Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem blah blah blah...
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Lyn was considering stabbing the cleric. Serra had emerged from Erk's room in the inn and declared that he would be fine. She had then proceeded to make herself part of the legion on Sain's prompting. Lyn had just nodded, too bemused to do anything else. Since then she hadn't shut up. She prattled about how useful she and Erk would be.
It came as a relief to Lyn when Wil interrupted the one-way conversation. "Milady Serra, our tactician wishes to see you in Erk's room." He quickly ran away before the torrent of complaints could reach him.
As they walked to the mage's room Serra started again. "Really this is no way for a noblewoman such as myself to be treated, is it Lyn?" She turned to the Sacaen who nodded without comprehension. Serra took this as encouragement and continued babbling about her nobility as she headed up the stairs, and how she should really have vassals, do you think Mark would let her have vassals? Maybe when Lyn reached Caelin she could give her vassals, for her no doubt invaluable presence.
Much to Lyn's relief she shut up when she reached the door to Erk's room. Serra walked straight into the door as it refused to open. She tried to push it open and slowly it opened, shifting the weight in front of it. Serra stepped into the room and gave a small yelp of surprise.
Lyn felt her heart sink, as she saw Mark collapsed in front of the door, blood running down his arm.
0-0
Erk woke from his nightmare and screamed. Much to his relief the bandit was gone. He was sleeping in a soft bed. He settled back down with a sigh of relief. He must be in Castle Reglay. Serra, the fight, the bandit. It was all just one long dream. He was free of the pink haired demon.
As he wondered why his mouth tasted of iron, he looked around and his heart sank. This wasn't his room. In fact it looked like a room in an inn. "Why me?" he moaned softly, as the door burst open to reveal Serra.
"ERKY you're awake!" Serra squealed in delight. She ran over to the bed and started to check him over. "Were you having a bad dream?" the cleric asked in a disturbing parody of Lady Louise.
Erk shuddered at the thought. It was too horrible to fully comprehend. Lady Louise, acting like Serra. He shuddered again. "What happened?" he croaked through dried lips.
"You got us into a fight with some bandits." Serra accused her escort. "Then you used up all your magic and collapsed. Leaving poor little me defenceless."
Erk snorted.
"What was that?" Serra glared at the mage. "Anyway we were saved by Lady Lyndis the heir to Caelin's throne. And I had to offer our services to make up for the trouble YOU caused!"
Erk was confused. He couldn't remember why the fight had started, but he was sure it was probably Serra's fault somehow or other. As for her compensating this Lyndis person for any troubles she had caused. Well it was laughable.
"How long ago was the fight, and where are we?" Erk asked.
"You've been out cold since yesterday. And we're in Araphen near to the border with Bern thanks to YOUR navigating," Serra scowled at her escort.
Erk nearly choked on his tongue. "ARAPHEN!?" he shouted. "You're the one who was leading the way! Your accursed short cut has led us halfway across Lycia!" He tried to get out of bed, but Serra gently pushed him back down.
"Silly Erk, you're still weak. Get some rest," Serra told him soothingly. She walked over to the door, turning before she left. "I'm sure that you were the one who suggested the short cut." With that she skipped out of the room, giggling before Erk could object.
Erk sighed. "No amount of money is worth this." He slumped back against the bed and fell asleep again.
0-0
Lyn sat watching Mark sleep. She felt like crying as she listened to the tactician whimper in his sleep. Serra had healed his ribs and the small gash on his arm, before declaring that physically, he was fine. They still had no idea what had gone on in Erk's room, but they'd moved the tactician to a room of his own, and left him to sleep off whatever it was he was suffering from.
Straining she could just make out the words, "take your hands off me you bastard." She sat and watched helplessly as her friend continued to suffer in his private torment.
0-0
Mark spun and drew the man's sword. Thrusting with all his might, he drove it through his captor's chest. The grip on his arm lessened as the man's lifeblood slowly seeped away. Pulling the sword out of the man's chest with effort, Mark set off in search of his friends.
He'd have to be fast or the other children would all be taken away. As he walked through the streets, he passed the corpses of people he knew. There was Andre the towns baker, with a lance piercing his throat. His vanquisher lying dead next to him with an axe buried in his chest.
