A/N: Aren't I in a Fire Emblem mood? XD To anyone who follows me for my Mario stories - don't worry; those aren't stopping and never will. I just need to think up more ideas for Mario, and in the meantime, I've been obsessed with writing Fire Emblem things. I don't know why, because it's been months since I played either PoR or RD.

About this story... I love the dynamic between Rolf and Shinon and I like the friendship between Gatrie and Shinon. I just wanted to write something about them. It's pretty clear that Shinon doesn't like anyone knowing he cares about Rolf, considering he forbade Rolf from telling anyone that Shinon had taught him to use a bow. He also seems (to me at least) like the kind of person who'd be afraid of getting close to people because he might lose them.

Once again, please excuse any plot-related errors. It's been a while.

Enjoy!

There were times when Shinon regretted agreeing to train Rolf. It was the closest he'd ever come to admitting that the kid meant something to him. He had always viewed Rolf as a snotty-nosed brat whose sole purpose in life was to give him a headache, but lately he'd found that the familiar pain in his skull was being replaced by something else, and he didn't need to be a genius to figure out what it was.

Pride. He actually felt proud whenever he saw Rolf successfully take down an enemy on the battlefield or hit a target in training. He'd allowed himself to get serious, to invest more of his time and effort into the little horror than he'd ever meant to. And as if to mock him for his generosity, their relationship had changed somewhere along the line. It wasn't as simple as Shinon hating Rolf and Rolf hero-worshipping Shinon like a lost puppy. Somewhere down the road, he'd actually started to care whether or not Rolf lived to see another sunrise.

He kept telling himself that it was just because the kid was showing enormous potential as an archer. Hell, after all the work he'd put into training him, it was understandable that he might care if Rolf wound up as a patch of daisies under a headstone.

But that wasn't the entire truth of the situation. He'd grown to genuinely like Rolf's presence; not in a master-and-student way, but in a family way or a friend way, and it disturbed him.

He knew that he wasn't friendly with the other merceneries, nor was he the kind of man most of them wanted to be friends with. He was snide, sarcastic, and he drank too much. Titania tolerated him, maybe, but only because she had been close to Greil, just as he had... and because she'd known him the longest.

Gatrie was nice to him, though, and managed to somehow look past Shinon's condescending attitude (or maybe was just too dim to notice it). The sociable knight had become his one real friend, and he'd always been amazed to have even that many.

He had long since grown comfortable with the knowledge that Ike's merry mercenery band only let him stick around because of his immense combat skills. If he hadn't been such an impeccable sniper, Ike probably would've had him thrown out at the earliest opportunity. Shinon still couldn't believe that the whelp had wanted him back in the company after he'd deserted them in favour of Daein, but who cared? He didn't consider himself indebted to Ike.

Yet despite his certainty that no-one else could ever like him, Rolf had become the sole exception to that rule.

'Hurry up, kid,' he griped, leaning against the fence of the training meadow as Rolf tripped over his own feet in his haste to catch up.

'I'm here!' he cried out, panting slightly. Shinon just rolled his eyes. It was too early in the day to start getting annoyed with Rolf already.

'OK, so here's what we're doing today...' As he spoke, he withdrew a solitary arrow from the quiver on his back and fitted it to his bow, a masterpiece of craftsmanship that he called The Silencer. He couldn't fail to notice the way Rolf's eyes longingly followed the bow's movements, running over the sleek grip in the same way Gatrie looked at girls in the bar when he was a little drunk. Desperate, blind wanting.

'Oh no,' he said warningly, glaring down at Rolf and jerking the younger man's attention back to him. 'You touch this bow, and yours is gonna end up on the campfire tonight. You're too weak to handle this thing. You'd probably break it, and then I'd have to make a whole new one.'

He then turned around and, with barely a glance at the target, fired off his arrow and landed a perfect bullseye. Rolf was blushing with embarrassment, but still managed to look extremely impressed on the side.

'I'll try,' he said, and hastily fitted an arrow to his own, much lighter, bow. Shinon waited impatiently while the kid fumbled with his weapon, before eventually loosing the arrow. It embedded itself in the tree-trunk just below the target with a thunk.

