"HUAH!"

Morgan jolted out of her sleep.

Someone was yelling outside.

After a few seconds of thought, she curled back up in bed. Clearly, anyone yelling like that would have either alerted or killed the guards on shift. If they killed the guards without an alert, then they were incredibly stealthy.

Stealthy people didn't make loud martial arts yells.

Therefore, whoever was outside had not killed any guards, and therefore the problem would be dealt with on its own without Morgan's intervention. The best thing she could do would be to sleep. Good tacticians were well rested tacticians, after all. That's what father always said.

...At three in the morning, with a candle burning, knee deep in a pile of tomes.

Then again, he also said to listen to what he said, not to watch what he did. So that all made sense. She could sleep in peace.

Besides, Kjelle was out on patrol. If anyone could handle a problem, it was Kjelle.

Well, if the problem was 'something needs to be punched, stabbed, or skewered.' Kjelle wasn't as useful for a more subtle solution.

Morgan rolled over. She could worry about cleaning up any bloodstains in the morning. For now…

"HUAH!"

For now, someone was keeping her from the all important beauty sleep every growing girl needed! (According to Severa, when she was asked to do more work.)

Morgan walked out of her tent and straight into six feet of armor. She coughed.

"Uh… hi?"

Morgan looked up and revised her initial guess. Yes, there was a massive suit of armor in front of her. But there was also a person in it, sized about right to match. Blue hair, but not family. Built like he'd been fighting his whole life, for the fun of it as much as anything.

Morgan tried to remember a name for the face, but, as usual, nothing came up. Her memory was bad at the best of times, and it was much worse when she didn't have enough sleep. At a guess, she was going to have to bluff for the next minute or so.

If she was any judge, this was not the sort of situation where she could get away with "We've never met. You must be confusing me with someone else." or "I was just joking! Of course I remember grandpa!"

Honestly, she was pretty sure she didn't get away with the second one the first time she tried it.

The man looked down at Morgan. He drew his old, battered sword from its scabbard. And, with no apparent malice, he smashed it down towards her skull.

Morgan barely had time to react. Fortunately, that was longer than she needed. The sword was frozen in the air, grasped between her hands. A tactician's manual clattered to the ground below her. She looked up at her hands.

"I'm pretty sure that's not the right response to 'hi'."

The man looked at the sword and Morgan and lifted an eyebrow.

"It wasn't a coincidence earlier. It was..."

Morgan smiled and nodded. She had an inroad, at least. She might not know most of what was going on, but one of her father's old lessons came to mind.

"Probably not. A good tactician doesn't see coincidence. Only opportunity and failure to capitalize on it!"

She looked at the sword between her hands.

"Also a sword over my head. I see that too."

The sword slid back to the man's side.

"I'm sorry, but I could see no better way to test you. I would have stopped it an inch away if you failed. My study of the art of..."

"It's still not exactly polite. See, if it was, I would have nearly stabbed you first. I'm pretty sure the guest would do stabbing second. Usually it's introductions, then getting to know each other, then stabbing."

The man smiled. Morgan nodded. It was best to stay calm around crazy people. As an accused crazy person herself, she should know about as well as anyone. Which meant letting the crazy man make the first move, then responding.

"I'm sorry. I've never had time for niceties. I've spent my life mastering the art of the sword. I speak best with a blade. The true language of..."

"I must have left the dictionary back in my tent. What does trying to stab me in the head translate to? Is it your name?"

The man shook his head.

"Priam. We fought a few days back. You demonstrated..."

Morgan nodded. It was a good idea to at least pretend you remembered people, even if you were ignoring every other word coming out of their mouths. And she did have some vague memories of fighting someone. The scratches Brady didn't have the time to deal with confirmed that. Or… they might have just confirmed that she did something incredibly dangerous and not combat related. Always possible.

"I remember that now! You were…"

Priam nodded.

"You asked for aid against Grima. And I said that out here, soldiers respected strength more than breeding. The brotherhood of..."

Morgan nodded again. Memories tumbled in the back of her brain. Strategies and injuries bounced off of each other in melee. And she saw the man's face… right in front of her sword.

"Oh yeah! I totally remembered having a swordfight with you. I won, right?"

Morgan was fudging the last detail, but it felt like a safe bet. She won pretty much every swordfight she'd been in that wasn't against her mother. It went with winning almost every board game against people other than her father.

