Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

AN: Slight warning for some really depressing thoughts.



"Why does it still hurt?"
"Because some hurts never go away. Some sharp edges never get fixed. You just learn to use them to ensure that nobody else gets broken as you were broken. Now stand up, we have feral beasts to put down."
-Theodore Wyrmblood and The Old Master


You know that Mistress Flarestone is still talking. You should be paying attention, you should be responding, you should be saying something! If for no other reason than you're pretty sure you're making a very bad impression for Archduke Letoro about your ability to be polite. You try to, honestly you try to talk, to thank her, to ask why she was in your home, to make words come out of your mouth…

You… just… can't!

You'd thought you were getting better. You'd thought you had come to terms with the fact that your parents were gone, never to return. You'd thought you'd made your peace with that fact as you continued working on the shrine. By all logic, you should be okay.

However… as you stare down at your father's shattered stone, you realize that waking up knowing that your parents must be dead is vastly different from holding proof. That knowing is different from knowing.

"Ryza?"

You swallow as Artemis puts a hand on your shoulder. "Please excuse me, for just a few minutes," you finally force yourself to say. You can already feel the hot prickle of tears in your eyes. Not waiting for a response, you tug your shoulder out of Artemis's hand and hurry away.

"Ryza!" your friend calls. You faintly hear Archduke Letoro saying something to her, but you can't focus. You have to keep your attention on not crashing into anyone as your eyes start to cloud up. Ducking out of the circle of guards, you hurry towards one of the quiet spots Artemis had shown you after you arrive. Right now, you just need to be alone.

Alone is hard here. There are so many people; you hear voices everywhere, both calling for you and just shouting to and at each other. Sniffling, you barely suppress the urge to just spread your wings and get away, that will cause even more hubbub and you can't handle hubbub right now! Finally reaching a relatively quiet part of the castle, you fly up to the alcove several meters up a wall, duck into it, and curl up as far back as you can get.

Finally, away from all the humans, you fall to your side, hug your father's stone to your chest, and let out the keening cry that had been bubbling its way up your throat.

It hurts. It hurt so much! You don't care as you feel a warm wetness leaking from where you cut your hand on the sharp edges of Father's broken stone, what's a little physical pain that you can wash away with a thought compared to the whirling torrent of emotional agony threatening to tear you apart. Sobbing, you rock back and forwards, cuddling the stone. "Opsôla…" you whimper. "Opsôla…"

Why hadn't he stayed with you? Why hadn't you and Father and Mother all just gone to the shrine together! Obviously the mad manakete hadn't found it, or they'd have killed you too. Just like Father and Mother. For a horrible moment, you wish they had. That they'd found the wall, torn it open, ripped your frail heart-form apart so that you could be dead and together with Father and Mother rather than alive and alone alone alone…

You can't do this. You can't keep… keep pretending that everything's okay. Artemis isn't your sister, she's just another human who's going to be dead in a few decades no matter what you want. You're going to feel this pain again and again and again! Constantly left behind. Constantly abandoned by the ones you love… what's the point… what's the point…

As you sob, struggling with the whirlwind of emotions and pain dragging you down into the darkness of despair, a strange warmth settles over you. Desperately, you imagine that it's Father, holding you after a really bad day…

"Surely, it can't be all that bad, my child," he'd say soothingly.

"It is!" you cry. "You're gone, Father! You're gone, just like Mother's gone…"

"From this world, yes," Father's memory whispered. "But we will see each other again one day, Ryza."

"But I want to see you now!"

A gentle sigh fills your mind. "Patience, my child, patience," Father says. "Your Mother and I want to see you too, to hold you again, but not yet. Only after you've had the full, long life we always wanted for you." The warmth seems to ruffle through your hair like a hand. "Besides, don't you want to make things better? Didn't you want to show the humans a better way of casting magic?"

"How!?" you wail. "How am I supposed to do that I'm not you you're-"

"No, you're not me. You're the combination of your mother and I. Her strength, determination and will, combined with my knowledge and studiousness. You're the best of both of us, Ryza, and I know you can do it."

"How!?" you ask again. "I don't even know where to start-"

"The same place you start every problem, my child: with patience and the knowledge of first principles. You know how humans cast magic, now you just need to either find a new energy source for them to use or find a way to increase their natural reserves." The warmth embraces you more tightly. "Not easy, I know, but few things worth doing ever are."

Sniffling, you curl yourself tighter. "I… I guess so…"

"Good girl, Ryza," Father's voice says softly. "You're doing great, and your mother and I are so, so proud of you. We love you, Ryza."

"…I love you too, Father. And Mother."

"We know, Ryza, we know. Now dry your eyes, my child, and be brave. We know you can do it. Oh, and be sure to heal your hand: you know how your mother fusses whenever you or I get injured."

