Well, when I said I would do something, I did exactly the opposite. Sorry about that.
And since not a whole lot of people know too much about Slavic mythology, I'll be giving background on each individual tidbit as we go through the story.
So, the main arc that takes hold of the story is taken after the Stravinsky ballet based on several myths of the Firebird. What happens there is this; a guy by the name of Ivan is hunting for a firebird and catches it; however, the firebird offers it one of its feathers, and it promises to come to Ivan's aid with a wave of it. He accepts, and releases it. It's essentially very similar to the events of the last chapter, so I probably just went through a lot of filler. Most of these could be filler, actually, but hey, knowing the references helps, right?
In any event though, I am glad to bring you this startling development. So here we are, with the next chapter of Legend. Enjoy!
Ike and company have washed up onto a strange new land, one that Fiordiligi immediately notices is filled with at least one fantastic creature.
With the feather of the firebird as their token, the group heads towards what appears to be a costal village. Upon arriving, however, they notice something strange about the inhabitants of this village...
Chapter 2: A Higher Calling
Ike walked up to another door, his knuckles banging against the wood of another door as the group stood in front of a door.
"Leave us alone!" shouted the people inside of the house that the door guarded. "We don't want to be disturbed!"
"Look, we are most certainly not here to disturb you!" replied Fiordiligi loudly. "This is the fifth door we've tried, and nobody has answered any of our previous knocks!"
"Go away, foul demons!" shouted the people inside even louder. "We don't want you taking our girls with you!"
Ike shrugged, turning away from the door and walking forwards.
The group had arrived in the village just minutes ago; however, they had found that nobody wanted them in it. Every door they had knocked on was recieved with a call of 'leave us alone' or 'go away' or some other diminishing remark. This was strange to everybody.
The group congregated towards a series of marketstalls that reeked heavily of fish, Maria taking the liberty to sit on one of those stalls.
"You know, I just don't get it," she said, shaking her head. "What's going on here?"
"I den't no, mu'um," replied Willie. "It's like dere be somevin' 'ere dat we den't no novin' about..."
"That must be it," added Kuranga, nodding in agreement as he too sat down, scarlet orbs looking towards the rest of the group. "I sense an evil energy radiating from somewhere within this village, but the strange thing is that there are no traces of it lying within the villagers."
"What's going on here?" asked Gaston, also sitting down.
"I'd like to know that too," said Ike, sapphire eyes taking on a bitter expression as he spoke. "Only nobody will tell us what's going on!"
"It must be awfully serious if they will not let a group of total strangers into their homes..." said Fiordiligi, a concerned expression riding on her face as she spoke. "I wonder what is going on here..."
There was a brief silence as everybody thought, and then Maria's eyes fell upon a strange figure knocking on one of the doors just ahead of them. The figure was that of a female, but there was a strange blue light emanating from her being that discolored the area around her to a bizarre aquamarine.
"Hey, who's that?" asked Maria, pointing at the figure. The said figure did not even flinch as she knocked on a door quietly.
"Hm..." said Fiordiligi, emerals squinting into light jade as she looked at the figure. "Blue glow, maiden, makes everything look like water..."
The lady at the doorway left a soft plea, but by the time the residents answered Fiordiligi knew what it was.
"A rusalka," she replied. "Be prepared, everyone. This one is going to be very pesky."
"But why?" asked Ike, still keeping Ragnell shouldered even though Fiordiligi took out her staff and Willie held his hands out in front of him.
"All right then," said the figure with a suddenly booming voice that violated the skies of the late afternoon. "You leave me no choice."
And then, she stood up, the area glowing with an eerie blue light as the spirit held a hand up and summoned a jet of water from it that broke the door down. The lady abruptly pointed at the ground, and then the jet of water returned with a little girl on its wake.
"Well, that answers our question," said Gaston, running forwards and immediately transforming.
Maria followed suit, shifting into her cat form and rushing at the water spirit as it smirked triumphantly.
