Lots of things are overrated.
Among these things, consider sanity.
You're (not) Reading in the Wrong Direction
Chapter One - Once Upon a Video Game
I'd like to say it started with some sort of mystical whoosh or something like that, but then that would be a lie.
It was kind of like walking through a door, except without the door part. Or the walking, actually. I was sitting in my office chair, pondering whether or not I should play more Overwatch or finally get back to playing Trails of Cold Steel when, all of the sudden, the universe decided to send me on a big rousing session of neither. The world around me was swept away in a iris slow wipe transition, the other side of which was my destination. My chair vanished, at which I found myself sitting on the damp ground in the middle of a grassy... hilly... knollish kind of place.
To make matters worse, I suddenly found something different about my immediate person. Looking down, I found that I was no longer wearing my trusty old t-shirt and nylon shorts. Instead I'd been reduced to a lousy red tunic shirt with numerous patches sewed on, some brown pants that appeared to be held up by a rope rather than a belt, and a pair of leather boots that had certainly seen better days. I even pulled some of my hair into view to make sure it was still black. It was, thank goodness.
And yet, just like that, my life had taken a sudden and drastic change for the worse.
Oh yeah, and then I screamed. It was a manly scream, but a scream nonetheless. Subtlety? Bah! I could be subtle when I was dead.
Time passed. I did eventually stop screaming, if only because I'd run out of breath and realized that it wasn't really accomplishing anything. Instead I rolled up into the fetal position and attempted to think of an excuse as to why this had happened. I thought of a few, the most traction being under the idea that this might all just be a dream. Unfortunately I lacked any real way to convince myself of this. I was terrible with dreams, almost never remembering them after waking up. All I could be certain of was that this definitely didn't feel like any dream I'd had prior. Thus I concluded that it was probably real.
Had I not been sick of it, I might've screamed again.
More time passed. I eventually stood up and pondered where I should go. My options were rather open at this point, considering that there didn't appear to be any sort of path to guide me around the open landscape. The terrain was hilly, but otherwise not all that vicious. At the worst, I might scrape up against some briars in a patch of brush, but I could avoid those if I was willing to get busy walking. The boots might've been old, but they were surprisingly comfortable. In fact, all of my newfound garments felt as if they'd been with me for quite a while, meaning they were comfy and, most importantly, mine to have. Travelling in them wasn't going to be a problem.
A few mouth-breathing moments later, I picked a direction and started walking. I picked this way because it had the tallest hill. Hopefully the top of it would provide a vantage point from which I could spy a new destination, preferably one with a warm bed and no shortage of answers. Luckily I'd very recently lost a bit of weight walking. What's the best way to play Fallout 4? On a treadmill, of course.
It took me what felt like an hour to reach the top of the hill, though it was more likely to have only been fifteen minutes or so given how fast I walked. From the top I was allowed to look out into the land and hunt down any potential rescue. Sure enough, I managed to find… something. It didn't look like rescue. In fact, it looked like it had been burned down recently. There was a thin cloud of what I guessed to be ash drifting in the direction opposite me, blown by a breeze at my back. At the cloud's base were several charred outlines of what I assumed to be houses.
A hamlet, recently put to the torch for some reason.
Not spying any other clue from my vantage point, I slowly made my descent towards the remains. It took another long string of minutes, but I eventually got close enough to where I could see the place plainly. For better or worse, my initial observations had been spot-on. This was indeed a recently burned down village, and there didn't seem to be a soul in sight. Not that I could blame anyone for not sticking around. The air was a little thick with ash once you got amongst it all.
"Chrom, look!"
And yet, strangely enough, the place had managed to attract some other visitors.
Around from behind a relatively intact house, I spied something yellow throwing a finger in my direction. Focusing on it, I found what appeared to be a young lady in a dress of the aforementioned color. Her blond hair was done up in some high-flying pigtails, face framed by a long headdress of connected buttons. Oddly ornate. Very distinguishing.
As you might expect, I recognized her pretty quickly. Had I not been frozen in place by shock, I might've squawked in terror.
"YAAGH!"
...Or maybe I squawked anyway. I do that more often then I should, honestly.
Regardless, I eventually summoned the will to turn tail and haul ass as two more recognizable individuals coming around the same corner she had come from. No doubt it was the local main protagonist, Lord Chrom, and his murderous man-servant, Sir Frederick. The last thing I needed on this valium trip of a nightmare was to get the shit kicked out of me by a couple of fictional characters, so I forgot about the mystery of the torched village and put all my focus in escaping-
Crick!
"SH-!" I ate dirt.
