Ah, yes, this is the part where I have to say the annoying things, like when I must confess that I don't own Fire Emblem. I really get bored of stating the obvious, sometimes.

Chapter One: A Girl from the Plains

Pain was the very first thing that Nirina was aware of. Everywhere on her body seemed to burn like fire, but at the same time she was freezing cold. Even her hair seemed to hurt. And she was more exhausted than she could ever remember being in her entire life. It didn't make any sense...

Mental Note to self: Time travel is not a recommended form of transportation. Thank every god in existence that this is a one way trip.

There were other sensations. Like whatever she was lying on no longer felt quite as hard as the stone compound she had just left, it felt like dirt. Wind, and things tickling her face. The sun beating down on her, warming her, even thought the warmth made her sleepier. Then she heard a jumble of voices, and something poked her back hard enough to cause stars to explode behind her still closed eyelids as she lost her tentative grip on reality and slipped back into oblivion once again

She felt herself waking again. The fire in her had settled to a dull aching in all her joints… and the mother of all headaches.

Ouch, hell… mobility: hindered. Thinking abilities: hindered. Magical reserves: Depleted to dangerous levels. Chances of surviving if encounter serious enemy: slim to nil. I just hope whoever jabbed me in the back earlier is gone.

Come to think of it, her surroundings had changed. She was lying on something soft, for starters. The wind was gone, and so were the things that had been tickling her face. There was no more direct sun, and something was covering her, keeping her warm. She almost wondered if her cloak was covering her, but this was softer than the coarse material of her cloak…

…the hell? Am I in a bed? Beds mean people… and hopefully not hostile ones. I'm too weak to fight in this condition.

Ah heck, might as well stop putting it off. Maybe they'll have a Restore staff to get rid of this splitting headache.

And so, she opened her eyes, to find herself in something she had only read about.

She was in a tent. And not the sort of tent that she had inhabited during the Asgara campaign, either, because this tent was white, and large, and had furniture. You could probably fit a small family in this tent, and it had a nice, lived-in feel to it.

Wait. It has a nice feel.

For Nirina, this was beyond strange. For the first time since her mother had been murdered, she actually felt… unthreatened. Not safe per se, but not threatened.

She didn't feel the cold breath of impending death. Nope. Not at all. And she was cold sober, too.

Is this what things were like before that monster?

Movement caught her eyes, and her gaze shifted to the entrance of the tent. A woman with dark green hair and eyes ducked in. She was a swordswoman, judging by the katana hanging from her waist, dressed in a blue… (dress or robe? Robe, probably, she seemed like a robe person) slit almost all the way up to her waist. At the moment, she was carrying a water skin.

"Oh! I see you're awake!" she exclaimed happily. "I found you on the plains, and you've been unconscious for three days. Do you remember your name?"

Three DAYS? Damnation, if I ever see you again Nidan I WILL kill you! I swear on mother's… well, she has no grave, so death! "I am Nirina. Who are you, and do you have anything for extreme headaches? If so, than I will be forever in you debt, or something clichéd like that…"

The stranger grinned. "I am Lyn, of the Lorca tribe. And you are in luck, Nirina, for I now have both water and some herbs I borrowed from the nearby town. I think I can brew you some tea to get rid of that headache."

"Thank you. I feel like I got run over by a heard of pegasi… oww…" Nirina groaned. Why am I giving out so much information? This isn't like me at all…

Lyn's expression became serious. "Do you remember what happened to you? When I found you, you were being molested by a pair of bandits."

Yes, Lyn, I'm suffering the aftereffect from traveling in time, although this bandit development is something new… "I don't remember anything about how I got here, really. Everything's muddled… like I got hit on the head or something…" Nirina shot Lyn a quizzical look. "I trust, from the amount of venom in your voice when you mentioned the bandits, that they are lying in bloody, dead pieces somewhere?"

"Well… not pieces…" Lyn said, feeling suddenly sheepish, but not bothering to deny the fact that the bandits were very much dead. "By the way, what were you doing in Sacae before you got…" both women were distracted by the sound of someone heavy tripping over his own feet and unimaginative cursing. "Oh Father Sky! Not AGAIN! Gods, this has to be the third time this week! Can't they just handle the fact that…." Lyn took several deep, calming breaths and turned back to Nirina. "Nirina, I want you to stay in here while I go check out the disturbance."

