Chapter Text
Crimson Flower
Imperial Year 1186
Blue Sea Moon
With the war having concluded some three months prior, the reconstruction of Leicester proceeds fitfully. Count Bergliez of the Adrestian Empire oversees its governance at the Emperor's behest, and with House Goneril's cooperation, the border with Almyra remains closed at Fódlan's Locket, so that the Empire may lick its wounds and secure its long-estranged territory.
Among the rebellions spurred on by displaced nobles, and the riots incurred by hungry citizens from the spear-scarred countryside to the crumbling streets of Derdriu, long-forgotten dangers roam the forests and the plains.
Through the summer-lush trees of the forest that followed the Pannia River, the sun was beginning to set. Insects settled as the air cooled, and red deer wandered wary-eyed between the sunbeams of drifting pollen dust.
A day's travel yet remained for Raphael. He knew this shortcut well—sheltered by trees, it skipped the road and forded rivers and streams at their shallowest—having learned it escorting Alliance supply convoys to Derdriu during the war. It would save him two days' travel by road, and get him home to Maya and Grandpa sooner. In Leicester's summer heat, he welcomed the shade too.
In a flat space bordered by a fallen tree and some lichen-stained rock, he knelt to set down his pack. He unlashed a bedroll and spread it out where the ground was moss over soft loam, decked with fallen leaves from the previous autumn.
Might've stopped here before, considering how nice a campsite it made. After an escort journey gone wrong, he was left with a dead companion's roughly drawn map—useful enough, but not too specific, for a map in the wrong hands might invite future ambush.
The Empire didn't waste opportunities, and it didn't waste the collapsed Alliance's couriers. He worked for them now.
And he rose again to his feet, and he plucked a hatchet from his belt to hack away at the fallen tree. Chunks of dried, rotten wood fell at his feet. He grunted with the effort, as he had during axe training at Garreg Mach—not hard work, but the noise made it feel right.
Maybe Shamir had been right to give him poor marks for stealth tactics back at the academy. Never mind, though—strategy was no match for a strong enough pair of fists, and his had stayed him and his family through the war. He had killed many, and driven back more.
Most importantly, Maya never had to fight at all.
Satisfied with his pile of firewood, he collected stones from the ground and laid them in a circle to contain the fire. Too warm to need it for sleeping, but food tasted better hot. Bread and salt-cured meat. Boiling water from the river wouldn't hurt either. Most streams were clean enough to drink straight, but a rash of poisonings during the war had changed his habits.
Who'd been responsible? Most blamed the Empire, but he could not help but remember Claude's fascination with poisons during their school days. Never mind, though.
A shower of sparks from his flint and iron conjured little tendrils of smoke from his pile of twigs and leaves. He raised it to a flame with his breath and sticks and chunks of rotting wood. It spat and sputtered on some of the greener bits, but it burned well enough.
He took the cooking pot from his pack to the bank of the river, slow and calm, and filled it as the last dregs of sunset drained out of view, leaving the trees astride the river cast into deep shadows. A few deer watched him from the opposite bank, but his gaze sent them fleeing after too long a look in their direction.
Venison in his pack would make for a hearty meal, especially hours and miles past lunch. His stomach grumbled in anticipation.
He returned to his camp and set the pot upon the fire, scattering sparks about the circle of stones. With a broad and deep sigh of contentment, he sat back on a rock as he waited for the water to boil, and doffed his shirt, boots, and socks. A day's sweat needed drying, so he set his boots by the fire and laid his clothes over exposed rocks.
The ground was soft beneath his toes. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering a time before the war, before the Academy, when he could sit in the garden with Maya as she tumbled through their mother's flowerbeds—a time when he built his muscles loading and unloading supply wagons instead of brawling with scouts and raiders, and a time when Maya doodled in a notebook instead of tracking their income and spending in a ledger.
Some months were tighter than others.
His stomach growled once more, and the pot had come to bubble and froth. He took it off the fire and set it aside. From his pack he pulled a slightly rusty skewer and a cloth sack. He untied the hasty knot at the mouth of the sack and retrieved the meat and half a loaf of bread. The bread sat in his lap as he skewered the slab of meat and held it over the fire, which conspired with the day's lingering heat to keep him sweating. Maybe he'd go for a quick dip after dinner.
The flames lapped the venison until it was browned and glistening. The earthy scent of his fire's fuel joined the meat's aroma to bring his mouth to watering. He bit in too quickly and burned his tongue, and he panted and fanned it with his hand to soothe it.
