Crimea River
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A river ran through Crimea. You should realize that a lot of rivers run through a lot of nations, but this one ran completely through Crimea, and yet it was so narrow it could be crossed by stepping across a big log. The Crimea River snaked and snaked, and at its closest point it was about ten minutes on horseback from Castle Crimea, at a spot in the river where the waters were so crystalline and pure that you could throw ten dead oxen into it and it would still be eight bazillion times cleaner than the water the peasantfolk drunked. It was also alive. There were rumors that the river ate people. That was why the drunkards stayed away.
In Castle Crimea, shit was happening. People were running around trying to rebuild both Crimea and the castle, some people were difficult to deal with, some people were aggravated, and a lot of people were just plain bitches to be around. Ike had known a peaceful life as a commoner, and now wondered if his father shared his opinion that the lives of royalty were odd. The beds were far too soft, the food was insubstantial and garnished with an inedible jungle comprising three-quarters of the meal, and servants and maids constantly knocked on the door to Ike's chambers until he came to the point where he wanted to shove something someone's—anyone's—throat. Meanwhile, the newly-crowned Queen Elincia wouldn't have minded if he had shoved something down hers. Half of her sentences spoken to Ike after the war consisted of polite iterations of the phrase "stick it in". Ike, of course, was completely oblivious.
The royal advisors and advisers of the court informed Ike of his importance to the Kingdom of Crimea. Everyone and their mothers and probably several inanimate objects knew that Ike, the hero of the war and generally an all-around badass, was the perfect and only person fit to be king. Every day, Elincia came to Ike's room to speak with him, dropping hints that she kinda sorta maybe probably definitely wanted to marry him. Ike, of course, was still completely oblivious, and Elincia was left wondering how it was that Ike could miss all of the (obviously) obvious signs. Ike, meanwhile, wondered why Elincia seemed to get so angry so suddenly and then storm off, and he wondered why Elincia always seemed to forget to either button her blouse or cinch up the front of her sequined culottes, especially since she never failed to do her hair up nicely or put red stuff on her lips or smell good. Elincia was great.
Sometimes when they were talking, Elincia squeaked " Milord Ike!" suddenly and Ike shook his head and was all "What? You say something?", since sometimes his thoughts floated to the topics of rebuilding Crimea and meat and the fact that she really should be omgsoooooooverhimbynow and wondering what the hell to do next. After the war, Ike found out that Crimean ale tasted good—but they didn't serve it at the castle. Sometimes Ike needed to scrape Elincia off him and detach her soft arm from around his shoulder or from out of the crook in his arm (which he almost automatically offered her) just to get out of the castle and into the city "below". In the real city, when he wore a tattered shirt and a stupid-looking hat over his eyes and called himself something different, no one noticed him when he went out for a drink and some real food: Meat. Everyone in the bar was drunk and rowdy and the men at the bar stupidly ogled and propositioned the tavern wenches, who beat the drunken men up and put their next beer on the house as repayment for kicking their asses. One guy fell out of his chair and screamed how great this place was. Ike liked the place. It reminded him of home.
One day out of many, Ike sat quietly in his room, reading a book about Gallian history because he wanted to know about his homeland. Elincia had come into his room earlier and beat him quite figuratively and quite viciously over the head with her interest in elevating Ike to his status as king, which of course, as a side effect, would require them to be wed. Ike said, "Huh?" Elincia had stormed away again, and, a minute after she had left, Ike realized that he could see her bra the entire time. That was when he got up. Then he got to his feet. Then he sat down in the big comfy chair in the corner of the room, buried his face in his book again, and pretended to read, though he didn't really want to anymore and was having a hard time focusing, so he stood up and realized that Elincia had forced him to walk with a big crutch, even though his first two legs worked just fine. He sat back down and opened the book again. A few minutes passed.
"Freeeeeee bird!!!"
Ike looked out the window. Some guy was running around yelling random unintelligible crap and screaming "Play it again, Sam! Play it again, Sam! World Cup! World Cup! Hadoken! Ninja ninja ninja ninja ninja nin—" and was subdued by three knights who promptly kicked his ass and ran him out of town. Ike shrugged and went back to reading. Or, rather, tried to read. Because he wasn't even close to being able to focus. All of a sudden—a crazy, inexplicable sudden—it felt like three bells and a gong had smashed him over the head so hard his teeth fell out and started playing Crimea, O Crimea (in D-minor) using his attention span as a stage.
