Comms and Other Long FE Oneshots

Which Way is Home? (3)

Over the next few days, Shigure found himself falling asleep several times during the pair's bickering or silly stories about how Queen Mikoto effectively terrorized the Hoshidan court. Unused to the pace they were traveling at, or all of this time outside, his little body couldn't always oblige when his young mind wanted to stay awake to hear a bit more. It was bickering more often than the silly stories. Especially on the days that Shigure asked where they were and which way they were heading next. He suspected that both of them knew where they were, they just hadn't agreed on where they were going yet. Home would be nice, but he didn't exactly want to make the atmosphere more uncomfortable. As the journey continued, they actually did start teaching him about terrain. Which was really interesting and helped him get a better idea of what his family had to deal with during the war, things that his family didn't necessarily tell him.

There were a couple of skirmishes on the way too. The first two were wolves. They were driven back easily with a few simple, effective jabs from both adults' polearms, not to mention Reina claiming that they would become her next fur coat. Today's threat wasn't as simple, but was still taken care of easily.

"If we didn't have a child with us, you'd be begging for me to gut you by now!" Reina hollered after the quickly retreating bandits.

"They really aren't worth the mess," Gunter sighed, slinging his lance back over his shoulder.

"Look, just because-"

"How long have you two fought together?" Shigure interrupted before any more talk of murder could take place. The bandits probably deserved some form of punishment, yes, but they had also looked hungry and cold. Not to mention terrified when they realized just how out of their depth they were against these two. They were already being punished by their circumstances, honestly. "It looks like you've been doing it for ages."

Gunter and Reina exchanged one of those looks that he'd gotten very used to over the past few days whenever he asked about their pasts or how long they'd been in the area. Then Reina shrugged. "Well, seven years is probably a long time for a kid like you, but it hasn't been ages," she told him. Shigure tilted his head, pausing in rubbing his nose despite the fact that it was still a little cold. "We've done a lot of fighting against each other, though, so we know each other's preferred tactics pretty well."

"Let's keep moving." Gunter tugged on Hilmar's reins, and they began walking again.

"Did you two keep running into each other on the battlefield, then?" Shigure asked.

"We did," Gunter replied with a small nod. "Our run-ins with each other started quite a few years back. You might already know this but, well before the war, Nohr had long been stricken by famine. Every harvest was smaller than the last and then, one year, it failed completely. In some corners, panic was beginning to set in. In others, deep hatred burned for our neighbors, Hoshido in particular, who enjoyed bountiful soil and wouldn't even sell us food. As the famine in Nohr was reaching its apex, the king decreed a drastic, if unsurprising, solution: if our neighbors would not sell or trade food with us, then we could annex more fertile lands so that we didn't all starve. I was young and inexperienced at the time, but I still found myself placed in command of a battalion of cavalry, infantry, and wyvern riders which had been dispatched to attack Hoshido. We were sent to take several tracts of Hoshidan farmland just over the border. We gained a lot of ground until we found a nightmare waiting for us."

"You flatter me." Reina bared her teeth in a sharp grin. "I wasn't that terrifying back then, being freshly minted and all. I just thought that the battlefield was more fun than pouring tea for guests and potential in-laws. Of course, my family did not approve of my decision."