Lockets and Bed Time Story
Shanna left the scissors on the table while she used a hand-mirror to allow the chief to be able to see the part of his head that the frontal mirror didn't display. A lot of hair that a few hours ago was adhered to Kiran's head now lied on the ground.
The tactician-scientist rubbed his chin as he analyzed. "Just make it a little more curve."
"Yup!" Shanna gladly continued her job. Cutting and cutting once more, Shanna reduced Kiran's hair to a tiny, barely existent, membrane.
"Ay wey! que a gusto... (Hell yeah! how pleasant it is!)" Kiran sighed in relief. "Thanks... I don't comprehend how you women can tolerate long hair... it's the most uncomfortable condition of the existence..." he grimaced.
Shanna giggled as she swept. "You're asking the wrong person if you want to know the answer. I mean, my homeland is very cold. Having my hair as this helps. Yet, whichever is the reason why others decide to have their hairs longer... well, I'm afraid I don't know!"
"True." Kiran closed his eyes, shrugged, and placed money on the table. "Anyway. Thanks a lot. The best part is that as far as I know, soldiers in my world must have their hair like this."
"Enjoy it!"
He left the room feeling remarkably good!
Taking a bath multiplied his good humor by ten.
Noticing something on the table he had bought days ago after a certain person told him a special date was coming, he placed the box in his pockets and ran fastly and furiously through the corridors.
"Amelia!"
Even though she was surprised because of Kiran's new haircut, she didn't comment on anything regarding it.
"Have you seen Nino?"
Amelia rubbed her hair, attempting to remember whether she had seen the mage or not that day. "I believe I saw Lugh and her entering the library."
"I see." He nodded. "By the way, how are you? is your training with Ephraim paying off?"
"His highness has taught me to attack more efficiently." A tiny but visible smile appeared on her face. "He even helped me to deal better with the weight of my armor." she raised her head to meet Kiran's eyes. "For the first time... I think I'm truly a soldier!"
"Have luck then." Kiran patted and caressed her hair. "Well, if you excuse me." He then left as quickly as he had arrived.
As he approached the library, he decreased the speed... good thing considering he was about to crash with the door.
Inside, he saw Robin walking through the history section. Alfonse was sitting on the left side with a book that apparently was about ancient Askarian. It took Kiran at least a minute to finally found the person he was looking for.
He decided to sneak, kneeling and approaching slowly.
The next thing Nino saw was... darkness.
"Who am I?"
The girl had a smile that could warm even the coldest heart. "Kiran, mi hermano (my brother)."
As he sat by her side, he asked. "I thought one of your little boys was making you some company."
"He had to go to the bathroom... whatever is forcing him to do not return quickly is something I don't know." She scratched her cheek.
"I see... so, how is it going? reading better already?"
"There are a lot of words I don't understand yet..." she took a look back at the book, returning to some previous pages. "But I see many of them already translated."
"You cannot be blamed, it's harder to learn a language when you become older. The perfect time for that it's when you are between eight and five years old."
"Thanks... I... I'll do my best!"
"It's for sure you'll do... anyway. Remember you told me your birthday was approaching?"
Nino nodded.
"Well... after returning to that jewelry to claim my time ring," he raised his left hand to point his right's hand index finger "I decided to request a new thing... one for me... and another for you." He then placed the box near the book.
"Y-Y-You bought me a ring?!" She opened her present... to laugh a little when she discovered it was something different.
It was a locket. A green heart-shaped locket. The design was simple, yet, the simplicity made it look cute.
She then noticed that Kiran was now wearing another locket colored red.
Some tears rolled through her cheeks.
"Uh... you don't like it?"
"No! It's just... this... this present reminds me of this one."
Kiran raised his eyebrow when Nino pulled out a pendant from that bag she always wanted to carry no matter what.
"I suppose... I'm not the first one at giving you something like this."
She shook her head. "It belonged to my mother..." She opened the precious object to reveal a... photo? for a moment that's Kiran's thought... until he understood it was a painted portrait. "And I suppose that's her..."
She nodded, still crying. "I never met her... I wish I had..."
Kiran grimaced and growled. "Sorry..."
"It's okay... I like my new locket, hermano."
He hugged her without hesitation. She happily accepted the comfort.
When she finally felt better, Nino felt curiosity due to a detail.
"H-Has this something to do with your diary and that... Under..."
"Undertale. And yes. Frisk, the protagonist, gets one of these at the end of the story. Some drawings feature it as a golden heart locket... while others showed me something more similar to a collar in red... I decided to ask for a mix of both concepts... then I thought about you and... this happened." he laughed.