However, its smirk was instantly wiped off of its face when a fully transformed Gaston suddenly flew in there, the girl suddenly appearing in the raven's talons as he flew around. It had no time to reply, however, for then Maria dashed at the spirit, causing it to quickly teleport to another area of the village. Ike readied Ragnell, Kuranga and Fiordiligi standing still as Willie pulled out his fire tome. Fiordiligi noticed this, and looked at Willie sternly.
"Willie, this is a water spirit!" she reprimanded quickly as the rusalka sprayed water at Gaston, who deftly dodged it by rolling once in the air. "Fire will have no effect on her at all!"
"But Viordilegi...!" replied Willie.
"Insolent fools!" shouted the rusalka before Willie could say anything else. "You shall pay with your lives."
"We'll see about that!" shouted Ike, rushing at the rusalka and slashing at her just as she teleported away to another part of the village.
As Maria lunged at the rusalka, Willie suddenly looked at Kuranga, who stood there untransformed.
"'Ey!" shouted the Cockney boy. "Wy ain't you not lookin' like a dragon, m?"
"There are too many risks," replied the laguz as Maria successfully dealt a scratch to the water spirit.
The cat laguz went in for another dash when suddenly the rusalka sent out a jet of water at the cat laguz, sending poor Maria flying through the walls of a house before landing there. Noticing this, Fiordiligi ran forwards only to have the rusalka teleport right in front of her.
The lady stopped her charge, a terrified expression forming on her features as the spirit smirked, extending its arm out to Fiordiligi and holding her captive.
"Very well," she said. "This one will do."
But the rusalka failed to notice that Ike was creeping up behind her. Thus, before she could do anything else, she felt an excruciating pain on her backside, and then her body formed into thousands of pieces of shattered glass as the mercenary held Ragnell high in the air. There was a profound silence as suddenly people came out of their homes. Gaston, who had been hovering in the air keeping the little girl safe, landed, tossing the girl briefly as he shifted back into his human state, catching her in his arms and placing her on her feet.
"There you go," said Gaston as the little girl nodded and ran over to her mother, who had just emerged from her house.
Maria, who had shifted back into her human state and had walked out of the rubble caused by her crashing into the side of the building, walked out, rubbing her bruised body a little as she joined Ike's side. Fiordiligi stood up from where the rusalka had carelessly dropped her in her dying agony, brushing the dust off of her dress as the other three men in the group joined their side.
The villagers congregated around them in amazement. Finally, however, they made way for a short old man who approached them, coughing a little as he stood in front of the mercenary.
"How... how did you do that?" asked the old man.
"Do what?" asked Maria. "We just did what we normally do best, you know?"
"Our best men have been washed to and fro by her magic..." replied the old man. "I have had no other options to do but to turn this town into a ghost town for all who enter. And yet, you six strangers have purged us of this problem."
"Dat's free fer yeh," corrected Willie. "Free ef us didn't really do novin', Governor."
"Free?" asked the old man inquisitively.
"He meant to say 'three'," said Fiordiligi quickly. "His accent is quite funny like that. Also quite charming in its own quirky way, actually."
"Aw, yeh didn't need teh say novin'!" said Willie bashfully, his cheeks rapidly taking up a bright red in embarrasment.
"Right..." said Ike, his stern expression remaining constant. "Anyways, this thing's been bothering you for a while?"
"Two weeks," replied the old man. "Two weeks of having all of our young women kidnapped by that awful monstrosity. I even had to request aid from this here kingdom."
"Kingdom?" asked Kuranga, curiosity gracing everybody's expression. "So this village is part of a kingdom..."
"What do you expect?" asked the old man quickly. "Every village on this continent is part of a kingdom of some sort..."
"So you requested the aid and had everybody hide in their houses until they came?" asked Ike, shouldering his blade as he sent an inquisitive glance at most of the villagers. "How do you know the kingdom did not overlook this as being their destination?"
"They have not even arrived yet," replied the old man. "The last I heard of them was that they would be arriving in two days."
"Oh," said Fiordiligi. "So until then you kept strangers out of the village?"
