A retelling of the climax of Anima’s Seal. One more chapter to go for the current batch of plot bunnies!

Don’t Break Me

I glided silently through the trees, Louise close behind me, stepping where I stepped with a grace that made me wonder if she’d ever had training in this sort of stealthy movement. I had no idea if that Milton could see us on Ceniro’s farseer, but I was doing my best to stay in the thickest cover, to make no sound, to show no sign of my trail. Baby Klein was quiet for now, and I prayed to Mother Earth that he would stay that way until we made it to the castle. If not, we’d just have to run. It wasn’t a good plan. But it was the best we could do right now. Ceniro didn’t want me on my own; Klein was safest with Louise. Continue reading →

I keep coming up with new things to write about with these two, help! Here’s an uncomfortably honest one. Any resemblance to actual people is unintentional; this is not autobiographical, although I did draw heavily on personal experiences. I hesitated to post this because it does seem a bit awkward and of a different tone than the other chapters, possibly even out of character. But it’s an experiment, and hey, you didn’t expect they had a universally perfect relationship, did you?

Fight With Me

It was a stupid fight. It was incredibly stupid and it shouldn’t have ended how it did. Something about who was supposed to have washed the pots from dinner last night? Ceniro was actually kind of lazy, and I was sure it was his turn, but he denied it. “I did them the night before, remember?”

“You’re imagining things,” I said. “I did them last night. Just do them, they won’t take that long.” If he suggested that I ought to do them because cleaning was women’s work – a thought I’d heard far too often in Caelin – I would hit him. But he hadn’t ever said that yet. Continue reading →

Whoa, got kind of steamy in here. But I think I salvaged it.

Stay With Me

Home! Home, home, home. Endless plains of grass, green and brown and yellow, with the occasional prickly thicket of brush and scrub. Gently rolling hills as far as the eye could see, vast blue sky arching over us, the summer sun burning down on us. The scent of the wind on my face! Ah, I was so happy!

I wasn’t sure whether to jump for joy, tackle my lover, or fall to the ground and roll around in the grass a lot. Maybe all three. Possibly at the same time.

I felt his eyes on me and turned to look at him, grinning my face off. “I’m home!”

“Yes, you are,” he said, responding to my smile. Continue reading →

Oh hei, a chapter. Almost done the main part of the story that I planned to write about, but I don’t plan to call THE END on the next chapter. I’d like to leave it open, so that if I have other Lyn/Ceniro ideas, I can put them here instead of starting new stories. Although they’ve been trying to tell me this one story idea… I think I should write Star of Bern first, before seeing about other spin-offs, especially original ones involving the Wind Warriors. ; )

Don’t Leave Me

It was a grey, cloudy day – but every day was a grey cloudy day on the Dread Isle. We’d reached the Dragon’s Gate unchecked, and now Nergal’s last artificial army was deployed against us. Nils was back with us at last, resolving to continue on in Ninian’s name, and warning us about Limstella, Nergal’s strongest morph, who commanded this army.

I was at the head of my knights, the pegasus sisters claiming the skies above, and Nino, Jaffar, and Canas accompanying us. The air was cool but not cold. I looked at the distant black-cloaked figures of morphs and smiled my hunter’s smile. With the calm voice in my ear and the Mani Katti in my hand and my friends behind me, nothing could stop me here. Continue reading →

Sorry not sorry to be teasing the Hector/Lyn shippers like this; I ship Hector/Lyn in-game, when Lyn/Tactician isn’t possible. I think they’re awesome together! They’re my alternate head-canon. : )

I started playing Shadow Dragon finally! I mean, again, but I would like to go until I finish it this time instead of getting distracted at like Chapter 5 or wherever I was previously. MARTH <3

Wait For Me

We were in Bern, traveling towards the Shrine of Seals. We’d seen many strange things since we arrived back in Badon, and we were about to see more, I was sure, in the next few days.

