Caged
Bird
Wandering Cat
Written with the poem Sympathy in
mind.
Chapter ONE of...maybe THREE.
Finally, I sat down and
wrote the thing. I've been trying to get the time, but I couldn't,
and not only that, I couldn't think of how to go about doing it. But
I finally did, so there.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem or any of its characters, though I really wish I did.
semi-IMPORTANT NOTE: Chances are I got something wrong here.
I don't remember much about Marquess Araphen. Actually, I barely know
anything about him. Even his name, if it were even given, so I gave
him one. I hereby dub him...uh...Cecil. Yeah, that's good. Marguess
Araphen Cecil. It could be worse. Madelyn needed a
bird, so I gave her one, and named it Apollo. Why? Because I always
wanted a pet pigeon, and if I got one, I'd name it Apollo (or Faye).
I'm just cool like that. Oh yeah, I also made him pretty annoying.
While he doesn't hate the nomads, I gave him a really negative
attitude toward them. Yes, I am mocking him. He hates the Sacaens
because Hassar was cooler than him.ACUTALLY IMPORTANT
NOTE: As stated before, I wrote this fic with the poem "Sympathy"
in mind. Of course, I came up with the idea weeks ago, and now I
can't find my freaking copy of the poem. I remember some of it, but
not enough. If you want to read it, I'm sure you can find it online.
It's a great poem. A soft chirp brought her back to her senses. Madelyn smiled and
stood, walking over to her beloved pet bluejay. He chirped again,
clinging to the side of the cage. "What is it,
Apollo?" With a
small cluck, Apollo jumped to the opposite side of the cage, toward
his master, and rapped on a bar with his beak. His head jerked toward
the window, where a small bluejay sat perched on the outside sill.
Madelyn gave a gentle smile and opened the cage's latch, offering her
hand to the bird. He jumped on it watching, gratefully as she moved
to open the window and set him free. It was soon
becoming her favorite sound. Cecil, the new Marquess Araphen, just
kept bantering on, despite the fact that it was fairly obvious she
wasn't listening. "...and that's why Araphen is so powerful! Not even those foul
Sacaen dogs can penetrate it forces!" Cecil (AN: hah)
finished. A wave of
relief crossed Madelyn's features. He stood and flamboyantly offered
his hand. Madelyn took it, faking a smile, and making sure to wipe it
on the back of her dress when he let go of it. She never liked
meeting with the other nobles; they were quite annoying at times. She
really had no right to talk, because she could do it with no end, but
she also knew when to control it. A hand thrust into her vision
brought a sense of dread into her system. Marquess Araphen was asking
her to dance. Unable to
refuse, or even talk without shouting something along the lines of
"Could you be any more annoying?", she merely nodded and
took the hand (and added a mental note to wash vigorously
later). "You know
what? I've been thinking. The Sacaens are so dumb, I bet I could get
them to work for me for free!" Madelyn's eyes widened slightly, and her ears began ringing again.
------------------------------------
The scene was peaceful. Birds fluttering outside her window, flowers
in bloom, white fully clouds in the sky. The perfect scene to paint.
Lady Madelyn of Caelin looked up from the tray she mixed her paints
in, casting another dreamy look outside her window, deciding which
birds to use, where to put them, and whether or not to add her
windowsill and curtains to the painting.
-------------
Sigh...
------------------------------------
The two memories had opposite effects on her. The first gave her a
warm joy, the second made her skin crawl. Two weeks after she
released Apollo, she was pleased to watch him building a nest with
the same bluejay that had waited for him outside her window. Two
weeks after Cecil released her, she still couldn't get the weird
feeling out of her. She asked a maid, one of her closest friends,
about it. The friend said it was love. Madelyn burst into a rather
unladylike fit of laughter. The memory itself brought her to giggles,
causing a cocked eyebrow from one companion and a warm smile from the
other.
"...Lady?" the first one said.
The chuckles stopped abruptly. Madelyn looked to where a tall, tan-skinned man sat cleaning a bow next to a huge bald man in silver armor.
"Now, Hassar! Why did you ruin milady's contemplation? She may have been planning her wedding with Marquess Araphen!" the latter boomed.
Madelyn could feel her heart sink; she would never forget the day her father told her of it. He had arranged a marriage between Cecil and her. "Madelyn, I know you don't want this," he'd said. "But Caelin is a bit of trouble right now, and this will help immensely. I know he's annoying at times, but he'll grow on you, I promise." That was the single most devastating moment in her life.
Wallace, the bald general, stood with a loud clanking. He bade the princess and archer a quick farewell and a promise to return in a few minutes, muttering something about writing a manual of some sort. Left with nobody but the strange archer, Madelyn couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. She was required to watch the novice knights train every so often, and Wallace and the other man were to be her bodyguards. Needless to say, being that she didn't even know the man's name, it was a little awkward.
"Excuse me sir, but I don't think I've seen you before. Are you new?" she asked politely, in an attempt to lighten the air around them.
He looked up from his bow, studied her a bit, and nodded. "My name is Hassar. Three months ago, met Wallace. He suggested that I work here for a while before going home."
"Where are you from?"
This time, Hassar ignored her in favor of the bow. For a while he waited, before looking up again. "...Sacae. I am a son of the Lorca." he stated, not a hint of shame in his voice.
His confession caused Madelyn to start. She had never seen a nomad up close. In the paintings she'd seen in Castle Araphen, nomads were depicted as ugly, hairy, uncivilized creatures. The man before her was...handsome, a thousand fold more than the nomads in the pictures. Longish, straight green hair, unlike the wavy brown that was expected of Caelin's citizens. Sharp, almost frightening, blue-green eyes, under thin eyebrows, one cocked in wonderment. Tan, anglular face. She wondered how, if every nomad looked like this, they could be mistaken for the man-beasts in the paintings.
His eyes held her captive. A strength shone behind them, courage and honor woven between the teal threads.
A weird feeling wormed its way into her
stomach.
---------------------------
Wandering Cat: Okay, that's all I can take for now. This is the first chapter. I don't know how many there will be, probably three or something like that. I'll make sure to tell ya. This was pretty tough. Because now, I have to have a storyline. Oh crap. I smell it in the future.
For anyone who cares, the next chapter will hopefully be up witthin a month. No, I will not be working on it. I always take my fics in sittings, though I try my hardest. Review, if you like.