Back again! Many thanks to my boss for giving me a nice big vacation right after Christmas.
Chapter 7: Uncle Ben
I wake up with a groan and see Maribelle leaving over me with her parasol, being propped up by Sully.
"Welcome back to the world of the living." Sully grins down at me. "Those punks did a number on you, huh?"
"Yeaaaah." I grimace as I sit up, feeling the stiffness in my back with every movement. "Think I need some chainmail or something. Next time I get jumped by an archer I'd rather they not walk all over me. You alright, Maribelle?"
"Thanks to your efforts." She smiles shakily down at me. "Were it not for you I shudder to think what those curs might have done."
"You saved me back. If you hadn't taken that bastard's eye out when you did we'd all be dead. Hell it was a team effort. Without Donnel and Severa we'd be dead, too."
"Oh right." Sully looks over my shoulder with a smirk. "Speaking of the new girl, I guess her bedside manner could use some work?"
"You could say that." I cringe and stretch out my back further, sighing in relief when it finally gives a satisfying pop. "Oh, that did it. Hell of a job Maribelle, the pain's practically gone."
"Reserve your gratitude, Ben. It was Virion's Elixir that did most of the work." Maribelle glances down at her ruined blouse and grimaces. My gaze follows hers for a moment, then quickly does the opposite of that as she continues. "A lucky thing indeed. Were it not for that, I would likely not be alive."
"Yeah." I frown at the thought, while shrugging my vest off. "By the way, you should probably take this. That cut is rather… inappropriately placed." It's a testament to the standards of modesty in these times that this gets me flustered now. Back home the amount of skin she's showing would be worth little more than a quick glance and a mental shrug, but around here it's downright scandalous. Guess I'm just not used to seeing a girl's cleavage anymore.
"Yer looking redder than my hair there, Ben." Sully teases.
"Sully, I'm trying to be a gentleman about this, stop undermining me." I moan, holding the vest up for Maribelle to take.
"Ah, yes…" Maribelle flushes red as she takes in her damaged clothing once more. "Well thank you Ben, it is far from my normal standards, but this will do for now."
"Alright, now go on and save the new girl while Maribelle makes herself decent again." Sully shoos me away with a grin, though something in her eye warns me that there will be dire consequences if I fail to acquiesce.
I turn away from them and take in the rest of the clearing and can't help but chuckle. It looks as though Severa's stunt with the arrow is earning her a rather stern lecture, from both Frederick and Virion. She's taking it about as well as I can expect, which is to say, she's protesting and arguing over them so loudly that all three of them are completely incomprehensible. Stahl and Donnel watch this all in complete bewilderment, looking like they want to intervene but not sure how.
Stahl catches my eye as I walk up and gestures to them frantically. I stare flatly at him. He raises his arms as if telling me to go do something about it. I give him a look that tells him clearly that I am not willing to do that. Donnel stares helplessly up at me as well, eyes wide. I sigh and roll my eyes, then walk up to them and throw an arm over each of them. "You're on crutch duty. I'll do the talking." You sissies.
"How's everybody doing over here?" I walk up into the middle of the argument, ignoring the frantic looks Donnel is giving me.
Leaning on the others does the trick, causing concern to override their anger. "Ah, Ben, you are still in pain?" Virion looks me over in concern.
"A little bit, but Maribelle says I'll be alright. I'm mostly just stiff. A shot to the back will do that to a guy." I give the three of them an accusing look. "So what's this, what's going on here?"
"I didn't mean to make you pass out, okay?" Severa suddenly yells, looking panicked. "I was just trying to help."
"And if you had waited as I asked of you, we could have helped Ben without causing him unnecessary pain." Virion frowns.
"I honestly don't see how unless those elixirs have a painkilling effect." I shrug. Virion gives me a pointed look. "Oh… Well damn."
"Oh come on, it was a stressful situation! I had an arrow in my side! I just got done saving everyone from dying, which I didn't get any thanks for, by the way!"
"To be fair, the only person who was conscious to see how much you saved our asses was me." I grin. "By the way, thanks for saving our asses!"
