Work Text:
{leaving lullabies}
The scent of soap clung to the air, a faint flowery smell that was distinct and familiar, burning her nostrils as her soles scraped the marble floor. Soap, and freshly picked wildflowers, and something old like the must of castle stones aging slowly around her. Even in the darkness, this room was imprinted upon her very soul, for her fingers brushed the old oaken wardrobe, finding it smooth and polished instead of marred by countless blows and fickle carvings by a little girl who wanted to become stronger than the blasted old stones that had crumbled like sandcastles upon the scrape of a dragon's claws.
The little glass pegasi that dangled over the cradle were familiar too. They twinkled in the shafts of moonlight that trickled through the glass of her window, peering through heavy velvet curtains and shooting through the expertly crafted wings of small, crystalline horses that danced and swooped over the sweet looking face of the little babe twisted amongst a great thicket of blankets. Her blue hair peeked out, fluffy and askew, freshly washed and combed.
Her armor clinked with every step, echoing like slow thunderclaps in the cold silence, her every breath an arrowhead scraping across granite. Her heart thundered in her chest, and her blood knocked upon her brain as it thumped inside her ears, and she felt cold sweat prickling the back of her neck. She bent the knee, like any good subject would.
She was happy. Truly, she was. She'd been frightened to look upon the face of her infant self, frightened that one of them would fade away if ever chanced to meet, but that was not the case. Both Lucinas were very much alive and real, breathing heavily in the great expanse of chilly quietude. She let her fingers draw across the edge of the cradle, lace tickling the pad of her thumb. Her hair slipped from her shoulder, blue curtains floated across white blankets. She could hear little Lucina breathing. Little inhales, little exhales, little blots of shimmery moonlight dotting her perfect cheeks from the prism of glass pegasi hanging loftily only a few feet above.
Lucina tentatively reached to touch the infant's cheek, drawing her shaky knuckle down the tender, chubby flesh, wondering how her skin could ever be so soft. Her entire body was built like stone, calluses caking her skin like a hard shell, scars and bruises and lumps from countless battles and frays. Little Lucina was hardly Lucina at all.
The little girl's eyes cracked open, slivers of pale light twinkling in her dazed blue eyes. Lucina could see the brand in her eye, and it almost glowed like a beacon in the blanket of darkness. The pegasi danced to a moonlit tune, and every breath Lucina drew was a gust of wind upon their backs.
Her knuckle rested against the child's cheek, and her gaze trailed from Lucina's face to her hair. Little Lucina slipped her hand from beneath her snug cocoon of blankets, reaching up and slipping her tiny fist between the waterfall of hair that had gathered upon her tiny chest. She looked immensely intrigued as her fingers dragged across the strands as though they were the strings of a lyre, and she a genius composer. Her little fingers drew upward through the mass of blue, bunching up hair as her fist broke apart and her joints stretched, and her stubby nails grazed Lucina's war hardened cheek.
A little palm, a giant fist, and two contented smiles as one Lucina stared upon the other, silence stealing their breaths. A tear slithered into the grasp of the infant princess, warm and wet across her squishy fingers. She took the child's hand in her own.
"Yours," she whispered, her breath a wisp and a whip cracking in the cold midnight silence, "will be a happy future."
She kissed the girl's wet fingertips, and rose up. Her cape fluttered as she took a step back, her knees wobbling and her tears unchecked and her breath drawing long and taut, bowstring pressing to her throat and crushing it.
The infant was still reaching, even after Lucina was a good yard away, and she could hear the soft squirming of a little body against the walls of the cradle, tiny whines and whimpers fluttering away into darkness and the quiet, moving to the rhythm of the moonlight's thrum like feathers cast away by a glass pegasus.
She squeezed her eyes shut and whirled away, her throat closing up tightly as though a great fist had closed around it, and she was shaking too terrible to even stand upright. No, she told herself firmly, no, you can't back out of this now. You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere. Leave, Lucina. You must leave.
Her resolve was unshakable. Her desires meant nothing.
She would try her hand at creating her own destiny.
For both herself, and the child whimpering in the crib.
Lucina opened her eyes and started forward, her heart beating in time with imaginary wings to an imaginary lullaby. Challenging her fate had seemed so easy when there was a fate to challenge. But now she felt as lost as a feather drifting in a ray of light. Her feet were dragging across the tile, her body begging her not to leave this place, this home, this life. Leave, Lucina. Leave.
She charged headlong into the doorway. She stumbled back upon sensing another body there, darkness cloaking his round face, his eyes mirroring hers as the gleaming in the fleeting moonlight.
Her breath was stolen from her. This was not fair. This was cruel. How could she possibly get past him?
"And what of your future?" Morgan asked in a voice so soft, she was reminded of the little child's cheek against her knuckle, her little fingers against her own cheek. "Lucina?"
She realized how she must look. Armed to the teeth in the middle of the night, dressed for a long journey, disheveled beyond imagining, puffy eyed and puffy cheeked, tears and snot clinging to her face. She could only imagine what he must be thinking of her.
"Morgan…" She could not look him in the face. She could hardly breathe, she was so terrified of his gaze. This was not what she wanted. She'd only said goodbye to herself because an infant child could not tell a soul of her disappearance. Behind her, the baby was struggling harder to get out of her warm little prison.
"Lucina." He was standing his ground. His voice was steady, though his tears proved that he was not quite so composed as he was pretending to be. So be it. She'd made her little brother cry before. She could do it one last time.
She turned her face to him, staring straight into his eyes, and she raised her chin. "Leave me," she said sharply.
