Track 9: Roads of Dust

Combat training with Xander was even more brutal than our already straining drills from before. I had to give it to our eldest brother: he was a paragon of discipline. He didn't complain a single bit nor show a single sign of weakness during our sessions, like he truly was like a statue. Xander's teachers became our own, them being important commanders across the very elite of the Nohrian Army as well as renowned veterans from days long past.

Among those, was one Gunther Albion, the very same that served as a retainer to Corrin in canon. Gunther didn't train us that often, being that he served more of an actual sparring partner and assistant to Bernard Franz, an older man with an impressive build and a ridiculous moustache, who often boasted about being "Commander of the Third Vanguard, formerly of the First" and didn't hesitate to bore us with his "heroic exploits against the hoshidan trash across his many storied battles to be recorded within the upcoming New History of Nohr: Volume I of unknown".

The reason he was Commander of the Third Vanguard, I later heard, was because he was insufferable to all of his comrades in the First Vanguard and had been demoted down after a scandal involving a commoner girl he had an affair with (he was an older man and she very young, for starters, not to mention he was actually married and had two sons in Blackfrost; the scandal was an opportunity taken at the first instant, as his Commander in Chief was honestly tired of him but couldn't outright get rid of him because of his talent and achievements), but for all of his snobby arrogance, I do admit he was a monster of a soldier, as expected. He was the one who instructed Xander directly in the sword, and was actually preparing him to wield Siegfried, because holy fuck anime swords are big.

And holy shit was Bernard both frank and merciless on Norbert and me too from day 1. It's why I could never hate him outright, because Bernard, for all of his rambunctiousness, was by all means a storied soldier who had seen the horrors of the battlefield and didn't sugarcoat his training and interactions with us, telling us that mistakes would cost us our lives, and by direct order of King Garon, he would beat the living tar out of us to make us as good as Xander. And also, holy fuck did he have balls of steel, because he had the gall to butt heads with Garon himself in saying that if Xander were to fall, we would have to take his place; few were as frank as him with the King. Later I heard from Arete that Sir Bernard's family situation is peculiar too in that he has distant ties to the crown, which has given him some measure of protection from being decapitated via Bölverk outright, because while he certainly wasn't the most sensible of people, he really was a fantastic teacher with a longline of achievements to secure him his position (when not rambling about said exploits).

It was he who decided I wouldn't be getting away from training with swords, because I had been trying to get onto spears, and he had given me a big no-no. The main reason I had started trying them out was because, frankly speaking, it was the one saving grace I had been showing in my training. While I was still learning to ride horses (holy hell that was an experience), lancing from horseback is way easier compared to other weapons and was somewhat intuitive for my average abilities. Cavaliers and Paladins in general were the standard mounted units in the army, and from the game, Xander's class, with him heavily focused on the sword because Siegfried. The reason Nohrians preferred mounted combat still evaded me, as most of the classes from that game featured mounts (Wyvern Riders and their promotions, Cavaliers too, Dark Knights, Bow Knights, and Strategists plus their respective overlaps, that's about half of the classes of the Nohrian half of the game if I'm not wrong, while I think there's only Sky Knights from Hoshido, as Mechanists aren't technically mounted units), but as part of the Royal Family, I did have a bit of an advantage of getting a mount if I proved myself over the common soldier. Thinking of it, maybe it was part of that why Silas cold have a horse? He was part of a minor noble family after all.

Another topic I wanted to try was to get into spellcasting from horseback, which Bernard had stopped me. I needed to seriously improve my horsemanship before I even thought about bringing a Tome atop a horse, and I'd need an actual Dark Knight instructor if I really wanted to do that. I at least can cast Fire very consistently now… while standing at the very least. Bernard wasn't versed in magic outside of the basest of notions, but he did know that a rookie like me would only get himself hurt, so he told me that until I improved both my casting and my riding enough and deemed ready by himself for the riding (plus swordsmanship and lancing) and Iago for my magic (who still was our magic instructor).

Thank fuck for having adult insight and following the rules. Norbert wasn't so lucky.

