Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening, all rights to the owners.

Nathan is still bad with the whole "talking to people" thing, especially when it comes to Noire. At least Morgan doesn't mind.

"I see it, I see it, and now it's all within my reach~" I sing. "Endless possibility~!"

I remembered that Sonic songs exist again, so today has been Sonic day for my bad singing as we make our way east. Morgan and Noire have heard me sing these before, but that's fine. These are probably the best songs (and by "best" I mean most well-crafted) I know the lyrics too, because most of the songs I know are parodies. Sure, I could sing some Instalok, but with all the gamer lingo in there it's going to make even less sense than usual to the girls.

I'm sure Morgan would find it interesting anyways. I think she's more interested in the style of the songs than the content (as you'd expect, seeing as rock and pop don't exist here). Not for the first time I wish I could play an instrument so I could let them hear what the songs sound like to some extent. Maybe not exactly what they sound like, it's not like this world is going to have electric guitars, but at least an approximation of them.

I'm usually the one that sings. Noire knows a few songs, but they're either pub songs or the old country-style songs you'd expect to hear at a festival. She also doesn't know that many compared to me. She can sing maybe seven songs, and I can do several dozen (provided I can remember they exist at least).

Worst though are the songs that I can only remember part of. A few good lyrics, or maybe the chorus and a verse, but not all of it. I don't know all of Sonic Boom, I keep getting the lyrics for Fist Bump wrong, and I'll never be able to go back on the internet to find out what they are.

That's not even considering all the pure music I can't replicate and won't get to hear again. Goodbye Sonic Medley, various game soundtracks, and all those remixed songs and music you can find online. That's no small loss. Music was a large part of what I did on a daily basis. It's weird to say that the natural world sounds dull in comparison, but it does. It's just a bunch of crunching, breathing, and rustling. Voices aren't crisp and clear, sounds aren't perfectly choreographed and timed...

Say what you want about technology addiction. People are addicted for a good reason. Especially for someone like me who despises physical exertion and the outdoors in general, the internet was a more welcome world to me than the natural world ever was… and I might not ever get to use it again.

Maybe it's best not to dwell on that though. The more I think about it, the worse it gets, and I'm unfortunately skilled at working myself up.

My singing has faltered and trailed off as I have this internal reflection. Neither Noire nor Morgan comment, though Morgan does silently shoulder-bump me in some form of comfort.

Apparently four months of being stuck in a tavern is not enough to make you forget the painful fact that entertainment in your new world is pitiful compared to your old one.

I start singing again and do so until my voice is hoarse. If my voice is the only way I'll ever hear these songs again, I better sing them often or else I'll forget.

###

I can honestly say I never expected Noire to initiate a conversation with me. Considering what her usual behaviour around me has been, I was fairly sure I was in the "avoid entirely or tolerate at a distance" category for her.

She chose her time strategically. Morgan just left to bath in the river (more like splash water on her face because it's still quite cold out and we don't need someone getting hypothermia) so it's only me and Noire around the fire. The sun hasn't quite set yet, there are still a few dying streaks of orange and yellow across the clouds. The world is quiet except for the fire. Animals and insects are yet to emerge; the thaw isn't quite to that level yet.

"Nathan." Noire says quietly. We're both sitting on logs on opposite sides of our campfire. My head snaps up in surprise and she flinches in response. We scared each other it seems. "I-I have a question."

"Uh, sure, shoot." I say. Then I remember that 'shoot' doesn't work as slang here. "I mean, go ahead."

"You know about me, right?"

That's… not wrong. "Sort of? I know certain things that are likely, but not certain, to be true in some capacity. I can't vouch for complete accuracy."

"That's fine." She says. "Or, well, no it's not. That's the problem I guess."

"I don't follow." I say hesitantly. "The problem is that I might know things about you to an uncertain level of accuracy?"

"Yes." Noire nods fervently. "I… I have things…" She takes a breath and suddenly she's shouting. "I don't like you knowing everything about me! Some things are personal!"

It takes me a long second to process that. "Oh, oh. Okay, uh… right." I can see how that would be an issue. Someone who is a total stranger claims to know about you, including personal details… okay, fair gripe. However… "I know certain things. Not everything. I only know as much as your theoretic game counterpart would mention during interactions with other characters.

"What do you know then?" She asks fervently.

"I possibly know that you come from a ruined future where Grima won and took over everything. You left via the power of Naga, a portal of some sort if memory serves, and arrived in this world scattered from your friends." I say. "Your relationship with Tharja was bad because she was abusive. Gaius died, your mother spiraled out of control, bad times all around. She tended to use you as a testing dummy for curses."

Noire's head droops to hide her face. I now realize I'm casually treading over very raw ground, and I feel much more nervous about mentioning anything else but I don't want to lie about what I know anymore..

"You have a talisman your mother gave you that controls your mood swings to an extent. You can still mood swing without it, so I don't know if the talisman actually has another function or not." I say. "You can't really control your mood swings too well. Sometimes you rage about petty things and it embarrasses you. You get sick easily and tended to pass colds back and forth with Brady when you were little. You're scared to go out at night by yourself. If for some reason you need to go out, you tend to ask Severa…" I pause. "I think that's about it. You might have a bit of a yandere side, but considering Morgan's sadism doesn't seem to be accurate and that trait only appears in one support for you, I'm doubting that's true."