His expression was clear, even in the darkness. It crumpled, and his jaw tightened, his lower lip jutting in a pitiful pout of disbelief. "Leave you?" he uttered, his words punctuated by a whimper and a sigh. "You're the one who means to leave!"
"Shh!" She reached for him, but he took a step back. That hurt. This may very well be the last time she saw her brother, and he recoiled from her touch. Perhaps it was better if he hated her. It'd be far easier to let go of a sister he hated than a sister he adored. She loathed herself for getting so close to him. She should have seen this moment coming. "This is difficult enough as it is, Morgan."
"I can't imagine why," he said thickly, his body weighing upon the doorframe as though for support. She felt sick very suddenly as she imagined never seeing his face again, his friendly eyes and his sweet smile and his gentle voice. "Please don't do this."
"I have to," she said, wiping at her cheeks hastily. "I don't belong here."
"That's not true," he said. His eyes darted about her face, searching her and the darkness both for some sort of answer, but he found none. "You know that's not true. You belong with your family. And that's right here."
She smiled grimly. He was wonderfully naïve. She enjoyed that about him. It gave him such firm optimism, and she was jealous of that. She found herself sinking into the depths of her darkened thoughts, losing herself in a hollow outlook. She'd done what she had come to do. She'd saved the future. And now she had no purpose.
"Come here," she said reaching for him and grasping his fingers. They were large than her own now, which was odd to her, but she thought nothing over it as she dragged him into the darkened nursery, his feet shuffling across the marble floor. They stopped beside the cradle, and little Lucina stared up at them, shifting in her blankets. "Look, Morgan. Look and tell me that I belong here."
"All I see is you," he said. "So what? You are the same person, but that doesn't mean one of you has to go. You're both important."
"I don't want my younger self to live in the shadow of me," Lucina said, watching her chubby arms move up, stretching toward the both of them. "Likewise, I don't want to resent myself for taking so much of Father's attention. I'm the intruder, and I understand that I've overstayed my welcome. Her future will be full of happiness and love. Mine is a mystery. I'll be glad to find out what it has in store for me."
He was staring at her, his fingers tight within hers, and she thought perhaps he understood her. "You were just going to leave," he whispered, grasping her hand so tightly that she found herself turning her face away to hide a wince. "You weren't going to say goodbye to anyone except yourself? How could you do that to mother and father?" To me? It was unspoken, but she heard it plainly in his cracking voice, and it hit her like a blow to the chest.
"It was difficult enough to muster up the courage," she said, closing her eyes. "They'd convince me to stay, and I… I can't stay. I can't. This is my choice. You will not sway me."
She could feel him tense up beside her, but she dared not look him in the face again. Tears were gathering in her eyes as she thought of her father, who would be so distraught when he found her gone, of her mother who would blame herself for not convincing Lucina to stay, of Morgan, her brother who was clinging to her in desperation to stay, stay, stay…
Leave, Lucina.
"Stay, Lucina," he begged her, grasping her other hand and forcing her to stare into his teary eyes. His voice was breathy, a sob perched upon is every word, and she could not deal with this. She had to be strong. She'd made her decision. She did not belong.
Leave, Lucina. Leave. For her. Do it for her future.
"Don't cry for me," she said, wiping his tears with the same knuckle that had caressed her own cheek. "This is not the end for us. I'll see you again."
Liar.
He drew away from her, his face furious as tears flooded his cheeks. Little Lucina was whining louder now. She would begin to cry if they were not careful.
"Liar," he gasped, his lips trembling so pitifully, and she found herself at a loss once more. "You don't intend to return, and I know it. You'd have it so you just disappear forever, as though you never existed at all."
"Perhaps that's for the better," she mused.
"No." He shook his head furiously. "No, no, no. A world without you? That's not a world I want to live in. You can't do this. You can't leave me, Lucina, you can't!"
A little lullaby was drumming in the rays of moonlight that splashed across his cheeks, and she heard it pounding inside her like a twisted heartbeat. She wanted none of this. Oh, how she envied the little child in the cradle. She'd live her life with Morgan at her side, with her father and her mother both, and a beautiful world to call her home.
Lucina had no home.
Leave, Lucina.
"I love you," she said, pulling him close and pressing her lips to his forehead. He was shaking in her arms, his body fit to collapse. "And if you love me, Morgan, then you'll let me leave."
His tears were licking against her neck, and she listened as his thick sobs broke against her shoulder. He held her tightly, his fingers bunching up her cape, digging into her back. Little Lucina's whimpers had melted into a soft wail. It was time to go.
"I'll come," he croaked into her collarbone. "I-I'll come with you! You don't deserve to be all a-alone, and I… I don't…"
"Your sister is crying," Lucina murmured. "You always know how to cheer her up, don't you?"
She pulled away from him, and he stared at her with a bewildered expression. "Lucina, please…" he pleaded, his eyes darting between her and the child in the crib.
She smiled at him, her heart snarling inside her throat, and her stomach crumbling up inside her abdomen. She was glad that it had been Morgan who had found her. He could not convince her to stay, but it was good to see his face one last time.
"We'll meet again," she promised, her voice as weak as the twiddling rays of light that fell through pegasus prisms. "Until then… give yourself the beautiful future you deserve."
He looked at her as though she'd plunged her Falchion through his chest, with his lips parted and his eyes wide and distant. Little Lucina was squalling, and she caught a hold of his sleeve. She smiled as he turned to her upon reflex, scooping her into his arms and hushing her with soft syllabic sounds, bouncing her and cooing her until she curled up into his chest.
The last thing he'd see of her was her cape fluttering in the doorway, her hand pressed to her mouth as she muffled a sob with her fist.