In the Light of Naga

Seliora in many ways mirrored the Glass Fortress. A castle situated on a gentle hill, that had once offered shelter to Alteans in times of war, fortified by massive walls of several dozen feet height. And like the Glass Fortress, Seliora had decayed into a labyrinth of ruins. The grand domed tower that crowned the sandstone carcass might evoke a sense of wonder from afar, but the closer Lucina edged towards the structure, the more burn holes revealed themselves. Ash coated the walls. Like broken fingers, the pillars of Seliora clawed at the sky, never to reach the grace of Naga.

Something unsettling penetrated the entire hill, and the gusts hissing through the ravines and the destroyed hallways sounded like raspy breaths in Lucina's ear. As though Seliora lay on its deathbed but had refused to surrender for the past decade.

Here, on the foot of the hill, the Pheraen Empire had crushed the last uprising of old Altea. The fires of that day had left black marks on the sandstone. They reached up the walls like despairing specters, frozen in their moment of death.

Lucina directed her feet through one of the ravines crisscrossing the area around Seliora, accompanied by the near inaudible steps of five rebels following her. A river had eaten into the rock centuries ago, but the water had since run dry with the exception of a thin rivulet splashing down the hill. The ten-feet deep gorge that remained allowed for two people to walk beside one another if they interlaced their arms and offered welcome cover from the garrison stationed at Seliora's foot.

Said garrison was better known as Persis.

Before Lucina had descended into the ravine, she had risked a look at Persis, and the glistering of the sun on many a helmet proved that the Pheraen Empire put a lot more effort into guarding the ruins of Seliora as supposed to the Glass Fortress.

A strange decision only if one ignored the superior location benefits of Seliora.

The roads extending from the city like five twisted spider legs connected the northern heart of Pherae with Terra and other major towns in the Altean province. Lucina shook her head. No, the Altean kingdom. This distinction was crucial, even though or exactly because it went against her force of habit.

After all, she had come here for the specific purpose of reclaiming the symbol of Altea's former glory. The glory as a kingdom allied with Pherae, not conquered by it.

For this, Lucina had no choice but to follow the rivulet back to its source underneath Seliora. The rich tapestry of moss draping the rock walls left and right muffled the sound of her boots, but a wrong move on the slippery ground would betray her position. Still, the absence of Frederick's heavy strides behind her unnerved her far more than the wyvern circling above the ravine from time to time. Alas, he had remained with the other rebels. If Lucina was caught on her way into Seliora's depths, they would stage a distraction on the other side of the garrison.

This might buy her the time to escape.

Or she would condemn all of them to an early grave.

Lucina bit into the inside of her cheek to rid herself of these thoughts. Controlled breaths. Even pace. Prevent every unnecessary sound.

Flap-flap.

The beating of wings startled the group. Like a single body, they pressed against the rock walls while the slow flap-flap drew nearer. And nearer.

The olive wyvern came into view, and its shriek reverberated through Lucina's bones. Her teeth clacked against one another. She held her breath and stiffened her muscles while the rocks pressed against her spine.

The massive leathery wings of the wyvern obscured the rider as he guided his mount along the wind currents, and Lucina begged it wasn't Galle. Where had Roy stationed him? Shortness of air inhibited her thinking, but without a doubt the last thing she needed was the army's supreme general on her heels. No one in the Empire rode his wyvern with the deadly precision Galle possessed, eyepatch or not.

Lucina had seen him fight once, against a group of armed bandits with the suicidal idea to rob an imperial treasury. Galle's wyvern had swooped down on them like a hawk on panicked mice until the beast's talons and Galle's mace had been dripping with blood. Not even the stray arrow to his right eye had deterred his killing spree. And if the reports were to be believed, he used the same efficiency to rid western Pherae of Tellius refugees.

If Galle, however, circled above Lucina's group, their presence escaped his single watchful eye. With a final bone-shattering shriek, the wyvern turned to the north-east in search for easier prey.