"What's yandere?"

"Murderously possessive." Technically there's more to it than that, but as a brief description I think that works. Her support with Inigo really is the odd one out of her supports, just like how Morgan's support with Yarne really overplays her sometimes manipulative or selfish behaviour into outright sadism. Morgan's sadism didn't end up being all that true so I doubt Noire has much of a yandere side if any at all.

"Oh, I hope not." Noire says quietly. She's still not looking up at me.

"So uh, yeah…" I trail off. I don't have more to say. That's all I know about Noire off the top of my head. I'm sure the scramble conversations say more, but… "Oh, and your mother never taught you dark magic. That's it I think."

"I…" Noire takes a long, deep breath. Her hands come up to her chest, clenching her talisman. "Right."

"Is any of that accurate?" I ask hesitantly.

"THAT'S NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW!" She snaps. Her head whips up and her eyes burn into me. Her mouth contorts into an ugly snarl. "YOU ALREADY KNOW TOO MUCH! DO NOT TEST MY TOLERANCE!"

I fall backwards off the log in surprise. I know Noire has mood swings, I literally just told her that, but that doesn't mean I was any more prepared for it to happen. I hurriedly scramble to my feet and hope I don't look as nervous as I feel, but in all honesty my fear probably shows on my face.

Yes, I'm scared of Noire. I think we've already established confidence is not something I excel in. I've never been good with shouting, and shouting by someone who has a bow and daggers on hand is not better by any means.

Noire's outburst only lasts a second. Just as quickly as she snapped she shrunk in on herself and pulled all her limbs close. Her knees are up to her chin and her arms are around her legs. "S-Sorry…"

"It's fine." I say quickly. I sit back down, but my nervousness is obvious.

"If you aren't sure, I'd rather keep it that way." Noire mumbles. "It's personal, so…"

"I get it." I nod. That's incredibly frustrating, I'm even less sure how accurate my game knowledge is now, but it would be outright rude of me to try and insist she tell me.

Also she'd yell at me again and I say no thank you to that.

We lapse into silence for a minute until Morgan comes back. "You're next Noire." She says. Is it just me or does her voice sound slightly clipped? And I thought I was next.

Noire leaps to her feet and scurries off to the river without saying a word.

"So." Morgan drops her things at the end of the log and sits next to me on the log. "Why was she shouting at you?"

"She was just making a point." I say.

"By shouting?"

"Yes." I'm making this more confusing than it has to be. Just say it. "I stepped over a line I think. That's all."

"What line?"

"We were discussing what I know about her. I asked if any of it was accurate, and she shouted that it was none of my business because it was personal." I say.

"I see." Morgan says. Her expression is still carefully neutral. "And she had to establish this by shouting instead of talking because…?"

"Mood swing. Not totally in her control I think." I won't say more than that. It's not for me to go around sharing personal information. The only reason I'm mentioning this is because it's pertinent and not exactly a secret. It's only occurring to me now that, whether the Shepherds or I want it or not, I'm sort of a secret-keeper for every single one of them. To some more than others of course, but I know more about them than most of them are probably comfortable a stranger knowing about them. "Not for me to say more."

I can tell this is going to make me a lot of friends… and by that I mean a lot of people aren't going to like me very much once they find out. Yay.

Morgan kicks her legs and gazes up to the sky. "Nathan."

"Yeah?"

"What do you know about me?" She asks. "I mean, I don't know anything about myself, so… I'm curious."

Ah, right, she's an amnesiac. "I can't vouch for how accurate the information is..."

"That's fine." Morgan stares at me intently now. "What do you know?"

"Well…" Where to start? I suddenly feel very pressured. "Your father is Robin, that never changes. You're a tactician. Your mother… is not Nowi, Nah, Tiki, nor Panne, else you would have distinct ears. Hair colour inheritance doesn't work the same way here so I can't help you beyond that. There's a very real possibility you have a sibling, as in the game kids come from the mothers with the exception of Robin and Chrom."

Morgan nods seriously. The mention of a sibling seems to worry her if the furrow of her brow is any indicator. I suppose I would be worried if I'd forgotten my own brother or sister as well.

"You have a selfish side that isn't above manipulating others for your own convenience and you aren't very apologetic about it. Actually, that's a large part of your character in the game. You're not too worried about your amnesia. It's an issue of course, but compared to most amnesiacs you really don't care that much. It's an inconvenience, not a crippling trauma. You're intelligent, but tend to miss the obvious sometimes." That's almost everything. I feel like there's something important… ah, right. "You're likely from a different future than the other future children."

"A different future?"

"Yes." I say. "It's complicated. The epilogue claims you're probably from a different future than the others, but doesn't explain why. It's left up to the player to figure out why. From what I'm aware this might be because of a Days of the Future Past situation, where in the world the others came from you were possibly a villain working under Grima, and in this other world you come from you aren't…? Again, it's not really clear, but you're the odd one out among the children as a side-effect of your father being who he is."

"Right." She frowns. "Okay, that's less than I expected."

"As I told Noire, I know some very specific things about you, but that's it. I only know as much as your theoretical interactions with others and a few tidbits from the game narrative." I say apologetically. "I don't know your past. The game is about a war, not exploring backstories."