"Yes, I have been wondering exactly what happened here." Frederick looks back to me.
"It's all my fault!" Donnel replies ashamedly. "I went to set some traps between us and the village so them bandits couldn't get the jump on us, but they were already sneakin' up on us. They knocked me right out and used me as a hostage."
"Which translates roughly into this all being my fault." I reply. "I let him run off without anybody to protect him, giving the bandits an easy opportunity. Then I let them bait me into a pincer attack and put Maribelle's life in danger, got myself shot in the back and would have been executed if Severa didn't intervene, first by killing the archer, then stopping the last guy from killing me, until Donnel could knock him out."
"I see." Frederick looks over to the beheaded man. "So you're saying he was already incapacitated when that happened."
"Uhh… yeah, I guess I am." I share an uneasy look with Severa. "I suppose Chrom is the sort of guy who would look poorly on killing somebody who can't fight back."
"He does not appreciate such things no, but he will not fault you for such a thing under the circumstances. These were clearly extreme circumstances." He nods to Severa. "It would seem the Shepherds owe you a debt of gratitude."
"It… it wasn't much." She mutters, blushing brightly.
"Nah, she's being modest. We'd all be dead if not for her." I reach over and tousle her hair. "The kid's a natural swordfighter, she held that bandit off even with an arrow sticking out of her hip. That's no small feat."
If Frederick's comment has her blushing, my remark has her strangely quiet. She drinks in the attention like a dehydrated man drinks water. I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the reaction. After the way Lucina reacted to me I really would have thought the other kids had a serious issue with me as well. But Severa certainly seems fond enough, if her reaction to my imminent death is anything to go by.
Just who was I to these kids?
Severa seems to notice how my attention has shifted, and she brushes my hand aside. Her mouth moves, and while I'm not much of a lip-reader, the message is easy to interpret.
'Later'
Fair enough, I suppose. I've already given away that I know things about her, given how I used her name before she gave it, so there's some explanations in order on both sides.
For the time being, I put all that aside and turn back towards Frederick. "So, did you guys finish up over there, or did you just hear me yelling and come running?"
"We were actually done when you called." Stahl responds. "The problem is, since we set up in the forest we couldn't get to you without taking the long way around. Virion made it first since he can just run through the trees."
"If I were only not waylaid by two more stray brigands!" Virion sighs dramatically. "The first was little issue, but the second, well I am a man of many talents, but a dagger is a poor match against a sword. It took me some time to win that bout." He brandishes the dagger in question with a flourish, and I note the way Frederick's eyebrow raises at the sight of it. Guess this is the same dagger he got for fucking that Ylissean noble.
"You did what you could, man." I nod to him. "It's not your fault."
"It's not your fault either, Mister Benjamin!" Donnel cries eagerly. "I may not have been awake until after you got all pumped full o' arrows, but I reckon you did the best you could!"
"Quite right." Maribelle adds, finally rejoining us with my vest firmly fastened over her blouse. She manages to look quite dignified even if it's too big for her. "You were truly a sight to behold while protecting me. The way you fought even as you were filled with arrows was inspiring."
"You're exaggerating." I can't help but grin. "It was only two arrows."
"Well, even so." Maribelle blushes.
"Yeah, you did alright big guy." Sully grins at me. "Three on one is tough odds no matter how trained you are. Don't stress too much about it."
"I appreciate it." I nod to her. "Truly."
"Don't go all soft on me now, we're trying to toughen you up, remember?" We all share a laugh at that.
"Well, as much as I'd like to appreciate the danger we so narrowly avoided, I believe it is past time we checked on the others." Frederick nods. "Maribelle, we'll have you ride along with Sully until Lissa can check you over, just to ensure there's no complications with your injury. Donnel, Ben, Virion, I'll have to ask you to hike. I'd offer you a mount as well Ben, but given your allergies I'm not sure you'd appreciate that."
"Yeah, I don't feel like risking it." I nod, walking over to retrieve my axe. It's still bloody from cracking Rodney's head open, so I wipe it on the calm man's trousers, and note he has a heavy coin purse on his belt. I find a lot of gold coins and some assorted jewelry. The coins go in my bag. The rest I set aside to show Donnel. Hopefully he'll be able to help me find who in his village owned these.