Shinon was already drawing breath to scold Rolf for not pulling back the string far enough when he caught the boy's face falling, his eyes turning dismal, bow dropping to his side in dismay. And against his better judgement, he let his breath out slowly, forgetting whatever biting sarcasms he'd been about to unleash upon Rolf.

'...Well, that wasn't bad,' he said, trying to sound encouraging. Rolf's gaze turned to him with renewed hope. 'You need to put a little more power into it, but whatever, it could've been worse. Now try again.'

After a while, he sheathed his own bow and merely watched Rolf practice, restraining his urge to show off the way he normally did whenever they trained. To prove that he was the superior archer and probably always would be.

Today, he held back. Let Rolf do the shooting, only opening his mouth to give an occasional word of advice. And when they walked back to the camp an hour later, he couldn't help smirking slightly at the spring in Rolf's step.

'He likes you a lot.'

'Like it's not obvious.'

Shinon took a long drink from his goblet and the bitter-tasting liquid that it contained. Gatrie was scarcely paying attention to his drink or to the numerous attractive women in the bar, which was more than enough to tell Shinon that his mind was elsewhere.

He didn't particularly care what Gatrie was thinking about. But when the knight had finally spoken up, and the first thing to come from his mouth was a stupid observation about Rolf, Shinon had realised that not only did he not care, but he also didn't want to be here anymore.

'It's not that obvious,' Gatrie protested, but the sniper cut him off.

'Yeah, it is. Everyone knows about it. You're just too much of an idiot to have noticed until now, for some reason. And I don't need to be told that I should be nicer to the damn kid – I'm being nice enough by trying to train him, dammit.'

Gatrie's mouth curved into the faintest hint of a smile. 'You're pretty angry about it, huh,' he said vaguely, taking a swallow of his beer.

'Obviously! I used to have a reputation before the stupid kid started following me around like a lost puppy!'

'A reputation for what? Being rude? Hating everyone?'

'I don't hate anyone,' said Shinon. At Gatrie's pointed look, he corrected himself. 'Except Ike. But that's not the point.'

'Well,' said Gatrie, 'it seems that your problem is that Rolf likes you, and you can't bring yourself to be horrible to him, so you're worried that everyone thinks you're going soft. It's not like that. Everyone's nice to Rolf. Besides, wouldn't you rather have a reputation for being nice than being an asshole?' He gave the sniper another pointed look, which went unnoticed.

Shinon swirled the remaining liquid in his goblet around before throwing it down his throat in one go. 'I just don't want him to get attached,' he said, ignoring the burn of the alcohol. 'We're fighting in a damn war – someday I might get killed, and he's not going to be able to cope.'

Gatrie smiled knowingly. 'Y'know, I think it might actually be the other way around.'

Shinon opened his mouth, with the intention of telling the knight to go to hell and stop prying into his personal life, but when he turned around, he saw that Gatrie was gone anyway. Through alcohol-blurred vision, he could see the knight's tall form moving through the crowds, going off to chat up the girls at the bar.

He sat alone at his table, staring into his empty goblet. He wasn't sure whether he preferred it this way or not. He came drinking by himself often, but he couldn't deny that it was painfully lonely without anyone to distract him from brooding.

He began to distance himself from Rolf. It had been happening slowly for a long time, but the final straw came when, during the battle in Nevassa, Rolf took a thunder spell to the chest that nearly killed him on the spot. Unconscious and not breathing, he had been carried away by a frantic Oscar who took him to the front of the building where Mist was waiting with her staff. The kid had survived, and Shinon had even seen him walking around camp not six hours later – but he couldn't forget that one moment when he'd looked over at Rolf and spotted him lying utterly motionless on the ground.

To make matters worse was the reaction of the merceneries. Some – Ike included – blamed him for Rolf getting hurt. The enemy mage had been within Shinon's arrow range when they attacked, not that Shinon had even seen them until afterwards. Others – Titania included – had taken to treating Shinon with an unhealthy amount of sympathy. It wasn't your fault, they'd said. Rolf will be fine. There's no need to worry.

