Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

+

            Stooped on the highest deck of a turret, Falchion propped against her side, Lucina watches the smoke of destruction curl towards the stars and counts the things she knows.

             One. She is the High Princess, heir to the halidom of Ylisse.

            Two. Her father, Exalt Chrom, is dead. All that remains of him is the sword that lies cool at her hip.

            Three. Her brother, Prince Morgan, is missing.

            Four. When she was six years old, she spilled a jar of ink across the pages of her mother’s favorite tome. Ashamed and fearful, she left the Queen-consort to discover the mess while she hid away in the library, her tiny body folded into the bottom shelf of an empty bookcase. Her mother found her with tears drying on her cheeks and inkblots bruising her hands, and while Lucina poured out her heart in apology, the Queen-consort simply crouched down beside her and laughed.

            “You know I have other copies of Thoron, silly girl,” she said, combing gentle fingers through her midnight hair. “What kind of tactician would I be, if I only kept one of each spell?”

            “A bad one?”

            Her mother kissed her brow. “Exactly.”

            Then she gathered Lucina in her arms and walked her back towards the desk, pausing only to press a finger to the ink-stained pages. It came away nearly clean.

            “I’ll have a surprise for you later, once the ink dries,” she said. “Just remember to be careful around my things, alright? And if you want to learn a thing or two about magic, you can always ask me, and I’ll teach you. It’s a special gift, but we have to be careful with it.”

            She leaned in closer, staring right at the brand of Naga in her eye. “But nothing is more special than you and your brother.”

            That night, the Queen-Consort was tending to a very fussy Morgan, so the Exalt put his daughter to bed alone. As he tucked the covers up to her chin, Lucina spotted something strange on her nightstand.

            “Daddy, what’s that?” she asked, nodding to the black, waiflike thing at her bedside.

            Chrom picked it up, his face warmed by a knowing smile, and held it out before Lucina.

            It was a paper butterfly—folded just so the wings would flap, mimicking flight—made from the ink-ruined pages of Thoron.

            Five. Lucina’s mother, Robin, disappeared the night her husband died. Lucina knows she is dead, but a part of her hopes that for once, her brave mother chose to retreat.

            A violent wind lacerates the city, carrying cinders and ash and charred petals of wood, once the frames of whole houses. Lucina pinches her eyes shut. Breathes the acrid tang of smoke. Wonders how the world could fall so quickly to into darkness, when her parents offered such great light.

            Growling joins the wind—Risen, encroaching upon the turret, clambering over each other in a bloodthirsty tangle. An easy job, Lucina determines, but a messy one. She steps atop the turret’s crenellated barrier and hoists her sword. Like a mirror, it catches the firelight, reflecting back destruction.

            She looks across the way, to a rooftop where two figures are already staring, forlorn but ready to fight. It’s Owain and Severa. Her cousin, and her…well, she isn’t sure what Severa is to her, right now. But one thing binds them all, stronger than their ties, stronger than fate.  

            They’re orphans.

+

            The warmth enveloping Lucina is not like a fire. Instead, it is her father’s embrace. Her mother’s cloak, draped over her shoulders. She basks in it, arms outstretched, letting it seep through her clothes to her skin. What paradise has she stumbled into, to find warmth like this? Is she dreaming? Is she dead? A moment ago, she could’ve sworn she was on the battlefield, cutting apart a swarm of Risen, and now—

            Open your eyes, Blessed Princess. Let me see your mark. 

            Lucina flinches. She knows that voice. Not from any person, but from dreams. Prayers.

            She opens her eyes. The light before her should scald them, yet it is soothing, as though she stares not into some undiscernible dreamscape, but the soft white billows of a cloud. She feels at home in it.

            “Who are you?” she calls. Her question echoes three times into silence.

            A woman, tall as a palace, emerges from the light. It cleaves to her, feathering her shoulders, weaving luminous tributaries through the gossamer that falls from her hips. Green hair spools over her shoulders. A crown iced with shimmering jewels haloes her brow, but it’s dull in comparison to the brand burning at the center of her chest—the same brand that tints Lucina’s eye.

            I am Naga, the woman says, Mother of Ylisse, giver of the Exalted Brand. You are a child of my Holy Bloodline.

            Lucina drops to her knees. “Mother Naga, I…”

            Rise, Lucina. Now is no time to grovel and kneel. Not when I have a contract to offer.

            “A contract?” Lucina asks, standing.

            Indeed, Naga says. This world before us is doomed. Though you and your friends fight valiantly, death chases at your heels. The truth is, without your father, there is no way to save your people from Grima’s wrath.

            Lucina’s stomach wrings with grief and regret. If only she had followed her father out that night, if only she’d made him come home—

            Don’t speak in, ‘if only’s’, Princess, Naga says, jarring Lucina only a moment. Of course, the great Goddess can read her thoughts. My contract can make your wish reality, if you are willing to face the danger.

            “I’ll face anything,” she says. “Give me the contract.”

            Very well, says Naga. She opens her hands before her, and magic fills them. Phantom clocks tick in luminous green. Princess Lucina, I offer you the Blessing of Time. Should you accept, I will open the way for you to travel back in time and save your father.

            “How do I do that?”

            The magic in Naga’s hands changes shape, the clocks fusing and bending to make a six-eyed seal. Grima resides not in Plegia, but in the body of an Ylissean soldier—someone dear to the Lord Exalt. The same person who’s slain him.

             Lucina sucks in a sharp breath. She was told her father died in battle. Not at the hands of an ally. A friend.

            Oh Gods, what must’ve happened to her mother?

