Chapter 2
We were in the woods now and had been for quite some time and would be journeying for longer still if the light filtering down through the canopy was anything to go by.
"So Dylan was it?" An all too familiar deep voice questioned, knocking me from my internal reverie and nearly causing me to jump out of my own skin.
"Yes I am, and you must be?" I asked trailing off hoping the knight would introduce himself for me though only once I managed to get my heart rate under control.
"You may call me Sir Frederick." The knight retainer replied curtly.
"Alright Sir Frederick, is there anything I can help you with?" I asked since it was probably safe to assume that he wasn't here on a social call.
"No not at present. But know this I have my eyes on you, and should you even think of hurting either my lord or lady you will be sorry." Frederick warned sternly.
"Got it." I replied trying to sound upbeat about what I had just been told.
"See that you do have it." The knight nodded before returning to the front where it appeared that Chrom and Lissa were having one of their sibling banter sessions.
"Yuck! I think I swallowed it."
Or maybe Lissa just swallowed a bug.
"We should probably stop for the night I don't know about everyone else but I'm starving." Robin said.
"Plus it will be dark soon, so it would be best to set up camp now while there's still some light to work with." I added.
"Indeed, it would seem that some hunting and gathering is in order. Now since milady doesn't want to gather firewood with her brother perhaps she would be willing to help clear the campsite with another." Frederick said assigning both Chrom and Lissa to their respective duties.
"I'll help gather firewood if that's alright with everyone else." I supplied trying to be helpful.
"Than it seems I shall hunt for tonight's dinner and Robin shall help milady with the campsite." The great knight answered with a stoic sense of finality as he walked out of the clearing we were apparently in.
"Hey Dylan, Chrom's taking us to where we'll be camping for tonight. Are you coming or not?" Robin said tapping my shoulder.
Or maybe Chrom is going to take us all on an off trail hike to our actual campsite first.
"Yeah sorry about that I was just preoccupied." I answered as Robin led us back to where Chrom and Lissa were waiting for us.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's on your mind?" Chrom interjected.
"Yeah, I mean I know Chrom and I haven't known either of you for very long but I for one feel that Dylan here is, off." Lissa said clearly trying to be helpful but coming up short on how to describe the definite funk I was in.
"Lissa!" Chrom chided.
"Oh come on big brother I can tell that your thinking it too at the very least." Lissa said indignantly.
"I don't know what your talking about, and more to the point this looks like a good place to set up camp for the night.
"Hey, don't avoid the topic that you brought up in the first place!" Lissa called after the retreating form of her brother.
"I think what your brother means is that there's a time and place for all things and this is not the best time for that topic of conversation to say the least." I said probably sounding wiser than I should have.
"Yeah I guess. But don't think for a moment that this means you don't have to not talk about whatever it is that's eating you mister." Lissa said turning on me with an Ace Attorney Objection pose pointed at me that almost made me loose my composure.
"Wouldn't dream of it." I replied with a small smile.
"Good."
"Well if you'll excuse me I have to go find your brother." I said excusing myself from Lissa's presence.
"Yeah you do that, just don't get lost." Lissa replied as I scurried out of the clearing.
Great now which way did Chrom go?
"Where did Dylan go?" Chrom's voice echoed toward me through the trees.
"He just went to help you with gathering firewood." Lissa's voice responded.
"Oh well that really isn't necessary, I've got us more than enough wood to last us through dinner." Came Chrom's reply.
Never mind back to camp it is.
And holy mother of creation is that an entire tree?!
"Oh Dylan, good you're back. Say do you think you could help us set up the fire pit?" Chrom asked.
"Sure, what do you guys need help with." I said enthusiastically.
"Well I was going to take Robin to look for stones to line the outside of the pit with, but none of us have any idea what kind of stones to look for." Chrom replied sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head.
Seriously?!
"Well first of all we're going to want stones that are big but not too big and heavy enough to not be moved around by every little thing since we don't want them to roll away or into the fire, they should also be relatively dry for what I hope I don't have to explain." I replied forcing a mask of stoicism to my face.
