A/N: Hehe...Oops.
Sorry it's been so long, I just didn't really feel like writing. And what I did write, I wasn't really happy with. I had this mostly written up for a long time, but today I scrapped what had taken me so long to write and managed to crank this one out in a few hours. Still not happy with it, but its less rehashing old stuff and less awkward that what I had. Plus, this version actually gets the characters moving. I can't promise when the next chapter comes out, if it does at all, but thank you for you patience and support nonetheless.
Hope you enjoy.
The following is a fan work based on the video game Fire Emblem Awakening. I do not claim ownership of the game, its characters, world, premise or anything else contained within. Fire Emblem Awakening is owned by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo. Please support the official release.
The following morning, the villagers had held a proper funeral for Kjelle's Master. Being in the state that I was, and that I didn't even know the man's name, let alone ever met him, I was left back at the house to rest. However before she left Kjelle had been insistant that we would be talking when they got back.
So I spent the morning, and much of the afternoon laying in bed and trying to get my facts straight using a borrowed quill and parchment. I grimaced at my shoddily written notes, my handwriting still very much illegible. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.
Morgan squinted at one of my notes as I continued to hurriedly scribble what I remembered. "This Owain guy seems pretty fun." She hummed. "I did read that right? 'Owain?'"
"Yes, that's his name." I grumbled, "It was fun to read his dialogue in the game, but I can't help but fear for my sanity when I actually meet him." Though, I'm sure that statement held true for a lot of the characters in Awakening. Before either of us could say anything else, the hurried thumps of Kjelle stomping down the hall entered the room seconds before she did.
She locked eyes with me and cleared the distance between us in seconds. She grabbed me by my hair and started to drag me outside. "What the hell did I do now!?" I managed growl out between pained curses.
"Training. Now." She barked as she forced me to my feet.
"What about your friends? I've been writing notes all day!" I protested.
"Later!" she growled as she continued to drag me outside.
"Morgan! Help! I'm not in the mood to die!"
"Good luck!" Morgan called with a lazy wave, turning her attention back to the notes I had written.
Kjelle dragged me out behind the house and into a snow filled clearing. Sticking out of the snow, was her Master's old sword. "Pick it up, and we'll get started on some basic drills." Kjelle ordered. She stepped off to the side and picked up her lance.
"You sure? Isn't this your Master's sword?" I picked it out of the snow and brushed off stray clumps of snow. The sunlight danced along it's silvery blade, the whole thing about a meter and a half long, if you included the handle. I took a few practice swings, the additional weight compared to my old sword nearly ripping it from my hands.
"It doesn't really matter. A sword is a sword. And you needed a new one." She shrugged, "Besides, it'd be a waste to not put such a fine weapon to use."
"This thing made out of silver?" I asked, wiping off a few straggling snowflakes with my hand. To be honest, even just holding it made me feel a little guilty, like the sword itself was too good to even be in my hands.
"Indeed, so you'd better take care of it." My would be instructor huffed. "Now let's try and get you into a stance you're comfortable with. Try to get low to the ground and spread your feet. Hopefully that'll keep you from throwing yourself over when you swing.
I did as she ordered, doing my best to remember how the Warden in For Honor had stood and mimicing that. Whether or not it was practical, it was my only bases to really go off of. "How's this?"
"Hmm. Not bad." Kjelle hummed. "Swing like I do, a few times and we'll see how it feels." SHe began to make slow swingiing motions, holding her lance like it was a longsword. I let out a chuckle at how awkward she looked doing it, but the death glare she gave me silenced any further comments.
We continued running drills for hours, my hands raw and my muslces screaming in exhaustion. I collapsed into a pile of snow when she finally relented and declared we were done for the day. "You still need some work, but you learn quick at least." She acknowledged, planting her lance head into the snow and letting it stand on it's own.
"You're one hell of a teacher." I groaned, shifting to sit up.
"Flattery will get you nowhere." She glared. "Don't think you can trick me like you did with Morgan."
