GHOST STORIES
Chapter 3: Poetry of Despair
"Hey, kiddo, let me show you something neat!"
Young Owain followed his uncle out to the edge of the forest. Henry was not a relation to his parents by either blood or law, but was given the honorary place of Uncle to him for being a close family-friend. He had been a comrade to his parents when they'd fought in the wars, an unlikely recruit from Plegia who had joined the Ylissean forces not because of political opinions but simply because it had amused him. He'd found fighting for Ylisse more interesting and had bonded to Lord Chrom's Shepherds.
Even still, Uncle Henry's outlook on life and meaning was quite different from that of Owain's parents – his father's especially, yet they were kindred-spirits in a way. From stories they told him, each of them, respectively, did not have the kind of childhood that was being given to him. They'd both been survivors of abuse and had simply taken different paths to coping with their memories of it. Whenever Uncle Henry would visit, he and Father had a sort of balancing effect on one another – something interesting to behold. Then again, from what he'd heard, Henry was much mellower these days than he'd been in wartime – a dark mage, cruel in battle, was unknown to Owain – instead, Uncle Henry was the doting father of one of his best friends.
"I've seen the crows before," Owain complained as Henry summoned his flock of friends to him. They darted out of the woods to land upon his shoulders and outstretched hands – one upon his head - and several by his feet.
The animals did not frighten Owain like they did most of his brothers and sisters. Little Clara would run and hide behind his father's legs whenever Henry called them if she was present. Shannon, one of the older boys – and the only orphan from Plegia in the home - would constantly chase them away from their refuse bins with a broom and complain about how dirty they were, whether or not the crows hanging around were Henry's. His mother seemed to be indifferent to them. On one hand, she was fascinated that Henry could talk to them – or at least claimed to – and was even more amazed when he'd revealed that he'd taught a few of them simple Ylissean words, but she preferred pretty songbirds. His father had, perhaps, the strangest reaction. He made no claims to understanding the languages of animals like Henry did, but he would talk to Henry's crows gently, let them perch upon his shoulders and staffs – and would preach the good news of the compassion of Naga to them. After Henry had spoken to him about how hard birds have it in the winter and how much they need fluffy things to line their nests, Father had taken to cleaning out his hairbrushes to leave strands of his own silky hair out in the yard for any birds that might need it.
Owain had heard a story from Aunt Cherche that his father had once befriended a mole in a similar manner. He got on well enough with her wyvern. Minerva hadn't tried eating one of the kids yet.
"You haven't seen Luna lately, nya-hah-ha!" Henry chuckled. He bent down and cocked his head toward a small crow that was hopping by his boot. He gently brushed her body with one hand, ushering her toward Owain.
"Somethin' seems wrong with her," the child observed. She let out a croak – somehow slightly deeper and darker than a crow's usual harsh caw, a sound that was more groaning.
That's when Owain saw a section of rib-cage poking through a disheveled mass of feathers on her chest. He jumped back.
"She's hurt!" Owain yelped. "Do you want me to get Mom and Dad to heal her?"
"She's not hurt, nya-ha!" Henry asserted. "She's dead. I used a spell to bring her back. She doesn't talk to me like she used to. The real Luna is on the Other Side now, but she's still got a little bit of herself left."
"That's scary, Uncle Henry."
Owain backed away from the bird but noticed that she did nothing but hop about and peck at the ground. She gave him a quizzical look with eyes that had a slight red glow.
"She's not gonna last much longer like this," his uncle said. "I'll have to bury her soon. I just wanted her around a little while longer. She has such nice, shiny feathers. Brady cried so much when she died that I had to bring her back for him, even if it's not the real her. He's too young to now the difference yet."
"She's not gonna steal my soul when I sleep?"
"No, kiddo. She's perfectly harmless. And armless! Get it? She's a bird… she has wings instead of arms!"
Owain laughed.
"Just don't tell your Mom and Pop about this. It's our secret, okay?"
"Okay, Uncle Henry."
"Owaiiiin! Henry! Come in for dinner!" Lissa called across the field from the main house.
That was the first time that Owain had seen a Risen. He'd never forget it.
