The Use of Caltrops In Everyday Life
Author's Notes: I tend not to use ANs, but this story requires it. You probably won't recognise most of these people, but that's just for the next couple of months, as this story is set during the upcoming Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (release date May 23rd, 2005). I can't promise I've got the names exactly right, except for Seth, Eirika, Joshua, and Amelia, and since the game is only in Japanese right now, I have limited knowledge of their personalities, but none of this should be too out-of-character. So, hopefully, read on, enjoy, and expect lots of giant spiders and undead in the next chapter.
Chapter One: It's a Personnel Thing
"I thought it was bad enough with just two," Amelia declared, hurling Marika's tent-flap open and striding in, glaring at the ground the whole way. She was still armored, but thankfully had left her lance elsewhere in the camp. Marika didn't like sewing, and Amelia tended to be a source of unintentional gashes. "Now I'm the nexus of a love triangle or something."
"Love triangles don't have nexuses… nexi," Marika pointed out.
"What? …Well, I guess not. But 'love square' would have weird connotations in this case, and I'm still sceptical on calling it love anyway."
"I take it you mean there are three guys after you… more of a love trident, then. Or maybe a caltrop."
"You made that up," Amelia said, sitting down heavily on a box of whatever supplies Marika felt it was necessary to haul from camp to camp.
"No, really," Marika said, producing something from a pocket of her satchel. "Look. It's got four point, all facing away from each other the same distance, so that no matter how you drop it, it falls with three points angled down and one straight up. Great trap for people who don't look down enough."
"That sounds exactly right. I am the central spike of a love caltrop," she declared.
"Now that we've got that defined, want to tell me more?" Over the last weeks, Marika had gotten used to the young soldier's need for someone to talk to, and apparently the myrmidon had fit nicely into the position of mature-but-still-young mentor.
"All right, so it's not hard to tell that Ross and Ewan like me, even if none of us knows how much or in what way. Ross is nice, but so focused on honor and becoming a great warrior like his father, and Ewan's fun to be around, if you can ignore his… really weird moments…"
"Our younger soldiers summed up nicely," Marika noted.
"But now it turns out Frantz has been standing guard at my tent almost every night!" Amelia exclaimed. "You know those weird divots in the ground I was telling you about, the ones I keep tripping over? They're from his sword, because he kneels in front of it in vigil for hours!"
"What? General Seth would never allow that. Besides, he would be falling asleep in the middle of battles, if this has been going on for long."
"He goes to sleep early, sneaks out, guards me for hours, sneaks back, and no one knows, apparently. Combine that with years of dedicated knightly training, the energy of youth–"
"–And he makes a pretty attractive cavalier in shining armor, I suppose," Marika finished. Amelia shot her a backstabbed look, as though she had just found a caltrop in her oatmeal.
"…Well, yes, I liked him for a while, but now he's creeping me out!"
Marika had unsheathed her sword, and was taking this relatively free time to sharpen and possibly oil the blade. The repetitive strokes with her whetstone could create a sort of rhythm in her head, one that helped her think more smoothly. "You don't do helpless well, even when it's beyond your control, so what kind of help are you looking for?"
"I don't know," Amelia grumbled, though she was thankfully focusing her annoyance on a patch of ground, rather than the myrmidon. "Don't you have experience with this sort of thing?"
Marika interrupted the sharpening to tap her chin theatrically. "Let me see… do I have experience in dealing with three capable, loyal, energetic, mostly-not-crazy men seeking my attention…" She looked at Amelia with a tilted expression that asked –mostly joking– if the soldier was entirely connected to reality. "No."
Amelia laughed, but turned seriously soon after. "So, what, you're saying I should be marvelling at how lucky I am to be sure I won't have to depend on myself to succeed in life?"
With an echoing snort of laughter, Marika returned to sharpening. "Also no. I can't tell if you're being courted or stalked." They sat in silence for a while, except for the scraping of stone and metal, which seemed to transform into a natural rhythm, like the crash of ocean waves against ship or shore. At last, Marika said "All right, there's one thing I've figured out that you probably will want to know."