Ceniro’s hero Lord Pent of Etruria had joined our cause, with his archer wife Louise, and that event had loosened Ceniro’s tongue a little; now I got to hear all about his previous adventures with both of them. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said Ceniro loved Pent more than me! But the kisses we stole from each other throughout the day whenever we weren’t on the march were more than enough to assure me otherwise, not to mention the soft smiles that came over his face whenever he looked at me, or the sweet way he spoke to me when not in battle. We tried to be discrete, but privacy was hard to come by in this increasingly large group. Fortunately, we weren’t teased too hard by our companions. Continue reading →

This is mostly that bit from Chapter 10 of The Tactician and the Black Fang. Now I’m starting to feel it from Lyn… finally.

Believe Me

Lord Elbert was dead. Ninian and Nils were with us. The situation was far more complicated than any of us had feared.

And Ceniro had been avoiding me ever since I yelled at him in Badon.

I had to stay strong, for my companions, and for Eliwood, who was under so much stress even before we found and lost his father, but there was a part of me inside that was wretched. When I remembered how good friends we’d been last year, compared to now, I just wanted to go somewhere by myself and cry.

And now that we were back on the pirate ship, heading back to Badon, I had time to do that. To cry for Ceniro, and to cry for Eliwood, and to cry because I’d failed both of them. Continue reading →

Remember Me

There was no mistake. That was an army approaching from the east, an army with the banners of the house of Laus. My gaze was hard as I dashed back down the wall and over to the great hall to speak to my grandfather, my skirt and hair trailing behind me.

“There’s about three hundred of them,” I said as I approached him, and Wil, behind me, nodded to confirm. “They have seige weapons. I’m not sure how we’re going to fight them off. We only have half that number.” What with most of the Caelin army deployed in the east against a surge of banditry from Khathelet, we were severely underdefended against this surprise attack from Laus.

How dare they!? How dare they attack my grandfather, who hadn’t done anything to provoke it!? Continue reading →

Is it weird that I’ve accepted Ceniro/Lyn as endgame and I’m still not super feeling it from her at this point? : P

The title of this chapter makes me think of Kiss Me Paradox… The actual chapter absolutely does not. >.>

Kiss Me

Blood was pouring down my left arm from a deep spear-wound, mingling with cold rainwater. I couldn’t move it anymore or it would send bolts of agony lancing through me. But I hadn’t been hit anywhere else. I could keep moving, relying on the speed of my footwork, which was my greatest asset in this fight.

Lundgren towered over me, a tall, strong, middle-aged man. His spear was long and, as I had found, sharp, and his armour was thick. But I had the Mani Katti, and he couldn’t keep up with me. I gritted my teeth against the pain of my arm, keeping tears back, and braced my feet to attack again, glaring with fury and hate. This man was the cause of all my problems since I had started on this journey, this man was trying to kill my grandfather and me, and I would kill him here and now. Continue reading →

Now I’m wishing I’d put more scenes like this in the original story. But then it would have been EVEN LONGER! So this is fine.

Don’t you love Serra? XD

Look at Me

Kent and Ceniro had gone ahead to Castle Araphen – which was also a proper castle, by the looks of it – and the rest of us were wandering the city streets, guided by Sain. Almost none of us had been here before, and it was quite different from Bulgar, certainly. Bigger, firstly – the city was bigger, the houses were at least twice as tall, set closer together, and many of them were made of stone. The style was different, too, without any trace of familiar Sacaean elements anywhere. And it, unfortunately, smelled a lot worse than I’d been expecting. The streets might have been paved with stones, unlike Bulgar, but I just had to watch my step even more.

But the people were colourful, many of them dressed in brighter colours than most Sacaeans would wear… my own bright teal deel was not really common among my people. Most of them wore reddish-brown colours, or sometimes earthy green. My father had given my deel to me a couple years ago, saying I was the gift of Mother Earth and Father Sky to Mother and him, and the blue and green blended in the colour of my clothing was symbolic of that. After that, I never wore anything else. Here, though, people wore whatever colours they liked, it looked like. Reds and blues and greens and black and white, everywhere I looked. Continue reading →