Archive of Our Own

“Lucina.”

Owain’s older cousin looks up at the sound of her name. Unfortunately, Inigo is also sitting next to her, sharing an apple, and he starts to laugh because it had come out more like “Lu-thee-na.” Owain scowls a gap-toothed scowl at him and kicks him in the shin. Inigo gasps and goes to throw an apple slice at his head.

“Boys!” Lucina exclaims, and the two turn their attention back to her promptly because Lucina is ten whole years old and kind of scary when mad. Inigo rubs his shin sulkily. His sister places a placating hand on his blue hair and gives Owain a small smile. “What is it you need, Owain?”

“Brady’s crying again!” he exclaims, gesturing broadly over his shoulder to where the other boy is curled up on the grass on his side, shaking slightly.

“Bet it was your fault,” says Inigo. Owain glares hard.

“I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, at least,” Lucina soothes. She glances back at Brady uncertainly before turning to her cousin. “Can you tell me what happened exactly?”

“I was pon-ti-fi-cat-ing,” Owain says, stressing each syllable of the word in an attempt to get it right. Laurent had taught it to him last time they’d seen each other. Or, at least, he’d been chattering away while Laurent read until the other boy said “Cease your pontificating” so Owain assumed it had to be a fancy word for talking like a hero. Laurent was so smart, like a grown-up. “I was pontificating, and then a fiend of sadness came upon him without warning! My sword-hand was not ready to fight it away!”

He hates that it comes out like “th-word-hand.” It’s very unheroic.

“Were you being mean at all, Owain?” Lucina asks. He shakes his head emphatically. “Well, maybe you hurt his feelings somehow. You should apologize.”

“Owain’s in trouble,” Inigo calls out tauntingly. Before Owain can do anything in retaliation, however, Lucina knocks the back of her brother’s head with a swift slap. Inigo clutches at the offended area. “Ow! Sis!”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Owain protests still, probably too loudly considering Brady is only the courtyard’s length away.

“Sometimes we still have to say sorry even if we did nothing wrong.”

Owain sulks about it for a few moments longer, but Lucina is ten whole years old and knows a lot better than him. She’s just as smart as Laurent and just as tough as Kjelle. So he leaves behind his cousins and walks back over to the curled-up boy in the grass. His breaths are still coming in shaky and wet, so Owain knows that he’s still crying. He sits down beside Brady hard, crossing his arms and legs. “I’m sorry for whatever I said.”

If anything, the shaking of Brady’s shoulders seems to get worse instead of better. Owain prods roughly at the blond head. “Brady! I’m apologizing!”

Brady mutters something unintelligible. Owain leans forward and rests his chin on the other boy’s arm so that he can hear better. Brady’s mother is always going off on him about not “e-nun-ci-a-ting” or something, but it never seemed to have any effect on Brady’s roughness. “What’d you say?”

“Ya didn’t do anythin’ wrong,” the other boy mutters finally.

Owain huffs out of exasperation, making Brady startle slightly. “I know! But Lucina says I should apologize anyway!”

Brady rolls over, moving his shoulder out from under Owain’s chin. The look on Brady’s face almost makes Owain want to cry- that is, if crying was something that Owain ever did. Which he didn’t. Crying was for babies and Bradys and that’s all. “Ma says we’re leavin’ on another one of her law trips in the mornin’.”

“You’re going away again?” Owain asks quietly, thinking of the last time his friend had been taken on one of Aunt Maribelle’s trips. Owain had been bored for months without anyone to really play with (because Inigo was a stupid jerk and Lucina was ten). Brady sniffs loudly.

“I asked if I could jus’ stay here this time, but she says we ain’t really family with you, an’ she doesn’t wanna impose on Aunt Lissa and Uncle Chrom with me,” Brady says. The words all come out in a jumble. He rubs at his face with his hands, leaving Owain with a moment to think. That’s all it takes to come up with his brilliant plan. He’s not just a hero for his super cool entrances and god-like strength after all.

“Hey!” he says loudly, startling Brady once again. “How about I come with you this time?”

Brady gazes at him with wide eyes, remaining lying on the ground even as Owain springs to his feet, one hand on his hip and his sword-hand pointing at Brady in what he thinks is a very heroic posture. “I’ll be the loyal right hand man of Brady the Crybaby Priest, striking down all that makes him cry! Pretty flowers and evil bandits alike!”

“Ya shouldn’t strike down the flowers! And ya couldn’t strike down bandits!” Brady protests. Owain ignores him.