            Naga’s magic twists again, this time into a shield with five gleaming gemstones. To save your father, you must save the Fire Emblem. In the past, it was lost to Plegia after the death of Exalt Emmeryn. If you can stop her assassination, the horrors you’ve lived will be thwarted, and your father will clip the Wings of Despair, once and for all.  

            Lucina processes the contract as orders, a list of steps. “I understand,” she says, then pauses.

            “Is there a catch?”

            The light wavers around Naga, and for a flickering second, Lucina swears she sees the Divine Dragon smile. Clever, you are, she says. Here is my ‘catch’: when you embark on your journey, you must disguise yourself—only reveal your true name when the time is right. And, as on any quest, you must keep your heart in check. Should your feelings obscure you from your goal, the whole of humanity shall suffer for it.

            Lucina nods. A disguise is a problem she can solve later. Her heart, however, will be another matter.

            “I accept your blessing,” she says. “Send me back. Let me save this hopeless world, if you believe it is within my power.”

            This world is not hopeless, Princess. Hope only dies if you let the darkness kill it.

            “Then hope shall never die.”

            You are every bit your father’s child, says Naga. Pray that it will save you both.

            She pulls and stretches the glowing Emblem, then presses it in her hands, molding it into an orb of untarnished light. Mesmerized, Lucina watches it shiver, as if it can’t contain its power in its frame.

            Perhaps it will fit better in hers.

            Are you ready? Naga asks.

            Lucina holds a fist to her heart, a signal of her resolve. “I’m ready.”

            Naga lets the Blessing float down from her hands, until it stops and hovers mere inches from Lucina’s chest. She could touch it if she wanted, but sensing its strength so close, she won’t. Without the Divine Mother’s permission, she might find the magic burns her.

            Princess Lucina, I confer Time’s Blessing upon you, Naga says. With this power, you will bound across the flow of years, meet your fate on the verge of history. And then, you must change the fate of all of us.

            The Blessing drifts into Lucina’s heart, setting her skin ablaze beneath her armor. Light ribbons over her arms and neck, down Falchion’s blade. Her branded eye pulses with lightning heat, and her muscles stiffen and coil. This is a trial, she realizes. To see if she has more than her blood to make her worthy.

            Slowly, the magic cools, and Lucina tempers her breathing. She’s passed. Naga, seeming pleased, starts her retreat into her shroud of glow.

            Call on me when you have made your preparations—I will be there to open the gate.

            Lucina reaches out a hand, a question not quite formed heavying her tongue, but Naga is already gone.

+

            When Lucina wakes, she’s lying on a cot in an empty healers’ tent. A breeze rustles the open flap, letting in a cut of weak winter daylight.

            It was a dream, she tries to tell herself. She shifts on the bed, and the charge in her veins rushes right to her head, tipping the world out of focus. The newness alone is confirmation enough: she really did receive a Blessing from Naga.

            Is this what it was like for mother? To conjure lightning in the palms of her hands…

            Lucina’s heart skitters, and she wrings her fingers against the cot’s thin sheets. Shame leaks across her cheeks in a ruddy blush.

            How could she forget to ask Naga about her mother?

+

            Lucina falls beneath a night scarred in red—she is deep in her father’s past, but Grima already blights this world. The portal has spit her out in a forest somewhere, maybe the South of Ylisse, where broad-leafed trees stand pitch against the sky. Risen stagger through the gaps between them, filling the air with their harrowing moans.

            A scream cuts through them, tinny and soprano. Lucina—Marth, for now—jerks her head in the direction of the sound. Through the slits in her mask, she sees a Risen cornering a small body against a tree. She catches a sheen of blonde hair, then the sliver of a yellow skirt, and her stomach drops.

            This isn’t any girl. It’s her Aunt Lissa. Owain’s mother. Family.

            Leaving any thoughts of strategy behind, Lucina lunges. The Risen abandons Lissa and throws itself against Lucina. She pushes back, knuckles white around Falchion’s hilt, but the Risen outweighs her. Panic sets her blood pounding. She tugs her gaze over the Risen’s hulking shoulder, looking for escape.

            And then she’s face-to-face with her father.

            “Help!” is all she can cry.  The Risen strains harder against her blade, sending an ache through her arms. 

            “…Right!” Chrom exclaims. Gods, he looks so young.  

            Chrom rushes forward, dividing the Risen’s attention. Lucina catches the creature on a slip, and her blade finds purchase is in its neck. At the same time, Chrom’s twin Falchion emerges from its chest. As the Risen unravels into smoke, Lucina steps back and sheathes her sword.

            Beneath her mask, she steals a glance at Lissa, who is still glued to the tree. Shock spears her. This Lissa is not the feisty, war-hardened woman she knew, but a girl no older than herself, her smooth face still cast in terror.

            How far back in time has she traveled? What makes this day the ‘verge of history?’

            Don’t question it, she chides herself. You know your mission. Save the Emblem, save your father, save the world.

            “That was…quite an entrance,” says Chrom. He still holds his Falchion, but works his free hand through his hair. Lucina feels she might faint at the sound of his voice alone.

            Her beloved father, the man she’s spent years mourning, is right in front of her. Alive.

            Two figures emerge behind Chrom, and Lucina stiffens. At his left is her Uncle Frederick, his eyes thinned in suspicion—and at his right, her mother Robin, gazing at her with a much warmer curiosity.

            Tears silver her eyes, and she’s thankful none of her family can see them.

            “What’s your name?” Chrom asks.

