Fire Emblem: Path of Wyverns

Chapter 5

"So what kind of weapons can you use?" Daren asks.

We're in a long room full of weapons and armor. Despite the massive amount of items in here, most are just multiples of a few basic templates. There's not even a mace, or poleax! How can they go all Witch-King without a good mace? And who wouldn't want a dual-use weapon like a poleax? It's an axe with reach, and you still get to stabbity! Stabbity, stabbity, stabbity! I love the Rogue Blades. I'll miss Renaissance Fairs. Wait, I'm living in one.

A coughs breaks me from my inner monologue. Oh, right, I was asked a question. "Uh, I trained with a sword for a little," I answer.

"A sword is a good, balanced weapon. I think it contemplates your build, too," Daren comments with a smile. What does my build have to do with a sword? "What kind did you use?"

Plumbing pipe with foam padding for protection. "A hand-and-a-half sword."

"How does this one feel?" Daren asks, picking out a sword for me.

I hear the Zelda treasure chest sound in the back of my head as I take the sword. My hands immediately slip into the grip I used for practice. At least I know how to hold it right…maybe. Or should my hand be further up? Why couldn't I have practiced before coming here? Stupid procrastination.

The sword itself is a nice piece of work compared to the ones I've seen back on Earth. It seems slightly heavier than my weighted waster, but the balance is also better. Just by holding the sword I can imagine carving a line through the enemy, dancing past all types of attacks while I dice them in broad sweeping blows. I mentally laugh at myself for such delusional thoughts.

"So how long have you been practicing the art of the sword?" Daren asks.

Why does he have to ask that? Can't he ask something else? "I haven't been able to practice for the past couple months," I say, which is technically a lie. I could have trained, I was just too lazy.

"You'll get in the groove of it soon. It's like riding a horse, you never forget." Is that where the bike analogy comes from?

"Here's a sheath for your sword," he says, handing me a rather plain sheath. A simple loop attached it to my borrowed belt. "I take it you trained without any heavy armor like most myrmidon, right?" Daren prompts.

Just padded gloves and a fencing helmet. "Right."

"Buckler, kite, or neither?"

I have to follow his gesture toward the section of shields to realize what he means. "Neither."

"Now you just need your armor," Daren says, heading out into the hall. I follow him a short distance to another room, this one full of the kind of armor the generic soldiers from Daein wore. I'm going to be an NPC.

After looking me over, Daren goes through the armor until he pulls out some blue pieces. The armor looks rather weird, having little sheen from the light of the torches, yet still appearing to be metal. Plus, the blue is just an odd color when I know Daein soldiers wear red or black. Isn't the color meant to help the others know I'm an ally?

"Our armor is a little different than most," Daren states, holding the breastplate out to me. "We don't make ours out of metal. Metal armor would restrict our movements and weigh our wyverns down in flight."

I take the breastplate and realize he's right. Instead of heavy metal, the armor felt rough and slightly bumpy, though it appeared smooth. Also, while it seemed tough, it flexed slightly, making this piece more like a vest than a breastplate.

"What's it made out of?" I ask, still playing with this newfound material.

"Wyvern skin."

I drop the vest in surprise, which landed on my foot. Thankfully, it wasn't too heavy, or that might have hurt.

Daren laughs at my reaction. "When a wyvern dies, we use as much of the carcass as possible. We put the meat into our supplies; use the leathery wings as tarps during the winter; use the tough skin as armor; and even use the bones for miscellaneous reasons. That is how we honor the memory of wyverns that pass on."

Remind me to not let them honor my memory. That is just gross. Are they really so cheap to skip on actual armor, maybe even leather at the least?

Daren continues on in his explanation as he hands me the vest back. I reluctantly take it this time. "Wyvern skin has several boons that armor doesn't, such as flexibility, lightness, and less wear and tear. Wyvern armor can last for years after we form it without maintenance.

"While leather armor or chainmail such as some sword wielders wear are light and generally good on the battlefield, most of the fighting we do is on the back of our wyverns. Therefore, our main concern is arrows and magic. Wyvern armor is tough enough to glance off stray arrows, especially once they slow in flight up high. It also gives a slight boost to magical resistance. However, the true threats we face while in flight are against our wyverns, so concern is even further reduced about our own safety, since the arrow that would pierce this armor would also punch into our mount and end in a crash landing.

"You may not be a wyvern rider, but this is all we have to offer, and it will hold up in a fight," Daren says, finishing his exploitation on armor. He sounds like a car salesman trying to get me to take the slightly higher priced car. I don't really have much choice if I want armor, though, do I?

Daren leads me to nearby room where I can get washed up from my recent…experiences. A basin of cold water greets me, but the snug armor and padding help with the chill afterward. What I wouldn't give for running, hot water right now. The closest thing they probably have is the dam, and I'm not going there again.

