To say that Odin missed being back home would have been a complete lie; for the most part, "home" consisted of a bunch of vague memories that he couldn't quite remember if they were real or parts of old stories of his. The one bright, shining thing he did remember was his mother's face, a sight that would never leave him, no matter how hard the world he lived in now tried to get him to forget it. Forgetting it never would happen, especially not now that he could look to his dear wife Elise and see his mother's love radiating from her, or he could look down at their newborn daughter and already see the innocence in her face that her grandmother had up until her dying day.
That was a reminder to the reality that he was now living, something that kind of rooted him exactly where he was. His mother had a grandchild now, one living in a completely different universe than the one she'd lived in, the one where she'd raised him to become half the man he now was. And she, as a product of circumstance, would never get to meet this small piece of perfection he'd brought into the world—and if anything made Odin even start to think about missing home, it was thinking about how he missed his mother more than anything.
His thoughts on the "returning home" matter stood in stark contrast to how Laslow felt about it, to the point that the two had exchanged a few heated words about it over the course of the previous months. While Odin had all he could ask for of his mother in his little family in Nohr, Laslow felt that he was missing something relating back to his own mother, and he would not rest until he was able to get it. "I want to show them her grave," he said one day, as the two men watched the sun setting in the distance. "I want to show Felicia all there is to know about her. I want to show Soleil where I learned to dance. I want to." His voice, wavering towards the end, broke completely after he sighed and stood up. "There's nothing keeping any of us here in Nohr any longer, you know. We could go back at any time."
"You could go back anytime. Sev—Selena and I aren't leaving what we've found here, but if you want to, you go right on ahead." Also standing up, Odin kicked the grass beneath his feet, grumbling to himself about the name slip-up he'd made. "We'd miss you, but if it's what you want, who are we to stop you?"
"There's no need in keeping with the name charade any longer, Owain. We're done with whatever purpose we had here, why should we continue to lie about who we are." He sighed again, his eyes shifting from watching the sun to looking down at his hands, which were fidgeting. "I suppose I'll let Felicia know the story, the entire thing, and see if she would be interested in coming along with me. I know that two words into the explanation Soleil will want to come, but I refuse to strip her from her mother like that."
The thought he'd put into it was nice, but there was something that didn't sit right with who he was talking to. "I happen to like the name I've got now, and as long as I'm still here in Nohr, I'll try sticking to it. Don't need my old name getting out and spreading around without me there to tell everyone why it is that way." Odin laughed, but it sounded so hollow in such a serious moment that he quickly stopped, giving an awkward chuckle before grabbing his friend in a one-armed hug. "But, if you're going to leave, at least let me know when you're going to do it. Have to say goodbye to my best friend one last time before he goes, if it's the last time we'll see each other."
"I highly doubt it'll be the last time, but I understand your point." Brushing the hug away like it was nothing, Laslow (or Inigo, but damn if the "still here in Nohr" rule wasn't going to apply to his friends too) turned to face Odin with a smile that seemed more sorrowful than happy. "If anything comes of this, you will be the first to know. After all, that is what best friends are for, correct?"
Odin nodded, trying to return the smile but not finding the power within him to do so. "You know it. Just…don't try to leave without letting me know. You don't want the dramatics, but I can tone them down in serious times, and you leaving is definitely a serious time."
"I'm glad you're understanding. Now let's see if the family is as well." Each word of Laslow's was spoken with hesitance, as if he wasn't sure of how they'd take the news, and Odin was at least a little happy to know that he'd been able to help his friend make the decision to even start thinking about going home.
At the same time, though, he was dreading finding out that his friend was actually going to leave. They had worked so hard to build lives for themselves in Nohr that even thinking about leaving what they'd earned to go back to their previous lives was a scary thought. Sure, it was an easier idea for Laslow to process than either of his friends, with him having jumped onto the marriage-and-child train relatively quickly, taking to the domestic life with occasional bouts of flirting with ease. His daughter was now old enough to make decisions for herself, which was going to either be a help or a hindrance to his idea of leaving. That was the opposite of Odin's situation, with him having waited until the girl he'd fallen in love with to become a beautiful woman before he made any moves on her, their romance blooming naturally and progressing at a snail's pace compared to the breakneck speed Laslow had taken through his courtship with his wife. And both of their situations differed from path Selena had taken, but she'd always been a stubborn one and her life decisions clearly reflected that.
If Laslow did indeed decide on leaving, at least that meant that Odin would still have Selena around to keep him company, although…as he thought more about it, he was sure his mentality that she wouldn't leave was merely a circumstantial thing, and the first moment she had to get out of Nohr, especially after one of their trio was gone, she would bolt. What would that mean for him? Left behind in a foreign world with a royal wife and a daughter to raise, unaware of what he had on the other side of the universe?
Thinking about abandoning Elise and his sweet Ophelia made his mind and heart both hurt, he couldn't leave the woman he'd given everything to, and he couldn't leave the child their love had created. But he couldn't ask Elise to pack everything up and follow him into the unknown, she had too many others she'd be leaving behind that she would be permanently parting from. Her happiness rested on being in Nohr where she belonged, and at the tender, young age that Ophelia currently was, her well-being relied solely on being nestled next to her mother. Taking them with him wasn't an option, and staying behind would only sit well with him for so long before he regretted making that decision.
The day came that he was given the information that Laslow had indeed decided on heading back to where they'd come from, and he would rather get it over with sooner than later. That parting was not going to be a pleasant one, Odin knew, and he spent the few days he had before the event bracing himself for tears that were going to fall no matter what at the farewell, barely talking to Elise or interacting with Ophelia in that time. He didn't mean to become so distant as he sat dwelling on his friend's impending departure, but there was a particular kind of sadness that arose when thinking about losing the closest thing he had to a brother, and it was a sadness that overrode everything he felt for his actual family.
