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keith_ltd2022-02-11 08:54 pm
runawayballista) wrote in keith_ltd2022-02-11 08:54 pm
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A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Winds Across the Plains, Part I
Fandom: Fire Emblem Awakening
Title: A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Winds Across the Plains, Part I ♪🎵♪
Summary: Morgan wakes up in a field with no memory of anything but his name and his mother, and the young warriors who find him agree to take him back to their camp after he's injured helping them fight off a horde of uncannily animated corpses. Apparently the world's in pretty dire straights right about now, huh?
Notes: flashback time babey!! probably roughly half of this will be flashback vignettes. someone needs to be holding morgan's hand at ALL times. anyway i am simply a Sucker for robin/morgan parallels
※ Each story is titled after a song from another Fire Emblem game, with a link to the track. Highly recommend listening to the music while you read for the Maximum Experience
AO3 mirror
He registered the rustle of the grass against his face before the voices. Those came into focus slowly, as he only just now became aware of his body. The grass was tickling his cheek.
“—have to do something, don’t we? We can’t just leave someone all defenseless and alone like this!”
“Cynthia, I don’t disagree, but what would you have us do? It’s not as though there’s a safe town nearby we can leave him—which does beg the question of where he came from…”
“We could at least take him with us for—oh, hey! I think he’s waking up!”
He blinked open his eyes slowly, only just now remembering how. A blue-haired young woman was half-kneeling at his side, looking him over with serious eyes. She smiled at him as he came to. He liked that smile—it was reserved, but there was warmth in it. She held a hand out, and when he took it without a second thought, she pulled him up into a sitting position.
A twin-tailed redhead leaned into his field of vision, eyeing him with an unimpressed look. “There are better places to take a nap than the ground, you know.”
“And certainly less dangerous ones,” agreed the girl still holding his hand. “But you don’t seem hurt—are you?”
He had to actually think about it, awareness coming back to his body slowly. He patted himself down just to be safe. “Nope! I’m fine, as far as I can tell.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We don’t see a lot of solitary travelers this way—were you traveling with others? Where were you headed?”
He picked a stray blade of grass from his hair. “Hm…I don’t know.”
“How do you not know where you were going?” The first voice piped up again, belonging to another girl with brown hair pulled up into pigtails. She was looking at him with her brow furrowed, then her mouth opened in an O of sudden revelation. “Wait! Were you kidnapped? Maybe the culprits were taking you to their boss’s lair, and they had your head under a sack the whole time!”
“Oh, uh…well, I guess that’s possible,” he said, because it was, although it didn’t feel likely. “But I meant more like…I can’t remember where I was going. Or…anything else, actually. Where are we?”
The three of them exchanged uncertain looks. “Right now, we’re in the Halidom of Ylisse,” said the blue-haired girl. “Can you at least tell us your name?”
“Morgan,” he said, remembering only as it left his mouth. Hm, it was good to know his name, if nothing else. Maybe more things would start to come back to him over time. Like, say, where or what exactly Ylisse was. The girl looked relieved.
“Well met, Morgan. I’m Lucina, and this is Cynthia and Severa.” Her companions waved brightly and scowled respectively. Morgan waved back. It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do. “I’m glad we found you before anything else did.”
“Like what? Kidnappers?” Morgan discovered he had a bag, and started rifling through it in the hopes of finding any memory-joggers. Lucina shook her head.
“Much worse than kidnappers, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, you know, like the hordes of undead overrunning every town between here and Ylisstol?” Severa was eyeing Morgan with deep skepticism. “Am I the only one who finds it just a little suspicious that we find a mysterious stranger just lying unharmed in the middle of nowhere who remembers his name, but he doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s going on around here?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what amnesia is,” Cynthia said. Severa scoffed.
“I don’t care how hard you get knocked on the head, how do you forget the fact that the world is literally ending?”
“Hey, why don’t you give him a little break? He only just woke up—I bet he’s feeling all kinds of scared and confused right now! And it’s our job as heroes to make sure he’s okay!”
“It’s our job to find a way to stop Grima and put the world back together, now you want us babysitting too?”
“Mother!”
All three of them turned, startled, to see Morgan holding a book out in front of him. He looked just as surprised, then a little sheepish.
“Sorry, I just remembered—my mother. She gave this book to me.” He stared at the treatise on field tactics, willing it to summon any more information to his blank slate of a brain. “She said she was going to test me on what’s in this book. We were traveling together…I was just with her.”
The more he spoke, the more sure of it he felt. True, he was having a little difficulty conjuring a clear image of his mother’s face, but he could imagine her voice, the weight of her hand on his shoulder, even a fleeting impression of her smile. They’d never been far apart. They couldn’t be now. He twisted where he was sitting to try and look around the empty field around them, but Lucina shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Morgan, but we haven’t seen anyone else along this road all day.”
“And we’ve been walking it all day,” Severa pointed out sourly.
“But—I was just with her,” Morgan said, genuinely puzzled. It was as vivid a recollection he could summon right now—they’d been walking down this very road, or one very much like it, and his mother had been quizzing him as they walked, having him point out various points of potential enemy ambush on their route—or had it been likely sniper positions? The observation game, she’d called it when he was too young to understand what she was trying to do, when she’d asked him to count things like hats in a tavern or how many people in the room were wearing a weapon. He could remember all of those things clearly enough to know they were real. He just couldn’t remember how he got here.
Cynthia gave him a sympathetic frown and stuck out a hand to pull him to his feet. “Maybe you just need to give it some time before it all makes sense. I mean, you did just wake up—and look what you’ve already remembered! I bet that by the end of the day, you’ll be remembering how you wound up lying here in the first place!”
The world was apparently pretty gloom and doom just about now, but something about Cynthia’s optimism was infectious. Morgan let out a little laugh as he got to his feet, brushing the grass and dirt off his coat.
“Hey, you’re right. Maybe I’ll even remember what I had for breakfast this morning!”
“You guys, shut up,” Severa hissed, and Cynthia turned to make a face at her, but Severa was standing at the alert, staring at the treeline. “We’ve got Risen incoming!”
Lucina had already drawn her sword, and the wings of Cynthia’s pegasus beat a gust Morgan’s way as she took flight. He shielded his face from the swirl of dust and grass, looking up just in time to see a shambling horde advancing at—well, what he’d hardly call a shambling pace. Severa had apparently not been exaggerating about the undead, nor had she managed to convey just how unsettling it was: these weren’t armored corpses, but something much more decayed and grotesque. Their bodies were lithe and twisted, with long, thin limbs tipped with gruesome claws that moved with frightening speed, but they had curiously blunt heads, almost club-shaped, and though their eyes were sunk deeply into the skull, they gleamed with an unmistakable red light.
“Ugh,” Severa said in unmasked disgust. “How do we keep finding new types of these things? I don’t remember the last ones we fought oozing this much.”
“Just stay upwind of them,” came Cynthia’s voice, strained and through a pinched nose. “I don’t know where these guys came from, but they really reek! Like, unwashed armor fermenting in a bed of rotten eggs kind of reek!”
“Ew! Gross! Not helping!”
“Morgan, stay behind us,” Lucina said in a low voice, preparing to advance on the first wave. “These things may look fierce, but they’re usually not very clever. We’ll cut them down in no time!”
With that, she struck the first blow, cleaving through one of the Risen from the side, apparently taking it by surprise, and it let out a horrible, gurgling groan before swinging blindly at her. Another twist and wrench of her sword, and the monster was wriggling in two pieces on the ground. The three of them descended into melee with the monsters, and while they were all clearly seasoned warriors for their age, they were still pretty outnumbered. There had to be something Morgan could do to help…
He rummaged around in his bag again and pulled out what looked like a magic tome, well-weathered. He hummed thoughtfully to himself. “Can I do magic?”
The tome fell open along a familiar crack in the spine, and without really thinking about it, Morgan raised his hand. A streak of lightning shot out and fried one of the Risen to a neat crisp as a clap of thunder sounded through the field.
“Hey, I can do magic!”
“He’s figuring this out now?” Severa moved to stab one of the things in the chest, but it moved with uncanny speed, catching the end of her blade in its clawed hands. “Oh, come on!”
