There are these moments in your life that define you. They don't come with warning signs or come weighed down with some abstract heavy meaning. They could come and go without you even noticing them. Other times there are life defining moments that you can trace back down to a singular point; where there's this exact moment that you can always look back on and say, 'Yep, that's when this whole befouled thing began.' Mine began with fourteen words.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know."

Fourteen words and I was set on a collision course with disaster. Maybe that's why Anna has me writing these, so that you or whoever the hell who reads these can see the mistakes I've made and recognize them for what they are. Maybe you learn to see these moments before they happen. Naga willing, maybe you learn to avoid making choices you end up regretting for the rest of your life.

So, fourteen words. The first time I've heard those words I was in some field near Southtown meeting the crown prince of Ylisse, but the past was in a different time and a different place. Instead I found myself in the middle of a desert with three Plegians looking down at me with concern.

The man who offered his hand to me looked like he picked up heavy things and put them down, and then done that a few hundred million times. He practically wrenched me off the ground and then set me back on my feet before introducing himself as Hayden. The young woman with the weathered cloak scanning the desert for any signs of danger was Vayln. Ashton sat atop one of the largest wyverns I have ever seen.

Robin, Hayden, Valyn, Ashton. Plegians love their androgynous names.

"Where am I?" I asked. I actually had to try to say that about three times before my parched throat croaked out enough to be understood.

"You're in the middle of the wastes." Hayden gave me a once over, "We almost flew right past you before Valyn spotted you. How did you get here?"

I stared blankly. What could I say? Hi, my world just ended and I found myself here; name's Robin, nice to meet you? No, I went with the tried and true classic: Amnesiac Robin, reporting for duty. "I do not know… I just…" I brought up my hand to my head in 'pain', "I cannot remember anything."

Hayden shared a look with Valyn, who shrugged in response. Ashton called out from her perch, "I saw my father like this once after he took a rock to the head. Lost all of his memories."

"Did he ever get them back?" I asked ruefully.

"Nah. He went simple. Hasn't been the same ever since."

"Oh." I winced, "My apologies."

"Nothing the Ylisseans haven't paid back for." She grinned, flashing canines. "I made sure of it."

I shifted awkwardly which Hayden took as discomfort, "We're on our way to Ravenrock. We can drop you off there. You should come."

I took one quick look at the endless barren desert around me. Being the brilliant tactician that I am, I devised a devious plan: follow along, watch things unfold, figure out where I am and why.

"Sure." I said, emboldened by my expertly designed plan. "How are we all getting there?"

Then I saw them climb onto the Giant Fucking Wyvern.

As we took to the air towards Ravenrock, I quickly realized two things.

First: fuck flying.

Second: Ashton's nightmare on wings was able to carry up to six fully armed soldiers. Theirs was a special breed that were given to the elite Blackwing units. We fought against two such units before that night Validar spearheaded an assassination attempt on Emmeryn. She was killed and the Fire Emblem was stolen, setting off a chain of events that eventually resulted in Grima destroying the world.

That's why I was here. To stop this before it ever happened.

As we closed in on our destination I looked over at Valyn who was busy taking apart and re-assembling a rather worn crossbow. If I was really flying with a Blackwing unit then Valyn represented one of the best Plegia had to offer, but she couldn't be much older than I was. Her cloak hid most of her waifish form along with what could be a shortsword, at least two daggers, and a small bag of crossbow bolts. She was fully armed and equipped for close-ranged combat. What warranted bringing in so many indoor weapons? What were they looking for in Ravenrock?

Even from a distance I recognized the desert hamlet. The last time I was here I had a hand in reducing it to ashes but here it was in all of its dilapidated glory. This wasn't a proper town, the people here didn't believe in cobblestone streets, rectangular houses, or urban planning. No, the denizens of Ravenrock were there only out of necessity. The war between Plegia and Ylisse had driven out the peasants and serfs along the border to this unfortunate plateau amongst the mountains. The buildings here were to keep the villages warm during the night and cool during the day, nothing more.

We razed the town to the ground after we failed to steal back the Fire Emblem, after Emmeryn had been assassinated in her palace. Now that I was here, I could make this right… For the first time in years I felt a glimmer of hope, that faint possibility of seeing all of my friends and family again... The thought of Chrom's blind trust to strangers, Frederick's loyalty to his liege, Lissa's pranks, Sumia's love for books… If there was even a chance for me to see them again, any of them…

Suffice to say, the war didn't end well for me the first time. At first we were at least putting up a fight, Plegians and Risen both died just the same if you stuck enough steel into it or if you blew them apart with a well-placed Thoron, but then this secretive cult rose from within the Plegian ranks and spread word of their ancient god. How the Grimleal came to be was still very much unknown to me but their obscene magicks twisted the minds of their comrades, instilling into them a manic rage and transforming them into something… greater. I saw a Plegian knight, missing an arm and suffering from numerous mortal wounds, overpower three men with unholy fervor before succumbing to his wounds.

