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keith_ltd2022-03-16 01:17 pm
runawayballista) wrote in keith_ltd2022-03-16 01:17 pm
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A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Stalwarts Unite
Fandom: Fire Emblem Awakening
Title: A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Stalwarts Unite ♪🎵♪
Summary: Grima grants Morgan a chance to make up for his failure—return with Gules and Azure, and the rest will be forgotten. Cynthia and the others find themselves surrounded and trapped with no means of escape, but all hope is not quite lost.
Notes: back to the present! everyone is having a terrible time :)
End notes
※ 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
It was dark when he finally landed his wyvern, directing the small army of Risen to form a perimeter around him. It wasn’t as though there was much danger to them at all—the children certainly wouldn’t be coming back to pick a fight—but Morgan felt shaken and uncomfortably vulnerable. Twice today he’d had the opportunity to dispose of those he’d once called friends and recover the Gemstones, and both times he’d lost his nerve at the critical moment. It could be called a draw at best, and the taste of defeat was still bitter as bile in his mouth. It had been months now. He should have been able to carry out his master’s will without a second thought. He’d never hesitated when the Ylissean ranks crashed against his army as harmlessly as an ocean wave against a breakwater.
But when Owain had laid down his sword and launched into a speech that sounded like it had been pulled straight from one of their old games, something in Morgan had buckled and threatened to fold. He should have been strong enough now to fend off those last vestiges of affection. This failure was his alone.
He felt the presence in his mind before it spoke, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as though in warning. An apparition of his master shimmed into his mind, an illusion only he could see. Master Grima often chose to take other forms, but when she was with Morgan, she always appeared in the body of the Avatar. It wasn’t the same as talking to his mother, Morgan knew that, but it made him feel closer to her nonetheless.
But Master Grima’s presence here was anything but a comfort. It was only a projection, a mere ghost, but her eyes never lost their commanding power.
“Where are Sable and Argent?” she asked without preamble, and it was clear from her cold tone that she already knew the answer. Morgan bowed his head, shame curdling in his stomach. He never had been able to bear the thought of disappointing his mother, but disappointing her was so much worse.
“I…do not have them. The children escaped with them.” He squeezed his eyes shut and curled his hands over his knees. “The fault is mine. I—I suffered a moment of weakness. I will accept any punishment you see fit, Master Grima.”
He kept all trembling out of his voice; if there was anything Master Grima hated, it was sniveling. He braced himself for some psychic blow, some invasion of the mind, but none came. When he opened his eyes, his master was still watching him with that cold stare.
“Those little worms need all five Gemstones to perform the Awakening,” Master Grima said after an agonizing pause. “Gules and Azure yet remain within Plegia’s borders. Bring them to me, and all will be forgiven.”
Morgan nodded, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Cold relief flooded his stomach. He knew what awaited those who incurred Master Grima’s ire. After a moment’s calculated hesitation, he lifted his head again, meeting her eyes for just a moment. It was all he could bear, but the warmth that remained after her searing gaze was worth it.
“I won’t fail you this time.” He only had to focus on her promise of his reward once he succeeded. That would give him the strength he needed; he was sure of it.
“See to it that you don’t,” Master Grima said, then the apparition shimmered away like so much sand in the wind. Morgan found himself still trying to catch his breath even as her oppressive presence vanished from his mind. Gules and Azure were still in reach. He’d have to face down old friends there too, he was sure, but as long as it wasn’t Owain…
Morgan sent out a wordless command to his army to begin their eastward march, and he took flight on his wyvern towards the dawning horizon.
The four of them were exhausted, weary of their long journey, and they still had a ways to go before they’d reach the border with Gules and Azure. So after a little deliberation and Nah’s aerial sweep of the surrounding area—a handful of errant Risen, quickly dispatched by Kjelle’s lance—they decided it was prudent enough to stay in the abandoned keep. It could be barricaded from the inside, and Risen weren’t clever enough to solve that problem. They might actually get a real night’s rest here.
Not that they could completely lower their guard, not while they were still on the move. Cynthia volunteered for first watch, but with them barricaded inside, there wasn’t much to watch, and all seemed quiet outside the keep. And she was just as weary as the others, saddle-sore and stiff, desperately longing to take off her armor, but they all slept in it now—even Kjelle, although she never seemed to mind as much as the rest of them.
Cynthia couldn’t have dozed off for more than a few minutes. It was the stinging in her nose that woke her, and she coughed as soon as she opened her mouth to breathe. She was still waking up, but something wasn’t right. The edges of the dark room were aglow with flame, and Cynthia looked overhead to see thick black smoke gathering like rain clouds under the ceiling. She reached over to Noire, the one laying closest to her, and hurriedly shook her awake.
“Noire, wake up—everyone, we’ve gotta get moving! I think we’re dealing with a burning building situation here!”
Cynthia had always pictured herself running into a burning building—you know, to rescue the frightened civilians inside—just not out of one. Kjelle was on her feet first, and she pulled Nah up one-handed. Her eyes were already peering through the smoke for the quickest exit route.
“Who set this place on fire?” Nah muttered, scrubbing the sleep from her eyes. They’d only gained a few precious hours of rest. “We cleared the perimeter—”
“Risen!” Noire’s voice jumped a full octave and she shrank back towards Cynthia. One trembling finger pointed at one of the exits, which seemed to be suffering under the weight of a battering ram. The barricades they’d put up were makeshift, and they were only so strong. “They must have set the fire! Ooh, this looks bad…”
Kjelle pivoted towards the south exit just as the door burst inward against the barricade, and Risen were suddenly pouring in from all sides, their defenses destroyed. “Damn! They’ve got us surrounded!”
“Where did they come from—how did they catch up to us?” Nah was trying her best not to let her collected calm slip. “I really thought we’d taken care of them—and they keep coming! There’s no way I would have missed a group this big!”
“Th-there are so many of them,” Noire said, clutching her bow. “More than we’ve had to deal with this whole journey. How are we supposed to get through this one?”
“The same way we’ve always pulled through,” Cynthia said, readying her lance. “With a just heart and a courageous spirit! Come on, guys—you know the fight’s not over yet!”
But the Risen were upon them before they could make the first strike, and in a dizzying rush they were all separated and robbed of their weapons. The others were quickly losing hope, but that just meant Cynthia had to try all the harder to keep morale up. And their mission was too important for them to just roll over and die. Sure, they were cornered, separated, and unarmed, but it couldn’t end here. It just couldn’t.
Her hand went to her belt, curling her fingers around the braided tassel that hung there. Morgan’s betrayal had left a deep cut, one that still had yet to fully heal, but Cynthia had never been able to bring herself to get rid of the good luck charm he’d made for her. So she’d always feel like he was at her side, so she wouldn’t lose her nerve in the critical moment. Even now, despite his betrayal, despite all the irreparable damage he’d done, Cynthia still wished for Morgan at her side. She didn’t understand at all what had happened, how he could have gone from their faithful tactician to their most devastating enemy seemingly overnight; it was simply too hard to reconcile, a fundamental mismatch, two images that could not be neatly overlaid. When she thought about Morgan, she could only remember his sunny smile and easy self-assurance. Her mind seemed to shy away from the wicked deeds he’d committed against them when her thoughts wandered their way, like repelling magnets. She’d felt so heartbroken in the aftermath of that nightmarish battle, cried on Inigo for days, but even now, she still couldn’t conjure any other image of Morgan.
He’d know what to do if he were here. He’d already be hatching up one of his wild plans, just crazy enough to work, maybe. But hope was starting to slip from her grip as the Risen closed in, and the flames began licking at the walls. Cyntha clutched the charm in her hand and prayed for a miracle.
They were nearly to the border now—just one more day’s march by Inigo’s estimation, as long as they could keep up the current breakneck pace. Things wouldn’t exactly be safe once they crossed back into Ylisse, but they’d be a little less deadly. And then soon the four of them would be back in Ylisstol and reunite with the others, and put this dark chapter of history to a close.
They were sleeping in a farm stables tonight, which, while fragrant, was more comfortable than the cave. The farmers who owned this remote piece of land tucked away in thick forest, who had somehow managed to cling to it despite the dangers that roved the land, didn’t know their lone horse had overnight guests, but they didn’t need to know. The four of them would be on their way at dawn anyhow, and there was no need to trouble innocent folk, especially not this late.
Owain was just starting to doze off in a cozy nest of straw when the heavy beat of feathered wings reached his ears. He sat up and leaned to peer out of the stables. A pegasus with an empty saddle touched down on a run and made for the stables at a full gallop, its wings still spread wide. The frantic whinny it let out as it approached startled the others from their sleep, and Yarne jumped to his feet, looking around with wild eyes.
“What was that? Are we under attack? Gods, not now, not when we’re so close—”
“It’s a pegasus,” Inigo said, peering blearily into the night. “One missing its rider—what in the blazes is it doing out here?”
The pegasus slowed as it neared the stables, but it was still wild-eyed and agitated, its wings still flapping anxiously at its sides. At this rate, the owners of this place would hear the panicking beast, and they’d have to find another place to sleep for the night. Inigo ventured out of the stables, hands tentatively outstretched.
“Alright, easy now,” he murmured. “Let’s all be calm here, hm?”