            She can’t answer. She wants to say, “it’s me, Dad. It’s Lucina, your daughter.” She wants to shuck off the mask and throw herself into his arms, let him kiss the crown of her head the way he did whenever she worried him. She wants to hug her mother, apologize for all the times she crossed her, listen to her laugh—

            —but she can’t. Not yet. Not until she knows the Emblem’s fate is safe.

            Chrom looks away, only to check on his sister, and Lucina spins on her heels and runs.

+

            Save the Emblem, save my father, save the world.

            Sprawled flat on her back, face to the stars, Lucina repeats her mantra under her breath. It falls much sweeter, now that she’s completed her mission. Emmeryn is alive, the assassination thwarted, and the Fire Emblem lies safe in Ylisstol Castle.

            Still, a question gnaws at her: what will she do, now? Tirelessly, she pondered how she’d get to the past, but not once did she think about finding her way back to the present.

            She wonders what it looks like now. How much Ylisse has changed. What kind of girl she’s become, without growing up in the shadow of war.

            And then there is her family. Morgan’s birthday was coming up in May—they’d throw a huge party for him, opening the palace to all of their friends. She’d get him a good gift, maybe a new coat, but like usual, Cynthia would find a way to outdo her. Owain and Inigo would be around, too, slinging insults at each other and bugging Lucina to spar with them. Maybe Olivia, Inigo’s mother, could give her dance lessons again. Lucina smiles to herself, remembering when she first met Olivia as a little girl, and Olivia tried—without much avail—to teach her and Severa the right way to pirouette.

            The thought of Severa makes her chest burn. She should’ve tied up that loose end before she left, even if the knot was a goodbye. Instead, she lies twenty years in the past with a distant, messy kiss still staining her lips.

            Lucina shakes Severa from her mind and forces herself to think of her parents. In her months of trailing them, they’ve clearly grown closer, touchier. She got bashful looking at them sometimes, with the way they gazed at each other. But their affection brought comfort, too. They’re falling in love, and in a few short years, they will bring her into the world.

            For now, all Lucina can do is close her eyes and wait for Naga to carry her home.

+

            As Emmeryn falls, Chrom can hardly hear himself scream.

            Her descent is stiff, yet graceful, as a swan dives with still-furled wings. Chrom doesn’t see her hit the ground—his eyes have blurred over with tears, turning the world to muddy blots of sky and dust.  

            Arrows sing through the air. They just miss his body—it is as though something is guiding him, protecting him—but they might as well be ripping through his chest, with the way grief shreds and claws.

            By the time he reaches her, the archers have been slaughtered, and his steps are slow and weary. Grit sticks to his dampened cheeks. Before his sister’s lifeless form, he drops to his knees and places his head in his hands, letting heavy, stuttering breaths push and pull through his lungs.

            “Emm…”

+

            Lucina skids to a halt before the base of the cliff. In the distance, she can make out the shapes of her mother and father and Lissa, assisted by two Feroxi soldiers, moving in retreat. Her gaze roves into the foreground, and dread stabs through her, cold and splitting as Ylissean steel.  

            There, just feet from her, Emmeryn lies broken in the dust.

            “No!” Lucina cries. “No…I’m too late.” She sheathes Falchion and falls to one knee, hands clasping the sides of her head. “Our bleak future is written once more—”

            Her fingers lock around the edges of her mask. “—and darkness awaits us all.”

            Slowly, she pulls the butterfly mask from her face and tilts her head towards the sky. The sun’s warmth is taunting. Illusive. Vultures circle, smelling death.

            “Naga, help me,” she whispers. “Tell me there is still a way.”

            You have not failed, Lucina, the voice of Naga resounds. The Emblem may be lost, but you can still save your father.

            “How?”

            Slay the Fellblood, and Chrom will live. When the war comes, Grima will have no edge against him.

            Lucina closes her eyes, understanding. “Guide my hand, and it shall be done.”

            Calm settles over her. There will be retribution for Plegia’s wrath—redemption for Emmeryn’s sacrifice. It is time for her to be the hero. Not the Hero-King, but a hero of her own right. Princess Lucina, Child of Naga, wielder of the Divine Falchion. Just like her father before her.

            She rises, throwing back her shoulders. Then she lets the mask from her hands, and as she heads the way of Ylisse, the winds bring forth the sands to bury it.

+

            Robin sits with her legs crossed in the grass, a new tome from Miriel perched open on her knees. Reverently, she pads her fingers over the inscriptions. This spell is complicated, but beautiful—languages new and old twirl around each other in ink constellations, bounded by an intricate frame of thunderbolt strokes. The same strokes are matched in gold embellishments on the cover, leaving Robin to infer that this tome, Thoron, summons lightning or thunder.

            She savors the feeling of the pages beneath her hands—it’s the first time in at least a week that she’s had a moment to practice her magic. And this tome certainly seems a worthy investment of her time.  

            The journey home has been arduously long. The caravan is only halfway to Ylisse, and while they’ll pick up and move again in the next few days, the drain of the battle with Gangrel is catching up to them. Since Emmeryn’s death, Robin’s found herself hovering beside Chrom—and Lissa, on occasion, though Maribelle seems to be keeping her stable—offering whatever support she can to ease them. Even Robin herself still feels the sting of the Exalt’s sacrifice, but nothing like the grief that burdens Emmeryn’s siblings.

