Northern Hoshido
It was hardly a surprise to see her brother up at the dead of night in the command tent when everyone else had long gone to their cots. In all their time there, no matter how long their stay in Hoshido's northern province stretched out, he'd never been able to stop being on edge. While everyone had slowly become acclimated to their situation and accepted it as the new norm for them in this period of their lives, he alone had maintained that constant vigilance of just exactly where they were.
Enemy soil.
The army to the south had long stopped being a concern. Though still present, their scouts reported that they were almost completely disarmed. While even in relative peace the Nohrian lines continued regular patrols and watch shifts with the same frequency and diligence as they would in an active battlefield by maintaining 100% coverage of their surroundings and ensuring everyone had a weapon on them at all times, the Hoshidans evidently didn't see the need. They left half of their perimeter unguarded, their watches had far less people on duty, and nobody carried a weapon on them except for training and said watch duty.
When that was the closest potential threat to their army, it was no wonder that most people, Camilla included, allowed themselves to become much more relaxed and, while maintaining the security protocols established and implemented decades ago by their father when he was still active in the battlefield, they did very little beyond that.
Except, of course, for Xander. For whom this break in contact was just another form of battle.
It wasn't any surprise, then, when she found him in the command tent where he spent most of his time, even if it was typically completely alone. There was very little for them to command over at this point. The day to day business of the rank and file were handled by their immediate superiors, and with no strategy in place other than to wait, the need for the commanders was low. Often times Xander would be the only one to go to the command tent at all for an entire day.
This time, however, she didn't arrive on him overviewing a map, reviewing reports, or looking over their manifests. Instead, this time, he was reading a letter.
"Word from father? Or Leo?" Camilla asked when she saw what he was doing.
Xander hardly looked up at her, apparently not even surprised at her sudden entrance.
"Neither," he replied. "It's from Corrin."
"She wrote to us?" Camilla felt her spirits rise a little at the mention of the name, and the knowledge that wherever she was, her baby sister was still thinking of them. "What does it say? How is she?"
"She's grown up." He said with a small smile. "Father has had her leading a small portion of our army. She's been quite successful, especially for someone so inexperienced."
"Military campaigns?" Camilla said with more doubtfulness. "He's sending her into the field yet again to be killed?"
"No, he hasn't. As I said, she's been very successful in her battles so far. She's managed to stop two rebellions, and halt a Hoshidan invasion on our homeland."
"Hoshido landed on us?" Camilla said with a shock.
"Landed. Past tense. Corrin and her small army drove them off." He looked down again. "I'm happy that she's managed to find her place. Still, this letter...it reminds me of how long we've been away from home. How long we've been trapped on this side of the border. Even as the fires have finally begun to slowly die down, the land remains untraversable, leaving the mountains as the only route for our army. Even then, we cannot leave until Leo returns. And even then, it may be in our better interest to remain here, or it may be in our better interest to go home. We have no sure way of knowing. Either way, I'm tired of staying here while so much happens beyond the confines of this infernal camp."
"It seems the letter came at the perfect time to save your mental health, in that case." Camilla teased and walked over to his side, and hand on his shoulder as she looked down at the letter. "It is so wonderful to receive word. To be honest, I was probably a few days away from just taking my wyvern over there by myself for about a week or so. I do hope she's feeling well."
Fort Dragonfall
Corrin
The wine found in the storages of Fort Dragonfall were far from what she would call good quality. Given the taste, it was probably made by bored soldiers who would have drank anything if it could help them forget the misery of their station in the middle of a dreary wasteland.
Still, she couldn't say she was in a much better state of mind as they had been when they first made the stuff. So she downed a glass in one gulp, suffering through the bitter taste for the sake of the buzz that followed afterward. Before the sensation had passed, she was already pouring herself another. And glancing behind her at her bedmate. Currently busying himself with pretending that he wasn't looking at her undressed body.
Corrin shook her head and looked in the mirror. Her own ugly image stared back at her. Twisted and misshapen. The scars that marked her seemed to devour her entire form, disfigured and warped from its original image. Completely unrecognizable. Her hand absently reached down her back where the charred skin still felt hard. A mark of sin that would never go away, no matter how much time passed.
