Love is Not A Victory March

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, or any of the characters therein.

Warning: Contains battle scenes, mild fantasy violence, and species-ism against the dragonkin.

***

Part Two: Pawn Sacrifice

Storm Moon, 605

"If there should be an attack on the capital, you'll come flying to us with the news. You're our messenger, Est-- you're the only hope of the garrison here if they need reinforcements."

The liberation of Macedon (the official name of that phase of the campaign) marked a turning-point in the war. No longer would the whole of the League march as one. Pontifex Wendell went to Khadein to take command of the fabled city of magic. An Altean contingent, led by Sir Arran, returned to guard Prince Marth's homeland. Most critical was Pales, the capital of the holy kingdom; the finest knights of Archanea formed a garrison to defend the city for their princess. And Est of the Whitewinged Order of Macedon would likewise remain at Pales.

Est tipped her head to the side and considered Palla with large eyes as she considered the gravity of her mission.

"Okay, sis! But... how will I know where to find you?"

"The same way you always do." Palla took her sister by the shoulders and held her close. "Our hearts call to one another across the skies."

"Right!" Est said, all doubt vanished from her face. "You can count on me, sis. I'll get there, no problem."

***

Flower Moon, 605

Every Macedonian dragoon aspired to become a Dracoknight. In one of the happier moments of the campaign, Palla found her skills matured to the level that she could handle a dragon mount just at the time of their return to Macedon, the aerie of Archanea. As the League closed in on the royal stronghold, where Michalis waited for them, Palla found a dragon bereft of a rider. The dragon accepted Palla, accepted the name Palla gave her, and from then on, they were as one in the air.

Catria had to bear with the limits of her pegasus Deino for a time thereafter, as she didn't find a dragon for her own until after the first round of slaughter in Dolhr. It reassured Palla to see her sister borne on a dragon that matched Catria's fierce personality. Deino would not have had the endurance to handle that final assault on the keep of Dolhr. Palla mentioned this to her sister after the battle, when Alecto had proven herself a fine companion for Catria. Catria, though pleased herself with Alecto's performance, had a wistful response.

"Poor Caeda. She wanted so much to be a Falcoknight."

***

Storm Moon, 605

The march to Dolhr had a different character than the campaigns that preceded it. Beyond the missing faces in the ranks, Palla noticed a new feeling in the air, a shared premonition of something tremendous that lay just beyond tomorrow. Palla couldn't put a name to the feeling, but she pictured it as a mass of thunderheads on the horizon, a warning that a great storm was at hand. It was not her imagination-- the dragons and pegasi sensed it, the horses sensed it, and the soldiers sensed it from their leaders on down.

Minerva had a place by her fellow rulers; now that she was the acknowledged head of Macedon, she spent her days in conference with Princess Nyna, and Duke Hardin of Aurelis, and General Lorenz of Grust. Hardin and Lorenz, while not kings themselves, were the de facto powers in their respective kingdoms, and had numerous League soldiers under their command. Palla understood the change, and was glad to see Minerva adapt to this role, but she missing flying alongside her commander. Est, of course, was in Pales, leaving another gap in their formation. As for the other Pegasus Knight, Caeda did not often fly with them. Caeda considered herself a recruiter and morale-booster; she added many a fine warrior to the League, and took a keen interest in the welfare of her recruits. She flitted through the ranks, stopping to chat with anyone who showed a long face, and reported signs of trouble back to the commanders. The League took in defectors from the opposite side-- runaways from the army of Grust, thieves and pirates who'd seen a change of heart, plus a certain trio of Macedonian traitors-- but no one defected from the League on Caeda's watch.

So Palla and Catria found themselves most often in the company of another double act, the young Altean paladins. The Alteans had been a tight circle at first, but over the course of the campaign, they slowly opened up to their fellow soldiers. Draug struck up a friendship with a fellow armor knight, while Gordin managed to work his way into the circle of the Archanean bowmen. That left Abel and Cain to cast about for new companions, and in the end they closed a new circle with the remaining Whitewings. The foursome quickly found themselves compatible; not only were they well-matched in terms of speed, mobility, and endurance, their personalities joined together so easily that it seemed a loss that it had taken so very long to befriend one other.

