Chapter Text
"Mark?" Lissa grew worried from the look that appeared on her husband's face. It definitely did the rubbery thing she liked but found it surprisingly unattractive that moment. "What's the matter?"
"Lissa, there's only one place we haven't looked at..." Mark shuddered. But as the seconds ticked by, thoughts began to click and her face drained of color. Lissa mirrored her husband with what seemed to be a face of utter horror.
"Oh Gods, Mark." She began softly. "Don't tell me…"
"It's probably Déjà vu all over again."
"Oh...nonononono. Of all the places, please be not there again." In an attempt to ease their worry, Chrom assured them that Owain was not in any imminent danger.
"Calm down, you two. I bet someone already found him and—" Before the Exalt could finish the sentence, the couple immediately darted out of the courtyard. "—and…Ah, forget it."
Knowing that Lissa and Mark probably went to their next crazy search destination, he decided to go to places that the hasty couple probably overlooked. While Owain escaping his crib and crawling about, sometimes he wondered if the Exalted bloodline had humble beginnings as escape artists. He quickly shook his head, shooing the irrelevant thoughts away.
After a quick rub on his temples and a heavy sigh, Chrom sheathed Falchion and abandoned the broken dummies for later. He'd rather deal with a cranky Frederick later than a still-missing nephew.
With no time to waste, he turned around and began his search.
"I found you!" Lucina yelled triumphantly as she tugged on Morgan's cloak. Cynthia stood up from within the bushes and like a robber caught stealing, raised her hands in defeat.
"Achaah, we lost." Cynthia smiled and gave her sister a congratulatory thumbs-up. She turned to the bush next to her and nudged it. "The jig's up, cuzzo. We've been found."
"Whaaat?" Morgan whined disappointingly, still hiding in the bush. "Darn. And I thought this was a very strategic place to hide…"
Cynthia let out short huff. "Yeah, not with your cloak dangling out in the open like that..." Morgan stood up from her bush and saw it neatly draping over the leaves.
"Oh…whoops." With that, the tactician in training decided to do what she does best: "We have been found by the great Lucina, slayer of dragons!" Morgan said in an attempt to sound manly. She bowed to Lucina so suddenly, the hood of her robe managed to stay on her head.
With that act, Lucina laughed and that in turn made Morgan joyous as well. Despite being the youngest out of all the children from the future, she felt that she was doing an okay job of being the older sibling to both her brother and her cousin. And that was just enough for her.
Meanwhile, with Lucina feeling jubilant about her victory, she locked on to multiple bushes so she can catch a glimpse of final person in the game. Then she stomped her foot in frustration as she walked towards a small, brown-haired baby sitting in the middle of the grassy lawn.
"No, Wainy! You have to hiiiide!" She groaned for the third time that morning.
"Don't worry, Lucy!" Morgan smiled as she went to her brother and set him on her lap, "Wainy will get better with it!"
On the other hand, the baby blinked once. Then twice. He tilted his head to the side as Lucina looked at him, expecting some sort of action. With that, the princess stood up and walked in front of a bush and pointed at it, blissfully unaware that Owain did not understand anything she says or does.
"Fiwst you go here and don't pop out and then I'll look for you!" Lucina then demonstrated by first hiding behind the bush. Instinctively, Owain crawled off Morgan's lap and followed her. Eventually, he "found" the young princess.
Lucina sighed. "See Wainy, you good at finding." She let off a huff and began to slowly talk to the baby. "But you gots to find someplace to go and hide."
Even with that explanation, Owain did nothing except turn his head in the direction of girlish laughter from a tree not far from them.
"Hey!" Lucina obviously heard and gave the girls a rather cruel stare from a three-year-old. "It's not funny, Momo! Same with you Cici!"
"Lucy," Cynthia began. "Wainy's just a year old. You know he can't understand speech yet."
"But he's so good at finding and listening. Why does he not hide?" Lucina argued. Meanwhile, Owain grabbed his feet and tried to pull himself up. Instead, he toppled over gently on the grass. "I know he can totally understand me."
"Daa!" Coincidentally, Owain cooed as if to agree with Lucina's assumptions.
"See, he knows where I'm coming fwom!"
"You know, I wonder if Lucina was this bossy when she was young..." Morgan asked Cynthia aside after setting Owain down to play with Lucina.
"Oh yeah." She replied, earning a wide eyed stare from her cousin. "Back in the old future, she was the bossiest, head-honcho when we all played Justice Cabal. Funny how she kind of turned you into a 'Lucy 2.0' for a while."
"I-I was?" Morgan felt a sudden chill down her spine and Cynthia chuckled. She was as bossy as Lucina? The only thing she remembered about Lucina was her present self: a calm and collected individual—someone that definitely did not come as bossy in her opinion.
