[IC] Fire Emblem: The Motes of Light [Powerpeon & Light]

[Light]

Within the borders of the Kingdom of Ashkandi, it's always been relatively safe.
Outside? Well, there's a reason we're the last civilization of humans left.

There is a darkness, a plague that has held our world by the throat for as long as we can remember.
The legends of old never spoke of a golden age. I suppose now is our time of peace. The age of light that the history texts thousands of years from now will depict.
An age of light, a tiny, little mote that is only one moment away from being snuffed out forever.

The children are kept blissfully unaware. Fictional stories like "The Hero King," "The Radiant Hero," and "The Challengers of Fate" keep their heads in the clouds. At least it's sunny up there. The rest of us are trying to go about our days, pretending that there isn't an entire world filled with eldritch horrors waiting for us to exhaust our little cocoon of a kingdom.

With no gods to pray to, most of us have tried desperately to find some kind of hope. Some have declared it the end times, and even still others have tried to take the laws into their own hands, the damn brigands. The king's men do just about as good of a job as you'd expect keeping the land running as smoothly as a doomed humanity could run. There's no walls to patrol at the edge of the kingdoms, just a wasteland that we believe the creatures of the darkness have run dry in resource. Many years ago, the fighting along these lands was brutal. Now, we're content not exploring to see if they're still nearby.

I agree with the callers. I think it's only a matter of time. Just have to see how much Time hates us...

Who am I, you ask? Well before I answer that, I should make a clarification. I used words like "us" and "we" too loosely. You see, I'm not part of Kingdom of Ashkandi. I'm on the outside, looking in. I express sympathy for them, I know not the true feelings of terror and helplessness that they probably feel on a nightly basis. It's probably terrible. Hm, there was likely a better word for that. Well, ink isn't erasable, so screw it.

In fact, how narcissistic am I to assume you'd ask who I am just from reading all of this? Very. But if your apathy outweighs my sympathy, then I'm just a series of scrawling on a parchment that you'll have even read to begin with.

You know who you are, and once you DO read this, I'll finally rest in peace knowing you braved the darkness...

---

Prologue

Calm Before the Storm

"Again!" Headmaster Ezeras was rather laid back when it came to most things. The only exception was education. For this, he had no qualms demanding that Princess Catherin repeat the same spell for hours on end to ensure that she could cast it correctly. Even one slight error, and he would call for the drill to be repeated, and demonstrate flawlessly how to perform the verbal and somatic components at each step. He was still rather young, for an elf at least. Over a century old, he had been instructing great magical masters when he was only an adolescent, and the status of royalty would not save Catherin from his unforgiving regiments.

The intense mid-day sun made the situation no better, as they had been at this since dawn. The only one without complaint was the emerald knight Cadence, who had been blissfully entertained by the shows of magic as she sat in the soft grass a safe fifty feet away. Her brother Dorian and superior Nikalus, however, had been rudely awoken by the cracks of thunder produced by Catherin and Ezeras, and were now standing behind the fascinated caviler with folded arms and expressions of fatigue and apathy. Each flash of lightning and roaring boom of thunder made them wince, and Cadence cheer.

"Can you please cease your abhorrent cries? It's already loud enough, and some of us were disrupted because of it." the crimson knight muttered almost under his breath. His eyes remained closed as he stood like an agitated statue. "But Doriaaaaaan, look how cool it is!"

"I'd rather not."
"Please?"
"This happens every day. I know what it looks like."
"But-"
"Stop."

Shut down by Dorian, Cadence sat hunched over on the grass with her arms crossed in a forced "hmph" as she continued to spectate the magicians.

As the day came to a close, Ezeras finally relinquished Catherin of their lesson. "Very good," he began. "That should be enough for today, and we'll resume the day after tomorrow. You are dismissed." He gathered his various tomes and staves, and made off towards the administrator's offices without having even broken a sweat.

[Powerpeon]

Catherin had started these lessons thinking that there would not be an audience. She thought wrong, and knew that much the moment she had noticed that Ser Nikalos (of course it was him) took a pair of his trainee Knights to guard her during every demonstration, every application, every errand, every assignment, and every lecture they managed to catch up to her for. This one was no different, indeed—and it had started with a bit of frustration on her part.

Fire was easy to handle, comparatively. Once conjured it had a certain painterly flow to it, like spinning an easel in one's fingers. Headmaster Ezeras's instruction had been harsh at first even with fire—a critical gaze following critical words towards form and movement—but soon enough she took to using up bits of her magic to start the hearth in her own room. It was easier than constantly slaving over a match, she found. Others at the academy would have called fire magic uncontrollable, but with her use of it the princess found it to be a surprisingly calm force.

Wind was a little more unruly, but had a similar way of working. It had better applications for little pranks, as she found out the hard way when she tried to "blow dry" Dorian's magnificently fluffy hair. "Blow drying," she found out the hard way, wasn't supposed to include stray dust and twigs and the like, not even as accidental accessories. Pine cones were not supposed to be entangled that way.

Thunder, though? Thunder, oh thunder, that was a spell that today just didn't seem to agree with her at first. Fire had a habit of staying in her hand. The crackling of lightning? It needed a point of direction; it was demanding, like holding onto a sword too heavy for her wrist. It took a few tries just to even get used to the difference in mood between these two elements. Thunder would never want to stay in the same place twice.

At least that's what she thought after the first few mistakes: jumping at the first sound of a thunderclap, fizzling the rest of the spell with a jerky movement, and even giving herself enough of a shock to make the hair on her head stand up on end.

It came as a surprise to her when she heard Ezeras's approval, and even more to her surprise when she finally managed to call a lightning bolt exactly where she pointed it. She couldn't help but smile with the latter fact. She imagined going home to the palace, ruffling little Hauchefort's hair and listening to him laugh as he would watch his hair follow her crackling fingertips, or poking Martin's armor just to watch him jolt in surprise. But her moment of daydreaming melted away in time to register that she had been dismissed. She tilted her head in a bow towards the headmaster.

"What to do..." She muttered. "What to do..." She reviewed her schedule. Lesson? Check...hm. The room's all in order...but at the rate I'm learning these spells, I'll need a bookshelf for the El-spells! Boredom set in after these early lessons fairly easily, like the inevitable hangover at dawn. They always felt shorter than the hours passing made them seem, she thought. She turned on one heel, noting her audience with a a beaming smile. She approached her retinue with a bounding step.

"Isn't it amazing?" She said. "The possibilities? If only..." She trailed off after one look at Ser Nikalos glower grimace. ...better I be able to shoot lightning from my fingertips than be sitting on a throne all day, she thought, keeping a giddy smile to try and hide her thoughts. "Um, anyway, now that Headmaster Ezeras's lesson is over...is there anything else on the schedule today?" She paced a little. "I was thinking, perhaps, procuring a new bookshelf. It's getting a little crowded in my chambers..."