Chapter 8

Humans

The two had been walking in total silence for over two hours now. Ephidel had tried to convince Lasentis of Morcere's duplicity, but she simply refused to listen to reason. Despite all of his efforts these past two weeks, the only thing he had learned about her was that she hated him and was blindly loyal to her mentor, and so he was not entirely sure how to approach the situation here. He had finally given up for the time being, but Lasentis was still angry, and thus the silence.

Now the sky was slowly starting to dim, and though he would have liked to continue onwards for a while–they had already seen a few dragons flying overhead searching for something, presumably them–he could see that Lasentis was exhausted, emotionally if not physically. Better to hide for the night than risk her perception and reflexes failing her.

They set up camp in a small copse by one of the surrounding mountains, eating nothing but a cold dinner of dried meats. Ephidel remained awake to keep watch for quite some time afterwards–sleep was useful, but unnecessary for him–only awakening Lasentis to take his place a few hours before dawn. The switch occurred without a word and the morph went to his tent and immediately allowed himself to fall unconscious.

– – –

He awoke somewhat earlier than expected, perhaps an hour before dawn. He was quite surprised to see that somebody was standing at the entrance of his tent. A human, and if his horned helm and sparsely placed armor were not enough to show his intentions, the gargantuan axe resting easily on his shoulder certainly was. Ephidel immediately rolled to the side as it came swinging down to where he lay seconds ago. He let loose a weak Elfire spell–he did not have the tome immediately at hand–and though it was far from debilitating, it gave him the time he needed to produce the real Elfire tome from his cloak, and he shot another spell, this one far more powerful. Even though he kept the explosion quite small–he had no desire to burn down his tent while he was still inside–his foe fell to the ground, covered in burns. Ephidel stepped over the unconscious–or dead, but it made no difference now–body to observe the situation outside. He did not like it.

Lasentis was surrounded by two more berserkers, a druid, an assassin, and a sniper all at once. He wondered how she had managed to avoid injury from so many, but it quickly became clear that she did not. Even now, one berserker managed to hit her with the shaft of his axe, breaking her arm, the assassin gave her a number of deep scratches along her abdomen, and the sniper managed to lodge an arrow in her leg. But after every injury, a purple wheel of energy floated above her attacker before forcibly ripping bits of their quintessence away from them and using it to heal her wounds. Even then, she could not last forever, for a serious blow from any of her opponents would probably result in her losing a limb, if not her life, and that was nearly impossible to fix even with magic.

Ephidel immediately rushed forward as he brandished his tome, unleashing another inferno on the nearest berserker, and though the warrior still stood, it seemed as though another blow would be enough to finish him. But this one was not wielding the same enormous axe as the one he had encountered earlier, instead armed with one small enough to be thrown with ease. The metal angrily spun through the air towards him and sliced through part of his sleeve before its enchantment pulled it back through towards its wielder, who expertly caught it. He pulled back his arm for another throw, but not before Ephidel cast another spell and killed him.

Suddenly Ephidel felt a sharp pain in his back. The sniper had somehow managed to get behind him and let lose an arrow, and based on how deeply it had penetrated, it must have been made of silver. Not only that, but the sniper was well out of the range of his magic, which was absurd–bows with that much range had never been made of anything more powerful than iron since the Scouring. Ephidel could not help but wonder how they had acquired such weaponry, particularly when their dirty and tattered clothes marked them as far from rich.

The actual pain of the blow meant nothing to him–it still hurt, but as a morph, he was designed to ignore it–and the battle continued unchanged. The druid turned to Ephidel and began casting Luna at him. The morph quickly stepped around a tree, only barely avoiding the deadly black orbs that would have slammed into him, then rushed closer to his opponent. He knew that he was at a disadvantage against elder magic, so instead of casting Elfire again, he reached into his cloak for his ever-present dagger and slipped it between the druid's ribs before he even knew what had killed him.

By then Lasentis had finished off the other berserker, leaving the two of them against the sniper and the assassin. "Hold him off," said Ephidel, gesturing at assassin. "I'll deal with the sniper and then we can finish him together."

He turned towards his target without waiting for a response, drawing in closer so that he did not need to fear a counterattack. The sniper fired another shot at him as he approached, this one sinking into his shoulder. He was already nocking another arrow even though Ephidel was nearly upon him, but before either of them could act, a wheel of malevolent purple energy appeared above the sniper and orbs of quintessence were drawn from him before letting his corpse fall to the ground.

Ephidel turned to see Lasentis standing not far behind him, but he also saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. Then the world flickered red as he felt a pair of knives bite into him, and all was dark.

– – –

When he finally awoke, the first thing he was aware of was how miserable he was. He must have been barely clinging to life for the longest time before finally building up the strength needed to resume consciousness, though he had no idea how long it took for him to finally reach that point.

