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"Hn! Hnnn-ah! Hah!"
"Prince Xander?"
The sudden question cracks your focus, and you look away from the battered practice dummy in front of you. "Hm? Yes, milady Titania? Do you need anything?"
She shakes her head. "I don't, but Kiran passed by the barracks and asked if anyone saw you, to tell you they wish to request something from you," she says, and moves onto a dummy of her own.
"I see... much appreciated; I shall make haste."
She nods, and assumes her own fearsome stance, focusing entirely on the poor dummy. You leave your battered practice sword back on the rack, and go back inside the castle to wash the sweat off. Feeling refreshed, you put a fresh change of clothes on before setting off for Kiran's office.
At this point, the path to the quaint little alcove the Summoner of Askr uses as their office has become second nature to practically everyone who's been here for more than a week; the personal conversations and talks over tea they frequently hold with anyone and everyone around the castle have firmly established themselves as the norm when there aren't battles to be waged.
You quickly reach the wooden door of their office, and knock sharply. After hearing a muffled "Come in", you open it.
"It is I, Summoner. I am told you have a request? Please do not hesit--" you say as you enter, only to get stumped. There's... a strangely familiar woman sitting in one of the chairs near the bookshelves, utterly absorbed in a tome of some sort, while Kiran's doing paperwork at their desk. At your words, they look up and smile welcomingly.
"Ah! Come in, please!" they say, and put a final flourish onto the paper in front of them. After putting away that strange quill of theirs, they turn back to you. "My apologies for calling you in on such short notice, Prince Xander. Today has been a bit hectic for me..."
"No trouble at all. What did you wish to speak about?"
"Oh, I merely wished to ask you if you would be willing to accept our newest summoned hero as your roommate." they say, gesturing towards her.
"Hmph... it should not be an issue. I am sure we will get along well."
"I mean-- I'd hope so? I am asking you specifically because you're family."
... what?
"Family?" you say, confused, and glance at the new arrival once more.
Kiran tilts their head curiously. "Yes? Wh-- oh!" they exclaim, and look between you and the still-oblivious woman a few times. "Oh, I see... I guess it makes sense you don't quite recognize her." They then clear their throat to get the woman's attention.
It... doesn't quite work.
With a sigh, they loudly clear their throat again. This time, the lady gives them an annoyed look; however, they point you out and her attention turns to you. She blinks a few times, before a gigantic smile crosses her face and it's that which suddenly tells you who's standing before you, much to your disbelief.
"Xander!" Elise yells out before she tackles you into a hug, and it feels strange, hearing a woman obviously older than yourself speak in the familiar-yet-not voice of your little sister, and-- oh, she just lifted you off your feet.
After a moment or two (which you spend piecing together the absurdity of what just happened), she puts you down and pulls away to get a good look at you.
Oh. She's taller than you too.
Huh.
She makes a not-quite grimace as she takes you in. "Wow... I forgot how you looked without all the premature grey hairs."
You'd think that getting accustomed to the twists and turns of time that the Summoner's powers enable would help you process what is happening better, but... well, the sheer nonsense of what just happened finally gets to you, and you sink into a nearby seat heavily.
Kiran shifts in discomfort. "Hm... perhaps I should've provided a bit more warning..."
You get your bearings after a few minutes, thanks to Kiran's gracious hospitality ("I just let you rest on my couch, Prince Xander, sheesh--"). Now, you find yourself escorting... Elise, to your chambers.
"This has gotta be weird for you, huh?" she says eventually, looking at you with sympathy.
"Hmph... I will get used to it."
"Boo... You still haven't gotten the stick out of your ass at this point in your life, huh?"
You can only blink in shock. "Elise! What kind of vulgarity is that?!"
She bursts into giggles. "He's alive! It's a miracle!"
... It seems you have been played. "Regardless, I--" you begin, then cut yourself off with a sigh. "Did Niles teach you that?"
"Pfft... I've had many role models!" she says, then sobers up slightly. "I know it's a bit much to get used to for you; Kiran explained a lot about all this... timey-wimey stuff before you got there. But, Xander... I'm not the little kid you probably know. You're... what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?"
"... the latter."
She nods somberly. "Just before everything went down, hm? I was... what? Fourteen? It's been twenty years for me since then, but... to be honest, it feels like so much more."
"I see... wait," you say, pausing. "'Before everything went down'? What do you mean by that?"
The look she gives you is both pitying and sympathetic, and it makes you queasy. She rubs her eyes tiredly, before she speaks again. "Let's sit down somewhere before we get into it, hm?"
A feeling of foreboding grows within you; a dreadful, sinister foreboding the likes of which you've felt only a few times in your life.
It's not long before you arrive and sit down at the tea table next to the window. While you busy yourself with putting on the tea kettle, Elise looks outside, admiring the view with a wistful look. It's yet another thing that's so familiar about this Elise that your heart clenches.
Finally, she speaks up. "Has... Father decided to release Corrin from that prison yet?"
The acid in her words stings, despite you knowing the truth of them. "Hm... yes, actually. I was on my way to test her skills one last time before I took her with me to Windmire, but then I was summoned here."
