Chapter Text
1
Project Finding Friends started six months ago but Cynthia had not heard one word about it in the past three months. She knew she shouldn’t have told Laurent she secretly wanted to go on an adventure and find them. He has a history of tattling to Father if he thinks it’s for her the kingdom’s own good. Her retainer, and his temporary partner Brady, used to be a lot more fun. Everyone used to be a lot more fun. Even though they were almost always fighting a war.
But then Lucina died in the final fight against Grima.
Cynthia misses her older sister so much it feels like a part of her heart has been permanently torn out. She still wakes up from nightmares with the urge to find her sister and feel safe. She remembers every time dinner has tomatoes—Lucina would always sneak hers onto Cynthia’s plate. She misses her whenever she’s running laps alone when Lucina would have joined her before.
Even though it feels almost blasphemous, Cynthia finds herself missing Lucina most whenever she gets saddled with crown princess duties. If this only happened occasionally, it would be fine. But it’s not occasionally—it’s all day, every day. Diplomacy lessons, etiquette lessons, history lessons, even civil planning lessons are all part of her daily routine now. It’s awful and she hates it. But Father looks so tired every time she sees him. Lucy and Cindy are just so small. Owain is her friend. There’s no one she can pass the duties onto. So she shelves her tomes and hangs up her lance as if it was a decoration rather a weapon of war. She hates it, but she does it. At least they don’t make her carry the parallel falchion around.
It feels like she’s a bird trapped in a cage. The cage is pretty, made of gold, jewels, and all the riches one could possibly imagine. Everyone tells her she should be grateful, that they’re grateful to have her here. But every day she feels just a little more dead inside as people try to hold her to her sister’s standards and she constantly falls short.
Yeah, Cynthia is dramatic, impulsive, hotheaded, and a bit of a goofball. She’s nothing like Lucina with her composed and responsible demeanor. She can’t go through dozens of pages of paperwork a day. She can’t command groups of soldiers with the same charisma. She isn’t Lucina. She’s just a cheap replacement. A knock-off. A failure.
Some mornings she lays in bed and can’t to get up. On those days, Laurent will guard the door and Severa and Nah will sit by the bed and remind her who she is. Lucina was never any good on a pegasus. Lucina was never any good at lightening the atmosphere. Lucina was never as optimistic or hopeful as her. Cynthia is important too.
Owain would always drop by too, Inigo and Brady by his side as always. He would tell her ridiculous stories before stopping suddenly at climactic moments and telling her he couldn’t remember what happened next, so she had better tell him. Gradually, she would join in the story telling. Gradually, she would cheer up. Gradually, she would get the light back in her eyes. Gradually, she would smile again. Gradually, she would get out of bed.
Father and Mother would visit when they could. With them they brought hugs, reassurances, and her little sisters. They try so hard to be there for her, but Cynthia knows they’re busy. It’s okay. She’s fine. Life has always been hard for her. This is much better than she’s had it for a long, long time. She’s wanted, needed, important, the celebrated hero she’s always wanted to be.
So why does she feel so betrayed that her friends didn’t take her with them?
2
Setting things up so Laurent thinks she’s with Brady and Brady thinks she’s with Laurent was so hard that Cynthia thinks she deserves an award for managing to do it. It takes all her sneaking skills and her confident power walk to make it to her destination without being questioned and sent back to her little office to do more paperwork. It takes a week of planning and a lot of luck, but she manages.
Nah is very understanding when Cynthia slips into the magicology laboratory to ask for an update personally. She knows how Cynthia feels in a very sincere way. They don’t talk about her childhood, but Cynthia knows it wasn’t good. She feels horribly, selfishly grateful that Nah went through something that makes her understand.
She still makes Crown Princess Cynthia stay near the door and far away from the experimental portal that they’ve just finished. But she’s happy to tell her about the results of her past month stuck in the laboratory. Cynthia doesn’t understand half the words that come out of her mouth but tries to commit as many of them to memory as she can. Father can’t ban her from the library the same way he’s banned her from the lab. Is it so wrong to want to know where her friends are? If they’re okay?
Maybe she spends a little too long talking with Nah about it. Maybe Laurent or Brady caught on to her trick. Maybe one of the guards mentioned seeing her to someone who knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. Either way, Cynthia and Nah are deep in conversation when Chrom bursts through the door.
“Nah! Have you seen-“
Cynthia is so startled by the door slamming open and Chrom’s raised voice that she jumps. She fumbles the landing, slips on something with wheels, tumbles through the laboratory entirely on accident, and finds herself tipping into the portal. Gosh darn it! Cynthia thought she’d managed to get a handle on her clumsiness!
“Cynthia! Cynthia! NOOOO-“ her father’s voice is cut off as she falls backward through the portal and everything goes black.
