Fire Emblem: Path of Wyverns
Chapter 2
My steed-is a dragon considered a steed?-roars. Fighting the dam and the sound of its wings, the roar doesn't seem too loud, though I might be losing my hearing, or my pain is distracting me too much. I would reach to check my shoulder or head, but the constant motion of the dragon is too much to let me. The shaking is only making them hurt worse as well.
I almost fly out of my seat as the dragon makes a quick turn. Out of the corner of my eye, I see two other dragons pass overhead. Craning my head to see them better, I notice a third, with all three having riders with long rods. They seem to be communicating with each other, but I can't hear them at all.
The three dragons span out and maneuver as though trying to surround the dragon I'm on. I wonder what they're trying to do. It's almost as if-
One of the dragons swoops down suddenly. My dragon turns away to avoid it, only for a second dragon to swoop in. Its rider swung his rod at my dragon. It's only after the rod sweeps over my dragon's head that I notice the loop at the end, which is now resting at the base of neck in front of me.
My dragon roars and reaches around to attack the rod, only to let another dragon sweep in and hook him again. Trapped between the two, it had no chance of dodging the third loop. It was just like a show I saw once where some people were trying to catch a rabid dog.
The three dragons flew in formation, forcing my dragon along with them. It was certainly putting up a protest, but the three dragons kept it moving along. With a massive jerk, the dragon twisted its whole body to try and pull away. It succeeded only in throwing me off.
A scream tears through my lips as I free-fall for the second time in a few minutes. I think I'll be able to face any roller coaster if I ever survive this.
My fall is suddenly stopped as something grabs the back of my shirt with a loud ripping sound. My shoulder flares in pain, but the fact that I've stopped falling is more than compensation. The world spins once more before I found myself hanging above another scaly neck.
"Grab on," a gruff voice commands.
I quickly latch onto the neck and hold on tight. The person lets me go, when I'd rather they not. What if I fall? These scales may not be smooth, but grabbing them is kind of painful.
The person doesn't say anything as we continue flying through the air. I can't see much from my position, but after a few minutes, we enter into some courtyard and land. We're surrounded by stone walls, almost like a castle.
The rider gets off the dragon, which appears much smaller now that I'm on the ground. Grabbing my ripped shirt, he lifts me off his dragon and sets me on the ground. My legs turn to jelly as he lets go, and they collapse.
"Whoa, there, boy," the man said as he grabbed me again. This time, he waits as I find my feet. "You had a close call there."
I look up at the man who saved me. He's tall, has wavy, brown hair, and has a black eye patch covering his right eye. He also has a light suit of armor on as well. Something seems familiar about him, but a wave of dizziness distracts me.
"That's quite a head wound," the man comments.
I reach up and touch the back of my head. You know, blood really does feel kind of sticky. My legs starts to go out from under me again, but the man grabs me once more.
"Go get a healer," he orders to someone outside my range of sight.
I can feel a blackout coming. It's funny how I can tell that after so many. I-
-o-
My eyes fly open to an open blue sky. That's strange. Why am I outside?
"That should do it."
"Thanks. I'll take it from here."
Some creature flies overhead. It looks like a- Dragon!
I sit up abruptly as the past few events come back. I'm still in the courtyard we landed in, and the man from earlier is crouching next to me. Once again, I feel a sense of familiarity from the man as I look at him, but the answer seems irritatingly outside of reach.
"Feeling better?" the man asks.
"Actually…yeah, a lot," I reply, only then noticing that I feel no pain. I touch the back of my head and feel the blood, but my head feels normal. My shoulder feels not just better, but as if there was no wound. "What happened?"
"You passed out before the healer made it over here. You didn't have much blood loss, though, so you were easy to fix up," the man explained.
Easy? The last time I saw a head wound, the doctors flipped out. Guess the doctor here doesn't freak out easily. "Thank you for saving me," I thank him.
The man smiles at me, which strangely sets me at ease. "I almost didn't. I was just waking up from a nap."
"While riding a dragon?" I ask, confused.
