Robin liked sleeping on the spot Emmeryn had stood on, all those years ago. When steps echoed from the courtyard below, sometimes she would allow herself to imagine Chrom was running through it, this time for her, to take her back to Ylisstol, to their children waiting for them in their castle.
But he's not coming. He is never again coming for her.
So she turns in her sleep and hopes to fall, every other day. Rarely, less than once a blue moon, she actually falls off, asleep or waking. This is not good at all, though; she never hits the ground full force, instinct winning the battle every time, six feathery wings always slowing her down.
They are pretty. Very pretty. Robin would sometimes force herself into dragon form just to groom them, an unnecessary act that kept her busy during slow days. She had earned them with her sacrifice a century ago, and she was going to keep them at their best if they were here to stay.
She was much smaller than Grima, she was probably the size of an eye or two, but the resemblance was so obvious to anyone who dared to look. Much less than a god-level fell dragon, she was a simple fell dragon manakete now, an unlikely reward in that no dragonstone could control it, and surely she also had no manakete blood in her in the first place...
Her children and their children and the children of those as sure as all hells didn't have any.
Lucina and Morgan, the poor darlings. She had been naive fifty years ago, and had gone to see her time-traveling baby boy be put to the ground. She had proceeded to skip her timeline's children's own burials, no regrets since they weren't there to do a roll call anyways, she wouldn't be missed.
Chrom's own death hadn't been as bad, though it had been earlier, painfully earlier. They had seen it coming, looking at each other and at themselves every day for the couple of decades they got, having others look at them together and turn their eyes away uncomfortably every time. Their king aged, like a garden or a trusted steed; their queen stood, like the ocean or the moon.
To Robin's credit, she had tried to lessen that by running away, leaving even Ylisse more than once. Chrom chased after her every time, assuring her on the way home that he didn't mind, his love for her was eternal, things would be alright. And she believed, his voice made that fantasy seem real...
Then one day, he couldn't come after her. That was when she knew they had finally crossed that one line, and had hurried back on her own. She had found him weak and sickly and had been confused, lying on their bed, holding him. Hadn't it been just a week ago his hair had been so blue, so only blue? Why couldn't he ride today if he had yesterday?
But she had become a timeless being, and the seconds were starting to pass differently for her, in her mind and not only on her skin. She swore she had been sleeping just an hour beside her beloved husband, how could he be days dead when the maids managed to wake her to an empty bed, trying to hurry her to the funeral?
It was a pretty funeral, at that. Very pretty. The one for her time-shifted Morgan hadn't been as such, it had been somber, a sharp contrast to his sunny personality. He hadn't been king like Chrom, so maybe that's why there were no endless waves of people coming to say their goodbyes, expressing their gratitude for his heroic deeds and his good rule.
Lucina had stepped up as queen soon after. She had also reclaimed the title of Exalt her father had dropped to honor Emmeryn. Robin had to admit she liked how it sounded, Exalt Lucina, and she wondered if her time-traveling daughter had gone by that once she and her crew had returned to their time.
Her baby girl had, of course. While her own baby girl had been crying on the sidelines during the coronation, nothing but her mother's arms being her place of peaceful rest. They had passed the baby princess along; Lissa, Cordelia, Sumia, Maribelle, Sully, Olivia, and all the girls in Lucina's generation.
All failed their mission, their new queen visibly twitching during the whole ceremony, about to bolt and grab her child. Their old queen couldn't be bothered, in contrast; she was still trying to come to terms about time's passing, to the point Morgan had to move her along once everything was over, or she would have stayed in the throne room possibly forever.
That was when Tiki decided to cross paths with Robin again. She had come bearing a gift, a pretty tiara all in blackened metal, so it would stand out against her paleness and her Plegian silver hair. The fell dragon had promptly smacked Naga's Voice on the head with a heavy Thoron tome. She was still convinced she was no manakete, and adopting their styles felt creepy, felt like she would doom herself.
But Tiki was patient. And persistent. And they traveled together for a time, with Lucina's blessings. And before either of them noticed, they had slept for a year while adventuring far away from Ylisse, yet when they returned they were told by Lucina's baby daughter she was a full hand of extended fingers years old, so no, they hadn't slept for one year; those had been five, half a decade of just sleeping.
Robin had put on the fakest smile she had ever worn on her face after she recovered from that shock. She managed to not sleep again, not even by accident, for the month she could endure being in the castle again. By then, the divine dragon had left her side, complaining she hadn't slept long enough and she was returning home to complete her nap, thank you very much for all the fun.