She nods to herself and falls into silence. I hesitate for a second, then cautiously put an arm around her shoulder to try and comfort her to some extent. I can do that right? I think I can. Morgan leans against my side, so I guess that was an acceptable move.

"Erm… I might be able to narrow some things down if you can answer a question or two." I murmur. "It probably won't help too much, but it's something."

"Sure, anything."

"Do you have a brand? It could be anywhere. Skin, eyes, doesn't matter."

"No."

"Okay, so your mother is unlikely to be Lucina, Lissa, or whoever Chrom's other kid is." I say. "It's possible that your brand simply hasn't surfaced, but that's unlikely I think."

"So I'm not a royal."

"Not an Ylissian royal." I say. "Jury's out on Chon'sin. Your mother could be Say'ri."

What else can I ask to narrow things down? I don't know.

"This is hard." I grunt. "I don't know how much you're going to share features with your mother. I don't know if your having light skin means your mother did too, or if your mother is someone like Flavia and you just happen to be white anyways. I suppose if I'm looking at it from the perspective that you should take some features from your mother, then your mother is unlikely to be dark-skinned or Chon'sinese. You're very pale and don't have epicanthic folds on your eyes. I guess you aren't a royal at all then."

"But my hair-"

"Hair and eye color are weird. You can have completely different colour hair or eyes than your parents due to… recessive genes? I don't know exactly how it works and it's unlikely, but not so unlikely that it's never seen." I sigh. "I can't distinguish between the facial features of Ylissians and Plegians either, so I don't know if you have a distinct sign of one or the other."

"Why not?"

"Well… okay, so some Feroxi are very distinct from Ylissians due to their dark skin, right? Same goes for those from Chon'sin due to the distinct structure of their eyes. The differences between Ylissian and Plegian to me, an outsider, are going to be non-existent. I don't study phenotypes so I don't know what to look for." I admit. "There are likely differences, but they won't be obvious enough for me to notice."

It would be like the difference between Canadian and American. Physically, they're not going to be that different. You could probably tell the difference due to accent, but that's a vocal thing and not physical. I don't know if Plegian and Ylissian phenotypes are going to be that similar, but just using game art as a reference I sure as hell can't tell distinguishing features.

"Heck, for all I know you're a Rosannite. It's really only Chon'sin and Ferox that stand out." I sigh. "Sorry, I guess I can't narrow it down as much as I hoped. There's still quite a few possibilities. Not Tharja, not the royals, not a manakete or taguel, and probably not someone with dark skin, but that still leaves more than half the cast."

"Thanks for trying I suppose."

"Sorry." I mumble.

"Don't be. You didn't cause me to lose my memory." She sighs. "I wonder why that happened at all?"

"If this were the game I'd say plot convenience." I say. "You're the child of the avatar, and as the avatar is supposed to be somewhat of a blank slate and quite variable, they needed a backstory for you that could comply with any choice the player makes, so they threw you convenient amnesia. How that works here in-universe though… who knows. No one else lost memories coming to the past."

"I guess I'm just special then." She says. "The universe recognized my greatness and had to put a limit on it somehow."

"Yep."

"Alas, the universe will be foiled for I am capable of making new memories! Take that, universe!"

"I'm sure the universe is weeping in fear."

"As it should be!"

"I'm back…" Noire whispers from the edge of camp.

"Just in time to listen to my plan to make the universe weep!" Morgan proclaims loudly.

"Um…"

"Right, I'm going to wash up." I say. I pat Noire's back as I pass by. "Thanks for taking over."

Noire's eyes flick from Morgan's now grinning face to me. "Uh…"

"Be gentle Morgan!" I call as I leave for no other reason than to confuse Noire. I can hear Morgan laugh when I say that and hear Noire squeak "Wh-What's going on?" Mission accomplished I suppose. I've fulfilled my weirdness minimum for the day.

###

"Look at this innocent village, unprepared for the magnificence that is me." Morgan muses. "Soon I shall have them fawning over me as the grand tactician I am."

"An empire starts with a single town my lady." I say in as sinister a voice as I can manage. "With these fools under your control, you can begin the process of becoming queen."

"Yes! A crown and a cape!" Morgan proclaims. "The clothes make the man! When I become queen, I will pass my coat onto you, and you shall become the master tactician who expands my empire as I rule with an iron fist!"

"Of course my lady…" I smile. "Our conquest begins here."

Noire is hiding her face in her hands and likely wondering why Naga stuck her with us of all people.

We don't walk into town proclaiming our intent to conquer it of course. We instead locate a tavern so we can have actual beds for a night and then go around purchasing supplies. It's the next day that we actually go about exploring the town.

I should clarify, this isn't the second or third town we've come across. It's been a few weeks since we've left the town we spent the winter in and we've jumped from town to town in the meantime. The towns haven't been as far apart as the second was to the first. That really was an oddity. Maybe we took the wrong path and skipped a town.

Also, we've been sleeping in the tent we got when travelling between towns. It's big enough for all of us (not a lot of space, but enough). Originally I slept on the outer edge so I wasn't next to Noire and Morgan slept in the middle, but after Morgan rolled on top of Noire five or six times I started sleeping in the middle. Morgan really needs a weighted bedroll or something to stop her rolling around all the time.