"You mean my wyvern?" So they're not dragons. But they're the closest things I've ever seen to them, which makes them pretty cool all the same. "Sleeping in the saddle isn't nearly as hard as a midair mount."
"Sir!"
I look over at where the voice came from, only afterward remembering what happened last time. Too late now, I guess.
The person coming up this time wasn't an old woman, though, thankfully, but a young one. With the red armor and long red ponytail, she almost looked like…no, no it couldn't be. I look back at the man, and his identity becomes clear. I'm pretty sure my jaw is hanging open, but it can't be helped. I'm in shock.
That's Jill. And that's Haar. And this is…Tellius! Which means, this is Fire Emblem! Guys, I don't think we're on Earth anymore.
Jill gives me a confused glare at my stare, but I can't help it. It's Jill. And this is- Wait. If this is so real, then I might be unconscious on the bottom of the pool. This could all be a vivid dream in a coma state. But the pain was so real! How does that add in?
I think I'm getting a migraine again.
"Have you condemned the spy?" Jill asks, standing at attention. Spy?
Haar yawns. "How do you know he's a spy?"
"He was escaping through the dam, coming from a restricted area, and tried to even steal a wyvern," Jill stated factually, still at attention. "Not to mention his foreign clothing."
Wait, I think she's talking about me. And foreign? These jeans are new and fresh…well, at least before that daredevil trip. And this shirt…actually, it was a nice polo shirt. Now it's fit for only rags.
"That doesn't make him a spy," Haar points out.
"I'm not a spy," I interject.
"Then why were you-"
Haar holds up his hand, stopping Jill. "I believe any questions should be asked by the General," he says.
"But…" Jill stops, looking conflicted. Go Haar!
"We'll keep him until the General comes back tomorrow for him to decide," Haar insists. Wait, what? Haar yawns again. "I need a nap right now."
Jill looks angry at Haar's indecisive decision, but simply says, "I'll escort the prisoner to the hold, then." Prisoner?
"Need a hand?" Haar asks as he stands up.
I take his hand and manage to stand up with his support. While my legs feel a little sleepy, I otherwise feel fine. "I still don't know if this is a dream," I mutter.
"What was that?" Haar asks.
"Just talking to myself," I immediately say.
"Come on," Jill says, grabbing me roughly by the arm. Man, she doesn't look it, but she's got quite a powerful grip.
"Don't treat him too poorly, Jill," Haar says, walking away. No, don't walk away! Who will keep Jill from running me through!?
Jill doesn't say anything as she marches me into a huge wooden roofed building. Inside, the building is full of huge stalls, many with a wyvern inside. While the majority of them have a greenish hue, I saw a few red or black ones mixed in. All of them are beautiful. I'm a dragon lover, and these wyverns are more than good enough substitutes right now!
"Wow," I mutter. Jill gives me a strange look, to which I shrug. "These wyverns are beautiful." Jill's look turns suspicious. Her step doesn't slow as she continues dragging me down the aisle to the end.
At the end, a set of stairs leads down. Jill marches me down. Downstairs, barred cells are set at intervals on either side of a central walkway. Jill leads me to the first cell on the right and roughly shoves me in. With a loud, metallic slam, the door closes and locks.
"If I were you, I would get comfortable, because you're going to be there a long time," Jill states, walking away afterward.
"And if I were you, I would get comfortable with being targeted on level eleven!" I say, mainly to myself as she's already gone.
What to do now? I'm stuck in a cell…a clean, stone cell, but a cell nonetheless. I guess I better start working on a story.
As I sit down on the straw-laid floor, I unconsciously begin scratching an itch on the back of my right hand. Let's see. I'll need a cover story, so, where am I from? I'll also have to find out what part of the timeline I'm in. Jill didn't look too old, but this is also the first time I've seen her in real life.
I also need to take stock of what I've got. And…my pockets are empty. Great. My phone and wallet must have dropped out at some point. Not that either would help me at the moment.
My hand begins to itch even more. Why is it-? I look down at my right hand and see…something. Scooting over closer to the torchlight, I look at my hand closer. There's a marking on my hand, almost like a tattoo, but strangely more vivid. It appears to be a dragon encircling itself. Or a wyvern; I'll have to get used to that terminology.
