The Ardor of Perfection

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Long ago, in the land of Elibe, there lived a tactician of great renown. Her tactical prowess was legendary, for she had never lost a single soldier in battle, and rumor told of her prodigal skill with the blade. And lance. And bow and arrow. And axe. And anima, light, and dark magiks. And the legendary badassery of the French horn. And she was an amazing dancer. And—

Well, you get the picture.

This tactician went by many names, all of which sounded terribly awesome and totally freaking amazing, but didn't really make that much sense in context unless you knew the story behind them, and if you did you'd probably be facepalming, headdesking, or roflmao-ing (based on your preference) repeatedly: Lady of Narwhals, Miss Snarks-A-Lot, and the like. Her true name, however, was elegant and beautiful in its simplicity: Xirysa.

But everyone called her Mary Sue for short.

And Sue for even shorter. If that makes sense.

Now, Sue's fame was due not only to her sheer brilliance and tactical prowess, but her sheer awesomeness was due in part to her unmatched beauty; her dark eyes shone with intelligence and wit, and her gorgeous ebony hair always seemed to billow about her face enchantingly, even if there was no wind.

Hot damn, she was fine.

Needless to say, her beauty ensured that Sue got every man she ever wanted. In fact, our story begins one typically warm and pleasant afternoon in the great wilderness of The Middle of Nowhere, where their motely little army had set up camp. Sue was on her way back from a rendezvous with her lover Heath—in a little while she would be meeting with her other lover, Rath, and later that evening would be seeing yet another of her lovers, a hard-eyed young mercenary named Raven, who was wonderfully simple to twist, warp, and write obscenely out-of-character in order to fulfill the pathetic fantasies of a stereotypically hormonal and lovelorn teenage girl with no proper love or social life of her own—

I mean. Ahem. Anyway.

Between her rendezvous with the unrealistically gorgeous men of her harem—Heath and Rath and Raven, and a few more besides—Sue found herself woefully unsatisfied.

"Oh, woe is me!" she cried plaintively a she sat upon a conveniently placed rock in an ideally located meadow where the sunlight fell upon her in pure golden streams. From the depths of her robe (which was actually an infinite void into another universe that held all manner of items for the noble sake of Plot Device and Convenience) she pulled a French horn, and, perched prettily upon the aforementioned Rock of Convenience, she began to play a mournful tune.

Because, you know. That's what self-insert Sues do. They play French horn when they're sad.

Soon, the mournful sound of Sue's melody brought a visitor to the strategically placed meadow: Lady Lyn of Caelin, who, if not as hot as Sue, was a Pretty Damn Fine piece of ass herself.

"Oh, Sue," Lyn said as she entered the clearing, eyes brimming with unshed tears from the doleful tune the tactician had been playing, "what's wrong?"

Lowering the instrument from her lips, Sue shook her head. "Fuckdammit, Lyn," she replied in her stereotypical manner of trying to sound tough and quirky but failing miserably at it, "I think I'm in love. And I don't know what to do."

Lyn blinked. "Again?" she asked as her friend shed a single tear of pure crystal angst.

The breathtakingly beautiful tactician nodded, the hoops in her ears tinkling against each other delicately. (She had five earrings in her left ear and four in her right, in addition to a small diamond stud in her nose—it made her look mysterious and exotic, you know?) "Yes."

"But I thought it was going so well with Heath and Rath and Raven?"

Sue nodded. "It is. Heath and Rath are excellent lovers—even if Rath's got the personality of a wet cardboard box, and Heath goes on and on his honor and stupid things like that—and Raven… Well. He's got no technique, but he's hot, so that's alright." Sue sighed dramatically and looked off into the conveniently timed sunset—she looked mysterious and exotic as she did so.

"…What's a cardboard box?" Lyn asked, because no one in Elibe would know what a cardboard box was since it messed with the canonical time period and setting (but then again, no one cares about canon, right?).

"Oh, Lyn," Sue said, completely ignoring Lyn's question. "I love him so much—he's so dark and mysterious and sexy. He's not weak and naïve, like everyone seems to think he is, and he's such a deep and layered person." She sighed dramatically again.