Worry? Shinon had never even known real worry until the moment his apprentice nearly kicked the bucket three feet from him. But he didn't need everybody to know that. It was as he'd always feared – because of Rolf's stupid, hero-worshipping attachment to him, the other merceneries had started to assume that Shinon was similarly attached.

He wasn't. He kept telling himself that, as if painful repetition might somehow make it true.

He wasn't even sure why he hated the idea of people knowing he gave a shit about Rolf. When he mentioned this to Gatrie, the knight had smiled a little sadly and said, 'I guess because you're used to people seeing you in a certain way and you're afraid of how things are changing.'

'Nothing's changing,' Shinon growled, and resolutely walked away to practice his archery – alone.

He avoided Rolf for three straight weeks, by which time the war against Daein was coming to a head.

The Greil Merceneries, along with the rest of the army, were camping on a hillside some distance from Crimea Castle, waiting for dawnbreak when they would launch their planned attack in what Ike was calling 'The Final Battle'. Stupid, optimistic and overly dramatic, but that was Ike for you.

For three weeks, he hadn't spent a single training session with Rolf, which was doubly impressive considering he trained at least once a day. He considered it an accomplishment that he'd managed to give Rolf the slip, always managing to find a place to train where the kid couldn't run into him, accidentally or otherwise.

It was starting to become a chore, though – and by then, the rest of the group had also noticed Shinon's odd behaviour, not to mention the dismal look on Rolf's face as he wandered around the army in search of his mentor.

'He was crying earlier,' said Gatrie offhandedly. He was sitting on a tree-stump outside his tent, polishing his lance. Shinon, who was leaning against a nearby fence and repairing some damage to The Silencer, paused long enough to give his friend a suspicious glance.

'So what?'

'So what?' Gatrie sighed. It was hard to get him angry, but he was clearly exasperated. 'He doesn't know why you're suddenly not talking to him or training with him anymore. Don't push him away, Shinon. It's not fair.'

Shinon snorted, though without much contempt. He couldn't seem to muster any. 'He's not five. He can look after himself. Besides, he's actually a decent archer now. Not as good as me, obviously – but I don't want to waste my time training him now that he doesn't need it.'

'That's not why you've been working so hard to avoid him.'

Gatrie's tone was flat. Shinon went back to fixing his bow with renewed vigor, keeping his head low so that his long ponytail fell over his face and hid it from view.

'I remember when he got hurt in Daein. You were scared.'

No response.

'And now you're avoiding him, he probably thinks he's done something wrong...'

Still nothing.

'When are you gonna admit that you care about him? When he's dead? When you're dead? Is the poor kid going to have to wait until you're gone and for someone else, like me, to tell him? He deserves better than that.'

In a abrupt movement, with reflexes and accuracy born from over two decades of shooting arrows at moving targets, Shinon lunged at Gatrie, cocking a fist. Infuriatingly, the knight only flinched before fixing his friend with a calm, level glare. He wasn't worried. Being an archer, Shinon's chance of beating Gatrie – who spent his days swinging heavy lances around – in a physical fight was practically laughable.

They locked eyes for an instant, and then Shinon fell back, fists clenched at his sides.

'Don't tell me what the little brat deserves,' he growled through gritted teeth. 'I'm not responsible for him, and it's not my job to look out for him.' Even if he knew he'd been doing just that all along.

'Nobody's saying you have to be responsible for him,' said Gatrie calmly. 'It's just, well... I think he thinks of you as a friend.'

'There are plenty of other people around here he could go be friends with – better people.'

'You can't just choose who to be friends with, Shinon. It happens naturally. And you two... It's hard to explain, but I guess you have some sort of connection. He definitely cares about you. As much as he cares about his brothers. And I know you care about him, because everything you've done for him since he joined the Greil Merceneries has shown that. I just think you're scared to care about him because you think you might lose him. But sometimes you've got to take the risk, you know?'

Shinon stayed quiet, mostly because it was weird to hear Gatrie talk at such great length about anything except women. He hadn't been expecting a monologue. A telling-off, maybe, or an angry accusation, but not this long speech that Gatrie had clearly put thought into.

