AN: Howdy kids why the heck am I here? Because I've got some stories to share. Important things to note for this story:
-Tawney refers to F!MU, my Robin.
-The Awakening Kiddos are all extremely poly so there are a bunch of pairings in the second gen.
-Flavia and Basilio have four kids, as well, but they will not appear until much later (no worries mates).
-Corrin is nonbinary and is only mentioned in this story. Imagine them as you wish, I do not care.
-Okay so this is important and confusing: when the awakening 2nd finish the story of awakening, Naga decides that they have earned hero status and gives them all another life, reborn. To explain: baby Lucina, as she grows up, starts retaining Past Lucina's memories. This will be further explained in another chapter, but essentially: all of the awakening kids are from the proper awakening timeline, but they still retain memories about the bad timeline, excepting Morgan, who did not travel to the past with them, he does not remember the 'bad timeline' but instead he remembers the past that he originally came from, which isn't super important because Morgan literally will probably never talk about it in this story.
-As you can guess from the previous note I've taken a couple liberties for this story, but I assure you that the plots of both Awakening and Revelations remains the same. I will explain more things if you ask about something specific or if the thing is directly a focus in a chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Fire Emblem.
xxx
Chaos. Blood splattered the ground as people rushed into the fray to stop the shambling creatures heading towards their kingdom. Cries of horror were shouted about as the enemy was viewed up close…
The Silent King had fallen, and an extremely tentative peace was held between the kingdoms of Nohr and Hoshido, alongside their new ally, Valla. Corrin's army had recuperated in the Hidden Kingdom, but they had left and separated three days prior. Nohr was on the edge of shambles, what with the disappearances of not only their king but the entire royal family and its advisors, and Xander had made as many amends as he could in the short three days. Not to mention, there was a coronation to plan, as well as meetings with the Hoshidans, and attending their coronation as well – a very busy time in Nohr, indeed.
As such, the news of a small company making its way through remote villages of Nohr and decimating everything in its way was no small thing to the shaken kingdom.
The Nohrian royals were surprised that any group would so quickly rise against them. Upon reaching the fight, their opinions changed.
These were no ordinary soldiers.
Elise shrieked as a gnarled hand swiped at her, Effie quickly going to off the offender. Her lance sunk into the snarling thing's back, but it did not flinch. It wasn't until Arthur's axe removed its bag-like head from its body that it no longer stirred.
"W-What are these… things?" Elise whimpered, waving her staff to assess the minor damage that had befallen her retainers.
The others among the royal company wondered the same. The Vallite soldiers – they were invisible puppets of the dead, but they looked almost completely human. Faceless, on the other hand, were clearly monsters.
These gnarled figures were as if corpses had decided to walk the land once more.
It did not matter to the Nohrians. They were a threat to the land, so they needed to be eradicated as swiftly as possible. They could wonder what they were after the battle.
To the three outsiders, however…
"Peri!" Laslow shouted, breath leaving him as he swung his sword through another target. The cavalier in question was struggling to remove her lance from the body it had impaled.
"Whaat?" Peri whined, fury written on her face, "can't you see I'm busy? These mean thingies won't give me back my stabber!"
"That's just it," Laslow comforted, quickly removing the lance for his friend, "these – these 'mean thingies' won't be stopped by your stabbing. Look–"
He swiftly decapitated the creature with his sword before it could attack again. "You've got to get their heads off – they aren't alive, they're like the Vallites but more – more zombie-like."
"Okay!" Peri chirped, whipping her horse to get closer to Xander. "I think I got it!"
"My, you fight like you've seen these before," Camilla crooned on the other side of the battlefield, Selena moving sharply to eliminate targets around her liege. Brow furrowed, Selena bit her lip.
Of course she had fought these before. In Naga's name, she'd fought them countless of times! Enough so that seeing them here, in Nohr, a place that was supposed to be so separate from her old world–
It was enough to bring her mental strength to its knees.
"I–I have," Selena murmured, unsure of whether she should continue. "Where – the place I'm from – they were, uh, in legends and stuff. They're called Risen – they're kinda like the Vallites," she explained, chopping the arm off a nearby archer. Faintly hearing Camilla's approval at her strike, she went for the killing blow.
No later did she swipe her sword through the one Risen, another was at her back. Spooked, she startled, quickly swiping at the undead.