"Heck no," Nirina said with a strained grin. "You saved me from those bandits, apparently, so I owe you one. You kept me alive here, when you could have just left me in the village or something. So I owe you again. If I keep letting you do everything, I'll never get out of debt towards you. Let me join you, at the very least."

"…Are you sure that's a good idea? You've been sleeping for three days… you'd be more of a liability if we get attacked. Can you even use a weapon?"

"I have some small skill with a knife that my older sister forced me to pick up for self-defense." Jalasra, her older sister, had been an assassin of some fame, and had literally beaten the crap out of her and Ninian until she had deemed the twins 'proficient to protect themselves when those silly books fail them'. "However, my true skills lie in battle tactics."

"Ah, so you're a strategist by trade?" Lyn asked.

"Yes. Will you take me with you?" Nirina asked, disgusted by the begging whine that had somehow entered her tone of voice Ninis, Filla, Thor, Set. I am not acting like myself at all. Did traveling through time really scramble my brains so badly?

Lyn still looked doubtful. "Very well, but stick with me so I can protect you." Her? Protect me? I can… well, since I have no idea what the prejudices in this region are, I can't risk using my magic, and I can't move very well, so I guess I do need her protection…

I'm really glad the family can't see me now. They'd be laughing their heads off if they could.

"There's only two of them," Lyn muttered, scanning the grassy plains. "I can take care of them myself before they hit the village. Nirina, stay here."

"I thought you said I could come with you!" Nirina protested.

"I thought there would be more of them. There's no point in endangering you needlessly," Lyn said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I'm telling you, I can…" Lyn cut Nirina off by shoving her lightly. The woman fell gracelessly to the ground.

"You can barely stand. I'm not going to let you get killed. Now stay there."

Lyn walked off.

"Stay there, she says. I'll show her!" Nirina growled under her breath. Never, in her entire life, had anyone ever treated her this way!

…of course, no one had really cared if she lived or died, with the possible exception of Ninian.

I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about how I can prove to Lyn that I can help her.

She stayed sitting for a moment, thinking. The bandits had looked slow and clumbsy, but the one sitting by the large tent thing had looked large enough to cause Lyn problems. With her slight build, Lyn probably relied more on speed than raw power.

Which meant that if she were to get hit, she would be in a lot of trouble.

This grass… if I stay hunched down, I probably won't be seen…

Nirina smiled a cold, small smile that many people in her time had come to fear.

That smile meant that she had a plan.

Lyn dispatched the first brigand with little difficulty, having to pause only to treat a light gash on her left arm with one of her vulneraries. Now there was only one left… the big annoying one standing outside the ger.

Why is it that all bandits are stupid thickheads with big axes?

The idiot had seen her, clearly, but he wasn't rushing in as his opponent had. Instead, he was waiting for her to come to him.

Well, if he really wants things that way… Lyn decided to dash up instead of taking her time, however. She didn't recall there being a ger there yesterday, and she hated the idea that some small group had stopped here only to be overtaken by bandits.

"Who are you little girl that you think you can challenge Batta the… gggk!" he gasped as she slashed his side. She was rewarded when one of his flailing strikes hit her in the back, knocking her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her.

She could still feel her legs, which was good. However, she could tell that his strike had immobilized her for a while. It had also knocked her weapon just far enough away that she couldn't reach it, no matter how hard she strained.

Y'know, I never realized just how large this guy was, Lyn realized as she rolled over to face the bandit. He was well over six feet tall, and was now bleeding heavily from a large gash in his side, where she had cut deeply enough to see his ribs. He grinned at her, a monster's smile. He was hoisting his axe for a killing strike…

When a green blur streaked across her vision, and he was suddenly screaming like a little girl.

"MY EYES! SHE'S BLINDED ME! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE RED-EYED FREAK!" he bellowed. Nirina ignored him, vaulting over Lyn to retrieve the sword that Lyn had dropped.