            Fortunately, Chrom has been receptive to Robin’s concern. Being around her makes things easier, he tells her, which makes her stomach lurch and flutter in a way she wishes it wouldn’t. He spends his evenings after dinner in her tent, planning routes with her. Sometimes, they split a pot of tea, or a bag of sweets she nabbed off of Gaius. Last night, she lent him one of the books she was borrowing from Sumia. Something to make him laugh, if he could help it. He said he’d start it, if he couldn’t get to bed, but by midnight when he left her tent, sleep was already tugging at his eyes.

            She flinches when she realizes she’s smiling like a fool, deep in a daydream instead of studying the tome on her lap. Anyone walking past her would think her out of herself, probably chide her for her terrible sleeping habits.

            She gets up, deciding that maybe standing will help. After all, she never fights sitting down. Just as she resets her focus, though, a rustling from the nearby woods draws her eye.

            A familiar figure, clad head to toe in blue, emerges from the brush. Marth walks with a shy posture, unlike usual, and her hair, which Robin had always thought short, now tumbles over her shoulders in silken waves, catching the sunlight in thin strands of metallic blue. What surprises Robin the most, though, is she’s shed her mask.

            Robin knows her face. Well, not really. The face Robin knows is harder, with a stronger jaw and thicker brows, but the symmetry, the cheekbones, the way their blue eyes seem to see the world in deeper shades—those are completely the same.

            She looks just like Chrom.  

            “I hope I didn’t frighten you,” she says.

            “No, I just…I’m surprised you’re back,” Robin stammers, closing her tome.

            Her lips quirk in something almost like a smile. “Here I am.”

            “You…” Robin starts. “Are you…Chrom’s sister?”

            Marth shakes her head. “We share a different relation.”

            Robin doesn’t get a chance to inquire further. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Chrom approaching the both of them.

            “Hey Robin, I was wondering—”

            The sight of Marth stops him in his tracks. He blinks a few times. “Marth?”

            “Not quite,” she says, stepping forward.

            Robin and Chrom see it at once—Naga’s brand in her eye, matching the one on Chrom’s shoulder.

            “You are…” Chrom trails off.

            Marth smiles fully now, tears shining in the rims of her eyes.

            “Hello, Father.”

+

            Chrom’s world is spinning. He knew there had to be a reason Marth hid her face behind that butterfly mask, but he never expected it to be that the Shepherds’ strange harbinger from the future was his own child.

            In his shock, he finds himself laughing. Robin cuts him a look.

            “Well,” he starts, “surely I didn’t name my own daughter Marth.”

            The girl claiming to be his daughter doesn’t seem to get the joke. “My name isn’t Marth,” she says. “It’s Lucina.”

            This sobers him. Lucina is a family name—the third name of his great-grandmother, and the second of his mother. It was almost Lissa’s first. Light, it means. The perfect name for a girl born in the midst of a war.

            “I’m sorry, father,” she continues. She’s sniffling, now, hiding tears behind a bent arm. “I didn’t want to have to tell you, but when we lost the Emblem, I thought…”

            He endeavors a step forward, opening his arms. “Come now, Lucina,” he says, “there’s no need to cry.”

            Lucina launches herself at him, smushing her face against his tunic. She sobs, clinging to his cape, but he can’t help a smile. Her hugs remind him of Lissa’s.

            “I never thought I’d see you again,” she cries. “But you’re here. You’re real.”

            Gently, he runs a few fingers through her hair, the same shiny cobalt as his own. “Of course I’m here,” he says.

            “You were gone,” she says, cinching him tighter. “In the future, you…you were…”

            He breaks away from her, but only to grasp her hands and look her in her eyes. They’re his in color, save the brand, but the shape is different. Her mother’s, likely. Whoever she could be.

            “What happened in your future? What sent you back to us?” he asks.

            Lucina irons her features, blinking away tears. “You were killed,” she says, firmly, and he tries not to let his surprise show on his face. “By someone very close to you.”

            Chrom swallows a lump in his throat. “You’ve come to root out a traitor.”

            “I’ve come to challenge our fate.”  

            “Then you won’t have to do it alone. Robin and I…” he turns to acknowledge her, but she’s already gone, presumably to give him time alone with his daughter.

            “My Shepherds and I will help you,” he recovers. “Changing the course of destiny—that’s an awful weight to bear on your own.”  

            Lucina crashes into him again, and he closes his arms over her, guarding her.

            “Thank you, Father,” she exhales.  

            “There’s no need to thank me, Lucina,” he says. “I’m the one who failed to protect you in your future. I’ll do anything I can to make things right.”

            She presses her forehead into his shoulder. “I just missed you so much.”

            He isn’t sure what to say to that, since he’s yet to actually know his daughter, but he holds her tight and hopes that it’s enough.

+

            Mid-afternoon, Robin emerges from her tent and looks around for Lucina, her mind overflowing with questions. She doesn’t want to pry about the personal, but to know how she got to the past, what the future she came from was like, why it needed saving—that much will help her greatly with her tactical planning.

            She makes her way across the camp, towards the sound of idle chatter, figuring maybe she’ll find Lucina there. Surely, she knows Robin. At this point, only death could tear the tactician from Chrom’s side. But maybe that’s what greets her in Lucina’s future. Death, long before the Princess could learn of Robin’s devotion to her father.

            Robin shakes her head, hoping to dispel such bleak thoughts.

            As Robin predicted, Lucina is chatting among the other Shepherds, already meshing in. Stahl, Cordelia, and Vaike are scattered around a table, immersed in a cutthroat session of a card game, while Lucina and Sumia spectate from behind them. Lucina hovers close to Sumia, and against her will, Robin finds herself looking for physical similarities between them.