Priam chuckled. Morgan's quick read put it at a "Yes, once again Morgan has summed things up perfectly and somehow is managing to fake being awake and alert despite less than three hours of sleep." as opposed to "Once again, Morgan has totally ignored the facts for the sake of a joke."

Good. That made the rest of the conversation simpler.

"I've never fought a more skilled opponent. And once I..."

He was still smiling. Morgan nodded. Yep. A success. Now she could just go back to bed and figure out a way to message mother and father about a successful and completely under control mission in the morning. And then after that all she'd have to worry about would be an evil alternate future version of father that happened to be a dragon god the size of an island! Pretty much smooth sailing from there on out.

Morgan had to admit, she expected a few more minor disasters along the way before reaching this point, given some of her other solo ventures, but she wasn't going to complain about a nice, straightforward win.

"I'll just…"

"Which is why I need you to teach me. I thought I had mastered the greatest techniques, the full balance of xi, the very breath of the soul, but..."

"...go and get ready! Stay right there. Right there."

Morgan stepped into her tent and took a breath.

Mentoring! Well! Huh!

She took a few steps back and forth.

It wasn't such a new idea, not really. After all, technically, and in a manner of speaking that could at least pass for the truth, she'd mentored before. Yes, she was mentoring in the fine art of sitting back and relaxing, but there was an art to it, and Morgan was proud of her technique. After six weeks, Noire had moved from incredibly high strung to merely tense, and if she was here, Morgan had every confidence she would last at least five whole minutes before shrinking back or snapping and promising everyone around them a painful death. It was a record anyone would be proud of. At least, anyone who knew Noire.

But this was different. Swordfighting…

Morgan knew, or at least strongly suspected, that she'd been trained. Most people who could use a sword at all had been. But it was all reflex now. She wouldn't know the first word she was meant to use, even if she wasn't suffering from morning brain, and "Put the stabby end in the enemy" was a little too basic to even try and pass off as deep wisdom from an expert. Plus, she was being asked to train Priam.

Every bit of memory that trickled through the cracks told her something very simple. She was being asked to train an expert. Someone who could talk through the art of the blade like Morgan could cover tactics. Even her mother relied as much on instinct as training.

In other words, Morgan had no idea what she was doing and was being asked to mentor someone who could see right through anything she'd pull out in the lies department. Someone who was a rather important ally in the whole saving the world thing, and who might take issue if Morgan tried to bluff her way through.

Most people in her position would panic. But Morgan had a plan for panicking. It was called 'not thinking about it', and it had served her well for as long as she could remember. After a few seconds of sunny empty-headedness, she moved on to stage two of her trademarked not thinking plan. Thinking about the problem without considering anything around it. After all, most tacticians got into trouble trying to think about the next battle before they'd won a first one. The problem at hand was the problem. Everything after didn't exist yet and could safely be ignored.

So. She had to be a teacher for someone, right? Well, for military purposes, it seemed like a drill instructor would be better. Someone to yell at…

Morgan dashed out the back of her tent and straight for the guard patrols. She knew exactly what she needed to do.

"Hey, Kjelle!"

Morgan watched Kjelle turn to face her. It was always interesting to watch Kjelle respond to a request. You could see the second her soul broke in slow motion, every time.

"Morgan."

"Yep. It's your favorite commanding officer, right here! I have good news. I don't think we need to worry about the patrol. So you have the night free. No need to thank me."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Great! Because the reason you don't need to thank me is I'm totally begging for your help."

Kjelle sighed. Morgan made a mental note of every microscopic change in her expression. You didn't see someone fall that deep into despair every day. Well, she did, recently, but this kind of opportunity for extensive documentation wouldn't happen again. Best to make the most of it while she still had the chance.

"What do you need?"

Morgan soaked in the pained resignation. Every time she saw that look, she felt more certain it would be a shame to ruin it with mere facts. It was the least she could do to draw it out a little. And the relief Kjelle would feel at the end would make up for any suffering should any of the gods demand an excuse.

"How's patrol going?"

"It was going better before you decided to start bothering me."

"Fascinating. Are you saying that routine patrols are influenced by levels of individual bond? Because father has written a few new papers on that, and I think you could be really helpful there. Has he asked you?"

"No. Because Robin knows better than to bother me when I'm in the middle of something important."