"You've got it wrong." I sighed, "Look. I think we got off on the wrong foot." I dragged myself to my feet, much to the protesting of my body. I brushed off any snow that clung to me, and offered a hand. "So let's start over. My name's Robert, my friends call me Rob."
She looked at me in silence for a moment, then shifted her gaze to the offered hand. With a sigh, she relented and shook my hand with her own. "Kjelle. I look forward to working with you."
I smiled as our eyes met again. "Same." We released each other and picked up our weapons before heading inside. "I didn't manage to get everything written down, and some bits are a little vague in my memory. But we should have enough to go off of for finding the others, the closest ones, at least."
"Is anyone in danger?' She asked, leading the way.
"Noire and Nah are closest, and their situations aren't great." I admitted. "But you all aren't supposed to be where you join up for a year or two, give or take. So honestly who knows."
She looked at me over her shoulder as we walked, the sun had begun to set some time ago and it was now beginning to make it difficult to make out her face. "How bad, exactly?"
"Noire's gonna get attacked by slavers, and Nah is going to end up in a haunted house full of Risen." I explained. "They're both on the other half of Regna Ferox. So even if they are in immediate danger, we won't be able to help them for a while.
"We should set out as soon as possible then," Kjelle stated "We can continue your training on the road."
"If you think that's best." I shrugged, the mere thought of walking so far making my aches and pains deepen.
A week later and we'd been on the road heading east for going on six days. Despite Kjelle being able to procure food from her Master's wife, we had begun to run low. The matter not being helped by the fact the Morgan didn't have a proper backpack to help carry rations, and instisting on storing her things in my pack.
And so, we had taken to hunting to save what rations we still had. Our quarry? A full grown bull moose.
I don't rememeber whose idea it had been initally to hunt this one animal in particular, but I do know I vehemently opposed it. There's a reason it takes a pack of wolves to bring one down, and those ones are usually the old or the young, and the sick. This one seemed perfectly healthy, and if anything it actually looked bigger than the pictures I had seen online.
"We are going to die." I growled low, warrily eyeing the beast's massive antlers. It seemed to be unaware of our presence, instead digging throught the snow as it looked for food.
"We'll be fine!" Morgan replied nonchalantly. "Just stab it in the heart and it'll go down."
"Do you know where a moose's heart is? Because I don't." I retorted.
"Maybe if we can break off on of its antlers, the weight of the other one could snap it's neck." Kjelle offered.
"I don't think that'll work, that neck is thick. We could try to cut off it's head." I shrugged, "But again, really thick neck."
"Might be a death by a thousand cuts situation then." Morgan grimaced.
"The longer the fight goes, the more likely it is to kill us." I added.
"Well, we have our options." Morgan stated, "so let's get this thing!" She slowly drew her sword, and motioned us to spread out.
With a shrug, I drew my new sword and Kjelle readied her lance. We slowly began to spread out and surround the moose. I stopped near it's forward right flank and waited for Morgan to give the signal. The Moose, thankfully, seemed oblivious to our prescence. That, or it didn't care.
Looking past it, I could see Morgan move into position and raising her hand, she counted down from five with her fingers and when she reached zero, she clenched her fist. That was the signal. I burst from my hiding place and the moose reacted immediatly, backing away and huffing loudly. Kjelle and Morgan both leaped out and surrounded it with their weapons held out.
Morgan landed a cut on its hind leg and Kjelle managed to stick it in the side, but both did little to bring it down. The beast spun, throwing its head around wildly and forcing both girls to back off to avoid being smashed by its antlers.
I lunged when it was facing away from me and buried my sword up to the hilt in its side, hoping to hit its heart and end it quickly. Instead it through its weight into me and sent my sprawling. I landed in the snow and felt something in my arm give. I looked up to see my sword still sticking into its side. I tried to scramble to my feet when I saw it begin to charge, but couldn't find my footing in the snow.
As it neared, I gave up trying to get out of the way and curled up and covered my head. I bit down a scream as the moose stormed over me, kicking and stomping as it went. It hurt to much to move, I lost track of the beast as my mind was drowned in my body's natural damage assesment.