            Sumia would be a good mother, Robin thinks. She is beautiful, and gentle—she was one of the first besides Chrom to welcome Robin into the Shepherds. And Lucina seems happy beside her. Robin doesn’t catch much of a resemblance, but Lucina takes so much after her father, it’s almost impossible to tell. Chrom had mentioned in passing that he’d have to take a bride, once he ascended the throne, and Sumia is a good, tactical choice.

            Envy pangs in Robin’s chest, and even though she curses it, it will not go away.

+

            Robin is leaning over a map when it happens. One moment, she’s tacking a pin to mark a flier formation, and the next, there’s a memory, sharp and fleeting, the brief flight of a butterfly over her nose.

            She is a child, no more than ten, curled up on the crescent sill of a circular window. Outside, sand sweeps the earth in golden waves, baking under relentless sun. Even the sky seems tired of being blue.

            Robin diverts her gaze from the window to the book propped on her knees. The illustrated pages spell a fairy tale, something about a boy lost in a valley, looking for his heart. She hears a man’s voice call her name, and she slams the book closed and climbs down from the sill, keeping the precious story close at her hip.

            Then, she is in a dark room, lit only by dim sconces and slender candles. There is a woman—a stranger—her white hair nearly glowing in the shadows, and beside her, the Grimleal leader Validar. For a man with such a slight, cadaverous face, he cuts a foreboding figure, his height appended by a stiff ponytail jutting out like a crown of spikes. A full, gold basin sits in his hands.  

            He places the basin on a dais and beckons Robin forward. “Come here, my child.”

            Robin steps towards him, because a little girl should not defy her father. Her reflection, nothing but a silhouette in such meager light, lies smooth across the water’s surface.

            “Hold out your hand,” he says, so she does.

            Steel blazes in the dark. The memory skips until her father’s—Validar’s—dagger is sliding down the side of her hand. Little Robin winces. Blood weeps from the cut, falling into the basin in six perfect drops. As they hit the water, violet light blooms and swirls. Curious, Robin dips in a finger, making the slightest of ripples.

            Six red eyes open to greet her touch. She’s seen them before, in the birthmark on her own right hand. Like the water, the mark incandesces. Stares.

            “The mark is true,” Validar says. “She is the Fellblood child.”

            “What does that mean?” she asks. The eyes in the water blink and brighten. In her periphery, she sees her father and the woman kneel.

            “It means that while we worship Lord Grima,” Validar says, and Robin can feel his grin in his words, “you, Robin, will become him.”

            Robin’s eyes snap open. There’s a stinging in her finger—she’s pricked herself with one of her tactical pins. The pain is little, though, compared to the sudden ache in her chest. She smears the little globe of blood from her finger and darts outside, desperate for air.

            Sunset is falling on the camp. She can smell dinner, hear the soldiers’ leisurely chatter and the murmur of a nearby stream. None of it brings her out of her daze. The memory is unshakeable. And it is certainly a memory. Unlike a daydream, she can replay it over and over in blistering detail. Live in it the same way she can the day she joined the Shepherds, when as far as she knew, her life had begun with Chrom’s outstretched hand.

            Oh Gods, Chrom.

            The thought of his face nearly knocks the wind from her. If she is Grima, then she is meant to destroy him. Her captain. Her savior. Her best friend. Nausea shudders through her, nearly buckling her knees.

            She passes the edge of camp, into the surrounding forest. She cuts a straight path, but everything around her seems to blur with violet edges. I’m not Grima, she tells herself. I can’t be.

            But a memory is a memory, and by the mark on her hand, familiar as the scars on her shoulders and the braids in her hair, she knows it’s true.

            Fingers trembling, she closes her cloak over her chest and quickens her pace. There has to be a way to stop this. To purify herself. She’s a tactician, after all—give her the pieces, and she’ll solve the puzzle twenty ways. But all Robin knows is that Grima is a god and she is a girl and the life she’s scrabbled together is quickly coming apart.

            Behind her, footsteps crunch, a hurried gait she now regrets learning so well.

            “Hey, Robin? Where are you going?”

            His voice is cold water flushing over her, a tide that reaches to bring her back. She keeps walking. Resisting. Chrom has always had a supernatural way of showing up when she’s upset, but until now, it was never dangerous. Or maybe it was always dangerous.  

            “Are you okay?”

            She whirls. The confusion on his face twists into worry. “Get away from me,” she snaps.

            “What?”

            “I said get away from me. I’m dangerous.”

            “Not to me,” he says. “What is this? What’s come over you?”

            Frantically, she rolls down her glove, baring the mark of Grima, vibrant as a bruise on her skin. “This,” she says. “Do you know these eyes?”

            “I…”

            “Grima. Annihilation. The Wings of Despair.”

            “You’re rambling like a Grimleal, Robin,” he says. “I’m troubled.”

            She puts a vise around her wrist, so tight her knuckles pale. “I remember,” she says. “I remember who I was.”

            He comes closer. She staggers back. “Were you one of them? The Grimleal?” he asks, his voice achingly gentle. “Because if that’s the case, I promise you, you are free of them.”

            “You don’t understand, I…” she stammers. Maybe if she doesn’t tell him, she’ll let it pass, and with time, it will wilt away in some dark corner of her thoughts. But the words are on her tongue before she knows it. “I’m the Fell Dragon. I was born to become Grima.”

            Chrom looks more puzzled than anything. “Did you drink something funny?”

            Tears bead and fall down her cheeks. “Why won’t you listen to me?” she cries, trembling. “I’m a monster!”

            “You are no such thing.”

