Code: FE.A-MLNW-CH.01

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the featured media, the rights go to their respected owners.

Media: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Title: Make Love Not War, So They Say

Notable Sub-genres: [Chrom/ My Unit | Robin(M)] [Frederick/ Emmeryn] AU - Arranged Marriage

Rating: "T" for Crude Language and Some Dark Themes including: Mentions of past Ethnic Cleansing/ War, Serious Injury, Some Violence, Non Explicit Romance

Chapter: Multichapter

Status. In progress.

This couldn't be happening.

'I am so sorry, Chrom,' his older sister uttered from the head of the council table, her back straight but shoulders heavy from years of carrying the weight of the halidom. Her face was tight, strained with the situation as she stared at him with something broken about her eyes.

Chrom could only guess his own expression; he'd never been one for politics, he was too straightforward, candid - like their mother had been. 'It's not worth saying if you're not ripping the words from your chest,' he can vaguely remember her saying with a crooked grin but dark eyes in retaliation of a chastisement she hadn't thought she had earnt.

His heartbeat was echoing in his ears and numb as Chrom was, he barely had it in him to acknowledge her apology.

'Milady - you cannot in all seriousness actually be considering -' another voice tried to reason; tried to save Chrom from the consequences of the the document Emm had in front of her, under her nose like it was beneath her, but still unable to touch it.

Emm's eyes opened from where they had clenched shut, turning sharply to pin Frederick with ice and all the pain that came from knowing what was awaiting Chrom, from understanding but not wanting to risk a war. They could not be their father, they could not send a death sentence to the lower townsfolk, to their most innocent of people who would surely have to be drafted and be the first effected.

Emm, just eight when their mother had died and their father's sanity had snapped had been instrumental to stopping the conflict their father had started with their Eastern neighbours, but it was accomplished through regicide. It took years of planning and work so that when she was ten, Emm was exalt and their father was dead. She was used to sacrificing things for what she believed to be the greater good.

'Please, Frederick,' Emmeryn murmured softly but with steel that halted the wary knight from the tirade he no doubt was about to go into. 'This is not something I have wandered into willingly; these arrangements were agreed to long before I took the crown but it was also signed with the exalted seal.'

Something stamped with their seal meant that the royal family had sworn it to Naga; that they vowed the documents true and officiated their contents. Emm's eyes were gleaming; sad and grim. 'Our engagement has made me unable to fulfil them but someone within this house still has to, so what would you have me do?' her question is marked with silence and Chrom couldn't bring himself to look at anyone. 'I have promised myself to another, Lissa is still yet to become of-age and we must honour this.'

Frederick swallowed and his gaze flickers to Chrom as he sits frozen, stiff with his stomach clenched as it tried to squirm itself free inside him. 'Your Grace -'

'Dear Frederick: stop,' Emm orders and Frederick instantly quietens, his jaw locked from whatever tirade he would have otherwise gone into. 'I would have been able to ignore this document and could have - ah, accidentally lost it, but with Archbishop Validar calling for our restitution and the King Gangrel backing this request…'

Emm trails off but there is a buzzing in Chrom's ears that wasn't there this morning as he tries to swallow back this overwhelming sickness down: it is a hot, thick sensation that he struggles not to urge around. He clenches his fists in his lap, allows his blunt nails to dig into the toughened skin of his palms to try and focus on the pain, rather than the mounting hurt and panic that was burning in his gut.

'B-but!' Lissa stuttered as she sat forward, gripping hold o the table for deal life as she watched the proceedings with large, frightened eyes. 'But Emm! Chrom can't - not for this! Validar's refused our peace talks too! This can't -!'

'We are at council, Princess,' Emm interrupts sharply, as close to losing her temper that Chrom had seen in a long time. Their mother had had a short fuse but Emm had gone up bathed in fire and raised with conflict: she had learnt to discipline her's in a way that the rest of her siblings hadn't. It was a reminder to Chrom that this was upsetting to her and he wasn't sure if that made this easier.