But this one was bigger. Its lank, stringy hair fell over its glowing eye-sockets, foul breath leaking through its open jaws as it shoved back against Selena. Shaken but undeterred, she struck again, her movements too fast for the Risen to get the upper hand. Finally, after a decent struggle, she plunged her sword through its neck.
"Take… the lost priiiiinceee…"
Every ounce of blood in the mercenary's body went cold. Selena found she almost did not have the strength to stand from her position. Suddenly, every nerve in her body became enflamed and panic doused her senses.
She was a retainer. She had to protect her liege. Her liege was more important than – than her false liege.
Her throat constricted with fear, restraining herself from shouting her friend's name – her best friend, her lover, her liege – and she sprinted back to where Camilla's wyvern circled.
"Lady Camilla!" she shouted, throat burning as adrenaline woke her from her fear, "Lady Camilla – one of the Risen – their goal – they want one of the princes!" At the last word, Camilla's attention was solely on her, purple eyes wide with a dark intensity. "I heard it say that it wanted a prince, so please–" Please, she begged to herself, almost scared at the emotion in her voice, "allow me to help shelter Lord Leo!"
Camilla's eyes narrowed, her usually pleasant face showing only animosity at the thought of the living corpses harming one of her brothers. "Of course, dear. I'll send Beruka to Xander – if I'm not a target, I will not allow one of them to be harmed."
Relief momentarily flooding her veins, Selena immediately started cutting her way through the Risen to reach the second prince of Nohr. He and his retainers were near an edge of the fight – they were all long range, so it was clear Leo felt less danger in such a position. Nearby fought Effie and Arthur, carefully shielding Elise as she attempted to tend to the wounds of all near her. Leo was the furthest away of all the royal siblings, Selena noticed, and she was aghast to see that Niles and Odin were becoming overwhelmed.
The hostile air around her suddenly changed, a familiar presence pressed up against her back as she paired up defensively with her fellow mercenary. "What did you say?" came the quiet question, hair tickling Selena's neck as he moved to cut down a near foe. From his tone, she knew he had heard her conversation perfectly clear.
"They want him, Laslow. Not Lord Xander. Not Lord Leo. The Risen are going after him."
"I can't leave milord Xander!" Laslow spoke, cringing at his own words before he could help himself, Selena bursting from behind him to defend him from an oncoming Risen. Laslow's eyes lowered softly, his voice suddenly overcome by a deep bitterness.
"If they're after a 'prince', so you say, then it would be treasonous to depart from milord's side."
The resignation to his tone tore through Selena. She understood, of course – they had been in these roles for nearing a decade, despite how little they had truly aged – but there was something deeply ingrained to her in this situation.
She had to get to Odin.
"Hurry," Laslow whispered, pushing her off towards the true target of the Risen. His eyes flicked past her nervously, his voice faint. "I can hardly see him and Niles. They're being swarmed."
At that Selena pushed away, destroying any Risen in her path.
It was no easy feat, getting across the battlefield. Had she been unfamiliar with the zombies, she would never have made it. But she was. She was terribly familiar with them. And seeing them now, she was filled with a sick vengeance that always remained no matter how far away her past had been.
They could do this, couldn't they? They'd always managed before. This wasn't that hard of a challenge, after all! Maybe they were a little out of practice for these particular enemies, but…
Selena felt her body relax, easily slaying another foe. Only a few more enemies stood between her and Leo's retainers. They could do this. So long as she scowled her fiercest, so long as Laslow kept smiling, so long as Odin was the mighty hero he painted himself to be in his stories–!
She hadn't heard him yell some insane remark for some time now.
She couldn't let herself be shaken by this acknowledgement, maybe he was taking the battle seriously for once but that didn't mean that it was truly so grim–!
Selena froze, knocked to the ground in her distraction. Her sword was held up to defend herself from her attacker by mere instinct. Manic laughter echoed in her ears, anxious and, frankly, terrifying.
No.
Her brain frantically searched for some possible, logical answer as she threw the Risen off of her, panting on the ground. Who – Who would laugh like that at a time like this? Was… was it Peri? No, no it wasn't Peri, the laugh was too deep, too… afraid. And it certainly wasn't one of the nobles. Arthur? No, not quite deep enough, nor as staged.
No no no no no no no!
It had to be Laslow.
