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

Nathan.

"Noire, did you take my hexing materials?!" Tharja shouts across the ship with no regard for the people here trying to enjoy a nice day at sea.

Who am I kidding? We all stopped enjoying the sea after two weeks, much less two months.

"Those sunk, Mother!" Noire shouts in return, more out of necessity of speaking over the waves than because she wants to shout.

"Right." The dark mage says, her mouth turning up into a sneer. "I don't suppose you'd donate some of your blood to help refill my stock then?"

Noire shakes her head.

"Hmph, fine, tell me if you find someone who will." Tharja says. She turns around and stalks down below deck, throwing a parting: "I have a lot to replenish."

Noire narrows her eyes at her Mother's retreating form, and then returns to face me, holding up her sword. "Sorry about her…"

"I was expecting worse, honestly." I say. "Passive-aggressiveness is better than outright hostility."

We both know Tharja didn't have to ask that now, when she had no other business above deck and Noire is otherwise busy. No, the only reason Tharja bothered to ask now was because she knew Noire was training with me, and that I'd be here to hear it. That was a move of intentional spite.

This isn't the first incident either. The Shepherds aren't exactly happy that me and Morgan are more-or-less responsible for them losing all their personal possessions. Of course, it's easier to be snide towards the outworlder than the lead tactician's daughter, so as far as I'm aware (unless Morgan has been keeping silent about it) I'm getting most of the consequences.

Not that they're significant consequences considering how much me and Morgan caused them to lose. I was also correct in my prediction that the future kids basically didn't care, it was par for the course as far as they were concerned.

"Still…"

"You're not responsible for your mother, Noire." I soothe, and bring up my own sword. "Ready?

"I guess."

Sparring has become slightly less one-sided since the Shepherds' intensive training back at one of Duke Crius' forts. I don't mean that I ever win, but our skill gap is less drastic.

Though I imagine that's mostly because it's easy to improve at something when you sucked to start with, and it's much harder to improve when you're already good.

Fighting on the boat is always annoying. The swaying of the ship is something we've all gotten used to, but it does make it harder to make the quick foot movements necessary for melee combat. It's easy to be thrown off-balance.

Incidentally, Noire has fantastic balance. I do not. I blame Gaius for passing down some of his thief-ness to Noire.

"So," I say, after losing yet another round. Noire faked a stab and I tried to deflect it, and she got in a swipe from the side. "Has anything of interest happened in the last few weeks? I mean, I know there's only so much that can happen, but…"

If we weren't on the ship I would ask this question some other time, but me and Noire really haven't had much time to have our usual knitting sessions. I am- was- rather busy with woodworking, chores, and Morgan, and Noire has been learning dark magic from Tharja which has kept her quite occupied.

"Mother has been… Mother." Noire mumbles. "Otherwise, there's not all that much I can do after the accident. I lost all my supplies."

"Ah." Right, maybe I shouldn't have asked. "Erm… did you lose your ring?"

"No." She pulls (future) Tharja's ring out of her pocket. All the future kids have one, minus Morgan and Lucina because their other sibling has it. "We keep the rings on us specifically so we don't lose them if we have to leave somewhere quickly."

"Good." I say in slight relief. I imagine the future kids would be a lot more angry if I'd caused them to lose their rings.

"By the way, did you say something to Nah again?"

"Pardon?"

"She suddenly stopped avoiding Laurent, did you say something?" Noire asks. Then, before I can answer she says: "Well, I know you said something already. I talked to Nah, and she gave you credit."

"I assure you, whatever she said, she gave me too much."

"She said you called her a stalker until she stopped worrying about Laurent out of spite."

"Nevermind, that's exactly the right amount of credit." Granted, that was how our first talk went and not the second one, but it's more funny this way.

"S-So, I was w-wondering…" Noire stammers. "I-If you could help me too."

It takes me a moment to figure out what that means. "Wait, you mean for a relationship?"

"Yes."

What the fuck? Why am I the relationship advice guy? I'm flattered of course, but this is weird. "With all due respect, I can think of a dozen other people who would be better to ask than me."

"Not really." Noire flushes. "Y-You're the least scary, and won't mock me, and your advice has worked before."

I can't really argue with that. "Well alright then. If you're sure. I'm happy to help if I can. What's the problem?"