            He offers his hands, and Robin backs away, shriveling into her cloak.

            Chrom’s eyes widen. “Hey, be careful—”

            She doesn’t understand his warning until her foot catches in the muddy bank of the stream, throwing her balance. A gasp flees her throat. She nearly tumbles if not for Chrom lunging forward, gathering her in his arms.

            The moment her head hits his chest, she breaks. Tears flow, her body shivering with each sob that rolls through her. The whole camp must hear her wailing, but Chrom shows no intention of parting from her, his arms tight around her shoulders, his lashes fluttering where he leans his face against her cheek. 

            “Please, let me go,” she manages. “You don’t know what I—”

            “Peace, Robin,” he says. “You’re in no state to be alone.”

            “I fear I’ll hurt you.”

            He strokes her hair. “Do you wish to hurt me?”

            “No. Never.” I love you. Though she cannot speak it, it’s the only thing that feels certain anymore.

            His lips press against her temple, and like a hex, it makes her weak in his embrace. “You must be so tired,” he says. “You’re seeing things. Your dreams are leaking into your days.”

            “But the mark…”

            “Is a scar of your past,” he says. “Your future is here, with the Shepherds.” He swallows hard, and she can feel the hesitation tightening his chest. “With me.”

            “I want to believe you,” she whispers.

            “Then believe me.” His head falls to her shoulder, and slowly, she snakes her arms around his waist. “Please, stay with us. I’d rather die than lose you, too.”

            Robin has no rebuttal, leaving silence to settle between them. She listens to his breathing, the cold water bubbling just feet from where they stand, and for a few long seconds, she edges on calm. Yet the memory is relentless. When she closes her eyes, Validar’s stare back, ringed in malevolent shadows.  

            She tenses, grabbing fistfuls of Chrom’s tunic.  

            He lifts his head. “What is it, Robin?”

            “I saw my father, in my memory,” she whispers, right at his ear. “He was…horrible.”

            “As was mine,” he says. He leans away from her, only to dip a finger beneath her chin and raise her head. There is only kindness in his gaze.  “But we are not our fathers.”

+

            In any other moment, it might bring Lucina joy to see her parents embrace, but watching them now, her father holding his own enemy—his own murderer—in his grasp, she feels as though she’s going to retch.

            She wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t for Naga’s warning. That her father’s killer is the soul of Grima. That the night he left, running head-first into another battle, was the night his own wife, the mother of his children, killed him.

            When Emmeryn died, Lucina could feel hope crumbling in her hands. But this is something different. This is ruination. All that she knows, now ash in the wind.

            The blood of Grima runs through her veins. It runs through Morgan’s, if he’s still alive somewhere. Lucina wonders if he bears the mark, like her mother does. He always did take after her, wearing a replica of her coat, those fingerless gloves…

            Naga’s voice slices through her thoughts. Hope only dies if you let the darkness kill it.

            Lucina steels herself, takes a slow breath. Pulls her hand from Falchion’s hilt to find it shining with her sweat. There is no choice. At the cost of everything—her father’s joy, her mother’s life, her own existence—she must complete her mission.

            This is how destiny changes. With a sword, and a duty, and a girl in the woods, tears sliding down her cheeks as she trembles at the price of the future.

+        

            Chrom drains the last of his tea and sets to pacing about his tent, watching his shadow as if it might offer an answer he can’t contrive.

            He should go to Robin. After he found her in the woods like that, shaken and sobbing, he should’ve never let her out of his sight. He ponders sending Frederick to her, just to watch by her tent, but if she said anything to him, mentioned anything of her fears about becoming Grima, of all things, he worries Frederick the Wary just might be cautious enough to believe it.

            Strangely though, Robin being a hostage of the Grimleal makes sense. When they found her in that field, she could have been in the process of escaping them, the amnesia stemming from some injury or trauma, maybe a potion she’d administered herself. The mark on her hand could be a cult tattoo. They could have raised her to believe she’d inherit the Fell Dragon, used it to keep her trapped. Controlled.

            He simply can’t believe Robin could be evil. She’s his best friend. His other half. All his life, he’d been searching for someone who makes him as happy and strong as she does. He loves her. He might also be in love with her, but that’s a matter for another time.

            If Robin’s memory was true, if she really is Grima, then the question is not how to destroy her, but how to save her.

            To find the answer, he’ll do anything.

+

            At dawn, Robin makes her way to the field at the Northern edge of camp, where a small hill slopes towards a growing sun. She climbs slowly; though her sleepless night hasn’t hit her mind, yet, it’s made her body heavy and sluggish. When she reaches the crest, she closes her eyes, letting the rising light weave spiderwebs across her eyelids.

            Help me, Naga. Tell me how to change my fate.

            Soon, her answer comes. Not in the Divine Dragon’s soothing voice, but in the high-pitched shing of a sword.

+

            As Lucina stalks Robin up the hill, high grass padding her footsteps, she wonders what will happen when Robin dies. If Lucina will crumble, turn to dust and scatter. If she will simply blot out of existence. If she will be trapped, a relic of another time, unable to return home, cursed to behold her mother’s dead body and watch her father grieve it.  

            She slides Falchion out of its sheath. Regardless of what fate awaits her, this is what must be done.

            “I’m sorry, mother,” she whispers, and Robin turns her warm, tawny eyes on her just as she thrusts out the blade.

+

            Robin’s gaze burns down the length of Falchion to find Lucina grasping the pommel, her face crimped with intensity.

            “You know, don’t you?” Robin says. She keeps her voice calm, but inches from Falchion’s deadly point, her heart throttles.