Cynthia was having a little more luck attacking from above, while Morgan darted around the treeline, trying to focus on the magic and assessing the battlefield all at once. He didn’t really think about it; it was just the observation game, that was all, but his mind was still feeling a little sluggish, it was hard to keep track of that and aim at the same time—there was friendly fire to worry about too, after all. He was too busy jumping around, maybe more than was strictly necessary, to realize that one of the Risen had gotten the jump on him—he turned and leapt back just in time, but he lost his footing on a slick patch still wet from yesterday’s rain, and he went down hard on his back. The Risen took hold of his ankle as he tried to scramble back, its claws digging in through his boots, and Morgan bit back a pained noise, shaking back his coat sleeve to fire off another spell with a slightly shaky hand. It was just—this was at really close range, and he wasn’t totally sure he wouldn’t blow off his own foot in the process—
The point of a lance bored through the monster’s chest, and it gurgled and seized before the lance withdrew and stabbed it in the head next. It went down hard, its grip on Morgan’s leg slackening, and he looked up with great relief to see Cynthia on her pegasus hovering overhead.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice coming out a little wobblier than he’d intended. She swooped down to land next to him, moving to pull him upright before she saw his foot. The puncture wounds in his boots were oozing…something unpleasant.
“Oh no, did it get you?” Cynthia crouched down to have a better look, her brow creased. “It was the last one, at least. Ooh…that looks like it hurts.”
“It does,” Morgan assured her, a little white in the face now. Now that the damage was done and the adrenaline from the fight was starting to wear off, an exciting new sensation was lighting up every nerve in his leg from the knee down. “It hurts very much.”
Lucina, breathing hard, sheathed her sword and darted over to them, taking in Morgan’s injured foot with a grim look. “Cynthia, take Morgan and go ahead of us to camp. See that he gets that injury tended to. Severa and I will follow on foot and clear out any stragglers.”
“Wha—you want to bring a total stranger to camp?” Severa demanded, looking moderately outraged. “We met him, like, an hour ago and we know next to nothing about him!”
“Severa, he’s injured,” Lucina said. “I can’t very well leave a wounded person to fend for himself when there are Risen wandering freely. Besides, he fought with us—without a second thought. Without him there, any one of us might have suffered the same injury. We owe it to him to treat his wounds at the very least.”
Severa pursed her lips, although her gaze slid downward. “I guess he’s pretty good with a tome for a total amnesiac…”
Morgan would probably have enjoyed the flight back to camp more if he hadn’t been focused entirely on holding tight to Cynthia and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his foot. Maybe he could convince Cynthia to take him for another ride sometime when he could actually appreciate it.
They touched down at the edge of the camp, as close to the med tent as possible, and Cynthia helped Morgan hobble the rest of the way, one arm braced under his to keep him steady and off his bad foot. She was stronger than she looked, but then again, it took real strength to maneuver a lance from the saddle of a pegasus the way she had. Morgan couldn’t help but notice that the camp itself was pretty small, and while there seemed to be people of all ages scattered around the makeshift arrangement of tents, they seemed to be civilians for the most part. He saw only a handful of people who looked much older than him carrying a weapon, and they all seemed to be regular footsoldiers as far as he could tell. Cynthia and the others seemed like they were close to him in age, although he hadn’t asked, and now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure when exactly he’d been born anyway.
Cynthia threw open the flap to the med tent with a flourish, marching Morgan inside at a hobbled pace. “Move aside, people, we’ve got a wounded hero in need of treatment here!”
“People” in the little med tent turned out to be a diminutive girl with curiously elfin ears who looked a little young even for this camp, and a scar-faced young man who had apparently mugged a priest. The latter was already getting up from his seat without looking, waving a hand.
“Alright, where’d they stick ya? They can’t have whupped you too bad, if you can carry on like that—” He stopped short as he turned, staff in hand. “Hey, who’s the new mug?”
“This is Morgan!” Cynthia beamed, and Morgan, who was rapidly losing interest in the novelty of pain, waved with a pale smile. “We met him while we were out scouting—right before we met a bunch of Risen! Really…really gross ones, too. Anyway, Morgan helped us out with his magic—you should have seen him! He was all, fear my righteous thunder, foul creatures of darkness! And then, right at the climax of the battle—”
“Um, Cynthia,” said the young girl, her brow knit as she looked at Morgan’s face, “maybe you should let him sit down already. What happened to that foot? Because it looks…pretty bad.”
“Oh—shoot, sorry! You probably really do need to sit down, huh…” Cynthia frowned as she helped Morgan onto the low cot. “I was just about to get to that part—right as the battle was about to come to an end, one of them cornered Morgan and got its claws in him—literally!”
“Until you swooped in and saved the day,” Morgan added helpfully, because while he was no longer enjoying the wounded human experience, it had been a pretty cool moment. Cynthia grinned.
“Yeah! So now I’d say we’re even on the saving each other front, huh?” She patted Morgan on the shoulder. “And Brady can fix you right up, so you’ll be running around on that foot in no time!”
Brady grimaced and leaned in towards Cynthia, lowering his voice, although Morgan could still hear him perfectly well. “Hey, that’s not just a scratch he’s got there. That thing went clean through his boot. I can gauze it up for him, sure, but we ain’t exactly flush with staves lately…”
Cynthia’s face fell. “But Brady, he got injured helping us! We owe him more than that—Lucina said so herself! Can’t you at least look at it first?”
“Of course I’m gonna look at it,” Brady said, crouching in front of Morgan with a thoroughly disgruntled expression. He squinted at the foot in question, which was looking alarmingly swollen. He reached behind him, wiggling his fingers. “Hey, Nah, hand me the shears. I think I’m gonna have to cut this thing off.”
“My whole boot?”
“Don’t get your smallclothes in a twist, we got someone who can fix it up after,” Brady said, waving a hand. Despite all outward appearances, he was careful and deliberate with the shears, and the hand that gripped Morgan’s leg to keep it steady was gentle. “Not that you’re gonna be able to wear it for at least a few—Naga’s breath, what the hell happened to you?”
Cynthia and Nah sneaked curious glances and blanched immediately. Morgan’s foot was not only swollen, but it was oozing and a patchwork of angry colors, none of which looked like they belonged on human skin. Morgan winced.
“Oh…that doesn’t look very good.”
“No shit,” said Brady, who was looking pale himself. “How long since that thing got you?”
“Uh…about an hour?”
Brady let out a colorful curse. Cynthia was looking a little less excited about their thrilling battle, sucking in a breath through her teeth. Nah was trying to look more serious than squeamish, but it was…not a pretty sight.
“What do you think it is? Some kind of venom?” she said, at which Cynthia let out a tiny gasp. Brady was starting to look a little green, and he looked away from Morgan’s injured foot as he shook his head.
“No, it looks damn infected—after a week’s worth of exposure and festering! You’re tellin’ me this happened in an hour? Cripes, since when can Risen do crap like this…”
“Ooh, it’s not gonna have to come off, is it?” said Cynthia. Morgan’s face went a shade paler, though he tried to maintain a strained smile.
“Is there another option we can try before amputation? Because I’m kind of attached to this leg—literally, haha!”
“Oh, for—no one’s gettin’ a foot chopped off today, okay!” Brady seemed about as thrilled about the prospect as Morgan, looking a little ill as he grabbed a staff leaning in one corner. The tent filled with light, soft at first then glowing brighter, Brady making a distinctly unpriestly face as he concentrated. To conserve as much magic as possible, Morgan realized, watching him and definitely not watching his foot, but slowly, the throbbing pain began to subside. After a few minutes he chanced a look down and saw that his foot was—well, not fully healed, but certainly less gross. The puncture wounds were still there, but they were no longer oozing.
“Got rid of the infection,” Brady grunted, straightening up. “You’re gonna have to let the rest of it heal up on its own, though. I’ll clean and wrap it up for you, but stay off it for at least a few days.” He looked away with a cough and returned the staff to the corner. “Sorry, them’s the breaks—we just don’t got the equipment to spare.”
“No, I understand,” Morgan said, wriggling his foot experimentally. It hurt, but he could feel all of his toes. “I appreciate the help. It’s definitely nice to know my foot’s not going to fall off.”
“We’d better tell Lucina about this,” Nah sighed, her forehead creased. “If we wind up fighting any more of those Risen, the injuries alone could wind up wiping out the medical supplies we have on hand.”
Everyone looked uneasy at that, and Morgan felt a little bad, despite none of this actually being his fault. At the very least, he wished he could make up for the spent resources.
Cynthia helped him hobble over to an unoccupied tent to rest for the first time since—well, since he woke up in that field. He’d really only been conscious for a few hours. It was weird how long a day could feel when you couldn’t remember anything that came before it.
“Brady said to stay off that foot until it heals up, so just sit tight and I’ll get you some water and something to eat!”
Morgan wobbled his way down to a sitting position on the bedroll, his bag in his lap. “Oh, just some water would be great! You already had to use up a staff on me, I’d hate to take up any of your rations, too.”