Finally, he stood up again. He came to the realization—as all young men do when the fancy of spring turns to the gentle thoughts of… not-spring—that he had to get the holy hell out of the castle, because some bad shit was 'going down' and people were literally falling through holes in the floor in the places where disrepair not only lived but vacationed.
It was still early in the afternoon. Ike decided to head down to the great dining hall, at which point he would eat, then leave and boldly go for a heart-searching walk through the nature he had become so accustomed to trekking through like a star during the wars. Surely there had to be some rough outdoors somewhere in Crimea.
Ike had waited only a few minutes in the dining hall when a servant named Barnaby in an impeccable gray suit came by, carrying a large tray of food. He set the tray down on the humorously long table at which Ike sat alone, and set out a large bowl of salad, a small plate on which was an infinitesimally small (but perfectly cooked!) cut of lamb along with numerous attractive springs of green things, and a big, steaming bowl of hot soup. Ike cringed silently, and Barnaby shuffled away into the kitchen.
Bad, bad, bad. Ike picked at his salad with a fork. The lamb was good, but there wasn't enough of it, Ike thought as he wolfed it down faster than a radical Daeinite arresting and beating an illegal laguz. Then Ike looked at his soup.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Ike looked into the bowl. It was like a curtain of clouds had descended over his soup bowl and ate his soup. He picked at the soup with his fork and Ike grimly came to the realization that apparently royal Crimean soup was unlike any of the completely palatable eats of the common man. The soup itself had probably descended from some primitive society. And it smelled bad. And Ike thought it was duck, and he didn't like duck. And it smelled funny. And, Ike noticed, cursing to himself quite viciously, realizing how ridiculous he was in getting worked up over a bowl of soup, there was no spoon with which to eat the damn soup! There was no spoon! There was no spoon! There was no spoon! There was no spoon!
Ike rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Did anyone know what food was around Crimea? Ike stood up, having had more than enough of the food, and turned to walk to the door. He had to get out for a while, get some fresh air. The good air was killing him.
"Lord Ike, was your meal satisfactory?"
Ike stopped in his tracks. Barnaby. Behind him. Oh shit.
"It was fine, Barnaby, thank you," Ike said without turning around. "But I didn't really like the soup, so I left it, sorry."
Ike kept walking.
Then, "Lord Ike, you have forgotten your soup!"
Ike stopped walking again and exhaled deeply. "Barnaby, I told you, I don't want the soup."
"Even so, Lord Ike, I shan't be able to sleep knowing that you have forgotten your soup!"
"Enough with the damn soup!" Ike said, whirling around. He had no tolerance for soup-related issues. "I don't even like duck! And what are those green things floating around in it?"
"Those are thinly-sliced delectable sprigs of green Crimo-Begnionian freshly-grown sweet lettuce seasoned with vinaigrette from the north of Crimea and—"
"And why the hell is it so cloudy?"
"That is consistency, my lord!" Barnaby squeaked, almost spilling part of the soup he cradled in his hands like a child. "It is the bowl. The bowl, my lord! It is deceiving you! It is trickeration meant to make you forget your soup! Soup is meant to be cloudy, my lord! So please! Do not forget your soup!"
"Your pleas are falling on deaf ears, sir," Soren said, emerging from around the corner, his long black coattails dragging along the ground. "Ike doesn't like soup. Never has, never will. Especially not since the Soup Incident. Believe me, you do not want me to inform you of the Soup Incident."
"And I don't like duck!" Ike blurted, obviously exasperated, but secretly kinda amused. "Wait, you were going to tell him about the Soup Incident?"
"No duck soup, milord?" Barnaby said.
"No!"
"Ike is…adamant about his preferences," said Soren, silently shaking his head and surveying the hall with steely eyes. "When he believes in something, he gets it. That also means he is an unobservant fool who often does stupid things."
"Say what now?"
"Search your heart, Ike. You know it to be true." Soren shook his head. Ike wondered, Where have I heard that line before?
"Never mind. I'm just being difficult," Soren said, and Ike could have sworn he saw Soren smiling ever so slightly for a fraction of a second. Or maybe it was the light playing tricks.
"Difficult, eh?"
"That being said, there are much more important things to get yourself riled up over than duck soup, Ike. Duck soup is a comic masterpiece, but you don't have to eat it. Oh, and Elincia wants to see you. I am sure she wants to speak with you about something—" Soren almost gagged, looked as though he were about to lose it all over the front of two mens' shirts— "important." Soren turned and walked away. Ike seemed perplexed.