Laslow only laughed like that when he was being overwhelmed by the enemy. He always said he did it to unnerve the opposition, and for the most part, Selena begrudgingly admitted that it worked. It was lucky really, Selena knew that it was just a laugh brought about by anxiety – a trait she found had also belonged to his mother – and it happened to help him regain the upper hand. Of course…
No amount of smiling or laughter was going to throw off Risen.
Instinct surged through her and she briefly turned, slaying an approaching Entombed as she did. There was Xander, shouting as Siegfried decapitated approaching enemies. Peri had one of her more serious, stern faces on, a fact that chilled Selena to the bone. There was shouting, but she couldn't see Laslow.
"Shit!"
The sound of the younger Nohrian prince swearing turned her attention back to her goal. There was no sight of the second prince's retainers, she realized, which must have prompted the expletive. Adrenaline rushed through her veins and she pushed through the last remaining group near her.
She was greeted with Niles, curled upon the ground, a deep gash in his back.
No Odin.
A loud scream of frustration tore through her lungs as she plunged her sword into a remaining carcass. She had failed. She had been too far from her liege when he had needed her, when their age-old enemy had finally reappeared, and she had failed to protect him.
A crushing desolation overwhelmed her. What would her father think if he knew?
If he had lost one of his lieges, she knew what he'd do. He would stop at nothing short of death to protect the remaining royals.
Laslow.
He wasn't hers, but she had more or less taken him in ten years ago, when they made this damned deal with the Silent Dragon.
She had already lost Odin. She wouldn't lose him too.
New vigor powered her; Selena sprinted back across the field dampened with blood. Nothing else filled her mind but the need to get to her friend. When that wasn't enough to fuel her, the possibility of being alone in this still-foreign land propelled her even more. She only paid attention to two parts of her surroundings: remaining enemies, and any sound Laslow could have made. She didn't hear his laughter anymore, only cold silence.
Of course, the world around her was far from quiet. Triumphant cheers as some of the remaining Risen were slaughtered came from the younger fighters while Xander surveyed the damages of the fight. Peri was continuing to clear the field, that was fine. Leo and Elise remained atop their horses, also good.
He looked up to find Camilla's wyvern land closely beside his steed. His sister's face was full of relief, and her comment of "Thank goodness you're safe," was nothing but warm.
But Xander was no fool. He knew the look in her eyes.
She was furious.
Selena paid no heed to anything the royals did in those painfully long moments. She didn't care when Elise's attention was disrupted from cheering on her retainers to suddenly spurring her horse across the field, face pale in fear. Suddenly, all she knew was the sight of red before her, sharp against the ruddy background, and her fingers desperately clasping a cold hand, prying it off of a spear.
The spear in question was embedded in Laslow's stomach.
"Oh gods, oh gods, what do I do?" she whispered, trembling as she squeezed his hand tightly. His eyes flicked to her, and he had the audacity to smile, even as blood trickled from his lips.
"C-Calm down," he whispered, attempt at placating her failing when the words caused his body to contort with coughing. "I-I've been through… worse. A little… s-staff, and I'll… b-be…"
Her intense shushing silenced him finally. Panic encased her as she watched his eyes become more unfocused – her scolds to "keep breathing, dumbass!" seemed not to be strong enough to keep his full attention.
A sharp cry snapped her out of her daze.
"S-Selena, I said to pull the spear out! Pull it out!"
Narrow red eyes met the tear-brimmed purple that had appeared at her side. Without a second thought, Selena heeded the youngest princess' words. Keeping Laslow's hand tight in her own, she removed her right and grasped the spear. She lifted it rapidly, discarding it behind her and wincing at the gasp of air that came from her dear friend.
Friend, ha, everyone here knew that Laslow and Odin were much more than just friends of hers. After all these years, friendship had passed long behind…
Bright green light surged around her suddenly, Elise waving her staff over the deep wound. Selena didn't know how much Elise would be able to heal just now – she had only brought a single Mend with her, and it seemed this wound would be far more serious–
"Elise," a stern, calm voice came from above. Leo, with worried eyes, had his hand on his younger sister's shoulder. "Xander says – you need to stop. Come with me and tend to Niles."
Selena couldn't muster the voice to protest as the dark mage pulled her away. Elise, however, had plenty protest in her.
"Big brother said – what? L-Leo, he could be dying!"
The excuse given by the mage was weakened by the look in his eyes: a confusion and uncertainty, for once, as he led Elise to Niles, who was being supported gingerly by Effie.
Elise could not escape her brother's grasp. Instead, she fished in her dress and turned to look at Selena just briefly.