Things proceed quickly from there, with the Far Fort being almost completely cleared by the time we arrive. Chrom and Vaike are finishing off the last of the bandits as we show up, while Robin organizes the equipment we retrieved from them. Some of the Shepherds seem upset by the idea of using weapons from a bunch of murderers, but Robin and I manage to convince the others of the practicality behind it.
Chrom and Donnel manage to organize things with the village head to help everyone get their valuables back, including the ones I picked up, though with all the killing those bandit fuckers did and the trail of destruction they left between the village and the border there's a lot of unclaimed goods and excess gold.
"Emm has a fund set up for helping these people rebuild." Lissa explains to me, "So we usually put all the unclaimed stuff towards that, unless there's some other natural disaster that needs a lot of funding."
From there things go rather predictably, at least from my point of view. Chrom hears about the absolute fuster cluck that happened at our camp, and allows Donnel into the Shepherds after hearing how he stepped in and knocked that bandit out. Which makes me feel kinda ridiculous after all the shit I went through to get in.
Severa gets an invitation as well, of course. She deliberates on things for nearly ten minutes before finally accepting. From the look in her eyes and the furtive glances she keeps sending me, I get the impression she's doing something she's not supposed to. She still doesn't seem to want to talk about it though, so I have to make do without answers for now.
And it continues like that for the next four days as we march home. Severa, being a new Shepherd and a capable swordfighter, is swamped with attention the whole way.
Another interesting thing I notice on the walk home is Chrom, whose mood seems to grow worse with every passing day. The guy is pretty intimidating when pissed, so I ask Frederick about it instead, and he is every bit as grim as he explains it. These bandits, much like the ones from Southtown, were Plegians.
"I believe we will have to renew our efforts to contact Regna Ferox when we return to the capital." He informs me grimly. "Our past two envoys have vanished."
"Do we suspect foul play?"
"Impossible to say with such limited information. They could have been beset by wild animals, bandits, or Risen. They could just as easily have been sabotaged by Plegia. And while I shudder to consider the option, they could just as easily have been met with hostility by the Feroxi border guard."
"That's a lot of options." I grimace. Plegians seem the most likely culprit, since I know they've been harassing the border disguised as Ylisseans, but it could be that the Feroxi are already distrustful enough that they killed the messengers.
"Yes, well the last envoy had a guard, so at the very least animals seem an unlikely option." Frederick shakes his head. "Either way, the possibility of fighting a war on two fronts is daunting enough that Chrom is feeling pressured."
"What's our next move then?"
"A larger guard will be sent with the next envoy, along with scouts to observe and report to Ylisstol should things go poorly. If that fails, I imagine Chrom will insist upon meeting with Regna Ferox himself."
"I'm surprised he hasn't already, if things are that bad."
"To send the Shepherds out of the country at the first sign of danger is a sign of weakness, and desperation. As much as Chrom may wish to handle these matters himself, he knows the country cannot afford for two of the royal family to leave in such turbulent times. The dead walk our lands, and bandits slink across the border by the dozens. We must choose our battles carefully."
The last day of travel provides plenty of evidence for this. Stahl finds a farm burned to the ground while scouting. There are no signs of survivors, and a handful of Risen still prowling, which Frederick mows down in a vengeful wrath.
From what I hear later on, the night we return Chrom all but demands to be sent to Regna Ferox. His sister denies him, feeling that diplomacy is not his strong suit. It's nonsense of course, at least in this case. Chrom's attitude fits right in with that of the Feroxi, but there's no way for me to know this, so I'm forced to keep silent on the matter once again.
So, for the time being, we return to a life of training and waiting. Chrom organizes several patrols for Risen, but he still prefers to travel by horse for day trips, and so I'm forced to remain at the barracks with the other members who can't ride, a group which has now grown to include Severa and Donnel.
It's a full week before Severa finally decides the time is right to speak with me.
