A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates. Rough week irl

Track 8: From Place to Place

"Big Brother Ignis?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Snooping"

"Again?"

"Yeah"

"Why?"

"Because reasons"

"You know that's rude and weird, right?"

"Little Sister Azura, it's not a problem if they don't find out"

"…You're not denying it being rude or weird?"

"Can't really do"

"…I will come visit you in the dungeon when I can"

"Don't forget to bring me cookies"

"That I can't promise"

"Can't, won't, or don't want to?"

"Yes"

"Azura, I love you, but you can be quite mean sometimes, you know?"

"You're a bad example, big brother"

"Then why do you follow?"

"Shouldn't I?"

I gasp in mock surprise. "My little sister is beco- aw nuts, they moved"

An awkward pause.

"…You're not going to follow them?"

"Even I have standards, dammit"

"Huh… do you now?"

"Yes!"

Another pause.

"Azura, do you even know what standards mean in this context?"

"Not really"

"Then why did you follow?"

"Did it hurt you?"

"I mean… kind of?"

"There you go"

"…I've created a monster, haven't I?"

I'll forever remember the first time Azura made an observation I wasn't sure how to feel about, namely the fact that I was something of an eavesdropper, and of course I couldn't convince her of my intentions being pure, for greater justice, and it stuck ever since. To be fair, she wasn't completely wrong, though being called out on it so blatantly, it took quite an inhuman amount of willpower to not plop facefirst into my book and down to the hallway's tiled floor. The grimoire I had been using as cover did slip away from my fingers, however.

My ward! My sweet cover of deceit! My shield from the prying eyes, blown to smithereens!

Girl has no tact, no chill, and no mercy, I swear. I usually spied on the maids (not that way, dammit!), as their gossip was… juicy and holy hell how it helped to keep up to date with the new occurrences around the castle. Of course I didn't trust everything I heard from them blindly, as I cross-referenced it first with Arete if it seemed important enough, as it was gossip first and foremost, after all.

You'd be surprised how much info leaked around the castle no matter how hard Garon tried to hide it, anyways.

Not that it's stopped me ever since, if this latest exchange is anything to go by.

Women are truly mysterious creatures.

In all honesty though, the process of leaking and mangling information usually began by the guardsmen and soldiers who were either at the right place at the wrong time, or near the wrong persons at the right times, and after that it became the broken telephone game where basically the whole staff of the castle played along both knowingly and unknowingly into this massive web full of hiccups, interruptions, loopbacks and distortion until "King Garon skipped his greens today" becoming "Master Iago wants to [REDACTED]" is a common result (WHAT THE HELL YOU FILTHY DEGENERATES!?). The recipient getting changed somewhere along the way is the worst.

…All of this is quite an exercise, mind you, especially getting to where the more reliable information tends to come from and end, and who in particular tend to twist the information the most.

…And this is also one of my new bad habits. I didn't keep in touch with my social circles whatsoever if I could avoid it outside of the absolute bare minimum in my previous life, and I'm sure past me would have been horrified in seeing the despicable creature I have become. But holy shit I need to entertain myself with something outside of magic and pointy metal sticks of killing before I go insane, and all of my pastimes from before are basically unavailable. I know I lack discipline in a lot of stuff, as my music classes have been coming along very slowly, but the lack of distractions is driving me nuts.

Which is why I may or may not have been part of that telephone line a few times, both to truly get information spread around the castle for my agenda with Arete, trace back information (this was one of the rarer uses though, way too complicated and 99.9% of the time not worth it)… and to get some kicks out of it.

Having mangled "Miss Rachael (Rosetta's mother) changed her ointments" into a questionable of "Miss Rachael's begun a slime treatment" (never got to know if there's actually slime treatments in Nohr and was honestly too afraid to ask) devolve into "Miss Rachael's contracted parasitical feet fungi" merely by mentioning truffles offhandedly during a semi-related conversation was hilarious.

