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For his fourth birthday, which is the furthest back his memory goes, he receives a book from his mother and a piggyback ride from his father.
For his fourth birthday, he receives doting and love and praises.
When he first met his oldest brother Xander, the Concubine Wars had still been at full force. His mother told him often that the crown prince would try to murder them all to secure the throne as his own. He hadn’t believed her. After all, this perfect and grand crown prince seemed like so far away from him; why would he bother himself with one of the youngest sons, a prince mixed in with all of the other princes?
Sometimes, looking at Xander, Leon couldn’t help but feel like he was but a mere commoner looking upon the vision of a god.
He used to envy Xander a lot. His perfect older brother with the sword, the divine weapon Siegfried, the crown prince. The one who had all of Father’s attention, the one who got all the praise from the public, the one who was showered with attention and received it all stoically, as if it were only natural.
He used to envy Xander until he saw him crying one day, after one particularly taxing battle in some rebellious village. He had gone to ask his older brother about something, something trivial, but all thoughts left his mind when he saw Xander, his normally broad figure curled up in a small ball, his body trembling.
Leon never saw him cry ever again, but one time was enough.
All his jealousy, all his envy, had been instantly quashed down and was replaced with a surge of protectiveness. He wanted to protect and support his older brother. He wanted to grow stronger, so strong, so that he could stand in his proper place as a prince of Nohr on the battlefield.
He wanted to grow to be powerful so that his brother would acknowledge him, so that his brother would see him as someone who didn’t need protecting, so that his brother would let him in.
He didn’t want Xander to have to cry alone ever again.
For his fifth birthday, he receives another book from his mother. A tome. She tells him to go learn magic, whispering to him that he needed to find another way to prove he was much better than the crown prince. She gives him a hug and tells him that he is smart, so very smart.
The tome doesn’t feel like a gift anymore; it feels more like a weapon.
His father stops giving him piggyback rides, but still gives him a chessboard. It feels more like a way to keep him from complaining than an actual token of love.
For his fifth birthday, he receives loneliness as he plays against himself in the quiet of his room.
When he first met Camilla, she was as stunning as she was now. So sweet to her allies and her close ones, but so very deadly on the battlefield. Her axe knew no hesitation, her swing knew no mercy. He wanted to be closer to her; she had this certain allure about her that was strong and powerful and deadly and kind all at once. She was not the crown prince like Xander was. But she carried herself like one, a certain poise that Leon couldn’t help but envy and try to imitate.
She always treat him like a baby though, so much that it hurt. She would never look at him. It was always his other siblings that stole away her attention. When they did run into each other, she would pinch his cheeks and tell him what a wonderfully strong little brother he was, before going on her way.
Leon didn’t want to be a ‘wonderfully strong little brother’, because he wasn’t wonderful or strong. He had his own insecurities just like everyone else. He cried alone in his room sometimes because he was too prideful to ask someone else to comfort him. He wanted to be doted on, but he didn’t want to sound petty enough to ask.
He didn’t want to be seen as the merciless prince of Nohr sometimes. He just wanted to be Leon.
Camilla would tell him later that she didn’t dote him so much because he was her talented and genius brother who didn’t need to be doted on. That he had seemed like a faraway entity, on his own special island of intellect and smartness and power. That he was so strong that he didn’t need her to help or affection; he could manage everything by himself.
He remembers that he used to look at Xander the exact same way. The perfect, almost inhuman, older brother. The crown prince with no insecurities or self-doubts or mixed feelings. He remembers seeing his older brother cry. He remembers seeing his older brother trying to shoulder the work alone. He remembers seeing his older brother crushed by the weight of his own expectations, thoughts and weaknesses.
Leon remembers seeing his older brother lonely, until he had taken it upon himself to make sure Xander would never feel that way ever again.
He only wished that someone would do the same for him.
For his sixth birthday, he receives orders to poison Xander’s meal from his mother. He asks her why, why would he want to poison perfect Xander, and she slaps him across the face. She has never hurt him before. It hurts. It hurts so very much.
She immediately cuddles him in her arms, cooing apologizes as she kisses the injury. Sweet Leon, she says. My sweet little baby. I’m so very sorry. Mother didn’t mean to hurt you. She just wanted you to be happy, don’t you see?
He doesn’t.
For his sixth birthday, he receives the start of the Concubine Wars.
When he first met Elise, she was blinding. Her energy radiated through the darkness of the gloomy kingdom, her smile illuminating the dreary spirits of the Nohrian royal family. She was too pure to be born here, he thought, too pure to be born now.
