For those of you that know me I am the author of one terrible oneshot of comedy, an attempted story in Fire Emblem awakening, an ongoing story in Pokewars I plan on writing a sequel on (if you haven't read Cornova's Pokewars stories, I highly recommend you do so. He (she?) has been very persistent in writing it over the years, and is good enough to have attracted a sizeable group of individuals like me that are allowed to write parallel stories in the universe.)
For those of you who follow me from pokewars, my next chapter is coming up this month- most likely within the next two weeks. I apologize for the long wait, a plethora of things collided in the messiest way possible, leaving me to pick up the pieces. I wrote this a while back and decided to publish it now.
If you follow me (and even if you don't) please give me feedback on my writing and my content. I am considering making a rewrite of Fire Emblem Fates using a similar style in the same universe as this alongside my pokewars fic, and I'd like to see what people think.
I do not own Fire Emblem, or any characters/places mentioned in the content of this work, I only own the computer I have written this on, my brain, and the specific details of this fic.
Without further ado...
One moment, Lilith was resting in the astral planes, and the next, she was in flight. It happened quickly-impossibly so-and proceeded at a rate and with a degree of chaos so extreme she would not have noticed what was happening had she been unfamiliar with it.
Invisible soldiers. She had last encountered them in the human realm, after she fled from her father-no, fled from that THING that called itself her father and treated her like a slave ever since she was born, briefly after her true father died protecting her and spent his last breath giving a blessing of concealment to make her more difficult to find- long before she found refuge in the astral plane.
She was in her human shape at the time, walking alone through a city-a lively town on the water called Cheve, she believed- not so discretely asking townsfolk in a scarce part of town about any Hoshidan royalty being held captive by Nohr when buildings inexplicably began crumbling around her, and she had an uncanny sense that despite that it looked like she was alone, there was something in front of and coming RIGHT AT HER. She acted on it, and seconds later an entire building behind her crumbled, and closing her eyes tight against the crash, she could sense the shape of a large man, covered from head to toe in thick armored plates.
She didn't know how Anankos found her, but she wasted no time running, finding a market place and attempting to blend in with the crowd, hoping to dissuade the invisible soldier, but when people began to scream, and she heard blood spill all around her, she decided that she was only bringing harm to the people, and turned into her dragon form and flew away, eventually exhausting her energy before being rescued by a denizen of the astral plane-Aster.
And all these years later, after recovering her strength drop by drop until she was confident that she could resume her search for her brother- years of finally finding happiness in the astral plane, Aster died for his kindness. The astral plane began to crumble inexplicably, and her new family-brothers and sisters and friends- died quickly and bloodily, and she flew.
'I can't cry now, I have to run, I'm sorry everyone' The words of regret rolled through her her mind over and over again, occasionally punctuated by 'This is all my fault, why did I do this to them', followed by a short period of sobbing as she left everything she ever cared to know far behind her, before the former words of mourning resumed.
Even through this, her mind still knew exactly what she was looking for-a bend in time. To open a portal to another world either took significant time or significant energy, and she did not have enough of the latter to rush a portal and still transform afterwords. She would have to enter a deep realm, one of the always open pocket dimensions scattered around the astral planes where time flowed faster, so she could open a portal while her pursuers were still trying to catch up with time.
Pain shot through her tail, as a bolt of lightning grazed her, causing her to falter in her flight before adjusting herself and continuing onwards, albeit slower. She winced in pain, and sensed the same pair of invisible soldiers riding impossibly fast wyverns pursuing her. They had followed her all the way from her village nearly an hour ago. At her speed, she thought she would have lost them, but as she slowed down the duo only gained on her. With her tail injury though, along with all the other nicks and grazes they had inflicted on her, she would not last much longer, it was now or never.
And yet, the pocket dimensions that were so frequent her friend Moro-named after the great dragon that created the astral plane- often wandered into the accidentally and would return a day later with a month's worth of stories- were absent. She had seen them before, on bouts with Aster or Moro (She winced from her freshly inflicted grief at the memories), but today they were elusive.
Lilith's mind paused for a moment, reviewing the last thought with scrutiny, mustering the will power to ignore the pain in her body and heart to find a means of escape, no matter how far fetched or desperate.
'Of course, I can pray to the great dragon Moro!" As quickly as the idea popped into the head the doubts did as well 'I killed all of his followers, why would he help me? He's never answered one of my prayers before, why would he now? Can he even help me? Is my being a child of his sworn enemies preventing him?'
Lilith gulped and forced her the doubts down, she knew it was a desperate plan, but as she dived under another bolt of magic she was reminded that SHE was desperate. The decision was made.
"Great Dragon Moro!" she announced, even as she was panting for breath, before pausing to deliberately pick her words "I have but one wish. Please, give me the power to return to the realm of the humans, so that I may find my brother, and save us from Anankos! That is all I need, I be-AAAAAAAUGH!"
A bolt caught her unawares, striking her directly in the back, and passing through the entirety of her body, leaving leaving her whole body numb save for the area around the mark, which exploded with white hot pain beyond any that she had ever experienced.
Her entire body gave, failing as she plummeted towards the ground, she gathered her strength for one last act of desperation.
"PLEASE!"
Her body crashed into the ground, skidding along the top of a hill and crashing at its bottom. She felt her strength diminishing, growing weaker and weaker as she stared into the sun.
"Please..."
"Well we have to do something!"
"And what do you propose we do!?"
"I-I don't know!"
The large blue bird's golden eyes slowly drew open, catching Corrin's attention "It's alive! Hey, hey, you're alright, we'll take care of you, you'll be okay." Corrin declared, unsure exactly which of them he was trying to convince, reassessing its sorry state.