Morgan bit down a smile. Yep. Kjelle was still on the 'hinting' stage of things, with all her usual (lack of) subtlety. Invoking Morgan's father was a nice touch, though. Much more targeted than her usual.

"Well, not unless he had something more important. Which he sometimes does. And I know he would never tell me to ignore something important just because I thought I had something to do."

Kjelle glared.

Time to estimated 'JUST GO AWAY'? Sixteen seconds and falling.

"Do. You. Have. Something. Important."

Morgan revised. Five seconds. Alas, it seemed tormenting Kjelle, like so many other good things, had come to an end. If she wanted to get things done, she should just get to the point.

"Do you remember Priam?"

Kjelle nodded and came as close to smiling as she ever did when getting orders from Morgan (To wit, a quarter centimeter less frown).

"The descendant of the radiant hero? Of course."

Morgan saw an 'I could never forget those muscles. Or that armor. Sigh.' look in Kjelle's eyes and decided not to press things any further on that score.

"Well, he's in the camp. Right now."

"Who slacked off on their patrol route?! Gods, I thought…"

Morgan ran through the routes and sentry duties in her head for a second, then realized the answer would not satisfy Kjelle. At all.

"Issue for later!"

"A failure in discipline isn't an issue for later. If we're going to keep the weaklings and slackers around, we need to know they can at least follow orders."

"And they can! Err… normally. Look. It's a really funny story! But it's not important right now."

"So, this is your fault."

"We can assign blame, or we can solve problems. And the problem right now is that I have no idea how you would train someone. Because, err… Priam asked me to train him?"

Kjelle's frown vanished into complete numbness.

"What?"

"Yeah, funny, right? And I know you've been talking about exercise routines for training, so I thought that maybe you could help me come up with something."

Kjelle shook her head.

"Why would he come to you? I thought you were busy being our tactician."

"Well, I mostly was. But when you were holding off those two berserkers, I kind of thought I could scout ahead while everyone was distracted. And then I got into a sword fight with Priam. Which I totally had a contingency for. And it worked. You can tell because we're all alive."

"I thought he was just watching."

"Well, he was. But apparently I impressed him, and here we are! So, I need your help. Because, well, I have no idea. At all."

"To be clear, you said that Priam, the descendant of the radiant hero, is asking you to train him in combat?"

"Yep."

"And there isn't another Morgan he somehow confused you with."

"Nope. I'm probably one of a kind. And if I'm not, they'd have to be like me, so I'd be just as good a pick."

"Should I even try to understand your logic?"

"Well, do I try? Because I think that's a good answer, whatever it is. Anyway, come on. I don't think I should keep someone that… stabby waiting."

Morgan gestured for Kjelle to follow and walked back towards her tent. She could hear Priam… breathing. Very hard.

Morgan had nothing against breathing. She did it all the time. In fact, she would have listed herself as very pro breathing, if anyone had made a poll on the subject. Breathing was one of life's little pleasures.

But some people took things too far. Listening to Priam, Morgan was beginning to hate breathing. If it kept going much longer, she was going to have to write a new tactical guidebook entirely focused on ways to hold your breath.

Maybe the Risen had the right idea. Yes, they were an all devouring army of the undead, bringing suffering to everyone they met and destroying all that was good and holy in the world. But on the other hand, they weren't breathing. You had to give them credit for that.

Morgan coughed to break through the noise.

Priam stood up.

Morgan nodded.

"Right! I'm back and ready to help with your training. You might recognize my assistant, Kjelle. Or you might not. I really shouldn't be judging anyone else's memory."

"She was the knight on the left flank. Her balance…"

"Great! You remember her. So, let's get started. Err… can I ask a question first?"

"Of course."

"Why were you breathing so loud?"

Priam perked up instantly.

"Ah! I thought a gifted swordfighter like you would understand already, but here the student has an opportunity to benefit the master. I draw deep breaths to counter the lower quality of the local air. You see, the root of a fighter's power always comes from the air around them. The best training comes in the mountains, or under a waterfall…"

Kjelle shook her head.

"Or anywhere else! A knight can't let anything stop her training."

Priam seemed to ignore the interruption.

"Although you can in theory train anywhere, I find the most fulfillment of my inner spirit by…"

Morgan stepped forward.

"Got it. Breathing is the best. But we were here because you thought you needed help. I'm pretty sure you figured out breathing on your own, right? So that's not why you lost."