Cynthia’s brow creased, and she pressed a hand to her cheek. “So you’ve got food with you, right?”
Hmm. Morgan rummaged through his bag. “Nope!”
“Morgan, when was the last time you even ate?”
“No clue,” he said brightly.
“Okay, well—that’s fair,” Cynthia said, puffing out her cheeks at him. “But your body needs nourishment to heal, now’s not the time to be skipping meals! So you wait there, I’ll run to the mess tent and bring you one of everything!”
“I’m really not that—oh, there she goes.” Morgan blinked as the tent flap fluttered behind Cynthia’s dashing exit. He made a thoughtful noise to himself. “She’s nice.”
Thirty paces into her determined dash to the mess tent, Cynthia slipped on a loose stone and sailed directly into someone else’s back. She staggered back with a little whumpf, but a hand caught her by the wrist before she could topple over.
“Not so fast, brave warrior,” Owain said as Cynthia shook out her pigtails with a little puff of breath. “Shouldn’t you be convalescing in your tent after today’s victory against the forces of darkness?”
He leaned in and lowered his voice slightly. “Hey, is it true that you guys ran into a bunch of crazy powerful Risen? What were they like?” He sounded a little disappointed that he hadn’t been there.
“Ugh, you don’t even wanna know,” Cynthia said, scrunching her nose. “And there’s no time for sitting around just yet, not when there’s a soldier of justice wounded in the line of duty who needs attending to!”
Curiosity piqued, Owain fell into brisk step next to Cynthia on her way to the mess tent. Lucina and Severa had returned relatively unscathed, so… “Has a new hero joined our ranks?”
“I hope so,” Cynthia said wistfully. “I mean, he’s really good at magic. You should have seen him, Owain! He was blasting away Risen left and right, like zap, boom, slide, zap! He’s a total natural. And he’s really nice! Lucina only offered to have his injuries treated because he got hurt helping us, and he kinda seems like he’s got his own thing going on, but still…anyone who can jump into battle at the drop of a pegasus feather like that would be a huge win for the forces of justice!”
“He sounds formidable,” Owain mused, rubbing his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m getting a vision…someone tall, dark, cloaked in an air of mystery, with an indomitable aura representing his fearsome magical power…I’m thinking…maybe an eyepatch? No, wait. Glass eye.” He opened one eye. “Magic glass eye.”
“Not even close,” Cynthia laughed. The mess tent was in a lull this time of day, but there were still leftovers from the day’s lunch ration. “He’s kinda short. Kinda cute, too. And really friendly! He definitely doesn’t look like a dangerous dark sorcerer. But he is pretty mysterious—get this.” Cynthia grinned, eyes glittering. “He can’t remember a single thing from before today. We found him lying by the road on our way back, and when he woke up, all he could remember was his own name.”
Owain’s mouth fell open. “No way.”
“So way! And practically the first thing he did was leap into battle to help us.” Cynthia was piling dishes with as much food as she could carry, and Owain followed suit with equal enthusiasm. “I mean, talk about an origin story!”
“He certainly seems worthy of our cause,” Owain said, although his grin betrayed his sage tone. “So what’s his name? Does he have a cool title? Or—ooh, what about his magic tome?”
“Morgan,” Cynthia said around the canteen strap in her teeth, her hands now fully occupied. Owain helpfully removed it from her mouth and tucked it under his arm.
“I would meet this mysterious Morgan, who so gallantly risked his life for my fairest of companions.” Owain tilted his head to the side. “Do you think he’s open to suggestions?”
Morgan had moved himself to sit on the ground so he could lean back against the cot, his legs stretched out before him. He was still flipping through the book on field tactics when Cynthia and Owain hustled into the tent bearing a small feast. Morgan blinked at Owain’s unfamiliar face with a smile, then at the plates they were laying out on the ground between them.
“Not that I’m not hungry, but…that might be a little too much food for one person.”
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s for me too. A good battle always leaves me pretty famished!” Cynthia set the last of the dishes down and straightened up to gesture brightly at Owain with a little flourish. “Morgan, this is Owain, a fellow warrior of justice in our crusade against evil!”
Owain dropped to one knee just as Morgan opened his mouth to say hi, one hand outstretched with his fingers curled in dramatically. “I am Owain Dark, scion of legends. My legendary blade is at your service. Any comrade of Cynthia’s is a comrade of mine.”
Morgan blinked in bemusement, then took Owain’s hand and lightly shook it. “Nice to meet you! I’m Morgan.”
“He doesn’t have the enigmatic air of an amnesiac,” Owain said to Cynthia. Cynthia gave him a little frown. Morgan just laughed.
“Sorry to disappoint. I guess I’m pretty easy to read even if I don’t remember anything!”
“So you awoke with no memory at all?” Owain said with unmasked curiosity, sitting down cross-legged next to Cynthia, who was helpfully pushing several plates in Morgan’s direction.
“Just my name and my mother,” Morgan said, and his mouth pinched a little. “I’m still trying to figure out how we got separated. But everything else—yeah, pretty much! Brady said it didn’t look like I’d been knocked on the head or anything, but I guess whatever happened was enough of a whammy to make me forget that, uh…the world is ending, I guess?”
“Don’t listen to Severa too much,” Cynthia said, and she flashed Morgan an encouraging smile. “I mean, sure, things are pretty bad—okay, yeah, they’re really bad, but—they’re not totally hopeless! After all, we’re still fighting, aren’t we?”
“Yeah!” Morgan grinned in turn. There was something infectious about Cynthia’s enthusiasm, and Owain’s presence only seemed to amplify it. “You were all over those—uh, walking corpses? You called them Risen, right? Anyway, once you finish exterminating all of those guys, you can call it a day, right?”
“Uh—well, it’s a little bit more complicated than that,” Cynthia said, her smile faltering slightly, and she glanced sideways at Owain. “It’s really the thing behind all the Risen that’s our problem…”
“We’re up against the ultimate forces of darkness,” Owain said, his voice pitched so low it creaked a little. “The enemy of all who live, the very bane of existence itself…the fell dragon Grima.”
“Wow. Sounds like a pretty intense bad guy,” Morgan said, nodding along, because it did—not that it wasn’t already abundantly clear that this was no laughing matter. “So who’s Grima?”
Cynthia and Owain exchanged a helpess look.
“Aw, you really don’t remember anything at all, do you?” Cynthia said.
“Nope,” Morgan said around a mouthful of food. “I’m a total blank slate.”
Cynthia clapped a hand to her face. “I thought it was just, you know—your memories of your own life and stuff, not the whole world!”
“I guess we’d better start at the beginning,” Owain said, tenting his fingers in his lap. He drew in a breath, his face schooled into a studious expression. “At the very dawn of time—”
“Owain, you don’t have to start that far back.”
“Right. Okay. One thousand years ago—”
Between the two of them, Morgan managed to get a vivid, if somewhat disjointed, picture of what the world had been like for the past decade. Pretty grim, as it turned out, even painted in Owain and Cynthia’s colorful storytelling. The fell dragon Grima, who had lain dormant for a thousand years, had been revived by his cult of zealots despite heroic attempts to thwart their machinations. Countless brave heroes died in the effort, and city after city, fortress after fortress fell under Grima’s spreading shadow. The world was a dark place; the risk of running into Risen was virtually everywhere now, and much of Ylisse’s population had been decimated in the years following the cataclysm—not just Ylisse, but a host of other nations Morgan had never heard of, Grima slowly smothering everything in his reach as it expanded ever outward. They didn’t say it in quite so many words, but as Morgan listened, he gradually understood why it was that so many of the armed soldiers he’d seen in the camp were so close to his age. The more that Owain and Cynthia talked about the fallen heroes that had tried to save the world before them, the more he realized they were talking about their own parents. Morgan felt a weird little pang of guilt at the certain knowledge that his own mother was still alive.
“But Ylisstol is still safe,” Cynthia said with a pick-me-up smile. “That’s where we’re headed in a few days. The Risen haven’t breached the capital! I mean—not recently, anyway. But never fear! Us heroes are always standing by to take it back in a flash.”
“So what are you doing all the way out here?” Morgan said. “Not that I’ve ever been to Ylisstol—er, that I know of—but this seems like a more…rural area.”
“We came rushing to the aid of the innocent townsfolk whose homes were plagued with Risen,” Owain said gravely.
“Yeah, and by the time we arrived, the Risen had already wrecked most of the villages around here,” Cynthia said, deflating. “We were supposed to swoop in all heroic and make this a safe place to live again, but…all we’ve really been doing is collecting refugees to take back to Ylisstol.”
