The frozen north was as still as always, wind howling as snow blew across the pure white snow. A herd of pegasi, black and white blurs against the midnight blue sky, grazed on what little grass and twigs they could find. The mountains towered above them, stark against everything around them, the small village nearby defiant against the elements. A large temple rested nearby, carved into a mountain that stood apart from the rest.
The herd tensed suddenly, the lead mare's head lifting to stare up at the mountains. Ears perked forward, listening as the soft sound of wings rustling indicated that the fleet creatures were ready to fly off at a moment's notice. A soft growl came from the mountains, and a long neck swung into view briefly. Scales the same pale silver as the moon glinted for a moment, blue eyes looking at the pegasi in disinterest. The large head was gone after a moment, but the former mounts were spooked and took to wing.
The silver beast watched them for a few moments, a long, frilled tail lashing for a moment before the head turned and bugled at the rest of a pack behind it. Flashes of blue, white, silver, and a few of faint rose shifted into the light of the moon, all of them focusing on the silver one who had woken them. Moving silently despite their girth, the pack wove their way out of the mountains and towards the open plains; in a night as still as this, nobody would notice them.
Out in the open, the beasts revealed themselves as dragons, the last pack of a legendary race. Several of the pack glanced towards the temple, and one of the rare youngsters seemed eager to dart towards it. Kept in check by one of the pack, the youngster kept letting its glance stray towards the large temple, tail flicking.
The pack had heard the rumors. Apparently a scarlet beast dwelt in there, resembling their race. It seemed almost absurd; a red ice dragon wouldn't last a day. But even more, there had been a few faint whispers that said beast came from a land where humans and dragons lived in peace, a place that the pack was eager to reach. Their home was no longer welcoming to them.
When the watcher had been distracted, the young dragon took off for the temple at a dead run, silent in the snow. It was going fast, but before it could get halfway there, a bolt of lightning came whistling towards it. Squawking, it dodged, and kept dodging, wanting to reach the temple as a black Pegasus bore down upon it, the woman on its back throwing lightning bolt after lightning bolt.
In a panic, the pack shrieked and scattered, the silver leader barreling towards the youngster and its attacker with a roar. Caught off guard, the rider fired a thunderbolt at it instead; it did nothing to the larger dragon, the electricity rolling off of its scales without harming it. Growling, the beast stopped and turned its body, its whiplike tail snapping through the air. The pale color and dim lighting made it impossible to see, and the Pegasus and rider were sent flying towards the temple.
The roar, however, had alarmed the rest of the guard. Soon the sky was full of Pegasi and their riders, all of them clearly armed with weapons to pierce through a dragon's hide. Growling – it was pointless to fight such a swarm – the silver dragon grabbed the youngster by the tail, racing off to get the pack together once more as they all bolted for the mountains once more.
Thankfully, the Pegasi didn't pursue them too far past the temple. Panting when the pack was together, the silver dragon dropped the youngster onto the ground, relieved when its watcher came over and began scolding. Behind that dragon came another large one, scars marring the deep blue scales that made up its hide. Steel colored eyes narrowed as a growl slipped from its throat, focusing on the silver dragon before it.
"This is madness, Jadis!" The dragon roared in their tongue, tail lashing violently. "Even if that fabled paradise does exist, how are we to reach it when those blasted man-spawn hunt us the moment we cross their path?!"
"These humans only attacked us when we showed interest in Ninis's temple." Jadis settled herself, head kept high as she glared down at the blue dragon. "Something in there is vital to them, but what, I cannot say. Perhaps it is indeed one of our kin ... It would certainly explain all the weapons designed to cut through our armor." At this, she let one gold eye settle on the one arguing with her. "Don't think I didn't notice that you were the first to flee, Setanta."
"Bah!" Setanta's tail lashed once more, the blue dragon turning his back to Jadis. "You believe in man-spawn nonsense, Jadis! If it was dragonkin living there, why would we have not sensed it? And why would they be so keen to keeping it confined in a temple instead of slaying it, like they seem content to do with us?"
Jadis couldn't argue with Setanta's logic, but her thoughts had gone elsewhere as she caught sight of the evening sky. Something about the stars seemed off, but what …?
