The last rays of daylight shone through the windows, bathing the interior of the royal palace in an orange glow. Outside it was possible to see distant figures scurrying to and fro on the castle grounds, either trying to attend to some last-minute task before night fell completely or wearily making their way inside. In the distance one could hear Frederick running through his mandatory daily drills with the Shepherds who had managed to show up late, making Robin incredibly glad that he had managed to get them done with earlier.
He ambled slowly down a hall in the residential wing of the palace. His post as the personal tactician to the royal family granted him a modest set of private chambers, with a bedroom and a small living area. A few of the other Shepherds had managed to finagle their way into similar arrangements in the few months since Gangrel's defeat, Miriel by expressing her need for privacy in research and Maribelle by insisting that staying in a soldier's barracks was something that simply Was Not Done by ladies of her station, but a surprising amount of them seemed content with the facilities of the barracks. It certainly wasn't a lack of space that motivated them; the Shepherds were few in number and the number of rooms in the palace bordered on the absurd.
As he approached his quarters he was feeling a bit ill at ease. He had every reason to be happy, and still was on another level, because just the other day he had asked Tharja to be his wife, and she had agreed with a level of enthusiasm that bordered on delirious. The actual wedding wasn't going to be held for a while because Chrom was concerned about smoothing out any political ramifications, but they had announced it to the rest of the Shepherds today and everything had seemed to go well.
The thing that made him uncomfortable was the fact that she had disappeared for the past few hours. Were this any other person Robin probably wouldn't have even noticed, but ever since the engagement she had been so enthusiastic that she had literally been unable to let go of him during daylight hours. He had already gotten used to going through his daily routine with her clutching to his back in a vice-like grip, and truth be told he was almost missing it. To have her disappear like that almost certainly meant something had gone wrong. And when things went wrong for Tharja they tended to start going wrong for everybody else.
He opened the door to his chambers and stepped inside. He looked around and sighed wearily, and sat down in an available chair for a few minutes as it grew darker. He was about to get up and put away his coat when he heard a knock at his door. Opening the door again, he was initially relieved to see Tharja. His relief turned to confusion when he saw that she was carrying two heavy-looking bags.
She dropped the bags and reached up to kiss him before he could say anything. After she let go, he tried to regain some semblance of control over the situation.
"What's going on?" he asked. He had a number of questions he would have liked to ask about the situation, and felt that this one encapsulated them all best.
Tharja picked up her bags again. "What do you think? You said we were getting married." She held the bags up. "Married couples live together. I went and got my things."
"I didn't-" Robin began, and then stopped as something else occurred to him. "Everything you have is in those two bags?" he asked.
"No. All of my material for curses is still in a broom closet by the storerooms. You'd be surprised how often I have to refill on garlic," Tharja said. She tried to head past him into the room, but he put out his arm to bar her entry.
"What's wrong?" she asked, confused.
"Tharja, we're not married yet," Robin said. "I love you, but it just isn't practical. Every noble besides Chrom and Lissa is already suspicious of me for being found on the side of the road and made into Chrom's tactician. If I start living with a woman out of wedlock, that's going to be all the offense they need to demand that Chrom pull me from the post."
"Do you honestly think Chrom would punish you for being with the woman you love?" Tharja said, smirking. "He hasn't married Sumia yet, but I know for a fact that when they're in the stables they-"
"Chrom wouldn't be the issue," said Robin quickly. "I just don't want to risk causing a scandal."
"What scandal would there be? We already live in the same building," Tharja said. "What's really the difference between living in the same palace and living in the same quarters?"
"Thick walls made of stone and wood," Robin said.
Tharja rolled one of her shoulders. "May I at least come in and sit down? I carried these bags all the way up from the barracks," she said.
Robin mentally went through the list of ways he knew Tharja might be able to magically coerce him into giving up once she was inside the room. Ultimately he dismissed them all because everything he could think of would have already caused him to greet her at the door like an eager puppy, making the debate moot. "Alright, just for a while," he said, letting her pass.
Tharja dropped her bags and sat down on the sofa in the living area. She laid backwards on it and lifted her legs in the air, laughing softly. Robin shut the door and went to sit in the chair opposite her, moving the stack of books it was holding onto the floor.
"Like I said, you can only stay for a few minutes," he said. Tharja laid her legs back down, then rolled to her side and looked at him coyly. It was the sort of look a spider might give a fly that was thinking that it might pull its leg free if it only struggles hard enough.
Trying to drive that image out of his mind, Robin reached over and tried to light the lantern as the darkness grew thicker. The lamp sputtered, low on fuel.
