Chapter Three: Welcome to the Occupation

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

Author's Notes: With the first two installments of this, I've covered events up to the Chapter "Camus the Sable" in FE1/Shadow Dragon. This chapter covers the two-year interval between the War of Darkness and the War of Heroes. Grust, once a great military power, is now considered one of the most devastated countries on Archanea, and its fortunes continue to fall...

***

"Almost there, Liebchen. Just a lick and a promise to go."

Melissa fought to keep her tears from spilling over as Oma raked a comb through her hair.

"A girl's hair is her crowning glory," clucked Oma as she pulled one section of hair high and secured it with a ribbon. "A man will notice a girl with good hair."

Men noticed her already, Melissa thought as she chewed her lower lip. And her hair set Melissa apart whether it was combed for a hundred strokes or not. No one else in Gavarnie had long pale hair that looked like spun silver-- no one below the age of sixty, anyway. Melissa's hair had been silver from birth, and she had hated it until the day Sister Lena had told her that silver-colored hair was thought to be linked to great magical powers.

"It could be a sign from the gods that you have an important mission in this life," Lena had said, even as Melissa stared at Lena's beautiful deep auburn hair and wished that she had locks that shone like fire and copper.

"There you are. Just like an angel."

Melissa looked into the mirror that Oma held before her and agreed that Oma had done well; the unruly waves were combed perfectly straight, aside from the beribboned chunk of hair that stuck out from the side of Melissa's head.

"Now, remember what I said, Liebchen. Don't talk-- just smile."

Melissa smiled through the dinner with the Archanean arms-merchant, a man with with light-gray eyes and light-yellow hair. He was handsome, but in a rather cold way, and Melissa decided quickly she didn't like his smile. There was something stretched about it, like a taut piece of leather. But Melissa smiled and listened and nodded when she thought it appropriate, and put out her hand to be kissed at the end of the meal. The merchant's lips were also cold, but at least they were dry.

"I don't think he liked me, Grandmother."

"He was a dull fellow," Oma agreed. "I don't think he had nearly as much money as he pretended. Just wait, girl, and we'll find you a better husband than him."

To add to Melissa's misery, she had to help Gazenda the kitchenmaid clean up all the extra dishes. When Melissa finally escaped to her room, she sat on her bed with the scarlet hair-ribbon draped across her reddened hands and wondered what was ever going to become of her.

"Melissa is beginning to doubt that she will ever learn anything more," she said to the walls. Oma wouldn't let her study with Father Arnaldus any longer now that Arnaldus was known to be complicit in the fall of Gavarnie. So Melissa felt herself at a standstill-- never to finish her training as a holy sister, yet untutored in playing the harp or dancing or doing much else that might win her a husband. Even so, Oma had come up with the scheme to better Melissa by marrying her off to a good "prospect," and a good prospect was any man with his own source of income and a means of leaving Gavarnie.

"It's a fine thing you've never taken your final vows, my girl. Not that vows can't be broken, but sworn sisters attract the worst variety of rascal. We can do better for you."

But judging from Tarvix the arms-merchant, not many very good or interesting men would pass through Gavarnie looking for a bride.

***

Meanwhile, the mood of the people of Gavarnie was as sour as a pitcher of milk left in the sun. They cursed the Prince of Altea for robbing them of General Camus, and they cursed Camus for allowing a youth of lesser merit to kill him. They cursed the Altean again for the fine words with which he persuaded General Lorenz into surrendering Olbern Castle, and they cursed Lorenz for allowing himself to be swayed from his duty. More than any other, though, they cursed King Ludwik for setting the wheels of fate into such terrible motion. He'd brought them to the brink of disaster through pride and ambition, and hurtled them over the edge through cowardice. He had failed in the most absolute way a king could fail-- he had not seen to the welfare of his people.

When Ludwik died, the folk of Gavarnie jeered his funeral cortège.

