Chapter 17

Nathan swam over to a nearby piece of driftwood that had come off of one of the ships, hoisting himself onto it. He could feel his energy draining; the blow from the Valamese general had injured him pretty heavily. As he lay on his back he felt his ribs. Nothing was broken, as far as he could tell, just bruised.

"Wow, the sea itself is on fire!" A voice yelled from nearby. Nathan looked over to see Lissa and Morgan, also holding onto a small piece of driftwood. The tactician sat up and paddled his way over to them. Half the vessels they had were crashed into the Valamese ships, and thanks to the oil spread throughout them, caught fire and set the enemy ships ablaze.

"Quite the plan, Nathan," Chrom declared, swimming over and grabbing onto the edge of Nathan's makeshift raft. "I don't think they ever considered we would be willing to sacrifice half a fleet…and we still have enough room for our own troops on the remaining ships, to boot."

The tactician nodded as one of their warships pulled up next to them, throwing down a rope ladder. The group clambered upwards and onto the ship, and once everyone was on board, they once again set course for Valm.

Later in the night, after a quick spar with Lon'qu to test his bruised ribs, Nathan spotted Morgan sitting out on the ship's deck, flipping through a worn black book, which Nathan quickly recognized. He walked over to the amnesiac, who smiled at him as he approached.

"You know, you're allowed to read any of my stuff, honey, but I'd appreciate if you asked permission first just the same." Nathan told her.

Morgan gave her father a funny look. "What're you talking about?" She asked.

Nathan nodded his head towards the black book Morgan held, which she looked at and then back at the man. "This?" She replied, "This is mine!"

Her father reached inside his black cloak, trying to find something, and confusedly pulled out a worn black book that was identical to Morgan's copy. He stared at the one he held, and the one Morgan had.

"Okay, now I'm confused. Where did you get that?"

Morgan giggled. "It was in my cloak when you found me," She explained. "It's got a lot of stuff in it about me, just personal information that was written down…and stuff about an 'Owain' too, who is that, anyways?"

She tossed her father the book and he quickly flipped through it. Everything – the footnotes, scribbles, and even little doodles by Lissa – were exactly the same as his own copy, save some added scribbles in what he assumed to be Morgan's handwriting.

"Mind if I read this for the night? I'll trade ya." He offered with a wink. "It'll be a good way for us to get to know each other's timelines, I guess."

Morgan smiled and nodded as Nathan handed her his copy of the strategy book. "You'd better get that back to me tomorrow, though!" Morgan warned. Nathan laughed, giving his daughter a thumbs up as he walked off.

Late at night, the tactician lay in a hammock in the ship's lower deck, flipping through Morgan's strategy book. A small lamp was lit and hanging up on the wooden post next to him, and Lissa snored softly while resting her head on the tactician's chest.

The back of the book was filled with information about Owain and Morgan, including birthdays, favourite colours, and so on. Nathan chuckled to himself as he saw Morgan had written 'Dad has a bad memory' next to the full pages of notes on his children.

The rest of the book was filled with Morgan's own added notes to Nathan's already written strategy tactics. There was one note in it that Nathan did not have in his own book, however, which was scrawled in his own writing, at the front of the book.

'We're not pawns of some scripted fate.'

As the tactician examined the note, he saw that a small corner of the front flap of the book was sticking up, showing something hidden behind it. Nathan peeled it back and a small painted picture fell out onto Lissa's head. Nathan carefully picked it up and examined it. The picture was of Nathan, Lissa, Morgan, and a tall figure with brown hair that Nathan assumed was Owain. They were all standing together, with Nathan holding hands with Lissa and Morgan having jumped on his back. Owain stood next to them, brandishing his sword with his left hand raised to cover his eye, for some strange reason.

Nathan flipped the picture over and saw a simple caption scrawled on the back in his own writing: "The Tactician, the Princess, the Sword Hand and the Dreamer."

The tactician smiled as a tear rolled down his eye. "Nice work, future me." He muttered to himself, staring longingly at the picture. This was the future he wanted to get to. Knowing that he had done it once before, somehow, gave him confidence that it was possible to do again.

Lissa stirred somewhat as Nathan slid the picture back into the front flap of the strategy book and dropped it onto the ground below their hammock. "Mm…get to sleep, Natie…" She muttered before she tightened his grip around him and began to snore again. The tactician laughed softly before giving into his body and drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, Nathan gave Morgan back her strategy book, trading with his daughter for his own.

"Find anything good in there?" Morgan teased.

Nathan grinned at his daughter. "Well…actually, you could say that, I did."

She raised an eyebrow. "What, what?" Morgan eagerly prodded.

"…Myself. I found myself."

We're back, folks. I was supposed to save this for tomorrow but I couldn't help myself. As short as it is, I really liked this chapter. One of my favourites that I've written so far.

Happy thanksgiving to all you Americans!

-Nate