“This is kind of how it always goes now,” Owain admitted, looking more grim than grave now. The bright enthusiasm that had painted silver borders around the world-ending threat of Grima seemed to wane the closer they got to the present. “We always rush out at the first word of danger, but…”
Morgan thought back to when he’d first woken up. Lucina had something about there not being any safe towns nearby. Apparently this was what she’d meant—there weren’t really any towns left at all.
Owain closed his eyes and curled his hand into a fist. “Every time another Ylissean village falls, I can feel it rend my very soul. For every innocent civilian who has lost their home, I shall fell a hundred Risen under my blade in a fury of justice! Even now, just the mere thought of it makes my blood burn with righteous rage…!”
Morgan did a spot of mental math. “That’s a lot of Risen,” he said.
“Yeah, well, they kind of don’t stop coming,” Owain said, opening one eye. He rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the unhappy line of his mouth. “Even when we do get there in time…we’ll kill them all, and half the time, more crop up within a week.”
“And it’s not like the villagers can defend themselves!” Cynthia said. “We’re pretty much the only ones who stand a chance against Risen in those numbers, so it’s our sacred duty as heroes to aid them whenever they need us.”
“Seems like Grima really has you on the defensive,” Morgan said with a little frown. He’d contented himself with food and now he was leaning back against the cot again, gingerly propping his injured leg up on his bag. “He’s got you spreading your forces too thin to maintain any ground, making it easy for the taking…and you go wherever the Risen show up, right? Which means he has control over the terms of every fight, and by extension, pretty much your whole army…uh, what?”
Owain and Cynthia were giving him twin miserable looks. “I mean, I guess you’re not wrong,” Cynthia said, “but when you put it that way…”
“Oh—sorry, I was just thinking out loud.” Morgan offered a sheepish smile in apology. “I wasn’t trying to tell you how to fight your own war. I mean, you’ve been doing it for longer than I can remember.” To his relief, that got a tiny snort from Cynthia. “I bet you guys have a plan for striking back, right? Like a way to stop Grima from making all those Risen in the first place so you can focus all your efforts on him, or—uh, I’m not really sure how you fight a fell dragon, but…”
“That’s a really good idea for a plan,” Owain said to Cynthia, who puffed out her cheeks in determination.
“Lucina’s definitely got a plan,” she said, and Morgan nodded encouragingly. Lucina seemed like the kind of person who had a plan. “I mean, she hasn’t told us all of it, sure, but—we’re definitely going to take Grima down! We’re heroes, after all! But…it’s not like we can ignore defenseless people in need, either…”
“True,” Morgan said, and he was looking at the weathered cover of the book in his lap. It was well used, dog-eared and margins full of annotations—mosty in his mother’s hand writing, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he could still read her arcane shorthand. But there were notes in his own cramped, messy handwriting too. He’d been studying this book for a while now. He was getting the sense that he hadn’t quite forgotten everything he knew. He remembered how to use magic, after all. Maybe he could remember this, too.
He wanted to point out that when you were badly outnumbered, you had to pick your battles, and that usually meant sacrifice—but that was all too easy to say when you were talking in the abstract. Despite Cynthia and Owain’s bright energy, Morgan knew that they’d been intimate with enough horrors that the sacrifice of even a single person, citizen or soldier, was a hard pill to swallow. Morgan finally blew out a long breath and let his head knock back against the cot.
“I wish Mother was here,” he said, closing his eyes. He was still trying to summon a clear image of her face. He could still only remember her smile. “She’d probably take one walk around the perimeter and have a whole list of suggestions within an hour. I bet she’d be able to come up with a plan to stop the Risen from tearing up all these homes and keep them gone, too.”
“What does your mother do? Is she a quartermaster?” Cynthia leaned over to peek at the book in Morgan’s lap. “Hey, you said she was going to test you on this stuff earlier, right? What are you learning?”
“Strategy. Just theory for a while, but we’ve been moving into practical field tactics. She’s a tactician. A brilliant one—I mean, she’s the best there is.” A little smile rose to the surface. This was easy to remember, the things about his mother that he admired, that he wanted so badly to emulate. “That’s why I’ve got to study as much as I can. So I can catch up to her. One day, I might even surpass her—but I think that’s a pretty long way off.”
“No wonder you could just leap right into action like that!” Cynthia said. “It’s gotta be like instinct to you now. Your hero instinct! I was right—you really are a natural at this!”
“A hero’s instinct is far more deeply embedded than mere memory,” Owain agreed, but he had his brow furrowed in thought, massaging his chin with his knuckles. “That said, my initial judgment was far too hasty. Your only other memory besides your name is of your mother…now that’s an air of pure mystery.”
“Hey, yeah!” Cynthia sat up straight, pointing a fork at Morgan. “How do you remember your mom but not your life? I mean, what else about her do you actually remember?”
“I’m not really sure,” Morgan said, scrunching his nose with the effort of memory. “I guess it’s more like…impressions than memories. I can remember stuff about my mom—like, she’s a genius and I’ve been studying as her apprentice since—well…” He brows drew down as he let his brain really sink into the question for the first time.
“I remember her voice, the stuff she says to me all the time. I know we spend most of our time traveling, we never stay anywhere all that long, and there was this game we used to play…” He trailed off, because the more he tried to get a grasp on his memories, the more they seemed to slip away, wriggling between his fingers like escaping fish. His expression dimmed, all his attention directed inward, but it felt like wading in an endless black pool. Finally, he gave them a shrug and puffed out a helpless laugh. “Sorry. I guess that’s not all that helpful.”
“No, that totally makes sense!” Cynthia said, and Morgan could tell she was being earnest, but he got the feeling she was trying to make him feel better, too. Morgan just gave her an encouraging smile in turn, and he was trying to think of a subject to change to when the tent flap was abruptly yanked open.
“Owain! Is this where you’ve been dallying all afternoon?” A young man about their age with pale pink hair stuck his head inside, directing his profoundly annoyed look at Owain.
“Oh, hey, Inigo,” Owain said with a little wave. “Done getting kicked in the shins by fair maidens for the day already? Usually you’re at it until sundown.”
Inigo glared at him. “Oh, hey, nothing,” he said crossly. “You were supposed to meet me in the training yard a half hour ago, because you insisted you wanted to test out your new ‘secret technique’—”
“The Black Fang Strike,” Owain said with a sage nod, as though he hadn’t forgotten at all, then he grinned at Cynthia and Morgan. “It’s pretty cool. You guys should come watch.”
“No one is coming to watch,” Inigo said, his face flushing. “And it’s not a secret technique if you show it to the entire army!”
“It’s a secret from the enemy,” Owain said. Inigo scoffed. Cynthia rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry. They’re just like this,” she said to Morgan, and nudged Owain with her elbow. “Morgan can’t go anywhere on that injured foot just yet. Doctor’s orders! Well, Brady’s orders.”
Inigo seemed to notice Morgan’s presence for the first time and flashed him a cheerful smile, although when Morgan returned it in full with a little wave, his cheeks flushed a little brighter. Inigo cleared his throat lightly. “I don’t believe we’ve met, ah…?”
“Morgan,” Cynthia said around a mouthful of cheese, determined not to let any of the leftovers go to waste. Morgan merely smiled sunnily in assent.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Inigo said, looking between the three of them. He spotted Morgan’s bandaged foot, and his mouth turned in a sympathetic frown. “They aren’t holding you hostage in here, are they? Gods, they’ve got you cornered. Say the word and I’ll chase them right out.”
“Hey,” Cynthia said indignantly, and he wilted slightly at her glare. Morgan just puffed out a laugh.
“Oh, not at all! Owain and Cynthia have been keeping me great company. It’s been kind of nice after today, honestly.”
Cynthia and Owain proceeded to Inigo in on the exciting details of the day so far, while Inigo looked increasingly incredulous, exasperated, and a little outraged at the notion that he was supposed to believe the taller parts of the tale. He gave Morgan a deeply skeptical look once they’d breathlessly finished recounting dinner so far, brow knit.
“Alright, which parts of that were actually true, and which parts were just wild embellishment?”
“Oh, it’s all true,” Morgan said cheerfully. “That’s pretty much the story so far. Pretty long day, huh? You know, I actually would really like to see you guys spar sometime, once I can walk around again. I bet I could learn a lot just by watching.”
“I could carry you,” Owain said, at the same time Inigo groaned out, “No.”
Morgan turned to Inigo and said brightly, “Hey, do you have any of your own secret techniques you could bust out? I’d love to see them.”