It seemed as though the mania was contagious. Paranoia and distrust of the Ylissean monarchy escalated as the war continued until, like a spark setting off a bonfire, it erupted into the bloodiest riot Ylisse had ever seen. An unnamable illness took to the general populace and infected them with a violent madness. Husbands turned against wives. Children were sacrificed in the name of blood magicks. A memetic mantra spread amongst those corrupted by the Grima's insanity:

I AM GRIMA. ALL IS GRIMA. COME BE ME AND BE FREE.

When Grima finally regained his physical form our enemies became less recognizable as humans. If you squint hard enough at the abominations that prowled the wilds near the end of the war, you could maybe make out a few dozen faces, some legs or arms, but mainly you would see latticed flesh barely holding together some blasphemous violation of nature. I saw the result of a wyvern and its' rider fused into some hideous tenebrous monstrosity that could single-handedly wipe out a platoon of fully armed soldiers.

I caught Valyn and Hayden discreetly sharing looks and glancing at me, breaking me out of my ruminations. Obviously they didn't trust me as much as I didn't trust them but it looked like at the very least I was given the benefit of the doubt. From what I could read, anyways.

Yes, read. A twitch across a certain finger, a slight incline of the head, and you have the basis of the secret subverbal language developed for the covert Blackwings. Being the ex-Plegian-Heirophant-twice-removed that I am, I also understood a bit of it.

Do you think he's related to the disappearances? Hayden signed.

I don't know, but he's lying about having no memories. Valyn replied.

I want you to follow him when we land. Discreetly.

If he knows something about the missing Blackwing or the children?

Find out what he knows. I leave it to you. We'll meet in three days.

Of course.

Thanks to my previous experience at Ravenrock, I actually already knew where the missing people were. I also knew what to expect if they tried to look for them.

When I think about what happened down there, I always wonder if I had taken a leap of faith and told them about the Grimleal, about Dhampir Karne, about the catacombs below Ravenrock…

Would everyone have lived?

I've had these journals with me for a very long time now, unsure of what to do with them. Maybe I should have thrown them out. Maybe I should have burned them. Instead, I always ended up leafing through them, adding to them my thoughts or annotating to them my answers.

In the end, I have only myself to blame when Morgan found them. Bad enough that she sees the twenty-three year old me narrating the journey my nineteen-year-old self was undertaking. I was an angry man, filled with heavy thoughts and heavier regrets. I didn't want to show Morgan what I was like before I had her, before I met her mother, before I ended one war and started another one weeks later.

But much to my surprise, she loved it. She loved it despite all of my flaws, despite how I wrote about the world through an angst filled lens, despite how I wrote about her mother. And what's more, she wanted the next one; as if she just finished Wyvern Wars: Terror at High Noon! and wanted to read the next book.

So you can thank her for these journals.

Back to the moron on the landing at Ravenrock.

Ashton laughed as I flopped off the Giant Fucking Wyvern. I was sore in places I didn't know about before. "Don't ride much? You're not hurt much are you?"

"Only in my everywhere," I muttered, climbing back to my feet.

Hayden stepped forward and extended his hand, which I shook. "Let's hope you don't pass out in the middle of the desert again." He said with a tight smile. It seems not everyone trusts as easily as Chrom does.

"I'll try to remember that next time." I stretched my face into a goofy smile. He awkwardly stood there for a good while before turning to leave with Ashton towards the chaotic streets. Valyn had disappeared without a trace, presumably to tail me as I walked around the city outskirts.

On one hand I could try to make it back to Ylisse, I knew the way but with no horses or supplies it would be pretty hard to survive the unforgiving Plegian desert. It's wicked hot at day and freezing cold at night, but it was still very much possible to make it to Ylisstol. I would meet up with Chrom and… well. I wouldn't know what to do after that meeting him. To him I would be a complete stranger.

On the other hand there were children missing.

This time I might even be able to save them.

I don't imagine myself a hero. Even back in… my original world I took the fights I could and ran away nearly every other time. This was an engagement practice that well suited the small and diverse Shepherds, but down deep in the Ravenrock catacombs I didn't want a boisterous attack force. What I needed was finesse. I needed stealth. I needed a Blackwing, one of which was conveniently tailing me. Or at least I think she is. I'm pretty good at noticing people following me but every time I took a look around I saw only rundown buildings and even more rundown people...

I could just turn back now. Go with Plan A. Find Chrom. Get away from the nightmare the township was soon to become...

