Maelys's POV.
"Oh ho ho! Isn't this sweeter than plain cane sugar?!" Gaius remarks, his face is the epitome of genuine amusement and pleasure at the otherwise incredibly strange circumstances.
The young man clings to me, and I grimace in pain from my wound. Did he not realize he was taller, heavier and too old to be jumping in people's arms like a child? Dear Naga. What in the seven hells was going on?
"W-wait, Morgan," Lucina says, trying to gain her brother's attention, and failing.
It sounds as if he is sniffling.. And I feel bad for thinking such cruel thoughts but I wish he would grow a pair and get his snotty teary-eyed mass off of my gosh darn body!
"Oh mother, I am so glad to see you. But you look so young?! Did you create an age reversal spell?"
Oh bother..
"MORGAN." Lucina yells, and the teenage boy turns his head, veeeery slowly from my shoulder and towards his darker haired sister.
"Do you mind? I'm having a moment." he says seriously, then turns back to me.
The older girl was not having it though, as she stood up on her feet, forgetting that she was in a hostage situation and her hands should be tied - and grabs Morgan off of me by the collar of his shirt.
"You're acting like a child, this is why I wanted you to stand behind!" she exclaims, and Owain starts to panic. "Guys, uh I mean, Brethren, can we please not draw the attention, er the intrigued gazes of our captors?"
His worried and hasty words are wasted, as Morgan just whines, and my head starts to pound at the events. "Luuuuucy,"
"No, Morgan, you listen closely, first. What in Naga's name are you doing with a bunch of cannibals?" she asks, and confirms my suspicions. So I wasn't the only one to hear it. "Secondly, she," she points at me "is not our mother. Father is married to Sumia, remember?"
Oh, If words could kill.. Our captors should have stabbed my heart multiple times and cut it out with a dulled knife, that would be more welcomed that those words.
"Lucina.." Owain warns, he looks pale as a ghost. I follow his gaze to see that outside of the fencing - a bunch of men with weapons and very long point sticks stand there, as if enjoying the show.
Huh. Maybe they heard my musing and decided to take me out of my misery.
Even though I think that, I scrabble away from the side of the fence to the middle, maybe a little too quickly - away from the holes they could jab me with. As do the three men who are actually paying attention.
Morgan and Lucina are still wrapped up in their siblingly fight.
"Hate to interrupt, but we have a situation," I say to them, of course Morgan listens to me and quickly bounds over to my side like a long lost puppy. Lucina finally realizes what is going on just in time to avoid one of the very long and pointy sticks poke her in the side.
We huddle in a very strange heap, just out of the reach of the weapons.
"You guys are no fun." one man says with a sigh.
"We like to play with our food here," another grins evilly, and a thought crosses my mind that probably shouldn't have at this dangerous moment but did.
Henry would fit right in here, except from the eating people part.. Though, I don't think he'd be impartial to the idea.
"What do we do?" Lucina asks me, and I am at a loss. We were sitting ducks.
Gaius pulls his little knife, "We fight?"
I roll my eyes, about to say something to the effect of 'you and what army?' but he's already taken off towards the fence with a battlecry. I swear he's lost his marbles without any candy to snack on.
His sad attempt works a bit though, his only mistake was launching our ONLY weapon through the hole into the eyeball of one of the opposing men instead of just stabbing those who get to close. HIs antics only serve to send them into a rage, shouting things about how it was time to feast and other sadistic things that I don't care to mention.
"What the hell are you thinking?" Lon'qu shouts at the theif, he shrugs in response. "I thought I could scare them."
Naga, please save me. Don't let me die because of my idiotic companions.
The rioting ensues, the men start to run towards us, some fumble for the gate and just as they start to pour in, screams erupt from the mouths of those farthest away. I throw my arms protectively infront of those behind me, which was the everyone but myself, but instead of being stuck like a wild animal, the overflow of humans inside of the cage now turns around to see why their fellow cannibals are so frightened.
I try and relax my arms, feeling them cramping from my heroic and motherly hen actions. Morgan stands in front of me, "Mother, let me handle this." he pulls out a tome from inside the pocket of his robe, and I want to facepalm but refrain, why hadn't he use that before when he was fighting with that first man?
Powerful fire shoots from his hand at the unsuspecting people at an intense rate, and they scream from the burns. He's using incredibly powerful fire tomes, though he's so young. How did he master those, I start to feel proud, but realize that was stupid cause he obviously was not my son, so why be proud?
Everyone starts running out, I glance around to see what was happening, and see familiar faces in battle. Sully's red hair dances onto of her head, and Frederick easily cuts down a man with his ax. I see them because they're on horseback, but I know the others are all here too.
I take a huge sigh of relief and collapse on the ground, from and overdose of adrenaline or from the loss of blood, I am not sure, but my vision is blurry but I'm thankful that the darkness creeping up waited this long to take me instead of earlier.
Chrom's POV.
Calling out orders and fighting by myself is extremely taxing. I had to keep up with my men, giving them encouragement and insight, while at the same time watching my back and protecting myself.
I did not wish to kill all these people, but they were giving no choice. I'm just glad we arrived on time.
We had been watching from above, on the cliffs. This was a strange little hole that they had built their civilazation in, and of course there were lookouts, but it was easy to take them out and position ourselves in their places.
By the way they fought, I could see why our men were captured. They fight together, as one being, much like ourselves. They make many face one enemy, and overpower them, the strategy behind it was simple but solid. It wasn't easy to pull of with small forces, but with a group this size..
I duck as an ax comes swinging past my head, and take my turn to cut down the ax-wielder.
