The Shape of a Violin Chapter 1, a fire emblem fanfic

4th of Cralst, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Sunlight beamed down through a stained-glass window imprinted with the image of two doves flying in front of a golden sunrise. This sunlight, now painted white and gold, hit Princess Elise of Nohr, who laid in her bed with the sheets strewn out around her, a consequence of a long night that ended with very little actual sleep. Who could blame her for being so restless? After all, today was a very, very special day for her.

Elise's brief sleep was ended by a loud knock on her bedroom door, and a shout from the other side. "Lady Elise!" The voice called out, inciting a groan from the girl. Her eyes fluttered open and briefly squinted to adjust to the light hitting her face. Sitting up and brushing her waist-length hair out of her face, she looked at the door.

"Come in, Effie!" Elise shouted, rubbing her tired eyes before reaching her arms up to stretch, grunting softly. Her retainer, already wearing her heavy armor, opened the door and almost immediately got to work preparing the princess for the day. It was routine by this point, just as much as it was routine for Elise to practice playing her violin which sat in the corner of her room, just as much as it was routine for her to whine throughout Effie's process, though she never really meant any of it.

"Remember Lady Elise, Corrin doesn't know about it yet." Effie reminded as she brushed Elise's hair, preparing to get it into its usual twintails. "You're supposed to act surprised when he receives the news."

"Right, right." Elise practiced faces of shock and joy in her hand mirror. "Oh, Corrin! I can't believe you'll finally be let out of the Northern Fortress for good! This is so amazing, now we can spend way more time together!" Her wide smile slowly grew less exuberant. "Assuming he passes father's test, that is…"

"Believe in your brother, Elise. Whatever test King Garon has prepared for him, I'm sure he'll pass with flying colors." Effie's voice was calm, reassuring, but it didn't help Elise much. She had so many doubts in her mind, so many scenarios playing out in her head of what could go wrong and end with Corrin stuck in the Northern Fortress for the rest of his life. Of course, it was all ridiculous, Elise knew that, but she thought it regardless.

Still, Elise lied. "I know, Effie. I'm sure everything will be alright."

Corrin failed. He didn't execute the prisoners like father had ordered him to. When Elise saw it happen, she nearly screamed for Corrin to just do that horrible deed, so he could finally leave the Northern Fortress. When Leo did the job for him, it only dashed her hopes. The fact that Leo did it to secretly spare the prisoners' lives was irrelevant at the time.

The one thing that sparked Elise's hopes yet again was the promise of a second chance. A final chance. Corrin was to go to a small fort at the Bottomless Canyon, one that was said to be abandoned, and secure it for Nohr. If he did that, he would be allowed to leave the Northern Fortress and serve father with his siblings.

Elise, much like her retainer did with her, spent hours with Corrin going over every possibility. She wanted him to succeed, needed him to succeed. She always hated how little time she could ever spend with him and the idea of him wasting away inside of a cold, stone fortress in the middle of nowhere filled her with more dread than it did him. Was she being too pessimistic? It was true that she was the optimist of the family, but that didn't stop her from occasionally being unable to think of anything but the worst-case scenario. That was simply a Nohrian trait.

"Really, Elise, I'm sure it'll be fine!" Corrin gave her his usual smile, one that was naïve and even a little clueless, but also caring and thoughtful. Looking at that smile, Elise realized that thinking he hadn't given it just as much thought as she had was a foolish assumption to make. "I'm going to pass this test father has given me. I'm going to pass it and return home to Xander, and Leo, and Camilla, and you."

Tears were welling up in her eyes, and the last thing she wanted was for Corrin to see. At the same time, what she wanted most in that moment was just to hug him. So she did, and in the process, killed two birds with one stone. Perhaps not, though. Despite his more ditzy and clueless attitude he tended to have, Corrin was far more astute in his observations than most. However, if he did notice Elise's tears, he said nothing of them.