“I’ll go ask Mother right now!”

His mother listens to his request with a fond smile before going off with a promise to talk to Aunt Maribelle about it. His father sits him down seriously and makes sure that he knows all the possible dangers of going on these trips. Owain informs him with equal seriousness that he would be stowing away in Brady’s luggage anyway if they told him that he couldn’t go, and he was treated to one of his father’s rare lip-twitch-smiles. Fortunately, his mother comes back with good news. He’s a little put-out. Owain had kind of been looking forward to the awesome dangers of being a stowaway.

But the thing is: getting Brady to smile makes up for all his disappointment.

…

Owain is proudly examining the latest proof of his manly maturity in the mirror when Brady bursts into his room without announcement, startling him. If there is something Owain is not, however, it’s bashful. He turns to the intruder with a wide grin, ignoring how said intruder has frozen awkwardly in the doorway. “Brady, my old friend! Come see the proof of my heroic manliness! The first hair has sprouted forth from under my arm, signaling that I will soon be fully rid of the shackles of childhood. Such a grand symbol deserves a grand name, don’t you think?”

Brady makes a choking noise that Owain thinks is probably affirmation.

“How about The Hair of Raging Manhood? Or perhaps The Blazing Promise of the Warrior? Brady?”

Owain finally looks up from his glorious armpit hair to find a rapidly reddening Brady with tears forming just as quickly in his eyes. There is a new nasty looking scar, cutting across the right side of his face. Owain goes to speak again, confusion quickly evaporating into worry, but the blond clerk just lets out a sound halfway between a wail and a squeak and retreats out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

Regretfully leaving behind his reflection in the mirror, Owain hastily pulls a shirt over his head and follows him. He just catches a glimpse of the hem of Brady’s robes disappearing around a corner and takes off in that direction. It has never taken much to catch the cleric. When Owain and Cynthia had allowed him in as a temporary member of the Justice Cabal, he hadn’t been able to keep up with their wild exploits, collapsing in a wheezing, sweating, nearly crying heap before the first mission was even completed.

Brady has become better at hiding over the years though. Owain discovers this as he emerges into the courtyard to see only Inigo spread-eagle in the grass while Lucina practices with a wooden sword above him, using him as an obstacle to practice her footwork.

“Did you see the fleeing Brady cross through this fine garden?” Owain asks loudly. The blond boy must just be hiding behind a tree somewhere.

“Piss off,” Inigo says, then grins. He has just begun to learn the beauties of coarse speech, thanks to Severa coming to stay after her parents returned to the war. Lucina sighs as she lowers the toy sword to her side. She’s given up on scolding him. Her smile has started to look a little tight around the edges from tiredness and some emotion Owain can’t place. She flashes him one of these before she nods her head to a tree behind her and to the right. Sure enough, Owain can see a trailing bit of robe peeking out from the opposite side.

Clenching his sword-hand into a determined fist and ignoring Inigo’s petty snickers, Owain stomps over to the tree. Brady is curled up into himself, arms locked around his knees. “What are you crying about today? What happened to your face?”

“I’m sorry I walked in on ya,” Brady mumbles unhelpfully.

“That’s silly!” Owain says, sliding down the trunk of the tree to sit next to his pathetic friend. Brady stays rigidly upright when he would usually sag bonelessly into the offered shoulder. Owain frowns and reaches out his arm instead, placing a hand on top of a blond head. “I was about to come show you my accomplishment anyway!”

Brady stays silent, and the tense shaking line of his shoulders seems to have only gotten worse since Owain put a hand in his hair. “That can’t be what you’re upset about really, is it?”

“I ain’t no good,” Brady whispers so low that Owain wonders if he was meant to catch it.

“Who told you that? Was it Severa? She’s mean, you shouldn’t listen to her,” he responds anyway. He moves his hand to rub at Brady’s neck instead, and his friend starts to sag towards him before he catches himself and bolts upright again. “What’s with you?”

“There’s somethin’ wrong with me,” Brady says more firmly, and Owain feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Are you sick?” he asks breathlessly. Inigo had been really sick once, a year ago. He’s been laid up in a bed for weeks, pale and sleepless and vomiting blood. Owain had heard his mother talking quietly to Aunt Olivia one night, preparing the queen for the possibility that her son might not pull through. Owain had snuck into Brady’s room that night without explanation, burrowing his face in the scrawny chest. But he hadn’t cried. Not once. “Does it have to do with that scar? Do you want me to go get my mother?”

