This first part here is quoted directly from the game. This support conversation between Rhys and Titania is what prompted me to write this story in the first place. I love these two, especially Titania, and I've been meaning to write a Fire Emblem story for a while. I may end up writing more about them and their friendship throughout the game - in which case I guess I would have to change the name - but for now this story stands on its own.
Titania: How are you feeling, Rhys?
Rhys: Good. No fevers or shaking today! Thanks for asking.
Titania: You know, I was just thinking about the first time we met. It was almost a year ago to this very day.
Rhys: Was it really...? Oh, you're right! My, time does fly.
Titania: Of course, I don't remember much of the initial encounter, since I was unconscious and bleeding! Ha! Remember that? I don't know why we didn't bring a healer with us that day... Fighting bandits without a staff? Not smart!
Rhys: It was lucky that I found you. I didn't usually venture that deep into the forest, but I was short on medicinal herbs.
Titania: Yeah, those bandits were a rough lot... Their stomping ground was right near your village, actually. It's all coming back to me now... They were tougher than I'd thought. We took most of them out with ease, but one fled into the woods and I gave chase. Big mistake. My horse got hung up in the undergrowth, and that bandit got the drop on me... At least Shinon hit him before I was killed.
Rhys: Gatrie and Shinon were both really worried when they brought you back to my parents' house.
Titania: Really? I didn't know that. Hmm... I didn't think Shinon ever worried about anyone... But they stayed with me until my wounds were healed, I remember that. You know, if it wasn't for your good work, I wouldn't have been able to use an axe anymore! I really appreciate it.
Rhys: No, I should thank you. You convinced Greil to hire me! And now I can send money back to my parents. They're both so old, and I'm their only source of income.
Titania : Your parents were very kind. Especially your mother... And she made that great wildberry pie! To repay their kindness, I will protect their only son no matter what.
Rhys : Oh, I appreciate that, Titania!
- Titania and Rhys' C Level Support Conversation, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance -
Rhys was on one of his daily walks around the back of the house. As long as he was feeling well enough, he would always try to go outside at least once a day. He was never entirely sure, but he thought the fresh air and the sun on his face was better for his health than sitting around the house all day, though he was generally tempted to skip his walk and do just that.
It was a battle with himself every afternoon, just before he left. He had always been weak, and got sick easily. He never felt very well, and the thought of putting on all his outdoor clothes and walking all the way down to the bank of the river behind their house for his walk – a ten minute walk from their yard – didn't always appeal to him. But he tried to force himself, knowing he would feel better once he was actually outside. When he stayed in he had little to do, except to spend time with his parents, and though he loved them with all his heart, they were very old and he found sitting around with the two of them made him feel old and tired as well. Their company was not a good replacement for that of others his age. What other thirty five-year-old man spent most of his time with his parents and their elderly friends?
He had finally reached the bank of the river, and he shuffled slowly over to the large smooth rock he used as a seat and settled himself down on it to rest for a moment. He closed his eyes and let the wind blow past his neck and through his hair. The sun left a warm glow on his cheeks and made a reddish light shine through his closed eyelids when he faced the light. When he opened his eyes, he saw a flock of birds flying past, disappearing behind a few tall trees. They looked so happy and free.
Smiling, Rhys decided his break was up and stood, picking up the basket he had brought with him to gather some herbs he was getting short on. He started down his usual route, a winding dirt path beaten through the forest's undergrowth, broken up by the large, gnarled roots of the surrounding trees, and coated with layers of leaves from autumns past. But in order to get the herbs he needed, he ended up going much further than usual, closer to the village.
As he was picking through a few plants to get a good grip on the one he wanted, he heard a strange sound. It was a thump, accompanied by a metallic rattle, as though someone had dropped a set of cooking pans onto the leaf-padded ground. He reached a bend in the forest path and saw someone lying on the ground next to a horse that was pawing at the ground, one of its legs caught up with a tangle of undergrowth and lots of branches stuck to its saddle and in its reins as though it made ridden through the thickest part of the nearby trees. The person was a woman with long red hair in a thick braid wearing a full set of armour, with particularly heavy greaves, an extra plate over the hips and thighs, and armoured boots, like a mounted knight would wear. The horse was armoured as well, though more minimally than most knights' mounts. Rhys walked forward cautiously, wondering what had happened to her when she didn't stand back up, and saw a red liquid trail inching slowly down her breastplate, almost matching the loose strands of her red hair, making it easy to overlook.