Both of its wings were bent at odd angles, one with bone poking out of its skin. It had multiple cuts all over its body, and on its back and its breast were two large black spots that smelled sickeningly of cooked meat (Corrin made a quick mental note to become a vegetarian then, knowing full well that as a ten year old, he was likely to forget it, and as time passed he did).
But all he could really focus on were its eyes. Big, haunting, intelligent, but what really stuck out to him was how dreadfully sad they were. He had never seen anything like it in the eyes of the horses in the stable they were in right now-fear certainly but never sorrow. The closest he had ever seen to it was Camilla the time that he yelled at her the time she made him cookies but gave them all to his friends before giving him any. 'So much sadness' Corrin closed his eyes as he felt guilt wash over him 'Some brother I am'. Corrin thought once more on their current predicament, one more thought of its big, sad eyes.
He scrunched his eyebrows for a moment to gather his thoughts before a plan came to him. Knowing what they had to do, he turned to Felicia "Hasn't mister Theo been trying to teach you how to use a staff?"
Felicia nodded vigorously "Yes! But I'm only nine! They keep them in the storage room and won't let me use them when he's not teaching around!"
"Well what are you waiting for?" Corrin asked, doing his best not to yell at his friend "Go grab one and come back, as your master I give you permission! I'll try to take care of it while you're gone!"
Felicia's eyes widened, Corrin rarely pulled the "Master" card, only when he was to passionate to worry about repercussions, and only to the benefit of others. Felicia nodded and ran out the stable door, dashing with a surprising amount of grace. Corrin turned his attention back towards the bird, feeling much less confident than he sounded when adressing Felicia.
'Okay, its wings are broken, it has a lot of cuts, it has those black marks, and its wings are broken. I don't know what to do about the bones, but I can wrap some cloth around it as a bandage. Yeah, lets try that."
Corrin quickly walked around the stable, finding the post where the meanest horse, Cain, had bitten off a chuck of wood off of his stall door. The horse snorted at him, stamping its hooves and shaking its head torward him like a bully threatening to strike. However, much to the horse's surprise, Corrin only gave it passing attention as he shoved its snout away and used the sharp wood to cut a long piece of his shirt off, before hurrying back. He wasted no time kneeling down and wrapping the thick, long strip around its body to cover most of its cuts and the burn. He assessed his work, finding that the bandages were helping slightly, as blood seeped into the cloth, but its still bled somewhat through its broken wings. He let out a sigh "Its a start at least."
Corrin almost stumbled back when its eyes opened again in response to his words. Shocking him further, its eyes grew wet, tears dripping from it. Corrin was unsure exactly how to respond, he didn't even know that bird's COULD cry. 'What would Camilla do...' Corrin asked himself. Corrin slowly reached out, using his hand to pet it on its unscathed head, trying to comfort it, only for the bird to shake in uncontrolled sobs "Shhhhh. Its okay, I won't let anything hurt you ever again" he said. The bird continued crying for what felt like an eternity before its trembling ceased. Argent placed his lips on the back of its head and kissed it before pulling away entirely, thinking of other implements he could use to hold death at bay.
"Milord!." Corrin turned his attention back to the door, just as Felicia ran in, panting "I-What happened to your shirt?"
Corrin looked down at his shirt, just now noticing just how much he had torn off "Don't worry about it, I didn't like it anyways. Where's the staff"
Felicia cringed for a moment, and Corrin knew something was wrong "The door to the storage room was locked, I couldn't get in."
"Alright" Corrin said, standing up suddenly "You use you're ice powers to do something, maybe numb some of the bruises. The window to the storage room is on the east side of the castle right, third window to the southern corner?"
"Yea-Er, I believe so, milord."
"Alright, I'm going for a climb then. Be right back" Corrin said, charging out the door before Felicia could protest.
"But Corrin! The storage room is on the fourth floor!" Felicia shouted out the door before remembering what he ordered her to do. She crawled over to where the bird lay and looked over it, before pressing her hands together and placing them on a particularly grievous looking wound, whilst they were wreathed in bird shuddered somewhat at the cold touch, but it was an afterthought after what she had just heard.
'She said his name was Corrin..."
I always thought that Corrin was something of a brat in his childhood, and Silas only confirmed it. I like to imagine his relationship and his care for Lilith is what turned him around, seeing as Camilla-whom he treated horribly on occasion- cited it specifically and unknowingly to human Lilith as an example of his kindness. Also, the closest things to true caregivers in the fortress that I could think of would be Gunter and Camilla, who he confesses he considers his parental figures. I don't think that Gunter is one for kissing ouchies so much as slapping dirt on them and telling him to run them off, so I decided to have him model Camilla's behavior.
I could talk for hours about Camilla, who until recently I regarded as a pure fanservice character(and one with so much wasted potential), but I recently talked with a Japanese friend that informed me that in the Japanese version she is much more dynamic.
Enough rambling, if I did make a rewrite of Fire Emblem fates it would be one that integrates settings and events from all three paths, and would be laden with rather original material, not ridiculously so, but enough to differentiate it. It would not interfere with my writing schedule for Pokewars (as I am an extremely discombobulated writer that works in short bursts whenever and idea arises), and I would attempt to finish it rather quickly, as the last time I tried to write a somewhat original story for this series, I took a break and by the time I came back a new installment in the series came out that had so many elements from my story that I felt FILTHY thinking about continuing. Really, its kinda creepy how similar many of the plot devices are to what I was going to implement (Shin Kibayashi=mindreader?).
Anyways, please review and let me know what you think about this one-shot and my idea. I look forward to hearing from you!