I'm in my room when the moment finally comes, reading a book Sumia recommended by candlelight. Wyvern Wars: Terror at High Noon has so far proven to be a surprisingly engaging read for such a terrible title, and I'm finding myself caught up in the final climax between Lord Drake and his archrival the mysterious Duke of Shadows, when I'm interrupted by a knock on the door.
For a brief moment I'm tempted to just stay silent and hope they go away, but the next knock is accompanied by a voice. "It's me."
Well so much for that. "Come in." I snap my book shut and sit up in bed as Severa enters, checking the hallway carefully before closing the door behind her. "I expected you sooner."
"Not my fault. Sumia's been fussing over me for days." She frowns a bit, but looks more uncomfortable with the attention than really unhappy with it. "This is the first chance I've had to slip away."
"Huh, hadn't noticed. Glad you're fitting in alright."
Severa raises an eyebrow as she takes the empty chair. "Are you? I thought you might have a problem with me being here."
"Why would I? If you're joining the Shepherds, it's good that you're fitting in well with them."
"Even if I'm not supposed to be here?"
"Even then." I grin at her. "Though if you weren't supposed to be here I imagine Chrom wouldn't have invited you. He does have the final say in these things, after all."
"You know what I mean." She scowls. "I know you know about me."
"I know some things." I concede. "Cordelia's kid from the future, sent by Naga to stop the apocalypse."
"Cordelia's… right." She nods thoughtfully. "You did tell me you wouldn't know who my father is."
"Yeah, I'm in the dark on a lot of the parentage, besides Lucina and Cynthia. Mostly I just know the moms. My knowledge is really spotty on stuff like that."
"Yeah, I've heard." She rolls her eyes.
"So that's it then? My future self just told you… everything?"
"No." She glares at me. "It varied depending on the person. And you never told anybody a thing about how you knew what you knew."
"Makes sense, I guess." I look up to the ceiling and frown thoughtfully. "So… I think the first thing I should ask is… who was I to you people?"
"Who were you?" She blinks widely. "What kind of question is that?"
"Lucina hates me. Or at least I think she does. She all but told Chrom not to trust me when she got here, before running off into the night. So I thought I did something to get on everyone's shit list in the future. But you clearly don't hate me."
"I could be acting." She scowls.
"Nah, you wear your heart on your sleeve. You like to act all grouchy, but you're pretty easy to read."
"What? No I'm not!"
"You're blushing."
"Shut up!" She groans and buries her face in her hands as I laugh. "For crying out loud, I was really hoping this was just a future thing with you!"
"So I teased you like this when I knew you in the future, huh?" I grin.
"Constantly." She mutters. "You drove me crazy." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "You were… one of the last."
"I… what?" I blink in confusion. "The last… you don't mean?"
"The last of the first generation of Shepherds." Severa gives a small nod. "There were… a lot of deaths in our timeline. The first was Gaius, during the first war in Plegia, and from there…" Another deep breath. "Two more Shepherds died during that war, then another seven in Valm. Another five during the second war in Plegia, including Chrom and Robin. Those two died, and Grima returned. Half the Shepherds were dead, including our two leaders, and from there… it was only a matter of time."
"Are you alright talking about this?" I look on in concern as she talks with clinical detachment.
"It's fine." She snaps back, before her face goes blank again and she continues. "One by one, we had to watch as our parents died, defending people from the Risen as they swept through the land. More and more of us were left without parents, and…" She smiles weakly up at me. "You picked up the slack."
"I… wow." I blink stupidly at that. "So I was like… your new dad?"
"Uncle." She grins a bit, eyes watering. "You always told everyone to call you 'Uncle Ben', because the best hero in your world had an Uncle Ben, and you wanted us to save the world."
"Spiderman." I can't help but chuckle at that. "His Uncle Ben died though."
Severa's mouth makes a little 'O' at that. "You never mentioned that part."
"That would have been pretty tactless of me." I shrug, before the irony sets in. "Oh wait, shit."
She snorts out a laugh at that, before her face falls. "So, that's how it happened. We… kept on running and hiding from Grima's forces, Lucina started to step up as a leader as she got older, got all bossy. Even then, people kept on dying, until there was only you and Lissa left. And then… Lissa died protecting us as we escaped."