"A cross!" Another dragon in the pack crowed, making both Jadis and Setana jolt. "A Grand Cross, bright and around the moon! Naga is sending us a sign!"
"The twelve guards are all in the sky too! What is this madness!?" A second dragon roared, and it wasn't long before the dragons all had their eyes turned upward, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Jadis felt her brow crease, tail folding across her legs as Setanta shifted a gaze at her.
"Well? What sorcery do you think is toying with the stars, Jadis?" His voice held a current of worry, making the silver dragon look at him briefly before facing the sky once again.
"Perhaps Naga has finally heard our prayers, Setanta. Perhaps she has finally decided to take mercy upon this dying land." Setanta snorted at that, wandering into the pack to try and calm them. Jadis didn't stop him, eventually giving the call to start a march again; they would get out of sight of the temple first before attempting to cross the valley again. The entire while, she kept glancing at the heavens, taking in the unusual stars. Something that strange could only be a sign from Naga to her. It was a hope; perhaps a foolish, fleeting one, but a hope the silver dragon held all the same.
She loved Elibe too much to see it wither away into nothingness.
"Ah, here you are, Princess; a new world that isn't connected to Ylisse at all." Lucina's head snapped up at Anna's voice, making her look at the redhead as she managed to get the blue abyss of the Otherworldly Gate settled. The princess sighed; she dressed like she had at Grima's defeat three years previously, even if she had discarded the diadem. Blue eyes saddened as she looked at the Otherworldly Gate. She had no place here, not with her younger self growing and talking.
"Thank you, Anna." Smiling, Lucina gripped Falchion in her hands as she looked into the Gate as it cleared. There was a green set of ruins before her, dragons and other such creatures carved into stone. It didn't seem lit at all, but for some reason Lucina was drawn to it. "Where … is this land? I don't really recognize it …"
"Hmm? Oh, this place?" Anna looked over her shoulder a bit as another one of her 'cousins' ambled into view on the other side of the Gate, wearing a different set of red garments; as opposed to the red trickster tunic, this one dressed like a cleric, her robes still red trimmed in gold and white. "Oh, hey Anna~ Care to tell our lovely guest where she'll be touring?" The merchant smiled, and her doppelganger giggled as she bowed to Lucina.
"Why yes, Anna~" The other Anna's voice had a lilt to it, making her sound like she was on the verge of singing. "This here would be Elibe, but why you'd want to come here is a mystery."
"Considering you're a secret seller, I suppose it's fitting." Lucina couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "But why is your land named for the darkness of the underworld? That seems ominous…"
"Ah, don't feel bad, fair lady." The Elibian Anna smiled. "This land's had a really bad run of luck, but if you're in the need for an adventure, it'll be a great place. But if you're not in need of an adventure, we also have the beautiful plains of Sacae for you to travel, and if not there, there's always the jungle city of Arcadia." At this, she paused. "Or I can always talk to our cousins in Magvel and have you over there, savvy? All you have to do is ask."
Lucina shook her head a bit to absorb what she had just heard. "I … It's fine, Anna. I just feel compelled to leave Ylisse, at least for a little while." Shaking her head, the blue-haired warrior looked back at the continent. "I want to let my younger self have her own parents. I've been selfish enough." Looking through the gate, she bit her lip and stared back at the green ruins. "Plus … this place seems to call to me. Can I pass through?"
"Yes you may~" The Annas chorused, and the Gate seemed to solidify. A pathway of blue appeared at Lucina's feet, making her look down as she gripped Falchion tight. She had said her goodbyes, and Solna had been found; everyone was safe now. Looking back at Ylisse once more, the princess smiled before sighing as she stepped onto the pathway. "Have a safe journey!" The Anna on her side of the Gate waved, and Lucina nodded as she continued walking.
The pathway between worlds was … odd. Lucina had been in too great of a rush to focus on it much when she was fleeing through to the past, but now that her mind wasn't racing in a desperate scramble, she could focus on it. Her feet felt like they were on compressed air or clouds, and there was a chill that permeated the area. Unable to stop herself, she glanced down; a whirling mass of stars and lights swam beneath her, the sight mesmerizing. If it wasn't for the fact that the pathway didn't appear to be narrow – at least, Lucina didn't feel like she was on a narrow surface – she was certain she would topple off to one side and wind up in one of those other worlds.
