Archive of Our Own

Work Text

1
Lucina is five years old when her mother dies. She is not present for it, as no one wanted a five year old running around the infirmary as the Exalt-Queen was giving birth, least of all a five-year-old with a tendency towards clumsiness and over-excitement. She knows very little about babies, but she’s excited nonetheless – the castle halls are so very lonely, and a little brother or sister would do much to bring some sort of concentration and clarity to her ever-unfocused brain. When left to her own devices, she is apt to wander the halls, getting into trouble, chasing the cats, doing anything but working on her studies.She hates reading. Her eyes never seem to focus properly, and she has difficulty making it more than a few sentences before losing patience or losing attention. Her eye doesn’t help – its persistent blurriness makes reading even more troublesome. Uncle Frederick is patient, sitting with her through her lessons, helping her with difficult words or tricky equations.Uncle Frederick is the one who tells her of her mother’s death. Lucina doesn’t understand, at first. She knows daddy is upset and will not leave the infirmary, but no one will let her in to see her father, or her mother, or her new little sibling.“Why can’t I see daddy?” she asks, her voice high and shaky.Frederick sighs and sits down with her on a wooden bench, one of the many adorning the long stone corridors of the castle. He frowns, trying to think of what to say.What can even be said to a child who had been so excited for a new family member? How do you tell her she has only her father now?Lucina cries and runs, hoping in vain that her stubby little legs can push her fast enough, propel her through time, can bring her to a world where Frederick is wrong. She catches her foot on a stone step and falls, tumbling down the staircase. She hits the landing with a dull thud and wails, the pain in her chest now matched by the pain in her skull and a trickle of blood flowing from her scalp. She curls into a heap at the foot of the stairs and weeps until Frederick picks her up and dusts her off and takes her to the washroom to clean her forehead. As he dabs the blood from her forehead, he says nothing. She is five, and scared, and everything seems to hurt so very, very much.She still recalls the funeral, even far into the future, far from a time with flowers and ribbons and heavy, ornate coffins. She recalls holding her fathers hand, watching his stony face, electing to focus on her father rather than focus on the box with her mother in it being slowly lowered into the burial grounds behind the castle’s cathedral. Chrom does not cry. He speaks slowly, offering a somber eulogy singing the praises of his dead beloved.Lucina’s gaze flutters across the assembled crowd. Silver armor sparkles in the afternoon sun, and bright blue banners flap in the breeze. It’s a beautiful day. Perhaps a little too cold, and a breeze cuts up her small black gown, ruffling her bloomers. She sees some of daddy’s friends. She recognizes Aunt Lissa, even with a handkerchief pressed over her face, stifling her sobs. She recognizes daddy’s knights – a man she couldn’t remember and so called ‘Staw’, and a scary woman with short red hair who always wanted to spar with her, despite their age difference.And she sees, on her father’s opposite side, a couple. A man, stoic and unmoved, his face an unturned mask beneath his messy white bangs. And at his side, hand entwined in his, a woman with long red hair. She has white wings clipped behind her ears, and her armor glints in the cold sun.Lucina knows Robin, of course. He’s a friend of daddy’s, and he’s always so kind. He greatly enjoys games and lets Lucina rope him into playing with her. She doesn’t know the other woman, though. Robin’s wife, she thinks, but she doesn’t know her name. All Lucina knows is that she has the most beautiful hair she has ever seen – long sweeps of scarlet cascading down her back, shimmering in the bright sunlight. Lucina stares at her, enthralled, so willing to focus on anything but the words of the cleric commending her mother’s soul to great and merciful Naga above.One evening, Lucina asks if Naga blesses unborn children, children dead before they have a chance to be good or evil.Her father sits her on his leg and strokes her hair, running his fingers through her tangles of indigo, brushing out knots and clumps. Lucina doesn’t care much to take care of her appearance, but her father is insistent that she at least look somewhat like a princess.“Of course she does,” he says softly.“Why? Father Libra says Naga only blesses those who do good.”“Everyone deserves faith that they will be good,” Chrom says. “Everyone deserves that chance.” He takes Lucina’s chin in his strong, gentle hands, and looks her in the eyes. “I…I have to believe that everyone has good in them. I have to believe that the world has good in it. I have to.”His voice is shaky and Lucina can see tears brimming in his eyes. She wraps her tiny arms tightly around him and squeezes. “I miss her,” she says quietly into his ear.“Me too.”Her father changes after her mother’s funeral. It’s a subtle change, but she can feel it in everything, from the way he walks to the way he talks. The way he coops himself up in his study, poring over books and maps and figures, fixated on his work rather than what little remains of his family. Even when she misbehaves, Lucina is not scolded. He seems too tired to deal with her antics, and thus chooses to leave her be. She will learn that she should not climb the parapets one way or another, and a scolding from him is a less effective tutor than a sprained ankle.He seems to have less and less time for her. There is a war, on, after all, and he is called away to do battle. When Lucina was very small, he spoke to her often, always saying goodbye, always assuring her that he would be fine, that he would return soon and unscathed. Now, though, as the days grew darker and the halls of the castle grew dimmer and emptier, he would simply vanish. Lucina would wake in the morning to find that the guard had departed, headed off for some town whose name she should know but doesn’t. She asks the remaining soldiers and servants where he had gone, but she knows the answer. Away. To some far-off battlefield, to forge a tale of glory and valor in blood and steel and corpses.Plegia, she remembers. That’s the other country. The bad guys. The Enemy. When she goes into town – with chaperones, of course – she sees Plegians sometimes. Less and less, as time passes, but she still sees them here and there. Hawking their wares at market, drinking in taverns. Crouched in alleyways, nursing wounds. Arguing with guards.One day, when walking with a servant to buy groceries, she sees an altercation between a young Plegian passerby and a merchant. It starts with words, then turns to fists. The merchant brings the Plegian face-down in the dirt and hits him, again and again and again, and Lucina winces and her chaperone takes her hand and hurries her away from the scene. Even in the future, Lucina can recall the altercation – not the words, but the tone. The look of fear, of guilt, of hopelessness in the Plegian’s eyes. The anger in the merchant’s.She asks her father why they were fighting.“Many people blame the Plegians for the war.”“Why? He wasn’t a soldier.”“But he was still a Plegian.”“That’s stupid.”Chrom hums thoughtfully, perhaps uncertain what to say.Lucina frowns. “Isn’t it? He didn’t do anything wrong. He was just there.” She sits up on his lap, suddenly agitated. “And all those people around him didn’t do anything! They just let him get hurt!”“I’m sure they didn’t want to be seen sticking up for a Plegian.”“B-but-“ Lucina stammers, her frustration building. “Why not?!”“Would you have stuck up for him?”Lucina nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”“Why?”“It’s the right thing to do. Even if it makes other people mad. Even if they hate you.” 
2
The war comes to Ylisstol.Lucina is eleven years old, and at long last the realities of her father’s work become concrete to her. She is in the throne room when he sends her away.“Go,” Chrom tells her, clamping a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be safe with your Aunt Lissa.”“No!” Lucina protests, tears brimming in her eyes. “I don’t want to! Let me stay! I can fight!” And it is true. She can fight, at least with whatever proficiency and eleven-year-old can wield a sword. She has been training with Frederick – not Uncle Freddy, not anymore. He is Sir Frederick, captain of the Exalt’s guard. Formidable paladin, the unbreakable shield of the kingsguard. Her father, too, has taught her. Special techniques, tactics, moves that her razor-sharp brain picks up with no difficulty at all. Her inability to focus on her studies proves a boon – her mind flickers across the training field with ease, assessing information, measuring distances, gauging tactics. In her studies, she is unfocused, unconfident. But with a blade she is a prodigy, and nothing less.“I know you can,” Chrom says, bowing slightly to put their faces at an equal level. “I know you can. But you must be kept safe. Look at me, Lucina.” He grasps her face and turns her to look at him, trying to still her wandering eyes. Her eyes desperate to look at anything but the man before her, her father, telling her to run away rather than stand up and fight. “Look at me,” he repeats. He grasps both of her shoulders and squeezes. “You are the last hope for our people, Lucina. Do you understand? You must be kept safe.”“But what about YOU?” Lucina cries, frustrated. “You need to be kept safe, too!”Chrom nods solemnly. “It is my duty to protect our people, Lucina. You included. Now go!” he stands, lightly pushing his daughter back. “Go, find Lissa, and flee. We will cover your retreat.”Lucina stumbles backwards, tears rolling down her cheeks. She blinks, her father smudging and blurring in her vision. “D-daddy…” she breathes, half-pleading.“I swear to you,” Chrom pulls her into a tight hug. “This is not goodbye. I will come for you.”Lucina nods and turns slowly.