Korrina and the Black Eagles

Chapter 3: More than a Voice

As the stress of having to do well in the mock battle began to wear off, Korrina started looking to the future and what she wanted to do during her time at Garreg Mach. During the victory party the night after the mock battle, Korrina pulled aside Lady Edelgard and proposed an idea. "How about we start a sisterhood?" Korrina said to Edelgard. Edelgard didn't seem to understand, so Korrina explained further. "During my time as a mercenary, Jeralt and I always moved from place to place. I never had the time to develop any real relationship with another woman my age, and I'd like to give others here at Garreg Mach an opportunity to make those connections that I couldn't." Edelgard seemed to understand, as she too did not have many friends growing up (life as a noblewoman is surprisingly isolationist, after all) and desired a similar form of companionship. Thus, the Garreg Mach Women's Association was formed. Korrina and Edelgard were the founding members, and Dorothea and Petra were extremely quick to join as well. Bernadetta was a bit harder to recruit due to her social anxiety, but she would occasionally stop by to see what was going on. Overall, the Garreg Mach Women's association would become the crux of Korrina's time at Garreg Mach and a much-needed support net for the trials yet to come.

The next day, Korrina finally decided to go into slightly further detail with Hanneman as to the nature of those "crests" he would often speak of. After his usual spiel about how crests are divine powers passed through the bloodline, Hanneman turned to Korrina and said that her outstanding performance in the mock battle had led him to believe that she may have a crest of her own. Korrina was not as passionate about crests as Hanneman was, but she was still a bit curious to see if this crest research would reveal anything about herself. Much to Korrina's relief, Hanneman's method of investigating crests was a simple act of putting one's hand over a screen as opposed to anything perverted or inhumane (if it were, Korrina would have flipped out on him in an instant). To neither party's surprise, Hanneman did uncover a crest within Korrina. The fact that Hanneman had never seen this type of crest design began to spark Korrina's interest in the subject as well, and the two immediately began digging through every book and blueprint Hanneman ever owned to see if there was ANY sort of crest related to the one Korrina possessed. Before they could make much headway, however, Seteth arrived to bring Korrina to Rhea's chambers at once. Korrina was a bit disappointed at the timing of Rhea's request but promised Hanneman that she would stay in touch with him. Similarly, Hanneman promised Korrina that he would report to her if she made a breakthrough.

The meeting with Rhea started out as another congratulations of Korrina's decisive victory in the mock battle, but then Seteth informed Korrina that there would be an even bigger one in what we would call October. "You're not gonna let me catch a break, are you?" Korrina said with a sigh. Seteth replied by saying "It was better to tell you early so that you would have the necessary time to prepare your students and not embarrass the academy." Korrina was far from pleased about the fact that Seteth was still being so critical of her, but at least she did not feel the same "get this right or you're fired" vibe that she had from him last month. Rhea then told Korrina of her mission for the month: to dispose of some bandits causing trouble. Korrina had often disposed of bandits as part of her previous life as a mercenary. Korrina had no doubts about her ability to handle this task, but the fact that she had to bring her students into a life or death situation was a mild cause for concern. The only thing Rhea had to say in response was that Korrina had already proven her skills as a commander in the mock battle and thus the chances of actually losing someone in such a small-scale task should be minimal. This was not the type of answer that Korrina was looking for, but she got the feeling that Rhea was never going to give a satisfactory answer for such a grey matter, so she accepted the request and left without another word.

On the way out, Sothis was quick to make parallels between the mission Korrina was just assigned and the bandits she had to fight off to get her future in the first place. Sothis was also quick to remind Korrina about how she nearly died protecting Edelgard from one of those bandits and once again rub that "act of foolishness" in Korrina's face. Korrina desperately wanted to tell Sothis to let it go already, but she couldn't say it out loud for fear of making a scene, so she did what she had been doing for the past month and gave Sothis the silent treatment. It always aggravated Sothis whenever Korrina refused to respond, but since Sothis technically lived inside Korrina, she could technically just read her host's mind and figure out what Korrina was thinking that way. "You're really tired of me bringing that up, aren't you?", Sothis playfully asked, "Don't worry. Don't make such a fool out of yourself this time, and I might be inclined to drop it." This gave Korrina some bit of relief, but before she could get dgoing again, Sothis said "One more thing. You can't just freeze up every time I start talking to you. People will think there's something wrong with you". "I know", Korrina sighed as she went back to her room.

The next day, Korrina found a mildly unpleasant surprise waiting for her. Silvain had somehow found a way to transfer into her class, and the reason why was quite obvious: he still wanted to get with Korrina. There was no way that Korrina would just start dating a student, but Silvain was able to get through a day of class without any further incident, so she kept him in for the time being. As for everyone else, Korrina began working on long term goals. Korrina decided that Edelgard and Dorothea would become great sorceresses, so she taught them the basics of using magic. Linhardt would continue down the road of healing, while Bernadetta was given practice in horseback riding so she could easily get in, snipe a few enemies with her bow, then get back out before the going got tough. Caspar was given plenty of practice in wielding axes since they complemented his large strength and he seemed to adjust to using them easily. Ferdinand probably got the toughest training as Korrina personally worked night and day with him to increase his build so he could wear heavy armor and better protect everyone later on. Petra was a much harder case as she didn't have a specific talent like the rest, but she was fast and decisive with both a sword and axe, so Korrina decided to keep working with Petra on those areas and see if a road popped up later. Hubert was an exceptional mage, but Korrina saw how well he could use a lance and kept him training in that department much to Hubert's exasperation. By the time Korrina was ready to head out, all the Black Eagle students had grown into capable fighters. Even Silvain showed some potential in horseback riding.

