A/N: There's a bit of canon divergence, primarily in the future. It's a mixture of following the CD plot and also diverging from it for the sake of drama, and I absolutely did not use the script for it like I did for the past. If you are worried that I got a few plot details wrong, well... don't. Mama knows what she's doing.
"Lucina!"
You feel the temple shake before you see why, but you already have a gut feeling. They've destroyed every corner of the rest of the world, including the whole of Ylisstol. Noire shrieks and Nah grabs your arm for a moment. "What the hell was that?" Kjelle shouts.
"Whataya think?" Brady retorts, grabbing his staff as though there is anything left to heal.
You look behind you for a moment. Naga has opened up some sort of portal that you can faintly see in the far distance, but you can't look for long lest you not see the Risen intrude, or Grima themselves. You face forward, terrified but playing the part of fearless leader- hair curled into a bun behind your neck, mask on tight, cold line on your face.
"How did they get here so fast?" Cynthia asks.
"The 'how' is not important," Laurent points out far too calmly. "What is important is that we avoid crossing paths with them lest they prevent our escape from this timeline."
You hear the temple rumble again, then they burst in, hearing stained glass windows break and seeing the faint shadows of Risen on the floor of the temple.
"Run!" you command in as deep a tone as you can manage, looking ahead.
Wisely, no one takes time to argue, and you feel their presence dissipate. "See you in a few years ago, big sis!" Cynthia calls, waving. You smile as you hear them give scattered farewells, and take just a second to look behind, hoping to see them one last time as they run off.
You see her through the grates over your eyes just in front of you and you nearly jump. She smirks, but her eyes are on fire.
"What are you doing?" you ask incredulously, maintaining as deep a voice as you can manage.
"What are you doing?" she retorts. "I'm not gonna leave you here!"
"I'm not gonna risk anyone get hurt," you respond, impatient. "This isn't up for discussion."
Severa draws her sword. "We can both fight them," she insists. "Both of us. A team. Isn't that how it's always been?"
You don't have an answer, looking at her, eyes pleading, desperate, because you can't lose anyone else. You can't risk stealing someone away from everyone else. You can't risk losing her.
"We need you," she insists, though her eyes are on the approaching Risen. "We can't do this without you. That's the bottom line."
"Look at me," you demand. She knows it's not a good idea, but she does. You offer a smile and take her hand, holding it to your chest. There's a lot you could say, but you don't have time to say anything more than "I'll be fine. Go on ahead."
She flushes, angry but affectionate. Exactly what you would expect from her. "Just don't get yourself killed," she says.
You smile and let her hand go. "I swear it," you say, deep tone gone, leaving the light, shaky voice of Lucina.
She lingers for just a moment, before waving farewell and turning away. You watch her leave before the Risen start to approach the room you're in. You realize that you will never see her in this timeline again, and there's so much you wish you had said, wish you had done, but you can't dwell on it as you reach for Falchion, staring the beasts down.
Besides, you'll see her soon.
You have to.
You try and believe it as you meet the nearest Risen with a sword and a smile.
They don't know who you are.
Fighting is second nature. As soon as you land, that's the first thing you do in the past timeline- you fight off a Risen while your aunt is cornered into a rock, eyes wide in mystified horror, as if she's stared into the devil's maw for the first time. You aren't sure what's so extraordinary about it, but as your Father stands there in unbridled awe, you realize the obvious- what's as familiar to you as the sword at your side is abnormal and unhealthy to him.
You beg him to help in as scratchy a voice as you can manage (which is to say, not very). He shakes off the stun like a night of bad sleep and works like he never had lost a step. After he does, you notice a pile of clothes you know belong to Risen with the foul smoke of their disintegration stinging your nose in a hatefully familiar way.
Perhaps you had underestimated him, but he still knows not what he will have to face.
You don't remember what brought you to fighting a batch of Risen on your own but you know that they're what brought you from the future to the past. Sure, the portal from Naga may have done so literally, but you had no time to grasp it until you saw your father and aunt- looking as old as you- standing in mortal terror of what's befallen them. You have never lived in a world where people never knew about Risen.
Fighting them is second nature to you- even with the mask clouding your vision. You cannot put yourself in the mindset where they are anything but exhausting, demoralizing routine… and here you are, in the past, fighting them off.
History has a way of repeating itself, and you hope that not to be true in this case.
The feeling of being alien strikes you when you finish and your father asks you a volley of personal questions, eyes curious and warm. It takes you everything not to break then and there, tell him who you are and how glad you are to see him, how much you fear for him, how much you miss him, but you manage to avoid them all.
