Well, lookee here... I'm actually updating on a semi-regular basis. Unfortunately, because of that, this is about all I have written up to this point...But not to worry! (i think) I will do plenty of writing as soon as I can...which will probably be during class... But I'm not supposed to...but no matter! For you, my most esteemed readers, I will go through the most fiery depths of hell to bring you updates!! Or not... -- Something I think Sain would say, or even Nikolai from Luminous Arc...

Disclaimer:

I do not own Fire Emblem, Rath, Lyn, Guy, Legault, Uhai, Dayan, or even Sue or Mark at all. If I did, in FE6 they would have given us more Orion Bolts so that Sue wouldn't be stuck as a level 20 ranger for the entire game... though Shinn did have maxed out strength, Sue was prettier... Then again, everyone was prettier than Shinn, Treck and Gonzales...


"You killed them?!!" interrupted Guy horrified.

Rath shook his head.

"No. I scared them off," he looked at Guy with a mixed expression.

"There was no way I could beat them. I was just a child…"

Guy hunched his shoulders defensively. Knowing Rath's current skills and his parentage, Guy had kind of expected him to be some sort of super-kid or something…Guy admired the Sacaean ranger. His ability to always know his surroundings, the number of enemies in the field, what Mark had told them to do…the speed he could fire arrows off.

Speaking of arrows…

"Wait, how did you become such a good archer if your first bow was a piece of junk?"

"A bow does not make an archer, same as a sword does not make a sword master," said Rath calmly.

"Don't pull the poetic philosophy stuff on me. That's the shaman's job!!"

Rath drew a stick from the fire, and stared at it for a while.

"I had a teacher…if only for a while…" he said pensively, "I met him…maybe six, seven years ago…"

"Who was he? What was he like?" asked Lyn, making herself comfortable near the fire.

"That's later in the story…"

"Then skip some of that, and get to the part when you met your teacher!" said Guy exasperatedly.

"…"

"Please?" added Guy as an afterthought.

"I would have to cut out how I met Shinn…" said Rath, with a tiny hint of reluctance in his usually emotionless voice.

Guy traded looks with Lyn.

They both knew how much Rath cared for his horse… Even in the midst of battle, the ranger would look out for his horse as much as possible, once even taking a blow for him. It had been kind of implied in Mark's orders that the mounted soldiers would need to keep their mounts alive if the maneuver was going to be carried out successfully…but no one had expected Rath to take an axe swipe for the creature…

Sometimes… Lyn wondered if Rath loved his horse more than he loved her.

Well, maybe he had, seeing that she had to be the one who suggested returning to Sacae with him… In fact, now that she thought about it, she had practically proposed to Rath instead of the other way around. Actually…she did… Rath had merely nodded, and continued to take care of his horse.

It was rather ridiculous actually…to be jealous of a horse…

"Ummm…is Shinn really that much more important than your teacher?" asked Guy, tentatively.

The glare he got in return clearly said yes.

"Uh…sorry…"

8.8.8

Rath was growing up quite nicely in the wilderness between Sacae and Bern, and had slowly gotten closer and closer to the Lycian border. Now a rather tall and strong ten-year-old boy, Rath was perfectly capable of looking after himself…sort of.

It was a well known fact that the wilds between borders were usually infested with bandits, and the boy had suffered blows at the hands of such men, seeing as he was far too skinny and weak to take on three two-hundred pound, muscle packed, thugs.

Fortunately for the Sacaean boy, he had absolutely nothing of any value on him, and they'd just leave him for dead after two or three blows…from their fists, not their axes. It would be unseemly for perfectly respectable bandits such as themselves to use their axes on some unarmed child, lost and alone in the world.

Looking around the wilderness, he noticed some movement in the distance. He wondered what it could be. Wolves pulling down a deer? Carrion crows? Humans?

Sudden yells and screams informed Rath that it was quite clearly, bandits attacking a lone Sacaean ranger.

Well, he didn't know that just from the sounds, shouts of: "Get the savage!" were enough indication for the boy to know a man of Sacae was being attacked. It was after he got closer and saw the sword the Sacaean man was using did he get his conclusion of ranger. Only rangers were allowed to carry swords, like his Father had. The others were just mounted archers.

When he was little, he had wanted nothing more than to be a great archer, and eventually great ranger, just like his father. Now…he wasn't so sure.

Six years after being abandoned by the man he had admired the most in the world had changed Rath's outlook on life. With each passing year since he'd turned six, he'd become increasingly bitter, and hateful of his tribe. It was rather hypocritical of him. Hating his tribe, but being incredibly proud of his Sacaean heritage, it was despicable really…

Rath hid in the tall grass, moving as close as he dared to the battle. He wouldn't be able to help the Sacaean man. He was just a ten-year-old boy, armed with a rusty old knife, and a stick, and thus, he didn't really count as armed. The knife had grown dull with age, but it remained unbroken, except for a few nicks and scratches upon the cold steel. Very much like Rath's Sacaean spirit. However reality had to be considered. However much he wished he could help the poor man, he couldn't. There was nothing he could do.

The man was doing badly. The axe-wielding bandits were all far too close for him to shoot, and his sword had been snapped in half. Then Rath saw the man do something Rath would never have expected an archer to ever do. The man's bow had been chopped in half, leaving him with nothing but arrows as weapons. It was at that point that Rath had decided that the man was completely doomed to a rather pathetic death, having been unable to so much as lay a scratch on a single one of his opponents. When quite abruptly, a shriek of horror and pain came from one of the bandits.

Wide-eyed and genuinely shocked, Rath stared at the arrow protruding from a bandit's bloody eye socket. The man was using the arrows as if they were knives, jabbing them every which way, and stabbing wildly at his assailants.