"It wasn't necessary... also, weren't you the one saying you were bad at giving presents?"
"T-T-This is an exception!... because I know you very well!... or at least that's what I think." he rolled his eyes.
Nino giggled.
"Any-anyway... em... I must go now." Kiran began to stand up... only for Nino to hug him tightly. "Wait!"
"What? is something the matter?"
She, strangely, seemed to be very nervous. "Can we... can we... go to get something to eat?"
"... You mean... right now?"
"Em... no, tomorrow! tomorrow!"
"At the dining room?"
She shook her head. "I would like to try a restaurant... or if that minds you... can we at least go to obtain some clothes?"
Kiran stared at her in confusion.
"I just want to hang out with you..."
Kiran shrugged. "Well, tomorrow is the last day of the week... why not?" he kissed her on the forehead. "So... can I go now or you want to continue the hug?"
"Uh? ah! sorry! sorry!"
Kiran smiled as he left.
In a way, displaying too many emotions always bothered him as he always desired to be as stoic as Zero... but with people as Nino, Sharena, Shanna, Amelia, Alfonse, Ephraim, and others... he just couldn't resist being that happy... reality never cared about what he preferred anyway.
As he always moved through the castle by running, the guards didn't question anything when they saw him, they just gave him a greeting as he entered the room used as a hospital.
He saw something that made him feel relaxed.
Lissa, Miriel, and other clerics or sages were using his lastest invention on the workers of the castle and the order of heroes.
As he walked by Ephraim's side, he saluted him with the gesture of peace and love, which Ephraim gladly replicated.
"Is everything going well?" he asked to Miriel. She was vaccinating a soldier, He also noticed Lissa was about to vaccinate Azurita.
She gave him a paper with all the details. "45 extra vaccines of Hórmmel, 75 of Putzppe, and 25 of Rhusite are going to be required to protect all the personal operating in the castle."
"I see." He sat as Miriel approached another a syringe to him. "I would help you to fabricate more but now they gave me a more hard exercise routine I doubt I'm gonna have time today..."
When Lissa attempted to protect the girl from the disease... she didn't react well. As much as Corrin tried to make her stop moving... the little Azura hugged her tightly with no intention at all of letting her go.
"It's okay, Azura. It does not hurt, you saw me! I promise you, it causes no pain."
Even with Corrin displaying her sweetest smile, Azurita didn't obey.
"Perhaps if she's caressing her bunny?" Kiran suggested.
"It may work," Lissa commented. "Bunnies are cute."
At least Lissa seemed less sad than the previous time he saw her.
"Could you please take care of her while I bring it?" Corrin asked as she attempted to pass the little girl from her hands to Kiran's.
Of course, she wasn't exactly willing to abandon Corrin, but when Kiran caressed her hair the same way he did when they both met... she accepted.
Once she had her precious animal everything went correctly.
Kiran continued helping with the vaccination for a while until he left to train.
However, seeing Azurita again remembered something he had to discuss with Corrin.
By the time Frederick had ended torturing him, Kiran knocked on the door of Azurita's room... after a while, both Corrin and he were outside.
"How are you?" Corrin patted him. Kiran, as usual, reacted to this by letting the princess hug him and purr.
"Partially dead, but meh. I will live..." he sighed before purring again. "Now, going directly to what I came here for... are you going to keep Azurita?"
"Keep... her?" Corrin needed a moment to understand what had said. "You mean, adopt her?" she blinked.
"Yes. Taking her to your world and all that stuff." he made some movements with his hands as he spoke. "I mean, I think we both agree that sending her back to her own one is a bad idea if what you told me regarding how she was treated is true."
Corrin closed her eyes. "We cannot do something so wrong to her... even less considering she may end up... end up... end up dead..."
Okay, now that was even more terrifying... she was just a child for fuck's sake!
"Is she murdered by your moment of the time?"
Corrin shook her head "She sacrificed herself..."
Kiran frowned.
He wrote down in his mind something.
Ask Alfonse about this later.
"So, are you adopting her or not?"
"I would be glad to have her... but... can you send us to the same world?"
Kiran blinked. "Uh... now you mentioned... I hadn't thought about it..." he wondered how he could be so idiot. "Em... Braidablik's manual indicates how to revert a summoning but... it does not say anything regarding sending a person to a different world... "
"You think it's possible anyway?" She allowed him to raise his head from under her neck so they could speak face to face.
"As a scientist, it's my duty saying the truth. To be honest... presuppose that if you are holding her, or anything similar, is gonna send you both to the same world would be irresponsible... and even if that happens you may be transported to her world rather than yours."