"Ah I see. In that case we'll be right back." Chrom said as he and Robin wandered off to find rocks for our bonfire.
I don't know how much time I spent either helping Lissa get camp ready or putting off talking about or just flat out ignoring the metaphorical elephant with her but when Chrom and Robin got back to camp with all the necessary stones and Frederick arrived with our dinner of bear meat I knew I couldn't not talk about it for much longer.
"So Dylan, my sister tells me that you have been disinclined to talk about yourself so far but nevertheless I'd like to know something about you." Chrom said as he sat himself down next to me.
"Well it's not that necessarily, It's just that; well what's your first question?" I ended up saying.
"Ah so here's where everyone's camping for the night than?" A loud throaty voice breached the clearing causing us both to look to the owner who had gray hair styled in a buzz cut and a chiseled face with a few scattered scars on his face.
"My name's Adrian, hope you don't mind me dropping in." Adrian introduced as he sat himself across from me his heavier armor clicking and creaking as he did.
"Not at all, though Frederick may well have something to say about all this." Lissa said as she sat down next to me on my left.
"Yes, I believe that I shall. But for now I believe that Milord was going ask a question of one of our esteemed companions." Frederick replied getting the attention of the group back to where he thought it should be, which was coincidentally right where I didn't want it.
"Right well I've never heard accents quite like yours, so where are you two from?" Chrom asked clearly not meaning any harm.
"Alaska." Adrian answered plainly.
"I think I can speak for all of us when I say that I've never heard of that place." Frederick said as he booted up interrogator mode.
"Of course you haven't it's very far away." Adrian deflected with ease and stoicism.
"I take it by that that you mean farther than Valm." Frederick asked as he began serving up the bear.
"Yup." Was the answer Adrian gave before everyone minus Frederick and Lissa began eating the bear meat, which I'll have you know tasted gamey and smokey but was other wise nothing special.
"So Dylan you never said where you were from." Lissa piped up, effectively drawing everyone's attention away from whatever dinner conversations they'd been having with Adrian.
"Oh I'm from a place called Minnesota." I answered truthfully after a short internal debate.
"Is this place anything like Adrian's home state of Alaska?" Chrom asked clearly curious about the place I called home.
So for the next Thirty minutes or so I answered questions to the best of my ability about my home state and the United States and greater world as a whole in general as well as more personal topics like what do you do for a living or what's the weather like where you guys live that were ultimately directed toward the group as whole. Thankfully Adrian had laid some basic understanding for them to work with a lot of times I was just giving a brief re explanation of something Adrian had already talked a little about, and Adrian would also chime in with something of his own to add so I wasn't having to do all the explaining by myself.
"Well as fascinating as all this I think it would be best to turn in for the night now." Frederick interjected, mercifully cutting off any further lines of questioning until morning.
"Right, we'll need to get an early start tomorrow if we want to make it to the capitol before midday." Chrom said as everyone began preparing to go to their own area for some well needed rest, well everyone except Frederick and myself.
"You should get some sleep." Frederick grumbled.
"Fine. For you I'll try, but wake me if you need me." I muttered deciding that for once it really would be better to be at least somewhat rested rather not at all.
After getting what I hoped was nod in response from the knight retainer I stumbled a small distance away from the fire and began using my arm as a pillow. This quickly turned into me looking up at the very different night sky and quietly marveling at just how far from home I really was and pondering just how far would I go in this new world.
The answer to the first unasked question was far enough for there to be different constellations but not far enough to not see the North Star. The answer to the second question was harder to comprehend seeing as how I knew next to nothing about why I was here in the first place, or if there even was a why to begin with.
I don't know how long it took, but I was eventually shaken from my internal dilemma by the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Thankfully it didn't take me long to figure out what that was.
Silence. Not a sound could be heard from the forest around us. Which could only mean one thing, something very bad was about to happen.
Time to wake up, time to wake everyone up. However, at this point nature decided it was more than appropriate to give its own wake up call to our merry band by loudly changing the very terrain around us, with what was undoubtedly a series of groundbreaking roars from beneath our feet.
