"Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men"- Herbert Hoover
I kept my head down and pressed my back against the wall as far as it could allow me, doing my best to keep my hard and laboured breaths shallow. I checked around the corner cautiously. Another one of those... things... was there. I couldn't tell what they were, all I knew was they had a human form and they definitely weren't human.
I checked around the corner again even though I knew it was risky. I didn't want them to see me. I surveyed the area. Five people were dead, blood pooled around the corpses. There were six crash marks in total; three to the west, two to the north, and one in the middle, a few feet away from the bodies. Sad to say, but this was actually the room with the least damage so far, in casualties and in architecture. Books were piled up on the east side of the room where there weren't any crash marks, instead the bookshelf lay on top of the books. Looking closely, I noticed a hand crumpled under the shelf and crimson soiling the covers. I grimaced. Six bodies.
My fist clenched harder and I felt something poking my skin. I opened up my hand and in it was a medallion. It was blue and circular with a silver middle. It looked like a flower, yet it also vaguely looked like a watch. It had a name, I knew it, yet I couldn't find the words that fit.
My breath caught and I dropped it when black smoke started to emit abruptly
"Yes child," A wispy, childlike voice purred into my ear. "I must give you thanks for singing my song…"
What the voice said went over my head. I was frozen, breaths coming out faster and faster, more panicked by the second. The sweat running down my face turned ice cold and I had the urge to scream, though I had to be quiet no matter what; he told me so.
The black smoke circled up and down my body for what seemed like hours upon hours until it stopped, floating away from me dejectedly.
"What a shame," It took a more human shape, a shadow of a little girl with long curly hair. "Our souls are not compatible, but what if I were to…"
The shadow backed away slowly then came back at lightning speed, straight into my left eye. My whole body thrashed to the left, taking me out of my hiding corner and into a stray chair. Ignoring the pain, I brought the medallion up to my face, hands shaking all the while.
"W-what…?" I whispered. My eyes widened upon realization it wasn't only my voice saying that; the spirit was too. Our voices were in sync and everything felt so wrong, so unnatural. It was invading my entire body and soul. I placed a hand around my throat and shivered violently.
Then, the shadow suddenly flew out from my eye and white hot pain emerged. I took the hand from my throat and covered my left eye where it felt as if it were stabbed a thousand times over and drowned in salt water. I screamed-orders be damned-and dropped the medallion, letting it clatter noisily to the tiled floor. My eye was watering like it was a waterfall; salty drops flowing down my face and onto the ground. A small puddle was already forming.
No longer than a few seconds of screaming did a light blue, transparent hand cover my mouth. It didn't stop my cries, though it did make me take a moment to see who was covering my mouth. My right eye trailed up the hand to the arm, the torso and the face. Out of shock, my screaming stopped then I gasped for a breath I wasn't able to find.
Because instead of the little girl made out of black smoke I saw the glowing, blue face of me.
The little girl-spirit-put a finger to her lips and smiled mischievously. "I would advise you to not scream anymore," She whispered in my voice, giggling a bit. "You'll wake them up!" She pointed in the direction of the room I was looking at before.
There was a loud, ghastly groan and a rustling of clothing. Turning around and feeling like I had a black hole as a stomach, I jumped when I came face to face with five-no-six Risen soldiers, their beady red eyes resting on me with malicious intent.
I let out another scream, louder this time. "Help!" I crawled back as far as I could, twisting and turning to maneuver around fallen furniture. They followed slowly and took their time, one foot after the other.
"Lucina!" I turned my head for a second seeing his silhouette approach and a brief feeling of relief came knowing he was there. I had to get to him, I had to. If I could, I would be safe; with him anywhere was safe.
"Lucina!" He repeated. I quickly ducked under the spread legs of one of the Risen, managing to avoid the axe of another and dodging the other ones.
The spirit I had momentarily forgotten about flew with a crazed look and vanished into his body. I raced further ahead and the Risen seemed miles away from me, losing sight of them in the corridor.
When I reached him, he was struggling to stand up, on one knee and his sword holding him. He repeated my name in a strangled and breathless tone like he was beaten, yet I knew he hadn't sustained any injury. I wrapped my arms around him to try and get us up standing again but his weight was too much for my frame.
He repeated my name over and over like a broken record. I was scared. It was funny because he was supposed to be my comforting presence and despite that, I felt scared. With each time he spoke my name like a mantra, his voice got deeper and darker and felt more menacing. And the second to last time he spoke my name...
"LUCINA!" He shrieked into my ears. I was unable to cover them, I was still holding him up and I wasn't going to let him fall. His face turned as pale as a ghost and everything about his eyes turned an ashy black.
His hand wrapped around my neck suddenly and I had stopped breathing. His laugh was crazy and manic, it wasn't him!
As a bit of light hit his face, I caught a glimpse of his dark blue hair. His expression which was normally so kind and loving was twisted with evil and darkness.
"Lucina!"
