A Raw Deal

-

All's fair in love and War…

-

Lyn strikes first. The red queen's blazing sword cuts through the dark prince's defenses.

Hector will not give in. The prince may have been taken, but the warrior remains. He takes up his axe in his sweaty, rough hands and grits his teeth. With an ursine scream of rage, he lowers his fist and strikes with the black axe. CRACK! And now he is a king triumphant, standing over the body of the second red queen as she submits herself to him.

…but Lyn will never give up. She will never turn away from his challenge. Never. She returns with five burning sword strikes; he counters with six strikes of his axe. She comes at him with seven, and he can only dig up four. "Nine!" shouts her heart, and the axe returns with ten.

"Damn it!" she cries, reorganizing her energy. If they come to a head once more, she does not know if she will be able to match his stamina.

But she wants it. So bad. And she will never stop until she gets it. Withdrawal is not an option. She lets out a scream of passion and fury enough to sunder the heavens in a heartfelt blow of burning crimson. ONE. The word echoes in her mind. She is one. ONE. She is the ace of battle.

But he comes at her, and he comes furiously. He's through with axes—Hector comes with the sudden strength given to him by the fickle fortunes of fate. He cannot back down. It is her passion for this battle that makes him want to come at her even harder. His one great dark lance lunges forward to pierce her and they meet in a clash of red and black, sparks and darkness, storm and circumstance.

"THIS! IS! WAR!" Hector bellows, standing tall like a legendary warrior facing down an army of nine thousand. He grins; he knows his victory is at hand. She may be formidable, but he is a man of strength and bravery. Her burning red heart cannot stop his sword from taking from her what is rightfully his by conquest. He has the power. The power intoxicates him.

But Lyn is intoxicated as well; the adrenaline of the pitched battle has coursed through her veins, maddening her. She is under the influence of the victory she can almost taste now. She's played her cards perfectly. There is no way she is going to lose.

One, two, three. They both strike tentatively, preparing themselves for one last all-out, no-holds-barred rush. They are both ready to rip into each other, ready to finally finish what they began in a fury of blades and breaths. Their battle has reached its heated climax.

This is war.

Hector is surprised when all he can muster from his own burning red sword is three. Three quick blows, each of them turned aside by the Sacaen swordswoman. She is prepared. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten strikes with her blazing sword and he falls, groaning. She came ready to fight, he realizes, and he came just a bit too little, a bit too late.

When he realizes what he has lost, Hector gasps and growls as a wounded wolf would: embarrassed, angry, full of fear and loathing in this place where even the best of men take gambles they otherwise would not. What he has lost is significant: His one great black axe, the axe-king who struck with the might of the world, the red prince with the red sword who once was his ally, long ago when he was a younger man ignorant of the many truths he knows now.

Lyn stands victorious, lording over him, alive in her victory, eager to tell the world that she stood over "mighty" Lord Hector on the table of war and left him beaten, battered, and shamed. She throws her head back and laughs…

-

"Damn it, Lyn, you don't have to rub it in! Calm down."

Hector shook his head and sighed. Somehow, in Lyn's exultant celebration, the entire little table had been turned over and all the playing cards with which they had just fought epically tumbled to the cold stone floor.

"I believe you said you were going to, and I quote, 'Beat you so bad that even Nergal would wince in his grave.' Well, Nergal's only problem now is the sympathetic pain he feels seeing you get kicked in the balls."

Hector rolled his eyes. Lyn watched him as he shuffled around on his hands and knees, trying to pick up all the cards at once and failing miserably. Her hands were firmly stuck on her hips, and she made a point to stand directly over him so he could see exactly how much taller than him she could be.

"Wow! That felt good!" said Lyn.

"So, are you gonna help me or what?" Hector growled.

"Hmm…maybe. Soon."

"This is the last time I ever play War with you, Lyn!" Hector insisted. "War's only fun when you get to hit stuff. Otherwise, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

"You remember when my Queen of Swords beat your Prince of Lances?"

"Yeah, yeah," Hector said, picking up the two said cards along with a bunch of others, and putting them back on the table. "Ironically enough, yeah. Funny, I also remember when my King of Axes took your Queen of Hearts."

"Why is it 'Hearts', anyway?" Lyn wondered aloud. "Wouldn't it make more sense if it were 'Bows'?"

"Hell, I dunno, but can you please…you know, at least pick up a few? You were the one who knocked over the table."

"I mean, you'd think that anything of Axes could beat Lances, or that Lances would beat Swords, but the 'suits' don't really matter much in War, do they?"

Hector groaned. His knees were starting to hurt from crawling around on the floor like a dog chasing cards. It was not the first time he had done something of that sort. Somehow, no matter what he did, no matter how much or for how long he staunchly argued anything with Lyn, at some point he always ended up going down for her. And damned if he would ever admit it, but in a strange way he liked going down for Lyn. And he knew she took perverse pleasure in it. A lot of it.

"That War of Aces we had was fantastic," Lyn continued, practically giddy. "And to think I won an Ace, a King, AND a Prince from that. All of your face-down cards were good ones! HA! And all you could put down at the end was a Three! Against a Ten! HAH!"

"Okay, okay, so you're better at War than I am…fine." Hector scooped up the last of the cards and dumped them up on the table in a scattered pile of Kings, Queens, Princes, and number. Mentally exhausted, Hector hung his shoulders, resigned. "So, uh…what do you want to do now?"

Ever since they'd returned from defeating Nergal two weeks before, Hector and Lyn had alternated between arguing, having some sort of contest, and finalizing the cession of Caelin to Ostia. Hector's coronation was to be held in short order, and he fully expected Lyn to return to Sacae after attending his and Eliwood's enthronements. Regardless of how he felt, despite all the times they spent together over the previous year, Hector knew full well there was nothing he could do to stop her disappearing from Lycia, and his life, forever.

That was why he was so surprised when Lyn walked right up to him, grabbed him by the sleeves, and said, "You loafer. Just standing around there sheeplessly, huh? Are you ready to give in yet?"

When Hector could not answer (instead opening his mouth to find only a stupid, flabbergasted grunt there), Lyn whispered, "Well, if I was really that hard on you, I might just have to stay around and...finish you off."

And when Lyn kissed him, Hector realized he had no fight left to stop her dirty, dirty, dirty tricks.

She didn't fight fair. But then again, as they say...