[Challenge 007] Perfect World
Challenge: 007, Vision
Title: Perfect World
Characters: Minerva
Game: FE1/3/11/12, but specifically FE12.
Word Count: 2,485
Notes: I use “wyvern” here in place of “dragon” for “the beast that is ridden by knights” so as not to confuse readers, most of whom are more familiar with the term “wyvern” and probably don’t want a dissertation on the difference between dragons and the other kind of dragon. Also, spoilers for FE12 and its bizarro-world continuity fail. Also, this is depressing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Perfect World
i.
Slanting rays of light filtered down through the forest canopy, creating golden pools on the leaf-mold that blanketed the earth. Her boots made no sound upon this soft carpet, yet she walked with deliberate hesitation. She did not belong here. No birds or scurrying creatures announced her presence; she was enfolded in the silence of the timeless forest. She called out a single name, and her voice was swallowed up by the shadows, a frail cry against the vastness of nature. She stopped short, and the chain around her neck jangled. She strained her ears to hear something, someone, answer her from the darkness.
Sister, is this really the perfect country you envisioned?
Sister Minerva tried to be all that her new role required of her. She could adapt; she’d been in turn a princess, a pegasus knight, a wyvernknight, a general, a princess again, a prisoner, and a general again. To exchange her crimson armor for a plain white shift, to set down her axe and learn the rudiments of healing... it should be no harder it was than to mount a wyvern after mastering a pegasus. And hopefully, she’d do better as a cleric than she had as a ruling princess. She entered St. Fila’s Convent with true peace in her heart, after all. Her brother, purged of his sins, lived and would reign. Her sister, rescued from unholy darkness, smiled and would guide them both into the new era.
And Sister Minerva went about scrubbing floors, tending the beds in the kitchen gardens, pounding herbs into poultices and changing the soiled linen in the infirmary of St. Fila’s. She turned away any guests who sought an audience with Princess Minerva and Commander Minerva. Those people no longer existed. Even so, Minerva made an unconventional cleric; around her neck, in place of a rosary, hung a pendant once placed there by her mother. She would grasp the three interlocked circles of gold during prayers, pressing the pendant into her callused palm until she could feel the prick of the gem in its center.
Michalis. Minerva. Maria. Three united, three inseparable. So she prayed to the gods, but the true icons that she paid homage to were the gods of family. Brother, brilliant and indomitable, immune even to death. Sister, serene and shining, immune to corruption of the soul. And she, the middle sister, the flawed and humbled one, was happy to serve them from obscurity as they brought Macedon back from the edge of disaster.
ii.
She let out a long, shuddering breath as the darkness finally answered her. A thin, musical cry, growing ever closer, until she could hear the beat of feathered wings, could hear the muted tattoo of small hooves against the forest floor. Minerva wanted to rush forward, but she remained still as the trees themselves in the great maze of the forest, knowing that the unbreakable connection between pegasus and rider would draw them to one another.
Open your eyes! Be strong!
Palla knew better than to turn up seeking an audience with Commander Minerva. She was the Whitewinged Commander now, soldiering on in the role Minerva once had served, and Minerva hoped that Palla would find knights as loyal and honorable as the ones Minerva had gathered to herself in days past. But the Palla who came to visit Sister Minerva was solemn and careworn, and Minerva-- who had scarcely glanced in a mirror in seven years-- wondered how she looked to the eyes of her friend and comrade.
“How is your sister? Your sisters, rather,” Minerva added, in hopes that the youngest of the three might have turned up safe.
“We’ve never heard from Est, not since the wars ended.” Palla spoke with the brittle calm of one suffering a half-healed wound; Est had run off in the midst of victory celebrations, without warning and without ever sending back word. Uncertainty did its own form of damage, and that showed now in Palla’s face.
Minerva would have offered her inadequate condolences, but Palla had another bit of news to impart.
“Catria defected to the mainland.”
She did not have to say a word more for Minerva to understand. Est’s heart broke upon the shoals of love thanks to her mainlander husband, but Catria’s heart was divided by
something else, something Minerva had seen during their final campaign together. Catria had been thoroughly gripped by the fervor that ran through supporters of the Altean prince who united the disparate lands of Archanea. Minerva had felt it herself, had felt enough of its intoxication that she’d considered entrusting Macedon to Prince Marth as well. Had she lost Michalis, lost dear Maria, she might have done just that.
