So, let me explain why I'm updating this story:

I do a lot of writing for my school, mainly writing plays for the theatre program. There's something really satisfying about writing something and having people recognize you for it. However, between that and schoolwork, all of my creative energies were being used up, so I was planning on letting most of my stories off. Actually, I was planning on writing a really long chapter summarizing the plot beyond where I left off (because believe it or not, there IS a plot to this story.)

Even though I wasn't updating it, this story kept getting faves and follows and I wasn't sure why. So I checked it out, and it turned out that someone put the story up on TV Troupes FanFic Recs page.

Now that a lot of people were looking at it, I realized I might as well finish it (even though I'm not near the end right now. Like I said, it's long.) It actually gave me a bit of a break from playwriting, which really helped me with dialogue, but not so much with all the other things involved with writing.

Actually, after posting that last chapter, I got a review from the guy that posted the story on Tv Troupes. Long story short, this story has a new beta writer: robotortoise!

This chapter got really long because I decided to add a tangent scene and three character tips!

Stay tuned to the end of the chapter for a special announcement!

Three assassins were standing near a window in the castle. I'm not sure what they were pausing for, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to attack.

Plus, I really wanted to try something.

I opened up my wind tome, focused all my energy on pulling out as much wind as I could, and I pushed.

…

That...That window was not open.

Well, now it was. It's very open.

Open in the 'was something broken?' sense of being open.

Because I broke it.

And filled those guys with glass.

…

...Really hope none of them were Gaius.

I ran down the castle hallways, trying to figure out what to do next.

That was the thing I never understood about Robin as a tactician. It was medieval times, so there was no real way for us to communicate our success. We just had to have faith that everyone was doing their job.

My orders were to make sure there weren't any stragglers in other areas of the castle. I decided that I would just keep patrolling the halls and attack anyone who wasn't me or another Shepherd.

As I turned the corner, I came across three people who weren't me and one who was.

"Aries?" I said, surprised to see my future counterpart here.

"Oh, hey mini-me!" he said, fencing three enemy soldiers at once.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Hold on a second," he said, focusing on the soldiers. He twirled around the three of them and threw a tome in the air. It began to float and orbit around him. Aries swung his sword and a gust of wind pushed back the three soldiers.

Aries quickly moved forward and impaled the soldier in the center. As he kicked the body off of his blade, he gestured to one of the soldiers. A blast of fire came out of the tome and knocked the soldier down.

The remaining soldier managed to gain his bearings and ran to strike Aries. Aries reached onto the soldier on his sword, took a small dagger, and threw it at the remaining soldier, hitting him in the shoulder. He pushed his open hand toward the soldier and hit him in the head with the tome. Aries calmly walked over to the grounded soldier and slit his throat.

Wow. I'm fucking awesome.

"I'm fucking awesome," he said. "I didn't even thing that knife thing would work."

"What are you even doing here?" I asked, walking around one of the dead bodies. "What if someone sees you? What if Lucina sees you?"

"You don't have to worry about that," Aries replied. "I'm just checking in. Figured you could use some extra defense during this whole shindig."

I know me. 30 years older or not, I know how I deal with emotional stuff.

"I know you're lying," I said.

"When aren't we lying?" he asked.

Wow. It's pretty weird to watch me being emotionally evasive from a different point of view.

"...Look, I saw this go wrong before." He sighed, looking away with a distant look in his eyes. "I know that we already knew that the assassination was going to happen, but it was still really hard to deal with when it happened. It confirmed I was in the doomed timeline. It was a death sentence. At least, I thought it was. I know that Lucina will make sure everything goes alright, but I'd just prefer the peace of mind, you know?"

It made sense, I suppose. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Aries was a version of me that went through some shit. Regardless of how confident I was in the rules of the world, I suppose, after 30 years of random chaos I'd want to make sure bad things didn't happen again.

"...I'll take you reflective silence as a sign of agreement," Aries said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I actually do have to get out of here before someone spots me." He began to make his way down the hall.

"Wait!" I exclaimed. Aries stopped.

I felt like I should have more questions for him, but I couldn't for the life of me think of anything.