The end of the world began, as many things began in Owain's family, with his Aunt Robin. Tensions rose between Ylisse and Plegia again when the new priest-king of Plegia laid claim upon Robin as his daughter and therefore claimed her as the legal crown princess of Plegia. Robin already was queen-consort of Exalt Chrom and thus belonged, by her own choice, to Ylisse. King Validar of Plegia presented evidence for Robin's parentage in the form of meticulous genealogies and criminal reports regarding kidnapping by her late mother, including some witness records his people had managed to glean from Ylisse / Plegian boarder refugee camps. In short, he demanded that either she be returned to Plegia or the Fire Emblem given to him in her stead.
Chrom and the Shepherds rode out to Plegia to a negotiations summit, all armed and ready for it to go south. The royals were not about to give up the sacred Fire Emblem and Robin was her own person. They wished to broker for peace but were fully prepared for another all-out war. Already there were Plegian bandits on the borders again with rumors of undead soldiers created by high-level Grimleal sorcerors – beings like the crow that Henry had shown Owain, but made from humans. The common name for them was "Risen."
Owain's parents both left for this summit, leaving him and his brothers and sisters at the orphanage under the care of the assistants. They both returned, heads hanging. His mother's face was gaunt and her eyes red from crying. Owain would never forget the chilling words his father gave him when he asked what was the matter;
"Owain, we… have some bad news about your Uncle Chrom…"
There was no time for proper mourning or a ceremony of succession. The royal funeral was a hasty affair, occurring within a few days of the Shepherds' return. The Ylissean army was called to alert along the borders and around Ylisstol. Aunt Robin was missing.
Owain decided that Uncle Chrom did not look like Uncle Chrom in his casket. He was too still, too pale, yet the sight confirmed for him that the man would not be able to give him sword-training anymore. Morgan cried and clung to Sir Frederick. He wouldn't stop asking when his mother would come home. Lucina was nearly as cold and still as her father. She stared ahead when seated for the service, conducted by Libra. Owain found his father's words eloquent, but could not fully appreciate them, not when he was giving worried glances at his cousin. When the remains of the royal family were called up to speak to the people – that is, Lissa, Lucina, Owain, Morgan and Libra, himself, since he was family-by-marriage, Lucina held up Falchion (which had been given to her by Frederick) and recited a speech about hope that someone had given to her to read off. She spoke in a monotone.
"I hear you haven't been eating, Luci," Owain said cautiously, approaching her after the service.
She looked down.
"You have to eat, please?" he insisted. His hands went to a small carry-all bag and he withdrew from it a wrapped sweet bun. "Mama made this. Just try it, okay?"
He watched as she gently took it for a nibble. She ate it slowly.
"Do… does Aunt Lissa have any more?" she asked cautiously.
"Of course she does."
Owain's parents went off to war after that - various battles to keep the growing numbers of Risen that were coming across the Ylissean border at bay. There were dark clouds on the western horizon during the daytime. Father said that the evil dragon, Grima, had been awakened and that it was raising up the undead to destroy the world, but was being held back by Naga. It seemed like the clouds grew every day.
Libra and Lissa alternated in their time on the front. Most of the time, it was Owain's father who left and his mother who stayed. Healers were sorely needed, so one or the other of them had to go to every major battle. Lissa assured everyone at the orphanage that the Shepherds would protect them and that Grima would be vanquished. What they needed for victory was for the sacred stones that went into the Fire Emblem to be reclaimed and for a member of the Exalted line to awaken Falchion through a trial of Naga. Lucina was the strongest candidate for this, but she was too young – it was feared that the Awakening would kill her, so all of Ylisse had to bide their time. The remaining Shepherds were hopeful. That didn't stop Lissa from gazing out at the horizon every day that her husband and friends were off fighting, hoping for the best and praying against bad news.
This continued for some time. Father would come home with one wound or another that needed special care and rest while Uncle Frederick took Mother away. She'd be returned to the orphanage, usually unharmed and a mended (sometimes not fully mended) Father would go off. Some days of exchange brought good news of holding the enemy back, other days brought news of some village completely lost or a fallen family friend.
Uncle Gaius fell. Uncle Henry went out in a massive magical explosion of his own devising that took out an entire army of Risen – or so the story went. Aunt Miriel went missing completely.
Owain's younger friend, Brady, came to stay at the orphanage while Aunt Maribelle fought. His other friends stayed with various relatives of theirs. Yarne, Kotton, Angori and Kashmir were supposedly secured in some burrow out in the wilds somewhere while their mother fought on the front lines. Others stayed at the palace. The all-important Exalted cousins Lucina and Morgan were under the care of palace staff and Frederick at Ylisstol.
It was one of these tense times when Owain was waiting for his father to come home that the world turned upside down again.
