Italics = Thought

I do not own Fire Emblem.

Cross published on AO3

Prologue

Pain.

Throughout his childhood, the only constant Corrin could recall was pain. Beating, whipping, although in his opinion, the starving was the worst. At least he could grit his teeth and bare the pain, but the starving was crippling. He put on a brave face for his siblings when they came to visit, and though he did truly treasure each and every one of them, he always envied them for their freedom. For the fact that they could enjoy the simplest of pleasures, feeling the breeze on their faces, the smell of the sea air, and the general hubbub of the city crowds, the sound of life.

All things denied to him.

Why? Why him? Why him alone? He was a good boy, he did as he was told. He didn't deserve this..

Eventually, escape became his only option beside suicide, but even he, desperate as he was, wasn't willing to even entertain that thought.


His first attempt was at age ten, he slipped out one moonless night. He had made sure not to tell Jakob, the young, abandoned noble boy, or the Ice Tribe sisters, recently arrived at the North Fortress, or even the sweet, shy stable girl Lilith, what his plans were, lest they be punished in his stead. He'd been caught, two days later, by a random soldier, one who received a number of promotions as a reward for his safe return. He had been chained to a wall, and simply…left there. For a week. He was threatened into silence by Garon, not with more torture, but with the deaths of his group of friends. Not friends. Servants. Garons voice lingered in his ears. A prince has no need of friends.

He had started to call them friends after that, first to spite the man who deigned to call himself his father, then because that was who they were to him. His only friends in the world.

It was five years before he attempted it again.

He'd made it to a border town, and had genuinely considered fleeing to the Hoshido court, and would have, had it not been for a chance encounter, with a blue haired girl.

The plan was born on this day.

The glorious plan.


Corrin hadn't learnt the name of the town, specifically to minimise casualties that would no doubt arise if he was caught. He wore a heavy cloak with a hood, to conceal his identity, and had even forced himself to suffer boots in order to hide that he was the missing prince.

He had bumped into the girl, and, silently cursing his boots, helped her up. He'd brought her to the inn, and had got lunch for the both of them.

She had introduced herself as Azura, a dancer in the Hoshido court.

He had said he was a prisoner of Nohr, named Corrin.

Both recognised each other's names.

Both had revealed the truth to the other.

Corrin told her that she was a Nohrian Princess. He had occasionally overheard his siblings speak of her, how she had been taken shortly after his arrival in Nohr.

Kidnapping.

She, in turn, told him he was a Prince of Hoshido. Kidnapped after the assassination of the king, Sumeragi. She had always been treated with polite distance, or in Takumi's case, outright distrust.

Corrin decided he didn't like Takumi, whomever he was.

They talked for hours, telling one story after another, one secret after another. What their favourite foods where, best hiding spots, who their friends were.

Garon.

They discussed their "Father" at length.

He needs to die. To SUFFER!

His new friend, he discovered, agreed with him.


He left her before nightfall, his head and heart filled with a new purpose.

Less than an hour outside the town, he had been caught.

The beating hurt. The knife that took his right eye hurt more.