I feel so happy, reviews and the like make me all giddy and then I have the urge to write because I love hearing what you guys say! See? It's a win-win situation. Now the only problem is that I really want to read some Naesala/Tibarn stories, but I've read all there is here…

But anyway! We finally get a pairing (even though my attempt at the beginning of romance is… less than commendable…) and some stuff between Ike and Soren (which I never actually planned, but it happened anyway).

I own not Fire Emblem.

Read on!

10-Fake the Drama, Make the Romance

"I did my test today,"

"…I thought we agreed that you would leave me alone when we were done?"

"Yeah, we did, but shouldn't the end be when we've seen the results of the test, so you know if your tutoring worked?"

When Ike put it that way, he did have a good point, and Soren was interested to know if his work had helped Ike at all. Maybe he wasn't such a block head after all. "I suppose you're right,"

"Some of the problems I had were kind of related to the ones on your test, too. Did you get the questions off the internet or something?" Ike leaned against the lockers and Soren paused, deciding that it wouldn't hurt to set that right.

"No, I just used my notes from my previous science class to make them up. I didn't even think I would need that book again, but apparently life had other ideas." He wasn't one for philosophy, life was life and that was that, but if there was something like fate or whatever, he wished that it would stop setting him the same path as Ike. He'd stopped hoping that Ike would leave him alone long ago, but he was still adamant that it was because he knew Ike wouldn't be deterred, not because his mother's reprimands had finally done something.

"I thought I did really well, well, not really, but good enough. It was kind of easier than I thought it would be." Ike went on in a seemingly one-sided conversation, filling in the gaps where Soren refused to. It was when the pair was about half way down the hallway when Soren realised something different about today than yesterday and last week.

Not only was Ike still talking to him and hadn't asked if he wanted a ride yet, they were walking down the hall together to the entrance of the school, and Soren had yet to do anything to chase him off. He wasn't listening to Ike, per say, but his voice was more of background music.

When they reached the doors, Ike grinned. "Wow, would you look at that snow! Getting cold out here…"

Soren followed him out silently, watching the flakes falling down. Ike thought it was cold, but this was only chilly to Soren, who'd spent most of his life in Daein's harsher winters. By now, there would already be much more snow than this, so much that someone as optimistic as Ike would be sick of it three days in. "Cold? This is nothing compared to Daein, you wouldn't be so optimistic there, I bet."

Ike laughed. "Yeah, probably not, I don't mind cold, but I'd still like to wake up on warm days, sometimes. Serenes has weird weather patterns, so I don't mind it. It was kind of chilly where I came from, too. I'm from Crimea, but dad moved us here."

Ike looked like he didn't want to pursue the subject as to why he moved here, but even if he wanted to, Soren wasn't going to push it. He nodded, and started to walk away.

"It's pretty windy out here, are you sure you don't want a ride home?" Ike asked after him.

He didn't turn around. "No, I'll be fine."

"You're brother's getting a ride," Ike said. Soren didn't know how Ike knew about Pelleas, probably that 'Ranulf' person that tells him things. Soren didn't care too much about the social happenings in the school. They were just trivial things, stupid teenager acts that could easily be avoided if anybody actually used their brains.

"My brother has the perseverance ability of a spoon, I'll be fine."

"See you later, Soren!"

The astronomy room was finally quiet again. Soren smiled lightly as he ate his lunch, slowly reading through a book. No more Ike and his science problems, soon to be no Ike at all… He loved the silence…

"I passed!"

Soren nearly chocked on his sandwich as Ike almost literally burst through the door.

"I got a sixty-four, I passed!" Ike made it to Soren faster than he thought possible, and his bear hug was not helping his recovery process. "Thank you, Soren! I'm not gonna fail and I'm not gonna get killed now!"

I wouldn't be so sure about that, Soren thought and started to wriggle out of Ike's grasp. "Gah – Ike! What are you – doing!"