            “It’s you,” Lucina declares, quivering. “You’re the traitor. The Fellblood. You killed my father.”

            “Grima killed Chrom. Not me,” Robin responds. “My body is supposed to hold Grima, one day, but I don’t have to let him win. We don’t have to.”

            Lucina grips the sword with both hands. “If you have any love for Prince Chrom, you’ll let this be done.”

            Robin freezes. Perhaps she’s right. Maybe she should let Lucina execute her, if she truly believes it will save them. But that’s not what she wants. The fear that’s riven her body is no mystery to be unraveled—it’s instinct, simple and human.

            She doesn’t want to die.

            So she will plead, instead.

            “Lucina—”

            At the sound of her name, Lucina lowers her sword. Tremors wrack her shoulders, orange sunlight clinging to the tears that run down her cheeks. Robin stands puzzled. Never has she seen someone’s resolve crumble so quickly. Not when they’ve had the upper hand like this.

            Then, Lucina drops Falchion altogether. “I can’t do it,” she says, tossing her head. “Mother Naga forgive me, I can’t.”

            Like a lost child, she stumbles into Robin’s arms. Robin embraces her tentatively, though she quavers just as much. What if she has a knife? Robin wonders, a chill racing across her skin, but the thought is quickly lost when Lucina hooks her fists in the shoulders of Robin’s coat.

            “Look at me, Lucina.”

            She raises her head, and by the virtue of some instinct, Robin lays a hand on her cheek. “I love your father,” says Robin. “I would never do anything to harm him.”

            “But Grima—”

            “If I truly am the vessel of Grima, I will find a way to free myself,” says Robin. “I don’t imagine your father told you how many battles I’ve helped us win.”

            “Actually,” Lucina says, releasing a hand from Robin’s coat to wipe her eyes, “you told me yourself.”  

             Robin takes a step back. So she knew me.

            “Lucina, in your future—was I kind to you?”

            She doesn’t get a chance to respond. Chrom is coming up the hill, waving to both of them. “Hey! There you are!” he calls. When he reaches the top, he looks between Robin and his daughter, then at Lucina’s Falchion on the ground, confusion spreading over his face.

            “What’s going on?” he asks. “Robin, I went looking for you at your tent, but I—”

            “Everything’s fine, father,” Lucina says.

            “You’re crying.”

            “There was…a misunderstanding,” Robin interjects. “She should go back to camp with you, Chrom. I think I need a moment to myself.”

            Chrom frowns. “Are you sure?”

            “I’m sure.”

            “Tell me you’re not still thinking of leaving us.”

            Robin shakes her head. “I would never leave your side, milord,” she says. “I’ll be back to camp in time for breakfast.”  

            “Wouldn’t want to miss another day of porridge.”

            She smiles, because with him, it always comes easier. “Not for the world.”

            Lucina collects her Falchion and follows Chrom down the hill, back towards camp. Robin watches fondly as he swings an arm around her shoulders, their capes swishing and braiding together.

            It isn’t until they’ve disappeared that Robin realizes she’s still shaking. If her encounter with Lucina has taught her anything, it’s not to wander off defenseless. There was no excuse for her to leave without her Levin sword. But beneath the fear lingering from her near-execution, curiosity simmers.

            Whoever she was to Lucina, whatever she did for her, it was enough to make her stand down.

+

            Weeks later, the Shepherds’ caravan treads a weary parade through the streets of Ylisstol, flanked by crowds of cheerers and mourners. When they arrive at the palace gates, they find them barricaded by a line of anxious guards. In the middle of them, a girl with glossy brown pigtails, dressed in the armor of the Pegasus Knights.

            Lucina marches a good three feet from Robin, but the tactician swears she feels her stiffen. “No,” Lucina mutters. “How did she get here?”

            “Luci! Luci, is that you?” the girl squeals.

            “You know her?” Robin asks, but Lucina is already running.

            The two girls embrace, much to the confusion of the palace guards.

            “It’s you! You’re here!” the girl exclaims. “Oh gods, we were all afraid you were dead.”

            “Easy, Cynthia,” Lucina says, patting her friend’s shoulders. “I’m alright.”

            “You’re not going to believe it, Luci. Naga’s been coming to us. She opened a portal for Owain, and then for me—”

            “What about Severa?”

            “I…I don’t know.”

            Vaike’s voice sounds behind Robin. “She’s not another kid from the future, is she?”

            Robin strains to get a closer look at Cynthia. “Vaike, this is the only time I’ll ever say this, but I think you’re right.”

            Cynthia peeks around Lucina’s shoulder, staring into the crowd of Shepherds, and shock widens her face.

            “Mama!” she cries. Then she runs, sobbing, into Sumia’s arms. The force knocks Sumia, already uneasy on her feet, right to the ground.

            Everyone watches, rapt with intrigue, as Cynthia helps her mother to her feet. “I’m so sorry, mother,” she blubbers. “I just, I thought I lost you forever, I…”

            Sumia, understandably, is speechless. She keeps glancing between Cynthia and Chrom, surely looking for resemblance. As much as Robin wants to be joyful, all she feels is a twist in her gut.

            “Father!” Cynthia exclaims. She wrenches from Sumia’s shaky grip and tears across the edge of the caravan, right towards Chrom. Robin knows her dejection must wear plainly on her face—

            —until Cynthia throws her arms around Frederick, instead.

            The loyal knight sputters. Sumia goes pinker than her armor. And for the first time since the battle with Gangrel, laughter breaks out in full chorus among the Shepherds.

