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sacred-stanning · 4 days

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Chapter 16 Part 7: Taking out the boss and then having an after party

We're almost to the boss. Moulder attacks this Druid just because he can.

And Cormag finishes the job and gets another pretty meh level.

Oh, and Thief appears here during enemy phase, I guess to go get the chests in the upper right corner if you don't move fast enough.

Here's the boss now. Orson starts with a Silver Sword Equipped, but he has a Slender Spear too.

But Lute solves all problems.

Orson: "Monica and I will live together happily."

So I dance up Lute and let her take another crack at him.

Hey! More res! More speed! Awesome!

I send Vanessa and Cormag over to the right to get rid of the Thief, and Rennac opens the bottom chest, which I think just straight up had money in it.

The other two chests have a Knight's Crest (don't need it, so money basically) and a Talisman.

Hey! Tethys level!

So yeah, then I clump everyone together and hit end turn a bunch to get more supports.

"Hey, you!"

Lute resolves to ignore Ross when he first calls out to her.

"You! Mage woman!"

"I thought for sure that you were calling out to someone named 'Yoo'!"

Ross introduces himself as "Ross, son of the Warrior Garcia".

"Nice to meet you, Ross-son-of-the-warrior-garcia! What a long name you have!"

It's interesting, because of how Japanese works with its multiple writing systems, it's immediately clear that she has mushed the whole phrase together to be one name because it's all written out in Katakana, unlike when Ross introduced himself above and there was a mix of Kanji (for the words "warrior" and "son"), Hiragana (for the grammatical possessive particle, "no"), and Katakana (for the actual names, "Ross" and "Garcia").

"I am the exceptional genius mage, Lute."

(Lute uses an interesting word here, "kidai", which has the characters for "rare" and "world" or "generation". It's a word that expresses that something is exceedingly rare in this world. I like to think of it like the phrase, "once in a generation".)

Ross asks if Lute can use magic, to which she replies, "Saying that I 'use' it doesn't begin to describe the level I have achieved. It's more accurate to say that I live and breath it!"

Here, Lute differentiates between "tsukaeru" (use) and "jizai ni ayatsuru" (to manipulate or control something with total freedom and power over it).

Ross asks Lute if he can learn to use magic.

"Impossible"

An interesting thing to note, that's true in all of her conversations, not just this one, is that Lute tends to exclusively use "keigo" (polite speech). She ends her sentences with either "desu" (the polite form of the copula "da"), or the "masu" endings of the verbs.

I think this is done to show her awkwardness. While polite speech like this is really important in Japanese, overdoing it can make a person sound stiff or unfriendly...or like a first-year Japanese student. Of course, the whole judgment of when to use polite speech, and when to use more casual speech is its own whole thing, but that's really true in any language, it's just that Japanese has these actual grammatical forms that make it particularly obvious.

"Hey, you!"

Lute was tired. She was surprised at how tired she was was. These battles were really getting to be too much. She was so glad that she was one of the people asked to stand guard in the throne room while a final sweep of the castle was done to look for remaining soldiers. It meant she had a chance to just...sit.

"Hey, you!"

There was that voice again. How annoying! Lute recognized it as the noisy boy with the axe who was always yelling and slapping people on the back when he was friendly with them. She wasn't friendly with him, so she didn't really expect to get slapped on the back, but she also was too tired to deal with him and his yelling. She just wanted to sit here on her horse and space ou--

"Hey, you, mage girl!"

The noisy boy had walked right up to her. Lute frowned. She had really hoped that ignoring him would work, but now he was standing there, right in front of her, grinning for some reason.

Why was he always so loud?

"Hmm?" Lute finally responded. "Oh. I thought you were calling for Yoo..." she thought for a moment. She knew that there had been a name like that.

"Ewan!" she remembered suddenly. "That was it."

"I thought you were calling for Ewan," she said, looking grumpily at the noisy boy.

"Huh? No, no! I wanted to talk to you! What's your name, by the way?"

His voice was too loud, and she could smell the sweat on him even from a body length away. But Lute couldn't think of anyway out of this, so she answered curtly, "Lute".

"Nice to finally talk to ya, Lute!" the boy smiled. "My name is Ross, the son of the warrior, Garcia!"

"I didn't ask and I don't care," Lute thought grumpily, but then something occurred to her that amused her. He had said that his name was "Ross, the son of the warrior, Garcia". She loved the literal interpretation of his statement!

"Hi, Ross-the-son-of-the-warrior-garcia" she said, straight-faced, but grinning to herself inside her head. "That's a very long name you have."

The silly boy looked confused for a moment like he didn't know how to respond. Then he guffawed, "Nah, nah. My name is Ross! Just Ross! I'm Garcia's son!"

With the temporary diversion of wordplay all finished, Lute was already bored with the conversation again. She racked her brain for some excuse to be done with it when the boy spoke again.