Rhys rushed over to check on her, concerned about her lack of movement. He peered around the right pauldron where the blood seemed to be coming from and saw a deep trench of torn flesh in the area between the pauldron and breastplate, a very deep cut that looked like it was from an axe being hacked in, and saw a bone had been cracked in half. More blood gushed down her front the instant he moved her in order to see better.
He was considering how to get her back to his cottage when the sound of leaves scraping against something made his head snap up. A heavy-set man with an axe was struggling to get free of the undergrowth. There was blood on his axe.
Rhys froze. He couldn't just leave her when this man had clearly come to finish her off, but he knew he didn't stand a chance against him. The man stumbled for a moment, freed himself from the plants and righted himself, then saw Rhys and the woman on the ground. He raised his axe to chop down at Rhys' head. Rhys was preparing to dodge, praying the woman's armour would protect her when the axe inevitably hit her instead, but suddenly the attacker froze. The axe slipped from his hand to the ground near one of the horse's hooves and the man fell backwards. An arrow had pierced his face near the temple and gone through to protrude from the other side. It was horrible-looking, and Rhys trembled in surprise and shock, watching the blood trickle out both sides of his head and pool around his shoulders, knowing that this dead man had tried to kill him.
Rhys glanced fearfully in the direction from which the arrow had come and found himself staring at another arrow head, a bowstring pulled taut, and a deep scowl on a thin man's face. "Tell me who you are and what you're doing with her or I'll feather you like the last guy."
"I – I'm no one. Nothing to do with this. I just live here. Don't –" Rhys stammered, sounding painfully pathetic even to himself. "I… I was going to heal her. I saw that she was hurt."
"Shinon! Stop… terrorizing the… locals, would you?" gasped another man making his way towards them, running as best he could while covered from head to toe in heavy plate armour.
"I'm not," the first replied. "I was only checking to make sure he wasn't with the bandits." Rhys was eyed up and down. "Judging from his appearance, I doubt it." The man named Shinon lowered his bow and arrow and stared at Rhys. "You said you were going to heal her?"
"Well, I don't have my heal staff with me," Rhys explained. "I'd need to take her home anyway. A heal staff alone won't do it. But I can't lift her." He was rushing his words now, knowing they didn't have much time, as he watched the bloody patch on the shirt she wore under her breastplate slowly blossom out from beneath the armour, travelling lower until most of the side of her shirt was soaked in it. "Help me get her to my place and I'll take care of her. But you have to hurry, it's very serious."
Upon hearing this and seeing the blood that was now streaking down the front of her armour, Shinon put his arrow back in his quiver and slung his bow over his shoulder. "You just had to go and get yourself chopped up, didn't you?" He knelt down next to her and glanced up at his companion, who had finally caught up to them. The other man flipped the visor of his helmet up and stared at her.
"What's wrong with the deputy commander?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter. Help me lift her." Shinon lifted her torso, and the other man had her legs.
"It's over this way," Rhys said, heading in the direction of his parents' home. They managed to get her up onto her horse and led the beast down the path after Rhys. What was normally a twenty minute walk for him he now ran in a fraction of the time. Although he felt that it was too much for him, and worried he wouldn't be able to make it at first, they reached the cottage in no time.
Rhys opened the front door. "Bring her in here." He ran inside past his mother, still out of breath, heading for his room and his staff. Shinon and the other man walked in shortly after him, with the woman slumped between them.
Shinon asked, "Can we just put her on the table?" and stretched her out on their dinner table without waiting for Rhys' mother to respond. Rhys reappeared just in time to see this, staff and medical supplies in hand.
The other man spoke to Rhys' mother now. "We're terribly sorry about all the trouble, but she needs to be seen to right away, you know. That guy invited us in." He looked over at Rhys, who was fumbling awkwardly with the straps of her armour.