The pegasus reared on its hind legs briefly, but then it settled and backed away a few paces, its wings folding against its sides. His confidence bolstered, Inigo drew closer, then stopped with a bewilderment that slowly melted into dread. He recognized that saddle.
Owain wasn’t far behind, peering through the dark. “What troubles you in the face of this beast? It seems you’ve already tamed it with your gentle—” He stopped abruptly as he got closer. “Wait, is that…”
“This is Cynthia’s pegasus,” Inigo said, his chest suddenly tight. They’d been so focused on their escape these last few days, he hadn’t had much room to spare thought as to how their companions were doing on their own missions. Now it all hit him in a dizzying rush, his tired mind ransacking itself for an explanation that didn’t immediately spell the worst.
Owain reached out a hand to lay on the pegasus’s neck, and though it still seemed anxious, it didn’t buck or shake him off. His expression was grave.
“Our comrades must be in mortal peril,” Owain said, trying to look deep into its eyes, but finding it difficult as he could really only look at one at a time. He settled for closing his eyes and bowing his head. Nonetheless, he seemed to be trying to commune with the pegasus. “Yes…I understand now. Our brave friends, so close to their goal, have been beset by our foul nemeses, and now their very lives hang in the balance—but their fates are not yet sealed! Cynthia’s loyal steed escaped and found us, so that she might lead us there to their rescue!”
Inigo’s face was seized with a mixture of disbelief and crushing dread. “You cannot be serious,” he said, even as he felt his stomach sink. He didn’t buy for a second that Owain could commune with so much as a bug, but there was no room for doubt that that was Cynthia’s pegasus, and there were no good implications to be had there. “How on earth do you assume it’s going to lead us to Cynthia and the others? We don’t even know why it’s here!”
“It can’t mean anything good,” Owain said, and his expression was set. “Something’s happened, and we’ve got a chance to help. I don’t know how she found us, but you know there’s no way this is random chance. We have an opportunity to intervene—to save our comrades from the very fate we nearly suffered ourselves.”
There was a particular stomachache Inigo had come to associate with Owain being right, a curdling resentment that he had no choice but to acknowledge. He closed a hand over his abdomen unconsciously. Even if their friends didn’t survive—even if it came to the worst—they might at least be able to recover the Gemstones bought with those lives.
“They could already be—we could already be too late,” he said, but the fight was going out of his voice. Owain leveled him with a gaze so straight it was unnerving.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We have to try anyway.”
Yarne looked out toward the treeline in dismay. “We were so close…”
“None of it will mean anything if we don’t all make it back.” Owain looked sidelong at Inigo, who had needled him with a similar point just a few days ago. Inigo made an uncomfortable noise in the back of his throat and looked away. “We need all of the Gemstones. If we don’t rush to their aid…it won’t make a difference whether our mission is successful or not.”
Yarne looked uneasy, and Brady looked ill, but neither offered any further objection. Except—
“It’s all well and fine if Cynthia’s pegasus is going to lead us there,” Inigo said, “but we can maybe fit two of us in that saddle. How are the rest of us supposed to keep up?”
“Don’t look at me,” Yarne said hurriedly. “Taguel are sprinters, not marathon runners!”
But Owain wasn’t looking at Yarne; rather, he was looking past him back at the stables. Brady followed his gaze and did a double take.
“Oh, come on—you wanna steal from these folks, too? They barely got a thing to their names as it is!”
“I mean,” Inigo conceded, albeit with a guilty look, “the fate of the world is sort of hanging in the balance…”
In the end, they wound up stealing the horse. Inigo and Owain took to the sky on Cynthia’s pegasus while Brady drove the horse, Yarne’s arms wrapped in a crushing grip around his waist. They flew low, both to avoid detection and so that Brady and Yarne would be able to follow them in the darkness of the new moon. They hadn’t encountered any Risen in the last day, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any lurking around.
Inigo held tight to Owain, closing his eyes to keep them from stinging in the wind. Ugh, he’d never liked flying—he could handle it in a pinch, but Owain and Cynthia lacked any sensible fear of heights, and Owain seemed to have no difficulty seeing even with the wind in his face. Inigo buried his face in the back of Owain’s neck and tried to calm his fraying nerves. They were starting to really run low on sleep, and Inigo couldn’t keep himself from worrying about Owain ever since their encounter with Morgan, though he couldn’t bring himself to say as much out loud.
“Do you really think we’ll make it in time?” He had to raise his voice above the rush of wind in his ears, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “I mean, we have no idea how long it took this pegasus to get to us. They could be days away.”
“We won’t find out if we don’t try,” Owain said doggedly. “I don’t think they’re that far off, though. Pegasi can only fly so far at a time, and she hasn’t totally exhausted herself yet. They’re still alive—I can feel it in my heart. Our companions, though they may be fighting to their last, yet live.”
“You cannot possibly know that,” Inigo said, but not with much feeling. This was one of Owain’s most infuriating tendencies, this unyielding never-say-die attitude in the face of the worst nonsense—but it had saved them once so far, and right now, Inigo desperately hoped it would again.
Time for a miracle was growing thin, as was everyone’s hope—the others had all but resigned themselves to their fates by now, but Cynthia wasn’t about to give up without a fight. She might have been unarmed, but she wasn’t unarmored—she wasn’t totally defenseless! Cynthia, newly determined, turned and threw a punch at one of the Risen closing in on her. It caught her fist before it could land, and then, before she could break free, it used the momentum of her blow to throw her to the ground. She felt the breath whoosh out of her as she hit the floor, an explosion of stars showering over her vision. They were still closing in, and she rolled to her hands and knees, trying desperately to get her breath back. She had to get up, get back on her feet. A scream that sounded like Noire’s rang out. Cynthia’s eyes squeezed shut over a sudden surge of tears, her breath caught in her chest. It couldn’t end here, not like this…
She heard an awful gurgle and the thud of a body hitting the floor, and she looked up just in time to see another go down, a sword plunged deep into its belly. On the other end of the sword was Inigo, who raised a foot to kick the monster in the chest, relieving his blade of its weight, and it staggered back and collapsed in a heap next to its comrade. Inigo sheathed his sword, breathing hard, and held out a hand to Cynthia.
“Inigo!” Her voice came out a wheeze, but she was starting to get her breath back as he pulled her to her feet. “What are you—how—”
“You have your pegasus to thank,” he said, reaching out to brush a lock of sweat-soaked hair from her brow once she was steady on her feet. It was hard to tell through the smoke and flickering firelight, but Inigo seemed grimmer than ever despite his light tone. “I don’t know how, but that loyal steed of yours found her way to us, and she led us back to you. Frankly, I’m astonished we made it on time.”
“You mean she got away?” Cynthia felt tears welling up again, this time in relief. She had left her pegasus in the keep’s dilapidated stables, well within its fortified walls, and she’d been afraid to imagine what had become of her mount in the fire.
“Quite right. Don’t worry—we left her a ways from here. She’s in no danger now.” Inigo reached out a foot and nudged it up under a lance lying on the floor just outside her cell, among a few other dead Risen. With a neat flick of his ankle, he kicked it into his hand, the faded white ribbon around its shaft fluttering in the air. He held it out to her with a flourish. “I believe this belongs to you, my dear.”
Cynthia took it back with a deep breath, swallowing back her tears. There would be time for that later. “Wait—what about your mission? Weren’t you on your way to get Argent and Sable?”
“Already in hand,” Inigo said with relief, taking her by the hand, though he paused at the cell door to quickly check the passageway. “We were just on our way back. What about Gules and Azure?”
“Got ’em,” Cynthia said with triumph. It was easier to stand tall now that hope was restored. Miracles really were possible. “We thought we could catch our breath here for the night, but…”
Inigo lurched out of the cell, swinging his sword to parry a blow from an axe-bearing Risen. Cynthia, not far behind, thrust her lance out from beside Inigo and speared the monster while its blade was still locked with Inigo’s. Inigo and Cynthia exchanged breathless smiles, nodded, and moved out.
“I heard Noire scream,” Cynthia said, worry in her voice, but her chest heaved with relief when they rounded a corner to see Kjelle and Brady. Now that Kjelle had a weapon in her hand again, she was dealing death with every blow, while Brady mostly tried to stay out of the way. “Where are Owain and Yarne?”
“They went around the other side for Nah and Noire,” Inigo said, signaling over his shoulder to Kjelle and Brady. “I suppose we ought to lend them a hand, don’t you think?”
“Now you’re talking!” Cynthia twirled her lance and lunged forward, only for the next Risen soldier to deflect her blow with its shield. “Surrender now, wicked beasts, or taste the righteous fury of my lance! Cynthia, hero extraordinaire, is back in action!”
She and Inigo led the charge down the narrow corridor, with Kjelle taking up the rear guard. Smoke was still filling the building, and it was hard to tell just how many Risen there were. They never seemed to stop coming, even as the four of them advanced and left a trail of foul corpses in their wake. It was easier to move in the moment, when the only thing mattered was the next strike, the next parry. There was no room for fear or doubt—not when she had Inigo there, not when she knew Owain was close—not when she still had Morgan’s good luck charm, a phantom presence at her side, even if it was only a memory.
They rounded a corner and were met with towering flames blazing so brightly it was almost blinding. Cynthia squinted against the fire, trying to see through the rippling heat. She heard Brady grunt and the clack of metal against wood—she spun and saw Brady just barely managing to fend off a Risen’s sword with his staff. Kjelle was already engaged with two others, unable to spare a hand. Cynthia leapt into action.