"No, but I still felt that it was important to understand success as well as failure. The spirit of combat may…"

"Nope! We aren't going into that! We're… Kjelle, how would you handle things if, say, Yarne came to you asking how to be a better fighter?"

"Push ups."

"Great! Let's start with that. Just… do some of those. Until I come back. Without talking. Also, with as little breathing as possible."

Morgan tugged Kjelle back into her tent.

"Please tell me you have more ideas."

"What do you want? He has his methods. He's strong enough to be useful. And he asked for you."

"All true. All very true. And none of it helpful. Come on! I want to make a good impression!"

"Have you considered not talking?"

"I did. It seemed really boring. So come on! You have to have something you thought of. You're way better at this kind of thing than I am."

"Better at what kind of thing?"

Morgan could see several suggestions in Kjelle's eyes, ranging from 'not being incredibly irritating' all the way to 'actually taking this war seriously, gods, why am I even talking to you, and how did two of the only people I actually respect produce you?' The kind of things that someone else might find offensive. But Kjelle kept them quiet this time. Probably due to the whole 'actually respecting Lucina and Robin' thing. Morgan returned the respect by pretending not to notice any of it.

"The being intimidating thing. The… seeming like you should be in charge of anything ever thing."

"It's not difficult."

"Well, no. But you're really good at it. I'm kinda jealous."

"Maybe if you actually took things seriously."

"I do! Err… sometimes. I've given you the serious eyes talk, right? I mean, normally, I'm footloose and fancy free, just happy-go-lucky as all get out, but sometimes… I mean, I have people's lives to worry about. That's kind of important."

"Yes."

Morgan could see a few more comments on the edges of Kjelle's mouth, but none she cared enough about to be worth actually spending words. Maybe there was something to the way Kjelle rationed them, compared to Morgan. One of those secrets of being taken seriously. Worth considering later.

"But it doesn't look convincing when I say it. I mean, mother and father believe me, I guess that's the special family bond thing, but nobody else does. You don't. And that makes sense, because why would you? I mean, I wouldn't believe me to look at it. Just too sunny and cheery!"

"You never seem to be taking fighting seriously."

"That's because I'm not. It's just too easy to pay much attention to."

"Too easy?"

"Yep! Pretty much sleepwalk through training. Meanwhile, you're always so intense! Giving it 111%! Which should be impossible, if I have the math right, so that's even more impressive!"

"No. Go back. You're claiming you're a better fighter than Inigo? Chrom? Gerome?"

"Probably? I mean, I haven't sparred with everyone, but mother said I was really coming along. I managed to beat her once! Err… before she won five rounds in a row."

Morgan looked at Kjelle's eyes. They were passing serious and heading into crazy. Whoops. Somewhere, it was too late to guess where, she'd just said something very dangerous. Well. She'd ridden out storms before.

"You're telling me you're the most dangerous person in the camp."

"I'm not sure…"

"You're saying that every time I've been straining to pass my limits, you've been laughing to yourself. Every time I claimed to be the strongest person in the camp, it's been all you could do to humor me."

"Err… well…"

"You're saying you think you're better than I am, and that I'm a joke."

"No, definitely not."

Morgan coughed.

"Also, maybe you could put away that axe?"

Kjelle smiled. Morgan considered the few other times that she'd seen that smile. Sparring with Sully, that was one time. Winning an arm wrestling match with Vaike. That time she and Severa were both away at the fair.

They were all very different smiles. At minimum, they were much less psychotic looking.

"Why would I? You just told me that you were the best sparring partner in the whole camp."

"Well, maybe, but right now I kind of… you know sleep? I mean, everyone else does it, so maybe you've wondered what it was like. I can say it's pretty great! And I was planning to give a demonstration once Priam…"

"It can wait."

Morgan barely had time to smile before the axe came. She barely had time to move from every blow. She also didn't have time to consider many details. But one thing stood out.

Dad would NOT like having all the books he loaned her wrecked in a fight. It was probably for the best to move the whole mess OUT of her tent, before things got much worse.

It was difficult to really direct an opponent, especially one as gifted as Kjelle, but Morgan managed to give ground without losing it before. It wasn't so difficult now. A bronze sword could take a remarkable amount of abuse to cover a retreat without risking her good equipment, and Kjelle was more focused on the fight than, well, anything else.