“No!” Brady snaps, one hand flying out to grab at Owain’s knee before it retracts just as fast. “Not sick-sick, it’s just…I ain’t strong enough for Da, I can’t even keep my weapon from slippin’ out of my hands, and now Ma’s headin’ off to war after him and I was goin’ to show her my new violin piece as a partin’ gift. But I went too fast or pressed down too hard or somethin’ cause the string snapped and sliced me ‘cross the eye.”

As he continues to speak, Brady slowly begins to lean towards him until he’s practically toppling onto Owain, staining his yellow shirt with tears. Owain himself is feeling way out of his depth right about now, and shoots a panicked glance around towards his cousins. He ignores Inigo’s stuck out tongue and instead focuses on Lucina and her gentle nod. Turning back, he rests one hand on his friend’s shoulder, patting it erratically, while the other threads again through blond hair. He thinks of his own father, out on the front lines. He thinks of Uncle Vaike, with an axe bigger than his son is tall. It’s never occurred to him to be scared for them before. They are larger than life gods; invincible to all, even the sands of time itself.

“Ma had to heal it for me, and she was so mad. Yellin’ at me about how I don’t do nothin’ right like my speakin’ and my violin and all that malarkey.”

Brady takes another breath. “I’m just made all wrong.”

“She was just worried,” Owain tells him, thinking of the time he fell out of a tree and broke his shoulder when he was ten. He had not been as wise of a ten year old as Lucina. Mother had be white as a sheet, scary quiet like Father when she told him never to do anything so reckless again. “It is the noble duty of motherhood to get angry when children hurt themselves!”

Brady sniffs, rubbing at his new scar. “Yeah?”

“Besides,” Owain continues, awkwardly sincere and sincerely awkward, “I’d rather have this Brady than any other.”

Brady sits up and stares at him and Owain stares back until his cheeks start to burn from strange embarrassment. He scratches at his neck and clears his throat.

“So, my parents love me?” Brady asks softly, finally. Owain snaps back into focus.

“Indeed! So you must master your new composition in order to harken her return home! The promise of such sweet music will urge her back to your side at doubletime!” Owain says. Brady’s crying has stopped, just a few tears still clinging to the corners of his eyes. “And we shall have more adventures with the Justice Cabal so we can regale your father with tales of your might!”

“Really?”

“Truly!” Owain says, pulling his now tear-damp shirt away from his stomach to air it out a bit. He supposes that it’s proof of his heroics. “But even if all endeavors fail, your parents will always love you no matter what! That’s how it works. You trust me, do you not?”

Brady looks him right in the eyes again, utterly serious now. There’s a tinge of pink to his cheeks like he’s been running too much. “’Course I do, Owain.”

“Well then!” Owain cries, grin back in full force upon his face and volume cranked up to the max. “In the meantime, shall we go mock Inigo the Short and Pre-Pubescent with the new proof of my manhood?”

“Piss off!” shouts Inigo. Lucina lets out a gusty sigh of resignation.

Brady rubs his face clear of moisture with his sleeves before reaching up a still-shaking hand for Owain to haul him up. He even cracks a ghost of a smile, which Owain decides is a challenge for him to see if he can draw out one better than that. “Sure, let’s go.”

“Excellent! I shall rub my armpit in his villainous face!”

“What did you say? Keep your damn armpit away from me, you godforsaken mongrel! Get away from me!”

“Owain! Ya shouldn’t go that far!”

“Honestly, you two, you never aged past five.”

But the thing is: neither of Brady’s parents ever come home again.

…

It’s dark except for a few waning candles when Owain pries his eyes open. His shoulder throbs dully, but it feels like nothing next to the ripping pain he remembers as the axe was born down on his shoulder. Inigo’s slumped over his knees to Owain’s right, snoring inelegantly, with a cloak secured around his shoulders. Owain blinks at him for a moment. His cheekbones and jawline, handsome in health, have begun to stretch against the skin of his emaciated face. In the shadows of candlelight, under the pulse of his shoulder, it had seemed, for a moment, like an empty skull.

On his left, hand loosely clasping Owain’s wrist and head resting on the crooked elbow of the other arm, is Brady. The tracks where tears must have fallen are illuminated on his face, clean lines through the thin layer of dirt clinging to his skin. He isn’t wearing his outer cloak, it probably having been the one tucked around Inigo, and he hasn’t got a single cover even though the air is chilly to even Owain under his layer of blankets. He tries to shift, to throw at least one over the cleric’s curled-up form.

