Discliamer: I do not own Fire Emblem.

Chapter I: The Stairs of Mysterious Light

Mia wiped the sweat off her forehead as she side-stepped the thrust her opponent had given her. "Very good!" Mia said sweetly to the young girl that she was teaching swordplay to. It was about 5 years after the war and that was about the age of the girl. Mia was now almost 25 and her sword play hadn't gotten worse. The optimist blue-head had gotten much better.

Crimea had boosted and worked on their military force after restoring the country. It now had 8 generals of the army which are the following. The axe general, Titania was awarded this after valiantly taking a group of ten enemies on her and emerging barely scratched in the final fight against Ashnard. It was an easy choice when it was time for Ike to refurbish the army which incidentally happened to be about 6 months after the war. The lance general is the second one; Oscar took this with Nephenee as a strong backup should anything happen. The next is the bow general which Astrid took after besting Shinon and Rolf being too young (he would be old enough now, but Astrid would probably still win). Needless to say, Shinon deserted the country after being pulverized by Astrid. The anima magic general was a surprise, Ilyana took the title over Soren because Soren had decided to leave the country to study more and he thought it wouldn't be fitting if he was a general for a country he had just left for years after he came back. Ilyana wasn't that bad either, she didn't have staff skill, but she bested the other mages who wanted to try out in every other aspect except Soren, with which she tied or it was so similar that it wouldn't matter. The light magic general was Rhys as he was skilled and didn't have much competition. The stave general used to be Elincia until Mist was old enough, then she gave up the title to concentrate on the country more. Then the sword general was Mia. It had been a close race between her and Zihark (Stefan left the country to live in Gallia with a female laguz he had taken a liking to). She remembered it clearly; it had come down to a one versus one battle.

Mia sighed as she closed her eyes and concentrated on listening to the movements of her opponent. She held her sword in front of her and immediately sensed Zihark's presence to the side of her. She sense opened her eyes and thrust her blade at Zihark hitting him in the stomach and winning the match.

It was then that ended their relationship…

"I'm sorry Mia, you're too good for me," Zihark said to the blue-head.

"What are you doing!?" Mia sobbed, "Why are you leaving!? Is it because you like Lethe?"

They hadn't been together for all that long, only about 4 months, but they seemed so happy together at the beginning…

"What are you doing, Zihark? Boss needs our help rejuvenating the country," Mia explained. Zihark was leading Mia outside the castle and into a forest nearby. When they were a little ways in the forest, Zihark pointed at a small laguz baby and Mia ran to it. "Was this baby… abandoned?"

"I thought you would know what to do with it. You seem like a kid person…. And I'm a laguz person… we could look after this kid together." Zihark stared at Mia and they closed in and their lips met as they believed it was destined. It was Zihark and Mia's first kiss… there were not too many after that.

Anyways, that was how she became the general of swords and started teaching Fiala, which were Ike and Elincia's daughter.

The final general was Ike, who was the leader and since Fiala took an interest in swords, Mia decided to teach her how to use them even though she was young.

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"I can grow up and be good as mommy and daddy," the girl grinned happily.

"Yup," Mia grinned at the 5-year old, she had so much determination and she was very brave and tough, she looked like her mother, but didn't act like her. She had dark green hair down to her shoulders, it waved a little at the end and she had dark chocolate innocent eyes. "Go on Fiala, we're done, come back after lunch."

"Okay!" the little girl known as Fiala had a sparkle of determination in her eyes as she scampered back into the fort.

"She is very strong for her age," a voice came from in back of Mia, she turned around and grinned.

"She reminds me of boss," Mia said, smiling, "And yes very good."

"I was at the black smith's today…"

"Cool, did you get another light tome?" Mia asked oblivious to the sword Rhys was holding.

"No… swords were on sale so I… got you one, forged of silver," Rhys handed the blade to Mia and ran off.

"Thanks," Mia said to herself, confused. She stared at the sword, "High quality!" Mia swung it around expertly; the few years had matured her both in her sword skill and her behavior.

Mia sat down in the training field and took a bite of the sandwich she prepared for herself; it was the usual chicken sandwich. It had various vegetables hand picked from the Crimean castle garden. Lettuces and onion, tomato and even a little sauce made from sweet pepper. The sauce was spiced with salts and black pepper ground fine. This was a great life for her, everything was nice and refined at the castle.

As Mia ate her sandwich she was completely oblivious to translucent stairs appearing out of a golden-silver vortex slightly below the clouds. The stairs were translucent sun colored and they reached out until they touched the ground right behind of ignorant Mia. A figure of light started to walk down the long labyrinth of stes toward Mia.

To be continued.