That was one thing the bastards hadn't been expecting, that everyone here knew how to fight. Mark paused as he heard pitiful crying coming from the next street over. He ran to a connecting alleyway and slipped through.
There in the street were about a dozen children being held prisoner by four soldiers, their armour bloody, and dented. Mark used a word that a boy his age shouldn't have known. "Karok were are you?" he muttered. Even as he said this a boy of about thirteen leapt from the low roof of a nearby building, and hewed one of the soldiers in two with a disproportionately large axe.
Smiling grimly, Mark charged out of the alley and stabbed one of the soldiers in the back. He rolled to the side as a lance stabbed into the ground were he had been a second ago.
"If you want to live, help us!" the other boy shouted, as he parried a blow from one of the remaining soldiers.
Mark watched as the small children swarmed his opponent and pinned him to the ground in a swarm of limbs and screaming rage. He turned and awkwardly stabbed Karok's aggressor. "I…thought you…weren't coming," he panted heavily.
Karok patted him on the shoulder. "I could say the same for you little Mark. Come on we need to get out of here. All the adults have been killed or captured. We're the only ones left who can use weapons." He watched as the pile of bodies dissolved to show the last soldier with his head caved in by a rock. "Nice work you lot," he praised the younger children.
"Why the hell are they doing this? You're the chieftain's son, you've heard nothing?"
Karok nodded grimly. "They gave us no sign. Although I think our tactician is a traitor. That's why the town fell so easily.
These words cut a bloody swathe through Mark's heart. "Th…that can't be t…true." Tears were running down his face.
"I'm sorry. There's nothing we can…Shit!" Karok cursed as the flaming ballista bolt struck the roof of the towns tavern. The fire set the thatch roof alight and quickly spread from one roof to another. "We need to get out of here, NOW!"
Mark nodded. His eyes hollow, and seemingly lifeless. He ran off down the street, following Karok and the other children. As they reached the town gates, he saw them. The soldiers, and the traitor. A berserk rage took him as he charged.
The soldiers saw the eleven year old boy charging at them, holding a sword that was too large for him. They found it funny until the child was upon them. One fell to a slashed knee, another to a punch in the groin and the traitor looked surprised as the sword finished its journey in his chest.
As the rage lifted, Mark stared into the dying eyes of his betrayer. He had betrayed the whole clan, but to Mark it was more personal. He had trusted this man, respected him, and loved him as a father. As the traitorous tactician gasped his last breath, Mark felt the butt of a lance slam into the back of his head. As he lapsed into unconsciousness, one thought reverberated around his head. "Why?"
0-0
He woke with a start. Looking around the room he saw Lyn sleeping in a chair, her face stained with dried tears. He smiled remorsefully. "She shouldn't care," he thought to himself. Getting out of the bed he found himself in, Mark noticed something else.
His ribs weren't complaining. The cleric must have healed them. He quietly opened the door and slid out. Walking along the corridor he stopped at the stairs. Hearing the voices of his companions drifting up the stairs, he turned to the window seeking solitude.
Pushing the window open, the tactician climbed out of it. Lowering himself from the window ledge he dropped to the dirt ground. Looking around he spotted the inns stables, and headed towards them, seeking to understand these new memories. He slipped through the stable door and spotted the ladder to the hayloft. Climbing up it he began thinking.
The traitor had been his own father. His own kin had been responsible for the atrocious bloodshed that day, six years ago. Mark thought about his own actions that day. Looking at the larger picture, he'd acted selfishly, going after his father, his betrayer. Even though clan law was on his side with regards to the slaying of a traitor, he should have stayed with the other children, and helped Karok defend them. He couldn't remember what had happened to them, no matter how hard he tried. He felt tears trickling down his face.
0-0
Mark stirred as he heard a squeak. He had dozed off in the stables hayloft. Looking around for the mouse that had woken him, he saw Florina's head poking over the top of the ladder. "What time is it?" he asked trying not to laugh.
"Noon," Florina quickly told him. "What are y…you doing up here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you."
"I…I'm getting more hay for Huey to eat." Florina hadn't moved from her spot on the ladder.
"A fair point," the tactician conceded. "Tell you what. I'll give you a hand with the hay while I tell you what I'm doing here. How does that sound?"