Shaking her head after a moment, Lucina straightened her back and began walking towards the green lighting again, feeling a warm wind hit her face. The scent of sea salt wafted over with it, sending a feeling of nostalgia to the blue-haired princess. This was how she had first revealed herself to her father in this time, wasn't it? An isolated island feared by the locals, the smell of the sea all around … 'Perhaps my journey here will prove to be just as fulfilling.' she thought to herself, finally reaching the other side.
At once, the jarring change in scale struck Lucina, making her stumble a bit as she stepped out onto the odd green stones. The Otherworldly Gate on Ylisse was large, but still proportionally sized to match the same span of space as a castle gate. This gate … Straightening herself out when she had regained her balance, Lucina looked up; the Gate she had just walked through looked large enough for Lady Tiki to walk through, transformed, and still have a horse or two riding on her back. "This is … massive ..."
"They say this Gate was built by the dragons." Anna – the one here – explained, making Lucina turn to her. "This is probably just a normally sized building for them, although I do wonder about the human-sized passageways ..."
Nodding, Lucina took in more of the gate around her, waving to the Anna on Ylisse as the pathway between the Gates closed. It certainly felt big enough to have been built by dragons; the ceiling was invisible to her eyes, although the fog that covered this place didn't help, and even the chamber itself was far larger than even the massive ballroom Castle Ylisse boasted back at home. A pair of dragon statues sat on either side of the Gate itself, and walking over to them made Lucina pale as she realized she barely came halfway up the leg of one. "... If this chamber here is any indication, I'd be terrified to see how large the dragons here on Elibe are."
"Then I guess it's a good thing the dragons aren't around anymore." Anna's laughing comment made Lucina's eyes widen, whirling on her heel to stare at the redhead. Nodding, the secret seller started twirling her staff like a baton. "Ah, that's right; Elibe's cut off enough, you probably don't know the full story of the land. Well, to give you a basic summary, over two thousand years ago now, humans and dragons got into a war that ended with the humans victorious. The dragons were chased through this gate here, and apart from a mad king trying to bring them back about two hundred years ago, they haven't been seen since."
Lucina just stood there, blinking. Dragons and humans at war? The only recorded instance of such a thing happening in Ylisse was many millenniums old, told only in the stories of the Hero Kings. Even then, the Manakete were still well-known, and treated with reverence by most all the populace for their ability to transform into dragons. This land … humans had banished them? It was almost too much for her to wrap her brain around. "I … I see." Shifting a bit, the former princess began looking around, curiosity overtaking her common sense. "Is it alright if I look around this place for a bit?"
"Oh, sure!" Anna nodded. "Just come to the entrance when you're ready to leave, and I'll be able to Rewarp you to the Inn in Badon that my sisters run." Nodding in understanding, Lucina watched as the redhead in front of her tapped her staff against the ground, vanishing in a blink of magic.
"... A land without dragons ..." Lucina repeated after a moment, sighing. "... I didn't know such was possible." Taking a few moments to walk around the large chamber, the princess drew Falchion from it's scabbard, puzzled by the sword's constant glow. "... Does it still sense the -presence of the dragonkin? It only ever glowed like this the night Aunt Emm's assassination was prevented ..." Still puzzled, but not sensing any danger, Lucina returned it to the scabbard; Falchion's glow remained, but subdued, and she grabbed a torch from a nearby holder to look around.
It took a double take for her to realize the flames coming from the torch were green, as if someone was burning copper. "What … this entire place feels … unearthly. And not fully in a good way." Swallowing a sudden lump in her throat, the princess continued walking, unnerved by how her own footsteps echoed so sharply in the massive building. Almost all of the steps leading down from the massive chamber were broken, and even those that weren't were massive, almost too big for a human to walk up or down without exhausting themselves. 'No wonder Anna used a Warp staff …'
As it was, it took Lucina about fifteen minutes to reach the bottom, taking care not to slip and fall; she doubted she would survive a fall down these steps. Letting out a sigh of relief as she reached the solid ground once again, the blue-haired woman looked around, holding the torch up. The fog was thicker on this floor than the one she had just left, but the torch didn't seem to be bothered by it at all. Glancing around showed several open chambers, several of them empty, but the sight of old, rusted weapon scattered across the floor made her arch an eyebrow. "What on earth …?" She mused, walking to them.