They began to split watch duties, and found pairing air and ground coverage to be the most efficient way to respond to a threat. Soon they foraged together, set up camp together. When necessity demanded a night march, they kept themselves alert through song. Their voices-- tenor and baritone, soprano and alto-- mingled with surprisingly tuneful results. It turned out Abel could play the Altean lute, and had in fact acquired one on their pass through his homeland; Palla wished she had a Macedonian lyre to accompany him. Perhaps, as they marched in the direction of Dolhr, some vendor might have one....

But there was little life on the road to Dolhr. The land was so like Macedon, with its rugged mountain peaks and stands of ancient forest, yet everything was overlaid with an air of desolation. It wasn't the sense of human tragedy that permeated Gra, already known as the "Land of Sorrow" for its utter devastation. This seemed something more ancient, more powerful. Palla felt out of place, felt that humans simply didn't belong on this land. And yet, when Palla looked at those bare-toothed mountains, at the deep blue of the winter sky, at great Iote standing guard over the heavens at night-- it was almost like home.

The Alteans had good-natured complaints about the rations as they went south-- they looked with suspicion at the gruel made from chestnut meal, at the soft and pungent cheeses, at the idea of eating a goat.

"They eat rubbish," Abel stated, as though it were proven fact. "It's like eating fish dredged from the bottom of a channel."

"No, they don't," Palla insisted. No sensible herdsman of Macedon would feed rubbish to a goat, the major source of sustenance for many a poor family. Macedonian fields produced little wheat, but there were olive groves and towering chestnut trees. Macedonian pastures nourished few cattle, but the great southern ocean had a bounty of fish and other fruits of the sea. If their diet was simple, the boldest aerial knights on Archanea did not suffer any from it.

Palla, in truth, was horrified at the food consumed at the festivals that followed the liberation of Altea. One slice of the wheat pastry filled with spiced meat had left her feeling ill, and she'd seen Cain eat an entire round of the stuff. Draug ate three. So, if Palla derived no small amount of pleasure from the Alteans' horror at their current fare, it was only in defense of her own stomach.

The next watch she shared with Abel, Palla volunteered to do the cooking. Abel stood guard while Palla assembled their supper-- chunks of meat the size of a hen's egg threaded between larger chunks of fat upon a skewer. Palla seasoned the meat with a few familiar herbs collected around the camp, then roasted the skewers over the fire until the outside of each piece was nearly burnt. When Palla took the meat off the fire, each piece was charred on the outside, yet nearly raw on the inside. To her, it tasted as good as anything she had ever eaten.

"Pretty good," Abel admitted. "For goat."

"Thank you." For Palla, the taste brought back a score of memories-- her early days of training, her first solo mission when she'd had to fend for herself, the nights she'd taught those survival skills in turn to Catria, to Est....

"Cain wouldn't like it so much," Abel said as he started in on a second skewer. "Hates his meat rare, did you notice? He'll wade in a river of blood without flinching, but one drop of red on his plate and he wants to be sick. I don't understand it."

"He is ever the serious one." Cain spoke seldom and smiled still less.

"He didn't used to be," replied Abel. "He was quite the jokester once. Had a temper, too. He'd stomp and shout and go red in the face when we were younger."

Palla smiled at the image; she thought she knew now where Cain's sobriquet of "Great Bull" truly originated.

"We didn't grow up, really, until we were in Talys. Having all the adults disappear suddenly rather does that do you." He sounded thoughtful instead of bitter, as though he'd not had time to consider the situation until that moment. "Draug was the oldest, besides Jagen of course, and he was all of twenty. Then me, then Cain. Then Gordin and Marth. The five of us, and two old men. For all we knew, that was what remained of Altea."

Palla understood the strange wonder in his voice; for months, she, her sisters, and their commander had been a country unto themselves, Macedonians bereft of their Macedon. They had chosen that path, though, while the young Alteans had their country stripped from them. She had a strange vision of those five boys training in the rustic castle of Talys-- Cain and Abel in a sparring match, Cain's hair turned to fire in the late afternoon sun. Gordin aimed his practice arrows at a scarecrow while Draug tried to interfere with the young archer's concentration, and the prince, steeped in melancholy, sat apart from them with a book propped open before him. The picture was so vivid that, if Palla possessed any talent with a brush, she might have painted it. Abel was speaking, though, and Palla stopped imagining the boy Abel in favor of focusing on the very real young man before her.

