Chapter Text
“So you and I will be over here. Just watch my back and I’ll watch yours” Robin pointed to an area of the map and Henry leaned in close to look too.
They were in the war tent going over strategy together. Robin had decided to pair up with Henry himself since he was still wary of the dark mages loyalties and figured that if he decided to turn on them that he could take him out if he had too. The thought was distasteful, and if Henry really wanted to take anyone out he's had a multitude of chances to do so. None the less that wide grin unnerved him.
Henry watched the tactician closely. He wasn't sure what he was looking for exactly, but he figured he would look until he found it. That was when his eyes drifted to Robin's hand.His eyes widened and he excitedly grabbed his left hand.
“Grimleal?” His green eyes flashed open and his grin was wide enough to split his face.
Robin flinched from the contact and ripped his hand from the mages grasp, surprised not only to see his eyes open but the swift shift in his emotions.
“Of course not.” He spat the words out like poison and watched Henry's face slightly fall. His smile still there, but the interest leaving his eyes.
“My mistake! I thought we could swap crazy cult stories. Nya Ha!” Before Robin could respond a crow cawed from right outside the tent “Sounds like I’m needed.” Henry resumed his usual closed eye grin and he left the tent.
Robin watched as the large bird landed on Henry's shoulder and cawed at him, causing the mage to burst into laughter as he walked to the tree line a little ways away were a few more crows were presumably waiting for him. He turned back to the map and hoped that Stahl and Virion, who would be near them in the next battle, would also have their eyes on the Mage.
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The battle went surprisingly well considering how Robin had been watching for any and all indications Henry would betray them. Not only did he not make a move in that direction, he had actually taken out more Risen than Robin himself and had made both Tharja and Miriel crack a smile at his bad jokes. Maybe he would end up being an important ally after all.
Just after thinking this he watched Henry rip a Risens arm off and hold it to his ever present crow for inspection. Who then flew off with it, only to drap the dismembered limb on Maribelle's lap. The troubadour shrieked and Henry dissolved into a fit of laughter.
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After the next battle Robin watched as Ricken cleaned the spattered blood off Henry's face. Henry had once again proved how useful he could be in battle, if not a little ruthless and frighteningly unaffected by killing, and he thought of Sumia who had lost her lunch after the battle had ended. He noticed with surprise that Henry was actually watching Ricken while the boy cleaned him up, seemingly giving Henry a lecture of sorts as he heard a muffled ‘reckless’. The dark mage just laughed but it wasn't his piercing laughter. Just a regular chuckle which seemed to surprise those in the immediate vicinity as they gave the pair confused looks.
Looks like he had finally found someone to partner with Henry.
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Ricken had initially fought Robins decision to pair him up with Henry on the grounds of thinking he was using Henry as a babysitter for him, but after two surprise skirmishes and Henry blasting the Risen about to put an ax in his back, his view of the situation had much improved. More surprisingly the whole company's opinion of Henry improved as well. Fredrick had invited the dark mage to sparring practice, which he had declined, choosing to spend those mornings with his crows while watching everyone else. Robin had seen Henry help Sumia fix everyone's bowls after she had dropped them all. He had undone a curse Tharja had cast that had ended up rebounded on Sully. Complimented Cordelia's harp playing after it had attracted all his crows. Fixed Libras paint brushes Vaike and Gregor had accidently crushed and apologized to Maribelle for the Risen arm incident.
It seemed that with the acceptance of Henry's presence, the whole camp calmed.
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Henry sat under a tree and watched Miriel failing to show Ricken the proper movements for the thunder spell he was trying to learn. He thumbed the edge of his own tome and tried to fight the urge to jump up and help. Knowing that if he did he would be roped into doing it frequently by Robin and Fredrick. After the 7th misfire, and both mage’s becoming increasingly more frustrated with each other Henry left the shade of his tree and ignored the caws of protest as he shooed his crows away.
He grabbed the tome from Rickens grasp and quickly settled into the stance for Thunder and fired off at one of the practice dummies.
All movement in the practice area ceased as Henry handed the tome back to Ricken.
“Now widen your stance. Keep your arm at 90 and push from your shoulder. Not too hard though.” He moved Ricken into the correct form and the boy fired. Not nearly as lethally or gracefully as Henry had, but it had worked.