3
Anankos tilts his head in curiosity. A portal has connected to his dimension from the same dimension those three meddlesome humans his pathetic heart brought here came from. And it wasn’t just any human, it’s another with dragon blood—the same dragon blood one of the others had. This had not even occurred to him as a possibility. How interesting. How odd. How troublesome.
He can’t have her interfering with his plans, which means he has to do a couple of things. The brand and the hair have to go. They’re too recognizable and he can’t have the four of them working together. The three of them will be a handful all on their own. Making the changes is as simple as a wave of his claws. This is plan B.
Plan A? Well, if he hijacked the portal a bit and had it spit her out somewhere a little more dangerous than intended, no one had to know. No one but him.
4
Cynthia wakes up with the side of her face pressed into hard, packed dirt. She pushes herself up into a sitting position and rubs her eyes to clear her blurry vision. Once they’ve cleared enough for her to see more clearly, she looks around and finds herself in a sunny grove of trees. It’s a beautiful sight with threats of sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy. Usually this would set her at ease. But there’s no bird song. Something has chased off the wildlife and she should get out of here before it shows up to chase her off too.
She braces herself against a tree and stumbles to her feet. It feels like she just got off a boat and is trying to walk on solid ground again, so it takes her a couple minutes to find her balance again. While Cynthia still feels a little woozy, it passes quickly enough that she’s soon able to make her way through the forest. Her hand twitches to grab at where her lance would usually be. The lack of a weapon is making her nervous.
The path is solid enough that Cynthia is able to make her way through the forest without making a lot of noise trampling through the underbrush. Taking off her fancy boots would probably make her footsteps quieter, but it’s not worth the risk of having to run in bare feet through a forest full of foliage she’s never seen before. The portal worked. And isn’t it just her luck that she would get trapped in an alternate dimension all by herself.
A murky pond comes into view as the sun starts slowly dipping below the horizon. Her stamina has gotten worse since they finally established peace across the continent. Taking a short break would allow her to catch her breath so she can keep going longer. It only makes sense to stop for a bit.
Mentally thanking Laurent again for teaching her and the others this trick in the future-past, Cynthia reaches for her magic and lifts some of the pond water up in a sphere—and only water. The spell purifies the water so it’s safe to drink. It’s saved her life a dozen times over the years.
She takes a deep drink from the sphere of water she now cradles in her hands before getting a glimpse of her reflection in the pond and promptly spits it all out. Cynthia coughs a couple of times before turning back to the pond to confirm what she saw. Unfortunately, she saw it right the first time. The girl in the water can’t possibly be her. That is not what she looks like. She has straight, blue hair like her dad and brown eyes like her mom. But the girl in the pond has fluffy, pink hair and green eyes two shades darker than the tips of Lady Tiki’s feathers.
The reflection has her so distracted that she doesn’t notice the approaching figure until it steps on and breaks a stick. Jolting in surprise, she turns in that direction. If Cynthia’s lucky, she might have been found by someone who can help.
She’s not lucky.
The figure is hulking and green with some sort of black, metal mask instead of a face, holding a large club. It doesn’t look like a Risin. But it stinks like a Risin. It’s silent like a Risin. It moves like a Risin.
Cynthia stumbles to her feet just fast enough to move out of the way as it swings its club at her. Not wasting a single moment, she turns and sprints down the path. “HELP!” she calls, hoping to Naga she’s not wasting her breath. The Not-Risin lets out a loud noise, something between a shriek and a groan as it starts to chase her “HELP!”
It’s only after she starts flagging that she finally gets a response. Someone is shouting back at her. The voice is decidedly male and sounds fairly young. Cynthia has no clue what he’s saying but hopefully he’s here to help.
Wheezing a little, she changes course to go in the direction the voice is coming from. The Not-Risin is gaining but the voice is getting loud enough that hopefully help will get here in time to save her. The young man comes into view just as the Not-Risin has gotten close enough that she can feel the whipping of displaced air as it swings its club at her. A glance at him has her pushing thoughts of relief out of the way. His bow is pointed right at her!
He yells something she doesn’t understand, but the jerk of his chin down and to the side along with him readjusting his aim has her ducking out of the way just in time for him to let loose an arrow that goes straight through one of the holes in the Not-Risin’s mask. Cynthia shivers a little at the show of skill as the turns into a puddle of sludge. Either he’s observant enough to know she could dodge fast enough or he’s green enough that he thinks anyone could do it.
As he approaches, she decides to just be glad she’s not dead. Grima’s downfall made it impossible for more Risen to, well, rise. Cynthia had hoped to be done with all of that. But clearly undead creatures are not done with her. At least they don’t look like Risin.
Cynthia chooses to ignore the implication of there being another evil dragon to fight and decides to turn to face her rescuer instead.
The young man who saved is the spitting image of Donnel, but his outfit looks almost Chon’sinese. She gives him her best relieved smile. “Thank you!”