“Oh no, Owain, you’re keeping that on.”

His eyes snap to the one figure left in the room that he hasn’t noticed. Lucina is sitting at his feet, the shadows under her eyes heavy. He tries to speak, but it comes out as a croak. She waits while he clears his grimy throat. “Brady’s cold.”

“He kept kicking off any blankets I put on him. Aunt Lissa came in a little to put on a warming spell. He’s fine.”

The words take longer to process than usual. “Mother?”

“She’s sitting up with Noire and Gerome still. They’re almost recovered from the winter sickness, but they need her expertise for one more night just to be sure,” Lucina squeezes his feet reassuringly. “You worried her a whole lot, cousin.”

“All heroes,” Owain starts, then coughs, “worry their mothers.”

“Brady was beside himself though,” Lucina says. She presses her hand down on his knee to discourage him when he tries to sit up in order to see her better. “When you went down, he bashed in the enemy’s head with his staff and then tried to carry you back to camp. He barely got three steps before falling over.”

Owain wheezes a laugh. He can feel Lucina’s disapproving frown. He supposes it might be too early for her to find any amusement in it.

“Inigo carried you on his back instead. So much of your blood got on his shirt that I was worried that he was also injured,” she continues. He feels his smile slipping a little at the thought. “He ran around getting herbs and advice from Aunt Lissa while Brady kept working to stop the bleeding. I’ve never seen either of them that morbidly focused and on-task. It was disconcerting.”

She pauses to rub at her face, and it occurs to him that she might have been crying too. He can’t imagine Lucina crying. Crying, after all, is for babies and Bradys and sometimes for Mothers who have just seen their husbands die for their careless sons.

“As soon as you were stable, Inigo just fell asleep like he is now,” Lucina says, gesturing. “Brady gave him his cloak, lay down right like that and just cried.”

“The wretched blow,” Owain tries, but trying to think up his usual diatribes is making his head hurt, “would’ve taken Brady’s head off. Had to do it. Wasn’t enough time to get my sword out. My sword-hand…”

“I know,” Lucina says simply. Her hands have returned to squeezing his feet. He feels like she is doing it to keep him awake, to remind him that she is there, but also to remind herself that he is there, he is still warm and solid and alive. “I know that you considered the consequences and chose the most suitable option. But they’re going to want promises and vows that you be more careful, that you never be reckless again.”

“I can’t do that,” Owain says. Because he’d do it again, he’d do it millions of times over. His life was stolen back from death by his father, and he thinks doing the same for others is the only way he could live with himself for it.

“I wish you could,” Lucina says, voice surging in a sudden rolling rage. “I wish it could be as easy as keeping to the lower branches of the climbing tree. Your swords should not be sharp, and the only blood you’ll ever bleed should be from skinned knees and nicked chins from shaving. You should be dancing, not fighting. I wish I could give that to you.”

“You should be wearing pants under ball gowns,” he answers, voice fading in and out from tiredness. “And keeping Inigo from slaughtering unworthy admirers before taking them down yourself.”

She is silent for a moment before she stands. Her hair falls in front of her face so that he can’t see her expression. “I’m sorry for troubling you, Owain. You are the one who has been injured, not me.”

“Heroes always help when they can,” he says, trying for his most dashing grin. The candlelight most likely mangles it into something more sinister.

“I will check on the sick and Aunt Lissa and then return.”

He watches her set her small shoulders into a hard and straight line before marching out between the folds of the tent. The disturbance of the air wakens Inigo slightly. The snoring cuts off as his other cousin cracks open an eye to look at him. “’wain?”

“I’m awake now.”

“Woulda been a stupid way t’die,” Inigo slurs tiredly. In his half-asleep state, he speaks even worse than Brady. “Never used th’laguz strike move wi’th’flames.”

“Laguz Leap.”

“B’more careful,” his cousin mumbles as his eyes close once again, ignoring the correction.

“You first,” Owain says back, but Inigo’s already back to snoring.

Brady hasn’t stirred even slightly in the whole time since Owain regained consciousness. He scoots over, wincing at the protests of his shoulder, until he can feel even breaths against his face. His wrist is slipped out of the cleric’s grip and replaced with his hand. Brady will probably cry furiously at Owain’s conscious state in the morning, but, for now, they are calm and alive and together. It feels almost like being at peace.

But the thing is: Owain dreams of skulls and screams and blood on his hands all the same.

