A/N & Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is the property of Nintendo and this is a nonprofit fanfiction written purely as a hobby. I do not claim canonical Fire Emblem characters and mythos as my own.
So I've come across some pretty good novelizations of the game that told the story routes in some unique ways. I wanted to do my own game novelization and being the massive history nerd that I am, I thought it may be interesting to retell the game's story with a more realistic take on the combat. (i.e., using actual tactics, magic being limited, and the characters not just being OP one-man armies.) Basically medieval warfare with magic mixed in. And seeing as the Blue Lions are my favorite house, I decided to go with Azure Moon, with some elements derived from Verdant Wind and Silver Snow. Being Azure Moon centric, it's NOT going to be a novelization where all three lords put aside their differences (not that I have a problem with that setup, as it is the focus of a pretty good fic called White Horizon), there will be major character deaths, and absolutely no one will come out unscathed. (Not even my precious Blue Lion house will be completely safe. . . )
So in the words of Mercedes: here we go.
Forward
Today is the Third of the Great Tree Moon, Imperial Year 1259, the seventieth anniversary of the Unification of Fódlan. A truly significant day, especially for the elders of Fódlan, the last living generation who were born when the continent was divided into the three realms of the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. They are the last generation who came out of the devastating war that engulfed the continent, destroyed the old order, and brought Fódlan together as one kingdom. As such, many instead call this this Unity Year 70 as Fódlan steadily moves away from the Imperial Year calendar that prevailed during the existence of the Adrestian Empire. Many histories have been written about the war in the decades since it ended. Its scholars have given it many names; the Great War, the Unification War, the War of the Flame Emperor, and of course the Second War of the Eagle and Lion, which remains the most popular. It never ceases to amuse me how Fódlanders can create such elaborate and long-winded names for such horrible and traumatic events. But I suppose it does not matter what they call it, those of us who survived will always remember it simply as "the war", at least until we finally die out. And how many of us are gone now.
Saint Cethleann, in her undying optimism, occasionally reminds me that it is a blessing for us to be able to preserve the true story of what happened so the people who came after it will remember for generations to come. That is true, but it often feels like it is just as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Even joyful Cethleann has a twinge of pain in her eyes when she thinks of our dear friends. I cannot pretend that life without them is not difficult at times. There are days when even the happy memories are accompanied by grief as I don't hear the laughter of my friends. There are just as many nights when I lie awake in bed and am nearly overwhelmed by soul-crushing loneliness as I don't feel the warmth of my husband. The misery I feel in those moments makes me wish things could have turned out differently, that we would not have had to make the sacrifices that we did. It makes me think of the many instances when I could have saved a life if I had been able to turn back time. As the archbishop and highest priestess, I see the long-term good of those sacrifices when mediating the political affairs of lords and the community works of parishes, but the only emotional respites I receive are the sights of children cheerfully playing in the same streets and fields that were once littered with bloody bodies. The children are the rebirth of Fódlan, the new life who did not know the war and will live to be more prosperous than my generation ever was. No other time exemplifies this spirit of rebirth than the Unification Festivals that take place annually across the kingdom from Horsebow Seventh to Tenth. It is simultaneously a time to pay respects those who died while also celebrating the era of prosperity that rose from the ashes.
Why then have I chosen to reflect on the war with this account when the memories of it are a source of heartache? When the people of Fódlan continuously memorialize it's martyrs and victims? In a sense, it comes down to authenticity. The war did not merely establish a new regime, it completely redefined the very fabric of Fódlan as we knew it from our politics, to social structure, and spirituality. As such, it has naturally become heavily romanticized over the decades, especially among younger writers who have constructed idealized mythologies. The most popular narrative of the war describes the Blue Lions leading a ragtag resistance that doggedly stood against the overwhelming might of an Adrestian army that sought to crush all of Fódlan under the heel of tyranny. This narrative is often accompanied by the persistent myth that, five years after the fall of Garreg Mach, the Blue Lions gathered in the Cathedral of Saint Seiros and swore the "Oath of the Dagger" to defeat the Adrestian Empress and unite Fódlan under a new order of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity". That never happened. In those days, the Blue Lions were more concerned about basic needs like food, water, and sanitation rather than poetic declarations of war that we never made, but that did not stop the Mittelfrank Opera Company from immortalizing it in their classic war drama "Three Houses". The real war was not quite as romantic. Our center of gravity for most of it was simply to wrest Faerghus from Adrestian occupation and restore its rightful monarchy, the more intricate socio-political motivations did not manifest well towards the end of the war. Even then, most of the reforms were not even concepts until years afterward.
The more controversial myths of the war revolve around the "Garreg Mach Triumvirate"; the Adrestian Empress, the King of Faerghus, and the Grand Duke of Leicester, the three heads of state that drove the war forward. While the myths surrounding the Triumvirate have some basis in fact, as a whole they wildly mischaracterize each of them as people. The myths greatly differ depending on whether the believers are of Adrestian, Faerghian, or Leicester heritage as many descendants of the three former realms have strong views of the Triumvirate. A surprising amount of Leicestermen harbor a self-shaming belief that the Grand Duke was either to consumed by personal ambition or too focused on the internal conflict of the Alliance to support the Holy Resistance Army as a strong ally. Others believe that he was just as much of an imperialist as the Adrestian Empress and only used us as convenient allies. That is all far from the truth. While the Leicester Civil War tied him down for several years, the Duke still pulled his alliance from the fire and stood as our own ally. More than that, he was my friend. Meanwhile, the most hardline Faerghan and Church idealists continue to decry the dishonored Adrestian Empress as the most heartless monster in the history of Fódlan, next to Nemesis himself. As the last Empress, she is indeed ultimately responsible for the atrocities her army committed, but she was not quite the most terrible demon of the war. She was an intelligent young woman who truly believed she was fighting for a righteous cause, but she idolized her radical idealism to the extent that she unwillingly allowed herself to be manipulated the greater evil that slithered in the dark. Conversely, staunch Adrestian apologists peddle the notion that the King of Faerghus succumbed to a near demonic possession of murderous bloodlust that made him a worse monster than the Empress. As his surviving wife, I find that particular myth to be a rather insulting exaggeration of what afflicted him. It has nonetheless served as the inspiration for countless romance stories that I have grown quite exhausted of. But of all the misconceptions of the war, the most egregious, and somewhat amusing, exaggeration claims that the wielders of the Hero's Relics were completely invincible in battle and able to singlehandedly wipe out entire battalions. The Hero's Relics were without question the most powerful weapons in Fódlan that gave very significant advantages, but they did not turn their wielders into one-man armies. If they did, the war would have been over much faster. In all fairness, most of the war's myths are constructed from events and situations that actually occurred but have been distorted with time to the point where their culmination creates a very misleading tapestry of the truth.
But I still remember it. I remember the Blue Lions, the Black Eagles, the Golden Deer, the Agarthans, and even the Ashen Wolves. My life is intimately tied to the conflict that conflated among these factions. It gave me a purpose beyond my imagination, and gave me scars that can never fully heal. I want the people of Fódlan to revel in the blessings they have now, but I also want them to understand what made it possible. I want them to know that the sacrifices made for them must never be in vain. More than that, I want the young generation of Fódlanders to realize that while cultural differences will always exist, the kingdom as a whole most be united in spiritual and military strength, or we will not survive another threat like the one we faced decades ago. And it is because of this that I recount my role in the War of the Eagle and Lion.