Chapter Text
It’s an old tale, one baked into the blood and bones of all who claim kin with Ylisse’s line of Exalts: a great and proud dragon, laying waste to the land and all who dared to cross its path; a hero, noble and valiant and wielding a sacred blade, slaying the dragon and restoring peace to the realm.
It’s not quite the stuff of fairy stories, not when Aunt Lissa traces it back to the history of their bloodline — but it pales in comparison to the conflicts that plague Ylisse, in Lucina’s earliest memories.
There’s her father, noble and valiant and every bit the hero that Ylisse has always loved, as he leads his Shepherds to war against Plegia, against Valm, and pays no mind to the injury that would see the end of any other’s military career; there’s her mother, great and proud and too visibly Plegian between her darker skin and the distinct slant to her eyes, according to the various noblemen and council members that still gripe at Father’s decision to marry her, as she stands firmly at his side and guides his every move.
For years, this is enough. It’s enough to know that, while they can’t always be with her, Lucina’s parents are out fighting for what is good and righteous. It’s enough to know that they do this for her sake, for Morgan’s, for the good of the halidom. It’s enough to know that, for all those noblemen and council members who will gripe about half-Plegian loyalty, the specifics of her and Morgan’s blood matter little against the overwhelming might of their parents’ love.
—and then, her mother leaves one day for battle, and does not return. And then her father follows, precious little more of him returning than the sacred blade he wields. And then the sky tears open, and little else matters.
Amidst it all, there’s the roar of a great and proud dragon, furious after having been sealed away for so long — but wedged deeply within that anger is a pain that cannot be ignored. The dragon screams, and it bleeds in to the sky, and it burrows into Lucina’s blood.
In a small, nearly abandoned village in the mountains lining Plegia’s border with Ylisse, there’s a shrine unlike anything Grimleal that Lucina has ever seen.
There’s a carved figurine of a dragon. The paint coating it, a deep purple, has started to fade and chip away in some places, but it’s clear all the same that the idol is loved and well cared for. Before it lies a collection of dry, nearly withered flowers — not much grows in these parts, so they must have been picked elsewhere, or purchased from a merchant days ago. There’s fruit and a small plate of Plegian sweets, still fresh and likely brought out earlier that day, and at the center of it all, the smoldering, smoking remains of a small fire.
For a long moment, Lucina stares at the idol — tries to place the destruction its future incarnation will bring upon this world. Small and wooden like this, it’s harmless — but more than that, in the absence of stories of cults ruled by madness and opposing scripture denouncing it as evil beyond repair, there’s—
“You Plegian, girl?”
Lucina startles. It’s unacceptable, how easy it is to lower her guard in a world far more peaceful than she has ever known. All the worse, that part of her identity has somehow been made obvious.
Behind her is an old woman — brown skin faded and dull as it sinks into too-hollow cheeks, silver-white hair wispy and thin and frayed at the ends, a moth-eaten shawl draped loosely over her head. She stares up at Lucina with dark, piercing eyes, not quite critical but not entirely absent of judgment.
“Half,” Lucina answers, quietly. “On my mother’s side.”
In another lifetime, another world, such an admission would have resulted in stern frowns of disapproval — of her Father’s decision to marry a Plegian woman, of Naga’s blood diluted to an unacceptable degree. But this old lady merely hums, averting her gaze. “I thought so,” she says. “Strange to see your kind giving Grima the time of day.”
There’s a part of her, buried deep but never quite quelled in all these years, that bristles at the words: your kind. It’s been a long time since it had mattered, in any capacity, that she and her brother take far more after their father in appearance than their mother — or at the very least, that’s what she’d told herself, when it came to matters like commanding what remained of Ylisse’s army in a world torn apart. (Some days, not even Naga’s mark in her eye was enough to assuage the worst of it, when their gazes would turn critical as they catalogued every bit of her Plegian mother that had seeped into her speech and mannerisms.)
There’s novelty in it coming from a Plegian elder instead of an Ylissean one, if nothing else.
“Actually,” she retorts, perhaps a bit too sharply, “my mother used to tell stories of the people’s god, walking alongside them and answering their prayers for justice and salvation in a harsh and uncaring world.”
An awfully romantic way to describe it, at any rate — a dragon, great and proud, who answered his people’s prayers for justice, salvation — power, in a world that saw fit to deny them that much. Slaves, servants, orphans, refugees, the poor and downtrodden, all of them let down by the kings and Exalts and hierophants that had sworn to serve them.