"There isn't much of a problem yet… because there isn't anything yet." Noire admits sheepishly.

Ahh, so a similar situation to Nah initially but less stalker-y? "Feeling shy?"

"Yes…" Noire mumbles.

Sounds to me less that she needs advice and more that she just wants someone to talk to. Still, my inner shipper is delighted by this. "Why, exactly?"

"W-Well… remember what we've talked about before?"

"You mean you being worried about turning out like your mother?"

"Yes."

"Noire…" I say softly.

"I know, I know!" She wrings her hands. "I probably won't turn out like her! Th-That's not exactly what I mean. I'm not worried about being mean, I'm worried about being weird."

"You're a semi-traumatized dimension hopper from an apocalyptic future, I'm afraid you can't do much about that." I tease.

"Not that!" Noire huffs. "Brady is-" She freezes. "Uh…"

"Brady huh?" I say, smiling. My favourite pairing, what a pleasant surprise. "My, a taste for royals. Go right for the money, huh?"

"Nooo!" Noire hides her face in her hands. "That's not it!"

"I know Noire." I say, and pat her shoulder. "I'm joking. In seriousness, you're no weirder than him. He might not act it most of the time, but he's plenty odd. There's nothing to worry about on that end."

"Oh, good."

I'm surprised she's willing to simply take my word for it. Outside information privilege, or trust? Both? Does it matter? Not really. "Was that all? Only general nerves aside from that?"

"W-Well…" She glances from side to side. There are plenty of people on the deck, but no one is paying particular attention to us, and the ocean waves muffle our voices to anyone not immediately around us. Her fingers nervously twine together. Her voice lowers, and I have to lean in to hear her speak. "I'm always being stared at whenever we enter a town or village or just meet new people, so I wanted to know if there's something off with the way I look…?"

An amused smile crosses my face. Noire's shoulder's hunch, maybe thinking I'm not taking this seriously, so I speak quickly to placate her. "Noire, your appearance is just about the last thing you're ever going to need to worry about."

"Wh-What? What do you mean?" Noire asks anxiously.

"If there's one thing you got from Tharja, it's her looks." I say. "And, at least where I come from, Tharja is unambiguously considered one of, if not the most attractive person in the game. If people are staring, it's not because there's something wrong. Likely they're staring for the exact opposite reason."

Noire's face flushes red again. "O-Oh."

"So yeah, don't worry about it. You're more than fine on that front." I reassure her.

"Th-Thanks." She mumbles. "Uh… I should mention… I already asked Severa, and she told me the same as you basically, but I just wanted someone else to say it. Sorry for being selfish."

"S'fine." I say. "Always nice to hear it from another person."

"Yes." She nods. "And, uh, hearing it from a boy…"

Considering the topic, fair enough. "You could always talk to Inigo if you need reassurances about yourself." I suggest jokingly.

Noire scrunches up her nose at me. "Sincere words from a boy."

"I'm sure Inigo will be offended."

"Don't tell him about this." Noire says quickly.

"I won't, it was a joke." I soothe.

We go back to sparring after that. I still lose a lot.

###

"You can't make me!"

"I can and I will."

"No!"

"Yes."

Morgan glares at me as I daintily pick up the papers she was staring at and pointedly move them aside. "I'm not done!"

"You've been studying for nine hours."

"And I'm making progress!"

"Good. Then you've done enough for the day."

"No! I have to keep studying! We're going to war Nathan!"

"That's been the case for the last two months, and you haven't been studying this much for more than a few days." I reply. "Clearly it's not necessary."

"I was being foolish!"

"No, you were being reasonable with how much work you could be expected to do in a day." I say. "Overworking yourself today will only make tomorrow that much less efficient."

"Says you!"

"Says science."

"Fucking science…"

"Now come on, up, time for dinner."

"Up? Did you seriously just say 'up'?" Morgan frowns. "Like I'm a child?"

"Yes." I say without a hint of remorse.

"I'm taller than you Nathan!"

"And I'm older. Your point?"

"I'm an adult! You can't tell me to 'up'!"

"You don't look like an adult."

Morgan abruptly pushes out her chair and the legs grind against the floor. She stands up to her full height, which is a head and a half taller than me now (she's still growing? Geeze) and puts her hands on her hips while glaring down at me. "Oh really?"