Inigo stared at him, then covered his face with a sigh. “Oh, gods, there’s three of them now.”
Title: A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Winds Across the Plains, Part I ♪🎵♪
Summary: Morgan wakes up in a field with no memory of anything but his name and his mother, and the young warriors who find him agree to take him back to their camp after he's injured helping them fight off a horde of uncannily animated corpses. Apparently the world's in pretty dire straights right about now, huh?
Notes: flashback time babey!! probably roughly half of this will be flashback vignettes. someone needs to be holding morgan's hand at ALL times. anyway i am simply a Sucker for robin/morgan parallels
※ Each story is titled after a song from another Fire Emblem game, with a link to the track. Highly recommend listening to the music while you read for the Maximum Experience
AO3 mirror
He registered the rustle of the grass against his face before the voices. Those came into focus slowly, as he only just now became aware of his body. The grass was tickling his cheek.
“—have to do something, don’t we? We can’t just leave someone all defenseless and alone like this!”
“Cynthia, I don’t disagree, but what would you have us do? It’s not as though there’s a safe town nearby we can leave him—which does beg the question of where he came from…”
“We could at least take him with us for—oh, hey! I think he’s waking up!”
He blinked open his eyes slowly, only just now remembering how. A blue-haired young woman was half-kneeling at his side, looking him over with serious eyes. She smiled at him as he came to. He liked that smile—it was reserved, but there was warmth in it. She held a hand out, and when he took it without a second thought, she pulled him up into a sitting position.
A twin-tailed redhead leaned into his field of vision, eyeing him with an unimpressed look. “There are better places to take a nap than the ground, you know.”
“And certainly less dangerous ones,” agreed the girl still holding his hand. “But you don’t seem hurt—are you?”
He had to actually think about it, awareness coming back to his body slowly. He patted himself down just to be safe. “Nope! I’m fine, as far as I can tell.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We don’t see a lot of solitary travelers this way—were you traveling with others? Where were you headed?”
He picked a stray blade of grass from his hair. “Hm…I don’t know.”
“How do you not know where you were going?” The first voice piped up again, belonging to another girl with brown hair pulled up into pigtails. She was looking at him with her brow furrowed, then her mouth opened in an O of sudden revelation. “Wait! Were you kidnapped? Maybe the culprits were taking you to their boss’s lair, and they had your head under a sack the whole time!”
“Oh, uh…well, I guess that’s possible,” he said, because it was, although it didn’t feel likely. “But I meant more like…I can’t remember where I was going. Or…anything else, actually. Where are we?”
The three of them exchanged uncertain looks. “Right now, we’re in the Halidom of Ylisse,” said the blue-haired girl. “Can you at least tell us your name?”
“Morgan,” he said, remembering only as it left his mouth. Hm, it was good to know his name, if nothing else. Maybe more things would start to come back to him over time. Like, say, where or what exactly Ylisse was. The girl looked relieved.
“Well met, Morgan. I’m Lucina, and this is Cynthia and Severa.” Her companions waved brightly and scowled respectively. Morgan waved back. It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do. “I’m glad we found you before anything else did.”
“Like what? Kidnappers?” Morgan discovered he had a bag, and started rifling through it in the hopes of finding any memory-joggers. Lucina shook her head.
“Much worse than kidnappers, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, you know, like the hordes of undead overrunning every town between here and Ylisstol?” Severa was eyeing Morgan with deep skepticism. “Am I the only one who finds it just a little suspicious that we find a mysterious stranger just lying unharmed in the middle of nowhere who remembers his name, but he doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s going on around here?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what amnesia is,” Cynthia said. Severa scoffed.
“I don’t care how hard you get knocked on the head, how do you forget the fact that the world is literally ending?”
“Hey, why don’t you give him a little break? He only just woke up—I bet he’s feeling all kinds of scared and confused right now! And it’s our job as heroes to make sure he’s okay!”
“It’s our job to find a way to stop Grima and put the world back together, now you want us babysitting too?”
“Mother!”
All three of them turned, startled, to see Morgan holding a book out in front of him. He looked just as surprised, then a little sheepish.
“Sorry, I just remembered—my mother. She gave this book to me.” He stared at the treatise on field tactics, willing it to summon any more information to his blank slate of a brain. “She said she was going to test me on what’s in this book. We were traveling together…I was just with her.”
The more he spoke, the more sure of it he felt. True, he was having a little difficulty conjuring a clear image of his mother’s face, but he could imagine her voice, the weight of her hand on his shoulder, even a fleeting impression of her smile. They’d never been far apart. They couldn’t be now. He twisted where he was sitting to try and look around the empty field around them, but Lucina shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Morgan, but we haven’t seen anyone else along this road all day.”
“And we’ve been walking it all day,” Severa pointed out sourly.
“But—I was just with her,” Morgan said, genuinely puzzled. It was as vivid a recollection he could summon right now—they’d been walking down this very road, or one very much like it, and his mother had been quizzing him as they walked, having him point out various points of potential enemy ambush on their route—or had it been likely sniper positions? The observation game, she’d called it when he was too young to understand what she was trying to do, when she’d asked him to count things like hats in a tavern or how many people in the room were wearing a weapon. He could remember all of those things clearly enough to know they were real. He just couldn’t remember how he got here.
Cynthia gave him a sympathetic frown and stuck out a hand to pull him to his feet. “Maybe you just need to give it some time before it all makes sense. I mean, you did just wake up—and look what you’ve already remembered! I bet that by the end of the day, you’ll be remembering how you wound up lying here in the first place!”
The world was apparently pretty gloom and doom just about now, but something about Cynthia’s optimism was infectious. Morgan let out a little laugh as he got to his feet, brushing the grass and dirt off his coat.
“Hey, you’re right. Maybe I’ll even remember what I had for breakfast this morning!”
“You guys, shut up,” Severa hissed, and Cynthia turned to make a face at her, but Severa was standing at the alert, staring at the treeline. “We’ve got Risen incoming!”
Lucina had already drawn her sword, and the wings of Cynthia’s pegasus beat a gust Morgan’s way as she took flight. He shielded his face from the swirl of dust and grass, looking up just in time to see a shambling horde advancing at—well, what he’d hardly call a shambling pace. Severa had apparently not been exaggerating about the undead, nor had she managed to convey just how unsettling it was: these weren’t armored corpses, but something much more decayed and grotesque. Their bodies were lithe and twisted, with long, thin limbs tipped with gruesome claws that moved with frightening speed, but they had curiously blunt heads, almost club-shaped, and though their eyes were sunk deeply into the skull, they gleamed with an unmistakable red light.
“Ugh,” Severa said in unmasked disgust. “How do we keep finding new types of these things? I don’t remember the last ones we fought oozing this much.”
“Just stay upwind of them,” came Cynthia’s voice, strained and through a pinched nose. “I don’t know where these guys came from, but they really reek! Like, unwashed armor fermenting in a bed of rotten eggs kind of reek!”
“Ew! Gross! Not helping!”
“Morgan, stay behind us,” Lucina said in a low voice, preparing to advance on the first wave. “These things may look fierce, but they’re usually not very clever. We’ll cut them down in no time!”
With that, she struck the first blow, cleaving through one of the Risen from the side, apparently taking it by surprise, and it let out a horrible, gurgling groan before swinging blindly at her. Another twist and wrench of her sword, and the monster was wriggling in two pieces on the ground. The three of them descended into melee with the monsters, and while they were all clearly seasoned warriors for their age, they were still pretty outnumbered. There had to be something Morgan could do to help…
He rummaged around in his bag again and pulled out what looked like a magic tome, well-weathered. He hummed thoughtfully to himself. “Can I do magic?”
The tome fell open along a familiar crack in the spine, and without really thinking about it, Morgan raised his hand. A streak of lightning shot out and fried one of the Risen to a neat crisp as a clap of thunder sounded through the field.
“Hey, I can do magic!”
“He’s figuring this out now?” Severa moved to stab one of the things in the chest, but it moved with uncanny speed, catching the end of her blade in its clawed hands. “Oh, come on!”