“Not on my watch!” she cried as she lunged forward, knocking back the undead soldier’s sword and putting herself between Brady and the danger that threatened him. “A true hero never lets a comrade fall in battle! Now accept your divine punishment for—”
She didn’t get to finish her line. That was the problem with fighting these things—they abided by no rules, ripped all the civilization out of war. Cynthia finished the line in her head anyway as she jumped back to avoid a stabbing thrust, very nearly tripping over some fallen debris in the process. But she quickly regained her footing and used that momentum to deliver a deadly blow through the Risen’s throat, her lance point puncturing clean through the dry, sagging folds of skin. It clawed frantically at the shaft, but Cynthia pulled it back with all her body weight, turning her face away from the spray of black ichor that followed. Sure, it was a surer kill than a stab to the chest, but at what cost?
She heard Brady’s hoarse warning just in time to turn and dodge a spell from a hooded mage, a snap of blinding lightning that missed her, but barely—she still caught a few sparks from its near graze. There was too much smoke and fire to make out the mage clearly, but it was enough light to go by to aim. She swung her lance and used the weight of it to propel herself forward, preparing to dodge a second spell—but instead of delivering a follow-up attack, the cloaked figure turned and ran, rounding a smoke-shrouded corner out of sight. Cynthia had only a moment to note how strange it was—Risen never ran away from a fight, even when the odds were against them—before the next threat demanded her attention, and she advanced down the hall with the others.
Soon she could hear the cries of familiar voices over the clamor of battle, and when Cynthia caught sight of Owain’s unruly hair through the smoke, her chest heaved with a relief so profound it nearly made her ill on the spot. But she steadied her stomach and steeled her reserve and forged on, clearing a path with Inigo through to their comrades.
“Noire!” Cynthia called out, and to her relief Noire was still alive, though clutching her arm and backed against a wall. Yarne stood between her and the oncoming Risen, looking wildly panicked even in beast form, but he didn’t flee, just kept on throwing Risen back with powerful kicks of his hind legs. Cynthia composed a new battle theme for herself in her head between grunts of effort, trying to get to Noire and Yarne before they were overwhelmed. Cynthia’s eyes were starting to tear up from the smoke as it grew thicker, blurring her vision, but the adrenaline had given her fresh strength—as had the arrival of their comrades. Now that they were together, they couldn’t possibly lose.
Cynthia and Inigo were both short of breath by the time they reached Noire’s cell, and Yarne transformed back with a breathless stagger. Cynthia ran past him to Noire, who was still huddled in the corner, one hand clutched around the other arm. This close, Cynthia could see that Noire’s pale skin was slick with blood.
“Noire! Are you okay? Oh, no, your arm!”
“I-it’s not that bad,” Noir said, though her face was pale, her skin shining with sweat. “B-but I can’t move my arm…I’m useless in this fight…”
“Keep that chin up! What matters is that we make it out alive,” Cynthia said fiercely. “Besides, Brady’s here, so just hang on a little longer, okay? We’ll keep you safe!”
Yes, she thought as she pivoted back towards the threat, her lance raised—as long as she could keep them safe, as long as no more of them disappeared from her side, she could keep fighting like this, her head held high.
It wasn’t long before they closed the distance between them and Owain and Nah, who was blowing back Risen with her powerful breath while Owain darted in to finish them off. He made quick of the stunned Risen, but their numbers still seemed impossibly large, and they were all starting to struggle to breathe through the smoke. Owain stumbled back as a fit of coughing overtook him, narrowly avoiding a blade to the arm—the Risen holding the blade was summarily blasted back by Nah’s breath, folding into the flames.
“We have to get out of here!” Nah’s urgent voice rose over the din of battle. “The fire’s only getting worse. This building could come down on us at any moment!”
“You heard her,” Kjelle shouted, bashing a Risen mage’s head in mercilessly with the butt of her lance. It crumpled to the ground at her feet. Brady was pulling Noire along, the glow of his staff still fading, until they were under the protection of their friends. “If we can’t find the exit, we make our own!”
“Not necessary,” Inigo called quickly, “and highly inadvisable, if the structural integrity of this place is so precarious. We know the way out—just follow us!”
There was no time—no need—to finish killing off all the Risen before they made their escape, not when the fire would take care of most of them. They weren’t clever enough to all escape on their own. A ragged handful made it out to pursue them, but Cynthia and Kjelle’s lances kept them at bay until the rest of the group had safely made it wide and clear of the burning building. Then Noire quickly dispatched of the last few with rapidly fired arrows, the newly healed gash in her arm still stinging.
They all sucked down lungfuls of sweet, clean air, some of them still coughing and retching from the hoarse smoke—someone produced a canteen of water and they passed it around until it was dry, all of them having sweated themselves dry between the fight and the fire. Brady staggered off to be sick in a nearby patch of bushes, and Noire joined him shortly, the two of them leaning on each other for support and heaving sympathetically in turn.
Cynthia greeted her pegasus with tears she could no longer hold back, flinging both arms around the pegasus’ neck and burying her face in its mane. “Thank you,” she said, her voice coming out a cracked squeak. Her pegasus only let out a soft whinny in response, and Cynthia wondered if her mother was watching down on her, if she had somehow set this miracle in motion.
“We’re going to have to find somewhere else to sleep for the rest of the night,” Nah said reluctantly, only giving voice to what every exhausted member of their party already knew. The night was already half over, and only a couple of them had only gotten a scant few hours of sleep. “As far as we can get away from this place as possible. If any of them catch up to us in this state…”
“We’ll take care of them,” Kjelle said confidently. “Hmph! What cowards, taking our weapons and cornering us…in a fair fight, we can’t lose.”
“We will eventually if we don’t get some real sleep,” Nah said, her voice cracking. She looked just as reluctant to move any further as the rest of them, but she forced herself to her feet anyway. “Let’s go, before it gets any later. There’s a small patch of forest nearby we can probably camp in safely for now. We should be able to reach it in an hour if we start moving now.”
“Probably?” Yarne said anxiously, but he was too tired to voice any real objection—and that was as safe as it got while they were still in Grima’s territory.
It felt like an eternity by the time they reached the area Nah had spotted on her earlier perimeter check, all of them too tired to talk by now. Cynthia and the others still had a couple of intact tents, and they wearily pitched them while Brady and Yarne tended to the fire; it meant, at least, that they could better protect those members of the party that needed it most. Inigo and Owain volunteered to take first watch, even though they had to be at least as tired as the rest of them, but they both seemed alert enough—well, they seemed on edge, anyway. Kjelle threatened them both with bodily harm if they failed to wake her up for shift change before she finally allowed herself to lie down.
Cynthia expected herself to drop like a sack of rocks as soon as she stopped moving, but now that she was free to sleep, she felt unbearably restless. She tried to soothe herself by attending to her pegasus, smoothing out the tangles in its mane and picking out the leaves and twigs that were starting to get matted in. But the quiet of the camp was somehow unsettling to her, the clamor of battle still ringing in her ears. It felt as though the world had quite abruptly come to a stop while she wasn’t yet done careening through it.
She could see Owain and Inigo sitting by the campfire, their backs to her, side by side but not quite close enough to be touching. Belated relief at seeing the two of them welled up in her chest, the occasional panging loneliness of the last few months catching up with her all at once, and she bounded over to them without a second thought. She dropped herself in the narrow space between them, her arms around their shoulders—they both stiffened on reflex, then relaxed, and Inigo let out a shaky sigh. Cynthia leaned her head against Inigo’s shoulder, then Owain’s, and then they both leaned in to gather more snugly around her without a word. Even Owain seemed to be too drained to summon any of his usual flair. Cynthia let herself settle between them, letting out a long breath.
“You guys have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she sighed, at which a ghost of a smile appeared on Inigo’s face.
“Oh, I think we can imagine,” he said, and let out another shaky breath. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure we’d make it in time.”
“But you did!” Cynthia said with as much brightness as she could muster. She let her arms drop from around their shoulders so she could lean forward with a little whoosh of breath. Owain’s arm went to her waist, and Inigo wrapped one arm tightly around her shoulders. It was grounding, to hold each other like this—a solid, concrete reminder that they were still here, still alive and present in this world, all of them. Cynthia’s hand went to the charm at her belt and she felt the keen absence of an old friend, a vacuum in his place, remembering how they’d huddled like this when they had been four instead of three. “Bonus points for a great entrance, by the way.”
“As if we could ever abandon our fated companions in their hour of need,” Owain said, and Cynthia knew he meant it despite how tired he sounded. She pressed a grimy hand to his cheek and on childish reflex he turned his head and licked her palm. He regretted it immediately with a coughing gag, and Cynthia let out a startled “Ew!” and wiped her hand off on his sleeve. Inigo rolled his eyes, then huffed out a quiet laugh and leaned more heavily against her. It was a comfort that they could still act like foolish children, even after today.
“Still, though,” Inigo murmured, his train of thought finding its way into his voice, “doesn’t all of this strike you as odd? It’s one thing for Risen to attack our camps, but setting fire to an entire building? And doing so thorough a job of it that it brings the whole place down at that? They never act like that without a real person to give them orders.”