When visiting Chrom's grave, she transformed for the first time entirely by accident, she remembered, but a bit on purpose in reality. She wanted her husband to know what had been behind her lack of aging, since they had never gotten the answer during his time. Looking down at the gravestone through six eyes, she could remember more clearly why.
Chrom had suspected what was wrong, but had kept her distracted with the children and managing the castle together and the whole kingdom and occasionally deploying the newer generations of Shepherds. He hadn't wanted her to remember the Grima chapter of their lives at all. And if she was honest, neither had she, as she had welcomed his diversions and postponed the inevitable.
She was a monster and she had to go. For real this time.
Lucina came chasing after her? She'd take flight and put a good distance between them again. Morgan caught her? A mighty roar could probably put him out of commission, no need to be aggressive. And if both her children reached out at the same time? She would fake surrender then slip out of their grasp the moment their eyes left her.
She heard a noise behind her and turned too quick. Her granddaughter went down on the ground with the careless swipe of her new dragon tail. She got even more startled seeing that and her wings carried her away before she could think, the little girl's cries following her for so long, she was convinced the baby was clinging to her back.
By the time Robin next regained control of herself, she woke half sunk on cool sand, the full moon shining right on her face through the oasis's broken palms. She had evidently crash landed, and brought down with her plenty of vegetation. The leaves in her mouth were not tasty, but she chewed on them absentmindedly for a while.
Her dragon form was flighty, to put it kindly. Like a child in terms of maturity, or worse. Bump into something and run for cover? Not in Robin's usual repertoire of reactions, as far back as her memory went. Which wasn't that far, damn Grima.
When she finally could move again, it was the next night. She left the cover of the collapsed vegetation, looking around to confirm that, indeed, she was right in the middle of Plegia. Her inner fell dragon remembered her sort-of home, and had brought her here as well as it could manage for a first flight.
She tried calling her other form back, and it refused to listen. So she walked, and walked, and walked. She would have seemed aimless to any onlooker, but she could actually feel people in the direction she was heading. By dawn, she was at the door of a Grimleal temple, not very amused. She could even feel her dragon mocking her.
And that's when she realized Grima was not gone. Oh no, not gone at all...
But Grima was pretty beaten down, definitely defeated, and aside from being a nuisance to call over, it cared for nothing. It was not bitter, it was not angry, it was not even malicious. It was just there, her little inner pet. Occasionally it would mock her or question her, but it was all in the name of healthy fun, right? Right!
Before she could understand what was going on, the Grimleal had her sat at a table, a banquet of actual food, not humans, set up for her. She had awkwardly smiled during her meal, starving and unable to refuse the offer, a dozen pairs of eyes or so intently looking at her all the while.
They knew who she was, and who she had almost been, even without the mark on her hand. But they hadn't invited her in for the reasons she had thought. They wanted her to go to the king of their nation, and beg the religion off the population. No one better than her for that task, they reasoned, though they stank of fear as they spoke to her.
And she agreed to help. And she achieved that goal. And she pretty much took over the courtyard of the castle from that point onward. After all, it was her skull resting there, from a time over a thousand years back, so it was hers by right, and since the puny mortals couldn't move it...
Robin thanked her inner fell dragon for finding her a new home of sorts. She hadn't wanted to wander forever, she just wanted to be away from her children back in Ylisse, away from where she could hurt them or their descendants that would come along eventually during her long life. Plegia could handle her, she had no real ties left to the kingdom.
But of course, her time traveling Morgan, slowed slightly by age, eventually found her. She didn't mind since she was only wary for the one she remembered birthing, yet her perch was set, and he couldn't convince her to fly down when he visited. He resorted to magic to amplify his voice to reach her, even if she didn't reply with more than a slight nod or shake he couldn't see down where he stood.
He knew she knew he had come in the name of the Lucina and Morgan of this timeline. She knew he knew she knew he was less clingy after her return from killing Grima, so he wouldn't start the search himself, as he had decided to give her space so her real children could have all her attention instead. He was kind and altruistic, and he wasn't standing by the dragon's fossilized fangs for his own sake.
Eventually he revealed to her information about his mission. Lucina and Morgan were sorry they had taken her for granted, that they had stood by seeing her slip through the cracks, only for them to look for her and find her lost. And not physically lost, but completely, utterly lost and beyond their reach. Her babies were sorry for that.
Sending the future past Morgan to keep her company was not atonement, but they hoped she would ease back into peace or at least a continuity, instead of the fragmented life she was living since her return. She was certainly doubting everything she had recently done when her son joked that her granddaughter was fifteen springs old, with a line of suitors to match. Ten years this time? How?