“Now go!” Chrom says, drawing his sword. Lucina can hear the scrape of blade against sheath as he does, and as she dashes down the halls of her home she hears the sound of clashing steel and screaming men and shouts and she smells burning sulphur and the distinctive crackle of magic in the air. She runs, blinking her tears away, running down the halls she has been through so many times.She passes barricades, wounded men in retreat, clerics rushing back and forth. She narrowly avoids a collision with a knight carrying an armful of lances to the front of the castle. She spins, ducking and sliding under the shield of a passing paladin. She runs, small, frantic hands wiping her tears as she does.And finally she finds her exit, darting through the wide double-doors to the training yard. She pauses, seeing wagons being loaded up for war. She sees some people she knows, others she doesn’t. Her Aunt Lissa is issuing orders, helping load crates of supplies and weapons into the wagons, readying the train for a quick retreat. The sky above is grey, blotted out with smoke and the rumble of thunder. Lucina stumbles and rests against the stone arches around the courtyard. She gasps for breath.How can it be so simple? To pack up one’s home, one’s entire life, into boxes and wagons? To abandon this castle, her home, the place where she belongs. The house of her father. The unconquerable bastion of Ylissean strength. She falters, clutching a fist to her chest.No.This is not goodbye. This is not a retreat. This is her home, and she will not let it be shattered.When she returns to the castle innards, the battle has grown worse. Already, the hive of activity has been hushed. There are still wandering soldiers, but more she finds them wounded, coughing blood and staggering back and forth, the last spasms of the walking dead. She passes a cleric, collapsed against the wall, her holy white robes stained a sickening shade of scarlet. Lucina stares at the body and trembles, unable to shake the feeling she has made a terrible mistake in returning.She scavenges a slim sword off the body of a dead guard – she would have preferred a rapier, but this will do. She wipes the blood from the blade on her sleeve.The castle is quiet, uncomfortably so. There is still the distant sound of fighting, but it is just that – distant, muted, a step removed from these halls of blood and empty stone. She reaches a junction she has passed through many, many times before – she even sees the little chip in the wall where she rammed a cart into it, years ago. The throne room is near.Even before she reaches the double doors, she can hear the voices. She approaches slowly, stealthily. A shadow amongst the dead.Chrom is stationed by the throne, Falchion drawn. His cape is tattered and stained with blood – though whose it is is uncertain. He stands tall. Despite his old wound, inflicted by the assassin who killed Exalt Emmeryn, he still fights well – his blade flashes in the torchlight, a bar of silver drawing whirls of scarlet from the encroaching Risen. Lucina pressed a hand to her mouth.She knows of the Risen, of course, but has never seen one herself. Especially not so close. She has heard of them, even seen them at a distance – but here, up close, she finds herself wracked with fear. Those cold, dead faces. Pinpoints of malicious red set into their eyes. Gnashing fangs, claws ripping urgently at her father and his small band of desperate soldiers.Robin is at his side, sending bolts of lightning cracking through the air. Lucina recognizes the other one, too – Robin’s wife, Cordelia, for Lucina knows her name now. But where was Uncle Freddy? Where had Stahl and Sully gone? Surely they must have been fighting in some other corner of the castle, helping beat back the ever-growing hordes.Chrom parries a swipe of claws and retaliates, plunging his sacred blade into flesh in a spray of red. A Risen thrusts a spear at him and he side-steps, narrowly avoiding the blow. “Wrong move!” Robin shouts hoarsely, the pages of his tome fluttering. The lancer is felled in a flash of fire.“Milord!” Cordelia cries, her silver lance slicing through the last of the Risen with ease. The room is empty, just the three soldiers and the dead, friend and foe alike. “Do you have a plan?”Chrom grunts, wiping sweat from his brow. He presses the tip of his blade into the tile floor and leans against it, resting. “Robin?” he allows his tactician to field the question. “What’s our next move?”Robin does not respond. He is doubled over on the floor, trembling.“Robin!” Chrom cries, dropping to his knees and clasping his dear friend’s shoulder. Falchion clatters to the floor. “Robin, are you hurt? What’s wrong?”Robin again says nothing, nearly motionless. Lucina, crouched in the shadow of the doorway, watches, breathless.Cordelia adjusts her lance and looks at her husband with dread. “Robin…” she whispers. She tightens her grip on her weapon.“Robin, can you hear me?” Chrom shakes him lightly, grasping his hood and pulling it down. He recoils, staggering backwards in fear.Even from her position at the entrance, Lucina can see the blood running down Robin’s cheeks. She bites her knuckle, trying to stop herself from making a sound.Robin grins and wipes his cheeks. The blood smears, but what remains are six eyes, pockmarks in his dark, mottled skin. Chrom pushes himself backwards, scrambling away. “R-Robin!” he cries. “What’s happen-“ before he can finish his sentence, Robin is up in a flash, his arm outstretched. A bolt of fire flashes.Quick like lightning, Cordelia lunges, hitting her husband’s arm with the flat of her spear. She knocks his arm to the side and his cast goes awry, sending a fireball spiraling into the carpet.She steps between them, her lance at arm’s length, the point thrust at Robin.Robin laughs. “Oh, my dear, dear, Cordelia.” He grins a wicked grin. “Step aside. I have no quarrel with you.”“A quarrel with my lord is a quarrel with me,” Cordelia says, trying to sound strong despite the shaking in her voice. “I will not let you do this, Robin.” Behind her, Chrom staggers to his feet and reaches for Falchion. Before he touches it, Robin fires another bolt of lightning, sending the blade skittering across the floor and out of Chrom’s reach.Cordelia retaliates, lunging and thrusting her lance. Robin side-steps easily and laughs.“Oh please, dearest wife. You’ll have to try harder than that.”“You will not touch him,” Cordelia says firmly.“You always did love him so very much,” Robin says, crouching over the corpse of a dead guard. He sifts through the dead man’s armor idly, more an attempt to occupy his hands than a genuine curiosity. “He was always first in your heart. I suppose I should have expected this.”“I…I loved you,” Cordelia faltered. “I-““No!” Robin shouts, so harshly Lucina jumps. “No, you loved him! And no one else. Certainly not me.”“Then why did you marry me?” Cordelia took her place at Chrom’s side.“Simple,” Robin stood, flicking through the pages of his tome. “I needed a vessel. Two would have been ideal, but poor little Morgan didn’t even make it to her first birthday. The frailty of you humans never ceases to amaze me.” His voice is calm and calculated, at odds with the malice of his words. “The perfect Cordelia: a flawless human, the peak of your pitiful species, and still your offspring are weak. I can’t believe that pitiful whelp has lasted for as long as it has. Ah, well. One vessel will do, even a scrawny one. Now.” He holds his hand out. “Stand aside, and for your obedience, I will let you live.”Cordelia shakes her head. “N-no,” she stammers, clutching her lance more out of fear than anything else. “I will not let you t-touch milord.”Robin sighs with disappointment and closes his eyes and when he does, all six eyes close in unison. Cordelia takes her chance and leaps, stabbing her lance towards his torso. Without hesitation he lifts his hand and a bolt of lightning crackles into Cordelia’s chest, knocking her backwards and sending her to the floor. She crumples in a heap, sparks dancing across her silver armor.“Foolish woman,” Robin sneers, stepping over her. Chrom is still laying prone, nursing his wounded hand from when he tried to grab Falchion. Robin glowers. “And now the last Exalt shall meet his end.”Cordelia reaches out and grabs his ankles, trying to pull him away from Chrom. Her grip is weak, her vision fading in and out. She manages to catch ahold but Robin retaliates swiftly, his heavy leather boot colliding with her forehead with a sickening crunch. She lets out a pitiful cry and tries to push herself to a sitting position.Lucina can see blood streaming from her mouth. Cordelia coughs and blood splatters her pristine silver breastplate. The blood looks so red in the dim torchlight of the throne room. The same color as Cordelia’s hair, splayed around her like a scarlet halo. She coughs again, weakly, and tries to reach for her lance.Fed up at last, it seems, Robin draws his sword and thrusts it between the armor plates of her torso. As he does, Cordelia lurches, a last coughing gasp as she reaches for Chrom.“Cordelia!” Chrom shouts, pushing himself to his feet.“G-go,” she mumbles weakly. “R-run!” Robin pries the blade free, dislodging Cordelia’s breastplate in a spray of blood. Her head drops to the throne room floor, motionless. Her unblinking eyes seem to stare at Lucina, tucked in her shadowy little corner. Blood pools around her before running down the throne room steps like scarlet waterfalls.She feels sick and stifles a cough. She tastes bile and clamps her hand over her mouth.“How…” Chrom staggers backwards. “How could you do this?”Robin grins, his teeth frighteningly white and sharp. “Really, Chrom. Did you not know this was inevitable?”“You d-don’t have to do this!” Chrom holds a hand up. He stumbles back against the throne and, for a brief second, his gaze flickers towards Falchion. It’s almost within reach.“Oh, but you’re wrong. I do.” Robin takes another step forward. “I was born for this singular purpose.”Chrom drops low and swipes for his sword. Before he even extends his arm Robin strikes, thrusting a blade of lightning through his chest. Chrom collapses to the floor, energy crackling over his body, blood seeping from his wound. Robin sneers.Lucina stares in horror, unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to do anything but watch as Robin strikes again, plunging another bolt of magic through the Exalt’s body. For a moment he stares, watching his former friend writhe in bloody agony on the steps of the throne room. Then he turns and marches out, his dark purple cloak fluttering behind him. He steps over bodies as he goes, seemingly without care for the fallen men that he had been fighting alongside, just moments before. He passes Lucina, close enough for her to touch – she could reach out and grasp his cloak, clutch the folds of it in her fists, pound them against him, cry and beg and ask why, why would he do such a thing?He stops, not five feet from her hiding spot, his back turned to her. She tightens her grip on the hilt of her rapier.And then his cloak flutters in a swirl of wind and shadow, and wings sprout from his back – six great, black, feathery things, almost like crow’s wings. Lucina lets out a whimper and Robin turns.His face is dark and angry, six red eyes traced in blood down his cheek. He takes a step forward, but a shout interrupts him. He turns, clutching his book to his side, and hurries out, melding into the darkness of the castle hall. 
