Starting to get to the meat of the story! Sort of. That means I have to start planning something bigger than just the game. Mysteries need solving! Wait, wrong fandom.
I messed with the dialog a bit here, mixing up the order and putting it in my own words. Inaccurate yes, but hopefully refreshing?
Chapter 7: Getting in the swing of things
On the way out of town I made sure to stop at one of the shops I had noted before.
"Hey Chrom, mind if I buy a couple things real quick?" I didn't exactly have any money, so the real question was 'Can I borrow some money?' I didn't want to say that though.
The prince gave me an unreadable look. "It's coming out of your pay." He handed me a small sack of gold.
"That is just fine." Sewing supplies here I come! I wanted to keep my clothing in good shape since it was all I had of home, and being in battle as often as I expected to be I would probably need to do a lot of patching jobs.
Not wasting any time I bought a bag, a needle, thread, and just half a yard of sturdy green fabric, trying to save some money. I shouldn't need that much for a few patching jobs anyway. Not that I planned on getting hit, but you could never be too careful.
I also bought a journal for writing everything I remembered about the game. It had been over a year since I last played it, and I'd only gotten halfway through. I knew most of the story from fanfiction so I could write that down too, but there were still a few things I was fuzzy on just because it had been so long. I didn't want to forget any more than I already had, hence the journal.
"Thanks for waiting. Sorry for the holdup." It wasn't just Chrom waiting for me, but everyone on the trip to Ferox. I really hadn't wanted to slow everyone down, but I didn't know when the next chance to get all this would be. It was unnerving to own nothing but a pen and the clothes on my back. I was glad to have a bag again.
I held out the sack of remaining gold out to Chrom to take back. "Keep it," he told me. "It's your pay for this week."
I pocketed the bag with a smile. Sweet!
We were about to continue on our way when there was a shout of "Wait!"
Stahl came running from out of nowhere. That was weird, he wasn't supposed to catch up until right before the next battle. Had my shopping really taken that long?
Stahl put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "Why was I the last one to hear of this mission?"
"What? But Vaike was supposed to…" Lissa's face changed from confused to exasperated. "Vaike! Did you forget to tell Stahl about the expidition?"
Ah, here comes one of my favorite lines. "The Vaike never forgets!" I quietly said the words along with him, getting some weirded out and amused looks from the others. "I just don't always remember is all…"
"Ugh. You'd forget your own name if you weren't saying it yourself so much." Lissa muttered. I snickered. Interactions like this were what made me love Awakening so much.
Chrom sighed. "We should get going. I'm glad you're with us Stahl." He flashed a smile at the cavalier before turning around to finally leave town.
"Miriel should be right behind me if you'll wait." Stahl stood up straight, breathing easily now. Man, if it were me I would have needed a little longer.
"Fine." Chrom allowed. Well this was different. I shrugged and sat down against a stall wall, getting off of my feet to keep them fresh for the march.
Lissa decided to join me. "So what did you buy?"
"Just a journal and some sewing supplies. I want to remember everything my friend told me. I might be able to help you out of some tough spots." In fact, now was a good time to start writing, but it would have to wait since Lissa wanted to talk.
"You sew?" She questioned.
"Yeah, my mom taught me. She sews a lot in her free time."
"Could you teach me?"
Oh gosh, if I remembered correctly Lissa sucked at sewing. What to say, what to say…"Sure!" Oh jeez, what have I done? "When you get you own supplies." I hastily amended. Much better.
"Okay!" She stood back up and headed back towards the shop I had just left. Wow, I didn't know she would be so eager.
Chrom spied her leaving. "Lissa! Where are you going?"
"To get sewing supplies!"
"Is now really the time for that?"
"Merra got some!" Lissa pouted. Oh jee, thanks Princess. Thank you for throwing me under the bus.
Chrom looked at me. "So that's what was so important to stop for?" While the prince's attention was on me Lissa took the opportunity to sneak away to the shop.