The mark shines slightly, revealing a bluish hue. The itch increases a little, before both it and the glow disappear. What is it about this mark that makes me uneasy? It's just like right before I remember who Jill and Haar were. Mark. Mark.
The Mark! It's the mark of a laguz and beorc descendant! But, my parents were human, and I've never seen this mark before. What's going on here? What does this mean? Maybe I should hide this. If anyone recognizes it, I could be in trouble.
Ripping off a piece of my already ripped shirt, I try it around my hand. Wet and a little bloody, it will hopefully dissuade anyone asking about it.
Wait, am I really taking this seriously? I mean, how can I be in Fire Emblem, anyway? One moment, I'm at a party, the next, I'm going through a dam and on a wild drag-er, wyvern ride. How is that possible? Really, none of this feels real yet. Even the pain is now gone now.
But can this really be a dream? I mean, I've been hurt, passed out, and am even having stable trains of thought, well, at least for me. So, how lucid of a dream can this be? What in the world could have made this happen?
Closing my eyes to concentrate, I focus on all the things that have happened, working backward to try and figure it out. The moment I came into Tellius was most likely when I fell in the pool. But others had been swimming in the pool before I fell in.
But something was off. It was-the glittering stuff! Something in the pool was glittering right where I fell in. And now that I can think about it, that glittering stuff looked like what the old woman blew in my face. What did she call it? Starsand? No, it was stardust! But what is stardust? Isn't that some item in an old dragoon game or something?
I let a sigh escape. I obviously wasn't going to figure this out by myself. I would just have to go along with the extreme possibility that this was all real, which meant that I still need a cover story.
Echoes of footsteps reach my ears, and soon, a man came in with a platter. Pulling out a set of keys, he looked over at me in the corner. "I trust you won't try to get out? I brought some food."
"I promise. I don't have anywhere to go if I did try to escape," I answer, trying to put on a smile.
The man opens the door and places the platter on the ground. "I saw what you did with Terror. That was quite a feat," he comments as he closes the door.
"Terror?" I ask.
"The wyvern you mounted," he explains. "We nicknamed him that because of his past. No one's been able to ride him for a long time now, including the person who tried today. You probably held on to him for thirty seconds longer, too, though he wasn't necessarily focused on you then."
"What happened to him?"
"I would answer, but it's a long story. Besides, Jill will already be giving me the stink-eye for being down here this long," the man says with a laugh.
"Is she always like that?" I ask.
The man pauses for a moment, "Only when it pertains to her occupation as a soldier or her family's honor, which is pretty much almost everything."
"Noted," I reply.
As the man walks away, I turn to my food. It looks like gruel served in movie school cafeterias. However, knowing looks aren't everything, especially with my cooking, I dip one of the 'biscuits' into the 'gravy' and take a bite. Bland. Very bland. At least it's edible, maybe.
"Why can't Tellius serve its prisoners pizza?"
-o-
AN: The second chapter! Which reveals just how different my opening will be. Thank you for a review so quickly, which is honestly the reason I'm putting up the second chapter already. Such a quick review deserves a treat.
So, I just realized I'm in Tellius! And apparently, I'm branded! How will General Shiharam take me? You'll have to find out next time.
To all who may become concerned, special abilities come with a brand mark, such as Micaiah's healing and future sight, Soren's magic skill, that one sword user's super critical rate, etc. While I will be affected by that, the affect will be small and not nearly as overpowered as Micaiah's plot convenient ability was (which you will see a shout out to soon). I can't leak anymore without giving out a major plot part, though, so just stay tuned!
Fun Fact: I actually have experienced several black out moments, and can tell when one is coming now, though mine come from sugar (I think). It's a strange feeling as if feels as if all your senses are being pulled inward, or slowly shut off. And once that begins, you either choose to sit on something in the immediate vicinity, or take a plunge to the ground and possibly hurt yourself. Not fun when it happens, but pretty interesting to look back on.
9/2/17: Updated a little to add in checking my inventory while in the cell.
