The kingdom of Altea rested on turbulent ground. The surrounding lands steeped themselves in military and political machinations that the young Prince Marth had taken so much time to memorize, and so much less to forget entirely, much to the chagrin of his father and sister. Marth knew full well the weight of his duties as the heir apparent to the Altean throne, but for all his best efforts, couldn't muster the will to stand up to the galling condescension of his tutors. He'd much rather be elsewhere – among his people in town, or outside the city walls to admire the castle at sunrise.

For now, he was content to be in the castle training grounds, sword at the ready, on guard for Hardin's newest mock ambush.

Marth kept a keen eye on the grounds, scanning every feature of the landscape. His concentration was unwavering, except when cursing Hardin's strategic prowess. He glanced quickly over his shoulder the second that thought crept up. One second's lapse was all it took to find himself at the end of a spear.

A rustling to his right caught his attention. He turned abruptly toward it and only just got out of the way of a soldier's spear blow. He countered with a rising slash, striking the man in his armored leg. The man retreated, and a second took his place, immediately opening with a flurry of thrusts. Marth stepped nimbly around the assault and aimed a thrust which struck the other man in the exact center of his breastplate. He retreated, allowing a third man with an axe to lumber into the fray.

Marth tensed as the fighter's axe came down like a shot from a trebuchet. Strong, with no shortage of passion, but couldn't aim worth a damn. Typical fighter technique. Marth allowed himself a flourish before connecting with his opponent's pauldron.

All three of them stepped back.

"If only your lessons in diplomacy went as smoothly," Hardin said from behind him.

Marth felt the cold edge resting against the back of his neck and paused. How in the hell did he do that?

Hardin lifted the blade, letting Marth turn to him. His bony face remained ever still, but his eyes glinted with amusement. "It's like I told you, Your Highness. If you direct too much of your energy toward a single goal, you'll open yourself to attack from another angle. Let this tunnel vision become a habit, and you won't last very long."

Marth sheathed his blade. "If it were anyone other than you, old friend, I might have done better than a mere three men."

"You were expecting more?"

"I was expecting you to be behind them, as you were the last five times we did this exercise."

"Once again, be wary of that single-mindedness."

"I understand, Hardin. Next time I'll have my wits about me."

"You may want to have them about you now. Your father and sister expect you to join them for a summit tomorrow with an emissary from Hyrule."

Marth narrowed his eyes. "So soon after losing their king?"

"I don't like it either. Something about this business puts me off."

"You suspect foul play?"

"It's too early to tell."

"I just hope something good will come of this meeting."

"There shouldn't be a problem, so long as you stick by what you've learned with your other tutors."

Marth stuttered for a second. "One can only...go so far with lessons. I'm sure practical experience would-"

"Highness, this is a matter of grave import. Practical experience is best informed by-"

"Learning the experiences of others," they both finished in unison.

"I know," Marth said. "But those tutors and their insufferable superiority. How is one supposed to learn anything if their instructor treats them like an imbecile?"

"You're no imbecile, Marth. And I have every confidence that you'll do splendidly at the summit."

Marth smiled and nodded. For a moment, Hardin let himself smile back.

But then it was back to business. "That concludes our today's training. Take to heart everything you've learned, and you may live to fight another day."

"Excellent," Marth said. "You're welcome to join us for dinner."

"I'm afraid not, Your Highness. I have other matters that need seeing to." He started back to his quarters, and called back, "Good luck with your father. He's in an unusually poor mood today."

Marth sighed. Bad day of lessons, and the king already running low on patience. Here was going to be another miserable dinner.

Not far to the northwest, Hyrule Castle bustled with merchants, courtiers, and soldiers, all of whom were mourners not much more than a week ago. The entire kingdom was still reeling from the sudden passing of their benevolent king, and his young daughter has since been feeling very old since her rapid ascension. Zelda hadn't gotten used to calling the throne hers, even as she sat in it, contemplating the slow passing of endless days.

She gazed through the stained glass window, watching the sun set behind the mountains and listening for her name to come up as the two old crones blathered away about something in the corner. Ugly knots of leathery skin and wiry hair and bulging, alien eyes, each with her own matching broomstick. Sisters, as she was given to understand it. Twins.

How interesting, she thought.

Koume and Kotake were their names. Desert-dwellers, and accomplished mystics brought on for their knowledge of the black arts. Zelda recalled her meeting with them the day after the funeral – less because they had anything meaningful to say and more because they kept mentioning the late king in that shrill, flagrantly disrespectful rasp. They spoke about him as if he were a former pet rather than a former ruler. And their empty condolences only made it worse.

Zelda wasted no time excusing herself from that meeting.

She listened to the crones' babbling offhandedly, and heard her name once or twice in the past several minutes of exchange. Whatever their topic was, Zelda was a secondary concern.

The rest of the throne room was empty, except for Chancellor Cole, who seated himself behind a table flanked by two castle guards. He wore his usual loud green suit that strained the eyes to look at, and an oddball pair of hats on his head. Zelda watched him through the corner of her eye, waiting for him to get up and leave.