Putting her arm around her incredibly-more-gorgeous friend's shoulders, Lyn smiled at the tactician. "Who is it, Sue? Tell me. You're incredibly beautiful and smart and charming—you never do anything wrong, and if you do have a fault it's wonderfully endearing so that everyone loves you. I'm sure whoever it is, he loves you too."

Tucking her French horn back into the Infinite Void to the Other Dimension inside her robes, Sue blushed adorably. "Promise you won't laugh at me, Lyn?"

Lyn nodded. "Promise."

Sue took a deep breath. "I love—"

"Me," an unknown voice said from the other side of the meadow.

Turning to see who had spoken, Sue felt her face grow warm. "It's… you," she said breathlessly as she took in the sight of a slim (but sexy!) figure clad in black leather from head to toe. At his waist was hung a sword—not a puny and pathetic little rapier, but a super long and lethal-looking katana that was vaguely (alright, highly) reminiscent of a famous silver-haired villain's signature weapon. But that's a story for another fandom.

"Huh?" Lyn looked curiously at the mysterious figure before realization dawned on her. "…Eliwood?" she asked.

Clearing the distance between them in a single bound that surely defied the laws of physics (but didn't matter anyway since no one cares about those in writing), Eliwood nodded as he knelt in front of the two beautiful women. "Indeed," he said as he looked from the gorgeous one to the not-as-pretty one, "it is I."

Sue fairly swooned. "Oh, Eliwood…"

As Lyn looked into Eliwood's eyes, something inside her came alive. Like those weird alien-baby things that pop out of your stomach, but nowhere near as gruesome or invasive.

(Then again, it's very unlikely that anyone in Elibe would really know what an alien was, so ignore that last comment.)

"Eliwood," Lyn whispered. She cast her eyes over his sword—his long and manly and freaking awesome looking sword (it was called the Falcon Sword and had all these diamonds and rubies and could use magic and stuff which made it pretty sweet)—and felt herself blush as she and Eliwood locked eyes. In fact, the emotion Lyn was feeling at that moment was so strong she actually forgot that her awesomely gorgeous and perfect tactician friend was sitting beside her.

You know it's a strong emotion if you forget the freaking tactician.

The young lord of Pherae smiled at Lyn. "I see you like my sword, Lyn," he said with a smirk that totally said I know you totes want in my sexy leather pants right now.

Lyn nodded frantically. "I do. Can I touch it?"

Beside her, Sue kept fluttering her eyelashes at Eliwood. It was a miracle her eyes didn't fall out of her face. "Oh, Eliwood," she repeated.

Eliwood ignored Sue and kept looking at Lyn instead. "In private." He smirked instead. "Want to come to my tent?" As he grinned at her in an uncharacteristically wolfish manner, Lyn felt herself go weak at the knees.

"Yes," Lyn said. "Let's go."

And so Eliwood and Lyn left to do unseemly things with Eliwood's sword (his long and manly and strong sword, mind you) in his tent, leaving Sue alone in the strategically located meadow with the golden streams of sunlight, even though it was still sunset. Which doesn't really make sense, but you know—no one really cares. This story doesn't even make any sense, but you're still reading it if you've gotten this far. That must mean it's fairly good, right?

Anyway, Sue was still sitting on her conveniently placed rock in the strategically located meadow with the golden sunlight even though it was twilight when Rath came by a little while later, also clad from head to toe in black leather for some reason that's not entirely relevant to this story except that it made him look really hot. "I'm ready," he told her.

Sue felt her heart begin to pound when she saw how hot Rath looked, and soon all thoughts of Eliwood left her mind. So she jumped his bones right then and there (even if he did have the personality of a wet cardboard box) and she and her harem of unrealistically attractive men all lived happily ever after in their Seriously Messed Up fantasy land until the end of their days.

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Xirysa Says: You know, I'm really sad that I didn't have this idea for the Mary Sue challenge at FE Contest. Anyway this was a blast to write, and maybe I should write more funny things in the future?

...Nah. Depression's the way to go. 8D And I will never be able to take Eliwood/Lyndis seriously again. Ever.

(...Aright, maybe if I was writing something totally twisted in depressing. XD)