It was watching this that Rath began to think that maybe that man had a chance…until an axe blow straight to the chest knocked the man off of his horse.

Rath watched in horrified silence as the bandits began to ransack the ranger's belongings, and having found absolutely nothing of value, left… strangely leaving the horse behind.

Well…all of them are so fat, maybe none of them would've been able to sit on the horse…

When Rath was absolutely sure that the bandits had left, he ran over to the ranger's corpse…or supposed corpse. The man was very much still alive, though not for much longer.

"W…Water…" rasped the man, as Rath came out from the grass.

Without missing a beat, Rath went and found the man's water skin. There wasn't much in it… and it seemed like the bandits had stepped on it as they were leaving.

Treading carefully so as not to step on any snapped arrowheads, or gobs of raw flesh, Rath made his way back to the man, and held the flask to his mouth.

The man coughed and sputtered as he tried to down the liquid, causing most of what little water there was, to splash onto his shirt.

"T-thank you…" sighed the man, looking up at Rath with glassy eyes. "I'm glad…" he said, looking up at Rath's face.

"I'm glad they didn't…find you…" whispered the man.

Rath stared at him wordlessly. Had he known? He'd known that he'd been there the entire time, hiding away in the grass?

"A man of Sacae proudly defends his own…" gasped the man in pain, wincing from the enormous cut across his chest.

"His…his name is Shinn…" whispered the man as he died right there. Rath stared at the dead Sacaean man's face for a long moment. He did not shed a single tear. He just stared at him. It had been so long since he had felt anything other than hunger. So long since he had spoken to another…

Rath opened his mouth to say something, when he realized something terrible. The man was dead… and he felt nothing. He felt nothing for this dead man lying in front of him, his broken body soaked in his own blood.

"…"

He should at least bury him, and say a prayer… that would be the right thing to do… wasn't it?

8.8.8

Guy had been fidgeting the entire time since Rath had glared at him. Now, Rath decided to acknowledge the younger man's frustrations.

"What?"

"Are you going to get to your teacher yet?"

Rath stared at him blankly for a few moments, before closing his eyes and saying.

"I suppose I'll skip a couple years of pointless wandering and unending loneliness…"

"Was it really that hard to be out there by yourself?"

Rath looked at Guy, his face expressionless.

"Imagine a city. A big city, full of life and laughter…You're standing right there amidst the huge crowd, and then someone knocks you down while rushing past."

"No one notices, no one cares. It's as if you don't exist at all. You realize that you don't belong here. If you were to disappear from the world, it would seem as if nothing has happened. Everyone and everything just passes you by, never seeing you. You realize, as you stand there, it's no different than standing all by yourself in the plains with no one around you. Like the creatures of the plain, none care if you live or die. In fact no one needs you to exist at all in the first place… You come to the realization that your existence is unnecessary, that no one needs you to exist. No one cares about you, and you don't matter to anyone in the world at all."

Guy stared amazed at what Rath had said… or more of that Rath was talking more than he'd ever heard him talk before in his life.

"That's… that's horrible…" breathed Guy, before going right on to say: "So, about your teacher…"

8.8.8

It was cold and wet, and Legault was feeling absolutely miserable. It wasn't that he minded the weather, it was more of what he had to do in that weather. Brendan had sent him and Uhai to deal with a bunch of bandits. Why Brendan had sent him of all people to go rushing about, waving a sword like an idiot was beyond Legault's comprehension. He was an assassin.

You know, the sleazy looking guy in the back who slips a knife between your ribs when you least expect it. The recently hired waiter who accidentally pours a deadly poison into your drink. The man who you just met, and three seconds ago, he swiped your wallet and stabbed you in the gut. That kind of assassin.

If Brendan wanted some lousy bandits killed, why didn't he just send his sons, Lloyd or Linus? Heck, why didn't he send Pascal? That would set those bandits straight… And even if he didn't want to send Pascal anywhere near civilians, Uhai would be able to deal with a few bandits all by himself. The Sacaean ranger was a great fighter... or at least, he should be...

"Legault."

The purple-haired teenager sighed, scratching his head.

"Yes, I know, I'm ready…"

"…You are not happy to be doing this."

Well, how could you possibly tell? thought the thief sarcastically.

"Should I be? Is that a requirement when one is to go about slicing and dicing, hmmm?"

"…"

"Oh come on, you're honestly no fun Uhai," sighed Legault, straightening his bandanna.

"Brendan gave you this job as a favor."

"Oh, a favor was it? Did he know that the weather would be as miserable as Jan is with a toothache?" grumbled the young man, irritably, rubbing his head from the cuff their leader had given him for 'insubordination'.

"Would you prefer having to kill Trey?" said Uhai quietly.

Legault's head whipped up to look at the Sacaean man in surprise.

"I…he…He wouldn't…" stammered Legault for a few seconds before he calmed himself.

"I suppose he did…Idiot. He knows the laws," he said shaking his head. "Well, guess it can't be helped… So, where are those bandits skulking about?"

Uhai shrugged.

Well, the people of Sacae told no lies…

"Very well, I suppose I'll go look for them…" he sighed, and with that, the young thief dashed off into the woods.


Okay, so ending with the Legault bit and the mention of his job as the cleaner...my reasons being:

A. Legault is funny. Actually, he's kind of fun to write, what with his rather odd sense of humour.

B. Uhai can't be by himself. These are the Old days of the Black Fang. I think. Nino may be 14, but she will always, be 8 in my head. And Rath's pretty old...not really, but in comparison...
C. I really, really wanted to do that description about assassins.