I never saw the rock I tripped over. All I know is that it boned me good, turning my ankle hardcore and leaving me unable to escape from certain doom at the hands of a couple of heavily armed sheep herders.
Oh, and it hurt. Of course.
Before I could regain my senses, I found myself being turned over by a stiff metal hand. The ankle twisted again.
"Gyaaah!"
"He's injured."
No shit!
Above me now were indeed Chrom and Frederick. It was the armored knight who'd flipped me over, and he was currently giving me a glare that could immolate lesser plant life. No doubt my attempt at a hasty retreat had put him on high alert. In my defense, it was anticipation of this exact type reaction that made me want to run away in the first place.
"Looks broken," Chrom spoke first as he crouched down next to his bodyguard. He looked just like I would've expected. Blue hair, sharp features, a blue insignia mystically branded onto one of his shoulders. Y'know, the works for an anime-slash-game protagonist.
He wasn't exaggerating about my injury. A look down told me all I needed to know. Ow ow ow ow...
"I-I'm on it!" The yellow girl, whose name I remembered to be 'Lissa', had already sprung into action. She was rushing toward us with a crazy looking magic staff clutched in her hands. Unfortunately, Frederick the Wary held out a hand and stopped her before she could get close enough to use it.
"Caution, milady," he urged, not taking his eyes off me. He then spoke to me in the sternest tone I'd ever fallen victim to. "Tell us why you ran."
I had to reign in a growl at the demand. First the random teleportation, now this? I could tell by his tone that he suspected me of having some part in whatever disaster had passed through here.
"Because you're the only people standing in a burned down village," I eventually got out, half choking on the particulate-thick air. It was only here that I noticed that our valiant heroes all had the lower half of their faces covered. "I panicked and thought you might be the ones who burned it."
"Perhaps we should get him into the open air," Chrom suggested as I started up a coughing fit.
"Even if we don't do it for him, let's just get out of here," Lissa was quick to add her opinion before going on to mutter something about the impending ruining of her hair.
"Very well," Frederick agreed with a nod. This was followed by him looking up and whistling. Next thing I knew, a massive horse was emerging from around the same corner they'd all come from. I was unceremoniously thrown upon it, and we got ourselves away from the damnable place.
And then I was removed from the horse's back before I could even revel in the fresh oxygen. Frederick grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and threw me to the ground, something that was remarkably easy for him considering he had quite the height and weight advantage over me. The suit of full armor he was wearing didn't appear to slow him down in any way. By some stretch of a miracle, I kept my poor foot from slamming to the ground as well. That'd have been worth another squawk, no doubt.
"Frederick, please!" Chrom was quick to jump in and admonish his lieutenant. "There's no reason to be so rough with him."
"With all due respect, milord, he's the only person we've seen since we arrived in the area. We have no way knowing that he wasn't involved in what happened." Frederick replied, surprisingly calm as he took his lord's rebuff and countered with what I thought to be a decent argument.
In fact, it was actually the same exact argument I'd just used on them. Mysterious burned down village with no one around to tell the story? Who else could've done it but the next person you saw? A flawed argument, especially since I inwardly knew Chrom and company, thus also knew that they weren't the village burning types. They didn't know that though, hence the inward part. Also I'd been lying, but that was inward as well.
"I understand, but still, let's at least heal him up before we interrogate him," Chrom returned, just as calm. Nothing like a casual argument between civil beings, eh?
Frederick glared at me again. It wasn't a glare of disdain, mind. It was more… suspicion, I supposed. And I understood why. Having made the stupid decision to try and run away from my problems, I now had the appearance of someone highly suspicious. That's why I wasn't making any further arguments in my defense. One must pay the consequences for their actions, or so I tended to believe.
Running away leads to suffering suspicion. Got it? Let's move on.
Lissa was eventually allowed to heal me. It was a strange feeling, particularly the part where the bones in my ankle unbroke and moved back into place. I'd never thought too much about healing magic before this. How exactly does it work? Is it manipulating time relative to the injured area or something? Or perhaps it does something on a molecular level. What if I…?
Crick.
"Aagh!" Or maybe it just set the bones and numbed the pain and I really shouldn't have moved it so soon afterward.
"Careful!" Lissa immediately reapplied the healing staff. "It won't heal correctly if you keep moving it out of whack. Frederick, are you ready with the splint yet?"
"Yes, milady," the knight replied as he came back from searching through their supplies. In his hand was what appeared to be the heel and ankle of a leather sneaker, except the sides were lined with wood to keep whatever it was applied to around from moving.
I was going to hate this. I just knew it.