Ricken stared at him wide eyes for a moment before blurting out “You can use regular magic?!”
“Of course I can. Why is that such a SHOCK? Nya Ha!” His usual laughter and a crow landing on his shoulder broke everyone else's silence and Fredrick practically weeped for joy at Henry finally joining practice.
Henry corrected Miriel's minute mistakes with her fire spell and blew the dummy to pieces after pulling out ruin. Which considering Fredricks happiness at Henry's joining them they counted themselves lucky he didn't scold them too harshly about it.
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The next week they had almost reached the area of their next battle and Henry was sitting with Tharja and Robin while they peeled potatoes and swapped stories of Pelegia.
Robin admitted to missing some of the food, while Henry and Tharja complained of the cold days had been traveling into and missing the desert.
Chrom came to fetch Robin for a ‘strategy meeting’ and Tharja and Henry both shared a look but finished the potatoes and delivered them to the kitchen tent.
Tharja went off to find some kind of mushroom she needed for a poison, while Henry went in search of Ricken.
He found the boy reading under a tree one of his birds was perched in and sat down next to him, the bird flapping down to him and settling on his outstretched leg.
“Hello Henry” Ricken said as he put down his book and looked at the white haired mage.
“Hello” Henry replied as his crow cawed loudly at Ricken too. “What are you reading?”
“A book on curses and defence. It's quite interesting.”
“Ooooo. Sounds HEXellent. Nya Ha!” Henry fed the crow a slice of some meat he produced from his robe pocket and the bird flew away in a flurry and dropped a few feathers.
“Would you like to borrow it when I’m done?” Ricken watched Henry twirl a particularly nice feather around.
“Nah. I usually make my own curses and I have a pretty good defense.” He gave Ricken his usual smile.
They sat in silence for a moment before Ricken finally asked “If you can do other magic why do you only use dark magic?”
“Because I like it! Duh.” Henry barked out a laugh at his question.
Ricken blushed “Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s alright. I get that question sometimes.” Henry's smile dropped for a split second before opening his eyes to look at Ricken.
Ricken looked at them “Your eyes are green.”
“Yours are brown.” He said matter of factly before laughing again and pushing himself to his feet and brushing his cloak off “For you.” He leaned over and stuck the black feather into the sash of Rickens hat before turning and walking back towards his tent, another crow landing on his shoulder.
Ricken took off his hat to look at the feather before blushing and putting it back on.
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“Dear me Lissa. Would you look at that?’ Maribelle and Lissa were seated outside their tent drinking tea and watching the camp go about its rest day when Maribelle pointed to where Henry and Ricken were talking.
“That's nothing new Maribelle, they are together quite a bit.” Lissa raised her eyebrow slightly but went back to her tea when nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“I believe she wanted you to look a bit deeper then that.” Robin appeared at Lissas side and sat down next to her.
“At what?” Lissa looked at them again, closer this time.
Henry was leaning against one of the convoy wagons and giving Ricken one of his less creepy smiles while the younger boy spoke animatedly and laughed at whatever Henry had said in response. Henry's crow hopped from his shoulder to perch on Rickens which caused him to laugh in delight while the crow fluffed its feathers, effectively knocking his hat off. Henry laughed again and bent to pick up the hat, placing it on his own head so the bird couldn't knock it off Ricken again.
Lissa watched them a bit more before turning back to Maribelle who smiled and clapped her hands together in contained happiness and Robin smiled.
“I dare say, Ricken has quite the crush.” Maribelle said pouring Robin some tea and he accepted it with a soft word of thanks.
“I would have to agree with you. Though Henry doesn't seem unreceptive.” Robin sipped the tea and looked back to the pair who were now walking away.
“So sweet.” Maribelle sighed.
“Hopefully Henry continues on this good behavior steak of his for Rickens sake.”
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“You want to try your hand at dark magic?” For once Henry's ever present smile was gone.
“I want to try all forms of magic.” Ricken stated simply.
Henry's smile was back in a flash “I don't think so. You need to touch darkness to perform dark magic. You are pure. Keep it that way. Besides, dark magic has some nasty side effects attached to it.”
“Touch darkness?” Ricken was confused.
“Yup. Your soul is so clean though it would probably reject it.”
“Can I try it?”
“I’d rather not.” Henry said with a dismissive wave of his hand as his usual crow cawed at the disturbance.
