Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem.

Chapter 4

Day 6

I'm exhausted! The last 24 hours have been hectic. I'm so tired...

But I must write! For if not...I'll have to write it tomorrow, along with tomorrow's events. Which means I'll have to write BOTH today's and tomorrow's events! But then again, nothing might happen tomorrow, which mean wouldn't have to write anything but today's events. But then again, I'm just trying to justify my procrastination. But I am so very tired...

I'll just write it today. Sigh. We're arriving in Laus tomorrow. Something is bound to happen. Probably more fighting. Nobles are always fighting! If all the rich folk stopped fighting and warring against each other, there would be less pointless deaths, less destruction, and I wouldn't have to write so much! But then I'd be out of a job...hmmm...I wonder what I would be if I wasn't a tactician...hmm...a mercenary? No, they would be out of jobs too...no, they would be hired by merchants to protect their goods from bandits! And if there are bandits, then nobles would have knights and such to protect them and (hopefully) their people from bandits. So there will be fights. And where there are fights, there will be tacticians! So I wouldn't be out of a job! Unless they exterminated the bandits...

I profit from violence, don't I?

ANYWAYS, it's time I record today's events, right?

The day started at around dawn... for me. I have trouble falling asleep, and I can't sleep in. A little ironic, don't you think? It's fortunate I can get by with only a few hours of sleep. I was already dressed (I slept in my traveling clothes. I have three sets which I alternate through every couple of days. I try to wash a set before wearing it again if possible, of course) so I decided to do nothing. Yep, nothing at all. It was one of the rare times in the day when the camp was quiet. Not silent though, Lord Hector snoring and all. But quiet. And I savoured it, thinking that it was it was going to be shattered in about an hour or two. But I was wrong.

It was barely half an hour.

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

I wasn't the only one awake early in the morning.

Shortly after the yell, a very pissed off Lord Hector stormed out of his tent with a brightly coloured material in his hand. It was bright pink. And it happened to be his cape.

"WHO DID THIS?!"

It was practically a rhetorical question. Who else could it have been? Lowen? He should have been asking, (Well, yelling) "Where did he get the dye!?" because no one knows that except Matthew, right? I would like the answer to that.

But my lovely quietness was broken.

After Lord Hector's bellowing, everyone was up and getting ready to set off. Lowen and Rebecca handed out the breakfast (dried meat and bread. We only had hot meals at dinner) and we were off. With an angry, pink-caped Lord Hector. He did approach...well charged Matthew about his cape, and Matthew told him that it was wash-out dye, but there wasn't a stream or a body of water handy for Lord Hector to wash his cape. So today he marched to Castle Santaruz with a pink cape. Nobody dared to laugh; Lord Hector looked ready to explode.

From where we were, it would have only taken a couple of hours to reach Castle Santaruz, but we were delayed. By what, you may ask? By a battle, of course! I not that I was surprised. I practically felt it coming. (Refer to my last entry if you don't believe me)

Anyways, as we made our way to Castle Santaruz, a big, bald, green-bearded knight in black armour approached us. He basically taunted Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood called his goons, and ran towards Castle Santaruz, which he seemed to have taken over. Oh, he insulted Lord Hector's pink cape too, which had him boiling mad. You fill in the rest. I don't feel like writing a stupid man's unoriginal, uncreative jabs at a short-tempered Lord Hector. Did I mention he was ugly too?

Moving on...

After that, I quickly scanned the battlefield. There were two villages; one to the west and another to the south(1). "We have to warn them of the coming battle," I thought. Quickly I formulated a plan.

"Bartre! Dorcas! Go to the west and warn the village to that there's a battle starting! Dorcas, you're in charge. Look out for Pegasus knights and don't do anything dangerous! Everyone else, to the south! Lowen, Marcus, take the lead!"

I was sure that Dorcas would keep and Bartre in line, and Marcus and Lowen were the fastest units with the best defense, so it made sense that they lead. Lord Hector, Lord Eliwood, Oswin, Rebecca, Matthew and I soon followed them and engage the enemy. Serra went to warn the other village of the battle, then came back, ready to heal.

The battle went very well. Marcus and Lowen did a good job of weakening the enemies, while Rebecca picked them off with her bow. Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood fought any unit who made it through Marcus and Matthew and I were just all over the place. We were all speed.

And Oswin? He was...slow. By the time he came around, we had finished off over half of the enemy units! And I'm not exaggerating. I two-legged turtle could have ran faster than Oswin. I am a tactician who values speed and precision. Unfortunately, Oswin does not fall into either of these categories, and therefore is left out of my tactics. It may not be smart to not use a unit considering the size of our force, but I wouldn't changed my tactics just for him. Besides, he made it in time to help use against the enemy reinforcements.

The reinforcements were troublesome.

They came out of the blue from the south in the middle of the battle and randomly appeared thereafter. One soldier nearly made it to Rebecca, but fortunately Lord Hector hacked off his head before any damage was done. (To Rebecca) Lord Eliwood was shot from behind in his...behind by an archer, but Serra was quick to heal him. (But Lord Hector probably won't let Lord Eliwood live it down)

And Matthew found a friend!

Well, less of a friend and more of a debtor. The person, who goes by the name of Guy, somehow was tricked into owning Matthew favors. Poor Guy...he's adorable!!

Let me explain.

There are certain things that I find adorable. Like baby animals of all sorts, (excluding insects) cheesy romantic scenes (I admit it!) and shy, stuttering people.