"I'm thanking you," Ike said happily, and then he quickly stepped back. "Sorry, you don't like hugs, do you?"

"Not especially," Soren sighed as he straightened out his clothes, smoothing out wrinkles and trying to collect himself again. "Now, before you tried to suffocate me, what were you yelling about?"

"Look!" Ike held up his test only inches from Soren's face. Written in red ink on the corner of the test was 'Well done, Ike!' and under that, '62%'.

"Ike, that's sixty-two, not a sixty-four,"

Ike looked confused for a split second as he looked at the mark again. "Oh, so it is. Her writing sometimes confuses me, but that's not so bad either! I still passed, and it's all thanks to you! Man, I can't wait to rub this in Ranulf's face!"

"Yes, well, gloating aside, congratulations, Ike, it seems you do have the capacity for knowledge. Somewhat," Soren added. He took his seat and tried to collect the remains of his sandwich that had fallen apart as he jumped when Ike came in.

"I knew you'd say something like that," Ike said, folding up the test papers and taking the seat across from Soren again. "So, I brought actual proof that I'm not a block head in every field."

"Really?"

"Yep," Ike smiled as he pulled a binder from his backpack and dropped it on the table. 'ANCIENT HISTORY' was written across the front in big block letters. There was an assortment of doodles, probably in permanent marker on it as well. Swords, shields, crests, the likes. They were really rather well drawn, to say the least. Soren recognized some as the old Crimean and Daein crests. "It's my history book," Ike stated, and from it, pulled another test.

Had Soren been anyone else, both eyebrows would have risen very high, but he limited himself, because he still wasn't going to be showing too much of his emotions around Ike. Speaking of said jock, he was clearly not joking when he said history was his highest mark. 'Excellent' was written on the top of the paper, along with '94%'.

"People are always surprised when they see my history marks. That class is really interesting to me, the way things worked back then, they way they lived… it's so different from today, you have to wonder how we even got here. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the people who lived way back then," Ike explained fondly.

"That true," Soren agreed, taking the test to look over it. The back of the test was filled with writing, and it was there that Soren made a connection that he'd never thought about before. In Ike's messy writing was a description of his namesake's adventures and his tactician…

"They were never seen again, you know?" Ike said as Soren read. "After the second war, they supposedly just up and left. No one knows where they went or what happened to them, if they died or settled somewhere… Don't you think it's weird? I know all of these people and it's kind of like déjà vu, because there were people just like them, centuries ago… It's like history is repeating itself… minus the wars."

"Possibly…" Soren set the paper on the table again and stared down at the remainder of his lunch.

"His tactician's name was Soren, too." Ike continued. "And it was Soren that was always thinking up these ideas that got them out of all the messes they were in during the wars. They were really close, too, apparently Soren didn't truly trust anyone but him, and they were really close to each other."

Soren frowned, irritation suddenly flaring up inside him. "Is this another one of your attempts to befriend me? I told you many times now; I have no desire to be anyone's friend! Now that we've seen the results of your test, I think that unless the deal itself has to be ancient history for you to recall it, you may leave me alone now!"

"I don't understand why you don't want any friends, you know. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone there to look out for you?"

"Well, Ike, have you ever thought that not everybody needs some one to 'look out' for them? I have been perfectly fine on my own for years, and I can be just as successful alone as with friends. I don't need help and I don't want to have to help anybody else through their lives. When I get out of here, I know where I'm going, and I don't need anybody else to slow me down!"

Ike didn't move as Soren packed his lunch and stood up, leaving the room without another word. He didn't check to see if Ike had followed him either as he walked down the hall. It occurred to him that he might have hurt the jocks feelings, but he didn't care, it was Ike's own fault for not listening in the first place. He didn't need anybody else, he was fine on his own, having other around him or getting attached to him – it would only slow him down. He knew where he wanted to go in the future…

…But where was he going now?

