Hey, it's me, MSP ~! I did start writing a fanfiction, but I lost a lot of inspiration after getting no reviews... sad face~ :c But I decided to write a one-shot to make up for it. I decided to put the relationship between Ike and Marth on a happier note, so I wrote this. So... WALAH! A beautiful fanfiction for you all. Enjoy the eye candy!

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Major spoilers for Fire Emblem, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FIRE EMBLEM! If you do not know what happens, I would suggest turning back. Uh... go eat some cookies. DO SOMETHING!

~IKE'S DORM~

9:45PM

Marth woke up with a start, a chilling feeling within his body. His eyes were bloodshot and full of exhaustion. He managed to take a look around himself, and saw that he was lying on the couch in... Not his dorm, but somebody else's dorm. It totally didn't feel like his dorm. But how could he have possibly ended up here?

Still feeling drowsy, he checked the time on the digital clock he noticed sitting right behind him. It was 9:45PM. It was the midst of December, so it was already completely dark outside - at least, it was almost pitch-black inside the room with the lights switched off and the blinds shut. Then again, it felt so weird being in this tired-as-hell situation, almost like a hangover. Funny enough, he wasn't even drinking; he just barely remembered falling asleep just a few moments earlier. Yeah, that could've been the cause. He found that his legs were a little cramped where he was lying, so he sat up a little to take a closer look at the room. He could barely see a thing, but he could definitely make out a few bits and pieces of furniture in the room. But then...

"You alright?"

There was a familiar voice. A voice coming from right beside Marth - only then did he notice a figure staring at him suspiciously. Marth could hardly see his face in the darkness. But then, all of a sudden, a light came on, causing his eyes to feel as if they were burning due to the sudden brightness. When he could finally see, he looked around, and got a better view of the figure that was sitting right there, beside him.

It was Ike.

Of course, Marth had been in his dorm before, it was all cool, but this time... this time it was slightly different. How could he have ended up in Ike's dorm? His curiosity got the better of him, so he went into asking a few questions.

"Ike, what am I doing in here?"

Then Ike replied, "You were fast asleep in the garden. Your face was stained. I thought I'd bring you in here and spend some time with you."

"In the garden? Stained?" Marth asked himself. He felt at his face, sensing that it had tear-stains, and he remembered that he had just awoken from a long period of crying. Then, Ike decided to ask him, "Were you crying?"

"N-no..." Marth stuttered, tears pricking his eyelids again. He didn't want to tell him the shocking truth.

~THE TRUTH~

5:47PM

"Your sister died, and she hated you while she died! Hah! Stuff that in your face!"

Ganondorf continued to make fun of Marth, after Marth had been heard mumbling to himself, for his dead sister. It was Ganondorf's usual shenanigans to make people feel bad, but every time somebody talked about Marth's long-gone sister Elice, he would grow sad or even cry. "She hated me?" Marth replied, almost a wince, his head hanging down.

Years ago, Elice had sacrificed her life to save her brother. Marth was still trying to get past the fact that the past cannot be changed, but hearing any talk of the subject decreased the chances of him getting over his loving sister's death. Ganondorf stared down at his head, his eyes focused on the head-dress that his sister was rumoured to have given to him before she died, apparently, 'for good luck'. He wrenched the tiara from his head, and held it high up in the air. Marth bounced around trying to grab it from his hand, yelling at him to give it back.

"Sorry, no can do!" Ganondorf teased, turning to the open window and throwing the tiara out into the garden out the back.

"Elice!" Marth shouted, with tears in his eyes, running out to retrieve his fallen tiara.

"Just you remember that everyone hates you!" Ganondorf yelled from behind him.

Running down the corridor and to the ground floor, Marth whispered to himself, "Don't you fret, Marth... Your sister will never stop loving you... She loves you very much... She'll always be with you, dead or not..."

He eventually got straight down to the garden. Luckily, his tiara had made a safe landing in the grass and dirt. Marth ran over to the grassy area, dropping to his knees and picking up the beautiful, shiny, golden, bejewelled head-dress. Tears came to his eyes again as he stared at his tiara. Memories came to his mind as he held the golden piece.

All the times that he had spent with Elice, which could have been made more worthwhile. How they could have argued less. Her childhood. Her sacrifice. Her funeral. How much more she had to live for.

Tears streamed down the young prince's face, as he broke down into uncontrollable sobs, falling to his hands and knees as he cried for his lost sister. The memories were just too much for him, like images coming in and out of his mind rapidly, and he couldn't take any of it. Somehow, the feeling of dirt on his palms and his knees was comforting, but his flowing tears weren't comfortable in a way he couldn't figure out. He continued to cry, until all of his tears were away from his eyes, and until he was so tired that he could just go into the black.

That was all he could remember before he fell into darkness, too tired even to keep support on all fours.