"Shit." I grimace, before noting her rather obvious omission. "And what about me?"
"I don't… know." She mutters.
"Severa, if you're hiding something on my account-"
"I'm serious." She looks up at me angrily. "As far as I know, nobody knows what happened to you. We never heard about you dying, we never saw what happened to you, but… you disappeared. Several months before we planned to leave you vanished without a trace, and nobody could find you."
"Does… that have anything to do with why Lucina acts the way she does?"
"Probably didn't help. She always got mad at you for not telling her anything, though." Severa shrugs, but her eyes seem to light up a bit at the topic. "You always had secrets to share with everyone, but Lucina never got to hear any of them. You made us swear not to tell her. And you only ever told her to do what she thought was best."
"You seem pleased with that." I can't help but point out, looking on at her more cheerful demeanor curiously.
She flinches at that, hunching over defensively. "Well, you know, Lucina was always special. So having something that she couldn't was… it felt fair. She never saw it like that, but I liked it. Only a little bit!" She shouts defensively.
"I guess… I didn't think she needed it?" I muse. "Lucina definitely does some things that don't make much sense to me, but I also know she has a lot of positive effects on the future. If I told her anything it'd affect her actions, and there's no telling what would happen."
There's a pause as she takes that in. Then she glares up at me furiously, "So what, am I just a charity case then?"
"Are you-? What? Huh?"
"What are you, stupid? I just told you what I thought of your advice, and now you're just saying 'oh Lucina was so special she didn't need it!' How is that supposed to make me feel?"
I grimace at this. "Okay, you're right, that was tactless of me. I'm sorry." It's certainly true that Lucina is the only future kid who has any relevance to the plot, but I can't go telling Severa this. The kid already has some serious self-worth problems, and I don't want to be responsible for worsening them. And since I apparently raised… all of the kids… everything I say is going to matter to them.
Christ sake I hope they aren't all as crazy as they were in the games. I don't want to be responsible for all that. I really don't. Severa seems about the same as she was in game, as does Lucina (other than how bitter she is towards me), so if that pattern continues they'll all be the same characters I know. Should I consider that a sign that the way they act is a fixed result, nature triumphing over nurture? Or did I just decide to keep them the same and somehow raise them into their lunatic selves.
Speaking of keeping things the same though…
"So, what are the other kids going to think of you joining the Shepherds?" I look up from my musings and see Severa stiffen at the question. "Ooh, that bad, huh?"
"Okay, so I might have broken some rules by coming here. But it's fine, I'll handle it!" Severa winces and waves a hand dismissively at the same time. Not convincing.
"Yeah, not that I'm not grateful that you showed up when you did that night, but I'm quite sure you're already screwing with the timeline just by being here… come to think of it, I wonder what was supposed to happen in the original timeline. Was Maribelle or Donnel supposed to? No, but you said Gaius was the first Shepherd who died, and the war with Plegia hadn't started yet. So how did we all survive that in the first time… line…?" I've noticed by this point that Severa is fidgeting uncomfortably. "What did you do?"
"What?"
"You're acting weird. What happened?"
"Nothing, gawds!"
"Severa…"
"Why are you being like this? I save your life and this is the thanks I get? Real nice, thanks!"
I raise an eyebrow and keep staring at her. She starts to turn beet red as I stare her down, before finally twitching and mumbling something under her breath.
"What was that?"
"Mummrghphle" Okay, that was a little louder, but nowhere near comprehensible.
"Try again."
"Ugh! I said, I'm pretty sure the reason those two thugs ran into Virion." She suddenly throws her hands up in the air irritably. "I scared two guys off in the village, and then I heard you yell a bit later. They're probably the ones Virion had to deal with."
"Meaning Virion would have saved us if you hadn't been there." I let out a long sigh at that, causing Severa to look away in shame. "Severa, are you sure I raised you? Because I feel like there's no way I wouldn't have warned you about the dangers of fucking with timelines like that. I'm no metaphysicist, but I've read through enough time travel stories and theory to have a pretty decent understanding of the matter. Well, as much as anyone can about a theoretical field of study with no real basis in science."