The performance has started.
"I'm not here to talk about me. This world teeters at the brink of a horrible calamity. What you saw tonight was but a prelude. You have been warned."
Marth walks away swiftly after that, because if he doesn't, Lucina will stay, and this is not her time or place. As you do, tears crawling out of your eyes against your will, you reflect on how he had no clue- of the future, of the Risen, of Grima. You hate leaving him behind in the uncertainty of a time you never knew, but you know you have to.
He should never know what his daughter knows.
As you walk away you know not where you are, and certainly not where you are going to go. All you know is why you're here, and that you are the only one there to know what you do. The loneliness sprouts there, because everyone you knew beforehand knew what they were doing.
Fighting was second nature to the point where you cannot name your first.
You're halfway into Regna Ferox when you finally let yourself accept that you have no idea of where your friends are. It hits you at once in a way you can't deny as a chill takes over the air and you are cold, so cold, and your body aches for warmth, for company, and you're forced awake so much that you are forced to recognize that you are absolutely alone.
You kneel as their faces and voices crowd every sound and sight from you, sticking to the walls of your mind while you beg for their forgiveness.
You've stolen away on caravans, ridden on horses, or plain walked through the ill temperament to find your place, and all of it is a serviceable distraction, until it isn't, and you think on how eleven people were transported from the future to the past, and you are the only one you can find.
You try not to miss them but shamefully you can do nothing else. Denial can only take you so far.
You try not to think of Brady, combative as he may be, with a surface so soft that you can break it without intending to. Or Laurent, who you could count on to suss out anything he set his gaze on- whether you wanted him to or not. Or Kjelle, who focused so intensely on training, strengthening herself to be the strongest of the children that you forget how she can see right through you with a single look. Or Cynthia, your beloved sister who would not leave your mind; gods damn it all, how you missed her cheer both infectious and authentic to keep you from losing hope. Your cousin Owain, who tried his damndest to make a dark, mirthless time in history grander than it was.
Those outside your inner circle it was easier to forget. Nah, Yarne, Gerome, Inigo, Noire- all of them you can push aside without the nagging feeling that you're missing something, but when you remember them by chance, you are reminded that you love them and miss them all the same, and regret that you did not know them better because you may never see them again.
No, you insist to yourself. You will see them again, you daft girl. You can't convince yourself it's true, but you need that thought. You need to deny yourself. You need to prove yourself wrong.
Your right hand grasps the hilt of Falchion so hard that you remember how empty the left is. You remember her, and how you think of her so reverently, so distantly, it's rarely by name, it's her, as though she's the only woman to exist. You remember that no matter how fast you walked, she always kept at your side, even when she had a furrowed brow, eyes full of anger, and a downturned face that you rarely truly believed was directed at you, even as you feared it was. You know she kept her distance from the others, warding them off with glares and smirks, but you understood that she had every reason to be angry, distant, jaded… but you can say that. You were lucky, because she never let it cloud her heart around you.
Sometimes you place your hand by your waist and wait for someone to take it.
When no one does, you bow your head and fall to your knees, because nothing stops the loneliness from consuming you. You are no hero, you are Lucina, and you miss her. You miss them all, but she is the glass shard in your ribcage that makes it arduous to breathe.
"Thank you, Gerome."
He nods, stepping back with the others.
You look through the masks he has handed you. The others watch as you kneel and discern between them. The goal is to avoid being seen- particularly to sheath the brand of the exalt in your iris- but to see just fine. To distract, to be either indistinguishable or very distinguishable.
You hear someone's foot tapping and grimace, but your hackles are not raised. "Peace, Severa," you hear Laurent say. "Our time is limited, but not negligible."
"I know!" she huffs, and you laugh quietly to yourself while browsing them. The sudden tension makes Noire squeal as she grasps her talisman. Severa huffs again, but it's resigned, apologetic. "I just don't want us to waste any of it, okay?"
You realized you stopped looking through masks when she talked and get back to it before she notices. "I understand," you reply, before someone without the patience for her reacts negatively.
You're quick, not wanting to waste time, when you find one that you suppose would work. It's bizarre, a little goofy, but at the very least it will keep people from desiring to tear it off and expose you.
You put it on and face the group.
Cynthia breaks out laughing, and Kjelle smirks while trying to take you seriously. Brady raises an eyebrow with a smirk, Yarne sighs nervously, and even Gerome tries not to laugh.
"That notable?" you ask with a dumb smile. Nah snorts and guffaws quickly.
"Take those off!"