"Essentially, yes," replied the old man. "But then you six came and purged us of this problem."
"Yes, but it was only three of us and I almost got kidnapped in the process," said Fiordiligi, a light touch of bitterness invading her voice.
"Nevertheless, you saved us," said the old man. "And as the village elder, I give you this deal; stay with us until the kingdom's agents arrive. From what I have heard, the entire continent is having this problem of young maidens being stolen away by strange spirits."
"Really?" asked Ike. "So this problem isn't exclusive to this place..."
"I see..." said Gaston as he nodded. "Well then. I guess we'll take that offer."
"Then help yourselves to my house," said the village elder.
"Oh, no, Governor," replied Willie, waving his hands in front of him in denial. "Not yer 'ouse!"
"Why not?" asked the elder. "There is plenty of room in my humble abode for an entire legion!"
"Well, if you say so..." said Maria, Willie's concerns echoing in everybody's mind as the crowd dispersed, each individual person going up to the group of six and congratulating them on ridding them of their problems on the trek to the elder's house.
A trumpet call stifled the quiet morning air, effectively waking Ike from his slumber. He groaned as he sat up in his bed, bare chest gleaming in the light of the breaking day as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
"Oh dear..." he said to himself out loud. "Looks like they're here..."
Maria, who slept in a bed not far from where Ike was, yawned as she sat up. When she finished this motion, she perked up suddenly, jumping right out of the bed.
"Well, then, we better get going then!" said Maria. "Everybody will be expecting us!"
The two of them quickly changed and ran out of the house. When they stepped outside of the house, they already found the village elder and the rest of their posse in front of a line where a rather tall knight in blue armor stood next to a wyvern. A bunch of soldiers stood behind him, walking behind him in a sort of militairistic march towards the elder. Ike and Maria ran next to Willie and Fiordiligi, Gaston sending the two of them a dirty glare with Kuranga not seeming to care as the knight approached them. When he came forwards, he drove the butt of his large lance into the ground, cold, hard cerulean orbs looking at them with an almost aloof expression.
"You requested our aid, sir?" asked the knight simply.
"Well, yes," replied the village elder. "But we have no more need of you."
"Something happened, then," replied the knight sternly. "What happened. Did you get hit with a miracle of some kind?"
"Yes, we did, actually," replied the old man, a smile gracing his lips. "These six strangers came in and defeated that pesky spirit for us."
"Ah, so you did?" asked the knight, turning to face Ike and the group.
"One of us almost got kidnapped, but we did it," replied the mercenary sternly. "The elder said you had this problem throughout the entire continent?"
"And why would we request the help of total strangers to help do our work for us?" asked the knight quickly, a dubius expression coming to his face.
"Well, we did what's right," said Maria. "And we did it mostly because we knew that it was the right thing to do."
"And because nobody was--"
Fiordiligi's sentence was interrupted with a quick, almost indiscernible slap to the wrist from Maria.
"And how do you expect us to do this with people dressed like animals?" asked the knight, sending a gaze at Maria and Gaston.
"Hey!" shouted the raven laguz. "Don't you make fun of us, you hear?"
"At any rate, you do look odd in those costumes," replied the knight, stepping forwards and walking towards Maria. "Off with the ears, lady."
"What?" asked the cat laguz angrily, getting offended as the knight tried to pull at her ears. "Damn it, let me go! These ears are real, and so is my tail!"
At a particularly hard yank of the ears, Maria was so agitated she punched the poor knight away, almost instantly transforming into her cat form. As the knight sat back up after rubbing his head with his hand, he saw the cat ready to pounce on him at any second, lavender fur standing on end as she growled. The men that had stood behind the man's wyvern suddenly came out from behind the dragon, weapons at the ready.
"Look," said Ike, kneeling down to the knight's level and leaving a shoulder there. "They can't get out of that 'costume', so to speak. Do you have a problem with that?"
The man just gazed in front of him, cerulean eyes widened in terror.
"I've never seen one of those things..." he said quickly.
