Not a Dog in the Rain
Kiran woke up in the morning, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and found the slightly less naked Feh seemingly attacking an angrily writhing package. He'd never seen something alive and undoubtedly human in his mail before, and the fact that the package was adorned with pineapple wrapping paper, he wondered how someone managed to mail Takumi to him, then who in their right mind put Takumi in the mail system to begin with, and then how many of the mailman's bones Takumi broke.
He let Alfonse take care of it. He needed to look up Takumi jokes.
"They sent a prickly archer in the mail," was Alfonse's first thought, nursing a bruised chin after Takumi from the World of Birthright had cracked his fist straight into Alfonse's neck. The archer apologized profusely when he realized he was dealing with another royal, although he promised hell on someone named IS for jamming him into the mail.
Alfonse didn't know an IS. Alfonse didn't want to know an IS, because that would mean this IS knew about him. It could do something to him and his bench, and he would not allow that.
He gave Takumi the usual tour: rooms, facilities, and the Summoning Sigil, where Kiran was screaming at the heavens as usual.
"Is he the one who mailed me?"
Alfonse denied, thankfully without having to lie, and watched as the Summoner pulled another Orb from his pouch and dejectedly loaded it into Breidablik. Once he'd been summoning after fixing the castle, pulling no Five Star units, Kiran had gone kind of nuts attempting to claim one. At first, it was kind of depressing, because he'd pulled a Bartre and immediately was given the title of 'Noodle Summoner,' but as the hours passed and Kiran became more and more broke, Alfonse just wanted him to stop before the Earthling threw himself off of the castle spire.
"PLEASE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST GIVE ME A FIVE STAR! I'LL TAKE LUKE! JUST ONE!"
He shot a red crystal, and Alfonse crosses his own fingers to make the hell stop.
"I am Marth, Prince of Altea. It is good to make your acquaintance. Like you, I desire peace above al-"
"YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
The Lord was cut off as Kiran glomped him, crushing the bluenette in a hug so tight that it made Alfonse hurt just witnessing it.
"He's worse than Oboro," Takumi muttered, and Alfonse made himself a promise to never let Kiran know about this possible blackmail material. He didn't need the two of them, if Oboro was eccentric as Takumi seemed to believe, to get any ideas.
"Prince Alfonse!"
The prince turned to see one of his father's personal messengers approaching, and a pit dropped in his stomach. If his father needed something specifically from him, either that meant there was a problem at home or in the kingdom.
"There's a mysterious blonde archer to the south of the castle leading a small militia of Emblian forces. They've looted a few towns and have taken no prisoners. Many have requested the help of the Order to do something about it," the messenger reported, looking fairly ill, as if he'd ran all the way from the capital to the Order's castle.
"Thank you," Alfonse responded, "please, use a spare room to rest from your travels."
The messenger nodded, and a smooth voice cut in, the regal image of Prince Marth of Altea strode up, Kiran giddily bouncing beside him.
"I may have an idea who is the cause of this."
The fact that the energy seemed to drain out of Kiran made Alfonse pause. That was never a good sign, as numerous heroes had seen it fit to report. It meant either something depressing and angst was going to occur, or as Azama had come to believe, he'd located someone for a… harem, was it?
"Oh… you mean Clarisse?"
Marth's expression was all it took to get mobilized. It was time to be depressed.
Clarisse held her hands up, attempting to catch her breath. The arrows that were pointed at her head didn't move, but Kiran rested a hand on, as she had called him, the Altean goodie-two-shoes' shoulder and had him stand down. The sword, the Falchion, that rested on her neck was removed, and she glared at the blue haired Lord.
She wanted Marth dead, but knew if she tried anything, her life would end. Good, because he really didn't need to deal with a surprise attack. It'd be perfect, especially considering they'd be covered by the pouring rain around them that had made fighting Clarisse's troops a real bastard.
"Give up," Frederick demanded, axe over his shoulder. "We didn't come here to kill you."
"Like I'd join you and the bitch of Altea in any scenario."
Kiran rolled his eyes, sending a glance to Marth who seemed completely unsurprised by the situation. Kiran cleared his throat, getting the assassin's attention, and jabbed his gloved thumb at Takumi, who still looked ready to annihilate her.
"Either you join us or I let Funshine Bear over here shoot you."
The pineapple-esque archer just sighed at the his words, but it wasn't Kiran's fault he had the voice of Michael Sinterniklaas.
"I will put you to sleep with an arrow if you think I'd willingly ally myself with you."