I could hear the moose turning to charge again and I tried to force my body into motion, only managing to look in the moose's direction. I could only watch as it charged again.
Morgan leapt infront of me and threw her hand out, a blast of fire eupting in front of the charging animal, it reared back in surprise giving Kjelle just enough time to rush up and stab her lance deep into its's chest. It gave a pained whine as it staggered forward a few steps before tumbling over and lying still. Kjelle let go of her lance and let it fall, pulling the weapon free when it had stopped moving.
The two stared alternated between staring at each other in wild-eyed excitment and at their fallen prey. They only snapped out of their stupor when I managed to force out an agaonized groan. Immediatly, they sprung into action, Kjelle running off to where I assumed we had left our packs, while Morgan stayed behind to check on me.
"You still alive?" She asked, poking my head, earning another groan in response. "Man, you have the worst luck with fights!" she laughed, before poking me directly in a nasty bruise that was forming on my arm.
I hissed out a curse just as Kjelle returned with our packs and one of our few vulneraries we managed to restock. "Turn him over and tilt his head up." she said as she undid the cork. With a grin, Morgan quickly flipped me onto my back, causing my newly formed wounds to flare up. Kjelle quickly poured the bottle into my mouth.
Almost immeditaly, I felt my body begin to numb and my mind start to drift off. "I'd like one fight where I don't end up bruised, battered, broken, and maimed." I managed before passing out.
When I regained consciousness, the sun was directly overhead and my two companions were talking over the moose carcass. I found my sword laying in the snow next to me, the moose blood having been wiped off. I climbed to my feet and made my way over to them.
"Good morning!" Morgan beamed at me as I approached.
"Feeling better?" Kjelle asked.
"We'll be fine" I said, copying Morgan before I grumbled "This really needs to stop happening."
"What's 'saiyan biology?' You were muttering about it." Morgan asked.
"Don't worry about it," I chuckled, before I turned to the moose and sobered "What are we going to do with this? This thing would probably feed us for a week."
"...But there's no way we can bring it with us." Kjelle added.
"I hate wasting food." I said, "We really should have gone for something smaller."
"Can we at least take a leg or something?" Morgan asked.
"Anyone got a knife?"
"Just use a your sword."
"Now there's an idea."I agreed as I went to retrieve my sword. We then spent the better part of ten minutes trying to figure out how to cut off a moose haunch. When all was said and done, blood was everywhere and the meat was a mess, but we had successfully managed to tear away our meal for the next few days.
As we were about begin setting up a fire to cook it however we heard movement from the forest around us, immediatly we were on guard, weapons drawn and standing protectively around our newly aquired food.
Slowly slinking out of the surrounding vegetation came a pack of wolves. We watched as a dozen or so wolves began to appear seemingly out of thin air. Both groups eyed each other warrily as we circled the clearing, backing away with our meal. The wolves approached the dead moose, and in that moment an agreement was struck.
"Let's go." I said, eyes locked with the lead wolf as it stood over our prey. "Let them have it, we'll take our meal and go."
"Last thing we want is to add 'mauled by wolves' to the list of things that almost killed you." Morgan joked even as she cautiosly backed away from the pack, not taking her eyes off of them. Kjelle stayed silent, picking up the moose haunch and quickly dissapearing into the trees behind us.
The second Morgan and I made it to the treeline we turned and bolted after her, the wolves too busy with their free meal to chase after us. I don't know how long we ran for, but we didn't stop until we nearly crashed into Kjelle, who had begun setting up camp. "We should be fine here." She stated, "though we should have someone stand watch tonight."
"We'll probably be fine for today." I said, trying to catch my breath, "The moose should keep them full for a while."
"So, does anyone know how to skin something?" Morgan asked, "I don't mind having to eat around the fur and stuff, but if I don't have to, I'd rather not."
"Just use your sword." I said as I settled down across from Kjelle. "I'll take first watch tonight."
Nobody slept well that night, jumping at the slightest noise and tensing at the sounds of distant howling.