“I think there was someone, actually,” Cynthia said, and both Inigo and Owain tensed beside her. “When we were on our way to meet up with the others, I saw someone—well, I was attacked by a mage, actually. I thought they were just another Risen at first, but they ran away as soon as I tried to counterattack. Risen never just run away like that.”
Owain had lifted his head, and Inigo’s grip on her shoulders had tightened, but Cynthia just leaned back against them more heavily, fingering the tassel on her belt. “It’s funny—I couldn’t really get a good look through all the smoke, but they kind of reminded me of Morgan. They looked about his size, anyway…”
Inigo and Owain suddenly pulled away from her, sitting up ramrod straight, and she fell unceremoniously onto her back with an oof. She looked up to deliver an indignant look, but the two of them were looking at each other with dire expressions. Cynthia’s brow pinched.
“Hey, what’s with those faces?” She sat up, the momentary peace dissolving into the night air. “You both look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Inigo looked nauseatingly uneasy. Owain looked…Cynthia didn’t know how to describe it; it was a look she’d never seen on his face before. He almost looked haunted.
“There’s…something we need to tell you,” Inigo said haltingly. Cynthia felt her stomach sink a little further, like disappearing into quicksand.
“What?”
Inigo looked at Owain, giving him a chance to answer, but when he stayed silent, Inigo let out a breath through his teeth and said, “On our way back, when we’d nearly reached the border, an army of Risen caught up with us. And leading them…was Morgan.”
“What?” Cynthia repeated, her voice smaller. Inigo looked like he’d rather be talking about anything else, but he forged on in Owain’s lengthening silence.
“He’d been sent to recover the Gemstones,” Inigo said, finding his mouth suddenly dry. “By Grima. And I…I suspect the person you saw fleeing back there was him, too.”
Cynthia’s mind was slow with exhaustion, and Inigo’s words sank in slowly. Of course she knew he’d be working for Grima now, but to think she’d come so close to him just hours ago—
“But you said you had Argent and Sable,” she said, puzzled. “So…what happened?”
“He couldn’t go through with it,” Owain said finally, just as Inigo opened his mouth. Owain was watching the fire, resting an elbow on one knee. “He had a chance to kill us and take the Gemstones—it would’ve been easy, he had us cornered—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the end, he chose to run away rather than take our lives. And if he caught sight of you back in the keep…then that’s probably why he ran back there, too.” He let out a long, thin breath. “I know Morgan betrayed us. I know he’s doing the fell dragon’s bidding now. But the old Morgan—the one we knew—he’s still in there, too.”
“So, wait—” Cynthia felt her chest go tight with suffocating hope. “Does that mean he doesn’t really want to hurt us? That he’s still on our side after all?”
“It does not mean that,” Inigo said, so sharply that it made her jump a little. He was staring at Owain—glaring, more like it, though his eyes looked red-rimmed in the firelight. Owain was still watching the fire, refusing to return the look. “He is very much not on our side. He might not have killed us in the end, but he came very close. He led those Risen to you—he didn’t just send them in after you, he had them set the whole damn place on fire, to ensure none of you would escape even if the Risen didn’t do the job. And it damn near worked. He might never have set foot inside if we hadn’t shown up when we did—he probably would’ve been content to watch you burn from a safe distance. I’m sure that would have made it easier for him.”
Cynthia flinched at the bitterness in Inigo’s voice, harsher than she’d ever heard from him before. He looked taken aback by it himself, but he just closed his mouth in an unhappy, unapologetic line. Owain got to his feet wordlessly and walked away from them, stiff-shouldered, tracing the perimeter of the camp.
“Owain,” Cynthia called out quietly, and she almost got to her feet, but he didn’t go all that far, just…away. Inigo was staring at his boots, the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead. He looked miserable. Cynthia’s stomach sank.
“What really happened?”
Inigo closed his eyes, blowing out a long breath through his nose. “Owain tried to…talk him down. Convince him to come back with us. It didn’t work.”
“But he couldn’t bring himself to kill you,” Cynthia said, a thread of desperation weaving itself into her voice, “or me. That means…he hasn’t forgotten about us after all. It means there’s a chance! Maybe if I’m there too, then next time we can—”
“Cynthia.” Inigo sounded impossibly weary, tight in the throat. “There is no chance. It isn’t going to happen. We just—we can’t. I’m sorry.”
No—there was no way she was going to accept it, not just like that, not after all they’d been through together with Morgan. Not when he’d meant so much to them, just as much as they meant to each other. There were so few left they could call friends; to give up on even just one was too much to ask. Cynthia’s eyes bore into him, her fists clenching.
“Why wouldn’t he go with you?” she demanded. “If he didn’t want to kill you—if Owain thought the old him was still in there somewhere—then what was his reason? What did he say?”
“It’s not about what he said.” Inigo’s eyes stayed closed, but in the shimmering firelight, Cynthia now recognized the source of that new heavy grimness in his face. “He…yes, for a moment—for just a moment—it looked like Owain might have been getting through to him. But that’s all it was. Just a moment. And then…I don’t know. Something came over him, like—something was trying to assert control over him. Owain thinks it was Grima. I’m inclined to agree.”
“But then—” Cynthia rose up on her knees and grabbed hold of Inigo’s arm in a crushing grip. “If he’s being controlled by Grima, then that means none of this is his fault! If we keep trying, I know we can reach him! If he really does want to come back with us deep down—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Inigo said. Cynthia shook him by the arm until his head jerked from side to side.
“Of course it does! Inigo, why—”
Inigo closed a hand over hers, stilling them both, and looked back up, but he couldn’t seem to direct his gaze at anything but the fire. It demanded nothing back from him.
“Look,” he said, his voice low and tight, “there are two possibilities. Either Morgan betrayed us of his own free will, or Grima has some kind of influence over him. If it’s the former, and he agreed to come back with us—well, frankly, I still wouldn’t trust him half as far as I could throw him, but at least we could be reasonably certain he’s acting of his own accord. But if Grima has something to do with it…then it doesn’t matter what he truly wants, or how badly. We’ll never be able to fully trust him, not really—not when Grima could reach out again and manipulate him at any time, without our even knowing. He’s only human, and Grima is—” He couldn’t suppress a shudder. “There’s just no way this works out to a happy ending for everyone. As long as Morgan is alive, he’s a danger to us.”
Inigo closed his eyes again, venting out a hard breath. His jaw was so tense it was beginning to ache. “I’m sorry. But it’s the truth.”
But Cynthia wouldn’t be deterred. Inigo could be so narrow-minded, and as far as she was concerned, he was the one wearing blinders on this matter. Stubbornly, she shook him by the arm again.
“That’s it? Just like that, you decide it’s hopeless?” All the relief from the last few hours was curdling into dread and despair in the pit of her stomach. “He’s our friend! You don’t just give up on your friends!”
“Yes, Cynthia,” Inigo said through his teeth, his voice rising, and she recoiled from the raw edge in his voice, feeling her stomach sink even further. “Yes, you do. Sometimes, you do. Gods, you and Owain—”
He shook her off and covered his face with both hands. Cyntha sat back on her heels, looking at him helplessly.
“I know I was never as close to Morgan as you or Owain were.” Inigo’s voice came muffled through his hands, and Cynthia couldn’t tell if he was crying. “I know this is hard. But you have to give it up. We have to focus on the mission. Morgan is dangerous, Cynthia—so much more than before.”
“But he couldn’t bring himself to kill you,” she repeated again, stubborn to the last, though tears were stinging in her eyes. Sure, Inigo always rolled his eyes at the hero stuff, but this was defeatism on a level she hadn’t thought possible for him. “He keeps running away.”
“For now,” Inigo said wearily, and she had the sense that he’d already run through this conversation at least two or three times over now. He lifted his head from his hands and shook the hair from his face. His cheeks shone damp in the firelight. “But what if we see him again? What if Grima has solidified whatever hold he has on Morgan’s mind, and Morgan doesn’t hesitate this time? We just can’t afford it. And I—I won’t just stand by and watch you and Owain get yourselves killed, no matter who’s holding the knife. So please, just—just let it go.”
Cynthia bit her lips together, but she couldn’t think of a counterargument she hadn’t already raised, any new ground she hadn’t already tread; she only came up with tears that began to spill over her cheeks. She didn’t want to admit defeat, refused to make this concession to reality, but she felt suddenly powerless to stop it. She curled one hand around the good luck charm, tracing her fingers over the familiar patterns and textures. Morgan was still here, somehow, and yet, he was impossibly out of reach.
She felt Inigo’s arm wrap around her shoulders again, drawing her in against his side in a hug. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he pressed his face into her hair, and they stayed like that for a few minutes, no talking, only the quiet crackle of the fire and Cynthia’s muted sniffles.
Inigo pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead, letting out a long, slow breath. “Please try to get some sleep, alright? You need it as badly as any of us do.”
Cynthia nodded, her shoulders going slack, and Inigo brushed the hair from her forehead and gave her a hollow smile before getting to his feet. He walked toward Owain, quietly calling out his name. Cynthia watched them for a few moments before she lay down and rolled over to face the fire. Her fist was still tightly clenched around the good luck charm at her belt. She hadn’t seen Morgan’s face back in the corridor, only a hooded shadow, and so she had nothing to supplant her memory of him. She could still only picture his smiling face. Cynthia stared into the fire, feeling her eyelids grow heavy, and hoped there was room for one more miracle in the world.
