Gangrel, the Mad King who robbed Ylisse of its ruler and Chrom of his sister, is finally slain, and the war with Plegia can finally end. There will be time for reparations and reconciliation later - right now, all the Shepherds want to do is celebrate.
Vaike and Lon'qu are drinking, but the dour swordsman can't hope to compete with the brash axe fighter, not when his fiancé Lissa is sitting there, her little pouting face whenever he chugs down more ale making him smile sheepishly and slide it away.
Donnel's regaling his friends with stories of his life on the farm. "…an' then, the pig slid twenty feet in th' mud, bowled him head over heels, then went and done shat on his head!" He finishes his tale with a guffaw, and the group gathered around him has cracked up too. Sully laughs the loudest before diving into an equally sordid tale about a courtesan and one of her squires.
Gregor has associated himself with Basilio of all people, likely old fighters swapping stories of life on the road. His 'companion' ("Gregor does not think of Nowi as wife. People see Gregor and little girl who is wife, they throw many sharp things at handsome baby face, yes?" I remember him explaining) Nowi is equally enthralled in her conversation with Flavia; the thousand-year old dragon-kin was probably there when Regna Ferox was founded, but she shows remarkable deference towards its current leading ruler.
Tharja's watching me from the corner, the sorceress pretending to remain engaged in conversation with Gaius, but he's determined to grab her attention. The thief even starts throwing pieces of his precious candy at her, and she merely pokes at his lips, sealing his mouth shut with some sort of hex. I wince; I really wish she wasn't so obsessed with me, especially when Gaius ended up being the fall-guy for it.
My mind is on relationships tonight for good reason, though; I have an engagement ring in my pocket and I know exactly who I was going to give it too, until earlier today. If it wasn't for those damnable javelins, this would never have happened.
Chrom, my prince and lord liege, and Sumia, my love, my maiden of flowers. Fate is cruel to place him between me and her, but what am I to do? I could never love another; but I'm just the army's tactician - skilled, certainly, and a friend of the prince, but his word is law and the woman he wants is the woman he gets.
The woman that wants him, on the other hand, is left out to dry. Cordelia, the perfectionist. A fellow pegasus knight, like Sumia, but not filled with self-doubt and the breathless ideals of the novels; she's hardened, realistic and down-to-earth, save for the eternal torch she bears for Chrom. She really is an amazing woman, but she could never love another.
I get up and walk over to the redheaded knight left out in the cold, even in the warmth of the Plegian night. "Cordelia?" I ask, and she turns, a sad, wistful smile on her face. I finger the ring in my pocket. "I was thinking, recently…"
0o0o0
"So, milady, I noticed a new addition to the royal stables," I ask, carefully hiding the longing in my voice as I address the soon-to-be queen of Ylisse. The dining room is palatial, unsurprisingly given it's in the royal palace, but small enough to feel appropriate for the six of us to sit.
Chrom, future Exalt of Ylisse, pokes listlessly at the sausages in front of him with one of his many forks. His usually brilliant cobalt hair seems duller than normal, and I could swear the Brand of the Exalt on his shoulder, proof of his noble lineage, isn't as clear and distinct as it used to be. Something is ailing him, but I hold my tongue, for that would merely invite the same question in return.
Sumia, his betrothed, smiles back at me after I ask my question, either unaware of the joyful pain her smile brings to me or sadistically enjoying it - probably the former. She's radiant as ever, looking just as beautiful in noble dress as she does in the armour of a pegasus knight. I notice she's kept the little hair pin she wore in the Shepherds, holding her long brown hair up. "Oh, yes!" she says cheerfully, another twist of the knife in my heart. "It's a black pegasus! They're extremely rare. I've heard they respond well to magic users, unlike regular pegasi."
"Yes, captain Phila always told me never to cast spells while riding a pegasus," Cordelia says. "Only healing magic is safe, and even then actually casting it is another matter. She could do it flawlessly, of course, but none of the rest of us could." My fiancée smiles sadly at the memory of her deceased captain, and her face, as pretty as it is, is shrouded in the same melancholy I can never seem to lift. Chrom's immediately brought to attention when she speaks, and I supress the urge to yell at him, "Why didn't you choose her in the first place!?"