30th of Cralst, Nohrian Royal Calendar

He was still missing. Corrin was still missing. Nobody returned from the Northern Fortress expedition aside from Hans, a criminal turned soldier who claimed that Gunter, Corrin's mentor and retainer, plummeted into the Bottomless Canyon, and Corrin disappeared soon after, presumably suffering the same fate. Everyone took the news differently. Corrin's other retainers were distraught. Hans as well as Iago, father's court magician and royal advisor, shed crocodile tears. Father himself showed no emotion, though Elise wondered if that meant he truly felt no sadness for the loss of his son, or if he was simply hiding the grief.

Xander spoke little in the weeks that followed. Camilla didn't speak at all. Leo spent just about every waking moment studying once he had finished ordering his own retainers to go searching around the Bottomless Canyon. Still, twenty-six days was a long time to survive in such an inhospitable environment. Perhaps Leo would soon send a letter requesting his retainers to widen their search area to nearby towns and tribes.

Elise felt the worst out of all of them, or at least, she felt like she did. Xander was still commanding troops, Camilla was still going out on missions, and Leo was still actively searching for their brother, but Elise had merely spent the days sobbing in her room, with her retainers trying and failing time after time to comfort her. She had promised herself a few days prior that she would allow herself until the end of the month to cry, and after that she would shed no more tears until she found out for sure what happened to her brother. The final day of the month had arrived, and Elise cried more than usual, trying to get out as many tears as she could in order to make the following days easier.

15th of Varn, Nohrian Royal Calendar

There were many things that Elise predicted might happen to her. A life of politics, arranged marriages, words that always carried double meanings and backstabbers at every turn. A quiet, sheltered life, where she would serve as a figurehead, remaining bright and happy and innocent to help inspire the citizens of Nohr. Perhaps she would even follow in Leo's footsteps and devote herself to the arcane, becoming a scholar.

War was always a possibility, and one that Elise had considered, but it had never been one she had prepared for, outside of basic combat medic training. And now it was here, and instead of waiting for it to come to her, she had to come to it. Father had ordered it himself, saying that his four children had to lead the initial charge on Hoshido, for the sake of morale. There aren't four of us. Was all Elise could think. There are five of us. Corrin is one of us. He's your son. He's my brother. He's alive, I know he is. He must be.

28th of Varn, Nohrian Royal Calendar

There was a brief moment, less than a split second, where Elise wished that Corrin had actually died at the Bottomless Canyon. Better that, she rationalized in her regret, than turning his sword against his own family. He shouted at Xander, demanding why he would keep his true family a secret from him. Behind him was a girl about Elise's age, a boy that looked to be about Leo's, a girl who couldn't have been much younger than Camilla, and a man who looked even older than Xander did. Corrin had called them his true family. His real family.

Xander tried to explain something, but Corrin interrupted him, telling him to stop. He began accusing Camilla of the same thing, and she made no effort to reject his accusations. She merely turned her head away in shame. Leo argued even more fiercely than Xander, but he also never denied knowing about the secret.

Corrin's eyes turned to Elise, and in that moment, they softened for the first time since she had seen him again. He didn't argue with her, accuse her of lying, shout and scream at her like he did with their siblings. He just spoke two words. "I'm sorry." Then, he attacked Xander, and everything devolved into chaos.

30th of Varn, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Elise regretted having learned almost nothing on her violin aside from upbeat, chipper tunes. She needed some way to express what she was feeling, and when words and tears weren't enough, she tried to turn to her instrument, but even there, she had no way to let out her emotions. An attempt at playing these happier songs in a more somber way only made them sound wrong, like a sunset painting the sky the wrong color.

Everything was wrong, really. Corrin was with Hoshido now, with his real family. Elise wasn't sure if she felt more disgust or self-loathing whenever those two words reappeared in her mind. He considered those people, the Hoshidan Royal Family, his real family. The image of the girl her age kept replaying in her mind over and over again. Was she a better sister than Elise was? Was she really just a normal sister, and Elise was just awful? She wasn't sure which possibility sounded worse.

