Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. Any and all canon characters and settings are property of Intelligent Systems. I also do not claim anything non-canon that might appear.

The Sacae plains were burning and its grass was now wet with blood. The Taliver bandits had come down from their mountain hellhole to strike again, aiming this time for the small nomadic tribe called the Lorca. Coming in the night and with the clouded sky further masking their approach, the tight-knit, nomadic community was undone quickly by the blades of their axes. Having poisoned the tribe's water supply the day just before the attack, they felt that the Lorca were ripe for pillaging. Thus the Taliver bandits were smart enough not to give much chance, if any, to their victims to fight back. . .and cruel enough to not leave many alive to tell the tale.

In the midst of all this pillaging and murder was a helpless and young girl being dragged through it all by her father. Her green hair hastily done in a pony-tail was darkened by the smoke of the burning tents and her bright green eyes were reddened with her tears. Dirt clung to her green robes as she struggles against the hands and arms of her desperate father. She cries out, "Father, please, where's mother? We have to find mother! Father, where is she? We can't leave without her! MOTHER!" The girl screams and thrashes around, nearly succeeding in breaking out of her father's weakened grip.

"Lyndis!" The girl's father practically croaks her name and shakes her. He is unable to fight due to the toxins in his blood and the creeping exhaustion is starting to plague him. Lyndis stops for a moment but her head still jerks wildly from side to side. And while her father might be holding her still, that does not mean her body has stopped shaking. Her father tries to reassure her. "I'll find your mother later but right now you are more important! Please stop struggling; your mother would want you to live and so do I." Lyndis does as he says and stops fighting against his grip. Now having a stable hold, he almost drags her forward and the two of them start moving once more.

A shrill scream is heard in a nearby tent and that rotten smell of burning flesh grows ever stronger. Small clangs of iron on iron would have been heard through the village if it weren't for the cries of the women and children being cut down or caught unaware inside their burning tents. Behind the two, a small pattering of feet grows louder. The father takes his sword out and gets ready to swing but he stops at what he sees. A woman hobbles up to the two and collapses into the father's arms. Her eyes, just as green as Lyndis', cannot hold back the tears.

"Hassar! Lyndis! Thank the gods." The woman is convulsing slightly as she weakly sobs into Hassar's chest.

"Madelyn! Madelyn, please try to stand. We don't have the time to rest. I am sorry but we must leave."

Hassar grips Madelyn around the waist and pulls her up. Madelyn cringes and yelps, almost falling down. "Mother!" Lyndis breaks free from Hassar and runs around her mother trying to help her up. "What's wrong?" Lyndis puts her arms around her mother and finds her arm rubbing against torn cloth and her mother's blood. Her side had apparently been cut dearly. "Mother! What happened!" Hassar quickly lifts Madelyn up. He himself cringes not at the pain this causes him but at his wife's resulting scream.

Madelyn is finally able to stand on her own feet, managing to stay strong in spite of the poison and gash. "A bandit caught me. He had swung his axe and I couldn't dodge it. I was on the ground but he was driven off by someone. I got up and went searching for you two."

"These monsters won't get away with this. Even if the gods won't do anything, the spirits will look down on this with disgust. They must have some power. They will protect you both." Hassar softly reassures both Lyndis and Madelyn even if he himself is beginning to doubt. "But first we must get to the stream. My horse is there and it shouldn't have been affected by the water."

The three move quickly even in their weakened state and indeed it seems the spirits can generous when they want to be. They are somehow lucky enough to be able to move through the burning village without a single bandit spotting them. They are not lucky enough though to be able to move without seeing the bandits' destructive wake. They struggle to move past burning carcasses of those who died in their tents and the corpses of those who tried to run away or were brave enough to fight back. As they finally near the stream at the back of the village, their remaining strength begins to finally leave them and they start to break down.

"Hassar, leave me. . .I'm just slowing us down." Madelyn speaks softly, her face pale and just as gaunt as Hassar's. She is close to death and she knows it. "Lyndis. . .you must save Lyndis. She. . .is the one we must save."

"No, I can save you. I can save you both. Please, we must go!" Hassar struggles on and tries to remain brave but even he, the great leader of the Lorca, is beginning to fully understand the hopeless situation he's been thrown into. He has lead the Lorca through the dry plains of Sacae and because of him they had stayed strong. Now however, he is unable to lead and save the tribe due to the chaos, and it appears ever more likely that he won't be able to even save his family.

"No. . .we-" Madelyn begins to argue but Lyndis cuts her off.

"Mother no. We can all get to the stream." Lyndis lifts her arm and points. "See, it's just there. The horse is still there too. See? We can all make it. The spirits haven't left us yet."

Indeed, the spirits hadn't left them. As the trio start to move away from the tents they see that the horse is miraculously still there and standing. Its dark hair had caused it to go unseen in the distance as the bandits swept past this part of the village. Hassar, hope giving him some much needed strength, tries to rush both his wife and daughter to the horse. In doing so though he accidently brushes up against a weakened tent which collapses into itself. After the dust settles he looks back to see someone far on the other side. The man is looking in their direction and what Hassar sees makes him freeze in his steps. This man is large, wields an axe, and bares a black tattoo armband across his right shoulder and under his armpit. This man is a Taliver bandit.