Corrin considered it for a moment. "If that did change my past perhaps I would accept it... but..."
"That's not the case." obvious answer.
"We shouldn't take the risk then... she must stay here." Corrin certainly didn't know any other place where she could be safer.
"I already "adopted" Nino..." or rather said, she was going to live with him given he didn't have papers about claiming her as his sister or anything. "I suppose I can adopt her too."
"You're so sweet." She patted him again. "Although, you should spend some time with her."
Kiran growled. "I already have a very tight agenda... I cannot add a new task." Plus, Kiran didn't have fond memories of interacting with children.
"At least one time per week... otherwise I highly doubt she will desire to stay with you." she kinda gave him puppy eyes to force him to cooperate.
"Well... if you could bring her to my lab I could teach her my science and spend time with her at the same time..." he wondered if wanting to fix almost every single problem of his life like that was a good idea. He also would need to teach her when Raigh wasn't around so Azurita wouldn't see the less cute experiments he and his "nephew" did together... but maybe it could work. "She's a little girl... at that age, the kids are easy to impress and they want to know the answers of everything."
Corrin nodded, it made some sense. Then she had a suggestion. "You must tell her a bed story, at least one!"
Classical parenting stuff.
"...Tonight?"
"The whole week if it's possible."
Kiran sighed. Well, sleeping was something he barely did by that point in his life. "... Understood..."
"By the way, that heart you have there is cute."
"Thanks."
Azurita didn't feel comfortable knowing Corrin wasn't going to be the one by her side until she slept. Even though Mr. Kiran seemed to be kind... the keyword was that: seemed.
Kiran himself discovered another problem... he didn't have any experience at this... it wasn't like his father and mother ever told him a story to sleep... heck, he even didn't have a bed of his own as a child.
She apparently was between five and eight years... it suggested she may enjoy a more complex story than something as classic as the Cinderella, stories he wasn't exactly fond of and probably would trigger bad memories in her, or anything like that... he definitely didn't want to scare her yet he doubt he could think in a story that didn't have a villain or at the very least an antagonist.
Both stayed there without saying a single word for at least five minutes.
Kiran cleared his throat.
"The world lies shrouded in darkness... the wind stops blowing... the seas rage... the earth decays... the fire consumes..."
The girl wasn't exactly excited but she didn't seem to be scared.
He also attempted to move his hand to display emotion for the story.
"But people believe in a prophecy, patiently awaiting its fulfillment... when darkness veils the world, Four Warriors of Light shall come." after that last sentence, he closed his hand, transforming it into a fist to denote... something, probably hope?
Azurita was interested. It was a very different story to what Corrin used to give her.
"After a long journey, four young travelers did, at last, appear... and in the hand of each one was a crystal... beautiful gems of red, blue, green, and yellow..." Kiran stood up and began walking around as he narrated.
"Two of them were soldiers, twins. A girl called Rosa and a boy whose name is Manuel. The others were two mages. One of them a master of elemental offensive magic. He's Joseph. The other mage is a beautiful woman... she's Lucero, the team's healer. "
One could argue that he was exaggerating with being so deep in the details of the story, he just needed a simple story for a kid... the thing is, he was actually narrating the story of a videogame... that and the fact Kiran really hated that excuse of: It's for kids! as if the fact it was for kids meant it was fine being lazy with the writing process. Granted, as an artist he generally sucked a lot, but even he could think of something more coherent than most old stories by adding some logic. Plus he didn't really needed to invent anything, just build over what already existed.
Besides, working like this would help to extend the same story for many days!
"They arrived at the kingdom where their destiny finally reached them. Cornelia. The barely existent light of their crystals didn't fail at getting the attention of the soldiers of the kingdom. They didn't doubt to tell them the king was looking for the warriors of the legend. Not sure of what they meant, the four followed them after the soldiers promised them a reward."
His decisions at telling the story kinda had the opposite effect on Azurita. Instead of wanting to sleep, she was more than eager to continue awake to hear more.
Kiran had transformed the story into some strange form of play in which he was performing the role of all the characters.
"Hmph! the king's puppets! Do you have any idea who are you messing with?!" Kiran gave his best acting of the dark knight Garland who had kidnapped the princess Sara. "I will knock you all down!"
Kiran changed his position in the room and simulated being holding a sword. "Let's go!"
Azurita kinda wanted to laugh at seeing how he pretended to be five warriors almost at the same time.
Yet, her biological condition already began to order her to get some rest as Kiran narrated the end of the first part.