Falchion's glow brightening made her take pause, glancing at the sacred sword. Every step she took towards the weapons made it glow brighter, as if in warning, and she halted just short of one of the weapons. It was a lance, impaled in the cracks of the massive stones, the entire weapon twisted by a feeling of dark magic. It called out for her to touch it, but the bright glow from Falchion was warning enough. A glance around showed that the rest of the weapons felt just as wrong, as if sorcery that escaped even Validar was once at work here. "This place …" She whispered as she backed up, starting to take a different path through the great chamber. "What sort of dark magic could have corrupted it like this?"
Heading down a side chamber, Lucina relaxed a bit as Falchion's glow dimmed to how it had been in the chamber with the Gate. Several more hallways past her by, but one made her take pause; the stones around the area were less green than the rest, forming an almost sort of pale halo effect. Runes were etched into the stone, but there was one in particular that made her pause.
It was the mark of Yllise's exalted, surrounded by what Lucina was certain were the three main anima elements – fire, wind, and thunder – with a fourth one that was lost on her. "What could this possibly ...?" Curiosity and worry taking over her, Lucina pressed her hand against the engraving, letting out a shout of surprise when the wall around the etching decided to vanish.
A new set of stairs was revealed, the stone arch that marked it a shocking limestone against the sickly green stones around it. There was a strange glow from a set of stones in the ceiling of the stairwell, and the oddness was enough to intrigue Lucina. 'What lies down here? This place seems untouched …' Keeping one hand gripped around Falchion's hilt, the blue-haired woman descended into the limestone hall. The light from her torch reflected off of the white stone, illuminating the ground in front of her for a good twenty feet.
The sound of voices reached her ears first, making Lucina start. Was someone …? Quieting her steps as much as she could, she focused on listening to the voices echoing off the stone chambers.
"Look ..! All these marking are in the ancient language, Cora. Even the brand of the Lost Goddess …!" one of the speakers was male, and about Lucina's age, if she had to gamble. He seemed incredibly excited about something, and he had some sort of companion with him. "Perhaps if we could copy this, we could figure out what lies beyond that sealed door in the chamber."
Anything else he was saying was cut off as Lucina stepped on something that wasn't stone and proceeded to trip.
A screech hit her hears, and before the former princess could register anything, she was being picked up by her cape and dangled in the air. Dropping her torch in the confusion, Lucina went to draw Falchion when she got a good look at what was holding her; a wyvern, and the object that had tripped her up was the creature's tail. Unlike the wyverns she was accustomed too, this one appeared more like a miniature, four-legged dragon than a large, two-legged beast prone to eating anyone that irked it. As it was, this one seemed to be content with dangling her in the air as punishment, growling lowly in its throat.
"What in blazes!?" A second voice – female, most likely that 'Cora' character Lucina had heard mentioned before – echoed as heavy metal steps darted towards their direction. "Miledy, girl, what's got you screeching like that? Did you get stuck again? Those rats give you indigestion and you know it!"
'… So I've found this world's version of Gerome. Joyous.' Groaning mentally, Lucina braced herself for getting lectured for hurting a creature that could clearly take care of itself.
"… Okay, Miledy, put them down. You're a pale green wyvern in green and white ruins. I highly doubt he stepped on you on purpose." Looking up as the wyvern – Miledy – set her onto the floor, Lucina examined the young woman in front of her. She was close to Lucina's own age, chestnut colored hair tied back in a low ponytail. Her armor was made out of simple steel with a pale wash to match her wyvern, and yet it was patterned with ornate wyvern wing etchings, including two panels for the breast plate that scooped up in the shape of raised wings. Her tunic was a deep russet color, matching brown leggings and boots with wing-shaped greaves on them. Quick, hazel-gold eyes looked Lucina over as the other woman approached her, offering the blue-haired woman a hand up. "And who are you to come out of nowhere, mm?" She asked, voice rough and almost reminding Lucina of her good friend Kjelle.