I jumped and lost my balance, falling to the floor from my chair. I groaned and recollected myself quickly. "Ms. Maven...?" I realized she was there and I looked up to her with her hands on her hips, and a disappointed look on her face.
"It isn't the wisest plan to be napping in class, especially if it is a private lesson. And a lesson of mine no less," She sighed, flipping her hair, "I know Tellius lore isn't your preferred history subject, but do try to stay with the program? We're falling behind as is, and the past weeks have been unforgiving for the both of us." Her long, honey blonde hair was in a bun, and her burgundy red jacket was discarded, letting her white frilly blouse, tucked into her gray pencil skirt, be visible.
It took a moment or two to comprehend what was really happening. If Ms. Maven was here… and how she mentioned my lesson… I was in the library for class…? Then what happened earlier was a dream? It was so vivid though… And that man-was he who I thought he was? There were too many questions left after and not enough answers, and it wasn't helping much of anything.
Ms. Maven, who seemed to be debating something, stretched her hand towards me and lifted me back up. "We'll try this lesson one more time," She said while I went to lift my chair and sat, "but if you fall asleep one more time, we're moving straight to etiquette!" I didn't doubt it, Ms. Maven stayed true to her promises. It was intimidating and she knew it. She lifted the large, golden brown textbook to her face and began reading. "Now, we left off with Ashnard,"
While she began reading the passage in her withered looking textbook (We didn't really have a printing press and sadly, most of the history was passed down orally instead of through reading like this; perks of royalty, I guess), I made myself comfortable in my chair and leaned over my open textbook to follow along with the lesson. Spotting something out of place, I wiped away a glob of drool wetting the page in disgust. I could be a real slob sometimes. Maybe I needed etiquette lessons more than I thought. I felt the dry drool on the corner of my lips and worked at scratching it away. Yeah, etiquette was going to become a priority one day, but it was not yet that day.
Thoughts about etiquette aside, I started to follow along with the lesson reluctantly. Like Ms. Maven said, I didn't really enjoy Tellius lore, at least not as much as our Archanean history. Here, Archanean history was the only real history, following the story of the Hero King Marth. Well, not real per se, more like it was the history that wasn't shunned by the people. The worlds of Tellius, Elibe, Jugdral, and Magvel were more like legends than actuality to the people. In fact, most of the legends were supposed to be based off of real events, only historians lost track of them and they were eventually passed off as legends, because as aforementioned, history was passed down orally and there were few written copies of past events that were in good condition. The people refused to believe in all of them, except the Archanean Chronicles, and so Archanea was accepted as the only legitimate and plausible history according to our timeline.
While it was extremely plausible for Archanea to precede us, (The first Exalt was a descendant of Marth, living a thousand years after him, and the both of them used Falchion to defeat their respective evil dragons. If that wasn't proof then I didn't know what was.) there had been rumors winding up, about ten years ago claiming Tellius lore was real. There had been apparent sightings of a man with the appearance matching that of the portraits of Ike, the son of Greil and the chosen champion of Queen Elincia. People professed he was the Radiant Hero's descendant. Not much was to be said for Elibe, Jugdral, and Magvel although. Those ones were a bit harder to trace.
Valentian stories were however, real. Valentia was what Valm used to be called a thousand or so years ago, I didn't get to learn much about it though. With the war against the Conqueror Walhart who had control of Valm ten years ago, their history was being shunned too, despite it being apart of our history as well. What I could scrap up was that the first king's name was Alm and supposedly, he had possession of Falchion once, and his full title; the Exalted King, Alpine Alm Rudolf. It was a major coincidence, and one I had looked over plenty of times. I had a theory describing Alm as the first Exalt, though it was a bit confusing because if Alm was the first Exalt and King of Valentia, wouldn't Valm have been in possession of Falchion and the Fire Emblem instead of Ylisse? And how would the lineage work? Cynthia and I were supposed to be descendants of Marth and the first Exalt, rulers of Archanea and then Ylisse. If we were descendants of Alm, we would have been royalty in Valm too. I still had yet to learn more about Valentian history, so I couldn't approve or disapprove of my theory yet.
Either way, I liked to think all of the legends were real but with all of them, they would be hard to place in our timeline. The Archanean war would be first, being two thousand years before Ylisse was founded, then sometime later would be the Valentian war, and a thousand years after, the war with the Fell Dragon Grima and the first Exalt would be placed. Tellius could be placed between the Archanean war and the war with the Fell Dragon, next to the Valentian war and at least eight hundred years after Marth's reign. With the leftover two hundred years, the other legends could be placed there but it sounded chronologically impossible. Tellius had eight hundred years of a past along with it, so the other ones had to have hundreds of years accompanying them too. The eight hundred years didn't include Ike's birth or his campaigns either. It would take about twenty or so more years of the two hundred for Ike's birth and his army's numerous battles. It could be possible Tellius was part of the timeline, but it was impossible for the others.