The bandit sees them and raises his axe into the air. "Hey boys! Over here! We've got some runaways!" There is no doubt in Hassar's mind that even over the commotion other bandits have likely heard the call. The bandit then takes a step forward in the family's direction with a grin that holds absolutely no warmth, no purity of happiness. This grin holds nothing but malice and cruel pleasure in killing another for their valuables. Hassar takes this as a sign and frantically tries to run his family over to the horse. With that short burst of strength now gone, he almost isn't able to throw Lyndis onto the horse which is thrashing against the nail it's tied to. Lyndis sees the bandit nearing the fallen tent and works to calm the horse. She is able to control the horse just enough to allow Hassar to put Madelyn in front of her.

Lyndis sees that her mother is now unconscious and shakes her in an attempt to wake her. "Mother!" She looks to her father but his head is beginning to sink. Having done most of the work in getting his family to the horse he is too tired and too weak to get on himself. She begins to beg. "Father, hurry! Get on! Hurry!"

Hassar instead looks back to where the bandit is and sees the bandit jumping the tent. With how fast the bandit is going and with almost no strength left he knows he won't make it. He is able to at least unsheathe his sword. He looks into Lyndis' green eyes, So much like her mother's he thinks, and with a sad face he says goodbye. "Be strong Lyndis. Take my sword and remember always that you are one of the Lorca." Hassar then shoves the horse's nail out while swinging around and digs his fist into the back side of the horse. The bandit arrives as this happens and raises his axe in order to swing.

Lyndis screams, thinking the bandit is going after Hassar. "NO! FATHER!"

The bandit, however, realizes his prey is getting away and is ignoring the weak and unarmed tribesman close to collapsing in front of him. He instead goes for the horse and swings for the two passengers.

Lyndis, like so many times this night, is powerless as she watches what happens next. The last thing she sees of her father is him practically falling in front of the bandit and taking the axe meant for her and her mother. The horse feels that it is free and quickly bolts away. Lyndis can do nothing but hold the horse's mane and onto her unconscious mother for dear life as the horse tears into the low rolling hills of the Sacae plains.

"Spirits. . .why. . ." The horse continues to gallop away from the village with Lyndis sobbing into her mother's back. Overwhelmed, she talks to the only things that might listen. "He was right there with us. . .why did he have to die? Why did you have to take him?!"

"Lyndis. . ."

Lyndis looks up and sees her mother twist her neck and try to turn to look at her. Madelyn's face had lost almost all of its natural color. Lyndis looks into her mother's weary eyes. "Mom?"

Madelyn can only whisper to her, "Lyndis. . .do not be afraid. . ."

Lyndis' stream of tears grows stronger as she sees that her mother is only just barely there. "Mother, please don't talk. You need to rest. Just rest, others are bound to find us. Just hold on, please."

"Lyndis. . .I'm sorry we can't be with you. . . It was just our time.. . .The spirits. . .they. . . they can't protect everyone. . .But you. . ."

"Mother please. . .please don't leave me alone. I don't want to be alone. Stay with me!" Madelyn's eyes begin to fade. "Mother!" Her eyes which had shown with such kindness and so brightly in better days are now turning dull. ". . .Please." Lyndis can barely keep her own eyes open. The day's events along with the poison are finally getting to her.

"The spirits. . .You will never be alone. . .There will always be someone . . .always someone to be . . . there. . .for you. . .Lyn. . ." Madelyn stops talking, too weak to even finish her daughter's name.

"MOTHER!"

Madelyn begins to part ways but she is still able to smile. It is a mother's last gift to her child. Unable to do anything else, she is forced to leave her beloved daughter in the hands of the unknown. Lyndis can only watch in horror as her mother leaves her for the spirits.

Madelyn's smile still remains though. This smile which used to have the power to make her daughter's tears evaporate and to make all the pain of her cuts recede now only served to make her eyes stream harder and the pain she feels to grow larger. As Lyndis loses consciousness and falls off into the plains with her father's sword, she knows this smile will be the last thing she ever sees of her mother. And of her father, the last sights will be that of him throwing himself onto an axe to protect those he cared for. A sad smile and a chance to live were the two final gifts of her beloved parents. And as a sick twist of fate, they were to become the only things her nightmares remembered for the months that came after.

Lyndis, the last child of the Lorca, was found unconscious in the surrounding plains by another tribe investigating the attack. After healing physically from her ordeal she decides to travel. She leaves to go wander the plains while swearing by her father's sword she will become strong and by her mother's smile that anyone who hurts those she cares for will suffer.

Author's Note (21/02/15): Hello reader, this is the start of With a Sword and a Smile. This will (hopefully) be a full retelling of Lyn's story from Rekka no Ken, otherwise known as just Fire Emblem in the USA. Of course, you probably already knew that. I know that there are a ton of novelizations of Rekka no Ken but I hope that this opening at least peaks your interest. I've read a few of them but I don't recall any that I read ever dealing with the death of the Lorca tribe so I figured I'd try my hand there. Oh, just to mention, I'm using the Japanese ages for the characters. Why? Because of personal head-canon and no other reason.

Anyway, a tentative schedule will be one chapter every other week but then again I've never been good with deadlines I set myself. At least the next few chapters up to "Footsteps of Fate" have already been written. Next time we'll meet up with "a most unusual traveler." Until then.

If you see something that might contradict "canon", let me know and I'll check it out. Any and all criticism is welcome.