"I don't know how many Shepherds know how to sew, and I expect there to be many patching jobs in the near future." I defended. "Not to mention it's cold in Ferox, so any extra fabric will be welcome." I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Texas could have some cold winters, but they were few and far between. As it was I hadn't been out in temperatures below fifty in a couple years, at least not in as few layers as I was wearing now.
"By the way," I continued. "We're probably going to fight two battles before you can talk to the Kahn."
"You didn't think to tell me this sooner?"
"If I weren't here you wouldn't know until you were fighting them, and that turns out fine. Why should I have told you?"
"I suppose…"
I yawned, finding myself tired without my morning meds to keep me awake. Wuh-oh. Regretfully I stood so I wouldn't fall asleep against the wall. I may have gotten a good night's sleep last night but I had already been active this morning. It wouldn't be a problem so long as
I kept moving.
"Apologies for my tardiness!" Came a call a little behind us. Miriel had finally caught up. "One of my experiments detonated."
I wondered if the library was okay.
Chrom didn't bat an eye at the worrying sentence. "Now that everyone's here, let's get moving."
I looked back at the shop where Lissa still was. I could say something, but at the same time I could also say nothing and make her have to catch up. I could prank the prankster! Although she'd probably try to get me back, and I didn't want to get into a prank war. I was actually really bad at pranking people. But Lissa liked scaring people with frogs, right? I liked frogs.
Deciding that the outcomes of saying nothing could only be positive, I kept my mouth shut. She might not blame me anyway.
"Waaait!" A voice behind us cried as the company walked away. Ah, speak of the devil and she shall appear.
Lissa caught up to us, sewing supplies in hand. She came up to me. "Teach me!"
"Lissa we're walking. I don't think it's a good idea." That was just asking to get stabbed with a needle.
"Aw…" She started fidgeting and I realized she hadn't gotten a bag. I sighed.
"Go ahead and put what you got in here," I patted my bag. "I'll hold onto it for you."
Lissa brightened up. "Really? Thanks!"
We continued marching.
The longer we marched the antsier I got. I jumped at everything, knowing that a risen battle was coming soon. I felt like I was in a haunted house: willingly walking into a trap that no matter how keen my eyes were (or were not, since my glasses had broken) I could not see until I was upon it. My hand hovered over my sword almost instinctively now, already getting used to having one in this world. I felt exposed in my modern clothes lacking armor. How could Donnel stand it? Or Gaius? Villagers and thieves don't get armor, right? Or mages? Definitely not dark mages at least. I suppose I couldn't complain since I wasn't the only one. It would just have to be motivation to not get hit.
I felt a presence beside me. "Nervous?" Robin asked.
Nervous? I guess you could say that. "Understandably I think. We're going to fight risen soon. I almost died both of the last times I encountered one."
"Risen?" Robin looked confused.
"The undead with the glowing red eyes we encountered. They're called risen." As I was speaking my eyes continued darting around.
There! Movement! I stopped paying attention to the tactician in favor of trying to identify the source of the motion.
Despite my spotting the movement, it was Chrom who identified the risen first. "Gods, have the risen spread this far?" He started the familiar dialog.
Vaike grabbed for his weapon, only to find that it wasn't there. "My axe. Where's my axe?! I had it a second ago!"
I looked at Miriel to see if she had picked it up like she had in the game, but her hands were empty. Oh, great. Since she had caught up to us while we were in town she wasn't trailing behind us, which meant she wasn't there to pick up Vaike's missing axe. Cause and effect. Because I decided to go shopping, Vaike wasn't going to be able to fight. This was my fault.
I didn't have time to mope though. As I unsheathed my sword (Robin's sword, my mind reminded me) Frederick apparently decided that now was a good time to go over the weapon triangle. When playing the game explaining the mechanics didn't seem out of place, but living in this world? It was plain weird. I'd call it immersion-breaking, but the term didn't really apply to my situation anymore.
Too late I realized that I had let my mind wander and the others had spread out, leaving me alone. Well, almost alone. Vaike and Sumia were with me, but Sumia was as new to fighting as I was and Vaike didn't have his axe.