There was speculation of Tellius being from an alternate world altogether, so maybe Tellius wasn't apart of our world, maybe Tellius was real in an alternate universe and somehow in this universe they were stories told to children and lore only. And maybe it was the case for the other legends too.
It could be possible and I didn't dismiss the idea of alternate universes being real. I had lived in a world where my life as Lucina was fiction, a simple handheld game. It was confusing to compare the two of my lives and how I could remember my previous one, so I tended to not mull on the subject for too long or not at all. At the moment, the knowledge that I held of the future or past, er knowledge of the time the game took place in, it was useless. Unless the war with the Risen escalated to the point I'd have to go back to the past, then I could use the time I had before that to think of what I could do in a position in the past, which gave me seven years to think, train and fight.
The first thing I remembered from the game was the avatar-Robin-waking up in a field. There was a cutscene before that, I think, something about him and Dad-Chrom-fighting an evil mage. After the field it's a town filled with bandits, then "Marth" would come in and save Aunt Lissa from a Risen soldier. After that, Marth would go to Ferox to fight Chrom for some reason, I still didn't know why, hopefully I'd figure it out within the seven years I had. Following Ferox would be Maribelle being kidnapped by Gangrel, then Marth would be back to stop an assassination on Emmeryn. Then a few more battles and it would be Emmeryn's execution, afterwards, Chrom gets his revenge by killing Gangrel, which left two years of peace in which I was born in. After the two years was the Valm campaign, where Marth was revealed and they met another swordsman (I couldn't remember the name. Who was it?) and the voice of Naga, Tiki, who once battled alongside the real Marth. After that the West Khan, Basilio died and that was the extent of my knowledge.
I had a few ideas on what I could do to change a few things, but nothing major. If I was going to go through with the idea of going to the past that is. As things were now, Ylisse was still salvageable so there was a chance I didn't have to go to the past at all, though it was a chance, meaning it was only an option as of now and of course, the times could change. And if I was going to go to the past, I'd try keep to the timeline I remembered, that way I would be aware of what needed to be changed, change things without disturbing the rest of the timeline and still know what was going to happen next.
My eyes scanning the textbook, I skimmed over the words as they were read aloud. What was currently being read was the final battle between Ike and Ashnard, the thirteenth king of Daein, and Ashnard's reasons for warring with Crimea and discriminating against the Laguz Tribes. His motives were finally being revealed. I held back a yawn.
I wasn't really interested to be perfectly honest. It wasn't that Tellius lore was bad or anything, it was far from it! It was hard to come up with a reason I wasn't as absorbed in it as Archanean. I guess I was caught up in the bias of the people or something. Ike's world and story should have been interesting to me though. The Laguz tribes were pretty cool, I mean there were hawk people, crow people, cat people, tiger people, lion people, and even dragon people or the correct term; manakete! It was a shame they were so discriminated against in Daein, it wasn't much different than what other humans went through in the world from Before, except the people from Before were still humans. Injustices were all around, other worlds weren't exempt from it.
I let my eyes droop a bit. I was still so tired despite my weird dream. My eyes drifted from the text to the pictures wearily and suddenly stopped. I felt myself pale. It was the medallion from my dream. It was there? It was real?! I brushed my hand over the picture to make sure I wasn't seeing things and blinked a few times.
"Um," I stuttered and raised my hand, stalling the lesson again. "Ms. Maven, w-what is that in the picture in the l-lower right...?"
She propped her glasses up and said, "That is Lehran's Medallion, or as it's known as now; the Fire Emblem,"
"F-fire Emblem...!? But it looks so different now!" I protested. There was no way, it couldn't be right, Lehran's Medallion was round, blue and had points coming out of it! The Fire Emblem now looked more like a shield and had slots where gemstones were supposed to go. It was like looking at two fraternal twins!
"Well, think of it like Falchion; it has many different incarnations and appearances. The reason your Falchion is different from the Hero King's is because the sword was once broken. The same could be said for the Emblem. It might have been broken once or this is a different incarnation, especially since the Emblem was typically related to the gods. They may have designed it according to their ideals. Does that answer your question?"
I nodded my head shakily and Ms. Maven went back to the lesson at hand, reading from the textbook again.
"...Ashnard gained chaotic, godly powers and despite the odds, General Ike and his army defeated the Daien army and the Laguz were freed from their clutches." She finished curtly, and put the book down. "That concludes the first half of the Tellius series, we'll commence the second half next week. Do you have any more questions before we're all done?"
I laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head in embarrassment. "Uh, yeah, where did Ashnard get his powers?"
Ms. Maven raised an eyebrow, knowing I hadn't been giving my full attention during my lesson. "Lehran's Medallion. It was cursed with chaotic energy said to bring godlike powers to those who held it for too long." She sighed dissatisfyingly. "Lucina, I know how hard everything has been for you lately," I scoffed quietly. Yeah, it had been hard, but it wasn't going to stop me from anything. "and because of it you've become less attentive, especially during lessons. I'm going to be frank; your grades have been dropping lately. I don't want to make you stressed, and your priority should lie with your new responsibilities, but at least try to make an effort in class, okay?"