…

They bury his mother’s body in the hard cold earth. It takes hours to dig the hole deep enough in the frozen ground. Owain has to chop her into pieces to ensure that her body will not become a Risen. They’d learned that lesson the hard way. He takes Gerome’s best axe, unfamiliar in its hefty weight, to slice off her head, her arms, her legs in five quick and easy swings. Her yellow hair turns brown from dried blood and dirt. He stands and watches until the last strand disappears from sight.

The camp is quiet, and Owain cannot stand it. People have been dying left and right. They need to move on. They need to take the next step, he thinks with clarity. But the camp is silent and still like they are the ones who have died.

He leaps on to a stump of a tree near the middle of the camp and throws his arms out wide. “Ah, what a dramatic, climactic day it has been! Suddenly the children are left alone, with none but their fearless leader for guidance. And yet she sits, lost and confused by the latest cruel twist of fate! Owain, his soul heavy and scarred with grief, must carry the mantle! He must-”

“Gods, Owain!” Inigo seethes suddenly, standing jerkily from where he’s been sitting with his hands fisting in his hair. It has grown longer than he had ever let it go before, lying flat and greasy against his face. Owain blinks at him, arms lowering back to his sides. “Blast you and your fantasy monologues! How can you even think to trivialize this? You’re soulless! You are no better than a Risen, except that you have a tongue to hurt us with rather than claws. Aren’t you sick of hearing yourself talk?”

“I simply believe we must put this behind us, for the good of all.”

“You were not worthy of having such a beautiful mother,” Inigo continues, advancing upon him. Owain stays where he is. Usually at this point, he would be shoving back and matching Inigo’s stormy expression with grinding teeth and flashing eyes. Now though, he feels nothing. Apathy, Laurent would diagnose. “You shame her with your attitude. You shame her sacrifice.”

“We must make use of her sacrifice, not honor it,” Owain says. Brady has appeared from the medic tent, clutching his staff and darting his eyes between the two of them nervously. All of them, in fact, have become to creep closer out of their morbid curiosity. Only Lucina remains on the ground, staring at her empty palms.

“It was your fault!” Inigo shouts, pushing his chest, hard and brutal. It knocks Owain to the ground. “She’s dead because of you!”

Owain just stares.

“Just like your father!” Inigo spits. His face goes in and out of focus in Owain’s vision. He’s vaguely aware of arms slipping under his own, pulling him back, bringing him up to his feet. “You’re just as much to blame as the Risen.”

He’s being led away now. He sees Lucina grab Inigo’s wrists to keep him from following, before Owain is turned around and ushered into the medical tent. “Why are we going here, Brady? I’m fine. A few scratches, but hardly anything to waste a heal staff on.”

“You ain’t fine,” says Brady with certainty. Owain sits compliantly on a pile of blankets and stares at Brady’s knees as he sits down too. “Your ma just died.”

“Yes,” Owain says. He’s aware, he’s aware that she’s dead. He saw her die with his own eyes, watched the last bit of rosy red vigor slip out of her skin. He waited until the last strand of her sunshine hair had been extinguished by the earth. He knows. “Everyone’s had their mothers die. Just the same, we need to push onwards.”

“Course we do,” Brady says, and it’s such a relief to have someone listening to him. But Brady’s not done yet, of course he isn’t. Owain can never just be right. “But it ain’t even been half a day yet, Owain. Ya can take a few hours.”

“I don’t want to take a few hours,” he says. The thought of just sitting silently, letting his heart possibly get a head-start on his mind and body is abjectly horrifying. He wants to curl in on himself at the very idea, but Brady’s got a firm hold on his elbows. The cleric’s eyes are wide and clear, even though Owain can see the slight quiver of his lower lip. “Why don’t you just go ahead and cry? It’ll make you feel better.”

“Why’s it okay for me to cry?”

“Because you always cry,” Owain answers matter-of-factly. He’s not entirely sure why Brady’s looking at him like that, like he might shatter at a word. He’s fine. His mother is dead, and his very soul is tired, but neither of those things should stop them from carrying out the mission. “Crying’s what you do.”

“But ya don’t get to cry, huh?” Brady says. One of his hands has made its way up to the top of Owain’s head, threading through his black hair softly. That’s from his father, dark as night until sunshine came to light him up.