Elise had kicked and screamed and cried and hurled every insult she could think of at her siblings, who all knew that Corrin was stolen from Hoshido and never told him, never told her. She could see them get ready to give some scripted excuse, but none of them ever did. Perhaps the shock was still setting in. She felt similarly.

Letting out a slow, shaky breath, Elise picked her violin back up and continued to play, trying desperately to make her happy song work, even if every ounce of happiness she poured into it was fake. She needed to at least pretend that everything was fine, even if only for a few minutes. The day she promised she wouldn't cry was a month ago, and with the first day of a new month only being hours away now, Elise realized she hadn't made another goal for herself. In that moment, she decided that she would learn another song on her violin by the end of the next month, one that was far less upbeat.

17th of Trisk, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Elise had fulfilled her goal of learning a new song on her violin, and for the month after that, she learned another one. So, for the following month, she decided her goal would be to see more of the world outside of Nohr. When father announced his plan to see the opera at Cyrkensia, Elise jumped on the opportunity and asked if she could come along. Immediately after asking, Elise wondered if it had been a good idea, but father was surprisingly willing to take her along with him. Perhaps he had been waiting for her to ask for something like this, or maybe he was just too tired with the war going on to bother arguing with her about it.

When she saw Corrin and his troops in the opera house, Elise's heart nearly leapt out of her chest. Seeing his real family there with him, however, only filled her with more loathing, towards them and herself. She tried to talk to him, to ask him why he left and beg him to return, but Xander and his forces attacked them, claiming he was there to assassinate father. When Corrin didn't object to this claim, Elise was horrified. Father wasn't a perfect person, but nobody deserved to be murdered!

In the end, Elise got in Xander's way and prevented him from attacking Corrin. The Hoshidan soldiers fled, and Elise was told bluntly that she would never set foot outside of Castle Krakenburg until the war was over. Of course, that was under the assumption that she couldn't sneak out of the castle; a sensible assumption to make, considering only her retainers and Camilla knew about the secret exit that led straight to an underground section of the capital city of Windmire.

28th of Darth, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Elise was tired of her violin. She tried to learn more somber songs to better output her emotions, but it had reached the point where now all playing them did was remind her of Corrin. Even the upbeat songs just brought back memories of happier times that she could no longer experience. Camilla barely talked anymore. Xander spent all of his time devoted to the war, maybe talking to Elise once or twice a week if she was lucky. Leo had left on some journey he refused to speak about, promising to return once he had sorted things with Corrin, whatever that meant. Elise had pushed her own retainers further and further away emotionally, not wanting to drag them down into her own misery. She felt utterly alone, and her stupid violin wasn't helping.

One day, she threw her violin off a balcony and watched it smash on the ground below.

21st of Rorst, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Selling flowers while disguised as a peasant girl was a fantastic distraction for Elise. It kept her busy over the months since the incident at Cyrkensia, helped her take her mind off of the war, and even got her to feel slightly less miserable whenever she thought about Corrin. She always gave whatever money she earned to Cassita, her wet nurse. It wasn't like Elise needed any of the money anyways. Camilla most certainly knew about her escapades, but she never said anything, instead just occasionally giving her a knowing look whenever they ran into eachother while Elise was heading off.

When Elise saw Corrin in the underground, she swore for a moment that she must've been dreaming. She really did almost pinch herself, just like people would do in those stories she read when she was really little. It was just as much of a shock to him, which made sense considering he had never learned of her once rare but now more common escapades to Windmire's underground.

Elise wasted no time in taking Corrin and his group to Cassita's house, where she explained what had been going on in Castle Krakenburg. She got to meet all the people Corrin had been working with, and while she expected them to be the awful monsters she had imagined them to be, they were all nice people. Even his real little sister, Sakura, who had a nervous stammer that made every sentence rather hard for her.