She used to clutch his hand with her own small one, dragging him around the castle to play with her. There wasn’t much to see in Nohr, no excess flowers or plentiful sunlight. But Elise seemed to enjoy even the small things, from getting to grab curls of Camilla’s hair to having dinner with the rest of her siblings.
Even though there were other siblings much closer to her in age, she seemed to like him the best. She followed him around the castle, crept into the library to find him as he studied.
“What are you reading, Big Brother?” she would climb onto the sofa trying to peek over his arm. And he, always passionate about knowledge and intellect, would shut his book and explain in depth to her. She never understood what he was talking about, but she always listened as he talked, always smiled as he waved his arms around as he tried to describe a difficult concept.
She would always listen to him, even if she didn’t understand, because she knew it made him happy. And soon, Elise became his favorite sibling.
But after he introduced her to Xander and Camilla, suddenly he wasn’t hers.
For his seventh birthday, he receives a dead mother. His mother, he learns later, had killed one of the older siblings in hopes of furthering her son’s chance to ascend to the throne. She ends up being killed herself by one of the other rage-filled mothers, heartbroken over the loss of a prince of call her own.
Garon stops the Concubine Wars after that. There is no more jealous women fighting pettily over each other for the throne. But the tension between siblings is still there, and would remain there for years to come. He would never stop checking behind him to see if there was anyone behind him, never stopped checking his food before he ate to see if it was poisoned.
For his seventh birthday, he received the end of meaningless bloodshed, the end of the Concubine Wars, but he also received something more; he received a little sister named Elise.
When he first met Corrin, another one of his numerous siblings had been taken. Azura, if he remembered correctly. He tried to recall her face, but it only came out as a blur, meshed with the faces of his other nameless siblings. There were simply too many of them and they did not ever do anything together, so Leon had never put in the effort to learn their names.
He used to be jealous of Corrin. Of how this isolated Hoshidan princess could enamor his siblings, how she could easily win over their love when he himself had struggled to but failed over the years. Of how she received Xander’s respect and Camilla’s doting and Elise’s blind love without offering any power in return. She was weak, so very weak. She couldn’t defend herself on a battlefield. She wasn’t smart. She had nothing to offer.
And why wouldn’t she wear shoes?
She was an enigma.
But Leon soon realized that he couldn’t even stay upset with her. Like his siblings, he felt himself being attracted to her magnetic pull, to her pout and childishness and kind-hearted soul. She didn’t baby him like Camilla did, or adore and worship him like Elise did.
Instead, she respected him, respected his intellect and strength and insecurities. She would sit in the library with him, trying to understand the texts he read. Whereas Elise had given up, as if acknowledging that it would never happen, Corrin tried every day to catch up to him.
It made Leon feel less like a god, and more like a human.
He watched Xander devote his attention to her training, and it made him feel sad. He watched Camilla dote and smother her, and it made his heart hurt. He watched Elise weave flower crowns through her hair, and it made him feel so very alone.
He watched Corrin smile at him, dimples and all, and he squashed down these poisonous thoughts of his.
They were family after all.
For his eighth birthday, he receives this Hoshidan princess named Corirn. She was older than he was, they said, but she was small, so very small. She cried a lot too, before Garon locked her in a tower. He could feel her loneliness, could feel a part of her in himself. And perhaps that is why he began visiting her.
And it was there, at that lonely tower of Castle Krakenburg, he would meet Xander, Camilla, and later Elise, as proper siblings. It was there that he could bond with people that he had once considered just rivals, as people he had been told to kill just years ago.
It was there that the four of them became the royal siblings of Nohr.
For his eighth birthday, he receives a family.
When he first saw Brynhildr, he was enthralled with the beautiful sacred tome. To others it may have seemed old and worn out, its pages crinkled and its cover no longer as glamorous as it once was. But Leon can feel the power that seeps through its pages. He can feel the magic encircling his body, a soothing feeling as it seems to speak to his very core.
He had decided to start learning magic years ago, when he was still trying to compete with Xander. He wanted to excel at something his big brother didn’t, wanted to prove that he could be better than the crown prince.
Nowadays, he doesn’t care as much for that. Sure, he still enjoys besting his brother once in a while, still enjoys their quips and strategic arguments. But nowadays, he has resigned himself to acknowledging Xander’s greatness and knows there is no point to trying to catch up. Xander is the head, the commander, and Leon will listen to him and become worthy to him, but never surpass him.
They are family, after all.