***

Treason paid handsomely for the men who gave Grust to the rebels; General Lorenz received custody of the little prince and princess, who had been found in far-away Khadein.

"Starved nearly to death, they were," said Adomar, whose work as a courier took him often to Olbern.

"By the rebels?"

"By Dolhr."

Melissa wasn't surprised in the least. It was safe to speak ill of the Dolhr Emperor now; the Prince of Altea had finished him off, as well. Grust now paid tribute to a new emperor of the world-- Hardin, the Coyote of the North; Melissa knew him as the man with the silver sword who led the terrifying Aurelian horsemen in their conquest of Grust. Still, everything seemed a little better for a while under Regent Lorenz, and in spite of Melissa's boredom and worry she was happy not to say any more funerals for poor young knights. She still wore the braided memento of her lost cavalier, and often twisted the ring around her finger when Oma discussed a new prospect for marriage, but she had mostly forgotten what the youth actually looked like, or how his voice sounded when he spoke to her that one precious time.

***

Melissa didn't remember the precise day that General Lang made his presence felt in Gavarnie. It was around the time that Father Arnaldus suffered a steep decline in his health; he suffered from palsy in half of his body, and Oma relented and allowed Melissa to sit with him and glean what wisdom she could from the old man. But then the "incidents" started. Growing numbers of soldiers-- Archanean mercenaries-- crowded the marketplace, often taking goods without paying the full price... or paying at all. Master Isarnus was taken away by Lang's troops for striking a soldier who was abusing an alewife. Old Senebrun was made to watch as one of his works, a stone arch celebrating the twin heirs of Grust, was destroyed. Gazenda went to the village of Olbern to buy salt and silver polish and never came back. She wasn't the only disappearance, either. Under Lang's occupation, Olbern Castle, once a symbol of the kingdom's strength, became known as the Nest of Vice, a place into which fair women and even young girls vanished without a trace.

After Gazenda disappeared, Oma changed all her plans to marry Melissa off to some merchant or traveling scholar.

"We'll hide you in plain sight, Liebchen," she said as she tied Melissa's hair into pigtails.

Melissa found herself stuffed into frocks two sizes too small; when the agent of the imperial census came to their door, Oma lied shamelessly and told the man that Melissa was only aged ten.

The people of Grust could only bear so much; shortly after the census, General Lorenz issued a call to arms, a call for all true citizens of Grust to defend themselves against their overlords. Gavarnie answered the call, and Melissa watched from her grandmother's walled garden as Adomar and many of her childhood friends took to the streets with axes, hatchets, antique lances and crude iron swords. The mood in Gavarnie reminded Melissa of the buoyant days before the Sable Order's destruction, and Melissa had a terrible feeling that this rebellion would not fare any better than had the brave men who died at Chiasmir Bridge.

"It is madness, my child," said Arnaldus as Melissa took the pulse in his weakened arm. "It is madness to fight, and equally mad to accept what Archanea does to us. What sort of world has this fallen to?"

"Lang's soldiers will destroy our fighters," said Melissa.

"Yes. Destroy them utterly. Every good thing gone to waste...."

As Melissa walked back to her grandmother's house, she encountered the smith Brascus; the clubfoot wore the look of a man who'd lost his shop and all his worldly goods. When Melissa asked what new ill had come upon them, the smith sighed deeply and told her the latest news from General Lang's lackeys.

"His Imperial Majesty," said Brascus, each word edged in scorn, "has dispatched his most dear friend and faithful servant, the Prince of Altea, to subdue the Grustian rebellion with the whole of his army."

Melissa had been sucking on a piece of candy; she felt it suddenly stick to the roof of her mouth. The Archanean Emperor was sending his most reliable sword-arm to vanquish Grust once and for all. Melissa went home in a daze, wondering how many more evenings she and her grandmother had to spend in one another's company. Outside their walls, Gavarnie held its breath as one being and waited for the end.

End Chapter Three