“I don’t cry,” he answers, but Brady is pushing down on his head now, lowering it to rest upon a shoulder. His breath is all shaky, and he hates the way it feels, like the air itself is trying to choke him, to bring him to the rightful claw of death where he belongs. He should have died two times over, it’s true. Everything Inigo had screamed, it was true. But they had to keep going, keep going so that no one else would end up dying for him. His body will no longer listen anymore though. It keeps sinking further into Brady’s embrace. “I-I don’t…”

“If ya want,” Brady says, “ya can just pretend that I’m the one crying, alright?”

When they emerge from Brady’s tent, the rest of them are gathered around the campfire, orange glow playing upon the hollows of their faces. Owain sits down next to Inigo, and Brady settles on his other side. His cousin loops an arm around his shoulders, rocking him closer. “Hey, Owain, I think we could all use a story. What do you say?”

Inigo is smiling slightly, and it’s the closest that he’s probably ever gotten to saying sorry. Owain reaches out to lightly knock his head with a fist.

“What kind of hero would I be to refuse such a small request,” he booms. The tears are still there, somewhere behind his eyes, but they do not threaten to overflow just yet. “However, I will insist upon the assistance of my fellow comrades in arms!”

“That’s not even a phrase, Owain,” Severa huffs, but he just sticks his tongue out at her and catches the upward quirk of her lips before she can hide it.

“There was once a brave troupe of fierce warriors-”

“The Justice Cabal!” jumps in Cynthia, leaping to her feet.

“Indeed! Their heroics were renown throughout the land as they aided all from the richest noble to the most destitute orphan of the streets.”

“But a great evil came to descend upon their country,” Nah continues serenely. “The most fearsome beast imaginable.”

“An evil spirit,” Lucina says. She had gotten up at some point, and now lays her hands on either one of Owain’s shoulders. He reaches up to take one of them, threading their fingers together. “Of one who had died long ago.”

“It, obviously, had many powers,” Inigo says. “For example, it could fill the skies with-”

“BLOOD AND THUNDER!”

“Yes, exactly.”

They pass the night like that, laughing and spinning and acting out the more dramatic scenes. Even Gerome was convinced to speak up from time to time. For a minute, they remember that they used to be children, playing at war and at peace in the nursery and crying over lost toys like it was the end of the world.

But the thing is: they aren’t those children anymore.

…

They have become a single mass, seemingly, crowding together and holding on as the portal opens before them. Owain has a hand fisted in Lucina’s cape, along with Inigo, Brady, Kjelle, and Gerome. Their elbows link together to form a wall. Nah’s arms are wrapped around his waist, hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt. Owain can feel, too, one of Laurent’s hands on his shoulder and the wide brim of his hat brushing against the back of his head.

“Hold on to each other as best you can,” Lucina says from the front. Her long blue hair has been tucked away and her face obscured by a mask. She is Marth now. There stands a legend before him. “If we are separated…no, never mind. We will find each other again. I swear to it.”

Her sword is drawn as she leads them back into their future past.

Laurent loses his grip almost immediately. Owain sees him tumbling away out of the corner of his eye, but he has no way to reach out to him. Nah’s fingers are vicelike on his ribs. He hears Severa scream, and then Yarne, and then Cynthia. Lucina’s cape slips from between Inigo’s fingers, and he clutches on to Owain’s arm instead. Hands slide from his elbow to his shoulder, and then his cousin is lost from them. Owain yells, one hand dislodging from Lucina to reach after Inigo, and it’s only Brady’s determined pull back that keeps Owain from diving entirely after him.

“Ya gotta hold on!” Brady yells over the rush and the roar. Nah has slipped down his back and trails behind with a faltering grip on one of Owain’s ankles.

Noire and Gerome tumble off at the same time, splitting off in opposite directions during their fall. It feels as if the portal keeps echoing their desperate cries, melding together into an inhuman scream of fear, the sounds of a ghostly battlefield. Owain feels Nah’s little hands disappear, and she roars with anger, more dragon than girl. Kjelle has slipped away too, silently. He tries to hold on tighter to the stretching fabric of Lucina’s cape, but it seems to slither under his fingers, slowly dislodging his grip.

“I can’t hold on!” he shouts, not sure if it’s to Brady or Lucina or himself. His fingers seem to loosen against his will, and then he is falling. His name is screamed, and then there’s a hand back in his. His bones are crushed together by Brady’s desperate grip. Lucina goes charging on, alone, without them.

“Are you an idiot?” Owain screams. The tears gathering in Brady’s eyes are blown away by the otherworldly gale. A strange and salty rainstorm must be happening somewhere. “You should have stayed with Lucina!”