"Yep." I say, popping the P sound. I reach up and squish her cheeks. "Hard to look adult when you're grumpy."

Her nose scrunches up in indignation. I think she was going to make a comment about how she can't be a child if she's so attractive, but I took the wind right out of her sails by focusing on her attitude rather than her appearance.

"And look, you're up!" I say in as sweet and patronizing a voice as I can manage. "Good girl!"

"I hate you Nathan."

"Love you too dear." I say with a grin. "Now, come come, dinner time."

"Don't you 'come come' me." She grumbles, but does indeed follow me out the door. "Even if I'm a kid, I'm not a dog."

"I dunno…" I tease. "I distinctly remember you accepting me calling you a bitch at some point, and that's a dog in case you forgot."

Her eyes narrow, and I smile innocently. "I guess I'm not snuggling you tonight."

"Oh? You're sleeping on the floor?"

"Wha-? No!" Morgan protests. "If anything, you should-!"

"Me? Because you're being grumpy?" I say. "How unjust! I've only tried to make you have dinner and relax!"

Morgan is thoroughly frustrated by this point, reinforced by the fact that while (admittedly) I'm being a complete asshole about it, I am technically telling the truth. "I hate you Nathan."

"You already said that."

"It bears repeating."

"Well that's just rude." I say, still smiling. "And I was only trying to be nice too."

Morgan glares again, and I finally decide to drop the act. She'll find this funny in retrospect (as in, when she wakes up tomorrow), but for now she's not in the mood.

"Seriously though." I drop the half-humming voice I use when teasing. "Working for that long on the same thing can't be good for you. Did you even have lunch?"

"Yes!" She protests. "I did! I'm not incompetant!"

"Good."

"I mean, Dad got me lunch." Morgan admits after a second. "At three in the afternoon, but I did have lunch."

I shake my head. "Not helping your case for not being a child if your parents have to get your meals for you."

"Shut up." She grumbles, but the annoyance in her voice is already mostly gone. "Dad only got it because you didn't."

"Oh? I'm a servant now?"

"Well your job is to do most of the chores…"

"Fair point. That's pretty servant-ish."

"So I would have my boyfriend getting my meals, not Father, if everything went according to plan." She huffs.

"Much less childish."

"Exactly. You'd be a good boyfriend doting on me rather than having fun with other girls." She says.

I roll my eyes fondly. "Uh-huh."

"Can't have Noire stealing my boyfriend."

"You know Noire. A regular homewrecker that one."

"Exactly."

"Actually, she ended up asking me for advice on how to deal with Brady, so just about the opposite of a homewrecker."

Morgan blinks in surprise. "Really?"

"Yep."

"That's… wow. Okay then. Not to sound rude, but why you? By your own admittance you're fumbling your way through our own relationship."

"Something about me not being scary." I shrug. "And me being a boy. That was important too."

"Weird."

"Yeah."

"Does this officially make you the advice guy? Dispenser of outworld wisdom? Because that's both Nah and Noire who've come to you for advice now."

"Nah didn't come to me."

"But she listened, didn't she?"

"True…"

"So there you have it. You're the advice guy."

Two people listening to me makes me the advice guy? "Whatever you say Morgan."

"I mean, technically the entire military of Ylisse is listening to your advice in case you forgot, because it's your notes we're basing our war plan on."

Fair point. No pressure. Also, Morgan is in a much better mood now. Unintentional success?

Dinner is a quiet affair, mostly because we're getting dinner later than most so there's very few people. As we eat I search Morgan's face and I can see the redness in her eyes from the strain of looking at small text all day. She's not as energetic as she usually is either. No lewd jokes, minimal banter (and all at my instigation), and a lot of minor stretching.

Morgan hasn't exercised yet today, has she? No wonder she was so grumpy. I guess I'm dragging her above deck before we turn in for the night. I don't like exercise, but it's useful enough that I can't ignore it.

Predictably, Morgan isn't exactly happy about me prodding her up to the deck a short while after dinner, but I use the power of science to convince her to come up and do some sparring.

"If I wanted to exercise I could do it in our room." Morgan complains when I push a wooden sword into her hand.

