Bouquet

(C) Nintendo and Intelligent Systems

-0-

Two Blossoms Diverged From A Yellow-Green Stem: Lavender, Saint John's Wort
(they cannot help their distrust and animosity)

Once again, Amy was fighting with her husband in his new office in Reglay Castle. Or, as he liked to put it, 'airing out their differences.' But this was nothing like doing the laundry, and so she not only felt put upon by his request, but condescended to as well. What was worse, he was ignoring her complaints as well, which made her wonder, not for the first time, why he had to make it so difficult to love him sometimes.

Finally, she had enough. With a flick of her dark green hair, she glared at him through her too-long bangs and fought to keep her voice level as she said, "When we first married, you told me that I would never have to fight again. You told me that Etruria is a much different place from Ilia, and that you would make sure I would do nothing more dangerous than watching over our children." Annoyingly, her voice hitched, forcing her to look away as she tried to regain some semblance of the reasonable, unflappable pegasus knight she had once been. "What changed, Raike?"

Her husband had the decency to attempt to appear contrite, though his mottled complexion revealed that his Lycian passion was still roused. "When I was chosen to be the new steward--"

"Stop that!" she yelled, slashing out with one hand. "That's your excuse for everything now! You didn't even get a pay raise from the promotion, so just stop it. I'm not impressed."

"I don't know how I'm supposed to talk about any of this without referring to my job," he protested, his cheeks darkening even further. A pinprick of guilt jabbed at her and she lowered her hand and crossed her arms.

"I just don't want to hear that word right now."

"Fine. Fine. I just..." He ran both hands through his thick auburn hair. "You're the only person I can trust to do this."

Amy looked at him as if she could put all her doubts into her stare. "Protect her? Raike, there's a whole regiment of castle guards. Use them."

"I can't. They're all male."

"Look, if she's really that type of girl, why did Count Reglay pick her as--"

Her husband buried his face into his hands. "Oh God, did you really just say that?"

"I don't know what you want me to think!" she burst out, well and truly frustrated with this stupid argument that never got anywhere. "Whether you don't trust her, or you don't trust the knights, whichever it is, it doesn't excuse the fact that your plan isn't going to work! You can't send out this little half-noble girl and have her ingratiate herself with barons and viscounts who want nothing more than to strip her fiancé of his title and take it for themselves. Or..." She tried to school her face into something less skeptical, but she had the feeling it wasn't working when he looked at her and frowned. "Do you think it will?"

He turned away from her; she could see the skin of the back of one hand stretched tight over his knuckles as he made a fist against the top of his desk and the anger inside of her stilled. "I don't, all right? I don't think she can do much at all. I'm just using her as a stopgap to buy some time so I can think of a better plan. All right? You win."

After a moment of silence hung in the air in response to his outburst, Amy cracked and approached him, placing a hand on his back. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

Raike didn't move. "I am too. I'm just...I want to save House Reglay."

"But why? I thought you said that he didn't seem to want to be the count anymore."

"Yes, I know. But I can see it in him that he could be a good lord. I'd trust him over any other candidate. I want to see him reach that point where he will want to be Count Reglay, not just because he was the heir but because he is suited for it."

"And how long will that take?" Amy asked, letting herself lean against him, her forehead resting between his shoulder blades. "How long will we have to wait for you?"

He began to turn around. "Amy--"

"No, I deserve an answer." Her hand curled into a fist against his solid back as she straightened her posture to stare at the corner of his profile. Once, a long time ago, she could have spent all day looking at him, but they had both grown up since then. "How long? How long will it take until you can bother to stumble out of your office and come home to see your sons? How long until I get to have my husband back? I know Castle Reglay is nice and your office is certainly much better now, but at this rate Antony and Derrin are going to forget your face."

"That's not funny," he said, looking at her over his shoulder with an indignant expression she felt he didn't have a right to wear. She stepped away from him and crossed her arms.

"I wasn't trying to be."

The reddened blotches on his face seemed to fade away, leaving only pale skin, though he was still several shades darker than her Ilian-white complexion. "Listen, how about I make a deal with you? If you go and protect Lady Louise on her travels through Reglay, I'll keep the kids here with me. That will give Mom some time to herself, too."

To this, she could only give him a skeptical look. "You really think you can work with a five-year-old and a three-year-old running around?"

"Well," he said, half-smiling now, "they're my sons. I'll live."

