Written for the prompt 'Woman King' in fe_contest on LiveJournal. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I don't know why.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or any characters therein. I make no money from this fanfiction.
Altina is small for her age. Lehran calls her petite and mumbles things about liking being able to pick her up when he can do so little else when compared to her. When she faces soldiers on the battlefield, wielding her twin swords – her brothers' swords originally, but hers now that both are gone – and standing astride Soan like he is little more than a horse, they stare at her in shock and then fear. She is a tiny figure, and when Lehran had first seen her sitting on Soan – much to Soan's annoyance – he had laughed. It had been a boon then, to hear Lehran laugh. In a way, her appearance is still a boon. Enemy soldiers who have not heard of her always pause and in doing so, they seal their fate. Soan kills any that stand before him, and Altina swings her swords so fast they sing. Any soldier that stands to her sides does not have a very long life expectancy.
Lehran calls her beautiful when she is on the battlefield. He cannot join her there; the chaos overwhelms him and besides which, he would be a liability. More often than not, it is only Altina, Soan and Deghinsea fighting for Ashera and every other soldier there is fighting for Yune. Lehran usually waits nearby, with Ashera. She dislikes watching, but her presence generally spreads fear amongst Yune's forces. Lehran watches and he mourns. Altina knows he mourns because after every battle she finds him with tearstained cheeks. It is usually then that he says she was beautiful.
Beautiful, he will say, with your swords flashing through the air and your hair moving like a purple ribbon around you, never once getting in your way.
He is foolishly sentimental sometimes, but Altina loves him. She wishes that there wasn't a war going on and that she wasn't the Crown Princess, because then she and Lehran could simply leave and find a new place to live. Perhaps beyond the desert, she thinks. No-one knows what lies beyond it anymore. Many say it is simply more drowned land and the desert is a great beach, but Altina doesn't care. She wishes she could travel there and see, but she is bound by the rules of her country and her promise to Ashera. She must fight a war against an enemy she does not hate, and then she must rule a country that has never seen a woman on the throne. Lehran is the only thing that makes it all bearable.
The time for daydreaming does not last and soon enough Altina must start planning again, for their next battle. She finds it quite unnerving to be both leader and tactician for Ashera's forces, but all of them agreed that she should lead them. And then it is back to the battlefield, clinging to Soan and swinging the swords that have her brothers' names, waiting for that ever present moment afterwards when Lehran will call his little queen beautiful.
The word limit was 500, which is why it was so short. Thanks for reading.
Rethira