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Protecting a Sword	By : The13thStranger Category: +A through F > Fire Emblem (all) > Fire Emblem (all) Views: 4478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I swear I own nothing of Fire Emblem, and make no money at all with it.

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The ring was still in her pocket a few days later, when they entered Grado and marched on the capital.

Marisa had by then been reassigned as Natasha’s guard, on the hope that one feeling the other in trouble wouldn’t cause them to break formation and sprint to the other side of the battlefield. Again.

There was also that bit where Marisa was nigh immortal with the advanced healing the bond afforded.

So far the castle had been quiet. Small skirmishes were breaking out in random areas of the castle’s halls, and eventually the two found themselves relatively alone.

“…Should we fall back?” Natasha asked. It had been nearly ten minutes since Marisa had to kill anything, so returning for more orders seemed to be a good plan.

“…maybe.”

“Now!” The ambush consisted of two priests and a heavy knight. Then the priests raised a pair of staves.

Natasha was encased for a moment in a violet prism that Marisa recognised as the effects of silence.

And then she saw red.

Her head was overtaken with the most unimaginable pain, adrenaline surged through her system and she ached to kill.

One of them approached, and she swung her sword, cutting satisfyingly deep. If it weren’t for that blasted pain in her head, she would’ve had the presence of mind to do worse then leave the enemy bleeding on the floor.

She stepped forward to finish the job when clarity rammed itself into her mind and wrestled with the berserk haze and she saw who it was she had cut.

Natasha lay there on the floor, bleeding from the most grievous wound she had likely ever sustained, assaulting the bond and forcing reason into the throbbing chaos.

If anything though, that only made Marisa’s anger worse.

She turned to the three responsible, and gathered herself.

“…I am a sword.” Natasha’s interference weakened the berserk considerably. Marisa still needed blood, but now she could decide where she wanted to take it from.

“My body and will are a honed blade.” The priest holding the berserk staff saw something was going wrong and tried again, but those tricks couldn’t work on her right now. She was giving the bloodlust exactly what it wanted after all.

“I know not compassion, mercy, or fear.” She spoke calm as death, even as her sword pierced the priest’s middle and the berserk staff clattered to the floor.

The sword easily ripped out through the priest’s side to parry the knight’s lance.

“I am not alive. I cannot die.” Marisa’s countering strike cut up the knight’s side, expertly severing several straps for his breastplate. Balance thrown off by his perilously shifting armour, the knight retreated, swinging his lance in a wide arc. Ducking under the sweep was child’s play.

“All that I am is the end of my enemy.” The mantra her father had taught her struck an ominous cord as the knight threw out a desperate kick in a last attempt to stop the possessed woman.

“It is the reason I have been forged.” Marisa’s own kick struck the inside of the knight’s thigh, doing no damage through the plate, but throwing the man dangerously off balance. He fell forward as Marisa’s sword thrust up through the visor of his helmet.

“S-stop!” She turned her expressionless face to see the remaining priest had made his way over to Natasha and put a dagger to her throat.

“I’ll kill her if you don’t back off!” Marisa didn’t bat an eye. Instead, she disappeared from view.

The last thing the priest knew was the crimson flash of a bloody sword.

--

Marisa stopped the bleeding with a vulnerary, scooped the cleric up, and started back towards the castle gate. Natasha was still under silence, and could do nothing but rest in Marisa’s arms.

It was marveling how light the cleric was, even though she was physically bigger…

Minutes passed with the only sound heard being Marisa’s footsteps in the castle halls.

“Are you alright?” Natasha asked her as soon as the spell broke. The swordswoman couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Only one wound between the two of us. What do you think?” Marisa didn’t want to dwell on how she got the wound in the first place. She had accepted that it was the berserk staff, and they were actually lucky in the end, but the thought of Natasha’s blood on her blade still gave her chills.

“Did you not feel it? Your soul…”

“What about it?”

“I could… feel the berserk spell though it. I felt your anger. You wanted to kill them, me, how can you pretend that never happened?”

“I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now. Speaking of, why didn’t you run when you felt all of that? You knew what it meant.”

“I needed to save you. I refuse to leave you when your soul is being violated in such a way.” In the end, it was probably a good thing that she did whatever she did. Marisa, flailing about like a wild beast, wouldn’t have been able to kill a knight in heavy armor. Marisa couldn’t stop herself from scoffing at the admission, however.

“I am a sword. You shouldn’t be worried about protecting me at all.”

“I am a sentinal. Protection is what I am. It is how I was born and the way I was raised. My role is to prevent you from coming to harm.”

“…No.” That was going to stop before she got herself killed.

“Excuse me?”

“That isn’t your role.”

“It is how the bond wo-“

“No. It isn't. I can feel when you’re in trouble too. When you’re sad or angry, or anything that I should be there for. I’m no different from you.”

“Marisa, you must understand, I do not mean to…”

“Your priority is me, I get that. It should be us.” Whatever Natasha had been expecting from her, it probably wasn’t that. Her eyes studied Marisa as she was probably hearing what might have been some form of Grado blasphemy.