"Don't you dare foist them off onto the housekeeping," she said, grinning as his eyes widened.

"I wouldn't dare. My own wife doesn't trust me now?"

Her smile tapered at this. "It isn't you I don't trust. I've heard things about this 'Lady Louise' from the maids, and I really can't understand the count's taste. She really doesn't sound suitable as anyone's wife, let alone someone as blandly polite as he is. I mean, he's still a count."

"Bland, huh?" Raike had an oddly thoughtful look on his face. "No, he's just quiet. If you stay around him for a while, he actually has this really dry sense of humor."

"Dry? That's more like inedible, isn't it?"

"See, he's like that, like you sometimes. But what were you saying about the maids and Lady Louise?"

Amy shrugged. "She's unpleasant. She's inconsiderate to the maids, hasn't a thought in her head and only pretends to be nice, ate so much that she could barely fit into her dress during that birthday party--which just makes more work for others--and her mother and maid were both very rude. I think only the cook likes her, and if she's as fat as the maids say she is..."

"Fat?" There was an incredulous look on her husband's face. "She's tiny. Shapely, but still short. I remember seeing her at this martial arts festival down in Alloway, back when Lord Pent went to see her. She's incredibly skilled with the bow, quite graceful. And we both know about the bridal challenge a year ago." He smiled. "There are better choices for Countess Reglay, we all know that, but I trust in Lord Pent's decision. He's the one who has to marry her, after all."

"Hm..." Shaking her head, Amy glanced at her husband out of the corner of her eye. "'Shapely'? 'Graceful'? Should I be worried?"

He laughed. "Amaranth, you're the only woman for me. Anyway, will you finally see her now? I can only keep her in her room for so long before she starts getting suspicious as to why she hasn't been sent out to do something useful yet." To this, she shrugged, wishing that the feeling of Raike getting his way didn't weigh down on her shoulders like she had been defeated. With a smile on his face, he walked up to her and let her get a good grip on his elbow before he made his way to the door, neither of them speaking as they made their way to the east hall, where tradition held that House Reglay's guests of honor should be placed. During the reprieve between the births of her first and second sons, when money was tight after the death of Raike's father because her husband's job as a castle clerk didn't pay enough for their little family, Amy remembered cleaning the rooms after barons and viscounts had departed and marveled at how filthy such noble guests could be. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised, as her entire life had been spent cleaning up after the messes nobility left behind, but she had to admit that she preferred being a chambermaid rather than a pegasus knight.

It had cost her too much to fight for her country. She was reminded of this every time she had to cling to her husband's arm, feeling the dull ache in her left thigh as she limped beside him.

How much more would it cost her to fight for some half-noble girl-child she couldn't even bring herself to believe in?

There was a guard at the girl's room, one whom Amy recognized as soon as she laid eyes on him. He seemed to recognize her too, if that little sneer on his face told her anything. It didn't bother her; a lot of Etrurians had no love lost for pegasus knights, even though their government depended so much on them to fight the kingdom's wars. Even a crippled one like herself was worth more than a guard who couldn't do much more than stand in front of a door, and at this thought she allowed herself a small smile--though she no longer had much pride in her past occupation. The guard's sneer lengthened, but he jolted when her husband asked, "Has Lady Louise been inside all day?"

"She said she would wait for you to call on her," the guard said. Amy noticed that he didn't call her husband 'Master Raike' like everyone had referred to the last steward, something that irritated her even though she understood their reasons. Many servants of a lord were naturally jealous if one of their own were to rise in status so quickly, and the fact that Raike had done so by informing the count of his predecessor's crimes probably made him enemies as a betrayer and usurper--even though they would be equally as nasty had he said nothing at all and the embezzlement had been discovered by another way. It made her wonder, not for the first time, why he had to try so hard, although secretly she loved him all the more for his sense of honor.

"Oh, she has?" Raike said, a lingering note of surprise in his tone. "I understand. Thank you for your patience. Please excuse us, we'll not be long." He knocked on the door. "Lady Louise? This is the steward of the castle. I've come to have you meet with someone."

"Please come in," a muffled voice called from the other side of the heavy wooden door. Amy steeled herself, ready to meet the count's fiancée, this strange shape-changing girl.

All the same, Amy wasn't sure she would have ever expected this.

