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She wakes for the first time in midair, breathing hard and fast, looking up and then up is down, and back again, and the sky is a gaping hole above her. She can feel her heart start to beat faster, and with it the fear rushing down her spine to a pit in her stomach, which is getting less reliable with every second she’s falling through the air. A scream is pulling itself up her throat, and then, then- And then it is quiet. She wakes slowly, the second time, each limb coming back to life on its own time. The sun above her is warm, not blistering like it used to be, and the ground beneath her radiates warmth like nothing she’s ever felt before. The closest she knows is a faint and fading memory of curling up next to a familiar body, one that she cannot name. She sits up, and brushes the sand off her coat sleeves. All limbs and extremities are unharmed, though the hems on her coat are fraying and her only tome is lying open a few feet away. She stretches up, flexing her hands and twisting a little to make sure her back isn’t damaged, and then brings them in front of her face, shucking off her gloves. The familiar winding violet on her right hand is still there, and the accompanying blocky blue is on her left. “I need to find Mother,” She says aloud to no one, stands, picks up her tome, and begins walking. It will be a long, potentially unsuccessful, journey, but her name is Emmeryn. She was named for her aunt. Her mother taught her tactics, and her father taught her… something. She must go home. Her first night in the desert isn’t pretty. It’s freezing, a stark contrast from the midday heat, and she can only wrap her coat tight enough. She dreams of her mother, and a bright room with filtered and colorful lights. She is somewhere special, and she’s young here - there’s a man in the room with them, alive and breathing, and a girl a few years older than her is giggling. This… this has to be home . It can’t be anything else, because it feels like this grand and intangible concept that feels warm in her chest when she wakes up. She searches for any sign of human life the next day, and asks everyone she meets if they know of anywhere that has a glistening alabaster castle. They call it Ylisstol. They say it is east, and some of them say it has been a bastion of peace in recent times. Others say it has been nothing but a force of war. Emmeryn hopes dearly that it is that peaceful idol that the bar patrons say it is. In the morning, she starts walking east. >><< On the very same morning that Emmeryn wakes up, falling from the sky and then landing, Morgan jolts out from under the downy blankets where he, Cynthia, and Owain slept the night before. He slaps them both awake, yelling wildly about a girl he saw in his dream. Lucina rushes to the sound before logic can overrule instinct, and she would say it’s to see what the fuss is. Morgan rambles about the girl from his dream, a girl his stature and a face like his, wavy blonde hair cut short and how she strikes such a resemblance to their aunt Lissa. Lucina does not cry -- she doesn’t -- but she settles Morgan down, shushes the other two back to sleep, and talks to him. She talks to him about their sister, and her wavy blonde hair, and her face like his because she is his twin. She tells him, calmly, that she died when they were nine, and that he vanished soon after. She tells him, quiet and not trembling, that her name is Emmeryn, for their aunt. >><< That very same afternoon, the very same day that Emmeryn crashes down from the sky and Morgan wakes up with a new memory, they try again. The Exalt can only excuse himself from his duties so many times, but Lucina is thankful that the diplomats and nobles have been courteous at the least. They try again, and Lucina goes with them for the first time - they return to the place where they first found her. It is a long shot, desperate and too hopeful, but they go. Frederick is dealing with new recruits, so unlike the very first time, it is just Chrom and Lissa and the Exalt’s very overprotective daughter. The sun is bright, barely dimmed by the stray cloud, the wind is gentle and warm, and the pastures are green. They wander to a lone elm tree, quiet and resolute, not hoping for anything. Lucina cannot pinpoint the exact moment her father’s heart breaks and reforms, but if she had to guess, it would be the tearful and ever so slight smile that graces his face when they round the tree and find a sleeping woman in a purple coat. >><< The capitol is beautiful . The alabaster castle and its circle of guards wearing golden and silver like it’s nothing, its beautiful people walking about without care, because the sun is alight and the marketplace is filled with food and cloth and laughter. The people give her looks, at times, probably because her clothes are dirty and sun-bleached and she certainly hasn’t bathed in a long time, but it’s more people than she ever saw in her three long desert weeks. The marketplace is exactly like she dreamed - the wooden makeshift stalls and the cloth banners dividing the spaces, fruit and furs in baskets, people bartering and trading. She doesn’t like to be the dirty thief from the desert, but she plucks stray coins from the ground and buys some orange and yellow fruit that’s sweet and juicy and it's the best thing she’s ever eaten. She hold it in her hands like she’s been given the most precious gift, and wanders the market district’s streets in search of something, anything. There’s a small group of entertainers nearby, a young singer in blue and a dancer in red. The singer is melodic, almost entrancing, and she glides along as the boy dances around her, see-through cloth waving and fluttering. This, in some distant memory, is familiar. She turns around to venture back into the markets, but she catches a glimpse of something blue, deeper than the sky colored garments the singer is wearing. A piece of navy cloth flutters away into the alley, and Emmeryn foolishly chases it. The cape and its wearer seems to keep turning corners, like they’re trying to avoid her. Emmeryn chases them, because that cape is familiar. It’s there, somewhere, deep within her. She needs to know this person. But they elude her, continually, and so she resigns to spending her afternoon to looking for shelter for the night. By the time the stars have graced the sky, she’s found her bed on the cobblestone outside of an inn that won’t take her word as payment, which is fair enough. Someone is kind enough to drape a blanket over her sometime during the night, and she gratefully takes