A sigh of relief passed through the group. Lucina forbade herself to waste thought on the fact that the wyvern steered in Frederick's direction. He had experience and a stellar assortment of weapons to rely on, he would manage. Regarding the other rebels, however, she wasn't so confident. Cordelia had to have received some form of military training, that much was evident in her mastery of her spear; her technique even matched the imperial Pegasus riders. But the rest of the party would go under in a one on one against any decent soldier in Roy's army, not to mention the Twelve. With only seven people in total, Lucina and Klein had bested a rebel cell four times their size. The wyvern above would make short work of them.

Truth be told, the elite of Altea's warriors was dead. The poor remains would have a hard time defending the land after Lucina returned it to them.

But these questions concerned the future. The present first demanded Lucina to find Falchion. So, she exchanged a nod with Cordelia before she led her and the others upstream and into Seliora's shadow.

The ravine snaked along, and after several curves, Lucina stood in front of her goal: metal bars separating the outside with Seliora's underbelly. The rivulet ran through the barrier, and its gurgles echoed from the high walls of the chamber on the other side. Apparently, the soldiers of Seliora had harbored little concerns about an enemy invasion because Lucina could slip through the bars without trouble.

A glaring oversight. No wonder Altea had lost all its strongholds against Eliwood's invasion in a matter of days.

Cordelia grabbed Lucina's arm and fixated her gaze. For such a slender figure, her clutch had a surprising amount of strength. "Are you sure you want to go in there alone?"

"I don't intend to run off with Falchion if you're concerned about that," Lucina said. "If everything goes according to plan, I will walk into the garrison with the sword in about an hour. Whoever is in charge there will get me to Roy, and the rest will be easy."

"Your plan is suicide. Who in their right mind would trust the murderer of their own father?"

Lucina swallowed her defensive tirade of Roy's character. "Terrible odds didn't stop you from engaging your opponent in Gran. And isn't the very idea of a war against the mighty hand of the king suicidal?"

Cordelia let go of Lucina's arm and stepped back. Her lips twisted into the ghost of a smile. "I guess you're right about that. Good luck in there. We'll be waiting for you."

Lucina gave Cordelia and the four rebels in her shadow a nod. And while their expressions weren't outright friendly, they did show a minimum of concern for the success of her mission. She could build upon that.

After a wordless goodbye, Lucina entered the underground chamber.

The light from outside soon faded. Water splashed under Lucina's boots, and she found herself at the edge of a shallow rectangular pool that had once provided the people of Seliora with fresh water. And although the inflow had depleted into a trickle, with a little work, the castle could be made inhabitable once again.

Yet, only emptiness welcomed Lucina on her way.

Up spiraling stairs, smoothened from uncounted pairs of feet, past chambers with crumbling walls and the burnt remains of wooden furniture, and through hallways where debris blocked her path and not a single pillar stood intact. A labyrinth of blackened sandstone stretched to all sides, and no one had left behind a map to guide Lucina. The weight of the stone above her head created a knot in her stomach; a single gust, a little nudge might send everything tumbling down on her.

Marth's letter lacked any detailed information as to Falchion's resting spot, and so Lucina had to trust her feet to find the way. Each crossroad came with an indecisive shuffling of her boots as she listened for guiding whispers and opened her nose to any scents beyond the dusty dryness flurrying about every time a breeze howled past her.

Nothing.

The hallways widened, and the sun lightened her path through archways without an arc to complete them and windows of which only bent metal struts remained. The knot in Lucina's stomach tightened, but her feet pressed onward as though they had developed a mind of their own.

They led her to a crumbling corridor where holes yawned between the handful of tiles still in place. Who knew how long she would fall if she slipped. The rickety tiles inspired little confidence. Lucina weighed her options and before she stepped onto the first platform.

For a heartbeat nothing happened.

Then the floor broke away, rocks and tiles rushed downward, and Lucina dropped into the darkness below.

The impact drove the air out of her lungs. Her head rang. But other than a few unwanted bruises, she had survived the fall unharmed. Lucina coughed to chase away the taste of gravel on her tongue. Next time she wouldn't listen to her feet when they pulled her somewhere.