"How do I look?" I ask Daren as I come out. The armor was a pretty good fit, though a little loose in the arms. I'm pretty sure I know why that is, though. It's like a light blue version of normal Daein armor, though there weren't any symbols for my allegiance on it. What doesn't go with it are the white pants. Hey, wonder if I match Nephenee?

"The blue suits you," Daren says. Well, now that you have your armor and weapon, you're pretty much set. I'll get you a bag of vulnerary ointment later. For now, we need to get ready to march."

"We're heading to the bridge, right?" I ask. I've forgotten what that bridge is called. Actually, does the game ever give the name of it?

"Riven Bridge. It's the only way to get any kind of forces into Crimea easily," Daren explains. Easily? That bridge is one of the most annoying things in all of Tellius. The enemies are few and weak, but those potholes are a pain!

"How far of a trip is it?" I ask.

"About a day and a half by wyvern flight," he says. How fast does a wyvern fly? How would one be able to measure that, since they don't have a speedometer or anything? I know they're movement is equal to horses in the game, but what about in real life? Granted, I don't know if this can still be considered real life.

"General Shiharam will probably have you transported by a carrier wyvern," Daren says, leading me out of the armory.

"Probably," I reply. "I'm on some sort of probation until the war is over."

"So he still thinks you're a spy?"

"Yeah." He hasn't mentioned the mark, so I'll just leave that part out. A nice part of my new outfit is fingerless gloves that provide padding for the gauntlets. Even when I'm not in armor, I'll be able to wear it to hide my mark.

"I'm sure General Shiharam will come around," Daren says, probably trying to encourage me. "I can't say the same for Jill."

Is she really that mad? I know she came from Begnion, but does she hate her past that much? Or is it the fact that I'm still alive? Geez, she's a weirdo.

The sky is still dark as we come outside. They really are trying to be secretive about this. I can see wyverns already flying out, their dark forms blending in with the night sky. The thought of them as a strike force gives me shivers. I guess I'll see firsthand just how much damage they can cause.

Striding around the courtyard is General Shiharam. He seems to know exactly what needs to be done to the very detail. It's like ordered chaos around us. Order and chaos; Tellius' Goddess in her normal form. I wonder how that will all play out here. Does she exist here like in Radiant Dawn?

General Shiharam notices us and waves us over. "I've decided upon your appeal for Midnight," he tells me. Daren looks confused, so he must not know. "Midnight is a valuable asset to our forces. The two reasons we have kept her is on the off chance that she'll take another rider, and the fact that she'll terrorize the local farmers with her need for meat. She'd receive a death note almost instantly on her own.

"However, you have managed to spend a day with her and not be injured." Hello? Do you not see the giant egg on my head? "Therefore, I am assigning her to you. This way, you will be able to fight in unit that my soldier is in, and Midnight will get the relative freedom of being out of the holding pen."

Pass that by me once more. You want me to ride Midnight into battle? He really does want to kill me.

Daren speaks my thoughts. "Drake has never been trained to ride a wyvern before. And Midnight hasn't followed anyone's orders since the incident."

"Well, the both of them will just have to learn," General Shiharam states. "We can't spare any rider to take him into battle. Teach him how to mount and the basics of riding. You'll need to be in the air in an hour."

Just have to learn? Before I can protest, Daren says, "Yes, Sir." You're not helping out much here. As General Shiharam turns away to give more orders, Daren starts heading over to Midnight's pen, forcing me to go along.

"Is he serious?" I ask.

"Yes." Daren seems much more businesslike than before. "You're going to have to learn quickly, Drake. If you can't manage to ride Terror, General Shiharam will have you stay, and if you make an error in the air, it could cost you your life. I won't beat around the bush. Commander Haar is our most skilled wyvern rider, but even he can catch only one out of ten unseated soldiers…and it's not daylight right now."

Any more despairing news while you're at it?

"We usually don't let a rider get on a wyvern until months of practice," Daren adds. Thank you. "We've only let the most promising of the trainees try to ride Terror. She still hasn't accepted a rider."

So I have to learn in one hour what others take months to learn, on the hardest of wyverns to control…during the night. I'm starting to wonder if the Goddess of Tellius is just out to get me since I don't belong here.

Daren is still all business as he pulls the sliding door to the pen aside. Midnight is waiting in the middle of the pen behind the bars, obviously alerted by all the commotion. Daren grabs a lever nearby. "When I pull this," he says, "the bars are going to pull back. We don't have time to waste, so we need to start directly on mounting. Don't let Terror just fly off, or you don't have a ride."

He's not kidding. He's seriously not kidding. How am I supposed to stop it? Does he think I can wrestle it to the ground or something? Does anyone beside Jill notice my lack of strength? I can't just stand in front of it and shout, 'Thou shalt not pass!'