Why would their vision of a perfected Macedon send a steadfast knight fleeing to the embrace of Archanea?
“Is an old mistrust of Michalis enough to forsake Macedon?” The words were hard to even say. To admit that someone so close, so dedicated, had abandoned their motherland...
“Minerva,” Palla said then, with that same brittle calm. “I fear your hopes for Michalis are not entirely borne out. Instead of peace and security, he speaks of war and expansion.”
“He speaks as he does to rally hearts bruised by defeat.” Minerva did not know her people well enough to rule them, but she knew what two wars had cost them. Defeat, occupation, revolt, rescue at the hands of mainlanders... the pride of Macedon had nearly been broken. “Maria will not allow him to chart a course toward war.”
Palla’s green eyes grew only more troubled.
“Maria... what she went through, when her soul was seized by darkness... I am not sure she came out of that unchanged.”
“Maria is not tainted by darkness.” The harshness in her own voice surprised her; she sounded like a soldier again.
“No. Not at all. But, Commander... Minerva... she does not see the world as we see it. I believe that the... experience... granted Maria the gift to see things not given to the rest of us. Beautiful, inspiring things to be sure. But I’m afraid she does not see what we might call the ugly facts on the ground.”
Minerva looked out the window, at the raised beds of herbs and the weathered stone of the courtyard. In her mind’s eye, she could see beyond the walls, to the towering forests and rugged mountains that made Macedon what it was. Strong, free, independent, self-sustaining. A land of fighters, of workers, of men and women who threw off the chains of slavery and would never feel that yoke again-- not from dragons, not from the mainland, not from anyone.
“Trust in Maria,” she said at last. “That is my final request of you.”
“Yes, Commander.” And Palla was gone, retreating back into the realm of memory.
At some point in the interview, Minerva had closed her hand around the pendant; when she opened her hand, the three joined circles were imprinted upon her palm.
Before the year was out, Sister Minerva received word of her brother’s exploits in the far-off land of Valencia. A stunning victory, they said. Complete conquest of the western nation. Glory to Michalis and to empire. There was one sour note in the victory song, and her brother’s herald broke it her gently. The commander of the Whitewinged Order, it was said, had fallen in the battle.
It took some months more for the true news to reach Minerva. A fledgling pegasus knight, horrified by what she saw of war, took refuge in St. Fila’s. When the girl learned of Minerva’s presence, she begged for an interview, and so the story came out one sob after another. There was no conquest at all, only a bloody and stunning repulsion as the forces of tiny Valencia fought back with everything at their disposal.
“Their bows... they were so powerful,” the girl choked through phlegm and tears. “We should have been clear out of range, but the arrows kept coming and coming. And their priestesses could summon... ghost armies. It was terrible, terrible magic. They said it was the power of angels.”
And so Michalis’s plans for empire died in the face of weaponry and spellcraft for which he’d been completely unprepared. Minerva wondered why the one commander of Macedon with deep knowledge of Valencia had not warned Michalis of this, but the distraught survivor had an answer of sorts to that question. Palla had not died in loyal service to Michalis. She’d abandoned her position, and had last been seen at the side of the Valencian queen, lance raised against her own comrades. So Palla rejoined the liege lady she’d served in a brief war that Archaneans and Macedonians alike had forgotten, and the airborne armada of Macedon trickled home in disgrace.
Minerva asked for time alone to pray. She spent that time turning the pendant over and over in her hand as she relived the time she’d spent with three young and promising knights. Palla, Catria, and Est-- so different in looks, so different in personality, each burning with desire to do right. They had loved her. When Michalis was blinded by his ambitions, they followed her against their king; when Maria was in jeopardy, all three raced alongside her to save their princess. With Michalis, Minerva, and Maria all acting as one, the three sisters should have likewise been united, stronger than ever before. But without her to guide them, to hold them together, they had scattered. She had been as the central stone linking them, and she had relinquished that responsibility, their center could not hold.
iii)
And there they were, as though the separation never had been. Minerva clutched at the silken mane and felt a velvet muzzle upon her cheek, the kiss a pegasus might only give to its true rider.
