Movement X
Confusion and Anger
"You . . . You can speak Lycian!"
Rose blinked her teary eyes and clutched tightly onto her pocket watch as Hector stood, teeth gnashed together. Even Eliwood stood with his hands clenched tightly into fists, unable to believe that she had been speaking some made up language when they needed information so badly from her. Half of him wanted to grab his rapier and force information out of her in a manner befitting that of the Ostian lord ling, and Eliwood was only stopped by the logical, moral part of his mind.
"Can you speak in Lycian?" Lyn said in a voice filled with collective hatred, drawing out her sword and making Rose furiously back towards the door. Mark grabbed Lyn's shoulder and pulled her back.
"Isn't it possible that she's repeating something she heard from us?" he said carefully, knowing how to calm her better then anybody else, "Clockwork said she could repeat things."
"This isn't like those other times!" Hector snarled, turning to Mark with fire in his eyes, "You remember her babbling nonsense! This is real, she's really speaking Lycian and she's been making up that crap all this time!"
Rose shivered, widening her eyes rapidly and looking at all of them in the utmost fear. She did not move as Hector grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up against a wall, instead going very white and rigid. The Ostian had another hand on the hilt of his axe, and his voice was very quite and cold. Nobody dared move in the room, not when Hector was in such a fury as he was now.
"You're going to answer a few questions, woman," he said, a faint hint of sarcasm in his voice, "First of which is what is your real name."
"Hector, you're going to kill her again!" Lyn yelled, seemingly unaware of how odd her sentence sounded, and even the proud Princess of Caelin fell silent at the murderous glint in Hector's eyes. Eliwood simply watched Rose's expression fade into the color of wet ash, chokes caught in her throat as she struggled to breath.
"Maybe that's too difficult for you, Roseland?" he hissed, and even Eliwood felt a thrill of fear at how his oldest friend was speaking. "Here's another question. What the hell is Mary Fenrir doing in Edessa, and why does she want to speak with us so Saint damnable badly that she's willing to kill anybody in her way, even children!"
"YOU BASTARD!"
The room went very quiet at Rose's outburst, and Hector dropped her to the ground. The girl looked up at Hector, tears in her eyes as she curled tightly. "You promised to help me," she said softly, chocking and weak, "You said you could kill Fenrir if I got you a watch, and all you do is kill my brother to make sure she doesn't get what she wants." She drew herself tight into a ball, shaking with tears. "Let me tell you something, bastard," she hissed, low and cold, looking up to stare at all of them, Eliwood particularly.
Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, filled with fear and terror he knew. It was the same terror seen in the eyes of Lyndis, Hector, and anybody else that had seen the dragon Nergal had almost summoned at the Dragon's Gate, bedecked in flames that melted metal in an instant – as evident by the twisted sword still kept in Merlinus's caravan.
"She's going to win what she wants," Rose said, almost as though she were being forced to do so against her will, "She's going to get the blood of that fucking army and she's going to make sure we never get to see sunshine again. You know why, you bastard!" Rose shivered violently and began to roll up the sleeve of her shirt. She looked at all of them and pointed at her forearm rapidly. Eliwood sidestepped Hector and Mark and grabbed her arm tightly, narrowing his eyes at what she was pointing at.
Almost indistinguishable against her pallid skin were several words in a very bland handwriting in gray ink that he had to strain his eyes to read.
Property of the Asgard Empire
Fletcher, Roseland
000002
"We're not even human anymore Ryder," Rose hissed at Eliwood, clasping his arm very tightly as she stared her wide, terrified red eyes into his face, "Just a number to her, just carriers for what she really wants."
"What does she really want?" the Prince of Pherae asked quickly of Rose, hoping that in her insanity she would be able to understand him. Rose gave a very high laugh, digging her nails painfully into the skin of his arm so that he could feel blood spill down his arm. "She wants to bring back the Marquess and his men, in her empire. She calls herself a god but she can't do it naturally; no. But that's where genetic engineering and test tube babies come into play, that's where she truly is a god."
Rose's eyes rolled and she collapsed into Eliwood's arms, breathing thickly and covered in icy sweat. He stared at her unconscious face for a long time, trying to make sense of what she had said.