"Whoo, here, I'll tell you what happened. It all started with Gerome…" While Cynthia refreshed Morgan's memory (with the latter blushing beet red) and kept a close eye on their siblings, an old guard noticed their presence in the courtyard.
As the couple darted through the halls of Ylisstol Palace, Mark began to outpace his wife in his haste to find their son. Eventually, Lissa's fierce sprint turned into a steady jog while a good distance formed between Mark and her. Her throat felt dry from the running and her legs felt like gelatin.
"Wait…!"
She called out to her husband, but he was already out of earshot. As much as she wanted to find her son—running across from one castle wing to the next and up-down several flights of stairs—she was beat. Even so, she still had to push on forward.
The princess had the thought of doing more exercises once this entire "missing baby episode" ended. Parenting and the "Fall of Grima" did rid her of a constant exercise regimen. That and pregnancy did give her a bit of a belly. Maybe going on just one of "Frederick's Fitness Fridays" wouldn't kill her.
Ugh, if this was me from four years ago, I'd be shouting: "Older me, are you nuts?!"
After all, if she could still beat Risen Chiefs with an axe and a handy Arcfire spell into a "gooey pulp of dark mist", how bad could crunches and several-mile long hikes be? She hiked more mountains on foot than Maribelle could ever do in a lifetime. From afar, she definitely saw that Mark still benefitted from those hours of exercise.
When the latter took a sharp turn to the left, all she could do is pray to Naga that Owain did not ruin the stews again.
Chrom entered room after room with no sign of Owain in any of them. Across the halls and the pathways of his own palace, he began contemplating—while also vigilantly looking for his nephew to appear—the fact that a palace turned out to be a not-so-ideal place to start and raise a family. Despite having a relatively comfy bed and a private room between himself and Sumia, he missed the "down-to-earth" and rugged feel of a war tent or the Shepherd's Barracks. That and his family would—at the very least—be within proximity. He thought something like a missing Owain wouldn't happen too often or, at the gods' behest, be a whole lot easier to find.
"Owain," He beckoned once more, his voice echoing across the now quiet halls. "Where are you?"
Instead of his nephew, Chrom ran across one of his castle guards—a chiseled old veteran that had served both his sister and his father. But he felt something amiss and scrutinized the man. But before Chrom can call out to him, the guard noticed his lord's presence and approached him.
"Ah, good morning, milord Chrom!" he said, giving a courteous bow.
"Good morning to you, Carlyle." He replied, easing the formal air between them. "What seems to be the problem?"
"Have you seen Milady Lissa and her husband?" He asked.
"I have." Chrom replied. "For what reason?"
"Knight Captain Frederick issued an order that we must search the castle grounds for young Owain." At first, Chrom was rather worried about his nephew. Was he safe? Did something bad happen? What would he say to Mark and Lissa if something did happen?
"Did you find him?"
"I have, sire."
"Well, where is he?" He asked. "Don't tell me he ended up in the kitchens and ruined the stews again?"
"Oh, not as bad as that, sire." The old guard chuckled.
Thankfully, once Carlyle explained the entire situation to his lordship, Chrom felt instantly relieved. Mark and Lissa were indeed terrific parents but he could not help but laugh at the trouble their young son had been giving them for the past week. Maybe it was the Gods' overdue payback from all those years ago when they said that raising children were as easy as reading a book and "fun". Despite the fact that it was a manner unbefitting a royal, Chrom could not help but snicker loudly to himself—something the veteran guard did not expect at all.
There was one thing every Shepherd agreed on about Mark: everything he did on a daily basis relied on a certain rhythm.
Mark was both conductor and metronome of the Shepherds—the man who set the beat of a massive orchestra. Out of all everything available to him, the "way" he did things was the most important factor. The timed attack against the Plegian Royal Guard and Gangrel, the routing of the Valmese fleet and even the strike at Origin Peak was done by a set rhythm of plan, move, attack, and retreat.
With that in mind, a wyvern rider by the name Cherche was often reminded of a common Rosannean saying: "Rinse and repeat."
Unfortunately, when Mark's rhythm gets knocked into disarray, he panics.
"OWAIN, WHERE IN NAGA ARE YOU!?"
Badly.
He burst through the kitchen doors screaming, earning several odd looks from the cooks and helpers. Some even thought that the Grandmaster finally lost his marbles under the pressure of his work.
"Milord?!" The head chef looked at him with surprise. As quickly as he had come in, Mark hastily approached the bewildered head chef, grabbed the man by the collar and shook him.