But when Leon receives Brynhildr, he allows himself to indulge in a little bit of pride that this tome chose him instead of his brother, allows himself to feel happiness over this non-official battle, allows himself a slight moment of superiority, before he pushes all these feelings to the side.
Family comes first.
For his ninth birthday, he receives the divine weapon, Brynhildr. The first thing ever to choose him over his brother. It was a divine weapon, they told him. A divine weapon of great power and tremendous strength.
He saw it as a validation of his own worth.
He used to cuddle with it sometimes, reading his divine tome late into the night before falling asleep on it. He carried it everywhere with him. To lessons. To training. To dinner—even though Camilla scolded him for it many times, that was one order from her that he could never bring himself to obey.
For his ninth birthday, he received a best friend.
When he first met Niles, the outlaw was on his knees, the guards forcing his head down and grabbing his arms. He was filthy and disgusting, the shabby outfit a harsh contrast against the pristine castle floor.
He looked pathetic.
Leon grabbed Brynhildr, his trusty friend, and approached the fiend. The guards part for him, the young prince with the cold eyes and the divine weapon. He had made a name for himself, he knew. The merciless prince with extraordinary power. The boy who spared no enemies, who destroyed everything that got in his way.
(He did spare some, but they didn’t know that.)
“Any last words?” Leon asked, already feeling Brynhildr’s magic seeping through his fingers.
There was a pause, as if the man hadn’t heard him, or if he simply wanted to keep his mouth shut until the very end. That was fine with Leon; the faster he could get this over with, the faster he could return to where Elise was waiting for him, on the couch in the library. He had been in the middle of reading her a story when he had been called away.
However, as he raised his hand, ready to release the magic tingling on his fingertips, the man suddenly looked up. He had an eyepatch on his left eye, and his other eye was blue, so very blue. Leon was startled at the brokenness in this man’s eyes, the hollow expression and the helpless gaze and the shattered pieces of the man’s soul.
The man reminded Leon of himself, all those years ago, after his mother had slapped him.
“Just kill me,” the man said, and Leon suddenly remembers that the outlaw’s supposed companions had used him as decoy before fleeing. He thinks of what it would be like if he had his entire family taken away from him, if Xander and Camilla and Elise and Corrin betrayed him.
And then Leon released the magic from his fingers and instead bent down and offered the man a hand.
For his tenth birthday, he receives a retainer. He receives someone who is fiercely loyal and devoted, someone who will give up their life for his own.
His siblings do not seem to agree with his choices, but for his tenth birthday, he receives Niles the outlaw. Niles the man with the eyepatch. Niles the man with the dark past and the broken soul. Niles with his innuendos and Niles with his insecurities.
And he accepts every part of him.
For his tenth birthday, he receives someone to save, and he does.
When he first met Odin, the dark mage was babbling something or another while make grand hand gestures. There were two others next to him, a girl with red hair and a scowl on her face and a boy who seemed to be flirting with every women in sight. The boy was given to Xander, the girl to Camilla.
The dark mage was given to Leon as a retainer, like an object rather than a person.
But the guy didn’t seem to mind. Odin had no trouble making himself at home, had no trouble fitting into the role effortlessly. Leon doubted his loyalty at first, and he knows that Niles did too, and the outlaw seemed to make it his personal mission to track down Odin and his past.
The fact that the search turned up empty only made everything seem more suspicious.
But as the years went on and as Odin showed no signs of betraying him, Leon eventually came to trust his rather eccentric retainer. When the three of them went out on missions, Odin always spouted nonsense and Niles always slandered him with words and Leon always finds himself smiling despite himself at the ridiculousness of it all.
He had forgotten what it felt like to have other companions other than family, who were required to like him no matter what. He had forgotten what it felt like to be able to choose who he spent his time with, to connect with others not bound by familial bonds.
Leon really appreciated his retainers (though he never told them that. Just imagining Niles’ cheeky smirk and Odin’s grandiose speeches made his head hurt.)
They were always with him, at first bound by loyalty, but then later on bound by friendship. They make his missions more tolerable, make the lives he has to take seem more justified. Leon can remember the first time he tells Niles and Odin to escort the villagers into hiding so he wouldn’t have to kill them.
The faces they made were so comical that he had almost laughed right then and there.
The two of them had scurried to obey their new orders, and the topic never came up ever again. But Leon could feel the shift in the way their little trio was run. Everything seemed much more relaxed. In his own subtle way, Niles seemed to gain much more respect for him, limiting his suggestive innuendos to only three times a day.
And Odin stopped looking like he had the whole fate of the world on his shoulders.