And the one day her favorite time traveler didn't return, she left her perch and sat inside Grima's jaws in the shadow, counting days and months and years, realizing at least another decade, if not more, had passed of her son from another realm being a constant company. She had never gone down and looked as he aged, or she would have probably noticed.
Something broke inside her, she could even hear the crack echoing in her deceptively human-shaped skull.
The king of Plegia came for her some other day, finding her in the darkest corner of the appropriately dragon-shaped stone head. He was a different one from the last she had visited and consciously seen. He guided her with care to Morgan's funeral, handling her like frail glass, when she felt like a dried flower about to turn into dust in the wind instead.
It was the worst moment of her life, so far. They put the coffin down in her presence, and in her mind she saw again Chrom's, and again Lucina's, and again Morgan's, and her again granddaughter's... Except only the first had happened. She remembered things she hadn't witnessed, or she imagined them so vividly they could pass as memories.
Nothing around her moved, time came to a halt, and even the colors faded. Robin sighed in relief; the last fifty years had happened in such a frenzied blur, it was nice to slow down as she fell apart. Grima kept quiet but upset for the first time in so long; offered her a flight away from all this mortal nonsense, but she just stayed rooted beside Morgan's grave.
Tiki put her hand on her shoulder, and she woke from her trance with a start. She apologized for the lateness, her nap had taken longer than expected, and started requesting they go talk far away alone with great urgency. Confused, the fell dragon manakete agreed, and again she was guided with care to their destination.
Nowi and Nah waited for them. Nah was older, but still younger and fresher than her generation, she could tell with a look. Nowi was the same as she was during their time with the Shepherds, and the contrast was jarring. The past and the present stood before her, and she felt as if floating in a calm sea of time, alone with nothing to cling to in sight.
They made her look at the stars, but she saw nothing there. They shared a meal, and it tasted like the leaves of those palms she knocked during her first flight the day before... No, way back ago. Then they called her an anomaly, and at least she had the sense to feel insulted and snap back into the moment.
And what an anomaly she was. Tiki and Nowi were fairly normal, though they struggled with the mortality of others. Nah had been born half a manakete, half a human; from birth, she knew no other experience, and she had made what she could of the cards life dealt her. However, Robin had been born human, died with Grima, then changed to manakete on her return to life.
But her soul hadn't changed, and it remained the most human of all four gathered that night. Fully human, actually, and she couldn't deal with immortality. She had only been under its effect for a measly fifty years, and she couldn't tell memories from illusions, a year from a day, and it would only get worse. They were going to lose her, whether among humans or manaketes.
So she took Grima's offering and flew out of the stargazing nest, to return to her perch upon her old skull.
She slept on and off, not clear of the passing time. She could form a vague timeline, though she didn't remember how she came to the knowledge. Morgan died before his sister, leaving behind twin children Robin never met. Lucina died, her daughter became Exalt; her siblings stuck around Ylisse, the number unknown. Some additional children, her great-grandchildren, were born here and there...
She also had the nagging suspicion some days that she was now a great-great-grandmother. Some nights she smiled up at the star she saw Chrom in, and let her mind free with what-ifs; being grandparents together for longer than they had, spoiling all those kids rotten, straining in their fleeting mortality to make it to meet their great-grandchildren perhaps, or perhaps not.
Such was the wonder of mortality. The end was more sudden, the time scarcer and more precious.
...and Grima woke her definitely at the hundredth anniversary of its slaying. Robin felt so awake and aware, she trembled as she moved, every limb heavy for the first time in so long, instead of alight as time ran its course far beneath her. She promptly fell off her perch, accidentally and not at all on purpose, and her dragon landed her as always.
Right in front of a kid no older than sixteen, blue eyes wide but mouth open wider still, with a crown of messy blue hair.
Her blood itself pumped faster than ever inside her, and as the child lifted his right hand, the brand of Naga merged with the mark of Grima on its back, her blood started actually boiling as her dragon form receded and she stood there as Robin. She realized she still wore her tactician's robe, and felt ashamed at how worn it looked. Tangled in her hair, lopsided on her forehead was her black manakete tiara.
"I'm sorry you find me this unkempt, Marth, but I'm glad you came here to meet me today with those flowers, my darling great-great-grandson."
And the boy's smile was so bright then, happy she knew him. He stood there, with the fell dragon kneeling as she received her flowers. Her light touch made the mark fade and the brand surface stronger.