In the impossibly bright room her eyes first fell upon the first of the two girls in the room, this one tiny and blonde, dressed in a simple white frock--she looked like one of those little, perfect dolls that cost upwards of thousands of gold in Aquleia's most well-known boutiques. She was sitting at a table with another girl, this one a little older and with such an elegant nose and brow that it was hard for Amy to believe that the copper-haired girl was not an equal companion, even with the apron she wore. There were only the two of them, no retinue, no mother or father, and the idea of these two lovely doll-children venturing out into Reglay to plead on the behalf of Count Reglay made Amy feel somewhat...anxious. She looked away at them, and when she caught sight of the unstrung wooden bow on the simple white bedspread she nearly flinched at the memory of an arrow's sting. Aiming her eyes elsewhere, she noticed the slight frown of concern on the blonde's face and felt embarrassed to have her reaction noticed.

"Lady Louise," Raike started, "I'd like you to meet my wife, Amaranth." Amy fixed a stare on him until he wilted enough to correct himself. "But, uh, she prefers to be called Amy. Um, she's a former pegasus knight, and from now on she'll be your personal guard whenever you leave the castle."

The little blonde girl, Lady Louise, looked strangely delighted as she clutched her hands together. "A pegasus knight? I've never met one before! It's a pleasure to meet you!" Gesturing to the other girl, she said, "This is Celia. She's my dearest friend, and she's quite good with a staff. I'm an archer, though I'm still just a novice, but please allow us to assist you if we do run into trouble. Though, I'll pray to the blessed saint that we keep well." She smiled widely. "Thank you for your trouble, Madame Amy."

Amy glanced her husband, who was smiling at her in such a way that she could practically read his thoughts as if the reddening blotches on his face wrote them out, before she offered a hesitant smile at both girls. "Well met, Lady Louise, Miss Celia. Let's do our best for Count Reglay's sake."

Lady Louise's smile never faltered, although Amy could see the determination in the cast of the young girl's face. "Yes, let's."

-0-

I hate this damn rock and everyone on it.

"--the patrol of the east side was clear--"

Except for my own girls, of course. But the Etrurians can go and disappear into the fog for all I care.

"--noticed something unusual in the north, so with your help, Commander--"

If we didn't need the money so badly, I would've convinced Cassie not to bother with the Etrurians' new attempt at colonization.

"--also, there's the new captain coming in today, so I expect they'll foist his training onto us--"

At this point I can only hope they won't renew our contract for yet another year. Maybe if I can get the third wing to replace us, if Althea will agree to it...

"Um, Commander Leto?"

Leto of Edessa opened one eye, knowing full well just how intimidating most people saw her black eyes--even one of her own squad's sub-commanders, and they had worked together for years. Gracia was stunned into silence, which suited Leto just fine. "What?"

Gracia, pale and gray-haired, though Leto had heard enough times throughout the years that she preferred it called 'lavender', glanced at the other pegasus knights of their wing before taking a deep breath. "Commander, were you listening to any of our reports?"

"Pick the most interesting one and repeat it, thanks."

"...The Etrurians have a new captain coming today. This one's a mage, so he might actually live longer than the last one."

"Not long enough for us to bother depending on him," was Leto's succinct reply. A mage was better than the last three idiot cavaliers, if only because she could expect that the mages could actually read, but after two years and six captains and three commanders replaced on the Etrurian side of things she didn't bother having much hope in anyone that could be dredged up for the position. "So, what's this one's crime?"

Gracia shook her head. "We haven't heard. His record is locked down tight."

"A noble," Leto muttered, and in response the tent was filled with the groans and sighs of her squad. Nobles were the worst, combining the kind of arrogance only the entitled could muster with stupidity that would be funny if they were on the enemy's side. Since they weren't, it was just aggravating. "Our loyalty may have been bought by the Etrurians, but we won't be going out of our way to make sure this one lives. Criminals have to do their time, right girls?"

Everyone nodded. Out of a full wing of eleven, they had managed their losses very well within the last two years. Ordinarily they would be more than willing to lay their lives down for the sake of their employer, but after Leto lost Patricia three months ago and was berated in front of the entire camp because Patricia hadn't saved a captain from a crippling injury, even though she had protected the fat pig from dying... No, Leto wasn't going to endure another insult of that magnitude. A pegasus knight's life was worth just as much as an Etrurian's, and if her employers couldn't see that then she was going to protect her squad all by herself.