(Mother’s cool fingers gently combing through Lucina’s hair, a sleeping Morgan half-spilling out of her lap, as she speaks quietly, lest she be overheard by any nobleman or council member who still gripes about Father’s decision to marry her, of the land she left behind — so, so much more than the old accounts of war and blasphemy make it out to be.)
The old woman barks out a hoarse laugh. “In the history books, perhaps. Hasn’t been that way in a long while, girl.”
So it hasn’t. That Lucina is here at all is evidence of that. “I’m aware,” she replies, and can’t quite keep the glumness out of her voice.
The old woman’s gaze softens, ever so slightly, as she crouches before the idol. Then she presses the palms of her hands together, bowing her head until her forehead meets her fingertips, and quietly chants something in a language that Mother would have never been permitted to teach her children.
“Is that a Grimleal prayer?” asks Lucina, and tries for politeness. It’s not quite enough; the old woman gazes at her from the corners of her eyes, judgment plain in her expression. “Forgive me… my mother never taught me any of this.”
The old woman presses her lips together in a firm line. “Because you were raised Ylissean,” she says, simply.
“Is it a problem that I was?” asks Lucina.
“Not a problem, per se… but as you’ve no doubt seen, Ylisse and Plegia haven’t taken kindly to each other in quite some time.” She exhales, slowly. “One man’s love for his wife, and for the children he sired with her, can only alleviate so much. I’m sure you’re already aware of this.”
—and the fact of the matter is: Father loved her, as much as Lucina loved him. And there was no doubt that he loved Mother — but despite that, there was precious little he could do against the people surrounding him who saw a Plegian interloper before they saw the woman he’d chosen as his wife; there was precious little he could do against the people who would whisper that his children were less-than-pure, despite Naga’s mark in Lucina’s eye.
(Precious little he could do, or precious little he did?)
“Your first lesson,” says the old woman, “is that not everyone among Grima’s faithful counts themselves among the Grimleal. And the Grimleal does not speak for all of us, despite however much they claim to.”
“And which one are you?” asks Lucina.
For a moment, she’s sure that she’d been too forward, too rude — but the woman huffs out a tired sigh, and closes her eyes. “I am simply an old, old woman who’s lost more than her fair share to the clergy that claims to speak for me. But there is much that they have yet to take. And I will not let them.”
And what did they take from you? Lucina barely stops herself from asking. The social graces that had been drilled into her years ago, in seemingly another lifetime, apparently have yet to abandon her fully.
“Thank you, for sharing all of this with me,” she says. Somehow, it’s far more than her mother had ever tried to, in the scant few moments she could get away from the various noblemen and council members who saw a Plegian interloper before they saw their Exalt’s wife.
“Of course, dear,” replies the old woman. “Hardly anyone left I can share this with.”
There’s a story to that, surely — but that will have to wait for another time. “I should be going.”
“I’ll pack some sweets for you,” says the old woman. “It’s not like I can eat all of them myself.”
Lucina chuckles. “Thank you, Aunty,” she says — and it’s a relief that even years later, she can still remember her mother’s old lessons on etiquette with Plegian elders; that, at the very least, was something that not even the stuffiest of nobles had ever dared to challenge. “And… I’ll try to come back soon. I may have more to ask about… all of this.”
The woman smiles at her, wryly, and it’s so familiar that something congeals, painfully, in Lucina’s chest. “And I’ll welcome the company, whenever that will be.”
In the end, despite her efforts, things still fall to pieces.
Aunt Emmeryn falls, if a bit later than she was originally meant to. Father tears through the remnants of the Plegian army uninjured, but with an anger that Lucina has never once seen from him.
And Mother… this version of Mother is not the same, absent of her memory as she is — and yet, it’s obvious that she’s not well, in all of the ways that Lucina had once learned to watch for. There’s a delay before each step, as if every movement has become something that needs to be calculated. She breathes heavily in a harsh wheeze, which goes unheard amidst the clashing of metal and accompanying screams. She’s pulled her hood over her head as a flimsy barrier against the torrential downpour, but it does little to hide the fact that her face is simultaneously too pale and too flushed.
It’s a dangerous game, for Lucina to linger so close — but how can she not? Father’s charged ahead against Mother and Frederick’s protests, cleaving his way through what remains of the Plegian army. Aunt Lissa can barely speak without dissolving into sobs. Most of the Shepherds have already piled into caravans headed for Regna Ferox.
“I-I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Olivia promises, one hand braced against the front-most caravan’s door. “If—If you can find shelter, th-then that—that would be ideal, I think.”