Like Guy.

Like Florina too, while I'm on the subject. She's shy, soft-spoken, and arrhenphobic (afraid of men). I found her so adorable and I just had to become her friend. I told her I found her adorable too. I don't think she minded. I'm going to become friends with Guy too. He's adorable too! And he stutters! I think he's girl-shy. Oh, did I mention he's Sacaen like Lyn? I think that's awesome. I hate how Sacaens are treated poorly because of what they are. They are not lower than non-Sacaens. In fact, they are probably better people than many nobles that I've meet. Many nobles do nothing by lie, cheat, and steal from their people. Sacaens never lie! And they respect nature! So many people just take and take and don't care at all about what they are doing to the earth! I don't care about anybody but themselves!

Ahem.

After defeating the enemy reinforcements, we met up with Dorcas and Bartre. Surprising, they took care of all the Pegasus knights without much injury. I thought Bartre might have jumped on to a lance or something trying to attack knight. Maybe, I should be a little less judgemental...But then he wanted to spar with Marcus's horse...

Lord Hector decapitated the stupid knight's head.

Fight scenes take a long time to do well, and if you're not the one fighting and you are not fascinated with the combatants' fighting styles, it's not very fun, or necessary to write. For me, anyways. Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my laziness...again...nah.

So we won the battle at Santaruz Castle...to witness the death of Lord Santaruz.

I feel sorry for Lord Eliwood and Lord Hector. Lord Santaruz must have been like an uncle to them. But he did leave us some interesting information before his parting. Lord Eliwood's father seemed to be involved in a mysterious scheme, and Lord Darin of Laus knows what it is.

So after dealing with Santaruz and re-equiping ourselves with new weapons (courtesy of Santaruz) we sent off for Laus. The company was weary from the afternoon fight, but Lord Hector insisted that we leave immediately. It definitely lowered morale. Everyone grumpily set off, leaving the possibility of comfortable beds and baths behind them. Me, I didn't really care. Remember, I prefer to sleep outside. But I understand their complaints. The ground isn't as appealing to most people as it is to me. I'm just an oddity.

Anyways, we were making our way to Laus when a high-pitched male scream rang through the air. (How did I know it was male? I just do.) Quickly, Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood ran in the direction the voice was coming from. Of course the rest of us followed, but really, don't those two think? What if it was a trap? It's not unheard of. Bandits (the smarter ones) sometimes pretend to be in danger to lure people and then ambush them. They could have gotten themselves killed! And I would be out of a job again...I mean...I later spoke to Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood about the risk they took, but I don't believe that either will remember anything I said. Lord Eliwood's sense of justice would overtake his common sense, and Lord Hector would probably enjoy rushing head first into an ambush. Sigh. Reckless!

So, by the time we reached Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood, they were already engaged in battle, trying to protect a blued haired man and his cart. "Great," I thought, "Another battle...at night too..."

"Matthew, Guy, Dorcas and Bartre, protect the rear! Marcus, Lowen, Oswin, and Rebecca, go assist Lord Hector and Lord Eliwood! Serra, be ready to heal!"

And with that, the battle went on. In front of us were cavaliers, nomads, myrmidons and archers. Behind were bandits, more myrmidons, and a mage! It was a hard battle, Guy getting singed pretty badly before getting healed by Serra, and Dorcas suffering a deep leg wound (from saving Bartre) but no one died. Not on our side, anyways. We DESTROYED them. They were completely annihilated. They must have either been extremely loyal, or royally paid. Either way, they didn't back down. We had to kill every single one of them before finally getting to the boss, a ratty looking man.(2) He was killed by Rebecca. (who's shot is improving much quicker than I expected)

Then we were introduced to the frightened man in the cart. His name is Merlinus, and he's a merchant. (As the cart implied) Why was he out in the middle of no where, with no protection and no fighting skills, I don't know, but he's going to carry all our extra equipment, which will make moving around much easier, and that's what matters. A new member with different services. A good addition. It's good to have a variety of units. Even if they can't fight, anyone can be useful. Now we don't have to lug around all our equipment by ourselves!

To wrap things up, we made it to a village (which we unknowing protected from bandits) and were given free rooms for the night. And 5000 gold. Generous, eh? The company was happy too. Morale was raised to its pervious level.

So I write this on the floor of my own room, because I'm the odd-one-out. But that's okay. I'm in the room farthest away from Lord Hector's, so I might be able to sleep well tonight. And because I have my own room, I was able to write this entry without interruptions. It now done, by the way. The entry, I mean. Uhhh...I'm so tired...must wait until ink dries...eh...where did Matthew get the dye?

'Night...

Sandra

Author's note:

Just for my convenience, on every map, north is up, south is down, east is right, and west is left. If you're a little angry with the lack description for battles, that's because I don't really enjoy writing battle scenes about characters that are not among my favourites (like how Sandra didn't want to write about it either) and, like Sandra, I'm lazy and tired. Every time I wrote part of this chapter, I wrote it at night to fit the whole tired bit. So, right now, I'm tired... and a tad grumpy

In the game, Germ/Jerm (not sure of spelling) ran off at the end of the battle. In my story, he died. Why? Because I don't recall a chapter where Germ/Jerm was killed, in- or outside a battle, but at the end of the game he came back as a morph. So, I killed him here. If you have proof of him dying somewhere else in the game, please send it to me, and I will edit this chapter.

Thank you for reading!