She wasn't commander of the second wing of the Ilian Pegasus Knights Brigade just because of her skills in battle.

Her other sub-commander, a loan from the fifth wing that Leto had never quite found the time to pay back, entered the tent, her long dark purple hair flowing behind her. Yulie could hit a target fifty yards away with a javelin, but to this day she couldn't figure out how to tie her hair back like any sane knight should, irritating Leto every time she saw the young woman. "Commander, the Etrurians want you. Their new captain just arrived."

"What does he look like?" asked Cammie, one of the unranked knights of the squad. Yulie giggled.

"Oh, he's cute. Just like Captain Justin, before he got that hand axe to the face."

Leto rolled her eyes when she heard the admiring squeals after that assessment. Before she left the tent, she turned just enough to look over her shoulder at her squad. "If he's that attractive, imagine the crime he must've committed to get here," she said in a pleasant tone of voice. It was a nice feeling to leave with their exclamations of disgust rising behind her, because they all knew about the Etrurian commander's predilection for visiting the local 'inn' every time the camp needed supplies, as well as the crime of indiscretion that caused him to have to separate from his wife and three kids and lead a hopeless campaign in the Western Isles for the last five months. Hopeless men for a hopeless campaign--so what did that say about her and her wing, whose only attachment to this fool's campaign was a princely annual sum?

Honestly, if she were general of the Ilian Knights Union and not Cassie, Leto would've made the same choice and side with the Etrurians--aside from the moral issues regarding occupation, the Western Isles had nothing but a half-wild group of warriors. The Etrurians, however, had all the time in the world. Even if this campaign failed, eventually Etruria would gain upon their meager takings of the island of Fibernia and eventually their influence would consume all of the three islands. Being the descendants of the berserker Durban meant nothing compared to the might of the most prosperous country in Elibe. But Leto did pity the resistance fighting them, because they didn't seem to understand just how bad their position was. Right now, however, she imagined that the Western Isles resistance was feeling pretty good about themselves, because Etruria still believed they could throw poorly-trained low-risk criminals at the islands and they would be conquered with little risk to their 'useful' citizens. If it weren't for the pegasus knights they had hired in the beginning of this campaign, Etruria would have already realized their blunder and moved appropriately, but she suspected that whoever of the three generals in charge of this entire outing was either massively incompetent--oh, she was just shocked at the presumption--or playing this for his own sick amusement and to simply have something to do.

Lettie, I can only entrust this mission to you. Whatever you need to do, I leave it to your discretion. You're the only one who I know will protect our people.

So she did. The aegis of Ilian loyalty was still impenetrable, she made sure of that, but she also tried to ensure none of her girls would needlessly die for the sake of a cruel, narcissistic foreign general.

The rest of the camp was as disorganized as the people within it, though at least the afternoon summer sun was keeping the fog at bay enough to see where she was walking, and she didn't spare either the grounds or the Etrurians a glance, forcing herself not to react as someone whistled long and low. Her natural instinct to find and bury her fist into the pervert's face was tempered by the calming belief that one day soon all of these criminals would find their end at the sharpened blades of a fighter's axe--the sort of divine retribution only a heathen like her could expect. It took some time, thanks to the haphazard display of tents, to find her way to the commander's tent, but when she did she walked past the guards and entered without a word. Commander Michael, her equal even if he never thought so, raised an eyebrow at her entrance, while his lieutenant, some weaselly-looking creep whose name she kept forgetting, kept his eyes firmly below her face. Between them stood the new captain, a slender young man more or less possessing a masculine beauty, and Leto had to remind herself to talk to her girls later about not seducing the new captain. Two years away from home with only criminals and battles to occupy themselves with could make anybody jump at a novelty. At any rate, his looks didn't bother her half as much as what else she could See. All magic users had auras from which their overall strength could be discerned by other magic users and pegasus knights; she could See he had all the magical power of a wet candle, and that alone almost made her turn around and leave.

"Well, well, thank you for gracing us with your presence, Leto," the Etrurian commander drawled; he never bothered to respect her after she rebuffed his advances. It really must be a shame to have to pay for his fun, Leto thought, hiding her smile. "This is Pent Martel, our new captain. Pent, this is Leto, commander of the pegasus knights attached to us. Ilians don't have family names, you see." The weaselly lieutenant grinned, as if Leto hadn't heard petty little insults about parentage before.