Before you can comply, Severa yanks the novelty glasses off your face and holds it for you to face. It is the embodiment of larger-than-life glory- hypnotic cream swirls around two narrow lenses amid a far larger screen, two round coin-like wings on the edge of each side. It is gaudy and colossal, true, but it makes you smile, and hopefully you can distract your foes with giggles.
"That is not gonna happen," she says forcefully, handing it back to Gerome with a grunt that demands he keep it.
"What happened to saving time?" Brady asks pointedly.
"She's not going into battle wearing a pair of targets, Brady!" Emphasis in every word, she grabs the stack of masks from you and starts to look through them.
You stand up. "Do I not get a say in this?"
With a cheeky smirk that knows you too well, she shakes her head and starts flipping through the masks. One by one she hands them back to Gerome. Ever the peacekeeper, Laurent says "We would trust your judgment in many a decision." Clearing his throat, he adds "Fashion discernation, however, is exempt from those decisions." You shake your head but can't help smiling.
Finally "Aha!" You notice her hand a stack of masks back to their original owner, who places them in a sheath in his cloak. She holds up a navy mask with gold trimming, three clear slits over the eyes, and a body appearing as two wings with talons beneath them.
A little understated, but functional.
"I will trust your judgement on this, Severa," you say with a smile. "Thank you."
She chuckles lowly, but she's gone ever so slightly pink. "Of course," she breathes as she leans towards you, like you should but should not have expected it. She leans forward and takes the ribbon behind it and reaches around the back of your neck. You can feel her breath as she fumbles around the strings enough to tie it together, and her fingers brush against your cheeks as she places the body over your closed eyes. You, her, and possibly every one of the other kids could deduce that you could probably have put it on yourself. Still, you feel your face flush and smile as she stays close to you, and you are content to stay put.
She backs up, and you open your eyes, breath guarded and shallow. She's red enough to match her hair, and though she tries to look unaffected, you can tell she's smiling, just a little, as she reaches the others. "Tada!"
The others look at her. Owain is trying to withhold a fierce giggle, and barely managing at that. Severa notices and scowls deeply, as if that will make her blush go away. "Look at her, you idiots, not me!" she orders.
Slowly, the group turns away from her and towards you. At the last second, you train yourself to look emotionless, tough, standoffish, with your mouth in a straight line that betrays your lack of skill at looking any of those things- perhaps weathered, brokenhearted, and dependent. Still, it works, and the others smile upon seeing it. For the first time, it's like they've seen a way out. They've seen an escape. And they trust you to lead the charge.
"Look how handsome you look!" Severa says, before she can catch herself. As if to mask by overexertion, she says "Rugged, masculine warrior. Just like the hero king."
You smile, because you believe it. The more you believe it, the more you are him.
The others nod in agreement and chatter in awe at the mask, the hair, and their hero king. As they do, you notice Severa is blushing again and looking away. This time, no one is looking at her. They're all looking at you, and you try and look back, but the more she shrinks away, the more significant she appears. Her body language says her time is done, but to you it has only begun.
You visit a bathhouse before you meet the West-Khan of Regna Ferox. You're alone, and no one who does not own the establishment knows you are there. Visiting a public bathhouse is a new experience to you, but you already bathe far too infrequently for a lady, especially of your status. In the ruins of the future you had neither the time nor the resources to bathe regularly. You only do so now because you have to worry about being halfway presentable to the Khan, and you hardly think you could do that looking like you took a few rolls through a dung heap.
The water feels nice and cool against your skin, and you soak for far too long. You tend to catch yourself doing things like that- you feel the texture of grass beneath your boot, you kneel down to observe and smell the flowers, you bask beneath the cool shade of the trees, you stand still and take in the sky in all its monochromatic clear blue. You aren't used to nature. You aren't used to color. As trite as it sounds, these are unfamiliar in the future. So much is unfamiliar there, and over time you had so little to treat yourself with that you forgot to treat yourself well at all.
You feel the back of your hair rest against your neck, rolled up and hidden beneath the surface. You're almost scared to let it down, because you are not sure you can tie it up again. Not the way that she could…
You sigh, because the thought of trying means you will have to remember her.
Maybe that's why you release the knots and drop the blue strands from their hold, where the edges hit the water. You smile, though you shake a little, and sink into the bath, nose just above water. It's a warm embrace even now, when the water has settled for a good few minutes. You aren't in pain. You aren't frantic. You aren't lonely. The spirits of those you love comfort your heart, rather than cut through it.
Your hair drops further into the water, and you can feel it lazily float unrestrained in the water, hitting your shoulderblade and then swimming away. You close your eyes, and for just a moment, you feel like you wouldn't mind drowning.