Lissa's face shutters and a hard tilt shifts her disposition as she straightens, tension bristling her frame into something colder. 'My opinion stands,' she says finally with only a tremble in her voice giving her unstable emotions away. 'Exalt,' she adds if only to be petty.

Emm tilts her chin in acknowledgement. 'I understand this concern, it is not something I haven't thought myself,' she admits with her heavy stare resting on Chrom. 'But we are duty bound. King Gangrel has been looking for an excuse to start further battle since he took the throne. With the last war, I cannot begrudge his anger.'

'Your Grace,' Lord Bernard gasps in outrage.

Emm raises a hand. 'A ruler to this throne, in Naga's name, instigated a conflict on a neighbouring country that we had been peaceful with: our sister land. It was senseless murder on the command of a man who had lost his mind with grief. That the Plegian people still feel this hurt: this anger towards us is deserved, Lord Bernard. To deny such feelings is to deny our own responsibility and while that may enable us to sleep at night, it does not undo the atrocities committed.'

'I do not want you to…forget the many Ylisseans that were, too, killed during the Blood Wars, Exalt Emmeryn,' Lord Bernard says with his eyes to the table but a horrible red about the cheeks. He was one of many apologists of the acts Ylisse wrought onto Plegian and Chrom couldn't bare listening to it.

'Oh, Lord Bernard, I cannot forget as I paid tribute to my people: I walked through the town streets with the grieving, I helped bury men and women and children. I gave sermons and speeches. I aided the rebuilding of Ylisstol. I was there.' Emmeryn's voice powers through that sentence and although her calm serenity isn't present, her rage is just as steady as she stares one of her lords down. 'But I also cannot forget my father's order to march on an unsuspecting people, who had done nothing wrong. I cannot forget how our own streets were paved red with the blood of Grimleals. I cannot simply ignore how we invaded Plegian soil and then killed and pillaged and raped and burnt our way through their countryside, unprovoked.'

'Exalt -' the man tried to continue to argue but Emm had heard it all before; they all had.

'No, Lord Bernard,' Emm says without a lick more patience to give Lord Bernard than to respond. 'King Fridolin declared war on a group of people for no otherwise then one member of such blood was unable to save his wife.'

Chrom feels his eyes shut and senses Lissa retreat as she always does when this is brought to attention. Exalt Lucille - their mother - had died during childbirth as her midwife, a woman of Plegian descent who had aided with Chrom's birth and Emm's, was unable to stop the bleeding. Their mother was lost due to complications and Lissa almost past with her if it hadn't of been for Ira's quick actions.

She had been Emm's Nanny and had even taken care of Chrom, from what little he remembered about her but the life of Friodlin's daughter was not enough to save the woman's life. She had been executed for treason, in the city centre: something that would have made Marth, himself, weep but Fridolin was past sense; devoid of reason as his sanity slipped with grief.

'Plegia retaliated, yes, you are quite right but do not forget why,' Emm warned. 'We are lucky that after killing their former Archbishop and King both, that Plegia has been so forgiving with us. On a purely self-important issue, our army has long since been depleted and I cannot be seen recruiting anymore to our force: we are in a perilous position to incoming attack.'

'But this arrangement, Your Grace…' Lord Althalos, Maribelle's father begins but is unable to finish his rejection. It was rare for the man to waste even a breath so Chrom almost felt honoured that the man had done exactly that with a whole sentence

Emm takes a quiet breath and seems to centre herself while the alermen stay silent, ready for address. 'Please understand this when I speak to you: I do not have goodwill to bargain with,' she states with brevity. 'Plegia is demanding we uphold a sworn commitment. They may be doing it with…nefarious intentions but we are not in a position to contest this, not without risk of restarting a conflict we cannot hope to engage with. I listen to your protests; I take them to heart and I see the risk, however -'

'I'll do it.'