"What the hell was that supposed to mean?"
"Soup, my lord! He was talking about forgetting your—"
"Oh shut up," Ike said, and he walked away, brushing by Ilyana on the way out and absolutely not noticing her. Score.
-
You should know that Crimea is actually pretty beautiful. Have you ever been? Good huntin'. Clean, mostly untouched, and not blasted by mortars or big flaming rocks, which is good. Anyway, Ike went out walking, towards the place where—unbeknownst to him—the Crimea River flowed free, without reservations and without wondering if its hair looked nice enough to flow free or if it was brook enough to bubble. The Crimea River was to become Ike's best friend. He walked until he reached the edge of the water. The first time he went there, he knelt by the edge of the river and ran his hand through the water. It was cool. And clean. He drank the water. It tasted good. Then Ike looked around. Only the river and the endless plains surrounded him. On a strange impulse—and mind you I mean strange strange, the kind of strange that would make Bastian say "Egads! 'Tis more zany than the Civil War!"—Ike decided to jump into the rather shallow river with his clothes on, hit the deck, and start flopping around like a drunk fish.
I can't make this shit up.
Ike walked back to Castle Crimea, and several people waddling through the halls looked at him strangely, as though it was unusual for someone to walk through the halls of a castle while sopping wet. What nerve!
…bitches.
Ike changed into dry clothes and went to bed unwet that night. He couldn't sleep. The river was in him. It had begun.
The next day Ike returned to the river. The river was there. Ike rolled around in the Crimea River unabashedly and returned to Castle Crimea, again sopping wet. As he rushed through the halls and up the stairs to his room, he didn't notice Elincia hiding in one of the doorways, watching him run through the hall, soaking wet. She had him right where she wanted him. She cackled. Soon her well-laid plains would come to fruition and soon enough she would be as well-laid as her plans were. She disappeared into the shadows.
The next day, Ike woke up, ate—Barnaby, under penalty of certain death, did not serve Ike soup— and, having nothing better to do, decided to go back to the river. He didn't know why he liked Obsession.
The castle was a funny place. Around the castle, Ike was a hero. Everybody knew his name. He was the man. Marcia sometimes walked by him slowly and batted her eyelashes and kept promising that she was still going to "repay" him for saving her life. Ike firstly wondered how she intended to "repay" him and secondly wondered if unbuttoned blouses were contagious.
Sometimes Lethe walked up to him and hissed for apparently no reason, and after Ike was all like "Whattaya want?", Lethe said something caustic about Ike's masculinity or his battle skill, which was, inevitably, a crude and yet subtle iteration of the phrase "stick it in". Then she hissed again and walked away with her head held high proudly. As she walked away, Ike watched her and realized she was actually really good-looking. Oh, and her tail was hot. Crazy. Crazy hot.
Also, Mist started wearing really fancy clothes and one day was dressed so fancily in so many layers of gaudy, highborn clothing that she literally fell over trying to walk and Ike explained to her that it didn't matter what she wore, that as long as she could do something useful she would be just fine. Mist argued that clothes are everything, because they are, right? Right? Well, okay, no. Mist eventually settled on believing that she didn't like royal clothes anyway and what she really wanted was a pony! …and before Ike got really mad she admitted she was joking (in reality, she did want a pony, but…)
Ike took the strange things in stride. Ike liked being liked. Being popular was actually really good, because you didn't have to worry about doing stuff. People did stuff for you. Sometimes that was good. Sometimes it was very bad. Sometimes it was worse. Ike started to get annoyed when the guy came in for the first-class sock-and-shirt-putting on service. At times he really wished there was something or someone criminal or enemy enough to fight. In general, people were kinda dumb around the castle. The servants had either scarily-devoted or so-wide-it's-almost-sarcastic smiles and followed him incessantly. Then there was Barnaby. Then there was the young man who kept telling everyone who wouldn't listen that the first time he had ever made love was to the tune of Crimea, O Crimea and how he had finally found the woman he wanted to spend his entire life with forever ever ever, which was kind of annoying to hear every day. Then there was the young woman who kept asking every eligible man in the castle if they knew how to play Crimea, O Crimea and if they would play a "private concert" for her, and Ike had to literally enlist the help of two knights and an anthropomorphic chicken to help pry her off him. He didn't even play an instrument! And then there was the guy who came through the castle selling goats and sticks covered in honey and bees, yelling for his "two gold!" and sometimes he came in trying to sell wyverns, which was obviously bullshit because some of the royal advisors explicitly said they saw the guy sleeping on a roof, and never near any animals. Also, he couldn't pronounce "wyvern" correctly. Actually, he couldn't pronounce "goat" correctly, but by that point his ass was already thrown so far out of the castle he needed three days and thirty-nine point seven five-legged horses to get back. Ike wondered if anyone in the big city had any moral standards at all.
