I know my shift is getting late when I'm not even fazed by a pale-faced man with no irises or pupils walking into the McDonald's. He wears a set of full black armor with a ring of feathers around and the back of his neck that makes his outfit look like a Russian fur coat at first glance. He has white hair but doesn't look old.
He walks up to the counter and stares at my nametag for multiple seconds. I glance back in the direction of my manager, but she won't want to deal with this guy even more than I do. The funny part is that this isn't nearly the weirdest someone's behaved around me.
At McDonald's you get a lot of parents with whiny kids, which is fine. Kids are supposed to be little gremlins (or am I trying to justify my own behavior as a child? Hmm), and I try to chat up the bloodshot-eyed parents about how stressful it is to juggle so many tasks in life. It sometimes gets a smile. What bugs me about those situations is that there's always a Boomer lurking in the background ready to complain to me about how terrible those parents are.
Blegh, I'm starting to sound like my mother. In terms of weird weird stories, there was this girl who insisted to me that her boyfriend killed a bunch of people in Iraq and that they watch the tapes together every night. Did she say that because I'm brown? I'm not sure.
By the time I'm done running all the memories through my mind, this guy is still staring at my nametag. Eventually, the right corner of his mouth twitches up to form a smirk.
"Claude," he says.
"This is a McDonald's, sir," I say. "Are you going to order anything?"
"No, no. That's quite all right. I only came here to see you."
Um. Did I mention I've never seen this guy in my life?
"If you aren't going to purchase anything, then may I kindly request that you leave?" I say.
I bite my lip to keep myself from adding "And drop the cosplay next time."
His gaze switches to the necklace Lucina gave me with the mini-Falchion charm hanging from it. He reaches out towards it, and I lean back.
"Oh, no need to be a poor sport," he says. "But since you insist, I won't torment you any longer."
The guy scuttles away, and when he turns around I can see that he's wearing a cloak that billows once he exits the door. He lingers around the entrance for a minute or so before disappearing.
Yeesh. I wonder what he did to make his eyes look like that. Some kind of advanced contact lenses? But the fact that the pupils weren't visible to me means that no visible light was passing through whatever was over his eyes, so he shouldn't be able to see anything. How could he read my nametag?
I report the incident to my manager, leaving out the part about the eyes. She acts sympathetic, but she doesn't offer me a ride home and I don't push it. If my parents get wind of me being spooked by some random stranger, they'll be laughing about it for years. Separately, of course, in their own dwellings 3000 miles apart from each other.
After the store closes, I clean up more quickly than usual and put on my rain jacket over my worker's uniform. I knew it was going to rain less here in the Midwest than in the Pacific Northwest where I lived my whole life, but after being here for a summer the dryness is starting to wear on me. I even miss the grey, starless skies of Seattle.
Still, the jacket does a good job of making me not recognizable as "that guy from McDonald's" to any no-pupil freaks in black armor who happen to be wandering around the streets of Middle-the-fuck-nowhere, Iowa. I hop on my bike, pop in my earbuds, and hum to my music on the way back.
I trash the town of Middle-of-fuck-nowhere quite frequently, at least in my head, but thanks to the boarding schools in the area there is some semblance of "downtown," which means my mom could get me an apartment nearby basic outlets such as a grocery store, a shopping mall, and a McDonald's to work at. The bike ride is about ten minutes, which isn't bad at all on a summer night. The stars fill the sky like a swimming pool of marbles, still distant and unfamiliar to a city kid like me.
I'm pedaling while listening to my beats one second, and the next I'm flying through the air. The instincts honed by my parents' training takes over, and I roll to a standing position without thinking about it. I glance around for any sign of danger before relaxing my shoulders and going back over to my bike.
Why did it buck me off in the middle of the street? I check my wheels, and they both appear normal.
Wisps of darkness flicker in the upper periphery of my vision.
I look up to see the no-pupil freak from before, a ball of shadowy matter floating between his hands. In that moment, I do the one thing I thought my parents beat out of me years ago.
I freeze.
The dude fires the darkness ball at me, and it slams into me right below my collarbone. My vision blinds with pain, and I feel myself flying back. I wait for the sensation of impact, but it doesn't come.
#
I awake in a forest.
Danger senses activate first. I hop to my feet and scan the area for signs of the creep. Nothing in the underbrush moves, but I do hear sounds of metal ringing on metal in the distance. It reminds me of the set for a medieval fantasy movie. Like, you know, Boromir rushing in to save the Hobbits from orcs in Lord of the Rings? It was close enough to feel like déjà vu.
Good thing my mom taught me how to travel through forests without making sound. I slink my way through the trees towards the sounds of fighting. Probably stupid, but you know how the saying goes. Curiosity is an evolutionary advantage for the cat due to the benefits of foraging outweighing the risk on average. That's what everyone says, right?