She waited a few moments to let her message sink in with me, and breathed. "I'll leave you to yourself then. Don't forget to take care of yourself!" She gathered her things in her bag and put her burgundy jacket back on. The door shut, signifying she left. And I was alone again.
I was fuming. My new responsibilities weren't holding me back! In fact, my new responsibilities were making me a better person! Hardhip builds character, right? And I was making an effort in class! It could've been so much worse like my etiquette classes, and I had bruises to prove it too! I hadn't fallen asleep for a bad reason either, I just didn't get a lot of sleep the night before.
I was studying the Roster again, and it was getting worse. More of the men were getting killed, and some women were joining them in their graves. Only a handful of pages were left in the book, a small handful. It was so hard knowing who was going to die. I wanted to pull them from the battles they were supposed to be in, but I didn't have that kind of power. Our battle tactics were left to Frederick, though he also had a family who he had to protect and left for them for a while, so he left it to his second in command. Since Frederick was gone, my training was also left to the second in command: Virion, a man with long blue hair, a cravat, and the air of a noble. He was in the Roster; a secretive noble from some land or another, though I knew he was from Rosanne.
Virion was the best we had as a tactician ever since Robin seemed to up and disappear, though I was growing less hopeful about Robin himself returning, his page was withering at an exceedingly slow rate; I couldn't tell if he was going to die anytime sooner or later, not to mention he was a missing man in our records, which didn't make me feel any better.
Although Virion was my new trainer and our tactician, he also had a family. Since he was technically the one with the most power, he and his family were moved into one of the extra houses around the courtyard. The same couldn't be done for Frederick however, his wife wanted to defend her home too, which wasn't around Ylisse, their son wasn't readily accustomed to change either, according to what Frederick told me, so it was a tiring task to convince his family to move into one of the houses.
I didn't understand how Virion could train me considering I thought he was supposed to be an archer, though apparently during his time in the Shepherds, Virion was promoted to a bow knight, though it still was different compared to a lord, which I aspired to be. But I was grateful I had someone teaching me swordplay, at least. Besides, if I learned some of Virion's fighting style, I would have a bit of an advantage in the field, wouldn't I?
I... wasn't as anxious about going out into the battlefield as much as I used to be. The thought of fighting was still scary, but I was still training. Maybe once I had the experience I needed in training, doing war in an army wouldn't seem like such a foreign concept, because solely thinking about being in an army was nerve wracking.
Frustrated, I grabbed my books and other supplies, and left the library for my room. I scowled. I still had more of my responsibilities which Ms. Maven mentioned. I couldn't seem to take a moment's break anymore. I threw my load on my bed, not caring if any of my things flew anywhere else. I jumped on the bed, landing on my stomach, and face pressed into the sheets. I rolled over on my back to look at my ceiling blankly, and heaved a sigh. I stayed in that position for about five minutes, letting the time pass with absolutely nothing done.
"Hey, Lucy, Ami made cookies!" Cynthia barged into my room without any warning. It wasn't as surprising as it used to be. After Mom's funeral, we felt closer. She started hanging out in my room with me, talking about nonsense for hours on end; she made me forget about what I had to do and let me have fun. Cynthia was like my medicine, I only hoped the same could be said for me to her.
I turned my head towards her with excitement. "Did she? Do you know what kind?" Amice's cookies were the best.
She nodded cheerfully and took the chair by my desk, dangling her legs back and forth, and hiding something behind her back. "Oatmeal chocolate chip! They're soooo soft! Here, I brought some!" Lo and behold, from behind her, Cynthia pulled out four oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, two for her and two for me. I sat up on my bed so I didn't get anything on it. I felt bad we were probably going to be dirtying my room a bit with crumbs, but if it was Amice's cookies, I would do anything. I'd clean up after, anyways.
"I love you," I murmured into a cookie after my first bite.
"I know," Cynthia giggled after finishing her first cookie. The kid was a piranha, she ate all her food with a gusto.
I savoured the cookie wholeheartedly, licking the excess off the sides of my lips. "How is Amice anyway?" I asked, taking my other cookie.
"Ami's great! Well, no, not great, but she's doing really good! She's gotten amazing with a staff, see she took care of my scraped knee!" Cynthia and Amice were also good friends. Seeing how I conversed with her, Cynthia wanted the chance of making friends, and had been calling her Ami ever since.
"You know you shouldn't be using staves like that. Especially in this time," I chided.
"It hurt really bad," She shrugged, justifying herself.
I shook my head disapprovingly. Cynthia would always try to find a way out of anything sounding remotely like a lecture. She knew right from wrong and had a good conscious, she just didn't make the best decisions at times. "Either way, you know that staves are used for more important injuries than a small knee scrape."