Normally, Morgan would categorize that as a glaring weakness, and consider ways to minimize it in the future. Right now, she was just grateful. Kjelle was…

Kjelle was a nightmare. There were a handful of fighters who were better, true. Father was more versatile. Gerome and Severa had more raw strength. Mother could use Falchion like it was part of her arm. And Morgan had picked up the best from most of them.

But Morgan had this goofy little quirk where she noticed pain. Fatigue. All the little things where your body hinted you should stop? She cared about them.

Kjelle didn't. Morgan wasn't sure she'd stop fighting if she was dead. Little things like stabbing and bleeding didn't even register.

Out of the tent, Morgan rolled on the ground. Her sword was a dented lump of metal and her backup holster was an inch too far away to risk in the heat of battle. It was not a fun fight. Even by the standards of people who thought of fighting as fun instead of insanely dangerous.

Morgan moved one hand from her sword and considered. There was a trick to doing magic without a spellbook or a staff.

The trick was not frying your brain when you did it. With a book, you at least had some distance. Whatever forces you summoned up went through your implement instead of you. When you didn't have a book, you had to get creative.

Creative people made history, after all. The best history! (The little footnotes about how some lunatic died horribly before someone figured out how to actually do something were always entertaining, better than you could say about most history books.)

Morgan's hand crackled with lightning. It turned out she did have a trick after all. If you were going to run magic through your brain, all you had to do was not think about doing it. Leave some space free.

"Aagh!"

Kjelle shook a little. A very little. Morgan took the second to draw the sword at her back and consider just how weak channeling magic without a book was, or how strong Kjelle was. Judging from the scorched earth around her and the still crackling armor, Morgan revised her Kjelle estimates upward.

Upside, she would be able to rely on her best heavy armored support in the future, even against mages!

Downside, she was facing down an unstoppable tank, the little bit of spark she could summon was about it without resorting to dark magic, (and getting blood everywhere was what magic was supposed to avoid), and she didn't have the balance of the sword in her hand down. Morgan gulped. Well. This would be… interesting.

It was the last coherent thought she managed for some time. Kjelle was relentless. Unstoppable. Driven. The one relief was the fact she seemed to be having just as much trouble keeping Morgan back.

Of course, the difference was that Kjelle was enjoying it.

Morgan had often thought the universe was fundamentally unfair. Some people had all the fun, all the talents, all the benefits of a life well wasted. Others were lucky to have one brief touch of joy in the midst of their short, sad, existences. She made her peace with it a while ago. The main reason for the peace, of course, was that the universe always seemed to be unfair in her favor. It would be ungrateful to complain.

Now, Kjelle was having fun, Morgan wasn't, and all in all it was a reasonable rebalancing of some cosmic scales.

What felt like weeks later, Kjelle's axe stopped battering Morgan's defenses. Morgan's sword was buried to its hilt in the ground. And a distant pair of hands was clapping.

Morgan and Kjelle tilted to see Priam on his feet.

"I would have put more emphasis on the spiritual aspects of the conflict, but your demonstration showed your inner purity of form better than mere words ever could."

Kjelle looked over at Morgan.

"Was this your plan?"

"It's made of parts that were originally my plan. So, yes. I am taking all the credit."

Kjelle rolled back to her starting position.

"I would say something about taking this seriously, but I'm too tired."

"And I'm too tired to make fun of you for it. Truce?"

"Truce."

Morgan looked up at the stars. Well, it wasn't how she was planning to get her sleep. But a tactician took opportunities when they came.

(Author's Notes: Shorter than usual this time. Figured that I wanted to avoid another month long wait, and this was done and decent. Well, I hope it's decent, anyway. Guess it's more the place of others to judge that than me.

Fairly basic ideas this time. I wanted to at least try to write some Priam to see if it was any fun, and I figured some interaction between Morgan and Kjelle might be worth trying, considering how they don't have anything in the base game. Thus, this.

Don't have much else to say, so hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading, and no promises on any kind of update schedule. I mean, I'll try, but if I can't get something I halfway tolerate done, seems more fair to all concerned if I just don't write anything rather than just word vomit all over the internet. Also, on the note of no promises, next chapter might be a longer one, if I can beat an idea into shape well enough. Something I've been toying with for a long time without any real progress.

Until then, take care.)