"And so their quest began. As the Four Warriors Of Light, they felt overwhelmed by the great task destiny had prepared for them. They don't even know the significance of the four crystals they possess. It was time to cast off the veil of shadows and bring the world once more into the light."
Seeing Azurita blinking and forcing herself to stay awake. He approached and kissed her on the forehead. "We continue tomorrow."
She nodded, closing her eyes and allowing herself to be brought to the domain of dreams.
As he closed the door of the room... Kiran concluded he should start drinking more coffee than usual.
Sharena wasn't happy at all when Feh returned to the order the next day with a letter from the grandmaster Frank for The Order Of Heroes.
It was time to save the World Of Blazing!
Asking Nino to distract him so they could prepare the birthday party had been for nothing...
While the princess of Askr had a bad day that day... it was the opposite for the princess and soon queen of Embla.
She hugged with all her love to the only other person besides Xander she loved...
Bruno did hug her back... yet he perfectly felt how the generals and nobles were watching him. It made sense they didn't trust him. He had already betrayed Embla a long time ago... Veronica was the only reason he was still alive at that moment.
Unironically, they were completely right!
He wanted to cure his sister... she already had caused too much disaster... he wanted to take her away...
But if that wasn't possible...
He at the very least would recover his old powers and close the Gates again.
Damn Bruno, you're gonna be a pain in my ass... your existence in the original story is just to be a stupid plot device Deux Ex Machina!
Raise your hand if you already had forgotten the existence of this character.
I don't remember if I already mentioned this but... he's also one of the biggest plot holes of the game... if he's good... why hasn't he closed the Gates himself? that's the reason I preferred to say the power to close and open Gates is something you get through a magic ritual... otherwise, the story makes fucking zero sense!
Sorry, Sharena, but we already have enough chapters in Askr, it's time to return to the action! quicky question. Who do you believe we're going to meet soon?
I still need to see a complete gameplay of all plots of Fates to understand what I must fix. I already know Kanna cannot exist though... actually, I noticed, after talking with some friends in Facebook, that Nah might cause another plot hole... you see, her mother looks like 10 years old but she is 1000 at the very least... Corrin seems to be aging like a human... yet Nah claims she's gonna live much time... so... if she's aging like a Manakete... why she already looks like her mother if she's like... 12?
I mean, don't get me wrong, one can assume that hybrids age in a different way, a mix of both human and manakete aging would be expectable... but... considering Manaketes seem to age as if they must still be like 3 years old babies at the age of 300 (which kinda explains why they don't attempt to reproduce more if their babies are as parasites as the human babies to their parents, lol)... Nah would still be a baby by the moment Lucina travels back in time... perhaps she only needs 150 years to be a 3 years old kid in human perspective but... it does not make sense anyway... unless you're telling me she ages like Human and she does not know it... which makes you wonder... is she dumb enough to do not realize she's not going to live that much? (even more, Tiki herself does not seem to notice this detail in her supports with Nah). I have two options... I erase Nah from existence just like I did with Kanna... or change her past and interactions with Tiki... probably the second option is better but... mmmhh... you know how I am XD.
I mean, just in case, I made my calculations and they match very well with how Tiki looks in Awakening. She was 1000 in the first game (meaning she was as old as Nowi) and by Awakening, 2000 years after, she looks like 30 because she's 3000 years old already.
And yes, the story Kiran is telling to Azurita is Final Fantasy 1. And yes, Kiran's gonna get many other objects from other characters.
Counting by now he has Two Master Swords, the mark of the hero (it's not the same as the mark of a chosen by the triforce, search in Zelda wiki to confirm it), The Locket from Undertale, and Black Goku's Time Ring. Proximately the Hylian shield... technically the name Kiran counts as one since he says it comes from Kira the killer... I'm still thinking about what other accessories he would like to have.
I suppose I don't need to explain that Shanna cutting hair is a joke regarding that voting gauntlet she won... right?
Anyway, time to answer reviews.
Guest 1:
I want as much realism as possible :D
Blowing stuff up it's always exciting!
Half-BeastDragonSoul2013:
Since chapters ago it's said Lyn is Roy's mother. While the Lilina Kiran summoned says Florina is her mother. No that I have a preference for those options, but it's how it resulted in the first time I played FE7.
Marceb381:
You're gonna love the next time he says that again.
Guest 2:
The concept of a weapon having a mind is not of my liking. It's like... where the hell is the fucking brain?! I mean, at least Skyward Sword told me there was a spirit living inside but... how?... does the weapon have a dimension in the guard or?...
I don't think I'm gonna use that concept. It's a weapon and that's it.