"Cora, what happened?" the male voice from before had returned, and the sound of someone hurrying reached the two women soon after. Brushing dust off of herself, Lucina looked up in time to see the newcomer as well.
His hair was a few shades of blue lighter than hers, the lighting casting a teal highlight onto it. He dressed like a mage to her, a long violet overcoat with a hood covering a crisp white tunic and deep grey leggings. His boots were polished leather, and he held a large, ornate staff in his right hand. Bright violet eyes looked Lucina over as he leaned against the staff to catch his breath. "Cora, you run too fast." He wheezed, shaking his head.
"Are you alright, sir?" Worried, Lucina walked over to him, brows furrowed. Judging by the way Cora jerked at the sound of her voice, the other woman had probably assumed Lucina was male at first. Kneeling to check on the mage, she blinked when she got a better look at the staff. It was polished gold, the head of the staff turned into two dragons spiraling around one another, a bright silver gem in between them. It looked almost too expensive to be practical, but Lucina didn't know much about magic, let alone the mechanics it worked by on this new world.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine miss," The man had recovered his breath, straightening up as he spoke. "Just winded; I'm not exactly built for speed. I leave rushing ahead of things to Cora there." Smiling a bit, he gave Lucina a polite bow. "I'm Raine, and my companion is Cora. Judging by the screeching earlier, you've become acquainted with Miledy." Chuckling a bit, at Raine's tone, Lucina returned the polite bow.
"Yes I did; I hope I didn't injure her tail too much." Settling a bit when she was certain Raine and Cora weren't going to injure her. "I'm Lucina, a traveler; I came here to explore the ruins. From the way Anna spoke of them, it sounded like they weren't explored often."
"Nah, they're not." Cora shrugged as she walked over to her wyvern, leaning against the beast casually. "Raine was just curious about exploring this place for that exact same reason, and he's stubborn as a mule about it too." Giving Raine a wolfish grin as he scowled at her, Cora nodded at Falchion. "And you seem to have an awful lot of money, if that sword's any indication. Are you from Etruria?"
Lucina began to turn her head to respond to Cora when Raine let out a startled noise and turned her to face him. "Your left eye, that's the mark of the Lost Goddess!" Violet eyes wide, Raine tilted Lucina's chin to look up at him. Mentally cursing the fact that the Brand had weakened the vision in her left eye, Lucina began to jerk away and draw Falchion when a soft breeze wafted through the area, an all too familiar stench carried on it.
Miledy seemed to have smelt it as well, because the wyvern rose onto her haunches with a shriek, wings beating the air as she turned int the direction of the breeze. Cora swore, and had bounded up onto her wyvern's back to grab the spear holstered into a holder. Rain seemed agitated as well, turning with both hands around his staff, muttering under his breath as the stone between the two dragons lit up. Drawing Falchion, Lucina formed as much of a wall with them as she could, frowning as the scent of undead filled the area more. Like she had feared, there were Entombed approaching them, but what rested in the middle of the group made her pale.
It was a spider. A spider that was about as large as the wyvern she stood beside, venom dripping from its talons. Unlike the Entombed around it, the spider seemed very much alive, and was moving much slower than the zombies. It was still a terrifying sight, and Lucina debated on kicking her still burning torch at it, having found it beside her feet.
"Leave it to a Bael to be dwelling at the bottom of this place." Cora growled, leveling her spear as Miledy crouched. "Raine, I can't fly in this chamber; the ceiling's too low, and that Bael would catch us without even trying."
"Bael?" Lucina asked.
"The spider; it's a type of monster that supposedly responds to a demonic king." Raine explained, leveling the staff he held as if it were a lance. "They're weak to light magic, as are the undead, but I don't hold that sort of power. I deal with the spirits of nature, not gods and goddesses." Lucina swallowed a bit, staring at the spider; Falchion was blessed by a goddess, yes, but the blue-haired woman had no idea if that meant it would work on a gigantic, demonic spider. As it was, she would have to destroy most of the Entombed to even get to it.