"What?" asked Fiordiligi, stepping back a little as Maria shifted back into her human state, the malevolent glare still resting on her lavender eyes.
"Yeh mean yeh ain't never seen one ef dem laguz peoples?" asked Willie loudly.
"Laguz...?" asked the knight, now just confused at what was going on.
Ike sighed, chest heaving visibly as he held a hand out to the knight.
"We'll explain later," replied Ike. "Just, trust us for now."
The knight looked at Ike incredulously, and then he took the mercenary's hand. Ike stood up, taking the confused knight up with him.
"All right," said the knight. "But please understand we take a matter such as this very seriously. Soldiers! Lower your weapons!"
"All right then," said Ike as the rest of his group congregated back around him and the soldiers laid down their weapons. "Now, what exactly is the problem here?"
"We have had a large problem throughout the continent," replied the knight. "Reports have been that maidens have dissapeared at a fairly quick rate throughout the continent. Reports say that strange spirits have been appearing to people and stealing away their maidens in the middle of th night."
"So, same thing as what happened here, right?" asked Fiordiligi. "Is it just villagers, or...?"
"Worse," replied the knight. "Royalty has been subjected to this kidnapping spree as well. Our very own princess was kidnapped a week ago."
"And other than the fact that it's because of some spirits or whatever, you have no idea as to what's going on?" asked Maria, ears twitching in the aftermath of what the knight had tried to do to her.
"Exactly," he replied tersely. "We have tried everything we can to figure out what is going on. We could use all the help we could get?"
"Well, Governor, yeh got real lucky today, yeh 'ave," replied Willie. "Keranga 'ere kin read dem 'owras' oh 'owever yeh say it."
"Owras?" asked the knight. "What might that be?"
Everybody gave the knight a blank espression before Kuranga cleared his throat.
"He meant 'auras'," he said. "His accent is strange like that."
"Oh," replied the knight, nodding quickly. "That will certainly come in handy."
"And I guess the only question left is whether we will actually help you or not, yes?" asked Fiordiligi.
"Of course," said the knight quickly.
"All right," said Ike. "We'll do it."
"And you better not try anything funny on Maria or me!" added Gaston vehemently, pointing a finger at him accusatorily. "Or you'll be hearing from whatever gods you believe in about it!"
"Gaston, please," said Maria, gently lowering the hand. "So we'll do it."
"Thank you," said the knight, nodding with a smile gracing his lips. "Tell me; what are your names?"
"I'm Ike," replied the mercenary. "My friends here are Maria, Fiordiligi, Willie, Gaston, and Kuranga." With each name, he indicated who it was with a finger.
The knight then knelt on the ground, taking the lance that had flown from his hand back into his grasp and nodding.
"Cormag of the knights of Frelia, at your service," he replied solemnly.
The troupe marched far away from the village, Ike and the rest of his friends marching by Cormag's side as they pressed ever closer to the castle of Frelia. Ike had been telling the wyvern knight stories about their escapades on Greljedo, and Cormag took every detail in quite nicely.
"So then you went over to the island and defeated Myriel?" asked the wyvern knight.
"At least, his father did," replied Fiordiligi. "I wonder whether he got over his son's death or not..."
"And you fought Ilemyr, yes?" asked Cormag. "That must have been pretty tough."
"It was pretty epic, actually," said Maria. "So you never had any laguz on the face of this continent?"
"No," said Cormag. "I thought you were just wearing stuff to be funny."
"That's wierd," said Ike, shrugging quickly. "I never thought I would go anywhere where the only laguz on the continent are the ones standing right next to me."
"At any rate, we are almost there," said Cormag quickly, spying castle walls ahead of him.
"Good," said Kuranga. "So, who is this man, king 'Innes'?"
"He's a good man," said Cormag, nodding sincerely. "A good man, but he's a little too proud of himself for comfort."
"Oh der..." said Willie. "Dat ain't gonna be no good, Governor..."
"I serve under orders of princess Tana, though," said Cormag. "She's bubbly."
