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It is impossible to describe the relief we all felt at the fall of Grima. The shadow that had been hanging over us all for so long had been dispelled. For those who came from the future, their goal had been accomplished; they had lived to see the evil they had known all their lives finally cast down and destroyed.
There was much to be done, of course; many of us knew not where our future lay. The children of the future in particular had to carve out a place for themselves in the new world; for most of them, that place lay far away from their parents. For one blessed night, though, we were all together, comrades for one last time. I will never forget the marvellous feast that was organised for us all in the castle in Ylisstol, though I did not see it through to its conclusion.
The cheers and laughter of the feast gave way to the soft chirping of insects as Robin slipped surreptitiously through the door and closed it behind him. He would be missed at some point, but he thought he could probably grab a few minutes to himself. The others would understand.
Well, no, they wouldn’t. They might think they did, but it simply wasn’t true. None of them had been through so many long and difficult battles, only to embrace cowardice at the very end. None of them had had to weigh the fate of the world against their own life. None of them had had to face one final test, and been found wanting.
Oddly enough, he wasn’t angry, or disappointed in himself. He just felt… well, nothing much at all, really. That was the strangest thing of all. The fighting was finally over. Chrom was talking about granting him a title and a substantial estate, for what that was worth. Most importantly, everyone he loved was alive and unharmed, something he had scarcely dared to believe possible at times. So why couldn’t he celebrate any of that?
Sighing, he began to stroll in the direction of the palace walls. It wouldn’t be much of an escape from the party if someone were to open a door and find him standing there, a few measly feet from all the ghastly frivolity. Given that he had the entire palace grounds to get lost in, it would be rather a waste of a good stealthy exit.
As he walked, he closed his eyes in appreciation of the breeze. At least there was this. Whatever troubles he might encounter, whatever terrible thoughts might swirl ceaselessly in the maelstrom of his head, there was always the serenity of a simple moonlit walk to escape into. He cursed himself for not having the foresight to bring a book to the great victory feast. Perhaps he should start hiding a few in his sleeves like Morgan. He chuckled aloud at the thought.
Something caught his eye; a sudden movement atop the palace walls. He tensed, remembering another night time encounter in these palace grounds. Admittedly, with Validar dead and the Grimleal no longer an extant force, there wasn’t really anybody to be sending assassins into Ylisstol, but then again, who knew what new enemies they might have made over the course of their conflicts?
He had no tomes handy, but he knew he could summon up some dark magic if need be, and at worst he could shout for some guards. Secure in that knowledge, he called into the air: “Who’s there?”
A few moments passed, before the timid reply came: “Father?”
He relaxed completely, eliciting protests from muscles that were having to do unexpected work. He walked up onto the palace walls to find Noire leaning over the battlements, looking like a guilty child, one hand closed in a tight fist. He smiled, and touched her face lightly.
“Good to know I’m not the only one who prefers wandering to feasting,” he said.
She nodded and attempted to smile. “I guess we each have our own ways of celebrating?”
He wasn’t sure if that was a statement or a question, so he settled for nodding back. It was probably the latter, anyway; definitive statements were not something Noire tended towards, as a rule. He leaned over the battlements himself, gazing over the lights of Ylisstol. His eyes flickered to his daughter’s closed fist, but he said nothing. Something was different about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The silence dragged on for several long minutes.
“Father,” Noire said finally. “Are you… happy?”
The question startled him so much that he stood up straight and turned to look at her. She was staring at him, her face a strange mixture of nervousness and apologetic defiance.
“Why do you ask?” he said, hoping wildly that she wouldn’t spot his blatant ducking of the question. Hoping in vain, judging by the look on her face.
“All day, you’ve been… distant. Even Morgan can’t seem to get through to you. Shouldn’t you be more triumphant? You’ve just won an astounding victory. You saved the world.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t save the world. I only planned how it would be saved. And in the end, I didn’t even…” He trailed off, cursing himself for speaking without thinking for once. Noire said nothing, but looked down at her closed fist.
After taking a moment to collect himself, he looked at her wryly. “Shouldn’t the same go for you? More so, in fact. You’ve been fighting this battle your entire life. I didn’t even know about Grima until a matter of months ago. And you’re just as much a part of his bloodline as I am.”
Noire gave a start, and tensed up. She slowly began to relax after a moment, though still staring down at her feet. Finally she said: “I guess we’re both… hard to please.”
Robin smiled. “Looks that way.”
Noire looked over at him tentatively. “You know… no-one blames you. For… you know… what you chose.”
“I know.”
“No-one wanted to… to lose you.”
“Obviously,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended. “But sometimes sacrifices need to made for the greater good. A tactician who doesn’t understand that is no tactician at all.”
“FOOLISH FATHER!” Noire’s transformation was, as ever, so sudden that Robin actually fell over in surprise. She towered over him as he stared up at her from the floor. “YOUR CONCEPT OF ‘SACRIFICE’ IS MEANINGLESS TO THOSE WHO LOVE YOU! YOU ARE ALLOWING YOUR PRIDE TO OVERRIDE ALL OTHER CONCERNS!” She gave a start as she reverted to normal, and gasped to see her father on the ground. “Oh my gods… I’m so terribly sorry… I didn’t mean…”
She extended a hand to help him up, but he shook his head and pulled himself up. Once up, he smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I’m getting used to it.” He stared out at the city. “Besides… maybe you had a point.”