"That's right. We don't believe in separating ourselves like that. We're all one big family depending on each other to survive," she returned with a smile.

"I see," Captain Pent said, actually nodding thoughtfully. "That sounds nice, considering what I've heard about Ilia's extreme climate."

Her own surprise was hidden by a wider smile as the flutter of shock crossed Commander Michael's face--must be a shame to him, realizing just how much of a fool his newest captain was. "...Anyway, Leto, since we have important matters to discuss, go show the captain around."

Leto bit down on her retort, because Etrurians loved to whine and complain if they noticed that someone didn't like them the way they believed they deserved, and waved for Captain Naive to follow her. Once they were both out of the commander's tent, she gestured to the camp before them, looking for all in the world like a cruel trick rather than a proper military campaign. In the distance, mountains could be seen; behind them was the Maltein Strait and northern Etruria. The original commander, long since deceased, had brilliantly planned this camp so that the fog would roll in from behind them, except that the air currents this far north were so sudden that the fog tended to cover the entire area at once, leading to fog-of-war situations she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy in all of the Ilian mercenary companies. This was another reason why they had been stuck in this area for the last two years, but no one in the Etrurian command cared about her opinions and stayed in the same position. "This is the camp," she stated. "Good luck getting around." With that, she began to walk away.

"Pardon me, but is that all?" Captain Naive asked. She glanced behind her shoulder.

"We pegasus knights have our own area to ourselves. We don't linger in the Etrurian army's zone if we can help it. Your command thinks that we're hired to do all tasks for them, but in actuality what we do is fight. We are not your maids, your mommies, or your tour guides. If you need help getting around, there are plenty of low-ranking 'soldiers' to assist you." She smiled. "Is that all?"

The Etrurian captain looked far more serious now. It was a good look for him. "Commander Leto, have I perhaps done something to offend you?"

"Me?" Leto brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, then took out her hair tie and began to redo her bun. "I'm a pegasus knight. I've been one for over half my life. Through my connection with my pegasus, I have enough magical energy within me to See just how powerful you really are. You're a weakling of a mage who barely understands that a fire spell is supposed to be aimed away from you, and yet you're responsible for other people's lives. You'll be lucky to live six months, not to talk of getting off of this island alive." She sneered at him as his eyes narrowed in either confusion or burgeoning anger--as if this whelp had the right to be angry! Her own anger, already at a fever pitch, compelled her to continue. "So yes, I am offended. I'm offended that, just because you're a noble, you have any right at all to command others. I'm offended that I may have to depend on someone as weak and pathetic as you in battle. I'm offended because you just might cost one of my soldiers their lives, but I can't do anything about it because your country has employed me and my girls to fight for you. I'm offended to see yet another idiot wasting their life for the sake of expanding your country's imperialistic vision.

"To put it bluntly, Captain, you're a waste of my time. And now, if you'll excuse me." Leto turned around and walked off, not at all moved by the shock on his face as she unleashed her true feelings. It was as if he never even thought about anything beyond his own situation--that some idiot decided to make him a leader of a military campaign, despite the fact that he lacked everything necessary to command. People's lives, even if they were also criminals, depended on him. Her wing depended on him. But obviously he believed that all he had to do was put in his time, a year or so, and then his record would be expunged. Perhaps he'd even get a good rank in the kingdom's military!

And Ilian lives would pay the price in return, over and over again. What else were they good for, after all?

Just die. All of you Etrurians, Bernese, Lycians...all of you who think our lives and hopes and dreams can be squandered to satisfy your precious egos--just die.

-end-

Kind of an unusual story, but so very useful for setting up the main conflicts of this second half. I love pegasus knights, which is probably no surprise to anyone who's read my other FE works. For instance, Leto is from Shadows Under the Oak Tree, where she was roughly as pleasant as she is here. Time doesn't change some people. Since Bouquet takes place a few years before SUtOT, there's no need to have read that fic to understand her here. As always, thank you for reading!

Pent and the Western Isles: For those of you who haven't played FE6, the significance in Pent going to the WI is due to the fact that his son Klein could be recruited in one of the chapters of the WI arc, in what was one of the most aggravating chapters if you were trying to get all three promotion items. Klein was the archery general (which is not one of the Three Generals), and had a pegasus knight unit attached to his troops. If you've played FE6, you'll see some interesting differences between Pent and Klein's times in the WI; if not, I'll make note of it.