Fire Emblem (Edgar Frog Fanfic)

Chapter 1: Pier Pressure

Chapter 1: Seraphina's POV

Lights shone from both sides of the pier as I haphazardly followed behind the two slightly older boys shoving through the crowd ahead of me. While my body lingered back, my eyes followed them closely so I knew exactly where to find both or at least one of them when I finally felt like being jostled in the California crowd. If I hadn't needed to trace my brothers' movements with my eyes, I would have easily allowed myself to become entranced by the neon lights drowning out the dark shadows of the night.

Both boys pause for a moment about a quarter of the way from the dark end of the pier, Michael muttering something to Sam as he releases his hold on Sam's shirt and continues down towards the end of the pier. Sam goes straight for a little ways until his head is turned by the lights and he disappears beneath the neon lights into a building. Mentally noting the building, I continue to watch Michael until he makes a sudden right into the depth of the night. Blowing a breath from between my lips, I balance between where I should go or who to follow.

Deciding to take my time as Sam hadn't reappeared from the building onto the main boardwalk, I allow my eyes to drift just slightly onto the bright blue, yellow, and pink hues the neon lights created. I suddenly wish I'd brought my polaroid, for even if it would only capture the dimmest of the neons, it'd still capture some of what I am experiencing. A tug from the right edge of my jacket captures my attention and my head turns downward to find a young boy staring up at me. The neon lights color and reflect in his eyes, but nothing can tone down the vivid fear so clearly etched into his facial features.

I kneel down to be eye level with him and offer him a gentle smile, "Are you lost?" He nods oh-so-timidly, reminding me very much of myself around people my age or older. "What's your name?" In the smallest of voices "Laddie" peeps out from the left corner of his mouth. I smile a little wider and lift my hand in exchange for his willingness to give me the tiniest piece of information. "Nice to meet you, Laddie. I'm Seraphina. Where were you last before you got lost in the crowd?" He turns slightly and extends his arm to the left of him, pointing to the pizza sign a ways down the boardwalk while his other hand curls around mine. "You're doing great, Laddie. Who were you with-"

An exclamation to the left of me causes my head to raise, finding a tall, lean male a couple of years ahead of me bounding towards us from the dark break between the buildings. Laddie seemingly perks up when he sees the same man, a relieved grin replacing the scared frown he'd found me with. The man crosses the sea of people easily, immediately bending down to scoop up the young boy into a tight hug. I release Laddie's hand and awkwardly glance downward, reverting to my normal tactics around older males.

The shadow of a hand brushes across the ground beside my own, my body instinctively flinching at the sudden, unexpected movement. The shadow immediately pauses and retracts, my eyes drifting back upward to find the admittedly attractive male staring at me with an expression I don't see too often and slowly a recognition or realization dawns on him as his lips part to say something. However, unbeknownst to us, Laddie's gaze had latched onto something or rather someone a few steps down and whatever he'd been intrigued by caused a loud growl to escape his throat. Almost animalistic.

Once again my instinct take over, but instead of flinching it tells me to run. My instinct screams for me to spin on my heel and head for the neon lights Sam had disappeared under and to not look back, to not be tricked into leaning just a few inches forward and look at Laddie's face for a clearer explanation. And that alone, causes me to run without as so much as a breath in the same direction of the two mysterious strangers.

I practically tumble into the store's threshold, clumsily catching my footing only when I've pressed myself against the wall opposite to the one with the door. As I catch my breath, my eyes wander around the place to find I've entered a comic book shop, causing a grin to etch itself onto my face as I scan the hundreds of editions around me. As I walk further into the shop, my ears overhear someone ask, "Where are you from? Krypton?"

It's almost immediately answered by Sam's voice responding with, "Phoenix. Lucky me, we moved," He takes a long pause that makes me roll my eyes at his rudeness to whomever he is speaking to. "Here." My eyes continue to scan the comics on both sides of me until my attention is captured by rowdy older men clearly drunk, but teetering over the edge of the bar line and the comic book store's opening to them. I drink in their actions and their ever growing movement while I hear Sam deny a horror comic because he doesn't like them. The same voice who'd teased Sam about being from Krypton utters something along the lines of 'it could save your life' but my eyes don't have time to spin over my shoulder and cast a glance at the conversing pair as the man leans over the line, reaching for the pile of comics nearest him.

Swiftly, my body moves in front of the comic pile blocking his incoming attack. The man narrows his eyes and attempts to reach around me but I step right in his way again. His free hand lifts, causing me to stumble back in fear but by then two boys are there, yelling at them to fly off or be arrested by cops that they're gonna call. I can feel eyes on me, but I don't dare meet the gaze, turning my eyes to the floor.

"Hey, Ser. Breathe." Sam quietly utters as his hand slowly reaches for my shoulder but I cower and he retracts it back to his side with an apology. With the rowdy drunks gone, the two boys turn toward me or at least the dark haired one who hadn't stared at me turned back toward me.

The voice is on edge and not necessarily deep, but is clearly going to get there in a few months with the way it sounds now. "Mr. Phoenix, you know this girl?"

"Yea, she's my sister."

"How-"

The dark haired one elbows the other boy in the side slightly, getting more of his arm than his abdomen but effectively shutting the other one up. "Whoever she is, we owe you a thanks for getting those surf-nazis away from our comics." I smile softly and nod in acceptance but don't meet either of their gazes or say a word. In fact, I even take a small step back to put some space between myself and the three boys because I felt crowded around- too enclosed.

Sam steps back just a little bit to give me more room and the inquisitive one chimes in with a, "My brother just thanked her and she didn't say anything, she won't even look at us. Can she speak?"

There's a long pause that causes tension to hang in the air. "She's chronically shy. She'll come around." Sam's response is met with a grunt and before I make the situation worse, I turn my head back to the comic books surrounding us and shuffle between Sam and the raven haired boy who seemed much kinder than the inquisitive one. Walking down the aisle, my eyes scan over each comic searching for something interesting as I mentally check off either ones I own or ones I've read before. Then at the beginning of the aisle, closest to the register I find a vampire comic book with an artistic cover I can't skip over.

My fingertips brush over the lines of the intricate detailing of the horrified victim's face before they fall onto the vampire chasing him. "It's yours if you want it." I jump at the sound of the dark haired boy's voice so sudden and close. "Right. Sorry. Habit."

"We tried giving it to your brother, but he's scared. It could save your guys' lives." I pick it up with a small smile on my face, turning to Sam while gesturing at the cover with my empty hand. My eyebrow raises in question and he crosses his arms over his chest, playfully narrowing his eyes to deter me from my light teasing.

He points his index finger at me adamantly, shaking it to stop any further questioning. "You know I don't do horror comics." I emphasize my point of the lack of horror on the cover by gesturing to it again. The dark haired boy chuckles from beside me while the other one snorts from behind him. "Don't do that! It looks- look at how terrified the guy is." I roll my eyes at his lack of evidence to prove this comic would be so terrifying to him. "Whatever. I think it's time to go anyway. Michael should be done chasing that girl now and Mom's gonna kill us if we get home too late."

Part of it is true while the other part is only because he doesn't want me to ruin his reputation in front of these new guys no matter how peculiar he seems to think they are. I don't drop the comic book much to Sam's dismay as his eyes fall onto the book. However, just to make him drop the subject, I pull it tight against my chest to end our silent conversation and tell him he's just lost the battle. Without another word to either of the boys, Sam turns and disappears into the lights on the boardwalk while I follow behind.