Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem. It is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems.
Characters: Anri, Naga.
Pairings: None of real note.
Warnings: Not too terribly spoiler-y, I guess… No real warnings besides the usual violence. And that's why I have the ratings. Let me know if I spoil anything I missed.
Author's Notes: An idea I got sometime before Awakening was released in Europe. I wrote it up but dared not upload it for fear of spoilers for the game. I realise some things that happened in Awakening can be seen as contradicting with this one-shot, especially in regards to Naga's nature, but I'm too fond of this fic to scrap it.
"On second thought, maybe Duke Cartas had the right idea…" he muttered it to himself as he dragged himself into the shrine. Stumbling over his long robe, he fell forward but succeeded in catching his fall. First the scorching desert, then the Flame Barrel, and now this frozen wasteland. That old man… what was his name? Gotoh? He had an interesting sense of humor, sending him through this hell.
At least he was inside the shrine now. While it did nothing to keep the cold out, at least he was now sheltered from the blizzard. He scrambled to his feet, using one hand to stroke his blue hair out of his face. If Gotoh had not been playing a very cruel joke on him, then he had reached his destination and he would find the blade here… the sword with which he could protect Princess Artemis.
With that thought, he forced himself to get up. Gotoh was nowhere to be seen, oddly enough, but he didn't need the old man to recognize the altar in the middle of the shrine. Even from this distance, he could see a sheathed blade lying on it. The moment he saw it, he lowered his guard. He had overcome the hell that Gotoh had laid out for him, and now he was allowed to claim his prize. He approached the altar, stretching out his hand to grasp the hilt of the sword.
The second he would have touched the weapon, however, he interrupted himself with a curse and stepped back, suddenly blinded by a bright light and pushed further back by an invisible force. When the black spots left his vision, he looked back at the altar, immediately noticing the change that the light had brought about.
A young woman was now sitting on the altar, her legs crossed. In and of itself that was strange enough, but Anri would have chalked it up to warp magic if not for her unusual appearance. She had long, green hair, pointed ears, and an overall unnatural look about her… "W-who are you?!" he demanded.
The woman only smiled. "Anri, Son of Altea. You're here for this, aren't you?" She took the sheathed blade in one hand, resting its tip on the altar so that Anri could see it. "I can't fathom why else a human would cross the desert, the Flame Barrel, and the mountain." Anri didn't miss that she hadn't answered his question, merely asked one of her own. He didn't trust her in the slightest, so he reached for the hilt of his own sword. "I must warn you that you're not the first human to try and claim it."
"That makes no difference." If she was trying to break his confidence, she was failing. "I will be the first to succeed."
The woman's smile turned into more of a smirk. "Two or three men have reached this temple before you. Don't think you are worthy simply because you have arrived here… for all of your predecessors have invariably fallen to the guardian."
So there was a guardian… in that case, it was fortunate that he had brought a silver sword with him. He drew it from the sheath, although not yet discarding his mantle. "I would challenge this 'guardian' of which you speak. Where is he?!"
A split second after he finished speaking, he found himself stepping back, a sizeable cut finding its way to his face. The woman suddenly stood right before him, the sword in her hand and adopting a stance that implied she was skilled with it. "I am the guardian," she spoke, her voice now a lot more threatening than before.
By stepping back, Anri had succeeded in avoiding more significant damage, but the moment sent a shiver down his back. She was impossibly fast. She had unsheathed the blade, come down from the altar, and attacked him, all within the blink of an eye. It was unnerving to say the least, and the Altean warrior briefly wondered how he was supposed to defeat her before snapping himself back to reality, stepping further back to avoid a second, much slower swing.
He was not here to think. He was going to hope to Naga that the woman had been showing off and would not be able to move that quickly in actual battle, and fight her with everything he had. She was still in the process of finishing her second swing when he pulled his own sword up to meet hers, deflecting her blow and pushing her back, creating distance between them so that he had time to pull his mantle off his shoulders. The battle would keep him warm.
She advanced, still rather quickly, hardly giving him much time to respond. Her sword wasn't necessarily heavy, and Anri should by all means have had an easy time pushing it away from him, but somehow she struck with immense strength, as well as more swiftness than a human could muster. She gave him no chance to press the attack, instead forcing him on the defensive.
Anri was not used to fighting defensively, and desperately sought an opening through which he could change the tide of the battle. However, he had never fought a foe quite as impossibly skilled as this woman. The desert bandits and the few dragons patrolling the Flame Barrel and the mountain didn't even begin to compare! Still, he refused to give in to her based on the first few seconds of their duel. Finally, he found a second to swing his blade back before connecting it with hers, setting her back ever so slightly and allowing him to press a single attack of his own.
She effortlessly dodged out of his way, raising her blade high so that he fell forward between it and the floor. This time, however, he caught himself with his foot, swinging his sword in her direction. Once more, she avoided having to take the hit, his blow glancing off of the blade of her sword. Anri's impression quickly started to give way to frustration- how was he supposed to defeat her if he couldn't even land a single hit on her?!