“I should never have abandoned you. I thought it would make me stronger....”
She was enveloped in the light, breathing in the scent of the woods, and as she felt the air rush past her face, Minerva knew she was forgiven.
There are no right paths, just mine and yours...
Minerva prayed that the Valencian fiasco would temper her brother’s ambitions. She prayed that he would turn all his brilliance now solely upon Macedon, that Maria would talk Michalis down from any more attempts at expansion. But talk of war, of empire, penetrated even the stout walls of St. Fila’s. The enemy, now, was an older enemy-- Archanea. The shadow of the mainland, of its vainglorious kings, had lain across Macedon for all time. When the Macedonians were enslaved by the dragonkin, Archanea lifted not a finger to free them. When Macedonians starved in the Great Famine, Archanea sent not a grain to feed them.
Archanea was an easy target for hatred, no matter that its ancient line of kings was dust and new blood governed it. As talk grew ever more heated, Sister Minerva received another visitor. Once a thief, now the husband of Macedon’s beloved Bishop, Julian was a respectable man now, dressed in a fine coat and with his hair neatly trimmed. But as he spoke, Minerva saw the same taut energy in his face, the same keen glint in his eyes.
“Your brother is whipping up a war,” he said, almost casually, his nimble fingers laced beneath his chin. “And Maria, our Apostle of Light, is no rein on his ambitions.”
She had no ready reply, and Julian continued, those bright eyes boring into her.
“Sister, is it possible to be so far to the good that you can’t see the bad in the world? So deep in the light that you’re blinded by it? I think so.” Restless energy animated each movement. “I’ve seen light magic and dark magic, and I’ve seen divine dragons and dark dragons both. One kills about as well as the other.”
She had no answer for him. It took some time before Minerva realized that Julian warned her about far, far more than the acts of her siblings. As winter turned to spring came the first word of attacks-- not pirates, not brigands. Organized archers and cavalry, tearing through Macedon and decimating its airborne knights.
Some said the Valencians had invaded in revenge, but the residents of St. Fila’s did not live long in suspense. By Midsummer’s Eve, the convent was surrounded by armed men.
“To the cellars, Sister Minerva. We’ll protect you!” This came from the novice who’d been in the Valencian campaign; she wielded a spade from the kitchen garden in place of a lance.
“I will not let any more blood be shed for my sake.” Minerva did not understand why she was hunted, how foreign troops had penetrated so deep into Macedon, where her brother’s great army was and why it did not protect her. She stood in her white robes, unarmed, as the convent walls were battered.
The knight-turned-novice screamed and dropped to her knees as the great doors opened against their hinges.
“Peace,” Minerva said to the crying novice. “There is nothing now we can do.”
Her brother’s talk, his actions, had brought the wrath of the mainland down upon them. They were all doomed now-- Minerva, unused to raising her voice, shouted herself hoarse telling the men and women who served St. Fila’s to put down their arms, to stand back, to pray rather than fight.
Across the wreckage, men were coming for her. A paladin from the mainland army, his green armor and dark hair both coated with a thick dusting of plaster... she knew his face but had forgotten the name. He dismounted, crossed the rubble, and knelt at her feet.
“Princess Minerva. I must apologize for this destruction. It was not our goal to ruin the abbey, and I take responsibility for the lack of control displayed by my knights.” After a leaden pause, he added, “Your presence is requested at the capital, my lady.”
“No.” All else froze in her throat.
“Princess, I am sorry. I must escort you to the capital.”
She did not bow her head to fate and she did not let him take her hand. Minerva stepped forward, but she no longer saw around her the shattered walls or fallen bodies. She saw only the ancient trees and the golden pools of light upon the forest floor. And nothing more. So many times she’d conjured that reunion, that absolution, in her memory that she’d almost convinced herself that the moment had happened. As the mainlander knight led her from the ruins of the abbey, Minerva relived the memory as it had actually been. There had been so answering whinny from the shadowed forest, no feathers between her fingers or velvet muzzle caressing her cheek. There was only the endless stretch of dark trees rising to blot out the heavens, the eternal silence of the forest.
The End
Note: St. Fila is a totally made-up character from a different story of mine ("Distant Light"). Her writings explain how the Aum Staff is mythical and resurrection magic is impossible. ;P
ETA: More detailed notes on my LJ here.