"Here you go," Nirina whispered, placing the weapon back in its owner's hands. Lyn did a double-take when she looked at Nirina's face.

When Nirina had first awoken, her eyes had been the color of rust. Now, they were almost a crimson color, with only a hint of brown.

"Nirina, are you…"

Batta had heard them talking however, and charged over blindly, flailing everywhere with his axe. Nirina, fast though she had proven herself to be, had no time to get out of the way, and raised her small knife in a pathetic attempt to block. She was lucky, and only caught the axe handle, which threw the slender woman a good five feet to land with a sickening crunching noise. Lyn reacted instinctively, and threw her weapon at her assailant.

"W-wha…" Batta gasped as the katana blossomed out of his chest. Then he keeled over backwards, landing with a thump that shook the ground. Lyn only paused to make certain that he wasn't breathing and ran over to Nirina.

Unconscious… again! Doesn't seem to have broken anything… she really has the luck of the gods, this one. Lyn ducked inside the ger quickly to see if it had been inhabited (it wasn't). She then opened another vulnerary and poured the contents on Nirina's scalp before dragging the unconscious tactician back to her own home, and falling asleep herself.

Hmm… my headache seems to have lessened, but now my shoulders and back hurt. Oh well, at least now I can think…

With a moan and a sigh, Nirina sat up only to feel a glare coming from the general area of behind her…

"I'm glad to see you're awake," Lyn said. "It means that you can tell me why you came and almost got killed after I told you to stay here."

"First of all, you're not my master," Nirina replied with a derisive snort. "Secondly, I thought you could use my help. Since I found you on your back and disarmed, I'd say I was right." Lyn blushed at this.

"Okay, I'm sorry I treated you like a child. I can see you have experience in the ways of war. Will you let me travel with you?"

Nirina looked skeptical. Crap, I can't just take her with me! I'm not supposed to be here! I don't want to mess up the past any more than I have to mess it up! I could accidentally make Nergal more powerful!

…But then again, she's just a girl, right? How could letting her travel with me affect the past too badly?

"Don't you need permission from your parents?" slipped out of Nirina's mouth before she could stop herself. She immediately wanted to hit herself on the head with something heavy, especially when she saw the sad and bitter expression on Lyn's face. Well duh she has no parents! Would she be allowed to take on bandits by herself if she had parents?

"My parents, the Lorca… they're dead. Bandits, the Tavalier, they attacked… the survivors numbered less than ten, including me. No one would follow me, even though I was the chieftan's daughter… no one would follow a woman…" Lyn sniffed, and tears welled in her eyes, which she angrily wiped away. "No, I promised myself I would stop crying. I… Nirina, please let me come with you. I'm not going to get any stronger just sitting around here."

"Very well," Nirina replied and Lyn burst into a grin.

"Excellent! You'll be my master tactician, and I'll be your peerless warrior! You won't regret letting me travel with you!"

Unfortunately, Nirina had just made her first big mistake. Of course, how was she supposed to know the significance of a girl named Lyn, when she had only heard Nergal's three greatest enemies called the Three Lords? (Or the Three Fools, if Nergal was doing the talking.)

"Hey, Migal! We found this idiot unconscious on the plains! What should we do with him?" asked the bandit, dragging in a brown-haired man with a green cloak.

"What do you THINK yer supposed to do! Take his money and valuables and leave him to die, of course! And be quick about it! We're supposed to be looting the nearby village!"

"Please, just give me a little water, or some moldy bread, or anything!" begged the man.

"Why would we waste good food and water on someone like you?"

"I-I'm a tactician! And I can use a sword! I'll join your bandits! PLEASE, don't leave me to die!" the man begged.

Migal looked suspicious. "And what's your name?"

"Mark."

"Well, welcome aboard, Mark! Now you two! Get him something to eat!"

Thank the gods… I'm not going to die…

Author's Notes: Figured I'd clear up some things for the people who are reading this. First of all… remember the rings you find for Ninian and Nils during the game? I'm making the spirits of those rings the gods of the dragons. (because really, Ijust can't see them worshiping St. Elimine for someodd reason...)Also, there's a reason that Nirina's twin sister is named Ninian. Why? Wait and see!