“I can’t lose ya!” Brady cries back. His other hand scrabbles at an invisible wall between them, trying to grasp on to another part of Owain. “Don’t let go!”

But the vindictive wind seems to wrap around their wrists, pulling them apart purposefully and methodically. At least one of his fingers must be broken, Owain thinks, but panic outweighs the pain. Brady’s still crying, looking as scared as Owain’s ever seen him in his life. He tightens his grip for one last moment. “I’ll find you!”

The gale takes him away, Brady’s terrified shout echoing as he whites out.

When he wakes in a field full of Risen, Owain almost gives up then and there. It hasn’t worked. He’s just back in the present, in a failed world. But he thinks of Lucina, Inigo, and Brady, and he pushes himself to his feet, and he fights his way out of there.

It turns out that yes, the portal has worked. But Emmeryn is already dead, albeit differently this time, and the war with Plegia has ended much faster than it did from what he can recall. He suspects the changes are of Lucina’s doing, as much as she’s probably beating herself up over what has still gone wrong. He considers his options. He could go to Ylisse and tell his story to the Shepherds there, backed up by nothing but the brand on his arm and similar looks. But perhaps that is a bad idea. Lon’qu and Lissa aren’t married yet at this point.

Instead, he chooses to cross the sea to Valm. That’s where the Shepherds will be headed next, probably within a few years thanks to the swift end of the first Plegian threat. He thinks that’s where Brady and Inigo might head as well- Brady would be hardly ready to face his mother and Inigo would most likely be enjoying his freedom with a few ladies on each arm.

They find him about a year and a half later. He is up against impossible odds, enjoying the heroic odds that he must face down, when he catches sight of sunlight hair and glowing eyes. He swears that his heart stops for a moment. And he’s sure it does when he sees his father too, jaw set and eyes steely, slashing away any enemies that dare go near Ylisse’s princess. They are young, so young, and so happy and alive.

They aren’t really his parents, he knows that, but he’s just content to see them again, in any incarnation.

When the battle is won, Lucina gathers him in her arms and places a kiss upon his forehead in a way that she hasn’t done since he was five years old and her starstruck disciple. There are tears slipping down her cheeks. “I’m so happy to see you, cousin.”

“I’m the first, huh?” he asks, and she just squeezes him tighter in response. “Well, with me in tow, we’ll find them all three times as fast!”

Cynthia spins him around in giddy circles when they find her. Laurent, so much older than Owain remembers him, gives him a stern lecture on proper nutrition. Severa hides her face behind her shield so no one can see her sobbing. Nah steps hard on his foot with her only explanation being- “You should buy less slippery boots.”

After a long and hard battle to save Inigo, the other boy is nowhere to be found. Owain and Lucina search high and low throughout the town determinedly, only to find him in the outskirts, on a grassy hill, attempting to seduce a village girl.

“Inigo!” Owain shouts as he begins his heroic charge. Inigo’s eyes widen as they turn to him, quickly changing to panic.

“Don’t you-”

But Owain has already tackled him, and they go rolling down the hill. Satisfyingly, Inigo hits most of the uneven ground. Nothing less than the philanderer deserves. They’re both covered in dirt when they skid to a stop, and Inigo spits grass out of his mouth indignantly. “Gods, Owain, can’t you tell when a man is trying to woo a delicate flower! Your decorum is- wait, no, don’t-”

It’s all he gets out before Owain is tickling him mercilessly. Inigo spits out increasingly crass insults between his escalating giggles, halfheartedly trying to punch his cousin in the face to get him off. Lucina laughs and laughs on the top of the hillside, and the village girl looks on confusedly.

Poor girl could never understand.

After his cousin, there’s more. Noire gives him a nervous hug and a tremulous smile. Gerome barely manages a nod, still wrapped up in his own darkness. Morgan, none of them remember, but her smiles are golden all the same. Yarne is still a big fuzzy bunny coward. Kjelle is still intent on whipping them all into shape.

With each former comrade they find, Owain cannot help that his outbursts of joy become more forced. Because none of them are Brady. And every day, he grows more certain that Brady is gone.

Lucina and Inigo seem to sense it, and they distract him as much as they can. Lucina tries to practice speaking in poetry as he does, but her attempts at wordplay are more funny than moving. Her charm is in her sincerity, not in her eloquence. Inigo takes Owain out to meet village girls when he’s not heckling him about his Manual of Justice. He appreciates his cousins, but he dreams about the portal, about Brady’s terrified face. If he’d woken in a field of Risen like Owain, it’s entirely possible that he wouldn’t have gotten out alive.