Giggling weakly, you nod. "I will, Father."

Father's voice doesn't answer, but the warmth does not fade. Slowly, you open your eyes and look around.

You're forced to squint at the bright sunlight shining into your hiding spot: it had been an overcast day earlier, but the clouds had parted, allowing the Mother's Light to shine directly onto you. There's no sign of Father, of course, but… but his voice had sounded so real…

Looking down at the stone, you can't help but wonder… it should be impossible. Even if an echo of a manakete stayed in their stone, something that there was no evidence for, his stone was broken. The most obvious explanation was your grieving mind had just been desperately embracing a comforting delusion… but it had all seemed so real…

The sharp ache in your hand drew your mind from wondering to look down at the blood bubbling out of it. Ouch, you'd cut yourself worse than you'd thought… Carefully summoning up your White magic, you carefully run a finger along the wound, sealing it shut. It's not as clean or smooth as Mother or Healer Clara would have managed, there was still a thin scar along the bottom of your palm, but you've come so far in a week…

Maybe… maybe you could do it. You're good at magic, Father always said so. You can make the world better. You can make it so humans can have the tools they need to stay safe without having to plunder your people's tombs to do it.

You can make Father and Mother proud.

Sniffling and wiping your eyes, you pull out a handkerchief and carefully wipe your face and nose. Then, after carefully turning to a clean portion, you wipe your blood off of Father's stone (and is it just your desperate imagination, or is it shining a little brighter than before…)

Finally, after a few minutes of centering yourself, you tuck the pieces of Father's stone into your pocket next to your own. You'll have to find a safe place to store it at some point, but for now you want to keep it near you. Maybe you'll glue it back together: there was that old technique you'd read about once of mixing some gold or another shiny material into the glue to make a fixed break look beautiful. True, that had been a northern Manakete method of fixing pottery, but the same process could apply here…

As you slip out of the alcove and glide down to the ground, you blink as you see Artemis sitting against a nearby tree, watching you. "I'm sorry," you say, landing next to her and tucking yourself into her side. "I… I just needed a bit of time."

"I know," Artemis says, hugging your shoulders. "Father told me it'd be best to give you that time, but I wanted to be nearby, in case you wanted to talk afterwards."

You're grateful she didn't barge in. You like Artemis, you really do, but… well, you'd needed some space. "I hope I didn't mess anything up with Mis-"

"Don't worry about her," Artemis says. "Father's dealing with her: from what I heard as I was leaving, he was telling her Sypha was here, so she'll be thoroughly distracted for a while.

"I thought he wanted to figure out what she wanted before he told her about Sypha," you say, confused.

Artemis shrugs. "It's pretty obvious: she was here to try and mollify you about what Countess Mantrae did to me. Since she left before Father's message arrived in Legerius, she didn't know that Father had already declined to use that casus-belli in the interest of unity among the Kingdoms." Her smile turns thin. "I personally would have let her sweat for a while, especially if she was poking around your home without permission, but I'll admit I've always a been a bit vindictive."

You frown. "I don't want to upset her," you say. "I'm going to need her help to go to the Marble Hall so I can become Head Mage so I can fix everything."

"You're also a lot nicer than I am," Artemis says, ruffling your hair.

"You're plenty nice!" you say, hugging her tighter.

The human laughs a bit. "Only to people I like," she says. "When people get on my bad side; well, Selena always said my temper'd get me in trouble one day. You, meanwhile, are a forgiving little light-spirit who's very good at letting go of things that upset you. I'm still shocked you're not more furious about the whole stone-magic thing."

You sigh. "I'm not happy about it," you say. "But I'm not going to take my anger out on you or anyone else who doesn't deserve it. Besides, far better to try to solve a problem than just get mad about it."

Artemis smiles as she rests her cheek on the top of your head. "And that's why you're nicer than me," she says.

The pair of you sit in silence for a minute or two before you untangle an arm and carefully pull out the broken pieces of Father's stone. "This is my Father's," you say softly, showing them to her. "It's not quite the same as really meeting him, but I'm sure he'd love you and want to thank you for taking care of me…"

"You've been taking care of yourself, Ryza," Artemis says. "I'm just giving you a place to live. But thank you for the thought." She looks down at the stone, frowning. "So… what are you planning on doing with it?"

You frown too. "I… don't know," you say. "The proper place to put this would be at the shrine…"

"…but you can't be certain nobody'd take it," Artemis says. "I wish I could say that of course nobody would, but…" her frown takes on a thoughtful air. "You know… while you're still welcome in the room near my family's, there is that room just below the top of the tower. It'd take a bit of work, but it could be converted to a new bedroom for you. It'd give you good access to the top of the tower, where your shrine is, and also a place where you can take off… You could even transform pretty easily up there, if you ever needed to."