~IKE'S DORM~

9:51PM

"You can't just lie to me with a simple 'no'," Ike said sternly. But when he saw the look of intense, overpowering grief on his friend's face, he gently whispered, "You can tell me anything. I know something's up. Just please, tell me what's wrong."

The prince looked at the teenage mercenary for a while, and whimpered, "My big sister..."

"Elice?"

"Yes. That's the one..."

Marth climbed into Ike's lap, as he would have done with Elice in his youth when he got scared or sad. "I-I just need somebody to comfort me, and that's all..."

"Is there anything else troubling you?"

"Well, um..." Marth hesitated for a moment. "Today, I bumped into Ganondorf, and he sort of got angry at me, and started to tell me how much my sister apparently hated me, and he even threw my tiara out the window. The one that she gave to me, you know? Well, I did get it back, but... but... I remembered..."

Marth went into a bit of hesitation, before growing even sadder, hugging Ike vigorously and beginning to cry uncontrollably. Ike knew immediately then what he was on about, so he didn't bother to hush him. He just stroked his head, hugging him and letting him cry into his shirt.

"It's okay... Don't worry, Marth... It's okay..."

Marth, remembering too much of his sad memories from the past, continued to cry despite the compassion Ike brought him. Marth didn't know what to do, he never did, and he wouldn't get anywhere in life now that he had very little family left, if at all. He would be looked down upon as somewhat of an insect; teased and bullied. Of course, he had friends at Smash Mansion, and he got along especially well with Ike, Link, Pit and Roy, and some other people too, but he cared about his family as well. And there was nothing he feared more than losing his friends because of his awful past. At the thought of it, more tears began to pour from his bloodshot eyes, as Ike held him closer.

Ike had experienced familial loss just like Marth, and he had almost forgotten about it trying to keep it a secret from his new-found friends at Smash Mansion, but as more of Marth's tears stained his shirt, it began to trigger memories in his head, too. When he was very young, his mother had died. He missed his compassionate mother more than anything, but she was long gone. His father had helped him through life, made him the strong man he was today, but there came a day when he was mortally wounded by the Black Knight, so now he was dead, leaving him to take over as leader of the Greil Mercenaries. All Ike had at the time was his sister, his beloved sister Mist. For his entire life he couldn't cry, he was afraid to do so. But his life was a black abyss of stress, death and mourning. He couldn't hold it in any longer, he just couldn't.

Tears began to stream down Ike's face for the first time in many years as memories were triggered of his dark past. He gave quiet, croaked sobs as he cried for what he had lost in his life. But he felt secretly happy to finally have a chance to cry for all he had lost in his life. After a few minutes or so, Marth had calmed down a little, and Ike's tears had dried too. Ike wondered if he could help Marth in any way, if there was any way he could make Marth's life better after all he had lost, while piecing back together his own life too. Marth pulled away a little, looked at Ike's slightly damp face, and knew just what had happened.

"Ike, are you okay?" Marth asked in a whisper.

Ike slightly turned his head away and replied, a little embarrassed, "Yeah, I'm okay."

But at the same time, he didn't want to hold back the truth. Marth told his story, and it was time for Ike to tell his story.

"I have had similar experiences," Ike began. "My mother and father, they're both dead. My mother was killed when I was a child, and my father was killed by the Black Knight. They were good people, but they're gone, never to return again... Never to return again..."

But then an idea popped into his head.

"I know! How about we act as a family ourselves? I'll be your strong big brother, and protect you when you're in trouble. We'll never have to remember our traumatic experiences again; it'll be a secret between us. We'll be a family. How does that sound?"

Marth couldn't help but feel slightly happier when Ike said this. He was finally getting support, all because he finally told what had happened in his life. Keeping it bottled was a bad idea. Telling a close friend about it was the best thing he had ever done. And somehow, he could see a little bit of Elice in Ike, and that's what he liked about him. He just had to accept the offer.

"Okay. That's a good idea..." Marth replied, smiling, before falling into a deep slumber.

Ike decided to carry Marth back into his dorm, and put him into bed while he slept. Once he had done so, he decided to kick-start the new, unique relationship between them.

"Good night, little brother," Ike whispered, kissing Marth's forehead.

Ike walked back into his dorm, happy to have finally shed tears, told his past, and grown the relationship between him and his best friend to a new level. He would start this new relationship by letting Marth speak about any issues he may have, and he would talk to Marth about his own problems, and they would comfort each other. But what made him happy was that Ike had added another member to his family. They would be brothers, best friends forever. But of course, that could wait. First, he had a lesson to teach Ganondorf about that bad attitude of his.

Ooooooh, le cliffhanger~! :o So anyway, I am super-duper sorry if this is a bit OOC, I'm only a bit through Shadow Dragon, and I've never played Path of Radiance, I only know the stories of the characters through other fanfictions. So, I was planning on putting Philomena in a story, but I'm not feeling ready to accept requests just yet. For now, I'll come up with stories on my own. So yeah. Bye, until my next story~!