Kiran scoffed, hoping that she wouldn't call his bluff, when something else happened altogether that had him watch as fate threw his plan to sway her out the window and hit it with a truck.
An arrow sank into the tree beside Frederick, the man's horse panicking and stamping around wildly even through the man's attempts to calm it. Emblian troops didn't just fill the distance; they became the sight that was the distance.
Kiran proposed a… tactical retreat.
"Scatter!"
In an instant, the five Order members split in different directions to throw off the approaching army, Kiran stopping to grab Clarisse, despite her weak protests and thrown slurs.
"Put me down, damned cur! I can fight easily on my own!"
Oh he wished. She was heavy as hell, not that he'd ever say that in a radius of one hundred miles near a woman. No, he wasn't going to let her run on her own when full of wounds that were making her bleed to death. Her pride could die in a fire if it meant he didn't need to kill anyone.
"Shut up. Do you want to bleed to death? Again?"
He could hear her teeth clack together as her jaw clenched, knowing that he was right despite what she wanted.
"Why the hell would you care about me," she growled angrily. Kiran resisted the urge to bite a hole through his lip as he supported the assassin.
"Because despite your preconceived notion of me, I don't like letting people die alone in the rain when I have the ability to help them. Nor do I like ordering someone's death. You're alive because I told Marth to hold back when he got close enough, and he was more than happy to oblige."
"I don't want his fucking kindness!"
"Well you're getting it," he shouted back, "and you're going to like it, because I'm not going to live in this world as a murderer, and you're not going to die as Eremiya's bitch! Get off your high horse and act like an adult!"
…
Aw shit, he did it again.
"Hey… I… I'm sorry. It's just really stressful out here."
Her arms tightened around his head, and it took all of Kiran's willpower to convince himself that she wasn't trying to cut off his airflow or just pop his head straight from his shoulders.
"Clarisse? ...can you at least say something…?"
He glanced up to see if she was alright, and her eyes flicked angrily down for a second before they were obscured by the branch Kiran had accidentally walked her into. The assassin crumbled off of his back, knocked completely unconscious, her head getting submerged in the holds of a wet bush.
"Damn it!"
She was going to kill him!
He fumbled to grab her, pulling her up in a bridal carry, managing to ignore the copious amount of mud that had splattered into her hair. Kiran's boots crushed the wet grass and mud that made up the ground, holding the cramp on his side in a death grip and making sure that Clarisse's unconscious form wasn't slipping from his hold.
He didn't have time to stop and call out for Marth or Takumi or Odin or Frederick, not with the Emblian troops still somewhere in the area. Certainly not with how bad the rain was pouring. It'd be his fault if Clarisse got hypothermia in this situation. He really didn't need the girl's threats to put him to sleep with an arrow to become reality.
So he walked. He walked and dragged and carried and slogged - just slap on some more verbs, they'll probably fit. Like they would in the cave that Kiran definitely almost didn't slide into as he tried to scale a wall of rock.
"Oh, thank God!" He shouted when his head didn't crack in two after he certainly didn't eat shit. The cave was thankfully dry, just slightly secluded from wandering eyes. Had he been four years younger, he'd have deemed it his secret hideout and have never left, but now wasn't the same as back then. He managed to set Clarisse down without causing her any more accidental harm, right beside a small gouge in the ground that looked absolutely perfect for a fire.
He tore strips from his coat - it was just an article of clothing. It wasn't anywhere near as important as a life, or Clarisse in general. He wound them across her wounds as tight as he could, cringing at the blood that pooled across her clothes and the bandages. Her shivers made him worry even more.
"Firewood… I need firewood."
He hustled back to the mouth of the cave, looking through the downpour, concealed in the shadows if anything tried to look back. The forest was completely clogged with rain, and his hopes of finding viable fuel for a flame crumbled.
His hands picked at the loose scraps of his coat, glancing down to the article of clothing. The outside may have been soaked, but it was insulated, so the inside was bone dry. He tossed it down in his makeshift fire pit without hesitation, patting down his pockets for his lighter. He didn't smoke, but carried it around because he enjoyed having the ability to make something light on fire when he was bored and watch how people would react. He wouldn't be able to anymore, because he lit a small corner of what used to be he hood up first, broke the lighter open, and dumped all of the lighter fluid onto the coat, however meager it may have been. The fire he'd started was weak because the lacking fuel, but he had the unconscious assassin as close to the flame as he could.
