Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Warning: Contains implied adult situations, including alcohol use, drug use, name-calling, marriage, children, and political backstabbing. Also contains spoilers for New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow, aka Fire Emblem 12. Will also contain at least one very non-canon pairing as things progress. This one gets very weird, very fast, so hold on tight!
Prologue
608, Month of the Fishes
"Here you are, Miss Lena."
Rickard placed the cup of warm mead in her hands, and Lena fancied she saw flickers of red light in the steam that curled up from the liquid. She closed her eyes briefly, yet when she opened them there still seemed to be a curious distortion in her vision- a haze around each figure, strange colors around each candle flame.
"Thank you, Rickard."
He aimed his insouciant smile at her, then placed a hand to the back of his head and laughed, just the way she remembered him. She looked past him, at the swirling crowd of people that filled the royal halls of Macedon with so much noise and color. A fair and pale man in the garb of the old Sable Order stood conversing with one of Hardin's Wolfsguard. A rough-hewn man from Talys clinked his cup against that of an elegant mage from Khadein, sharing in a toast to their great victory. Roger, the homely knight from her own motherland of Grust, was chatting with her apprentice Melissa, whom Lena had not seen in long years. Had it been five years now... or seven?
Surely this was just another dream, some illusion conjured up in desperation to shield her mind from the never-ending nightmares. All these people, faces from all the mad and disconnected events of her life, improbably alive and joined together in celebration in the very place where she might have walked as a queen.
Her eyes went, as though of their own accord, to the figure who reigned over a small gathering in the center of the hall. Red eyes looked back at her with a keen and unrelenting gaze. Michalis, King of Macedon, raised his gilded cup in her direction.
Of course this is a dream. Michalis is dead, dead for three years now. None of this can possibly be real.
Small warm fingers clasped around her arm, and Lena looked down to see the upturned face of her former apprentice.
Not real. She looks no more than ten, even now, and she'd now be sixteen...
And yet Lena addressed the apparition as though this were perfectly normal.
"Are you enjoying yourself, Melissa?"
"Maybe. I think Sir Roger likes me," Melissa confessed, her small nose wrinkled up as an indication of how she felt about poor silly Roger.
"Sir Roger likes to be friendly. I'm sure he means you no harm." A wave of affection, of the desire to hold and protect, welled in her heart toward the tiny girl with the fluffy pale hair and sweet face who stood at her shoulder.
"He'd better not. Melissa knows fire magic and thunder magic now, and she will zap anyone who tries anything bad."
And Lena laughed, even as she marveled at her own mind's strangeness in afflicting this living memory of Melissa with the speech quirks of a small child.
"Melissa, do come see me tonight. We have so much to catch up on, you and I."
"I'd like that, Miss Lena," the girl replied, and her hand slipped into Lena's own for a moment.
Lena let out her breath in a long exhalation, hoping that would somehow ease the tight feelings around her heart. The mead was cooling quickly, and though drinking it made her feel a little more relaxed, it seemed to heighten the odd colors that plagued her vision. Melissa seemed to have a shimmering pale light around her, a reflection of her innocent heart.
"Are you okay, Lena?"
The sound of that voice in her ear was a balm to her soul.
"Yes, Julian. Thank you." She turned to face him, and though she could see the colors around him as well, she resolved to ignore them.
"Let's dance," he said, and she let him carry her as the wind carries a leaf.
-x-
Melissa came as promised to Lena's room that evening and they shared the kind of talk they once had back home in Grust when Lena was Melissa's teacher. Not quite the same, of course, not with five-six-seven years between that moment and the present, and the experience alternately was sweet and bitter for Lena. How many years had been lost, scoured by war and pain and sorrows? Lena wanted dearly to believe that she was truly having this heart-to-heart with her apprentice- talk of boys and love and magic and of the world ahead of them- yet the strangeness of it all haunted her. Was she truly here, in the palace of Michalis, or was she still in the depths of the Dragon's Altar, dreaming imaginary conversations with some symbol of her own lost innocence?
"It's so nice to see you again, Teacher. I'm glad I got to show you how much I've learned."
"It's good to see you, too, Melissa." She placed a kiss upon the crown of Melissa's head. "I've regretted that I had to leave you before we finished your studies, but I had no choice then. I promise we'll finish now, if you like. You can stay with me here and I'll teach you everything."
Melissa had her finger in her mouth- that bad habit of hers that bitter aloes hadn't cured. Then she threw her arms around Lena in a crushing hug.
"Miss Lena is always so good to Melissa."
-x-
The next morning, Melissa was not in her room. Lena hurried down the hall, Julian on her heels, and found exactly what the maid had described- no signs of a struggle, but Melissa and most of her belongings nowhere in evidence. Lena's eyes fell upon something the maid had omitted, a sealed envelope on the little vanity table.
"That can't be a ransom note," said Julian.
"If someone took Melissa, they'd pay us to take her back," Rickard volunteered from the doorway.
Lena took the envelope from the table; it was addressed in Melissa's own handwriting beyond a doubt. Lena knew the girl's hand on sight, as she'd been the one to school Melissa in mastery of script.
"Lord Marth," it read in violet-colored ink.
"Rickard, would you please let Lord Marth know I need to speak with him?"
In terms of strict protocol, Lena should have alerted Michalis or one of the Macedonian princesses, but it seemed more appropriate to let the Prince of Altea know about Melissa's disappearance first, as Melissa had technically been traveling under his protection. Besides, after their conversation last night, Lena had some inkling of what this letter might be about.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, my lord, but Melissa appears to have gone off without our knowledge. She left this."
It might have been the angle of the morning sun, but there seemed to be a very bright light around the Altean prince, enough that Lena had trouble looking directly at him. She focused on his eyes, which were quite wide, intensely blue, and deeply shocked at that particular moment.
He took the envelope from her hand and stared at Melissa's writing for a moment before opening it. Lena did notice that the prince's hands were steady. But he was accustomed to battling dragons... a little note from a little girl wouldn't shake his nerves any.
"It says that she's gone back home to her grandmother. She thanks us all very much for our kindness and asks us not to worry." He appeared to be reading from the letter, paraphrasing it, and yet Marth looked away from the paper before he could have truly finished it. Something in his voice, in the timing of the words, bothered Lena. The prince was lying to her- she could almost swear that she'd seen the lie, as though there'd been some shadow pass across him in that moment.
Marth folded the letter neatly but kept it tight within his hand.
"Of course we should search for her, as she can't have gone far, but it wouldn't be right to alarm too many people with the news. Michalis wouldn't appreciate that kind of... disturbance."
"No, of course not," Lena murmured. She looked down at the floor, at the red and white patterns in the mosaic tile.
"Let's have Julian and Rickard search the palace, in case she's hiding, and I'll have a few of my knights look around and near the city. Even if Melissa managed to borrow a horse, she can't be far off... it's only been a few hours."
"Yes, Lord Marth." His words were assured enough, but something in his voice undercut it. Lena continued to look at the floor.
The light made her eyes tired.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note: So, Lena is experiencing visual disturbances as a result of the spiritual damage she sustain thanks to Gharnef. What precisely is she seeing? Stay tuned!