"Yeah?"
"When these guys talk to you, pay attention to their eyes. If they're looking at their feet, they like you –you know how I mean– but they're shy about it. If they're looking at the ground, they're still shy, but it's hard to tell what they really want."
"I'm pretty sure there are more options."
"Patience, patience. If he looks you in the eye, he's got confidence, but again, it's hard to tell what they're thinking. If he's watching your lips, dead giveaway – however nervous he might be, the crush is strong enough to totally override it," Marika went on.
"…And if it's somewhere between the lips and the ground…" Amelia began.
"I would recommend aiming for the solar plexus, as that's a great target to thoroughly stun the enemy, but if you've got your lance in hand, then the line blurs a bit, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically. The young soldier laughed gratefully, but still didn't look overly confident.
"…I still don't know what I'm going to do. It's not like I can avoid them all the time."
"You don't have to know," Marika assured her. "You don't have to decide now, nor do you have to pick between the three of them. Ross can deal with rejection, Ewan's… what, six? And Frantz is a cavalier, which means he's supposed to be thinking about other things anyway, not your dazzling smile."
"Do I even have a dazzling smile?" she asked.
"This I refuse to talk about. You're a warrior, not some fluffed-up princess," Marika insisted.
"Eirika's a princess," Amelia countered.
"That's why I added the 'fluffed' part, which is definitely not her. Shouldn't you be getting in some practice before bed tonight?" the myrmidon suggested, in her best caring-superior voice.
"Sure; want to spar?" the soldier suggested, frowning. "I'll have you know I slew a trio of giant spiders today, and one of them would have been tucking into Corma bruleé if I hadn't been paying more attention than him."
"I'm sure our resident thief is grateful, but if you don't go back to your tent soon, you'll get there while Frantz is still settling in for the middle of the night, and if you think battles are awkward now…"
"Rachel's seen him; how else would I have found out?" Amelia muttered, but she went, pausing only at the door to wish the fencer good night.
Marika let out a long sigh. "Of all the things to be our future, why did we have to pick children?" She shook out her bedroll, and was selecting a half-dozen blankets –Marika liked hard ground under her, but had a definite vendetta against frigid night breezes– when another good question occurred to her. "And what was our friend the troubadour doing out in the middle of the night?"
As a test, Amelia remained silent about the knowledge she had received from Rachel, and spent the night asleep as usual. She wasn't sure how she would read into Frantz's actions, but if he knew he had been seen the night before and chose to stay away tonight, it would have to mean something, however vague.
Instead she once again neatly lodged the toe of her boot into a fissure hidden in the long grass next morning, a sure sign that the cavalier had been on guard again. The only reason she didn't arrive at the diminished campfire with mud-streaked armor –heavy dawn fog had turned the plains slick– was some subconscious expectation that the mark would be there, and avoided falling. Lances were good for keeping your balance, too.
"Hi, Tethys," she said, passing the dancer and her little brother. "Hi, Ewan."
"Good morning," Tethys acknowledged, wearing her usual panther-like smile.
"G'm'r'n," Ewan echoed, focused far more on breakfast. Amelia walked on, wondering with a dissatisfied smirk where bacon fit on Marika's Hierarchy of Where He's Looking.
The noisiest part of battle-camping by far was packing everything together again to get back on the march, but at least it meant that not everyone was trying to cook at once (or convince others to cook for them, as was Joshua's usual scheme).
"It's the communal aspect," said a voice behind her, as Amelia surveyed the smoky scene, which matched quite well with the still hazy clouds across the sky.
"What?" She spun quickly, saw the old greatknight standing tall in his blood-red mail, and tried awkwardly to salute, forgetting which hand she was holding her lance with. "Sir Deucel, sir!"
"Heh. Has Seth been teaching you to do that? …At ease, before you strain something." Amelia lowered her weapon gratefully, and passed it to the other hand. "You were wondering why we only have one cooking fire, weren't you?"
"…Well, not yet, but I suppose I would have been soon enough. Sir?"