My thoughts are interrupted by a series of giggles like ringing bells coming from further down the table, where Lissa and her husband Lon'qu are enjoying themselves thoroughly. It's amazing how her presence changes him - Lon'qu was barely able to look at a woman, let alone speak to one, and yet now he's nearly guffawing in laughter at whatever zany antics the princess is up to. They're happy, more than we'll ever be.
I realise with a start that all four of us are silently watching the happy couple now. There's a clash of emotions on Chrom's face, joy at his sister's happiness and a certain longing mixing uneasily on his features. Cordelia is much the same, though she half-heartedly tries to hide it when she notices I notices. Sumia is simply beaming in happiness, whether it's obliviousness to our predicament or merely a façade.
"Did you want to come see him?" the queen-to-be asks me, referring to the black pegasus, and I nod in return.
"I'd like that. Hmm, I wonder if black pegasi react differently to male and female mages…" I drift off in thought slightly, trying to recall a treatise I swore I read on the topic, before Cordelia nudges me back into the present.
"Go on," she says, the same small sad smile on her face again, and she resumes picking at her meal, sighing almost inaudibly.
"Cordelia?" Chrom asks, and her transformation is miraculous, going from wistful and content to elated and joyous in an instant. "I've been thinking recently about the great heroes of history, and I noticed many of them wielded lances. I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me learn."
She almost yells "Yes!" in response, but first she glances to me, and I nod. "Go on," I echo ironically, and the four of us smirk a little, before splitting off into pairs. Prince and pegasus knight, queen and tactician, we all go our separate ways.
0o0o0
The latest addition to the royal bestiary is an impressive specimen, sixteen hands high at the shoulder and a fearsome-looking beast. His coat's as black as charcoal and his eyes gleam with a fiercely controlled energy. I certainly wouldn't want to be staring him down when he swooped down on me across the battlefield.
Sumia swooping down across the battlefield, rescuing Chrom in the nick of time from a hail of javelins, the moment I realised she was the one for me.
Cordelia appearing like a vision to our rear, warning of the incoming Plegians, red-tipped lance matching red-tipped head as she strikes again and again and again in the name of her fallen comrades.
"It almost seems a shame to geld such a magnificent mount," I idly comment, aware of how dangerous an unchecked stallion would be on the battlefield. "Imagine the pegasi he'd sire!" I raise a hand to stroke his neck, and surprisingly, he doesn't recoil in shock and fear like a regular pegasus would. He's uncomfortable under my touch, and I don't linger, but he lets me make contact.
Our gloves meeting as we exchange books, nothing touching but the warmth of our hands, and yet we're both burning like furnaces afterwards.
Cordelia's face going bright red after her musical performance on Chrom's birthday, the prince's comradely hug making her feel like she could fly without her mount.
She sighs, but it's a sigh of acceptance, not of longing. "Black pegasi are sterile," she explains, combing his mane with an expensive-looking brush. "They're born, at least according to the legends, when a pregnant pegasus drinks from a mystical spring and a special ritual is performed. You can't breed them intentionally."
"Oh." Yet another fascinating fact for me to devour in my endless pursuit of knowledge, I snark to myself. Speaking of pursuing knowledge, I completely forgot a very important question. "What's his name?"
"Oh, of course, how did that slip my mind? He's called Michalis, after the prince of ancient times." I think back, remembering the young royal who fought both against and with the Hero-King, astride a mighty wyvern with lance in hand.
The book's called Wyvern Wars: Battle at High Noon, and while it's no literary masterpiece, it's as good as she said it was. Better, even, since she was the one who let me borrow it.
Chrom with lance in hand, awkwardly thrusting it like his far more familiar Falchion, under the watchful gaze of Cordelia as he trains.
"It's a good name, proud and stately," I reply. The corner of one of my books jabs me in the stomach as I fidget, and I recall another thing that had slipped my mind. "Is it alright if I see how he responds to my magic?"
She smiles that infuriatingly beautiful smile again, nodding. "Of course! I'd stand back, though, in case he's jumpy because of your gender."