The next thing that he noticed was that he was moving, which led him to realize that he was floating. He opened his eyes to see Lasentis, her arm in a shoddy splint, plodding on ahead of him.

"Put me down," he said with a surprisingly raspy voice.

"Good," said Lasentis brusquely, "it took you long enough." She did not put him down, however, instead thrusting a dull brown satchel into his hands. "Drink it. You wouldn't while you were asleep, and you need it."

Ephidel willingly downed the entire bitter contents of the vulnerary and felt much better for it. Only now that his strength had returned did Lasentis release her spell on him, and for that he was grateful because he probably would have been unable to stand in his previous state. Of course he was severely ungrateful for a number of other things that had recently happened because of her, but that conversation would happen soon enough.

"How long have I been unconscious?" he asked instead.

"All of yesterday and most of today," came the curt response.

Those were the only words that passed between them during their journey until late that night when they set up camp in another small thicket. They set up their tents, cooked a meal over a small fire–they were finally an acceptable distance away from Drasor for it–and had just finished eating it.

Only then was Ephidel ready to begin the discussion that would almost assuredly reduce Lasentis to–well he was actually not entirely sure what it would reduce her to; he still had trouble predicting what she would do. Whatever her reaction was, it was sure to be far from pleasant, but it was something that had to be done.

"Who were those humans that attacked us?" he asked after they had finished their dinner, thinking it best to begin with the relatively neutral subjects.

"Bandits," said Lasentis. "They're not so rare outside the city, but the King lets them be because he doesn't want a war with the humans here."

"They seem quite well trained and equipped for that to be the case. They make some of the greatest warriors of Elibe look like no more than a common mercenary."

"They've always been this way," said Lasentis with an odd look.

An idea struck Ephidel. "These humans passed through the Gate with the Divine Dragon clan in the early stages of the war, correct? Perhaps all humans were like that before."

And now to inch closer to the real question. "But how did they attack us so quickly? I could understand the assassin, and perhaps the sniper or druid, but most berserkers don't even know the meaning of stealth."

Lasentis paused for a moment before answering. "I heard a lot of bushes rustling," she said, "but there was no wind, so I went to take a look. There was a human berserker there and he tried to attack me, so I killed him, but right after that, all the other ones came too."

Ephidel regarded her coolly for a moment. "You should have woken me immediately," he said. The only response that he received was a guarded expression.

"And what happened at the end of the battle?" he continued. "How did the assassin get past you so quickly?"

"The sniper was open, okay?" snapped Lasentis. "How was I supposed to know that the assassin would get you like that?"

"Because that is what assassins do; it is the very reason that they are called assassins. Besides, I think I have a bit more experience on the battlefield than you do, so perhaps you should listen when I tell you to act." He was growing angry now, and though he did attempt to restrain it–slightly–it had still managed to seep its way into his voice.

Lasentis grit her teeth and her eyes burned with renewed fury. "No!" she shouted. "I will never listen to you."

"I will not stand for that," said Ephidel, his own voice raising. "I could endure this before when you were no more than an irritation, but not anymore. I almost died twice that morning because of nothing short of spiteful negligence on your part, and I will not have this continue."

"You're blaming this on me?" said Lasentis, though her voice was slightly less sure now. "How is this–"

"I really don't care what idiotic excuses you have." interrupted Ephidel. The rage burning inside of him had grown stronger, far stronger than any emotion he felt in a long time. "I have no more patience for you, so I will make this be settled immediately. So I ask this: why do you hate me?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I demand it," he said, reaching into his bag for his fimbulvetr tome. "Do not make me use force. You know you still can't beat me."

Lasentis gave him one last defiant look before hanging her head forward and drooping her shoulders. For whatever reason, she was utterly defeated, and was utterly transformed her into an entirely different person. Then again, Ephidel had never seen anything but simmering anger from her, and surely that wasn't all she was. But the morph was more concerned with stilling that growing emotion inside of him, one that was savagely pleased to see her this miserable.

"Early on in the Scouring," began Lasentis in a whispered monotone, "my family was taken from our home and captured by humans. I was out playing then, so they didn't find me, but when I got back, I was alone. I was so young, so I got scared, but then I got angry. I followed the humans' tracks until I finally found them, and–" she stopped for a moment as tears came to her eyes.

"My mom and dad were dead. I saw their corpses by their camp, and the blood was still fresh. And the humans were sitting around a fire with fresh meat and I knew the area, there was no game there, so–" she stifled a sob. As heart wrenching as this tale was supposed to be, Ephidel could not help but be annoyed at her.