Noire leaned over the battlements next to him. “Maybe you did too, father. I mean, maybe any tactician would have made that choice. But… who says you need to be a tactician anymore?”
He stared at her in shock. “What do you mean? I am a tactician. That’s… who I’ve always been. I mean, to a given value of “always”, admittedly, but…”
Noire smiled gently. “That’s who you decided to be, yes. But everyone has the freedom to make a different choice. To change who they are.”
She opened her fist to reveal her talisman. With a jolt, he realised that that was what had been bothering him about her. For the first time since he’d met her, it wasn’t dangling around her neck. As he watched, wide-eyed, she extended her arm over the battlements, and slowly let the talisman fall. It twisted as it fell, as if reacting to its rejection, then vanished into the darkness below.
He stared into that darkness for what must have been a couple of minutes, before turning to his daughter, a mute question in his eyes. She was still smiling.
“It’s done its work,” she said. “I… I got through everything. And I can’t deny that it’s at least partly thanks to that thing. But… now I have to go my own way. Mother’s been insistent for months about me ‘drawing on my own power’. She means in terms of battle, but I… I don’t think that’s all I have to work on.”
He nodded slowly. “You’ve got a chance at happiness now. You have to seize it. And you can’t do that while living in fear of yourself.”
“Exactly!” She looked surprised. “How could I live properly if I might suddenly scream in people’s faces at any moment? How could I…” She trailed off, looking suddenly embarrassed.
“Father! Noire! Here you are!” Before Robin could enquire further, a familiar voice sounded from behind them, on the ground. They turned to see Morgan waving energetically, as though they would somehow fail to spot her standing in an otherwise deserted courtyard a few feet away.
“Why did you leave? Everyone’s been asking after you.”
Robin and Noire exchanged a look. “Everyone?”
“Well, a lot of people. Well, a few people. Well, me.” She glanced away, before looking back with renewed enthusiasm. “So what happened? Did some terrible threat arise outside?”
“Not as such,” said Robin, smiling despite himself. “We just… needed a break, I think. I didn’t even realise Noire was out here myself.”
Morgan nodded vigorously. “Right, I get it. Don’t want to get caught up in the celebration. You need time for contemplation, so you can look back over what you’ve done. Learn from it.”
“Did I teach you that?”
“Who else would have?”
Who indeed? That was something that had occurred to him again and again in the last months. Here he was, at the age of… well, he didn’t exactly know, but he couldn’t be older than thirty. And here were these teenagers, these grown women, suddenly turning up and looking to him as a parental figure. The same parental figure who had been absent for most of Noire’s life, after whom Morgan had slavishly styled herself. He was, to all intents and purposes, shouldering the familial burdens of a version of himself who had been more susceptible to the darkness that ran in his blood. And somehow, that had never really bothered him.
It was amazing how quickly it had happened. Morgan had been unmistakeably his flesh and blood, even from a distance, but even Noire had required no more than a few seconds of eye contact for some deep-rooted instinct to identify her as his daughter. After that, it had been easy. He knew he didn’t need to look out for them in battle (though he did anyway, of course), and they were an enormous help around camp. One was gregarious, the other diligent. But most of all, everything just seemed… simpler with them around. As though they were what it all boiled down to. What was the fate of nations compared to the well-being of his children?
And of course that had been the problem, in the end. When the time had finally come to strike Grima down, he had been fully prepared for what needed to be done. He had raised a bolt of Thoron high, ready to strike them both down at once. And then a stray gust of wind had spoiled everything. Just for a moment, the flapping of a coat had invaded his peripheral vision. A coat he knew well. A reminder of what he was leaving behind. And, just like that, he had faltered. Without even turning to look at Morgan, he had taken a step back, and then another. Perhaps he might have recovered his resolve, given a few more seconds, but Chrom had been too fast for him, and he was as unutterably glad of that as he was ashamed that it had happened.
But Noire was right. Life went on. And even if that had been counter to the original plan, what kind of tactician was he if he couldn’t adapt to the circumstances in which he found himself?
He realised that Morgan had climbed up onto the wall next to him, on the other side from her sister, while he had been lost in reflection. She caught his eye, and smiled, as Noire silently laid her head on his shoulder. Morgan took his hand and snuggled in against his chest as the three of them gazed out into the night sky shining with stars.
When Tharja found them a couple of hours later, they were asleep under a tree, all cuddled together so tightly that they seemed to be inextricable. A smile flashed across her face – the kind only her husband and children would ever see, and even then only rarely – before she turned around to inform the others that, no, she hadn’t seen them, and perhaps everyone should search the other end of the palace instead?
Robin awoke with the dawn, but didn’t move for a couple of hours, until Morgan and Noire too stirred awake. After all, he had earned a rest.