Honesty Is (Not) The Best Policy
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Rated T for mature themes and violence.
Chapter One
In one alcove of the vast palace of Millennium Court stood a statue of two young women playing some sort of game with a ribbon. The girls sported elaborate carved hairstyles but, save for the ribbon, were entirely nude. Merric took a moment to admire the fair curves of marble; if there were any statues like these in the royal court of Altea, they'd been discreetly hidden from public view. He'd gone the first twelve years of his life without proper appreciation of the bared female breast, and it had taken a mainland education to shock him out of that mindset.
The new Merric, duly educated, could therefore appreciate the sight of the young woman who stood against that attractive piece of statuary. Linde had foregone the rags of a peasant lad in favor of the clothes of a highborn Archanean maiden, a sheath of rosy silk that exposed her arms and a good deal else.
It was to ward off the heat, of course, Merric thought, and he smiled to himself as a drop of perspiration worked its way down his temple. The air in the palace was oppressive, sweltering; Merric's own clothes that day were white robes suited to the desert summer, robes he hadn't expected to need in the Holy Kingdom's capital. Claims of the healthful mountain climate of Pales turned out to be false; if the windows in his bedroom the night before hadn't already been broken, Merric would've likely blown them out just to let in some air.
"Hello, Merric."
"Good day, Linde. I was wondering if we might continue our conversation from yesterday."
"Sure." The gleam of interest in her eyes was immediate and not well-hidden.
"Your father- and pardon me if the subject distresses you?"
"No." Her upswept tail of hair bounced as Linde shook her head.
"So many of the celebrated adepts of light magic were women- Saint Fila, Saint Helarn- that it surprises me that your father had such skill with the Aura tome."
"It was the occasion of a lot of... trouble... at the school in Khadein," Linde said, and Merric heard a flatness to her voice. Fearing she would clam up on him, he continued in haste.
"Yes, of course. But your father did become Aura's master... and then passed it to you? I'm afraid I don't understand how the inheritance worked in this case." Inherited tomes were, to Merric's knowledge, one of those things that had been practiced long, long in the past... and then stopped because of the trouble it caused.
"When my father mastered Aura," Linde said, sounding a bit like a lecturer, "its power was bound to him. It's bound to me now, not because of my... bloodline... but because my father taught me how to access the spell."
"So you inherited the tome not as your birthright, but as your father's chosen successor." Merric wanted to be as clear as possible on this point. "That's the same way I acquired Excalibur- Master Wendell granted it to me."
"That's how it's usually done," Linde said, sounding unconcerned. "Now, there are some weapons that are inherited as a birthright. The most famous one of them comes from your own country."
"You speak of the divine blade known as Falchion? I wasn't aware that the details of its legend had spread so far."
"I had to learn about the War of Altean Succession along with everything else," Linde replied, and her smile flared brightly for a moment. "The twin brothers of the great hero King Anri were feuding over which of them was the king's rightful heir, and the only way to tell who was lying was to give them each the blade and let them try to use it."
"And the blade reacted to the touch of the true heir, the eldest male in the bloodline, and none other," said Merric to complete the tale.
"That part always confused me when I was little," Linde said. "We have the three holy weapons here in Archanea, the regalia, but the king can bestow those weapons on those he finds worthy. But in Altea, it works the opposite way... Falchion knows its owner, and acknowledges none other. That was the contract placed upon it by the gods... so Father always said."
Merric felt his spirits deflate significantly as they talked, which did not escape Linde's notice.
"It's never been recovered, has it? Falchion, I mean. It's been missing since the great battle in Menedy..."
"Yes. We don't have it," said Merric. In that moment, he wasn't sure if that was a bad thing for their cause, or not.
-x-
Merric extricated himself from conversation with Linde, who truly did seem eager to discuss the minutiae of teaching practices at the Khadein academy, and hastened back to his lord with the information he'd gleaned out of the current mistress of the Aura tome.
Prince Marth was pacing around one of the audience rooms, an ornate chamber wherein the late king of Archanea had received honored guests in some degree of privacy. On a day in which the junior knights had stripped down to their shirts and loose breeches to cope with the inland climate, Altea's prince was conspicuous for the amount of his clothing, including a high-collared tunic and full, heavy trousers tucked into his boots. Prince Marth had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up in an apparent concession to the heat, then negated that by wearing gloves that reached to his elbows.
"Are you quite comfortable in all that, sire?"
"Yes," said Marth, his eyes meeting Merric's in a direct challenge. Merric decided to get to the point as quickly as he could, summing up the essence of his conversation with Linde.
"As we thought, the royal sword of Altea is also bound by a contract, not unlike the contracts placed upon the more powerful tomes," he concluded. "Linde knew of it- only the eldest male of the bloodline of Anri can make use of the powers of Falchion."
Marth, who had resumed his pacing during Merric's report, now stood some distance from Merric with his back turned. As Merric watched, Marth slowly put up one hand to brush away some untidy strands of hair from the nape of his neck. It was a characteristic gesture, seemingly with little or no thought put into it, and though Merric had seen the prince flick at his hair like that dozens upon dozens of times, he wished at the moment that Marth wouldn't move exactly like that. It was eye-catching, in a way it shouldn't have been.
"I don't understand, Merric," the prince said after a leaden pause.
"Sire?" Merric hoped he didn't have to go through the whole magical-contract business from the beginning. It wasn't that arcane.
"I realize the task before me is a difficult one," said Marth as he turned to face Merric again, "but why would my father set me on a path he knew to be impossible?"
"I- I can't say, sire."
And then the prince went like that again with his hair, and completely useless words lodged in Merric's throat and remained there, unspoken.
Author's Notes: Fila and Helarn, ancient heroines of Light magic, are purely my headcanon, though the name of Helarn comes from the Helarn staff, an unused weapon for FE1. It made weapons unbreakable. The idea of Anri's brothers being twins is also my headcanon, though the magical contracts on Falchion and the other weapons are not.