#and my direct boss is nearly as cool as my one at my prev job :)

[dancedance-resolution]

today was my first day at my new job and it’s kinda great?? granted ny standards are low but like. !!! :D

[kalimarswriting]

Playing by Ear: Chapter 2

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Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem.

Chapter 2: First Battle

I knew I was out of shape, but running to the town took a lot more out of me than I cared to admit. When I finally made it I could hardly breathe, and it wasn't because of the smoke. (Though I would totally blame it on the smoke if anyone asked.)

It took an embarrassingly long time to recover from sprinting without warming up, and the heat generated from it was too much for the weather I was dressed for. My boots were warm, but there wasn't much to be done about that. If I loosened them I'd be even clumsier than usual. What I could do was tie my jacket around my waist and put my hat on my belt loop to cool down. I was surprised I hadn't gotten asked about my clothes actually. Really, were baseball caps secretly common? Oh, there went my focus again. It was time to focus on helping out now, not thinking about clothes!

Robin was nowhere in sight, and neither were the Shepherds or the bandits who were raiding the town. Houses burned on either side of the street, and people were running this way and that as they tried to rescue others from the destruction.

I thought about helping them, really I did! But their part of the chaos was never mentioned in the game, and I didn't know what would happen if I stayed out of the prologue's fight. Would I be forgotten, and left here in Southtown? As nice as it would be to stay away from the danger of fighting, if there was one thing I knew about the Shepherds it was that food and shelter were provided pretty much free of charge. Not only that, but you even get paid! I never liked the military, but fighting with the Shepherds sounded much better than living on the streets in a world I was unfamiliar with. With them I might even get strong! (…ish.) Really, the choice was easy. My pride wasn't going to let me avoid the fight anyway.

I stopped the nearest townsperson and asked for directions to the town square. "That way," the maiden said, pointing. I started in the indicated direction without waiting for her to finish. I was already late!

"Wait! Don't go there! There's bandits!" She yelled after me, but I waved her off and kept running. Oh my legs were going to be sore later! But I couldn't let that stop me. If I couldn't do this then I might as well quit, and I refused to do that.

I knew I was in the right place when I nearly tripped over a smelly guy with an axe. I caught myself before I actually fell, but I also caught the attention of the bandit. He turned from the supply cart he was pillaging (really? Eating on the job?) and swung his axe at me. I jumped back with a curse, barely dodging the blade slicing the air. He swung again, I dodged again. Rinse. Repeat. With adrenaline fueling me and my reflexes, I could do this all day.

Unfortunately, so could he, and if I made a mistake I'd probably die. I chanced a glance behind me and saw I was running out of space to dodge. Crud, time for a new plan. I needed to think, but I couldn't afford to take my attention off my attacker! It was only a matter of time before I tripped over my own feet…but I wasn't the only one who could make mistakes. I redoubled my efforts to concentrate on the ruffian and noticed the width of each swing; It was way too wide. I'd initially ignored the mistake because I had no weapon to exploit it with, but maybe I could still use it. I waited until there was only a foot or two between my back and the burning house I was being herded towards, and when the bandit reached the end of his swing I used the wall as a springboard to ram myself into his axe arm. The axe's momentum tore the weapon from his grip when the impact caused him to loosen his hold, lodging itself in the ground nearby.

Success! Now we were on even ground. Neither of us had weapons. But I had rammed myself into his arm, and so he took the opportunity to grab me in a choke hold. Stupid! I hadn't thought that one through.

And jeez, did I mention that this guy stank?

My feet left the ground when he straightened up, but that was his big mistake. With that my feet had room to swing, allowing me to kick him in the jewels. He went down like a stone. I dropped to the ground coughing, blinking the black from my vision for the second time that day, but this time I was smiling.

"Yes!" I had managed to defeat someone without dying!

The fight was going about as well as Robin expected, all things considered. Not that he knew what to expect. He had no memory to base any expectations off of, so as far as he knew it was perfectly normal to have an uncanny understanding of each individual skirmish. With a quick exchange of words with Chrom and some hurried commands he was able to direct the fight to the Shepherds' favor. Frederick was defending Lissa as she healed Chrom, who was still fighting through the slash to his arm. Robin was standing back from the fight a bit, casting a Thunder here and there when a brigand would otherwise have landed a hit. It was a strange, but surprisingly effective system.

An unexpected "Yes!" diverted Robin's attention from the skirmish in front of him to the celebrating figure a short distance behind him. He didn't know whether to be grateful or concerned that the girl from the field had followed him to protect the town, so he settled for a little bit of both. Concern quickly took over however when he saw her complete lack of weapon. What was she thinking coming here without something to defend herself with?! And drawing attention to herself by yelling?

