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He ascends the altar, every step echoing within the silence of the room. Even the hooded Grimleal do not speak, keeps their heads bowed in the candle lit room of the dragons table.
When he reaches the top, amber eyes trail ahead of him and only stop to meet deep azure. There's something familiar that sparks within those pools of blue, and he almost looks like the man he once knew long ago.
"Let us begin the ritual, then."
But the man standing in front of him isn't Chrom.
"Yes."
Robin has to wonder when everything had changed.
Perhaps, it had all began when Emmeryn had died. When she had decided to take her final steps off that cliff, a cruel fate no one deserved. Robin noticed the dark lingering gaze in Chrom's eyes, noticed how he had changed after and during the war.
The reminiscence of the once kind hearted prince was no more.
"Robin, you would never betray me, would you?" The exalt had asked, after everyone of their Shepard's had left. (fled)
"Of course not." Robin said in return, keeping himself composed for his own sake as a gloved hand tightens around his wrist. "I... I've already told you would follow you until my last breath." Although not a lie, Robin could help the dread that surges through him as he said those words to him.
But Chrom smiled, grip tightening it's hold.
"Then, you will do something for me, Robin."
Robin knew then what he had meant, was asking, telling of him when Chrom brushed his other hand against the back of his, on the brand of the fell dragon that stains his skin.
Staring ahead of him, the ritual in commence, Robin has to wonder, why? What happened for things to end up this way?
What happened to the Chrom he once knew, the kind hearted prince who held out his hand for him to take when he had nothing?
Closing his eyes, the ritual coming to an end, Robin can feel the cold dark sensation that takes over his entire body.
When had everything changed, when had Chrom become so corrupted?
When he opens his eyes, crimson tainting his once warm amber, Grima decides then.
He will end Chrom's suffering, will end everything.