Maybe it was that sadness that compelled him to make the single worst decision he could have considered making, but the night before the dreaded departure he decided that he couldn't stay around and lose that piece of home. Sure, his heart would never get over leaving his wife and child behind, but Laslow had been there for him since they were kids and nothing would replace that in his life. Nothing could. It would be a crushing reality to wake up to in the morning for those not going, but he felt that this was the right decision to make, given the circumstances.
After he and Elise had said their good nights and headed into bed, knowing that there were just a few short hours to get things put together to go, Odin threw the blankets off of himself, grabbed any bags he could carry, and shoved his belongings into them. Being quiet was of utmost importance, not wanting to wake his beautiful wife up where she lay, but he couldn't help but find himself talking out loud to no one in particular, wanting some company as he made the decision to throw his life away again to go back to the old one. "Promise me that someday, after the world has forgiven Odin Dark for what he's done here, they'll call him a hero for what he'd done before. Promise me that little Ophelia will grow up in a world hearing the exploits of her father as positives, not as negatives. Promise me that…that…" He drew in a breath, his lower jaw beginning to tremble. "That she never stops loving her father, even though she will never know of him outside of stories."
"I…promise," Elise's sleepy voice replied, and he froze, dropping the bag he'd been shoving tomes into to turn and look at her as she rubbed at her eyes, trying to make sense of what she'd awoken to. "Odin, why are you awake right now? Did you have trouble falling asleep?"
"N-no, my love, but you clearly need to rest more. Poor thing, you've only just gotten to sleep and you're awake again!" Trying to reclaim the moment so he could continue preparing for his departure, he climbed onto the bed, pushing her back down to where she'd been laying before. "Hurry, go back to sleep before you're awoken once more, this time by a child begging for her mother's love."
Her eyes still fluttering between open and shut, Elise gave a soft laugh. "You're such a caring father, Odin. Always thinking about what's best for her and for me."
"That's what I strive for. Now back to sleep." He didn't move until he knew she was sleeping once more, the rise and fall of her chest going into a rhythmic pattern. "Oh, dear Elise, I'm afraid that that very trait is going to be the downfall to this relationship. Promise me that you'll forgive me most of all for what I'm doing." The last thing he did before going back to his packing was kiss her gently on the forehead, not wanting to disturb her sleep any more than he already had. With that taken care of, the bags were quickly filled and he was ready to slip out into the night, heading for the meeting place where the early-morning farewell was going to turn into the addition of one more to the leaving party.
When he went to give a last goodbye to his daughter, he found her laying in her bassinet, the pale moonlight in the room illuminating that she was wide awake, staring up at him with the same doe-eyes that his mother had always looked at him with. "Ophelia, my pride and joy, the sweetest fruit of my loins, if anything here in Nohr will tug at me to return someday, it will always and forever be you." He leaned down to brush her faint blonde hair, her face scrunching at the touch of his hand. "Even with universes separating us, you will always be the child of a great hero, and I expect you to wear that title with pride as you grow."
She was far too young to even begin grasping what he was saying, but after he'd gently kissed her she was starting to whimper, which in turn was causing Elise to stir once more. He couldn't risk being caught in there with the bags, so he took his leave, ducking out of the room and eventually out of the palace in which they lived, telling any guards that came across his path that he was heading to meet with a friend who was going on a journey, and he was providing some belongings for the travels.
In the moments directly after he left, Elise fully woke up to the sounds of Ophelia beginning to screech, reaching for a candle that she lit to give some more light to the room to see what the matter was. She gasped at the sight of Odin still being out of the bed, but when she saw the disheveled state of their belongings, coupled with what fuzzy thoughts she had about when she'd first woken up, she knew what had happened.
It wasn't until the sun was peeking out over the horizon that Laslow and his family made it to the meeting spot, somewhere that Odin had been sitting and asking himself if he was making the right choice in leaving. "It seems you've come well-packed, my friend. You planning on joining us?" Laslow asked upon seeing what all Odin had with him. When the blond gave him a small nod, he broke into a grin. "Well isn't that just excellent! Saves my breath a bit for storytelling, as I'm sure you'd be honored to weave our tale."
"Yeah, I can do that," he replied, sighing deeply. "Once I get over the fact that I'm leaving them here without me, that is."
"You could always have invited them along, I hope you realize." Waggling a finger in Odin's face for a moment, Laslow stopped when he saw just how distraught his friend looked at his decision. "What, did you never stop to consider that?"
In all honesty, the idea had crossed Odin's mind, many times, but he could never bring himself to suggesting it to Elise to begin with. "There were too many things stopping me from wanting to force them to come. Besides, Ophelia's a tad too young to be making the journey, don't you think?"
"If that's your opinion, I won't question it. I personally would have found a baby that could be carried like her much simpler to bring along than any other sort of child, but you're the one who made that decision." Laslow turned to look behind him, where his own wife and daughter were standing, carrying all the belongings they could manage, and he went to say something to them, but was cut off by a piercing yell aimed at him—one that not only made him cringe due to who was yelling, but due to the fact that she happened to use his real, non-changed, name to address him. "Oh gods, what is she doing here…?"
"Is that Selena? Whoa, didn't you say she wasn't getting invited along because of…?" If his friend had been looking at him, he would have seen the gesture Odin was making, but due to everyone else's attention being focused on who was storming over towards them, he was completely ignored.