"I envied him a little. It was the greater honor, you see, to stay at the castle to guard the queen and her children, but it seemed much less exciting. Cain was sent to battle because he had less experience than I-- he could barely aim a javelin in those days. We said he was only good for whacking people with swords, and what's a sword compared to a lance? He had two elder brothers, and they thought they could keep him safe."

Palla knew how the story ended, but nonetheless concentrated on every syllable Able spoke. To hear, for the first time, Abel's own account of the events that transformed him from child to man was like hearing a bard perform his own version of a familiar ballad, a very old tune with new lyrics. Palla felt her heart ache in concert with the eternal lament that flowed beneath Abel's words.

"Cain was the only one to come back alive."

Cain did on occasion let his guard down-- if no females, knight or cleric, happened to be around. Catria had a boyish enthusiasm that allowed Cain to be comfortable with her, to speak to her as he would Roshea or any of the younger knights. When conversing with Palla, Cain remained stiff and formal-- Abel's comparison of Cain to Malledeus was terribly apt, except the elderly tactician was more at ease around "young ladies." Abel had no such issues that Palla could see. He was respectful to princesses, cordial to his fellow knights, and showed the famous Altean knightly chivalry to villagers and serving-maids. If Altean paladins sometimes made themselves annoying with their sense of storied romance, Palla had to admit that their attitude could be... charming.

She noted, too, how good he was with the youngest among them-- a trait nurtured in Talys, no doubt. Abel always had a kind word and smile for Tiki, the child-princess of the manakete race. Many in the League either feared Tiki or considered her a tool, something akin to a breathing, speaking counterpart of the Gradivus lance. Abel treated Tiki not as a living goddess or an ultimate weapon, but a young girl who'd been through a nasty time and needed a bit of care. In this he followed his prince's lead-- whatever Marth planned for Tiki in terms of battle, he was certainly kind to the child-- but that attitude was not universal. In Abel, that attitude went beyond just Tiki. He would drop back to ride alongside poor Princess Maria, to lift the mood of that too-serious child. And, of course, he was so very considerate with Est....

Yes, Est. Abel took time to thank the youngest Whitewing for her mad mission. Some of the elder knights snorted at the addition of a mere child to their ranks, as Est was months younger than Caeda of Talys and had even less experience. But Abel made sure to complement Est for her courage and pluck in single-handedly delivering the Mercurius sword to Prince Marth. He ruffled her hair; he offered Est's beloved Tisiphone an apple. And Est, dazzled by this young man who towered over her as a poplar does a sunflower, tagged in his footsteps. If Abel stood in the light, Est was hiding in his shadow. Abel's squire, some of the older knights called her.

"Abel this and Abel that," Catria said in mock disgust one night as the three sisters huddled against the cold. "Come off it, Est. Can't you just admire him in silence like the rest of us?"

Est's eyes grew larger and her voice much smaller.

"You like Abel, too?"

"No!" Catria said hastily. "I mean... there are a lot soldiers in the League who have someone they admire very much. Nobody else is sending out a constant stream of chatter like you, Est." And Est, her curiosity pricked, began demanding to know who these other lovelorn members of the League were. Catria spent the remainder of the night dodging Est's trick questions, and Palla smiled at them both.

While Palla felt a pang of caution over the love-light in her little sister's eyes, she was deeply grateful to Abel for his consideration. He'd even dropped by to say farewell and good luck before Est departed for Pales.

"Don't take offense when I say that I hope I don't see you for a while, Est. If I see your pretty Tisiphone sailing over the mountains of Dolhr, I'll know there's trouble in the capital, and we all hope that doesn't happen. So, let's meet again in Pales, eh?"

He then gave her a packet of sweets-- sugar drops flavored with Altean roses and violets. Alteans loved their flowers, called the fourth month of the year the Violet Moon and the sixth, the Rose Moon. Est, who'd pelted Abel with questions about his homeland, knew this and saw something deep and meaningful in the gift.

"I'll save these and have just one a day until you come back," she said to Abel. And Palla, who knew how difficult Est found it to resist honey-cakes and other sweet things, heard something in the promise that Abel likely missed.

Est could have chosen worse, after all. She might have found the air of mystery around the swordmaster Navarre to be intriguing, and Palla suspected there were things in Navarre's past best left unexplored. She might have fallen for the handsome face of Wolf of Aurelis, and had her affections repulsed by his cold personality. Worse, she might have set her sights on Astram, when the Archanean hero very clearly had a love already in Lady Midia. To be infatuated with Abel of Altea-- he of the disarming smile, kind heart, and deeply tolerant approach to life-- no, that was safe by comparison.