Anyhow, on the next day we explore the town. More accurately: Morgan explores the town and I follow her while Noire decides to stay in the tavern and rest. The first thing Morgan does is go around asking for Kjelle, as we're hoping to run into her before we start heading south. To my surprise we do get news about her. It's not from one of the locals, but a merchant who recognizes the name.

"Kjelle? You talkin' 'bout a girl in heavy armor, stubborn as a taxman with an ego to match, always goin' on 'bout being stronger an' all that?" The merchant asks.

"Sounds about right." I whisper to Morgan.

"Yep, that's the one. We're looking for her. Do you think you could point us to her?" Morgan chirps.

"Sure. She's just a few towns over. Go two days west to Northsnow, then three days south to Wolfwind. I have to warn ya, if yer plannin' on pickin' a fight with 'er, I don't expect ya to win."

"We aren't. She's a friend." Morgan says. I suppose that's not technically a lie. She's not our friend, she's Noire's friend… or companion at least. I don't actually know if they're on good terms or not. "We got separated a while ago."

With our information obtained, we go on our way to… wander aimlessly. This town is a bit bigger than the farming and fishing villages we've been travelling between before, so there's some actual dedicated shops and businesses beyond the village basics. Morgan finds a store that sells potions, various plants, and charms... and spends nearly two hours in conversation with the owner.

"Everyone think I am hack because of fakes." The woman says in frustration. Her name is Mariana. She's extremely tall, about seven feet, with long and unkempt black hair that goes down to her waist, dark skin, and brown eyes. She might be intimidating if it weren't for the bright white flowers woven into her hair and the simple flower-patterned brown dress. I can't guess her age. She's not a child, but she's not obviously old. "Apparently is common in larger cities to sell fake charms. Little wooden trinkets with no magic. Sold to travellers or unknowing farmers promising protection. They claim a charm will bring rain or prevent wolf attacks, but charms not do that. Not unless you have much more expertise than I."

"But there are charms that can bring rain?" Morgan questions.

"Yes, but they are inconvenient and expensive. Besides, charms always active, so for rain charm it always rains. Not very useful. Charm that stops wolves is much more useful, but it need large range to be useful in protecting farm. Very magic-intensive, so very expensive to make." Mariana explains. "Impractical for me because I spend more money to make than I can get for sale. Instead make smaller charms. Charms that help stop illness, give a little protection from magic, help slow down hunger and thirst for the very poor… small things. Useful things, but small things."

"For charms that slow down hunger and thirst, how do you make a profit on those?" Morgan asks. "If the people buying them are usually poor, how do you make money off them?"

"I do not." Mariana says simply. "Those are only charms I sell at loss, because I do not sell those charms to make profit. I sell those to help. I give them price because the poor have dignity. They do not want handouts, they want to feel like trade is fair, so I still charge price and pretend that hunger and thirst charms are very easy to make and say that is why they extra cheap."

I nod to myself upon hearing that. Yes, it's manipulation, but it's manipulation with the best of intent where the only issue in the first place was pride. Also, I think that might be something to note about Feroxi culture. The poor don't want handouts because of pride. Pride is more important than practicality to them. Death before dishonor and all that.

"I imagine the same goes for potions?" Morgan says. "Fake potions I mean."

"Yes." Mariana nods. "Not even vulnerary. So-called potions are herbs thrown in water. Sometimes even poisonous herbs! Fakes literally poisoning customers because they don't actually know herbs. Disappointment to craft."

"I can imagine." Morgan nods. "What sort of potions can you make?"

"Can make vulneraries of course." Mariana actually pulls out a few clay bottles (the one I have on my hip is metal). "Make my own bottles. More fragile than metal, but can charge less. Can make some medicines, but most people come to me for magic potions. Have potions that can help with magic resistance. Called pure water in Ylisse I think. Not pure, also not water. Strange name."

Morgan is enraptured, which is just as entertaining to me as what Mariana is actually saying.

"Can also make potions to give strength, help go faster, help focus… can do many things with potions." Mariana's mouth momentarily turns to a frown. "Often get questions about love potion. Love potion exist, and it work. I know how to make. But I think it is only bad people who ask for love potion."

"What?" Morgan frowns. "Why?"

"Because it's forceful manipulation. You are basically drugging someone." I say. "Right?"

"Correct." Mariana nods. "You understand."

"Ahh…" Morgan nods. "Okay, that makes sense. That never even occurred to me."

"You are child. Will learn."

"I'm eighteen!" Morgan protests.

Mariana blinks in surprise. "Small eighteen." She looks at me. "No lie?"

"It's true." At least I think it is. Maybe Morgan was lying to me right from the start, but I doubt it.

Mariana takes a deep breath and puts a hand on Morgan's head. Her expression is sad, almost comically so. I think she's being sarcastic. "Very sorry you skip growth. Don't have potion for that."

"I didn't skip it. It just hasn't happened yet." Morgan grumbles.

"It's supposed to start somewhere around twelve." I say cheerfully. "So you'd be super late."

"Nathan…"

"Oh, and it's actually earlier for girls, so-"

"Don't say any more!" Morgan barks. She's glaring at me now.

So, like the good friend I am, I don't say any more exactly as she asked. Instead I do what the Mariana did and sympathetically pat Morgan on the head.

Morgan's glare is withering, but I'm smug so I don't care. Judging by her nod, Mariana approves as well.

"Don't worry small adult woman child. I sure you grow. Just not on outside."