He gives her a weird look and says something and Cynthia comes to an awful, awful realization. It wasn’t distance or panic that made her unable to understand him. He’s speaking a whole different language.
5
They call her Sumiko.
It’s odd to be called something that’s not her name, but they won’t call her Cynthia and just give her a strange look when she tries to get them to. And it’s not like it’s a bad name, really. It sounds almost like her mom’s name, so she kind of likes it. It reminds her of a home she can only hope to see again.
She starts responding to the name.
The villagers are super kind as she tries to integrate into the village and learn the language. Kenji, the guy who saved her, and his mom, Ren, have taken her in. They feed her, let her sleep in the spare bed, and give her old but comfortable clothes to wear. Ren seems to be primarily in charge of her but the whole village seems to take turns helping her.
Once she learns enough of the language and asks some subtle questions, Cynthia finds there is actually a reason they call her Sumiko instead of Cynthia. Cynthia is a Nohrian name. Hoshido, the country she has found herself in, and Nohr, a neighboring country, have been in some sort of cold war for years now. She had come scarily close to being suspected to be a Nohrian spy, but her pink hair and sincere need to learn the language had saved her. Pink hair is a Hoshidan trait, and apparently they tried talking to her in Nohrian and she still didn’t understand. They don’t know who she is or where she’s from, but since Cynthia obviously isn’t hostile and clearly needs help, they accept her anyway.
Her name is written with the characters for pure/natural and love. When Ren tells her, Sumiko finds herself a little more comfortable with the name. Sue her! It’s so sweet and cute! Of course she likes it!
Granny Shoko teaches her the names of different items in her shop. Little Daichi and his friends teach her different games and words for outside things when she’s in charge of watching them. Tame teaches her words for weapons when she helps them maintain the village armory.
Lances are called naginatas here, and only have one edge. It changes a lot about how they’re used but the weight of it in her hands is still familiar and comforting. When Mikoto, one of the militia spearwoman, catches her swinging one around experimentally, she simply smiles and asks if Sumiko would like to learn. Her response is as enthusiastic as her new vocabulary allows but Mikoto’s smile proves she at least could tell the newly renamed Sumiko was happy.
It is another couple of months before Sumiko gains a moderate level of fluency. She joins the village militia once she’s proven herself to Mikoto, and even manages to make some friends! Genki, Zinan, and Leiko are so cool, even if they roll their eyes at her super cool stories of heroic greatness.
Ren comes to feel like another mother to her. Of course, she still loves Sumia. But the Sumia she knows now just isn’t the same as the Sumia who was her mother Before. She means well, and Sumiko knows that she loves her, but Lucy and Cindy take so much of her attention and time that she hardly saw her most days. There’s nothing wrong with having more than one mother figure anyway, right?
And Kenji. He’s the older brother she never knew she both did and didn’t want. Between the teasing, the training, the hair ruffling affection, and all the times he’s looked out for her, Sumiko doesn’t think she’s ever met someone who fusses over her so much—including Father. And yet his fussing isn’t the same as Father’s. It isn’t suffocating. It’s nice. He’s there for her and she’s there for him when he needs it. Like that time his dumb ex-girlfriend, Meiko, broke up with him to be with some loser in a different village. Kenji is the best hunter in the village, and she leaves for a pottery merchant? Idiot.
Sumiko misses her castle-home and her friends and family there, but she has a second home now, too. Her heart has cracked and she has mourned the loss of what she knew, but the villagers have filled those cracks with love and care. Her heart is full.
But all good things come to an end. And this is no exception.
6
Their only warning is a hunter running through town, yelling about hoards of Faceless in the forest. Most villagers hurry to gather up belongings and make a run for it, but Sumiko joins her fellow militia members at the village armory after one last fierce group hug with Ren and Kenji. She likes to think it was a family hug.
Mikoto hands her a naginata, a yumi—a Hoshidan style bow—and a quiver of arrows. While Sumiko has only just started learning how to use the yumi, she knows it’s better for her to have the option. They have more yumi than they have people for anyway. She gives her teacher a single determined nod before she follows Leiko meet up with their friends. The goal is to either eliminate the threat or hold out until help arrives. A messenger has already been sent for help but no one knows how long it will take for help to come.
They all know there’s little hope of help arriving in time.
The four of them, along with the twelve other militia members, stand their ground as hoard after hoard of Faceless swarm them. There are too many Faceless to count. But while there may only be sixteen militia members, they fight with the might of leopards: ferocious, mighty, and tenacious. They fight to defend their homes and families. But they are only human.
Hibiki falls first, then Sora, then Mikoto. It’s odd, Sumiko notes, it’s almost like they know who is in charge. One by one, each member is picked off until she’s the last one standing. She’s using old tricks, ones she learned early on when every fight was for your life against creatures that don’t feel pain or fatigue.