End notes: inigo is very tired of having to be the voice of reason and he would like a break 😔
Title: A Rogue Friend Is a Wild Beast: Stalwarts Unite ♪🎵♪
Summary: Grima grants Morgan a chance to make up for his failure—return with Gules and Azure, and the rest will be forgotten. Cynthia and the others find themselves surrounded and trapped with no means of escape, but all hope is not quite lost.
Notes: back to the present! everyone is having a terrible time :)
End notes
※ 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
It was dark when he finally landed his wyvern, directing the small army of Risen to form a perimeter around him. It wasn’t as though there was much danger to them at all—the children certainly wouldn’t be coming back to pick a fight—but Morgan felt shaken and uncomfortably vulnerable. Twice today he’d had the opportunity to dispose of those he’d once called friends and recover the Gemstones, and both times he’d lost his nerve at the critical moment. It could be called a draw at best, and the taste of defeat was still bitter as bile in his mouth. It had been months now. He should have been able to carry out his master’s will without a second thought. He’d never hesitated when the Ylissean ranks crashed against his army as harmlessly as an ocean wave against a breakwater.
But when Owain had laid down his sword and launched into a speech that sounded like it had been pulled straight from one of their old games, something in Morgan had buckled and threatened to fold. He should have been strong enough now to fend off those last vestiges of affection. This failure was his alone.
He felt the presence in his mind before it spoke, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as though in warning. An apparition of his master shimmed into his mind, an illusion only he could see. Master Grima often chose to take other forms, but when she was with Morgan, she always appeared in the body of the Avatar. It wasn’t the same as talking to his mother, Morgan knew that, but it made him feel closer to her nonetheless.
But Master Grima’s presence here was anything but a comfort. It was only a projection, a mere ghost, but her eyes never lost their commanding power.
“Where are Sable and Argent?” she asked without preamble, and it was clear from her cold tone that she already knew the answer. Morgan bowed his head, shame curdling in his stomach. He never had been able to bear the thought of disappointing his mother, but disappointing her was so much worse.
“I…do not have them. The children escaped with them.” He squeezed his eyes shut and curled his hands over his knees. “The fault is mine. I—I suffered a moment of weakness. I will accept any punishment you see fit, Master Grima.”
He kept all trembling out of his voice; if there was anything Master Grima hated, it was sniveling. He braced himself for some psychic blow, some invasion of the mind, but none came. When he opened his eyes, his master was still watching him with that cold stare.
“Those little worms need all five Gemstones to perform the Awakening,” Master Grima said after an agonizing pause. “Gules and Azure yet remain within Plegia’s borders. Bring them to me, and all will be forgiven.”
Morgan nodded, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Cold relief flooded his stomach. He knew what awaited those who incurred Master Grima’s ire. After a moment’s calculated hesitation, he lifted his head again, meeting her eyes for just a moment. It was all he could bear, but the warmth that remained after her searing gaze was worth it.
“I won’t fail you this time.” He only had to focus on her promise of his reward once he succeeded. That would give him the strength he needed; he was sure of it.
“See to it that you don’t,” Master Grima said, then the apparition shimmered away like so much sand in the wind. Morgan found himself still trying to catch his breath even as her oppressive presence vanished from his mind. Gules and Azure were still in reach. He’d have to face down old friends there too, he was sure, but as long as it wasn’t Owain…
Morgan sent out a wordless command to his army to begin their eastward march, and he took flight on his wyvern towards the dawning horizon.
The four of them were exhausted, weary of their long journey, and they still had a ways to go before they’d reach the border with Gules and Azure. So after a little deliberation and Nah’s aerial sweep of the surrounding area—a handful of errant Risen, quickly dispatched by Kjelle’s lance—they decided it was prudent enough to stay in the abandoned keep. It could be barricaded from the inside, and Risen weren’t clever enough to solve that problem. They might actually get a real night’s rest here.
Not that they could completely lower their guard, not while they were still on the move. Cynthia volunteered for first watch, but with them barricaded inside, there wasn’t much to watch, and all seemed quiet outside the keep. And she was just as weary as the others, saddle-sore and stiff, desperately longing to take off her armor, but they all slept in it now—even Kjelle, although she never seemed to mind as much as the rest of them.
Cynthia couldn’t have dozed off for more than a few minutes. It was the stinging in her nose that woke her, and she coughed as soon as she opened her mouth to breathe. She was still waking up, but something wasn’t right. The edges of the dark room were aglow with flame, and Cynthia looked overhead to see thick black smoke gathering like rain clouds under the ceiling. She reached over to Noire, the one laying closest to her, and hurriedly shook her awake.
“Noire, wake up—everyone, we’ve gotta get moving! I think we’re dealing with a burning building situation here!”
Cynthia had always pictured herself running into a burning building—you know, to rescue the frightened civilians inside—just not out of one. Kjelle was on her feet first, and she pulled Nah up one-handed. Her eyes were already peering through the smoke for the quickest exit route.
“Who set this place on fire?” Nah muttered, scrubbing the sleep from her eyes. They’d only gained a few precious hours of rest. “We cleared the perimeter—”
“Risen!” Noire’s voice jumped a full octave and she shrank back towards Cynthia. One trembling finger pointed at one of the exits, which seemed to be suffering under the weight of a battering ram. The barricades they’d put up were makeshift, and they were only so strong. “They must have set the fire! Ooh, this looks bad…”
Kjelle pivoted towards the south exit just as the door burst inward against the barricade, and Risen were suddenly pouring in from all sides, their defenses destroyed. “Damn! They’ve got us surrounded!”
“Where did they come from—how did they catch up to us?” Nah was trying her best not to let her collected calm slip. “I really thought we’d taken care of them—and they keep coming! There’s no way I would have missed a group this big!”
“Th-there are so many of them,” Noire said, clutching her bow. “More than we’ve had to deal with this whole journey. How are we supposed to get through this one?”
“The same way we’ve always pulled through,” Cynthia said, readying her lance. “With a just heart and a courageous spirit! Come on, guys—you know the fight’s not over yet!”
But the Risen were upon them before they could make the first strike, and in a dizzying rush they were all separated and robbed of their weapons. The others were quickly losing hope, but that just meant Cynthia had to try all the harder to keep morale up. And their mission was too important for them to just roll over and die. Sure, they were cornered, separated, and unarmed, but it couldn’t end here. It just couldn’t.
Her hand went to her belt, curling her fingers around the braided tassel that hung there. Morgan’s betrayal had left a deep cut, one that still had yet to fully heal, but Cynthia had never been able to bring herself to get rid of the good luck charm he’d made for her. So she’d always feel like he was at her side, so she wouldn’t lose her nerve in the critical moment. Even now, despite his betrayal, despite all the irreparable damage he’d done, Cynthia still wished for Morgan at her side. She didn’t understand at all what had happened, how he could have gone from their faithful tactician to their most devastating enemy seemingly overnight; it was simply too hard to reconcile, a fundamental mismatch, two images that could not be neatly overlaid. When she thought about Morgan, she could only remember his sunny smile and easy self-assurance. Her mind seemed to shy away from the wicked deeds he’d committed against them when her thoughts wandered their way, like repelling magnets. She’d felt so heartbroken in the aftermath of that nightmarish battle, cried on Inigo for days, but even now, she still couldn’t conjure any other image of Morgan.
He’d know what to do if he were here. He’d already be hatching up one of his wild plans, just crazy enough to work, maybe. But hope was starting to slip from her grip as the Risen closed in, and the flames began licking at the walls. Cyntha clutched the charm in her hand and prayed for a miracle.
They were nearly to the border now—just one more day’s march by Inigo’s estimation, as long as they could keep up the current breakneck pace. Things wouldn’t exactly be safe once they crossed back into Ylisse, but they’d be a little less deadly. And then soon the four of them would be back in Ylisstol and reunite with the others, and put this dark chapter of history to a close.
They were sleeping in a farm stables tonight, which, while fragrant, was more comfortable than the cave. The farmers who owned this remote piece of land tucked away in thick forest, who had somehow managed to cling to it despite the dangers that roved the land, didn’t know their lone horse had overnight guests, but they didn’t need to know. The four of them would be on their way at dawn anyhow, and there was no need to trouble innocent folk, especially not this late.
Owain was just starting to doze off in a cozy nest of straw when the heavy beat of feathered wings reached his ears. He sat up and leaned to peer out of the stables. A pegasus with an empty saddle touched down on a run and made for the stables at a full gallop, its wings still spread wide. The frantic whinny it let out as it approached startled the others from their sleep, and Yarne jumped to his feet, looking around with wild eyes.
“What was that? Are we under attack? Gods, not now, not when we’re so close—”
“It’s a pegasus,” Inigo said, peering blearily into the night. “One missing its rider—what in the blazes is it doing out here?”
The pegasus slowed as it neared the stables, but it was still wild-eyed and agitated, its wings still flapping anxiously at its sides. At this rate, the owners of this place would hear the panicking beast, and they’d have to find another place to sleep for the night. Inigo ventured out of the stables, hands tentatively outstretched.
“Alright, easy now,” he murmured. “Let’s all be calm here, hm?”
The pegasus reared on its hind legs briefly, but then it settled and backed away a few paces, its wings folding against its sides. His confidence bolstered, Inigo drew closer, then stopped with a bewilderment that slowly melted into dread. He recognized that saddle.
