Of Wyverns and Brands

Chapter 19

I wake to find myself back in my room with Boyd and Rolf, both of whom are up and getting ready.

"Well good morning, mister sleepyhead. Decided to finally wake up?" Boyd asks, stretching.

"Well, for once your snoring didn't wake me, so I got as much as I could," I reply as I get up.

He actually looks proud about that reputation. "Yeah, well, you missed all the excitement yesterday."

"Oh really? How?" I ask, already guessing the answer. Soren and the laguz fight and Ike gets hurt, right?

"These two sub-humans showed up right after the battle." Laguz. "And Shinon started mouthing off to them. So the cat just leaps on him and starts to tear into him. Or tried to. Then Greil just yanks her off by the back of her fur like she weighs nothing and stops the fight like that."

Oh, yeah, they're still here. Guess that will change things up, won't it? Now I kind of wish I saw that.

But I do get to see the glorious after glares that are sparking between them as we head out into the common area. Plus, I'm pretty sure Shinon is moving more stiffly than normal. I can't keep from smiling at that.

Oh, wait. Lethe is glaring at me as well.

"Your band is full of crossbreeds, I see," she hisses, heading back outside. I sigh. There's another one for the 'I hate Drake' club.

I jump as a large hand suddenly claps me on the shoulder. I look back to see Greil next to me, his size suddenly much more apparent as he stands so close. "The laguz tend to have a negative outlook on the branded here, so be wary."

"Yes, sir," I say, nervousness making me polite.

"And about yesterday." Here we go. "Thank you for protecting Mist," he says, before walking off.

And…that's all. I guess I'm not in trouble then. At least he's not blaming me for anything.

After a quick breakfast, we leave and head further into Gallia. Which means more marching, since the forest is too thick to follow their path from above. Yay. Not. Marching gets very boring, very quickly, and I hate being bored. Then again, it's not like I have the energy to talk and walk with the pace Lethe is keeping us to. I wish she'd stop complaining already.

And then we reached the coast. I've never been to the ocean before, but this is one amazing view. No wonder people always talk about it.

"Never seen the ocean before?" Oscar asks, stopping next to me.

I shake my head. "I was always too busy to travel and see it before."

"There are some beautiful beaches along Crimea's coast you should see sometime."

"It's huge," I comment, staring at the waves crashing against the cliff we were on. Wait… "Why are we at the coast?"

"The laguz said that this was the fastest route to take with our wagons." Lethe might actually have a reason to complain if we're taking the scenic route then.

"Guys! Get ready to fight," Boyd calls, jogging over to us. "There's some Daein soldiers up ahead, and the Commander is planning to take them out." Daein soldiers?

"What would Daein soldiers be doing this far into Gallia?" Oscar asks.

…The coast battle! I thought that was after we reached the capital and met up with the princess. Shoot. I'm already forgetting stuff about the game.

"The sub-um, laguz think they might have taken a small outpost out here. Whatever the reason, they're peed off." I don't remember why they were here either, but whatever.

Mounting up onto Midnight, I have her fly to the front of the group. The mercenaries are already forming up as Soren studies the landscape. From my quick aerial trip, it seems the soldiers are just lounging around outside the single tower without anything to do.

"Orders?" I ask, pulling out my sword.

"You'll be aerial support," Soren says, putting his hatred of me aside for the moment. "Watch from above, and if any trouble happens, swoop in and cover until we get it handled. I do not believe they have any aerial units of their own, so that will be all."

"What about us? We're fighting as well."

Everyone's heads turn at once toward the voice, where Mist and Rolf are standing ready for combat.

"Of course you guys can't fight!" Boyd exclaims. "This isn't some game. You two are too young to be fighting. Leave this to the adults."

"I've already killed," Rolf states, his face wavering between fear and determination. I cringe, remembering that that was my fault. "I won't be left behind."

"And when in the world did you kill someone?" Boyd asks angrily. "Stop trying to make up stuff to sound big."

"Yesterday, actually," Shinon remarks, casually inspecting one of his arrows. "He shot with me."

"What!? I can't believe-"

"Shut up!" Lethe half hisses, half screams. "Stupid beorc. Do you want to warn every soldier in the area we're here?"

That shut Boyd up. Ike decides to speak up and end it. "Father, what do you think?"

Greil stares at the two for a minute, making them squirm a bit under his gaze. "They've already made their minds up, and it might be safer to keep them with us where we can keep an eye on them." As yesterday proved.

Mist and Rolf let out sighs, but Greil wasn't done.

"You won't be getting it easy, though, so you better keep up. Now let's move out." And so continuity managed to stay intact for a bit longer as Rolf and Mist joined the Party.

We take off into the sky as the rest of the mercenaries charge toward the tower. It isn't long before they reach the unprepared soldiers and the fight begins. The soldiers were completely taken by surprise and already seem ready to run. I…don't see any pirates, though. Or any troops on the beach for that matter.

