The tactician’s dates and life from a scolarly point of view, and his own. The Scouring is Year 0.

    Hi. I’m Ceniro. Sometimes I misspell my name Cenrio when I’m using this funny electric thing that works sort of like a piano. To start at the beginning, I am the son of Caro son of Conrad son of Carson, and my mother is Patsi daughter of Hofman. My older sister, two years older, is Anlie. My brother, younger by five years, is Drew. Anlie is my confidante at home. She likes gardening. Drew wants to be a knight, but he’s too arrogant, in my opinion. Mother is pretty critical. She supports Drew all the way. Seems like I’m just too intelligent for my own good sometimes. Not that I’m criticising my mother. I love her, but she’s not as educated as I am. She’s also a little large. Father seems out of it, but he works very hard so doesn’t have much time for us children. He’s a carpenter.
    So much for my family. Now for me. I have light brown hair and grey eyes, called piercing by me, ‘eagle’s’ by Wallace, and mournful by Lyn, Eliwood, and Ninian. Same thing in the end, I suppose. I was born 956 years after the Scouring, in Araphen. When I was two, we moved to Santaruz in the summer. When I was seven, I went to elementary school in Pherae, across the border, with Anlie. School lasted three years. I was always a loner; I was always reading. Some of the girls flirted with me, but I never had a real friend besides Anlie. The boys seemed to be always picking on me. When I was fifteen, I won a scholarship and went to Ostia for more education. My mother was outraged; Ostia is very far from Santaruz. I signed up for a primary course in tactics by Sir Venedan and loved it. For the next two years, I was apprenticed to Lord Garlent. In the summer of ’74, he said I was good enough and sent me on my way. I went home first. That was the biggest argument I’ve ever had in my life. Mother couldn’t believe I’d wasted my hard-earned education on something as fluffy as tactics. Anlie tried to help me, but I just tore out of the house and set off for Tuscana then and there. Poor Anlie.
    I journeyed throughout Lycia for half a year, living on my wits; no one would hire an untested boy like me. I went to Etruria; same thing. Still, I was seeing the land, and that for me was rather more important than filling my belly. I passed through Ostia to Araphen to Bern, next, and then to Sacae. It was there that I met her.
    The girl I’m talking about is Lyn, of course. I was chased by bandits… again. They knocked me down and out, but ran away when she heard and came. That story’s been told elsewhere, how I accompanied her to Caelin, where she bade me farewell. By then, I had fallen in love with her. And if you saw her, you would know why. She is both beautiful, graceful, and also very smart.
    For a time in the fall of ’75, I went to Ilia to see more of the land of Pegasus knights. I had fought with Florina, of course, and knew what she could do, but by her own account she was a novice. I came back dazzled. Then I executed a short campaign in Etruria, recovering a magical artefact for a mage noble. I returned to Pherae in spring of ’76, and saw Anlie again. I stayed away from my parents’ home, though. Anlie was 22, I was twenty, and Drew was fifteen. Then, bandits (it’s always bandits, isn’t it?) attacked the village I was staying at. Lowen, good old nervous, self-conscious Lowen rescued me and Becky and brought us to Eliwood and Marcus. That story, too, is told elsewhere, how we travelled through ever-increasing danger and difficulty, though with more and more friends and allies. I don’t think Raven ever got past the distinction of ally, though he was pretty thick with Lucius, Priscilla, and Wil. There was just something about him that kept others away. Karel, too. He only talked to his sister, Karla. There were others, but this is not about them. It’s about me, and there’s not much more to say. I was shot on Valor, the Dread Isle, just in front of the Dragon’s Gate. Annoying, isn’t it, to get your friends all the way to the end, and yet not be able to go with them yourself? Anyway, I’m glad for Lyn, because she married Hector in the end, like I said she should. They took me back to Pherae, and gave me a nice burial in the castle garden. Eliwood and Ninian had their wedding there. Hector couldn’t, as he was Marquess Ostia by then and not really allowed to have a wedding in any place other than his own territory…
    My family came to my funeral. Poor Anlie, she became good friends with Lyn in order to talk about me to someone properly. Drew just stuck around with that bored look he cultivated. My father was openly regretful, but my mother said something along the lines of I-knew-he’d-come-to-a-bad-end. Even though three powerful lords of Lycia were my best friends, she just could not be reconciled to the idea of a ‘battle-thinker’ in the family. Hah… I laughed after she said that. Hector didn’t; gave her a death glare as Lyn sobbed some more into his shoulder. Mother was looking the other way. Ah well.
    Wil and Florina named their son after me. He’s a year older than Eliwood’s son and Hector’s daughter, Roy and Lilina. He’s gonna be a tactician too, someday; I can see it in his eyes as his parents tell him of their adventures in their youth.
    For my part, I’m dead, but I’m happy to have found a place in certain people’s hearts. Especially Lyn’s.
    Especially not Nergal’s.