With a groan, Lucina stood up. The sparse light from above offered a small source of optimism and highlighted a tall set of doors close by. Each wing measured over twenty feet in height, but they barely held onto their hinges. One of them had surrendered and had laid down on the floor to await its end. Still, the carvings on the ancient wood had lost nothing of their marvel. Shards of glass and bronze embellishments highlighted the images of Alteans, of kings and clerics, of knights and farmers. And of Naga. Everywhere the elfin features of Naga.

The kings kneeled before her, the clerics spread her word, the farmers harvested her crops, and the knights fought her enemies. With her ethereal light, she illuminated their world.

A chill seeped through her skin, and Lucina hurried to step past the broken door and into the room beyond.

The circular layout gave the impression of an arena or a gigantic temple with a ceiling so high that the eye barely caught the vaulted shape. Balconies ran along the walls, several layers of them, from which men and women had once watched the spectacle below. But the only gladiator now intimidated by the sheer size was Lucina.

And her challenge took on the form of a dragon.

The white creature fit comfortably into the underground arena, even though it dwarfed the biggest wyvern Lucina had seen. Emerald thorns ran down the length of its spine and ended in a three-sectioned tail that could swipe a heavy destrier from its hooves with ease. The dragon's head rested on its fore paws, each equipped with three claws the length of Lucina's arm. These ivory weapons would slice her to bits if the dragon so chose, and no shield would make a difference. But the dragon remained motionless.

Even as Lucina's heel kicked a pebble in her backwards stumble, the creature kept its eyes closed and its wings folded at its sides.

What was she doing here? Forget the Pheraen knights outside, this was the suicidal part of Lucina's endeavor.

A dragon.

An actual dragon from the history books, a creature like the one that had killed Hector of Ostia, and it waited here in Seliora to feast on Lucina's fear. No doubt the white monstrosity could hear her heart as it beat against her ribs like a caged prisoner on death row.

The sword hilt in her right hand that brought her comfort on other days felt laughably frail. And if fight wasn't an option, the only alternative was flight. Run as far as her quivering muscles would carry her, forget Marth, forget Altea, and forget the cursed day where Roy had sent her to Gran.

But Lucina could not obey to the panicked pleas her body screamed at her.

Because in front of the dragon throned Falchion.

Although she had never seen the sword herself, the majesty of the craftsmanship at display left no room to doubt. A cross guard of finest gold shimmered in the dim light, almost as if the sword alone battled the darkness of the underground chamber. And this single sword succeeded to convince Lucina of the splendor of old Altea where all the stories and ruins had failed. In Falchion, there rested the rightfulness of the gods.

Not even the presence of the dragon could overpower the lure of the weapon, a call from the past and a promise of future that pulled Lucina forward. Every answer she had ever sought glistered in front of her, so close, a few paces, then an arm's length, until her fingertips rested against the cool steel.

Absolute perfection.

Even after all these years, Falchion had lost nothing of its sharpness; a wrong twitch of a muscle and Lucina would cut herself. The blade was of graceful slenderness without seeming brittle, and her own sword had never felt so inappropriate; its crudeness shamed the sanctuary and the glory of Falchion.

Lucina placed her right hand on the hilt. The pristine leather hugged her palm.

An unparalleled sense of triumph washed over Lucina when she pulled Falchion out of its rostrum. But as soon as the blade slid out of its stone bed, the dragon jumped to life. Its red eyes narrowed on Lucina, its lips pulled back to reveal rows of fangs the size of a dagger and twice as deadly. A roar escaped its belly louder than thunder, and the arena quaked. Stones rained from the balconies.

And all Lucina could do was tighten her grip around Falchion as the dragon tensed its muscles for the leap.

Her world didn't end in pain.

Instead, a flash of light enveloped Lucina. The brightness attacked her senses through her eyelids. She wanted to shield her face with her hand, but found no muscles to reach out to.

Nothing moved, even space and time stood still while the brightness ate everything whole. The roars of the dragon had faded, nothing more than a fleeting dream. Or had everything Lucina had experienced in Seliora been a dream?

Who even was Lucina?

A small conscious existed amidst all this brightness, a single mind that drifted along the current without knowing where the stream would take her. Would it take her anywhere? Or was this a journey without an end, an eternal wait for this paradise Naga promised her followers once they overcame all evil?

