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 Four
The capture of Fort Menedy marked the total expulsion of the Dolhr-Grust alliance from Princess Nyna's kingdom. Three days of revelry followed, revelry aided by the large store of Grustian ale and spirits found on the premises. The enemy truly hadn't expected to lose, Merric decided, or they would've taken better care of something so valuable.
For the Alteans serving under Nyna's banner, though, it was a muted celebration, and once the casks were emptied and the celebrations ended, they turned to the more somber task of commemorating those lost in the massacre of Menedy River. Merric felt a little adrift during these ceremonies; he was a native-born Altean, to be sure, but for all his personal loyalty to the royal line of Anri, he felt his education in Khadein had marked him in the eyes of his countrymen. He was "that boy who went off to the desert to study magic," and both the journey and the course of study set him apart from the hard-riding Altean knights.
Merric had taken this distance to heart just enough that he looked on the memorial ceremonies with a measure of detachment. Academic detachment, perhaps. The Altean knights wept, or flushed with anger, when confronted with the place where King Cornelius was struck down by his allies. Merric just pondered the nature of the man.
A benevolent ruler, yes. A just king and a courageous one, a righteous man and a stubborn one. Phenomenally stubborn, truth be told. "Bull-headed" was the word Merric heard most often in Khadein when the news of the Altean defeat reached the Academy. Merric thought the criticism of his late king unfair- by all accounts, the battle went in the Alteans' favor until their Gra allies betrayed them- but now, looking at the king's legacy, he understood the harsh assessment a little better.
After all, hadn't he and everyone else just witnessed the moment in the mourning rites where Prince Marth poured out a offering of wine to sustain his father's soul in the world beyond? It was exactly right and exactly wrong. The eldest son poured the wine. The eldest daughter would offer a sweet loaf of unbroken bread. And a younger daughter... a younger daughter would stand by and watch. He'd glanced then at the faces of Prince Marth's tactician and knight captain both, to see how those men regarded an act that was, considered fairly, not right. Not blasphemy, maybe, not the same thing as reciting prayers backward or eating on a fast day, but not proper. Not in accordance with the law.
Neither Sir Malledus and Sir Jagen showed anything at all; their faces might have belonged to granite statues. And Merric felt a rather small person, lost in his own robes, because the truth that he shared with these two men was beginning to gnaw at his heart like a silverfish burrowed in the bindings of a tome.
-x-
In the delay that followed, Prince Marth and the usual bunch of gray and experienced heads, including Merric's teacher Master Wendell, attended briefing sessions, and Merric had comparative freedom to wander this fortress protecting the remote western stretches of the Holy Kingdom. He passed much of the time with Linde; she had focused so heavily upon light magic that elemental magic proved challenging to her, and Merric was able to help her make some progress when it came to the study of ice and thunder.
After their fourth practice, Linde could zap a bale of straw with conviction, and Merric left the yard feeling pleased with himself. On his way through the practice yards, Merric spotted his prince, then engaged in testing a strange-looking sword against the Princess of Talys and her pegasus. Merric recognized the weapon after a moment- a Levin sword, it was called, named after an ancient hero of song and story. The mythical Levin used wind magic just as Merric did, but the sword sent bolts of thunder magic at enemies, even through walls and other obstacles.
In Prince Marth's hands, it produced little sparks and fizzles, and Princess Caeda dodged them all without apparent effort. Merric sat down on a straw-bale to watch the show. Altea's girl-prince would have fooled anyone at that moment, Merric thought; Prince Marth's arms, bared to the late-summer heat, had developed to into something that a "frail" mage like Merric could only admire and envy. The prince would never- ever- resemble anything like the muscle-bound retainer that accompanied Princess Caeda everywhere, but she made quite the dashing figure at present.
No, he. Merric had to stop forgetting himself like that. Once they'd delved into this business of the contract on the Falchion, though, it became difficult to keep his pronouns straight in his own head.
Also, while Prince Marth's battle cry had a different timbre than Princess Caeda's, they were awfully close in pitch. Merric ought to mention that to his lord sometime.
The practice ended with Prince Marth demonstrating that he couldn't do much of anything with the Levin sword. Merric waved to Princess Caeda as she and her winged steed went elsewhere, and then he hastily scooted off his straw-bale as Prince Marth approached.
"Well, that didn't turn out as I'd hoped."
"It requires a substantial amount of native magical ability to master a Levin sword, so I'm told," replied Merric.
"What's the point of it, then? Anyone who's good at magic goes into it and never touches a sword again." Prince Marth flicked at his bangs, which were dark and heavy from perspiration.
"It's an ancient form of swordfighting and things were different then. The Academy at Khadein isn't even a century old, you know. If I'd been born into another age, I'd probably have been forced into mounted combat or archery like a 'normal' Altean. Maybe I'd have developed... I don't know, a wind sword or something like that to make up for not being six-and-a-half feet tall with the arms of a monkey."
Marth laughed at him then. It was just a little bark of laugher from behind his hand, but again the sound of it was strangely... girlish. It didn't sound right. Merric wondered if everybody else noticed these things and brushed them aside, or it he was seeing and hearing things given solely to people with terrible secrets burrowing around in their hearts.
"Anyway," said Merric, to get those thoughts out of his head, "You're out-of-doors, so you must know where we're headed to next."
"Exactly where I want to go. Gra."
Merric stopped short and nearly tripped on the hem of his robe. With Archanea kingdom liberated, they could set sail and strike at anywhere- Altea, Grust, even Khadein. Gra was not really on the way to anything. More than that, it wasn't technically under Dolhr's oppressive thumb, or claw; King Jiol had decided to lay down with with dragons, but he was Gra's true-born ruler. Merric didn't have to sit in on the strategy briefings to know the difference between liberating a land under occupation and invading a sovereign nation.
"I know we have a great score to settle with them, sire, but is this really the time?"
"I will not face my people in Altea without having first avenged my father's murder."
The prince was in his element now- resolute, brimming with confidence, seemingly to immune to the doubts Merric noticed when the sun went down.
"But, sire..." Merric's tongue tripped on the word. "Doesn't Jiol have Falchion in his keeping?"
"Yes, Merric, I believe that he does."
Merric didn't ask if the decision to go right for the weapon that lay at the center of their dilemma were a wise one. He didn't suggest that they hold off on retrieving the sword until they'd freed Khadein and scoured its massive libraries for any information regarding "how to use weapons bound by magical contracts."
If the whole charade unraveled now, thought Merric, well, the timing could've been worse. Princess Nyna had her kingdom back, with a whole host of allies sworn to her cause and energized by victory. After all, their whole endeavor was supposed to be impossible; hadn't their enemies taunted them with the promise of bloody defeat every step of the way?
They'd come this far, and done this much, so maybe their cause wouldn't founder in Gra at all. Maybe, just maybe, Falchion would be so tired of being in Jiol's hands that it would respond to Prince Marth exactly as it ought to.
Author's Notes: I don't know if calling the magic-sword thing in FE11 the "Levin" sword was intended to be a nod to FE4/5 being in the distant past of the "Marth games," but it sure does work out for 'ficcing purposes!
So, regarding apparently stupid decisions made by empowered teenagers... well, actually, we'll get into more of that in the next chapter.