His father appeared in one of the doorways, probably because of all the noise here, and took in the two dirty, sweaty men and the woman draped on his table. "Who are these ruffians you've brought in, Rhys? With the trouble we've had with bandits lately…"
"It doesn't matter, does it?" he responded quickly, in a manner rather unlike him but not quite rude. The pauldron came free of the breastplate, and then Shinon was there helping remove the rest of the upper armour, unbuckling the other pauldron for him. As the armour was removed, Rhys saw that blood had been pooling underneath it, and watched in horror as more of it poured down onto the table. The woman's companions looked rather pale. Then Rhys' mother was ushering her husband and the other two men out of the room because Rhys had opened the woman's shirt and pulled it back from the injury, extending from the top of her right shoulder down the front of her chest, almost to the armpit, complete with a collar bone that had been chopped in two. The first thing he did was apply the heal staff to stop the excessive bleeding and to mend the bone together, though it was not a very strong fix for it yet. As he had realized before, that would not be enough on its own to heal an injury this extensive. He sewed everything shut so the muscle would hopefully repair itself properly and bound the shoulder up to protect the stitches. He used the staff again for good measure.
Then his mother came over and told him to let her take care of the rest because he didn't look very good. When he was in his room, he glanced in the mirror to see what she was talking about only to see his hands smeared with blood and his sleeves bloodstained, his face looking paler than it had been in months. He washed himself and changed and had a mind to go check on his patient again, but he was just too tired. When he sat down on the bed to rest his jittery, tired muscles, he ended up falling asleep.
The next morning Rhys walked into the main room of the house, doubling as a living room and dining room, to find his mother setting out breakfast on the table. He stopped and stared at the clean tabletop; he couldn't help but remember the woman lying unconscious on it, the blood that had spilled onto it. It didn't help his appetite, which was never big in the morning. A large man with short blond hair – the unnamed companion from yesterday – was still sleeping, rolled up in some blankets on the floor in the corner due to their lack of beds. Sitting at the table with his back to Rhys was a tall, thin man with long, dark red-brown hair tied into a thin ponytail, wearing baggy green and beige clothes still rather dirty and stained. Rhys walked around the room and sat down at the table opposite Shinon.
The archer was drinking something, probably tea, as Rhys' mother always made some each morning. Shinon's face looked severe, with thin, sharp features in a perpetual scowl no matter the emotion he tried to express. He attempted to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, which looked rather dull, and it seemed awkward, in much the same way Rhys with a sword or his father in a dress would have been awkward: it just didn't look quite right.
"Is she going to be alright?" He seemed as though he was trying to be nonchalant about it, but Rhys could tell he cared more than he would let on.
"Yes. Actually, I should probably check on her again." He turned to his mother. "Is she awake?"
"Not yet. She's sleeping in the spare room last I checked."
"Are you sure she's okay?" Shinon prodded, as though he didn't quite trust Rhys' skill. "I mean, she's been sleeping for forever. Shouldn't she be up by now?"
"Calm down. I'm sure she's fine."
"I am calm. I was just asking." Shinon drained the contents of his cup.
"She needs a lot of rest anyway, so it's good she's sleeping. She should be up by tonight. You don't need to worry," Rhys explained.
Shinon stared at him for a moment, expressionless. "I wasn't worried." Just then, the blond man in the corner woke up with a loud yawn. Shinon turned and slung his arm over the back of his chair. "Oh, you're up. Good. We're going to check over the area again for stragglers and go to the village to collect our pay. Come on."
"Right now?"
"Yes, right now. I was waiting for you to get up; you slept in." Shinon grabbed his bow, swinging his quiver over his shoulder. "We'll be back in an hour or two."
"Take some breakfast first," Rhys' mother said to the blond, who was strapping on his armour.
"We don't have time for –"
"Come on, Shinon, I'm hungry."
Rhys left while they were still talking. The spare room was small, the curtains drawn against the light, with a bed shoved into a corner and a stool against one wall. Other than these two pieces of furniture the room was completely bare. The woman was stretched over the bed, sleeping somewhat calmly judging from her even breathing. That was a relief. Her hair had been taken from its braid, gathered to one side of her head and left to spill over her left shoulder. She was wearing a nightgown Rhys recognised as his mother's, and it was too small for her, stopping at about mid-shin. She seemed incredibly tall. As Rhys checked her shoulder again and used the heal staff on her one more time, he glanced over at her feet in a pair of long stockings sticking a bit past the edge of the bed.
She was also very pretty as Rhys couldn't help but to notice. She was still pale from the blood loss, but her features were even and perfectly symmetrical, with high, delicately curved eyebrows and a mouth that looked as though it was about to smile. And her hair… there was so much of it, and what a colour! It was a bright red the likes of which he'd never seen. His own hair was reddish-gold and had an orange shade to it, like fire. It was probably his most striking feature, but it was nothing compared to hers. He sat still for a moment, captivated by her beauty, hardly believing that such a woman was really in his house, lying on this tiny bed in a plain little room.
