The Tactician Doesn't Get Sick Leave

By ElwynWanderer

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Disclaimer: If I owned Fire Emblem it would be a theme park.

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The morning of another battle dawned, and Mark the Tactician opened his eyes and discovered he felt absolutely awful. His nose was runny, his throat was sore, and – ohh – as soon as he sat up, his head began to swim crazily.

Mark coughed and cursed his luck. Now was really not a good time to catch a cold.

But he was a tactician, and a tactician always has a plan! He quickly decided to find Serra or Priscilla.

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Another day, another battle, Eliwood noted to himself in a princely manner as he led his horse through the mostly torn down camp. But something was different today. He paused, frowned in confusion, and looked back over his princely shoulder. Then he realized: the tactician's tent was still up.

Not everyone had finished packing up, it was true, but the tactician's tent was usually the first to disappear and Mark was usually the one overseeing the rest of the tear-down.

Eliwood walked over to Marcus, who was currently informing two knights where they were to take their things before the army began to march. "Marcus," said Eliwood, "Why are you overseeing tear-down? Where is the tactician?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, my lord," Marcus answered thoughtfully. "I haven't seen him since last night's battle." But before Marcus could explain how he had known to take charge of tear-down if he hadn't seen the tactician all day, a whole crowd of people came up to him, conveniently cutting short his explanation (which was, of course, well thought-out by the author in advance).

Eliwood saw he could get no more information from Marcus, and wandered off in a very princely manner toward the tactician's tent.

"Mark, we need to march in about twenty minutes," Eliwood called at the entrance flap, concern creasing his princely brow when the famed tactician gave no reply. Usually Mark was one of the first to wake up. Was it possible he had slept in?

Then Eliwood heard Hector approach him from behind, most likely to speak to him about something or other. One could hear Hector clanking about for a good half-minute before he actually got anywhere, but Eliwood didn't turn around, just to be polite. The least he could do was pretend his best friend was even remotely stealthy. "What's going on, Eliwood?" Hector bellowed at last.

Eliwood decided it was now acceptable to turn around without being rude. "I'm just a little worried about Mark," he explained. "I haven't seen him all morning." Then, because he wasn't sure this explanation would suffice, he added, "I think he might've fallen back asleep."

"Oh, really?" said Hector with an amused glint in his eyes. He leaned toward the entrance flap. "Hey, Mark! Wake up!" he roared, and Eliwood scrambled to cover his ears before he lost his princely hearing.

From inside of the tent the lords could hear a sudden crash, a string of profanities, and the sounds of something being whacked while something else hopped around as though tangled up in a potato sack. Then came coughing, more swear words, and, to conclude, a pitifully weak little groan.

"Um, Mark?" Eliwood said cautiously. "Are you in there?"

What a stupid question, Captain Obvious, thought Hector as he hollered, "Are you all right?"

Then the entrance flap was pushed aside, and the tactician himself emerged. He had dark bags under his eyes, looked in need of a shave, and smelled absolutely awful.

"Blech!" cried Eliwood with his characteristic princely tact. "Whatever happened to you? And what is that horrid stench?"

The tactician shrugged. "It comes from those smelly herbs Merlinus, Serra, and Priscilla have managed to dig up to treat my cold," he explained as he wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. "They've been trying to find cold medicine for me, but apparently it's hard to come by in Elibe and you have to make do with home remedies." He coughed weakly.

"Well, of course," Hector said, lowering his voice a little now that the tactician was clearly awake. "No one has been able to find a universal treatment for the common cold; only home remedies like herbs and stuff really work."

"It's always been like that, Mark," added Eliwood. "What parallel universe did you come from?"

A moment of awkward silence passed.

Then Hector said, "Wait a minute, you have a cold?"

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As the line of enemy troops advanced, Mark groaned. "I really don't thidk I cad do this, guys," he said as he honked into a borrowed handkerchief, since he had none of his own. (Although Merlinus had objected at first, he was generous enough to lend Mark his personal handkerchiefs, custom-made and imported all the way from Ilia, once Hector threatened to lop off his head.) "I feel horrible; there's doe way I'll be able to focus od the battle. What if subwud eds up dyig because of by cold?" His nose had stuffed up horribly since that morning, and it took everyone a moment to translate.

Once she figured it out, Lyn shook her head. "Mark, you're our only hope. If you can't lead us to victory, even while battling a monstrous cold, no one can. We all have absolute faith in you, right everyone?"

There was a half-hearted murmur from the army, which Lyn either misunderstood or chose to ignore. "You see?" she said. "Absolute faith in you."

"But could't Barcus or subbody take over for just a few battles udtil I get better?" Mark pleaded.

Hector rolled his eyes. "Come on, Mark, you know the tactician doesn't get sick leave. Or vacation days. Or the weekends off, for that matter. Tacticianing is a full-time job, you know, and we pay you too much for you to slack off like this."