That tolerance interested Palla the most; so many in the League had an approach to life as narrow as the bloody bridge of Chiasmir. For all that they depended on one another for survival, the various factions of the League maintained a sense of distrust toward foreigners and foreign customs. Abel wore his Altean heritage openly, and yet he learned a few words of dragon-speak from Tiki, he took some archery lessons from master sniper Jeorge of Menidy, he listened to the advice of old General Lorenz. He was willing to try roasted kid, Macedonian-style.

"Nothing can grow without rain," he would say. An Altean proverb, it had resonance for Palla. Macedon's thin and rocky soil depended on the winter rain for its harvest; a dry winter meant famine. For Abel, hailing as he did from fertile Altea, where cattle grew fat through the summer and water was never in short supply, the proverb meant something less than the creed of survival. Enough rain fell on Altea that one might be ungrateful about it, so his adoption of the proverb reflected something of Abel's inner spirit. Abel accepted the rain, and so Palla grew ever warmer towards him.

Yes, she missed having Est to complete the Whitewings' triangle, missed private moments with her own commander, but Palla did not regret passing time in Abel's company. They did make a complementary pair, she thought-- White Knight, Black Panther. Black for the sable tunic he wore beneath his armor, panther for his fluid grace. He was so at ease with his own body that he could almost appear lazy-- slouching in his saddle, sprawled in a chair-- and yet the mere hint of a threat would transform Abel into a swift and deadly predator. Prince Marth hadn't entrusted the fabled Gradivus lance to Abel out of favoritism. Simply being the prince's childhood companion wasn't enough to have young Gordin given the Parthia bow. Abel was given the Gradivus because, with Camus of Grust lost to them, Abel was the most capable lance-wielder upon Archanea. Yet, when he smiled, when he laughed, when he told stories with the music of Altea coloring his every word, for a few moments he and Palla could almost leave the battlefield behind. Almost.

***

Snow Moon, 604

In her dreams, they came for her sisters, and her limbs turned to ice. She could not aim her lance; she could not so much as scream. Traitors, they hissed, through teeth exposed by rotting gums. Traitors. Empty eye sockets turned in accusatory stares, and blackened fingers pointed while tongueless mouths cursed and screamed and wailed. Young Atalanta, her bright hair trailing ocean weeds, reached out with skeletal hands. Captain, why? And Palla could not answer. It was only when she woke, when she broke free of the webbing of the dream and returned to herself, that she could say, "I am sorry it had to be this way. Fate set us on opposite courses. Forgive me, but I could not have chosen any different."

She dreamed of Lefcandith Valley, where Minerva and the Whitewings stayed their weapons while the archers of the League cut down their comrades. Palla would come face to face with Merric, would see the young mage smile as he unleashed a whirlwind that knocked Est from the skies. She dreamed of Pyrathi, of Catria's mission to cross enemy lines and converse with Prince Marth alone. Catria would close in on the prince, only to encounter a baby-faced Altean archer with a shining steel bow. She dreamed of the fall of Gra, of their defection from the Macedonian army. Palla would search the coastline for a glimpse of the prince without success; she then would fly to the side of a young cavalier with brilliant green eyes, only to have his horse rear, his javelin plunge into her heart. At the water closed over her head, Palla mourned the ruthless nature of their world.

***

Ice Moon, 605

Caeda did not envy Palla her new dragon. In distant Talys, far from the aerie of Macedon, a seasoned Pegasus Knight would aspire to ride the rare Falcon Pegasus-- graceful beyond compare and resistant to all but the strongest spells. Palla asked the younger knight why she would sacrifice the strength advantage of riding dragonback in favor of a comparatively frail mount. She expected Caeda to say she wasn't comfortable with dragons, or to laugh it off with a comment about how beautiful she would be as a Falcoknight. To Palla's surprise, Caeda replied that she desired above all the advantage she'd gain over enemy mages.

"Prince Marth has such trouble with mages," Caeda sighed.

In the meantime, Caeda made do with her hardy little island pegasus-- a different breed from the pegasi of Macedon, unable to fly as high but able to cope with greater privation and more diverse weather conditions. Even so, Tempest was showing signs of fatigue, and Palla wished that Caeda could simply borrow a dragon from the Macedonian stock. It would not do, though-- once a knight had taken a dragon, there was no changing back to pegasi. Pegasi loathed the scent of dragons, and while they could fight in the company of dracoknights, any dragon-touched rider would find herself thrown by the next pegasus she mounted.

