After Grima

Part 1

New Kid in town

Chapter 5: Meeting the Crew

"It is with a heavy heart that brings us here today but with those heavy hearts I hope that we can come back and use this loss as something we can learn from." Chrom said acknowledging the shepherds. There were a lot of somber looks around them, and those where there the night before were especially down. Looking around Holmes saw one girl in particular who seemed much deterred. She was crying but she was not one of the group who picked them up. He thought it was Chrom's sister Lissa and the man next to her was trying to comfort her but wasn't doing a very good job. From the looks of it he didn't do well when it came to women.

The main group of the shepherds were discussing what to do next as regards with what had happened or their plans for the huge festival this week (the festival that the Milstiens were supposed to perform at). Lucina was pacing back and forth. She was waiting for Ress. She felt horrible for the way he treated him and she knew she needed to give him a sincere apology. Her nervousness must have shown since Inigo came over and pulled her aside.

"Everything all right?" He asked. "You look nervous." His eyes looked intense, worrying about his sister he just wanted her to calm down.

"I need to speak to Ress..." She said "I said some unfavorable things to him and I must apologize." The brand in her eye gleamed as she spoke, a beam of sunlight came through the window as a cloud outside moved. They both looked out and saw Ress, he was talking but there was no one there. What was even more bizarre the way he was facing? "Is He?..." Lucina asked.

"What is this?" Inigo said going closer to the window. "Is he? He is! He's talking to a wall." He exclaimed. They exit the barracks and as they get closer they see that he has cards in hand, and then all of a sudden they are gone, then back, then gone. "Ress!" Inigo said quite loud since they were still a ways away. Ress looked over then pocketed the cards. He meets them about halfway between the barracks and where he was standing. "What was that?"

"What did it look like?" He replied "Practice."

"For what?" Lucina asked.

"My performance." Ress said with a sort of 'what else would it be' tone. "I almost have it down now."

"You're still performing?" Inigo asked. "After what has just happened. What if Capa shows up?"

"Not this week. I'm going to lie low for a while." Ress said. "I know if I show my face in a public setting I'm risking a lot more than just my life." his eyes trailed towards his parent's graves. "I'm not going to make that kind of mistake." He muttered but they could hear the despair in his voice. That's when Lucina piped in.

"Ress I..." She started. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for not trusting you. I know how you must feel, losing family like that, we all do." A tear fell down her cheek. Inigo put a hand on his sister's shoulder and then started to head back to the barracks. "To know you will not get them back is a pain that can kill the spirit..."

"Stop." Ress said abruptly. "Like I said before. You will find yourself wrong. Disappointed, maybe but wrong, defiantly." He stared to walk away but as he was next to her he said "But I forgive you."

The next day the preparations for the festival were taking place and the barracks was bussing with excitement. A group of some of the female shepherds including Cherche were gathered talking about something to do with a gift exchange, Cherche not from around here seemed excited. Holmes was walking about the training area where there was a girl training by herself very excluded from the others and a very lively dual was taking place. He took up a training lance and started practicing with a wooden dummy. He wasn't ready to spar so he decided to watch then try and mimic the moves a girl with pig tails was doing. Feeling as though that a lance was not his strong suit he decided to pick up a sword. He knew his way around a blade like this so he started mimicking the boy she was dueling. This is what he felt was comfortable with. He noticed that two people were watching the dual more closely than he. 'Weird' he thought. One was a boy who looked like he was some sort of mage. He was taking intense notes on a pad of paper. The other was a boy who was some sort of half human. He knew what they were called but he couldn't remember. When he last read about these kind of people he had read that they were extinct.

"Grip more towards the hilt." Someone said behind him. It was Inigo. "When swinging the blade like that you want to have it closer to your body." Inigo took to the dummy next to him and showed him the move he did and it hit with more velocity and dug in deeper to the wood (for a practice blade to do that is impressive).

"Thanks..." He didn't know what to think about Inigo. He felt tension with him ever since they met. Maybe it had something to do with that girl Morgan. He seemed kind of close with her, or maybe it's because of something else, he doesn't know what else it could be though. Soon they began matching moves, each one with more force than the next. Soon the two boys that were watching the sparing match were watching Inigo and Holmes. The boy taking notes was watching in awe and had dropped his pencil because of how vicious they were attacking the practice dummy. The two dueling became distracted as well (the girl practicing alone however barely glanced at them) they soon damaged their dummies so badly that they both broke apart, they then turned and tried to strike each other and their blades met. Stuck in a standstill blades still pressed against each other they stared into each other's eyes, hate almost in each of them. If not hate then a strong dislike. A glare swept passed the brand in Inigo's eye as the door opened.