"...Can you fly?" I asked, not able to think of anything else.

"...No," he replied, confused.

And he left.

Gaius is pretty easy to get along with. He's like that cool friend you have, usually the one that has a bad track record with women.

Not to say that Gaius does.

I mean, he does. I've been around the block enough times to have a pretty good idea about his romantic past, and let me tell you, it really says a lot that he winds up settling down with one of the Shepherds.

Also, dude has a killer sweet tooth.

Like, watch yourself.

"So," I said.

"So," Gaius said.

"Last piece of apple pie in the mess hall," I said.

"Sure is," Gaius said.

"I'm sure you agree we can't split this."

"No, we cannot."

"So I guess that puts us in a pretty tricky position."

"It sure does."

"So how do you suppose we work around this?"

"We could both decide we've had enough."

"I suppose that makes sense. We've both already had slices already."

"That we have."

"But that's not gonna happen, is it?"

"No, it's not."

"Alright. So we're doing this."

"I suppose we are."

"Swords or bows?"

"We're both better with swords."

"Exactly, so we should level the playing field."

"So bows."

"Right. Dull points, of course."

"Right. We aren't going to kill each other over this."

"Right. That would be insane."

"Right."

"Right."

"Hey!" Stahl exclaimed. "There's some pie left!" He walked between me and Gaius, picked up the slice, ate it in one bite, and left.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...So, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Catch you later."

If we're talking about people who were invited after the assassination, we've got to talk about Panne.

Panne is...very cool. Like, yeah, she's cool in an "interesting cool" way, but she's also cool in a "has her shit together" kind of way.

At first, it'll be really hard to bond with her. When she enters the army, she's a bit on the defensive around "man-spawn" and whatnot, which is understandable, considering what she's been through.

Just give her some time. She'll warm up to people, and, when she does, she's, like, the mom-est person on the team.

One day, after a sunny day training, I had found a tree to lie under. It sat on top of a hill and provided enough shade for me to sit back and relax. I was casually strumming on the lute, not playing any songs, so it was just random notes. I was actually starting to doze off a little.

I'll admit it was a bit of a stereotypical image, but it was nice.

"You."

I opened one eye and saw a pair of very brown eyes.

"You're kinda in my personal bubble," I said to Panne.

"I don't see any bubble around you," she said.

"It just means you're a little too close to me right now," I explained.

"Right. You could have just said that," she said, backing up. She didn't say anything else as she looked down on me.

"...Can I help you?" I asked. This was getting a little awkward.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the lute.

"Oh, it's a lute," I replied. "It plays music."

She looked at me, and I began to pray that she knew what music was. I didn't want to have to try and explain music.

"How does it work?" she asked.

That's actually a little worse. I don't have a clue how it works. I mean, I might know a little, but I'll have to fill in the blanks.

"Well… it has these strings here, that, when plucked, make noises." I said, patting the ground next to me. Panne looked at me and sat down, getting a better look at the lute.

"But how do they make different sounds?" she asked.

"I have to hold the strings at certain...parts on the...stem of the lute to make different chords," I said, as I began to dive into my lack of knowledge of lutes. I was getting most of this on my minor knowledge of guitars. "And then the sounds echo in the hole thing and it makes music."

"...Why?" she asked.

"...I mean, that probably has to do with a bunch of sound science I don't really know," I said.

"Why go through all the trouble?" Panne clarified. "It's my understanding that man-spawn and taguel can both make pleasing sounds with their mouths."

"Wait," I said. "Taguel sing?"

"We don't call it 'singing.' We use the sounds to send messages between packs, and our ears are sensitive enough to hear it," she explained.

"Well, I'd love to hear it, if you don't mind," I said.

"Very well," she said. "I suppose it would be interesting to see how it compares to man-spawn music."

She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and-

Imagine someone running their nails against a chalkboard.

Now imagine someone had a thousand nails, and all those nails are made of smaller chalkboards.

Panne sounded like that, but amplified a thousand times.

I'm pretty sure I saw a few birds fall out of the sky. I would have been worried about us attracting Risen, bandits, or anything dangerous, but this wasn't the kind of noise you wanted to move toward.

