Given that Rekka no Ken (FE7) just turned ten, this seemed timely. Mostly set in the Smash Brethren 3 DLC, but there are mentions of others. I've always enjoyed trying to parse the player-character relationship, and Lyn's conversation with MU (me?) really made me smile.
Into the Outrealm
Robin knows, of course, how it ends. She has seen it, or she has seen part of it, or part of her has seen it. Robin remembers the feeling of the wind on Grima's back, the stench of rotting flesh, and the feeling of carving herself in two. She is not sure how or why she knows these things, when Grima still waits patiently beyond Origin Peak, but she knows better than anyone how fallible human memory is, and how easily manipulated.
To raise morale, and provide a few training excursions, and to waste time before the inevitable decision, Robin and Chrom march the company for the Outrealm, the gate to other worlds. Anna is silent as usual. She has interacted very little with the rest of the army, only in short phrases and attempted scams, but Robin has the feeling that there is much that she knows that she will never tell.
At the Gate two Annas share terse nods and the second Anna, the watchwoman, sends them tumbling into a different world. As they collect their bearings an old man steps forward, beseeching them for help. A family heirloom has been stolen.
I have been here before, Robin thinks, as they gather their wits and prepare for battle. This is a place called Talys. I have been here before.
Chrom pulls her aside and asks if that man is really the Hero-King Marth, and if that blade is really Falchion, and what in Naga's name is going on. Robin tells him that she does not know, but if what the man spoke was true then they are looking at the champions of yore, shadows of things that have already come to pass.
They march three times in defence of the Outrealm, three times in defence of Talys. The facsimile of Marth joins their cause to Tiki's great delight; he tells Robin in a quiet, soft voice unsuited to a saviour king that she reminds him of someone. She does not know who, but she has an idea.
They are taken to strange places: to new battlefields where heroes of lost bloodlines take the field, to fortresses glittering with gold, to villages devastated by Risen attacks. On an morning when morale is getting low they find themselves at a beach resort where, after a battle to clear the field, they spend the afternoon enjoying the sand and surf.
Robin loses herself in watching the lot of them, idly rummaging through her mental notes on the roster, wondering why Tharja (of all the soldiers!) was so popular in the Outrealms, when someone touches her on the shoulder. She turns; it is Chrom, a smile on his lips. He pulls her into the shade of a tree and surely, she thinks, when she is able to think at all, she is blessed to have met them.
The old man's voice draws them back to the Outrealm Gate and Robin finds herself musing on a theory she once had, that each world is connected by a gate, and that dragon laguz had been pulled through a gate as the catalyst of a great crisis in Elibian lore. Those things were regarded as fairy tales by most, but she had corroborating texts from men named Izuka and Canas, and the truth was still out there, somewhere.
The Gate spits them out in an underground temple. The sounds of fighting echo from upstairs; Robin rallies the troops and they prepare to march.
I know this place, Robin thinks, as they emerge to the upper chamber. I have been here before. Yes, this is the Dragon's Gate, on the Dread Isle. I had been there before, years and years ago. They called it Light, and it was the final chapter at the end of a long and gruesome story. But there are no dragons, only Einherjar – and Robin returns to her earlier thesis regarding Tellians and Elibians meeting in this place, mad dragons called by insane sorcerers.
Twice they march for the Dread Isle, twice it earns them new allies: Elincia, whose soft and noble heart draws her to Virion, and Eirika, whom Lissa idolizes like a sister. The third time they march it is a long and ugly battle, the Shepherds vastly outnumbered, but Robin has grown used to hopeless odds. With a whispered command, the army pulls into a tight formation, cavalry on the outside and mages on the inside, breaking through their enemies' hope of dividing and conquering. When it is done they set up tents on the stone floor, and while Libra and Lissa tend to the wounded, Chrom and Robin search for stray cards.
She finds Lyndis in a back chamber, and when the warrior is summoned from the Einherjar she takes a moment to get her bearings.
"So that's it," Lyn says finally, as she sheaths the Sol Katti and smooths her clothes. "I lost. It feels so unfair." She raises her eyes to meet Robin's; there is a spark of recognition. "Wait, what?! It can't be - Are you - No, that's impossible…" She looks down, red in the cheeks. "I'm sorry. It's just - you remind me of someone very dear to me."
There is a brief pause, and then Lyn breathes out, straightens her shoulders and steps closer. "Have you ever awoken in a strange place, uncertain of how you got there?"
Robin's heart leaps into her throat. "Yes," she whispers.
Lyn smiles, broadly. "I knew it! It happened three times to the woman I knew. This can't be pure coincidence - Unless, of course, all tacticians are known to collapse by the wayside." She takes Robin's hand in hers. "I am Lyn, of the Lorca tribe. Would you tell me more about yourself? Where were you born? Have you been to my world?"
"I can't remember." Robin can't help but smile.
"...What? You can't remember? Now I'm even more certain that you're the woman I know." Lyn drops Robin's hand, and instead takes her face in her hands. Robin meets grey-green eyes, the steely resolve of a woman who would do anything for a friend. "Look at me carefully, and really try to think back. We met on the Sacae plains. We fought with Eliwood and the others. ...Does none of this sound familiar?"
"Of course," Robin says. It is a happiness, a great happiness: she knows. "It was me all along."
Moisture collects in the corners of Lyn's eyes, and she and her tactician embrace for the first time in ten years. Something spills over. Soon Lyn is breathlessly asking her to come back to Sacae and Robin is laughing and trying to say that she can't, and someone coughs - they both turn to find Chrom, smiling the half-smile of someone who is doing their best to understand. Of course. There is unfinished business in Ylisse.
Lyn pledges her services to her tactician, and the company marches once again towards Valm. The Einherjar say little, preferring to march with the rearguard, but Lyn stays close to Robin, who is only too happy to remember what brought her to Ylisse in the first place: these things are all connected. I was here all along.
Waking up to the sound of a stranger's voice, and the faint melody of the winds across the plains; Robin knows, of course, how it began, and how it begins again, and how it begins again, and how it begins again.