With a clank, the bars move rather quickly down into the ground, which Midnight capitalizes on. With a leap, it passes over the bars before they're even fully down and stretches out its wings.

"Midnight, wait!" I shout.

Midnight ignores me as it readies to leap, wings taunt. I reach out toward it, not knowing what to do. My right hand begins to itch once more, and I remember what I did earlier. Closing my eyes, I imagine an invisible force keeping Midnight on the ground. I really hope this works.

Instead of feeling the rush of wind as Midnight leaves, I instead hear a growl…right by my face. I open up my eyes to see Midnight facing me as though angry. You know, an angry wyvern up close is actually a pretty scary sight. At least it didn't fly off.

"Listen," I slowly say, keeping my hands out. "I talked to them, and they said they would let you out only if you would serve as my mount." Midnight is still growling. "Do you really want to stay cooped up in that pen? This is a chance you won't get again."

Yeah, Midnight isn't convinced. When I used to calm my dog, I would keep my hand on her, but I'm not sure if Midnight will let me. Then again, I need to do something. I really don't want to, but I'm going to have to try. I enjoyed being able to use you, ligament. You were my trusted right hand, literally.

Before my courage has a chance to flee, I take a quick step forward and place my right hand on Midnight's head, between its eyes. Midnight's growls quiet some, and its teeth are a little less visible. It is still looking at me with anger, but I'm just relieved that my hand is intact. I let out a tense breath.

"It will be alright," I say, trying to soothe it. I place my other hand on the side of its head and gently rub it in circular motions, a technique that came naturally to me when I used to have animals back home. After a minute, Midnight stops growling, though it certainly still looks angry. I feel kind of worn out after all that tension.

"Wow." I look over at Daren to see him gawking.

"What?"

"I know some wyvern riders speak to their mounts, but you act as though she really understands you," Daren says. So Midnight's a she?

"It's not really the words, but the emotion you put behind them that matters," I say. "Animals can be trained to a certain sound, but they react to the emotion behind it much quicker."

"You sound like you've done this before. But that still doesn't explain how you stopped her," Daren points out. "I was sure she was going to fly off there."

I decide not to tell him of my force powers. I don't feel like letting anyone else know about my mark, not after how Jill and her father treated me. "So, what now?" I ask, changing the subject.

"Right." Daren snaps back to business mode. "The next thing we have to do is prepare the saddle." Midnight growls as Daren tries to come closer, making him stop. "You'll have to do this part, I guess."

"I've never worked on saddles, though."

"Just pull on the different straps, and I'll try to explain from here how to work them," he says.

I step around to the saddle and follow his instructions on tightening them. I don't know how saddles work for horses, but this saddle isn't too complicated. A few straps around the wyvern's body, a couple for the leg restraints, and it's all set up and ready to go. The reins, mysteriously, are attached to the neck, rather than the head. I wonder why.

"Time to mount up," he says. "Riding is simple once you strap in. Since you'll only be doing some basic riding without having to fight just yet, you can use the leg restraints to keep you in the saddle. If Midnight decides to toss you, you should be safe."

Why does he sound unsure about that? I'm already anxious enough as it is. I grab the saddle horn, which is just above my head in terms of height. Propping my foot in the pedal thing, I attempt to lift myself up onto Midnight…and fail. Instead of a smooth and easy mount, I manage to flounder and basically pull myself up onto her back like I'm crawling. I never did have much arm strength.

I glare over at Daren when I hear a snicker. "You looked like you were a pro when you got on Terror in midflight," he says.

"I was already on her back, then. And I was just trying to stay alive at that point," I respond, pulling the straps around my legs. Three straps for each leg seemed overkill, but in all honesty, I'm actually pretty glad there's so many right now. I really don't want to fall off.

"Anyway, listen up, because you need to keep these instructions in mind," he says.

For the next ten minutes, Daren repeatedly goes over the basics of riding a wyvern, from sitting to steering. I've never actually ridden a horse outside of one of those horse rides at fairs, so I tried my best to soak it in. Gentle pulls only; guide the neck, rather than control it; tilt to let Midnight know to turn or rise; etc. Basically, all I got out of it was that I don't have a clue what I'm getting into. If this is anything like a plane simulation game, then I'm not going to live long. I always did get up and down confused on those things.

"I don't think there's much else I can explain right now," Daren says, finishing up. "I hope you're a fast learner."

"I think that's the one thing I'm good at," I reply, grinning. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's picking up on things quickly, especially in hands-on situations. I wonder if that means I've got the blossom skill like Sothe. Then again, that limited experience gain to increase stat gain, so that wouldn't make sense. Actually, all the skills are combat-oriented, so I probably don't have one at all.