She felt something dripping down her hand, and looked down in surprise to see that she had been squeezing the glass so far that a crack had begun to form around it. "Damn it…" She grunted. "What the hell happened to you…"
"Hm?" The soldier, who was nameless as far as she was concerned, said from the comfort of her bed. "Did you say something?"
"I said stop staring at me!" She threw the half-broken glass into the mirror, causing glass and drink to spray from the location of impact. However, the mirror itself remained perfectly unharmed. Angrily, she turned away from it and marched back to the bed. "Don't you know how self-conscious women get about their looks?"
"Erm, sorry." He said nervously as she shuffled back underneath the covers. Wrapping herself securely in the smooth blankets. They felt soft in her hands, yet most of her could hardly feel the soothing texture. On her back, all she could feel was cold. The same cold as she felt in the ice tribe. Suddenly, she felt an arm wrap around her torso and remembered that she wasn't alone. "I didn't mean to. What can I do to make it better, my liege?"
"Whatever you want. Live your own life." She said numbly. Not long after she felt a kiss plant itself on her shoulder, and several more afterwards. She barely remembered picking this one up. Just some soldier delivering water to somewhere in the castle, and happened to be of the extra-talkative type, so it was easy to strike up a conversation. And for that conversation to travel off in its own direction.
Despite his gregariousness, he was much more hesitant and shy when it came to the deed itself. At least, the first time. Not so much the second, and hopefully not the third. It reminded her of Silas, and their time together in the hotspring that one night. She remembered how nervous he had been. Though more than that, there was a gentleness to his touches. Like he was holding something worth more to him than any quantity of gold. That look in his eye, like the scars that marred her were somehow beautiful.
She'd never see that look again. Not from anyone, least of all him. She'd thought she came to terms with that.
Corrin couldn't feel anything from behind her anymore. As she was, she couldn't see what he was doing right now. Then she noticed the slightest of pressure on her back, and looked behind her to see his kisses had descended into that blacked and scorched area. "I can't feel anything there, idiot." She said dryly, unable to decipher what he was even thinking.
"I…" He hesitated. "I just thought, it might help…"
"Help what? Remind me what a wreck I am?" She scolded. Then, getting impatient, leaned back into him. Feeling his own anticipation prodding the small of her back. "Just get on with the important part."
Suddenly the room echoed with the sound of someone knocking on the door. "Princess Corrin, are you in?"
"Oh brilliant," Corrin rolled her eyes before rolling out of bed. "Is it important?" She called out to the door.
"I have the mage that your father informed you about." He explained. "It seemed important for you to meet, considering how important an asset she will be in the coming campaign."
Corrin heard a light huff on the other side of the door, and Corrin was tempted to do the same. Asset? Really? And you're always saying how I'm the one who needs to exercise more tact.
"Alright, just wait a minute. Not decent at the moment." She rolled out of bed and began searching for something to wear among the scattered garments. "Just wait for a bit, sweetie. I'll be back. Probably."
Jakob was waiting patiently on the other side of the door when she walked through, him along with what looked like Odin's younger sister. Same horrendous fashion sense, at least. Taking the two of them and her own brother into account, Corrin briefly wondered if something about the dark arts just naturally degraded one's sense of style. Further study needed.
The young girl that Corrin could only assume was their dark mage raised a single eyebrow at the other occupant in Corrin's room before she closed the door. Jakob, plenty used to pretty much this exact scenario, didn't even give that much.
"So, I'm guessing this is the one that my father picked up on the way here?" She said while looking over the girl who couldn't be past the years of adolescence. Tiny and soft hands, a chest that didn't have a chance in hell of filling out the top she wore, and a cute little face that seemed made for pouting. Corrin had a brief moment of curiosity as to what horrific tragedy made someone so young decide to pursue the dark arts alone in the middle of the woods, then decided that it probably didn't matter. As long as she knew her art. "How much could you possibly know? You must have picked up the art, what, a couple years ago? Four, if you started immediately after learning how to read?"
"Longer than you've been practicing swordwork. At least three times over." The girl said in a surprisingly dry tone.