In his frustration, he took a blind swing at her. It was a beginner's mistake, and one she punished harshly. Not only did he miss terribly without her really having to even try and dodge him, she slammed her own weapon down on his hard enough to break the blade clean in two before punching her hilt into his brow, sending a sharp pain through his skull. He reeled back violently, the woman not pursuing him. She stood at relative ease, the sword pointed at the ground. And yet, Anri knew better than to try and assault her with his bare hands- he had not forgotten her display of speed as he had challenged her.
"Disappointing," she said. "Sadly I have no spare blades around for you to use, nor the means to repair your own." She raised the sword to chest-height, indubitably pointing the tip at Anri's heart. He did not doubt that it could smash clean through his armor. It was hopeless. "I promise I will end this quickly." He had never stood a chance against her- she was either hundreds and hundreds of years old or under the influence of some sort of magic, and he was… a peasant.
He knew that she approached about as quickly as she had for her first strike. And yet, when she did, the world around him seemed to move in slowmotion as he threw his own weight forward, reaching past the blade and grabbing on to her slender wrist with both hands to push it up above his head. He ended up with his face inches apart from that of the bewildered woman. Evidently, this was new to her. "You…" she muttered, "How?"
"I must have that sword," he said, staring into her green eyes. "I don't care how weak I am or how unworthy you think I am. I WILL have it!" With those words, he placed his own hand over hers in an attempt to outright wrestle the sword from her grip. She started, violently jerking her hand away from him and pounding him in the stomach with her free hand and a strength he had not expected from her frame.
As he fell to the ground, catching himself on one hand and putting the other arm over his stomach in an attempt to still the pain, the woman did not pursue him, instead placing her free hand on her chest with a consternated expression on her face. "What… how?! You're weakened, and you're unarmed… and yet somehow you still have the strength to defy me! I am your superior in every way!" She became quiet, although her expression did not change. "And yet… I sense no fear in you. You haven't feared me all this time! What makes you different, Anri of Altea!?"
He didn't answer. He let her figure it out for herself as he regained his strength and got to his feet. For a few seconds, the woman seemed angered, but then she sighed, adopting a much more passive stance and a more serene expression, similar to the one she had had before the duel. "I see… you are driven by something incredibly powerful… Something different from the pride and the greed that I have seen. Something much stronger than the mightiest dragon." A quiet 'chink' resounded through the shrine as she set the tip of the sword down against the ground.
Anri looked at it. It was spotless. She had wounded him many times, and yet there was no blood to be seen on the blade. "This… is the first time I have been bested. I know not what drives you, but it makes you worthy." She let go of the hilt. For a second, it appeared as if the sword would remain standing there, but then it fell over, its hilt pointing in Anri's direction after it finished its clattering.
Wary that it might have been a trick, especially since he had NOT defeated her, Anri kept a very close eye on her as he bent forward to pick it up. The hilt was warm, and it appeared as if it had been forged to fit HIS hand, not hers. He vaguely heard the woman. "The Falchion accepts you as its new master. I expect you to take good care of it." As he lifted the blade from the ground, he felt his flesh knitting back together where she had hit him.
He turned to her, only to see her reaching towards him with the scabbard that had formerly still been on the altar. He took it, a little bewildered, and sheathed the Falchion. "W-who are you..?" he asked. He had an inkling, but he wanted to be certain.
The woman had turned around when he had taken the scabbard, and had started walking back to the altar. However, when he spoke, she looked over her shoulder, smiling like she had when she had first appeared. She shut her eyes, shaking her head. "I am someone who is no longer needed by this world." With those words, she turned her gaze back in front of her and disappeared with the same bright light she had appeared with.
Anri needed a few seconds to regain his senses, but then strapped the sheath with the sacred sword to his waist and picked up his mantle, putting it on as he hurried out of the shrine. He had to get down from the mountain and back to Altea, and fast. Artemis was waiting for him. As he stepped out of the shrine, however, suddenly he felt the cold once more. Pulling his mantle closer around him, he swore. "…yeah. Duke Cartas definitely had the right idea."
Naga watched from the roof of the Ice Dragon Temple as the mortal lamented his fate and began the long trek home. She knew the sword had judged him as more worthy to wield it than she herself was the second he had defied her deathblow. Its power had left her, and she had lost her patience upon realizing it… but if it were Anri wielding it, she knew the world would be as safe as it could be.
"My lady, we should return." She didn't turn around to the White Sage when she heard him. "If he bested you, then he will best the Earth Dragon Prince, too. You have no reason to remain here. Your presence only makes Princess Tiki more likely to…"
"I'm coming, Gotoh." She stood up, although still not turning around to him. She extended one hand in the direction in which Anri steadily picked up speed. "I will bless you, Anri of Altea. As long as they retain your just heart and determined soul, all those who can name themselves your child will be gifted the power of the Falchion. I entrust the safety of this world to you…"
Additonal Author's notes: Alternative first thought when leaving the shrine:"Marcelus is never going to believe me when I tell him this." I just figured that Artemis would be a little more prominent in his mind right now.