I saw a risen about to attack Miriel while she was busy incinerating another. Not on my watch, buddy!
"Hey!" I shouted to get its attention to stall it and give me more time to reach it before it attacked. It hesitated, turning away from the squishy mage. I balked at the sight of its lance. Goddammit. Hadn't Frederick just mentioned the weapon triangle? I was so screwed!
The risen took advantage of my hesitation by taking a stab at me that I barely managed to knock away. I jumped back out of reach and tried to weigh my options. I was at a definite disadvantage, what with the lance's longer reach. I would have to find a way to get inside its guard without getting stabbed or whacked by the shaft.
The risen didn't wait for me to think, stepping forward with another stab. I jumped to the side, but it followed with a swing that caught me in the ribs. I gasped at the pain, trying to get away from the cause of it but finding that the weapon was caught up in my jacket. The risen tugged at it, trying to free the lance so it could get the momentum to strike again. Seeing its troubles I got an idea. Wincing at the tearing sound coming from my beloved jacket, I jerked myself forward and inside lancer's guard. I had time to deliver a few relatively solid blows before I was thrown back by a strike from the lance's shaft.
I was gasping for breath, winded by the blow, when there was a large blur from my left and suddenly the risen dissolved into blobby purple dust.
At this rate I should be complaining about kill-stealers. Just once I wanted to prove I could do it myself.
The blur slowed down and I could see it was the red cavalier, Sully.
"I had that!" I complained between breaths.
"Then what were you waiting for?" She challenged. Deeming me to be okay, she rode off to her next fight.
I grumbled but was secretly grateful for her intervention. I really hadn't had that.
The ground seemingly rose up beside me and I had to dodge a slash of claws. A revenant. Slow, but could disappear in the ground and had a lot of HP. The burning slice in my side was enough reminder that I had to be careful, but I was pretty sure I could take this one.
I backed up a bit and waited for the revenant to rise again. The shadow on the ground moved forwards, warning me that it was about to appear and I struck its head while it emerged from the ground, dazing it. I used its distraction to stab it as hard as I could. It shrieked at the abuse, but didn't dissolve like I had hoped.
I went to pull out my sword for another attempt, but it was stuck. Just my luck! I was forced to move out of the way or get turned into a slasher movie victim as the revenant regained its senses and came at me again. After a few tries it retreated back into the ground, my sword sticking out of the shadow like the sword in the stone. When the shadow moved so did the sword, and for a short time the fight turned into a comical game of chase. Finally I caught up to the skewered risen, (I thought it was supposed to be slow!) grabbing the sword and pulling with all my might. I regretted sitting on the couch all day at home instead of exercising. Maybe if I had gone outside or worked out or something, this wouldn't be so hard! I ended up standing on top of the shadow before I was able to retrieve my weapon, but right as I did the revenant rose up from the shadow again and I was tossed backwards off of its head.
I was getting tired of this.
I was getting tired in general too, being completely out of shape and already having had my exercise this morning. This fight was trying my stamina and my patience.
"Alright, it's time to die!" I picked myself up off the ground and, in a fluid motion far too precise for my beginner skill level I brought my sword down on the risen's head in a powerful downward strike. The revenant was gruesomely cut in half before it dissolved into a cloud of purple.
"Ha! I'll show you helpless."
I stopped. Was that a post-battle quote? And a critical quote? Seriously? And thinking back, I think I made a support quote with Miriel too. That was…interesting. Seeing game mechanics in the supposed real world was surreal. Especially that crit. How had I managed to pull that off?
Still though, I was proud of myself for killing a risen on my own from start to finish. At last!
An especially distinct twinge from my side reminded me that I wasn't out in the clear quite yet. I looked around for Lissa and found her riding around with Stahl. Perfect.
"Lissa!" I called. There were no more risen in the area to catch the attention of, so I might as well yell for her. The rush of battle was beginning to wear off and my side's throbbing was becoming more insistent. I tried not to think about how hard it would be to wash the blood out of my clothes later.
