Road of the Recusant is my retelling of the third arc of Fire Emblem: Awakening, set immediately after my retelling of the second arc, labeled "Fire Emblem Awakening – Rise of the Conqueror". Since there have been some plot deviations by the end of the second arc, I highly recommend reading Rise of the Conqueror before attempting to read Road of the Recusant.
As this is a retelling, it will spoil all of the major plot points for Fire Emblem: Awakening, despite the changes I've made.
I do not own Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem, its characters and setting, and any official artwork I've used belong to Intelligent Systems. I do not own Intelligent Systems. This story is rated T for violence, alcohol use, and minor sexual themes (nothing significantly more than what was in the game already).
Trigger warning: There will be themes of suicide and self-sacrifice, and/or references to past events relating to such themes.
At this point, you may wish to skip ahead to the prologue and begin reading. The rest of this page is an extended author's note. It is also written with the assumption that you are familiar with Fire Emblem: Awakening's characters and story.
Alright, now the introduction and disclaimers are done.
I'm a little worried that I might not have any readers left after that particular plot twist. I've been hinting at it for a while, but still, I wrote it with the intent of keeping the ending ambiguous up until the very last minute. From this point on, the dialogue will deviate even more heavily, as I work around the plot changes and try to iron out the parts of the third arc that I felt were weak.
The epilogue for Rise of the Conqueror and prologue for Road of the Recusant were the two hardest chapters for me to write. That's because I actually started drafting the story from this point. The scene where Lucina confronts Robin is arguably the most powerful scene in the game. At the same time, I feel that the normal variation of this scene was also out-of-character for both of them, although it may simply be because I read too much into their characters.
For one, I don't think Lucina could really have killed Robin. The dialogue between Robin and Lucina if they are related, as husband and wife or mother and daughter, is more fitting with Lucina's character, in my opinion. Lucina may be determined, but at the same time, I can't see her being willing to kill her friend, especially while knowing that he himself is as much a victim as anyone could be. On top of that, her whole theme is hope, isn't it? Resorting to sacrificing your friends is tantamount to surrender, I feel. It's certainly not out of character for her to try, to convince herself she has to do it. But in the end, I don't think she could actually kill Robin.
Robin, on the other hand, is more a matter of personal interpretation. The game offers you a choice, which is reasonable, seeing as each player probably sees Robin a little bit differently. But I think the game also shows you that Robin isn't invincible, even though his friends believe he is. Aversa outplayed him in Castle Plegia. Excellus took him by surprise in Fort Steiger. And Validar caught him off guard in their confrontation after the Valmese war.
The first time, it cost Exalt Emmeryn her life. The second time, most of the Ylissean and Feroxi soldiers were killed, and the war was nearly lost. And the third time, they lost the Fire Emblem. None of these scenarios were really Robin's fault – their opponents just had more information to work with. Because of this, none of Robin's friends really see it as a failure, but Robin himself feels it keenly. If there is a fourth time, the consequences would simply be too great to bear.
Incidentally, that's also why I staggered the introduction of Severa and Morgan. Baby Severa is there to remind Robin of someone entirely helpless, who's counting on him to protect her. The adult Severa arrives a few months later, her closeted personality showing Robin how great the price of failure would be. Morgan is a final complication – Robin knows that Morgan was killed, somehow. He doesn't ask why, because he's afraid to hear the answer, to learn that it was because of one of his failures.
He's also certainly smart enough to have picked up the hints by now, that the developers left for the players. He remembers the strange dream, and he heard Lucina's warning. He must have put the pieces together already; they just didn't make any sense, until Validar uses him to steal the Fire Emblem.
Which leaves him utterly torn. He wants to go home to see his infant daughter. He wants to keep his promise to the adult Severa, and to protect Morgan. He's not ready to leave Cordelia, and he knows how much she's lost already. But at the same time, the risks are too terrible. In the end, he takes the easy way out, and asks Lucina to do it. Only Lucina can't, and only when Chrom comes to him, and shows Robin how much all his friends believe in him, does Robin realize he has no choice.
Incidentally, I feel really bad for Cordelia. Is it normal to feel bad for your own characters? When I started the story, I considered a few possible pairings for Robin. Lissa was one I gave some serious thought to, before rejecting it on account of the fact that Owain simply didn't offer the right contrast in character to Morgan. Kjelle, Gerome, and Severa were the most fitting, but Cherche arrived too late in the story for the timing to work out, and Sully's character doesn't leave a whole lot to work with.
It works out pretty well since Cordelia is definitely among my favorite FE:A characters, with only Morgan being definitively ahead of her. She is introduced when her knight-sisters are all killed, and now she's lost her husband, too. Still, her part in my story hasn't come to an end quite yet.
Speaking of Morgan, while she's easily my favorite character, her character is just one giant inconsistency, hence all the adaptations I made. Let's just start with the obvious – how on earth does a third generation Morgan work? He or she would have to come from a future timeline where the kids already went back in time, and one of them married Robin. On top of that, Morgan managed to grow up along with his/her mother/father, meaning that victory had been achieved already with Robin surviving. If you think about it, Lucina's confrontation with Robin, if they're married, makes absolutely no sense if they've met Morgan.
So, skipping over the obvious plot holes with a third-generation Morgan, the second-generation Morgan storyline has issues, too. I'm not even going to comment on male Morgan's sibling support with Lucina; it's inconsistent enough that there's no explanation needed. But female Morgan's sibling supports all indicate that she definitely did exist in their future. This is almost workable, except for the vague references that Morgan came from an alternate future. Which means we're still missing at least one Morgan. Thank you, time travel.
It's just one giant plot disaster. Thankfully, there's plenty of valid interpretations for it. Anyways, I will be giving some of the second generation characters a little more development during the third arc. While I try to agree with the game's canon whenever possible, it's important to note that these are my interpretations, and therefore aren't canon in themselves.
Excellus's warp powder is a reference to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. This part of the game confused me a little bit, how Excellus was able to randomly teleport himself everywhere. And then suddenly couldn't escape from Walhart's castle. Warp powder is a substance that was used by a certain villain, although due to its limitations, he didn't use it too frequently. It's cheating, in a way, but it's easy to borrow lore from other games in the series, and it feels more natural than inventing it completely.
One last thing – the prologue for this section is a bit dark. There's no way about it, considering the unfolding events. I've tried to keep the angst at an appropriate level to reflect how the characters should be feeling, without overpowering the rest of the story. Because, despite the loss, the story still needs to move forward.
If you're still with me, thank you for your attention so far, and I hope you'll enjoy my adaptation of the third arc. Please don't hesitate to offer any feedback, positive or negative.