"Yes?" Deucel said.
"No, I was just wondering if I should call you sir," Amelia explained.
"Maybe on the battlefield. I'm usually quite good at reading faces, so what deep question were you thinking about?" The greatknight had an easy face to trust, like the sort of grandfather Amelia wouldn't have minded having. Still, there was no way he would be as helpful as Marika, and the fewer people she spoke to, the better.
"Just sorting out some personnel issues," the soldier replied.
"Mm," Deucel murmured, nodding his head and thinking that it was good that the long tradition of lying by selective terminology was being kept alive by the new generation. "You won't get many better opportunities to do so than first thing in the morning. As I was saying about the fire, it brings the army together. Yes, it would be faster, and perhaps simpler, if we were to spread out into satellite groups. But that would create divides in what must be a unified band, if we are to survive against the terrible forces being brought to bear on the land. Every morning, we accept that the price of camaraderie is occasionally getting our feet stepped on, or having our patience tested, and we pay it gladly."
Amelia was now wondering if people kept giving her advice because she was young, because she was their subordinate, or because she was a girl in an army. Neimi probably didn't get this sort of thing.
Noticing that he wasn't likely to get much through to Amelia this morning, Deucel set off to oversee the rest of the camp. One aspect of his high rank that he cherished deeply was the freedom to walk away from a conversation without having to make an excuse, and he used it as effectively as any weapon, when dealing with annoying dignitaries and distracted young soldiers alike.
He found the senior paladin of Lunes soon after, trying to negotiate another dispute between Corma and Joshua. Between one being a thief and the other a compulsive gambler, two men who ordinarily got along very well could also be found at each others' throats with ridiculous frequency.
"I don't think you can realistically accuse even Corma of being so fast as to swap coins six times in ten seconds, and that's what your story comes out to, Joshua," said Seth, patiently. "Unless you – hail, Sir Deucel."
"I have to what?" the red-haired myrmidon asked.
"Yes, yes, good day, Seth," Deucel responded. "I was looking over the maps last night, and I'm concerned about our current path. This region of the country is almost barren of villages, or even trader's outposts, and I…"
"Twenty-five gold says Seth forgets all about your whining in less than half a minute," Corma whispered as the greatknight went on.
"You're on," Joshua agreed instantly.
"We've been tracked by monsters before," Seth pointed out, unaware of the new wagering going on behind his back. "And our group is essentially all veteran at this point. Do you think it's that serious?"
"I can tell you Seth does," Corma said, jabbing the myrmidon with his elbow.
"Paladins don't let injustice stand, you little brigand," Joshua countered.
"If we present ourselves as significant targets – and in a place as barren as this, I can promise you we will be – then we're likely to attract the attention of the oldest creatures living in this region. And the old ones are always the smartest, usually with packs of minions to do their bidding. A well-executed sneak attack could be devastating," said Deucel.
Seth had a good face to look concerned with, and he was putting it to full effect. "A good point. Most monsters prefer nocturnal hunting in any case. We should increase our night watch?"
"We should send out scouts," the greatknight stated. "Better to know where are enemies are right now than to stay back and wonder if they're enclosing us in a trap."
"Agreed. Let's speak with Lady Eirika on the matter," Seth suggested, nodding his head in the direction of her half-disassembled tent.
"Wait! General!" Joshua called, before he could leave.
"Oh, right," Seth said, turning back briefly. "Corma, give him back his gold pouch. Joshua, no more gambling."
"When did you get that?" Joshua demanded as the thief reluctantly handed his pouch back.
"No deal on the twenty-five; you cheated," said Corma, and strode off, whistling.
Joshua watched the last of the shelters folded and packed away, mostly onto the few spare horses they were able to bring along, and soon the army was ready to march again. Malicious beasts all around, mad thieves right close by, uninhabited plains ahead, no home behind… but there was an extremely attractive cleric over there, and plenty of warriors willing to put their monster-slaying skills to the test.
"Gilliam, my friend! What do you say to a friendly wager?"