Especially when Bethzabel (Lorraine's mother) handed some form of strong-smelling ointment to Rachael during dinner, telling her smugly that "She should know better" and Ornella (Marcus' mother) also chided in saying she could guide her to a "specialist". I almost broke into a fit of mad laughter, and I swear some of the maids in the dining hall also were about to burst in tears. Arete's dumbfounded expression was also priceless; and father, you may not be around much these days, and I fucking swear I'll be the first one to notice when you start ranting about some particular dragon and blood and thunder, but your poker face was absolutely hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

Anyways, this has become a morbid form of entertainment for me to fuck with the concubines. I know I really need a hobby, because a 9 year old playing this kind of thing is not quite normal, I think, even less so with the effort I often put into it.

And yeah, my birthday came a few weeks ago, woohoo? We're now in September, and the temperature's already dropping back to near zero levels.

For the most part, things have slowly started getting quite restless, because Xander's next birthday will be a big deal… for all of us siblings. There's been a big change of plans. The 7 year olds and up until Norbert, we're all going to start training together with Xander. And this was a surprise even for me, the one who's usually one step or two ahead thanks to Arete relaying important info. This is gonna suck, and I don't know what the hell possessed Garon to make this; both Arete and I are still investigating what caused this turn of events, and so far the best conclusion I've personally drawn is that the tensions with Hoshido are rising. The details regarding exactly when Leo (being the youngest of the original war-oriented Nohrian siblings) exactly began training are honestly fuzzy to me, but if I'm not misremembering, Leo actually did train alongside Xander at some point, which was where his resentment took roots as Xander is, to put it bluntly, a complete monster as a soldier and fighter.

As for Marcus and below, I honestly have no clue. Marcus has just a few months of practice in. He's just begun his education, and he has not held a training sword before, he's 5 years old, for frick's sake! Not even Camilla and I held training blades until we were well a year in and had gone through some hellish physical drills. Lucas and Rosetta for their parts are way younger to boot, and if all of this is pointing to Garon starting his descent into madness via Anankos, this means the Cheve incident from canon is not as far as I imagined.

Shit, we're already getting there.

We are actually walking to that path.

Or maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself. I've been acting a bit erratically, and I know, I'm coping as best as I can, but I can't help but be stressed for a number of reasons.

What if Arete dies in this interval?

If Corrin's kidnapping actually goes through?

If Azura's kidnapping also goes through? She's also brightening up and opening up slowly but surely, and I think she very much despised Nohr as a whole in canon.

And that's not even mentioning the butterflies I think I've caused already.

Camilla isn't close to any siblings, not even Azura, not to Leo from what I know, and definitely not to me.

Leo seems to be quite stable and not hung-up on Xander, which may just displace Brynhildr from canon if only slightly, though I'm not too worried about this particular part of this topic.

Norbert is well and alive and so are a number of other children who didn't originally make it.

I want to think that the Concubine Wars may well be set to go on a different route. If Corrin is to be taken in say, 2 years, that's still 2 years before Xander picks up Siegfried and he himself takes reign of the situation. By Nohrian law men are adults once they're 16 and women once they're 14, which is why Xander can officially assume his position and start enforcing his will officially when he hits that age. From what little I remember from Camilla's supports, she never mentioned the exact time the wars ended, and I want to think that her referring to herself as a "child" was somewhat in line with my standings of age from my previous world.

Because if she wasn't and was actually talking as if she was talking in universe at face value, then it won't be too long until she becomes "an adult" (and also me by proxy, but that's neither here nor there), and this causes a fuckton of cultural dissonance with me. I know that in ye olden times back from my world, the age at which one was considered adult was often defined by a number of factors, including but not necessarily limited to customs ingrained by lifestyle (which branches from a LOT of things), the mortality rate as well as the birth rate, life expectancy, medical advancements, and so on and on.

But between knowing and actually living it is a world of difference. If I understand it correctly, there are no proper "teenage" or "puberty" phases in the social sense for Nohr, as in you're either a kid training to do a job, or you're an adult. There is no in-between, no true phase for discovery of the self and the like.