"What are you all doing, leaving without giving me the option to go? Are you daft, thinking you'll make it back without me?" Her hands on her hips and taking on a pose that should have been seen as somewhat threatening, Selena instead looked like she was about to topple over, the weight and size of her heavily-with-child stomach clearly throwing off her balance. "If you all are going, you've got no choice but to take me and Keaton with you!"
"I, uh, didn't approve of her going through with this," her wolfskin husband followed up with, placing a supporting hand on her back to keep her from actually falling. "But she's really persuasive, and she promised all sorts of cool treasures when we got to wherever it is we're going! Makes up for leaving all the other treasures behind, I'd say."
Cradling his head in one hand, Laslow gave a long sigh, approaching his pregnant friend as an attempt to try and get her to rethink what she was doing. "Selena, you're in no shape to be doing this, heading back into our reality and what we'd left behind. If it wasn't a 'need to go now' matter, we would certainly wait for you to be ready for the journey, but there's no more time for me to waste around here, and you're not going to make it in this condition."
"I'll make it just fine, thank you very much." She ignored whatever other reasons he attempted to give her right then, pushing past him (with Keaton always one step right behind her, like a guard dog) and heading towards the other person she had conflict with. "Say, aren't you missing some people here for the journey? Can't bear to bring them with?"
Odin tensed up, thinking about how if Selena was insistent on coming, then he could definitely have brought Elise and Ophelia along with no problems. "I couldn't pull Elise from everything she has here, and there was no way I'd bring my daughter along without her. Them staying in Nohr is best, kind of like how it would be best for you, too."
"Gawds, it's almost like you guys forget how strong I am. I can handle doing a little universe-jumping while like this, I promise!" She quickly turned her attention to the only others there that she hadn't yet talked to, walking towards them at the same time that Laslow was coming to join them, a fact she frowned at. "Can't you let me talk to the only other ladies on this trip without you hovering there, Inigo?"
"Pardon me wanting to be with my family, Severa." The two shared a glare amongst them, while the "family" mentioned both looked on in awe, the young girl present eventually going to cling to her father's legs, while the other woman mentally processed what she'd heard.
"I thought when Las—er, Inigo? said that the names you all went by were fakes, he was just joking around!" Felicia admitted, cupping her cheeks in her hands at the excitement hearing the opposite's confirmation had given her. "This is so interesting! What comes next for all of us, do you think?"
"What comes next," Selena snapped, breaking her glare with Laslow to shoot Felicia a dirty look instead, "is us leaving this place and getting back to where we belong. And when I say 'us,' I am definitely included in that, got it?"
"I must ask you to not speak so harshly to my wife, unless you want me to be equally as rude right back at you, my friend." He was getting glared at once more, except this time by Selena and Keaton both, which led him to sigh in defeat. "No, you know what, I refuse to stain these last moments of ours in Nohr with a fight like this. You can come along, I suppose, but if anything happens we will not hesitate on leaving you behind."
Watching the two of them continuing to bicker brought memories of how they'd used to do that all the time back when they were their old selves, and it brought a faint smile to Odin's face. They were effortlessly slipping back into the people their old names belonged to, and he knew that he needed to work on making that change as well. "From this moment on, the hero known as Odin Dark exists no longer," he told himself, carefully removing the bangle that had been attached to his head for as long as he'd been living under that name, "and the hero known as Owain exists once more!"
With the bangle in his hands, he took a few deep breaths to ready himself for what he was about to do, before tossing it out into the field ahead of him, letting it disappear into the tall grass. He'd just taken the largest steps towards going back to what he once had, now all he needed to do was really go home. As he was about to suggest getting a move on to the others, all of whom were still involved in the argument to some degree, he could have sworn he heard the clopping of hooves against the ground, but he figured it was his mind playing tricks on him. There was no denying what he heard next, as the hoof-noises began to get louder. "Odin, what do you think you're doing?" he heard Elise call out, and all sense of having collected himself in regards to his actions flew far, far away.
He spun on one foot, facing the direction her voice came from as she came into view, riding on the back of a white horse laden with filled saddlebags while Ophelia was carefully attached to her chest through the use of a precisely-tied piece of fabric. "Elise! What brings you out here at this time of morning?" he asked her, trying to hide his own bags behind him.
"I came out here because I saw you'd chosen to leave without a proper farewell. I knew that Laslow means the world to you, but to pick him over me?" She feigned crying for a moment, before giving a sweeping motion with one hand to the bags on her horse. "So, naturally, I decided to do the same as you. Departing with no farewells hurts, but if you thought you could do it, so can I!"
"They'll send search parties after you, Elise. You can't drop everything and abandon things, it just won't work!" Seeing her there was making his heart flutter, a lovely reminder that she cared about him more than he'd ever realized, but at the same time, the headache of what kind of nightmare her leaving would result in was starting to form. "You have to go back to the palace, go back without me—"
"If I go home, you're coming with me, Odin." Puffing her cheeks out at his stubborn behavior, she moved her horse a bit closer to where he was standing. "I need you there by my side, and so does our Ophelia. We can't live without you here, but I get it, you want to go and do…whatever your friends are doing." She looked past him, watching the still-going argument between the others for a few moments before focusing on him once more. "Just accept it, we're coming with you."
He swayed where he stood, arguing with himself on how to react to her insistence. On one hand, he knew that letting her come would do nothing but make her family, her retainers, and everyone who so much as cared about the youngest princess of Nohr worry endlessly about their angel who'd disappeared into nothingness. But on the other hand, bringing her along meant that she and Ophelia would get to see his homeland and know the real him, the one that had been hidden away for so long.
"If you come along," he finally said, running a hand through his hair, "you've got to understand that you might find some things out about the man you married that may not match up to what you've always believed."