Flying higher, I try to look out as far as I can, but I see no hints of any ships at sea. I specifically remember pirates in this chapter. That's going to worry me. Is the timing off?

Wait. Something is coming…by air. It's a while before I can actually confirm it, but that is Marcia coming in on her pegasus. So all she has to do is reach Ike and…actually, I should probably at least question a random flyer suddenly going straight for one of our units, yes? Don't give Soren any more reason to look down on you, Drake.

I direct Midnight to intercept her flight path. "Buggers! I didn't notice you there!" Marcia calls out, her pegasus quickly slowing at the sight of Midnight. "Are you part of the mercenaries below?"

"Yes. Who are you?" I shout back. That pegasus is keeping a good distance, making talking a lot harder than it has to be.

"I'm Marcia. I'm here to join you guys." That's…quite the recruitment speech. Then again, Ike lets anyone join, so. "Ah, biscuits. The fighting's almost over, too."

I look down to see that over half of the soldiers have already been taken care of. "Well, I suggest staying back and asking again while we're not so busy, alright?"

"Will do," she calls out, heading out away from the fight for the moment. I could have let her right into the fight, but it's not like we need it.

Especially since they let the laguz fight. My gaming side is calling out to make them go to the corner, but experience stealing probably isn't too much of an issue in real life. Besides, they're powerful. Insanely so. The fight is almost over, but the two of them are already focused on chasing down the soldiers that tried to run.

Wait a second. My eyes catch a red-robed man trying to hide in the nearby trees. Mordecai is closing in on the area, chasing a fleeing soldier, but seems to have noticed the danger. Robes means magic, and if it's fire and works like the game…

I send Midnight straight for the mage in a steep dive, barely reaching him before Mordecai. The man freezes as the large wyvern suddenly lands in front of him, a hand up in the air while the other holds a book.

Feeling pretty good about making it in time, I go to say something snarky, only to be cut off as the man's hand flashes orange and his whole arm suddenly goes up in flames. With a scream, the man starts to run in a circle, waving his flaming arm about.

Did he…just set himself on fire?

As his circling gets too close to Midnight, she lashes out and end the poor man's suffering. With the threat taken care of, I take a note out of Shinon's book and jump down to collect mage's dropped tome.

Four strange symbols are etched into the front of the small book. Fire, maybe? Inside of it, the rough paper is full of handwritten notes and diagrams. The writing is kind of similar to the ancient language in the game…but I have no clue how to read any of this. Maybe I could have Soren teach me?

I chuckle at my own bad joke as I go to get back on Midnight. I stop as she starts to growl and look over to see Mordecai approaching me in his…human form? I'll just go with that.

"Fire beorc bad," he says haltingly. His speech is almost as bad as my Spanish. Almost. "You save Mordecai. Mordecai sorry."

Um…what? Translation error here? This isn't Google. "Sorry?"

"Mordecai not go near beorc. Beorc feel bad when near. Beorc save Mordecai still. Mordecai know beorc good now."

Processing… Is he sensing that I'm branded, maybe? "I think it's because of this," I state, sliding my glove down to reveal my mark. "I'm one of the branded."

Mordecai makes a rumbling sound, but I can't tell if he's angry or thinking. He's a lot harder to read than others. Not that I'm a good reader of people anyway.

"Mordecai not know what branded is. Mordecai know beorc save him. Mordecai thank beorc. What is beorc called?"

"You're welcome," I reply, still feeling a bit awkward. "I'm Drake. It looks like the rest of the fight is over, though, so we should get going."

Mordecai nods and leaves while I stash the tome into my luggage. Now I have both a magical tome and an invincible sword in my inventory…both of which I can't use yet. My pack rat tendencies are starting to show.

Well, time to join the others again.

-o-

In the end, no one could figure out why the Daein troops took the small tower, besides trying to provoke Gallia, which I know they fail at in the long run.

After the fight, it was right back to marching. This time, I rode on Midnight, despite how rough it that is while she's on the ground, and tried to make out some of the words inside my little tome. It was more of a little journal than a book, but by the time we made camp, I hadn't managed to figure anything out…which only made me want to try more. I was tempted to ask Soren, but I wanted to give myself a few more days before giving up.

We reached Gallia's capital the next day, much to my relief. I'm tired of marching. The capital turns out to be…pretty disappointing. There's a few small building near the palace, but that's it. No walls. No actual city. Just a huge palace. And most of it was an open-air format, so it probably can't even be used for defensible location. Hopefully they have some beds at least.

The princess comes out and greets Greil and Ike, once again in her orange ball dress, and we soon all go into the palace itself. Not much in way of decoration here, really. Why did they build this again?

A large figure suddenly appears, and I look up to see that it is none other than King Caineghis. He's huge. A good foot or taller than Greil even is. He's practically emitting an aura of power.