Then Robin noticed the brigand writhing in pain on the ground. Oh. That was one way to do things. But it wasn't likely to work forever. Robin was pretty sure there were only a couple brigands left, all of which were engaged fighting with Chrom, but if he had missed the one she had dealt with then he couldn't be sure.

Better to be safe than sorry. Robin was pretty sure that was a saying somewhere, right? It seemed like sound logic. "Hey! Miss!"

"Hey! Miss!"

I almost jumped out of my skin, reflexes still overreacting from the adrenaline. Was that Robin? I glanced around in the direction I heard his voice come from until I spotted him several yards away. How convenient that the axe-man brought the fight closer to the Shepherds! As soon as I located him he shouted, "Next time, get a weapon!" and threw his sword at me. He threw his sword at me! Who does that?!

Instead of trying to catch it like I think he intended me to do I did the sensible thing and got the heck out of the way. I tripped over the unfortunate brigand I had momentarily forgotten about, who ended up getting bludgeoned in the gut by the sword's hilt. Poor guy. It was just not his lucky day.

"Dude! What the hell!" I screeched in indignation. I got off my butt and grabbed the sword before the fallen brigand could. He may have been down for the count but he could always recover.

Robin, for his part, looked like he was at a loss for what he could have done wrong. Fine. A battle was not the time for pettiness; I'd let him off the hook. There were better things to pay attention to anyway.

I took pity on the groaning brigand behind me and knocked him out by kicking him in the head. I kicked him pretty hard, harder than I'd hit anyone before, just to make sure he was actually out. I didn't want to take any chances. But did I kick him too hard? Should I check his pulse? Would that be stupid? Would I be considered weak for that? He was the enemy, and just a brigand no less. Not someone important. But still…

Perhaps I was deluding myself, but there was little reason to kill or permanently maim someone who could just be knocked out instead. I didn't need that kind of guilt weighing on me yet if I could help it. If only defeated foes would just disappear like they did in the game! You never had to worry what became of them after that.

Glancing around to make sure I wasn't about to be attacked, I quickly knelt down to check for a pulse. Stinky's neck was gross and sweaty, but his pulse was definitely present and fine. I internally laughed at myself for ever thinking I could hit someone hard enough to kill, even with one of my once-formidable kicks. As if I was strong enough for that!

I forced myself to get back to at least thinking of more productive things. If I stopped for much longer the adrenaline would wear off, and then I'd be even more useless than usual. It looked like Chrom and Robin were taking on the boss brigand while Lissa took a break. Frederick was giving me the evil eye. What had I done wrong now?

I was hesitant to piss Frederick off even more, but I also didn't know what he was so suspicious of me for (besides existing) so I chanced approaching.

"Problem?" I asked when I got close.

Rather than answering the knight just looked at me like I was some kind of filth. Okay…awkward. I left him alone and scooted closer to Lissa. Hopefully she had forgiven me for slapping her earlier.

Lissa must have seen the discomfort on my face because she made to to reassure me. "Don't mind Frederick, he's suspicious of everyone!" So I guess she saw that interaction back there. Smooth, me, smooth.

I remembered the knight's title, Frederick the Wary. It had seemed funny on the other side of the screen, but I could see now that it was going to get annoying pretty quick. Best way to deal with it was probably just to move past it. If I let it get to me I'd be even jumpier than usual, and that would look suspicious too!

"Alright. But is there anything I can do? I feel kind of useless standing here doing nothing."

Lissa thought for a moment. "Chrom and Robin have their fight well in hand, so I guess you could watch for any stragglers? You did get that last one after all."

"Can do!" I stood a little straighter with pride for someone noticing my accomplishment. Maybe I wouldn't be a burden after all!

Hm. That was starting to sound like a complex. Not a bad complex to have, since it fueled the desire to be useful, but I should probably be careful. I could be taken advantage of very easily with such a simple motive; I'd seen it happen before.

I shook myself out of my thoughts again and dutifully watched for any shady movements. A townsperson scurried across an alley causing me to twitch, but I stilled myself again. Refocus. Lissa shifted a bit and I almost cut her in half with the sword I forgot I was holding as I jumped towards the unexpected sound. She froze; I froze.

Shit. This looked pretty bad. Um.

"I'll just ah, step over here…" I said hesitantly. I awkwardly brought the bronze sword closer to my person and took a few generous steps away from her, making sure to keep her between me and Frederick. If he had been giving me the stink-eye before I could only imagine the glare I'd be getting now.

I tried to center myself again to keep watch, but my mind was still trying to go over what had just happened. I was holding a dangerous weapon and needed to remember that. Lissa had almost paid for my mistake. Should I apologize? That would go over well. 'Hey, sorry for trying to attack you for the second time today. They were both accidents, I swear!'