Morgan turns her glare to Mariana, and the woman's smile threatens to break her face.

Mariana doesn't pass up on an opportunity to poke fun at Morgan when we eventually leave. "Nathan! Be sure to water small woman every day or will not grow. Remove bad bugs and keep in sun. Eventually small woman will grow into slightly less small woman."

"Noted." I say with a serious nod.

"I hate both of you." Morgan grumbles.

We did buy things off Mariana (well, Morgan did. It's her money after all). Three vulneraries, a speed potion, a magic potion, and an anti-magic charm.

After I'm done teasing Morgan for being small, she hands the charm to me saying "you come from a place without magic, so I'm guessing your resistance is going to be terrible. Here you go."

I think I just got a gift. I got a gift. Huh. I mean, it's a practical gift, but it's still a gift. It feels unusual to get a gift not on my birthday or christmas.

"Nathan, you're staring." Morgan says. "Did I… offend you? Is that it?"

"No." I say quickly. "Just surprised, that's all."

"Surprised?" Morgan raises an eyebrow." About what?"

"I've…" Suddenly I'm beset by doubt. I'm assuming the charm is a gift of some sort, but maybe that's just because I'm overthinking it. I have been known to overthink things. It's basically been my defining characteristic so far. I might be reading into things too much. She just bought a charm because my resistance sucks. No other reason. "Nothing. Overthinking."

"Did I do something weird by the standards of your world?"

"No. Nothing usual." I say. "It's nothing."

"Alright…" Morgan obviously isn't convinced, but says nothing.

We split the vulneraries one each. Morgan keeps the magic potion and Noire is given the speed one. I wonder if they're the equivalent of tonics. That would make sense. I'm just going to call them a magic tonic and a speed tonic for simplicity.

Noire is relieved to learn that we're close to Kjelle. Soon she won't have to deal with me and Morgan by herself.

###

"So how do we want to do this?" I say nervously. "Do we just walk in…? Maybe Noire should lead? She actually knows Kjelle."

"Or we could go in and shout "hey bitch! We've got a job to do!"" Morgan suggests cheerfully.

"That's… let's not do that." I mutter.

"Worried I'll get cut down or something?" Morgan grins.

"Of course! You don't have much height left to lose after all."

"I am not that short!"

"That's only because you've been getting a lot of sun and drinking your water-"

"I'm not a plant!" She barks.

"Mariana begs to differ."

"Mariana isn't here right now." Morgan huffs. "So if you want to stay on my good side…"

"Oh, so you're going to stop talking to me over one joke?" I ask teasingly. "How childish."

Morgan pouts at me, recognizing she's lost. Besides, she doesn't really mind.

"Can we go in now?" Noire asks quietly. That effectively puts a stop to our usual banter, and we make the quick decision that Noire should lead as there's no guarantee Kjelle will even know who Morgan is.

We're standing in front of a fairly normal farmhouse. Apparently Kjelle's "master", the person helping her train, is a retired veteran of the Feroxi military who now lives as a farmer but will train anyone who asks so long as they agree to help around the farm.

So Kjelle has been living as a farmer alongside training for the last who-knows-how-long. I can't help but find the system this man has set up interesting. Extra labour in exchange for pseudo military training? The man gets help on the farm which takes the pressure off his family and gives them more free time (not to mention more money because they can support a bigger operation), the village gets a small militia of semi-skilled warriors, and the warriors get work, training, and a place to stay. When I heard Kjelle was training under her "master" in the game I assumed it was some sort of dojo or monastery, not a farm, but with this sort of system it makes total sense.

Noire knocks on the front door of the farm. I impulsively put a hand on Morgan's shoulder. It's not to keep her in place or anything, it's just to calm my nerves. Morgan glances back curiously, notices my worried expression, and leans back against me and tugs my other hand to her other shoulder.

I let out a deep breath and try not to grip her shoulders too hard. This should be fine. I shouldn't be nervous. Morgan is fine, see? Granted Morgan has a stupid amount of confidence and doesn't have extreme social anxiety, but it's fine. I'm not even the one who's going to be talking. Probably, maybe, hopefully.

As you might expect, Kjelle isn't the one who answers the door. This isn't her house, and it's not like she knew we were coming. An unremarkable woman in simple tan and brown clothes answers the door. She really fits the generic female villager sprite. "Oh, hello. Are you here for training? My husband is in the back."

It's clear to me this is not unusual for her. She doesn't look surprised to see strangers at her door, and her words sound rehearsed.

"U-Um, n-no." Noire stutters nervously. "We're here to see Kjelle."

"Oh!" The woman blinks in surprise. "Well, that's a surprise. It's rare the trainees get visitors unless they're locals. Kjelle will be in the back too. Follow me. She'll most likely be doing repairs somewhere at the moment. It's too cold to plant crops you see."

She leads us around the back of the farmhouse. The land owned by the family seems huge to me, but then again I don't know what a normal farm plot size would be. Also, we're still on the fringes of the Feroxi… empirie? Kingdom? Khanate? The Feroxi Khanate I suppose. We're still in the less developed areas of the Feroxi Khanate, so I wouldn't be surprised if people out here own larger plots of land than people closer to large cities and the more developed areas of the country. More land, but less protection and less access to trading and such. It's a trade off.

