No Saint to Follow
This is the story of Sister Melissa, a young cleric of Grust.
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
***
Chapter One: Some Mother's Son
"Melissa, go. The Sable Knights are passing by!"
Melissa ran out the door of her grandmother's house so quickly that she forgot to bring her staff. She dashed down the garden path and out to the main street of Gavarnie. She arrived at the town gates just in time to see the column of the Grustian cavalry approach, three abreast upon their fine horses. So solemn they were in their dark armor, every face impassive, as though to smile would be a grave offense. Only a few of them so much as glanced at the townspeople who waved and shouted their thanks and encouragement to the kingdom's most fabled defenders. Melissa darted through the crowd and slipped to the side of a old man who leaned upon his gnarled staff like a beggar.
"Grandfather, is General Camus riding with them today?"
"No, Camus is not there. General Sternlin leads the Order today," replied Father Arnaldus. He was not Melissa's grandfather by blood, but she called him so as a courtesy, for she had been the apprentice of his true granddaughter. He once had been a great priest, and indeed he still wore the robes of a priest, though much faded. His powers and his body alike were failing him now, and he could perform only the most basic healing spells-- no more than Melissa herself could do. But his mind was still great, and some called him the wisest man in Gavarnie.
General Sternlin was a brave man with many victories to his credit, but it still puzzled Melissa that General Camus was away from his knights. Once, it had been easy to laugh at the rebel army-- a motley pack of old men and children, walking dead who hadn't realized their own doom just yet. But people stopped laughing when the rebels took the city of Pales, and the news that they'd reclaimed the kingdom of Altea was just a little frightening to Melissa. The rebels were poised now just to the north, on the other side of the Straits of Chiasmir, and surely General Camus, who had never lost a battle, was the best man to face them? Melissa pondered this mystery while the Sable Order marched by. She ignored the familiar sight of a few Macedonian pegasus knights sailing over the crowd, and likewise she ignored her grandmother when she showed up at last and began chatting with Father Arnaldus. Why in heaven's name would the king not want his finest general-- the finest warrior alive, they said-- to beat back the rebels?
Then one cavalier, young and fair, saw Melissa standing there in the robes of a novice.
"Bless us, sister!" he cried to her, and though his fellows frowned at his lapse in discipline, they nodded at Melissa as she raised her hand and asked for the gods to show their blessings to the defenders of Grust.
"Good eye, my girl. He'll make a fine husband if he ever comes back," her grandmother said of the blond cavalier. "Looks a bit like General Camus, that one does-- enough to be a brother."
"Hush, grandmother." She did not even know the youth's name, and already Oma was imagining a future for her as the sister-in-law to the Sable Order's great commander. Melissa very much doubted the general even had a younger brother. If he did, someone would surely have mentioned it by now.
The Sable Knights, cheered by Melissa's blessing, raised their fists and their voices in unison.
"Glory to Grust and King Ludwik!"
The townspeople of Gavarnie clapped and shouted the praises of the motherland and king likewise, and Melissa smiled to herself as she stood tip-toe to catch a last glance of that fair-haired young knight. If Melissa's prayers to heaven carried any weight at all with the gods, she'd done her small part for the motherland.
***
They waited long days for word of the battle. Melissa turned her thoughts toward the handsome young cavalier who had spoken to her. Even if he wasn't any brother of General Camus, he had been a lovely sight. Perhaps when the Sable Order came back through Gavarnie on their way home from the battle, he would think of her, and ask about the pretty little novice who had given her blessing before the battle. Melissa was the only novice in Gavarnie-- the only one in the province, since Sister Martina died of summer fever-- and she would be easy to locate.
Word filtered back slowly, and it gave Melissa time to imagine an entire courtship with her golden-haired knight. She was adding details to her fanciful wedding when news arrived to sweep her dreams away like fallen leaves in the wind. The Sable Knights were defeated at the Chiasmir Straits. Not defeated, but slaughtered. Not slaughtered, but....
"Annihilated." No survivors, nothing left at all of the proud men who marched past the village only weeks before. Nothing left of the fair youth who asked Melissa to pray for him.
"Cut every last one of them down, even the priests," said the villager who brought news of the catastrophe to Gavarnie. "I saw one knight down on his knees, begging for quarter. He couldn't have been a day above seventeen. They slit his throat."
"How then did you escape?" Master Isarnus, one of the village elders interrogating the messenger, looked skeptical of the young man's story.
"They left the villagers alone. Came into everyone's house, asked for information, and that was it."
"You didn't resist?"
"No sir!" The messenger wiped some perspiration out of his eyes, leaving a trail of dust across his brow. "There was nowt to be done, sir. I've two sisters and my ma to care for, and I saw quick that anyone with a weapon in his hand was a dead man. The rebels let ma and my sisters be, and I couldn't get myself killed for no reason."
Later accounts matched the tale told by young Elyas. They spoke of barbaric axemen from Talys who struck wounded men in the back, of Aurelian horsemen who rode like a scouring wind and made the air sing with arrows. They spoke of mages who turned men into columns of flame or pillars of ice, and they spoke long and loudly of the Alteans, calling each man an army unto himself. They fought like demons, or monsters; Melissa heard tales of an archer shooting arrows of fire, of a massive general who stood like a tower and wielded a lance like a fallen sapling. She heard of paladins who could take on three, four, even five knights at a time and left behind them rivers of blood.
"If they are such fearsome fighters, how did the kingdom fall so quickly?"
Father Arnaldus shook his head.
"It is the price of treachery. King Ludwik now reaps the ill harvest of his dealings."
Melissa was silent. She knew that the king had done a number of things that Arnaldus and others were unhappy about-- the alliance with the Dolhr Empire and the things that followed it were high on the list. King Ludwik hadn't been very popular since the little prince and princess were sent out of the country, and the presence of Macedonian knights in Grust worried people a great deal. And even as a child, Melissa heard terrible things about the fall of Altea-- of horrid betrayals, of noble children being hunted down and murdered, of clerics and other defenseless women being abused. Melissa was especially bothered by the last part. Some of the worst reports were sent back by General Camus, who tried to be a good and just governor of Altea, but the Dolhr Emperor removed Camus from his place and had him sent back to Grust, and it all made people very upset.
For these reasons, the people of Gavarnie were cheered by the past exploits of the Sable Order more than they were cheered by the thought of King Ludwik. Brave General Sternlin, wise General Lorenz, and brilliant, undefeated General Camus-- these were the men who protected the people and would save them not only from the rebels, but from their own fearsome allies. And now one of the three was gone, cornered and stabbed to death by some Macedonian knights who had sold out to the rebels.
Melissa lay awake nights and wondered how the fair young knight she blessed had died. She imagined it was he whom Elyas had seen, down on his knees praying for his life, when the quick flash of a sword ended his prayers. She was certain now that her knight would have come to see her, to court her and marry her, if he had only come back from the battle alive. As it was, she had nothing from him, not even a lock of his hair to treasure. Melissa took a lock of fair hair from the ground by the barber's post, braided it into a ring and decided to wear it on her right hand in the manner of a widow. Grieving for her lost knight was, in its own way, far more enjoyable than waiting for the rebel army to sweep down and surround them.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: So, little Melissa, aka Malliesia, lives in a village of Grust with her grandmother. She was the apprentice of Sister Lena, who has disappeared, and remains close with Lena's grandfather (here called Arnaldus), one of the town elders. Melissa and her grandmother are both a bit strange, as shall be seen in later installments.