3
“D-daddy!” Lucina cries, collapsing at his side. “D-addy, oh, gods, oh, Naga, please, someone…please…” she kneels at his side and cradles his limp head.“H-hey,” he smiles weakly, blood on his lips. His eyes are glassy. “Hey, bluejay.”“Daddy,” Lucina buries her face in his chest. She can feel his heartbeat. It’s faint and weak, each pulse sending more blood to torn arteries.“W-what are you d-doing here?” Chrom asks, reaching a trembling hand to her hair. He touches her gingerly, almost as if he fears she is an illusion and his fingers will shatter it.“I c-couldn’t leave you,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”“It’s okay,” he whispers.“Y-y-you can’t die,” she stammers, sitting up. “I can get a cleric, I can get-“Chrom shakes his head and opens his mouth to speak. More blood trickles down his chin. “N-no…it’s too late for me.”“Daddy, no…” Lucina lifts a hand to wipe her eyes and she sees her hands stained red.“L-listen. Listen to m-me, bluejay.” He touches her chin softly. “You have to take Falchion. G-get it to L-Lissa. She’s the Exalt now. Do you understand?”Lucina nods, sniffling. “I un-understand.”Chrom rests his head back against the carpet. “I l-love…y…” His eyes stare at the high vaulted ceiling above, motionless.“Daddy?” Lucina touches him. “Daddy? No…oh, gods…please, daddy. Wake up! You have to!” she curls against him, burying herself in him despite the blood. “No! Y-you can’t die! Wake up!”She cries and cries, until her vision begins shifting into patches of black, until she is gasping for breath, curled up amongst the corpses at the foot of the Exalt’s throne. She cries, unwilling to move from her father’s side, until the skylight above turns from the murky grey of a stormy afternoon to the dim blackness of night. The throne room is bathed in shadow, and at long last she sits up, wiping her eyes, brushing her father’s blood from her hair and cheeks. She breathes slowly, carefully, so as to not set herself off again.“Falchion,” she mutters to herself. Get Falchion to Lissa.She would have been quite a sight, had anyone been left in Ylisstol to bear witness to her. By the time she gathered up her father’s sword and departed the castle, the last stand of the Ylissean army had crumbled against the endless tide of Risen. She clutched the sword to her chest – it felt heavy, so very, very heavy. It was a large sword, even by adult standards, and she knew if she was spotted, she would likely be unable to wield it well. And so she hid, scrambling through the decaying ruins of the town, sticking to the shadows.The dark night sky above was starless, and the wind smelled sour. She could smell burning corpses, fire still raging in the far corners of Ylisstol, cleansing flames razing the town to the ground. She picked her way through bodies of civilians and soldiers, Plegians and Ylisseans, dead livestock and burnt-out husks of carts and wagons. She had known the war was bad – but this…this was something else entirely. This was wholesale slaughter, her home turned into killing fields.Even as her stomach ached, she refused to dig for food. She couldn’t steal – that would make it all too real. That would be acceptance that this was the reality – that the city was destroyed, and its people were dead. She couldn’t take dried meat from the butcher, he would return to work on Monday. The overturned carts and stalls were just in temporary disarray. She had no right to take these people’s livelihoods.With her father’s sword tight against her chest, she tracked her way through the city. Some of the roads had collapsed, sinking down into the sewers beneath the ground; still other were blocked by collapsed buildings or barricades. The dark sky turned to a grey, bitter morning. The light of day revealed to her the extent of the destruction.She climbed a burnt-out watchtower, embers still smoldering at its base, crows picking at the corpses strewn around it. The entire city was spread out before her, in all its ruinous glory – smoldering ruins, plumes of smoke, collapsed buildings, destroyed streets. Corpses, as far as the eye could see. And yet…no motion. Nothing, save the circle of carrion-birds above and the flutter of crows, and the drifting of smoke on the wind. No sound, no other motion. A sea of death.And then, at the horizon line, she could see the castle. As she fled, she had refused to turn back, but now she could see her home, smote to ruin upon the hillside. The parapets where bright blue flags had once waved, collapsed in on themselves. Towers brought to bear, crumbling into dust. Nothing but a pile of rock and rubble, a tomb for the dead interred within its silent, mausoleum hallways. She fought back a sniffle and tears stung her eyes.She would not cry. Her father had given her a mission. A last request, on his dying breath.Find Lissa. Find the next Exalt. Bring to her the sacred blade. She sits the sword down, resting it against the wall of the watchtower to peer out over the city. Lissa had departed in the convoy that fled the battle. Lucina closed her eyes, trying to remember what their planned route had been. It takes her three days to find the convoy.She had left the city behind, following a trail that plunged into the woods, a dirt road past tangles of deadwood, and then at last she saw the first signs. A flipped cart with its contents spilled across the road.The cart is simply overturned, the only sign of trouble the slashes of ripped fabric draped across it. The next one she finds is a blackened shell, its contents reduced to nothing but ash drifting around it like black snow. Lucina clutches her sword tighter.It is less quiet here. The wind rustles the dead tree branches, and every creak of wood sounds like the approach of danger. Brown leaves swirl in eddies around her, whispering in the dim daylight. She shivers, wishing she had brought a cloak with her.As it is, she is dressed plainly, a simple gold-lined blue tunic over her black leggings. She grimaces at her clothing – brown stains, red stains, great rips and tears. She can scarcely imagine how she smells.From the next wagon she scrounges a cape and fastens it around her neck. Four wagons, and not a soul. But no corpses, which fills her heart with hope. Perhaps they had managed to escape. Perhaps they used the trashed carts as decoys to allow their escape.Ideas and vain hopes still swirl around her head as she enters the clearing.The rest of the wagon train is situated in a hasty semi-circle in a broad meadow. Some wagons are overturned, other burnt, still others splintered into pieces. Canvas covers flutter in the wind. Lucina clutches her sword closer.Something had happened. She sees the first splashes of blood as she nears the center of the semi-circle, and then her heart drops. There is nothing for her in this field, nothing but death. Bodies huddled together in pools of dried blood, half-torn corpses, burnt shells of armor, tattered cloaks. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelms her and she drops to her knees, retching. After three days of travel, there is nothing in her stomach but bile. She coughs and sputters, trying to will herself to continue her search.She counts the bodies – twenty-three, by her best guess, though she admits that some of those are generous counts. Is a leg enough confirmation? A hand?She opens her mouth to call out and no voice comes out. She tries again. Her throat feels closed, unable to emit more than a feeble croak.“A-Aunt Lissa?” she calls softly. She clears her throat. “Aunt Lissa? Anyone?” She circles the camp, hoping that she will find anything but more death.“Lissa!” she cries, finally nearing her full strength. Her cry is more one of panic than curiosity. “Aunt Lissa!”A crunch of footsteps startles her and she ducks behind an overturned cart. She holds Falchion’s hilt and tries to lift it to test its weight.The footsteps grow nearer. Sticks crack beneath boots. She holds her breath.“Hello?” calls out a voice. It sounds like a boy. “Hello? Who goes there?”Lucina’s eyes light up. That voice! She recognizes it! She leaps to her feet, letting Falchion fall to the dirt at her side. “Owain!”She vaults the overturned cart and heads for the source of the voice – a young boy, perhaps a year her junior, with wild blonde hair. He turns to face her, his hand reaching to his sword before he recognizes his visitor.“Owain!” Lucina cries, leaping into his arms. She throws hers around him and cries, relief and exhaustion and fear and anxiety and everything pouring out at once. “Owain…you’re alive!”“Lucina?!” Owain pushes her back, keeping her at arm’s length. “Where have you been?”“T-the castle,” she gasps, wiping her eyes. “I…I was with…father.” She stops, her head drooping and her voice lowering.“Uncle Chrom? Is he alright?”Lucina shook her head. “H-he’s…he’s dead.”“What? What happened?”“R-Robin…” is all Lucina can manage. “H-he…” she breaks down, falling to her knees.  “Oh, gods…” Owain kneels at her side and wraps his arms around her.“W-where’s Aunt Lissa?” Lucina manages to splutter through her tears. “F-father told me to bring her F-Falchion…”Owain says nothing, only holds her tighter.A figure emerges from the woods, prompting Lucina to clutch tighter to her cousin, protectively. She tenses and Owain reacts, pulling back. “It’s okay, Lucina,” he whispers hoarsely. “It’s just Brady.” Brady, Owain’s brother, returns to the camp – he walks with slow, heavy steps towards the center of the wagon circle, a dented metal shovel dragging in the dirt behind him.“Mother is dead,” he says, with a breath of weary certainty. Being the oldest of the three, he informs Lucina that Aunt Lissa, like so many others, did not make it - she had been killed in the raid on the wagon circle, and the two brothers buried her in the woods. Brady looks bruised and tired, and a fresh, brownish-red gash draws a line from his forehead to his left cheek. Lucina helps him wash the cut and finds a scrap of fabric to wipe the blood away.The three of them wait, huddled in the ruins of the supply train. They say little, only speaking to confirm that yes, they are all there, they are alive, and they are alone. Even the air is quiet – no chirping of birds, no humming of insects in the breeze. The world is still and dead. Days turn slowly into nights, an endless quiet nightmare revealing itself to be their reality.“We need to do something,” Lucina says, one morning. A week has passed.“Someone will come for us,” Owain assures her, though his voice is anything but certain.Lucina curls her hands into tight fists, her nails digging crescents into her palm. She clenches her teeth. Tears roll down her cheeks. She fights the urge to shout.“Who? There’s no one left.”“Someone will come.”Whether propelled by frustration, by hopelessness, or even by hunger, she is unsure – but Lucina is spurred to a fit of anger. “Who?!” she roars, so loudly the camp’s resident crows take to the skies. “Who, Owain? This isn’t like your stupid stories, okay?! There aren’t any heroes coming to save the day!” Lucina’s breath catches and she feels tears running down her cheeks. She closes her eyes and sees nothing but her father, bleeding out amongst the dead. She falls to her knees and sobs, the truth of it all finally setting in.There was no help coming. There was nothing left, nothing save Lucina, holding her heavy sword: the last Exalt of Ylisse.The three set to work quickly, smothering their grief with work – they begin burying the other bodies, filling a plot of dirt in the woods with hasty markers. None of them know the names of some of the dead, so generic markers are made to suffice – blades, pauldrons, shields. Anything to commemorate the victorious dead.Rains come and flood the camp, soaking them all to the bone with freezing water and washing away the stench of burnt bodies and decaying flesh. They overturn the wagons and fashion them into makeshift buildings, huts and storage rooms. They use the wagon covers to stitch together crude tents, under which they huddle for warmth in the dark and cold nights. They can hear the distant rumbling of thunder and the howling of monsters somewhere in the dark woods beyond.The days melt together, days of cold wind and dark grey clouds and hunting for food and constructing shelter. They use bits of the fragmented wagons to construct a hasty fence around the perimeter of their camp. Lucina wraps Falchion in a spool of delicate silk and rests it in her own tent. There is always thunder, always that deep rumbling of fire in the sky.The rains turn to snow, then to ash. More stragglers come. Remnants of the fractured nation begin arriving in their camp. The first is another war orphan – Laurent, the child of one of the former Exalt’s scholars. Laurent’s technical knowledge is a boon, allowing them to build more efficiently and cultivate a small garden. With his magical talent and Brady’s proficiency with an axe, they fell thin, spindly trees for materials. The camp grows.More humans appear – some are younger, some older. Wounded refugees on the road to Ylisstol, each disheartened to find that the capital is no more. This is the new capital – this collection of run-down shacks and tents in the woods, run by children.The first Plegian arrives – a thin, gangly little girl with brown skin and a shoddy bow strung across her back. She is clutching desperately to a metal trinket, a gift from her mother. Some of the older survivors want to kick her out – they threaten her, taunt her, bully her. Lucina, Falchion buckled to her side, stands between them.“There will be none of that here,” she says, her voice firm.“And who are you to say?” growls an older man, a merchant from Southtown, Lucina thinks she recalls.She draws Falchion. “I am the Exalt of Ylisse, crown princess Lucina, last of the Ylissean royal line. Choose: you will live as allies, or you will die alone. There will be no division in this camp.”The Plegian girl, Noire, comes to her later, sniveling and choking out awkward thanks.Lucina shakes her head. “We are all that’s left. We cannot fracture ourselves further.”Days bleed into weeks bleed into months. The sky grows darker, the shadows longer. The camp grows, too, and as it does, their lives steadily reach a new normal. Laurent, with the aid of some of the older members, begins teaching lessons to the young children. Lucina oversees training, even going so far as to construct straw dummies and wooden practice equipment. Another war orphan, Kjelle, takes over when she arrives, her fervor for battle seemingly insatiable. Forays into the wilderness yield new supplies. Patrols around the camp ensure that Risen stay far away, and in the night, Lucina lies in bed awake, listening to their scratching and roaring far away in the woods. Skirmishes happen, but they are few and far between.Life, a new life, slowly takes shape. Hope, even. They can rebuild. They are stronger than the Risen, stronger than the Fell Dragon himself. Nothing can shatter this – their secret village nestled in the forest, their security and safety and comfort. On a scavenge, Lucina finds a tattered Ylissean flag and sews it up, tying it around a silver lance and planting it in the center of camp. A beacon of hope – Ylisse will not fall, not now or ever.But in the dark of the night, Lucina’s dreams haunt her. She can still see those glowing red eyes. The dark purple cloak, trimmed in gold eyes, sweeping into the darkness of the hallway. White hair. That wicked sneer. Black wings. She wakes, gasping for breath, flailing and drenched in sweat, unable to shake the visions. The Fell Dragon’s eyes are burned like a brand into her mind. Most of all, she recalls the cloak – that distinct, unmistakable pattern straddling the boundaries of opulence and eeriness. 