"There's barely space to do push ups in our room, much less anything more substantial." I scoff.

"I could… uh…"

"My point exactly."

"I wasn't done! I was going to say we could wrestle."

I raise an eyebrow. "You know, if you weren't tired and unenthusiastic right now, that might actually sound suggestive."

Morgan groans and her shoulders sag. "Well, I just wasted perfectly good material then."

"You did." I nod. "Don't flirt when you're tired."

"That's the lesson." Morgan agrees. "I'm still going to win this spar even if I'm tired, by the way."

"I don't doubt it."

And win she does. In fact, I'm probably more tired than she is by the time we're done a few rounds, because I spent the day sparring with Noire, doing chores, and helping reorganize all the supplies we commandeered from the two surviving Chon'sinese pirate ships (incidentally, we scuttled the other one after determining it would be too much effort to man both ships).

At least Morgan seems less grumpy now that she's gotten an opportunity to actually release her energy. It's weird how you can be tired from not doing anything as much as you can from doing too much.

I'm going to have to pay more attention to Morgan overworking herself. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. She's had plenty of late nights; Robin too now that I think of it. As much as I don't want to police her actions, someone has to make sure she keeps a healthy schedule, and if it's not going to be Robin it's gotta be me.

I mean, I'm going to keep an eye on her either way, so I guess that's a moot point.

###

"After we get back from this war, I'm done with boat travel for the rest of my life." Is the first thing Severa says when she steps off the boat and onto Chon'sinese soil. She promptly trips on flat ground because we're all used to the rocking floor of the boat and nearly topples off the dock into the water.

With that in mind, me and Morgan take much more caution in our descent. We're already stumbling like drunks, we don't need a soaking to reinforce the idea thank you very much.

"Nya ha ha! Wow! This must be what it feels like to be dying! Cool!" Henry says cheerfully as he wobbles around on the dock. He's the only one of the Shepherds that is amused by this.

Soon enough someone responsible for recording ships that come and go from the docks (I don't know the term. Wharfmaster? Portmaster? Something like that) comes to figure out who the fuck we are and consequently runs off to get someone more important after fiding out that we're the Shepherds.

Soon enough the Shepherds find themselves being escorted to… somewhere (I can't understand what the man is saying through his accent) while Chrom and Robin explain the attack at sea.

There's brief confusion over exactly where us Shepherds are going to be housed because half of us are some type of aristocracy rather than random villagers who enlisted- although some of us are also that- so they don't want to shove us to some campsite and risk being seen as rude. Chrom and Robin and their associated family members are offered rooms at some important-looking building, and the rest of us get spots at a decent inn.

Morgan forgoes staying with her Father in preference for staying with me. It's unclear exactly what the Shepherds are supposed to do (aside from Chrom and Robin who are going to be spending a long-ass time talking with the military guy, I didn't catch his rank), so everyone naturally goes shopping to recoup all the things they've lost.

Me and Morgan do the same, but as there is surprisingly little we need to buy that won't be purchased by the Shepherds as a whole (I need new woodworking tools and Morgan needs some more ink and quills, and we both need backpacks) we decide to explore the city.

By that I mean that I decide to explore the city and drag Morgan along so she doesn't spend five hours squinting at a map.

"I was not going to do that." Morgan protests when I bring it up.

I raise an eyebrow at her in disbelief.

"I had at least two maps."

"So much better."

"I need to study Nathan! You never know what situation we're going to run into!"

"I know."

"And it's better to over-prepare than under-prepare."

"I know."

"Then why are you stopping me!?"

"Because you've already studied for four hours today, and I know you're going to be looking at those maps as soon as we get back up until you go to sleep, so you're going to be doing plenty of study today despite this one or two hour diversion." I say. "But you shouldn't study literally all day long, so shut up and do something else for an hour damnit."

"I could eat."

"For an hour?"

"Throughout the day... total. While working."

I give her a flat, unimpressed look. She huffs.

"Nathaaan."

"Not gonna be swayed by that Morgan."

"Fine." She mutters. "I liked it better when I was in charge…"

"You can go back to being in charge when you aren't spending nine hours a day staring at the same piece of paper and ruining your eyes." I say. "I'm just 'being a good boyfriend' as you'd say."

"I know, I agree, and I hate it."