Sometimes, before he went to bed, Leon liked to imagine the three of them as heroes.
For his eleventh birthday, he receives another retainer, one of grand words and dramatic flairs. It is the first gift he has gotten from his father, he thinks, since those piggyback rides so very long ago.
And even though this gift is different, even though this gift reminds him of the blood and destruction that comes with this country, he cherishes his new retainer because it is something his father gave him. His retainer is a reminder of the days of his childhood, of his loving mother and his stern, but kind father. Days of warmth and light in this now dark country.
He also grows to accept his new retainer, though sometimes, while Odin and Niles bicker throughout the night, he wonders if they’re really worth it.
For his eleventh birthday, he receives the power of the chosen one.
When he first sees Corrin on the battlefield, he sees a traitor preaching justice. He ignores the feeling of hurt, the sudden pang of loneliness that he had learned to put down for the sake of his family. He sees the desperate look on his brother’s face, the look Leon had sworn to himself he would never let his brother make ever again. He sees Camilla speechless for once, as Corrin points her blade at her Nohrian family. He sees Elise, trying to be strong and grownup, but unable to stop a few tears from leaking out.
After Corrin left, their whole family fell apart. The four of them who had banded together first—he and Xander and Camilla and Elise—who had created numerous memories before Corrin had come into their lives, suddenly did not know how to function anymore.
Their daily dinners, which they agreed to make a tradition years ago, became quiet and solemn. Even Elise, who tried her hardest to laugh and smile like always, eventually grew quiet. And so they ate in silence, the four of them around a dinner table that suddenly seemed too big.
And then the daily dinners stopped. At first it was Xander, saying that he needed to continue with his training. Then it was Elise, who took that secret tunnel of hers that she thought no one knew about, and spent hours away from the castle. Then Camilla, who disappeared off to her room with her two retainers.
That left Leon, sitting around the dinner table by himself. His two retainers were behind him, quiet for once, watching him carefully to see if he was okay as he slowly picked apart one of the dinner rolls in the basket in front of him.
He was not okay, of course. But he had always been good at lying and wearing masks, and his retainers never called him out on it, and his siblings could never see behind his false façade—except maybe Corrin, but she was gone now.
And so Leon transforms himself into their pillar, stands next to Xander when he says that they must kill Corrin when they next see her (even though Leon knows that his big brother cannot possibly want that) and wears a shell of what he once was. At nights, he reminiscences about the past, about a time when his biggest problem was that his older sister didn’t hug him enough. But those thoughts make him too sad, so he learned to ignore them.
He is sure Niles notices his master struggling to get through each day. The former outlaw tries to help him, he really does. But Leon has grown too tired and too weary, even though Corrin had been gone for only a few weeks, and orders him to mind his own business.
He has given Niles orders before, of course. Orders for missions, orders for food, orders to stop seducing me please. But this is the first time he has ordered Niles to get away from him, the first time he has held his retainer at an arm’s length. And it wouldn’t be the last.
Niles just looks at him, and Leon thinks—or perhaps, hopes—that Niles will disobey his order, will come and smack some sense into his master. But instead, he just bows his head and leaves the room, shutting the door with a decisive click that echoes through the otherwise hollow room.
Leon sits at his desk and clutches Brynthldr to himself, just like he did as a child. It feels like the only thing he has left.
And what angers him the most is when he meets her on the battlefield next, when he sees Corrin with her Hoshidan family, he still cannot see anything other than his sister.
For his twelfth birthday, he receives his first doubts. His faith in his kingdom, his faith in his father, is shaken when one day, he watches one of his siblings tortured, and then killed. The boy—there are too many of them for him to remember all their names—is only a little older than Elise, and certainly dresses like Elise. He remembers the boy growing his hair out, wearing pigtails and pretty little dresses. He remembers the boy running around the garden with his little dress shoes and pink ball.
And now, he remembers the boy dead.
Perhaps it is because he is younger than the other two, but the sight sticks in his mind. Xander and Camilla never bring up the subject ever again, but he cannot stop replaying the scene over and over again, of the boy’s despairing face, of his father’s cruel smirk as the axe comes down, of the blood, oh so much blood.
For his twelfth birthday, he learns to put on a mask.
When he first sees Zola at Izumo… well, for the record, he wasn’t following Corrin. Of course not. He had been given orders to check out a nearby area by his father, and simply found himself wandering to Izumo when he saw Corrin’s merry little army march in. That was all.