4
It is five years before Lucina sees the cloak again. She is sixteen years old, the Exalt of her own little corner of Ylisse. They had been forced to relocate, again and again – the outskirts of Ylisstol had been drained of supplies, and the threat of Risen grew steadily the longer they remained still. And so they packed up camp, loading up handcarts with supplies, and they marched. Nowhere fared better than the capital, they had quickly learned – they move in their small band, marching through the wilderness, under the tattered banner fluttering in the cold wind. They scour the land, looking for more survivors, looking for more supplies. The flow of refugees come less and less as they move – towns are emptied, or inhabited solely by monsters. But still, some remnants of civilization find them, and whenever they set up camp, something resembling life quickly follows.And Lucina, crushed under the burden of leadership, lies awake at night, hounded by the dark red eyes of the Fell Dragon.She is at the grindstone in the makeshift armory, sharpening sets of iron blades, when Inigo comes to her.“Lucina!” he stumbles into the tent, frantic. “Someone’s here.”“What?” Lucina sits up. “What’s wrong? Who’s here?”Inigo shook his head. “I…I don’t know. You’d better come take a look.”Lucina follows him out to the center of camp, weaving past tents as they go. She sees it before they even round the corner.It’s him. A dark Plegian robe draped over a distinctly humanoid frame, standing motionless in the center of camp.Lucina’s hand instinctively reaches for her sword. “Has he spoken? What’s he done?”“Nothing,” Inigo explains. “He crossed through camp and just stopped. No one’s dared approach him.”Robin. Lucina draws her sword and stalks towards him. Her heart races. She clenches her teeth so hard she can feel her skull pounding. She stops, perhaps five paces from him, and stares him down.His face is covered by his hood, everything shrouded in shadow save a small mouth, twisted into a frown.What is he thinking? Lucina holds her sword out, pointing the tip.“Speak your business here, Robin – if you came to attack us, you already would have. So state your purpose plainly.”Robin remains motionless. Lucina eyes his cloak – it seems more worn than last time, moth-eaten and stained, fraying at the edges. There are places where its torn, and places where patches have covered up holes. Even through the cloak, Lucina can detect the arms clasped against his chest, holding something. A tome?!Robin’s head bows.Lucina lunges forward and thrusts the flat of her blade at his head. It collides with a dull thud and sends him sprawling to the ground with a cry. He crumples like paper, his robes fluttering and his arms dropping their contents. A rusty old sword and a mangy, dirt-stained stuffed pegasus tumble to the ground. The items give her pause but she leaps on top of him, roughly yanking his hood off.The face that stares up at her is not the grizzled face of a weathered tactician, but that of a young girl. She’s filthy, her long red hair tangled in messy clumps, hastily tied back into two long tails. Her eyes look wild and frantic, fearful even, though the bags beneath them betray exhaustion. Lucina holds Falchion at her neck.“Who are you?” Lucina snarls. “Why are you wearing that?”The girl blinks and furrows her brow. “It’s my father’s robe,” she snaps, trying to push Lucina off her.“Your father?” Lucina pushes back, slamming her head into the dirt. “Your father is Robin?”The girl nods silently.Lucina drops her sword and clenches her hand into a tight fist. She punches the girl.She stares up at Lucina, unmoving, almost as if she’s too shocked to react. Lucina hits her again, then again.The girl seems to weak to defend herself, just barely managing to hold her arms in front of her face to block Lucina’s blows.“Lucina!” a voice cries out, knocking Lucina from her trance. Strong arms grasp her armpits and pull her off.“What are you doing?” she snaps, looking up at Owain.“What are YOU doing?” he cries, hauling her to her feet. “She’s defenseless! What are you thinking?!”“She’s-“ Lucina looks from her cousin to the helpless girl in the dirt. She’s nearly motionless now, curled into a tight ball and bleeding from her mouth and a split eyebrow. She blinks and for a brief second, Lucina fears she’s going to start crying.Instead of crying, the girl curls in against herself, whispering.“What’s she saying?” Lucina leans over her.“I think she’s talking to herself,” Owain suggests. He picks Falchion off the ground and hands it to Lucina, who sheaths it.Lucina kneels next to the girl and listens.The girl nods, pausing before whispering again, as if she is listening to something. Lucina can only make out snatches of words – fight, hurt, run, useless.“What’s your name?” Lucina asks, slowly, loudly, and clearly.The girl lays still.“I’m sorry,” Lucina nudges her. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have attacked you. Seeing that robe just…brought back memories.”No response.“What’s your name?”A voice from someone else cuts into the conversation. “I think her name is Severa. Cordelia’s daughter.” Cynthia emerges from the sea of tents. “Mom said Cordelia would sometimes mention her kid.”Lucina looks at the prone girl. “Severa. Is that your name?”Severa nods.Lucina holds out a hand. “Well, Severa. Welcome to our camp.”Severa slaps her hand away and pushes herself to her feet before kneeling to gather up her things. She angrily snatches her sword and her stuffed pegasus and wraps her cloak around herself, covering her arms.“You don’t speak much, do you?” Lucina asks, trying to sound playful. She frowns, wishing she hadn’t so quickly leapt to violence. Severa’s harsh reaction is fair reprisal, it seems.Severa says nothing, her vacant gaze fixed on a patch of grass at her feet.“I’m sorry,” Lucina says again. “I shouldn’t have done that. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”No response, save the rustle of wind in the dead branches.Lucina sighs. “Okay, Severa. Conversation is a two-way road, okay? Is there anything you need? Do you want clothing? A bath? Food?”At this last suggestion, Severa lifts her head.“Food?” Lucina asks again.Severa nods, a seemingly permanent scowl stamped on her features.The two sit together in what passes for the mess tent, a large canvas pavilion covering a handful of scattered tables and benches. Lucina brings as much food as they can spare – dried meat, some fresh vegetables from the small garden, a bowl of a thick, salty bone broth. Severa wolfs it down hungrily, not uttering a word between bites. “More,” she demands, letting her bowl clatter to the table.“S-Severa, we really can’t afford to waste any-““Oh, so you think I’m a waste, do you?” she snaps.Lucina sighs. This might prove to be more difficult than she thought. But, in all fairness, she had practically beaten the starving girl. The least she could do is bring her some extra dinner. For how thin and small she was, it’s almost surprising how much Severa could eat – two more bowls of soup, more veggies and dried meat, a handful of nuts, and several skewers of fresher roasted meat.“What is this?” Severa asks, chewing a particularly gamey piece. She grimaces and picked a particularly sinewy piece from her teeth.“Uh…” Lucina rubs the back of her neck. “Rat.”Severa nods and swallows her next bite whole, washing it down with a swig of water. “It’s good.”Lucina lets out a terse laugh. “You can thank Gerome, he’s the one who makes all this shit edible.”“So,” Lucina says, watching Severa set down her third empty skewer. “Why are you here?”“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on staying.” Severa says. “I just want to find my parents.”Lucina’s heart lurches into her stomach.
Severa does not cry when Lucina tells her the truth. She takes off her father’s robe and folds it into a neat pile. She rests her stuffed pegasus on the robe in the woods and leaves them beneath a hastily-constructed grave marker at the edge of the rudimentary cemetery that bad been christened with Lissa’s body, so many years before. Lucina watches from a distance, unsure of what to do.

When Severa departs, Lucina crouches over the small shrine and touches the robes. She lightly fingers the patterned sleeves, running a thumb over the now-worn eyes and frayed gold edges. She frowns. The stuffed pegasus, too, is shabby and dirty. Its fur is matted and stained, and evidence of years of rips and subsequent patching run all along its seams. She picks it up gingerly, knowing it’s a stuffed animal but treating it like glass.

She stares at its single glass eye. The other is a button, carefully sewn on with mismatched thread.
Who is this girl? The daughter of Robin, the daughter of Cordelia. One half the man who betrayed her father, one half the woman who gave her life defending him. She can feel rage bubbling inside herself, anger and frustration that this girl might live when so many others did not. But that rage is tempered with uncertainty. Her father’s words echo in her head, even so many years distant. She makes her decision. 