"But I doe't get paid!" Mark wailed.

"Here they come!" someone shouted, and Lyn turned to Mark with a serious expression.

"Your orders, tactician?"

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Mark wiped his nose on his sleeve - since all of Merlinus' handkerchiefs were currently too dirty to use - as he pondered over his map. His nose had finally cleared up about an hour ago, but now it was runny again instead of stuffy. "Okay, um, tell Eliwood to cover Wil and Rebecca before those enemy soldiers get too close," he told Dorcas as Lowen entered the tent with a bowl of steaming chicken soup.

The reserve troops were torn. Half of them were insulted to be left out of the fight in order to be Mark's personal nurses; the others were merely grateful they weren't out on the field with their lives in the hand of their tactician, when their tactician was, to put it delicately, not operating at full capacity.

Mark began to cough again, and the soldiers around him discreetly scrambled backward. "I wish those soldiers wouldn't make such noise," Mark said dolefully. "They're giving me a splitting headache."

"Um, Mark?" Fiora said, gingerly tapping him on the shoulder. "Lyn's troop is requesting further instructions."

"But I just gave them instructions less than five minutes ago!" Mark cried.

"Lord Pent and his troop would like further instructions as well," Isadora said helpfully.

"And Eliwood wants to know if he should attack the mercenaries with an iron sword or a rapier," Dorcas supplied.

"Honestly, must I do everything around here myself?" Mark snapped. "Look, just tell the troops to rally at the third and fourth hills, behind Eliwood. Keep the healers and magic-users on the inside of the formation, cavaliers and knights on the outside. While Eliwood and the archers take care of the mercenaries send Raven, Guy, and Priscilla to finish off the bandits at the rear, and have Lyn, Matthew, Erk, and Pent circle around the enemy lines to attack the boss. Oh, and tell them to bring Serra along." He paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve again. "And tell Eliwood not to waste his rapier on a bandit. Who knows how long it'll take before we can buy a new one."

The soldiers of the reserve troop looked at each other and shrugged, but Mark didn't notice. "Keep the chicken soup coming, would you?" he called.

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"Ah-HAH!" crowed the Black Fang assassin when she found the tactician's tent to be empty - empty, that is, but for her victim. She drew her trusty knife from its sheath and started to close in.

Mark had just turned around, about to yell for help, when another Black Fang slipped from the shadows and covered his mouth so he couldn't make a sound. "Whmm dm mm wmm?" Mark gasped.

"What?" said the female assassin, pausing before she stabbed her prey between the eyes. "Where did I go?"

"I think he said 'How do you do,'" said the male assassin, gingerly lifting his hand partway off of Mark's mouth - but not enough for Mark to speak clearly.

"Oh, wait, I know! I bet he said 'What do you want'!" the female assassin translated proudly. Then she addressed Mark. "We want to destroy you, of course."

"Whmm unmnnmm mllmmunn?" Mark pleaded.

"What's that?" said the female assassin, as the male assassin removed his slightly spitty hand from the tactician's mouth in disgust.

"I said…" Mark paused with a cunning smile on his lips. "I asked if you'd already caught the couch potato virus."

The two assassins looked at him doubtfully. "Where I come from," Mark hastened to explain, "it's a very common disease that people get. It's often fatal; I'm just barely making a recovery myself."

The two assassins looked at each other doubtfully. "I've never heard of this so-called 'couch potato virus,' have you?" the female said to the male.

Mark smiled. "Oh, you wouldn't have heard of it, but it's, like, srsly fatal and stuff," he began, slipping into his natural dialect. (It was an unusual one, which no one in Elibe had ever heard before Mark became tactician.) "When you get it you just sit for hours without moving even your eyes, and you eat like a pig and, like, your brain slowly turns to mush and stuff if it goes on for long enough. I almost died from it b4 Lyn found me on the plains. And stuff," he added for good measure.

The assassins were backing away from him slowly. "How…how does one catch such a disease?" asked the male one.

Mark waved a hand airily. "Oh, usually through contact of bodily fluids or, like, breathing the same air or whatevs."

The two assassins looked from the tactician to each other, then to the tactician again. The male, who was now staring at Mark's spit on his hand, was getting a panicky look in his eyes. The female growled in frustration. "Come on, let's just kill him and get it over with," she began, raising her dagger once more.

But before Mark had time to despair, Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector came charging heroically into the tent. Hector promptly lopped off the assassins' heads in one giant swoop, while Lyn rushed over to Mark to pull him out of the way of the deadly swing of Hector's axe and Eliwood yelled in a princely voice, "Hector, we wanted them alive for questioning!"

"How are you feeling?" Lyn asked kindly once the danger was over.

The tactician grinned. "Better than I have in days, actually. I think I may have gotten over my cold!"

"Good," said Eliwood. "Now you can get back to work!"

Mark just sighed. There really was no rest for the weary, was there?