone for Azel's evening. He let Lex drag him around, much the way that Raquesis was hauling Finn from room to room, as Lex searched for the slender dark figure of Princess Ayra. They looked in the warm baths, the cold baths, the steam room, the waterfall room in the ladies' bath. Along the way Azel saw too many familar faces doing things he didn't want to remember; Lady Ethlyn splashing naked in a pool with Alec was the most innocent thing to meet his eyes.

"There's a lot of people who don't know the right way to make babies," he said after they found Lord Quan enjoying the attentions of three Silessian pegasus knights. He didn't know the ladies in question. He was, however, vaguely bothered by the oddly familiar face of a lady they'd seen a few times in the course of the night, a lovely green-haired nymph that wasn't Fury or Sylvia.

"Lex, who is that?" He pointed to the mystery woman emerging from an ethereal cloud of steam.

Lex squinted, then his blue eyes opened wide as he said, "I'll be damned." The next word came from both their lips at the same instant.

"Lewyn?"

It was. It had to be. The holy mark of Forseti shimmered on his— her— shoulder, and the words that came out of her weirdly beautiful mouth were all Lewyn.

"Well, how about it, boys? Which of you wants the honor of siring the next heir to Silesse?" She spread wide her slender arms in a beguiling gesture that showed off her perfect breasts. "I already gave my first offer to Sigurd, but he wasn't having any of it without Deirdre here, so I'm open to anyone."

They merely stared, and after a long awkward pause Lewyn shrugged.

"Suit yourselves. Have fun, boys," she said over her holy-branded shoulder.

Azel found his tongue first.

"Well, you were saying how everything in Silesse goes through the female line except the royal family…"

"Uh… I didn't think it worked like that."

"Oh, no. No, no." Azel shut his eyes against the swirls of mist and gripped his own forehead. "I'm done here, Lex. We're both done. Ayra's not going to show up and you know it. Let's just call it a night."

Lex didn't protest; it was his turned to be hauled like dead weight as Azel grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him toward the exit.

"You're not leaving already."

Azel blinked at this new figure coming out of the steam. Tall and full-figured, waves of bright gold flowing down to her hips, her breasts as entrancing as those of the Lewyn-thing they'd just met. Aideen naked. Aideen looking at him with something in her hazel eyes he'd always wanted to see— promises of fun and affection and so much more.

"I can stay," said Azel. "I mean, there's still hours to go until dawn."

He let go of Lex, and where Lex went thereafter he didn't much care.

-x-

Lewyn cursed the inseparable Grannvale boys as he made another futile circle through the baths. Lex would've been fine, but he'd wanted Azel to take up the offer. Azel had magical blood in his veins, and Azel had that rare and vaunted ability to double-attack that made all the difference in a fight. Lewyn had never needed it himself, but didn't he want the absolute best for the future of Silesse? It was someone with that skill or bust.

Really, if he were going through with this, he wanted Sigurd to be The One. Sigurd had the looks and the skills and the major holy blood and, well, all of it. But Sigurd had a wife who wasn't there to consent to any Winter Moon hijinks and Lewyn wasn't surprised one bit when Sigurd rejected his proposition and declined to show up for the party.

"Got turned down by Sigurd, got turned down by Azel, Midayle's a loser, Beowulf's occupied elsewhere, I'm not touching Alec with a ten-foot-pole…" Lewyn was running out of candidates with that double-attacking skill. "Oh, and then there's you," he said to the person he nearly stumbled across in the doorway to the ice bath.

"I'm looking for Raquesis," said Finn. He didn't have to say he wasn't having a good time, because it showed in every possible way.

"She's busy." With Beowulf, as it happened. Raquesis knew how to get into the spirit of the night.

Finn managed to look even more unhappy than before, and Lewyn felt a moment of pity for this uptight kid who didn't know what to do with the bundle of Agustrian delights that he'd somehow attracted.

"Go find yourself a pretty girl to play with 'til sunup. It's tradition," Lewyn said. Finn didn't move, and Lewyn tried to nudge him out of the way. "Well?"

"I believe I'm looking at a pretty girl."

"Wait. Finn, you do know who I am?"

"Of course," Finn said, as calmly as before. "You're Prince Lewyn."

"And you're fine with this?"

Lewyn gestured to the selling points of this new body.

"Everyone keeps telling me anything goes tonight, so why not this?"

Lewyn did some quick calculations. Six feet tall, decent-looking in a way that ought to age well, not as strong as Lewyn might've preferred but capable enough for someone without the advantages of holy blood. Not in Sigurd's class, certainly, but…

And he could double-attack. Points for that.

"That's right, Finn. Anything goes." Lewyn wrapped the slender fingers of his new hand around Finn's wrist and tried to extricate his prospective conquest from the doorway. "I knew deep down you were adventurous, or you wouldn't go for being whacked with juniper branches."

"But not where people can see," Finn protested, already reverting to form.

"Don't worry about it. And pick up the pace— I might turn into a flying horse at dawn."

-x-

Somehow they all crawled into the morning light and sat down together for a great holiday feast. More tradition, apparently. Azel sensed it had the purpose of compelling all the participants in the Winter Moon festivities to pass the bread, look one another in the eye, and agree to let what happened in the baths stay put.

He handed a platter of sweet buns to Midayle like it was any other morning. Then he sat down next to Lex like it was any other morning.

"Lewyn still has… you know," Lex muttered into his plate.

"Maybe he stays like that until the next Moon Festival," said Azel.

Lewyn was dressed up in something close to his usual bard's costume but in spite of all the scarves and drapery he was obviously still a girl. She was sitting next to Fury— again, like it was any other morning. Everyone was cheerful and pleasant, all the married couples seemed content, and just by looking it wasn't possible to tell who'd been festive in the baths the night before and who'd stayed away.

Azel did catch Tiltyu sending extra winks and smiles at Lex, though. And maybe, just possibly, there was something extra in Aideen's eyes as she glanced at him over her teacup.

Just maybe. Possibly.

-x-x-x-

Ten crescent moons later, Aideen had a little girl with copper-tinged fluff on her tiny head. Azel felt guilty every time he saw Midayle cuddling baby Lana, but as far as Azel knew, Lady Briggid's blond-haired new baby boy was Midayle's kid even if Dew was taking the credit. Besides, maybe Lana wasn't his.

"Well, she looks just like Aideen to me," said Lex, who tried to comfort Azel about his maybe-daughter He and Tiltyu had gotten married and were raising little Arthur together and so he'd come out of the Winter Moon Festival as a man with a purpose— and no more longing glances in Ayra's direction. "It's not like Raquesis and her kid, where you can't even pretend something funny didn't happen. It'll be all right. If the thing with Fury's baby can turn out fine, anything can work."

Everyone was careful to call Ced "Fury's baby" out loud. With his quiet nature and tuft of green hair, Ced was enough like Fury for it to pass even though he was actually Lewyn's baby and Fury adopted him once Lewyn stopped being a girl and turned back in the to Lewyn they'd always known.

"I guess it can," replied Azel with doubt in his heart. "When in Silesse…"

He couldn't shake the feeling this was all going to catch up with every one some day. In Azel's experience, the sins of the fathers and mothers usually did.

The End