***

Storm Moon, 605

A riderless horse bucked upon the fields of Dolhr. Palla swooped down to see if she might rescue the rider, for the horse was decked in the azure trappings of Altea and its allies. It was Castor, the young horseman from Talys. Half his face was coated in a mask of blood, but he was still breathing. Palla used one of the two vulneraries left in her stock, yet the potion only helped Castor a little. She was debating whether or not to expend the other vulnerary when Bishop Lena ran up in a flurry of blue robes.

"Bless you, Lady Lena." The Bishop already was at work with her Mend staff. It was the cardinal rule of the battlefield-- heal first, ask questions later. While a staff might create a heartbreaking illusion by restoring apparent health to those already dead, nothing save the Aum staff could help a soldier if the healer arrived too late. And the Aum staff wasn't yet in their hands. Palla waited to see how effective Lena's treatment would be, thinking that Castor was lucky to have taken only a glancing blow to the head. Just as a staff could not replace a missing eye or limb, there were some injuries-- terrible wounds to the head, some types of spell damage-- that simply didn't heal.

After several moments, Castor blinked and rolled himself over, wiping the blood from his eyes with a moan.

"Leave him to me," Lena said, in a soft voice that mingled the accents of Macedon and Grust.

"Thank you, Lady Lena." Lena was a Bishop by vocation, but a noblewoman of Macedon by birth. To Palla, the titles bore equal weight. Palla mounted Megaera again and headed for the great tower of the Resurrectory, supposedly the home of a great treasure. Fighting was fierce around the base of the tower, as it was defended by fire-dragons and mage-dragons. Mage-dragons, known in Macedon as demon-wyrms, were far more dangerous than an ordinary manakete. Even weapons specialized for slaying manaketes-- wyrmslayer swords, or dragonpikes-- were only useful if the weapon-holder struck first and struck true. A wounded demon-wyrm often proved a lethal adversary.

A particularly fearsome demon-wyrm who called himself Xemcel guarded the northwest corner of the field, preventing the League from accessing Dolhr Keep. Palla gave him a wide berth and circled back toward the Resurrectory. Abel, Prince Marth, and Tiki were in the process of clearing out the manaketes, and Palla joined Catria in holding off reinforcements while the League's foremost team of dragon-slayers did their work. The Gradivus made short work of demon-wyrms, as did Tiki's astonishing powers. Most impressive of all was the Falchion; Palla finally understood why Prince Marth had put them through such lengths to capture the Blade of Light. Palla was so caught up in watching Marth and Abel that a fire-dragon nearly caught her; after that jolt, she stopped her dreaming and threw her heart into the battle.

Before long, the Resurrectory and its treasure chest were theirs.

"Palla!" The high commander flicked his long hair out of his eyes as he looked up at her. "Palla, we have word of dragoon reinforcements to the north. Take a look around and see if we need to wall off the northeast passage."

In spite of the threat of enemy reinforcements, the prince displayed a smile that was almost cocky. With League troops literally circling the final stronghold of darkness, it must have seemed-- at least for a moment-- that taking on Dolhr Keep would be another mopping-up, as easy as claiming the Resurrectory.

"Once we get the Aum, we'll be headed to the Keep," Marth continued. "Xemcel is isolated now. This won't be much longer."

"Yes, sire."

Palla scoured the mountains, and found there nothing but a pert young girl who'd set up her traveling shop in hopes of attracting business from the battle. Palla was surprised at the girl's audacity, and repaid her for it by loading Megaera with rare goods. But there was no trace of the enemy, and Palla set a course south, for Dolhr keep. A quick swoop around the fortifications near the great tower told Palla that the demon-wyrm Xemcel lay dead at his post before the Keep. Yet, the field did not have the atmosphere of a League victory. After a successful battle, the high commander would address his troops with thanks, or would invite Princess Nyna to do so. Yet all the soldiers were scattered, some in small clusters and some off on their own. Palla saw no trace of Prince Marth, or of Princess Elice either. She scanned the field and saw others missing. Tiki, Merric, Ogma, Lady Lena, Princess Maria... surely they could not have stormed the keep while Palla paid her visit to the shop girl. Princess Maria would never have been taken along for that mission. Palla was beginning to wonder exactly how much damage Xemcel wrought before his death when she finally caught sight of her sister.