In other words, Ike was glad to get out. Strange things happened in the castle, but the river treated him right. He walked back to the place where he knew the river was waiting for him. What he didn't notice was Elincia, smart as she was, following a good distance behind him as he went to the river.
Ike hadn't noticed. This made Elincia distressed, and because Elincia is physically incapable of being angry to the point of ruffling her pretty hair, she just sorta went "oh, phooey" and went back to the drawing board (where she drew water and washed thirty of her identical dresses). She dressed in her finest traveling dress, put on her walkin' shoes, tied back her hair, and followed Ike. She didn't even bother to care that the fringes of her dress were trailing along the ground and getting really dirty. She reached the river and she saw him, his hand swimming around in the water so clear you can almost hear see the nobles in Begnion whining in jealousy.
He really likes that river, Elincia thought as she began to jog, then run. I wonder…does he like that river more than he likes me? No. It cannot be! My lord Ike is a proud and noble man. He would never run off with some...some...some hussy! What if he has already done something...unbecoming with the river? No!
Ike hadn't yet jumped in the river, which was good. He was about to, which was bad. Elincia was still a way off in the distance. That was really bad. Elincia ran, as fast as she could, as fast as she ever ran before, and she was almost there, almost at the spot where Ike knelt playing with the water—Elincia cringed with jealousy—and then Elincia fell. She tripped on a rock and hit the grass with a thud.
Ike came running over, shaking his hands out to dry them.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, of course," Elincia said, getting to her feet. She smiled. "I'm fine. I just came to see you…Ike."
"I'm glad you came out here," Ike said. "Did you come to see the river?"
Elincia almost smacked him. No, she didn't come to see the river! She came to see the white pony and the magical unicorn and him, who was apparently both a pony, a unicorn, and very very very stupid.
"I'm sorry I can't stay for too long," she said. "But, I just wanted to—oops!" Elincia dropped the shiny diamond ring she had carried all the way to the river and put her hands on her mouth and almost said 'Oh no! Whatever will I do?', but decided against it.
"What's wrong?" Ike walked over and picked up the ring. It looked shiny. "What's this?"
"I thought you would understand," Elincia said, her eyes tearing. "But I suppose it doesn't matter, does it? I suppose things like that are not...are not important to you anymore! I never want to see you again, Ike, because you never care about anyone but yourself." and she turned and began 'running away'.
Ike stood and watched Elincia run away. No, actually, it was more like running in slow-motion with a little bit of cinematic hair-shaking for good measure. "I wonder if she's mad at me?" Ike wondered aloud. Elincia was apparently wailing. She was obviously upset.
This, Ike thought, looking at the sparkling ring with the beautiful inlaid diamond, and he didn't know an inanimate object could be so beautiful, is going to make things a bit more complicated…
Ike sighed. He looked at Elincia. I mean, she was pretty hot, right? You know, Ike is pretty oblivious and generally unconcerned with politics and fancy food and rhetoric and "the ladies", but he knows what's "going on" without actually knowing what the hell is actually happening. In a second's time, he realized there was a legitimate chance he was going to get sex out of this and was all of a sudden extremely nervous about Elincia's apparent hysteria and the whole "going away from him" business, despite the fact that what he really wanted was something to eat.
Elincia stole glances backward even as she ran away, and she was doing a pretty bad job of pretending to be upset.
"So, wait, are you saying that you want to...you know...get nasty? Why didn't you just say that?"
Meanwhile, Ike turned back to the river and felt sorry for himself. When he turned around, Elincia was still there. He closed his eyes. Nope, still there. After refuting his brain's suspicion that she might actually be the boogeyman, Ike realized it probably wasn't too late to apologize without actually letting on that he was apologizing, and that would probably be enough to make things right. Strangely enough, for a moment he thought he had heard the river giggling. He had always thought of the river as the kind to play hard-to-get. He found it difficult to walk away.