Owain wasn’t far behind, peering through the dark. “What troubles you in the face of this beast? It seems you’ve already tamed it with your gentle—” He stopped abruptly as he got closer. “Wait, is that…”
“This is Cynthia’s pegasus,” Inigo said, his chest suddenly tight. They’d been so focused on their escape these last few days, he hadn’t had much room to spare thought as to how their companions were doing on their own missions. Now it all hit him in a dizzying rush, his tired mind ransacking itself for an explanation that didn’t immediately spell the worst.
Owain reached out a hand to lay on the pegasus’s neck, and though it still seemed anxious, it didn’t buck or shake him off. His expression was grave.
“Our comrades must be in mortal peril,” Owain said, trying to look deep into its eyes, but finding it difficult as he could really only look at one at a time. He settled for closing his eyes and bowing his head. Nonetheless, he seemed to be trying to commune with the pegasus. “Yes…I understand now. Our brave friends, so close to their goal, have been beset by our foul nemeses, and now their very lives hang in the balance—but their fates are not yet sealed! Cynthia’s loyal steed escaped and found us, so that she might lead us there to their rescue!”
Inigo’s face was seized with a mixture of disbelief and crushing dread. “You cannot be serious,” he said, even as he felt his stomach sink. He didn’t buy for a second that Owain could commune with so much as a bug, but there was no room for doubt that that was Cynthia’s pegasus, and there were no good implications to be had there. “How on earth do you assume it’s going to lead us to Cynthia and the others? We don’t even know why it’s here!”
“It can’t mean anything good,” Owain said, and his expression was set. “Something’s happened, and we’ve got a chance to help. I don’t know how she found us, but you know there’s no way this is random chance. We have an opportunity to intervene—to save our comrades from the very fate we nearly suffered ourselves.”
There was a particular stomachache Inigo had come to associate with Owain being right, a curdling resentment that he had no choice but to acknowledge. He closed a hand over his abdomen unconsciously. Even if their friends didn’t survive—even if it came to the worst—they might at least be able to recover the Gemstones bought with those lives.
“They could already be—we could already be too late,” he said, but the fight was going out of his voice. Owain leveled him with a gaze so straight it was unnerving.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We have to try anyway.”
Yarne looked out toward the treeline in dismay. “We were so close…”
“None of it will mean anything if we don’t all make it back.” Owain looked sidelong at Inigo, who had needled him with a similar point just a few days ago. Inigo made an uncomfortable noise in the back of his throat and looked away. “We need all of the Gemstones. If we don’t rush to their aid…it won’t make a difference whether our mission is successful or not.”
Yarne looked uneasy, and Brady looked ill, but neither offered any further objection. Except—
“It’s all well and fine if Cynthia’s pegasus is going to lead us there,” Inigo said, “but we can maybe fit two of us in that saddle. How are the rest of us supposed to keep up?”
“Don’t look at me,” Yarne said hurriedly. “Taguel are sprinters, not marathon runners!”
But Owain wasn’t looking at Yarne; rather, he was looking past him back at the stables. Brady followed his gaze and did a double take.
“Oh, come on—you wanna steal from these folks, too? They barely got a thing to their names as it is!”
“I mean,” Inigo conceded, albeit with a guilty look, “the fate of the world is sort of hanging in the balance…”
In the end, they wound up stealing the horse. Inigo and Owain took to the sky on Cynthia’s pegasus while Brady drove the horse, Yarne’s arms wrapped in a crushing grip around his waist. They flew low, both to avoid detection and so that Brady and Yarne would be able to follow them in the darkness of the new moon. They hadn’t encountered any Risen in the last day, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any lurking around.
Inigo held tight to Owain, closing his eyes to keep them from stinging in the wind. Ugh, he’d never liked flying—he could handle it in a pinch, but Owain and Cynthia lacked any sensible fear of heights, and Owain seemed to have no difficulty seeing even with the wind in his face. Inigo buried his face in the back of Owain’s neck and tried to calm his fraying nerves. They were starting to really run low on sleep, and Inigo couldn’t keep himself from worrying about Owain ever since their encounter with Morgan, though he couldn’t bring himself to say as much out loud.
“Do you really think we’ll make it in time?” He had to raise his voice above the rush of wind in his ears, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “I mean, we have no idea how long it took this pegasus to get to us. They could be days away.”
“We won’t find out if we don’t try,” Owain said doggedly. “I don’t think they’re that far off, though. Pegasi can only fly so far at a time, and she hasn’t totally exhausted herself yet. They’re still alive—I can feel it in my heart. Our companions, though they may be fighting to their last, yet live.”
“You cannot possibly know that,” Inigo said, but not with much feeling. This was one of Owain’s most infuriating tendencies, this unyielding never-say-die attitude in the face of the worst nonsense—but it had saved them once so far, and right now, Inigo desperately hoped it would again.
Time for a miracle was growing thin, as was everyone’s hope—the others had all but resigned themselves to their fates by now, but Cynthia wasn’t about to give up without a fight. She might have been unarmed, but she wasn’t unarmored—she wasn’t totally defenseless! Cynthia, newly determined, turned and threw a punch at one of the Risen closing in on her. It caught her fist before it could land, and then, before she could break free, it used the momentum of her blow to throw her to the ground. She felt the breath whoosh out of her as she hit the floor, an explosion of stars showering over her vision. They were still closing in, and she rolled to her hands and knees, trying desperately to get her breath back. She had to get up, get back on her feet. A scream that sounded like Noire’s rang out. Cynthia’s eyes squeezed shut over a sudden surge of tears, her breath caught in her chest. It couldn’t end here, not like this…
She heard an awful gurgle and the thud of a body hitting the floor, and she looked up just in time to see another go down, a sword plunged deep into its belly. On the other end of the sword was Inigo, who raised a foot to kick the monster in the chest, relieving his blade of its weight, and it staggered back and collapsed in a heap next to its comrade. Inigo sheathed his sword, breathing hard, and held out a hand to Cynthia.
“Inigo!” Her voice came out a wheeze, but she was starting to get her breath back as he pulled her to her feet. “What are you—how—”
“You have your pegasus to thank,” he said, reaching out to brush a lock of sweat-soaked hair from her brow once she was steady on her feet. It was hard to tell through the smoke and flickering firelight, but Inigo seemed grimmer than ever despite his light tone. “I don’t know how, but that loyal steed of yours found her way to us, and she led us back to you. Frankly, I’m astonished we made it on time.”
“You mean she got away?” Cynthia felt tears welling up again, this time in relief. She had left her pegasus in the keep’s dilapidated stables, well within its fortified walls, and she’d been afraid to imagine what had become of her mount in the fire.
“Quite right. Don’t worry—we left her a ways from here. She’s in no danger now.” Inigo reached out a foot and nudged it up under a lance lying on the floor just outside her cell, among a few other dead Risen. With a neat flick of his ankle, he kicked it into his hand, the faded white ribbon around its shaft fluttering in the air. He held it out to her with a flourish. “I believe this belongs to you, my dear.”
Cynthia took it back with a deep breath, swallowing back her tears. There would be time for that later. “Wait—what about your mission? Weren’t you on your way to get Argent and Sable?”
“Already in hand,” Inigo said with relief, taking her by the hand, though he paused at the cell door to quickly check the passageway. “We were just on our way back. What about Gules and Azure?”
“Got ’em,” Cynthia said with triumph. It was easier to stand tall now that hope was restored. Miracles really were possible. “We thought we could catch our breath here for the night, but…”
Inigo lurched out of the cell, swinging his sword to parry a blow from an axe-bearing Risen. Cynthia, not far behind, thrust her lance out from beside Inigo and speared the monster while its blade was still locked with Inigo’s. Inigo and Cynthia exchanged breathless smiles, nodded, and moved out.
“I heard Noire scream,” Cynthia said, worry in her voice, but her chest heaved with relief when they rounded a corner to see Kjelle and Brady. Now that Kjelle had a weapon in her hand again, she was dealing death with every blow, while Brady mostly tried to stay out of the way. “Where are Owain and Yarne?”
“They went around the other side for Nah and Noire,” Inigo said, signaling over his shoulder to Kjelle and Brady. “I suppose we ought to lend them a hand, don’t you think?”
“Now you’re talking!” Cynthia twirled her lance and lunged forward, only for the next Risen soldier to deflect her blow with its shield. “Surrender now, wicked beasts, or taste the righteous fury of my lance! Cynthia, hero extraordinaire, is back in action!”
She and Inigo led the charge down the narrow corridor, with Kjelle taking up the rear guard. Smoke was still filling the building, and it was hard to tell just how many Risen there were. They never seemed to stop coming, even as the four of them advanced and left a trail of foul corpses in their wake. It was easier to move in the moment, when the only thing mattered was the next strike, the next parry. There was no room for fear or doubt—not when she had Inigo there, not when she knew Owain was close—not when she still had Morgan’s good luck charm, a phantom presence at her side, even if it was only a memory.
They rounded a corner and were met with towering flames blazing so brightly it was almost blinding. Cynthia squinted against the fire, trying to see through the rippling heat. She heard Brady grunt and the clack of metal against wood—she spun and saw Brady just barely managing to fend off a Risen’s sword with his staff. Kjelle was already engaged with two others, unable to spare a hand. Cynthia leapt into action.