Selena barely caught the item suddenly thrown to her. Ignoring Leo's protesting "Elise! What did I just say?" she hurriedly opened the small brown jar.
A concoction. It'd have to do.
Her focus turned back to Laslow, whose breathing had already picked up from Elise's brief healing. Maybe the staff had healed ruptured organs, but he was still bleeding out.
She slathered the concoction onto her bloodied hands before pressing into the wound. She continued administering the medicine, trying desperately to ignore the pained whispers her companion would give, focusing only on the concoction and his soft words of reassurance.
She ran out of concoction sooner than she'd hoped. He still needed a healer–
"Selena, are you aware of the situation you've gotten yourself in?"
The red-head froze at the soft voice of her fellow retainer Beruka. For once, emotion was plain on the other's face.
There was an inkling of fear.
"That's all we truly know, Xander," Camilla warned the crown prince cautiously. "She knew the enemies. Leo's retainer is missing. She said that the enemies wanted a prince – she knew what they wanted, Xander, that's entirely suspicious. I know it's unlikely, they've been with us for years, but–"
The stern look on Xander's face silenced her. "We can't immediately jump to a conspiracy against the royal family, sister."
"When it comes to our family I will not overlook any threat, no matter how slight," she hissed in return, arms crossed. "If nothing else she has already committed treason here. She said she was going off to protect Leo. Normally I would not displace my own retainer, but given her sincerity I believed her and let her go. Instead she runs off to them just to run back the second that Odin is gone? Deserting a royal – especially then, when Leo had lost one retainer and the other grievously injured? She put him in danger and disobeyed orders to protect. The only reason excusable for her to leave Leo would've been if I had been in danger."
Xander heaved a sigh, spurring his horse to turn around. "Let us return to Castle Krakenburg!" he called, already riding off. The other royals quickly followed suit at his command.
Panic stirred in Selena again. Were they deserting them? Leaving Laslow to die?
She looked about for their mares, easing slightly when she saw no one leading the gray and brown horses away. The gray was already nosing towards them, big dark eyes focused on the ground. At least Laslow's mare, Waiola, knew to take a hint.
There was no way that Laslow was going to be able to ride her, though.
"Halina!" Selena called, reaching her blood-soaked hand out to the brown mare. Halina was as stubborn as Waiola was gentle – very. Luckily, the mare's ears flicked at her, and it appeared that, for once, she was going to listen.
"I – I can ride," Laslow breathed, the effort showing in the blood bubbling at his lips. His hand not grasped tightly by Selena reached up weakly, earning a sniff from Waiola.
Selena scoffed in return. "As if! You can't even sit up on your own, dumbass! You're riding on Halina with me."
Laslow's eyes gazed slowly to the sturdy brown beast before them, hooves stamping the ground slightly in impatience as Selena patted her flank. "I… was unaware that Halina was willing to be ridden by anyone other than you. Reminds me of… a devil horse from long ago."
Rolling her eyes, Selena gently raised Laslow to his unsteady feet, arm wrapped tightly around him. "Come on, she likes you!"
It was silent as she managed to get the both of them up onto the saddle, her hands gripping the reins. She had decided it best to have Laslow sit backwards, in her arms, as his forward leaning would only lead him to topple off the horse if she wasn't careful. Her concern spiked with every short breath that came against her neck; he had not replied, and he seemed to give no intention to.
Selena nosed briefly in his gray hair before flicking her wrist. "Come on, girl, we've got some precious cargo to get home."
Her soft voice set the horse off, Waiola dutifully trailing behind them.
If she could not feel her companion's lips against her neck, she would have missed his next words.
"How do y-you… figure she likes me?"
Selena restrained herself from a short laugh; it appeared that he had just now regained awareness of his surroundings. "Oh shut up, she likes you plenty. I know because when Odin gets near her she tries to eat his hair," she paused, frowning. Odin.
"We'll find him, as always," her fellow mercenary murmured, a soft kiss being pressed against her neck.
"We have to," she returned, determination filling her.
They'd fought Grima twice, they'd ended Walhart the Conqueror, they'd slain the Silent Dragon Anankos.
They would find Odin.
xxx
AN: This will update approx. weekly, given that I have chapters ready. If a chapter is not ready, then it will be posted as soon as it is. I write this story either constantly (getting a few chapters done per week) or not at all, please be patient.