My paranoia senses were tingling, so I snuck a glance behind me. (I didn't dare look at Frederick) Chrom was watching me with a somewhat concerning expression while Robin practically exploded a ball of electricity on the boss. The sound of the boss hitting the ground took Chrom's attention off of me and back to Robin, but I was still uneasy. Chrom had probably just seen me attack his sister out of nowhere. The prince may have been trusting to a fault, but that would only get me so far.

Lissa also noticed the fall of the last brigand and was already on her way to check on the victors. Frederick followed, now keeping himself between me and Lissa. Understandable, considering. I lagged behind to keep a little distance from what I considered to be the biggest threat to my health at the moment.

The post-battle dialog was already under way by the time I got there. Letting the words drift to the background of my mind, I tried to assess how deep a hole I had just dug myself based on everyone's facial expressions. The only one who didn't seem completely unconcerned was of course Frederick the Wary, from whom I was receiving a glare worthy of Batman. I "eep"ed and hid behind Robin. This action did not go unnoticed and and I got a raised eyebrow from the tactician while Chrom sent an are-you-kidding-me-Frederick-you're-scaring-her-again look towards the knight.

I internally cringed at my own behavior. I wasn't always this skittish. I used to be confident and calculating. But I had failed a few too many times since then and been told off by a few too many people. Getting manipulated and developing some major anxiety put an end to my days of not letting anything bother me. Not to mention I had a feeling I was off my meds. I didn't remember how I had apparently gotten inside a video game, or stuck in the world it was based on, but I seriously doubted the universe had been kind enough to let me take my ADHD medicine first. That explained why I kept getting lost in my thoughts and why I was so jumpy. Actually no, I was always that jumpy. But normally I could at least pay attention to a conversation and right now I wasn't even managing to do that, and that was proof enough to me.

Dear Naga, was the world ready for me off my medications?

It was a legitimate concern. I had the most severe case of ADHD my doctors had ever seen. Off my medicine I was so annoying, I even annoyed myself! That's bad enough on its own, but I would go into withdrawal without my anti-depressants. Maybe the world could handle me, maybe, but I might not be able to handle the world without those pills. I needed to learn how to go without all of them, starting now. The first thing to do was to actually listen to what was going on around me again. Right. Hopefully I hadn't missed anything important.

I tuned back in to…silence? Had I really missed the whole thing? They were all looking at me. Perfect, I was supposed to say something.

"Um, I'm sorry, I just missed everything you just said. What was the question?"

"Milord, I told you, she can't be trusted. She obviously thinks if she plays dumb she can get away with anything."

Rude. "I'm right here you know."

Frederick turned to me. "Then care to explain why you attacked Lady Lissa again?"

Chrom's gaze was serious too. "I'd like to know that as well."

"That—that was an accident! I was on my toes looking for any lingering brigands and she moved and I reacted and I'm not used to having a sword!" I said all in one breath. I noticed my hands were shaking more than normal and started taking slower breaths to calm myself. Give me a physical fight any day, I could (sorta) handle that—it was the social stuff that got to me.

Chrom must have seen it because his stern expression softened. "Let's start over with something easier. What's your name?"

Ha, stupid me; Of course I forgot to introduce myself. "Merra. My name is Merra."

"Do you have a place to go Merra?" Chrom asked.

"No," my eyebrows furrowed as I tried once again to remember how I had gotten from my world to Ylisse, "I have no idea how or why I was in that field, or how to get home."

"Are you amnesiac too?" Lissa asked. Ah, the lucky question. Time for that cover story.

"No. I remember my life and who I am, just not how I got here." I hesitated, readying to launch into the whole friend-of-a-psychic story so I could make it convincing.

Frederick got impatient before I could even start. "Milord, this is ridiculous. Her story is as unbelievable as Robin's. We have no time to humor a spy. Did you not notice how friendly she was with that band of ruffians? She didn't even bring a weapon!"

"I wasn't thinking!" I said defensively, stepping out from behind Robin to be heard. "I fought that guy anyway, didn't I?"

"Obviously staged," he sniffed. "Otherwise she wouldn't have checked to see if he was okay once she had won."

"Well excuse me for never having killed someone before!" I raised my voice this time. I should have known that was a mistake.

Chrom intervened then. "Peace, both of you. It's easy to see that her clothes are foreign. I've never seen anything like them, so she must be from somewhere far away. Merra, you were at a disadvantage against that brigand if you truly fought him without a weapon, and yet you still won. That's no easy task. You have nowhere to go, so how would you feel about joining the Shepherds?"

My breath caught. "Even though I accidentally attacked Lissa twice?"

"As you said, those were accidents, and with proper training we can prevent that from happening again." Chrom was smiling now.

"Then yes!"

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