It still tasted good, though. Everything did after a long day's walk.
And he ate with gusto, packing away generous bites of venison and bread in turn, and he washed them down with water from his waterskin. He could eat more, but that'd mean starting tomorrow on an empty stomach. Had to save some for later.
He reached for the cooking pot to refill his waterskin, and—wait a second. What was that? He stared at it for a moment, with his hand hanging frozen in the air just above the handle.
The water rippled. And it rippled again. He scrambled to his feet and cast his gaze about, but nightfall thickened the forest with shadow. Twigs snapped. Distant cries and growls of animals echoed through the gloom.
"Who's out there?" He called. "Don't come close if you don't want a fight!"
A heavy rumble drew nearer.
He clenched his fists at his sides as he stepped to the edge of the light of his campfire. "I mean it!"
A wretched, howling scream, neither human nor beast, tore through the dark. He'd fought his share of monsters and had the scars on his back and shoulders and knuckles to prove it, and this strange sound made them tingle and itch with dread.
The underbrush to his right rustled, and he rounded on it; a fox rushed out. It darted between his legs, yelping and scampering around the camp.
Raphael swung a kick at it. "Get out of here!"
It dodged handily and clambered up on top of the rock, turning its head upward and yipping and crying and hopping and scratching.
More rustling and snapping interrupted his advance to drive the creature away, and other creatures swarmed around his camp—deer, more foxes, snakes, squirrels, a bear cub, two wolves, and birds that had no business flying around in the dark—made more menacing by the campfire's dull orange glow. Growls and hisses and titters and squeaks filled the air, and then lapsed abruptly into silence.
"Whoa..."
A ghostly light glowed in their eyes, and they simply stared at him until a heavy, thudding gait approached. They parted to usher it through.
"Is this what you smelled?" spoke a voice deeper than belief, but somehow coupled with sparks of higher tones.
A single beast would make for a worthy challenge, but this? Even if he could win, what animals acted like this? "Smelled what, the fire? My dinner?"
"Dinner, yes—that would be one way of putting it." Huge fangs caught the light, and the silhouette of a demonic beast loomed just behind—larger than most he'd seen. Its dark eyes swallowed the firelight, and its breath spat back acid even so many paces away. Surely this was too far south for the rumors from Derdriu and Margraviate Edmund to be true.
"You've done well. Go on now," said the beast, and the animals that swarmed the camp disappeared into the night as swiftly as they'd come.
It approached him, and he stepped backwards until the fire's heat on his back could bring his fear to a boil. "What do you want?"
A thick, gleaming glob of saliva rolled off its lower jaw. "My hunger grows worse... I can't wait any longer."
A strange familiarity lingered in the beast's voice, and Raphael stepped aside, to cast his shadow elsewhere for a better look at it. "I think I can wait, honestly," he said.
Just a few paces short of the fire, then it stopped. Its nostrils flared as it squinted at him; its head bobbed slowly, up and down. Its legs tremored and its tail twitched.
The Wandering Beast? The rumored scourge of Leicester? He... thought it would be bigger, and no-one ever mentioned streaks of blue fur. "Who are you?"
The Wandering Beast's eyes widened, and it lunged for him; he jumped clear and scrambled onto the rock where his clothes were still drying, and the beast skidded past him, tossing aside soil to make the fire sputter and struggle.
"I'm... a monster." A moan of sorts escaped its mouth—the same as he'd heard while it approached, but weaker now. "The hunger... it pains me."
Its mournful tone twisted his insides. He could relate to hunger, but something else had him curious. Demonic beasts never talked, let alone admit to being vulnerable.
With heart and mind racing, Raphael leapt off the rock and out of the way when the beast struck out for him again; a long, slick tooth grazed his arm. Night offered him no escape, and the beast could call up every animal in the forest to chase him down if it did.
Wait, the animals... it spoke to the animals, and they understood it!
He looked into the beast's broad, baleful, brown eyes, and it regarded him with an icicle glare.
"Marianne... is that you?" he asked, every muscle bound up like braided rope.
It froze in place, and its pupils dilated in a burst of clarity. "Wh-what?
"We went to the Officers Academy together, remember?" With a nervous chuckle, he bent slightly and held out his hands in what he hoped was a non-threatening way. "Please, uh, don't eat me."