“Go,” Uncle Lon’qu tells her, sharply. “I’ll see to it that they do.”
“But how could we hope to find shelter here, of all places…?” asks Frederick, his voice uncharacteristically faint.
Unbidden, she thinks of a small, nearly abandoned village in the mountains not too far away — of a carved figurine of a dragon, surrounded by withering flowers and fresh fruit and sweets. It’s risky, but… “If I may,” Lucina ventures. “I… know of someone, who may be willing to help. A civilian, living in these mountains.”
“A Plegian, you mean,” says Frederick, bluntly.
Lucina nods. “I know it’s far from ideal, given the circumstances—” a necessary concession, though it makes her skin crawl, “—but this person has helped me, in the recent past. Perhaps she will help you, too.”
The furrow to his brow deepens, into the same disapproving frown that Lucina’s seen on far too many noblemen and council members to count. “If you mean to lead us into a trap—”
“I would not,” says Lucina.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” says Mother — and when her voice cracks on the last syllable, she pauses to cough. Frederick’s gaze snaps to her, alarmed; he takes one step forward, arms outstretched, and only steps back when Mother raises a hand to stop him. “If we do have other options…” She coughs again. “… there are none that I can see.”
She says it like an admission of defeat — but Frederick’s distrusting frown eases ever so slightly, and like in so many of Mother’s strategies, the battle is won before it can truly begin.
There’s the small matter of rallying their remaining forces — Virion remaining ever watchful at the party’s rear, Uncle Lon’qu sticking resolutely at Aunt Lissa’s side, Gaius never quite straying from Father’s shadow. It’s simple, until it’s not, and then all that’s left is the man that Lucina is here for to begin with.
Father will run out of Plegian soldiers to slay, eventually; still, it sends an uncomfortable shiver down her spine, to see that the same scowl marring his features as the one that had appeared when Aunt Emmeryn first fell.
“Chrom, enough,” says Mother, tiredly. “Our priority is to retreat, not more violence.”
“How can you say that?” he retorts. “The dastards that killed Emm—”
“Are not the same as the civilians that Marth speaks of,” says Mother, clearing her throat. “You know this.”
“You would have us seek shelter with Plegians,” says Father, spitting out the word like a curse.
“You had no problem fighting alongside one mere hours ago,” says Mother, ever logical — as if she herself is not Plegian; as if she herself is not a Plegian that Father’s spent far longer fighting alongside than Tharja; as if Father is not stillplacing his life in a Plegian’s hands.
Father averts his gaze, clenching his hands into shaking fists. “Damn it… at a time like this, we should be returning to Ylisse… preparing to fight Gangrel…”
“And we will,” says Mother, and has to pause to cough. “Once Olivia returns with the remaining caravans.”
Father looks at her, then — and then as he catalogues the way Mother’s breathing far too heavily, the way her face is simultaneously far too pale and far too flushed, his expression splinters apart into something guilty and distinctly hurt.
(And what right does he have to be hurt? Lucina wonders — and then immediately regrets it. The day’s events are reason enough, and yet… and yet…)
“Robin,” he gasps out. “Robin, I…”
Mother coughs harshly into the back of her hand. This time, the fit is worryingly long, and distinctly wet; this time, Father rushes immediately to her side, arms hovering before her until, like before with Frederick, she raises a hand to stop him. “We’ll rest for tonight,” she says in a quiet rasp — out of necessity, it seems, when even that triggers more coughs. “Or however long it takes for the caravans to arrive.”
At long last, Father nods. “Is it far, Marth?” he asks.
“Not particularly, no,” Lucina answers, “but the journey may be difficult when you are already injured and weary.”
She leads them, then — and save for Aunt Lissa’s sobs, halfheartedly stifled, and Mother’s persistent cough, growing deeper and wetter with each passing fit, they make the journey silently.
The old woman’s village is as quiet as it had been the day Lucina first ventured there. “I can confirm that there are only civilians living here,” she explains. “Just a few — elders and young children — though whether their loyalties lie with King Gangrel and the Plegian army, I do not know.”
The roads are familiar, but the feeling of people marching at her back is not — but Lucina leads them resolutely onwards anyway, until she finds herself once again at a familiar door.
It swings open upon the second knock, and the old woman’s eyes narrow into slits as her gaze flits from Father, to Mother, to Frederick and Aunt Lissa, to the remaining Shepherds. “You better have a damn good explanation, girl,” she says.
“Aunty,” says Lucina, “I need your help.”
The old woman confirms what is already obvious: that Mother is very, very ill, and needs far more time to recover than any of them can afford.