"I knooooow," She groaned, dragging the word out. "Ami just wanted to practice on me, ya know? I thought she knew so I let her do it," Cynthia explained the situation to me fully, telling me how Amice wanted to be of better service to the country, and chose to train and study as a cleric.
It was a good cause, and I was proud of her, even if it did make me scared. Really scared. Mortality rates were getting higher and higher, and overhearing phrases about clerics being short staffed because they were recently dropping like flies, did not help my worrying. I'd have to talk with her about it.
"That's kinda cool," I muttered conversationally. "hey, what time is it?" I asked, because I was comfortable and I wasn't about to get up from my bed to check through the curtains. Cynthia was closer to my window anyway.
She opened my curtains and peered out the glass. "It looks like it's eleven-something-ish. I dunno, why?"
I scrambled out of my bed quickly, nervousness pooling into my mind. Shoving my second cookie into my mouth, and pushing Cynthia out of my room, I cursed. "A'm almosht twentshi minuthes late fer tha counshel meetin'!"
I slammed my door, yelling out an abridged apology, and ran to my closet, picking out a light, blue formal dress, throwing off my sundress and putting on the formal dress as quick as possible, while gulping down the remains of my cookie. I sincerely hoped no crumbs had gotten in or on it. I brushed the dress down and ran a comb through my hair quickly, put on some flats, and ran out of my room in a rush.
My shoes pounded the floor, clacking and breathing the only sounds I heard. I frantically opened the council room's doors, slamming them. "I'm so, so sorry I'm late!" I apologized, panting. I was about ready to die on the spot. How could I be so careless as to forget about the meeting?
"Miss Lucina," A deep voice rumbled through the room. "you were supposed to be called by a member of your staff,"
"Right, yes, I'm terribly sorry. I had made them aware of the meeting, yet they failed to alert me of the immediate time,"
His gray-green eyebrow rose. "And why is that?"
I picked at my dress, doing my best not to look away, and maintaining eye contact. "I-I'm not sure, but I will assure it does not happen again. I apologise for wasting all of your time." I addressed the rest of the council. The authority they held scared me. I was so out of place, being the youngest member of the council. Talking, much less being around them, it was so different, and not in a good way. This was so much different than speaking with Ms. Maven. At least with her, I could be myself and be comfortable, even if she did frighten me at times, I could still let it show. With the council, I was as stiff as a board, and had to hide almost every emotion I expressed, save for the annoyance for others' thoughts; and even that, I doubted I could do.
"As you should-"
A scoff cut him off from continuing. She had a light, snippy tone; the tone of a noble yet she was humble as well. "Sir Sinjin, Miss Lucina is a mere child. It is quite petty to see see a noble of your class intimidate a child."
"Is she not a prodigy?" A third person countered, another man. "A prodigy capable enough to have been training at age five, or learning advanced politiques at age eight?"
"Come now, even prodigies need rest! We are all human here, are we not?" The third and last man of the council said.
"Yes, of course. May I bring all attention to the meeting at hand?" The last council member, another woman, finally brought peace to the other members.
These... were all the members of the council. Sir Sinjin, Madame Maribelle, Sir Edmundus, Sir Badrick, and Madame Luella, respectively. The way the council, or the court worked was there were six main noble houses, representing their houses, and the demographics of the country. Sir Sinjin of the House of Merric represented nobles themselves who weren't apart of the council, Madame Maribelle of the House of Linde represented orphans and widows, Sir Edmundus of the House of Midia represented villages and villagers near major cities, Sir Badrick of the House of Nyna represented immigrants and foreign affairs, Madame Luella of the House of Abel represented the countryside, and me being the House of Marth or the House of the Exalt, took in all the information of the represented demographics, and with the help of the nobles, came to make decisions.
Each of the members were descendants of those in the Hero King's army; Merric the legendary mage who was famous for the wind tome Excalibur, Linde the mage who was an apprentice of the fabled Gotoh and only one capable of using the spell Aura, Midia the knight who was apart of a powerful noble family in Deil, Nyna the original ruler of Archanea before she passed it to Marth and vanished, and Abel the loyal cavalier of Marth who later married the pegasus sister Est. Mine being the most obvious and needing no explanation, Marth.
Sir Sinjin was a pink skinned, elderly man with graying green hair, tufts of grass disappearing each day, it seemed. His eyes were an icy blue, piercing and cold. He wore a teal garment, covering him from the collar down, with golden patterns going down his middle. He was the member with the most power; there wasn't a moment I doubted he enjoyed exerting it over the other members. Our first impressions of each other seemed to be me disliking him, and him disliking me, though as long as I didn't cause any troubles for him, I thought I would be okay. It felt as though he purposefully setting me up to fail somehow, though. He didn't feel safe.