5
“Cynthia,” Lucina says one day, sitting beside her in the mess tent.“Hm?” Cynthia looks up. “Heya, boss. What’s up?”Lucina scratches her cheek nervously. “You said your mother spoke of Severa, sometimes?”“Well,” Cynthia says through a mouthful of food. She takes a moment to chew, trying to choke down dried saltpork. “Sorta. Cordelia talked about her sometimes, and my mom mentioned her in passing here and there."“Did she say anything in particular?”“My mom always said that she seemed like a problem child.”“A problem child? How so?”Cynthia shrugs. “Apparently she used to get sick a whole lot, and she’d get into fights and stuff. I dunno exactly.” She frowns and leans in, gesturing Lucina closer. “Apparently there was some family drama or something,” she whispers. “I remember my mom and Cordelia talking about it at dinner once. Apparently Severa-““Severa WHAT?” snaps a harsh voice, accompanied by a loud clattering as a tray drops to the table at Cynthia’s side.“Oh! H-hey, Severa!” Cynthia stammers.Severa sits heavily, making a show of it. She’s cleaned up rather nicely, after several forced baths at Lucina’s hands. Her hair is no longer matted and dirty, and instead long streaks of clean scarlet trail behind her. Her ratty Plegian robes have been replaced with a leather cuirass, leggings, and worn second-hand boots. She had brown leather gloves on her hands, seemingly in perpetuity.“This tastes like shit,” Severa growls, poking her food. “What is this, wyvern meat?”“Close,” Lucina shakes her head. “Horse.”“Where the hell did you find a horse?” Cynthia asks, surprised.“Noire brought it down the other day,” Lucina explains. “Apparently it had been wounded by a few Risen lances.”Severa chews and spits. “It’s disgusting.”“Yes, but it’s the only meat we have other than jerky, so eat up,” Lucina gestures at her food.“What were you saying about me?” Severa ignores her, choosing instead to glare at Cynthia, who blushes.“N-nothing! Just that y-you, um…your mom, uh…talked about-““SPIT IT OUT, MORON!” Severa snaps, thumping her hand on the table.“She said you’re stupid!” Cynthia retorts automatically. “She said you’re a big dumb jerk!”“No she didn’t!” Severa yells.“She did! She said you’re so dumb and you had to drop out of school!”Severa’s hand shoots across the table. She snatches Cynthia’s hair and slams her face into the table. Cynthia comes away with blood streaming from her nose.“Calm down!” Lucina cries, reaching out to stop Severa from striking again. “Stop fighting!”“Thee thtarted it!” Cynthia shouts, clasping a hand to her nose to stop the blood.“No, you did! You were talking about me!”“Calm down!” Lucina repeats, grabbing both of the fighting girls. “Listen, I started it, okay? I did, not Cynthia.”Severa glares at her and Cynthia pauses.“I asked her about you,” Lucina says, letting go of Cynthia but maintaining her iron grip on Severa’s arm. Cynthia uses the opportunity to take her leave.“Why?” Severa growls, watching her go.“Because you won’t tell anyone about yourself. You refuse to talk to anyone, and when you do it always ends up like this.” Lucina can feel Severa’s arm go limp in her hand, so she lets go.This is not the first fight Lucina breaks up, nor is it the last. Every day, it seems, brings some new altercation, some new problem. Sometimes with blood, sometimes not, but at the heart of all of them lies this enigmatic wanderer, this boiling cauldron of Fell blood. Cynthia is often a target, her relentless cheer and quick frustration making her an easy target for Severa’s anger. Lucina comes upon them fighting in the center of camp, screaming and kicking and tearing at hair, and she forces herself between them yet again.“Why are you here?” she asks, walking Severa to the medical tent as the latter nurses as bleeding lip. “Why don’t you leave?”“I’m going to, believe me.”“Then do it. No one’s stopping you.”Lucina makes the offer, and Severa accepts. “I will,” she says, over and over, each time she picks herself up from a fight or wakes to find her tent has been unfastened by some persecutor in her sleep. But she does not leave. She stays, and Lucina cannot figure out why.Lucina strives to maintain order and unity in the camp – nothing is more important than that, in such dire times. The importance of community is the only thing keeping them together, the only thing that differentiates their small circle of civilization from the lawless wasteland beyond. They had quickly learned that they were not the only survivors. Bandits, murders, thieves roamed the wasteland. Anyone with the skill or ruthlessness to fight the Risen and fight their fellow man. But here, within their rickety wooden fence, was a field of peace.There had been fights, even before Severa. Anger at Plegians, frustrations with training, petty squabbles over gear or rations. But nothing like this. Nothing like her burning, implacable anger, this ceaseless stream of hate and fists and harsh words.Lucina lets Severa drop to the back of her mind – she seems so insistent she will leave, so there is no worth in fretting over her. It wouldn’t be the first time. Some of their visitors had left, stayed for awhile, then departed, venturing off into the world to forge their own path. It is not Lucina’s place to stop them.But Severa does not leave. She stays. Slowly, as the days crawl by, the fights lessen. Rather than bother with the others, risking altercations, Severa keeps to herself. She lives alone, and she works alone, and even in the midst of all these potential friends and allies, she remains alone.Lucina is working in the supply tent, taking inventory, when Severa approaches her.“Lucina.”“Hm?” She doesn’t look up from her scratchy handwriting.“I…saw some Risen on the ridge last night.”Lucina drops her paper and looks up. “What?”“I…” Severa purses her lips. “I take walks at night, sometimes. Outside the camp. I saw some Risen to the south, right past the old creek bed.”“Are you sure?”Severa nods.At dinner that night, Lucina stares into her food, lost in thought. She looks up and peers around the pavilion, looking at the assembled tables full of soldiers – not full, not happy, but hopeful. Despite their fatigue and hunger, they speak, they laugh, they joke, they play games. Civilization, in some way or another. The pavilion glows with bright torchlight, illuminating the huddled masses as they shared time and space together. She sits up straighter, peering around, checking for a distinctive head of red hair.Severa is sitting alone, far from the pavilion, resting her back against a section of perimeter fence, eating slowly. She is bathed in shadow, the twilit sky above a stark contrast to the pavilion’s warmth and light. Lucina watches her with curiosity, pity stirring in her chest. Why does she not even try to eat with the others?A laugh cuts through Lucina’s thoughts, as does a voice.“Ha! Can you believe it? Risen, this close to camp? Ridiculous.”A hearty laugh in response. “Those damnable monstrosities wouldn’t dare touch us here. Only a fool’d believe that they’d come so close.”“I have half a mind to think she dreamt the whole thing up for attention. Naga knows she sure seems to beg for it.”Lucina frowns.“Ah, well. Let her be foolish on her own time, I say. So long as no one else has to buy into her ridiculous fantasies.”Lucina stands up, slamming her tankard on the table with a thump. Her very presence is commanding, hushing the crowd and drawing all eyes towards her. She peers out over the sea of faces turned her way.“We’ve received reports of Risen drawing nearer to the camp,” she says matter-of-factly, channeling her father in her best authoritative tone. “Colm, Liza, I want you to take shifts after Inigo’s evening patrol. When you get back, wake Finn and Kjelle. Am I understood?”A chorus of groans rise up from the crowd. Mumbles of “all-night patrols?!” filter through. Lucina sits back down, ignoring the hail of grumbles and gripes that flit her way. She is the Exalt, and no one dares question her orders – what she says goes, even if her orders seem superfluous and unnecessary. 
6
From an unassuming spark, a fire grows. It licks at Lucina’s feet, warming her belly and stirring her heart, filling her eyes with stars. Dead-set on bringing Severa into the fold, she begins visiting her in her tent. At first, she brings the offerings she knows will work – food, and good food at that. The sorts of things reserved for special occasions. And gradually she begins to coax the lonely orphan from her shell.
Severa shares her story: she speaks of a lonely childhood dominated by isolation, fear, and anger. Painful headaches that have hounded her since birth. She speaks of fending for herself, caring for herself, even before her parents were gone. She speaks of loneliness, of crying in the stables and waiting for a mother that would never return, of crawling into her father’s bed and begging that she would wake at his side. She speaks of a hometown left to rot, to fall to ruin as the skies grew darker and the air grew colder. She speaks of living alone in the wilderness, starving, fighting, scavenging. Sleeping in grottos and under tangled deadwood, scaling cliffs and mountains on her endless journey to Ylisstol, to her mother and father.
She never speaks of herself. She tells facts, true, but nothing more – she never touches on feelings, thoughts, anything deeper than the skin. But even so, she opens up slowly, unfolding like a wildflower bending towards the sun, her petals limp and her colors muted but the drive for life the same.The first sign that Lucina has succeeded shows itself one night, after a long day of marching. She is readying herself for bed, neatening her clothing and tidying her bedroll, when she hears the flap of her tent.“Oh, hello, Severa!” she says brightly. She sits cross-legged and pats the bedroll, inviting Severa to sit. It’s a genuine surprise – usually their meetings are spurred on by Lucina’s insistence, and more often than not bribery is involved. Lucina stares at her. She looks so frail in the entrance, her arms clinging tight to herself. She isn’t looking at Lucina, choosing instead to fixate on the bedroll.“Do you want to talk?”Severa nods and closes her eyes.“What’s wrong?” Lucina asks, suddenly concerned. Severa seems shaky, even more so than usual. “Did Cynthia say something again? I told her to stop.”Severa shakes her head and holds herself tighter. Lucina gets to her feet and crosses the tent to lightly touch Severa’s arm. “Come, sit. We can talk.”Severa’s eyes flit up to Lucina, meeting her gaze. “I have to leave.”“What? Why?”“I…” Severa is trembling visibly now. “I’m going to hurt you.”“What? What do you mean?” Lucina takes her arm. “What happened?”“I hear things,” Severa whispers hoarsely, bowing her head. “A…a voice in my head.”Lucina guides her to the bedroll and sits her down. They sit together in silence, the only sound the rippling of fabric in the wind. Lucina waits for her to continue.“It…it makes me see things, and, and do things, and…” Severa rests her face in her hands. “It…it wants me to hate you.”“What?”“It’s been telling me things about you.”Lucina’s stomach drops. “What kind of things?”“It…it told me my mother loved you more than me, loved you like a real daughter.”“What? That’s ridiculous,” Lucina frowns. She recalls Cordelia and Robin spending a great deal of time with Chrom, and with her as a result, but her relationship with Cordelia could never be characterized so.“It told me she hated me, and that she died trying to protect you.”“That…that’s not true.” Lucina wracks her brain to remember. It wasn’t true, was it? It had been so long ago, and she can scarcely remember the nuances of the battle. But…Cordelia had fought and died to protect Chrom, and to protect her. In a way, was that not what Severa was saying? A life given in defense of the halidom is a live given in defense of the Exalt. Lucina looks up and sees sparkling tears dripping from Severa’s eyes to the tent floor.“She didn’t hate me,” Severa says, her voice pleading, almost as if she were trying to convince herself.“Of course she didn’t.”“Then why did she leave?!” Severa snaps, suddenly angry. Tears stream down her cheeks unimpeded. “Why did they leave me? Was I really so unimportant to them?”Lucina tugs her into a tight embrace, shushing her.“I hate them! I hate them both.”“You don’t mean that.”Lucina struggles to balance her priorities as Severa’s mood shifts and changes. She had been closed off and confrontational before, but now, as she opened up, she became erratic, uncontrollable. She would come to Lucina, crying, and then so quickly flip like a switch to seething anger, childish tantrums over petty things. Lucina does her best to mediate such problems, taking care to force Severa into social situations – making her train with others, making her eat dinner in the mess tent, making her take patrols with partners rather than alone. Severa takes a liking to training – sparring, it seems, is one way for her to get her aggressions out in a productive manner. She is feared on the training field, but for her prowess, not her attitude. Raw strength and passion combined to create a formidable opponent, one whose skill is only just exceeded by the Exalt herself. Lucina takes to training with her, imparting her father’s techniques, teaching her the formalities of battle that Severa had no chance to learn on her own in the wild.With a productive place to direct her anger, Severa becomes more docile in her other interactions. She chats with the others at dinner, no longer content to sit by Lucina’s side in utter silence, like a petulant child. She makes friends, gradually – the first she befriends is Noire, one of the few other Plegians still in camp. They make an odd couple, the brash bully and the meek hunter, but Lucina is just happy that Severa is making any friends at all.And she is relieved – she no longer has to dedicate such effort to crisis management, to trying to quell the wildfire of Severa against the cohesion and unity of the camp. One burden lifted, only to be replaced by so many others. But this, at least, is no longer something she needs to worry about. Severa is, dare she say, normal. Acclimated. Adjusting.And Lucina finds herself in a strange and uncomfortable position – as Severa makes friends, Lucina finds herself almost lonely. She misses her shadow, the girl always begrudgingly at her side. Lucina misses their candlelit talks in the dead of the night, misses listening to Severa talk about whatever is on her mind. It was refreshing, in a way – to hear someone whose gripes were so petty, often ‘I haven’t seen a good skirt in ages’ rather than worries of a more apocalyptic nature. Not that Severa didn’t have such concerns, but she simply hid them, packing them down and ignoring them in favor of complaints she could address.And when she did have concerns, they were personal – her headaches, her sickly nature, her awful nightmares, her impulses towards violence. Those concerns remain but fade out to the background as Severa makes friends and joins the others in their games and their training and their marching, and she is part of a team at long last. 