Her cheeks deflating, Elise's lips puckered up as she thought for a split second about what she was supposed to do then. "Sounds good to me, I guess. I mean, what kind of secrets have you been keeping from me, Odin?"
That question was answered by someone else before he could do it himself. "Hey, Owain, we're just about to head out, so you can stop chatting whenever you want for us to get on our way. It's a long way back, as I'm sure you've figured."
"What was that name Laslow called you right then?" Curious, Elise rode her horse right up to her husband's side, but he didn't answer her, only looking at her with a heavy expression. "That wasn't your name, and I know he wouldn't call you a nickname, would he?"
"The name you've known me by for as long as I've been gracing your presence is more of a nickname than the one he's called me," he unsteadily replied, sighing when she looked more confused than shocked or hurt. "The man you've known by the name of Odin Dark never truly existed, he was merely a guise that is no more."
"And so you're…someone else?" The shock in Elise's voice was enough to make him regret having gotten her mixed up in this to begin with. "I-I mean, I'll love you regardless, but if you're not the man you said you were, who are you?"
After being called for again by his friend, this time with more impatience in his voice, Owain raised one finger to his wife, while he tried to think of how to explain everything. "As we walk, I'll tell you the whole story," he started, before turning to finally head back towards where the others were. "That is, if you're still interested in coming with, after learning that small fact."
"I just said I'll love you regardless of who you really are." Elise started her horse to follow his footsteps, the crunching of the grass underneath its hooves covering the mumblings of the man walking before her. When they caught up with everyone, she gave a small wave to the people all staring moderately slack-jawed at her, her eyes shifting between them until she eventually landed back on her husband. "Well, this is quite the group that's gathered here! This will be fun, won't it?"
"Yes, it will be fun." Only replying to make her giggle happily, her seeing this as a lesson and a new adventure, Owain looked to his friends, both of whom were now looking back at him with shock in their eyes. "Sorry, I didn't know she was going to tag along like this. Looks like this group got two more people bigger, isn't that right, Inigo?"
"I'd say." Pausing for a second, Inigo then added, "But at least it's only two more people right now. Unless a certain someone decides she's going to fall over and birth that child at any moment, that is." He went to playfully punch at the woman beside her, but her husband stepped in and intercepted the hand, grabbing it and digging his claws into the skin of the fist, making the would-be attacker wince in pain.
"Hey now, no need to be making fun of or trying to hit my wife!" Keaton's voice was unamused, although he was hearing grumbles behind him along the lines of "I can handle a punch on my own, thank you very much." He held onto Inigo's hand for a few moments, before letting go of it and protectively moving to basically draping his whole body over his wife's. "I've got to protect Se…lera? Selevera? Er, whatever it is her name is! She's my greatest treasure, first her and then our perfect little baby inside her!"
She didn't push him off, although judging by the quickly-forming look of disgust on her face, it was clear she didn't enjoy him treating her that way at all. "The name is Severa, first of all, and secondly neither I nor our baby need your protection right now! If Inigo wants to pick fights, I can beat him down the same now as I could always."
"I'm just trying to show I care, heh," he told her, getting off of her and running a claw or two through her long pigtails to try and collect any hair for treasuring purposes. "I'll get that new name of yours down in time, promise."
"I thought we were supposed to be heading out," Felicia interrupted, covering her mouth when she had glares and stares of various displeasures shot in her direction. "I'm so sorry, I just wanted to remind everyone we were supposed to be doing that, but I guess…maybe I shouldn't have. You all continue on with the talking!"
"No Mommy, you can't be like that," Soleil said, tugging at her mom's hand to try and move her to more action. "Get louder! Scarier! Tell them it's time to go!"
Nodding at her daughter's idea, Felicia took in a deep breath and yelled, "Let's get out of here right now before it gets to be too much lighter out!" She then looked to Soleil to make sure she'd made her proud, and the way the little girl's face was beaming at her mother was enough to give her that assurance.
However, her words didn't do much to get anyone ready to get moving, and so the sun was starting to creep higher into the sky before they really did start walking, very little conversation happening during the beginning of the journey. That was in part due to the fact that they'd quite nearly gotten discovered by some guards doing a sweep of the area, but also in part because of all the arguing that had taken place there at the meeting spot. The only person willing to talk to anyone was Elise, still trying to wrap her head around everything that was currently happening, but she wasn't getting answers from anyone when she asked even the simplest of questions.
By the time the noon sun was shining above them, she was finally given the chance to get a conversation going with her husband, but the timing had the unfortunate consequence of being overshadowed by the whining child she still had attached to her chest. "Why don't you find a way to calm her so we can talk properly?" he asked, keeping pace alongside the horse that Elise was still riding. "Of course, calming Ophelia might come as a challenge with you on horseback, but you can find a way, I'm sure."
"If I get off the horse, who's going to be able to make sure my belongings make it with us?" She was clearly worried about losing the horse and the items in its saddlebags, making her ready to just have to talk while listening to her daughter cry. "It's okay, she'll eventually figure out a way to calm herself down, I know she will."
Overhearing the dilemma of needing the horse to still be led in the right direction, Keaton's ears twitched. "I think I've got an idea if you're looking for one," he offered, gesturing towards his wife as she struggled to keep up with them, huffing as she was out of breath. "I'm sure Sevena would like to get up on that horse and not have to keep walking!"
"I said my name is Severa, you dumb wolf," she snapped, her tiredness not enough to keep her from being mean. "But if we're offering up the horse, I'd be down for that. Maybe I should have listened and not come along, didn't think it would be this much walking!"