“Not on my watch!” she cried as she lunged forward, knocking back the undead soldier’s sword and putting herself between Brady and the danger that threatened him. “A true hero never lets a comrade fall in battle! Now accept your divine punishment for—”
She didn’t get to finish her line. That was the problem with fighting these things—they abided by no rules, ripped all the civilization out of war. Cynthia finished the line in her head anyway as she jumped back to avoid a stabbing thrust, very nearly tripping over some fallen debris in the process. But she quickly regained her footing and used that momentum to deliver a deadly blow through the Risen’s throat, her lance point puncturing clean through the dry, sagging folds of skin. It clawed frantically at the shaft, but Cynthia pulled it back with all her body weight, turning her face away from the spray of black ichor that followed. Sure, it was a surer kill than a stab to the chest, but at what cost?
She heard Brady’s hoarse warning just in time to turn and dodge a spell from a hooded mage, a snap of blinding lightning that missed her, but barely—she still caught a few sparks from its near graze. There was too much smoke and fire to make out the mage clearly, but it was enough light to go by to aim. She swung her lance and used the weight of it to propel herself forward, preparing to dodge a second spell—but instead of delivering a follow-up attack, the cloaked figure turned and ran, rounding a smoke-shrouded corner out of sight. Cynthia had only a moment to note how strange it was—Risen never ran away from a fight, even when the odds were against them—before the next threat demanded her attention, and she advanced down the hall with the others.
Soon she could hear the cries of familiar voices over the clamor of battle, and when Cynthia caught sight of Owain’s unruly hair through the smoke, her chest heaved with a relief so profound it nearly made her ill on the spot. But she steadied her stomach and steeled her reserve and forged on, clearing a path with Inigo through to their comrades.
“Noire!” Cynthia called out, and to her relief Noire was still alive, though clutching her arm and backed against a wall. Yarne stood between her and the oncoming Risen, looking wildly panicked even in beast form, but he didn’t flee, just kept on throwing Risen back with powerful kicks of his hind legs. Cynthia composed a new battle theme for herself in her head between grunts of effort, trying to get to Noire and Yarne before they were overwhelmed. Cynthia’s eyes were starting to tear up from the smoke as it grew thicker, blurring her vision, but the adrenaline had given her fresh strength—as had the arrival of their comrades. Now that they were together, they couldn’t possibly lose.
Cynthia and Inigo were both short of breath by the time they reached Noire’s cell, and Yarne transformed back with a breathless stagger. Cynthia ran past him to Noire, who was still huddled in the corner, one hand clutched around the other arm. This close, Cynthia could see that Noire’s pale skin was slick with blood.
“Noire! Are you okay? Oh, no, your arm!”
“I-it’s not that bad,” Noir said, though her face was pale, her skin shining with sweat. “B-but I can’t move my arm…I’m useless in this fight…”
“Keep that chin up! What matters is that we make it out alive,” Cynthia said fiercely. “Besides, Brady’s here, so just hang on a little longer, okay? We’ll keep you safe!”
Yes, she thought as she pivoted back towards the threat, her lance raised—as long as she could keep them safe, as long as no more of them disappeared from her side, she could keep fighting like this, her head held high.
It wasn’t long before they closed the distance between them and Owain and Nah, who was blowing back Risen with her powerful breath while Owain darted in to finish them off. He made quick of the stunned Risen, but their numbers still seemed impossibly large, and they were all starting to struggle to breathe through the smoke. Owain stumbled back as a fit of coughing overtook him, narrowly avoiding a blade to the arm—the Risen holding the blade was summarily blasted back by Nah’s breath, folding into the flames.
“We have to get out of here!” Nah’s urgent voice rose over the din of battle. “The fire’s only getting worse. This building could come down on us at any moment!”
“You heard her,” Kjelle shouted, bashing a Risen mage’s head in mercilessly with the butt of her lance. It crumpled to the ground at her feet. Brady was pulling Noire along, the glow of his staff still fading, until they were under the protection of their friends. “If we can’t find the exit, we make our own!”
“Not necessary,” Inigo called quickly, “and highly inadvisable, if the structural integrity of this place is so precarious. We know the way out—just follow us!”
There was no time—no need—to finish killing off all the Risen before they made their escape, not when the fire would take care of most of them. They weren’t clever enough to all escape on their own. A ragged handful made it out to pursue them, but Cynthia and Kjelle’s lances kept them at bay until the rest of the group had safely made it wide and clear of the burning building. Then Noire quickly dispatched of the last few with rapidly fired arrows, the newly healed gash in her arm still stinging.
They all sucked down lungfuls of sweet, clean air, some of them still coughing and retching from the hoarse smoke—someone produced a canteen of water and they passed it around until it was dry, all of them having sweated themselves dry between the fight and the fire. Brady staggered off to be sick in a nearby patch of bushes, and Noire joined him shortly, the two of them leaning on each other for support and heaving sympathetically in turn.
Cynthia greeted her pegasus with tears she could no longer hold back, flinging both arms around the pegasus’ neck and burying her face in its mane. “Thank you,” she said, her voice coming out a cracked squeak. Her pegasus only let out a soft whinny in response, and Cynthia wondered if her mother was watching down on her, if she had somehow set this miracle in motion.
“We’re going to have to find somewhere else to sleep for the rest of the night,” Nah said reluctantly, only giving voice to what every exhausted member of their party already knew. The night was already half over, and only a couple of them had only gotten a scant few hours of sleep. “As far as we can get away from this place as possible. If any of them catch up to us in this state…”
“We’ll take care of them,” Kjelle said confidently. “Hmph! What cowards, taking our weapons and cornering us…in a fair fight, we can’t lose.”
“We will eventually if we don’t get some real sleep,” Nah said, her voice cracking. She looked just as reluctant to move any further as the rest of them, but she forced herself to her feet anyway. “Let’s go, before it gets any later. There’s a small patch of forest nearby we can probably camp in safely for now. We should be able to reach it in an hour if we start moving now.”
“Probably?” Yarne said anxiously, but he was too tired to voice any real objection—and that was as safe as it got while they were still in Grima’s territory.
It felt like an eternity by the time they reached the area Nah had spotted on her earlier perimeter check, all of them too tired to talk by now. Cynthia and the others still had a couple of intact tents, and they wearily pitched them while Brady and Yarne tended to the fire; it meant, at least, that they could better protect those members of the party that needed it most. Inigo and Owain volunteered to take first watch, even though they had to be at least as tired as the rest of them, but they both seemed alert enough—well, they seemed on edge, anyway. Kjelle threatened them both with bodily harm if they failed to wake her up for shift change before she finally allowed herself to lie down.
Cynthia expected herself to drop like a sack of rocks as soon as she stopped moving, but now that she was free to sleep, she felt unbearably restless. She tried to soothe herself by attending to her pegasus, smoothing out the tangles in its mane and picking out the leaves and twigs that were starting to get matted in. But the quiet of the camp was somehow unsettling to her, the clamor of battle still ringing in her ears. It felt as though the world had quite abruptly come to a stop while she wasn’t yet done careening through it.
She could see Owain and Inigo sitting by the campfire, their backs to her, side by side but not quite close enough to be touching. Belated relief at seeing the two of them welled up in her chest, the occasional panging loneliness of the last few months catching up with her all at once, and she bounded over to them without a second thought. She dropped herself in the narrow space between them, her arms around their shoulders—they both stiffened on reflex, then relaxed, and Inigo let out a shaky sigh. Cynthia leaned her head against Inigo’s shoulder, then Owain’s, and then they both leaned in to gather more snugly around her without a word. Even Owain seemed to be too drained to summon any of his usual flair. Cynthia let herself settle between them, letting out a long breath.
“You guys have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she sighed, at which a ghost of a smile appeared on Inigo’s face.
“Oh, I think we can imagine,” he said, and let out another shaky breath. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure we’d make it in time.”
“But you did!” Cynthia said with as much brightness as she could muster. She let her arms drop from around their shoulders so she could lean forward with a little whoosh of breath. Owain’s arm went to her waist, and Inigo wrapped one arm tightly around her shoulders. It was grounding, to hold each other like this—a solid, concrete reminder that they were still here, still alive and present in this world, all of them. Cynthia’s hand went to the charm at her belt and she felt the keen absence of an old friend, a vacuum in his place, remembering how they’d huddled like this when they had been four instead of three. “Bonus points for a great entrance, by the way.”
“As if we could ever abandon our fated companions in their hour of need,” Owain said, and Cynthia knew he meant it despite how tired he sounded. She pressed a grimy hand to his cheek and on childish reflex he turned his head and licked her palm. He regretted it immediately with a coughing gag, and Cynthia let out a startled “Ew!” and wiped her hand off on his sleeve. Inigo rolled his eyes, then huffed out a quiet laugh and leaned more heavily against her. It was a comfort that they could still act like foolish children, even after today.
“Still, though,” Inigo murmured, his train of thought finding its way into his voice, “doesn’t all of this strike you as odd? It’s one thing for Risen to attack our camps, but setting fire to an entire building? And doing so thorough a job of it that it brings the whole place down at that? They never act like that without a real person to give them orders.”
“I think there was someone, actually,” Cynthia said, and both Inigo and Owain tensed beside her. “When we were on our way to meet up with the others, I saw someone—well, I was attacked by a mage, actually. I thought they were just another Risen at first, but they ran away as soon as I tried to counterattack. Risen never just run away like that.”