If what Soren said at lunch was anything to go by, he would probably be angry if Ike 'bothered' him again. But Ike felt uneasy since then, he needed to apologize because it wasn't his place to say who did and didn't need friends. If Soren didn't want friends, then that was his choice. So, Ike wanted to apologize for… well, being a nuisance.

"…Hey."

"What." Soren didn't look up.

"I wanted to apologize – for earlier." Ike kept a larger distance from the smaller boy, just in case that heavy looking textbook made a sudden flight in his direction. "I was really trying to push you, and I shouldn't have. If you want to be alone, I'm not at liberty to try and change that… I just thought, well, if something happened to anybody, they should have someone to call a friend, so that they wouldn't be alone… But, uh, I guess someone like you probably wouldn't run into a situation like that, so… Sorry. If you want me to leave you alone, I will."

Ike was just about to join the crowd of students leaving the school when Soren spoke.

"I overreacted," Soren said, pausing in his packing. "Your intentions weren't malicious, so I shouldn't have acted in the ways I did."

Ike smiled lightly. "That's alright; I guess I just kind of took it for being shy or something… See you later, then."

Soren nodded, even if Ike didn't see it.

"Eh? What are you doing?"

"You're coming with me,"

"Coming with you where?"

And it was that question that seemed to have landed Tibarn on a plastic pink chair inside the downtown dance studio, surrounded by mothers that were either knitting, reading or watching their daughters practice ballet. He wasn't exactly sure why Naesala had brought him here, but he figured that he should agree with him if he wanted to go out with him. He also figured that he was probably here for two possible reasons: Naesala wanted to prove that ballet was not just a girl's dance (there was a beorc guy in there that looked like one of those teenage boys that were forced into something by their underappreciated mothers), or so that he could be embarrassed by all of these mothers, who thought it was just absolutely adorable that he was here for his girlfriend (because they had no idea that he had no intention of dating Leanne, or any girl, for that matter).

So, he was pretty content with just sitting there (even if he was sitting in the least manly situation he ever thought he would be in), watching Naesala and Leanne go through the steps and talking to some lady who was apparently going to be a prima ballerina before she busted her ankle. Supposedly her daughter was there to get the title in her place, but Tibarn didn't tell her that it would be highly unlikely with Leanne in there. He didn't want to be rude, of course.

There were plus sides to this, of course. First, he no longer had to worry about strange images of Naesala in a tutu, because half the people in the room weren't even wearing skirts today. Maybe it was just a Friday thing, but the popular choice seemed to be tights or sweatpants and t-shirts.

"Isn't she just wonderful?" The woman beside him had said this at least three times now. "I'm so proud of her."

So, in the spirit of being polite, he responded every time. "The black-haired one, right? Yeah, she is. How long has she been doing this, again?"

"I signed her up when she was only a little girl, only three years old, and she just fit right in." The woman explained fondly. Tibarn was still amazed that beorc aged so quickly. Three? Really? That's insane! At three years old, he was still in his mother's arms! He couldn't even talk until he was nearly twenty! It was astounding.

"Ballet used to be my life…" The woman continued. "Oh, but look at the way she twirls! She's always been my little star!"

Tibarn got the feeling that that girl was a very spoiled child indeed.

"And what about you, do you have any interest in the arts?" A few other women looked in their direction.

"Hm… does that include music? I can play guitar," Tibarn said.

The woman sighed. "I just don't think young people have enough interest in the arts. What better way to express your feelings than that? And violence is definitely not the way to go," the mothers nodded in agreement. "Do you know how many people are jumping off of bridges everyday? If only they could channel all of those negative feelings into something…"

"I think others would really be able to get an idea of what depressed people are feeling," Tibarn said. "Maybe they wouldn't need to go to such extreme levels just to get away."

"That's what I'm talking about!" The woman said. "See, you may not look it, but you're a smart man!"

Tibarn wasn't sure if he should take that as an insult or not. Did his scars offend?

The woman's attention was back to the dancers. "Oh, that little red-haired girl is just not cut out for this, I don't think. She's not moving her feet enough, this is the big leagues! She should be in a lower class; she obviously isn't as dedicated as the rest."