When the sounds draw close and I peek through the foliage, I see a group of bandits fighting a pair of young nobles in fancy clothes and two more standard warriors. I'm going to call the latter two mercenaries until proven otherwise. One of the mercs is a man on horseback old enough that I'm not sure he should be on the battlefield, while the other is a younger woman with a dead look in her eyes to match her blade. Still older than both of the nobles, though. A guy with blond hair is using a lance on foot to ward off one of the bandits, and the other is a girl with white hair like Mr. creepface who uses a battleaxe. I see her swing at one of the bandits, miss, and curse to herself.
"Claude." Lance boy looks back at me. "Where have you been? Help us instead of standing there gawking."
Gawking? I approach the battlefield, keeping my eyes on the bandits. The older horseback merc rides past me and spears one of them before leading his horse back.
"Hey kid. You know how to use that bow or not?"
Bow? I look first at my hands, which are empty, and then feel around my back. Yep, there's definitely a bow and quiver. But it's… super strange. It's not big enough to be a longbow, but isn't a recurve bow that gets extra tension to make up for the smaller frame. I guess it's like a d&d shortbow. You know, one of those weapons that nobody would actually use in real life.
It's a moot point because I never learned how to use a bow. And why would I? When I was eight my parents taught me how to use a handgun. When I was twelve they taught me how to use a sniper rifle. I know how to use brass knuckles, assault rifles, shotguns, and switchblades, so of course a bow and arrow seems impractical.
Eh, might as well test it out before I charge in with my fists and possibly die to a real weapon like an axe. I unsling the bow from my back and pull out an arrow from my quiver (which I apparently also have). I walk until I'm about 30 feet from a bandit that lance boy is fighting.
Nock, shoot. I can tell from the smoothness of the motion that it comes from countless hours of training… that I don't have. The arrow soars through the air and slams into the bandit's chest. I look down at my hands and blink. What other reflexes and skills do I have in this world? For all I know, I could be a swordmaster or in this universe.
I nock an arrow when the next bandit approaches, but the instincts that are not mine stop me from shooting. Too far, they say, which is absurd since bows should be able to reach halfway across a battlefield. Not these ones, I guess. I creep towards the next bandit as lance boy runs after it.
Crunching on leaves alerts me to a bandit approaching me from the side. I leap away as he swings at me, but when I ready my bow to retaliate the same instincts stop me. If I nock an arrow and steady my aim, I'm opening myself open to him splitting my skull open. I need to get away.
The sword merc leaps into my field of view and unleashes a spinning slash on the bandit. He falls, and I see a second cut in his back where she must have struck him earlier. Didn't look like the most efficient way of killing him, but I'm not in a position to criticize right now. I nod to her and turn back to lance boy, who is engaged with yet another bandit who looks indistinguishable from the rest. I run over and fire off a couple of shots from around 30 feet away (seriously, shouldn't bows have a longer effective range than this?) and the ruffian falls.
"Thanks for the help, Claude. We should-"
He freezes while looking to the side. I follow his gaze and see a larger bandit charging towards poor 5'2" axe girl. Except she somehow lost her axe, and only wields a dagger.
So she's fucked.
Sword merc and cavalier merc are rushing over, but I know they won't arrive in time. Well, time for a classic desperation play. Like those times when I made random moves in chess when I started losing to my dad and it always made me lose faster. If there is a God out there, I'll have some questions about why he's putting me in this position.
I run towards the bandit as he rushes towards axe girl. When he's right about to reach her, I nock an arrow, screeching like a banshee as I loose it.
In the movies, this is where I shout a witty one-liner (though really, the only thought going through my head is "over here, dipshit"). But here my job is to distract the bandit until help arrives. What's going to be more distracting: a sassy one-liner you can barely hear or a wail so obnoxious it sounds like it came straight out of the depths of hell?
And the worst part is that it works. I keep screaming, and the bandit hesitates. He jerks away from the arrow that was going to miss him anyway. This gives sword merc enough time to rush in front of axeless girl. The bandit tries to attack sword merc, who parries the blow and forces him back. When cavalier merc draws close, the bandit darts into the foliage. Sword merc's legs tense and I can tell she wants to chase, but a halting order from cavalier merc stops her.
Right when I think I'm starting to figure out who these people are and what their deal is, another group of people arrive. These ones are armored in gear that looks more shiny and official than what the mercs have, and are led by a guy with a battleaxe, a spiked pauldron on his left shoulder only (don't ask me why), and a mustache that for some reason doesn't cover the middle of his lip.
He announces himself to be part of the "Knights of Serios," and recognizes cavalier merc, who groans loud enough for me to hear when mustache knight approaches him.