7
Lucina isn’t quite sure if she’s capable of love. She feels something in her heart, that much is certain. Affection for her friends, her allies, her family. She missed her father, and that must mean she feels something for him. Is it love? she asks herself in the dead of the night, Severa’s warm frame curled up next to her, Severa’s hands entwined in her hair. Severa came to her, sometimes. Unable to sleep on her own.Lucina tries to remember a time when she felt love. When she felt anything but detachment. Love hurt, she had learned that early enough.She had loved her mother. Her mother had died.She had loved her father. Her father had died.So perhaps she did love Severa but was afraid to use such terms. She lays awake, stroking Severa’s hair, remembering the words of a song she had heard long ago. It had been such a long time since they had heard any music at all.Severa would die, that much was certain.Everyone would, and for that reason Lucina refused to use the words. She felt affection, not love. If she loved, those she loved would die. Severa was worst of all, though. She had come to Lucina time and again, to confess her dark, troubled thoughts. Her impulses to fight and kill. The urge to slip a knife into Lucina’s back, the urge to poison her food, the urge to push her as they patrolled cliffsides. She had made Lucina swear a promise to her.If it came to it, Lucina had sworn, she would kill Severa. If one of them had to die, it would be Severa.“I’m not important,” Severa had said. “No one would miss me. They…they need you, though.” She had cried, though she had tried to hide it from Lucina. “I don’t want to hurt you” were the words on her lips as she did.Perhaps, Lucina mused, for a time. Perhaps that was why she loved Severa. The uncertainty of it all. That any moment, without warning, Lucina would be freed from this hell. She would no longer need to concern herself with the confusion of this mortal coil.Or, what was more likely, was that she felt all the things for Severa that she had sworn to herself she would never feel again. She loved Severa, and she cried when she admitted it to herself. Severa was, in her own words, unlovable. An outcast, a bully, a monster. Sometimes Lucina would look into her eyes and see the eyes of her father – Robin’s reddish-brown hues. And she would remember the fear. She would remember the shadowy corner of the throne room, the moment when she watched her heart shatter.But somehow, this mysterious urchin had repaired her heart. Despite it all, she had managed to patch it up and make it beat again, not out of obligation but out of hope. Together they could forge a better future. One of safety and love and kisses not just in the dark night, but in the clear blue of daylight.Lucina’s father had been right. Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves to be good. Was Severa not an embodiment of that very concept? The daughter of the man who destroyed her life, here to set things right, even without trying.So yes, Lucina decided, at long last. She did love Severa. She loved her with her whole heart. Everything – her small, pouty mouth, her angry eyes, her long scarlet hair, her slender body, dark and marred with a lifetime of scars.Lucina wakes, as she so often does, in the cold night. She huddles beneath her blanket, eyes squeezed shut, trying to will the image of corpses and blood and death from her mind. She gropes wildly, looking for anything to occupy her thoughts, anything but the dead. And, as it often does, her mind reaches for Severa.She is unsure when exactly she fell in love. Perhaps at night, huddled together by candlelight, in silence. Perhaps on patrol, alone together in the woods, sticks crunching beneath their boots. Perhaps on some far-off hill, gazing out at the world they have been burdened with. Maybe it was when they pressed their shoulders together, sharing a tarp to keep out of the rain. Or perhaps it was far earlier than that – perhaps it was seeing her, curled against the fence at dinner time, alone despite it all.Lucina closes her eyes and holds herself tight, wishing that she were not alone in the dead of the night. Wishing that someone was at her side, the warmth of some other human being. Anything to confirm that she was alive, and she was not alone.A rustle at the entrance of her tent startles her from her thoughts. She reacts without thinking, lunging for her sword, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. The rustling stops and she creeps forward, listening.Nothing but wind.She inches forward and brushes the flap open.“Severa? What are you doing here?”Severa buries her face against her shoulder. “I…I was on patrol, and thought…um…I just wanted to check on you. You’re real important, you know. Can’t…can’t have the princess getting gutted by a sneak attack.”Lucina lets a wry smile grace her lips. “I thought Gerome was on patrol tonight.”“W-well, yeah, duh,” Severa mumbles. “I mean, I took his place. Since I’m awake anyway, I mean. You know I have trouble sleeping.”“Yes, I know,” Lucina smiles. She sets her sword down. “So, anything to report?”“Report?”“Because you’re on patrol.”“Oh! Well, uh…I…the…um-“ Severa stammers. Even in the dim light, Lucina can see the blush creeping across her face.Lucina stares at her, framed in the half-light of night, her hair shimmering scarlet. She looks a bit of a mess – her twintails are tangled and messy, her uniform is disheveled, bags under her eyes showing her weariness. And yet Lucina has never, in all her years, seen anyone as radiantly beautiful.Severa is still stuttering out a flimsy excuse when Lucina grasps her face and pulls her into a kiss.

8
They set up camp beneath a ridge of rock, a sheer cliff face extending into the sky, blotting out the rumbling of thunder and the rolling clouds of fire. It is safe, for the time being – easily defensible, near a source of water that can be boiled for drinking, within scavenging distance of a burnt-out town, and most importantly, at the foot of a narrow switchback trail up the cliff – an escape route if need be, but not so convenient that it can’t be patrolled. They set up the tents quickly, and the pavilion, and the armory, and the supply tent. Carts are repurposed for storage. A shoddy fence is hastily erected around them. Lucina oversees the construction, issuing orders and sending out soldiers to gather supplies, scout and map the area, and ensure that they have routes of defense and mobilization.In less than a day, the foot of the cliff is turned quickly into a thriving patch of civilization, a remarkable talent Lucina’s army accrued over the years. The first thing to break ground, as always, is the flag, around which is erected their lives.As they settle into their routine, Lucina becomes acutely aware of a sickening feeling of dread creeping into the camp, despair riding on the cold wind from the west. The clouds above grow darker, and it seems that the camp grows quieter. It is not hopelessness – not quite. But each time they relocate, the doubt lingers just a moment longer. Will this be their last camp? Will this place be safe? Will there be enough supplies?Lucina runs through logistics, sending out forays into the field to look for supplies. The scouts return with troubling news. Risen, flocking in greater numbers, in a greater density than they had seen anywhere but the former cities. They still seemed somewhat unaware of the camp – or, as some of the soldiers would tell it, frightened.Severa seems to grow quiet as the days grow dark. She seems distant, withdrawn, even more so than usual. She takes to herself, eating alone, patrolling alone. Her nighttime trysts with Lucina cease, too. She brushes it off, claiming she’s not in the mood, or feigning illness. Her lies are half-hearted, though, and even as she speaks them to Lucina’s face she knows they are lies. She seems to be sleeping less, too – volunteering for more nighttime patrols, and when not on duty often found walking the camp under the dark night sky regardless.Lucina consults with some of the others, unsure what to do. Supplies run lower and lower, and their position, while easily defensible, is quickly draining the resources from their surroundings. Is it worth staying? Is it worth risking attack from the growing hordes of Risen, or would it better serve them to simply cut rations and manage supplies with greater efficiency?Severa speaks up, for the first time at any such meeting. She attends, more to support Lucina than anything else – she’s the muscle, the angry glare backing up any controversial proposal from the Exalt, daring someone to disagree. But now, as they discuss moving camp yet again, she speaks up.“Is it really so defensible?”“What do you mean?” Lucina frowns.“You keep talking about how…advantageous the position is,” Severa uses air quotes to accentuate the word. “Is it really so safe, here? Even if we were to get attacked?”Lucina nods. “Kjelle could speak to it better than I, but yes. Right now, there are only two avenues into the camp – the trail up the mountain, and the ravine to the south, past the creek.”“If one of the routes were blocked, would there be any escape?” Severa asks.“Impossible,” Kjelle interjects. “We have patrols around both regularly – it would be impossible for something to slip through and block one of the paths. We would know in an instant.”Severa sits back and crosses her arms. Her brow furrows, though, as always, her expression is impossible to interpret. Lucina lets her gaze linger on her dark features before turning back to the meeting. Severa is on patrol when the trail is struck by a landslide. She frowns, staring at the trail now buried under a mountain of rubble, indistinguishable from the slope around them. She pokes the dirt with her toe. She takes a cautious step, shaking loose more dirt and sliding to her backside. Impossible to climb.From her high vantage point, she looks out over the camp, resting her hand on the hilt of her sword. The sky is red overhead, the sun shining through the clouds in a muted scarlet, casting a haunting, blood-tinged glow over the camp and its surroundings. Clouds rumble in the sky. The wind cuts through the mountain trail, ruffling her skirt and making her shiver. The first sign of trouble comes when the south patrol returns, one member short.“What?” Lucina leaps to her feet. “What happened?”The remaining soldier, a stocky man named Alva, clutches his hand against a bloodied side. “R-Risen!” he cries. “From the south!”Even before Lucina leaves her tent she can hear it – gnashing teeth, howls, groans, snarls. A clashing of metal. She draws her sword and leaps without hesitation into the fray, darting between tents. Risen pour into the camp, clusters of the monsters wielding spears and swords and axes and claws and fangs. She slices her sword through the abdomen of one as she passes, drawing a howl and a spray of blood.“Owain!” she cries, rushing to her cousin’s side. He is fighting desperately, back to back with another swordsman, Inigo. They two are beating back an encroaching crowd, losing ground with each passing second.Lucina leaps in front of them, Falchion at the ready, and cleaves a path through. “What’s happening?!” she yells.“They followed the patrol back!” Owain grunts, thrusting his sword into a Risen’s abdomen. High above the camp, Severa watches, stock-still. She watches the tents set alight, watches the monsters tear into her comrades. Fear and panic sink into her brain and she staggers down the hill, sliding across dirt and letting dead branches catch and tear at her clothing. She stumbles from the bottom of the slope, battered and scraped, and already drawing her sword. She takes a step and lurches, the world spinning around her. On the far side of the camp, Lucina raises her bloody sword skyward. “Everyone, retreat!” she hauls Inigo to his feet and shoves him back towards the far side of the camp.“Retreat?” Owain shouts, incredulous. “No, we must strike back!”“They,” Lucina plants her sword in the dirt and leans against it, resting. “They have the advantage. They caught us off guard.”“What would you have us do, then?” Owain asks.“Retreat up the hill,” Lucina points to the slope. “We can regroup at the top and launch a counterattack.”“N-no, we can’t,” Severa stumbles into them and almost falls onto Lucina, who catches her.“Severa?!” Lucina asks, propping her up. “Are you alright? What happened?”“T-the slope…there was a landslide…”“Why didn’t you report anything?”Severa opens her mouth to speak before clamping her lips shut. Her head spins and her mouth tastes like copper.