Frowning, she braced for impact, the sacred sword in her hands glowing like a beacon as one Entombed got into her range. Letting out a shout, she kicked the discarded torch into its face, setting the cloth wrappings around it ablaze. While its limbs flailed about uselessly while burning, the blue-haired woman lunged forward, Falchion cutting through it with relative ease, and she had enough momentum to pivot on her heel and cut through it again, thankfully defeating it. Panting as she watched it dissolve, Lucina's eyes widened as a bolt of blue thunder fell from the ceiling, striking the one next to her and dissolving it before she could blink. A glance showed that it was Raine, strange runes surrounding him and his staff as he fired another thunderbolt, this one striking an Entombed closer to the Bael.
Cora and Miledy had decided to charge on forward, and were swarmed on all four sides by the zombies. The woman and wyvern didn't seem to mind at all, and were cutting a swath through them with talons and steel, Miledy's long tail even tripping up some of the Entombed. Relieved that she wasn't the only one present capable of fighting these creatures, Lucina jumped into the fray as well, grateful that she hadn't stopped practicing her skills with the sword in the three years since Grima's defeat.
To her immense relief, it wasn't long before the Entombed were gone, but Lucina still held her sword in a ready position as the Bael's shadow fell over her. Swallowing a sudden lump in her throat, she turned, and swore when she saw that the spider's maw was right on level with her face, and ready to bite. Leaping backwards, Lucina brought Falchion around, slashing across the many eyes staring at her, taking a couple of them out.
The screech of pain the Bael let out was ear-rending, and it took all of Lucina's reflexes to dodge away from the spider's flailing limbs. Cora and Miledy darted in, the brunet woman's lance flashing as she took out one of the legs. It didn't seem to deter the Bael much, and one of the remaining seven legs scored a hit on Miledy, managing to hit a bit of tender skin beneath the wyvern's thick scales.
Shrieking, Miledy bit the offending leg, wings flapping as she hopped backwards, the leg her fangs were sunk into coming with her. The limb was eventually ripped in half, and Lucina was certain that if had been on the same side as the other crippled leg, the Bael would have fallen over from lack of balance. Raine's eyes, however, were bright. "There we go! Take out the legs so it can't attack us as easily!" He called out, retreating a bit as the runes from before reappeared, a fire spell leaving the gem on top of his staff to hit the Bael in the face.
Positioning herself, Lucina stared at the legs as the Bael reared up to attack again, drawing Falchion level with her side as she charged the two rear legs the spider was using to remain upright. Dashing forward as fast as she dared, she braced herself, plowing through both legs in a single strike, flinching as the Bael's blood hit her cloak. "!" Eyes widening, she threw the blue and red fabric off, seeing the blood eat through it like acid. "Don't let its blood touch you!" She called out as the spider fell to the side with only one leg with a screech, the remaining four legs flailing about.
Miledy had taken to hovering in the air, the wyvern using the limited room in the passageway to her advantage. Dipping beneath the flailing limbs, the wyvern managed to fly above the body as one leg got stuck, letting Cora remove one of the other legs, lance slicing through the carapace with ease. Raine, still standing a ways back, unleashed another fire spell on the last leg on the downed side, burning it to a crisp as Lucina raced along the downed creature's side, Falchion in hand.
Letting out one last cry, she took a flying leap and tucked herself into a ball, the sacred blade glowing as she used the momentum from her leap to drive the blade into the Bael's head, piercing the largest of the eyes and driving it into the large creature's brain. The Bael let out another horrendous screech as it died, the limbs still thrashing and flailing about in death throes as Cora and Miledy retreated to where Raine was standing, both of them poised to attack in case Lucina's blow hadn't struck true.
To their immense relief, the spider stopped moving, the two remaining legs starting to twitch and curl up in death. The acidic blood pooled on the stone floor around it, sizzling and hissing in the open air as Lucina drew Falchion back out of the fatal wound she had caused. Wiping sweat from her brow, she wiped any remains of the blood from her blade, grateful that the blessed metal seemed unaffected by any sort of corrosion. "... Is poisonous blood another characteristic of a Bael?" She panted, sheathing Falchion and leaping to where the other two stood.
"... No." Raine replied after a long moment, approaching her. "At least, none of the texts mentioned it." Stopping when he was in front of Lucina again, the man's violet eyes locked onto her blue ones. "... But you are not from this land, are you?" He asked after a long moment, tilting Lucina's head up again to stare at the Brand in her left eye.