The dull awareness that Emblian troops might still be around came to mind. With a hope that Clarisse would be safe and that the fire was deep enough into the cave to not draw attention, Kiran grabbed the waterlogged bow and bundle of arrows on the archer's hip. The boy trekked to near the mouth of the cave, where the grey sky could barely be seen from behind the wall of water that flowed past the mouth of the stone.
He'd wait. He was going to protect Clarisse and get her out of this hell.
She was not going to die like a dog in the rain.
Clarisse woke up aching.
For a horrid second, she thought she'd been in that damn snowstorm again, the Altean army ripping her platoon of bandits to shreds with ease. She could've been convinced that the pain was from her inflicted wounds had realization not dawned upon her that snow wasn't brown, nor did it exude warmth. She managed to pull herself up to sit through the pain, taking in the warmth of a now raging fire beside her.
White scraps of clothing were wound about the pained parts of her body. She was surprised from how expertly they were applied, but also how she hadn't died from blood loss. The bandages were tight, but… she recognized the material. The whites and golds were the same as the ones she'd been carried by earlier.
Although… she couldn't remember how she got here. All she remembered was the Summoner, as he'd declared when he'd challenged her, being infuriating, and then something brown…
It was just a haze, but she could remember Kiran carrying her despite everything. It was her desire to know why he'd care so much that got her back to her feet, however shakily it might've been. She hobbled to the mouth of the cave she realized she was in, hand against the wall to support herself, and was surprised to see Kiran standing in the still pouring rain, surrounded, but not by enemies.
Bodies littered the ground, all clad in Emblian garb and armor. Clarisse would've gagged if she were a lesser person. It was, however, unnerving to see Kiran's very shocked face, looking at her bow in his hands as if he were more confused about the corpses than she was. She was more astounded by how the awkward looking Summoner, too meek to be associated with an assassin's lifestyle, was capable of ending a life with such ease, let alone about seven of them.
"You slaughtered them with only a bow…?"
He didn't even have a speck of blood on him. He just stood there, looking at her with paleness to his already fair skin.
"I… uh… I…"
"Don't say anything," she commanded, pulling her bow and quiver away from him and looking them up and down for damage, utterly surprised to find nothing adorning the surface of either. She counted the arrows, always forced to remember how many she had on her when combat struck, and her eyes snapped open in surprise when all of them were there.
She looked back around. Doubtlessly, the bodies were full of arrow holes, yet she had all of her arrows. None of the Emblians were archers, so he couldn't have stolen some. Somehow, he'd managed to kill every last assailant without breaking a single arrow.
She looked him up and down again. Noodle arms, spindly legs, a quiet and protected body stature, and he was slightly duck footed, feet going out more to the diagonal than they did the front.
This person before her was a trained killer. She should've seen the signs from the very beginning. He commanded heroes such as pretty boy prince Marth and the pineapple archer without hesitation for their more obvious strength. Claiming himself as Askr's tactician and his ability to command painted him as a masterful intellect with wisdom to spare.
She pulled her quiver onto her back and took at knee, bowing to him.
"As much as it pains me to say it, I know a better assassin when I see one. Consider my allegiance attained. You will teach me how you managed this in return."
He just nodded shakily.
She smiled in return.
Kiran bit his lip and watched from the mouth of the cave as Emblian troops all began to zero in on their hiding spot. He shakily pulled an arrow back, aiming for the Troubadour's head. He completely missed. The arrow shot off to the side and alerted all of the enemies to his location.
"Can you please not? CAN YOU NOT?!"
The first person to make it close was a Swordmaster. Said Swordmaster was the first to die when the arrow Kiran fired came back. It bounced off of a rock and came right after Kiran, only to shoot through the flesh of the man's neck. The Earthling gaped as the red armored man crumpled at his feet and the arrow continued to whiz past. All conflict or chance of conflict halted as everyone listened to the sound of the arrow ricocheting off numerous different surfaces within the maw of the cave.
"How strong are you, kid?" an armored lancer asked before the arrow came after him too, shooting through one of his mask's eye holes before pinging after every other soldier like a heat seeking missile. One by one, the arrow chased them like he was a whistling Yondu, but he could only watch in terror. No way in hell was this normal.
The arrow didn't even sink into the last one. It cracked against the Axe Fighter's Achilles tendon, leading them to slip and crack their head into a rock, and the arrow spun harmlessly straight into Kiran's hand. He looked at it for a solid minute.
"How in the fu-"
"You slaughtered them with only a bow…?"
He looked up to see Clarisse looking astoundedly at the corpses everywhere. He wasn't even going to try and understand how in the hell he'd managed this one.