If we didn't have to kill all of them, I wouldn't, I had already told the troops to retrieve our friends and we would pull back. If they came after us, then we would slaughter them, but if they did not, there would be no point in unessecary bloodbath.
"My Lord, we have secured the location of the missing men!" I hear from my side, I look to see Stahl, ontop of his steed, gallop his way over to me and offer a lending hand. "Are they alright?"
"I heard that they all are standing except one,"
That was good news.
"Fall back then!" I command, and Stahl takes the order and calls it out to everyone he comes in contact with. I quickly make my way through the fighting, in the way I noticed a tall fencing, just in time to see Lon'qu run through the gate.
Thank Naga. The fighting slows down, it seems their men are retreating as well, I go through the crowds back up the way we had came, watching for any movement. My men follow, on edge, ready to attack if need be, but as we make it to our designated meeting area - a clearing not too far off, but far enough that we would be safer, we find they had given up completely from the shouts and cries of women who emerged from their homes to find their husbands and sons dead in their own camp.
I had a twinge of guilt, these were people just like us, but.. For some reason they took my men and for that, they needed to be punished. If they had just handed them over, it would have been another issue, but they seemed hell-bent on fighting. They lost their lives foolishly.
Quickly, my troops start setting up a makeshift camp, medical tents start going up, and the convoy starts to settle down.
I started to call Frederick, and let him relay to the troops that we were not staying here for the night. We need to go a couple of more miles at least, to avoid any confrontation but my thoughts were interupted.
"Make way!" I hear Lissa, my sister call. That was why the medicial tents were up, she must have commanded it.
"We've got wounded," her friend, Mirabelle, another healer has her stave out, going through the ranks.
"How many?" I call out to her, wanting to know how much damage we had taken.
She glances over in my direction, "We have only a few causalities, though they fight like dogs. We have many minor wounds and only a couple severe." she gives the report.
I thank Naga again, it could have been worse from the way I observed the opposing force, "And of the rescued?"
"Lon'qu suffered a couple of rope burns to his arms and neck looks as if they tied the poor dear up and dragged him, Gaius has hardly a scratch on him, Owain's all healed up now thanks to Lissa, Lucina has some colorful bruises and.." she pursues her lips out, "Our worst is Maelys, we started admistering cures to her as soon as we got there. She was still unconcious about three minutes ago from an overwhelming loss of blo-"
I don't let her finish. It's very unleaderlike of me, unprofessional but my legs had a mind of their own as they took off towards one of the tents. I see Olivia there, who's helping bandage up the minor cuts, "Where's Maelys?" I ask her, and she shrinks down slightly.
"Sir, pardon me but I don't think it's wi-" she squeaks as I tap my foot, I must have a grimace on my face, but it gets her to point to the next door tent. I squeeze my way through the line of people, and bust through the flaps of the "severely damaged' medicial wing.
"Chrom!" Lissa exclaims, "Get out!"
I ignore her and take a deep breath, the smell of alcoholic cleaning supplies and the sight of sterlized equipment is almost overpowering but I take a moment to regain my sanity and slowly walk further in.
Lissa stands in front of me, but she's small and short, so it's easy for me to gently push her to the side and walk up to the extended cot which held the delicate frame of my tactitican.
I stare down at her, sweat beads are popping from her forehead and her breathing is labored, my eyes trail down and linger on her cracked lips, to the paleness of her hands and finally rest of the deep red blood caked onto the clothing, I can see the irritated and nasty cut at her hip bone. It makes me shiver.
"Why haven't you cleaned this yet?" my voice is low, as I address my sister.
Lissa pushes my arm, "because I have to undress her first, now please go before I call Frederick!" she insists, a couple of other skilled healers are present, and they all look at me with pity.
The battle taking place in my stomach made me cringe, "Fix her," I say, raspily, then turn on my heel and quickly go through the door.
I take a huge deep breath as I emerge into the clear air, the roar of my troops had died down as the wounded start sitting down in random and the others tend to them. I can smell the scent of food and I sigh.
Looks like we would be camping here tonight. I couldn't bare to move Maelys now, not the way..
"Father?"
I look up, that voice was of a man, not of a-
I see Maelys's eyes staring at me with concern, but they're not her's. They're on the face of a young male, who resembles her so intensely. This must be her son from the future!
But..
"My apologies, have we met?" I ask, nothing was impossible, I had quickly learned that.
His bottom lip puffs out in a childish pout, "Father, you don't remember me?"
Gods, do I have another child?!
I stare at him, dumbfounded but am saved as Lucina quickly runs over, breathing heavily. "There you are, Morgan. Are you filling people's heads with falsehoods?! I hear it going around!" she scolds the boy.
Dear Naga, I do have a son.
"Lucy, I found father!"
She quickly turns to me, "Father! Don't listen to a word he says, he's delusional, he's telling people that you're his father and that.."
"Where's mother?" he - Morgan interrupts Lucina and I gaze at him.. Those eyes and those facial features, he has got to be Maelys's son.
"She's being healed at the moment, now please, allow me to explain the situation to fa-"
He interrupts again, "She's in here? Oh! No wonder Father came out of there looking so gloomy. Don't worry, she's gonna live. She can't just die without having me yet!"
"MORGAN." Lucina is flustered, yelling at her brother?
"Pardon?" I say, confusion overtaking me.
Morgan grins, 'I'm your son, Chrom! And Maelys is my mother!"
I do believe I'm hearing things, but the way Lucina put's her face in her hands in exasperation tells me I might just be wrong.