"I'll give you a massage or something to make you less grumpy when we get back."

"Don't you bribe me… but I accept."

###

"Nathan, buddy, pal!"

I give the man a side-eye as he throws an arm around my shoulders. "Inigo."

"Listen, I've got a little request."

"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow. If this is his standard request of trying to get someone to be his wingman, I'm saying no. "And what's that?"

"You know things, right?"

"Yes…" I guess I am the advice guy.

"Tell me how to pick up girls."

"Uh… that's one of the few things I can't help you with." I cough.

"That sounds like a lie to me. You can advise Nah and Noire, but not me?" Inigo scoffs. "I don't believe for a second you can advise a girl and not me."

"It's a lot easier to explain what a theoretical boy might like, because I am one, than a theoretical girl." I say flatly. "So no, it's much easier to advise Noire or Nah than you."

"But you know body language and stuff, right?"

"To a very basic extent." I admit, then frown. "Where did you hear that? That's not knowledge I just throw around."

"Morgan knows about it, so I assume you taught her."

"As a matter of fact, I did not teach her." She learned that from Anna and from experimentation.

"Whatever. You can still help me."

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. "I'm pretty sure body language isn't going to save you. Your problem is that you're a sleaze, not that you don't pose currently."

"Hey now, I see a nice girl and I ask for her company, is that so wrong?"

"Yes."

"Well aren't you a killjoy…" He mutters. "I just want a fun date, you act like I'm planning to rob them."

Rob them of their time and good mood maybe, but perhaps I am being a bit uncharitable towards him. After all I know the game, so I know all Inigo's more distasteful actions are to put on a carefree front and aren't necessarily intended to be as sleazy as they come off.

Fine, fine. I guess I can take pity on him. "Fine. I guess I can offer a bit of help, but there really is only so much I can offer." I sigh. "So, believe it or not, women lead the metaphorical dance-"

"I'd like to think I'm a bit more forward than most." Inigo interrupts.

"Yeah, and that's why you fail so often." I say bluntly. "Cold calling is an exercise in futility. Some people can pull it off, but you clearly aren't one of them judging by your track record. If you don't get the go ahead first, you're probably just going to be an unwelcome intruder rather than a pleasant surprise."

"Fine then, what's this 'go ahead' you're talking about?" Inigo asks skeptically.

"A bunch of small things actually. Fleeting eye contact, smiles, playing with hair, pelvic tilt, small amounts of self touching- don't give me that look, I mean the neck and whatnot- tilting the head…"

"But- but- those are all really common things."

"I know."

"How are you supposed to tell what's flirtation and what's not!?"

"I have no idea."

Inigo throws up his hands. "Well thanks for nothing then!"

"Hey, I said there was only so much I could offer. Just because I know the signals doesn't mean I can distinguish flirtation from normal actions." I shrug. "I know the theory of flirtation, that's about it."

"But Morgan-"

"Was way more upfront than is standard and outright told me she was interested; not to mention me and Morgan are really weird." I say flatly. "It had nothing to do with me figuring out flirtation cues. Actually, you could probably ask Morgan about flirtation and get better advice. She's studied this shit for her politics work."

"Tried that. She said she'd rather let me struggle."

Yeah, that's about what I expect out of Morgan. "Well then… I dunno, ask someone, a girl, and actually listen. Ask Severa."

"Are you crazy?"

Apparently. Out of all the people I could have suggested I said Severa? What was I thinking? "Fine, ask Cynthia. Noire. Sumia even. Then actually listen to what they say. Either that or pay attention when you make future attempts. Try to figure out what constitutes a cue and what's normal. These cues wouldn't be around if they weren't recognizable to some extent."

"And if I can't do either of those things?"

"Then you're shit out of luck. Beg Morgan more or something."

"Well you're not helpful." Inigo complains.

"Well excuse me." I say, not bothering to disguise the annoyance in my voice. "I'm hardly an expert. I've given you as much information as I can for you to work with. Take it or leave it."

"Your information is useless though! You already said there's no difference from normal behaviour!"

"No, I said I can't recognize the difference from normal behaviour. If you can't either, that's your problem."

"But-"

"Are we done here? Or do you want to keep complaining that I don't know more about this one specific thing that I told you up front I didn't know too much about?"