"Nyx here explained her unique circumstances to your father." Jakob explained as soon as the question formed on Corrin's lips. "As she explained it, a magical experiment conducted when she was the age as she appears now had a rather unexpected side-effect of effective immortality."
"Immortal?" Corrin felt herself choke at the thought, and she looked at the little girl with awe that she would be embarrassed about later but right now was too distracted by the logical impossibility that was supposedly sitting in front of her in the form of a little girl. "How the hell is that even possible?"
"Your father was similarly skeptical. But after a brief check of her knowledge it was very clear that she was far more experienced than anyone her apparent age could possibly be. Her skill out-shines that of any of our mages, even Iago or Prince Leo. Given this, her claim at immortality is possible, at least."
"Not immortal," The girl, Nyx, reacted to her expression with the tiredness of one who had seen it all before. "At least, I don't believe so. Haven't lived quite long enough to say definitively one way or the other, but given the nature of the experiment, I hypothesize that what happened merely extended my lifespan by an extraordinary and unnatural amount."
"But...how?"
"I won't be sharing the method nor the formula, if that's what your asking. Not with anyone." Nyx said sternly. "But as for how it's possible, well, that's just the nature of the craft. Light magic is defined by its limitations; A is A, and it will never do anything but A. Its limits can not be stretched, execution is unchanging, results are predictable." Corrin had a brief recollection of this being explained to her a long time ago, but of course, she never paid any attention. Looking back, she was a really stupid person back during her time in the Northern Fortress. "Dark magic is more...flexible. It's not defined by limitations, it's defined by costs. The boundaries of what it can do is restricted only by what the user is able to imagine, and what they are willing to sacrifice. Depending on how large or potent a spell is, or how much it pushes against the laws of nature, the higher the cost."
"And the cost for immortality?"
"High." She said with dreadful seriousness that gave Corrin a chill. "That is why the formula I devised has been destroyed and I have spent the better part of 90 years trying to forget how it's done."
"I see." Corrin nodded. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed to learn that last bit of news. Probably a bit of both. "Well, I suppose if you're going to be serving on my force, you'll need some instructions...uhm, listen to everything Jakob tells you."
"Duly noted."
"Right, thank you for bringing her here, Jakob. You were right as usual, I feel like this is a conversation that needed to be had." Corrin nodded at the butler. "You can both go now. Oh, one more thing, try to get to know Odin. I feel like it'll do good for the army to have you swapping notes."
Nyx seemed to smile, though there was nothing cheerful about it. More like chuckling at a grim irony. "You clearly haven't studied much of dark magic. Otherwise you'd be very afraid of having two dark mages in the same room together."
Afterwards, the two walked off down the dark hallways, leaving Corrin to her thoughts.
...Maybe Hoshido's phobia isn't so unfounded. Was her first thought. Still, if what she's saying is true...no limitations, only costs…
Her hand instinctively went up to her face and scratched at the metal eyepiece.
Shirasagi Castle
Ryoma
"To My Lord. Region has been lost. Internal take-over. Previous owner is dead. Enemy landing soon. Assistance requested. From loyal servant."
Yukimura set the letter down on the table after he was done reciting it to the room.
"...I apologize, was that really it?" Said Reina. "That letter barely made any sense at all. Who was it even from?"
"Saizo." Ryoma responded immediately from his place at the head of the table where he had summoned the two retainers. "It bears his writing style. Vague and cryptic, so that on the off chance it were intercepted, it'd be impossible to figure out what he was referring to without prior knowledge of the operation. It's how him, Kaze, and Kagero have always written to me."
"Not to mention this letter came to us via messenger bird, from the south." Yukimura elaborated. "Saizo and Kagero are the only agents, that we know of, who are active anywhere in that direction that would write in such a manner."
"So, if we're certain that this is from our spies, as you say," Reina went on, connecting the dots in her mind as she spoke. "Then that would mean Mokushu has fallen to an internal take-over. And this previous owner must be referring to Saizo the Fourth. These traitors killed him to ensure nobody stood in the way of their taking over the region, and to make sure nobody reported the take-over back to the capital."
"The loss of our most reliable supply of spies and assassins is worrying." Said Yukimura as he idly adjusted his glasses. "But what's more worrying to me is the following line. It seems to explain the motive for why all this has taken place."