Lucina was at a loss; she wasn't, but would this man believe her if she said she was from a land beyond this one? That she had come through the gate that lay several stories above him as a wayfarer? He had recognized the Brand, and referred to it as the mark of a Lost Goddess, so was Naga known here? If so, why was she a lost goddess?
A thought hit her, and she paled; Naga was a Divine Manakete, and this was a land without dragons.
Without dragons, there would be no word of Naga.
Without Naga, Falchion wasn't a blade known and feared throughout the lands, and the Fire Emblem would just be an old, ornate shield.
Without Naga … the Hero-King Marth wasn't a Hero-King, just a legend in a land that was named for a level of the underworld.
Lucina had come here to explore, to see a world beyond Ylisse and its neighbors. She hadn't mean to come to a continent that was seeped in a form of eternal darkness, one that made Falchion glow with unease. Yet here she was, in the basement of a gate too immense to be made with human hands, the body of a wyvern-sized venomous spider dead behind her, and two strangers who knew of Naga only as a Lost Goddess in front of her.
What had her arrival started?
(?)
A great beast stirred beneath the water that filled the main chamber of an ancient temple, noticing the change in the atmosphere in the land. Caution crept over it, rising close enough to the surface to peer out a large, rounded window at a full moon. The twelve formations of the zodiac blazed around the moon for but a moment before winking out, and the spirit the temple housed seemed to stir.
A child of Naga has passed through the Dragon's Gate.
The voice echoed through the mostly empty chamber, reaching the beast's ears as it sank back into a deeper part of the water, swimming around more as its senses were alert for any intruders, a thought racing through its head as it finally surfaced, standing between two statues in the shape of long necked, wingless dragons, frilled tails coiled at their feet. The beast resembled them, and it stalked towards the house-sized shrine, eyes alert as it sat down and turned, facing the front of the shrine from the shadows as the voice came once more.
It has begun, dragonkin. The countdown to the final war has begun.
Sapphire blue eyes sharpened, focusing on the ceiling as the full moon shone through once again, a silver light piercing through the mist of the temple to illuminate the white and blue building. A grin that bared the beast's teeth spread across its maw, and a long tail wrapped around its feet. It knew nothing was in the chamber to hear him but the spirit, but he could not resist a greeting.
'Welcome to Elibe, Child of Naga. Welcome to the Dark Continent."
Tori's Notes: It seems that every story I start with Elibe as a focus has 'darkness' as a theme to it. This story, "Everything into Darkness", "The Darkest Flame" ... Granted, the last one was more a nod to the Black Fang, but the fact that the Japanese name for Elibe is Ereb, aka a shortened/corrupted form of "Erebus", the primordial god of darkness in Greek Mythos, is probably to blame for the subconscious theme of 'dark' I seem to give Elibe.
But yes, here, have something new from me! I actually had this started about a year ago, after Awakening first came out, but various distractions/issues came up, including the original file for this being corrupted. So here it is, at long last, in published form.
Now, I know there's going to be people who aren't going to like the parent pairings I have in line for the children, to which I'm just going to shrug; it's my story, I like these pairings, and really, the parents don't matter in the long run because it's all about the children. If the pairings for the parents are that much of an issue, I apologize, but this is the way shit rolls with me.
Also, Solna is the name of my Awakening Tactician.
So, before anyone asks who has what parents, the list.
Lucina: Chrom and Sumia
Cynthia: Chrom and Sumia
Owain: Lissa and Lon'qu
Inigo: Henry and Olivia
Brady: Maribelle and Virion
Severa: Cordelia and Frederick
Kjelle: Sully and Stahl
Yarne: Panne and Donnel
Noire: Tharja and Gaius
Nah: Nowi and Libra
Gerome: Cherche and Gregor
Laurent: Miriel and Vaike
And as a bonus? Both male and female Morgan shall be present. (Male Morgan shall go by his Japanese name of Marc). Their parents are Solna and Yen'fay.
Anyway, now that that's taken care of, enjoy the first chapter! All I shall say is that "Here there be mother fucking dragons."