“Then there is but one escape!” Owain leaves them, leaping into the fray once more. Lucina’s head swivels and she searches the camp, desperate for a solution. The air is thick with smoke and blood and crashing steel rings in her ears. Roars and howls overpower her thoughts and she can feel herself growing numb. She squeezes her eyes shut.It’s all too much. Too many sensations, too many inputs. She can’t think straight, she can barely see. She needs something. A focal point. Something to zero in on, to bring her back to clarity. A hand touches her.“Lucina,” Severa mumbles. “I…I feel sick.”Lucina feels the world come crashing back to her. Severa. An anchor. Her anchor. She opens her eyes and sees Severa, sickly and battered, barely holding herself up.“It’s okay,” Lucina tries to assure her. “It’s okay, just stay back and provide support.”Severa shakes her head and clutches her stomach. “N-n-no, Lucina, I…” she blinks and Lucina can see a tear track down her cheek. She shakes her head again and shouts “No!”, clamping her arms over her head as if to mute her surroundings.“Severa, what’s happening?” Lucina drops her sword and rushes to Severa’s side.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Severa gazes at the figure across from her. He’s gazing out the window away from her, leaning forward slightly, hand pressed against the glass to ward off the glare. The day outside is grey and blustery, and Severa can see swirls of ash – or is it snow? The flakes pelt the window as the man watches. Thunder rumbles in the distance. The room is quiet.The man is tall, solidly built, and his free hand is tucked into a pocket of his dark robe.Severa stares at his back, her eyes wandering along the gold trim of his robe and the intricate violet stripes patterned into the back. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling the feathery white. Severa feels her heart stop.“D…da…” Severa tries to choke out, but her words won’t come to her. It’s a dream – it has to be. “D…” Her throat won’t cooperate, and the figure doesn’t seem to hear her hoarse, breaking voice.It must be a dream. She surveys the room, choking back tears. It’s her home. The living room of the house she grew up in. She’s standing at the foot of the stairs, like she had just slunk down early in the morning, expecting her mother to be cooking breakfast in the kitchen. The front door is the same, the window is the same. The creaky wooden floor, the precise arrangement of furniture. The pile of books on the table, her father’s history texts and her mother’s pulpy romance novels.“D…” she opens her mouth and fights back a wave of nausea. “Dad…da…” she tries again but her body refuses to speak the words. Then, at last, a barest whisper.“Father…?”The man turns, and Severa can delude herself no longer.She blinks and tears run down her cheeks. “Father, is…is it really you?”Robin nods. “It’s me.”“B-but…” Severa takes a cautious step forwards, her heavy leather boots pressing into the hardwood floor. The third board from the stairs creaks, as it always has. “That’s not possible.”“Why not?”The air hangs heavy between them. Severa fumbles for words, grasping for something to say to this man. To her father. She is awestruck, unwilling or unable to believe the truth her eyes show her: that the man standing before her was not dead, as she had believed all these years.“L-Lucina…said you died.”The name brings a flicker of recognition to Robin’s eyes. He frowns, solemnly. “Did she, now?”“S-she said you betrayed Chrom, and y-you killed him.” Something about Robin’s familiarity with Lucina makes Severa’s skin crawl. It makes sense that he knew her, but it still seemed unreal. Two halves of her life were already acquainted behind her back.“Then how did I die?” Robin folds his arms over his chest. Not confrontational, but firm. “Did she tell you?”Severa searches the floor for answers, unwilling to look her father in eye. “N-no, I guess not…”Robin held out his arms, in a gesture of invitation. “Well, there’s your answer.”“It’s…it’s not really you,” Severa’s shaky voice is quiet. “I know it’s not.”“Who else would I be?”Severa, despite herself, steps closer. Her accusation seems uncertain. “Y-you’re him.”“Him?”“Grima.”Robin chuckles and Severa feels her heart melt. It’s a warm laugh, comforting, familiar. Something she hasn’t heard in years, but a sound that brings her back in an instant. She’s no longer a weary mercenary, she’s a child – a little girl in her daddy’s arms, grinning as he laughs at her silly jokes.“We’ve always been the same.”Severa’s breath catches. “B-but…” she’s almost to him now. She could reach out and touch him. She could leap forward and attack him, she could embrace him, she could do anything – but she stands, stock-still, looking at him through a filter of messy red bangs. She clenches her hands into a fist.“Don’t lie to me!” She cries, stepping forward. She’s shorter than him, and her head only reaches to his chest, but she reaches up and pounds a weak fist against him. “Don’t lie to me! Don’t lie!” she sobs, crying with anger and frustration and uncertainty, and the pain of a lifetime of loneliness bleeds out of her lips. His arms wrap around her softly and her fist falls limply against him. “Don’t…d-don’t…lie…” she gasps for breath and rests her head against his chest. “Don’t…l…” she clenches her hands again, but tightly around him, clutching fistfuls of his robe. “Don’t leave me,” she sobs, nuzzling his chest. “Don’t…l-leave me…”He shushes her quietly and strokes her hair, letting her cry. She melts in his arms, lost in an embrace that she had craved for more years than she could remember. Everything was as it should be – his warmth, his strong arms, the softness of his clothes, his warm, familiar voice, even his scent. Severa squeezes her eyes shut and clings to him desperately. “Daddy…” she whispers, unwilling or unable to believe it truly is him.“Shh…there, there…” he pets her slowly, his caress tender and gentle. Severa never wants to leave. If it truly is a dream, she decides, she would rather stay in her father’s embrace than wake up and return to the toil and drudgery of the real world. Why struggle? To what end, knowing comfort was so close at hand?She pulls away at last, still blinking away tears, still letting him hold her as she leans back into his arms.“You’ve grown into such a beautiful young woman,” Robin says softly, smiling. “I’m so proud of you.”Severa tries to muster a grateful smile. She laughs, tears spilling down her cheeks. “N-no, daddy, I’m-““You’re perfect,” he says, reaching up to her face. He runs a thumb over one cheek, brushing her tears away. “I couldn’t be prouder.”Severa tries again, this time pooling her courage to puff up her chest and give a proud smile. She closes her eyes again, letting him caress her cheek.“D-daddy,” she says at last, taking a step back. “Wh…what happened? Where…where am I?” she tries to remember, but it feels like a dream – nothing is concrete, just a haze of places and names. Lucina. Something about Lucina.“Where? You’re home,” Robin says again.Severa nods and out the window behind him, she can see the sky – bright, blue, cloud-speckled. The front yard is green, and beyond it she can see her street, dotted with trees.“Home?” Severa grapples with the word. No, that wasn’t right. She didn’t have a home. It had burned down. She left to avoid burning with it. She frowned. “Why didn’t you come for me?” she crossed her arms over her chest. “Y-you…if you were alive, why didn’t you come for me?!”“I did,” Robin says, simply. “Surely you remember.”“You…” Severa tried to remember. “You…you didn’t. I’ve been alone for so long.”“Have you been? Is our relationship really so meaningless?”Her father’s voice changes as he speaks, and Severa recognizes it at last. Not just the voice of her father, but…the presence. The voice in her head, the very same that she had grappled with for so long. Was it possible…?“It…it was you?”Robin nods.Severa purses her lips, the strain of remembrance physically paining her. He was right – the voice had always been there, even when she was young. The voice had been strict but not cruel, had it not? Just like father. It had been there, a guiding force, giving her advice, giving her supervision. It criticized her in equal measure with its guidance. Was that not the role of a father? Could it be true?“You…” her voice breaks. “You hurt me!” she cries. “You hurt me! You said horrible things to me. Y-you’re…you’re a monster! If that was you, then-“ she falters and cradles her aching head in her arms.Her thoughts could be harsh, but was that him, or her? Was the cruelty the voice, or was it herself? Was the anger brought up from within or pushed from without? “You…” she gasps.“Shh…” Robin wraps gentle arms around her. “It’s hard. I know it is. It was hard for me, too.”“You?” Severa repeats weakly. Numbly.Robin nods. “It hurts. Sharing your headspace isn’t comfortable, even at the best of times. It must be very difficult, not knowing which thoughts are yours and which are not.”Severa nods and rests her head on his chest. She hates it, hates herself for allowing his touch. And yet.“The best thing to do is just…accept it,” Robin says as he brings a hand to her hair and begins stroking it again. “Trying to keep two parts of yourself separate for so long is just exhausting, and it’s no good for anyone.”“B-but…you’re…G-Grima,” Severa says almost inaudibly.Robin nods, not even denying it. “True. As are you. The more you fight it, the more pain you will endure.”“Why?” Severa looks up at him. “Why does it hurt, then?”“Because you are two beings. You are Severa, daughter or Robin and Cordelia, but you are also Grima, child of the Grimleal. The two forms can coexist, but only in harmony. Without harmony, the two beings grind against each other, causing pain.”The headaches. Severa nods, understanding creeping into her mind-fog. In her mind, the voices have always been indistinguishable, but now she starts to see. Her own voice, one of bitterness, anger, resentment, loneliness, hatred. And Grima, the voice within that gave her comfort, guidance, and kindness.“But…”“But what?” Robin asks, and Severa can see his face clearly now. Did he have that many eyes before? She can’t remember.“I…” she blinks. “I can’t.”“Why not?”“I…I don’t want to die.”Robin – or is it Grima? Her father chuckles. “Are you worried that it will kill you?”Severa nods and Robin grins. His grin isn’t one of malice, but one of satisfaction.“I don’t…w-want to leave Lucina,” she says. “G-Grima…” She corrects herself. “You want me to kill her.”“Ahh,” Robin says softly. “Yes. That. You see, for a long time, I thought that was what was best. I saw you, I saw your feelings towards her, and I felt that it would be the best in the long run.”“Why?” Severa asks. “Why does she have to die?”“To make it easier on you. To spare you the pain of losing her to forces beyond your control. You and I,” Robin holds her at arm’s length. “We are not like them. We never have, and never will be.”He reached a hand up to her neck, stroking the skin where it meets her chin. Severa leans into the touch, savoring the caress.“We are special, Severa. I know loss, too. I was like you, once, and…words can’t describe the pain of losing those friends.” He pulls her into another embrace, letting his hands run along the back of her head, tracing shapes in her hair. “You will outlive everyone you love.” He rests his head against hers and his gaze seems far-off, unfocused. His voice even seems softer, like he’s dredging up sentences lost in memory. “They will die, one way or another. Each and every one.”Severa lets out a sob and the tears begin anew.“See? This is what I wanted to prevent. You’ve become attached, and in that attachment,  you’ve grown weak. I’m sorry, Severa. You never should have been involved in this in the first place. Look. Look and see.”Severa’s father takes her hand and guides her to the window. Through the thick glass she can see a red-tinged sky. Burning tents. Swords, blood, corpses. It’s all so familiar. It’s like a dream, coming into focus but still lacking context.Lucina is there, as are her other friends – Noire, Inigo, Owain, Kjelle, Cynthia. She winces as Cynthia takes a blade across the back of her leg and crumples. Severa cries out, pressing a hand against the window. Lucina’s back is to the battle, but behind her the others are fighting, desperately fighting a losing battle.