Fire Emblem memories

I played Path of Radiance(a name which makes me think of the moon or the sun rising over the ocean, the silver or golden light on the water making a road to heaven)first while I was at Condover. That was really the reason why I acquired a Gamecube in the first place.

I didn't have my own TV, then. So, instead, I used the one in the common room, which was common in name only. It was meant for students to socialise in, but it was a cold, unwelcoming room, in the basement of the main hall, with nothing really to recommend it-my fellow students preferred to socialise in the warm living rooms of the flats.

Thus, I had the room to myself, at lunch-time and after classes for a few hours each day.

White-painted stone walls, an old, boxy television set, and an ugly, uncomfortable plastic-covered armchair. Nobody ever interrupted me.

Me and the story. Me and the spirits.

It was our kingdom-mine and Soren's-tactician brother monarchs. He beat back the ghost, glared it into leaving us alone as we played; I brought down chocolate and gingerbread and tea, which we shared. We talked, and we listened, and we argued-he had a terribly annoying habit of saying 'Don't do that!' one millisecond after I had made my mistake and pressed the button to confirm it. I suspected he was doing it on purpose.

It was slow progress, since I never had long to spend down there at any one time. When the holidays came, it was only Chapter Nine. Chapter Nine: Gallia. I can't remember any other chapter titles. Just that one.

After the holidays, the common room that nobody used was closed down. A common room that people did use was opened in one of the empty flats, and I used it myself for only a small amount of time before managing to scrape together the money for a TV of my own, in my bedroom.(Expensive but necessary. Certain boys had decided to pester me while I played; I needed privacy, and in the common room I just couldn't get it. There was no joy in playing like that, no freedom to talk.)

It was a very short-lived kingdom, that cold little basement room.

Still, it is one of my strong memories. Chapter Nine was not the most exciting or difficult or easiest or most interesting of chapters, but it will always be dearest, I think, to me.

I'll remember it forever, I think; Gallian sunshine spilling into a cold English room, a beach where Rolf wanted to make sandcastles and Mist earnestly explained through a closed door to a person who wasn't listening that it was bears you played dead to avoid, not beorc; where Lethe shouted Idiot human tacticians! at us as she and Mordecai made mad dashes hither and yon and always ended up in exactly the wrong place, as I tried hopelessly to get the hang of issuing commands, and as Soren smiled his small, wicked smile and commented drily that surely I knew the saying about trying to herd cats?

And I laughed, and laughed, hunched over the controller, and Lethe made a rude noise through her nose at me and said something fittingly catty(pun intended)about how glad she was that somebody was finding this amusing. And I had had half of a Twirl bar, and there was the taste of chocolate in my mouth.

I'm not sure why I post this now. Maybe just because recently I've been thinking about Tellius again, and because this memory is so clear and bright that it deserved to be written down. Just because.