Cynthia was having a little more luck attacking from above, while Morgan darted around the treeline, trying to focus on the magic and assessing the battlefield all at once. He didn’t really think about it; it was just the observation game, that was all, but his mind was still feeling a little sluggish, it was hard to keep track of that and aim at the same time—there was friendly fire to worry about too, after all. He was too busy jumping around, maybe more than was strictly necessary, to realize that one of the Risen had gotten the jump on him—he turned and leapt back just in time, but he lost his footing on a slick patch still wet from yesterday’s rain, and he went down hard on his back. The Risen took hold of his ankle as he tried to scramble back, its claws digging in through his boots, and Morgan bit back a pained noise, shaking back his coat sleeve to fire off another spell with a slightly shaky hand. It was just—this was at really close range, and he wasn’t totally sure he wouldn’t blow off his own foot in the process—
The point of a lance bored through the monster’s chest, and it gurgled and seized before the lance withdrew and stabbed it in the head next. It went down hard, its grip on Morgan’s leg slackening, and he looked up with great relief to see Cynthia on her pegasus hovering overhead.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice coming out a little wobblier than he’d intended. She swooped down to land next to him, moving to pull him upright before she saw his foot. The puncture wounds in his boots were oozing…something unpleasant.
“Oh no, did it get you?” Cynthia crouched down to have a better look, her brow creased. “It was the last one, at least. Ooh…that looks like it hurts.”
“It does,” Morgan assured her, a little white in the face now. Now that the damage was done and the adrenaline from the fight was starting to wear off, an exciting new sensation was lighting up every nerve in his leg from the knee down. “It hurts very much.”
Lucina, breathing hard, sheathed her sword and darted over to them, taking in Morgan’s injured foot with a grim look. “Cynthia, take Morgan and go ahead of us to camp. See that he gets that injury tended to. Severa and I will follow on foot and clear out any stragglers.”
“Wha—you want to bring a total stranger to camp?” Severa demanded, looking moderately outraged. “We met him, like, an hour ago and we know next to nothing about him!”
“Severa, he’s injured,” Lucina said. “I can’t very well leave a wounded person to fend for himself when there are Risen wandering freely. Besides, he fought with us—without a second thought. Without him there, any one of us might have suffered the same injury. We owe it to him to treat his wounds at the very least.”
Severa pursed her lips, although her gaze slid downward. “I guess he’s pretty good with a tome for a total amnesiac…”
Morgan would probably have enjoyed the flight back to camp more if he hadn’t been focused entirely on holding tight to Cynthia and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his foot. Maybe he could convince Cynthia to take him for another ride sometime when he could actually appreciate it.
They touched down at the edge of the camp, as close to the med tent as possible, and Cynthia helped Morgan hobble the rest of the way, one arm braced under his to keep him steady and off his bad foot. She was stronger than she looked, but then again, it took real strength to maneuver a lance from the saddle of a pegasus the way she had. Morgan couldn’t help but notice that the camp itself was pretty small, and while there seemed to be people of all ages scattered around the makeshift arrangement of tents, they seemed to be civilians for the most part. He saw only a handful of people who looked much older than him carrying a weapon, and they all seemed to be regular footsoldiers as far as he could tell. Cynthia and the others seemed like they were close to him in age, although he hadn’t asked, and now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure when exactly he’d been born anyway.
Cynthia threw open the flap to the med tent with a flourish, marching Morgan inside at a hobbled pace. “Move aside, people, we’ve got a wounded hero in need of treatment here!”
“People” in the little med tent turned out to be a diminutive girl with curiously elfin ears who looked a little young even for this camp, and a scar-faced young man who had apparently mugged a priest. The latter was already getting up from his seat without looking, waving a hand.
“Alright, where’d they stick ya? They can’t have whupped you too bad, if you can carry on like that—” He stopped short as he turned, staff in hand. “Hey, who’s the new mug?”
“This is Morgan!” Cynthia beamed, and Morgan, who was rapidly losing interest in the novelty of pain, waved with a pale smile. “We met him while we were out scouting—right before we met a bunch of Risen! Really…really gross ones, too. Anyway, Morgan helped us out with his magic—you should have seen him! He was all, fear my righteous thunder, foul creatures of darkness! And then, right at the climax of the battle—”
“Um, Cynthia,” said the young girl, her brow knit as she looked at Morgan’s face, “maybe you should let him sit down already. What happened to that foot? Because it looks…pretty bad.”
“Oh—shoot, sorry! You probably really do need to sit down, huh…” Cynthia frowned as she helped Morgan onto the low cot. “I was just about to get to that part—right as the battle was about to come to an end, one of them cornered Morgan and got its claws in him—literally!”
“Until you swooped in and saved the day,” Morgan added helpfully, because while he was no longer enjoying the wounded human experience, it had been a pretty cool moment. Cynthia grinned.
“Yeah! So now I’d say we’re even on the saving each other front, huh?” She patted Morgan on the shoulder. “And Brady can fix you right up, so you’ll be running around on that foot in no time!”
Brady grimaced and leaned in towards Cynthia, lowering his voice, although Morgan could still hear him perfectly well. “Hey, that’s not just a scratch he’s got there. That thing went clean through his boot. I can gauze it up for him, sure, but we ain’t exactly flush with staves lately…”
Cynthia’s face fell. “But Brady, he got injured helping us! We owe him more than that—Lucina said so herself! Can’t you at least look at it first?”
“Of course I’m gonna look at it,” Brady said, crouching in front of Morgan with a thoroughly disgruntled expression. He squinted at the foot in question, which was looking alarmingly swollen. He reached behind him, wiggling his fingers. “Hey, Nah, hand me the shears. I think I’m gonna have to cut this thing off.”
“My whole boot?”
“Don’t get your smallclothes in a twist, we got someone who can fix it up after,” Brady said, waving a hand. Despite all outward appearances, he was careful and deliberate with the shears, and the hand that gripped Morgan’s leg to keep it steady was gentle. “Not that you’re gonna be able to wear it for at least a few—Naga’s breath, what the hell happened to you?”
Cynthia and Nah sneaked curious glances and blanched immediately. Morgan’s foot was not only swollen, but it was oozing and a patchwork of angry colors, none of which looked like they belonged on human skin. Morgan winced.
“Oh…that doesn’t look very good.”
“No shit,” said Brady, who was looking pale himself. “How long since that thing got you?”
“Uh…about an hour?”
Brady let out a colorful curse. Cynthia was looking a little less excited about their thrilling battle, sucking in a breath through her teeth. Nah was trying to look more serious than squeamish, but it was…not a pretty sight.
“What do you think it is? Some kind of venom?” she said, at which Cynthia let out a tiny gasp. Brady was starting to look a little green, and he looked away from Morgan’s injured foot as he shook his head.
“No, it looks damn infected—after a week’s worth of exposure and festering! You’re tellin’ me this happened in an hour? Cripes, since when can Risen do crap like this…”
“Ooh, it’s not gonna have to come off, is it?” said Cynthia. Morgan’s face went a shade paler, though he tried to maintain a strained smile.
“Is there another option we can try before amputation? Because I’m kind of attached to this leg—literally, haha!”
“Oh, for—no one’s gettin’ a foot chopped off today, okay!” Brady seemed about as thrilled about the prospect as Morgan, looking a little ill as he grabbed a staff leaning in one corner. The tent filled with light, soft at first then glowing brighter, Brady making a distinctly unpriestly face as he concentrated. To conserve as much magic as possible, Morgan realized, watching him and definitely not watching his foot, but slowly, the throbbing pain began to subside. After a few minutes he chanced a look down and saw that his foot was—well, not fully healed, but certainly less gross. The puncture wounds were still there, but they were no longer oozing.
“Got rid of the infection,” Brady grunted, straightening up. “You’re gonna have to let the rest of it heal up on its own, though. I’ll clean and wrap it up for you, but stay off it for at least a few days.” He looked away with a cough and returned the staff to the corner. “Sorry, them’s the breaks—we just don’t got the equipment to spare.”
“No, I understand,” Morgan said, wriggling his foot experimentally. It hurt, but he could feel all of his toes. “I appreciate the help. It’s definitely nice to know my foot’s not going to fall off.”
“We’d better tell Lucina about this,” Nah sighed, her forehead creased. “If we wind up fighting any more of those Risen, the injuries alone could wind up wiping out the medical supplies we have on hand.”
Everyone looked uneasy at that, and Morgan felt a little bad, despite none of this actually being his fault. At the very least, he wished he could make up for the spent resources.
Cynthia helped him hobble over to an unoccupied tent to rest for the first time since—well, since he woke up in that field. He’d really only been conscious for a few hours. It was weird how long a day could feel when you couldn’t remember anything that came before it.
“Brady said to stay off that foot until it heals up, so just sit tight and I’ll get you some water and something to eat!”
Morgan wobbled his way down to a sitting position on the bedroll, his bag in his lap. “Oh, just some water would be great! You already had to use up a staff on me, I’d hate to take up any of your rations, too.”