Genetic engineering and test tube babies, she had said, but neither term made sense in the slightest. But he understood that this Marquess she kept mentioning was dead and so was his army, and that Mary Fenrir wanted to bring them back to life.
"Eliwood?"
He laid Rose's body on the ground carefully and stood to face the fellow commanders of his army. Eliwood held tightly upon the arm that Rose had dug her nails into and swallowed. "Do you know anything about the term genetic engineering?" he asked of Mark, knowing neither Lyn nor Hector knew. He had attended classes with Hector all of his life and knew not of what Rose spoke of, and Lyn had admitted that she never had formal schooling.
The tactician shook his brown head quickly, looking at Rose. "I'd guess it would be some kind of magic. Perhaps Lord Pent would know?"
"Go ask him then!" Hector snapped at Mark angrily, who narrowed his eyes icily.
"You're not the only one angry about all of this! Nothing of this mess makes any sense!" snarled the Nabatan man between clenched teeth, as he began to tick off comments with his fingers.
"Rose can only speak Lycian when she's mad, there are immortal soldiers who die because they get stabbed in the heart, people die with nobody there to claim the cause of, and decapitated people coming back to life . . .! This Fenrir woman's just toying with us, until we go insane!"
Lyndis, who had thus remained silent, looked at Eliwood pensively as she brushed back stray strands of her emerald hair. She looked from the Pherean back to Rose's frozen body and spoke in a very soft, confused voice.
"When Priscilla searched her, when we first found her, that tattoo wasn't there."
Mark silenced himself from his rambling, raising a brown eyebrow and Hector grabbed Rose's arm briskly to stare at the faint words written upon her skin with narrowed eyes. "Property of the Asgard Empire," he read nastily and dropped the girl back upon the ground, "We probably should just give her back to Fenrir in Edessa."
"Don't start with this now," Lyn warned angrily, "We don't know if Rose is guilty of what Clockwork and Wolfhound say or not. As far as we know, she could just be somebody caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"But that doesn't make a shred of sense!" Hector snarled, "She's got the same damn pocket watch they all have, she's the property of that Asgard place that Clockwork said Fenrir's the empress of and Wil said the soldiers speak the same language as her!"
Eliwood did a double take at those words, arching an eyebrow delicately. "He said that?" he asked quickly and the Ostian nodded carelessly. "One of the soldiers talked to him for a moment, said something about Clockwork and Rose, but that's all Wil could make out of that garbage of a language."
The Caelin Princess grabbed the hilt of her Mani Katti tightly, her brow furrowed in thought. Finally, she sighed heavily and rubbed her temple before speaking. "We have no real information to go by now, except that in two months Mary Fenrir will be in Ilia and that she wants Rose. We're probably better off, for the moment," she added, catching the narrowed glare Mark had given her, "To just going to Ostia and getting the Durandal. Nergal's the more important threat, for the moment!" she snarled again at Mark.
Eliwood nodded, rubbing his injured shoulder slightly. "Lyndis is right," (he saw her sigh in objection to her full name), "We're done getting supplies and food in Pherae, so we can leave at dawn tomorrow."
"Farina's going to demand a pay raise, I just know it," Mark snapped angrily to himself and, without a word to his employers, strode from the room with an angry and stiff walk.
Lyn looked intently at Eliwood for a moment more and then to Hector and Rose. "Can you take Rose out of here and put her in Priscilla's care, I want to talk to Eliwood for a moment," she demanded of Hector without waiting for an answer. He opened his mouth to object angrily, but was silenced with a sharp glare from the Sacaen. He grabbed Rose by the back of her shirt and strode from the room, carrying her like a doll slung over one shoulder.
"Eliwood," she began in a much softer voice, which surprised him, once Hector was quite gone, "About your mother's death, there isn't much I can say except that it's best to mourn then to try and forget about the event."
"I'm fine Lyndis," he said, so stiffly that he knew she would not believe him. In truth, she had a point. Since Wolfhoud had killed Elenora, he'd done his best to try and focus on other things, and luckily Clockwork and Rose filled that gap nicely; in a figurative sense only.