"So...you can use magic, right?"

This grabbed Lute's interest again. Slightly. "Well, I wouldn't say I 'use' magic," she explained. "I am an extraordinary mage with a total control over magic to the extent that it's almost like breathing to me."

The boy tilted his head. "So...you can use it, right?"

Lute sighed. He didn't understand anything, did he? "Yes," she answered flatly.

"Oh wow! Y'know, I was always kinda interested in magic! Do you suppose you could show me some?"

"No."

The boy blinked. "Aww, why not? Are you tired after all the fighting? I get it, it was a rough battle!" He stretched his arms out as he spoke.

While it was true that Lute was in fact tired from the battle, it bothered her somehow that he had accused her of being tired despite not having any proof of it. The nerve of him to make assumptions like that! As if this axe swinger knew anything about the mental strain of spell casting!

"Well, I don't want to bother you if you're tired, but I just thought I'd ask because you remind me of my mom. She was a pretty good mage herself!"

He turned to walk away, and then stopped for a moment. "Actually, now that I think of it, you know who you really remind me of is my mom's sister! I always called her 'Aunty M'! She was an even better mage than my mom, and she was short like you!"

"Hmph," Lute grunted. She was too tired to even feign interest in this conversation anymore, or to complain about being labeled "short".

"And her partner was a tall woman who kinda looked like your friend, Vanes--I mean General Vanessa! I called her Aunty R since her name was Ruth. She liked that!"

Lute perked up. Wait, what did the boy just say?

The boy's face took on a sad expression, "I sure miss my mom, and my aunts, and my cousins. I lost a lot of family when those bandits attacked my village..."

"Anyway, I'll let you rest, Lute! Take it easy!" The boy turned to walk away again.

"Wait," Lute said. "What was that you said about your aunt and a...partner?"

"Huh?" The boy turned back around. "Oh, Aunty M and Aunty R? So Aunty M was my mom's sister, and Aunty R was her partner! That's what everyone in the village called her at any rate. My Aunty M brought her back to the village after she had gone out to the capital to learn magic when she was younger. They lived together and worked together and everything!" He let out a deep belly laugh, "My mom always teased Aunty M it was good that she found Aunty R because otherwise she wouldn't be able to reach the dishes on the top shelf! Har har!"

He grinned at Lute, "That's what I mean when I say you remind me of my aunts, because I always see you talking with General Vanessa. And you're short and can use magic, and General Vanessa is tall, just like my Aunty R was!"

Lute was slightly shocked. "Partners? Is this a...thing that can be done?" She closed her eyes and went into her mind library. She had read many stories when she was younger, but she didn't recall any where two women lived together who weren't sisters. She rummaged through the mental shelves. Yes, indeed, there were a lot of stories with men and women living together "happily ever after" and all that...Hmm. This might require more research. But where would she find a library while trudging from battlefield to battlefield? Was this inquiry just going to have to wait until after the war was done? Or was the library in this castle maybe still intact?

Lute chastised herself for not reading up on social customs in different societies more. Monsters, animals, and magic had always interested her, but she had never really had much interest in reading about human society. There were always so many silly rules that didn't make sense.

And then she caught herself. Why was she so intrigued by this? It certainly was a novel idea, and she was drawn to new information, but there was something more here. As she was thinking, Vanessa's face floated up into her consciousness.

"What do I feel about Vanessa?" Lute wondered. As soon as she thought it, she immediately felt uncomfortable. She didn't like analyzing her feelings like this. Feelings felt so unpredictable.

Then she remembered that the boy was still standing there while she was thinking.

"Ah yes, you," she said, looking at him. "I would like to hear more about your aunts sometime. I am curious about...um...them." Lute wasn't sure how to describe what she wanted to know, but there was something there that was itching at her mind to dig into in more depth.

The boy smiled. "Sure, anytime! Maybe once we get everything settled in the castle here we'll all have a moment to sit and relax!"

Once he had walked away, Lute resolved to have a look around and find the castle's library. The castle was in bad shape, but she had hope that the soldiers under Orson had been to busy looting valuables to be bothered with looking through the books...

Aside from Lute, Ross also unlocks a support with Gerik.

He starts by introducing himself to Gerik, again, as the son of the warrior, Garcia.

Gerik says that he must be quite strong to introduce himself that way.

Ross says he wants to get stronger, and Gerik asks him why.

Ross tells him about how he wants to live up to legacy of his dad, and also how he wants to help rebuild his village.

Gerik is impressed by Ross's goals, and he offers to help by doing a training battle with Ross.

"I may not be as strong as your dad, but how about you first try to beat me in a fight once?"

Next time: More supports and then we end the map.

#fire emblem #sacred stones #fire emblem the sacred stones #fe8 #ファイアエンブレム #聖魔の光石 #japanese language #lute fire emblem #gerik #Ross fire emblem #vanessa fire emblem #lute x vanessa

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