Catria stood by a small abandoned fortification; the middle sister of the Whitewings was caring for her weary pegasus.

"I'm sorry, Deino. This was the last battle, I promise. I'll never put you through this again."

Something in Catria's voice sounded strangely... dull, like the muted sound of a cracked bell.

"Palla, will you help me find a decent dragon to ride? With all the dead Macedonians laying around here, I'm sure there's a dragon for me somewhere."

Yes, Catria was in a state. Palla recognized the hollow look in her sister's eyes, the same look she'd seen in Princess Minerva after the duel with Michalis.

"Catria, what is the matter?"

"Caeda. She-- she's dead."

"Oh." Palla didn't feel the impact of Catria's words, yet. It would hit later, sometime in the night when all the energy of battle drained away. "How terrible. We do have the Aum staff now...."

With that staff, Princess Elice might bring one ally back from the realm of the dead. One, and only one, but surely the brave young knight of Talys was not someone who could be let go of so easily.

"No," Catria was saying. "We haven't got the Aum."

"Was it a trick?" Palla thought in disgust of the false Falchions Gharnef laid in their path.

"No. Prince Marth had Elice use it already. On Tiki."

"Tiki?"

Catria explained in halting, fragmentary sentences. The old manakete Bantu had warned Tiki not to overuse her divine-dragonstone, lest Tiki become intoxicated on her own power and accidentally harm her friends. So Tiki tried to conserve that power, relying instead on the less potent Firestone whenever possible.

"Firestones? They don't work on demon-wyrms." Catria laughed; the sound was somewhere between a bark and a sob. It took a while longer to get the rest of the truth from Catria: two separate catastrophes, two young fighters laid out on the barren ground of Dolhr, one Aum staff, and one terrible choice.

Tiki. Yes, Palla thought. Yes, of course. With Dolhr Keep just beneath their encampment, with all the efforts of war now concentrated in one small patch of land... the individual happiness of each soldier in the League would mean nothing if their next mission failed. If one placed the heart of the army in one pan of a balance, and their ultimate weapon in the opposite pan, the weight came down on the side of the weapon. Keep Tiki alive for the next battle, unleash her goddess-power on the forces of Dolhr, and then grieve.

Palla talked Catria to sleep that night.

***

Flower Moon, 605

Prince Marth called her in for private conversation. The scouting-mission indiscretion seemed forgotten; instead, he interviewed Palla at length about the late ruler of Macedon-- what sort of man Michalis had been, before and after his bloodstained coup. What would drive a man to murder his own father? What sort of man, what sort of king, would farm his small sister out as a hostage? Would Palla term Michalis a tyrant? What was Palla's definition of a tyrannical king, then? Was it true that Michalis sent any soldier who showed fear to the front lines in hopes of having them killed?

"That would be a misinterpretation," Palla said slowly. "It's a long-standing tradition in Macedon to send shaky recruits out for a trial in battle. Either they find courage, or they fall." Palla herself had passed that test long before, whereas Catria and Est showed enough fire and guts not to be even threatened with it.

"That's a terri--" The prince cut himself off. He began to sift through the papers laid out before him. In contrast to the spare furnishings of the Whitewings' tent, the high commander had a number of lovely pieces at his disposal, including wooden chairs and a beautiful portable desk. Palla had difficulty with the formal scripts used in the courts of Archanea and its satellite kingdoms; standard Macedonian script was quite different, and so most of the papers made little sense to Palla. She watched the prince's long fingers instead. The tips of his fingers were colored by the sun, but the backs of his hands were pale, a consequence of wearing open-fingered gloves in battle and on the march. Then an odd piece of paper caught her attention.

"What is the picture?"

"This? It's a design for some windows to replace the ones smashed in the Great Hall." The Hall of Castle Altea, of course. The occupying forces of Dolhr were not considerate guests. Sir Arran and his garrison had quite a cleanup job on their hands.

"I did not take you for an artist."

"It's only putting pieces together to form a pattern." Marth moved his hand dismissively over the drawings for the mosaic windows. One pattern was recognizable as the Falchion sword, the other showed the Aum staff. "The central window-- the larger one-- will have the image of our parents. The left window is to represent Elice, and the other stands for me."

