Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening. It belongs to Nintendo and Intelligent System.
Kellam came back home a little after supper, not quite before sundown. He and Tharja lived only a two-days' ride away from Ylisstol, but he could never quite get as comfortable around horses as his best friend Stahl did. As such it always took him longer to cross the distance between the capital and the little farm that now housed his family. Kellam looked at the passing scenery, greeting the forests and rolling hills with a sigh. He wished he could have returned earlier. He had missed his wife and daughter terribly.
Silva, his old mare, peacefully trotted the last few miles. She had been a gift from his father when he had married Tharja some years ago. When he finally caught sight of a bit of red over the horizon—the roof of the little cabin he had built for Tharja and their then newborn daughter—Kellam craned his neck, hoping to see whether or not he would have a welcoming committee. Tharja had a knack for knowing when he was getting closer whenever he came back from his errands. Perhaps she used some spell of her making? Who could say with that beautiful sorceress wife of his? Still, how she did it didn't matter; just the fact that someone cared enough about him to do this was enough to make his heart soar. She would then send their daughter to go greet him; each time, little Noire would bolt down the hill, always ending up flat on the ground when she would stumble on a rock or a root. Kellam would then scoop his crying and wailing daughter in his arms to bring her back to her mother, and Tharja would spend the rest of the evening fussing over her.
As Kellam grew closer, he sighed again; there was no one in sight. Maybe Tharja went out? Most of the times, the villagers who wanted to buy her poultices and spells came to her, but sometimes she would be the one to set out to town with their daughter in tow. Kellam brought his horse to a small barn that also served as a stable. He could hear someone bustling inside the house. So Tharja was home; possibly she hadn't noticed him coming up the hill.
Kellam opened the door to their little cabin—as usual, it creaked horribly. Tharja was hunched over a pot containing what seemed to be stew. She didn't even turn to face him. Kellam winced; this was not boding well.
"I'm home, Tharja," Kellam called out. He was a little embarrassed at the happiness that fluttered in his heart when she finally noticed his presence.
"Kellam," she said, her voice strangely blunt. She didn't meet his gaze. "Good to see you. How was your trip?"
"Good," Kellam replied. He was starting to get uneasy. "Where's Noire?" Their little home had only one room, and their daughter was not hidden under the covers of the tiny bed that was shoved next to the one he and Tharja shared. She couldn't be anywhere else inside the house.
Tharja stiffened. She stopped stirring her stew.
Kellam felt his smile freeze. "Tharja. Is something wrong? Where's Noire?"
"Out, somewhere," Tharja said. Her voice sounded dispassionate, but Kellam knew it was nothing but a facade. "She helped me with a spell, then went out to play."
"Helped you?" Kellam felt his apprehension slowly turning to fright. "What do you mean?" And what did you do that made her run away like that?
"Some people came today to ask for a remedy against the summer flu," Tharja explained. "I needed a subject to try a new method."
"And you used Noire? You made Noire sick to test your new spell?"
"She wanted to help," Tharja mumbled. The self-hatred in her words was evident. "She was rather insistent."
"Tharja!" Kellam exclaimed. He was not one to get angry easily but—"She's just a little girl! Your little girl!"
Tharja's shoulders slumped forward. She still couldn't look him into the eyes.
"Tharja! She's your daughter! Our daughter! How could you?!"
"I'm sorry," Kellam's wife muttered. "I didn't mean to hurt her..."
"You didn't mean—?!"
"I should never had been a mother. Never." These last words were so softly said Kellam was sure Tharja hadn't meant for him to hear them. Kellam's heart was being torn apart in two opposite paths. On one hand, anger and disappointment were boiling under his skin, ready to flare up; on the other, the love he held for Tharja kept these horrid feelings at bay.
"I'll go look for her," Kellam said. "You should apologize when we get back."
Tharja remained silent, but her head slightly bobbed; Kellam knew his wife enough to understand she had agreed.
"See you later." And Kellam went through the door again, his chest clenching in dread.
As he began to call out his daughter's name, Kellam remembered the months that led up to Noire's birth. How terrified Tharja had been! They hadn't planned for her to get pregnant so fast. How did this happen? Tharja had kept saying. I can't be a mother, I can't. I shouldn't. Kellam hadn't known what to say back then. He was never good at comforting people. You'll do great, you'll see, he had told her. We'll both learn as we go along. Kellam did (or at least, he hoped he did), but as the years went by Tharja hadn't grown more confident as a parent.
The sight of her worried face as she held their daughter for the first time still gnawed at his mind. I shouldn't do this, she had said. This is all a mistake. Hold her for me, please, hold her. He himself had trembled when the healer had taken Noire from his wife to give her to him. The cleric had graced him with a smile as she held out his daughter—the word had sounded so extraordinary then!—to him.
Baby Noire had been squirming in the healer's arms. One of her tiny hands had then brushed against Kellam's finger. The touch had come and gone so fast, as light and soft as the caress of a feather on his skin, but Kellam remembered it vividly; it could have happened mere hours ago in his mind. She had been premature, and had been so very small and fragile in his arms. Kellam always somehow knew he had been born to protect; else, why would he have enlisted with the Shepherds as a knight? But now, at the sight of this tiny new life, Kellam had understood that his past vows had been nothing but practise for this new journey. And so when Noire had opened her eyes for the first time, he had vowed to her that he would ensure her safety as diligently as he had done in the past with his comrades and family.
The pine cones and leaves scrunched and rustled under Kellam's feet as he entered the forest that surrounded his home. Noire loved to explore the woods with him. Most of all, she adored hunting for feathers to add to her growing collection. Kellam thought of the gift he had brought her back from the capital. He patted the little satchel containing the object, almost as if to remind himself it was still there.
"Noire!" he cried out again. "Noire, where are you?"