Cynthia’s brow creased, and she pressed a hand to her cheek. “So you’ve got food with you, right?”
Hmm. Morgan rummaged through his bag. “Nope!”
“Morgan, when was the last time you even ate?”
“No clue,” he said brightly.
“Okay, well—that’s fair,” Cynthia said, puffing out her cheeks at him. “But your body needs nourishment to heal, now’s not the time to be skipping meals! So you wait there, I’ll run to the mess tent and bring you one of everything!”
“I’m really not that—oh, there she goes.” Morgan blinked as the tent flap fluttered behind Cynthia’s dashing exit. He made a thoughtful noise to himself. “She’s nice.”
Thirty paces into her determined dash to the mess tent, Cynthia slipped on a loose stone and sailed directly into someone else’s back. She staggered back with a little whumpf, but a hand caught her by the wrist before she could topple over.
“Not so fast, brave warrior,” Owain said as Cynthia shook out her pigtails with a little puff of breath. “Shouldn’t you be convalescing in your tent after today’s victory against the forces of darkness?”
He leaned in and lowered his voice slightly. “Hey, is it true that you guys ran into a bunch of crazy powerful Risen? What were they like?” He sounded a little disappointed that he hadn’t been there.
“Ugh, you don’t even wanna know,” Cynthia said, scrunching her nose. “And there’s no time for sitting around just yet, not when there’s a soldier of justice wounded in the line of duty who needs attending to!”
Curiosity piqued, Owain fell into brisk step next to Cynthia on her way to the mess tent. Lucina and Severa had returned relatively unscathed, so… “Has a new hero joined our ranks?”
“I hope so,” Cynthia said wistfully. “I mean, he’s really good at magic. You should have seen him, Owain! He was blasting away Risen left and right, like zap, boom, slide, zap! He’s a total natural. And he’s really nice! Lucina only offered to have his injuries treated because he got hurt helping us, and he kinda seems like he’s got his own thing going on, but still…anyone who can jump into battle at the drop of a pegasus feather like that would be a huge win for the forces of justice!”
“He sounds formidable,” Owain mused, rubbing his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m getting a vision…someone tall, dark, cloaked in an air of mystery, with an indomitable aura representing his fearsome magical power…I’m thinking…maybe an eyepatch? No, wait. Glass eye.” He opened one eye. “Magic glass eye.”
“Not even close,” Cynthia laughed. The mess tent was in a lull this time of day, but there were still leftovers from the day’s lunch ration. “He’s kinda short. Kinda cute, too. And really friendly! He definitely doesn’t look like a dangerous dark sorcerer. But he is pretty mysterious—get this.” Cynthia grinned, eyes glittering. “He can’t remember a single thing from before today. We found him lying by the road on our way back, and when he woke up, all he could remember was his own name.”
Owain’s mouth fell open. “No way.”
“So way! And practically the first thing he did was leap into battle to help us.” Cynthia was piling dishes with as much food as she could carry, and Owain followed suit with equal enthusiasm. “I mean, talk about an origin story!”
“He certainly seems worthy of our cause,” Owain said, although his grin betrayed his sage tone. “So what’s his name? Does he have a cool title? Or—ooh, what about his magic tome?”
“Morgan,” Cynthia said around the canteen strap in her teeth, her hands now fully occupied. Owain helpfully removed it from her mouth and tucked it under his arm.
“I would meet this mysterious Morgan, who so gallantly risked his life for my fairest of companions.” Owain tilted his head to the side. “Do you think he’s open to suggestions?”
Morgan had moved himself to sit on the ground so he could lean back against the cot, his legs stretched out before him. He was still flipping through the book on field tactics when Cynthia and Owain hustled into the tent bearing a small feast. Morgan blinked at Owain’s unfamiliar face with a smile, then at the plates they were laying out on the ground between them.
“Not that I’m not hungry, but…that might be a little too much food for one person.”
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s for me too. A good battle always leaves me pretty famished!” Cynthia set the last of the dishes down and straightened up to gesture brightly at Owain with a little flourish. “Morgan, this is Owain, a fellow warrior of justice in our crusade against evil!”
Owain dropped to one knee just as Morgan opened his mouth to say hi, one hand outstretched with his fingers curled in dramatically. “I am Owain Dark, scion of legends. My legendary blade is at your service. Any comrade of Cynthia’s is a comrade of mine.”
Morgan blinked in bemusement, then took Owain’s hand and lightly shook it. “Nice to meet you! I’m Morgan.”
“He doesn’t have the enigmatic air of an amnesiac,” Owain said to Cynthia. Cynthia gave him a little frown. Morgan just laughed.
“Sorry to disappoint. I guess I’m pretty easy to read even if I don’t remember anything!”
“So you awoke with no memory at all?” Owain said with unmasked curiosity, sitting down cross-legged next to Cynthia, who was helpfully pushing several plates in Morgan’s direction.
“Just my name and my mother,” Morgan said, and his mouth pinched a little. “I’m still trying to figure out how we got separated. But everything else—yeah, pretty much! Brady said it didn’t look like I’d been knocked on the head or anything, but I guess whatever happened was enough of a whammy to make me forget that, uh…the world is ending, I guess?”
“Don’t listen to Severa too much,” Cynthia said, and she flashed Morgan an encouraging smile. “I mean, sure, things are pretty bad—okay, yeah, they’re really bad, but—they’re not totally hopeless! After all, we’re still fighting, aren’t we?”
“Yeah!” Morgan grinned in turn. There was something infectious about Cynthia’s enthusiasm, and Owain’s presence only seemed to amplify it. “You were all over those—uh, walking corpses? You called them Risen, right? Anyway, once you finish exterminating all of those guys, you can call it a day, right?”
“Uh—well, it’s a little bit more complicated than that,” Cynthia said, her smile faltering slightly, and she glanced sideways at Owain. “It’s really the thing behind all the Risen that’s our problem…”
“We’re up against the ultimate forces of darkness,” Owain said, his voice pitched so low it creaked a little. “The enemy of all who live, the very bane of existence itself…the fell dragon Grima.”
“Wow. Sounds like a pretty intense bad guy,” Morgan said, nodding along, because it did—not that it wasn’t already abundantly clear that this was no laughing matter. “So who’s Grima?”
Cynthia and Owain exchanged a helpess look.
“Aw, you really don’t remember anything at all, do you?” Cynthia said.
“Nope,” Morgan said around a mouthful of food. “I’m a total blank slate.”
Cynthia clapped a hand to her face. “I thought it was just, you know—your memories of your own life and stuff, not the whole world!”
“I guess we’d better start at the beginning,” Owain said, tenting his fingers in his lap. He drew in a breath, his face schooled into a studious expression. “At the very dawn of time—”
“Owain, you don’t have to start that far back.”
“Right. Okay. One thousand years ago—”
Between the two of them, Morgan managed to get a vivid, if somewhat disjointed, picture of what the world had been like for the past decade. Pretty grim, as it turned out, even painted in Owain and Cynthia’s colorful storytelling. The fell dragon Grima, who had lain dormant for a thousand years, had been revived by his cult of zealots despite heroic attempts to thwart their machinations. Countless brave heroes died in the effort, and city after city, fortress after fortress fell under Grima’s spreading shadow. The world was a dark place; the risk of running into Risen was virtually everywhere now, and much of Ylisse’s population had been decimated in the years following the cataclysm—not just Ylisse, but a host of other nations Morgan had never heard of, Grima slowly smothering everything in his reach as it expanded ever outward. They didn’t say it in quite so many words, but as Morgan listened, he gradually understood why it was that so many of the armed soldiers he’d seen in the camp were so close to his age. The more that Owain and Cynthia talked about the fallen heroes that had tried to save the world before them, the more he realized they were talking about their own parents. Morgan felt a weird little pang of guilt at the certain knowledge that his own mother was still alive.
“But Ylisstol is still safe,” Cynthia said with a pick-me-up smile. “That’s where we’re headed in a few days. The Risen haven’t breached the capital! I mean—not recently, anyway. But never fear! Us heroes are always standing by to take it back in a flash.”
“So what are you doing all the way out here?” Morgan said. “Not that I’ve ever been to Ylisstol—er, that I know of—but this seems like a more…rural area.”
“We came rushing to the aid of the innocent townsfolk whose homes were plagued with Risen,” Owain said gravely.
“Yeah, and by the time we arrived, the Risen had already wrecked most of the villages around here,” Cynthia said, deflating. “We were supposed to swoop in all heroic and make this a safe place to live again, but…all we’ve really been doing is collecting refugees to take back to Ylisstol.”