"But why do you not have yourselves depicted as you are?" Palla felt herself smile.

Marth laced his fingers under his chin and proceeded to look not at, but through her. Palla felt that smile fall away from her lips as the truth congealed in her brain.

The sword, the staff-- these are the only reasons our lives were worth keeping.

Palla had seen her own princess in moments of grief and of doubt, but this was the first time she'd sensed such naked despair in the high commander. This went beyond mere melancholy, almost to the realm of self-hatred. It was unnerving, but Palla was well-schooled in projecting calm, and she waited out the uncomfortable silence.

Marth closed his eyes, and the set of his jaw eased slightly.

"I am sorry, Palla. I did not ask you here to trouble you." He began to file the papers in a new order, covering the window plans. "And I do not mean to pain you when I ask you to dredge through these memories of Michalis. It is only... if the second coming of Iote could end so...."

He did not speak the fear aloud, but Palla heard it within her own head anyway. She was not surprised when he then moved to dismiss her. Palla stood, but in truth she was not done yet with Marth.

"Sire, if I may, I have a question in return for you."

"Ask away."

"Why did you keep Est from the battle?" Even before Palla and Catria made the decision to send Est back to Pales, the high commander made it clear that Est was not to be at the front. She carried messages from one wing of the League to the other, or stood guard over noncombatants like the Princess Maria. But after her first battle on the side of the League at the straits of Chiasmir, Est was denied a chance to prove herself before the warriors of other nations. That denial nourished the seeds of doubt in herself that Est hid beneath her bright smile, and she would come to Palla and Catria often, seeking reassurance that she was not a burden to them.

"I expected that," the prince replied. "The battle of Dolhr Keep was... an anomaly. Except for a castle raid, it makes no sense to send only a small group of the elite into battle. For one, less experienced units do need to train, or they become a liability. So, why not allow Est to the fight?"

Palla knew better than to answer; she kept silence and waited for the prince's explanation.

"If every unit on the field is considered indispensable, the loss of one creates the impression that the entire war is already lost. Worse, a battle that could have been won may disintegrate into a half-dozen rescue missions-- all of which may ultimately fail. And so, we send into play units that, in the worst outcomes, can be let go. Will be let go." Marth traced the outline of the Aum Staff on the desk before him. "Forgive me if Est found it cruel. I thought it the better of poor options."

Palla had not expected such an answer. She'd wondered, she'd come up with possibilities, but the truth was not among them.

"Thank you, Prince Marth."

"Why thank me? As you implied, I wasted the abilities of a capable knight because I was afraid of the moment in which I would leave her behind."

There are no half-Whitewings or almost-Whitewings, Palla had told her sister. The warrior in Palla said that the prince was correct, that to protect-- to baby-- a knight was shameful. It was a disgrace to a Macedonian soldier to be treated thus. Better for Est to fight and fall than to have her coddled. But if Palla placed loyalty to her own commander over loyalty to her king, she likewise valued her sister's life above the standards of the knightly code of Macedon.

"Michalis would not have been afraid of that moment." She did not intend censure of the late king. She meant only to indicate to Marth that, no, all princes were not cast in the same mold, that all celebrated heroes were not fated to follow the same disastrous course.

The calculating mask of the high commander of the Archanean League cracked in a bittersweet smile, leaving Palla to contemplate how very young seventeen was.

***End Chapter Two***

A/N: I introduced a couple of new months here: Snow Moon (November) and Storm Moon (March), plus the Alteans have Violet Moon (April) and Rose Moon (June). The "official" calendar of Archanea in my 'fics uses different names for those two months, as shall be seen.

Nicknames for Cain and Abel sourced from FE1 bios on Serenes Forest. Abel's FEDS redesign gave him a change of clothes, but oh well.

Inspiration for Abel/Tiki friendship comes courtesy of Edgemaster025. Inspiration for Palla/Abel in general comes from Shimizu Hitomi's fic "Still Waters."

Idea for artistic!Marth is my own; the NoA translation indicates that his education involved more than just "martial arts training," and royal houses employ visual art for dynastic/propaganda purposes more often than not.

Oh, and if you think Marth is a jerk for picking Tiki over Caeda, please check out his version of events in this fic's companion piece, "The End of Love."

More extensive notes (like which Peg Sister sings alto, and which soprano) can be found at my homepage as linked in my profile.

Next up, Chapter Three: The Drawing Board!