Title: Perfect World
Characters: Minerva
Game: FE1/3/11/12, but specifically FE12.
Word Count: 2,485
Notes: I use “wyvern” here in place of “dragon” for “the beast that is ridden by knights” so as not to confuse readers, most of whom are more familiar with the term “wyvern” and probably don’t want a dissertation on the difference between dragons and the other kind of dragon. Also, spoilers for FE12 and its bizarro-world continuity fail. Also, this is depressing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Perfect World
i.
Slanting rays of light filtered down through the forest canopy, creating golden pools on the leaf-mold that blanketed the earth. Her boots made no sound upon this soft carpet, yet she walked with deliberate hesitation. She did not belong here. No birds or scurrying creatures announced her presence; she was enfolded in the silence of the timeless forest. She called out a single name, and her voice was swallowed up by the shadows, a frail cry against the vastness of nature. She stopped short, and the chain around her neck jangled. She strained her ears to hear something, someone, answer her from the darkness.
Sister, is this really the perfect country you envisioned?
Sister Minerva tried to be all that her new role required of her. She could adapt; she’d been in turn a princess, a pegasus knight, a wyvernknight, a general, a princess again, a prisoner, and a general again. To exchange her crimson armor for a plain white shift, to set down her axe and learn the rudiments of healing... it should be no harder it was than to mount a wyvern after mastering a pegasus. And hopefully, she’d do better as a cleric than she had as a ruling princess. She entered St. Fila’s Convent with true peace in her heart, after all. Her brother, purged of his sins, lived and would reign. Her sister, rescued from unholy darkness, smiled and would guide them both into the new era.
And Sister Minerva went about scrubbing floors, tending the beds in the kitchen gardens, pounding herbs into poultices and changing the soiled linen in the infirmary of St. Fila’s. She turned away any guests who sought an audience with Princess Minerva and Commander Minerva. Those people no longer existed. Even so, Minerva made an unconventional cleric; around her neck, in place of a rosary, hung a pendant once placed there by her mother. She would grasp the three interlocked circles of gold during prayers, pressing the pendant into her callused palm until she could feel the prick of the gem in its center.
Michalis. Minerva. Maria. Three united, three inseparable. So she prayed to the gods, but the true icons that she paid homage to were the gods of family. Brother, brilliant and indomitable, immune even to death. Sister, serene and shining, immune to corruption of the soul. And she, the middle sister, the flawed and humbled one, was happy to serve them from obscurity as they brought Macedon back from the edge of disaster.
ii.
She let out a long, shuddering breath as the darkness finally answered her. A thin, musical cry, growing ever closer, until she could hear the beat of feathered wings, could hear the muted tattoo of small hooves against the forest floor. Minerva wanted to rush forward, but she remained still as the trees themselves in the great maze of the forest, knowing that the unbreakable connection between pegasus and rider would draw them to one another.
Open your eyes! Be strong!
Palla knew better than to turn up seeking an audience with Commander Minerva. She was the Whitewinged Commander now, soldiering on in the role Minerva once had served, and Minerva hoped that Palla would find knights as loyal and honorable as the ones Minerva had gathered to herself in days past. But the Palla who came to visit Sister Minerva was solemn and careworn, and Minerva-- who had scarcely glanced in a mirror in seven years-- wondered how she looked to the eyes of her friend and comrade.
“How is your sister? Your sisters, rather,” Minerva added, in hopes that the youngest of the three might have turned up safe.
“We’ve never heard from Est, not since the wars ended.” Palla spoke with the brittle calm of one suffering a half-healed wound; Est had run off in the midst of victory celebrations, without warning and without ever sending back word. Uncertainty did its own form of damage, and that showed now in Palla’s face.
Minerva would have offered her inadequate condolences, but Palla had another bit of news to impart.
“Catria defected to the mainland.”
She did not have to say a word more for Minerva to understand. Est’s heart broke upon the shoals of love thanks to her mainlander husband, but Catria’s heart was divided by
something else, something Minerva had seen during their final campaign together. Catria had been thoroughly gripped by the fervor that ran through supporters of the Altean prince who united the disparate lands of Archanea. Minerva had felt it herself, had felt enough of its intoxication that she’d considered entrusting Macedon to Prince Marth as well. Had she lost Michalis, lost dear Maria, she might have done just that.