Madame Maribelle was a fair woman somewhere in her twenties to her thirties, with long blonde hair that fell in curls. She had the most peculiar pair of maroon brown eyes, it was almost as if they were red. She wore a rose pink, long sleeved, open tunic, with a white undershirt, white leggings, and thigh high brown boots. Like Virion, Madame Maribelle was also a former member of the Shepherds, one of the healers they had. According to her Roster entry, she was a sharp-tongued noble from one of the most well to-do houses, cold to strangers, especially commoners but warmed to others quickly. She was Aunt Lissa's best friend. I hadn't met her prior to this, although she defended me. I didn't know why.
Sir Edmundus was a pale man in his late thirties, bald, yet he had bushy, brown eyebrows. He had a deep pair of brown eyes, tired as if he saw too much the world had to offer. He wore traditional green, event armour, with gold outlines and thorn patterns. He resembled two of his ancestor's subordinates greatly, Macellan and Dolph. They were rumored to be twins despite having no blood relation. Sir Edmundus was a stern man with a no-nonsense attitude. He didn't take ridicule from anybody and refused anything illogical. He also seemed to dislike me, though I would try to at least be respectful.
Sir Badrick was another elderly man, tanned bronze skin, with short gray hair, a bushy white moustache, and kind blueish green eyes. He wore a simple white robe with a green sash. He was suspected to be a fraud as a noble and his house was mostly disrespected because Nyna fled Archanea as its ruler, and Nyna supposedly never sired any children. His house had possession of Parthia, a legendary bow said to be a weapon of Regalia and passed down the royal family's lineage. Nyna had given the bow to Marth, and somehow Sir Badrick had it. People claimed he had stolen it from the royal vault and refused him, cursing his name, claiming he would betray us. However, Sir Badrick remained kind and Parthia being proof enough, was permitted to have a noble house. Sir Badrick had the disposition of a kind grandfather, I didn't know what to think about him, nice as he was.
Madame Luella was a middle aged woman, even though she looked extremely young for her age. She had tanned olive skin, short, wavy purple hair, dark as the purple in the sunset, and gray eyes, looking as if they were older than she was herself. Like her ancestor Est, Madame Luella wore traditional armour, white with gold trims forming into the pattern of a rose. The House of Abel was one of the most respected houses in the country, and they had the loyalty and conviction to back it up. Madame Luella was a sensible woman, mostly playing the peacemaker instead of arguing with the other members. She remained neutral in my eyes.
"Miss Lucina," Madame Luella gestured to the wooden seat between her and Sir Badrick. "why don't you take a seat so the meeting may begin." It wasn't a request. They were patient enough to wait for me, I couldn't waste anymore of their time.
I sat down and let my eyes travel over the room. It was a large room made of white, marble probably, with bookshelves and pillars around each corner. In the middle was a wide, rectangular table, six seats for each member of the court. In the centre of the table was a tray of tea, teapot, milk, sugar, cream, teacups, tea plates and spoons included.
I reached for a cup and poured, putting in two teaspoons of sugar and one cup of milk. I smelled it, letting the warmth caress my face. I smiled to myself. It had a citrus-y aroma, almost like rose, but that was too common for a noble court. Maybe I could ask the staff about it after.
I looked up and realized Madame Maribelle was staring at me. I flushed and took a sip at my tea, trying to distract myself from her red-ish eyes. It was like she was staring into my soul.
Sir Edmundus, who was besides Madame Maribelle, coughed into his armoured fist. "Yes, let's begin the meeting." He stood up, and set off a chain, getting the other members to stand up, and me, still fumbling with my teacup, stood up hastily along with them, my chair making the most obnoxious squeaking noise it possibly could. "May the first meeting of the New Houses of Ylisse, on the subject of the Fire Emblem, commence!" The Fire Emblem? I hadn't been informed of the purpose of the meeting either… Immediately, he and the other members placed their right hands over their hearts. I had heard about the structure of a council meeting from beginning to end, so I quickly followed suite.
After the announcement of the motives of the council's discussion, it was the oath.
Altogether we said, "We, as members of the Six Noble Houses of Ylisse, and as members of the utmost primary court, continue to guide our country into a realm of peace, equality, and honourability. We pray to Naga, may Ylisse live on!"
It was customary for the beginning of each council. These meetings were much different than what used to be done. After the whole war with the Risen set off and Father died, we had to change almost everything drastically. And now that Mother was gone, I had to be the replacement. Well, not really replacement; I could never fill the shoes of any of the previous Exalts or members of the court. They had only been able to get through about fifteen meetings with Mother, and now the cycle of new meetings would start over again, this being the first one with me.
After the oath, we took our seats once again.
"Now on to the discussion, yes?" Sir Badrick stated with a cheerful smile. "With the Fire Emblem remaining in the hands of Plegia, I believe the best course of action is to send parley."
Madame Maribelle, who was sipping at her tea, narrowed her eyes on Sir Badrick. "And how would such a parley end? With the negotiator dead like a lamb to the slaughter? Sending a parley, much less to Plegia and its King, would be foolish. We've made the same mistakes before, we shouldn't be repeating them… After all, this is a time of war. It's best to think like it."