Owain had lifted his head, and Inigo’s grip on her shoulders had tightened, but Cynthia just leaned back against them more heavily, fingering the tassel on her belt. “It’s funny—I couldn’t really get a good look through all the smoke, but they kind of reminded me of Morgan. They looked about his size, anyway…”
Inigo and Owain suddenly pulled away from her, sitting up ramrod straight, and she fell unceremoniously onto her back with an oof. She looked up to deliver an indignant look, but the two of them were looking at each other with dire expressions. Cynthia’s brow pinched.
“Hey, what’s with those faces?” She sat up, the momentary peace dissolving into the night air. “You both look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Inigo looked nauseatingly uneasy. Owain looked…Cynthia didn’t know how to describe it; it was a look she’d never seen on his face before. He almost looked haunted.
“There’s…something we need to tell you,” Inigo said haltingly. Cynthia felt her stomach sink a little further, like disappearing into quicksand.
“What?”
Inigo looked at Owain, giving him a chance to answer, but when he stayed silent, Inigo let out a breath through his teeth and said, “On our way back, when we’d nearly reached the border, an army of Risen caught up with us. And leading them…was Morgan.”
“What?” Cynthia repeated, her voice smaller. Inigo looked like he’d rather be talking about anything else, but he forged on in Owain’s lengthening silence.
“He’d been sent to recover the Gemstones,” Inigo said, finding his mouth suddenly dry. “By Grima. And I…I suspect the person you saw fleeing back there was him, too.”
Cynthia’s mind was slow with exhaustion, and Inigo’s words sank in slowly. Of course she knew he’d be working for Grima now, but to think she’d come so close to him just hours ago—
“But you said you had Argent and Sable,” she said, puzzled. “So…what happened?”
“He couldn’t go through with it,” Owain said finally, just as Inigo opened his mouth. Owain was watching the fire, resting an elbow on one knee. “He had a chance to kill us and take the Gemstones—it would’ve been easy, he had us cornered—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the end, he chose to run away rather than take our lives. And if he caught sight of you back in the keep…then that’s probably why he ran back there, too.” He let out a long, thin breath. “I know Morgan betrayed us. I know he’s doing the fell dragon’s bidding now. But the old Morgan—the one we knew—he’s still in there, too.”
“So, wait—” Cynthia felt her chest go tight with suffocating hope. “Does that mean he doesn’t really want to hurt us? That he’s still on our side after all?”
“It does not mean that,” Inigo said, so sharply that it made her jump a little. He was staring at Owain—glaring, more like it, though his eyes looked red-rimmed in the firelight. Owain was still watching the fire, refusing to return the look. “He is very much not on our side. He might not have killed us in the end, but he came very close. He led those Risen to you—he didn’t just send them in after you, he had them set the whole damn place on fire, to ensure none of you would escape even if the Risen didn’t do the job. And it damn near worked. He might never have set foot inside if we hadn’t shown up when we did—he probably would’ve been content to watch you burn from a safe distance. I’m sure that would have made it easier for him.”
Cynthia flinched at the bitterness in Inigo’s voice, harsher than she’d ever heard from him before. He looked taken aback by it himself, but he just closed his mouth in an unhappy, unapologetic line. Owain got to his feet wordlessly and walked away from them, stiff-shouldered, tracing the perimeter of the camp.
“Owain,” Cynthia called out quietly, and she almost got to her feet, but he didn’t go all that far, just…away. Inigo was staring at his boots, the heel of his hand pressed to his forehead. He looked miserable. Cynthia’s stomach sank.
“What really happened?”
Inigo closed his eyes, blowing out a long breath through his nose. “Owain tried to…talk him down. Convince him to come back with us. It didn’t work.”
“But he couldn’t bring himself to kill you,” Cynthia said, a thread of desperation weaving itself into her voice, “or me. That means…he hasn’t forgotten about us after all. It means there’s a chance! Maybe if I’m there too, then next time we can—”
“Cynthia.” Inigo sounded impossibly weary, tight in the throat. “There is no chance. It isn’t going to happen. We just—we can’t. I’m sorry.”
No—there was no way she was going to accept it, not just like that, not after all they’d been through together with Morgan. Not when he’d meant so much to them, just as much as they meant to each other. There were so few left they could call friends; to give up on even just one was too much to ask. Cynthia’s eyes bore into him, her fists clenching.
“Why wouldn’t he go with you?” she demanded. “If he didn’t want to kill you—if Owain thought the old him was still in there somewhere—then what was his reason? What did he say?”
“It’s not about what he said.” Inigo’s eyes stayed closed, but in the shimmering firelight, Cynthia now recognized the source of that new heavy grimness in his face. “He…yes, for a moment—for just a moment—it looked like Owain might have been getting through to him. But that’s all it was. Just a moment. And then…I don’t know. Something came over him, like—something was trying to assert control over him. Owain thinks it was Grima. I’m inclined to agree.”
“But then—” Cynthia rose up on her knees and grabbed hold of Inigo’s arm in a crushing grip. “If he’s being controlled by Grima, then that means none of this is his fault! If we keep trying, I know we can reach him! If he really does want to come back with us deep down—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Inigo said. Cynthia shook him by the arm until his head jerked from side to side.
“Of course it does! Inigo, why—”
Inigo closed a hand over hers, stilling them both, and looked back up, but he couldn’t seem to direct his gaze at anything but the fire. It demanded nothing back from him.
“Look,” he said, his voice low and tight, “there are two possibilities. Either Morgan betrayed us of his own free will, or Grima has some kind of influence over him. If it’s the former, and he agreed to come back with us—well, frankly, I still wouldn’t trust him half as far as I could throw him, but at least we could be reasonably certain he’s acting of his own accord. But if Grima has something to do with it…then it doesn’t matter what he truly wants, or how badly. We’ll never be able to fully trust him, not really—not when Grima could reach out again and manipulate him at any time, without our even knowing. He’s only human, and Grima is—” He couldn’t suppress a shudder. “There’s just no way this works out to a happy ending for everyone. As long as Morgan is alive, he’s a danger to us.”
Inigo closed his eyes again, venting out a hard breath. His jaw was so tense it was beginning to ache. “I’m sorry. But it’s the truth.”
But Cynthia wouldn’t be deterred. Inigo could be so narrow-minded, and as far as she was concerned, he was the one wearing blinders on this matter. Stubbornly, she shook him by the arm again.
“That’s it? Just like that, you decide it’s hopeless?” All the relief from the last few hours was curdling into dread and despair in the pit of her stomach. “He’s our friend! You don’t just give up on your friends!”
“Yes, Cynthia,” Inigo said through his teeth, his voice rising, and she recoiled from the raw edge in his voice, feeling her stomach sink even further. “Yes, you do. Sometimes, you do. Gods, you and Owain—”
He shook her off and covered his face with both hands. Cyntha sat back on her heels, looking at him helplessly.
“I know I was never as close to Morgan as you or Owain were.” Inigo’s voice came muffled through his hands, and Cynthia couldn’t tell if he was crying. “I know this is hard. But you have to give it up. We have to focus on the mission. Morgan is dangerous, Cynthia—so much more than before.”
“But he couldn’t bring himself to kill you,” she repeated again, stubborn to the last, though tears were stinging in her eyes. Sure, Inigo always rolled his eyes at the hero stuff, but this was defeatism on a level she hadn’t thought possible for him. “He keeps running away.”
“For now,” Inigo said wearily, and she had the sense that he’d already run through this conversation at least two or three times over now. He lifted his head from his hands and shook the hair from his face. His cheeks shone damp in the firelight. “But what if we see him again? What if Grima has solidified whatever hold he has on Morgan’s mind, and Morgan doesn’t hesitate this time? We just can’t afford it. And I—I won’t just stand by and watch you and Owain get yourselves killed, no matter who’s holding the knife. So please, just—just let it go.”
Cynthia bit her lips together, but she couldn’t think of a counterargument she hadn’t already raised, any new ground she hadn’t already tread; she only came up with tears that began to spill over her cheeks. She didn’t want to admit defeat, refused to make this concession to reality, but she felt suddenly powerless to stop it. She curled one hand around the good luck charm, tracing her fingers over the familiar patterns and textures. Morgan was still here, somehow, and yet, he was impossibly out of reach.
She felt Inigo’s arm wrap around her shoulders again, drawing her in against his side in a hug. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he pressed his face into her hair, and they stayed like that for a few minutes, no talking, only the quiet crackle of the fire and Cynthia’s muted sniffles.
Inigo pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead, letting out a long, slow breath. “Please try to get some sleep, alright? You need it as badly as any of us do.”
Cynthia nodded, her shoulders going slack, and Inigo brushed the hair from her forehead and gave her a hollow smile before getting to his feet. He walked toward Owain, quietly calling out his name. Cynthia watched them for a few moments before she lay down and rolled over to face the fire. Her fist was still tightly clenched around the good luck charm at her belt. She hadn’t seen Morgan’s face back in the corridor, only a hooded shadow, and so she had nothing to supplant her memory of him. She could still only picture his smiling face. Cynthia stared into the fire, feeling her eyelids grow heavy, and hoped there was room for one more miracle in the world.
End notes: inigo is very tired of having to be the voice of reason and he would like a break 😔