Eventually, Corrin introduced Elise to a girl with long, brown hair who he introduced as Hana. "She's Sakura's retainer." Corrin explained to Elise, who was a bit confused as to why Corrin felt the need to introduce her separately from the others. "She's…" Corrin seemed rather nervous, but not in the way he always was whenever Elise and the others would tease him. No, he was genuinely anxious. "She's my fiancé. We're to be married once the war is over."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Princess Elise." Hana greeted with a kind smile. "Corrin's told me so much about you and your siblings! He's always said how much of a kind soul you are. He thinks rather highly of you!" Elise was only half listening. Corrin was engaged, which meant he was going to be married.

"I love Hana with all my heart." Corrin took his fiancé's hand, smiling along with her. "She's given me so much support in these times, and I'm honestly unsure if I'd be able to keep going on without her support. She really has been a light in the dark for me." He sounded so much older in the way he spoke, so much more grown up. It was astounding what his time away had done to his character.

"Oh Corrin, there's no need to flatter me so much!" A laugh accompanied Hana's insistence. "Especially when you deserve far more praise than I do. You're the reason we've gotten this far, after all. That kind of persistence is why you're the man I fell in love with."

The two lovebirds looked at Elise, who held her hands together in her lap. She looked them both in the eye, smiling. "I'm so happy for you both. Really, it's so wonderful!" Seeing her brother so happy made Elise happy as well. Genuinely, truly happy, for the first time in months.

Elise wished that happiness could have lasted. However, Corrin hadn't arrived in Windmire to engage in idle conversation. He had come to dethrone father and end the war, whether peacefully or by force, and Elise chose to help him. She had seen the way that father had been acting differently, like a whole new person altogether. He killed people for minor offenses right in front of her, even threatened to execute her after what she had done in Cyrkensia. It had reached the point where even Xander, the paragon of Nohrian loyalty, occasionally spoke of his doubts to Elise, confiding in secret that he believed his father had changed for the worse.

Getting past Camilla was easy enough, though when facing Hans, Corrin unfortunately lost Lilith. Elise had only met the girl a few times, but she always was humbly smiling whenever she saw her. It was clear that a person like that didn't deserve such a cruel fate. When facing Iago, Elise secretly thought to herself that the man deserved any horrible consequence that would come to him. Even when he fell, she had a dark thought in the back of her mind that she wished he could have suffered worse.

They eventually encountered Leo, but before Elise could try and convince him not to fight, Corrin explained that they had already confronted eachother a while back. In fact, Leo had no plans of stopping Corrin from achieving his goal. All he requested was that Elise leave with him to avoid danger, which Elise declined. She needed to help Corrin, to fight with him and protect him.

When she caught up to Corrin just in time to see Xander ready to strike him down, she made the decision to protect him once more and did the only thing she could think of at that moment. She threw herself in the way of Xander's blade and crumpled down, Xander catching her before she hit the ground. Her strength was fading, and so she spent her last moments trying to tell Xander what he needed to do. He needed to be kind, and merciful, and understanding. Nohr didn't need aggression or hate, it needed tears like the ones Xander was shedding for her. She glanced over at Corrin, who had tears in his eyes as well. She just wished things didn't have to end this way, that she could've spent more time with him. She just wished that everything could've been the same as they were before.

Her vision began to go dark, and the sound around her was fading. She let out one last breath before everything went to nothing.

4th of Cralst, Nohrian Royal Calendar

Just as Elise was about to call out for Effie to come in, she stopped. She looked down. The image of what happened to her was fresh in her mind, and as every other memory associated with it came flooding back into her mind, she stifled out a cry of shock. "Lady Elise!" Effie shouted out again, knocking. "Lady Elise, you must wake up! Today's the day Corrin can leave the Northern Fortress, and I know you don't want to be late!"

Where was the wound from Xander's blade? There wasn't so much as a scratch on her. Why would Corrin be leaving the Northern Fortress? He was supposed to be on his way to confront father! Effie kept knocking on her door, but she wasn't paying attention anymore, for something else had stolen her attention away from her as her eyes flickered over to something familiar in the corner of her room. There sat her violin in the corner it used to always reside in, completely untouched and unharmed. As if it had never broken. As if the day Elise destroyed it had never happened.