When I realized that, it hit me quite harshly.

Bastard children as we were, we still were Princes and Princesses of Nohr, from the womb to the dust; and if Nohr shall go to war, we are to follow through. We are expected to lead the people, bleed by them, bleed with them, and die with them if necessary.

"For the Glory of Nohr!"

Haaaah….

Iago would love to drill me split in half if he heard this ranting, berating me that of course I was a prince and hindsight is 20/20 and all that and that I should be ashamed for discarding his "superior" lessons like that.

Iago, if your lessons were as great as you think they are, you would've roped li'l ol'me into playing the part Garon wants of me.

Oooh, will write that down somewhere. I just know I'll be able to use that on him sometime in the near future. I can actually go full-on with that type of snarky remarks for a good couple hours, actually. Got enough salt to go on for a while, after all.

Whatever the case, I don't particularly have love for Nohr as a country; I'll leave that up Xander's alley. I simply don't love places on such a grand scale, I'm just not that kind of person, even today, second childhood in. I could grow to love a home, a small place, heck, I think I grew to like my city of that life long past, even if my memories were fuzzy and not all of them good.

Is it because my pride is different? Too self-focused or self-indulgent? Is it because I'm fundamentally "alien" to Nohr on principle? I decided I would live this life for myself and my siblings, but I often find that we are not walking the same path. Whether it be our human nature making us unable to truly understand, refuse to understand, or stopping us from reaching out in the first place, or even forces greater than our own dictating our lives (Hello, reincarnated schmuck here!), or merely just me overthinking everything again and refusing to fit in out of a twisted sense of self-gratification, I am not able to love a "country" that has done nothing for me but bring me pain.

I don't think I can grow to ever love Nohr, not even remotely close to what Xander, and possibly the other royal children hold.

I was often berated that I often focused so much on the picture right in front of me that I forgot the details and side views, both in my previous life as well as this current one.

…Something I committed murder on. In hindsight.

Have I really changed that much? Even if I have no names for the memories of my past self to attach to, even if I don't physically look the same anymore, even if I have now two childhoods and a semblance of an adulthood to rely on, why do I keep making the same mistakes?

I can't in good conscience act as a Prince with this mindset when I have nothing but disinterest for the nation I'm supposed to lord over, but I'll have to nonetheless, because there is no other option for me other than going onwards. Because even after all this, we still have a motherfucking apocalypse looming about and threatening to ruin our day.

So at the end of the day, I'll keep walking onwards, because there's literally nothing else to do for me. Not because I have an obligation to Nohr or its people as a Prince, but just because it's the right thing to do, I guess?

Holy shit, wonder how much that conviction will last me on the battlefield. At least put in some effort! After all this time, I still have things to follow through, and I refuse like hell to let the work I've done, minuscule as it might be, be for naught.

I met Arete two nights after our new schedules were announced. By that time things had already begun mobilizing, and Arete had received some news regarding the Court and our little projects. A bunch of mixed results, sadly.

In order: The fertilizers and crop rotations are varying in effectiveness. Turns out that the areas near the borders nearest to the Bottomless Canyon are promising, because there's been a slight increase to some crops, most importantly potatoes, which is very good; potatoes are noble as hell, and can survive a lot of punishment and harsh conditions and are easy to both transport and carry, so with just a little bit of love they're blooming nicely, and even the quality of the very sparse territories we've got in the colder sections, like Armos, are eager to start.

Chinampas, however, were a lot more mixed as expected. Simply put, too much of the water in the swamps and bogs is unsuitable for crop growing, not to mention that the farmers are still having problems getting accustomed to such a strange method of farming. However, certain countries with the tamer conditions like the Nohrian lands near to Nestra and Port Dia are slowly picking up, with the latter being in a curious state; Port Dia is a trade center first and foremost, so it simply isn't ready to start out producing their own crops, there just isn't infrastructure for it. I'm all in for investing on it, and even Garon seems impressed from what Arete's told me; establishing a Nohrian outpost near Port Dia will be massive, so for once, one part seems to have been greenlighted and proceed.