“This is kind of how it always goes now,” Owain admitted, looking more grim than grave now. The bright enthusiasm that had painted silver borders around the world-ending threat of Grima seemed to wane the closer they got to the present. “We always rush out at the first word of danger, but…”
Morgan thought back to when he’d first woken up. Lucina had something about there not being any safe towns nearby. Apparently this was what she’d meant—there weren’t really any towns left at all.
Owain closed his eyes and curled his hand into a fist. “Every time another Ylissean village falls, I can feel it rend my very soul. For every innocent civilian who has lost their home, I shall fell a hundred Risen under my blade in a fury of justice! Even now, just the mere thought of it makes my blood burn with righteous rage…!”
Morgan did a spot of mental math. “That’s a lot of Risen,” he said.
“Yeah, well, they kind of don’t stop coming,” Owain said, opening one eye. He rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the unhappy line of his mouth. “Even when we do get there in time…we’ll kill them all, and half the time, more crop up within a week.”
“And it’s not like the villagers can defend themselves!” Cynthia said. “We’re pretty much the only ones who stand a chance against Risen in those numbers, so it’s our sacred duty as heroes to aid them whenever they need us.”
“Seems like Grima really has you on the defensive,” Morgan said with a little frown. He’d contented himself with food and now he was leaning back against the cot again, gingerly propping his injured leg up on his bag. “He’s got you spreading your forces too thin to maintain any ground, making it easy for the taking…and you go wherever the Risen show up, right? Which means he has control over the terms of every fight, and by extension, pretty much your whole army…uh, what?”
Owain and Cynthia were giving him twin miserable looks. “I mean, I guess you’re not wrong,” Cynthia said, “but when you put it that way…”
“Oh—sorry, I was just thinking out loud.” Morgan offered a sheepish smile in apology. “I wasn’t trying to tell you how to fight your own war. I mean, you’ve been doing it for longer than I can remember.” To his relief, that got a tiny snort from Cynthia. “I bet you guys have a plan for striking back, right? Like a way to stop Grima from making all those Risen in the first place so you can focus all your efforts on him, or—uh, I’m not really sure how you fight a fell dragon, but…”
“That’s a really good idea for a plan,” Owain said to Cynthia, who puffed out her cheeks in determination.
“Lucina’s definitely got a plan,” she said, and Morgan nodded encouragingly. Lucina seemed like the kind of person who had a plan. “I mean, she hasn’t told us all of it, sure, but—we’re definitely going to take Grima down! We’re heroes, after all! But…it’s not like we can ignore defenseless people in need, either…”
“True,” Morgan said, and he was looking at the weathered cover of the book in his lap. It was well used, dog-eared and margins full of annotations—mosty in his mother’s hand writing, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he could still read her arcane shorthand. But there were notes in his own cramped, messy handwriting too. He’d been studying this book for a while now. He was getting the sense that he hadn’t quite forgotten everything he knew. He remembered how to use magic, after all. Maybe he could remember this, too.
He wanted to point out that when you were badly outnumbered, you had to pick your battles, and that usually meant sacrifice—but that was all too easy to say when you were talking in the abstract. Despite Cynthia and Owain’s bright energy, Morgan knew that they’d been intimate with enough horrors that the sacrifice of even a single person, citizen or soldier, was a hard pill to swallow. Morgan finally blew out a long breath and let his head knock back against the cot.
“I wish Mother was here,” he said, closing his eyes. He was still trying to summon a clear image of her face. He could still only remember her smile. “She’d probably take one walk around the perimeter and have a whole list of suggestions within an hour. I bet she’d be able to come up with a plan to stop the Risen from tearing up all these homes and keep them gone, too.”
“What does your mother do? Is she a quartermaster?” Cynthia leaned over to peek at the book in Morgan’s lap. “Hey, you said she was going to test you on this stuff earlier, right? What are you learning?”
“Strategy. Just theory for a while, but we’ve been moving into practical field tactics. She’s a tactician. A brilliant one—I mean, she’s the best there is.” A little smile rose to the surface. This was easy to remember, the things about his mother that he admired, that he wanted so badly to emulate. “That’s why I’ve got to study as much as I can. So I can catch up to her. One day, I might even surpass her—but I think that’s a pretty long way off.”
“No wonder you could just leap right into action like that!” Cynthia said. “It’s gotta be like instinct to you now. Your hero instinct! I was right—you really are a natural at this!”
“A hero’s instinct is far more deeply embedded than mere memory,” Owain agreed, but he had his brow furrowed in thought, massaging his chin with his knuckles. “That said, my initial judgment was far too hasty. Your only other memory besides your name is of your mother…now that’s an air of pure mystery.”
“Hey, yeah!” Cynthia sat up straight, pointing a fork at Morgan. “How do you remember your mom but not your life? I mean, what else about her do you actually remember?”
“I’m not really sure,” Morgan said, scrunching his nose with the effort of memory. “I guess it’s more like…impressions than memories. I can remember stuff about my mom—like, she’s a genius and I’ve been studying as her apprentice since—well…” He brows drew down as he let his brain really sink into the question for the first time.
“I remember her voice, the stuff she says to me all the time. I know we spend most of our time traveling, we never stay anywhere all that long, and there was this game we used to play…” He trailed off, because the more he tried to get a grasp on his memories, the more they seemed to slip away, wriggling between his fingers like escaping fish. His expression dimmed, all his attention directed inward, but it felt like wading in an endless black pool. Finally, he gave them a shrug and puffed out a helpless laugh. “Sorry. I guess that’s not all that helpful.”
“No, that totally makes sense!” Cynthia said, and Morgan could tell she was being earnest, but he got the feeling she was trying to make him feel better, too. Morgan just gave her an encouraging smile in turn, and he was trying to think of a subject to change to when the tent flap was abruptly yanked open.
“Owain! Is this where you’ve been dallying all afternoon?” A young man about their age with pale pink hair stuck his head inside, directing his profoundly annoyed look at Owain.
“Oh, hey, Inigo,” Owain said with a little wave. “Done getting kicked in the shins by fair maidens for the day already? Usually you’re at it until sundown.”
Inigo glared at him. “Oh, hey, nothing,” he said crossly. “You were supposed to meet me in the training yard a half hour ago, because you insisted you wanted to test out your new ‘secret technique’—”
“The Black Fang Strike,” Owain said with a sage nod, as though he hadn’t forgotten at all, then he grinned at Cynthia and Morgan. “It’s pretty cool. You guys should come watch.”
“No one is coming to watch,” Inigo said, his face flushing. “And it’s not a secret technique if you show it to the entire army!”
“It’s a secret from the enemy,” Owain said. Inigo scoffed. Cynthia rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry. They’re just like this,” she said to Morgan, and nudged Owain with her elbow. “Morgan can’t go anywhere on that injured foot just yet. Doctor’s orders! Well, Brady’s orders.”
Inigo seemed to notice Morgan’s presence for the first time and flashed him a cheerful smile, although when Morgan returned it in full with a little wave, his cheeks flushed a little brighter. Inigo cleared his throat lightly. “I don’t believe we’ve met, ah…?”
“Morgan,” Cynthia said around a mouthful of cheese, determined not to let any of the leftovers go to waste. Morgan merely smiled sunnily in assent.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Inigo said, looking between the three of them. He spotted Morgan’s bandaged foot, and his mouth turned in a sympathetic frown. “They aren’t holding you hostage in here, are they? Gods, they’ve got you cornered. Say the word and I’ll chase them right out.”
“Hey,” Cynthia said indignantly, and he wilted slightly at her glare. Morgan just puffed out a laugh.
“Oh, not at all! Owain and Cynthia have been keeping me great company. It’s been kind of nice after today, honestly.”
Cynthia and Owain proceeded to Inigo in on the exciting details of the day so far, while Inigo looked increasingly incredulous, exasperated, and a little outraged at the notion that he was supposed to believe the taller parts of the tale. He gave Morgan a deeply skeptical look once they’d breathlessly finished recounting dinner so far, brow knit.
“Alright, which parts of that were actually true, and which parts were just wild embellishment?”
“Oh, it’s all true,” Morgan said cheerfully. “That’s pretty much the story so far. Pretty long day, huh? You know, I actually would really like to see you guys spar sometime, once I can walk around again. I bet I could learn a lot just by watching.”
“I could carry you,” Owain said, at the same time Inigo groaned out, “No.”
Morgan turned to Inigo and said brightly, “Hey, do you have any of your own secret techniques you could bust out? I’d love to see them.”
Inigo stared at him, then covered his face with a sigh. “Oh, gods, there’s three of them now.”