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“You took all your soulmate’s love, but you didn't deserve it,” Robin says. “He brought you happiness, and you brought him battle after battle, death after death. Then, one day, it was HIS death, by your hands but not by your will. It finally made sense, didn’t it? You, the fell dragon, didn’t belong among humans! You were only his soulmate because he was always doomed to die! Was it any wonder, then, that his love always felt so wrong? You were relieved to be that monster…”
You spit at him. Your past self is loathsome.
You met Chrom in the south of Ylisse. Your hair was dyed black, the only color dark enough to hide the royal blue streak that your soulmate’s existence left in your natural white locks. You had your suspicions the moment you saw the shock of white by Chrom’s left temple, and the feeling only got stronger as you accompanied him back to his home. You had fought so well together. You thought yourself proficient in combat already, but battling at Chrom’s side gave you a feeling unlike anything you had ever experienced before. You felt like you could take on the whole world together. You felt like you finally found someone you could rely on.
You washed the dye out of your hair and confessed your thoughts just before you arrived in Ylisstol. Chrom was ecstatic. He had been waiting his whole life to meet you. He loved you the second he saw you, he said, and he knew your bond would only deepen over time. You were soulmates, after all. Fate decreed that you were meant to be.
He introduced you to his older sister, Emmeryn, the Exalt of Ylisse. He asked her to give him her blessing to marry you. You thought that tradition indicated that you were supposed to ask her, but truth be told, you were glad Chrom did it instead. You didn’t think you could have looked her in the eye and demanded Chrom’s hand. As far as you knew, you were a Plegian commoner, and the only thing you could give the Prince of Ylisse was some white hair.
Chrom didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to you. You had no family. Your mother died to protect you, because your father would die to control you. You never wanted to be so alone, though you became used to it, and now Chrom was making all the dreams you didn’t even know you had come true. He gave you himself, his own two sisters—Emmeryn was so kind to you and even taught you her favorite healing spells, while Lissa was a constant source of laughter for you even when you were on the receiving end of her pranks—and all of his friends in the Shepherds. He gave you everything. For the first time in your life, you were happy.
Your happiness wasn’t meant to last, though. Nobody saw it coming—perhaps all the advisors’ minds were all too occupied with wedding plans—but no one found it shocking, either, that Plegia sent assassins to Ylisstol Castle. Chrom almost died, but you were quick enough to save him. Emmeryn wasn’t so lucky. The castle’s treasures, the Fire Emblem among them, were stolen, but the biggest loss of all that night was Chrom’s innocence. He was never the same again, and you never expected him to be. You were the only one who ever understood the rage he felt, the hatred that couldn’t be quelled. You put aside all thoughts of a grand wedding—the nobility wanted it more than you or Chrom ever did, anyway—and went to war at your soulmate’s side. The odds were overwhelmingly against you, but you tipped the scales in your favor in the end.
Chrom came back home and was officially crowned the exalt. He said he owed everything to you. You knew he was wrong. You never mentioned it to Chrom, but you had caught a glimpse of the assassin who murdered his sister. You had never seen your father in person, but you knew from your mother’s description his general appearance. You weren’t sure, and you dreaded the thought that it could be true, but if it really was him, and if your father was still spying on you after all these years… You couldn’t set aside the possibility that the assassins were only able to enter the castle because of you.
But you couldn’t bear to let Chrom know. Still, deep in your heart, you knew it was your fault. Every day, Chrom told you he loved you, and every day, you said it back while hiding from him the knowledge that you were the source of all his misery. If you weren’t his soulmate, if the two of you had never met, then his smiles would not be forever tarnished by the bitterness of all he lost.
You had your wedding in the end, though by this time public opinion had changed, and it was Chrom demanding a spectacle that the nobility only accepted out of duty. Marrying a Plegian, even one who would have given his life for Ylisse, did not appeal to the masses. You couldn’t bear him an heir, either—but ironically, this was a boon in the Ylissean Council’s eyes, for it meant that no mysterious Plegian strangers could appear in the future and assert a claim to the throne. You picked out a magical potion, the Council picked out their favorite noble family, and nine months later Chrom picked out a name for his baby girl—Lucina.