She huffs. "Oh, dear... only a few weeks away..."
"Away from what?"
She looks at you with that same pitying gaze. "Father was dead then, Xander."
... ah. "Elise... I'm so sorry. I-- I cannot imagine losing our Father so young..."
You're cut off with a surprisingly bitter chuckle. "No, I don't mean where I come from. I mean, he's been dead for a long time, and we were too wrapped up in ourselves to notice. We didn't want to admit that his change wasn't natural."
Your confusion mounts ever higher. "Elise... what are you saying? Father is alive and well. I spoke to him not hours before I arrived here!"
"... you spoke to a corpse, Xander. A possessed puppet."
Your skin begins to crawl. "What...?"
"... I don't know when exactly he died, but... I do know that his corpse continued to serve a different master."
You slump in your seat, your mind racing faster than lightning. To your horror, you can think of so many little things--things that you and the rest of what remains of your family attributed to grief and despair and change--that make a horrifying amount more sense if what Elise just spoke was true.
"How-- Elise... that can't--"
The mournful pity in her gaze returns, and oh, how it makes you feel utterly wretched. "I'll tell you what Corrin told me happened before everything started... before that imposter decided to order a full-on invasion of Hoshido."
Hours pass, and the exhaustion you feel is incomparable to any you've ever felt before. Elise's tale stopped at the point where her Xander and Leo caught up with Corrin at the Bottomless Canyon, and professed their allegiance to her cause. You swirl your spoon through yet another cup of tea as you process what you have just heard.
... hah. To think, Nohrians and Hoshidans working together. You've heard of stranger things, and yet... you can't deny that it makes you relieved to know that the initial bloodshed Elise described was contained more than you thought possible as she wove her tale.
She yawns. "Ugh... I haven't been this tired since Nanoha was a baby... I'll tell you the rest later, alright?"
You nod. "I-- I need to--"
"It's a lot... I know."
"Have I ever told you that you're my favorite sister?"
She preens. "Yes, but it doesn't hurt to hear again!"
Your lips manage to twitch into a smile. Then, you frown in thought. "Who is... Nanoha? That sounds Hoshidan."
"Oh yeah, that's my daughter! She's a little rascal, but we love her."
... oh.
She bursts out laughing. "Your face! Ahahaha, I-- hahahahaha!"
You shake your head, and proceed to grumble. "I do not see what is so humorous about my disbelief," you say, and wait for her to calm down. Just then, a horrible thought strikes you. "Elise... please tell me you weren't married off for... for some kind of peace treaty?"
She denies it with a wave of her hand. "Nah, don't worry. I wasn't."
You sigh in relief, and take another sip of tea.
"That was all you."
You start choking on your drink immediately, while Elise starts belly-laughing again. "Excuse me?!" you cough out.
"Sorry, sorry, I-- hahahaha... I'm joking, don't worry!"
"Of course you are. Silly me."
She sticks her tongue out at you.
"I could've sworn you said you're thirty-four, not four?"
"Doesn't mean I have to be a grouchy stick in the mud."
You chuckle. "Perhaps... oh! I wished to ask you... who did you marry?"
Her expression turns into what you can only describe as adoration. "Sakura and I got married a few years after the war ended... we took it a bit slower than most," she says with a meaningful look at you.
You cross your arms. "I do not like what you are insinuating."
She snorts, and takes a sip from her cup. "Anyway... what with the whole princesses business, our courtship was a bit long... we traveled back and forth between our homes a lot. It was... amazing," she says, her expression extremely fond.
Nodding along, you begin to smile at the obvious happiness when what she said catches up to you. "P... princesses? You mean--"
"Hm? Yeah?"
"Elise, please don't tell me your wife is Sakura, Princess of Hoshido."
She raises an eyebrow. "Alright, I won't tell you."
"I-- peace between our nations is one thing, but--"
She snorts again, then mutters out a quiet "You're one to talk..."
You stop in your tracks at the implications of what she just said. "I'm one to talk what, Elise?"
She blinks. "Oh, did I say that out loud?"
"You most certainly did. Now explain yourself."
She looks at you with exasperation. "Alright, you asked for it... Mr. Fell-In-Love-With-The-High-Prince-of-Hoshido-Himself."
It takes you a good few minutes to recover from that little tidbit, all the while Elise laughs so hard that she falls to the floor in an undignified heap. But... what strikes you the most is how unrelentingly happy she is. You wouldn't admit it to a soul outside of perhaps Camilla, but... the life you've been leading as the Crown Prince has weighed, and weighed, and weighed and if what Elise said happens in your world as well... it will only weigh more. The happiness of your family has been declining for years with you only being able to helplessly watch as it plummets like dew off a leaf, slowly but steadily, and now...
You're no fool; you know that your Elise has learned that her happiness is what's most important to you three, and that she has more than once feigned it for your sakes. This, though? This unrestrained, boundless laughter of pure mirth? It makes you want to sob like a child.
... and by the gods above, you will ensure that you all live to be this happy.