I look back at lance boy, who shrugs. How much am I supposed to understand about this world?
#
I listen in on introductions. Mustache knight's name is Alois (but he doesn't talk in a French accent… though I guess I shouldn't judge with my name), and cavalier merc's name is Jeralt. Turns out Jeralt and sword merc are actual mercenaries, so score one for my deduction skills. Alois doesn't recognize sword merc, who walks up and tells this knight that she's a bandit. Even voice, deadpan expression. He still laughs. Apparently sword merc is Jeralt's kid, but Alois hasn't seen Jeralt in decades so he didn't know Jeralt had a child.
Right when I'm starting to make headway figuring out who everyone is, axe girl and lance boy pull sword merc aside. I can't hear exactly what they're saying, but I'm pretty sure they're heaping praises onto her. How did we get chased by bandits to begin with, anyway?
Listening in on Alois gives me a bit of background. Lance boy, axe girl, and I are students at a nearby military academy who got separated from the others and were pursued by bandits. Makes sense why I know how to use a bow, then, if I'm training to be a military officer in this world. While she's talking to sword merc, I see axe girl point to me and say that I was the one who broke off and attracted the bandits. I raise an eyebrow, but it's not exactly like I have the evidence to rebut her.
Eventually, axe girl and lance boy leave sword merc alone, which gives me the opportunity to approach her. She looks like she's somewhere in her early twenties, which seems young to be risking her life every day but then I remember how the US military recruits poor kids and sends them to the front lines when they reach 18. Gotta keep the military sector running on the blood of poor kids so that millionaires designing weapons can make more money, right?
And there's my mom coming out in me.
I push away from my mother's ideology and clear my throat while I step up to sword merc.
"Thanks for the save," I say. "You're, uh, pretty vicious."
And she has a dead look in her eyes. But at least there are pupils and irises in them.
"Thank you. Are you also going to tell me why I should join your house?" Her eyes narrow. "Where are you from? My father never educated me much about the outside world."
I know the feeling, sis.
"I'm from, ah…"
I study my uniform for the first time. It has a bunch of symbols on it that probably mean something, but I don't know what.
"It's fine if you don't want to say. What about your name? I'm Byleth."
"Claude. Nice to meet you, I think?"
She sizes me up in the way that my mom always did when debating whether to teach me another weapon.
"What makes you so unsure, Claude?"
"Guess I'm unsure about being unsure." I put my hands behind my head and crack a smirk.
"Fascinating. And what is the significance of your necklace? The quality of the metal charm attached to it is unlike anything I've seen in this world."
"Oh, this little thing?" I hold the Falchion charm in my palm. "It was a goodbye gift from a…"
Friend? Babysitter? Mentor? I'm not sure any of those words encapsulate what Lucina means to me.
The steel blade of the Falchion charm glows dark purple in my hand.
"Does it normally do that?" Byleth says.
"No, this is the first time it-"
My vision goes black. I stumble around, and after a few steps I lose track of the ground and experience the sensation of floating.
#
I start awake in the middle of the street, Middle-of-fuck-nowhere, Iowa. I hop to my feet and drag my bike to the side of the road. I check my phone, and it's been about 20 minutes since I left the McDonald's. Considering the bike ride is supposed to be 10 minutes… well, I won't belabor the arithmetic.
My first priority is to get home safely, and I can properly freak out and enter existential crisis mode about my looming insanity and/or being transported to an alternate dimension after I'm behind a locked door. I mean, this can't be worse than the time my dad threw me into a pool and told me to swim as my first exposure to bodies of water larger than a bathtub.
Well, my mother told me that she sent me here so that I'd need to be on my guard and expect the unexpected. I don't think this is exactly what she had in mind, but mission fucking accomplished, mother.
Hi everyone. The name's Connor, and I'm new to writing FE fics so I'm happy to venture into a new fandom! :D Reviews/comments greatly appreciated as always (I'll always respond to them in the next chapter) and my PMs are open if you wanna chat (I might take a while to respond though lol)
This fic is a lot of firsts for me. First long-form fic in 1st person and a focus on internal thoughts/monologue (which is haaaaard to write), 1st long-form fic outside Earthbound (characters are much more flexible when they don't have personalities lol), 1st fic where I'm going to focus a bit more on active romantic/sexual relationships between characters (there's gonna be no porn/sex scenes though), so thanks for bearing with me.
Some of the characters will be a bit OoC in the real world in order to make things work, but I'll try to keep the Fodlan versions of characters somewhat close to canon.
Additional notes:
-Claude working at McDonald's is sort of a meme due to his English voice actor, Joe Zieja, having worked there
-Creeper guy at the start is definitely Thales, and this is Claude's first encounter with him