+

             When a shadow steps into the threshold of his study, Chrom glances up and sets down his quill. He expects to see Robin there, but the visitor is his daughter, redressed in her battle gear after nearly a week of borrowed dresses and tunics.

            “Lucina,” he says, eyeing her carefully. “Are you going somewhere?”

            She sidesteps the question. “You’re writing an awful lot today.”

            “Robin had a tower of reports to copy,” replies Chrom. “She tries to keep me away from them, but I tell her she works too hard and then nab them anyway.”

            Lucina smiles. “She does have that habit.”

            “Did you need something?” he asks.

            “Just to stop by and say hello.”

            “Well, I’d hope it were hello and not goodbye,” he says. “You know that so long as you’re in the past, you have a place in my Shepherds. And, of course, in my family.”

            “It’s all very strange, isn’t it?”

            “I won’t lie, it’s been a bit of an adjustment,” he says. “But I’m grateful you’re here.”

            “So Naga wills it.”

            He twirls his quill in his hand, contemplating. “Say, Lucina. This might sound a bit out of turn, but you don’t suppose you could tell me who—”

            “Chrom? Did you finish that stack?”

            Robin appears in the doorway behind Lucina. She must’ve hiked up from the barracks—he can tell by the way her skin has warmed with color, her silver-white hair slightly mussed. It reminds him of how she looks on the battlefield, fierce and windswept, eyes crackling with resolve.

            Oh gods, she makes a mess of him.

            “I’m working on it,” he tells her, attempting to hide his blush with a broad gesture to Lucina. “I have a visitor.”

            “I can see that,” says Robin. Nonchalantly, she sets a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Lucina, could you please tell your father that if he insists on helping me with my paperwork, he’s going to have to write a little faster.”

            “You know me, Robin. I don’t do a lot of this stuff,” Chrom interjects.

            “That’s right, what did you say? You’re either taking a nap, or swinging a sword?”

             Her jab makes even Lucina laugh. Chrom would be hurt—though only a little—if not for the sight of Robin and Lucina’s matching smiles, mirrored all the way to the shapes of their eyes when they crinkle.

            “I’m sorry—father, what was it you wanted to ask me, again?” Lucina questions.

            “Never mind that,” he replies, struggling not to grin. “I think I have my answer.”

+

            The sun is setting by the time Robin finally makes it back to the barracks with Chrom’s half of the reports. She’ll have to check them for errors later—even for a Prince with a lengthy education, he’s never been the most attentive to details of spelling and grammar. But for now, she plans to head to the mess hall for dinner, and maybe, if she’s economical about it, sneak in a few hours of sleep.

            As she makes her way out of her study, a black blotch on a map calls her gaze. A stain, she worries. But that’s not it. The spot on the map is a delicate paper butterfly, its wings fanned like a shield over the square that marks Ylisstol Castle. How curious, Robin thinks. But she does not touch it.

            Something tells her it belongs there.

Chapter Text

Epilogue – Two Years Later

            “Do you really think it’s her?”

            Gently, Robin takes Chrom’s hand and splays it over her swollen belly. “It is. I know it,” she says. “Unless she mentioned any older siblings to you that I still don’t know about.”

            “Not once.”

            “Good,” Robin says. “I love you, endlessly, but I don’t think I’m made to do this too many times.”

            Chrom rolls onto his side and kisses her cheek. “Not to worry. One child with the love of my life is already more than I could ask for,” he says. This time, he kisses the shell of her ear. “Though, two would be nice.”

            “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

            He lays his arm over her chest and tugs himself closer—their royal bed has more than enough space, but he can’t seem to rest well anymore unless he’s curled against Robin, listening to her breathe.

            “Do you think she’ll come back some day?” Robin asks.

            “Who, future Lucina?” Chrom responds. “I don’t know. She’s still on her mission, somewhere. But maybe she went back to her own time.”

            Robin knits her fingers with his. “I worry for her,” she says. “I worry for us.”

            “Don’t bring your fate into this, Robin. Our child will be safe. And with the best mother she could ask for.”

            She pulls their joined hands to her lips, leaving a featherlight kiss on his knuckles. “I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t think it could be stopped.”

            “Yet somehow, I feel you would’ve made it into bed with me, anyway.”

            “You’re unbelievable,” she says, rolling her eyes.

            “Hey,” he says, voice low. He adjusts his free hand to tuck her hair from her face. “You know I’m desperately in love with you, right?”

            Robin cracks a smile. “So I’ve been told.”

            “And that we can conquer anything together?”

            “I may have read that, somewhere.”

            He muffles his laugh against her shoulder, then kisses the tiny freckles there. “You’re vicious, Robin,” he says. “I can’t get enough of you.”

            “Then it’s a good thing you’ll have me forever.”

            Chrom lifts his head, glimpsing first the mark on Robin’s hand, then the weary confidence in her expression. “I will?”

            “Of course you will,” she says. “Destiny is a trifling thing, compared to what we have.”

            They lean in together, and he tastes hope in her kiss.

+

            Plegia marches again. Lucina has spent the past ten days trailing them, if only for the sure path they blaze towards Ylisstol. Soon, she will have to get ahead of them. Her mother and father, now the Regents of Ylisse, will require swift news of Validar’s ascendancy.

            Footsteps crunch in the dirt behind her. Lucina whirls, gripping Falchion, but it is not an enemy at her back. Instead, she faces a girl with twin plumes of scarlet hair.

            No words pass between them. Lucina waits for Severa to reach her, and then they walk, together, Lucina silently counting their steps. One, two, three, four five—