"Chef, have you seen a small infant about yea high?" He began, performing the appropriate hand motions. "Dark brownish hair like mine? Crawling? Loves to hide in pots? Destroys stews in succession?"
Not only was the chef intimidated by the menacing-looking eyes of Ylisse's Grandmaster, the fear of losing two weeks' worth of food had him more worried.
"Oh milord, please don't tell me he's missing again…And could you please not shake me?"
Mark quickly noticed his brusque handling on the man and let the chef's collar go.
"Sorry."
"It's alright." And so the chef raised his hand and all activity in the kitchen ceased. All cooks and hands had their eyes on their chef, like soldiers waiting for an order. Mark was visibly impressed by the commanding aura the chef had. He was also slightly jealous; if only his handling of the Shepherds was this orderly. Vaike and Chrom were not nearly as obedient to these types of commands.
"Search everywhere!"
With those two words, everything became chaotic-stove fires were put out, knives were stored away. Like ants after their anthill had been poked by a twig, the cooks scattered around and began to rummage through pots, pans, and pantries in search for the boy.
"Rrrrraaaaaah!" With some renewed vigor, Lissa finally burst through the kitchens just like her husband. But unlike him, she kicked the doors so hard one broke off the hinges. With that, the chef became both mystified and afraid.
"Milady—the door…!"
"Lissa!" Mark abandoned his search the opened pantries and rushed to his wife. "Where were you?"
"This…castle…is…too…large…" She said, catching her breath in between each word. "Now…let's…find…my…baby…!"
When Carlyle pointed where the children were at—sitting in open air and the older ones chatting about in the courtyard—Chrom was utterly speechless. They were in the central courtyard. The whole time.
How on earth did those two miss this? That's practically—literally—on their doorsteps!
Yet his bewilderment was cut short by his daughter's voice.
"No, Wainy! Don't go there!" Lucina yelled as she tried to pull her cousin away from walking into a murky pond. Luckily—with a bit of help from Morgan—she was able to prevent such a thing from happening.
"Lucina, Cynthia!" Chrom beckoned as he approached the children. Before he knew it, he felt something small grab onto his leg and latch on tight.
"Daddy!" Lucina smiled and in her joy, she began to jump as she tugged on her father's sleeves. Chrom could not help but return that smile with a kiss to his daughter's cheek.
"Good morning, Princess." He lifted Lucina up and set her on his shoulders. "You're up early."
"I went to Cici's room and—" She began rather enthusiastically, that is, until the feeling of hunger set in. "—and I woked her up because I was hungry…"
"Mornin', dad!" Cynthia also approached her father and gave him a peck on the cheek.
"Good morning, Uncle!" Morgan on the other hand, gave him a brisk hug with Owain in one arm.
"Good morning to you two." He said, returning their gestures with embraces. Noticing Owain in Morgan's arms, a sense of relief came over him. He ran his hands over Owain's small head then turned his gaze to his niece.
"I see your brother's with you. You know, your mother and father have gone and turned the entire castle upside down looking for him."
"I thought they'd come over here to courtyard since it's the closest location to their room." Morgan replied as she began cradling the infant.
"Apparently, they decided to skip this place in favor of the other location." Chrom ran his hands on his hair. Even their kids thought of things rationally. Then again, when panic sets in, no rational person could think straight.
"'Really? Oh that's…pretty bad. I think we have to fetch them before they do something crazy. Knowing Father, he's probably pretty panicked right now."
"'Panicked' is an understatement." Chrom muttered aside. Morgan thought she heard something and looked at her uncle. "Oh, nothing. Anyway, I have an idea where they are."
"Wooh! It's parent-search time!" Cynthia rather cheerfully, as they made their way to the back kitchen. "After that we get chow."
"Yeah! Let's get chow." Lucina smiled and patted her father's head. Before long, they exited the courtyard in a calm manner leaving Chrom with the thought that the day would conclude as peacefully and quietly as possible—
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!"
That is until they heard the loud shriek from Lissa.
"Aaah! My soup stock…gone… all gone…" The chef whimpered softly. In their rashness, Mark had unknowingly knocked a support post off from the shelves and caused cauldrons of beef stock to be relieved of their stability and tip over. Like chains of dominoes, cauldron after cauldron tilted and fell overhead, spilling their contents on the counter below—two of which seemed have direct orders from the Gods above to strike the tired couple.
Looking around the kitchen, each pot was overturned and every pantry was ransacked open. Stock cauldrons were spilled overhead from the commotion. Even the storage rooms with strong freezing spells were opened up, their magic dispelled for the time being. With the addition of a pool of stock on the kitchen floor, the greatest kitchen mess in Ylisstol was complete. In that big commotion, one would assume that Owain was found after all that.