Her green eyes narrowed and bore into him in a very chastising way, her lips thinning in a frown. "'Only a soulless man can feel no pain in the passing of a parent'," she recited, "That's what one of my fellow tribesmen told me after my parents were killed, and I know you too damn well to know that you aren't fine."
"What do you suggest I do then," Eliwood said icily, much more so then he had ever intended to do, "Grieve for my mother whilst two madmen wreck havoc in Elibe? One's in Valor resurrecting dragons my father died to stop, and the other's doing Elimine knows what!"
She shook her head and sighed angrily, running her gauntleted hand through her thick hair. "I'd expect Hector to act like this, but not you Eliwood. If nothing else, just visit your mother's grave before you leave Pherae; it'll put you in good conscience." With that and a hand tight on the sacred sword of her homeland, Lyn strode from the room with the same stiff walk Mark had used angrily.
The red haired Pherean collapsed at the small table in the room, running his hands half-heatedly through his hair and staring blindly out of the small window of the room. It was nearly sundown, the sky painted rich pastels of pink and orange, a faint halo of a moon seen just above the horizon. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to get the migraine out of his skull and collect his thoughts in an arrangement that could actually be useful to him and his army.
Nergal's mission made sense at least. He wished to bring dragons back to Elibe because they had powerful quintessence, Nils said, and quintessence gave Nergal power and something akin to immortality, according to the bard, his sister, and the Archsage Athos. To stop this, Eliwood needed to claim Roland's sword from its shrine in Ostia and kill Nergal. Straightforward and simple, enough said.
Isabella Clockwork, according to Hector, had first said that Mary Fenrir wanted back a pocket watch a girl had stolen from her. That girl seemed to be Roseland Fletcher, who Victor Wolfhound said called herself Rose Blackthorne. Fenrir's letter said it was her penname. Yet when Clockwork had Lyn hostage, she had wanted Rose, the pocket watch, and blood from all the members of the army. Just now, Rose had said that Fenrir wanted to bring back to life somebody called the Marquess, the Dragon Slayer, the King of East Lyrical, and his army, which apparently consisted of the Queen of Sacae, the General of Ostia, and the Duke of Elibe amongst others.
Mary Fenrir claimed to be the Empress of the Asgard Empire, the Goddess of Genetics and Time. Rose said that she planned to resurrect the Marquess and his army with something called genetic engineering – obviously related, though since the meaning of genetics escaped Eliwood, not much use. Wolfhound and Clockwork were part of this Quartet, which meant two others were part of her group.
Yet there was still how Rose's heart had stopped and started once again, how the soldiers survived until they were impaled at the heart, how Wolfhound survived decapitation, how Clockwork and her men had such quick reflexes and inhuman strength and speed . . .
Eliwood crossed his arms on the table and leaned his head upon them. Within a few seconds, he was fast asleep.
"Lord Eliwood! Lord Eliwood!"
The Pherean jerked up at the sound of his name being called, his mind dazed although he had obviously not been asleep for very long. The sky outside the window was dark, yes, but not so dark that it was impossible to see. Eliwood rubbed his eyes and stood up quickly, looking out the door of the small room he'd slept in.
Lowen was standing outside the door, his hand at the knob ready to open it. At the sight of his tired and pale liege, he stood rigid and saluted with a firm cry of 'Milord'.
"What's the matter?" Eliwood asked sleepily, trying to keep his eyes open. This had been the only night in a long time he'd managed to get successful sleep, and if he had been more awake he probably would have been angry at being awakened as briskly as he had been.
"Milord, there is a problem you need to address immediately!" Lowen said, though there was a fearful tone in his voice that told Eliwood he did not want to continue speaking. Paranoia gripped at Eliwood's heart and in a quick moment he was no longer half-asleep.
"What's the matter?"
Lowen was still standing rigid when he inhaled deeply, panic in his pale green eyes and stiff jaw. "Milord, Lady Ninian is missing, and Legault and Matthew both claim to have spotted a black-haired, golden-eyed woman in the castle. Legault identified her as Limstella, one of Nergal's henchmen."
I do not own Fire Emblem, Nintendo does. I own all original characters.