Full Summary

Like a river, time continues to flow. Even years after the fact, the backlash of his father's death still haunts Chrom and his country in more ways than one. While scouting the countryside in an attempt to maintain the peace, he finds a woman with no name among his fields. While at first it seems as though they are just victims of another war, Chrom and his Shepherds soon discover that there is more to be seen in the apparent pages of Ylisse's would-be future; to both those that remain unwritten, and strangely too, those which have already been wrought about. A complete novelisation of Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Premonition

Invisible Threads

He wasn't a stranger, but nor was his face clear or movements quite real to my eyes. I felt as though I knew him – this man of blue – yet my eyes deceived me and I couldn't tell from the indistinguishable blurs and outlines before me whether he was quite what I believed him to be. I looked around – scanning my surroundings – yet such a scan seemed impossible when all that lay before me was a fog of mystery and blurs that seemed almost dreamlike, clouding my vision with unknown figures. I wondered for just a moment if any of this was real at all, as while the sounds of cracking and the cool feel of air around me felt real as my own thoughts, my eyes deceived me.

"Are you ready?" a cool voice from the blurred and blue figure drew my attention to his outline, and all doubt cleared. With an aura of utmost familiarity, it felt as though I could spend a lifetime wondering about the possibilities of his allegiances yet still come to the same conclusion – that he was a friend.

We walked together in the near darkness of the tower, thunder roaring outside the walls of our claustrophobic staircase in ways that sunk my stomach into a twisting pit of nerves. As we ascended though, he was ever at my side, a warm but lightless torch that guided my path step by step until the stairs became flat, the darkness became a dimmed light, and the thunder became the beckoning and roaring of an uneasy laughter.

"There." my ally said simply, still wisps of blurs that had now drawn the distinct shape of a sword from his palm. I stared keenly at the blurs of the laughing man, whose aura of unease and wispy smokes of an outline struck more fear into my mind that his figure struck a shape.

"You're one of us, don't let anyone tell you otherwise," my friend had said softly under the roar of laughter and thunder, "No destiny can change the ties we've made."

The sounds grew louder and a crack of magic and lighting split the territory between us and our would-be assailant, but we moved on, regardless of the gut-wrenching churns that split my body, and together assaulted the laughing man with what I realized soon after was a tome I had held the whole time, and a sword that I never knew was even there.

Our screams merged with his laughter and the crack of swords and screeches split across the room in agonizing volume. I hadn't thought that my mind could become any more perplexed and my vision could fog any more than it had, but expectations were made and shattered within the moment. I saw nothing but lightning and swords, metals and magic, fuchsia and black among the sounds of what seemed like dozens upon dozens of men and monsters, and the feeling of cold and whatever darkness could do that emptied your very soul.

But the lightning and the cracking faded as soon as it had begun, and all that was left was a dead man among of the rubble of battle. He squirmed and coughed, but faltered all the same, and a ghost of his laughter gave warning before he drained of all life.

"This isn't over...you cannot unwrite that which has already been written!"

He fell then, a fading shadow of his former self, still blurred to my own eyes but his aura struck clear dread into my heart. From the ashes of his fading body though came his attack; a swan song meant to sing its last notes. Without a thought, I lunged for the ball of wisps and magic that hurtled across the vastness of the room; from one dying man to what he hoped would be another. I felt it then, a surge of blood and red, something that defied all senses and made my movements numb with an invisible weight.

"Are you alright?" my blurred and blue friend had asked, his voice stricken with worry yet a hint of disapproval. I stared bleakly at him, trying to find reason within my near sacrificial actions, but nodded nonetheless.

"That's the end of him...Thanks to you, we carried the day." I could hear the smile in his voice.

Another surge of pain encrusted my body, shooting from limb to limb and blotting my vision with stricken veins of red. I fell then, first a falter from the lack of air in my lungs, but then a fall to my knees as my comrade reached out to me.

"What's wrong? Did he cut you?" He held me for a second of a moment, steadying me with red and fogged arms which felt slick like blood yet strong like stone. Another pulsation of pain shot through my very core, and I gasped. I reached for his arm as red veins and black tendrils gripped my mind. I could feel something - an egging force that emptied my will and replaced what it had found with a keen sense of despair - overtake what little control I had left. And yet this was when my mind became null. Emptied of confusion, I saw that fog had cleared and blurs had focused, and what once was blue and red and yellow had now became blue hair, red cuts, and yellow blades.

"Hey...hey! Wait, hang on-"

Another blur of movement, too fast for my ache and vein stricken mind to comprehend, and I saw with clarity a man with blue eyes that matched his short, blood and mud matted hair. A golden sword fell from his hands, stained with brown and red, and clattered dully with a strong glow. Silver armour was strapped tightly around his chest and shoulders, but what little protection they had provided mattered no longer, as he staggered away from me, gripping his chest in what ways he could around the amber, lightning like dagger that protruded from a bloodied wound. I was standing now and reached for him, but he was already too far, and my palms tingled and twitched with an electric pulse that illuminated from a mauve marking I had only just seen.

The man of blue coughed once, staggering towards me. He looked at me then, but I saw nothing but calm and understanding. He coughed again, and I saw blood. "This...is not your fault...please promise-" he said softly before spitting out more blood and coughs as he came even closer still, "Promise me...that you will escape from this place...please, go now..." He stepped again, closer, within arms reach, and softly I felt gloved fingers against my jaw and cool wisps streaming across my cheeks.

"This isn't...your fault...Azrynne..."

And with that, he fell. I saw blue eyes flicker from a glowing warmth to emptiness within a moment. His golden sword faded then, losing its soft lustred glow from before. He was a ghost of his former self, nothing more than a corpse now. I wanted to reach for him, to feel his skin, but I knew before I even touched him that he would be cold already, dead from inside and out, gone in all ways of the word.

Laughter cracked across my mind once more, and red tendrils and black pains shot through every core of my being. I wanted to cry just a moment before, but now I felt nothing. I felt my mind becoming clearer, too clear, and clarity soon became emptiness. I felt the world darken at my feet and a cold shadow looming across my body. Everything became cold, everything became numb, and before I knew it, everything became black.

Author's Notes

This is a complete novelisation of Fire Emblem: Awakening with my own unique twists and turns in terms of plot, pairings and dialogue. The approach I am taking while writing this is that anyone can read this story and understand the plot of the game without having to play it beforehand. While for the main part this story will follow the game's storyline quite well, there are many things in the game that I find implausible in an actual war campaign. With River of Time, I intend to flesh out not only Chrom, the Avatar, and the Shepherds, but also the political background of the war, the finer details of the story, and also add in my own plotlines. River of Time will also expand upon supports between units, so there will be many a conversation between many a character. You can also expect a lot of unrequited and requited love flowing about the course of the story.

Rating is T as there may be some graphic violence descriptions with the war and whatnot, and also for all the romance. The story is written predominately in third person, switching between characters by chapter. Very few chapters are written in first person.

Finally, the romantic subplot covers almost every character as, like I said, there will be many established pairings. I am unsure if I will include what the main pairings consist of so I'll leave that up to reader discretion if I can manage to get myself some reviews and opinions (check this space if I do include major pairings).

With that, I hope you enjoy reading River of Time as much as I enjoyed writing it.