Because of us starting to train together, I learned soon that while I had talent for magic (still haven't been able to cast Thunder yet), it was at least some magic potential. Norbert had none, and though he had been busting his ass off trying to learn it, he just had neither talent nor capacity for it.

It was… disheartening seeing him try and fail to get even Ember off. And to make matters worse, me being younger than him sent him into a spiral of defensiveness once he realized I was versed and at least somewhat capable on it. While he didn't bully me outright, I always felt him glaring daggers behind my back during training and studying, and once or twice he had rudely pushed me aside when I was walking near him, which slowly started escalating into dropped bottles of ink in my parchments and disappeared quills and training swords. The one thing he took pride on was his physical strength, though that was a no brainer, he had two years of experience over me and a much tougher body, so I couldn't match him whatsoever during our spars.

I hated sparring with Xander and Norbert. Always got my ass handed a couple dozen of moves too early by the former and a couple dozen too many bruises from the latter. Thank fuck for Staves and vulneraries; hope my liver doesn't start protesting way down the line if I ever make it far enough.

Anyways, one day Norbert decided that enough was enough, and decided to scare Xander and my horses via loudly yelling, clapping violently and smashing his sword against his buckler throughout the course of a lesson when we were nearby. He escalated it and shit got ugly real fast. Due to me being a moron and not grasping my horse's mood well enough, I lost control of him quickly, who in return also scared Xander's horse, and soon enough we had two wild Horses thrashing around the field with two princes on their backs.

The way Xander and I were saved was brutal to say the least. I had panicked and held onto my horse as best as I could screaming like a little girl all the while, having lost my mind as well because holy shit a 1 and a half meter animal kicking with the rage of the wild is scary. Xander then also fell victim to the panic because he was worried about me, the one crack I ever saw him show during all of our time together, because he wasn't used to have us little brethren around in a scenario like this, and in his worry he also lost control of his own horse.

Bernard, Gunther and a couple of other assistants roped Xander's horse first and thoroughly brought it down, which after that, Iago put down the horse with what I was told was an impressive display of Fimbulvetr magic that killed the horse instantly via impaling it with ice spears. The process was repeated with much less finesse for me, and though neither of us got injured, it was one hell of an experience.

All of us got one hell of a scolding, which eventually brought us to Garon. I was honestly raging at that. It was neither Xander nor my own fault that it happened, it was because of Norbert being a little shit, but we all got off with corporal punishment.

However, those punishments really set me off to despise knowing beforehand how things are handled in the royal family. I got a session of 15 whippings to the back, Norbert got 30, while Xander got 60. The reasoning? I got the lightest because I was the youngest and was known to have trouble with my riding, but was punished nonetheless "for being weak". Norbert got twice the amount for causing the incident maliciously (he did cave in to Garon's murderous glare) and acting unbefitting of his position. Xander got both of our combined amounts because as the eldest, he "should have been the one to prevent this situation from ever happening", and as so would receive both of our punishments plus a 15 of his own for losing control of his own horse, something that hadn't happened before. The incident "cost the army 2 very valuable horses for training", and as such, was the absolute lightest Garon would be willing to put us through in compensation.

I couldn't bear to look at Norbert in the eye directly after that. His antics stopped being directed at me for a while, and instead, I started seeing signs of bullying across the younger ones.

Why couldn't he learn his lesson? We all were in this together, but I just couldn't understand what his fucking thought process was, what made him make his brothers and sisters more miserable than they already were. I couldn't ever get to talk to him either, because he ignored me during lessons and promptly vanished after. Dinners weren't much better, as his mother shielded him from me, and outside of that he avoided any form of interaction with me, though to be fair, the same could be said about all of his brothers and sisters, not just me.

However, I want to think I grew close to Xander because of that incident. If only to avoid more punishment, I doubled my efforts in my classes, though I decided to stay away from horses for a while, which Bernard allowed me if only temporary. While I couldn't get completely away from them, part of Bernard's punishment for me included helping him clean the barns, wash the horses and generally just being a helping hand to the assistants whenever horses were involved. Norbert got away from it thanks to his mother berating the instructors, but I wasn't so lucky of course.