'Are you listening?'

'Yes.' He just didn't like what he was hearing. But Gatrie seemed to take the single, tersely-spoken word as a sign that his persuasion was working.

'If it helps at all, everyone already knows you care about Rolf. It's pretty obvious. And by avoiding him, and not telling him why, it's making him upset. It's not fair for him. I just think that both of you would be happier if you stopped this...' All of a sudden Gatrie sighed, dragging a hand through his short blond hair. 'Look, even if you won't do it for yourself, do it for him, OK? He's twelve, Shinon – he doesn't need this worry on top of everything else he's going through.'

Shinon didn't answer, even though a large part of him wanted to throw a sarcastic comment about how insightful Gatrie had gotten in the last few days. Sometime during the knight's talk, he'd picked up his bow and began to work on it again, acting for all the world as if he hadn't heard a word coming out of Gatrie's mouth.

He was aware of the moment when Gatrie stood up, picking up his lance and walking away. It happened so quickly that Shinon actually stopped what he was doing and looked up, eyes narrowing imperceptibly as he watched the knight's bulky, blue-armoured form disappear behind a row of tents.

Screw him. Not because he thought Gatrie was wrong, but because he knew he was right. Screw him for being so damned perceptive all of a sudden.

With a sudden need to release his pent-up frustration, he snapped the bow, polished wood splintering to leave sharp, jagged ends, and then threw the thing on the ground in disgust, knowing he didn't have the money to invest in a new one.

'Final battle, Shinon,' came Gatrie's voice from the doorway behind him as he tried to gather up his equipment. 'You gonna say anything to him or not?'

It didn't take a genius to know what he was talking about. 'Shut up, Gatrie,' he replied, unhappily. 'It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not going to fight.'

Gatrie's eyebrows rose into his hairline. 'What? Since when did you miss out on a good battle?'

'Since I didn't have a bow, moron!'

'How can you not have a bow? You had one yesterday. I saw you with it.'

'Something happened to it.'

The knight waited politely, eyebrows still raised, for Shinon to elaborate in some way. When no response was forthcoming, he sighed and said, 'Well, you're lucky. Someone bought a new bow from the convoy and asked me to bring it over for you!'

Shinon's gaze snapped up. Until then, he hadn't been looking directly at Gatrie, pretending to be focused on his equipment, in the vague hopes that his friend wouldn't drag him into another stupid conversation about Rolf if he looked like he was busy. But when he finally turned around and saw what Gatrie was holding out to him, it took effort not to let out a gasp.

A long, sleek bow. Clearly expensive – and beautiful. It wasn't of Shinon's own make, for he remembered every bow he'd ever crafted, and could recognise his own work. But it was still a finely-crafted weapon. A Silver Bow, he suspected.

Gatrie wordlessly pressed the weapon into his hands when Shinon made no move to reach out and take it. A few seconds passed.

'...Who from?' Shinon finally said. He had an unpleasant feeling that he already knew. And Gatrie, of course, realised this.

'I don't need to tell you,' he said. Another moment passed, and then the knight grinned and reached out to clap Shinon on the shoulder. 'Gonna show up at the battle now?'

Shinon nodded, not sure what to say. 'Yeah, I guess.'

'I'm glad.'

The 'final battle' ended up being far less climatic than Shinon had anticipated. The Crimean Army battled their way past hordes of knights, cavaliers and mages, routinely having their injuries healed by the clerics who stayed a safe distance behind the troops, but no-one had died yet. It was a tedious battle, but no different from the other countless battles they'd fought in.

He pulled back his bowstring and shot down a fire mage standing some fifty feet away, relishing the self-satisfication of managing to hit the man perfectly through the heart. Killing enemies was like swatting flies to him. He didn't give a damn that they were people with lives and feelings, unlike soft-hearted Rolf who hesitated to shoot anything...

'Shinon!'

Speak of the devil...

The sniper turned just in time to see a familiar figure – albeit one he hadn't been seeing much of lately – hurrying in his direction. The tentative smile on Rolf's face spoke volumes of how much he expected his former mentor to just turn around and walk away, like he'd done numerous times over the last three weeks, but still he ran forwards, determined to at least try and get a word in before Shinon left the scene.

