Axemen
DISCLAIMER: Fire Emblem and its characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.
Sometimes, it looked like Boyd was insisting on dying. He called it his training.
Every morning, the Greil Mercenaries would watch Boyd flamboyantly challenge Ike to a spar at the duelling pits at camp. Despite him being the self-proclaimed 'guy who taught him everything he knows', Boyd always lost.
Today was no different.
Oscar sighed. He thought by now he would learn to at least challenge another axe-wielder…
But as the older brother, he was supposed to teach. And so, after yet another crushing defeat courtesy of Ike, the lanceman walked over to Boyd.
"You know, maybe you should train against someone else who uses axes," Oscar suggested as Boyd dusted himself off. Given the attention he was getting from his brother, Oscar judged the case as hopeless. He watched Boyd shrug off the proposal.
"No way!" Boyd said adamantly. "I gotta challenge myself, you know? I'm not that bad!"
"Not that good either," Oscar pointed out.
"Psh. That's why I fight stronger people! To get better!"
Oscar knew that trying to tell him that he would be nuts to actually only battle swordsmen with an axe was useless, so he left to train on his own, resigned. At the training grounds, he ran into Mist.
"You look worried," she said. "What's wrong?"
Oscar explained the events that transpired.
"Honestly, doesn't he know basics?" the cleric sighed. Oscar quietly thought to himself that it wasn't the fact that he didn't know (he did) but the fact that he simply didn't care. "How do you stand him?"
"He's an axeman," the knight said flippantly. "I'm used to it."
Sometimes, it looked like Kieran was insisting on dying. He called it his training.
Every morning, the Crimean knight would find a patch of trees near the edge of their camp and start hacking away at them. Bruises, scrapes, nothing stopped him – at least, nothing until he nearly fell unconscious. It actually did happen once; it was good that Rhys had been nearby.
Today was no different.
Oscar sighed. He thought Kieran would have at least gotten himself a recovery scroll or a healer on standby…
But as Kieran's 'eternal rival', he figured that he should at least help him out a little. And so, he found his fellow knight hacking away and waited for him to stop.
After what seemed to be about five minutes, Kieran finally noticed him.
"Wha – ha, I caught you! Nothing gets past the great Kieran!" the red-clad knight declared, pointing his axe at Oscar accusingly.
"… and I suppose that you were so absorbed in your workout that you didn't notice me five minutes ago?" Oscar deadpanned.
It took a moment for his statement to get processed.
"But of course! A focused knight is a living one!" was the energetic reply.
Oscar resisted the urge to tell Kieran that if that were the case right now, he would be dead. "R-right. Anyways, you really should get checked. What happened to your head?"
"'Tis but a scratch!" It was clearly not.
The green-haired knight tried for another few minutes in a futile effort before heading out to find Rhys.
"Kieran?" the priest immediately asked. Oscar nodded. The issue had been broached enough times for one look to tell the other what happened. Oscar led the healer to the axe knight, who looked a little wobbly on his legs, and eventually got him to sit down and take some treatment. After Kieran had fallen asleep, Rhys sat down under a tree, obviously a little exhausted himself.
"It's good that you're here," he said to Oscar, "or he'd kill himself. How do you keep up with him?"
"He's an axeman," was Oscar's reply. "I'm used to it."
- omake
Oscar's world was falling apart.
"… an axeman like you cannot possibly exist!" he screamed, pointing at Haar. "Axemen are supposed to be brash and arrogant, not sleepy all of the time! You should be jumping up and challenging me right now or something!" The lance knight continued to frantically point a shaking finger at the wyvern lord, who only blinked.
"What is it?" Haar said. "If it's nothing important, I'd like to back to sleep."
Certainly, something was wrong here. This… shouldn't be happening! It couldn't be happening!
The narrow-eyed man went into the camp kitchen in an attempt to drown out his disbelief. Maybe Mist will tell him he's just hallucinating…
Just a quick idea I had. Part of my Oscar alphabet crusade. I notice with increasing apprehensiveness that my stories are getting shorter and shorter… okay, I'll try to make the next one four pages in my notebook!
Yeah, I know. The omake is pretty long compared to the story itself…
-EmbeRin