Then Rhys realised he was being absolutely ridiculous. He got up to go, but heard the bed creak a bit and turned to see her turning over, then trying to sit up.
"Don't hurt yourself. Be careful with that shoulder."
She jerked her head up to look at him, then took in her surrounding suspiciously. "Who are you? And where am I?"
"This is my house – well, my parents' house. Your companions brought you here because you were hurt."
"Where are they?"
"Shinon and… that other guy –"
"Gatrie," she interjected.
"Yeah. They left for the village, I think, if they're gone already. To get their pay, they said."
"I see." She put a hand gently to her shoulder, but knew better than to put any pressure on it, it seemed. "You didn't tell me who you are."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Rhys."
"It's okay." She smiled. "I'm Titania." She tried to get up, but seemed to think better of it and sat back down on the bed. "Wow. I don't feel so great."
"I wouldn't think so. You lost a lot of blood. I was very worried at first. You're going to need to rest a little longer before you can go anywhere."
She nodded, although she didn't seem particularly happy about it. "I hate being stuck inside… Oh well! This is my fault, I suppose. I shouldn't have gone after that one on my own. I do know better."
"What was going on, anyway?" She seemed confused. "Why was that man trying to kill you?"
"Oh. We're with the Greil mercenaries. The people at Naoka had hired us to fight off a group of bandits."
There was a silence that seemed heavy and awkward for a moment when the door opened. Rhys' mother stuck her head in the room. "You're up. I thought you might be."
"Hello," Titania said quietly.
"Mother, this is Titania," he said.
"You can call me Efa, darling," his mother said. "Are you hungry?"
"Yes, starving."
"Because I just made a wildberry pie. It's cooled enough now, but it's still warm. Would you like a piece?"
"Oh. Yes, thank you." Efa left the room for the kitchen, leaving the door open. "Your mother is very sweet."
"She… likes taking care of people." It was true. One might think that spending so much of her life caring for her son would have tired her out, but all she ever wanted to do was watch over everyone else and keep her family and friends comfortable. "I should maybe go help her."
"Okay." Titania smiled. Rhys wasn't sure why, but he felt a little awkward being in this tiny room with her all alone.
Shinon and Gatrie had left after a quick meal and a tea for Gatrie, but only once Rhys assured Gatrie as he had Shinon that Titania was alright. Titania eventually insisted on getting up and sitting at the table with them to eat her pie, and Rhys was impressed with how quickly she had seemed to recover. Of course her arm would still need a while to heal.
Shinon and Gatrie returned at about noon and split the money with Titania. Shinon had apparently gotten her a new shirt in town to wear on the journey home, now that her old one was torn and bloodstained. "That was awfully thoughtful of you," she muttered. Then after a pause, "Thank you."
"Yeah, whatever."
After Titania had managed to change, she returned to the table next to Rhys and accepted a cup of tea from his mother. "I really want to thank you all for your charity," she said. "Your food is delicious, Efa," she said to Rhys' mother, who only smiled in return. "And I should thank you for taking care of my horse," she added, looking at Rhys' father who sat by the fireplace.
"No need. He didn't give me any trouble."
"But most of all you, of course," she told Rhys. "So tell me, how much do I owe you?"
"Nothing," he responded, before he even really thought about what he was saying.
"Nothing? Surely… you must be a professional healer."
"Well, this is what I do, I suppose." He sighed. "I take care of people's health. I feel bad asking people to pay me for that."
"That's so silly. Well, not silly," she amended. "But you could make a lot of money with skills like yours."
"I don't think so."
"Shinon and Gatrie told me how bad it was," she explained. "If I can ever use an axe again, it will be completely thanks to you. I understand if you want to help your neighbours for free. But I don't live here. And the three of us have been under your roof, sleeping here, eating your food. You have to let me repay you, or I'll feel bad."
"You know, commander, if he really doesn't want you to pay him…" Shinon started.
"Shinon!" she gasped, sounding scandalised. She turned back to Rhys. "Don't listen to him. You've all been very good to me, and I insist that you accept some kind of payment."