My boot was off, allowing us the full view of my foot. The staff had set the bones, reduced the swelling, and cleaned up the worst of the bruising, meaning that now was the best time to get the splint in place. One bad twitch on my part and we'd be back at square one. Thankfully, Lissa was more than just a girl with a staff. She carefully and methodically applied the brace, tying each lace with expert care so as not to agitate the injury further. She must have trained as a nurse for quite a while to get so skilled.
"How's that?" she asked once the splint was finished.
"It's tight," I had to say. The pressure was rather annoying, and I didn't like it one bit. "But I guess that's the entire point."
"It'll keep you from messing it up again, that's for sure," Lissa said with an assuring smirk. Then she turned to where her protector was standing. "Okay, now you can question him. How about you do it without the rough-housing this time?"
"If that is what milady wishes, I have no choice but to oblige," Frederick replied, his tone neither agreeable nor apologetic. Regardless, he moved up to me as she stepped away. He didn't bother to crouch and talk to me face-to-face, instead choosing to stand tall over me and peer over the rim of his armor.
"Did you have anything to do with the burning of this village?"
This shit again?
"No," I replied as quickly and calmly as I could.
"Where are you from? When did you arrive in the area?"
Oh shit. Now it was time for the real questions, wasn't it? I briefly thought about bluffing, stealing some places out of The Witcher or Dragon Age, but then I realized that I really didn't need to be telling any more lies. Especially not with Frederick looking primed to lift his boot up and stomp me like a cockroach.
"It doesn't matter where I'm from," I said. Not the most intelligent answer, but at least it didn't put any specifics on me. "But I will say that I only just arrived in this area today."
See, part of that was actually the truth. It wasn't the whole truth, but then telling them about the whole teleporting thing probably wouldn't have been much help to either side of the conversation.
Meanwhile, Frederick didn't seem to like part of my answer.
"Why does where you're from not matter?"
Holy shit… One of these days he'd have to take a break. Surely, right?
"I think that's enough, Frederick," Chrom finally decided to intervene before I could say something stupid and get my chest cavity turned into a hopscotch court.
"...Very well, milord," the knight said, though he didn't appear very pleased. His expression became distant as he walked back to his horse. If I had to guess, he was either trying to think of different approaches to questioning me or pondering different ideas as to who had burned down the village.
"Sorry about him," Chrom addressed me. Unlike Frederick, the noble Prince of Ylisse actually deigned to crouch and speak with me at eye-level. "Let's start over, shall we? I'm Chrom. What's your name?"
"Yuri," I answered through a sigh of relief. I had to be grateful, seeing as he'd both saved me from Frederick's incessant questioning and introduced himself before I could accidentally call him by his name without having been told it.
"Well, Yuri, allow me to apologize for Frederick and his…" He paused, as if looking for a way to phrase it delicately.
"Don't worry about it," I shot him down. "I understand. It's really my own fault for running away like I did."
Chrom seemed taken aback somewhat at my reasoning, but didn't seem to want to argue. "I see," he said simply before turning back to Frederick. "Frederick. Do us a favor and let Yuri ride with you back to the city."
"Of course, milord."
The knight and I exchanged a very brief set of glances. He didn't seem to mind, but something told me that it wasn't going to be the gentlest of rides.
As I was loaded on the horse side-saddle, I couldn't help but think about how ridiculous this all was. Me? At the mercy of Chrom and company? Why? How?! This had 'stupid' written all over it, and there wasn't an explanation or plan of escape in sight. I mean, sure. They didn't appear to have anything too sinister in store for me, but that didn't change the fact that they weren't real people. They were characters from a game. A fantastic game, but a game nonetheless. And now they were taking me into their care.
Was this even real? If felt real, especially the broken ankle part. But if it was real, then was everything else real too?
…
As I found myself struggling to stay on Frederick's horse, I silently pondered how painful falling off and breaking my neck would be.
This is what happens when new Fire Emblem games come out. I start writing shit about the previous ones.
That said, here it is. What is it? It's a terrible start to what will likely be a terrible fic about a terrible guy having terrible adventures in I don't fucking know why the hell are you still reading this? I'm literally only posting this because I've written SO FUCKING MUCH in the last few months and haven't posted a single fucking iota of it. The last chapter of Needle doesn't count. I wrote that over a year ago.
Reviews would be appreciated, if you can find the time. I know this story isn't that great, but any helpful tidbits you lovely readers could offer would be very helpful to me. I'm terrified of criticism, and thus haven't received very much of it over the years. So, if it's not too much of a bother, please leave a review concerning your thoughts on the chapter in the box below. No review will go unnoticed, even it's something as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."
That said, this has been The Blocked Writer, and I hope you're having a wonderful day.