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The destined slayer of the Fell Dragon Grima — the righteous crown prince, the child of light — has been blessed by this purpose for a millennium. He bears witness, now, to the future past that writhes in the dragon’s wretched heart, in the mind and blood of its ultimate weapon.
Look at it another way, with human eyes, and Chrom stands in a field, knee deep in the summer grasses of the south.
There lies the vessel.
Grima’s vessel is a creature of death, ruin, and despair. He is devastation, perfected over a millennium. He is destined to run lightning through Chrom’s core. He will grind countless lives into paste with his fangs, and he will swallow their children’s screams with the mouth that houses them.
Look at it another way, and Robin is a young man, sleeping on a hill in the afternoon light.
“It’s strange”, Robin said, moments from now, forever ago. “Your name just came to me.”
When he is truly awakened, he will usher in the apocalypse. But he is not Grima yet.
Chrom nears. The vessel’s eyes open, two of them, six of them, brown dappled gold by the sun. He blinks, draconic and human and neither and both, stretching between what has been and what could be.
Chrom bends to his grassy bed and reaches out a hand. When the vessel reaches back, he should clamp down on his hunter, lock him into a death roll of his own. He does not know yet that he is supposed to.
Chrom has always held fast to the bonds he shares. They are a familiar heft, a tether, a conviction, a motivation. He offers the same to Robin now: the warmth of a hand and a friendly grin, a kindness that will crack the faintest stream of light into the void.
“There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know.”
Give me your hand, and I’ll give you back a piece of myself with it, Chrom thinks without knowing it yet. It’s less a conscious choice and more the way he’s always been. Know its gravity in your palm. See how it tips the scales. Do this so that when the world and the Fell Dragon and I all think your doomed destiny is fulfilled, some part of you will hear us calling your name. You’ll find your way back home, and then you’ll have the power to remake your fate however you’d like.
The young man who would become the breath of ruin has an almost childlike curiosity on his face. He measures out what he is offered, feels its sincerity even before he truly knows what it is. He accepts the offered hand.
When a future past comes to pass, Chrom carves his path through legions of opponents to finally make his way upon the Fell Dragon’s back. His fierceness is fed by his hope for the future he knows they can both build for themselves. Lightning lances through his core, and he lets it, because he knew from the start that this was a risk his bleeding heart would have to take. When he’s back on his feet, he cuts back twice as hard against the scaly flesh of a god defined and made by human hands. It’s the closest Chrom’s ever felt to being known, and he suspects that Robin feels the same.
He stands, at last, bleeding but unbroken, on the vast back of a god-corpse. He is not the one to deal the final blow, and that's the cruelest part.
“In some way, I– we share the blame,” Robin had said. He reached a hand to the god within him, with a piece of himself, and maybe Chrom too, broken open in that outstretched palm. “It’s only right we meet our end together!”
He stares at the sunset through Robin’s body, disintegrating by Robin’s own hand, and broken-throated, he screams.
Robin answers him back: “May we meet again, in a better life.”
In a better life, Chrom stands in a field, knee deep in the summer grasses of the south.
In a better life, Robin is a young man, sleeping on a hill in the afternoon light.