"I hope you are," Daren says, stopping my meta-gaming. Would that be meta-gaming? "We need to get in the air, though. If something goes wrong, we need the time to fix it."

"I'm ready," I state, turning to face forward. "Let's fly, Midnight!" I shout, with an instinctive attempt to kick my legs, despite the restraints holding them still.

My head whips back as Midnight launches into the air immediately. I can barely keep my eyes open as Midnight steadily climbs upward. At some point she levels out and glides for a moment. I shiver for a moment, both from the cold, crisp air and from the awesomeness of this moment.

But Midnight suddenly drops, pulling me along by the leg restraints. I'm so thankful for those, as my hands lost their grip in an instant already. As we plummet toward the ground, I don't know whether to laugh or scream at the experience. I think I end up doing both, but the wind keeps me from hearing myself. With a quick spread of her wings, Midnight levels us out. I can hear trees whipping beneath us, so she had gone rather low. She hasn't slowed down a bit, though, as she then banks, whipping my head in yet another direction.

I'm not even trying to steer her as I simply try to hold on. This is like a roller coaster ride in complete darkness. I always enjoyed roller coasters once I got past the anticipation of the first hill. Midnight's not going quite as fast as the coasters at King's Island, but she's still got some speed on her.

After a few more banks and a sudden barrel roll, it finally occurs to me that she's trying to throw me off. The leg restraints are the only things that have kept me on so far, and I'd rather not test their durability any farther. I need to direct Midnight back to the fort. I don't even know where I'm supposed to go, so I'll need to follow the others before they think I'm deserting.

I tug on the reins, a little at first, and then a bit more forcefully. Midnight lets out a roar, but slows down some. Good. Now, how to I get her to go up again? I've completely forgotten Daren's instructions. Something about leaning or tilting or something. Just going with it, I lean back and pull on the reins some. Nothing.

"Go up!" I finally shout. I try to kick my legs, but they're still strapped down.

After a little more trying, Midnight finally starts to rise. After a bit, she levels out, but I can't tell how high we are in the dark. In fact, we are we? I can't see much of anything. Searching around, I finally see a large dark silhouette behind us, with some lights here and there and a bunch of movement around it. That must be the fort, which means Midnight has been moving steadily away from it this whole time.

After some more experimenting and cajoling I finally manage to get Midnight turned around and headed back to the fort. Now that I'm not distracted by the awesome ride, the wind is finally beginning to bother me, making me shiver. About halfway back, something passes around and circles around. A moment later, I vaguely see a wyvern flying next to us.

"Are you alright?" I hear someone shout. I think it's Daren.

"A little cold," I yell back.

"I thought you were a goner for sure when Terror took that first dive. I'm surprised you're still seated," Daren shouts.

"The leg restraints helped," I shout back. It's not easy to communicate while flying, I guess. They need cellphones, or walkie-talkies, or something.

"Try to follow me. We'll be flying for the next few hours. I'll try to keep an eye on you in case Terror tries to test you again." I need to find out why they keep calling her that.

"Copy that, Rogue one. Over and out," I shout. I laugh to myself as I envision his confused face. I guess all my jokes will be inside jokes from now on. Then again, most of them were anyway before I got to Tellius.

We pass over the fort and continue on, in what I'm assuming to be a westerly direction. It's not long before the cold overrides my enthusiasm for riding a wyvern. It's really cold this high up. Why does this armor have to be so drafty?

-o-

AN: We're still stuck at Talrega! I expected to be past this point by now. Oh well. In other news, this chapter is also slightly longer, being somewhere around 3.8k (FF certainly inflates that word count). However, I will not be able to write this week because I'll be going to church camp. Woo Hoo! Hope these last two slightly longer chapters keep you next week. A fun fact is that I had revised this chapter, the old one being around 2k, when I suddenly and stupidly almost lost the revised part when Microsoft opened it under read-only. I was freaking out until I realized I had luckily updated my individual chapter document. Too close, though I did still lose a couple hundred words from the start of next chapter.

I plan for next chapter to include some characterization for actual Fire Emblem characters. Maybe. They'll be in there, at least. Also, for reference, the me in the story has only played FE09-11, and the first few chapters of 7 and 8. I've just read through an lp of FE13 (Awakening), which was going to just be a casual read, until that first cutscene of Chrom and Robin happened. I really want to play now, though I think the game might just have too MUCH customization for a Fire Emblem game, as well as too much multi-classing. Robin can literally be anything he/she sets he/her mind to.

So, I'm on a wyvern, and heading toward the Crimea border. How will this work out?

(And for any that wonder, yes, I did practice swordfighting for a grand total of a about a month with custom made plumbing pipe swords. They actually work very well, and I'll be happy to tell you how to make them if you want. Just PM me. I don't bite...hard.)