Contumely
DISCLAIMER: Fire Emblem and its characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.
It was a face-off of epic proportions, of brains and brawn, of passion and prowess, of marvel and magnitude, and just general chaos.
Over a cookie.
Oh dear, I think I'm taking on Kieran's affinity for blowing up small matters. It must be his 'rejoin the Royal Knights' campaign getting to me.
The argument was actually petty to begin with. I had cooked some cookies for the meal, putting a plate of them for each pair of seats. Quite intelligently, I had placed a plate between Rolf and Boyd. You'd THINK I would have known better.
Yeah, I know. I thought so too. What's so great about my cookies, anyways?
Eventually, there arrived a point in the meal where both their hands reached simultaneously for the last cookie. Each spotted the other's hand and looked up. A green-eyed staring contest ensued, while everyone else slowly turned their attention to my brothers.
Finally, the silence that had fallen was broken with an exclamation from Boyd.
"Look, I got it first!" he yelled.
"You ALWAYS say that!" Rolf screamed back. "You always take my cookies!"
"That's because I grab them faster, peewee! You snooze, you lose!"
"… stop teasing him, Boyd!" Mist interjected. "You're always mean to him, just because you're bigger. Oscar doesn't do that!"
Oh no, please don't drag me into the conversation, I was thinking.
"No offence, bro, but you're just a little soft," Boyd said to me.
None taken. I fancied myself as a little on the softer side anyways, if it meant not being macho like him.
"Besides, I'm bigger, so I gotta eat more to be just right for the next job," Boyd added, launching into what could have been considered the first legitimate argument, albeit a bad one. Nearby, Gatrie nodded. Great minds think alike, I almost expected him to burst out saying. Go figure.
"Yeah," he agreed. "The heavy lifters have to eat a lot. Rolf, you're an archer. You're not taking hits like us. We need the food."
Shinon scoffed, obviously rejecting this idea.
"But if you follow that line, we'll never grow to be better fighters," Mia complained, pointing to the more slight members of our group. I think she did it to enjoy a good verbal spar.
Next to Ike, Soren took a sip out of his cup and set it down, crossing his arms in a condescending manner.
"This is ridiculous," the sage muttered. Indeed.
At this point Ike hadn't done anything about the situation, still wolfing down the rest of his meal, so as the older brother, I felt obliged to try and stop the impending fight. I tried to catch everyone's attention. The answer to their problem was very simple, but they were quite stubborn. In retrospect, did that trait pass me over or something?
"Guys," I raised my voice, "Why don't you – "
"NO, OSCAR!" the two immediately yelled back.
Yeesh. Guess the older brother isn't wanted… normally, at least Rolf would have stopped, but the backing of other people probably spurred the silly fight on.
The two still hadn't taken their hands off the cookie and I was wondering why they would still want to eat it. Actually, I was surprised that it hadn't broken under the tension. At that moment, Mia was yelling at Boyd, who was yelling at Rolf, who was pleading with the uncommitted to side with him.
Again, let me reiterate: over one cookie. One cookie that could easily have been resolved by cooking another batch (though not something I was about to do at that moment).
"Ike, shouldn't we do something?" I asked.
The commander smiled.
"It just takes a bit of wisdom to kick in. To be honest, though, isn't this awfully amusing?" He calmly took a sip out of his cup. "If I just stopped this by force, they'll do it again. Wouldn't you rather have this resolved by… peer intervention?" The smile that briefly passed by his face was the slightest bit irritating.
At that time, my brother obligation also chose to kick in again. While I do care for my brothers, the feeling can get very annoying at the wrong time. That was one of them.
In other words, he's making me do it. I knew that wasn't exactly his intention, but that sort of thought helped me to resign myself to my fate.
The argument was getting way out of hand, having dissolved into shouts of 'meanie' and 'peewee'. Everyone else had just quieted down to watch my brothers duke it out; they noticed me standing, but Rolf and Boyd just kept on going.
"Why don't you guys just split it?" I got out, before they could interrupt again.
Everyone stared at me like my eyes had opened.
"Eh, that's not such a bad idea," Boyd said first, his gaze wandering.
"Oscar, that's so smart!" Rolf smiled. "Let's split it, Boyd!"
The cookie was split, the two ate, and I was at peace.
Unfortunately, time marches on, and the peace in our camp is so very easily broken. Disputes will happen, cookies will be baked, and Royal Knight re-recruitment letters will be sent. Everyone started to come to me with their minor arguments in the hopes that I would have a miraculous cure for them.
Out of the three events, the Royal Knights invitation certainly started sounding the most attractive.
- omake
"This is ridiculous," Soren muttered.
The frustrated sage walked briskly to the feuding brothers, snatched the cookie from them and jammed it into his mouth. As he chewed, his face scrunched in slight disgust, as though he were picturing what had been in their hands (germs and dust and blood, oh my!).
Everyone gawked.
"Well, it shut you up, didn't it?"
A fun little piece. I just felt like doing an argument within the group, something brisk about Oscar's musing. Obviously much more about Oscar than anyone else, everything else kind of revolved around him and so it sounds contrived (most evidently the argument). Still, Oscar is love.
Also, the omake is probably the first I've ever attempted to tack on. Most of what I write makes everything quite close-ended, but the Soren idea just needed to be penned.
-EmbeRin