Why would their vision of a perfected Macedon send a steadfast knight fleeing to the embrace of Archanea?
“Is an old mistrust of Michalis enough to forsake Macedon?” The words were hard to even say. To admit that someone so close, so dedicated, had abandoned their motherland...
“Minerva,” Palla said then, with that same brittle calm. “I fear your hopes for Michalis are not entirely borne out. Instead of peace and security, he speaks of war and expansion.”
“He speaks as he does to rally hearts bruised by defeat.” Minerva did not know her people well enough to rule them, but she knew what two wars had cost them. Defeat, occupation, revolt, rescue at the hands of mainlanders... the pride of Macedon had nearly been broken. “Maria will not allow him to chart a course toward war.”
Palla’s green eyes grew only more troubled.
“Maria... what she went through, when her soul was seized by darkness... I am not sure she came out of that unchanged.”
“Maria is not tainted by darkness.” The harshness in her own voice surprised her; she sounded like a soldier again.
“No. Not at all. But, Commander... Minerva... she does not see the world as we see it. I believe that the... experience... granted Maria the gift to see things not given to the rest of us. Beautiful, inspiring things to be sure. But I’m afraid she does not see what we might call the ugly facts on the ground.”
Minerva looked out the window, at the raised beds of herbs and the weathered stone of the courtyard. In her mind’s eye, she could see beyond the walls, to the towering forests and rugged mountains that made Macedon what it was. Strong, free, independent, self-sustaining. A land of fighters, of workers, of men and women who threw off the chains of slavery and would never feel that yoke again-- not from dragons, not from the mainland, not from anyone.
“Trust in Maria,” she said at last. “That is my final request of you.”
“Yes, Commander.” And Palla was gone, retreating back into the realm of memory.
At some point in the interview, Minerva had closed her hand around the pendant; when she opened her hand, the three joined circles were imprinted upon her palm.
Before the year was out, Sister Minerva received word of her brother’s exploits in the far-off land of Valencia. A stunning victory, they said. Complete conquest of the western nation. Glory to Michalis and to empire. There was one sour note in the victory song, and her brother’s herald broke it her gently. The commander of the Whitewinged Order, it was said, had fallen in the battle.
It took some months more for the true news to reach Minerva. A fledgling pegasus knight, horrified by what she saw of war, took refuge in St. Fila’s. When the girl learned of Minerva’s presence, she begged for an interview, and so the story came out one sob after another. There was no conquest at all, only a bloody and stunning repulsion as the forces of tiny Valencia fought back with everything at their disposal.
“Their bows... they were so powerful,” the girl choked through phlegm and tears. “We should have been clear out of range, but the arrows kept coming and coming. And their priestesses could summon... ghost armies. It was terrible, terrible magic. They said it was the power of angels.”
And so Michalis’s plans for empire died in the face of weaponry and spellcraft for which he’d been completely unprepared. Minerva wondered why the one commander of Macedon with deep knowledge of Valencia had not warned Michalis of this, but the distraught survivor had an answer of sorts to that question. Palla had not died in loyal service to Michalis. She’d abandoned her position, and had last been seen at the side of the Valencian queen, lance raised against her own comrades. So Palla rejoined the liege lady she’d served in a brief war that Archaneans and Macedonians alike had forgotten, and the airborne armada of Macedon trickled home in disgrace.
Minerva asked for time alone to pray. She spent that time turning the pendant over and over in her hand as she relived the time she’d spent with three young and promising knights. Palla, Catria, and Est-- so different in looks, so different in personality, each burning with desire to do right. They had loved her. When Michalis was blinded by his ambitions, they followed her against their king; when Maria was in jeopardy, all three raced alongside her to save their princess. With Michalis, Minerva, and Maria all acting as one, the three sisters should have likewise been united, stronger than ever before. But without her to guide them, to hold them together, they had scattered. She had been as the central stone linking them, and she had relinquished that responsibility, their center could not hold.
iii)
And there they were, as though the separation never had been. Minerva clutched at the silken mane and felt a velvet muzzle upon her cheek, the kiss a pegasus might only give to its true rider.
“I should never have abandoned you. I thought it would make me stronger....”