He didn't want to argue with her if it meant so much; he understood some people had a very strong sense of pride about that kind of thing. "Alright then, if you insist."
She took out a pouch from a bag on the ground by her side and handed him a handful of money. He knew immediately that it was too much. What was this? 150 gold? Maybe more.
"I can't accept this much."
"Of course you can. If you did this for a living, you'd be making that every few days. Which I think is appropriate considering how long we've been here. I don't want to overstay our welcome, but I think I'll need one more night here. So consider the food covered in there too, if you want."
Later that evening, Rhys approached her where she sat by the fireplace and asked about her shoulder. "I'm just fine. I'm used to injuries. I think I recover from them pretty quickly. And your medicine took all the pain away."
"That's good. Well, not that you're used to injuries." He sat down in the other chair, his father's.
"You know…" she trailed off, and for a while, he thought she wasn't going to finish. "Our mercenary group doesn't have anyone who can use staves."
"Really? That sounds rather dangerous."
"Yeah. We always have to rush our people over to the nearest village if anything goes wrong. Luckily we're usually doing our work near or within a village but… Well, they don't always have a staff user." Titania shook her head. "I guess I was just thinking… here in this village, there's probably not a lot of opportunity for you to use your talents."
"I don't know. I guess not. People don't tend to get such dangerous injuries all that often around here," Rhys replied.
"Right. So I was thinking, if you ever needed work, we could always use you. When we have a particularly dangerous mission, we usually hire a staff user to stay nearby just in case. But we don't have anyone we can rely on all the time. It's always an effort to find someone."
Rhys raised his eyebrows in surprise. He didn't have a job. He always had trouble finding one, and he could never seem to keep one. He would always end up getting sick, and his parents would end up having to make up for it. They both still worked from time to time, but they were nearing their seventies, and he wanted them to be able to stay home. They had been well-off at one time, with well-paying jobs, but all that money had disappeared over his childhood as he continued to fall victim to unknown illnesses. He wanted nothing more than to support them, but he never could. The idea of having any kind of somewhat steady job was great, but to think that it would be with a mercenary group...
"O-of course! I mean, I could use the work. Any time, just stop by and ask me. Any time."
"There is one… There's apparently a really big group of bandits in a town up north that have been living off the villagers for about a month. We were going to set out in a few days. Now that I won't be able to help, I would really appreciate it if you could at least be there to take care of the others. It would make me worry less."
His parents were rather surprised by the news, but his father, at least, was happy. "That's good. Everyone's gotta go out and experience the world at some point."
"Oh, but does it have to be something so dangerous? I don't like it," his mother said, hugging Rhys again while the three mercenaries looked on.
"Come on, Efa, stop it, you'll embarrass the boy," his father warned.
Rhys pushed his mother from him, but gently. "It's okay, dad. But don't worry. It's really not that dangerous. It's not like I'm going to be doing any fighting. I'll just be there in case anyone gets hurt. And who knows," he added so only his parents could hear, "if this job doesn't work out with these guys, maybe I'll find something to do while I'm in town with them. It's about time I got another job."
"I've told you time and time again that I didn't want you to worry about that kind of thing," his mother said.
Rhys grabbed his bag off the floor and turned back to them. "I think it's about time I started supporting you guys." His mother opened her mouth, but before she could protest, he said, "I want to. Now stop worrying. I'll write in a few days." He walked out the front door after the mercenaries and started following them down the small pebbled road that led to the main village and the road that would bring them to their fort. He suddenly felt a little anxious. He had never travelled so far from home alone before as he was planning to now. It was a strange feeling to think that he might not see his parents for weeks, two people he was used to seeing almost every day of his life, that he might get sick and not have his mother there to support him or his father to help him back to his room. He had always wanted to go out alone and have some kind of adventurous life, but now the thought scared him a little.
Titania's voice broke him out of his reverie. "Do you want me to carry your things for you? You can put them here with mine." She patted the small bag she had strapped onto the back of her horse's saddle. He handed her his small bag with thanks and stuck close to her horse. Now that he was free of any burden, just walking with the morning sun on his face, birdsong in the fresh air and a friendly companion at his side, he felt much better. Perhaps this little adventure out of his home and village and everything he'd ever known would be good for him.
Well, that's it. This story ended up much longer than I had initially expected, but I think it turned out well in the end. Thanks for reading, and any reviews would be really appreciated.