Sir Edmundus leaned forward onto the table. "Madame Maribelle is correct. Plegia won't simply give us the Fire Emblem. They were aggressive in taking it, Lady Emmeryn, and Sir Chrom from us, we have to be aggressive in taking it back. What we have to do is assemble a retrieval team. We could wipe out the Plegian bastards, once and for all!"
Wipe them out...? Something like wiping out an entire country would not have been what Emmeryn would have wanted. The way he was talking was stupid. Had he learned nothing of the late Exalts' ideals? In the background there was more arguing between Sir Badrick, Madame Maribelle, and Sir Edmundus. I hardly paid attention.
By the way Sir Edmundus was talking, it sounded far from a normal council meeting. It was more like a meeting of war. I was never informed about what a war council pertained to. I had ideas, very basic ideas, and in the end, they probably wouldn't help. More importantly, I had no idea how to possibly contribute. I knew I was passionate about this subject, about how we could avoid war with the Plegian people, or people in general. Violence shouldn't have been the first answer to every situation. I squirmed in my seat and went for another sip of tea. I was anxious.
"Miss Lucina," My head snapped to the right as I heard my name from a seemingly exasperated Madame Luella. "What have you to say? What are your thoughts on a war with the Plegian people and the Risen, to retrieve the Fire Emblem? Should we do parley, or should we attack?" She was prompting me, she wanted me to participate in the discussion. Madame Luella… was kind of cool.
I cleared my throat to get rid of most of my nervousness. "Well, negotiation isn't a bad tactic, but at this point negotiation isn't an option anymore, especially with the Risen at their side. Attacking, however is the better option." From the corner of my eye, I saw Sir Badrick's grin become more serious and Sir Edmundus puffing up his chest proudly, happy I had chosen his side. I took a deep breath. "Slaughtering the Plegians would also be useless, we would eventually come to the result my grandfather created. Ylisse would become war torn and thousands of innocents would be killed pointlessly. Not to mention there would be a higher casualty rate, what with the Risen and the difficulty there is in eliminating them. I think doing a stealth mission to retrieve the Fire Emblem would be better. That way we would have less casualties and less contact with the enemy." Everyone was staring at me, a few of them trying to gape discreetly, and I squirmed again uncertainty. "Is that right?" I added in a small voice.
Sir Badrick's gave a wide smile. "Clearly we've underestimated our younger affiliate here!"
Sir Edmundus nodded sagely, crossing his arms. "Yes, certainly."
"Were you not doubting her status as a prodigy earlier, Sir Edmundus? I do believe you owe Miss Lucina an apology!" Madame Maribelle chastised, grinning behind her teacup.
Sir Edmundus denied Madame Maribelle's observation, claiming I was still a puny child, and somehow dragging Sir Badrick into their argument yet again. I opted on ignoring the banter in the background. Weren't they supposed to be serious? Especially with what we were supposed to be talking about? Maybe Sir Edmundus was more of a hot head than I had originally thought.
"SILENCE!" Sir Sinjin yelled out suddenly, slamming his fist on the table. I jumped in my seat, not realizing Sir Sinjin had been holding in so much anger.
"This is a meeting of grave subject, and our members are acting like children," he sneered. "We will get back to the immediate subject as of now!"
"Sir Sinjin is correct," Madame Luella agreed solemnly. "If we do manage to reclaim the Fire Emblem, we must plan on what is to happen to it. Should we hide it away? Or flaunt it to the public?"
Thinking I had gotten the hang of how to answer, and with how Madame Luella gave me a major confidence boost, I answered. "Flaunting the Emblem to the public would be a really bad idea, it would cause more of an uproar with the Plegians unaware of the retrieval mission and make them target us again. I think the safer bet is to hide the Emblem somewhere secure where only a few select people can enter. That way the Emblem is out of harm's way and its safety is made aware to those select people."
The council ended with those two decisions made: a stealth retrieval mission for the Emblem, and keeping it hidden.
I was happy for myself, for managing to make a good first impression with the council (besides my tardy entrance). I thought it went well. The ideas I offered were logical, and they didn't put up much argument except for discussing minor tweaking and adjustments.
By the end, all the members had left to their houses, and I was left in the council room. Amice had entered and was working on wiping down the table after I had cleared it of the tea. I felt so brain dead after it all. It was tiring, not to mention the stress was looming over my shoulders like it weighed a hundred tons. I told Amice all about it too.
"W-would you like me to make some t-tea for you later?" She asked, wiping up the last bit of dust off the table. Her offer was kind and I appreciated it, but…
I groaned and held my stomach, feeling my face go green. "Ugh, please don't, I think I drank a month's worth of tea during that meeting alone. Could you please draw me a bath instead?" I deserved something after a meeting of such a caliber. At some points we had to speak over each other, and my throat was not forgiving me for it.