"Who, nngh... who are you?" The lower tone's of the beast's voice faded, leaving the higher overtones to float on the air like a hollow breeze. Its—her?—stomach growled loudly.
"Raphael," he said, taking a cautious step forward. "You remember me, right?"
"The hunger, I can't... " Another glob of saliva slipped from her jaw, and her whole body shuddered.
"We were friends, Marianne! We talked to birds together one time! Cheep cheep, cheep chir-reep, y'know?" A tremor found its way into his arms.
The beast's teeth gleamed in the firelight. An anguished howl shook the trees. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and the earth shook.
"M-Marianne?"
A violent, violet flash of light burst forth from the beast's body, casting the surrounding trees into otherworldly relief. With the light pulsing in rings and waves outward from her body, her flesh began to fold and tighten and morph of its own accord; her teeth shrunk and retracted, and she cried out. Pulses of magic staggered Raphael and the campfire.
He ran to her, and knelt beside her. "What's happening? What's wrong?"
Her back swallowed her tail. Front legs became arms; howl became scream; smooth, dark scales became pail, bruised, scarred skin.
Human skin.
One last pulse of magical light blinded Raphael and he toppled over backwards.
And after a moment, when all was still and his senses returned to him, Raphael sat up. The campfire crackled softly, and little sparks rose up into the dark. A few paces away, a naked human form lay crumpled on the soil; long, bedraggled blue hair spilled about the figure's head in runaway tresses, discolored white near to the roots.
"It's you," he said, breathless. "It really is you! Are you okay?"
Her chest rose and fell with her breathing. She moaned softly.
He crawled over to her. "Marianne?"
She flinched at his voice—he was probably being too loud. "Rr... Raphael?"
He smiled, and lowered his voice as best he was able. "You do remember. Are you okay? Can you move?"
"Do you... have anything to eat?" Marianne asked weakly, with a halfhearted effort to prop herself up.
"Yeah, hang on," he said, and he started to rise to his feet again.
"W-wait!" Her hand grabbed his ankle as he moved away. A tight grip.
"Huh?"
"Don't leave me alone. Please."
The fear in her voice chilled him. "Uh, right. I guess you can have the bedroll," he said, positioning himself to lift her in his arms.
She was lighter than he'd expected. She had little scars and bruises all over, but big, jagged ones across her chest and on her arms. Her ribs were showing. He made a point not to look too long, in case it would embarrass her, but her eyes hung only half open, and her body hung half limp. She hardly seemed to notice his gaze.
He laid her out along the bedroll gently—not perfectly so, since he sort of let her legs fall—and sat between her and the campfire. He dropped more fuel into the fire, and then he fumbled around in the dim light for his skewer and remaining portion of venison, and readied them. The meat sizzled pleasantly.
Raphael looked over his shoulder to see Marianne had tucked herself into the bedroll. She'd need clothes or she'd get sunburned tomorrow—at least, assuming she was well enough to travel at all.
With the meat browned, he offered it and the cooking pot—mercifully undisturbed by the commotion—to Marianne. "Here. The water's not very cool, but it's clean, at least."
Marianne left the pot on the ground in front of her and took the skewer in hand. "Um, what is it?"
"It's venison, salt-cured. I bought it off a hunter this morning, why?"
"Oh." She frowned slightly, hesitating for a moment, and took a small bite. As she chewed, she grimaced, but she did swallow it.
"Is there something wrong with it?" he asked.
"No, um..." She stammered for a moment. "It's just... not my favorite."
"Considering you were trying to eat me, I didn't think you'd be so picky," he said, with a forced chuckle.
She averted her gaze, and her voice shrunk to a whisper. "I'm sorry... it's just h-hard to explain right now."
"Ah, well, it's hard trying to think on an empty stomach too," he said, smiling a little sadly. "I know that better than anyone, and you look like you haven't eaten much at all."
"I promise I'll try to tell you more later. Thank you for the food."
"Sure thing."
Marianne ate slowly for a while, and drank a generous portion of water from the pot too. She thanked him again when she finished eating and settled more snugly into the bedroll, falling asleep before she could say good night.
What'd happened to her? He took his shirt down from the rock and folded it up into a makeshift cushion. In an effort to be gentle, he lifted Marianne's head and tucked it into place; she stirred, but didn't wake.
Questions could wait for morning, when they were both better rested. He fed the fire one last time and settled down on the earth beside Marianne, supporting his head with one of his arms as he lay on his side to face her.
This was no shortcut anymore.