Inigo glares at me and stomps off. I sneer at his back as he leaves.

###

"-a dozen replacement steel swords, axes, spears, and bows, thirty javelins, five hundered arrows, three warhorses, half a dozen draft horses to pull the carts… anything I'm missing? Anything I should take off?"

Cordelia looks over my list with a critical eye. "Why so many weapons?" Her tone is even, not challenging. This is a test. Cordelia is the Shepherds' unofficial quartermaster, and I'm still learning how to identify how many supplies we need at any given time.

"Well, as much as I realize everyone still has their backup weapons, weapons will still break or get lost. Our group isn't massive, so I doubt we need an excessive amount, but I figured a dozen of each should cover a decent length of time."

"You're not wrong." Cordelia nods, and I feel relief that my logic was acceptable. "However, you've made one miscalculation."

"Which is?"

"We need fewer swords and more lances." Cordelia says. "Six and twenty, I think. Spears tend to break more than other weapons as their shafts might snap when used with sufficient force or hit by an enemy in the right place. Swords are rarely lost or disarmed and all of their dents can be sharpened out, necessitating fewer outright replacements. Axes are somewhere in the middle, mostly due to how unwieldy they can be."

"Right." I mutter, and hastily make an edit to the list. "Anything else?"

"Food."

I stare at my list, flipping from page to page. "Uh… yeah." I say, disappointed in myself. "Food would be a good idea."

Cordelia only smiles and shakes her head. "I can't understand how you always forget something, and something different every time no less."

"My memory is awful, sue me."

"You can recall an entire game, but not what amounts to an extended shopping list?"

"Fine, my memory is highly specific in what it cares to remember. Better?"

"More accurate perhaps, though I wouldn't say better." Cordelia hums. "I think you've done well for everything else. I'll run it by Robin after you're done adding food to the list. Perhaps our grand tactician has a plan which will require some special supplies."

I doubt it. I make a quick calculation for how much food we're going to need for the next few months and write it down. My handwriting is sloppy compared to Cordelia's, despite my best efforts to write slowly and carefully. It probably doesn't help that I'm printing in comparison to Cordelia's beautiful cursive.

I shouldn't be surprised, I haven't done much writing since we left Ylisstol all those months ago.

Cordelia snaps up the list once I'm done writing and gives me a short nod as a goodbye before walking off to find Robin. That leaves me to find something to do, which is harder than you might expect. Because we're travelling through Chon'sin to the Mila Tree, we're stopping in inns rather than camping so there are no camp chores for me to do. It makes my life a lot easier, but with Morgan constantly busy and without any money- Morgan would absolutely give me some of hers if I asked, but I'd hate to still be taking her money two years into living in this world- to buy new woodworking supplies because all my money sunk with the ship, I haven't gotten my next paycheck (or whatever it's called in medieval times, I just know I get paid monthly), and my next paycheck wouldn't be enough to buy all the tools I want anyways.

I really wish I had a coat like Morgan's, then I could keep two million things in my pockets and never have to risk losing anything. Everyone should just have cool longcoats. That's the solution to the world's problems.

They're probably really expensive though.

As I'm reluctant to go wandering around alone in a foreign country, I stick close to the inn while searching for something to do. I settle on helping Cynthia care for the pegasi. I'm not particularly comfortable with animals, and Snowflake still doesn't like me all that much, but I'll take it.

"Start at the wing bone, you want to brush in the direction of the feathers." Cynthis instructs. "Don't use too much force. Loose feathers tend to dislodge on their own, so unlike brushing fur you don't need to push into the wing. There's no tangled hair to get rid of."

"Got it." I say, trying to find a grip on the long, wide-toothed comb. Snowflake is giving me an annoyed side-eye, but is keeping his wing out for me to brush. "Does it have to be Snowflake? I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me."

"Do you really want to risk doing something wrong with Mom or Cordelia's pegasus and then have to explain it? I sure don't." Cynthia says.

"Good point." I mutter.

"Besides, Snowflake is a sweetie, aren't you buddy?" Cynthia coos, and scratches the pegasus' head. Snowflake leans into her touch, and his wings tremble slightly in rhythm with her scratches. "Who's my beautiful boy?"

