Title: Lamentation
Prompt: November 16 / Because there are things that deserve, whatever the rest of the world might think, to be mourned
Character/Pairing: Lucina, Morgan, Morgan, other children
A/N: Takes place after the future!pack. I subscribe to 'twin morgan' theory. And arrggghhh, the ending. Why am I sucking at endings these days.
Summary: Even monsters have someone to mourn their loss.
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"The twins creep me out," Severa complains loudly. Lucina looks up from her table, the forms and policies she's reviewing held loosely in her hands.
Behind her, Cynthia hums her agreement. Dressed in her uniform, she looked surprisingly proficient. "They're more of a villain than Severa is."
"Don't align me with them."
"They're not doing anything bad, are they?" Lucina asks, halting the squabble that is about to break out. Perhaps having both Pegasus Knights as her personal guards was a bad idea. They fought each other far more than they had to fight others.
"Not really…" Cynthia admits. "But they keep lurking in the shadows. Only villains do that."
"And," Severa cuts in, "They only keep talking to each other and ignoring everyone else. They're worse than Gerome."
"Gerome's not that bad!" Cynthia pouts, annoyed. "I can talk to him. The twins keep walking away whenever I go near them."
"I'll talk to them," Lucina replies.
Severa rolls her eyes in disbelief. "Like that'll happen. Why are they even here?"
It's a question the exalt doesn't have the answer to.
-x-
She finds their bodies, broken and bruised, days after defeating Grima. A pair of twins, their hands interlocked, their blood mingling into one rivulet.
"Healers!" Lucina calls out, dropping to her knees. Examining the one closest to her, she checks for signs of life. Slowly, his chest rises, and she can feel the faintest of breaths.
She hadn't expected to find any survivors here, in the outlands. Grima's wake left little intact, let alone alive. As her healers get to the pair, she stares at their hair for a moment. Such a dark black, almost blue. Like her father's.
It's strange how she always finds the smallest pieces of him everywhere still. He's been dead for years, so long she can barely remember him, but still she looks for him.
Looks for all of them.
No time for that now though. Surveying the damage around her, the ruined village and burnt woods, she sighs. It'll be some time before it will be habitable once more.
"Your Highness!" a healer calls, grabbing her attention. "Look!"
"Wha—" Her heart stops at the sight before. The healer is holding up twins' hands, now clear of the dirt and blood. There, a sight she finds every day in the mirror, a brand sits.
"How?"
-x-
"Morgan, are you adjusting well?" Lucina asks, her words stiff and formal.
"Well enough," the boy says, his sister just nodding his agreement. Sitting in the alcove, they both hold one side of an open book. Even as she stands there, they turn a page.
She doesn't know how to talk to them. How to make them talk to her. "No complaints?"
"No," the boy answers again, while the girl traces a line on the page. If Lucina didn't know better, she'd think she's ignoring her.
She's been at war too long to ignore the slight tension in their muscles, the way they always keep body facing her.
"Would you…" Lucina falters, the words stuck in her mouth. These siblings, they are not hers. She doesn't know them. They do not know her.
They are strangers connected by a brand and death.
"Never mind."
-x-
"What is your name?" Lucina asks, standing in her tent. Even now, months after the war, she is more comfortable out here in the field than back at the rebuilt castle. It's home, in ways she wishes she doesn't understand.
The twins, silently, grasp each other's hand. The male's left, the female's right, both marked with the brand.
They shouldn't have it.
"What is your name?" she repeats, irritation creeping into her voice. "You have the brand, but Owain and I do not have siblings."
The twins look at each other, then at her. The male responds, so quietly that she almost cannot hear him. "Morgan."
"And her name?"
The female responds this time. "Morgan."
"…you both are named Morgan?" Lucina stares at them in disbelief. "And who named you that?"
"Our…" the male's voice breaks here, a harsh sob escaping his lips. His sister takes over. "Our mother."
"And she is?"
"Grima."
-x-
Lucina has a handful of memories of her mother. Each a snapshot of time, an image she can barely grasp. The sound of pages rustling, the colour of her hair in candle light, the smell of old books and sweat.
