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The following tale is set in Fire Emblem Awakening’s world, before the game takes place. I added personal headcanons to make this story.
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In arduous lands, a few oases emerged in the distance. Some travellers could think it was nothing but a mirage, but this forest of acacias, baobabs and beautiful desertic fauna was real. This tiny village of the north of Plegia was surrounded by greenery and close to a lake. It was a lost, remote village, living with local merchants, fishermen and farmers. One of those seller families just had a baby, Daraen. She grew up travelling in the whole country, sometimes abroad too. As a child, she really liked those little “adventures” – as she called them, but this freedom came at a price. She wasn’t able to bond or make any real friends, as she had to depart every time. Most kids would be sad to be moving all the time the way she did, but she considered herself lucky. Since she was really young, she used to keep all her memories in diaries. Drawing shaky landscapes from the back of the furniture cart, but also flowers, plants she found and passer-by portraits. She carefully wrote down each and every destination and monument she visited, counting thousands of entries in her journal.
Thankfully, at the end of the day, she had one friend, her bestie: Anna. The daughter of another merchant couple who travels around the entire world and often tells her stories of her journey.
Daraen dreamt of discovering every inch of the world she lived in, imagining the lands she hadn’t seen just yet; the frozen mountains of Ferox, the green forest of Ylisse and the historical land of the United Empire, Valm…
Most of her knowledge about it came from viva voce with other merchants, a few books she could quickly browse through in markets and paintings she had seen.
Daraen walks through covered markets, a little pouch of gold in her hand to buy herself something nice. She checked every stall, from the carpet seller to colourful jewelries and antics. A man with a long white beard was playing local shanties as a young woman danced around him with a bag in hand, gathering gold from the audience while another girl sang loudly to draw attention. Daraen was so rapt with wonder, she stared at them, whilst some agile hands gently lifted the purse from her belt and ran away swiftly. She only realized the act of piracy once the show was over. The young girl wasn’t sad about losing her gold, but she wished she could have tossed a coin or two to the performers at least. While she walked across the emptier stalls again, the temptation of stealing one or two trinkets in her loose, comfy clothes grew in her mind, but she never stooped to it. She had countless pockets hidden under layers of outfits, and the hooded cloak covering her from the sandy air could help disguise her crimes, but once again, she brushed that idea off her mind. She decided to just enjoy the view and immortalize the events in her diary, harvest some wild plants to let them dry as a token of memory for this day.
Once her parents were done with the local business in this desert town, they moved again to another destination where more prosperous people lived. While they were discussing a very serious deal, she wandered around this town only to discover more amazing fabrics, jewels and performers than the one before! A lot of people were dancing under the full moon, fire sticks in their hands, making it rhythm on the cobbled floor in harmony with their humming. Men and women, dressed in fancy black see-through veils covered by colored cloth and golden accents of big circlets around their wrists, ankles and bellies. The soft clanks of those accessories seemed to follow the same beat as their voices grew louder and louder. A fire mage appeared from the middle of the plaza and controlled the torches' flames, making them fly one by one to the sky in the form of pretty birds, phoenix-like creatures and tiny dragons. She was once more captured by the folkloric essence of the show, lost in this performance and scared by a hand gently pressing on her shoulder. It was her dad, telling Daraen they had to leave, now.
Her parent's business was working decently for a while, but it unfortunately didn’t last, for their new contract was to protect and deliver a costy trinket to a rich family, but they lost it before reaching their goal. Their carriage was attacked on the way by brigands, taking advantage of the moon light clear sky to hide and wait for a new target. They emerged out of sand piles and cacti, hiding under layers of black veils and purple cloaks. They stole everything of certain value, gold of course, and the trinket. Daraen wanted to do something, but her body was shaking. It was like being in front of a performance again, hypnotized by the show, not feeling her own body anymore. She only had a billhook knife anyways, and never used it to fight – she clearly stood no chance against a group of peerless thieves. As her parents didn’t know what to do either, they simply surrendered to avoid getting attacked and save their lives.
When they reached their destination, in the absence of the commissioned trinket, they tried to explain what happened to their client, saying they would alert the local authorities of the thieves doing on the merchant roads and do whatever they could to retrieve the stolen piece of jewellery. The extravagant noble wasn’t obliging and asked them for an immediate reimboursement of said priceless item, an option they couldn’t respect at the moment. The noble moved his hand to call guards – Grimleal followers. As they were coming closer, he offered another possibility, spotting Daraen hiding behind her father’s legs. He asked them to hand him the child, showing them the institute behind him. It was some sort of Grimleal monastery, one could spot many young girls following an older priest in the garden, like a classroom attending a lecture on the benches outside. Daraen’s parents were proletarians, and like this word means, owned no wealth in property beside their family, as most of their properties were stolen along the way. When the noble asked for Daraen as a payment, they refused solemnly. But Daraen made the decision herself, still looking at the joyful group of people about her age from afar. She let go of her grasp, looked at her parents and shyfully walked towards the noble, accepting this fate. The noble Plegian greeted her with a soft head pat, asking her name. She answered in a whisper. "Daraen".