"Enemy landing soon. The traitors have allied themselves with Nohr." Ryoma said gravely. "With Mokushu effectively under their control, they will have a large harbor in which they can land their troops if they choose to invade."
"But shouldn't they be occupied at the moment with your brother and sister leading a campaign on their own lands?" Reina asked.
Yukimura shook his head. "They would. But we have received no word from anyone in the invasion force since the last bird came in stating that they captured Fort Dragonfall. With that having been so long ago, with such a bold move undoubtedly attracting notice, and with the withdrawal of all shogunate troops; I'm afraid we can only assume the worst."
"Which makes the last of my siblings." Ryoma sighed and held his head in his hands. "Sakura hasn't been heard from in over a month, Kamui is with the enemy, and now Takumi and Hinoka's fates are completely uncertain. Meanwhile I sit in this castle doing a piss poor job of keeping this kingdom from eating itself."
"You are too harsh on yourself, my lord." Said Reina. "You were needed here. Our former shogunate allies are too close for us to be comfortable, and your remaining here may have very well been the only deterrent to keep them from attacking. And the presence of the rightful ruler of the land was needed to maintain order here in the capital after the riots. Without you, I have no doubt this city would have eaten itself, as you said."
"None of which will mean anything if Nohrians land on Hoshido." He shook his head again. And gestured to the map on the table. "Look at this. If the Norhians land in Mokushu, they'll have a near clear path to Shirasagi. They're obstacles: Izumo, which is a land of artisans and craftsmen. The Kitsune, who will barely put up a fight against an organized force assuming they don't join the Nohrians outright. The Wind Tribe might be able to pose a threat, if the Nohrians were to enter their land and fight on their terms, but they can just as easily keep following the road and force the Wind Tribe to fight in an environment without their only advantage. In the end, the Wind Tribe is just that, a tribe; they can barely mass produce iron weapons, let alone man an army. From there it's nothing but countryside all the way up to our final defenses; Fort Jinya and the Great Wall itself."
"I'll admit, the situation in the South looks dreadful." Said Yukimura. "However, as you said, in order to attack Shirasagi they have our two greatest defensive fortresses in the way. Even if they have no real challenge up until that point, those fortresses have stood for centuries."
"Against what? Raiders and bandits and savages? Those walls haven't been tested in over a thousand years! The last time they were close to being threatened was during King Garon's campaign, and even then, my father's request for a peace talk came before he launched a single attack!"
"What about the Kitsune?" Asked Reina.
"Like I said, they have no real weapons or tactics, and in truth they have no reason to prefer us over them in the first place-"
"But what if we give them a reason? We could enlist their aid. It's true, they wouldn't be able to stop the Nohrian force once it's landed, but before then? They're monsters in a fight, and just as stealthy as any ninja."
"What are you suggesting, Reina?"
"Say we send a small force, with an envoy, to persuade the Kitsune to come over to our side. We can promise them anything; citizenship, rights, lands to officially call their own. We don't have shoguns to appease anymore, nobody should stand in our way of opening the doors to them. So long as they don't start coming into the capital right away." She then pointed to Mokushu. "With them, and our small army, we could re-take Mokushu and prevent the Nohrians from ever landing. Control the harbors and we control who can and can't land in Hoshido."
"Our troops to handle the conventional forces, while the Kitsune counter the ninjas' irregular warfare." Ryoma thought it through in his head. "I'll think this over. You're both dismissed for now."
Divine Dragon Forest
Leo
One of the things Leo liked most about Hoshido was the nights. The starry and bright sky of this land was far more welcoming and soothing than the foreboding clouds that forever tormented his homeland. The day was harsh and hot, bearing down on him with unrelenting rays from the sun that cooked him in his armor. The night, however, remained almost just as bright due to the fullness of the moon even while the cool air refreshed him. And the countless stars in the sky was more beautiful than any work of art he'd ever seen in Nohr.
He would rather they travel at this time instead of when the sun was highest, but knew the folly of that. The light from the moon wasn't enough to illuminate the forested path. He couldn't risk some kind of leg injury befalling one of his men while they were this far out. They were already having a hard time carrying along those that were slain by the scoundrel traitor, and the princess certainly didn't make things any easier on them with her constantly dragging her heels, even as she was bound by a 8ft rope to the side of his horse.