She was enveloped in the light, breathing in the scent of the woods, and as she felt the air rush past her face, Minerva knew she was forgiven.
There are no right paths, just mine and yours...
Minerva prayed that the Valencian fiasco would temper her brother’s ambitions. She prayed that he would turn all his brilliance now solely upon Macedon, that Maria would talk Michalis down from any more attempts at expansion. But talk of war, of empire, penetrated even the stout walls of St. Fila’s. The enemy, now, was an older enemy-- Archanea. The shadow of the mainland, of its vainglorious kings, had lain across Macedon for all time. When the Macedonians were enslaved by the dragonkin, Archanea lifted not a finger to free them. When Macedonians starved in the Great Famine, Archanea sent not a grain to feed them.
Archanea was an easy target for hatred, no matter that its ancient line of kings was dust and new blood governed it. As talk grew ever more heated, Sister Minerva received another visitor. Once a thief, now the husband of Macedon’s beloved Bishop, Julian was a respectable man now, dressed in a fine coat and with his hair neatly trimmed. But as he spoke, Minerva saw the same taut energy in his face, the same keen glint in his eyes.
“Your brother is whipping up a war,” he said, almost casually, his nimble fingers laced beneath his chin. “And Maria, our Apostle of Light, is no rein on his ambitions.”
She had no ready reply, and Julian continued, those bright eyes boring into her.
“Sister, is it possible to be so far to the good that you can’t see the bad in the world? So deep in the light that you’re blinded by it? I think so.” Restless energy animated each movement. “I’ve seen light magic and dark magic, and I’ve seen divine dragons and dark dragons both. One kills about as well as the other.”
She had no answer for him. It took some time before Minerva realized that Julian warned her about far, far more than the acts of her siblings. As winter turned to spring came the first word of attacks-- not pirates, not brigands. Organized archers and cavalry, tearing through Macedon and decimating its airborne knights.
Some said the Valencians had invaded in revenge, but the residents of St. Fila’s did not live long in suspense. By Midsummer’s Eve, the convent was surrounded by armed men.
“To the cellars, Sister Minerva. We’ll protect you!” This came from the novice who’d been in the Valencian campaign; she wielded a spade from the kitchen garden in place of a lance.
“I will not let any more blood be shed for my sake.” Minerva did not understand why she was hunted, how foreign troops had penetrated so deep into Macedon, where her brother’s great army was and why it did not protect her. She stood in her white robes, unarmed, as the convent walls were battered.
The knight-turned-novice screamed and dropped to her knees as the great doors opened against their hinges.
“Peace,” Minerva said to the crying novice. “There is nothing now we can do.”
Her brother’s talk, his actions, had brought the wrath of the mainland down upon them. They were all doomed now-- Minerva, unused to raising her voice, shouted herself hoarse telling the men and women who served St. Fila’s to put down their arms, to stand back, to pray rather than fight.
Across the wreckage, men were coming for her. A paladin from the mainland army, his green armor and dark hair both coated with a thick dusting of plaster... she knew his face but had forgotten the name. He dismounted, crossed the rubble, and knelt at her feet.
“Princess Minerva. I must apologize for this destruction. It was not our goal to ruin the abbey, and I take responsibility for the lack of control displayed by my knights.” After a leaden pause, he added, “Your presence is requested at the capital, my lady.”
“No.” All else froze in her throat.
“Princess, I am sorry. I must escort you to the capital.”
She did not bow her head to fate and she did not let him take her hand. Minerva stepped forward, but she no longer saw around her the shattered walls or fallen bodies. She saw only the ancient trees and the golden pools of light upon the forest floor. And nothing more. So many times she’d conjured that reunion, that absolution, in her memory that she’d almost convinced herself that the moment had happened. As the mainlander knight led her from the ruins of the abbey, Minerva relived the memory as it had actually been. There had been so answering whinny from the shadowed forest, no feathers between her fingers or velvet muzzle caressing her cheek. There was only the endless stretch of dark trees rising to blot out the heavens, the eternal silence of the forest.
The End
Note: St. Fila is a totally made-up character from a different story of mine ("Distant Light"). Her writings explain how the Aum Staff is mythical and resurrection magic is impossible. ;P
ETA: More detailed notes on my LJ here.