He never really liked Zola. The man always felt too slimy for his own good. Even Elise hadn’t tried befriending him. Besides, Zola was a dark mage, so Leon always felt as if the man would kill him if allowed to further his own agenda.
Zola reminded him of himself, of what he could have been, had he not had his siblings to support him. He reminds him of a darker Leon, one without Xander’s quiet approvals and Camilla’s motherly affection and Elise’s smiles and Corrin’s hugs. Zola reminds him of all the darker and eviler aspects of himself, so Leon ends up chasing him all the way to Izumo.
He arrives right as Zola attempts to flee with a smokescreen. Leon’s hand instantly flies to Brynhildr, without wondering why he was helping the traitor, why he was coming to her aid when he had told himself numerous times before he would make her pay for what she did to his family.
He sees Zola running away and he lets his magic spring free from his fingers. Zola lets out a pained shriek but Leon pays him no mind. Pathetic, he thinks. He was taught while growing up to hold himself with dignity, or to die trying.
“Leon!” he hears his sister say. He wills himself not to look at her, not sure what will happen if he does. Will he grab his sword and plunge it through her chest? Or will he do what was probably more likely—will he forgive her? “What are you doing here?”
“Ah, Zola. You’ve embarrassed our kingdom for the last time,” Leon says, ignoring his sister. He wants to ask her what she is doing here at well, but he doubts she will answer. Or rather, she will, because she had always been so understanding and kind and open-hearted, but he doesn’t know what he will do with that information. Will he fulfill his duty as the prince of Nohr and report Corrin’s plans to his father? Or will he fulfill his duty as a brother and let her go?
“Leon,” he hears from Corrin again. He wonders if she has realized that he has been looking everywhere but at her. She probably has—she always notices the little details with him—but thankfully she keeps quiet. “What are you going to do?”
“Zola is a monster,” he responds. He is briefly reminded of when they were both children, when Corrin always asked him excitedly what he was going to do when he was practicing his magic. “I’m going to make the world a better place.”
“But he’s one of your own!” He finally looks at her and she is just like he remembers. The determined look in her red eyes. The slight scrunch of her nose when she’s confused. The white bow that he gave her, pined in her hair.
She is right in front of him, and he can do nothing but watch her as she leaves again. He wants to drag her, whether crying or screaming, back to Nohr, back to Castle Krakenburg, so they can live as family once more.
But he can’t. Because while she may no longer see him as her sibling anymore, she is still very much his.
“I refuse to believe you’d harm a fellow Nohrian,” Corrin continues, and Leon feels frustrating bubbling through him. That’s what I thought about you, he wants to scream, but he refuses to stoop to such a low level. His pride, Xander always said, was his greatest strength, and his greatest weakness.
And so Leon copes by putting up his mask again, the only way he can make himself feel comfortable. It is a defense mechanism, he knows, but he cannot help it. Behind this mask, he nulls the pain and the sharp stabbing in his chest. Behind his mask, he can spout lies without having to feel guilty about the consequences, can play the antagonist without feeling his soul shattering.
“Why should I listen to a traitor like you?” he sneers, knowing Corrin hates it when he does. Fake, she had called it, and Leon feels so very fake right now, like an unwilling villain thrust into his role. “You abandoned us! You have no right to tell me what to do!”
The sentence comes out slightly whinier than he had hoped, but he hopes Corrin can take the hint and come back with him.
She doesn’t. She had always been rather dense. “Leo… please.” She says, her forehead all scrunched up like she’s the one in pain, like she’s the one with all the hardships and the broken family.
And suddenly he can’t bear to be around her anymore. He doesn’t even care about Zola anymore either. The fool could do whatever he wanted—because Leon had no doubt that Corrin was going to spare the mage. “Ugh, fine! Keep this pitiful fool if you like him so much.”
He needs to get out of here, but his childish streak of needing to get the last word in has never left him. So turning around one last time, he looks her in the eyes and says, “Goodbye, Corrin. When the time is right, you’ll pay for what you have done.”
He hears Corrin call out for him as he leaves, but he doesn’t turn around.
…well, that was the plan, at least. He wanted to leave with a cool exit, but of course his retainer doesn’t ever respect his wishes. Niles is leaning against the wall when he leaves, a smirk on his face. “Lord Leon,” he says, and Leon wonders why he didn’t kill the man when he had a chance. “Are you crying?”
He makes Niles go all back to Nohr by foot.
For his thirteenth birthday, he receives his first kill of an enemy general. A Hoshidan lancer, it appears. He might have had friends waiting for him, a wife and children back home. There is no blood on his hands because he does not participate in close combat, but he feels stained all the same.