“…Natasha, I’m new to this whole… thing, but you’re one of four people in the world that I’d die for. Just, would you… don’t do that to me…”

“But… you ar-“

“I don’t care what you are and what I am. The words ‘guide’ and ‘sentinel’ don’t mean anything to me. But you do, so… so you’re not a sentinel anymore. And I’m not a guide. We’re just… together. Your role is to be with me and…” Marisa found herself unable to really say anything else, since her thoughts were starting to degenerate into childish babble. Natasha probably got the message anyway.

She might have. She studied the swordswoman, whose gaze was off to the side and avoiding her own. It was rare she ever said this much at all, so she was very much sincere. So she was probably keeping from eye contact out of that jittery nervousness that she seemed prone to whenever subjects concerning the bond or them came up.

This was probably the first thing Marisa had ever really asked her for, now that she thought about it.

She didn’t realise the magnitude, but she was effectively asking Natasha to somewhat redefine what she was told the bond should be. She wanted the traditional blend of guide and sentinel to be set aside for something she viewed as more… equal.

It might have been for the best. Marisa was at the moment much better in battle then she was. While Natasha had been raised to serve and heal, Marisa was raised to fight and kill. While Natasha was getting quite proficient with light magic, Marisa remained superior in experience.

…Marisa had also been raised to confine her soul and ward intruders from it. Conditioned to hide herself and avoid contact matching her father’s vague descriptions.

Though the bond itself was incidental and against Marisa’s wishes in the beginning, in the end she had been willing to change for it. For her.

…If what Marisa wanted was an equal relationship, then it was only fair that Natasha change for her as well.

So the cleric accepted their state of affairs, and wrapped her arms around Marisa’s neck.

“I love you too.” She whispered to the swordswoman’s ear. And Marisa’s cheeks colored and she grunted in a way that said she had heard, but couldn’t really bring up the words to respond.

That was fine. Natasha was very aware that she cared. Now more then ever. So she did not have to hear it voiced. There were other ways to express it after all.

Natasha probed the bond and embraced Marisa through their souls. And she hummed contentedly and rested her head on Marisa’s chest when she felt the embrace returned.

--

Marisa very much on purpose ignored everybody who saw her carry Natasha to the healer’s tent like some gallant storybook hero carrying their bride. Especially Tethys.

And Ewan. Cursed little blight on her day…

Tethys though, didn’t bow out gracefully. Instead she dragged Gerik with her into the tent to visit them (she had said them, as if she knew Marisa wouldn’t leave the cleric’s side, goddess dammit) and perhaps to show off the new jewelry on her hand.

She also made it a point to glare at her accusingly when she noticed that Natasha’s hand was bare.

In any event, Natasha was delighted to hear of the engagement, and her and Tethys started talking of things that Marisa couldn’t hear because she was taking Gerik aside for a chat.

The way he looked at the recovering Natasha when Marisa brought up berserk staves and measures to take against them said that he had probably made the connection. He had the tact to stay silent on that matter though, and they discussed tactics in battle until the visit came to a close and the priest on hand said that Natasha was alright to get up and move about, the wound all but gone.

Marisa wondered idly if she should learn how to use healing staves, if the bond benefits would make them as useful as Natasha’s were on her.

They took dinner with Marisa’s ‘family’ and Franz had again come to join them. The meal passed without incident, Ewan’s target having changed to Tethys as soon as he found out about her possibly getting hitched with the boss.

Marisa eventually found herself in what was now their tent, trying to figure out how to phrase the question she had without sounding like a total idiot.

“Are you alright?” And it looked like she was out of time on that one. Damn bond…

“Fine.”

“You are conflicted. Is it anything to do with me?”

“What makes you think that?”

“…it usually is.” Advantage to Natasha. Sigh.

“…Did you… like Tethys’ ring?” And she sounded like an idiot asking that. She knew she did.

“…I… did? Why do you ask?”

“I, um… wondered if you wanted a ring.”

“Oh?”

“Well w-we’re married and everything so…” Marisa remembered dearly those times she looked down on loud giggling village girls, tripping over their words like the clumsy half-wits they were. She missed those days.

“It… is customary for rings to be exchanged when a bond is made in Grado. You do not have to be concerned about such a thing though, I do not mind at all.”

“Well… I kind of already… did…” Marisa stuttered as she reached into her pocket. Natasha seemed at a loss, hand over her mouth when she quietly gasped at the sight of the ring in the warrior’s callused hand.

“…you got this for me?”

“Yeah. S-so… it’s supposed to go on a certain finger, right?”

“...Yes. This one on my left hand.” Something as simple as putting a ring on that finger should’ve been a hundred times easier then it was. It took only a couple of seconds, but it felt big, important, even if it was only a formality at that point.

Like a confession, if anything. Marisa visibly trying to bond back, perhaps.

And when it was over, and Natasha admired the ring on her finger with a small fond smile, Marisa was hopelessly trying to figure out what came next. A rustle snapped her attention back to the woman in front of her, now digging into her satchel.

“…I took very little with me when I left Grado. Aside from supplies, the only keepsake I had was from when my mother died, and the temple accepted me as a servant of the goddess.” Natasha placed her satchel aside, and took Marisa’s hand.

The ring that was slipped on was an ordinary gold band, with a few small embedded emeralds. A simple ring.

“It suits you.” Natasha said, all smiles and soul radiating joy, and Marisa didn’t fight the urge to put her hands on those cheeks and pull that lovely face down to hers.
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Protecting a Sword