"I snuck into their camp," she said when she had finally gotten a hold of herself, "and was going to attack them that night. But then I saw my big sister tied up. She was still alive but the humans were talking about what they would do to her and–and I lost control. I didn't try to, but I started shifting into dragon form in the middle of their camp. They all came and attacked me at once before I even finished transforming and tied me up too. Then they made me watch as they did everything they said they would before to my sister, and then they killed her.

"They were going to do the same to me too, but then I saw a divine dragon with an earth dragon in human form on his back. The humans did too so they stopped and got all their mages and archers ready, but they never got close enough for them to fire. The earth dragon raised one hand and shadows came up from the ground and killed all the humans at once.

"The two came down then–Morcere was the divine dragon and his teacher was the earth dragon–and tried to help me, but they couldn't really. My whole family was dead, my dragonstone destroyed, and I didn't have anything left. I wandered around for a while, then–"

"Enough," said Ephidel with a condescending scowl on his face. "Where are you going with this? Let me make this clear: I don't like you and I only care about your past so much as it affects me. Now answer my question."

Lasentis looked disoriented for a moment before suddenly understanding what was being asked. "You look like them."

Ephidel stopped in puzzlement. "That's it?" he laughed. "You hate me and almost kill me because I happen to look like a human? Did you ever stop and think about how pathetic that sounds? Did you ever stop and think about how almost every dragon still alive suffered the same thing you did? Did you ever stop and think at all?"

He was working himself up into a frenzy. Why? He wasn't accomplishing anything, so why couldn't he stop? "The sheer irony of all this is just disgusting," he continued. "Here you are, attacking me because I look like a human, and here you are acting just as idiotically emotional as they do."

"Shut up!" said Lasentis, tears streaking down her face. "You've never had to deal with this before, so just shut up."

"Deal with what? Humans ripping your life and all you hold dear away from you on a whim? I'm a morph, that's the only reason I exist; that's the only reason I came to this place! Those humans may have made you suffer when they killed your family, but they made me suffer for my entire life. You hate me because I look like a human, but I have every reason to hate humans just as much as you do. Everything that's ever happened to me is their fault and I will never stop until every last one of them is dead, especially my idiot of a creator."

Then pain seared through Ephidel and he fell to the ground. Through all the suffering, though, he knew that it was only a product of his own lack of self-control, and was all the more miserable because of it.

–––Author's Notes–––

What is Fire Emblem without random bandits in an early chapter where nothing important to the plot occurs? I cannot say that I faithfully followed the tradition, as I have attempted to make something at least moderately interesting [if not overly dramatic] happen in the aftermath, but so it is. In regards to the battle itself, its ending was inspired by the fact that morphs have a luck statistic of 0, thus making criticals–and double criticals–extremely likely to occur.

Most of the canonical extrapolation in this chapter was either explained in the text or so insignificant that it is probably not worth noting.

And because now is a reasonable time as any, I would like to thank all of my reviewers who have helped me with various small things, but have done so so many times that it has truly enhanced the piece as a whole. Today thanks go to TheFreelancerSeal for continually catching so many of my typos [among other things], and to my newest reviewer and good friend 3v3rnoob for forcing me to go back to my previous chapters and add at least some sense of setting. You should certainly read some of the formers pieces, just as you should hunt down the latter and force him to write some of his own stories because he is [still] a better writer than me.

Here are the random weapons that do not exist in Elibe:

Name: Silver Longbow
Type: Bow
Rank: S
Range: 2-3
Weight: 11
Might: 12
Hit: 55
Critical: 0
Uses: 15
Weapon Experience: 1
Effects: none
Comments: The concept is based on the fact that in Radiant Dawn, there are iron, steel, and silver longbows. As always, it has been modified to account for statistical patterns of Blazing Sword.

Name: Dagger
Type: –
Rank: –
Range: 1
Weight: 1
Might: 0
Hit: 80
Critical: 15
Uses: 20
Weapon Experience: –
Effects: Any unit can equip. Uses skill instead of strength to calculate damage.
Comments: I would not bet a penny that this would ever appear in-game, but I believe it to be an interesting concept nonetheless. Its power is based on skill because one cannot use something as small as a dagger to simply hack away at your opponent as you can with a larger weapon; the location that one strikes is far more significant that the power behind the blow. Thanks go to an anonymous reviewer for confirming that my speculation filling the previous sentence is at least somewhat grounded in reality. Regardless, the reason that any unit can equip it is because Ephidel must be able to use it, as he does in various cut scenes in Blazing Sword, and because it felt wrong to lock it to him or his class. I am aware that daggers have existed in the Tellius games, with sages even having access to them in Path of Radiance, but sages do not have a strength statistic in Elibe, not to mention that the concept of the two weapons were completely different.