That being said, Shinon was having a hard time walking away. Maybe it was the effect of Gatrie's countless 'talks', or maybe it was the glossy, brand-new bow that he was still gripping with one hand. Hell, maybe he was just tired of trying to avoid the green-haired brat.

Whatever it was, he found himself standing stock-still instead of slipping away, and Rolf's smile became genuine as he ran the last few feet to his mentor.

And then, barely within earshot, Shinon heard the pages of a book turning and somebody muttering words he couldn't understand.

He didn't know how his brain managed to translate those otherwise innocent sounds to 'enemy mage' so quickly, but nonetheless, it happened fast enough that he was already springing towards Rolf before the mage had quite finished uttering his incantation. Somehow, he also knew that he didn't have time to nock an arrow, aim his bow, and fire before the spell hit. The knowledge didn't stop him from trying.

He was just lifting his weapon when a huge fireball came down from the sky and exploded across the path in front of him, sending red-hot sparks hopping along the flagstones, smoke billowing up to fill the air. He was blasted backwards, losing his bearings among the smoke and the noise, not knowing what had just happened, but vaguely aware in some part of his brain that the fireball hadn't actually hit him. It had missed by perhaps a foot, the mage too far away to aim accurately.

He heard a bowstring being pulled back, a distinctive twang, and a grunt as the arrow found its mark.

He was beginning to climb to his feet when a hand closed over his arm and helped to pull him up. A hand that wasn't yet calloused from the trials of fighting, and smaller than any of the other merceneries', but still strong. A warrior's hand.

'That was close!' Rolf gasped, as Shinon nonchalantly brushed himself down and retrieved his weapon from where it had fallen in the chaos. 'You could've been hit... oh...'

He looked up, eyes wide and a little fearful, as if he were only now aware that it was Shinon, and only now remembering that he hadn't spoken to the sniper in three weeks. Not by his own choice, but still.

'Uh... yeah... so, are you all right?' he said.

His voice had changed, becoming slower, stiffer, more cautious, as he audibly locked away his emotions behind a wall of something else. Shinon hated it. It was just as Gatrie had said. A kid of twelve years shouldn't sound like that, shouldn't have to hide their own feelings from the world. This damned stupid war was turning Rolf into something he wasn't meant to be.

'...Yeah, I'm fine,' he said shortly. Rolf's expression didn't change; he'd already braced himself for the sniper's response being less than friendly. 'C'mon, let's go and meet up with the others. We're all on our own out here. Not a good place for a pair of archers to be.'

'Y-yeah, good idea.' Rolf gazed up at him, his walled-off expression splintering for an instant as he chewed nervously on his lip. He small hands closed forcefully around the grip of his bow. 'Um, Shinon?'

'Yeah?'

'Can we... can we maybe talk after the battle's over?'

At this point, Shinon could have easily said no, and ignored Gatrie's advice, not to mention his own feelings. He could've watched the kid walk away despairingly and probably never spoken to him again.

But he was tired. Tired of pretending. Why had he been avoiding Rolf, anyway? He'd been doing it for so long that he could hardly remember.

You were avoiding him because you don't want to get attached, he thought, annoyed that he was able to admit it to himself. Because he's a little kid who might die trying to keep up with everyone on the battlefield. Yeah, that would suck, wouldn't it? He ends up dead because YOU taught him how to use a bow and the little brat used his skills to go off and join a war? If the kid died because of what he'd done, then the guilt would probably kill him, assuming Rolf's brothers didn't do it first.

But like it or not, Rolf was a warrior now. He had joined his brothers on the battlefield and Shinon knew better than anyone that once you were on it, it was hard to leave it. Maybe he should just resign himself to the possibility that Rolf might get skewered by a sword one day and devote his time to trying to keep the kid safe instead.

He groaned under his breath. Rolf was still looking up at him expectantly, any hope lying veiled behind his eyes.