"The big leagues? So, this class is only for those that are really dedicated to it? How long do they do this, anyway?"

"Two and a half hours," the woman replied. She smiled up at him, "And you're sacrificing your after-school life to come and watch! Oh, it's so hard to find boys like you these days…"

Tibarn nodded. "You know what else is hard to find? Guys that would have the guts to come in here," he said, referring to the only two males in the room.

"That's true."

Another woman spoke up. "I don't think enough men try to embrace their feminine side and my son… Oh, he was just right out against anything 'artsy'; he'd be running around acting like my husband if I hadn't signed him up." She pointed to her son.

The amount of time these women could go on amazed Tibarn. One thing leads to another, and another and they never stopped. Good men were hard to find, good teenagers were hard to find, Leanne, as elegant and pretty as she was, had wings that would get in the way and therefore wasn't 'as fit' for the role of the prima ballerina as their daughters were (Tibarn rejected that). Apparently half the dancers weren't as dedicated as they should be, everyone in the world had a secret love for the arts, knitting hats for wings was not only completely unfashionable, but a horrendous idea, that cat laguz had too many piercings, fashion itself was overstated…

It was like who ever was in this waiting room was immediately part of thier circle, and whether he wanted to be or not, Tibarn was in half the conversations. But he didn't mind, they gave him food after a while, since the chances were that he'd missed dinner. They also gave him fashion tips, and relationship tips, and told him a variety of things that he didn't even think that anyone knew. Perhaps he didn't give women enough credit. News traveled like wildfire around them, faster than Janaff spread things.

So he alternated between strange conversation and watching Naesala. His wings folded and stretched in turn to enable him to execute the correct movements, he watched the raven move in ways he never did during school, smooth and diligent. It annoyed him though, when Naesala was facing in his direction several times, he seemed to be purposely ignoring him, even though Leanne smiled in his direction. They started an exercise mirroring a partner's movements and Tibarn clasped his hands together tightly in an attempt to restrain himself from walking into the class. Naesala was mirroring Leanne's actions, which involved him spinning around quite quickly and then bending back. His shirt left his hip uncovered and Tibarn really wanted to just kiss him right then and there, and maybe see just how far he could bend back while he was at it.

"You move good,"

"I'm hurt, is that all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Naesala shrugged, letting the chilly breeze push at his back as they flew over downtown.

"I could tell you that you could totally work something pink, but I don't think you'd appreciate that." Tibarn grinned.

"No, I probably wouldn't, even though I could."

The only thing breaking their silence now was their wings beating against the air; it was making Tibarn nervous that Naesala wasn't saying anything. At the same time, he didn't mind it. They just flew in silence, over the lights of the city but under the lights of the stars peaking through the clouds. It was peaceful, calm. It wasn't until they landed on the snowy ground that Naesala said anything.

"So, I've been thinking about Monday," the raven said, hands clasped behind his back.

"It took you almost a week to make your decision?"

"No," Naesala smirked. "I just wanted to make you squirm. Okay, listen, you were really good to Reyson,"

"You aren't going to turn into one of those really demanding girls, are you?" Tibarn interrupted, "Because Reyson had a really demanding schedule."

Naesala laughed, the sound echoed down the quiet street. "No, this is my last shot before I go out into the world to bigger and better things," he paused. "This is pretty much my last year here, so you have to help me make it a good one." With that, Naesala leaned forward and pressed his lips against Tibarn's cheek. Tibarn leaned forward, but the raven was already walking away to his front door, humming.

"What, I don't get an actual kiss?"

Naesala glanced over his shoulder with a smirk before he entered the house. "Nope."

Tibarn stood alone on the sidewalk for a few moments, staring up at the house. Then he grinned as he walked away, even if Naesala seemed intent on driving him to the brink of sanity throughout the duration of their relationship, but he was happy with the overall result of the night.