"Coming Merra!" Lissa shouted back to me. Stahl steered his horse over in my direction. I didn't have to wait long. As they neared I heard a cry of pain over where the few remaining risen were, so instead of stopping to heal me somehow Lissa was fast enough to heal me as she and Stahl passed by. As soon as that was done they turned around to go heal whomever had cried out.
I shrugged and followed, albeit at a slower pace. I would never be able to keep up with a horse. By the time I got to the source of the sound, (Vaike, having no axe to defend himself with) Lissa had already done her healing and Stahl had destroyed the offending risen.
I wondered where Robin was.
"Is everyone ready to keep moving?" Chrom inquired.
There were no protests, so it was time to continue our march to Ferox. I could already feel the air cooling as we walked away from the temperate weather of Ylisse.
I could really go for a nap. I hardly ever napped back at home, but I didn't exactly push myself there like I did here. Regardless of what I wanted, the march continued. And continued. And continued.
Naga this was boring.
Just as I was about to try my hand at writing while walking out of desperation for something to do, Robin started the next scripted dialog.
"Well, what do we have here?"
"Is that what I think it is?" Lissa stopped and squinted against the sun.
A white form stood out in the tall grass. Oh, right! I had forgotten about the pegasus.
"It's a pegasus all right. But it looks like it's hurt. Let's take a look here…" Chrom made to step forward but I managed to grab his arm and pulled, not succeeding in pulling him back but at least getting him to stay in place. "Merra, what are you—"
"How 'bout we let Sumia take care of this?" I interrupted. I guess it was kind of rude, but it was either that or risk Chrom getting kicked by a pegasus. I didn't remember how it went in the game other than the fact that the pegasus didn't respond well to him at all in comparison to Sumia, and I didn't want to take any chances.
"Captain, allow me." Sumia said, approaching. I opened my mouth in warning but too late, she had already tripped and fallen on her face. Ouch. Guess there was nothing I could do about that.
Sumia did her best to save face, but I could tell she was embarrassed for tripping—again—in front of Chrom. Her miraculous job calming the pegasus made up for her image though, being able to walk right up to it and rub its head without upsetting it.
Robin was aghast. "How did she calm it so quickly?" He asked no one in particular.
Sumia blushed at the praise she was getting from Chrom and Lissa. "It's nothing, really. I just have a way with animals, I guess." I could understand that; I had a similar thing with birds. They always seemed to like me. I wondered if pegasi were close enough to birds to like me.
Sumia looked at us expectantly. "You all go on ahead. I'll dress her wounds and catch up with you."
"We can make time to wait for you," Chrom offered.
Sumia shook her head. "Thank you, Captain, but I can manage. Every moment is precious when all of Ylisse is in danger." I shifted uneasily at that. 'Every moment is precious,' huh? And here I was, making everyone wait just to get some sewing supplies. Stupid me.
Ah well. What's done is done. We had another fight in store before the day's end, and as much as I'd've liked to stay behind with Sumia so I could repair my shirt and jacket, she would need to be alone on the pegasus in order to rescue Chrom later.
I wondered why I couldn't have gotten stuck in a pokemon game.
A/N: I apologize for Miriel. For all my vocabulary she makes me feel dumb. I can't write her for my life. (Hence why she hasn't said a word until now)
It's hard to write myself off of my medicine, especially in a different world. I feel like the change in environment would keep me occupied enough that the depression wouldn't set in real badly until a week or so in, and the misery (a combination of being bored but too tired to do anything) of not having my ADHD meds wouldn't stand out much either. As a person governed by logic on a normal day, off my medicine I'm so illogical that I'm not sure how differently I would react to things. Not to mention that it's very hard to get into a depressed state of mind to know what to write when I'm on as many anti-depressants as I am. Just a little. So as a result medical problems were not prominent in this chapter at all. Sorry to those who actually appreciated it!
I hope no one minds the rambling in the author's notes. I always like author's notes because you get to relate to the author and learn a little about their intentions for the story. It's exciting to be able to write my own! Let me know in a review if it's too bothersome?
