AN: So this is my first Fire Emblem Story. I got the idea initially while playing FE: Sacred Stones (I'm sorry, but for some reason it remains my favorite, though this might change once I play FE: Awakening) and while browsing through T.V tropes and , I discovered that there was a startlingly scarce number of Sacred Stones fanfics, so, once again I am forced to resort to the time honored tradition of 'do it yourself'

To end this AN, I give a warning that when it comes to Fire Emblem, I must sadly class myself as a noob. Or – gasp – a filthy casual; whatever you want to call it. In any case, I might get something's wrong in the story in regards to class, item advantages and whatever, so you'll have to forgive me for that.

So, without further ado I present my Fire Emblem story:

Heart of Brass.

Urgh . . . what time is it?

It's either late night or early morning, because the air's chilly. I fumble around for my phone-slash-alarm before realizing it wasn't where I placed it. Other realizations came after that: For example, I was not lying in my bed – too hard, not enough pillows, my favorite teddy bear was missing (I've had it since I was three) and it smelled like dirt.

I shot up, wide awake and no longer groggy and what do you know? I was lying on dirt; big surprise.

"What the fuck?"

Where the hell was I? As far as I could see it was grass, trees and dirt. In all honesty I was a getting a bit nervous. This was either a really realistic dream or a very, very bad prank.

"Helloooo?" I shouted out, both to see if there was actually anyone there and to relieve my nerves. I got up and looked around the place. Still grass, still trees, no people; I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I hurt, so there went that idea.

I walk around for a bit, looking for any signs of life. "Christ Almighty where am I?" I muttered to myself.

There's a faint sound of a horses' hooves in the distance (I've been riding horses every summer since I was six, so the sound is pretty distinct to me) and turn towards the source: Two people riding on one horse, and moving at a pace I wouldn't risk even on my best days. I waited in place, planning to call out to them as they got closer.

Pro-tip if you're aiming to get the attention of someone on horseback: Do not suddenly go in front of them while madly waving your arms, you could get yourself or the rider killed by surprising the horse.

As they got closer, three things caught my attention. Firstly, they were wearing armor. That wasn't as weird as it looked at first glance, though – I've seen plenty of people LARP like that in summer, but it was the faint shine of steel and the design that got me. Secondly, the riders were a boy and a girl, with red and bluish (or teal, I wasn't good with colors) hair. Thirdly and most importantly, I recognized them.

Oh, they looked slightly different from how I imagined them of course, but what else would you expect when video game characters transition to real life?

Then I began putting the pieces together; it wasn't hard, after all, haven't I seen this exact same scenario thousands of times before in fanfiction and manga? Okay, perhaps that was a bad example to use, seeing as, you know, they're fiction, but I was fairly confident that I was right.

The rider's eyes widened for a teensy bit before narrowing. He turned the reins of his horse and promptly avoided me, galloping straight ahead. If this seemed rude to you, I can tell you know that I didn't mind. Why? Because if what I suspected was going on was really happening, then – ah, there they were, right on time.

Grado's soldiers; clad in red armor and chasing after the princess of a fallen country and her most loyal knight.

It was all too easy for me to know what was going on. I recognized what was going on, and I felt my knee's shake slightly in revelation: This was the prologue stage of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

I wasn't sure whether I was happy or freaked out by this revelation – all I knew was that I was stunned to the point of not moving, which proved to be a pretty bad thing when the sword came down, and any further thoughts were chucked out the window.

"Shit!" I cursed mentally as I rolled to the side. Thankfully, it looked like the man was only half-interested in me, as he and his merry band of murderers charge forward after Eirika and Seth.

Thinking about their names finalized the reality of what I was in. I didn't want to accept it so easily; it made me feel so detached to my world – I was even using my world now – In fact, I had a million questions running through my head, first of all being how I got here.

I couldn't even deny this as a dream either. I've got terrible sleeping habits, which translates to I'm never fully asleep, so dreams always look fuzzy for me, plus, the one thing that differentiated this whole thing from dream and reality was the lack of that feeling of control I always had when I was asleep. I always felt like an untouchable god whenever I went had dreams, but now, there was no such reassurance.

If I got hurt here, I would suffer. If I fought, I'd get tired. Here, in this place, I could die. That was what my gut was telling me now, and my gut was usually right. I felt my stomach clench in anxiety and had to physically resist the urge to curl up in a ball somewhere and wait this out.

The question is though: what do I do now? I mulled over it; travelling alone was definitely out of the question. In a few weeks from now, Fiends would be scooting about like no-one's business.

Even presently, moving alone was a bad idea: Grado's forces are probably having a field day all over the country, and despite the fact that the majority of them probably don't want this war, I wasn't taking the chance that I'd run into some random mercenary that had no compunctions on doing me in to loot the body, although meeting Gerik's own troupe would be a welcome encounter (God Marisa is hot . . . I don't even know why I'm thinking about stuff like that in a situation like this) Even worse than a random mercenary would be meeting would be with . . . Oh! Oh . . . Oh shit, Valter, Grado's resident crazy-ass, rapist-psycho.

Yeah, that settles it, I'm out of here.

Where to though?

"Why am I even thinking about this?" I muttered. It's obvious what I should be doing, wasn't it? Like they say, if in doubt, follow the most familiar path . . . or persons.

And they just rode past me. Crap. Let's hope they didn't make it too far then . . .

*.*.*

Luckily for me, they didn't, which is kind of cruel now that I think about it.