"And she's the one that got kidnapped by these spirits, you say?" asked Maria.
"Yes," said the knight. "She convinced me to join after the War of the Stones."
"War of the Stones?" asked the mercenary. "I don't think you told us about that."
"I'll tell you more about it later," replied Cormag. "But for now, we're here."
And indeed, the group came upon a rather large castle town with the huge gates of Frelia's castle looming ahead. The sheer majesty of the grey stones against the humble little town seemed to phaze the group for a second, but they merely nodded after a while and looked at Cormag.
"Nothing much, but it is still quite a castle," commented Fiordiligi.
"Yeah, it is nothing much actually," said Cormag snidely. "I would know that much from traveling the entire continent a few times."
Willie snickered at this comment briefly before they marched towards the castle of Frelia.
The throne room was rather large. Very fine tapestries hung from the walls around the throne room, an occasional statue occupying a space that would have oherwise been vacant. Regal red carpeting lead to the throne room, and the view of the ocean from the window behind the castle was astounding. On the throne itself stood a rather lean man, silver hairs tumbling down the sides of his neck as he looked at the group with battle-hardened jade eyes. Cormag knelt in front of the throne room, Ike and his friends standing just a little behind him.
The wyvern knight stood up after greeting the king of Frelia, and the man stood up.
"Thank you, sir Cormag," said Innes cooly. "So, according to reports, you came in and saved that town. Am I right in this?"
"Yes, your majesty," said Fiordiligi, bowing down to the king she barely knew.
"Oh, please, do not start with the formalities," said Innes scornfully. "I have to deal with that enough in court proceedings; I do not need more of it with people that saved a village..."
"Oh!" said Fiordiligi, quickly standing up and covering her mouth. "I'm sorry, sir."
"So anyways, you said there was a problem?" asked Ike.
"Yes," replied the king of Frelia. "I trust Cormag has told you about it."
"'E 'as, Governor," said Willie.
The king sent a confused glance at the Cockney boy before he shrugged and turned to Ike.
"So, I trust you know about the spirits, then?" asked Innes.
"Actually, that's not me who knows about that stuff," said Ike. "That's stuff that Fiordiligi knows about."
"That is correct, sir," added the lady quite calmly.
"Oh," said Innes, nodding as he began to pace in front of the throne. "I see then. That will help the entire continent out very much."
"The entire continent..." said Maria. "We haven't been told much about the War of the Stones yet; I take it the entire continent is under some peace treaty now?"
"Essentially, yes," replied the king. "So I'll alert the other rulers of your presence."
"And you'll send us somewhere else to help the other nations, I take it," said Gaston.
"Yes," replied the king. "Our neighbor, Renais. That is where you will be heading next."
"Renais?" asked Kuranga. "A nation you have been allies with since the beginning, yes?"
"Definitely," replied Innes, nodding curtly. "As of now, the problem in Frelia is slowly diminishing. However, the problems are intensifying in Renais, and I am sure that they could use all of the help they could get."
"Yeah, but I don't see how intruding in the affairs of another nation helps solve the problem," said Gaston assertively.
"Gaston, calm down!" retorted Maria. "Maybe Renais asked for the help."
"That is correct," said Innes. "So, will you head to Renais and see if you can uncover anything about this menace?"
"Of course," said Ike, bowing down in front of the king.
"I thank you for your understanding," replied the king, nodding as a smile graced his lips. "Cormag here will accompany you on your journeys."
"Yes, milord," said the knight quickly.
"When'll we be leaving, then?" asked Maria.
"At once," said Innes. "I shall reward you finely for this."
"Keep your hands on your reward," said Ike. "I don't think we'll be finding much use for it. Besides, we're doing this because it's what's right."
"Ah, very well then," said Innes, frowning slightly at how blunt Ike's statement was. "If anything happens, let me know, and I will follow you with everything I have here. May the graces of Latona be with you..."
Cormag bowed quickly and walked out of the castle, Ike following shortly as he and the group left the castle on a new mission that would affect another continent.