You jump up so sharply you almost expose yourself, sitting straight up. Immediately you rebuke yourself. You can't let go. You can't do that to your friends, to your family, to the world.
A thought in your head breaks through and whispers to her, but you sink into the bath as though to drown that thought for good. You close your eyes, hold your breath, and soak completely, as though you will emerge a different, better person without it.
You hit the surface and still miss her.
You take your wet locks of hair and practice. You hold the nearest side of it in two hands and twist each side into enough tight curls to make them two wheels. You place them beneath your furthest locks, where they are short enough to make do, far enough to hide the wheels.
They stay for a second before they fall into the water.
You slam your hand into the surface, creating a petulant splash. You try to remember the last step, but you're afraid, because it will take you through Lucina's memories on the path to becoming Marth again.
You sigh.
Perhaps the two are not as separate as you hoped.
Facing your father almost breaks you again, but you manage to hold your sword and fight. There's something within him that you can tell holds him back, keeps him from unleashing the might you know he has against you. You would say something, but you are doing the same. You can't hurt him, but you know why. He doesn't, and he still tries to protect you.
It's the first time you knew what a father's love felt like.
You let him win, because you know that he needs the assistance from Regna Ferox- and from the sparse conversations you've had with Basilio, they would gladly stay if they grew to trust him. His cynical cheer and crooked smile tells you as much- and the more you can change the future, the better.
He is safer now.
You leave without announcing (you never do), and manage to hold back for the first few miles until you fall to your knees and cry. You cry because you have only now appreciated how alone you are, and all you can do is mourn. You haven't found a single friend from the future yet, and the guilt eats at you, knowing they came to the past to follow you and they've been scattered to the winds, and the person who should save them is the person who condemned them all.
But Father is safer now.
You eventually stand up and wipe your eyes, proud of yourself for the move. That's Marth at his best, what he was meant to do- altering the future. But as you walk away your sight is blurry and your steps weak, as if you are going against your very being by walking away.
You try and push it to the back of your mind.
Should your memory of given knowledge hold correctly, you know that the assassination attempt against Emmeryn will happen in a short time. It may not yet be conceived of, but you know it to be true. you make an effort to move quickly between Regna Ferox and the Ylisse Exalt's palace. The assassination was a success in your timeline. That's the fulcrum Marth was sent to stop- you will prevent it from happening there. Then… come what may.
You follow the main road, on foot and through caravan, until you approach the branching path towards Ylisse.
Then you remember.
Cynthia, Owain, Laurent, Kjelle, Brady, Nah, Yarne, Inigo, Noire, Gerome, Se-
You stop moving to spend all your energy trying to shove the thoughts in your head but they scream from the chains and muzzles you try and put on them. Your head hurts and you bow to silence it, but it's no use. It's deafening and consuming, but the only way you can silence them is to die, and you can't do that.
The world will not allow Marth to rest, and it will certainly not let him die.
You would hope the same for Lucina.
You look ahead of you. The road goes further into Regna Ferox, never entering the country it is parallel to. It goes on and on- to places you haven't explored and do not intend to explore. Perhaps you are wrong to ignore it. Perhaps they are there.
You walk down it.
You get ten steps on the other side of the path to Ylisse and stop.
It feels wrong. It feels selfish. Gods damn you, it is absolutely selfish. The children are fine. They are adept fighters. They are strong, crafty, and far more capable than you act like they are. To try and find them would be an ego trip, nothing more.
They will find you.
You try and convince yourself of such as you begin to walk the path to Ylisse. Your hand rests at your side and grasps nothing, and folds into a fist. Your own skin on your hand is sallow, rough, and inauthentic, but as you walk along, it is not yours anymore, it is Marth's. Marth, who only has one sword aside him.
You wonder if you will forget how to be her altogether.
You look at yourself in the mirror. Oh, what a mess, you decide. Sponge and soap can fade the mud and dirt smears on your face, and work at the odd maroon stains on your arms that you wish weren't blood, but it won't erase the exhausted half-lidded eyes, the bruises on your skin, the weary war-torn skin on your hands, the wooden firmness of your posture, like a worn-out chair with scuffs and torn cushions that somehow still stands.
You just have to make do.
You feel her tug on your hair and wince, jerking back a little, but she doesn't stop. "Just calm down," she orders. "It's not that bad." True, it's not, and in fact is among the better things of recent memory, but the way she tugs your hair like limp rope and not follicles on your hair is the worst part of it.