What. A. Mess.

Seriously, I don't envy those who do that for a living. I had a semblance of knowledge from my previous life about how raising and taking café of animals like horses goes around, but it was just the basest of notions. I knew it was a dirty, unglamorous job.

It wasn't remotely near to what I thought.

The smell. The goddamn smell of horse dung clung to me like a deathly veil of silent pestilence for weeks no matter how much I scrubbed myself; it stuck even after I stopped helping for a while. Between cleaning the barns and washing the horses, I'm pretty sure I've had enough of excrement for two lifetime's worth and more. It was only for about 2 months, but fucking hell.

The worst part was getting accustomed to the smell and not realizing I stunk everywhere I went. Arete had to stop our nightly meetings for a while, and Azura… oh lord… Azura…

"Big Brother Ignis. You smell" She had bluntly told me.

"I know" I responded, completely defeated.

"You should take a bath" She deadpanned as if it was obvious. Had to give it to her, her poker face was peerless even if her eyes were getting a bit teary.

"I've done that" I repeated for the millionth time. "I've done it again and again and again and againandagainandagainandagainandagain-"

…

Yikes. She stopped talking to me for a while. I also couldn't bear to show my face at dinner either until the smell subsided somewhat. I've also grown to be self-conscious about me smelling too…

Ugh, accursed childhood traumas back with at it with a vengeance.

It's been quite a trying experience, if I do say so myself. If anything, getting so close and personal with the horses has helped me away from developing aversion to them. Both Garon and Bernard expect me to become at least a decent rider who won't be a liability to himself on the battlefield, so I have to do my part. Bernard has little patience for those who don't give their all to their training, and with how scared I am of getting sacked to my stern father, I had to gulp down the fear of a second incident like that one and get back onto a horse.

It's a trying experience, to be frank.

As for the 7 year olds (now 8), well, they are getting brought up to speed, with… varied results. They've been joining us for the lighter drills and exercises, but the classes themselves have been a mixed bag; I want to think that my personal situation is the only thing that makes it easier to digest the lessons on strategy, geography, history, politics (which I despise in particular with a passion) and everything in between. Azura and Leo in particular seem to be the only ones with a semblance of understanding what the hell Iago's mad ramblings about taxes and why the common populace is below us and hell and beyond, even though the former in particular always seems to doze off for a while. Leo, however, is a goddamn sponge for all forms of academic knowledge, and I'm very surprised to see him eagerly devour one book after the other, and though a lot of it is just outright memorization rather than true comprehension, I'm pretty sure he just needs to mature a bit more to truly understand what he's reading.

Iago has high hopes for him, and it somewhat terrifies me.

Lorraine and Bismarck, however, are truly falling behind, and though I've done my best to help them, I've never been too good of a teacher. Back in my world the one thing I was ever able to help others with back when I attended school was math, and that was only when I truly understood the topic and decided to break it down step by step, and even then, unexpected questions always took me out of the loop. And with such a wide arrangement of topics for us to study, I cannot help them with everything when I myself am already struggling.

Nowadays, we have very little free time. When we're not doing martial drilling, we're receiving lessons, and when we're not doing either of those, we're either eating, or sleeping because we're so exhausted. We have little to no breaks or time for ourselves, and at the rate we're going, I'm afraid the little ones will break at some point.

Lorraine's been growing more irritable than ever, biting back at everyone with passive-aggressive snark that I think she's picked from her own mother and myself coupled with half-assing both her tests and drills, and it seems even corporal punishment is starting to become ineffective on her from what I've heard from the maids; Lorraine is getting craftier in the sense that she doesn't do anything to truly get our instructors pissed at her, and when she does get punished, she outright mocks the damage done to her. I don't even know how the hell is an 8 year old pulling that and I don't think I want to find out. She often tries to use the other 8 year olds as scapegoats, and no matter how much I've tried to stop her, she just doesn't stop, and I'm afraid that if this keeps up she'll completely separate from the group.

