She supposed she always had a suspicion. All of the siblings pretty much had the same hair color, barring the lilac haired Camilla. The rest of Garon's children inherited his blonde hair, and Camilla got her mother's purple hair. But Corrin's hair wasn't blonde. It was a stark white. It was like someone took the description of Snow White and put the colors in the wrong spots. Pure white hair and ruby red eyes. Corrin's mother wasn't really spoken of in the fortress, for varying reasons at the time (Now she knows. Now she knows that her mother was never there to be spoken of, and that the land was not her birth land). Her facial features never really matched Garon's, or his children, either. For years she assumed that she heavily favored her missing mother, and maybe that was why Father did not want her at the main castle with him. Why he never talked to her. Why he kept her locked up in that lonely fortress with barely any other people. Why he didn't seem to love her like her siblings.
She tried for years to impress him. Act just like he wanted, to maybe step out of her mother's shadow and be her own person. So that maybe he would talk to her as she knew he talked to Xander. Maybe dote on her like Elise. But no. No matter how she tried, she was never allowed to leave. She stayed in her castle, watching her siblings come and go as they pleased, enjoying their travels and adventures.
Corrin thrived off those stories for all her life, until one day, she beat Xander. Oh, she knew that in a real fight at the time, Xander would have destroyed her in an instant. But on that rooftop, away from Father's eyes and ears, she bested Xander, and earned the right to travel to the capital, and see Father on his throne.
There, in the capital of Windmire, there was a chance to prove herself to Father. Defeat these invading Hoshidans, and teach them to trespass in her home! But, then, she no longer wanted to impress Father. Father wanted her to kill them. Her defeated foes, who barely stood before her. The woman was glaring so fiercely, the two infantry men with spears leaning on them so heavily, the green haired male just looking sad. She could not kill these people. Father took half the choice from her, and Xander and Leo saved her from making the choice with the last two. She knew, as she watched the man and woman dash away into the night, that she could never have done what Father had wanted, and that worried her.
Much later, when she woke in the Flame Tribe village, she knew almost as soon as she woke that she was going to die. Be it by the woman from the capital out for revenge, or the royal family when she got to their capital with the ninja from before. And, as she walked into the grounds of Castle Shirasagi, she began to say her goodbyes in her head, wishing she could tell her siblings how much she loved them once more, and to thank them and all her few friends for helping her in her life. So caught up in this, she never noticed the familiar feel of the palace.
When Queen Mikoto walked in and told her who they claimed she was, she was confused. There was no way that she was this woman's child! Xander ,Camilla, Leo, and Elise were her siblings! King Garon was her father! Her mother was… Never talked about. And there were no pictures. And she knew that there was a reason she didn't look like her siblings at all. And she and this woman had a similar face. Thus the fears she thought of her father grew, sitting in the back of her mind.
She wasn't given much time to think on it. They had to leave immediately for the north. Meeting Sakura and Hinoka helped the fear grow. The Faceless made her question her people, for why would the Nohrians make these awful creatures in the first place, much less make them hurt people?
The room back at the castle that Queen Mikoto showed her didn't connect with her foggy memories. It just showed her how much this child was missed, for their room to be left the exact same, all these years. How much Mo- Queen Mikoto loved her child (Maybe she's her mother. God how much she wanted her to be, in a way). Azura showed her that people taken can grow up happy in their new land, so if she was taken all those years ago on a dark night, it wouldn't be her fault for being happy there.
When Queen Mikoto presented her throne, she felt a stab of pain in her heart, if only for a moment. The idea of this kind lady not trusting her was not something she enjoyed the thought of. And when she talked of the possible sealing of her memories, she couldn't speak, for how much she both wanted to desperately sit there and have memories unlocked, and yet also sit and have nothing happen. To be Mikoto's child would mean that she could have a loving mother, something she'd always dreamed of, in her time alone at the Northern Fortress. Someone to talk to, to sooth the fears and pains of growing up. She'd spent many nights in her room, having conversations with her stuffed animals, trying to imagine a mother like Mikoto.
But, to have memories returned to her meant that her beloved siblings had lied. Lied, and stolen her away from her family. It meant that Xander wasn't her big brother, Camilla not her doting big sister, Leo wasn't her proper little brother, Elise wasn't her darling little sister, and that they all, with King Garon, were liars of the worst kind. And that suddenly, everyone could be a liar, and she didn't know who from back in Nohr (Home, but maybe she shouldn't think that way).
The tour really passed by in a bit of a blur. The thought of lies wouldn't leave her head. She remembered the food though. And how happy everyone seemed. Sure, Takumi didn't trust her, but who was she to blame him. She liked the Hoshido royals, but she didn't necessarily trust them yet either. They eventually reached the plaza though.
Oh god. The plaza.
It was all so quick. She was looking at Queen Mikoto as she greeted her people, and she felt movement at her hip. Ganglari was shaking, and it shot out of its sheath and into the hand of a hooded man in the crowd. She didn't have time to do more than blink before he slammed it to the ground, causing a blast that violently threw the people away. And then, Ganglari shattered, and came at her, and oh god, she was going to be hit, and OH GOD, Mother was hit instead. Corrin cradled her mother (for that's who she was, there was no way she wasn't) as they both slid to the ground. Held her as Mother asked if she was ok. Held Mother as she died.
After that, it was tears. And rage. So much anger and fury at the puny human who took her mother away from her. And so she rolled in it, letting it take her where it wanted.
It wasn't till later, after Azura calmed her, that she remembered that fateful night in Cheve. Watching Sumeragi die, and Garon taking her away. And then she knew for certain what she always thought.
She knew.
When the time came that Corrin was with her siblings again, she had to make a choice. Either she could side with the family that raised her, loved her as one of their own, or side with the family who she was stolen from, who had just suffered a great loss, and were being attacked for some reason. She couldn't think on this lightly. But she knew exactly her choice.
She knew.
