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Robin awakens, and everything has changed.
The sky is a brilliant, unending blue. Wet with morning dew, the freshly cut grass on the rolling fields seep into his coat as he shifts on his side. Warm sunlight glares at him and in moments the damp has completely evaporated from his sleeves.
Around him the scenery unfolds, shaded imprints of distant mountains grazing the horizon. A breeze bristles through the stray trees dotting the hills. He takes a tentative step, his soles sinking into a soft mound of soil. The white flowers growing by his feet are unrecognisable.
Even so, memory does not fade from his ancient blood. He shrugs his coat off in the humid wake of spring, and walks towards Ylisstol.
-
The villages he remembers have vanished, some reduced to many acres of fertile farmland, some where the roads stay hard-packed with dirt but wooden huts torn down in favour of whitewashed walls and hanging glass bulbs strung under quaint red tiles. They look at him strangely, and he realises why as he passes several more settlings that look nothing like the past. Though his boots are well worn and coat still sturdy over his shoulders, his garb is outlandish at best and impractical at worst. The textiles the residents wear are finely woven, seams hidden from sight. He listens, learns, and exchanges a gold crown in his pocket for what he suspects is a lot less than what it’s worth.
It’s barely enough for him to completely exchange his apparel, but he refuses to remove the crested ring resting on his hand.
Ylisstol is easy to identify from leagues away. The road widens, first cobbled with stone then covered with foul-smelling black stuff that steams in the sun. He nearly blasts the first truck that rumbles inches by his head into oblivion with a crackling shot of electricity, and soon learns that it’s him that’s the anomaly. There are no more carriages with horses, no more peddlers travelling by foot. By night, the metal poles erect by the road light up, dashing arcs of artificial luminance on the ground and obscuring the stars in the sky.
He reaches the capital in the cusp of late morning.
It’s loud. That is his first thought when someone yells at him for blocking the street when he stands still to gape at the architecture. There are also some who stare at his hair, a shock of white among the common brown and blond. Yet as quickly as it is filled with people the city empties after the morning rush and all’s left are pedestrians that quickly shuffle aside to avoid mutual interaction.
At least the castle is still there, but it’s heavily renovated and barred from outsiders. The guards posted outside wear uselessly ornate uniforms with bayonet rifles strung on their shoulders, faces void of any expression.
He stands as long as common social courtesy will allow him, and leaves the premises as a slight bout of rain platters across the sidewalk.
He doesn’t have an umbrella. How fitting, he thinks, as he leans against a deserted cafe for cover. The streets are indifferent as always, now veiled with a cold gloom that seems to become heavier as the rain plods on. From the corner of his eye he catches something familiar and looks up. He wonders if he’s mistaken, but she lifts her head right as he opens his mouth and does a double take.
They stand there in mutual disbelief, rain rolling down the clear plastic of her umbrella. She pockets her phone. Tightens her grip on the handle. When she speaks, Robin does the same.
“—Is that you?”
Nowi is taller than him now, grown into the pinnacle of youth. Her hair is no longer in the messy ponytail during the war and instead cut short to her shoulders and held up by a simple hairband. The mirth in her eyes still remains after so many years and she lets out a huff of laugher as Robin blinks in bewilderment.
“How many years has it been?”
“I dunno.” She smiles and steps into the dry shade with him, snapping the umbrella shut as she tugs at his sleeve. “But you look like you need some coffee.”
“What’s this… coffee?”
“Bean juice.” She replies seriously before dragging him through the front door. The bell chimes pleasantly and Robin is suddenly hit with a blast of cold air. At the confused quirk of his brow, she giggles and explains to him that it’s the air conditioner. No magic. Just science. He gets ushered to a table by the window as Nowi goes up to the counter, dawdles for a while and saunters back with two paper cups in hand.
He sniffs at the brownish liquid suspiciously and takes a sip. It scalds his tongue but Nowi’s downing half her drink in one go. There’s nobody but them in the café and the shower has worsened outside. Robin watches traffic speed by with undisguised interest.
“I can barely recognise Ylisstol,” is what he says after a long while. “The world seems to have moved on without me.”
“Yeah, it has. But it’s gotten more beautiful around here, don’t you think?”
He’s slightly surprised by her words. “It’s good that at least you haven’t changed.”
He’s wrong, and he knows. She’s matured in spirit. He learns that she has never considered a manakete’s slumber throughout the ages, and wonders how the world can still look so colourful through her eyes, when she’s lived through so many reiterations of civilisation. Watching life blossom and wilt. Watching loved ones live and die.
An hour has passed when she stands up in a burst of panic in the middle of conversation. “I completely forgot I had work.”
Robin warms his fingers on the second cup of coffee Nowi bought him. “Don’t let me keep you from losing your job, then.”
She hastily scribbles down her number on Robin’s palm and huffs indignantly. “Call me once you get a phone, okay?”
“Absolutely.”
She sticks out her tongue as she waves him goodbye. “You should go to the national museum later. See you around!”
He waits until she runs out, grins at him through the glass and hurries along her way. His latte is still hot as he ducks out from the comfort of the café. The sky’s cleared up considerably, so he consults a map in the open park down the street.
Around him are elderly couples taking leisurely walks and pigeons landing over the ducks’ pond in search of bread crumbs. He’s the only one lost in the maze of the city, and he feels so, so alone.
-
The museum is closed due to repairs. The entrance to the memorial garden is right across the road. Then, as it hits him, he curses himself for still treating Nowi like a child.
He wanders the lush greens till he sees a small amphitheatre at the side of the brick paved path. There’s a puppet show going on, apparently for an ongoing event to celebrate the anniversary of Grima’s slumber. He hovers behind the rows of children screaming in delight as the puppeteer chases a few of them around with a cute imitation of the fell dragon.
“And alas, though evil warded, the tactician awoke with teeth and claw, succumbing to darkness once again.
Yet the brave exalt, promising to be by his side when he woke up restored, reigned him back from the verge of destruction.
So he waited, and waited, night and day.
Decades passed, he slumbered on,
till the exalt could wait no more.
They say he still sleeps to this day, unknowing of his lover’s pain,
and such is the tale of how peace came to be.”
A story hardly appropriate for children. He treads on, ignoring the pleas to the puppeteer on what happened to the exalt afterwards. It feels like there’s a knot in his gut.
He doesn’t register the monument in front of him until he has reached the end of the path. He brushes his fingers over the rugged marble, digging his nails into the letters carved into the cold stone.
There’s a statue beside it. It’s a spitting image of Chrom, knelt over a cocoon of wings wrapped in on itself. The etchings on the plaque are hard to make out from the weathering of time.
‘Though Ylisse was able to collect the remains of the last exalt, the body of his tactician was never recovered. Thus this memorial stands in honour of his request for unification even in death.’
And below,
‘It is believed that knight exalt had commissioned the monument himself as his final message, though the statue was sculpted by a descendant who did not wish to be named.’
The words on the monument have faded beyond comprehension. It hasn’t aged well despite the efforts in preservation, too late, too feeble. The only thing that remains is his name and year of death, renewed over generations that have chosen to forget.
His throat constricts, threatening to choke him at any moment. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t want to know. His legs crumple on the pedestal, hands shaking as he inhales sharply.
The tears don’t come until he’s gasping for breath, overwhelmed by the tight pain in his chest and ache in his throat. The afternoon blaze dwindles as wisps of clouds move over the sun.
It’s starting to rain.