She sleeps in a cot by the fire in dry, borrowed clothes, a cool cloth pressed to her forehead to bring down the fever. Father sits next to her on that same cot with a hollow expression, her hand pressed limply into his and his fingers entwined with hers. Aunt Lissa’s fallen asleep on the floor against Frederick, who watches the door with tired, nearly drooping eyes. Somewhere outside, still in this miserable rain, there’s Gaius, Virion, and Uncle Lon’qu, hunting for a list of herbs that the old woman had sworn will have Mother feeling better in a timeframe better befitting an aggressive military campaign.
In the kitchen, the old woman wages a war of her own against a thick, unyielding porridge. “She’ll be all right,” she says. “She’s luckier than most girls taken in by the Grimleal… though given that she’s apparently fallen in with Ylissean royalty, that would depend on your definition of ‘luck.’”
Lucina opens her mouth, denial at the ready, but the old woman scoffs.
“Don’t look so surprised, dear. Your friends could stand to disguise themselves better.”
Lucina presses her lips together, dropping her gaze to the floor. Father and Aunt Lissa’s identities are one thing, when the old woman evidently has no intentions of exposing them; Mother, on the other hand…
“She’s not part of the Grimleal.”
“Well of course she isn’t now,” says the old woman, “but unless she inherited that cloak from a relative, there really is only one explanation.”
Mother… Grimleal. It’s… not the most unlikely outcome — and it’s certainly one that Lucina had considered, more than once, when trying to puzzle out why any of this had happened at all. There’s much that Mother did not speak of, concerning the life she left behind when she joined the Shepherds — nothing about family, friends that she left behind; nothing about where she received the kind of training that had made her Father’s most trusted tactician; nothing about the land itself that she wished to continue carrying with her, despite swearing her allegiance to another.
Mother is just… a Plegian woman, that Father had had the fortune of meeting one day off the battlefield. A deserter from the Plegian army, who saw a brighter future in Ylisse and wished to be a part of it. That’s… that’s all she was. All she needed to be. And yet…
(… and yet it had been Grima, who tore the sky open.)
“Why?” asks Lucina, in a shaking whisper. “What could they possibly want from her?”
The old woman looks at her for a long moment, and sighs. The smile she gives her, then, is brittle and strained. “I don’t think that’s a question you want me to answer, dear,” she says. “But to put it simply… the same thing they want from every young woman they confine within its halls. It’s… not a kind fate. Your friend is very fortunate, that she escaped it.”
In the room over, in the cot by the fire, Mother turns abruptly onto her side. She starts coughing again, though the fit isn’t nearly as harsh as any that she’d had on the journey here. Still, Father maneuvers her upright, like Lucina’s seen him do countless times before. Mother’s always been frail, prone to illness; Father had always said that sitting up helped her breathe better.
“You’re all right, Robin,” he says, gently, as he braces one arm around her shoulders and rubs her arm.
When the fit passes, she tips wearily into him, her head falling into his collarbone. She mumbles something to him that Lucina can’t hear — and then with his free hand, Father reaches for a water skin next to him on the floor and hands it to her. (Seeing him now, it’s easy to forget that it was this same man who’d scowled at her like she was just as much his enemy as the soldiers that had slain his sister, not too long ago.)
He looks up as Lucina makes her way over, and manages for her a small, brittle smile. “I owe you my thanks, for bringing us to safety,” he says, quietly. Next to him, Mother’s eyes have drifted closed, but there’s enough of a furrow to her brow that it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if she were still awake.
“It was the least I could do, given the circumstances,” says Lucina, quietly enough that it shouldn’t wake her if Mother really is asleep after all.
“That you know of a place like this…” he says. “I… forgive me, if this is too forward a question, but…”
He trails off, though it’s obvious what he’d meant to ask. “Half Plegian,” she answers. “On my mother’s side.”
Father nods. “I see… In that case, I owe you an apology for my behavior, earlier. That was unworthy of me.”
In another world, another lifetime, such words from her father would have been enough to set her instantly at ease, no matter the offense. But this is not that world; in this world, the man who would become her father had looked to the woman he would later choose as his wife, and saw nothing but a dirty, rotten Plegian, no better than all the rest.
(Even if she’s Grimleal? she wonders. Even if she’s the reason why—)
“I’m not the one you ought to be apologizing to,” says Lucina.
Something withers in her father’s expression, as he turns his gaze to the woman who’s now fully asleep on his shoulder. His grip tightens around her shoulders, ever so slightly, as he bends down to press a kiss into the crown of her head.