The conscious that might have once carried the name Lucina knew no answers. And soon it knew no questions either.

Only brightness and silence.

But then, after a few heartbeats or maybe a few decades, the sound of windchimes filled the white void, and the conscious that might have once been Lucina remembered how much she loved the soft ringing. Hadn't she attached a windchime to her window frame back home? And hadn't she hoped that the jingle of the brass tubes would guide the faceless lost father to her?

Along with the windchimes travelled a voice. Calm like a snow field in the sun and powerful like the raging sea; a voice even the smallest conscious wanted to obey.

"Open your eyes, Lucina. Open your eyes and see."

And Lucina saw.

She saw a palace made out of green glass, archways and pillars that stretched on forever. The floor too was a thin layer of glass, and underneath yawned endless white. Water splashed into ornate basins in between the pillars and the constant burble mingled with the chaotic play of the windchimes. The air tasted of spring flowers.

In the middle of the jade palace hovered a female figure. Pointy ears completed her gentle features, and waves of green hair flowed around her curves. Diamond-shaped glass shards hung from her waist, but next to the ethereal glow of her porcelain skin, they and the palace as a whole looked dull. Light particles trickled and twinkled in the air around her, like stars circling the center of the universe.

"Child, long have I waited for your arrival," the figure said. Her lips flickered with a relieved smile. "Do you know who I am?"

Lucina swallowed, and her vocal cords struggled to do their job. "Naga."

The goddess' smile widened. "Yes. There is much to be grateful for. After all the years you spent in the shadows of the non-believers, I feared you might have lost faith. But here you are."

"Am I dead?"

"The contrary. You are alive, and for the first time you are able to see."

"I don't understand. Didn't I go to Seliora to retrieve Falchion?"

Naga reached out with her hand, and although she didn't make physical contact, Lucina felt the warmth of the touch on her cheek. "Yes, child. And in accepting your father's life purpose, the Divine Sword has led you here, to me."

The puzzle pieces clicked together, and Lucina understood. "Marth wanted me to speak to you. That's why he mentioned the sword in his letter."

"Your father and I arranged this meeting a long time ago. He knew he would meet his end before he could accomplish his dream, and that he had to make room for one generation under Grima's cruel hand. All so that you could take his place when your time came." A veil of sorrow fell over Naga's face. "Marth was a good man and loyal to the end. The best champion in centuries. I regret his loss."

Lucina brushed her thumb across Falchion's hilt. Many years ago, Marth had stood in the same place as her and spoke with the goddess who had created this world. The warmth and the eyes she had felt on her in her loneliest hours; it had been Naga reaching out to her. Because her father had made a pact with the goddess, a pact that still sought fulfillment.

"What do you want me to do?" Lucina asked.

"I hope you will give the people of Altea their freedom back," Naga said. The light particles swirled around her in a distracting dance to reflect the cadence of her voice. "Their suffering has lasted for too long. You have seen the injustice yourself. Is this not why you came?"

"I'm… not sure. My father has left me a message, and I thought I could understand him better if I follow his directions."

"Marth fought on the path of righteousness, but in the end, he failed. I sadly could not foresee the death of his wife, nor did I anticipate how completely this would break him. An unfortunate setback. What else is there to understand?"

Lucina averted her gaze. Naga's light blinded her. "I just want to know what kind of man he was."

Again, this faint touch on her cheek. "Child, what is lost cannot return before the time is ripe. Marth has lost a great deal in the last war, but his sacrifice does not have to be in vain. His dream lives on in you. If you carry on his mission and rid the world of Grima's evil, you may yet see the goal he failed to grasp."

"And if Altea regains its freedom, Grima is defeated?"

When Naga smiled this time, a smidge of mockery hid in the corner of her lips, as though she pitied Lucina's naivety. "Grima's reach extends far. His schemes have resided in the hearts of humans for centuries. Eliwood was only one of many. But fear not, child. The resurrection of Altea's glory will be a great victory already. All you have to do is follow Marth's path."

"How can I know what that path is? I haven't spoken to him once." Lucina struggled to keep her voice firm. "He might just as well be a stranger to me."