At this point, she’s only really saving herself. Dozens of faceless are passing her despite her best efforts. They’re chasing the villagers, her friends, the little family she has. She can hear their screams. There’s nothing she can do. Sumiko isn’t Laurent, who could wipe out hoards of monsters in seconds with a few spells. Hoshido doesn’t have tomes, only scrolls that the village doesn’t even try to keep in stock. She’s on her own, without even a pegasus to carry her out of reach for a short break when her arms start to burn with exertion.
So she takes brief moment to let out a shrill whistle, communicating that the guard is down. They told her it’s only really used at funerals. All she can do is keep fighting and hope that at least one of the villagers make it out of this mass grave.
Sumiko desperately wishes she’d taught her tricks to the guard. What a fool she’d been to think they didn’t need to know, that it wasn’t worth trying to answer the questions they would ask. She should’ve known better than that. And now they’re the ones paying the price.
Stamina has been a big focus in the training these past months and she’s gotten a lot better. But it still isn’t enough. Sumiko is flagging by nightfall. Her hands shake where she still grips her naginata, so, so grateful it’s still there long past where her old lance would have shattered. Weapons here are just be built different. They don’t break no matter how much you abuse them. The trade off is that it’s you that will break, if you don’t use them correctly.
And it’s in that moment when she’s about to lose hope that the hoards of Faceless finally start to thin. New ones stop coming and the leftovers are finished off one by one. By sundown, it’s just her left in an empty village.
Part of her wants to go see what happened to everyone, but the rest of her knows she needs rest. So she stumbles blindly through the village, avoiding obstacles that she chooses not to identify. It’s only once that she’s changed into clean clothes, her leather chest plate nearby, and wrapped in blankets in Ren’s closet that she allows herself to sink into the depths of unconsciousness.
7
Dawn comes too early and Sumiko regrets opening her eyes the moment she does so. A ray of light has made its way through a hole in the roof and shines right in her eyes. Her eyes burn as she sits up and blinks to clear her vision of black spots. Once her vision is clear, she stands up, reattaches her breastplate, and squares her shoulders. This is going to be a long, long day.
The house—her home—looks worse for wear as she picks her way across the floor. It’s covered in broken pottery and debris. But it’s only once Sumiko gets outside that the full impact of the attack hits her. The village is decimated.
Some places got hit harder than others, particularly fortified buildings and buildings on the edges of the village. But the whole place is a mess of collapse and destruction. Her eyes skip over the dead bodies. She’ll come back to that. Just—she’s just not ready yet.
She blinks and sees a similar scene of destruction in a place very far away. Empty, destroyed houses line streets littered with debris and piles of dust. Corpses are piled high on a funeral pyre. It’s the best burial Cynthia and her friends could give them. Dead bodies make more Risin.
A small puppy with a broken leg whimpers as she passes, crying out for help. Cynthia can’t look at it. She can’t save it. It’s not fair. She’s no hero. She feels so helpless she wants to cry. She wants her Mother. But Mother is gone.
Then the wind blows the memory away.
There are no puppies here, even though little Ame had desperately wanted one. All she can see is destruction and puddles upon puddles of toxic sludge. There are no survivors, she checked. The village is full of dead bodies and she finds all five wagons collapsed at the same place on the road. They ran straight into an ambush. It’s her worst nightmare. No pulse after no pulse after no pulse. But she doesn’t cry until she finds Ren and Kenji.
Sumiko is alone.
All that’s left to be done is take care of the bodies. Cremation is traditional here, which is good because that’s all she knows how to do anyway. Except this time there’s no Yarne and Nah to chop down trees for the pyre. There’s no Kjelle or Brady to set it up. There’s no Severa or Gerome to carry the bodies so she and Inigo can line them up right. There’s no Laurent to light the pyre. But Sumiko does her best.
It takes another day for help to arrive, but when they do, she appreciates their help with the pyre. Well, there ends up being two, one by the village and one by the wagons. She lights the pyres using little sparks of fire magic, despite the flint and steel they give her. Water buckets are nearby, just in case. Even with their help, it takes another day.
The neighboring village offers to take her in. She’s a good warrior to have survived, after all, but Sumiko can’t do it. She does need to grieve, but more than that, she has a burning need to make sure no one else has to live this nightmare.
She fills a bag with rations and some arrows. The best naginata and yumi she could find are strapped to her back in holsters she salvaged from the more experienced militia members. Sumiko picks out a single necklace from Ren’s collection and a single earring from Kenji’s.
The neighboring village people have left by now, so it’s just her left in this empty village. She gives it one last glimpse over her shoulder before turning back to the road and powering on. She passes the wagon site and keeps going. Sumiko takes a left at the fork in the road rather than the road. Supposedly the army is recruiting and there’s a group in the town that way.
Maybe they’ll have use for a failure like her.