I mean, I assume it's a trade off. I don't know medieval human geography. Is that even the right term? Human geography? Should I be saying Anthropology? Maybe archeology? But isn't anthropology more about behaviour than the mechanics of land distribution…? Ah, whatever. Sue me if I can't remember every -ology out there and what it means. The study of how land is allocated, specifically how it's allocated in relation to a smaller community's proximity to major population centers. That's what I'm talking about.

That would be a very specific study now that I think of it.

Actually… who's to say Kjelle will actually come with us? In the game she comes along because she compares her ring with Sully and realizes Sully is her mother (which means that Kjelle didn't recognize her mother on sight, which is weird to think about. How different did Sully look in the future?), so there's no guarantee she'll follow us at all with only the vague promise of probably finding her mother.

When we get around to the back of the farmhouse, the woman doesn't send us out into the field to find Kjelle. She simply cups her hands to her mouth and yells "KJELLE! YOU HAVE VISITORS!"

Noire jumps at the loud noise, and if I weren't still holding on to Morgan I would too.

"She'll just be a second." The woman sighs. "Gotta finish up whatever my husband assigned her."

The woman leaves us after that, going back inside to… do something. Cook? Sew? Something less stereotypical? Who knows! I'm not looking through the window so I sure don't.

It takes about five minutes for Kjelle to get to a resting point where she can make her way over to us. I never realized how small she looks outside of her armor. She's not skinny or anything, she has some serious muscle, but she's much shorter than I expected and doesn't have a lot of bulk per say. Not skinny, but slim. Her hair is jet black just like Noire's, and she has shockingly delicate features broken up only by a few small scars.

"Noire?" Kjelle says. "I'll admit, you're not someone I expected to see. I'm surprised you managed to find me. Ferox is a big place."

"We sort of… cheated." Noire explains. She has a nervous grin on her face and turns to us pleadingly.

Realizing she wants me to explain and that I'll actually have to talk, I clear my throat and speak. "I have outside knowledge. I knew approximately where you were beforehand, and we used that to narrow the search area."

"Oh really?" Kjelle turns to face me, her eyes narrowing. "Any why would you know anything about me, much less my whereabouts, stranger?"

"I'm an outrealmer." I say simply, hoping that suffices as an explanation. That explanation is also technically not true, but whatever, I can clarify later. "I know certain things about this world, foremost being where you future children will approximately be located."

"So you're familiar with our situation."

"Yes."

"And why, exactly, do you have an interest in it? Simple goodwill?"

"Nothing so altruistic." I say honestly. "I'm woefully under-equipped to survive in this world as I never intended on being stuck here, so in exchange for my information I get to tag along and not die." I pat Morgan on the shoulder. "Mostly I'm just ingratiating myself to this one."

"Hi! I'm Morgan! The soon-to-be best tactician to ever exist." Morgan says cheerfully. "I'm one of you, sorta. From a different future maybe, but one of you. Oh, and I'm an amnesiac. Are you my sister?"

Kjelle is unfazed by Morgan's rapid-fire speech. "No, I'm not your sister. I've never heard of someone called Morgan. How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"You don't!" Morgan says cheerfully.

"Outside information." I say again with an apologetic smile. "I know it's true, and they're taking my word with it."

"How can I trust you're not lying to me?" Kjelle asks suspiciously. "That you're not lying to all of us?"

I sigh, step forward, and lower my voice. "Your mother never taught you to ride a horse, using the excuse that you lacked natural talent. You basically never stop training, and you have a bit of an obsession with armor. You have a particular fondness for a particular set of armor you wore in your first battle that is oversized on you, and you like to put it back on because it feels comfortable, reassuring even."

Kjelle stares at me for a solid five seconds. Then, in a quiet voice she says. "How do you know that?"

"Outside information."

"Right." She takes a deep, surprisingly shaky breath. "That's really creepy you know."

"Yeah… sorta got that impression from talking with Noire about what I know about her." I mutter. "But yeah, I know things. Only specific things, but things. Including vaguely where to find all you future kids."

"Vaguely?"

"The map doesn't exactly have town names or roads or anything. I'm talking about dots on a world map with maybe some location clues like 'wyvern valley' or 'desert'." I say. "Oh, and I know the general scenario they'll be in. I knew you would be training under a master of some sort, and I knew Noire would be dealing with slavers."

"Slavers?" Kjelle says, and frowns. "I hope you dealt with them."

"There was three of us, above twenty of them, and Nathan doesn't really fight." Morgan says curtly. "No, we didn't fight them. We're not suicidal."

Kjelle's mouth presses into a line. She doesn't like that response, but she can't argue without looking like an ass. "So you just left them to keep operating?"

"Yes." Morgan says simply. "We told the town guard where we found them of course, but no one in the area was really equipped to deal with the situation. It's unfortunate, but there was little to be done."

Kjelle shakes her head. "I disagree."

"Well good for you. If you want to go off and die trying to take on twenty slavers with a group of three people, be my guest." Morgan says curtly. "In the meantime, we're headed for Ylisse to find more of us and hopefully our parents too."

Kjelle half sneers half grimaces at Morgan's words. It's an expression of general unhappiness and malcontent that seems very fitting on her face.

"You're welcome to come along if you won't sneer the entire time." Morgan says. Her tone is haughty and authoritative now, making it very clear that she is in charge of our little group and if Kjelle wants to come along Kjelle be listening to her.