HA!

The lands near Windmire though, are a complete bust. The woods (Like the Forlorn) around the capital and quite a few kilometers around have not shown any progress, and even if they were to pick up, not a soul has taken up to the task of moving to such cursed parts of the country, as it is too dangerous. The woods near the heart land of Nohr are filled to the brim with dangerous creatures and water that tends to be on the poisonous side, so even looking for remotely usable water would take way too much effort.

HA!

Turns out, Nohr is home to creepies I never saw in the game, and if my newly acquired bestiaries and encyclopedias aren't lying to me, there're quite a few examples of notable megafauna in the country, which I want to think will stand-in for the copious amounts of Faceless the game threw at you with no rhyme nor reason nor relenting to some degree.

Spiders. Why did it have to be goddamn spiders? I'll be the first to admit I'd rather face some eldritch humanoid abomination than a 3 meter wide tarantula. Heck, bring me Anankos even.

…I lied, please don't.

The most notable of these "Altomantulas" (that's the name the encyclopedia gave me for the species, though the common term for them is Titan or Giant Spiders, the latter being the most commonly used term while the former is used more for the elders, as they tend to be bigger than the norm) is the Altomantula Queen, which according to the records of those who've survived encounters with it, lies deep within the forest and mountains to the northwestern borders of Nohr, in the aptly named Deadlands, more specifically within the Shadow Forest. That territory is bad news, and the only reason Nohrians keep poking their noses in there is that the Deadlands are adjacent to the Obsidian Cliffs (or Canyon, both are used interchangeably), a steep mountainside where some very tough wyverns thrive, which are usually taken from and injected into our own farms to refresh and toughen our samples, while some historical figures have also outright tamed a few of those Black Wyverns (how they call them to differentiate from the usual ones due to their pitch black scales) and mounted them to battle, like King Siegbert II so famously did (the same one who signed that treaty with the Ice Tribe). From what I understand, the Black Wyyverns and Altomantulas are the main competitors for terrain there and have been fighting for centuries over supremacy of the area with no clear victor for either side, so I want to think that they've managed to compromise into a sense of balance, whether they want It or not.

The fact that there are fucking spiders who often snack on dragons (lesser though they may be compared to their primal ancestors) is the stuff of nightmares. And to make matters worse, I also heard an old tale from some drunk veterans that apparently, there actually are Spider Tamers out there. Such class is nightmare fuel, and I fervently hope they were just messing with me. I don't need the idea of some crazy motherfucker riding into battle atop a Giant Spider of Doom.

I've also learned that the chicks coming from crossing Black Wyverns with other species, which are just simply called Dark Wyverns as a general term, are the most common rides for Malig Knights and not hard to see among the Wyvern Knights in training; from what I understand, Dark Wyverns have a particular disposition amongst their kind in that they don't get spooked by magic unlike most creatures, which happens to be an oddity among the various creatures around the continent, as apparently, even Dark Knights have to spend a lot of time to get their horses to remain calm when their riders cast magic. I haven't learned yet where the dark falicorns used by Dark Fliers enter in this assertion, but since info on them is scarce as is and I don't think I'll ever get near one, I'm not too bothered.

As a side note, it seems that healing magic is a whole other case for mounted rides, as it doesn't seem to cause them discomfort. I'm not quite sure yet what exactly differentiates offensive magic from healing magic on a more… fundamental level, outside of their obvious military applications, but it is interesting to learn about the whys and hows of the various types of units Nohr has nonetheless.

Anyways, Black Wyverns are way too violent to tame and apparently do show more discomfort towards magic compared to Dark Wyverns, who are still very capricious and irritable creatures mind you. However, apparently neither the Black nor Dark Wyverns compare to the Grey or Metal Wyverns used by Wyvern Lords in terms of physical prowess alone. From what I've read, Metal Wyverns are both noble and sturdy as hell, and if the game is anything to go by, they pack a mean punch. They do show a heavy aversion towards magic and have overall shitty resistances, but they do make for a strong vanguard and recon units nonetheless. The Metal Wyverns that don't make it to the army can see work in delivery and physical labor, I hear.