He momentarily wondered where he had left his extra bottle of oil. Tharja caught his eye.
"It's in the cupboard by the door, bottom shelf," she said. Robin didn't even reply, he just got out of his chair to get it. Revelations like that from her had long ago ceased to be surprising.
Sure enough, the bottle was right where she said it was. He pulled it out of the cupboard, surprised at its lightness, and refilled the lantern. Within a few minutes a warm glow had filled the room.
"I could have sworn that I had more than that left in the bottle," Robin said. "We'll be lucky to get a few minutes of light out of this."
"I think it makes it romantic," Tharja said. "And you want to send me back down to the barracks instead of bask in the glow with me." She got off the couch, and sat down on the cramped chair with him. In practice this meant she was sitting on top of him, which was a sensation he did not dislike at all, but was rather counterproductive towards his current purpose. "Just imagine," Tharja continued, "A man sending his wife to sleep in a communal quarters instead of sharing his life with hers. Why, what would you do if one of the other soldiers tried to ravish me?"
"I'd be more concerned if I thought somebody could try and ravish you without being reduced to a fine powder," Robin said as stoically as possible. "Besides, it's not like you sleep in the men's section."
"I saw Sully looking at me in a suspicious way once," said Tharja.
"It's not happening, Tharja. I'm sorry. I love you, but you can't start living here until we're married," Robin said.
She leaned backwards and stretched her arm around his shoulders. The smile she gave him still made him uncomfortable; it was not the smile of somebody accepting somebody else's judgement with good grace.
"I think you're just nervous," she said. "You're acting like somebody looking to embroil you in scandal couldn't find any way they liked. An unwed bride-to-be sharing a room with her future husband could cause scandal, as could an unwed bride-to-be living in a group barracks, as could the future Exalt providing a Plegian foreigner with her own private room in the palace. There's no clean way out of it, so we might as well take the one that makes us both happy."
Robin sighed. "You might have some point. Look, we can work out a better solution with Chrom in the morning. In the meantime, I think it's time for you to-"
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Tharja slid off of his lap in order to let him get up, and sat back down on the couch. Wondering who it could be, Robin walked over to the door and pulled it open, revealing the face of one of the castle's servants. He recognized him as the one who went around lighting all the lanterns inside the palace as night fell.
"Is something wrong?" Robin asked, looking around. None of the lanterns in the hall were lit, and a coat of clouds had covered the stars outside, making it almost impossible to see outside the radius of the small portable lantern carried by the servant.
"I'm terribly sorry, but it might be better to remain in your quarters tonight," he said. "We're suffering from an unexpected shortage of lantern oil, and people are liable to fall down the stairs in the darkness. I know people have enough trouble finding their way around this place in the daylight. If you must go out make sure to carry a source of light with you, whether lantern or candle or magic thingamajig."
Robin thought over the path from his room to the barracks and reflected that the path involved at least seven flights of stairs. This was a turn for the unexpected. He could feel Tharja's gaze boring into his back, and was sure that if he turned around he would see that same smile again, only wider.
"How did you run out of lantern oil?" Robin asked.
"We're not sure, the supply just unexpectedly vanished. Barrels and all. Investigations are planned as soon as it's light enough to see," the servant said. "Either way, just please be careful, and have a good night."
Robin closed the door and walked back over to his seat. He sat for a moment thinking, and looked over at Tharja.
"In a broom closet by the storerooms, huh?" he said.
"What might you be suggesting?" Tharja said innocently.
"It occurs to me that you were gone an awfully long time to just fetch two bags," Robin said.
"Well, I did take the time to check on my supplies," she said. "And while I was there I might have taken the time to examine the oil supplies."
"Tharja, you can't steal all of the palace's lantern oil," Robin said.
"I didn't steal it," Tharja said insistently. "I became complicit in them losing it. They're sure to find it in the morning once an illusion curse cast by a certain someone wears off." She lounged backwards on the couch again. "At any rate, it looks like I'm going to be forced to spend the night here. After all, you don't have any candles, and I didn't have the foresight to bring any magic thingamajigs with me. Oh dear me, what will everybody think of us in the morning? Why, there almost won't be any point in me returning to the barracks after that…"
"Look, just take my lantern," said Robin, holding it up. As if on cue, the light sputtered and died. His mind drifted back to the unusually light bottle of oil. It occurred to them that Tharja had remembered its position unusually quickly, even for her. He might have had good reason to hate this woman if he didn't love her so much.
In the darkness, he was almost sure that he could see her teeth as she grinned.