Chrom does not, for a second, recognise his own voice or even register that he spoke until every eyes is again looking at him. His heart beats like it is engaged in a battle unto itself and nausea increases but he forces himself to look at his sister's stilted expression, he makes himself meet her eyes. 'I agree, we can't risk another war. If - if my agreement can prevent anymore bloodshed then…'

'Chrom,' Emm says and Chrom knows that if they were alone; if it were just himself and his older sister, that she would allow herself to reach out to him, to try and comfort him. As it was, she simply looks devastated. 'This document - it is for your hand in marriage, it…the Archbishop's child is to be your consort. This would be irreversible, you…I must know you understand what you are agreeing to.'

Chrom's vision is palpitating and his ears are banging along with the tightness in his chest as he nods, his neck creaks with the stiffness to it but that's ignored with everything else. 'I understand,' he replies and people graciously ignore how is voice breaks.

'Chrom -'

Emm wasn't able to refuse Plegia this, they could not, but Chrom wasn't about to make his sister force her own brother into accepting a document like that: he would agree for that alone, to save her from that choice.

'I said I agree, Emm.' Chrom couldn't get very many other words out than that, making himself remain sitting at the table was hard enough. This was about duty and however much he felt more like a fool than a prince, didn't mean he wasn't one.

Emm's eyes are starting to glitter even if she's keeping it together like the ruler she is. Lissa has started to cry with her face buried in her hands. 'Chrom -'

Chrom's feels heavy and he's starting to sense the impending need to lie down but he keeps himself planted in his seat. 'For Ylisse, for Plegia, I -' his voice wobbles and suddenly Chrom feels like a little boy all over again, who didn't understand the what dead bodies were yet, or the cries of prisoners or the smell of bodies. He had done his part since then in forming the Shepherds and training their fighters but Chrom also knew his efforts were shallow in comparison to what their world so desperately needed.

'I said I agree,' Chrom repeats.

Emm's lips tighten in that way that speaks volumes of her upset even if she refuses to shatter. She had been holding it together so long, Chrom thinks that if she stopped Emm would simply fall apart and there'd be no fixing her.

'Robin Caeronvar,' Emm finally says as she folds her hands in front of her with an edginess that is very rare.

Chrom blinks as the words don't quite sink in. 'Huh?'

Emm's shoulders flex, another sign of stress that Chrom has had to learn and pick up on. '…Archbishop Validar's -'

Chrom's stomach flops and without his consent he has stood, wooden chair skidding out from underneath him. He can vaguely feel his hand jump into Falchion's hilt as they both tremble at his sides. 'I - right, of course. Robin. Foreign? Oh…but then it would be, wouldn't it?'

'Chrom -' Emm tries again to reach out as she too rises from her seat.

'So, you don't me to finalise the details for this. I can leave this to you while I - attend to my Shepherds,' Chrom rushes to say, hates his habit of rambling under pressure as he all but trips over his own feet to get out of the room. 'Excuse me.'

Con/textual Vomit: Things to remember: Plegia is a theocracy which means they are a country ruled by their church: the archbishop is of higher standing then the king, ruling in the name of Grima. (This will probably be important later on, I dunno.) This is quite different from Ylissean who I imagine functions more like England's royal family did back in the day, e.g. "God (Naga) has given us power so we are in charge" with the church holding sway but nothing more.

Alermen are a elected council, though in Ylissean this is based more upon landowners etc.

At one point Emmeryn refers to Plegians as "Grimleal" and she didn't mean that offensively. More about Grima and religion coming up.

On Emmeryn, well, I'm not sure how to write her. In the game you know she's a gentle, pacifist whose idealism gets her killed. She's not very fleshed out and she had the potential to be a far more interesting character with how she came into power, at such a young age and with the type of conflict she faced. With this story I really want to ground her because although she has plenty of good traits, that also comes with plenty of flaws.

Annnd I think that's it, I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction. This is an old story that has taken me forever to finally complete and then post so this might be a bit rushed but, yeah, I sort of just really wanted to finish it. (because otherwise it'll be sat in my docs forever and just sort of fade into all my other files. It happens, seriously. I have things unfinished since 2012.)

Oz