"Hey, can we stop for a minute to make the switch then?" Seeing that his own wife was ready and willing to jump off the horse to help Severa out, Owain called out to Inigo, who had made quite a lead on them. "Inigo, are you listening? Can we stop?"
Out front, he couldn't hear a word of what was happening behind him, but Soleil, up on his shoulders, certainly could. She turned to look back at everyone slowing down, then grabbed a handful of her dad's hair to get his attention. "Daddy, everyone's not following no more, we should stop too," she said, as he leaned up to see what she needed. "I don't wanna lose them, okay?"
"Sure thing, my little ray of sunshine," he replied, ceasing forward progress—only for Felicia, not realizing he'd stopped moving, to run straight into him. As they laughed the mishap off, the switch of who was on the horse went off relatively well, not taking too long thanks to the fact that, at one point or another in her life, Severa had had some sort of horse-riding experience. The one and only issue with getting her on the horse's back was, naturally, the result of her physical state, and it took Keaton transforming into his beast form to act as a stepping stool for her to use for her to get up there, but once she was seated their journey was back on track.
Once Elise had gotten Ophelia to calm down, the baby falling back asleep in the makeshift carrier she was being held in once more, she tried to stir up that conversation again. "I want to ask more things about what's happening here," she explained, pressing her shoulder up against Owain's arm to try and be more convincing. "Like, why you lied to me about who you were for such a long time and all that, and why we're all just kind of leaving like we are right now, and why you were going to leave me."
"It's a rather complicated story, and while we still have hours before we'll be back where we belong, maybe now isn't the time to tell you everything." He wrapped his arm around her and held her close, taking in the smell of her hair and how familiar of a scent it was to him. While she pouted and protested the refusal, he continued resting his face on her head, waiting for her to stop to give him time to explain his reasoning. "I would rather not explain this more than once, and something tells me that some day in the future, our darling Ophelia will be given reason to ask about this very same story. While it is a noble tale of adventure and sacrifice, I don't know if spinning it more than once is something I can do."
"But Od—Owain, I need to know these things about the man I married!" Still pouting, Elise knocked her head back so that his face was pushed away from it. "Will you just tell me now, pretty please?"
"Well, when you ask like that…" He coughed, clearing his throat for what was to come, before starting speaking in a dramatic fashion. "Once upon a time, there existed a land known as Ylisse."
"Isn't that place only in myths?" Restoring how her head had been so he could prop his on hers once more while they walked, she took glee in hearing his answer that it was, in fact, not simply a mythical land. "Is that where we're headed? Oh goodness, we're going to a place that's got a name just like mine!"
"And perhaps that's something that attracted me to you, my sweet," he said, kissing the top of her head a few times. "But as a member of the Ylissean royal family, maybe my heart knew to go after someone else of royal status, her name's similarity to the country's be damned." The gasp she gave at that revelation hurt his ears, not because of the shrill tone held within it but rather because she shouldn't have had to be so surprised at that news. It should have been something he'd told her sooner, not years after their first meeting. "Heh, it seems that comes as quite a shock to you!"
She slowly nodded, taking great care not to bump his head off hers again. "It sure does! I never would have, in a million years, guessed that the dark mage love of my life would be hiding something so giant from me! How are you 'royalty' though, if you don't mind me asking that right now?"
"That dearest mother of mine I often compare you to? She was the princess of Ylisse in its brighter days, making me a distant claim to the ruling seat. By all means, it's completely possible that when we arrive they'll be calling for me to take the throne!" He laughed, her giggles falling alongside, making their conversation sound more like a casual talk between young lovers, not a story of hidden pasts between a married couple. "Alas, I'm sure my cousin Lucina still has things under control, knowing her."
"You'll have to let me meet this cousin of yours when we get there! Do you think she'll be impressed that you married a princess of another land?" Elise's eyes were shining with excitement as she asked, waiting with baited breath for the answer.
"She might, or she might find us both delusional in that announcement. Not quite sure with her, honestly." His laugh that time was less from finding the situation humorous and more from the thought of his cousin taking one look at the little family he'd put together and disbelieving it completely. "But you and her will get to know each other in time. Just like you'll get to know all my old friends, too!"
Elise was more than willing to hear about each and every friend her husband had back in Ylisse, and the conversation was more than enough to kill time on their walk. The other couples were talking as well, sometimes shouting back and forth between each other, making trying to listen to anything but their active conversation a struggle. This carried on deep into the afternoon, when they reached a bare canyon that none of the Nohrian natives had ever known existed up to that point.
"This is the place, where we jump out of this world and back into our own," Inigo explained, pressing his hand against part of the canyon wall and letting it flux in and out of existence for a moment, crumbling into nothing but a void. "Carefully now, we all need to get through as fast as we can before something goes awry from so many of us crossing over."
"I don't recall this being where we came in last time," Severa snapped, eyeing the growing portal with suspicion. "Weren't we somewhere more open and closer to civilization? Are you sure this is where we want to be?"
Felicia, gearing herself to snap at the woman for questioning her husband's authority once again, got one syllable out before a hand covered her mouth, Inigo hushing her. "Why yes, I'm quite positive this is where we're supposed to be right now. I've been planning this journey for a lot longer than you realize, Severa, and those plans meant a lot of figuring out the exact point where we need to jump through to catch back up with our timeline, as if we'd never left it. There's one small problem with doing so, of course, but we'll work around that as needed."
"Wait, a problem?" Owain asked, looking down at Elise as she looked back up at him with worry. "You didn't mention a problem before."
