all our
[possible]
passions

It was when Naga took them to that alternate world that she first felt it: hers was not the only true future. It had seemed like it, because all the children had fled and trickled here, to say nothing of Grima itself. Robin had thought their timeline was the sea to which all errant streams would find their way.

There, in the alternate future where the children bore the weight she and the other parents should have, all the Shepherds had wed the same partners. But then there was the moment that she had stood next to the Wyvern Lord whose face was in shadow, but who had fled at the sight of her, and the tingling on the edges of her skin had something like recognition to it. The girl had a whisper-soft voice that flared at the edges when she cried her attacks, and her robes were familiar. So too was her devotion, even if for another.

After that, she could not look at her husband or even her child in the same light. Morgan's hair was a dark blue now, but she couldn't tell if it was different in that other future. What if she hadn't wed Chrom then? Who, in the future past, had she chosen? What had become of him after she accepted Grima? Please, don't tell me I cast him away like Validar did my mother, she thought. Who was it?

Their limited time on the battlefield had led her to form bonds with only a few of the Shepherds, but she tried to pay closer attention to the others during the next few weeks.

She had never really thought much of Virion, but one day she found him soundly whooping Sully in cards and had to wonder. Meanwhile, Cherche and Cordelia were ever so pretty in the distance, but as she closed in to share meals or training sessions, she could not help but notice how they were also always ready to offer a kindness. Ricken was only a boy, but the more he strained to imitate maturity (or to reach the books on the highest shelf) the more she saw what he could grow into. And Tharja, Tharja whose attentions she had always parried—one day, fighting past the unease, she placed her hand on the dark mage's shoulder, under the curtain of her fine raven hair. And Tharja turned pink and still, and slowly moved her own hand up to place it on top of Robin's as if it was the most precious thing to ever have touched her.

Even with the older Shepherds and outcasts of the group, she knew then that with a little pushing she could reach them. Walhart and Gangrel and Aversa—their hearts were not made of stone, and in some far distant future perhaps she would find the time to understand them. The children, too, she had always kept her distance from, out of a sense of deference to their parents. But she shouldn't have always brushed off their curious glances in her direction. They sought a kind of comfort in her, perhaps, and while it was hers to give she should have given it.

If only I could know it all now, she thought, know them all in all the ways they deserve. But time was running short, and it was almost time to mount Grima's back for the final battle. All they were doing running about the map training and stocking up on supplies at her command was mere delight in delay, she knew.

One day after dinner in the mess hall, Morgan ran to her tent to beg her for a lesson. She sank her hands into his fine blue hair. "Don't you want to play with your sister?"

"That's okay, Lucina's training with Father. I just want to spend time with you, Mom."

And her heart stretched to look upon this gift from afar, brought to her as if by the benevolent whim of a river seeking the inevitable ocean, and reminding her how much didn't change even if other things did. "You know, Morgan," she said, "had I time and not this particular ring, I might have loved somebody else. Do you find that strange?"

"Nuh-uh!" Morgan shook his head, his bangs flying. "Mom, you're so amazing in this time and the other futures, you could've married anyone you liked! And I would have loved them too."

"But then you wouldn't have Chrom as a father, or Lucina as a sister."

"That's okay! I love Father, but Lucina needs him more than I do. And Lucina... it's weird, about her..." He scratched his head, the way he did when trying to get the hang of a new spell. "She's the best sister, but I could also see myself falling for her if she wasn't. I even feel like, in some strange way, I could imagine her as my mother… wait, that sounds horrible! I didn't mean anything by it, Mom!"

"Hush, Morgan. So you see it too." What a bright boy. Her treasure, in this world and all others.

He grinned. "The ties you always mention... they can twist any which way, can't they? What's important is that in every future we've seen, even with all those bonds you forged, you've never left me alone."

"I never will." He looked positively tickled, and she couldn't stop herself from ruffling his hair again.

I'll fight with someone new tomorrow, she resolved, even if there's not time enough to know them completely. Even if I don't manage in this lifetime, there are others. Some other me surely once knew and treasured them all.