Chancellor Cole was an oddity, and not just because of the two hats. He somehow wormed his way up to the head of the king's court, earning his title in the process, and since then has been the most singularly worthless courtier in history. All day, every day, as Zelda sat the throne and did her best to tend to matters of state, he did nothing but stymie visitors to the chamber, delay meetings with ambassadors, and create issue where there was none.

Zelda tolerated him on the grounds that she didn't know anyone who could replace him. The one man she could trust for the job had zero talent for politics. Perhaps if she had simply gone to more of her father's meetings...

She sighed, wishing there would be some emergency to break her out of her slump and get her working on something. A distraught Ordonian peasant, she could handle. A merchant complaining about taxes would be an equal blessing.

Why did the goddesses burden her with such misery as boredom?

"Is there a problem, Your Majesty?"

Zelda grimaced and straightened herself. Cole's voice would crack glass if he spoke loud enough. "Nothing that need concern you, Chancellor."

"As Hyrule's chief courtier, I feel obliged to be concerned."

He was terrible at sounding sincere. "You're not obliged to do anything other than what I tell you, Chancellor. Is that clear?"

"Oh, crystal, Majesty. I merely wish to know that I might be of some assistance in this uncertain time."

"You may help by keeping to your own business instead of prying into mine."

Cole painted his face with a hideous grin, his catlike eyes narrowing in equal parts wariness and delight. "But there is a matter of grave urgency that needs your attention. Perhaps a look into this will shake you from your doldrums."

Zelda leered at him, puzzled.

Cole nodded and produced an envelope. Unsealed. Awaiting royal approval.

She guarded herself.

Cole continued, "I know this comes on the morn of such rough tidings, with the failed Ordon insurrection. However, the generals have seen fit to establish an outpost further south."

"An outpost? Near the Altean border?"

"It's a difficult time for us all, Majesty. Other nations are starting to see our position weakened following your dear father's passing. They recommended it to me as a deterrent to keep the Altean armies at bay."

"You suggest a deterrent against a neutral state."

"Not neutral for much longer, we suspect."

Zelda shot to her feet, dwarfing her elder and staring intensely into his very soul. "You tell the generals that they are not to come within a hundred miles of the border, by royal decree."

"Would that I were able to comply, Majesty," he said unfazed, "but we have received word from our envoy in Altea that he's had to double his guard since his arrival. The people there are gearing for battle, and suspects the army to follow suit."

"And why did I never see any letters?"

"Your late father trusted me implicitly on foreign affairs."

"I'm not my father," she snarled.

"I meant no offense, I assure you. It's a simple matter of our commanders interpreting our-"

"To hell with the commanders!"

She stopped herself abruptly. Even temper. Level head.

Dusting herself off, she addressed him slowly and firmly. "It's obvious that I was excluded entirely from the decision to encroach upon Altea, but I'll deal with that later. It's unlikely you would have come to me for nothing."

"Why would I waste your valuable time?"

"Chancellor Cole, what is in that envelope?"

He raised it to her with a flourish. "The formal declaration of war."

Anger erupted in her very core, and with a swing of her arm, turned itself into power to launch the little wretch to the far side of the chamber, where he landed heavily between the twin witches. "I want you out of my sight," she said. "If you go any further over my head, you'll spend the rest of your days rotting in the castle dungeon."

A heady silence permeated the chamber. Cole was gravely quiet as Koume and Kotake led him out into the courtyard, but Zelda could swear she saw the trace of his trademark demonic grin as he turned the corner.

The door closed behind the three of them, and Zelda sat heavily in the throne. She fixated on the back of her hand. The magic that coursed through her body was the hallmark of Hylian royalty, and extremely powerful besides. She hated to say that she enjoyed abusing her power in that moment. While Cole needed to be taught a lesson, she had to think about what image she presented to the people.

She clasped her hands together as if to pray, but could think of no appeals to make. Her mind ran circles around her head as terrifyingly vivid thoughts of war and destruction obtruded themselves upon her. Under her breath, she recited an old verse of penance in the vain hope it would give her some peace.

Then she sent for a messenger. There was work to be done.

Author's Note: Welcome to what must be, in my opinion, one of the more daring experiments with author's liberties on this site. My interpretations of certain characters are going to be different from most folks', but that's because I'm not basing their personalities on any one game. I hope you can come to enjoy my views on things.

On Marth:
I'm very much aware of Marth's character in his home series, but I felt that there wasn't much room for him to grow there. I'll speak more on him in later chapters. Spoilers, baby. For now I will say that I don't plan to wholly depart on Marth's character from the Fire Emblem games; just enough for it to kind of make sense.

On Zelda:
I've decided I'm going to base her character on a mix of Wind Waker and Twlight Princess, with a bit of FFIV's Rydia thrown in for good measure. I've often thought about what would happen if a younger Zelda had to suddenly mature. For the purposes of this story, we'll say she's seventeen. In most of Zelda's appearances, she's usually portrayed as insightful and intelligent, which I'm trying to get across here.