(her dearest, closest memory—a soft smile, the murmur of words she can't understand, a warm arm cradling her)
-x-
A fragment:
"So Grima's struck again." Her father, tall and strong, bends tiredly over the table. In front of him, a map is spread. Red and black marks checker it, the colours of destruction.
"I still can't believe she did this," Lissa murmurs, her voice quiet and sad. Her father wraps an arm around her aunt, pulling her close. "She was…she was so kind…"
"I know…" Her father's voice cracks. Watching from the stairs, Lucina almost cries. She has never thought of her father as broken before. As lost.
Her father's expression as he stares at his wedding ring does not belong to the man she knows.
"Maybe we can…save her? Somehow?"
"We've tried. Everything. There's nothing left but the final push." Her father looks up and Lucina freezes, caught. Instead of scolding her, he gives a weak smile and motions for her to come down.
"Father?" she questions as she scurries to his legs. He towers over her, a giant.
"Lucina, take this." He kneels in front of her, letting go of her aunt. Gently, he takes off his wedding ring and places it in her hands.
"Your ring—"
"I'm giving it to you." He smiles crookedly, pulling out a necklace from underneath his armour. "I have your mother's right here."
"But—"
"Your mother, she was smart and strong and brave. Can you promise me you'll be just like her?"
"Father?" Something's not right, she can sense it. This feels more like a goodbye than anything.
He stands up now, patting her head. "When I come back, I'll want the ring. So keep it safe."
Her last memory of him, a hunched profile, his heart in her hands.
-x-
"It's a lie," she whispers to herself.
But facts are facts. Laurent gazes at her sympathetically, awkwardly shuffling his feet. "If only."
"I should know better. Wishing for a better reality doesn't make it so." Lucina runs a hand through her hair, unsteady. "So…mother really was Grima."
Kjelle grits her teeth. "No wonder no one told us."
"I suspected it. My aunt left enough clues." Lucina looks to the corner where the twins sat hours ago. "I should have made the connection earlier."
"We all should have," Laurent adds, frowning. "I should have. It's my job."
"Not even your mother could have," Kjelle bluntly states. "So then those twins are—"
"My siblings, yes. She must have changed before she could give birth."
"Both named Morgan…is that just lazy or something else?" Kjelle clicks her tongue, annoyed. "It's going to be confusing talking to them."
"What're you going to do?" Laurent asks, watching Lucina carefully. "They did help Grima."
"Yes, but…it's not like they knew anything else. And…" Lucina considers her next words. "Nah tells me she saw the male Morgan hesitating in battle."
"What?" Kjelle looks at her, surprised. So she hadn't noticed. Laurent on the other hand taps his fingers, lost in thought.
"Laurent?"
"I think…it was far off, but I think the female Morgan hesitated as well. At least when she did when she faced…someone who looked like your mother."
"So…there might be a little good in them too. Like there was in Grima, those last moments before the end. My mother wasn't gone entirely."
"Or they could be evil." Kjelle points out harshly. "We should either lock them up or kill them."
Lucina looks at her hands, recalling the brands blazing there on the twins. The brand on Owain's arm, the one on her father's.
Her own eye, the red swimming in the black, the sign of a promise made long ago.
"It is probably the better, smarter idea."
"Then—"
"But I can't just write them off like that," Lucina finishes, cutting Kjelle off. "I…I just can't. I won't let them go free, but…they can be in custody near my quarters."
Kjelle scowls deeply, almost about to yell, before taking a deep breath. "Fine." Without another word, she turns and leaves the tent, her rage sounding off in her stomps.
"She'll adjust eventually," Laurent says.
"I know." Lucina stares at the spot her front just stood, sighing deeply. "I'll take the twins to the castle tomorrow."
-x-
"My cousins have no imagination," Owain complains. Out of all of her friends, he adjusted the easiest to the new arrivals.
As they walk in the courtyard, she stares up at the windows to their quarters. The curtains are drawn tight, cloaking the room in darkness, and she wonders if they're more comfortable like that.
Perhaps they only know the dark, know how to remain hidden and alone.
"What makes you say that?" she asks.