"It's nothing serious, and we'll work around if it comes up." He was approaching the portal now, Soleil still on his shoulders and giggling madly in excitement. "Now let's hope that we don't get split up, we don't get maimed, and most importantly, we don't find ourselves with families we abandoned to get here." With those words, he stepped into the portal, him and Soleil both disappearing in seconds with Felicia right behind, begging not to be left alone.
"We came this far, there's no point in not keeping going," Keaton reasoned, while Severa looked at him with disgust. "Hey, they told you not to come. Now that you're here, we've got to just step through and live our lives over there, yeah?" She replied by kicking the horse in its side, sending it charging towards the portal. It took him a moment to realize she was barreling forward, but once he did he was following her as fast as he could.
That left only Owain and Elise standing there, still looking at each other. "I'm ready when you are, to meet with your cousin and see your old life," she quietly said, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it. "I'm sure Ophelia is too. Are you ready?"
He squeezed her hand right back, sighing contently as he did. "As ready as I'll ever be. Shall I lead the way?" She nodded and he leaned in to kiss her one last time, in case anything went wrong, before taking those steps towards the flickering portal in the canyon wall. Stepping through it was like walking into nothing, a feeling he'd never quite felt before, making him worry that this wasn't like getting to Nohr in the first place. Maybe going home to where he'd always belonged was a different kind of feeling.
Still, Inigo's parting words ran through his mind in those moments, and he spent the travel time trying to decipher what they had meant. He was the only one with a family he'd abandoned, wasn't he? So what did his friend mean by—oh.
On the other side, the part of Ylisse's landscape they'd landed in looked an awful lot like where they'd just left in Nohr, to the point that the first thing they heard when stepping back onto solid ground was a complaint. "Are you telling me that we just went through that for nothing?" Severa loudly asked, attempting to swing one of her legs over the horse so that she could get off of it. "We're clearly not back home, this was all pointless, think about what kind of damage that could have done to my baby!"
"You aren't stopping to smell the difference in the scenery then, quite obviously." Taking a big breath in with dramatic fashion, Inigo let the air linger inside him for a few moments before exhaling equally as dramatically. "We're home, there's nothing quite like the air in Ylisse for a weary traveler's body. Come, let's continue on."
Still atop her father's shoulders, Soleil copied him with the breathing in, laughing once she'd done it several times. "It's different!" she said between her bouts of laughter, kicking at her father while she did. "We're somewhere new now!"
"Okay, didn't need your little brat telling me that, but whatever." Ceasing trying to get off of the horse, Severa instead started leading it away from where they'd all landed. "Now we've just got to find our way to wherever we're going, and hope that no one missed us too much while we were gone. As if anyone would have, though."
As he stood behind them, looking around at the dry area of the country they'd returned to, Owain felt something course through the hand that was still clutching Elise's, something he'd long since forgotten was a trait he had. "Now that we're back here, I think I'll be retiring the tomes of my alter ego and taking up swordplay once more," he told himself, under his breath so that no one would hear him. "My sword hand seems to have missed being home more than I have."
"I know you're talking to yourself," Elise teased, brushing up against him, "but I'm totally not trying to listen to you. Whatever you're saying's got to be important and I don't want to interrupt your conversation."
"Oh, it's no matter if you hear or not, my love! I was merely talking about my preferred form of fighting and how I might go back to it, since I am no longer keeping up the persona of a dark mage." He brushed right back up against her, before realizing that their cute banter was causing them to fall behind the rest of the group. "We can continue discussing this once we're at our destination, wherever that might be."
She nodded, taking a few quick steps forward to inspire him into moving as well. They were able to catch back up in no time, although when their fast footsteps were able to be heard by the others, they caught someone there by surprise. Stumbling a few steps and nearly wiping herself out, Felicia clutched her chest when she realized the people that had startled her weren't enemies but rather still travel companions. "I got really scared we were going to get ambushed, being strangers appearing from thin air! Having it be you two is a relief, but at the same time, it still scared me!"
"Boo hoo, so they came up on us fast. No need to be overdramatic." Ignoring the fact that she was the most overdramatic person present, Severa silenced Felicia with her sharp words and brought the conversation to a new point. "Now then, it's not like we've kept in contact with anyone here in Ylisse since we left. Where, exactly, where are we going to be staying? I'm not down for actively living the life of a roaming mercenary right now, if that's what you've got planned for us."
Her eyes were looking up at the man helming the group, and while Inigo knew he was being looked to for answers, he didn't give them right away. She went to pester him further, but Keaton hushed her, putting his hand on her leg as he walked beside her. "Give the man some time, will you? He's probably got something planned, but we weren't exactly supposed to come along, so maybe he's got to come up with something for us?"
"Or maybe he's never had a plan and he didn't expect this to work!" Throwing his hand off of her, Severa glared down at her husband for a moment before going back to glaring at Inigo's back. "I'm on to you, mister. Did you want us all to die? Is that it?"
"If I tell you what the plan is, you might not exactly believe me," he finally said, stopping walking and having everyone stop around him. "It requires some good luck, which I would say we overall have, and faith that people wouldn't be too offended about what we've done in the time since we left. The people we'd left behind here, if they accept us back the way we now are, we should be able to stay with them."
"We're going to piggyback off of friends? That's not the kind of life I want to live. We had so much better going for us in Nohr, so maybe we shouldn't have left!" Once again trying to get off the horse, and once again being stopped by Keaton placing his hand on her leg, Severa rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Seriously, you should have worked harder to stop me from being all about doing this with these dummies."
He pat her leg a couple of times as she spoke, before moving it up so that it was resting on the side of her stomach, which he also proceeded to pat. "You wanted to make a change that would be good for our baby, remember? I did say that home was best, but you threatened me and promised that if we came, we'd get all sorts of treasures and, well, I couldn't argue with that, not a bit!"