But then Xander pats his shoulder in approval. Camilla ruffles his hair. Elise hugs him and tells him that he is the best. His father tells him “Well done”, one of the few compliments he ever receives from him. He cherishes it, and he suddenly feels as if his hands are washed clean.
For his thirteenth birthday, he receives orders to keep killing. And he does.
When he sees Corrin next, she has beaten Camilla and is in the process of trying to get her to convert sides. Leon is struck with the sudden realization that if Corrin succeeds, he will lose another sibling, so he quickly fires off Brynhildr to catch their attention.
He doesn’t hit Corrin, of course. Leon wonders if he will ever truly be able to kill her. He regrets that he will probably have to find out soon.
“Stay where you are, traitor,” Leon says harshly. He will allow Corrin a lot of things, but he will not let Corrin split up the family any more than she has already done. “And please stop trying to brainwash my sister.”
“Leo! I’m so glad you’re here,” Corrin says, but he cannot listen to her, not now. If he listens, he will be swayed, and if he is swayed, he will put both himself and Camilla in danger. Hans is still watching them, his maniacal sneer on his face, but Leon has no doubts that he will report back to his father everything that goes on here.
And for the sake of Camilla, he spouts poisonous words that paint him perfectly as the villain. He notes that Corrin’s hurt expressions at his insults have hurt less and less as time goes on. He isn’t sure if he should be pleased or not.
In reality, he just feels tired. He hates Corrin, but he also loves her. He wants to erase her from the family, but he also wants to forgive her. He is so tired, so very tired of never being able to decide what he really wants, of constantly flipping back and forth between what Leon wants as a brother, and what Leon wants as the prince of Nohr.
But luckily, he does not need to decide, not even now. Because even though he does not know what he wants, he knows what his family needs.
And family always comes first.
And so he puts on his villainous mask once again and Corrin looks at him—when did she start looking at him like that?—and he feels his soul harden, but his heart shatters into a million pieces.
For his fourteenth birthday, he receives his first crush. No one has educated him on romance, so he has learned from the library during those quiet nights with nothing but a candlestick to provide him company.
He catches himself watching her, watching the way her hair sways as she walks, watching the way she battles. He catches himself watching her training, her battle prowess, her swing of the axe.
He catches himself watching his sister, Camilla.
For his fourteenth birthday, he receives misery and fear as he struggles to erase these unwanted feelings.
When Leon first fights against his sister, he has had weeks to mentally prepare himself. He that it is much easier to convince himself to kill Corrin after he immerses himself in his darker thoughts, and it scares him how easily he seems to flip into that role.
He thinks of all the reasons he should kill her. She received all the attention that was meant for him. She was weak and scrawny and pathetic and always needed someone to save her. She always teased him about his collar and embarrassed him. She broke up their entire family and seemed to have no desire to patch it up again.
And then he thinks about all the reasons he shouldn’t kill her, but that list ends up becoming too long, so he discards it.
They meet in a graveyard, Corrin still smiling with her little army and suddenly the envy comes back at full force. She is the only one he sees happy nowadays.
They exchange words before they fight. Corrin doesn’t tell him anything he hasn’t heard from her yet, about her dreams for justice and peace in the world, if only they would kill his father. She doesn’t understand. She has never met him when he was the father who gave him his chessboard, the father who gave him piggyback rides. Leon does not agree with his decisions most of the times, but she is asking too much if she expects him to join her in her quest.
Her little brother—which isn’t him anymore, he reminds himself—calls him a reedy little bookworm. Prince Takumi of Hoshido, if he recalls correctly. Corrin’s new little brother. Leon feels jealousy surge through him once again and he does not quell it down. He takes pleasure making him sink down further than the rest into the swamp. Behind him, Niles coughs the word Childish into his hand, but readies his bow all the same.
Leon calls them hypocrites, and for once, he means it. For a kingdom that preached peace, they sure had no problem storming into Nohr for their own definition of justice. For a kingdom that wanted to spread happiness, they sure turned a blind eye to Nohr’s lack of resources and starving masses.
He is shocked that Corrin doesn’t seem to be affected by the swamp, which can only mean that she is still Nohrian. But he knows better than to hope. Corrin had been Nohrian when she betrayed them for Hoshido. There was no saying that she wouldn’t do it again.
“You chose the light and left those who love you the most to rot in the dark, traitor!!” He tells her, thrusting all his sadness and jealousy and loneliness and bitterness in this one sentence. And it works, because Corrin stops looking at him like he needed to be pitied, and instead like an enemy that she needed to defeat.