"Is your Ma burnin' dinner?" young Brady asked, sniffing as looked up from the board game that he and Owain were playing in the common room.
"My mother is a champion of the stove!" Owain said, taking offense.
"Do you hear something outside?" Mila – one of the older orphans said.
"I think its horses," said Syl. "Don't worry, Clara," the boy said to the little girl who was sitting beside him on the couch, clutching her stuffed pegasus toy. "Horsies."
"Maybe Father Libra's home?" Shannon wondered aloud. He and Owain both went to the window. They immediately recoiled when a pale fist crashed through it, followed by a snarling face.
Lissa ran in, clutching Baby Carrie in her arms, swaddled and wailing. "Everyone! Follow me to the cellar, NOW!" she screamed.
"Risen?" Syl yelped in panic, trying desperately to get up on his wooden leg. He'd lost his real one when his village near the Plegian border had been attacked by Grimleal during a random raid for sacrificial victims some time ago, leaving him the last survivor.
Smoke billowed into the room. Lissa's face was aghast.
"They set the house on fire! To the cellar! Move, move move!"
"Why don't we fight them?" Owain asked. "I'll get my sword! Shannon can get his, too!"
The other kids piled into the common room from other rooms of the house. The two adult assistants clattered down the stairs, herding the children the way Lissa was pointing.
"No, you will not!" Owain's mother said emphatically. "Now, everyone stay calm. We are going to file into the kitchen and down into the root cellar. We'll be okay."
She rocked the baby in her arms gently and held her close.
There was an explosion in the back rooms. Suddenly all of the walls were engulfed in flames. All of the children screamed at once. Brother Foxe and Sister Zera shielded everyone.
"What was that?" Syl panicked.
"Father Libra's art room," Lissa answered. "The fire hit his oil pants and rags. Damn!"
While Owain was used to Aunt Sully trying to stifle herself around him and his siblings from saying words that his parents did not approve of (which, of course some of the children would repeat at the earliest opportunity – at least until his mother made him literally wash his mouth out with soap one day), he was unused to his mother using the same words.
He looked left and right. He spared a glance at Brady and at Shannon. Shannon gave him a devious Plegian wink. Owain nodded. The two boys ducked between Foxe and Zera and took off in a dead run toward their shared quarters, ignoring the adults shouting after them.
"Owain!" Lissa cried, but Owain determinedly ignored his mother. He had to get his sword. He was going to fight! Shannon, too. He almost tripped over himself as he barreled down a hallway and into his bedroom. He opened the chest at the foot of his bed. It wasn't the legendary Mysseltain nor was it Falchion, just a simple iron sword, but he had named it and made it his partner.
"Quinarin" stared back at him in her leather scabbard, ready to help him become a hero forged in a house-fire. The name meant "Vanquisher" in a story he'd read about a world in which the dragons had a peculiar language and fought by shouting at one another – a bit different than battles among Manakete, but not by much. It was merely a world that added words to breath, like spell casting. Owain wondered if he was meant to go to that world one day – as he sometimes suspected that all worlds were real and just running parallel to one another.
He spied something else in his chest, a rolled up thick sheet of paper tied with a ribbon. His personal watercolor painting – the one his father had made for him of him being a hero. He put it in his rucksack just as he heard Shannon shouting. He couldn't see for the smoke and choked on it. There were bright flames licking along the wall at the head of his bed.
"I've got my sword!" Shannon yelled, coughing. "There's no time! We need to get out of here!"
They both heard moaning downstairs – it was a distinctly human moaning, but there was something animal about it. It wasn't the sound of their siblings or caretakers.
"This way, boys!" came the voice of Brother Foxe from the hallway. "If you two young fools are done with whatever idiot thing you're doing, you need to come this way!"
Owain felt the man press a wet cloth to his mouth and nose as he ushered him out. He lost sight of Shannon.
"I'll protect us, Brother Foxe!" he assured. "I got Quinarin!"
The man ignored him and pushed him along. They were halfway through the hall back out into the common room when Foxe suddenly stiffened and his eyes lost focus, rolling upward.
"Brother Foxe?"
The priest fell right on top of Owain. The boy shimmied out of the way and was met with the sight of a hand axe in the caretaker's back and the snarling visage of a big man in barbarian-fighter armor with rotting skin. The Risen spat black mucus at him as it yanked its weapon out of Foxe. It lunged toward Owain.