"It's a mess," she muses, tutting in disapproval as she pinches it with a sponge. "Even after you bathed it."
You smirk. "Forgive me, Severa. I haven't had time to pay attention."
She scoffs, insulted. "I know," she retorts. "But we have to tuck it under, right? So it's gotta be in pristine shape."
"Quite the irony to clean it so it can be better unseen."
In the mirror, you see her shrug, conceding the point.
You watch her scrub your hair as best as she can manage, untangling it in places and straightening it better. She's rough at times, but tries to err towards gentle as often as she can. She works out every kink and flaw in a way that shows that she knows hair- and knows you.
Finally: "All clean and glistening!" You see her grin toothily in the mirror. You observe yourself, and have to admit that you look softer now. There are things you can't clean and can't erase, but now you remember how nice you look when you try.
A bit more regal, at that.
"Thank you, Severa," you tell her, smiling and looking at yourself.
She has her hand on her hip, lips tight in a knowing grin as if you should have expected no less. "You have a part to play," she says. "The star performer has to look the part." Her face softens and says "Besides, you can make it look easy."
You nod, trying to build confidence. "I will give it my all."
She tenderly divides your hair into two portions. "You absolutely will, hero-king," she says, eyeing it cautiously. "It's just like old times. You lead the charge, and I pick up where I can."
You hold your hand up to get her to stop. "I would go nowhere without you," you remind her. "You are invaluable."
She hmms but takes the compliment even though she grimaces. She used to passionately reject them, as if the idea of praise was incomprehensible, a foreign agent for her mind and body to dispel before they changed everything. You know you can't change her overnight, but she doesn't know the half of it. She is the sword at your side. From the day you met, there is no one who more inspired you to fight.
She bends your hair in half. "Are you listening?" she asks, voice cooler than it usually is.
You blink a few times. "I am," you insist. "Uhm, now, at least."
She chuckles just a little, tutting again as she starts to twist your hair around. "Pay attention," she cautions, no bite in her voice. "Cause I'm only going over this once."
You smile, because that's probably a good idea, even though if you had the time you would sit there forever under her gentle, knowing touch for a lot longer. Hopefully after all this, you both have all the time in the world.
You know the time is near. That's why you're here, after all, and each step has you on edge, like you're stepping on glass. You're patrolling the walls of Emmeryn's palace, waiting for your father. You're breathing so shallowly you may drown on dry land, your heart ready to beat out of its tunic, and you grasp Falchion's hilt in one hand and your own fist in another.
You know that the show will start soon, and that you will be its star performer, but that's a reductive way to look at it. This is no ordinary play. This is an act, the act, that can change the future. You know it's the most important thing that you'll ever do. The idea of messing something up agonizes you. The world depends on it, and that terrifies you, that an emotional, naive little girl holds the fate of the world in her hand.
You don't want to go in, but if you stand out here much longer you never will.
You take a deep breath, and Marth scrambles onto the main stage.
You squeeze through the cleft in the wall. You know it well from the years in the future where there was no shrub to block it, but in the past, your father hid it frustratingly well by relocating the plant in front of it. You groan as you try and move around it, wondering how Father would react to seeing you covered in shrubbery and dirt. No one would take you seriously.
Gods, no wonder she rejected the glasses.
You stop as you're reminded of her, but shove those thoughts in the back of your mind like a chest full to bursting, and crawl out, sparing a moment to dust yourself off.
In the distance, you see familiar blue hair talking to a figure in a large black coat that uncharacteristically shines like gold. You quietly walk along the grass, approaching them lightly as they develop into view, so as to appear at the right time. You're just not sure what the right time is, when to expect the assassin, when to show that you aren't from here.
"She represents the best of the halidom," you faintly hear him say. "The part most worth protecting. She is peace." The black coat nods, and as you approach you see a woman with straight carrot-colored hair sporting it. He speaks to her personally, trusting of her. Familiar to her. A friend.
"But some men would take advantage of that," he continues. "Men like King Gangrel. The day he understands peace will be the day death gives it to him." The woman nods. Your father clears his throat, and you can hear the words fight to stay in and fail.
"So perhaps I must be death's agent," he says, looking down in shame. She grabs his arm. "Emmeryn would never order him killed, nor would I wish her to."
There's a patch of silence, and you take that as your cue. You step on the stone path, footsteps more audible. As he turns around at the noise like an anxious cat, you say "well spoken, sir."
"Marth..."
It hits you for perhaps the first time that he only knows you at Marth, the stolen name from the Hero King. You have said it in your scant meetings. You're sure he has said it as well. But now, you are Marth. That's all you are. And as much as it hurts to be so distant, that's who you will be.