"Not sure I want to if this is how it's going to be." Kjelle sneers back.

Noire wrings her hands in frustration. "Kjelle, please…"

"Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot." I say, attempting to salvage the situation. "Regardless of our disagreement on how we should have handled a past situation, we still have a common goal, don't we? And with you coming along Kjelle, we would be more well-equipped to deal with such situations in the future."

Kjelle glares at me, but it's not total hostility. My words registered, she's just not totally convinced.

Perhaps understanding being confrontational wasn't helping, Morgan also changes tactics. "It wasn't that we didn't want to help, we just didn't have the power to. Our numbers were insufficient. Tactics and strategy can only make up for so much, and at the end of the day we're even less useful if we're dead."

Kjelle glares a bit more, but sighs in resignation. "Fine. I still don't agree, but fine. I'll come along, but I'm in charge."

"Hell no." Morgan says cheerfully. "I'm a tactician, and Nathan is the closest to knowing where we're going."

"Noire?" Kjelle says. "Who do you think should be in charge?"

Noire is not exactly happy about having to choose a side, and it's a bit of a relief when she points to Morgan. Kjelle seems a bit miffed, but relents seeing she's been outvoted.

"Fine then. A good knight knows when to stay in line." Kjelle mutters. "I'll defer to you until we find Lucina."

"Lucina?" Morgan frowns. She glances at me. "Who's that again? You've mentioned her."

"Chrom's kid. One of them anyway." I say. "Leader of the future kids."

"Right." Morgan nods. "Cool, that's fine."

"But I have to finish up my duties here. I won't just abandon my master at an inconvenient time." Kjelle says. "You may have to wait."

"We're in no real rush. That's fine." Morgan nods. "We're staying at the Grey Rabbit. Drop by there when you want to find us I suppose. We'll wait."

Kjelle nods curtly and returns back to her duties. We take that as a sign to leave and make our way back into town.

###

Kjelle needs to stay for an additional month, so we settle into town for a bit. Well Kjelle doesn't need to stay, her master said she could leave immediately if she wanted to, but Kjelle doesn't want to feel like she's abandoning a job halfway through and we're not in any real rush all things considered (if we're near endgame there's not much we can do anyways, and if not we likely have a year or so if not more if we haven't even hit the timeskip yet).

Incidentally, I have been asking for news in each village we reach, but we're on the fringe of the country and so far away from any action that it's rare news actually reaches up here. So I have no idea if the Ylisse-Plegia war has happened or is currently happening, or if the world is in the Valm arc yet. Who knows what's happened! I'm currently acting under the tenuous assumption that the Valm arc hasn't started yet based on the location we found Noire. Usually Noire's paralogue happens on the total east end of Ferox, not the west end where we found her. Noire's paralogue opens up after you get Lucina, who you get at the end of the second chapter of the Valm arc. Ergo, I think the Valm arc hasn't started yet, but is very close.

Actually, why didn't the slavers have any griffon riders? Usually they have griffon riders. Was that even the same slaver group?

That's also assuming the world acts according to the game timeline of course. Maybe I'm totally wrong and Chrom hasn't even found Robin yet. That would be weird, but it could happen.

I really hope we don't find the Shepherds before they've even found Robin. That would make for a lot of explaining. Heck, it will take a lot of explaining if we find them before Lucina has revealed herself. We don't have the convenient proof of the brand of the Exalt on us.

Actually, maybe Kjelle does. Chrom can marry Sully right? I should ask her next time we see her.

In the meantime we relax. I was worried about our money until Morgan informed me that she had enough money to support all three of us for half a year if we need it. Not that we can waste money exactly, but we aren't immediately pressed.

I also make sure to pass on a warning to Kjelle's master about his death at the hands of… was it Cassady? Cassius? I think it was Cassius. From what Kjelle passes back, my warning doesn't change anything. If he dies trying to free a hostage, he'll have died honorably and he sees no shame in that. Not that he's going to lay down and die exactly, he can prepare now that he knows it's coming, but he's absolutely still going to confront Cassius.

Again, there's that familiar concept. Honor. Pride. Stupidity. Maybe I'm being a bit too mean, but it's hard not to sneer at someone who thinks "a fight I probably won't win and will die if I try to fight, and there's no reason for me to not back off and get help? Guess I'll die anyways to not mildly disappoint myself despite the fact that I know several people will miss me."

Or maybe his preparation will be enough and I'm being unnecessarily cruel. Who knows?

Anyhow, with a month to kill me and Morgan do the logical thing and burn down a forest. By that I mean we hunt, partially for food so we don't have to buy it all and partially so I can get practice with my crossbow. When I inevitably fail to hit something with my crossbow Morgan blows it out of the sky or off its feet with elfire so we don't lose prey because of my incompetence. It's from this hunting practice that I start to understand the issues with my current crossbow design… or more accurately the bolts. The bolts are small enough that they don't stay straight when being shot out of the crossbow. Sometimes they even scrape the side of the… barrel? What would I call that part? The chute? The furrow that the arrows follow when they're being shot, that thing. It has scrapes now because the bolts were too small. I spend some time trying new bolts over the month to find something that works better.