Snowflake huffs, and I swear he rolls his eyes, but he doesn't pull away.

"So don't worry about it." She tells me. "Even if he doesn't like you, he's a good boy."

It takes a few strokes to get used to the oversized comb. Pegasus feathers are as long as my forearm and quite wide as well, hence the large size of the comb. At first I'm brushing too lightly, barely touching the wing, and then too much, causing Snowflake to snort at me and tug his wing away for a moment. The exact pressure needed is in that awkward middleground of technically needing you to use a bit of force, but that amount is so small that it's hard to tell if you're applying any at all.

Once I get it right, Cynthia nods approvingly. "Good. That's perfect. See how some feathers are falling out? You need just enough force to dislodge loose feathers without damaging the others. Snowflake hasn't had much exercise recently so there's not a lot of loose feathers to begin with, so don't worry if it doesn't look like you're removing anything."

It takes a dozen minutes to do both wings, if only because this is my first time doing it (combing the wings is usually a five minute process according to Cynthia). As I do so, a question occurs to me. "How do pegasi keep their feathers in order?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I know birds preen their feathers with oil to make sure the little hairs on each feather stay together and provide proper wind resistance so they can fly, how do pegasi do that?"

"Oh! Pegasi use oil too." Cynthia explains. She seems very eager all of a sudden. "They've got special glands along the top of their wings that produce it. They can't spread it on their own that well, so in the wild two pegasi would stand one wing distance away from each other facing in opposite directions with the relevant wing extended, and then slowly walk forward while rubbing their wing against the other's to spread oil. As pegasus riders we play the part of the other pegasus using the comb to spread the oil."

I lift up the comb in curiosity, and can indeed see small beads of liquid on the teeth of the comb. "Fascinating..."

"I know, cool huh?" Cynthia chirps. "I'm not going to let you poke at Snowflake's wings though, I made the mistake of letting Laurent do that. He's lucky Snowflake is so tolerant."

That sounds like something Miriel would do, not Laurent. Guess he has even more of his mother in him than I expected. "No worries there, I wouldn't risk it anyways."

Cynthia slowly walks me through the rest of basic pegasus care. After combing the wings there's brushing the fur, dealing with stains, dealing with the mane and tail, and the hooves… it takes a while, especially because I'm new.

As I continue to work and Cynthia continues to teach, conversation meanders to various topics. I steer clear of any talk about the imminent war, and so does she. There's not even talk about what we're going to do when we get back from the war. We talk purely about the past if we discuss our lives at all.

I end up explaining video games to Cynthia.

"-a whole bunch of them. Just two short of nine hundred, and definitely more to come." I say. "Surprisingly, there's been no pegasus Pokemon yet. There's a bunch of them based on mythical creatures, but no pegasus yet."

"But pegasi are great!" Cynthia protests.

"I know, and they're not exactly unknown mythological creatures either. It's weird." I shrug. "Maybe it's because Nintendo is Japanese? Maybe pegasi aren't known in Japan? Then again, Fire Emblem is also made by Nintendo, so… hell if I know."

"It's a crime!" Cynthia huffs. "How can they not have the best animal?"

"They're delusional I suppose."

"Clearly."

Snowflake huffs in annoyance at this conversation he can barely understand. I'm just grateful he doesn't kick me in the face as I clean his hooves. It's weird to think I'm only doing this because Cynthia is enthusiastic about teaching people pegasus care.

Or maybe she just wants company. After all, every Shepherd seems to be unusually dedicated to whatever pastime they can find for themselves lately, and I know full well it's to avoid dwelling on the war that none of us want to talk about.

Either way, I'm grateful for the distraction. Now I just have to drag Morgan out of our room to actually eat something (she better not have skipped lunch again…) and today will be sort of okay. I'll have successfully avoided thinking about the fact we're getting to the Mila tree in less than a week, and will probably be seeing active combat only a few days after.

Fuck.

This chapter exists. Incidentally, Nathan's dynamic with Nah and Noire (and sort of Inigo) is what I had in mind for him a long time ago before I eventually made a mess of this story. The original plan, before I fucked it up, was to have Nathan be a pseudo parent or older brother for most of the second generation. The advice guy, as Morgan puts it. So now I'm finally getting around to that original plan. Took long enough.