It had hit far too fast for anyone to stop it. The Fell Dragon made his move, and now Ylisse, as well as the rest of the world, was going to suffer. When the Exalt had been killed in battle, many lost all sense of hope. But the princess would have none of that. Lucina knew that giving up would be an insult to her parents' sacrifices. And so, Inigo, along with the other ten members of the Shepards followed Lucina and fought on against Grima's oppression. Fighting off Grima meant performing the Awakening Ritual, and that was no easy task. The Five Gemstones, items needed to perform the ritual, were spread out across Ylisse and would be difficult to locate and retrieve. Yet the group was set on relieving the world of the darkness, and would go to great lengths to succeed. That is how Inigo found himself stealthily scouting the hills just south of the Longfort. These scouting trips had proven to be a tedious affair, granting little to no success in the search for the Gemstones, but were the only way for the small band of heroes to acquire any knowledge of the land. The Risen were everywhere, meaning these scouting trips would have to be done in pairs.

"Watch it!"

Inigo dropped his train of thought and stopped just in time to avoid crashing into his scouting partner. Severa was looking right at him, scowling.

"Sorry" he whispered back.

"There's a whole muster of them down in that clearing. I bet Sable or Argent is down there."

She focused her attention on the cluster of Risen in the clearing below. She furrowed her brow and began to make notes in her mind. Inigo never knew what she could be thinking whenever she did this. But whatever it was she did, she always got detailed news back to the camp, and so he let her be. Strategy had never come naturally to the young hero, so he often drifted off into daydreams whenever Severa was concentrating. As the days went by in this gloomy world, Inigo had found himself watching Severa more and more often as she worked. She would work her hands through her long red hair as she thought, and sometimes she would get so concentrated she'd unknowingly start sucking on the ends of her hair, prompting Inigo to chuckle and get a blush out of her.

"We should go back to camp now. There's no way we can fight an army on our own."

Inigo nodded in response, trying to act like he hadn't been watching her that whole time, and got up quietly to start the long road back to camp.

Their treks through the woods would always be quiet affairs, so as not to alarm any Risen. Severa didn't seem to mind the quiet, she rarely spoke at all, and when she did, it was straight to the point. Inigo didn't mind that, in fact he liked how she could be so frank with everything, but he hated not being able to speak for long periods of time. After an hour of quietly following Severa through the thick woods, Inigo finally decided he would take a risk.

"Hey Severa, I…"

"Hush!" she stammered immediately.

"Look, there aren't any Risen in these parts, we've been through here a million times. I just wanted to talk." Although Inigo was whispering, he could tell Severa was uncomfortable with taking the risk of being found by Risen scouts. She looked about frantically as she walked. She kept quiet for a while, making Inigo unsure of what she could be thinking.

"Talk?" she asked meekly.

Inigo felt the heat rush to his cheeks so fast he had to turn away to make Severa wouldn't see him blush. That had not been the response Inigo expected. A simple dismissal was all he needed, but here she was, intrigued by the idea of idle chat. He composed himself as quickly as he could and looked up again, only to find the girl staring at him, confused. The silence was as it always was, pure and undisturbed, but Inigo found it to be deeper and more enveloping than ever just then. After months of living in fear, relying on his senses to survive, Inigo now found his senses dull and useless, as though the silence was sucking them away. Time passed, what felt like ages but must have been only seconds, before Severa blushed as well.

"Look," said Inigo, finally breaking the silence, "I've been feeling kinda lonely lately, what with none of us really talking to each other. Out here it makes sense, but even at the camp no one seems to want to talk. Even Lucina has kept mostly to herself. Owain is the only person I can talk to, and I don't know how much more of that I can take…"

She let out a soft giggle, like a cat that could not help but purr despite making every effort to stop it. Inigo didn't know what he wanted to achieve through this, but he felt better already to see Severa smile, even if she did everything she could to keep the smile down. The last smile Inigo had seen was his mother's as she kissed him goodbye before she left with Chrom to fight the Fell Dragon's forces. That was almost two years ago.

"Well, alright, but we must whisper, and we keep walking towards the camp. And if we hear anything, stop talking." she said.

"I can do that" he replied.

The only issue was he wasn't sure how to make idle chat with her. It was easy with someone like Owain, who could talk about anything at great length, but Severa was different. He didn't know how to talk to her. Something was stopping him from simply speaking his mind, as he would do with others. Perhaps he wanted to avoid making a fool of himself in front of someone who was so critical in his survival. That must have been it. He couldn't lose the respect of the person he spent most of his time with now.

Through all his thinking, Inigo lost track of time, and the silence had re-established itself. He did not notice this until Severa spoke to him.

"Well," she said "what do we talk about?"

Inigo was stunned. How was it that Severa had spoken first? How was it that she had moved to start the conversation?

"When did you last see your parents?"

Perhaps brought out by his last memory of his own mother, that thought had jumped spontaneously and was blurted out in such a fashion that it seemed almost natural.

"Oh" was all she said.

He couldn't help but feel terrible. Her voice, always so stern and strong, was nothing but a whimper.

"Alright," she added meekly, "I only know I last saw my mother the day Ylisstol fell. She flew to me before going to help the citizens evacuate. She must have known she wouldn't come back, but she said to hold on to her headdress for her, that she didn't want to lose it in battle. I guess she just wanted me to have something to help me remember her…"

The headdress were two small and simple pieces of metal molded into the shape of a feather, and delicately painted white, each attached by a small clip above one of Severa's ears. Although the pieces were small, and had faded somewhat with time, they gave her a subtle angelic appearance.

"I didn't mean to bring up bad memories, I'm sorry. I just couldn't think of anything to say…"

Inigo really did feel bad, worse than he thought he should. He hadn't offended her, yet she wasn't keeping her head held high as usual, and he was sure he had caught a glimpse of a tear rolling down her cheek as he followed her towards the camp.

"It's fine. I think I needed to talk a bit as well. It's getting dark; we should find someplace to camp out for the night."

Within a few minutes of walking, the pair had found a spot they had previously used before as a campsite, a small cavern nestled under a narrow waterfall. It wasn't perfectly hidden by any means, but it was as good a place as any, and the noise the water made easily covered up any sound the campers might make. In silence, the two set up some furs to sleep on and settled down quietly in the little cave. No fire was to be made, so they ate remaining dried meat from the previous day's hunt. Not another was uttered as the two settled into their own corners of the cave and lay down to rest. It was unlikely they would sleep much, but it was better than nothing.

It was sometime in the night when Inigo heard a sound over the gentle rush of water. A sniffle, and ever so delicate, a sob.