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING!?" Yelled Morgan. Followed by Ress, Lucina and two others he hasn't met yet. Morgan pulled Inigo away from Holmes as Ress ran to aid his little brother.

"Good timing" he thought. He was going to lose that if he had continued Inigo's hight advantage almost put him on one knee.

"Are you all right?" Ress asked Holmes of so it was just them

"I'm fine, I just..." He paused for a moment. "I don't know, there is a lot of tension between us, and I think I know why."

"Well whatever it is you are going to have to handle it, In a CIVIL manner, we are going to be living here, we don't want to kill the prince all right. We had enough murder scandals on royalty already..." A tear came down his face. "I know too soon." He wiped it off and gave his head a quick shake to get rid of the nerves before turning back to the others. "Anyways we have been looking for you. Lucina wanted to introduce you to some of the people here."

"Well there are still plenty of people to meet but these are almost all of us who came back in time." Lucina said. She beckoned the others to come over. All but the girl training did. "Everyone this is Ress and Holmes."

"Hyyyiieee" Said the girl with pig tails. "I'm Cynthia, It's a pleasure to meet you." She did some sort of a skip to give them a handshake but then tripped on a piece of wood from the dummies "ohhff" She tumbled, Ress lent out a hand to pick her up then she gave them both a handshake although her face was rather red.

"Good day my friends, Alas our paths were destined to cross one day and here we stand" The man she was dueling said very loudly, with great arm movements "I say what a great day it is for our..."

"This is Owain." Cut in the mage. "A rather eccentric fellow. My name is Laurent. Might I say what a wonderful show you put on there?" He said to Holmes "Might I observer one of your training sessions soon I'm running a study on battlefield and training behavior and your session was quite illuminating and could help deeply with my research."

A lot to take in Holmes let out a confused "Sure?"

"Excellent!" He said, "Excuse me but I must get back to my lab. I have to organize my notes." He left in quite a hurry. Fast enough to slam the door that the other boy who was watching the dual jumped and screamed.

"AHHHHH" He yelled almost tripping over his own feet. "Oh... Sorry. heheh" He pulled himself together and walked toward them. "I'm Yarne. I'm one of the last two taguls in existence so I am a little jittery around dangerous stuff." He said scratching the back of his head. "Now if you will excuse me I need to go. I have important business too."

"Now that that little charade is over. I'm Gerome, nice to meet you, good, now bye." And he walks out without saying a word.

"Never mind him," Said the other girl. She was about to Holmes mouth in height and had pointed ears. "I'm Nah, Nice to meet you." She noticed that Holmes and Ress were looking at her ears. "I'm a Manakete, Part dragon. I age way slower and can turn into a dragon, Kind of why I look like a kid but I'm about the same age as you guys. So DON'T treat me like a kid." She winked at Holmes and Ress. "I have to go Lucina, I must pray to Naga." There was something about that wink though that made Holmes feel funny. Cautious, Curious?

"Very well. Thank you." Lucina responded. "Well that is pretty much all of us that came back from the future."

"What about her?" Ress asked. He pointed to the girl still training.

"That's Kjelle, don't think she is in the mood to talk, she missed a couple hours of training yesterday." Inigo said. "You don't want to be the one who stops her now."

"But like I said," Lucina continued. "There are still a lot more Shepherds. Three more that came back from the future with us, Severa you have met but the other two, Brady and Norrie are in the hospital tent with minor injuries." She saw the look concern appear on their faces.

"Don't worry they are there all the time. Small stuff, non-life threating" Inigo said. "I think you should go too." He said noticing the gash in Holmes' left arm. A piece of the dummy must have hit him in the arm and it was bleeding a fair ammount. "Wouldn't want you to lose too much blood now would we" He said with a slight hint of sarcasm that everyone caught.

"Inigo!" Morgan said with a disapproving voice.

"It's fine. I'll get it checked out." He said. Before he left he 'Accidently' bumped into the sword rack where only Inigo's blade rest upon, knocking it over. "Woops," and he left.