Fire Emblem Fan Fiction / Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Epiloguery ❯ Luck ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Fire Emblem and stuff © Nintendo

We begin with a Mia/Rhys romance and tragedy. Enjoy.

Luck
by Radish Anarcane

“Mia!!”

She turned just in time to see a spear stab out of Rhys’s chest. A spear presumably meant for her.

A grunt came from the man who threw it before he turned his horse and rode back to his force’s lines, white robes flowing in the wind.

Rhys fell into Mia’s arms, choking as she removed the spear. After several wheezing breaths he summoned the strength to whisper her name, and then he went limp.

“MIST!!!” Mia screamed with the first fear she could ever recall feeling in her entire life. Mist heard easily and rode to them at full gallop.

Shocked though she was at the severity of the wound, Mist wasted no time in bringing her staff forward. She gasped as it glowed only briefly before falling dim, with no answering glow to embrace Rhys’s body. “No…”

For a brief moment in Mia’s perception the world stopped turning. The sounds of battle dimmed and then were utterly silent. There was nothing but her and the weight she held. The man of her destiny, by her own powers of prophecy. Dead. She fought the moisture that threatened to blur her vision. She needed to see. There was a battle going on. And she had a part in it.

Reality came back into focus with that thought. The man of her destiny. Killed. She had a part in this battle, alright. Killed. By a man in white robes riding a horse.

How she hated that gypsy now.

-

A battle plan was forming in Ike’s mind as he fought off what was left of the bandits’ first wave. A pattern was becoming clear as he watched them retreat and regroup. A pattern that completely fell apart as Mia charged straight into their frontlines.

Though as Mia paved a road of dead bandits through their defenses and emerged from the other side unscathed, Ike had to admit he had little to complain about.

-

Mia managed to borrow a horse from one of the bandits. One who wouldn’t be needing it with such a large hole in his neck. She didn’t fight on horseback as the swordmaster fighting style wasn’t suited for it, but she knew how to ride. She knew how to ride very well.

She charged at the man in white robes, who would have to be deaf and blind not to notice her coming. He readied himself to counter a charging sword knight. He readied himself poorly.

All in one movement Mia pulled her legs under her and leapt from her horse, aiming for the man’s left side, opposite his lance. She twisted as she collided, grabbing him around the shoulders and pulling him down. She rolled as she hit the ground and was on her feet almost immediately.

There would be no rivalry. This man would die today.

-

The mad-woman was on him before he’d finished his fourth tumble. He barely got his lance up in time. Getting back on his feet while under her continued onslaught was an even greater wonder. Though once he was standing he had expected to easily gain the upper hand and be quickly rid of this audacious bitch. He soon found his expectations were slightly off.

She kept him completely on the defensive. The only openings were when one of his men had the misguided notion of coming to their commander’s aid. And those were small openings. At far too great a price. Six, seven, eight of his men now lay dead at her feet.

He’d often dreamed of meeting someone who could match him on the battlefield. Someone who could pose a challenge. Someone worthy of being called his rival. Or at least such were the dreams he would boast of to his men. The really of fighting someone who fulfilled those dreams quickly left him quite terrified.

With a wink and charming farewell to hide his cowardice he ran to his horse, ordering his men to cover him. He was very upset when the woman easily dodged his men and leapt over him to stand on his saddle, looking down at him with frightening coldness.

And so their battle continued, his men learning to limit their support to mere shouts of encouragement, though even those dwindled as they had to focus their attention on the other mercenaries breaking through the defenses.

Inevitably one of them fell. In his last moments the man in white robes consoled himself with the thought that few other men could have lasted as long as he did against the she-devil plunging a sword in his chest.

-

Finding her one true rival. Fighting a great climactic battle that she could remember for the rest of her days. A battle, and a memory, that could make her feel truly alive.

But she felt completely and utterly dead.

It had been her dream since first picking up a sword. But its cost was the loss of a much better dream she hadn’t even realized she had.

And now she wished she’d never picked up a sword at all.

***

The ceremony was over. She stood before his grave alone. She walked towards it with slow, deliberate steps and nervously crouched before it.

“Hey,” she said. She wanted to speak to him. It wasn’t strange. People spoke to lost loved ones all the time. “Um…do you miss me?” She shook her head, feeling foolish. Why was this so hard? Why did it feel so unnatural?

“Oh! I hope the Goddess doesn’t mind the whole chastity thing.” The memory made her laugh for the first time in days. It almost made her forget how uneasy she was feeling. “I know I swore the Goddess wouldn’t care and it was just something the church made up, but I might have just been speculating a little bit.” After a moment Mia spoke again just to break the clawing silence, “I miss you…”

It was no use. She began to sob. “You’re not here. This isn’t you. I’m talking to a slab of rock with your name on it.” She traced the letters of his name, and then the epitaph under it. Luck. It was going to be Destiny, but then she realized she didn’t believe in it anymore. “This…is where you are dead. You never lived here…,” she whispered.

The answer came to her. How had she missed it before? Their room. He had lived there. They had lived there. His religious texts and her fighting manuals. His candles and her decorating everything with orange. His massive stockpile of flu and cold remedies. And the sword that hung on the wall. The sword she gave him during that first misunderstanding that he absentmindedly brought back to his cabin and continually forgot to return, until a year or two of sentimental value later they hung it on the wall together over a decorative banner. An orange banner.

Their room. She could talk to him there. She could deal with her grief there. And maybe, someday, she could say goodbye.