“Leon, stop this!” Corrin pleads, one last time, even though they both know that he won’t stop, can’t stop. “I don’t wish to fight you, Brother!”
And neither does he, and perhaps in another world, he wouldn’t have to. But it is too late for either of them to go back. They have both made their own choices, and they both have to live with them.
He isn’t sure why, perhaps to make it hurt more, but he tells her about his insecurities regarding Xander and Camilla. She looks at him, completely surprised, as if she hasn’t ever noticed before. And perhaps she hasn’t. Perhaps his mask is more convincing than he originally thought.
But not even that makes him happy anymore. Nowadays, nothing really does.
Leon orders his retainers to kill her sister if she makes it past his army of Faceless. Neither one of them argues as they take their posts. Leon wonders if Niles will flirt with his sister, so he tells him not to. That gets a smirk out of his retainer, rare nowadays. Niles tells him that he won’t before leaving.
Leon is a hundred percent sure he will.
In fact, Leon sees with his own eyes as he does. And then Corrin brings down his sword and sends Niles flying backwards. And he can’t even bring himself to feel bad for his retainer.
But he is soon interrupted by the Hoshidan prince, the immature Prince Takumi who looks like he has to prove he is the best no matter what. The guy charges at him, his arrows literally lighting up as he runs, and Leon wonders if that scowl is permanently on his face.
Takumi actually does decently well in battle, and the two of them exchange blows and insults. But then Corrin comes to join in and the fight is lost. Niles is still out of commission somewhere to his left, and Odin is currently engaging the older Hoshidan princess. His Faceless supply is running out, and to be honest, he never really liked those hideous creatures anyway.
Corrin comes charging at him with the blade in her hand, and Leon briefly wonders if Xander would be proud of his little princess for becoming so strong, before her sword connects with his body and sends him backwards.
They talk it out afterwards, because it seems like all Corrin ever wants to do is talk. She sees right through him, sees right through his half-hearted attempt to play villain, sees right through his bluff that he will kill her.
Because even if it’s for the sake of his family, Leon realizes he can’t raise his hand against his sister.
She kneels next to him and bumps their foreheads together, like they did when they were just kids. She tells him that she believes in their bond, and believes that he would never kill her. She places so much faith in him, much more than he has ever placed in himself.
And then his mask breaks, and he finds himself spilling all of his feelings, honest and true. And Corrin, just like she always has, listens patiently to him.
For his fifteenth birthday, he receives a change in motivation. Sitting in the tower with the other four, he realizes that he no longer wants to fight as much for glory, for recognition or for the approval of his father. Perhaps it is because he has changed, or perhaps because he himself has grown up, but he doesn’t have as much motivation to fight for the man’s acknowledgement anymore.
Instead, he watches as Elise sleeps quietly in Corrin’s lap. As Corrin leans against Camilla’s shoulder. As Xander sits a little bit away from the group, but looks more peaceful and calm than he has in years.
He wants to fight, he realizes, not to validate his own worth, but to protect these people.
For his fifteenth birthday, he receives the most valuable lesson of all: family comes first.
When he goes to the Bottomless Canyon, it is thundering hard and Leon is having second doubts. But the crystal clutched in his hand gives him motivation and so he trudges on, past the wind and the rain and the storm in order to find the truth.
Corrin had asked him to join her fight, but he couldn’t do it. No matter how much doubt he had, no matter how lost he felt, he could never betray the family, the one thing that had kept him going all these years.
And nothing has been solved after his fight with Corrin. Nothing has changed. But Leon leaves with a crystal ball and a smile on his face, feeling lighter than he has in months.
He wonders how long he has before his retainers track him down, and how many dramatic quips and innuendos they will force him to undergo as punishment for giving them the slip.
Thinking about the two of them brings a smile to his face as he looks into the crystal, sees something inhuman, and feels all his beliefs—all his ideas of family and morality and justice—shattered.
For his sixteenth birthday, he receives a hug. From Xander.
Perhaps his older brother can tell that he has been trying to change himself. To stop blindly following orders and instead fight only when it is necessarily. To stop killing to prove his own worth, and instead learn to appreciate the beautifulness of saving a life.
Xander hugs him and pats his shoulder awkwardly. Neither one of them are accustomed to such actions. “Well done, Brother,” his brother murmurs, and he can’t help but think that everything is going to be alright, that they will continue to find ways around his father’s cruel plans and live happily in this kingdom without light.
For his sixteenth birthday, he receives pride.