Owain pouts, his actions so similar to Cynthia's days ago that she almost laughs. "I tried talking to them once and they said it was stupid. Stupid. What part of their great destiny and the shining light is stupid?"
"Well, that's more than Cynthia got. They ran from her." Lucina responds dryly, fairly certain that Owain tried to draw them into some fantasy game.
"They're clearly villains."
This time she does laugh. "She thinks so too. The Justice Cabal might be needed."
-x-
A summary of observations, a log, a diary: the twins avoid everyone.
Lucina watches as they eat, as they read, both of them holding the corners of a single book. Only that book and no other.
They live in a blanket of silence, in a void. There is nothing outside of their schedule and their room. Just eating and reading and sleeping. In hushed whispers, they talk to one another.
When they walk, they don't stick to the shadows or avoid people. Utterly ignoring everyone else somehow made them all ignore the twins too.
-x-
"It seems like they're mourning," Gerome finally utters. She's been standing next to him for the better part of ten minutes in silence and the sound of his voice surprises her.
"Mourning? I thought they just hated us. Are you sure?" Lucina blurts without thinking. But she's seen grief in all its shapes, embraced it herself.
It is a cloak that comes in different forms.
"You asked for my thoughts, and that is what it is." Gerome's voice is quiet, almost cold. It's hard to match this image to the boy she once knew.
The war changed them all.
"No matter what the reason, we did kill their mother. That book—if it's hers, then that explains why they keep reading it." Gerome continues, his voice a little softer. "A last possession."
He falls silent and Minerva cries in the darkness outside.
-x-
"Can we stop here?" Morgan asks. His sister sits next to him morosely, almost on the verge of—Lucina doesn't know what. Sitting in the carriage on their way to castle, she contemplates the fact that they might want to escape before they are sequestered.
"Why?"
"Please," Morgan asks again, pleading. The desperation surprises Lucina and she nods without thinking.
"I'll have to be with you."
Morgan looks at his sister, who grimaces. Nodding, he replies, "It's fine."
The carriage stops, and she steps out with the twins in tow. Over the course of the day, they've managed to get almost a quarter of the way to the capital and Lucina stretches stiffly. It's odd sitting in a carriage instead of a horse.
"What now?" she asks, turning only to find the twins have started walking away from her.
Ignoring her, they continue into the woods, walking for almost half an hour uphill before they reach clearing. It'd been months, but Lucina almost didn't recognize the ruins in front of her.
The wildlife had completely reclaimed the battlefield, the grass growing wild and tall. Their travel path she knew would come close to here, but when and just how close she hadn't realized.
Ahead of her, the twins kneel in front of a small rock, touching the dirt there tenderly. It takes Lucina a moment to realize this must be their mother's grave marker. She catches a glimpse of tears, of grief, before she turns around.
She can't intrude on this any further. Even monsters have someone to mourn their loss.
-x-
"I thought you might like this," Lucina starts, setting down a chess board in front of the pair. The dining room was almost empty now, the twins usually coming late or early to lunch for that reason.
"What is it?" The brother says—her brother, but that doesn't feel quite right in her mind.
"Mother's chess board." Lucina opens a box fondly, recalling how often she played with this board, pretending she was her mother. "She made many strategies with it."
"Mother's?" She can hear it in his voice, an echo of pain, and she hopes she isn't pushing too hard too soon.
"Her favourite." The Morgans take the box from her, pulling out the pieces one by one. Slowly, they examine each, as though looking for traces of their mother in it.
She hides a smile—she did the same herself years ago.
-x-
It takes them all of five minutes to show how little they know the game. Brady watches for another five, breathing heavily, before finally exploding.
"That ain't how the rook moves!" He grabs the piece from the board. "Ya can't just move these pieces willy nilly."
The twins recoil—scared or surprised, Lucina's not sure. Hurriedly, they try to get up and escape the room, chess set in hand, but Brady's still rearranging the pieces. His grip is iron-hard on the board and he ignores their struggling.
"An' the bishop—diagonal, not straight!" He huffs as he fixes the pieces around. "There."
"Go away!" the sister hisses, bravely. Her hands tremble and Lucina can see her brother reaching across to grip them.