"Where are my lord and lady?!" Frederick snarled at me as he promptly grabbed me by my shoulders and shook.
"How should I know?" I retorted.
"Than where is Adrian?" Frederick growled.
"Both of you stop it! This isn't a time for us to quarrel among ourselves, what we should be doing is getting the heck out of here to find our missing friends." Robin interjected.
"I can't believe he just left us behind." Robin said as Frederick rode off into the night of chaos around us on his horse.
"Really that's what you can't believe?" I said shooting Robin an incredulous look that he may or may not have saw.
"Okay your right, his horse is way more unbelievable but that's not to say that him leaving us to catch up isn't on an ever growing list of things." Robin admitted sheepishly as we jogged after the mounted knight who thankfully left a fresh trail of trampled twigs, leaves and upturned dirt for us to follow.
And now I smell smoke.
"Dylan look, up in the sky!" Robin exclaimed causing me to look upward.
What I saw was neither unexpected or a welcome sight, it was as if a cyclops had placed it's eye up against the fabric of the night sky just to look down at us.
"I think I see things falling out of whatever that thing in the sky is." Robin said his voice shaking me from my introspection.
"EEEEEK!"
"That sounded like Lissa, come on through here." I practically commanded as I charged toward the sound of the screaming with my sword drawn.
The scene I witnessed as I crossed over into the clearing could only be described as hell on earth, complete with the walking dead. Although it seems we arrived on the scene just in time to see a series of other sky holes open in the distance.
"Milord! Milady! Are you hurt?" Frederick asked.
"Frederick! Robin! Dylan!" Lissa gasped.
"Are such terrifying creatures commonplace in these lands?" Robin asked.
"No, they are not from Ylisse. I can promise you that much at least." Chrom answered.
"Thank the gods no one is injured." Frederick sighed slightly in relief.
"We can give thanks after we've all made it out of this mess alive and in one piece." I retorted causing Frederick to give me a funny look.
"Yes and hopefully I'll be able to put more of these things to the blade while we're at it." Adrian said as he casually sneaked up on our group.
"Right." Chrom replied.
Robin's plan was simple. Simple in that it was really just having Frederick ride towards Chrom and Lissa to support the royal siblings and to get Lissa to the nearest fort once further help arrived in the form of Adrian, Robin and myself. From there we were to fall back to the fort with Lissa and Frederick. However there was one problem with this plan that was now becoming all too apparent now that we were inside the fort, we had just let ourselves be surrounded by an enemy with superior numbers.
"What's the plan now Robin?" Chrom called.
"Look, their lines are collapsing!" Adrian shouted.
"Well what are we waiting for then? Charge!" Chrom commanded.
And that's how I eventually found myself fighting two abominations alongside Sully and Virion.
"Keep those things off of Ruffles so he can get some shots in." Sully commanded after taking one look at me and turning one of the creatures she had been fighting into black vapor with little help from either of us.
"Yes ma'am." I replied trying not to sound too scared of the red head as went off to find the fancy archer whose name I definitely shouldn't have known.
"Look out!" Someone called out from places unseen.
Holy crap that is an ax coming at my face!
Thankfully I was able to duck and roll out of the way of the throw and it's return arc but now I had to find the sender.
"Kill outlander. Kill Paradox." A very large ax carrying zombie growled as it brandished it's over sized weapon towards me with one hand and caught the ax that it presumably threw at me in the other.
"Oh hey there tall, dark and hideous, I take it your the one who threw that ax at me." I said. This prompted the creature to preemptively charge at me, swinging it's ax in a wide and wild arc as he did. This and the fact that who ever this person had been when they were alive had not been very fast allowed me to spin around the entirety of his attack and score some pretty deep cuts into it's pelvis and left leg before finally stabbing upward into what I hoped was its heart provided it even had one of those.
"Jeez! No need to be so testy you know, I'm only taking your …" I was about to say leg but the fiend exploded into a cloud of black miasma, while my mouth was open. This effectively ended my train of thought.
I guess I should go find the others now I mean I don't hear fighting anymore so that can only be a good thing right.