"Thank you for coming, Greil." Deep, growly, and yet not booming like I expected. Guess he's using his indoor voice. "If I had known you'd be the one escorting Princess Crimea, I would not have dishonored you by making you wait at our borders. It is good to see you again."

"And you, King Caineghis," Greil replies, inclining his head some.

"You know each other?" Ike asks.

"For a long time, now," Caineghis answers. "I am Caineghis, ruler of the kingdom of Gallia. I almost didn't recognize you, though, young pup. You've grown since you were last here."

"You know me?" Ike's confusion is only growing, as well as most of the mercenaries.

"Yes, but you haven't been in Gallia since you were a child," Greil says. "I apologize, King Caineghis, but I have not spoken much of the past to them."

"Understandable." How much of it does Caineghis know, though? "Titania! I almost didn't notice you among this crowd. It is good to see you again."

"The pleasure is all mine, Your Majesty," Titania says, bowing.

With the large smile on his face, Caineghis looks more like the fat ghost of present from Scrooge than the king of lions. "Lethe, Mordecai, please prepare rooms for our guests so that these others can rest. We have a lot of catching up to do."

"At once, my lord," Lethe responds, heading off with Mordecai.

Figuring that I'm one of 'these others' I mill after them with the rest of the mercenaries while Greil's family, Titania, and the princess stay behind.

-o-

So the rooms do have beds. Not as comfortable as Earth's beds, but still comfortable enough. Unfortunately, it's much too early to sleep, unless I want to start the night shift again.

After getting Midnight situated, I lounge in the yard out front with her, enjoying not having to march or otherwise strain myself. Seriously, I think I've shed about twenty pounds since coming to Tellius. The Tellius diet. Works every time, guaranteed, or you die. Wonder how many would sign up?

"My lord Drake?" I don't even need to look to know who that is. 'Sir' I think I could get used to, but 'my lord' is too close to worship status for my taste. Besides, wasn't she just with the others an hour or so ago?

"Yes, milady?" I ask, getting up and moving away from Midnight so that she didn't have to get too close to the creature.

Elincia holds out a sack of something apparently heavy toward me. "This is my gratitude for coming to my aid when I had no one left. I thank you for all you've done for me so far."

Wait…is that?

It is! I take the sack and open the top to see it full of gold coins. I'm…I'm rich! Bwa, ha, ha, ha! "This is a lot," I comment, trying to not let my greedy cheering out in the open.

"It is not enough to thank you for saving me, but I hope you will accept it nonetheless."

"No, this is more than enough. Way more. I've never held this much gold in my life, actually," I state honestly. "Really, you didn't have to give me anything, though. It was Greil's company that did all the work."

"It was you that searched for me, and it was you that was willing to protect me even if you stood alone. I've found that the situation between the beorc and laguz is quite the same here in Gallia, but you've also given me hope that our nations can still find unity. Thank you, my lord Drake."

You know, a lot of people have been thanking me recently. I'm not really used to all this attention. "You're welcome, princess."

Elincia nods, then pauses as though she wants to say more. She doesn't, though, and walks away. Maybe I was imagining things.

Oh, well. I'm rich. Let's count all this, and-

"Ah!" I scream and jump as a red-haired woman suddenly appears with a grin.

"So you finally have some money, right?" Anna states more than asks, winking at me afterward.

Don't let her get to you, Drake. "I guess?" I mutter, trying to stay noncommittal.

"Remember, my shop is always open," she informs me, not leaving afterward.

When it becomes obvious that she won't leave without me, I sigh. "Okay, I guess I can take a look."

"Great."

And with that, she pulls me to a wagon filled with…really, really, random stuff. Stuff I don't think I'll ever need. Hunting horns, mysterious jars, bits and pieces of armor and weapons. And I don't see any sort of organization to this mess.

Unable to leave without buying something, I finally leave with a journal, a quill, and some ink for twenty gold. I'm pretty sure I was just taken for a ride with all her sweet talk, but at least my new-found wallet isn't empty…yet.

My first few attempts at using a quill pen were horrible to say the least. Eventually though, I start to catch on, and I decide to record the events since coming to Tellius. A lot has happened in the past few months, and there are some things that I don't ever want to forget.

-o-

AN: …0_0…
Ike has children.

I haven't played Awakening, so I only just found out about Priam today. I totally went fanboy crazy, too, because Priam proves that he does end up with one of the girls at some point. And I only found this out by reading another fanfic's rant on the fact. Man, am I out of the loop or what?

About five minutes after finding out, I then realized I just happened to have Priam's cipher card, which solved why he's blue/green.

And with that news, I…don't really have much else to say. Had to get that out, you know? Ciao.

9/2/17: Fixed a few things and edited a bit. Still a bit unsatisfied with it, but I'll come back when I figure out how to make it better.

Update: Fixed some errors, etc.