“There is no sense in it,” Robin says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “They will die, and you will live. Don’t you see?”Severa squeezes her eyes shut, unable to tear herself away from her father’s touch. She wants to, so desperately. She wants to bolt out the front door, draw her sword, and join the fray. But it’s warm here. Safe. And the voice returns.Coward. Selfish. Monster. Weakling. Deserter. Traitor.She shakes her head. “I c-can’t…I need to help them…”“Help them?” Robin frowns. “Why? What have they done to deserve your help? They, who have beaten you, starved you, fought you, taunted you? Your tormenters and detractors? You’ve heard what they say behind your back, have you not? They don’t trust you. They hate you. I…” His hard face goes soft. “I love you dearly, Severa. I don’t want to see you throw your life away for those that do not care about you.”“They…” Severa’s mind is a sieve. “They don’t…”“Even if you save them, what then? You live out your lives in this wasteland, until they die, and then you are all alone?”“No, I-““I love you, Severa. I don’t want to see you suffer.”Severa stares out the window, watching the battle unfold. Her head aches, feeling like its splitting apart. She staggers forward and presses a hand against the window, clutching her free hand against her stomach. More nausea washes over her and she drops to her knees. She fights back.“No,” she mutters, clenching a fist. “I…I don’t need you.” She presses her fist into the ground.“What?” Robin’s brow furrows.“I…I may have needed you when I was on my own, but not anymore,” Severa pushes herself to her feet. “I…I have Lucina now. I don’t-““Lucina?!” Robin snarls. “And what can she do that I cannot?”“She loves me!” Severa shouts.“I love you!” Robin roars. In time with his booming voice, black wings unfurl around him. The room darkens. “Only I, and no one else.”“Lucina does!” Severa staggers backwards.“Lucina loves no one but her father.” Robin follows, his boots heavy on the wooden floor. “How could she love someone like you?”“I…I don’t know,” Severa admits. “But I know that she does. She loves me, and I don’t need you anymore!” as she screams the house shakes, rumbling with a blast of thunder.“I am you!” Robin – no, the pretense is gone - Grima lunges for her, a clawed hand clutching onto her arm. He tugs, tearing at her sleeve, and as she pulls back her leather glove tumbles to the floor.Severa stares at her trembling hand, and at the dark mark burned into its back. Six eyes. The Fell Brand, viewed through a filter of tears. The house shakes and rattles again.“I only do what’s best for you,” growls Grima. Beneath his wild bangs are dark, red eyes bathed in shadow. “What’s best for us!”Severa scrambles backwards up the stairs, clutching desperately to the railing as the house shakes and ruptures.“You are mine! And mine alone!” Grima says, following at a steady pace, unperturbed by the house splintering around them. “And no human princess will take you from me!” He leaps forward and grasps onto Severa’s arm again, yanking her back down the stairs. She tumbles head-over-heels and collapses in a weak heap at the foot of the stairs. She crawls for the door, scrabbling at the wood with bloody nails.A heavy boot presses into her back. Lucina’s name is on her lips as Severa’s world fades to black.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Severa stares at a slow sludge of creek-water that passes at her feet. She kneels, poking a cautious finger into the mire. It’s cold and smells bitter.She stands to her full height and shakes her wings, fluttering ashes from her hair and shoulders as she does. She sighs and trudges onwards, into the dark and lonely wilds.Things had been going so smoothly until that navy-haired princess intervened. It had to have been luck that she and Severa met – it lacked the telltale signs of Naga’s intervention, but the coincidence was still frustratingly surprising.They had needed to recalculate everything, rebuild from scratch. Sitting, waiting, watching, unable to do anything as that smarmy little pup nursed Severa back to health. Severa was supposed to die in that wilderness. But she didn’t, and Grima hated the both of them for it. Would that the other vessel had survived. This whole process could have been so much simpler.As she was brought back from the brink of death, she proved more resistant than Grima anticipated. Nothing seemed to push her far enough; not visions, not premonitions, not whispers. Years of a constant pressure in her skull seemed less effective than the words of a single thrice-damned princess. Grima reached a clifftop and stepped fearlessly into the open air, spreading her wings and landing far below with a thump. They were too weak to allow real flight, but softening landings proved a boon, particularly in the craggy steppe of southern Plegia. Grima smirked, staring up at the dark sky. Plegia seemed like a poor descriptor, at this point. Nations had crumbled, and only the land remained. Plegia: a word that held no meaning, and yet something of an ancestral homeland, for Grima and the vessel both.That damnable princess nearly ruined everything. She was just like her father, though, and that meant she was an idiot above all else. And Grima could handle idiots.Killing her outright would have been simple, but it would have made their job much, much harder. For a Plegian to have killed the Exalt would have sent a message, but not the right kind. The young princess would be made a martyr, a rallying point against the surviving remnants of the Grimleal. She would die but her spirit would live on in memory, and that was almost as bad as the real thing. No, her spirit needed to be broken. Her band of toy soldiers needed to be shattered.The princess was an idiot, but a predictable one. She was her father’s daughter, after all.So Grima left. Vanished from the camp, leaving a haze of blood and corpses and despair in their wake. All the worst fears of those who hated Severa were made manifest.And Lucina would follow, that much was certain. She would leave, desperate to reclaim her lost love. She would no doubt bring the Falchion as well. Her little army would be nothing without its leader and her divine little letter-opener. The fragments of the Ylissean army had been tenacious, that much was certain, like an infestation of roaches that refused to die, even as the house burned around them. But this spelled the end – the Exalt would die, Falchion would be lost, and the end would come.Grima sneered, twisting their mouth into a harsh grin.It would have been so much easier had the little whelp not been so strong. Despite it all, she had resisted Grima for far longer than they thought was possible. But all crumbles before the might of the Fell Dragon, its own offspring notwithstanding. It had taken years – years of calculated pain, a drip feed of derision and encouragement in equal measure to wear her down, to make her susceptible to the influence of her blood.Grima ventures deeper into the wilds, fearing no man or beast. No Risen would attack, and no humans would dare approach. They could march in the open, wings unfurled like black, feathery flags of warning. The air was cold, as it always was, but Grima could only feel it distantly – this vessel’s blood was diluted, and sensation was dull. Touch, taste, pain, smell – everything felt fuzzy, as if through frosted glass.But even so, Grima could detect it as the air shifted and grew sour. The sea was close. The air turned to a salty miasma, a mix of rotting sea algae and sea breeze. Somewhere to the west, high above that roiling, churning sea, was the Fell Dragon. Its dark shape grew in the sky as she inched closer and closer to the sea. Great black wings beating the air. The breath of ruin.When they reach the sea, Grima sits in the sand and watches the churning waves with detachment. Lucina was following, that was certain. But when she would arrive was an unknown, and unknowns could seldom be tolerated. A human vessel had its uses, but the end was nigh. Severa’s purpose was drawing to a close. She had played her role masterfully, if unwittingly. Now it was a waiting game.   Lucina stumbles onto the beach in a haze. The travel had worn on her – hunger and fatigue in equal measure to fear and uncertainty. With each step she took away from camp, she got the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake. With each curve of her path, each descent through thickets and valleys, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was dragging herself forth into some unknown doom.The Severa standing before her on the beach was not the Severa she once knew.She stands calf-deep in water, her boots ragged and soaked. Spread out behind her are six jagged black wings, oily feathers fluttering in the sea breeze. She turns slowly, and Lucina sees the face she had begged Naga that she dreamt. Red eyes set deep into bloody cheeks. A hard, unfeeling glare underneath her messy scarlet bangs. Not a hint of recognition, not a hint of affection. Not even a hint of the eyes of the woman Lucina once loved – this was something else entirely. A hollow shell, a puppet, a ventriloquist dummy, controlled by some unseen link to the dark dragon above.Lucina speaks slowly, deliberately.“I’ve come to take you back.”Their blades meet, untarnished divine steel against chipped iron. Even before striking, Lucina had figured it out. She picked apart what she knew of this new Severa, pieced together her moves like a combat puzzle. She had planned for outcomes, have picked what she thought to be the best strategy. One move at a time.The wings, first. They gave Severa a speed advantage, a height advantage, and could let her flee. They had to be dealt with first.Lucina pins her down into the wet sand and swings with all her might. The divine blade slices through her wings like a hot knife through butter. No, like searing iron through flesh, leaving smoking, smoldering stumps. Severa screams, her voice equal parts rage and pain. The real Severa bleeds through, somewhere – a cry of anguish that Lucina had heard layered into sobs in the dead of the night. For a moment, Lucina hesitates.“I’ll kill you!” Severa snarls. “Like I killed your father!”Lucina’s eyes glaze, only dimly aware of the black blood pooling on Severa’s back and streaming to the beach beneath them. Feathers flutter around them, like a windstorm of crows. Severa rolls, inhuman strength sending Lucina sprawling into the sand.
The clash of steel on steel rings out on the barren, windy beach. It is a clumsy fight, all slipping feet and sprays of sand, more fists and brute strength than finesse and training. Lucina is tired, and with each blow of sword against sword she feels her strength draining all the further.
She needs to end the fight, immediately. She had planned out her first moves, but now she struggled, measuring the unpredictability of Severa’s movements against her own strength and finesse. Lucina was a better fighter, true. There was no doubt about that. But even with blood streaming from her back, from slices in her arms and legs, from the blood dripping from her chin, Severa did not slow. Not even for a moment did her steps weaken. Her body was falling apart, being ripped to shreds by the strength Grima was drawing from it, strength far beyond that of a mortal human.Lucina needed to end it. For her sake as well as what was left of Severa. If it went on longer, there wouldn’t be any Severa to save. Severa lunges forward and Lucina reacts without thinking. Her motion is automatic, a reflex. A motion traced back, far back, to the training yard in Ylisstol, beneath the clear blue sky. Her father lunging and her side-stepping, dodging his blade and thrusting. It had been play-fighting, and her wooden sword did little more than bruise. Now, though, under the darkened sky, her hilt feels heavy and leaden in her hands.
She can feel Severa’s chest collide with the blade. It slips through with surprising ease, plunging through her cloth cuirass as if it were paper. Red blood, not black, pours from the wound.

Lucina and Severa are both still. The only sound is the crashing of waves and the soft hum of the breeze. Droplets splatter the beach around Lucina’s knees. Not rain, but tears.

“S-Severa…” she breathes, trembling. “I…I didn’t…”

Severa is frozen, shock or pain or both keeping her still, pierced by Falchion’s blade, her chest almost reaching the hilt.

Lucina withdraws and Severa collapses to the beach.

“No!” Lucina cries, dropping to her knees beside her prone form. “No, I…” she cradles her body and looks skyward. She gasps for breath, choking and sputtering on the tears running down her face. “I didn’t mean for …”

She bows over Severa’s body, her hands sticky with red blood and black blood and black feathers and red hair and she sobs, frustrated, scared, and so very, very alone.