"So, you wanna be a cleric, huh?" I asked, bringing up the subject. I would have asked later, so the moment was perfect.
Amice immediately flushed, using the cloth she was wiping with to cover part of her face. "Y-yes-!"
Knock Knock!
Amice and I looked towards the closed doors, surprised someone wanted to come in. Nothing else was scheduled in the room after the meeting, so no one should have been in it excluding us.
"Come in!" I answered, a little peeved. Amice and I were about to talk about a really important subject. Her being a cleric could be extremely dangerous and I'd be damned if I let anything happen to her.
The door creaked open and Madame Luella's purple hair popped out. I raised a brow. Why was she here after hours?
"Madame Luella, what can I do for you?" I asked respectfully, with Amice almost hiding behind me. She hadn't encountered a member of the council before and I didn't think I counted.
"Ah, I seemed to have misplaced a book of mine. It is very precious to me. You wouldn't mind helping me search for it, would you?" She asked somewhat pleadingly. It must have been a very important book to her if she was willing to ask for help so humbly.
"Of course," I replied. "What does it look like?"
"It's a brown leather book, with a gold hammer on the cover." The request wasn't strange, a lot of the books we had had weird symbols on the front.
Amice and I got to searching around the bookshelves with her refusing to leave my side. Amice didn't want to be left alone with Madame Luella, she was intimidated. I was too. Our efforts in searching were quite fruitless during the first few minutes, and it total it took about half an hour for us to finally find it. It was laid on a tiny table, isolated in a corner. Picking up the book, my hand brushed over the cover, and I was shocked by it. Static electricity was annoying. Getting a better look at the hammer on the book, I almost dropped it out of shock. (The puns weren't intended, mind you) M-Mjölnir? That was impossible though! Mjölnir was apart of Jugdral history only! We hadn't even been able to get through all of the Jugdral chronology in class because it was so extensive! The only things I knew about Mjölnir was that it was extremely powerful thunder magic, and it could only be used by those with holy blood only!
A hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped. "L-Lucina, are you a-alright…?" Oh, it was only Amice…
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine! Here, let's bring this back to Madame Luella!"
We went back to the conference table to find Madame Luella sitting where she was during the actual meeting. She noticed us coming and left her seat to get Mjölnir back from my hands.
"I'm thankful you've found it," She bowed in a dignified manner.
I waved my hands back and forth, frantically. "Oh, no, it was fine! You don't need to thank us for anything!"
"Like a true bearer of the Emblem…" She said softly under her breath, while smiling mysteriously. I had to make sure I hadn't misheard her absurd phrase. What could she have meant?
Madame Luella left with her thanks again, and the door shut on her form, leaving the palace for her house.
"Bearer of the Emblem...?" I murmured to myself.
"I-is anything wr-wrong?" Amice asked concernedly.
Madame Luella left as an enigma. Why did she have a legendary tome which was claimed to be fiction, and only able to be wielded by those of holy blood, especially when she was a descendant of Abel and Est? And what did it mean to be a bearer of the Emblem? I was reminded of my dream, the images of which I had long forgotten, yet the feelings remained. Lehran's medallion, the Tellius incarnation of the Fire Emblem, housed chaotic godly power, and if I was meant to wield the same power, I was more terrified.
I stood there for some time, with a contemplative expression. Finally, I answered her monotonously, "No. I'm fine."
This one was really late! Sorry about that! I hope made up for it in this chapter!
This was actually really fun to write, my favourite so far! I really wanted to incorporate what Lucina learned in history and how she compared them all, not to mention what she knows in the game's standards. Making up the council members was pretty fun too, and connecting them with people in Marth's army was really cool. Maribelle's in the council too! I figured since she's from one of the noble houses in Ylisse, I'd just add her in there. I figured Lucina's pretty isolated too, always in the palace, so I think this was a good chapter to reconnect her to the people, sorta, outside of her world, ya know? There were a lot of past game references in this chapter too, and it was really interesting to use all the information from the different games in this. Also, the blue haired man in Lucina's dream could be anybody, really: Chrom, Marth, Ike, Sigurd, Seliph... Most likely the first three though. Lucina could miss her father, really just fascinated with the Hero King, or because she was learning Tellius history before she fell asleep. I guess that could count as her rude awakening, huh? ...Yeah, I didn't think it was funny either...
The council members names besides Maribelle's all have meanings.
Sinjin: holy man; saint
Edmundus: prosperous protector
Badrick: axe ruler
Luella: famous elf
I suppose that's all I wanted to explain!
Question: Have you played any of the Fire Emblem games besides Awakening?
My answer: I've played Shadow Dragon and Path of Radiance before. They're really fun games and I wish they kept some of the mechanics from Path of Radiance in the later games! 10/10 would recommend.
Reviews are love and motivation!
This chapter is dedicated to Satoru Iwata, a man who created joy and creativity in the games he helped with. Rest in peace.