Owain, for his part, shivered, but quickly unsheathed Quinarin, muscle-memory from his training taking over. He was inexperienced in actual battle, but had been trained by the best. Being scared out of his mind didn't stop him from giving his blade a flourish, bypassing the attempted block by his enemy and stabbing the monster through the chest. It dropped its axe, roared and fell to the floor, writhing as the flesh burned from its skeleton into so many purple ashes, followed by the black burn of its bones.
Owain panted, taking in a lungful of smoke and then he coughed.
"Owain!"
His mother's voice. He turned around and bolted in its general direction. When he found her, he found that she was no longer holding Baby Carrie but was brandishing a silver battleaxe.
"Behind me!" she ordered.
More Risen appeared from the hallway. Flames turned the walls and supports of the house-interior into a crackling, lava-like glow. The last image Owain saw that night was his mother, silhouetted in the firelight holding up her weapon as the ceiling groaned and caved in on top of him.
"Oh, I see you're awake now. Hi, there."
Owain's vision was blurry. He registered that he was horizontal and that his throat was raw. His chest felt lie there was a great weight upon it. He reached out and found his small fingers brushing skin. Delicate fingers overlapped his. He felt a thin band of metal and the stud of a gem – his mother's wedding ring.
The boy blinked, clearing his vision. "Mother…" he said slowly and immediately regretted it as a needle-stab of throat-pain hit him.
"I'm here."
Her voice was quiet and hoarse. When he turned to see her face he encountered singed hair and a bandage on her cheek with little spats of rusty blood soaked through. Above it, arching around the left side of her face were blisters. The rest of her face was relatively unharmed, but with an unnatural flush as if she'd been out in the sun too long. Owain could hear Brady weeping and wind flapping at fabric.
He looked at the ceiling to find the wood of a tent pole and thick white fabric.
"Mama…"
"You're safe, Owain, you're safe!"
"Where are we?"
"Oh, Owain… I don't know what to say! You've been unconscious for two days! We pulled you out of the rubble… I thought I was going to lose you!"
"You…you can't lose me…" the child said, pulling himself up on his pillow and wincing at the effort. He felt bruises that went deep into the muscles of his limbs. He was also feeling the strange, dizzying after effects of healing-stave magic. "I am a destined-hero. You know that, Mother."
Lissa smiled, her eyes glistening. They were red, too, shot through with prominent blood vessels, indicating insomnia and grief.
Owain looked around the room. There were army cots and a few trunks set up in it. Brady was sitting on one of them. Mila was sitting on one of the trunks, tiny Clara huddled close to her knees, hiding her mouth behind a wing of her toy pegasus.
"Hey, glad to see Heracles got out okay from…whatever that was," Owain said, shooting a look to Clara's stuffed animal. "I said he'd always protect you."
Clara nodded slowly, burying her mouth back into the plush wings.
"That was a Risen-attack," Lissa choked out tearfully. She softly gripped Owain's shoulder. "The house burned down to nothing. Some of us got to the cellar, but…"
She looked away, to the ground.
"The baby died of smoke-inhalation," Mila explained, her voice cold and bitter. "One of the dastards stabbed Syl…he couldn't move fast enough on that bum leg of his. I saw it happen. Zera blocked a thunder spell aimed at me. Everyone else… just lost in the fire. The only people left are you, your Ma, Brady, Clara, Shannon and me. Shannon's outside twirling a sword around. Your Pa came back with the Shepherds last night. Too late."
Owain's jaw dropped and a cold feeling flowed into his veins. "No," he said, shaking his head. "It can't be! It just can't be!"
He swing his legs over the edge of his cot, heedless of his bandaged burns, his barefoot condition and of the fact that he was in loose-fitting pajamas which let him feel the nip in the open air once he'd gotten past his objecting mother and out into the wide world.
He was met with the sight of smoking cinders, blacked bits of house-framing and, by the back side of the house, a figure kneeling upon the ground before several small stone cairns and two large ones.
He approached cautiously, like a cat unsure of a stranger. The man's features were unmistakable. He was putting his hands up in ritual sigils, drawing upon the air. Owain recognized them as prayers of holy-protection.
"Father!"
Libra rose from his position. Owain bolted into his arms.
His father wrapped his arms around his back and gripped into his hair. It was not entirely comfortable. "Owain!" he cried in relief, kneeling down again as he got a tighter, warmer hold on his boy.
Owain simply set himself to bawling into his father's chest.