When he meets up with Corrin for the last time before her faithful battle, he has had time to clear him mind, to process the images he had seen and to sort through the new information he has learned. And despite it all, he is back in the same position he has been all this time; he is unwilling to fight against his own sister, but he will not turn his back against his family.
He saves her, once again, by killing Iago so she wouldn’t have to. This time she doesn’t stop him, and Leon wonders when she became okay with killing for the sake of good. But she teases him about his collar once again, and for a moment, he could just pretend that they returned to normalcy, that nothing had changed.
Elise surprises him by appearing next, telling him of her plan to talk with Xander and their father. Leon does not think it will work, but he has grown weary of this fighting, and can only hope that Xander has too. His older brother is an unmovable wall, but he has a soft spot for his little princess, and while Leon was once jealous of that fact, he can only hope now that it will work in their favor.
Leon bids them goodbye and watches the backs of his sisters as they head further into the castle, and prays that he will get to see both of them again.
Of course, his retainers will never let him remain in the dumps for too long, and they casually invade his personal space as they head back to his room. Leon can’t help the smile that graces his face at their antics as he sits behind his desk and waits for the war to end.
For his seventeenth birthday, he receives a traitor sister, a broken family and an unstable father.
For his seventeenth birthday, he receives a shattered fantasy, and he cries.
When he heads into the throne room later, he is with Camilla and sees parts of what was once his father scattered around. His older sister lets out a gasp of horror and Leon bows his head and knows that even though justice has been served, it didn’t make anything less painful.
But then something catches the corner of his eye, and he feels his world stop.
His brother. His older brother. Xander. Xander. He rushes to him, to the slouched over body leaning against the wall. His body is cold and filled with wounds. His older brother. He’s hurt. Leon calls out for someone, anyone to come help.
No one does. Camilla is nowhere to be seen.
He knows that it wouldn’t have been any use anyway; his brother has been long dead. The very man he had sworn to protect, to support and to love, would never open his eyes again.
How much time had passed?
How had he died?
“No fair, B-brother,” Leon says, feeling tears staining his cheeks. He buried his face in the crook of Xander’s neck. “Why do you get to die with such a peaceful expression on your face?”
He wants to shake him, as if Xander was only sleeping. As if he would wake up any moment now, and ask him why he was crying. As if he would wake up any moment now, and go back to being the big brother he was.
“Wake up, Brother.” He feels helpless, so very helpless. “This kingdom needs you. Father is dead, so you’ll be the king and rule this country. They need you to be strong and restore Nohr to its former glory. You always had lots of plans, didn’t you?” A hiccup. And in a smaller voice, he says, “…I need you.”
But there is no response, other than the footsteps of someone behind him. And when he looks up, his face stained with tears, he feels his heart utterly break.
Camilla has come back. And in her arms, she carries their dead sister, Elise.
For his eighteenth birthday, he receives the kingdom of Nohr. He becomes the king after Camila refuses the throne, telling him that he would be much better at ruling a country than she would. And he accepts, because even though he doesn’t necessarily want the position, he can see that Camilla is utterly worn out after the war ends, and he can’t force more responsibilities on her.
And so he takes the position and attends the Hoshido coronation ceremony of the eldest brother Ryouma. Corrin greets them with a smile, and he is happy that at least she is happy. They exchange greetings and tease each other, him and Corrin and Camilla, and it almost feels like old times, before the war started, before countless lives were lost, before Xander and Elise died.
He tells Corrin of the big plans he has for Nohr and its people, of the bright future that the kingdom they both grew up in has. He puts on his mask, the old worn out mask he never thought he would ever wear again after the war, and smiles and tells her to visit often. She smiles back and sends him off with a wave and a promise that she will.
Leon wonders when his mask became so good that he started to be able to fool Corrin.
He returns to Nohr, still dark and gloomy and desolate. The people are still suffering from the aftermath of the war, and the trust in the royalty has only declined as living conditions grew worse. He works all day and all night to try to fix these problems, but there is only so much a person can do.
After a couple of months, Camilla leaves, leaving a note saying that she has some soul-searching to do. He lets her go. A couple weeks after that, Odin vanishes as well. Niles, he realizes, is the only one he has left.
Family comes first, he always thought. But what happens when you no longer have a family?
He remembers smiling at Corrin, telling her that everything was okay now that the war was over. But the war had only ended for Hoshido. For Nohr, for the kingdom of poverty and destitute and the ruling young prince, the war had only just begun.
For his eighteenth birthday, King Leon of Nohr closes his eyes and weeps.