Bismarck has also been a mixed bag. For one thing, I'm glad he's been sticking closer to Leo, Azura and me more recently, even if he rarely says a thing. We've formed a bit of a small clique, if I do say so myself, in which I'm a bit of the leader if only due to being the eldest, Leo is the smart one, Azura the snarky one, and Bismarck the quiet one, but other than that, even if he's with us in body, I often feel he's not with us in spirit, at least not completely. I don't know the full extent of the damage he went through under his mother, but it's clear that even with her gone, he's still very haunted.

I've managed to pick up some of his signs from observing. When Bismarck starts feeling anxious one of his most common gestures is to hug himself, which I've taken to by simply putting my hand on top of one of his own if he's just starting, or on his shoulder or head if he's already curled, and just… stand like so, which so far has served to calm him down immensely. I've tried to get Azura and Leo to try and replicate me, but it's been a bit mixed too. When they're alone, Leo is too awkward and Azura too detached, and though I want to think they're really trying, they just can't connect too well with Bismarck as they are now. They're just children, after all, children who don't really know how to cope with their respective pains.

Heck, I don't even know how to deal with my own, other than redirecting my efforts into helping them however I can.

As for the younger ones, well, in the end they were spared and allowed to continue their education as usual. There're already 7 kids trailing behind Xander, so I guess Garon had enough humanity left to spare them. Thank fuck. I'm still worried about Marcus being a prick, especially since the little time I was able to spend with the little ones now doesn't exist at all for me now, and from what I've heard, Marcus hasn't changed. Lucas for his part's just begun his education, while Rosetta's still one year away, and I'm glad to see that these two seem to be on mostly good paths. Lucas is still a hothead, but from what little I've seen of him, his heart remains in the right place; he says he can't wait to grow up and join us grown-ups on the battlefield and help us defeat the enemies of Nohr, bless his innocent soul. Rosetta for her part has grown to be a remarkably calm girl; she doesn't speak much and prefers doing her tasks in silence without bothering anyone, which is one heck of a dichotomy when compared to her loud, rambunctious mother.

Finally, I want to think I've had a bit of a breakthrough with Camilla.

Turns out, she hates my guts, thoroughly. And I'm kind of surprised to be honest. I want to think I've been doing my best for everyone, but Camilla outright refuses to interact with me other than the absolute minimum necessary. To be fair, she has actually started to show care towards the 8 year olds, but at the same time, she doesn't spend much time with them, and she always has a complicated expression on her face when the 4 of us stumble across her, as we usually move together as a sort of unit or something. From what she told me, Camilla dislikes that I'm such a sweet talker and a liar.

In a way, I was kind of hurt by it. I didn't consider myself a smooth talker, heck, I often got in trouble for running my mouth when Iago was being insufferable (Bernard let me be cruder in comparison), but at the same time, I kind of understood where she was coming from about me being a liar, because by all means I have an agenda of my own. I want to think that she felt I was an insincere person that could get our siblings hurt because of that same dishonesty… and she wasn't wrong per se. In the 9 years I've been "Ignis", I don't think I've had a 100% genuine interaction with anyone at all, even when I tried to do so. Not with Arete, not with Azura, not with Bismarck or Xander, heck, I don't think I've been sincere to myself either.

I don't think that being completely genuine is a possibility for me as I am, so I couldn't rebuke Camilla. I guess the good part is that there's been at least a change in the status quo, however minuscule? I'm just glad she's slowly opening up to the other kids at all.

That's all I want from her, to be honest. Because it's all too likely I will fuck up and ruin something, and when it happens, I don't want to cause more grief than necessary. I'm not conceited enough to say that I'm alone in this world or that no one depends on me, because I know I'm important to the younger kids at the very least, I've tried to be a good brother to them, and though I know it may just bring them grief in the long run, I don't want to deny them whatever I can give them. Maybe it's just guilt, maybe it's me trying to run away from the atrocity I committed and keeping hope alive within me, twisted as it might be.

Perhaps, in the end, it's just that I want to live.