After all, what stopped them from doing so was being surrounded by eight or so Fighters and their commander. His name escapes me, but I faintly recall that it was similar to a Metal Slug character.

I'm hidden behind a clump of bushes, so thankfully they don't notice me despite how close I am. Not that it would matter with their prize right in front of them.

Eirika and Seth . . . and yeowch that looks nasty. I'd never thought about it before since they only had facial sprites, but Christ, that shoulder wound on Seth is really something. There's blood all over the place and he's really sweating. The Paladin was kinda pale as well, a clear sign of unacceptable blood-loss. Eirika, bless her sweet heart, looks worried out of her mind. I would too, if my best friend –coughloveintrestcough – looked that injured while being surrounded by a group that wanted to change 'dying' to 'dead'.

I was tempted to intervene, but that wouldn't do much good besides me dying. Besides, Seth is there, and everyone knows how OP the red haired Paladin is. He could wipe the floor with them, no sweat . . . or so I told myself.

Something didn't feel quite right. It was this gut feeling I was getting; as I stated earlier, I've always had these gut feelings, and though they applied to a lot of things, there were only certain times where they were always accurate:

Win/lose situations.

I could tell when one side was going to lose or win, when a plan would succeed or fail, or even when a penalty shot or free-throw would miss or score. Think of it as a hyper sensitive intuition of sorts.

My intuition never told me how to prevent those situations from occurring though; that was entirely up to whatever my head could think of, and right now, I was desperately trying to think of a way to change the vibe that this fight was giving me, because if things kept up as they were . . .

Seth was going to die.

*.*.*

Eirika had no idea what to do. Her kingdom and people were scattered, her father was alone with no hope of escape and Seth was injured, and even now was still fighting to protect her. Her head was a general mess and she just had to help but couldn't even find a way to do it!

She had never fought a true fight, never mind her training sessions with her brother, and her sword arm trembled at the thought of taking another life. More deeply, it trembled at the thought that it might be her life that would be taken. She was scared at the thought of fighting and dying and she hated it, especially when Seth was fighting to protect her right in front of her!

"No . . . Eirika, you're better than this," she thought to herself. "You're a princess of Renais. Your subjects – your knight is in trouble and you have to help! For all things holy, stand up! Stand up! STAND UP!"

The princess took a shaky breath, looking at the Fighters ahead of her. Stepping forward, she readied the rapier Seth had given her. She had to do this.

The Paladin himself was doing a fairly good job at keeping the eight of them at bay, but some were starting to get through him. One Fighter finally slipped past him, and made a beeline straight for the princess

Forcing herself to lift her sword, Eirika faced her assailant. "Haaah!" she shouted, charging at the man and brandishing her sword in a way that was completely different from how her brother taught her. Her fear was practically causing it to flail around.

"Milady don't-!" That momentary slip of his concentration proved to be fatal for the Paladin. A Fighter slipped right under the range of his spear and swung his axe at his horse. The large warhorse fell with a cry, taking its rider along with it.

"Seth!" screamed Eirika. She began running to his side, only to be intercepted by another fighter. He swung his axe at her, and only now did the training drilled into her by her brother kick in. She ducked under the swing and, turning swiftly, jabbed her sword through the gaps of his armor near his neck.

The man yelled in pain and dropped to his knees. Eirika was breathing heavily. She knew she had to finish him, but her worry for Seth overrode that. She turned towards where her knight fell, and what she saw would be forever engraved in her eyes.

She screamed again, higher and more painful, as the O'Neill brought the axe down on the Paladin's head.

*.*.*

There are times when I hated my guts for being right.

The princess wasn't acting as composed as I imagined her to be in the game. In fact, she was sort of freaking out. Seth was holding them off easily, but his injury was clearly weakening him. I figured one of these two was going to get him killed, but I wasn't sure which.

As it happened, Eirika freaked out first. The Lord (or was it Lady? Class titles are confusing when applied in real life . . .) charged towards the battle, attracting the attention of Seth and a few mooks. Unfortunately, that turned out to be pretty bad for her guardian. The momentary distraction allowed one of them to cut down Seth's horse (I cringed at that; a knight losing his horse is always a sad thing to look at) and get him on the ground with an ungraceful thud.

This was it. This was the key 'win or lose' point. Unfortunately, things didn't seem to be going their way. Eirika was doing well holding of that one Fighter, but Seth's wounds were giving him problems, especially since he was fighting against seven others.

The Paladin looked dazed from his fall, but remarkably kept his guard up and didn't give the fighters any space. It was obvious that this wouldn't last long though, and the moment Seth was down, Eirika was easy pickings.

It occurred to me that maybe I could do something about it, but I kept wondering what. I had some training in sword fighting, heck, I was the best fighter in our Arnis (or Eskrima, if you prefer) group, but this was real life (of sorts); it was totally different from the sparring matches and tournaments I've been to!

Urgh . . . but I couldn't just leave them. I had to know how I got here, and more importantly, how to get out. If thing played out just like in fiction, then Eirika and her brother were most likely my best bet at getting answers to those questions.

Suddenly, Seth looked woozy and for just a moment the man stumbled. Then came the axe.

Seth managed to block the weapon with his gauntlet, and prevented his head from being separated from his shoulders. Still, this blow sent him to the ground, and his sword skidded a few meters away from him . . . and towards me.

Dammit, now I know destiny's screwing with me.