"You warned me." She says softly, still looking away from me. "You told me all the effects I could have. But there's something I have to do no matter what. Something that only I can do."
"Which is?" I look over to her curiously. This is the first I've heard of Severa having some sort of secret mission.
"Not telling." She scowls at me. "It's something only I can do, and only I can know."
"If it's that important, then I'm sure I can help."
"No!" She snaps. "It's… it's personal."
Huh. The only thing that comes to mind is something to do with her parents. She probably doesn't want them to die. Did future me's time travel warnings scare her that badly? What kind of stuff did I warn her about?
"Okay, well full disclosure, I'm not sure what you've been told, but I'm still going to try to fuck with things here." I shrug. "If things go the way I think they're supposed to, it should all work out in the end, but there's definitely some things that don't go as well as they should. I'd like to fix up a few odds and ends here and there. It'll be hard, but…"
Severa snorts at that. "Yeah, you figured that. Future you, that is." She frowns thoughtfully. "You had some advice that I was supposed to give you… ugh that came out weird. He did, I mean. Future you."
"Right, let's hear it." I sit up, interested.
"Don't." She shrugs. "He basically said you'd have to be crazy to do it."
I frown at that. "No, that's not right. There's no way he'd think that would stop me. Was that really what he said? His exact words?"
"Ugh, no but how am I supposed to-"
"Severa, please, exact words. This could be seriously important."
"Time travel is the practise of the mad. Even those who can read between the lines should hesitate to attempt it. Nothing can be seen to change if we are to reach the true ending." She says without hesitating.
I stare blankly at her. She rolls her eyes, "Alright, fine, he made me memorize it. Stop looking at me like that!"
"I'm pretty sure there's some important information there. Can you repeat it one more time?"
She does, and I nod along as I hear a few key words jump out at me. "Yup, thought so?"
"Wait, thought what?"
"It's a code." I grin and rise off the bed. "A code only I'd understand. A reference to a story from my homeland."
"Seriously?" She leans in curiously. "What's it mean?"
"Can't say. The organization might be listening. El. Psy. Kongroo." I can't help but giggle internally. Stein's Gate. My favorite anime. Even years in a world without such things can't kill my love for a good story.
"Huh." She sits back and stares into space. "That's exactly what he said you'd say."
I stop and look back at her. "I did? I mean, he did?"
"Yup." She leans back and stares levelly at me. "And he wanted me to tell you one last thing if you did understand."
"Oh?" I lean in eagerly. "More secret knowledge? Lay it on me."
Her expression is grim as she says the last message.
"His path was bathed in blood."
I blink dumbly at her. She stares back at me, deadly serious.
"Yeah. I'm sure you got a lot on your mind, so I'm going to leave you to it. Just… be careful, alright? I don't know what you did to yourself in the last timeline, but I don't want to see it happen again." Severa says the last part quickly, and leaves my room, closing the door quietly.
I blink after her and sit down on the bed.
It's a good message, really. My future self was making anime references, and I got so caught up in the giddiness of it all that I forgot the reality of things for a minute. Maybe I can try and change the future, but I don't have a reliable way to go back and fix mistakes. There's one set timeline here, and I can't undo any actions I take. Okabe Rintaro suffered for his future, over and over again.
'His path was bathed in blood.' Some his, some the blood of those he loved.
What will I lose if I try to fix things?
Whose blood will be on my hands?
I don't sleep that night, too disturbed by the possibilities to find peace.
I'm sure any real metaphysicists in the audience are laughing their asses off at my supposed 'knowledge'. To which I say: spend less time reading fanfiction and more time unlocking the impossibly vast secrets of the universe and maybe I'll have something concrete to write about!
On the off chance that there really is a metaphysicist around: please know this is all in jest.
Anyways, since I'm still on vacation for a while, there's a chance I might get another chapter up in the next week or so, but I'm not really one for set schedules, so I'll make no guarantees. That said, feedback does wonders for my motivation.
Make of that what you will!