"Not till you show you can play!" Brady glowers at the pair. "Waste o' a good set."
"Go—"
"Whaddya sayin'?" The scar on his face makes him look like a bandit and the duo yelp.
Cowed, the Morgans start to move the pieces slowly on the board. They almost drop the pieces in shock when he yells again.
"Not both at once! One atta time!"
-x-
"I'm told she liked tea time," Lucina lies, setting down a pot and two cups in front of the Morgans. Wiped out and exhausted as they are, she thinks they could use the drink.
Besides, she needs them strong for what she's about to tell them.
"Thank you," the boy whispers, hesitantly pouring himself a cup. His sister stares at her suspiciously a moment longer, waiting until her brother had a sip before doing the same.
"You can keep the chess set but…you'll have to use it out here." Before they can say anything, she tacks on, "Otherwise he'd barge into your rooms to make sure you're playing right."
Their rapid nodding tells her she picked the right tack.
"Is it…did mother really play with these?" Morgan picks up a pawn with his free hand, holding it up to his eye.
"She practiced all her plans with it." Lucina pauses, not sure if she should ask her next question. They're unusually chatty and she takes advantage of it. "Did she…?"
"No," he answers, his sister stubbornly refusing to look up from her cup. "Mother just knew what to do and she did it."
"Oh."
-x-
There's muffled sobbing escaping their room at night. Quiet, hard to hear, but she's cried like this in the past and she knows what to listen for.
The moon shines brightly on the floor as she stands next to their door, her hand posed to knock. Nightmares? Memories? The crying softly dies off just before she can ask.
And this too she knows. Just how to pay attention to the door so no one can find out. Quietly, she sets down a tea set with a clink.
The next morning she finds the empty set in front of her door, with a note for more milk.
-x-
"We did it!" Cynthia and Owain high five outside the twins' room, cheering excited. "Justice Cabal victory!"
"Did what?" Lucina asks, a book in her hands. She watches as the pair twirls, coming to a stop right in front of her.
"Lucina!" Cynthia smiles broadly and poses triumphantly. "We defeated the Terror Twins."
"How?" She stares at the door, concerned. Not by an actual battle, she hopes.
"I made them talk to me. Andd…."
"We got them to stop calling our duty stupid," Owain finishes, proud. He poses next to Cynthia, a hand covering his face. "The darkness could not last long!"
"I see…" Lucina stares at the closed door and quietly sets a book in front of it. "This is mother's," she says, knowing the pair are listening.
When she passes the library the next day, she finds the two reading, a dictionary next to them.
-x-
"Ahhh!" Morgan stumbles backwards as Lucina opens her door. Quickly, she leans forward and grabs his arm, stabilizing him.
"Steady?" she asks. When he nods, she lets go and straightens up. "I see you're done the tea."
"Th-thanks," he mutters, shuffling awkwardly in front of her. It's strange see him without his sister. She's come to think of them as a matched set though they are two different people.
"It's nothing."
They both stand there, stiff. Before she can say anything, he blurts, "Thank you for mother's things."
"I just thought you'd like to see them…" Lucina runs a hand through her hair. Her father's nervous tic, she's told. It feels like part of him is still here when she does it. "I'm glad you like them."
"It's…it's nice to see that mother wasn't always…like Grima." Morgan smiles, sadly. "I…" He hesitates and shakes his head. "Never mind."
"What?"
Biting his lip, he looks at the ground. "Could we go to mother's grave?"
-x-
The way is easier this time. She follows the pair as they walk a path they must have done a hundred times already.
When they reach the rock, her brother kneels next to the rock. "Hello, mother," he murmurs. Her sister stands next to him, silent.
Lucina pulls out a ring from her pocket and approaches the pair. "Is it okay if I leave this here?"
The twins look at the ring, confusion written on their faces.
"It's our father's," she clarifies, handing it to her brother. "I think mother would like it."
"Yeah." He takes the ring and stares at it. His sister touches it once and then he puts it down on the rock.
"Do…" Lucina turns to her sister in surprise, sure this is the first time she spoke without anger. "Do you have anything else of father's?"
"Hmmm…" Lucina smiles softly, nodding. "I think I just might."