They were walking a little ways into the woods during a break before reaching the next town. It was a bright day for once despite the the chill in the air and the woods weren't particularly dark but it almost seemed like Henry was being grabbed by the shadows as he passed. Each one reaching inky fingers to grab his cloak or legs, the shadows darkening his face. His hollow smile seemed almost sinister.
Ricken swallowed thickly “I can take it” The ‘I hope’ went unsaid.
Henry thought for a moment. How much damage could one pinprick of darkness do? Especially since Ricken would only try some of the spells and more than likely find them distasteful. He held out his hand for Ricken “Well then take my hand.”
Ricken hesitated before finally placing his hand in Henrys. The dark mage's hands were ice cold and his eyes wide open, revealing green a few shades darker then normal.
“It may hurt or feel cold. I don't remember much, but as soon as you touch it you have to pull away. Okay?”
Rickens heart was pounding in his throat. He didn't recognize this Henry, with his blank cold gaze and freezing hands.
He felt the faintest of a cold pricks before Henry recoiled from him, clutching his heart and coughing. He felt confusion and then fear as Henry crumpled to the forest floor and the shadows seemed to converge on him. He rushed forward and the shadows pulled away from the mage.
“What happened?!”
Henry held his hand up to stop Ricken from coming closer. his heart felt like it was going to explode and grind to a halt at the same time and he clutched at his chest trying to force force air into his frozen lungs.
It seemed Rickens heart had denied any darkness and it had rebounded back to him. He coughed hard, forcing his lungs to work and leaned back supported by his elbows which were struggling to keep him from collapsing.
“Henry?” Ricken asked quietly.
“I’m… fine. Just give me a minute.” He couldn't say anything else. Couldn't think. Just breathing seemed nearly impossible.
“What happened?” Ricken asked warily.
“Don't know. I must be losing my touch.” He gave a shaky laugh and tried to put his smile back on. A crow landed at his feet and dropped a small bone into his open hand.
“Seems they were worried too.” Now Ricken was really concerned. Henry's crows never even acknowledged if he was bleeding or wounded in battle, but they had all landed in the trees surrounding them and the biggest one had brought Henry that bone he was still staring at. He didn't know what that meant but it couldn't be anything good.
Henry sipped the bone into his cloak pocket and shooed the crow away as he moved to stand up.
He stumbled into Ricken who caught him, feeling him shaking like leaf “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No CAWS for worry.” He huffed out an attempt at a laugh as he righted himself “We better get back to the convoy. Wouldn't want them thinking I did something frightful would we?”
Ricken just nodded numbly. Something was wrong.
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A couple people glanced at them when they returned but no one seemed to think anything of their disappearance until they ran into Libra.
“Oh my. Are you alright Henry?” The war monk asked alerting Lissa and Maribelle who were nearby the something was amiss.
“Perfectly intact unfortunately.” Henry laughed and the crow on his shoulder cawed at the healers loudly before flying to land on the convoy cover.
“You do look a mite pale my dear.” Maribelle said taking a step closer.
Henry took a step in response “I'm afraid i'm always pale.”
“Yes but you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Well she wasn't far off the mark Henry thought “Tired I guess. I think I’ll just sit down.” He did his best to make his way to the nearby boulder but gave up halfway to grab onto the side of the wagon. His vision was swimming and his heart was thundering a frantic beat.
“What on earth happened Ricken?” Maribelle asked.
“I don't know” He didn't want to lie, but it was partially the truth and silence seemed the wisest course of action with Henry acting strange.
A sudden retching sound turned their attention back to Henry, who was doubled over and vomiting.
“Henry!” Lissa rushed to him but stopped in shock.
Henry had blood coming out of his ears and nose. A stark contrast to the shade of death his skin had taken on. He looked at her shocked expression in confusion. Her mouth moved but the noise was distorted and he couldn't make it out. He lifted a hand to his nose and pulled it away slowly when he felt the warm liquid “Oh blood.” he coughed and more spattered out.
Tharja seemed to materialize out of nowhere “Henry. What have you done?!” she could feel the darkness oozing off him in thick waves.
Henry just looked at her and laughed weakly. His crow had hoped around the ground near the vomit before cawing loudly and flying off towards the forest. Henry rubbed the small bone between his fingers as more blood bubbled out of his mouth with the laughter.