"Daddy?" he heard a faint voice in the distance.
"Noire!" Kellam rushed towards where the voice was coming from. "Noire, it's me! I'm home!"
"Daddyyy!" He didn't see see her coming but he definitely felt her when she collapsed into him, crushing his legs in a hug.
"Hello, sweetie," Kellam said, patting his daughter's black hair. "I missed you."
Noire's response was so fast it was hard to make out the words, but it sounded like 'missedyoutoodaddy'. Kellam crouched to get a better look at her; her eyes were puffy and her nose was dripping.
"Oh gods," Kellam sighed. "What in Naga's name did your mother do to you?"
Noire wiped her nose with the sleeve of her dress. "I asked her if I could help, and..."
"I know, I know," Kellam said. He took a handkerchief from his pouch and gingerly gave it to his daughter. "She shouldn't have done this."
"I wanted to make her happy," Noire said miserably.
"Don't feel ashamed, you've done nothing wrong, Noire," Kellam replied. "She did. When she acts like this it hurts you, and you should never have to be hurt to make her happy. Never!"
"You... you think so?"
The fact that she had to be reassured of this sank Kellam's spirits. "Of course. When, we come back, I'll swear I'll talk to her. She'll never do this kind of things again, never. Not while I'm here."
There was a loud noise as Noire blew her nose. "You... you promise, daddy?"
"I promise on my honour as a former knight of Ylisse."
Noire sniffed again, but this time her smile had come back. "How was it back in the capital?"
Kellam held out a hand for her to hold and she took it with a feeble grin. As they made their way back home, he tried to describe the sights and sounds of Ylisstol. He was a man of few words, however, and he didn't believe he could quite give the beauty of the capital justice.
"And look what Aunt Sumia gave me," Kellam said, taking a long, white object out of his pouch. "It's from her pegasus. Do you like it?"
Noire looked at the feather with wide eyes, then eagerly grabbed it from her father's hand.
"Oh, daddy!" she said, "it's beautiful! It's prettier than all the feathers I've found so far!"
Kellam squeezed her shoulder. "Everyone back at the castle were asking about you, you know? I told them you were growing up to be a fine young lady."
"What about Auntie Robin? Did she ask about me?"
Kellam tried to not let his uneasiness show. Noire had only seen the royal tactician twice, and yet these meetings seemed to have been burned in her memory. Of all his old war buddies, Noire only talked of Robin—of how graceful and intelligent and kind she was. Kellam briefly wondered if obsessive admiration was something that could be transmitted from parent to child.
"She did," Kellam said. "She told me to say hello to you."
Noire looked at the ground, cheeks reddening.
"You haven't met her little boy, haven't you? Morgan, they named him." A genius idea crossed Kellam's mind. "Next time I leave for the city, would you like to go with me? You could meet little Morgan then, and Princess Lucina and Prince Owain too. Wouldn't that be nice?"
Noire raised her face, her eyes lighting up in excitement. "Oh yes, Daddy, that would be so fun! We could ask Mama after supper and go right away!"
Kellam's smile couldn't grow any more awkward. "We can't leave that soon, Noire. Your mother hasn't seen me for so long. She must have missed me." Not that I want to spend more time with her at the moment, Kellam thought sullenly, with the stunt she just pulled. He shook his head at this dark thought, suddenly ashamed with himself.
Noire's gaze went to her feet again and Kellam could feel his heartstrings being pulled in hundreds of different directions.
"I... I wish..." Noire began, her voice so low Kellam could almost not hear it. He stopped in his tracks and inched closer to her, resting his forehead against her.
"I wish Auntie Robin was my mama," Noire whispered. This time, Kellam's heart shattered in thousands of tiny pieces—was it for Noire's sake? Or for Tharja's? Kellam couldn't really tell.
"Oh, Noire..." Kellam drew his daughter in a hug. "Sweetie..."
"I-It's not really true, really, I don't want her to be my mama, but sometimes... sometimes... I wish I could steal Auntie Robin from the capital and..."
"It's okay, sweetie, it's okay," Kellam said, caressing his daughter's soft hair. "Sometimes, your mother can be hard to deal with, right?"
Kellam could feel Noire nodding.
"But at the same time, it's not fair for Morgan, isn't it? Wouldn't that be mean to steal his mother away from him? And what about Aunt Robin's husband? He would be sad too."
Noire sniffed for a little bit, then disentangled herself from her father's hug. She looked at him with reddened but otherwise dry eyes.
"I know, daddy, I know," she said. "That's why I don't really want her to be my mama."
She pursed her little lips together, her eyes now brimming with affection.
"Beside, if Auntie Robin was my mommy, then it would mean you wouldn't be my daddy."
A warmth unlike any other spread in Kellam's chest as he gazed into those dark eyes, those eyes that were so much like her mother's. He felt as through his heart would burst from the sheer amount of love that was rushing in.
"Before we get back to your mother," Kellam said, his voice thick with emotion, "we could go for a ride on Silva. Would you like that?" He took the feather from her hands and put it behind her ear, where it stood out beautifully against the black of her hair.
The smile that grew on Noire's face at his words was worth more than all the treasures of Ylisse combined.
A/N: I felt kind of iffy that I married Tharja to Kellam in my game... when I got to Noire's supports later on, I realized I put one of the sweetest guys in the army with, well, freaking Tharja (not that I don't like her—I do!—buuut the way she treats her husband and daughter is kind of... cringeworthy). But then I realized it made Kellam Noire's father, and omigosh, they fit so well as a father-daughter pair, and so this ficlet was born, partly because I wanted Kellam and Noire to be adorably shy and awkward together.
And then of course Kellam dies just a little bit after this. God, this game is depressing...
Also, a big thanks to quicksilver-ink, for comments and ideas and such ^^