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Morgan’s father was strong—probably the strongest person he knew, except for his mother and sister. Stronger than them, in some ways; he was a pillar that Morgan knew he could lean on without question.
But there was something almost cathartic about watching him crumble to grief.
Morgan felt wretched for thinking that. It was terrifying to watch his strong, capable father suffocate under the weight of his feelings, but there was an awful kinship in it too. There was another soul in the world who was taking the blow of Robin’s loss as hard as Morgan was. Maybe harder than Morgan was.
As much as Morgan has always looked up to his mother, he had never felt more keenly the ways in which he was his father’s mirror. She used to point it out with great affection, running a fond hand over his blue hair.
You both feel everything so deeply, she’d say with a wistful smile. Your empathy and optimism are gifts from your father, Morgan. Wear them with pride.
It certainly didn’t feel like a boon now, with the hole she’d left behind that was tearing the two of them to pieces in tandem.
Perhaps an even more wretched thought was the shards of resentment that pierced him as he slowly pieced together that Lucina was not drowning with them. It hit him on the long, terrible trek back to Ylisse, in a flash of ugly thoughts that left him nauseous and furious with himself in their wake. She’s not grieving Mother like Father and I are.
And it was true. She was grieving in her own way, certainly, and Morgan knew as soon as he had the feeling that it wasn’t fair to Lucina. It wasn’t fair to mislike the way she could disregard the tears in her eyes and neatly pack her sadness away. She, more than anyone except Mother herself, had sacrificed for the sake of the world. Bled for it. Morgan stumbled to her tent with incoherent apologies spilling from his lips, afraid that he was losing the very empathy and optimism his mother had entreated him to cherish, that his grief was turning him into a terrible brother.
“Oh, Morgan,” Lucina said, pulling him into a tight hug. “I can’t…I’ve been grieving them for so long. Both of them.”
Standing in her embrace, Morgan was struck by the notion that Lucina maybe didn’t know how to let go anymore. That powering through her grief to do what was necessary had become so wound around who she was as a person that it would probably take a long time to untangle. And then he was hit by a fresh wave of love and sadness for how very Robin of her that quality was. That ruthless, selfless ability borne out of love to put everything aside and do what nobody else could.
“Do you think I’m a bad daughter for taking comfort from how she protected us?” Lucina whispered into his hair, and Morgan squeezed her tighter even while his new tears soaked the fabric of her tunic.
“No,” he said emphatically, putting every ounce of that conviction and depth of feeling that Mother had insisted he and Father shared into his answer. “She would understand, I think,” he choked out. “She probably wanted—wants that for both of us. Because she’ll be back, and we’ll show her how…h-how…”
Morgan trailed off, his words growing thick in his throat. He wasn’t even sure how he meant to finish his sentence, just that he knew Mother would be back and she’d be happy that Lucina understood her sacrifice when she returned and Lucina should know that.
If he resembled their Father while idolizing their Mother, Lucina was his complementary counterpart. And if she took comfort in Mother’s awful, wonderful act of love that had saved them, then Morgan would take comfort in how much of her lived on in his sister. Just for a little while, until Mother's return.