Unfortunately, that was not the case and the parents quickly sent their apologies to the head chef and exited the kitchen, feeling very guilty that they left the man and his crew all alone with a mess to clean.
"Aaaagh…where is that boy?" Lissa muttered as she wrung out the stock from her hair. Meanwhile, Mark's head hung low and the feeling of disappointment came over him.
"Lissa, I'm a failure as a parent." He blurted out.
Lissa surprised from the outburst. "What? No you're not."
"Lissa, I've been back for two months and I've been deathly careless for the past few weeks. How can I lose watching over our child like that?"
"Yeah, I know you're bad at watching kids." Lissa said bluntly and Mark felt a sinking feeling in his chest, but she held his hand tight and gave him an assuring smile. "And even though you left him and myself alone for one year, you're making up lost time. Sure Owain's learned a few tricks since learning to crawl and the whole 'crib-break' thing. But you're learning and you're things right. You watch him, take him to work and play as much as you can. You're still going to be—are—good dad."
"You think so?" Mark sheepishly raised his head up, reminding Lissa of her daughter.
"I know so." And she wrapped her arms around his neck and embraced him. "I didn't marry some oaf. Now come on, Grandmaster. Move it. We have a baby to find." Before they can plan out some plan of action, Lissa felt something tug on her nightgown. Thinking it got stuck from the cobblestone floor, she pulled it gently. But after attempts of failing to get out of the cobbestone grip, she looked down and she blinked, thinking it's some illusion.
"M-M-Mark!" Lissa lifted their son up, her breath catching. Their gazes flickered between each other, then back to Owain, then back again—neither daring to believe it.
The baby, completely unfazed, gurgled and chomped down on Lissa’s stock-soaked nightgown.
"Daah?" And Mark's head turned to the direction of the coo.
"How did he—wait what the—?" A brisk cough turned their gazes away from their child. Morgan stood alongside Chrom and Cynthia. On the other hand Chrom and Cythia's cheeks puffed as they tried to hold their laughter in.
"M-mother? Father? There you are! We've been looking for you! We followed a wet trail from the kitchen and Owain wriggled out from my arms and—" Then she caught a strong smell and noticed their soaking garb. "Why are you both soaking wet and smell of beef?"
"Ch...M…mor…wh—wha…" Speechless and shocked, they could only point at their daughter in disbelief. When Lissa lifted up her son, he had an innocent gaze towards them, as if telling his parents: "What? I didn't go anywhere far."
Then Chrom bellowed with the loudest laugh in a long time while Lucina sat on her father's shoulders and cried:
"Do we get chow now?"
The sun finally hung high enough to be called daytime, yet not so high to say it was noon. In her messy, stock-smelling nightwear and disheveled hair, Lissa was cradling Owain to sleep.
"Our son just put us through one hell of a morning." She said.
"And these clothes are going to smell for days."
"Do you think we should hire a babysitter?" She looked at her husband who was lying next to her on the courtyard grass, also soaked in stock. "You know, just so he can keep an eye on Owain in case he escapes. You know, with his natural skill and all."
"Who do you have in mind?" A gentle breeze blew against them.
"Maybe Basilio. Or Gregor."
"Basilio's supporting Flavia right now in Ferox. I don't think he can babysit."
"Okay then, Gregor." Mark sat up and looked at Lissa with a raised brow.
"For babysitting and 'missing baby watch'? Lissa, he's a great mercenary and all but babysitting? That sounds like a terrible—" He paused, thought about it for a bit and it hit him. "Actually, you might be on to something here. That and Basilio reminds me of my old friend Wallace."
"The Elibean silver knight?"
"Yeah. They're more or less the same person. Fiesty. Loud. Even so, I think Gregor might do a better job."
"I know, right? I have a gut feeling he might just end up being a big, loveable bear to the kids."
He gasped. "What? I'm not loveable enough?" Mark nudged her softly, jokingly taking offense.
"Hush, husband." She muttered, showing him their son already asleep. "He's asleep again."
"Okay." Mark then leaned on his wife's shoulder and a comfortable silence grew between them.
"Anyway Mark, you're my loveable bear, too." Lissa's voice was soft, but with their silence, it was loud. "And sometimes, I don't like sharing you. Even to our kids."
And she kissed his head. Her husband smiled and returned the gesture. With their son asleep, they both stood up and returned back to their rooms to bathe. As Mark held Lissa's hand on their way back, he asked one question.
"So, uh…am I off the hook?" And her grip became tight. "Gaugh!"
Lissa gave him a long, slow look. Then, her grip tightened.
"Dream on, mister."