You slowly nod along, it's not a bad idea… "Let's think about it for a bit," you say. "I should probably go talk to Mistress Flarestone."

"Do you want to? Now that she's been reassured that she doesn't have to somehow prevent you from ravaging the countryside of Legerius, she can wait a bit if you need more time-"

You shake your head. "No, I want to talk to her," you say. "There are a few things that need to be said, and then… well, then we need to sort out the whole mage thing…"

Artemis pets you on the shoulder. "You don't have to do everything at once, Ryza," she says. "You can set up another meeting with her later: she'll probably be willing to stay around for a bit, if only because Sypha's here." She smiled grimly. "Besides, as much as I hate to give her credit, I think she feels genuinely bad that she upset you, though that might have just been the fear talking."

You poke Artemis's side. "Stop being so cynical," you say. "Sypha likes her, so she can't be all bad."

The bigger girl rolls her eyes, but nods. "If you say so," she says. "Well, if you want to, everyone's probably in one of the antechambers off the hall; let's go find them."

The two of you get up and you follow Artemis back towards the castle. A few of the humans on the way glance at you, and you hope it's not just your imagination that they look sympathetic. However, as always, nobody approaches you. You're not sure if it's just a human thing, or just because you're with Artemis.

It takes the two of you a few minutes to find Mistress Flarestone, it seems Archduke Letoro had seen fit to make sure none of the guests still in the main hall realized anything was going on. You're not quite sure what's up with them; isn't everyone here friends? When asked, Artemis simply sighs.

"We are not a unified nation," she says. "We all have a common goal in remaining independent of the Empire, and that brings us together in times of trouble and threat, but many of the men and women here have skirmished with each other. Some have even fought minor wars, despite Father's best efforts. Father wants to provide a calm, steady standard to rally around, and that means keeping some of the… thornier, disagreements out of the public eye."

You guess that made sense. You were starting to get the feeling that humans were far more comfortable with fighting each other than manakete had been. Maybe on account of there being so many of them.

Finally, however, you find the Archduke's guards loitering outside a room. "Your Ladyship, young lady," one says, nodding to the pair of you. "His Highness is expecting you."

As he opens the door, you hear Sypha's animated voice coming from within. "And then Ryza started telling everyone off for arguing with each other, and we worked together to come up with-"

The young noble girl was sitting next to Mistress Flarestone, who was really smiling for the first time since you'd met her. Bernard was leaning back in his chair next to Sypha, seemingly content to listen to his cousin tell the story. Across the table from them, Archduke Letoro and Dione were also watching, though their eyes snapped to you as soon as Artemis led you in.

It took Sypha a few seconds to notice you, but when she did she stops mid-word. "Ryza!" she cries, and a moment later she's leapt up and dashed over to you. Before you can think to do anything, she throws her arms around you. "Are you okay?"

You awkwardly pat her on the back. "I'm alright," you say. "Just… got hit with something I knew but hadn't really internalized, I guess."

Sypha pulls back to look at you. "Are you sure? You look like you were…" She hesitates.

"It's okay," you say. "I was crying, but I'm feeling a bit better now." You hug her again. "I'm glad you and Mistress Flarestone got a chance to talk."

The girl smiles. "Yeah, I was just telling her about how you rescued me," she said, leading you back to the table. "I was just about to get to the part where you flew Bernard and I back here."

Mistress Flarestone nods. "It is certainly a fascinating story," she says. "Thank you, Ryza. Thank you for saving my lady's daughter. We were all very worried about her."

"I couldn't just leave her," you say. "She didn't deserve anything that'd happened to her, and it was the best way to make things right. That's… all I really wanted. It's why I helped Artemis get home, and it's why I helped Sypha get home." You meet her eye. "I was never mad at Legerius or Countess Mantrae. She was put in a horrible situation, and honestly, if I had to do something horrible to get my parents back… I don't know if I'd be able to stop myself from doing it. The right thing for me to do is to make it so she doesn't have to do something horrible." You pat Sypha on the shoulder. "Besides, I like Sypha. She's my friend."

Bernard rolls his eyes a bit, but Mistress Flarestone smiles. "I am glad to hear it," she says, before her face falls a little. "I am… sorry, that I upset you. Is there-"

You shake your head. "It wasn't you," you say. "I… you just gave me proof of something I already knew, and it hurt me more than I thought it would, but it wasn't you." You meet her eyes. "Thank you. Thank you for bringing my father's stone back to me. I had feared it lost forever. That being said, with all due respect, please never sneak into my home again without my permission."

The woman blinks before grimacing. "I suppose that's a fair thing to ask. I already suggested to my Lady that no further stu- intrusions, happen until we've had a chance to talk with you." She glances at Sypha. "After everything you've done, I don't think it'd be hard to convince Countess Mantrae to recognize your claim to your home."