"Aw, they're so cute when he's trying to stop her from being mean," Elise whispered to Owain, only realizing once she'd said it that he wasn't paying any attention to her. She pursed her lips together and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say whatever it was he was dwelling on that wasn't her words.
"Our friends wouldn't get offended that we'd left, they knew we wanted adventure and to find what was best for us." Letting go of his wife's hand, only confusing her further, Owain took a step closer to Inigo and raised his eyebrows at him. "What are you getting at when you keep talking about problems and people needing to accept us back? We're returning as heroes of another land's war, that's enough to make anyone want us back!"
Judging by the way Inigo grit his teeth as Owain was speaking, his explanation wasn't going to be a pretty one. "You see, my friend," he started, before freezing and shaking his head. "No, now is not the time or the place to discuss it. When we find someone we know, their reaction should be enough of a reminder to you. Odd how I remember what we all had here clearly while neither of you seem to." And with that, he was turning and walking once more, everyone following him a bit more reluctantly than before.
Owain didn't move again until Elise was taking his hand once more. "What do you think he's being so weird about?" she asked, hoping that maybe her brilliant husband had come up with some idea as to what was going on.
"I…think before we left Ylisse for greener pastures, things here weren't as simple as I remember them," he admitted, staring off into the wide open space surrounding them. "But no fear, whenever we get to the fated location, we'll get answers, I'm sure of it." Something inside him told him that the answers they'd get wouldn't be as great of ones as they were wanting, but he ignored that to allow himself to remain happy with the decision to come home. He had Elise and Ophelia there with him, how bad could things ultimately get? The worst that would happen would be a scolding from his cousin, at most, but even then she would have to be happy for their return.
If Lucina had been the first person they knew that they saw, maybe that scenario would have been the one to play out. But the first set of familiar eyes that lay on them, some many hours after their entrance back into Ylisse, was not one with a friendly agenda regarding them—a fact they found out when they finally had to stop for the night, in some small village the locals all said was still an hour out from the capitol. Everyone was exhausted as they made their approach to the village, so upon finding out that news they had made the decision to put off getting to their intended destination for a little bit longer.
The inn in the village was cramped as it was, and with the appearance of eight people, two of whom were children and one of which was a heavily pregnant woman, they were going to be stuck sharing the space for half as many people with nothing that could be done about it. The innkeeper made sure to tell them that, if there were more beds to be given, they could get more, but with how many other people were staying there at present, there would only be the two beds to split between everyone. It wasn't a great situation and no one was happy about it, but the choice was to either stay and find a way to deal, or to keep heading on down the path for another hour.
Due to overwhelming complaints, staying was the choice they'd decided upon, even if it meant there'd be sleeping on the floor for some people. After scoping out what little space they had to share, placing most of their bags on the beds to show they were claimed (the rest of the bags were Elise's, and therefore still on the horse), they knew that they needed to find somewhere to eat, and the innkeeper had given them directions to a café located nearby in the village. But before they were able to leave, a woman stopped them, standing in the doorway to the sleeping area with her hands cupped around her mouth to be able to call for them better. "Hello, you big group!" she yelled, catching the attention of all six of the adults present. "I saw that you were going to be sleeping on the floor, and I can't bear to see anyone sleeping in conditions like that, so I was…"
Her next words certainly were going to be an offer to give her own bed up, or at least share her bed with someone present, but she trailed off as she looked at the people she was talking to. Her eyes scanning them all, widening as she went from person to person, she moved her hands from her face to clasped in front of her chest, as if she was trying to cover her heart. "Oh, oh gods, I didn't realize…it's you guys! You're back!"
Confused as to who this lady was, not recognizing her with her gleeful smile and her curly white pigtails, Owain looked down to Severa, who was quickly getting agitated that she was holding them up from getting to eat, before looking past her to Inigo. He seemed to be watching her hands intently, as she fiddled with something on one of them, before he raised his own left hand and admired the ring he proudly wore on his finger, just to look at her now doing the same with her own. "My, my, I wondered how long it would take for one of us to run into one of you," he said, stepping forward while the strange woman came closer to him as well. "My guess was not until we got back to Ylisstol, but it seems I was wrong."
"I thought you all had died, disappearing without a word," the woman replied, still fidgeting a bit, most especially with her own ring. "We…we all worried so much about you all since you left, and now you're just, like, back on your own! A little, uh, different than when you left, but still! What gives?"
"Mommy, who's that lady that's talking to Daddy?" Soleil timidly asked, tugging at her mother's hand to try and pull her closer to where Inigo had stepped forward. "I don't like her, nope not a bit!"
"Did she just call you…?" The strange woman lowered her head, her hand dropping back to her side, while Inigo froze in place, looking back to his wife and daughter with a glance before focusing on her once more. "No, I think I get it. You always wanted to get to be with other women at the same time, and that's what you did."
He shook his head, reaching for her shoulder to grab but getting her jerking away at the last moment. "Cynthia, listen, what's happened is quite a long story that I am more than willing to tell you, if you'll just understand that, until recently, I had no recollection of what there was between you and I." She gasped, him flinching at the sound, but he continued on anyway. "It will be difficult for you to accept, I'm aware, but if you'll listen to this heroic tale we have to share…"
"Do I want to listen to you, that's the question." Cynthia, blinking back a couple of tears at the turn of events, looked to the rest of the group that she'd just been offering a gesture of kindness towards. "And will their spouses want to listen to them?" she asked, motioning towards Owain and Severa; when he saw her hand point at him, he grabbed Elise a bit tighter, while Severa's reaction had been to turn her head and give a loud "hmph," causing Keaton to step in front of her to block her from the stranger's view.