Sakura certainly wasn't his idea of an ideal member of the nobility. Bratty and tempermental, and refusing to acknowledge nor reciprocate any amount of courtesy shown to her. Even as he bothered to deliver food to her himself rather than delegate it to a servant, she refused to even look in his direction. At several points he wondered if perhaps she was mentally unwell, given how she never talked nor reacted to anything that anyone said to her.
Still, Leo was a patient man. His provocation in the dark arts taught him that. Long nights reading and memorizing formulas, and experimenting with different combinations of ingredients based off of previous knowledge. While his brother's childhood was filled with adventures in the countryside and sparring with a sword, his had been spent bending the fabrics of the natural order. Certainly not an activity for anyone other than the most patient of minds.
Patience. A tenant by which he lived his life. So no matter how tedious it got, he would continue his attempts at getting some kind of reply out of the princess. There had to be something to gain from initiating dialogue from her. A treasure trove of information that could not possibly be discovered anywhere else. If he could only get her to talk.
Annoyingly, when he arrived to the post to which she had been tied, he discovered the last meal he had delivered to her still uneaten while she sullenly stared at the ground.
"Still starving yourself?" Leo sighed. This has become a growing trend over the past couple days. In her newest form of rebellion she seemed to be attempting a slow suicide. "You do realize that we'll be at the main camp long before you manage to die of starvation. You're only hurting yourself, not any of us." She remained silent, not any surprise there, so Leo just set the food down to the last meal. "Very well. I see you're not feeling any more cooperative today either. No matter, we have time."
The moment he turned around, the first thing he saw was one of his soldiers running towards him. "Your highness, we have a situation!"
"What has happened, soldier?" Leo asked and begin walking away from the princess, not wanting her to overhear anything she didn't need to know.
The soldier followed alongside him, talking as they walked. "Six of our people have gone missing." She explained. "Two went out on guard duty, and when their shift ended another two went out to relieve them. We didn't think anything was amiss until a couple hours later when the first shift didn't come back. We then sent out another pair to investigate, and they haven't returned either. This was an hour ago. We believe someone out there is picking us off."
"I assume nobody else has gone out."
"No, my lord. We didn't want to risk anymore soldiers given our limited number without alerting move."
"A wise move." He nodded his approval. Their encounter with the butcher slimmed their numbers by an unacceptable amount. Of the original twenty he stepped off with, only twelve were left after that. One killed by the little girl, and no less than seven at the hand of that raging brute of a man. And now six more, if they were to assume the worst in this situation.
And in Nohr, it was always the worst.
"Six men...damn it," Leo growled to himself. "We've taken far too many casualties for such a simple mission. It feels as though that monster is taking revenge on us from beyond the grave with all these troubles caused by his slaughter."
"My lord, we don't have enough people to carry all the dead, even if each of us carried one and we loaded as many as we could on your horse." Said the soldier. "Though it pains me to say it, I think we'll have to leave them behind if we hope to return to the main force."
"It does seem unavoidable," Leo said while looking to the side, the wheels turning in his mind as to the possibilities available to them. After a few seconds, a thought occured to him, and he reached into his bag of components. "Hmm, with what I have here...if I could also borrow a clump of your hair, I could erupt a ward on them that will keep the animals away. For a time." He closed it bag. "Won't protect them from the elements, though, or from natural decay...still, it would hopefully give us time to return to the main force, then come back for them on a later day." He sighed. "It's the best we can do with what we have."
"What do you want us to do tonight, my lord?"
"For tonight, I want full security. Everyone is to be on watch. I will not allow a single more casualty."
Fun Fact: Early feudal military did not have an organized structure in the same way that modern military does. When summoned by their king, each lord was obligated to bring a previously designated number of troops to the fight. In this scenario, the lord would serve the same role as officers do now, as commissioned officers were not a thing back then. Military meetings were less briefings, and more negotiations as to what lord would be responsible for what part of the battle. This structure began to change after around the 15th century, when wars began to get bigger and grander, and more organization was required among the military. These later advancements eventually led to our current military organization structure. The more you know.