You glance at Archduke Letoro. Hadn't that been what he'd said he'd do if you became a knight? Maybe he was worried she'd still be mad about you breaking Artemis out? You put the thought out of your mind for the moment: humans have weird ideas of who can have what, you know that already. "Thank you," you say. "Will she be coming here? I know there's a big meeting happening."

"I cannot speak for her, but I can't imagine she wouldn't," Mistress Flarestone says. "Her daughter is here, so here is where she'll want to be."

You nod, that make sense. "I'm glad to hear it," you say. After a moment, you continue. "Can I… ask you, for something?"

"Of course," Mistress Flarestone says. "I will do everything I can to help you! What do you need?"

"Well, while I've been here, I've been helping James and Siri work to keep the runes running, which is what the Head Mage does. I offered to do that, but I won't be able to if I can't get accredited as a mage. Could you help me with that?"

The woman sits back, nodding thoughtfully. "I can sponsor you, yes," she says. "I'll have to have some sort of test, of course. From what Lady Sypha's told me, it won't be a problem for you, but the Hall insists on it. You're a lightning mage, right?"

You nod. "Yep. I'm a Yellow manakete, so that's my main color, but I also have been learning some White magic." You light up your hand. "I'm not as good at it as Yellow magic yet, but I'm making progress. I can heal cuts." You show off your little scar.

Mistress Flarestone's eyes widen. "Impressive… usually it takes years of careful study to attune to more than one type of magic, and even then to use it quickly and in great enough focus to be useful in an emergency usually requires a Guiding Ring." She studies you with interest. "It'll probably take me a day or two to come up with the test, then once you've passed that, we can go into more detail about the accreditation process." She hesitates. "I… do have some questions of my own, but those can wait."

"Thank you," you say. "Maybe later. Will you be staying here for a while?"

"If His Highness will allow it, then yes," Mistress Flarestone says. "My Countess will likely be coming here soon, so if she has any new orders for me it would be most efficient to wait here for her." She glances at Sypha. "Besides, although Lady Sypha is clearly safe here, her mother would want me to stay and make sure she has everything she needs."

A moment of tension flashes around the room before Sypha scoots over and takes Mistress Flarestone's hand. "Thank you," she says. "I'm doing well here: Bernie and Ryza have been great at keeping me company, and everyone's been really nice. It will be nice to be able to spend some time with you as well, and I think you and Ryza'll have a lot to talk about."

"Very well," Archduke Letoro says. "Welcome again to Agrithe, Mistress Flarestone. I do hope your time as a guest will be without issue or trouble." He stands, and everyone else stands with him. "With this settled, we should return to the Hall. I am sure there are already questions and rumors starting to circulate, we should head them off as soon as possible."

"I'm fine," you say. "I… I'm going to go to my shrine for a while." Artemis starts to open her mouth, but you wave her down. "Really, I'm okay," you say. "I just… need some time to think. I promise, I'm doing okay."

The bigger girl nods. "If that's what you want, Ryza," she says.

Sypha leans over and hugs you again. "I'm sorry," she says.

"Thank you," you say. "But I promise, I just need a little time to think."

After finally convincing everyone that you were okay, that you didn't need someone to hug you all the time (as nice as hugs were,) you made your way up to your shrine. Carefully putting the pieces of Father's dragonstone onto his half of the shrine, you kneel quietly, letting your mind drift over your memories of him, of Mother, of your family that was. You'll… have to ask Mistress Flarestone, at some point, where she found Father's body… Mother wouldn't be far, and if his stone survived mostly intact, then hers…

As you consider the past, present and future, you also find yourself thinking about what you're going to talk about with Mistress Flarestone. You only have a few days before the big meeting among the Southern Kingdom lords, and you get the feeling things will get tense after that. However, for now, you have some peace, so you can choose what to focus on in regards to the Legerian mage.

[] You want to focus on one thing at a time. While you'll always take her test and set up your eventual trip to the Marble Hall, you want to know as much as you can. What are the people there like? What sorts of things should you expect and worry about? What is human magic like?

[] You want to start trying to combat the lies and slander about manakete. This is clearly something she wants to talk about to, and together the two of you should be able to start making a dent in the misinformation. You'll also probably find out more about the rest of the "Revisionists" who can help you teach humans that manakete were not monsters.

[] There is still some tension in the air about what happened at Castle Legerius. What Countess Mantrae did was wrong, of course, but you want everyone to move past that. Work on trying to convince everyone to stop being tense around each other. Who knows, you could probably really become friends with Mistress Flarestone, she seems nice enough.

[] Write-In


OOC Side-vote: do you want me to come up with ideas of other things Ryza could ask Countess Mantrae for in return for saving Sypha, or do you just want her to ask for her home to be recognized? Asking for the home would be an option.

[] Ask for home
[] See other options first