Another attempt at my storytelling, I'll get this eventually.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem, characters and locations belong to Nintendo and IS.

"Ricken, how could you not think something like this through?!" Ricken was currently in the middle of the Plegian forces, attempting to get Maribelle down to the rest of the Shepherds after rescuing the troubadour, though hadn't counted on the enemy surrounding them so quickly.

"Sorry, I thought we'd just have a straight path to Chrom and everyone else! It's no problem; I'll just fight through the guys blocking the base of the slope." He replied, not realizing until looking past the screaming blonde to see he'd die in about two hits from any of the soldiers approaching them.

Ricken sighed and wondered just how he got himself into this situation.

Yesterday evening…

Chrom and the rest of the Shepherds were heading out to meet with Gangrel and try to rescue Maribelle, before being stopped by Ricken.

"Captain! I'm all packed! When do we leave?!"

"Ricken? How did you… Go back inside, you're not old enough for this mission."

Absolutely baffled, Ricken just stared at Chrom as he wondered if he was serious about that claim. Being around the same age as Lissa and assuming that Robin was hardly any older than he was, the statement made absolutely no sense to him and he was quick to protest. "But, captain! You know my skill with magic! You know I can handle myself!"

"I'd be safer with your magic here, protecting the garrison. All right? We're off then. Be good."

Ricken watched as Chrom left with the others, ready to scream after Chrom's last comment. " 'Be good'? Gods, how old does he think I am? Well, I'll show him just how good I can be!" with that said, Ricken took off and went on a different path than the Shepherds were taking, planning to rescue Maribelle and prove his worth to Chrom at last.

Present

Trying to ignore how screwed he was if they stayed up any longer, Ricken began casting Elwind like mad, hoping to take out as many Plegian soldiers as he could with blind fury. When he finally stopped, the young mage was shocked to discover that all he did was knock over a myrmidon and mess up Maribelle's hair. While the other spells did scatter the enemy, none of them were seriously wounded. As he was readying to fire another Elwin, he stopped and thought of a better plan, one that gave both him and Maribelle a higher chance of living. He looked down at the other Shepherds, noticing that Robin already made short work of the barbarian standing at the top of the path leading to the others. Without thinking of what she'd do to him afterwards, Ricken slapped the hind end of Maribelle's horse, causing it to charge straight at their tactician with its rider shouting some rather profound things at him. He then turned and ran as fast as he could from the Plegian soldiers charging at him, jumping right off the edge and barely landed on Sumia's ascending Pegasus. Now that he had a moment to breath, he looked over to see that Maribelle had calmed her horse down enough to bring herself behind a startled Robin and pair herself with Chrom. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked over to Sumia, who was still shocked that he was able to save Maribelle and not die from the stunt he just pulled.

"Th-that… that was amazing!" Sumia yelled to Ricken as she continued to make her way toward the enemy forces. She helped Ricken get properly seated on her mount, and then considered something about what he'd just done. "Well, not trying to put you down, but I was heading up to support you anyway, so that jump was a little unnecessary. B-but it was still all so brave of you!"

The two were back at Ricken's previous position, this time with the strength needed to take on the enemy. Ricken looked back to the others, fear welling up inside him as he considered what both Maribelle would do to him after the battle. He pushed that thought aside and decided to just focus on the battle. Since Sumia was already taking care of everything that charged at them, all he really had to do was cast an occasional Elwind and try to stay out of the way. It went like that until the wyvern riders started attacking them, most decided to head straight for Sumia solely for the weapon triangle advantage. She glanced over at Ricken and nodded, telling him immediately what she was implying. The mage stepped forward, effectively making him the leader of their pair and turned his hat around (basically just making the tip point forward instead of behind him) and began casting Elwind. It made direct contact with the first rider, nearly taking him out right then and there, but he hung on just long enough to meet the end of Sumia's lance. The next rider tried dodging the spell, only to realize that wind magic was horribly accurate and just ended up taking the hit anyway. Having no time to attack the last approaching rider, Ricken just settled for trying to keep his distance. He was just barely able to jump out of the way of an axe swung at him, then countered with another Elwind that did considerable damage to the rider, leaving Sumia to finish him off.

"Wow, we do pretty well together, shame we can't support," Ricken remarked, realizing all they accomplished in that time. Sumia nodded, and the two continued the battle. Looking behind them, Ricken finally realized that everyone else was still running after them. He nudged Sumia, and she turned around to see exactly that, and looked nervously over to the rest of the team. She started heading back over, but noticed a second later they were being pursued by the commander of the now mutilated force, a rather ugly looking wyvern rider that none of the Shepherds remembered the name of.

"Oh c'mon, why are we the first ones he's after?" Sumia just continued down to everyone else and finally managed to slip behind Chrom and Maribelle, luring the Plegian commander to an unavoidable death from Falchion. Chrom started to charge at the boss with Sully by his side, but was stopped by Robin, who was worried that fighting alongside Sully for too long would prevent the army from setting up the "optimal pairings", but everyone else just thought she was getting carried away with who she thought was a cute couple. With the opposing force dealt with, Sumia and Ricken finally had a chance to breath.

"Hey, hey, hey Chrom! Hey! Hey! Was I good or what? Huh? I proved myself, didn't I? Now can I start going on real missions? May I have your sister's hand in ma-" Chrom just held a hand up in Ricken's face and sighed. While he did disobey his orders, Maribelle would probably be dead without the interference. Trying to shove the last thing he heard out of his head, Chrom finally cracked a smile to their youngest member.

"Alright, I think you can take a step up from trainee now. Though try not to do anything like…whatever that just was."

Ricken's eyes started to gleam and he was just barely able to contain his excitement from finally hearing those words. As he turned to leave and rub it into all the kids back home that he got Chrom's respect, he noticed Maribelle giving him a rather nasty glare.

"Oh, um… uh, sorry about earlier, but at least we-" Before he could finish, Maribelle clocked him with her Mend staff. She was ready to go on about his treatment of her mount, but just sighed and shook her head. As she made her way over to Lissa, Ricken could hear her mutter a quick "thanks" before taking off. Though still confused after that, Ricken couldn't help but smile as he watched her leave.

"Whoa there, kid. I can't have you getting too close to Maribelle; you need to get hooked with Lissa!" Ricken jumped and turned around to see their tactician glaring above him. He had no idea how to respond, but Robin still stopped him from saying anything about it. "We need Lissa's kid to be the best possible sage, and we need you for that! And besides, I'm still not too sure where I want Mari to fit into my pairing list, but Chrom might be her husband. Although when Olivia shows up, maybe…"

Ricken had gotten up and began running toward the others, absolutely terrified of what Robin was planning for the rest of them.