I smartly retreat a pace or two, drawing my spellbook from my robes. I flick through it, examining page after page of intricate diagrams and symbols, considering which spell to test. I settle for an Elthunder, a moderately powerful incantation but one which shouldn't pose a hazard to the building or its occupants, unlike a fire spell.
Taking aim at a training dummy in the shape of a horse (intended for anti-cavalry troops to train with, though what it was doing in the stables I may never know), I unleashed the spell, the ink on the page burning away to channel my mana into fuelling the attack. A bolt of lightning arcs from my outstretched hand to the mannequin (horsequinn?), and Michalis starts only a little.
She starts a little as I enter her tent, becoming her character for a moment as fantasy and reality collide. By the time I leave, she's become the princess who fell down the stairs, and I can only wish I was a knight in shining armour.
Chrom starts a little as Cordelia takes his hand, guiding him through the stabbing motion he needs, subtly adjusting his posture, just unabashedly making contact with him.
Sumia soothes the bothered stallion with a light brush across the withers, and he settles immediately and smoothly. She turns to me with yet another gods-damned smile, and I involuntarily groan in a mixture of longing, pain and frustration at her naivety. "Why are you always smiling?" I snap. "How can you be so happy when your husb-" I somehow manage to rein myself in before I let the obvious slip.
Her face falls as I silence myself with a hand over my mouth, but she simply pulls it away, our bare skin touching for the very first time. She looks me in the eye with a confidence I didn't know she had, and I'm left speechless. "I know," she says barely above a whisper, hints of tears in her eyes.
"What-" I begin, and she squeezes my hand hard enough to cut me off.
"I may not be a genius like you, but I'm not a fool," she says sincerely. "Chrom tries, he really does, but he's not in love with me. And I know Cordelia doesn't love you the way she loves Chrom. You love her, but not the way you love…me." Her gaze drops, and her sudden resolve seems to weaken.
"And not the way that I love you."
0o0o0
The barracks was empty in the wake of the Mad King's defeat, even the Shepherds taking a well-earned break. Chrom and Cordelia retrieved a pair of training lances from the armoury, idly making small talk all the while.
"-Stahl's become so convinced he's average, I swear he's going out of his way to make it so," Cordelia rambled. "Yesterday I caught him calculating how many sweets all the Shepherds eat so he could work out the average - I told him to cut out the top and bottom ten percent or he'd kill himself trying to keep up with Gaius."
Chrom sniggered, honest-to-gods sniggered at the thought. "I never thought of Stahl as a mathematician; I suppose I've only really considered his combat prowess, rather than who he is as a person."
"He's certainly not an average musician, at any rate; I've been playing the harp alongside him recently, and he's astounding me at how fast and well he's learning."
Reaching the usual training grounds, the pair took up positions, before Cordelia immediately frowned and shook her head. "No, that won't do at all, Chrom."
"Hmm?" The prince replied, confused. His grip certainly felt natural, and when he moved the lance around, it flowed well enough. "What's wrong?"
"You're wielding a lance the way you think people wield them," she explained. "That grip probably feels fine, but it's flimsy as" here she effortlessly knocked the lance out of his hands with her own "the Exalt's smallclothes." Pausing, she realised exactly what that idiom implied, given Emmeryn's unfortunate demise and exactly who inherited that position.
Chrom merely goggled, partly at the lance now lying several feet away, partly at the mental image her comment had produced. "Anyway!" he said, completely disregarding Cordelia's last statement as he retrieved his weapon, "how about you show me how to wield a lance properly?"
Walking over to stand side-by-side with the new Exalt, Cordelia demonstrated how she held her lance. "If I remember what you said, your sword technique is based on Feroxi axe fighting, which is the polar opposite of how I've learned to use a lance."
Chrom nodded in response, trying to match the pegasus knight's grip. "Yes. Since Falchion is indestructible, I can afford to use as much force as I can manage in my blows. I suppose I'm going to have to change that."