"And yet you have followed his call here. The mere fact that you hold the Divine Sword in your hands proves that you are worthy to succeed him."

Lucina hugged herself. Her gaze fixated on an empty spot on the floor. "So much has changed in the last few days. Nothing I believed all my life makes sense anymore."

"Yes, child. But I trust that you are capable of mastering this hurdle. You may call upon my guidance and my protection for this task and any that may follow. I shall order my Voice to accompany you on your journey. She will serve you as well as she served Marth."

"Your Voice?"

"The dragon you have seen in Seliora. She herself prefers the name Tiki; a sentimentality that must have grown in her after spending so much time with the humans. A sentimentality so extensive that she agreed to guard the Divine Sword for Marth. In many ways she is quite naïve. But you needn't fear her. If you are ever at a loss, I will help you through her."

"Then the stories about Naga's Voice were true," Lucina mumbled.

A bell-like chuckle came from Naga. "Of course. With Grima stretching his dark claws out into the world, humans can use a little guidance, don't you think?"

"You possess all this power – why have you never answered their prayers? I have seen the people squatting around your statues by the dozens all across Altea. Why did you never step in to ease their pain?"

"The stronger Grima grows, the less control I have over the happenings in Archanea. Not only Alteans have begged for my Voice to answer them. But a human needs to right what was set wrong. Will you do this for the sake of Altea and humankind?"

Lucina studied the jade floor and the endless void below. The windchimes jingled. Almost like voices in her head, they urged her to cast her vote. Only one answer presented itself. Was this not what Lucina had longed for? A chance to reestablish peace in every corner of Altea? A tie to her father, however slim it may seem, and a way to make him proud? She had chased the rebel talk about Marth, she had run from Roy in Terra, and she had allied with the very same rebels she had once considered the enemy; she had steered from her previous life so far that she had promised them the sovereignty of Altea.

Lucina had made her choice.

And so, she nodded.

Naga smiled. "Marth was wise to place his trust in you. Before you go, I have one final gift to you. Give me the Divine Sword."

On reflex, Lucina's fingers tightened around Falchion. Apart from the letter, the sword served as the only connection she had to Marth. The thought of giving this thread away, even for a moment, kindled a primal resentment in her, a distrust that Naga's kind expression failed to appease. A childish possessiveness for the best toy.

With a silent scowl over her lack of manners, Lucina held Falchion out the way knights did when they offered their servitude to their king. Naga reached out to touch the blade. Her expression was impossible to read, but Lucina thought to see a hunger flash in the green eyes, an emotion entirely unfit for a goddess. The light particles around her pulsated with a blinding glow.

Then the illusion disappeared, and Lucina shook her head to chase away its afterimage. Naga meanwhile ran her fingers across the meticulous steel, and under her touch, Falchion changed. The forward-sloping parts of the cross guard rejoined with the sword's edge, the gold ran down the ridge, and the blade itself widened.

After the transformation, the version of Falchion in Lucina's hands shared no resemblance to its predecessor, yet it was without a doubt the same sword with the same fantastical aura. The style better matched Lucina's old sword but was superior in every single way down to the pommel.

Lucina stepped back, weighed Falchion in her hands, and tried a few swings. The sword felt right, like an extension of her arm and the culmination of all the years she had honed her fencing skills.

She grinned. Frederick would turn pale with jealousy if she showed him this flawless epitome of beauty.

"Now you must leave, child," Naga said. "And remember the importance of your mission. The future lies in your hands."

The brightness increased, and the white void seeped through the glass palace until Lucina could barely make out the translucent shapes of the pillars. But so many questions still weighed on her mind, so many uncertainties.

"Will I be able to free Altea without turning Roy into my enemy?" Lucina shouted.

Naga smiled a smile devoid of answers. "Time will tell. But remember this: no sacrifice can outweigh a world free from Grima's evil. Have faith."

And then the white exploded, and Lucina drifted off into the nothingness.

Notes: This has been a long time coming, but finally Naga reveals herself. And she brought some clarity to Lucina's mission going forward. I had a lot of fun writing this scene, so I hope you enjoyed it. Stay safe!