"The answer to your first question is yes, and to the second, I'm unsure. We'll cross that bridge, no matter how unsteady, when we get to it. For now, though, care to join us for a meal where we explain what went wrong?" He wasn't expecting her to be so willing, especially not when she was already driven to tears with what little she now knew, but for her to accept the offer was a surprise. That offer meant, of course, that their group was up to nine as they went down to the café for a well-deserved meal, meaning that she got to sit surrounded by faces both new and old, listening to the story of the past many years of their lives, from the moment three of them left Ylisse to the moment the eight showed up at the inn that night.
"I-I don't understand any of this," she said once the meat of the story had been delivered, while everyone was still eating around her as she picked at the small serving of house-made stew she'd been given. "Why did you just leave and have everything about here stripped from you? Why did you leave me behind, Inigo? I don't get it!"
He had the decency to finish eating whatever was in his mouth before he answered her, but in the time it took him to chew and swallow, Felicia had found it within herself to say something to her husband's other wife. "I don't think he meant to leave you behind, not if how I know him means anything. Sure, he's always been about finding other women, but to marry two of us? It doesn't make sense."
"It wasn't like I had intended to take on two very precious wives, although now that we're all together, maybe we can make something of thi—ow!" He was struck by both of them at the end of his sentence, Soleil laughing at the sight of her father recoiling in pain from being smacked. "Now, now, such violence in front of my daughter will not be tolerated!"
"And you went and had a baby with someone who wasn't me." Crossing her arms in front of her, Cynthia looked at Soleil with saddened eyes, while the girl still was laughing. "Can you imagine what she'd be like if she were my baby, Inigo? She'd be perfect!"
"Is that implying that she's not perfect now? Because…well I mean, from what I've learned about you, you're a great flyer and I'm just someone's old maid, so maybe you are right." At the words that came out of her own mouth, Felicia's eyes went wide and she gasped, covering her mouth and cursing herself mentally for saying what she had. "No, I cannot say such mean things about myself in front of my child! Soleil, Mommy isn't saying that this other woman would be a better mom for you, I promise!"
The girl nodded, looking from her mother to the new woman a few times before giving her dad a big smile. "Daddy, I think I like her like a mommy already! Can we keep her?"
"By all means, if Cynthia wants to be part of the family, I wouldn't complain about having two wives around." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her flinch back at the sound of the offer, before relaxing. "Come on now, Cynthia. When we got married, you had said you'd be okay with me flirting with new women on occasion. What's a second wife in that situation, hm? Allowed or not allowed?"
She bit her lip as she locked eyes with Felicia, the pink-haired intruder on her romantic life only looking guilty through the exchange. "I wouldn't say it's allowed, but what happened to you guys kind of messed everything up, so…if they're here and they're real, I can't be like 'no, you've gotta leave them to be with me again,' because that's not cool. You've got a kid with her and I'm going to respect that." Pushing her chair back from the table with her feet, she stood up and took a few steps back from everyone else. "I'm going to take a walk before I decide anything else, though."
As she was leaving the café, Inigo jumping from his chair to chase her down and Felicia getting up to follow him so that the three of them could discuss their lives a bit together if the situation arose, Owain leaned back in his own chair, looking over at Elise as he did. "Say, my love, what are the odds that he had a wife here as well? How could we have forgotten such a crucial detail in his life during our time away?"
"I don't know, but it makes me a bit uneasy to know what you'd tossed aside to come to Nohr," she replied, not returning his eye contact as her eyes were focused solely on the baby she had sitting in her lap. "Please tell me, you don't think you've got something like that happening as well, do you? Ophelia and I…we wouldn't be as prepared for sharing you with someone else…"
"I swear, to the best of my knowledge, I never married anyone before I married you!" His proclamation was honest, but the clarification that it was merely to the best of his knowledge was unsettling at best. He leaned back forward in his seat, now looking down at his daughter as she stared out at the world around her; he really hoped that what he'd just said was true and that she wasn't going to be growing up while having to share her dad with another family entirely.
That was something Elise picked up on, the uncertainty in his voice as he'd spoken. "But he didn't remember he'd married anyone either, and when he did, like he just told us here tonight, he felt compelled to come back home. What made you want to come back? Was it like what made him?" She was bouncing Ophelia as she spoke, working out her mixed feelings through making her baby content. "Or was it just wanting to come home?"
"It was…" He closed his eyes and rubbed at the sides of his face in thought, trying to think of the right answer to give. "If we're discounting my brotherhood with Inigo, I would have to say that what drove me to come back would have been my cousin. And since we're headed to the capitol, something tells me my reuniting moment with her is almost upon us."
"That's reassuring, at least," Elise said after a second or two of her own thoughts. "I'm still excited to get to meet her, but with what we've learned tonight about Laslow or Inigo or whatever his name is, I'm scared at the same time that seeing her will bring something else up with it."
"It won't, my sweet, it just won't." Maybe, hopefully, she wouldn't have noticed that he was crossing his fingers as he talked, because he honestly wasn't sure if he was speaking the truth to her anymore.
A/N: As you can tell, reading this fic requires accepting a little bit of canon-breaking, on both sides of the Awakening/Fates thing. On the Awakening side, presuming that these kids are some variant of the Future Past kids, we have to accept that the world became somewhat...normal again after their victories, and that the kids got married to one another. On the Fates side, we have to accept no deeprealms for tossing babies-or, actually, no babies being born in the time of the plot of the games. I'm also a bit...squeamish about Elise's age in canon, hence why her having a child takes place so far after the games' plot.
Oh, and did I mention that there's a part two to all this?