"Depending on the lance, you can still rely a lot on raw strength. Your body type would probably be best suited for a heavy lance, like a foot knight's. You need to spread your feet quite wide to lower your centre of gravity, especially in heavy armour." She withheld a comment on how broad his shoulders were and how all that tight, powerful muscle would make his centre of gravity higher, but she felt her face heat up regardless.
"I see. What about if I was mounted?" Chrom asked, making a mental note to first find Kellam (no easy feat) then talk to him about using a lance on foot. "I think your experience as a pegasus knight would be more relevant on horseback than on foot."
Cordelia nodded, somewhat relieved that she could switch to an area of her expertise. "Yes, that's quite different, and also different from using a sword while mounted. Here…" She took his hand in hers, patently ignoring the blush on her cheeks, and shifted his grip farther back on the shaft. "Since you have the height advantage and generally some momentum behind you, you need a strong grip, but it can afford to be further back and less precise than when you're on foot."
This continued for a few minutes, and Cordelia grew steadily less and less embarrassed by the physical contact with Chrom. Eventually, though, he spoke up again.
"Cordelia." Her captain wasn't questioning her now. This was him commanding attention, and she gave it fully and eagerly. His eyes, so recently dull and placid, now burned with energy and zeal as she met his gaze. "What do you know of the Magvellian sagas?"
She paused, recalling dimly-remembered conversations with her fiancé, his passion for the ancient legends not impacting her the same way. "The twin prince and princess, and the demon king, you mean?" she finally responded, recalling the gist of the stories.
He nodded, and he looked down to the Brand on his shoulder, that potent reminder of his lineage. "Most of the stories tell of the princess and her deep, abiding love to the knight that was her saviour. Whenever I see Lissa and Lon'qu, and I remember him saving her from those bandits, those tales remind me of how history so often repeats itself."
"But there is another story, of the princess' brother, the prince Ephraim, and the woman he loved."
"Tana…" Cordelia gently answered. She knew all the great pegasus knights of history, myth and legend, and how they had won the hearts and mind of friends, enemies and their lovers. Caeda and Hero-King Marth. Florina and Marquess Hector. In an odd twist, the queen Elincia and the mercenary Ike. Prince Ephraim and Princess Tana.
"Ephraim married Tana after the war against the demon king ended, and the bards tell tales of the happy life they led together."
Meeting her eyes again, Chrom's small, sad smile made her chest burn in painful joy. "Cordelia, I have wronged you, and I want to make it right. I was hasty, after the war, and I made a poor decision in my haste; I chose to please the people rather than myself or my friends."
He took her other hand in his, and with them clasped together in front of their chests, he spoke with total and utter conviction. "Sumia knows our true feelings, both of us; she loves another, just as we do. I love you, Cordelia, and I always have. Be the sword at my side, and I shall be the wind beneath your wings."
0o0o0
A/N: Thanks for reading this! Please, leave a review.
To cut a long story short, as much as Cordelia is my complete and utter waifu, I'm very disappointed that the game dooms Chrom and Cordelia to never be together. It completely spits in the face of the game's message of "you can change destiny" and "we make our own future". Plus, Severa as Chrom's daughter would be A: hilarious ("I am the princess of tsundere!") and B: absurdly strong (Sorcerer with access to Armsthrift, Galeforce and Aether? Yes please). So I started writing this story to resolve the problem and explore the impact such a relationship dynamic would have on the game. (Don't worry, game mechanics aren't going to play a major role in this story, I just wanted to mention it.)
I'm at least a little inspired by 'Asleep' taking a similar stance on "screw destiny, let Chrom and Cordelia have little blue-haired babies forever", as well as 'Potentia Amoris' (I think? Might be another story) for the "Avatar loves Sumia, then Chrom marries her" cliché. Fire Emblem itself belongs to IntSys and Nintendo.
The Avatar's appearance and name aren't mentioned because I didn't want to put a description at the top or try and shoehorn it into the text (I hate "his hair is x and his shirt is y and he is wearing shorts" in stories). For the record, his name's Charlie, and he's 1-4-5-1. Future chapters will refer to him by name, and we might even get better character descriptions if I stop being terrible at writing.
At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the first taste of this tale, and I'd love it if you came back for more eventually!
Ungulateman