"What do you think?" Panne asked.

My body wanted to deflate.

"It's...unique," I replied. "What...what does that mean?"

"It's a common territory call," she replied. "The noise lingers in the ears of taguel, marking the territory of various warrens. I suppose there's no real use for it now since I am the last of my kind." She paused. "What effect does it have on man-spawn ears?"

"...It sure has one," I replied. This was getting to an 'I don't want to diss your culture' territory. "You should definitely show it to Robin. He'll love it."

Maybe there was some kind of strategic advantage.

Or maybe it would just annoy him.

I was alright with both.

You're not going to know when you have to deal with Anna. You just sort of eventually stumble on her and she joins you guys. I'm not even completely convinced it's the same Anna. It's entirely possible that the first Anna you meet joins the army, and then all the other Annas see there's already an Anna on the team and don't join.

Anyway, regardless, you might think there's some trick to dealing with Anna. Like, maybe there's some secret thing you can use to connect with her.

No.

She wants gold.

Always.

"Hm."

"..."

"Maybe...No, that wouldn't work."

"...Um…"

"I suppose I could... Nah, nobody would pay for that…"

"Anna?" I said, turning around to the merchant. "What are you talking about?"

"Huh?" Anna asked. "Oh, nothing. Just musing on some future business opportunities."

"...Does it have anything to do with the fact that you've been following me for five minutes?"

"It actually does," she said, giving me a look. It reminded me of my month as a door-to-door salesman, when the people I would shadow were talking their way into a deal. It wasn't exactly "eyes-with-giant-dollar-signs," but it was building up to it. "I think you could be a real money maker, but I can't figure out how…"

"Well, I'm a bard," I said. "I feel like you'd want to go the music route, because my music is pretty great, if I do say so myself. People come from miles to hear to wondrous melodies I birth with my lute!" Immediately after I said that, I realized I might want to avoid giving her ideas.

"But that's just it!" Anna exclaimed. "You're able to play at taverns or whatever, and you get paid, but how does that make ME money?"

"...I don't really know," I replied. "That seems like an 'Anna' problem."

"Right, and there are a lot of Annas!" she responded. "There has to be something! Maybe I could rent you out?"

"I really don't need you to be my manager," I said. "I'm more of a word-of-mouth kind of guy." Although the words mainly came from my mouth.

"I suppose you're right…" she said. "That would take WAY too much time, and most of the money would go to you... That's it!" she exclaimed, snapping her fingers.

"What's it?" I asked.

"We need to make you famous!" she exclaimed. "Once people know who you are, I can sell new merchandise to all those hapless suckers!"

"Isn't Chrom already famous?" I asked. "Why not just cash in on that prince action?"

"I would if I could, but my sister Anna already cornered the market on royal family merchandise!" she said. "I need a new icon, and who better than Ned Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is, Bard of the Eastern Coast!" She put a finger to her cheek. "Actually, let's drop the 'Ned' part. It's a little anticlimactic."

"It's my name!" I exclaimed.

"Find a cooler one!" she said, taking out a notepad and scribbling something down, before walking away.

A part of me almost wanted to say 'Like Aries?', but I didn't.

There's no way this could end well.

Also, small heads up about Anna: You know how I said everyone in the world is beautiful? Well, a good fraction of them know it, but Anna is one of those people who uses it to her advantage. If you give her any reason to believe she can flirt her way into your wallet, she'll eat you up.

I have seen more Outsiders get wrapped around her finger then I have with almost every other Shepherd. Whether or not they fall for each other is irrelevant. She's going to test how well you can deal with attention from insanely attractive people.

You would think people would have the same problem with Tharja, but her open contempt for everyone not Robin is a turn-off for a lot of Outsiders…unless you're into that.

I'm pretty good at basic character analysis, but I'm interested in hearing your advice! If you have any advice for a self-insert into Awakening, let me know in the reviews! I'll post any of them at the end of the chapters, and even incorporate them into the story, depending on if it fits!

And no, this isn't because I had to read Panne's entire TV Troupes character entry to get a feel for her character.

Don't throw around accusations like that.

Anyway, leave a review!