A day before Korrina headed out with the Black Eagles, she decided to check in with Jeralt. There was a lot that she wanted to talk to him about, and she figured it would be better to get it out of the way now so she wouldn't get distracted on the mission. Jeralt started out with the usual question of how Korrina was doing and if she was adjusting well to her new life/responsibilities. This put Korrina in a slightly good enough mood to forget about her beef with Jeralt for a time as she gushed about how amazing life at the monastery was. Korrina went on and on for at least 10 or so minutes about the Women's Association she made with Edelgard, the friendship she struck up with the gatekeeper, her improvements at teaching, the work she was doing with Hanneman and so much more. Once Jeralt was allowed to get a word in edgewise with his daughter, he gave the usual "don't get too attached to this place" spiel he's been doing since they got to Garreg Mach. "Why", Korrina asked with much frustration, "this is the best life we ever had." For a moment, Jeralt forgot his child had a brain and said, "Have you not been paying attention, Korrina? Rhea clearly wants something from you, and until I figure out what it is, I don't ever want you letting your guard down here. Not even once." This riled up Korrina enough to remember what she originally came to ask and said, "You never did trust anyone here, did you? And why did you leave the knighthood behind? Everyone here said you were the best of them all, so why did you throw that away to become a mercenary!?" Jeralt knew he would eventually be confronted with this question by his own flesh and blood, but he felt that telling everything that happened would just cause unnecessary complications, so he simply played the "to take care of you" card. Unfortunately for Jeralt, Korrina wasn't buying it. "Nonsense", Korrina said angrily, "Garreg Mach has been nothing but accommodating to our needs, we get three meals a day guaranteed, and we don't have to move every other day. Yes, Rhea may not be the most trustworthy, but following her command is a small price to pay for this life we have now. It's far better than being a mercenary." Jeralt couldn't believe what his daughter was saying and retorted, "Fine! If you love this place so much, you can STAY here! One day you'll understand what kind of person Rhea truly is!" Jeralt eventually realized that he might have been too harsh with his final words, but by the time that moment came, Korrina was already gone.

At the final briefing before moving out, Korrina was told that the bandits had been cornered in a place called "The Red Canyon". The name peaked Sothis's interest, but this was not the time or place for Korrina to entertain this voice. These bandits were also identified as the same pack that tried to attack Edelgard and the others that faithful night, so Korrina could at least feel comfortable knowing that she would be dealing with a familiar foe. Finally, it was confirmed to Korrina that the Knights of Seiros would be accompanying her class in case the situation got out of hand, so Korrina at least felt 10 or 20% better about putting her students in a potentially life or death situation. After some quick weapon purchases, the Black Eagles headed out for "the Red Canyon".

Although their leader was the same, it definitely appeared that the bandits Korrina was supposed to fight had ironically grown in numbers since their last encounter in Remire Village. Initially, Korrina tried to make a rectangular formation and take it slowly. Ferdinand, Caspar, Korrina and Edelgard would take the bandits head on while Dorothea and Bernadetta sniped anyone who survived the initial blow with magic or arrows. The strategy worked at first, but as the Black Eagles made it over the first bridge and the land started to widen, the bandits became able to attack the more vulnerable students from the sides and even blast them from a distance with their own arrows. Korrina had to make everyone pull back and rethink her strategy.

On the second try routing the bandits, Korrina decided to keep the formation for when they crossed the first bridge, then spread out and take each bandit one by one while the more fragile students like Linhardt and Dorothea were to stay behind and only engage enemies that couldn't counterattack and kill them. This strategy seemed to go much smoother, and before sundown, every bandit in "the Red Canyon" lie dead. Edelgard even made sure to bury her axe into the bandit leader after he already fainted just to make sure he stayed down this time.

With the dust settled, Korrina was finally able to have a somewhat normal conversation with Sothis. Although Korrina never went to "the Red Canyon" in any of her mercenary jobs, Sothis had quite a few memories and sensations attached to this place. This in turn made Korrina more interested in Sothis than before. If Sothis was really just a figment of Korrina's imagination, then there should be absolutely no way that Sothis would remember a place that Korrina doesn't let alone in that large an amount of detail. Before Korrina could truly pry Sothis for information, however, Edelgard caught the troubled professor talking to herself and took her back with the others. Thankfully, Edelgard did not pry too much into Korrina's "schizophrenia". Instead, she was more interested in talking about the various ruins within the "Red Canyon", each supposedly more interesting than the last. The fact that some of those ruins did not have any similarities with anything in the continent was what truly stood out to Edelgard, however. Korrina suggested that it might have been some precursor to the Adestrian Empire since time did not begin with Adestria's founding. Edelgard was disappointed in Korrina's "lack of creativity" but supposed that that may be the most likely explanation.

Back at Garreg Mach, Rhea seemed far more grateful for Korrina's assistance than usual. When asked about the unusual amount of gratitude, Rhea told Korrina about the canyon's historical significance. The Red Canyon's true name was Zanado, and it was the exact place where the goddess Sothis first descended and lived. Korrina was surprised to hear Sothis being referred to as a goddess, and Sothis even more so. Rhea asked if Korrina heard that name before in a less than innocuous way, and though Korrina tried to cover it up by saying she read the name in a book, Rhea saw right through Korrina's lie. Sothis was also freaking out over what this could mean, and Korrina was struggling to keep from responding to Sothis. Eventually Rhea metaphorically dropped the bomb and said "Stop trying to hide it, child. I know all about the 'voice in your head'." Korrina couldn't take it anymore and said "May I take my leave now? I need to calm down a bit." Thankfully, Rhea obliged and agreed to pick up this conversation another time. Korrina left Rhea's chambers that day with more questions than answers. "Do I really have a goddess inside my head? What am I? How does Rhea know about my secret?" The answers would continue to stay out of Korrina's reach for several months.