He has settled so fully on the idea of Brady’s death that Owain has to check three times when they find him at the Mila Shrine. But it is Brady. It’s Brady. Owain didn’t think it would be possible to be happier than the moment he first saw his parents again, but he is.

“Brady!” he cries out, running towards him and fully intending to repeat the tackle hug he’d given Inigo. But the cleric doesn’t even look at him as he steps to the side to avoid the embrace. Owain stumbles, confused. He turns back to ask what’s wrong only to see Brady’s fist flying towards his face. He barely gets out of the way in time and then the other one is coming. “Hey! What are you doing?”

“He’s beating you up, what does it look like?” Inigo calls jovially. “I’m placing a hundred gold on Brady if anyone wants to take me up on it.”

“No way. The weakling will tire himself out before long,” Kjelle scoffs. “Two hundred on Owain.”

“I’ll put this whole small bullion on the cleric accidently punching Owain in the face and then being upset about it,” Morgan chirps in cheerfully. Severa gives her a look, but the girl just shrugs. “That’s what my tactical mind has devised as the most likely outcome.”

“Lucina!” Owain shouts out, dodging another right hook. His older cousin is attempting to hide a smile behind her hand. “Stop them, please?”

“It’s not like he’s going to actually hurt-” is all Owain hears before he gets a fist rammed into his nose. Inigo whoops in glee as Owain staggers back, head tipped up to try and staunch the blood beginning to flow.

“That’s it, Brady! Now a right hook! A right hook, he’s open!” Inigo commands like a boxing coach.

Brady’s hands, however, have flown to his mouth as he stares at the bleeding Owain in shock. With his head tipped up, Owain has to twist his neck to a strange sideways angle to even get a good look at him. It’s not entirely surprising to him that Brady’s finally starting to cry. “Brady, what are you crying about?”

“Ya were supposed to keep dodging,” Brady mumbles into his hands, shuffling a few steps closer. “Did I break it?”

“You couldn’t break my nose, Brady,” Owain scoffs. Although that punch might have come close. “Besides my sword hand feeds on blood! You are only adding to my glorious power! I shall- blech.”

He stops his monologue to spit some of the blood that has trickled into his mouth out into the grass. Brady chokes, and then there is a shaking hand clasping one side of his face. The familiar glow of Brady’s healing staff warms Owain’s skin. Inigo is booing raucously in the background while Morgan collects her gold and Lucina half-heartedly tries to usher them all away. Owain reaches up the hand still not over his nose and draws Brady’s head down to rest where his neck meets his shoulder, and it feels like finally, finally coming back home.

But the thing is: there's still miles and miles to go.

…

“I say we tour through Valm first,” Inigo says. He’s bouncing from foot to foot with nervous excitement, almost slipping into full-fledged dancing before he checks himself with a blush. “Warmer than Ferox, not as crazy as Plegia.”

Away from Ylisse for a while is not said, but understood.

“It’s the land I think I’ve truly seen the least of as well. I’d like to see more of it.” Lucina seconds with a nod. Her hair is up in a ponytail, Olivia’s headband wrapped around her forehead. Her mother had said it was only fair that her daughter get a keepsake from her as well as the Parallel Falchion from her father. Inigo got Chrom’s cape which he intends to work into his dance routines. Owain’s not entirely sure how his uncle would feel about the use.

“Ya thought of a good idea for once, Inigo,” Brady laughs. His hand tightens his grip on Owain’s, callouses pressing together in a rough reminder of the past.

Inigo glares, but he’s too excited to make a fight out of it.

“I never thought I’d end up part of a troupe of travelling performers,” Lucina muses, staring at her hands. There’s a nasty scar from where three of her fingers had been severed during the last battle. Brady had somehow managed to grab them before they rolled off the dragon’s back, and they had been reattached after a long night of work. “But I never thought I’d end up much of anywhere.”

“Your dark thoughts are unfitting for this day of blue skies,” Owain exclaims, moving his hands in a dramatic circle above his head. He also manages to nearly pull Brady’s arm out of its socket. “Oh, sorry.”

“We’re not just a troupe of travelling performers,” Inigo scolds, spinning behind them to throw one arm around Owain and Brady and his other around his elder sister, pulling them closer, as close as he could. “We’re now a family of travelling performers!”

But the thing is: it’s only the travelling performers part that’s new. They’d always been a family.