You look as stony as possible as you wave, but a warm smile lies within, as though to show him that as strange as you are, you care, and you are with him.
"Good evening to you."
"I'm about to save your life."
As you could have predicted, saying that you're from the future sounds like madness in your father's ears. Even his friend tilts her head, trying not to give away her disbelief but only partially succeeding. You take a deep breath and wait until you hear a set of unfamiliar footsteps.
Now is the time.
"From him."
You turn around to face the assassin as he bursts out of the same shrubbery you crawled out of. You throw Falchion up in the air. You leap to catch it, then slam the blade into his back, where he falls bleeding onto the ground, dead before he ever recognized you.
You swipe your sword through the air, standing tall in front of him.
"I trust… this proof will suffice?"
Father is stunned for a few seconds, while his friend's eyes sparkle in intrigue at this new layer to their adventure.
Then, he nods. "Yeah."
You're about to smile when the bushes rumble again. In shock, you turn to face the new attacker, but slip on the sword the prior assassin dropped and trip over You feel a new sword cut by your face, and you can only think not now, not now, please Gods not now.
You fear that you're dead for two seconds until you hear the sound of a distant body falling.
You open your eyes to see a new assassin on the ground, your Father's Falchion in his back. But it's too clear. Too unobscured. This isn't right. You look down, and the mask lies on the ground, shattered in half, and you can feel your hair on the back of your shoulders. No, no, no, this isn't what you wanted. This isn't who you expected. You're Marth, not Lucina. You're not her anymore. You can't be.
Gods damn my eyes!
Before you can make any excuses, your father looks at you."You're a woman?" he asks.
You smirk. Oh, Father, if only you knew just who I was. "And quite the actress," you reply, and that's more accurate than even you can understand. "Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't figure it out until just now." Both for his lack of attention, and your desperation to slip.
His retort is interrupted by the sound of an explosion. Your excuses and explanations fall from your tongue, and you're thankful you need to use none of them.
"Go!" Father commands.
You all run into the palace. The woman in the black coat finds you and directs you along the floor plan of the palace. "Keep guard by Emmeryn," she orders, and you nod. "It's up to you to keep her safe."
"I understand." As you run, you admit "That's why I'm here anyways."
She nods. "I hope to learn more about you when this is all over." You decisively don't respond, but before your silence is notable, she turns to run away. "Thank you, Marth," she calls behind her. Your heart becomes warm, and you bow behind her as she leaves.
Being Marth is more innate than it ever has been.
You watch the others pass by, paying you no special mind, as if you were always a part of them. These are the fabled Shepherds, you think to yourself as they get into position. Two swordspeople, a man and a woman, race by on horseback. The quiet myrmidon you defeated to become the East-Khan champion who doesn't look at you. The axe-wielder who passes you and does look at you with a crude whistle (who you would dare to see try his magic with you).
You rest against the pillar on the side of Emmeryn's door when you notice a pegasus breeze by where you are. You see a glimpse of the rider as she looks back at you with a sugar-sweet wave and hello. You nearly fall over gasping, and try to convince yourself that you're not sure, nothing is certain, that wasn't your mother.
You swallow. Sumia is not your mother right now, because you aren't Lucina. You're stand tall at the side of her door, terrified but not letting yourself acknowledge anything remotely near fear.
You look down the hall to see the first assassin, tome book in hand, looking beneath his floppy hat at you, and release Falchion from its sheath. You don't even think about your other hand.
Your hair is down, your mask is off, but for now, you are Marth.
Marth is still his own character. The show must go on.
The last of the Risen fall to your sword, the remnants turning to smoke and soot and blowing away in the wind. You are so tired, very tired, and you could die from exhaustion. But it's not your time. It has never been your time. You bow your head because it takes too much out of you to hold it up, but you will sleep and die if you kneel onto the ground.
You look behind you. No one surrounds you in the temple. No one is there save for the Divine Dragon herself, unseen but always watching. Nothing is there except for her promise. The seed of hope you know you cannot rest before you plant.
You know what you must do.
You just know preparing to do it will rip your heart from your chest.
"Naga," you whisper. Your hair tracks dirt ignobly along your back, and the brand of the exalt is faded in your eye. "Thank you. I know what is required of me..." You choke up. "I only pray that..." you start to cry. "Please, please, I plead for you to protect those I love."
I won't be here to.
You go to stand, blinking back tears, when you hear a lone pair of footsteps rush across the stone ground towards you. "Now where the hell are you going?"