it with her when she begins her journey the next day. Today, she goes to the castle. They have the answers. They must. >><< It breaks her heart to think it, but she is lucky. Lucina has more than she could have ever asked for - her mother and father are alive and in love, her brother has come home to her, her friends are safe, and the world is at peace for now. It would be playing into fate’s hands, hoping that blur in the marketplace was her sister’s familiar face. It would be wrong, so she doesn’t. Emmeryn is her sister, named for their aunt, and she is long, long dead. >><< Frederick is not having a good day. It was not only a rough morning at home - Panne is ill, some undefined illness that has her vomiting every few hours, and Yarne is worrying himself sick over it, and thus breakfast was agonizing. He was very much looking forward to spending his day patrolling with the guards, maybe teaching the new recruits something useful, and then… this. There is a girl climbing the castle wall. Myles has dragged her down, successfully on the inside of the walls, and has her sitting calmly inside one of the stations on the south side of the wall. “ What ,” He hisses, “is a young girl covered in dirt doing inside the castle? Do we not have guards for a reason?” “All due respect, Sir,” Myles retorts, rigid at the girl’s side and his sword sheathed, “the guard wall is over ten feet high, and she was half way down the inside of the wall when we found her.” “Then you should have found her before she was inside the wall. You,” He says harshly, “What’s your name?” “Oh, me?” The girl says, pointing at herself, “I’m Emmeryn. I’m looking for my mother.” “Excuse me?” “My name is Emmeryn! After my aunt, I think. I’m not really sure… I think I have amnesia? But I keep like, having these weird dreams about a castle and my mom and I think this is where my mom is? Also, I’m totally sorry about the whole climbing over the wall thing, but I couldn’t convince the guards to let me in the normal way, haha...” “Jeanne,” Frederick says, not looking away from the girl who does, if you look right, bear a resemblance to the late Exalt. “Would you please find the Exalt and his family, and ask them to meet me in their study? Let them know it’s… urgent.” >><< The study, which was once a storeroom until Robin arrived, is small for four and a half people, especially with the bookcase and round table, but they make it work. Robin wants to stand, but between her husband and daughter, she’s coerced into sitting at the table while they stand. She’s only been back a few weeks, returned from the dead by Naga on the very same day that Morgan awoke with the memory of his sister inside him. “Did he care to say what this was about?” Robin asks, to which Chrom huffs, obviously none too pleased himself. “It’s gotta be something dire, right?” Morgan asks, pacing around the table. It’s as annoying as it was two minutes ago, but he’ll pace anyways. Lucina sighs, and sits down next to her mother. Her timeline double is sequestered in the nursery, where Lissa is more than happy to watch over the infant while they attend this… meeting? At least ten more minutes pass, before Frederick steps into the room, pulling a young girl in behind him. She promptly sits down in front of them, and there’s a quiet beat before Lucina can muster up her voice. “Emmie?” She asks quietly, trying so so hard to will her voice into not breaking, “Y-you, you’re?” “I’m Emmeryn,” the girl says, smiling brightly like she hasn’t upturned Lucina’s entire world. “I’m pretty sure I was named after my aunt, and I’m also pretty sure she’s dead. I’m looking for my mother, but I can’t quite remember her face, because I’m also pretty sure I have amnesia. I keep having these dreams about a castle and what I can remember of my mother, so I climbed over the castle wall.” “You what ?” Lucina asks, moving across the study before she can really think about it, “Emmie, you can’t do things like that. I-I can’t believe you,” she drops to her knees to hug the other girl, who stiffens at first but melts into the touch, “don’t ever do that again.” “You sound really familiar,” Emmeryn giggles, hugging Lucina back. “Over the castle wall?” Chrom asks Frederick, without taking his eyes off of Lucina and Emmeryn. “Really?” “Yes, unfortunately the guards only found her once she was halfway down the inside wall.” Morgan snickers a little at that, a little too fond of playing tricks on the guards himself. He catches Emmeryn’s attention, sparking a bit of delight in her eyes. “Oh, hey- you look like me! Are we related?” “ Yes, ” Lucina sobs, holding Emmeryn tightly. She turns to face her parents, who seem to be in a mix of excitement and surprise, “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t want to tell you about the little sister I had because I watched her die. I didn’t want to make you lose a daughter you never had. I didn’t think she would… ever be here.” “We know all too well that you’ve been through more than you care to say, Lucina,” Chrom says, “but you’ve really got to stop surprising me with children, okay?” “Oh, so you’re you !” Emmeryn exclaims,suddenly alight “you’re that guy! I don’t… quite remember you, but you’re there in the things I can remember!”, she turns a little and glances at Robin, and a little spark lights in her eyes, “Are you mom?” “I don’t suppose amnesia is hereditary?” Robin mumbles to her husband, slowly rising with begrudgingly accepted help from Chrom. She kneels on Emmeryn’s otherside, because Lucina is not going to let go so soon this time, and takes her newfound daughter’s hand. “You are certainly a surprise, but I’m so glad you’re here with us. I can’t wait to get to know you.” “I don’t know how you’re here,” Lucina tells her, holding Emmeryn tighter and dragging their mother into the hug, “but I’m so happy you are. Everyone will be so excited to meet you again.” >><< That night, for the first time since Robin’s return, a sleeping pile is reformed. This time, though, it is not under the sky, in the cold and hungry, and it is not with dread in Lucina’s heart. The blankets and winter furs are dragged to the library’s floor, pillows carefully arranged, and the stained glass windows filter the fading sunset into a soft pinkish haze. That night, for the first time in what feels like eons, Lucina rests peacefully beside her younger siblings, with her parents curled up nearby, and idle, her thoughts drift to the recently unthinkable - a family, whole and safe and alive. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time would be okay. Perhaps it could truly be nice, this time.