"What? Who are you? Why do you look so much like me?" Narcian was bewildered. This man had his exact looks, outfit and cloak, and even his smug grin. The doppelganger of Narcian readied his sword, then spoke to Narcian. When he spoke, however, he spoke with a hoarse, menacing voice.
"Narcian. Let's play. I want to see if you're as strong as you claim to be."
Narcian readied his own sword. "If you want to play, then what are we waiting for? Let's play!"
The doppelganger Narcian made the first move. He dashed at Narcian with blinding speed, and Narcian had barely managed to block the attack. Narcian took a swing at his foe, but his doppelganger was too fast. He flipped backwards to put distance between him and Narcian, and then brought up his sword into the air. Mysterious runes began to glow on the sword.
"Narcian, look out!" Carlos yelled to Narcian. "There's a sigil underneath you!"
Narcian looked down and jumped to the right. The sigil shone brightly before releasing an energy beam that shot upwards. A second too late, and he would have been possibly disintegrated. Narcian glared at his doppelganger. "What is that? Glowing sigils of doom?" Narcian then grinned. "Alright then. Two can play at that game!"
"Ah. I knew you would want to play with me. You don't seem half bad." The doppelganger Narcian's eyes glowed red. "But unfortunately for you, only I may live. And I will live forever!"
He raised his sword again. Another sigil appeared. Narcian evaded to the left, avoiding a pillar of fire that almost consumed him. The next sigil tried to freeze him in an icy prison, while the next one almost electrocuted him. He tried throwing his sword, but his doppelganger was too fast. He would flip, spin, glide; doing whatever it took to avoid a hit from the flying blade. Narcian's blade was rendered useless. Smiling with satisfaction, he jumped down and pointed the end of his sword to the ground. Narcian felt a stinging sensation as some sort of magic instantly bound him. Glowing seals formed around his wrists and ankles, and seemed to magnetize to a much larger sigil. He was trapped. The doppelganger Narcian laughed a bone-chilling laugh. "Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! How do you like my Binding Sigil? Now all you can do is simply hang there as I run you through!" Narcian struggled with his magical bonds. "Oh. I'm going to enjoy sapping the life and soul out of you!" The doppelganger approached Narcian, stroking his sword gently. Narcian struggled all the harder, but the bonds would not break. His doppelganger was now standing in front of him, sword inches away from his gut. Narcian stopped struggling. "What's wrong? Have you given up?" Narcian just smiled. "Why don't we find out?" His doppelganger thrust his sword into Narcian. Narcian screamed in pain as the blade went deeper into his gut. His blood was getting absorbed into the blade, and Narcian was starting to turn pale from so much blood loss. He looked into his twin's face. With an up close look he realized that the facial features on his evil twin were actually waxy and slightly blurry. But as more blood was being drained from him, the facial features became clearer. Starting to feel faint, he looked at his sword. Although feet away, he tried as desperately as he could to reach for it. To his amazement, his sword came to his hand, and broke his right hand seal. Bringing his sword up, he brought it down into the surprised face of his doppelganger. He could feel the sword come out of him. The last thing he remembered seeing was his evil twin clutching his face, screaming in agony, before he fell to the ground and passed out.
Narcian opened his eyes. He was not on the ground anymore. He was instead at what he assumed was the medical center. Looking at himself, he saw his wounds were bandaged up. He looked to his left and saw his sword, washed of blood and well polished. He also saw a second sword, also gleaming from being well polished. This one had a ribbon tied on it. Looking to his right he saw a glass of water and a note. He leaned closer to get a look at it. It said:
"Narcian,
I hope you are doing all right. You need to keep drinking water. The nurses say that you lost lots of water from bleeding so much. We'll see so soon. We are at a meeting right now discussing what happened today and our trip to Valm. Keep resting.