Chrom insisted that you hold her first. You almost said no, because you felt so shaky that you were afraid you would drop her. But Chrom steadied you in his arms, and the both of you looked at your daughter for the first time. You told Chrom that you loved her, and you did, but your first emotion was actually fear. She was so small and fragile, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to protect her. You couldn’t save Emmeryn… You saved Chrom but doomed him to misery… What chance did this tiny one have in the world?
All you could do was teach her how to be crafty and careful. As much as you loved Chrom’s earnest passion, you hoped that Lucina might learn to find safety in the kind of clever ruses her father was too straightforward to pull off.
You didn’t get to spend much time with her, though. Nor did Chrom. Walhart, the Emperor of Valm—the Conqueror, he was called, for his accomplishments—set his sights on the continent of Ylisse, and suddenly it was not just one but three nations that the Shepherds had to defend. Lucina grew to adolescence in those years of war alongside the children of the other Shepherds, all of them knowing their parents’ handwriting better than their voices, their portraits better than their true faces.
It was your fault. You were the tactician. The war dragged on because you let it. Secretly, you liked it. Battle thrilled you, while politics filled you with dread. At least when you fought next to Chrom, you were doing something for him. When you stood beside him on the throne, you felt only shame. You knew even then that you didn’t belong there.
So you slowly dragged the continent of Valm into ruin. Well, you can’t take all the credit for it; the faithless Valmese dynasts put in much work towards destroying their own homelands even before you got there. Yours was the greater feat, though. It is easy to run one’s own country to the ground, and far more impressive to send an army up and down another continent until the leader who so confidently believed he could conquer your home is himself cornered and conquered.
Chrom went home victorious for a second time. He never liked being called a war hero; he knew the whole thing was a tragedy. He held onto you and cried because he never wanted any of this. He wanted to meet his soulmate and live in peace with his family. He deserved that. But fate gave him you instead.
You thought he might still have a chance to salvage some of his happiness. He still had Lissa, and Lucina, and the Shepherds… and you. You loved him. You never meant to hurt him.
And yet, you killed him.
Your hands were forced. Your father finally took control of you, but here’s the funny part—everything he ever did was in your name. He had managed to acquire not only the Fire Emblem but all of its gemstones; thus, he was able to completely break the seal that had been placed on your soul a millennium ago. You awoke from your dream of a life and became once more the fell dragon, Grima.
Everything suddenly came into perspective. Truth struck you—your soul doesn’t have a mate; you are an artificial creation, a unique being with no match. You never belonged with Chrom. You knew it all along. He was never meant to love you. Fate’s plan was to bring you to this moment—the moment you would murder him.
Your destiny was always to be his enemy.
Then in his final moments he dared to talk to you. He told you it wasn’t your fault. He begged you to escape. Never had you hated anyone or anything more. His dying words were not for his daughter, or his sister, or his friends. He wasted them on you.
He was never meant to love you.
You were meant to destroy the world. That is why your followers brought you back. You realized, then, that humanity would never change. Destroying the world was the only thing you could do about it.
The Shepherds gazed at you in horror now that you were revealed to be a monster. Your father, your follower, gazed at you in adoration and beckoned you forward, prepared to perform the ritual that would restore your full power. You fell into step beside him. It was obvious that fate left you no choice.
Your success was already laid out, your victory penned in exalted blood.
“And then… I admit I was confused, at first, as to why you would follow Lucina away from your perfect nightmare, but after all this, I understand…” Robin laughs. “You couldn’t stand the mere SUGGESTION that your life could have ended in anything but misery, could you? Am I right, Robin?”
“You fool…” You sneer at your past self. His hair won’t be streaked with blue for much longer. “Do you think you get to have a better life? It’s FATE! If it wasn’t… then…”
… Then the man you loved is dead, and it doesn’t even matter.