Florina considered this a few seconds. "Umm, if you pass the hay down to me, we can get it done faster. Sh…should we feed the other horses as well?"
Mark smiled. He was seeing a new side of Florina. She didn't seem so nervous in this environment. Then again as a trainee pegasus knight, she'd have spent a lot of time in stables tending to her mount and those of others. "Right, so how do I pass the hay down to you? It's quite a way."
Florina stifled a little giggle, and then looked guilty. "You use that pulley there. You put the hay on the platform and lower it."
"Okay then, it doesn't sound too hard."
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Five minutes later Mark was regretting those words. The first time he'd un-tethered the lift to lower it, the weight had nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets. To be honest he couldn't believe that Florina, who looked so frail, would have done this on a daily basis while she was in training.
"She must be a lot stronger than she looks," he decided, as he lugged another bale into place and readied the lift.
"So…so what were you doing up there?" Florina's voice came from below.
"I was thinking about the past and trying to remember more of it," he replied as he un-tethered the lift and braced against the weight. Lowering it slowly he wondered why he'd agreed to help feed all the horses in the stable, and why there where so many of them for such a small border village.
Florina grunted slightly and the weight of the lift lightened. "What were you trying to remember?" Florina sounded puzzled.
Mark began to pull the lift up yet again. "About some children I knew when I was younger. Our town was attacked and everybody was either killed or captured." He stopper for a second to consider why he was telling Florina this. Maybe he just wanted to tell someone after all this time? "Yet no matter how hard I try, I can't remember anything after that. I don't know what happened to them." He laughed a mirthless laugh. "Or to me come to think of it." He heard a gasp.
"Th…that's just like Lyn! Well the…the town thing, not the memory thing."
Mark smiled remorsefully. "I suppose it is. How many more bales will you need?" he asked changing the subject. He got no reply and heard a door slamming. Looking over the edge of the hayloft, he saw that the stable was now devoid of human life. The only sign that Florina had been there were the full food troughs for the horses. "Oooookay then. Thanks for the chat," he said to no one in particular.
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As he entered the inn by conventional methods, Mark was met by Lyn coming the other way at full speed. He was knocked flat on his back, cushioning Lyn's fall. "Wasn't this…the other way…round last time?" he asked between gulps of breath.
A smiling Lyn pushed herself up and looked into Mark's face. "Florina was right. You are awake!"
A heavily blushing tactician looked away and glared at a passer-by who was, in his opinion paying too much attention to them. "Yeah, now could we get up please? There's a stone digging into my back."
A still smiling Lyn helped him to his feet, before embracing him in a crushing hug. "I was…I mean we were all so worried about you." She released the tactician and took a step back to get a better look at him. "What happened to you Mark?"
Mark rubbed his ribs out of habit before looking up. "I topped up Erk's magic. How is he?"
"He's awake now." Lyn frowned. "But I thought only magic users could transfer their magic. Or least that's what Serra said."
"It's a trick the Fibernian clans came up with. Serra wouldn't know about it as the Church of Elimine deems it 'demonic'. Don't ask me how they discovered it, as no one can remember. But the ritual allows a magically inept person to transfer their magic to another person."
"Ritual?"
"Umm, yeah. Just promise not to tell anyone how it works, okay? It isn't the nicest of things"
Lyn didn't know what to think. "Ritual?" "Demonic?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know, but she nodded none the less.
"Magic can be transferred via the blood and everyone has magic in them whether they can use it or not. You get the other person to drink a bit of your blood and it forms a link between the two of you. Then you have to concentrate like crazy, but the magic will hop from you to the blood they drank. The problem is stopping the transfer. I didn't stop it in time which is why I passed out."
"And that's why you had the gash on your arm" Lyn said slowly, coming to terms with it. "What would have happened if you had stopped the transfer?" she asked.
"Put simply. I would have died." Mark saw that Lyn was about to ask why, but he cut her off. "I did it because Erk is still just a child. He didn't deserve to suffer anymore than he had to. He was in that condition because of our conflict with those bandits.
Lyn nodded. "I suppose." She brightened up. "So what's the plan now?" she asked cheerfully.
The tactician grinned. "Same as before. Get to Caelin with out dying along the way."