-Chrom
Narcian thought about it, then went to sleep. When he woke up, he grabbed the glass of water and drank it in one swig. He tried to get up, but his chest hurt when he tried to rise, so he lay back down. He decided to try to remember what had happened to him that ended him up where he was now.
"I was fighting some stranger that looked like me," he said to himself, "he fought like me and planned like me. Heck, he even spoke to me the way I would speak to an opponent." Something clicked in Narcian's mind. "Wait. I used to speak like that, but that changed when I met Dalton. And his weapon wasn't even similar to mine." Narcian then realized something. "That weapon he wielded…it was similar to…my Runesword. How he got ahold of something like that I have no idea. But I am sure that it was extremely similar to my Runesword."
He kept thinking about this until someone came through the door. He looked up and saw what he assumed was a Pegasus Knight. But something was different about this one. Unlike other Pegasus Knights, whose armor is a dark, faded red, her armor was shiny metallic. He also noticed that she wore no helmet like the other knights, and instead had wing ornaments in her long, red hair. He looked at her hand and noticed she had come in with a healing staff. They both stared at each other in silence.
After a minute Narcian broke the silence. "Does everyone in this army, save for Carlos and a few others, have abnormal hair color?"
The Pegasus Knight just smiled at him. "Well, it's not like we can help it. Most of us are born with it." Narcian smiled back. "Well that's fine by me. Besides, Chrom wouldn't look like Chrom if he didn't have blue hair. Say, who are you? I don't recall meeting you at all."
"I'm Cordelia. I'm one of the Pegasus Knights. And you're Narcian, aren't you?"
"Yes. That's my name." Narcian replied. "So I'm assuming you're in here to patch me up some more or something?"
"No," Cordelia said, "I'm here to rejuvenate you. This staff is used for giving fresh energy to those who are lacking in it."
Narcian lay back on his bed. "Alright. How do you do it?"
"Like this," Cordelia responded. She put the top end to Narcian's chest, and then took a deep breath. The end pointing to Narcian glowed green. Narcian felt as if he was starting to get hyper. His body was filling up with energy. Cordelia then brought the staff back up. Feeling energized, Narcian jumped out of bed and stretched.
"Ah, now THIS is how I should feel everyday I wake up!" Narcian had never felt better in his life.
"I glad that worked," Cordelia said. She started toward Narcian, but tripped and fell into his arms. "Oh, I'm sorry!" Narcian, still holding Cordelia asked, "What's wrong? You seemed fine when you came in."
"Oh. The staff saps some of your energy as you use it. I wanted to give you a fresh energy boost, so I use a lot of my energy to, uh, give you energy."
"Really?" Narcian was surprised. No one other than Chrom and Carlos had ever done anything this nice for him. He decided to return the favor. "Alright. Since I'm the one brimming with energy, I'll carry you around until you have the energy to walk. Is that fine with you?" Cordelia looked up into his eyes and smiled at his offer. "Why sure! I was just about to ask you myself."
Narcian grabbed his weapons and then strapped their sheathes to his belt. He scrawled a note on the door saying that he left for the garrison. With Cordelia in his arms, he left his ward. Cordelia pointed out the directions, and Narcian followed them. They soon made it back to the garrison. It was already night when he reached his tent. With Cordelia still in his arms, he sat down on a bench and looked to the stars.
"You know, for some reason the constellation of a six-winged death dragon still appears in the night sky. The other constellations will disappear, but that one has been hanging around for some time." Cordelia looked up to the sky. "Yeah, I've noticed that too. Maybe it's a sign." She then brought her head to his chest and fell asleep. Narcian took her to his tent, because he didn't know where hers was, and put her in his bed. He then went outside and lay on the ground, gazing at the stars.
"Huh. For some reason the constellation of my sword is still in the night sky as well. Strange. I'll never understand these unexplainable things that happen." He eyelids started to droop. "Maybe tomorrow Chrom will announce that we are heading to Valm. I've been dying for action." Narcian put his head back and soon fell asleep.