Anyhow, you can guess why we almost start a forest fire when we're using elfire to kill wildlife. It's only thanks to the remaining snow on the pine needles that the entire forest doesn't go up when Morgan's spell unexpectedly lights a tree on fire and catches the pine needles causing a suddenly massive fire that burns down the whole tree in minutes, and by some miracle doesn't jump to other trees.

It's a shame no one in the town sells tomes, because Morgan would gladly buy a thunder or wind tome after that near disaster.

Noire mostly keeps to herself. She also hunts, but she does so alone because me and Morgan just don't have her stealth. Otherwise she simply disappears for most of the day and returns for dinner. Morgan gave her some money to do with as she wished, like an allowance, so I assume that's getting used but I have no idea on what. It's not like there's dedicated entertainment here in a small town. Maybe she has work?

Speaking of work, seeing as I have a lot of free time and basically nothing to spend it on when not following Morgan around, I make a quick buck helping with simple labour. There's an old widow who lives on the edge of town who I end up working for. She mostly lives off support from the community as she's far too old to be doing labour. The money I get from her is honestly negligible considering what Morgan has, it amounts to a single silver, and that's probably because the old woman was generous considering the fact that most farmers make less than that a month, but it's my money that I didn't have to rely on Morgan to get. I'm not totally helpless in this world, I can do something. It's not yet enough for survival, but it's a start.

I have to start planning for eventually being on my own. If I can't get out of this world, I need some sort of skill that can make me money. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I know Morgan said she'd help me, but it would be rude and lazy to expect her to solve my problems for me.

In the time she spends by herself, Morgan spends a lot of time with the crude figurines she made going over combat scenarios and figuring out how to work with the four of us. From watching her do this on occasion I note that I've been assigned the figurine of a warrior. Not a fighter, not a barbarian, a warrior. I guess that's what I am actually. I have an axe and a bow just like a warrior. Morgan also tends to sit my figurine in the back alongside Noire, or else sometimes I'm absent entirely.

I appreciate that Morgan is keeping me out of the fights when possible, but I worry that it's going to bite us to have three backliners and only Kjelle in the front. Hopefully we won't have to fight at all, but I have a feeling Kjelle is going to drag us into at least one battle. As much as I don't want to get stabbed, I… no, no, never mind. I really don't want to get stabbed. Everyone else in the group is at least a semi-seasoned warrior, and I am not, and I do not intend to be.

Cowardly? Yes. But I never pretended I wasn't. I know when I read stories that go the way my experience has so far, you know, those self-insert/isekai type stories, the main character always ends up walking into a war or taking on a grand quest… well fuck that. War sucks and fighting sucks, and that's because you can fucking die, get crippled, or just get hurt, and I make a point of avoiding pain as much as possible. All you other self-insert nutcases can go around with your magic and enchanted weapons and get nearly killed half a dozen times and be in horrible pain. I'll sit in the back with my crossbow until we have enough people that I don't even have to participate anymore, and hopefully never suffer more than a scratch. I'll help the Shepherds with my vague future sight and never enter a proper battle.

That's the plan anyways.

I wonder if Morgan's battle simulations are based on a war game, or if she's making up results as she goes. It would be fun to learn a war game. That's something I can get on board with. Board games are eternal. I'll learn later though, when we're not mildly conserving money and when I actually have the space in my pack to carry a game (right now I can't keep too much because whenever I piggyback Morgan or Noire they have to carry both our packs).

Without a calendar, time seems to pass very slowly to me. I feel like much more than a month has passed, but it's been only a few weeks. I know because Kjelle stops by the tavern once a week to talk to us. Well, talk with Noire specifically. She still doesn't really like Morgan, and I don't think she trusts me.

With a combination of the work I was doing and using what we hunt to feed ourselves sometimes so we don't have to pay for every meal, we don't break even by any extent, but we save enough money to be worth our while.

I say that like Morgan's fifty plus gold can't support us for years if it needed to.

It's weird to think that one gold is a large amount of money in this world. Most farmers and the people we've come across count their monthly income in copper or maybe silver (and usually silver if they're a blacksmith or some skilled trade, in which case they need to buy food whereas farmer's don't, so their effective income is actually not that much higher if higher at all). Morgan is absurdly rich by comparison. It's not an understatement to say that Morgan probably has more money on her than the entire town combined.

That begs the question how she got so much money to begin with. Morgan obviously doesn't know, and neither do I. She had to come to this world for some reason, so she's probably from a ruined future. Maybe she just amassed it from looting Risen corpses? Maybe she planned ahead for arrival in this world and snagged money from somewhere? It would be easier to do that second thing I imagine because there would be no real use for gold in a ruined world, so it would be easier to get her hands on actual gold because everyone else is concerned about things like food and armor.

There's so much theory crafting I could do about how Morgan got her money, but it's not worthwhile. We'll never know why. Plus, for all I know Morgan was sent here as an agent of Grima and got her memory wiped by chance, and the money was from Grima themself to help her minion get established. There's so many random possibilities that I can't even make an educated guess.

It's a relief when Kjelle is finally done with her work and we get on the road again. I much prefer travelling to doing menial labour.

Tackling the issue that Nathan knows uncomfortable information in this chapter, as well as Morgan trying to figure out more about herself and getting Kjelle's recruitment out of the way. Also some more world-building both in terms of conveying information on how the world works. Mariana was fun.