You freeze in place as the footsteps slow just behind you. Suddenly you're forcibly spun around. A greeting freezes and recedes in your throat as you face her, angrier than you have ever seen her in your life. You can only gasp, your mouth in the most insipid o-shape that it will ever hold.
All you can say is "it's okay."
She slaps you across the face. You're shocked more than hurt, but you look at her, bewildered. "What was that for?!"
"You!... Selfish!... Broad!" she screams, face as red as her hair, free of its immaculate pigtails. "Look at me!"
"I... don't get it."
"Oh my gods, you're so thick sometimes!" She grabs your shoulders forcefully, as if to plant you in place or shove you through the floor (perhaps both). "You were just going to leave? Without us? Without saying goodbye?!"
You close your eyes. "I didn't want to trouble you," you say. "I just..." you sigh, trying not to cry. A hero-king does not cry. "You saw the Risen I had to fight off, yes? I was not sure if you could make it here."
"So you were just going to leave?!"
You don't have a response that isn't "yes", so that's what you give her. Her face breaks from anger to pained sorrow. It's a horrid sight. She's never broken like this, and you need to explain, need to make it better. "I will save this future," you say. "I will make things better. Life here... I swear."
"You're just going to leave?" She's not angry this time, choking out the words through her tears. "You don't even have a plan!"
You don't have a response that isn't "yes", and you can't even bring yourself to say that. She reads it anyways and screams, disgusted and offended.
"Piss off," she seethes. "We talked about it together. All of us. I was the one who tried to convince people it was a good plan, remember? You think you can go like this? Like the princess of the dead? How are you gonna convince anyone that you're not from a pile of ashes?"
"I have to try," you insist quietly. "I have to try."
Her face drops from anger to pity, as if she's finally seeing what you're carrying, but she's still hurt, like you missed something so obvious that nothing but your thick mind would.
"What's the one thing we talk about," she demands of you. "The one thing, when no one is around, when no one has to hear us, when we're not burdening anyone?" Before you can answer: "our families. How much you miss your mother, wish you knew your father. When your aunt died and you cried in my arms. You were miserable. And you never let them see that."
She starts to fall into tears, so you reach up to your shoulders to take her hands, and as angry as she is, she lets you. You feel her skin and your resolve to leave peters out through your fingertips.
"And my mo-" she chokes on a sob, and her voice reaches a new pitch. "My mother left me money in my coinpurse. That's all I have left of her. Like, everything else is her legacy and it drives me nuts. I'm so sick of losing the people I love and only knowing ghost stories about them, and you were going to leave me for the rest of my life without a goodbye? You were gonna leave me at all?" She's lost herself to crying, but she's not taking her eyes off of you.
"I'm so sorry," you say, because it's all you can say. "I'm so sorry, Severa. I was so focused the mission at hand that I didn't think of how it would affect you if I left. I just..." you sigh, because you will be damned if you cry as well. "I... I..." You don't have a fitting answer, just an easy one. "I didn't want to steal you from the only world you know."
She scoffs, still crying. "Look, I'm gonna be just as useless there as I am here-"
"Do not!"
She's silent for perhaps the first time in her life, eyes wide as the moon in the sky that peeks through every now and again, almost as radiant and beautiful as she, lights in a dark world.
"You are the sword at my side," you swear, and as you go it turns into a confession. "Everything I cannot do, you can do better than anyone else. You hold everything I cannot be and want to be in your heart. As much as the brand in my iris makes me a princess, you are what makes me know I am a living, breathing woman."
That's too much. You've said too much. You know you've said too much because she looks like she's seen a new human being, like one she's been too blind to notice. Finally, she looks you dead in the eye and says "Then why don't you do what you want once in your life instead of thinking of the right thing?"
"You know why I can't," you answer. "If I fall into my own desires, I will crumple into a heap here and fade away like a Risen." You finally confess "I am so, so scared, Severa, and I could never imagine passing that fear onto you."
She cries again, hands released from yours as she throws them in the air, but the tears don't stop her words. "Then I'll have to be selfish for both of us. I am not going to lose someone I love again. I will die before I lose you."
"Please don't die," you plead. "Please don't leave." You lose your last shred of inhibition and all you want is for her to stay. "I love you. Please don't leave."
She laughs through her tears. "I knew it." She grabs your hand and lowers it to her chest, and kisses you. You return it on instinct, in desperation, using your free hand to hold the small of her back, pulling her towards you. She places her hand on your waist, taking your breath through her lips and becoming part of you, and you kiss for what feels like an eternity, until you let go and it feels like it barely even happened.