And why is all this spider and mostly wyvern talk important? Because when Queen Arete introduced me to the idea of Wyvern delivery, I of course immediately jumped the gun. Aerial delivery is something which made my previous world absolute thrive in commerce. In the air, you don't have to worry about the ground routes nor any conditions of the places you're travelling through, and though the things needed to have in account for air traveling are no less important in comparison, it certainly is more convenient in other aspects.

The problem is, that it didn't sink to me immediately that in this type of world, bandits also have access to the skies.

Which brought us to an issue we were having: there was an uprising band of criminals who were growing surprisingly annoying. The reports stated that some years ago, a caravan of wyvern experts wandered a bit too near the Shadow Forest and got offed by Altomantulas… but the poor surviving shmucks also had the bad luck of coming across the titular band of thieves, they were captured on and forced to cooperate with the thieves to stay alive…

Not that it did them much good in the end. Anyways, the thieves were surprisingly competent and had the captured fellas help them raid a wyvern farm way too out of the Cliffs. The reason it had went unnoticed until now is that the work the bandits made to make it seem like all the caretakers were killed by Altomantulas and the outpost they took over was way too out of reach for the route that doomed caravan ever took.

Because these merry criminals have now officially declared themselves rebels to the Nohrian crown and have been organizing a small militia with the chicks they raided and raised on their own. They are competent and slowly growing in numbers, and from what I hear, their leader remains charismatically anonymous.

What manner of insane luck or lack of thereof needed for all this to happen? Turns out that one of the survivors from the caravan was one of the most esteemed Wyvern Experts within Nohr, a noble with a position in the Court of all things who had been believed dead until a few months ago in February, when his corpse was found floating downstream in Port Dia, and Garon's men have been tirelessly searching to quell this rebellion now.

How do these rebels affect Arete and me? The fuckers had the gall of raiding our promising terrains near the Port, and now we have a disturbing lack of crops, stolen from the caravans, but it's not even that what bothers me. What does bother me is the fact that there's been an increase in thievery across the various terrains that have been blooming under the new agricultural practices.

HA!

We don't know what the fuck is going on behind the scenes, but either the leader of the rebellion is too smart for his or her own good, extremely lucky, or someone is feeding that bastard information. The increase in harvests does not bode well on a national scale at all, but… for a smaller scale? Fucking hell it does. The fact that they haven't razed the farms themselves is a big clue on what they want to do. Word's already spreading out that we're having a never seen before increase in crops, and I'm afraid that if this thing escalates, more shitty people will start competing with these rebels and eventually it becomes a case of the chicken that laid golden eggs.

I'm not sure I even want to involve Garon in this, frankly. On the one hand, having the King himself persecute and execute these guys is by all means justice and it will solve the problem, but I'm afraid that it also is the nuclear option. If we sic him at the bandits, nothing's stopping these guys from burning the lands down to prevent anyone from having access to the lands at all. Farmable soil is already sparse and precious in Nohr, and I'm not smart enough to know if we can survive the blows.

And I can't help but wonder… did I cause this? I upset the balance by introducing a method to increase our crop production, and it's already showing signs of destabilization in the country as I expected, but… I wasn't expecting this type of particular unbalance. In canon, Nohr was basically united on two banners: those who followed Garon, and Corrin's army, but more or less everyone was focused on the war with Hoshido. Nohr is a dying land, and Garon promised the masses that they would take the resources they deserved from Hoshido, but with Arete's and my efforts, now it's shown that at least something can be produced from within, but at least in this stage, it doesn't seem practical enough to support the whole country, and… if I'm being completely honest, I don't believe it'll ever be enough.

With this information in mind… I just hope that if Hoshido decides to invade in a Birthright scenario or a similar one with all this in mind, when the damage escalates… we won't be too weak from internal conflicts to avoid meaningless death.

I think I've been too naïve.