One way or another, I found myself walking towards a shoddily put together abbey. A haggard man sat at the feet of a large stone gargoyle. He was an abominable specimen, with sweaty frog-like hands and mismatched bulbous eyes. He smelt worse than he looked, of rotten fish and month-old milk. Something squirmed and pulsated beneath the man's skin; their experiments have already borne fruit. I revealed the Mark of Grima on my hand and his eyes widened just a fraction, before gesturing towards the mildewed chapel entrance. Out of the corner of my eyes I thought I saw something move and hoped it was Valyn.

I let the Mark of Grima fade away and stepped inside the gaping maw of the decaying building.

Then I started pooling magic.

Mages use different tools to manipulate magic. Some use staves, others use tomes, but the core concept is the same. The runes, engraved into wooden rods or written into tomes, shape the magic into its purpose, whereas the mana charged into the tomes and staves provide the energy. My tattered robes cover my arms well but if you were to raise the sleeves you would see the markings for six different spells. Three were dirty and quick spells, two required a bit of charging to work, and the last one could bring down a building - fast.

Inside the chapel there were rows of wooden pews. There were half a dozen people kneeling around a decrepit hunch-backed priest, all chanting as one: "Choose me… Choose me…" The priest raised his hand and the worshippers pressed their heads to the decaying floorboards. All was silent.

"A visitor?" His raspy voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. The priest was incredibly ancient, a slight breeze looked like it would break him; in reality he was probably fueled by blood magic and could easily take on an unsuspecting knight. "A visitor? For Grima?" He jerked his head towards me like a chicken, and his face was so contorted I would have laughed at the strangeness of it if it hadn't been so disturbing. "Have you come to join Grima? To be Grima?" His voice took on a manic edge, "I sense it… I am Grima! ALL IS GRIMA! COME BE ME AND BE FREE!" He pushed past a worshipper and lunged towards me with an unnatural grace.

By now I had charged mana for over thirty heartbeats and was barely containing holding the energy together. I blasted the priest apart with an over-charged Elwind. He took it head on and became undone. Something splattered across the ruined chapel but it wasn't blood, something else that writhed and snaked on the floor.

The worshippers bent over and clutched at their mouths, as if they were vomiting at the sight of the sudden gore. One of them turned to me, his mouth open with silent screams as something squirmed beneath his skin. Tentacles erupted from beneath the skin, eyeballs grew in random patches and expanded like a virulent tumour out of control.

As terrifying and powerful as they are, if there was one thing you must know about the Taken is that they're helpless when undergoing metamorphosis. If you act fast enough, you can kill them before they get a chance to do any damage.

In the end, only one of them finished the hideous transformation and leapt for me before I smashed his face in with an Arcfire. The dragon in me watched with morbid fascination as the Plegian fell apart piece by piece as the fires consumed his body.

Seven people dead and not a scratch on me.

"Turn around slowly, don't reach for mana." Hearing it for the first time, I was surprised by the velvety quality of Valyn's voice. I turned to face her, her emerald eyes sharp and almost glowing with the sunset. Her crossbow was steadily trained on me, there was no shaking, no signs of surprise. "Who are you, Robin? What is this place?"

I say, "Did you kill the gatekeeper outside?"

She started edging towards me with her crossbow aimed at my chest. "Don't change the subject. What are those? Who are you?"

I am not your enemy, I signed, I have been fighting these for a long time. To her credit, Valyn didn't hesitate or flinch at the realization that I knew of their secret silent language. "I will answer your questions but this is important: did you kill the gatekeeper?"

Valyn was silent for a moment, deciding. "I cut his carotid."

With a roar, the entrance bursted out of its frame and a figure with too many limbs to count crawled into the chapel. Six eyes locked onto the dimunitive Blackwing, whose hands blurred as she shot a bolt straight through the Taken's head. It wasn't enough, from what little I did know about Grima's creatures they de-centralized all of their organs. There was no brain, no heart, no one point to target when fighting them. You had to take them apart.

I began charging mana, unable to help for at least seven heartbeats. For Valyn, seven heartbeats was more than enough.

One. Valyn ducked under lashing tendrils as she threw her crossbow at the Taken.

Two. Three. In one fluid motion she severed some tendrils as she took out a shortsword and dagger from beneath her cloak.

Four. Five. Hands blurred as she sliced and ducked with an almost feline grace. Eyeballs were gouged out of their unnatural sockets as she severed the Taken's head.

Six. Seven. Next were the arms and the legs, she bisected them all in a flurry of strikes.

With the mana I had charged, I threw some flames to burn up the remains, an action that drew a look from Valyn.

"It's better to burn them up, just in case. They might try to… glue themselves back. How did you know to cut them up?"

"Worked for you, didn't it?" She picked up her crossbow and shook some of the not-blood off of it.

"You were watching the entire time?"

Valyn shrugged and cranked her crossbow up. "You promised answers?"

This was how I met Valyn; Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, and eventually a Shepherd.