"We're all going with you," she announces breathlessly as you stumble backward, winded. The news makes you laugh, relieved and giddy. "It doesn't matter what happens. Where we go, where we end up. We'll find you, because this isn't just your battle. It never was."
Your eyes glisten as you look at her. Nothing has changed, but you have finally allowed yourself to let go of your fears and look at her with love.
"The cavalry should be here soon," she notes. "Besides, we've gotta spruce you up, hero-king." You hold your hands to your hair, surprised, Suddenly going into the past looking how you do seems like a ridiculous idea, and you laugh.
"Exactly," she says, warm smile beneath her tears, her face red for a different reason. "We should start with your hair."
You beam. Leave it to her to do what you cannot. "I trust your judgment, my lady."
You wake up on a grassy hill the day after, the sun shining in your eyes and blurring the world in a blinding white intensity. You're a little sore, but hard surfaces are on what you prefer to sleep. You're used to the bitter, the unforgiving, the loveless, even though that's not who you are or who you want to be.
It takes you a second to remember everything, and the thoughts come slowly enough to startle you with their mental nothingness. You know you... you think. And... the grass is too green to be home. You're... this is important. You're doing an important thing. A very important thing. You're... you're a hero. The hero. The...
You feel a foreign object resting by your breast on the grass. You go to pick it up and look at its surface. It's blue... blue... and it has a jagged mark on one side as though cut with no regard... and there's three slits on the... three, and it looks like the wing of... perhaps, a butterfl-
It all hits you then, and you hold it to your chest in a desperate attempt for everything not to overwhelm you. Blue. Blue. The color of the sky. The nighttime. The palace. The coolness of the air. The palace. The Eastern palace. Aunt Emmeryn. Emmeryn. The future. Father. Father. Death. And you're stopping it. You're stopping it from ever happening. You did. You did. You look at the mask as it all hits you, and you're recognizing it as yours, an actress, a character, the Hero-King, Marth, Marth, Marth, Lucina.
You're so overwhelmed you turn to face the sky, eyes wide in terror and exhilaration. Aunt Emmeryn is saved. Your father is saved. The future is renewed. The past is changed. Everything has changed.
You laugh. You laugh a little at first, then you laugh more. You laugh harder and harder, and soon you're cackling, hands holding onto the mask half. You're laughing so hard tears are stinging your eyes, and pretty soon you're crying, but you're so, so happy. You're so, so, so, so happy. Everything has changed, and you are so very happy that it has. No matter what happens now, everything that happens in the future will be different than it is now.
You hold the half-mask in your hand as you stand up, legs wobbling. You instinctively grip the hilt of Falchion but keep it in its sheath. You look ahead, and there's more grass there- and more than a little in your hair that you will have to clean later. You piece together that you in the center of Ylisse still, close to the Eastern palace. You held the sword in your hand so long yesterday that your arm is sore, but maybe you're just letting go.
You're committed to stay here, stay until you're certain things will get better. You could stay here until you are certain that the grass will stay green until frost, then be frozen in white stasis until it becomes green once more, and you could stay here for years watching it grow over your head as long as you are certain that the air will not fill with smoke and the light will never break through for more than a few choked hours at a time. You're committed with a fervor beyond religion, until you remember the mask in your hand.
Cynthia, Owain, Laurent, Kjelle, Inigo, Nah, Yarne, Brady, Noire, Gerome, Severa.
Her.
The hand at your side is twitching, missing her skin, missing the warmth within her palm, missing her so much that it takes you a minute to miss everyone else, the friends and family that joined you in the future that are scattered to the winds, somewhere, somewhen, believing that you will come back for them. But they're different. They deserve to find you again. They deserve a home. She deserves a home. She deserves everything you can give her. You want to see them again. You need to know they're safe. You need them all.
But you want her.
You want everything about her.
You stand in the grass, looking around for a path, and your thoughts settle. Your heartbeat reverts to normal, your blood runs mild, and your breathing slows. Paramount to it all, you can think rationally. Perhaps it would be wise to be near the Exalt, the Shepherds, Ylisse. Keep the timeline on the uphill path to the beter future you know it's headed towards. Save it over and over, as the hero-king should.
You feel the mask again, as if it's transmitting a message, telling you who you are. You're not Marth. You're Lucina.
Suddenly, taking refuge as him seems a coward's act- as though you hide from your own reality as well as the suspicions of others.
You take a deep breath, feel the emptiness of the hand that does not fight, apologize to the gods, and walk away.
It's time to focus on your own mission.
It's time to end the reverie.