'Sure,' he said at last. It was amazing, he thought, how one simple word could make a person's face light up that way. 'We'll talk. But for now, just focus on staying alive, OK? After this, everything's going to be over and I don't want you dying on me in the last damned battle.'

Rolf nodded – too eagerly – and ran off to find the rest of the merceneries, prompting Shinon to follow him to avoid losing sight of the boy around the towering fountains and statues adorning the gardens.

'Shinon?'

'Yes?'

'Why, um... why...'

'Spit it out, Rolf.'

'W-why were you... not talking to me? Did I do something wrong?'

Shinon sighed as, across the room, Gatrie shot him a look that said all too clearly, 'I told you so.'

'Don't be an idiot,' he said. 'What the hell do you think you've done to make me not talk to you?'

Rolf's lip wobbled. 'I-I don't know... I just kinda assumed-'

'Well, you were wrong.'

The Greil Merceneries were back in their old fort, relaxing. It had been days since the last battle. Rightfully, they should have been allowed home as soon as the fighting was over but – much to Shinon's exasperation – they'd been asked to stay behind for Elincia's coronation.

As a result, it had been nearly a week before the merceneries were able to break free from the stifling atmosphere of royal politics and snooty nobles and get back on the road. It had been a relief for all of them, but none so much as Rolf, who – in the commotion of the last few days – had not yet found time to talk to his former mentor.

Now, they were all gathered together in the main room of the fort, enjoying a small celebration party of their own design. The food was pretty good, though Shinon and Gatrie had been a little disappointed to find no alcohol on the table, and to be told by a stern Titania that 'she didn't want everyone getting completely drunk on their first day back'.

'So... what, then?' asked Rolf. His voice was quiet and quavering, and as he spoke, he kept his eyes on his feet, dangling over the edge of his chair. The kid hadn't grown all year.

'Rolf,' Shinon grumbled, 'like I said; if you've got a question, spit it out. I can't read your damn mind.'

'Why weren't you talking to me?'

Shinon was slightly taken aback, having not expected Rolf to respond with so little hesitation.

'You want to know why?' At the boy's nod, he himself hesitated. The last thing he wanted was to tell Rolf everything, but he couldn't think of a way to tell him any less. Gatrie was watching them quietly from the other side of the room.

'...Do you need to know?' he said at last. 'I'm talking to you now, aren't I?' Pathetic, but if he could salvage his reputation as a tough, strong mercenery and not have everyone find out how soft he'd gotten...

Rolf blinked. 'Well, I want to know... but I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as you promise not to ignore me any more.'

Typical needy kid. 'Sure. I mean, I know this probably should've been said a long time ago, but I care about seeing you grow into a great archer. Greater than me, maybe. This war might be over, but we're still merceneries, and I'll be damned if I let someone stick an arrow in your eye before you've grown to surpass me.'

Rolf's face broke into a huge grin. 'I promise that won't happen.'

'Then I promise I won't do that again. Now, can you do more eating, and less bothering me?'

Recognising that Shinon had gone over his quota of sincerity for one day, Rolf just laughed before jumping down from his chair and wandering off to get some more food. There was a spring in his step that Shinon couldn't remember seeing in months.

He was sitting there, on his own, when suddenly the floorboards creaked and he looked around to see Gatrie settling into Rolf's vacant chair, looking smug as he deposited an unopened bottle onto the table. Shinon eyed it, impressed. 'Where'd you get that from?'

'This? Oh, Oscar found it in the kitchen and gave it to me. I don't think he agrees with Titania's whole 'not drinking' thing.'

Gatrie didn't say anything stupid and heartfelt (or worse, a condescending 'well done') – he knew the sniper would have only taken it as an insult. But despite that, there was a grin on his face that seemed a little too pleased as he opened the wine bottle and offered it to his friend before drinking any himself.

Shinon didn't say anything sincere or grateful – he knew Gatrie didn't expect him to do anything so out-of-character. But as his fingers closed around the neck of the bottle, their eyes met for an instant, and Gatrie's nod – just the faintest tip of the head – told him that the knight understood what he might have said if he'd been any other person.

'Thanks,' he muttered, and took a drink.