The epiphany that brought him out of his scheming dream state came at the same time as the first raindrop that crashed down from the sky. He shook off the sleep and tried to comprehend the thought that came to him: the rough outline of an overarching thesis linking Kierkan's stance on a market economy to the eighth chronicle of Alm the Conqueror's campaign in Valentia. Soon the second and third raindrop hit him, and by that time he had thrown the ephemeral idea out the window of his memory to recognize that it had begun raining, and a steady pace at that.
A soprano voice resonated through his mind, a piercing melody that further jolted him awake. Beauty came in endless forms, and he could vouch for its elegance, but it seemed so out of place that it only accentuated the problem.
When the sixth raindrop struck he had ascertained that he had come to in a peculiar position, namely stuffed between two burlap sacks in the back of a side alley, the cobblestone beneath him digging into his side. He shoved off the obstructions interfering with his path to open space and quickly stood up, dusting off the robes he did not recognize and finding a couple of books at his feet. The works of Kierkan and Alm that he had dreamt about? He figured he would look at them later, stuffing them under his arm and preparing to head out of the alley. At that point he had come to the startling realization that he did not remember anything outside the last two books he had read, drawing complete blanks when it came to his name, his location, or his business. But he couldn't ponder that problem for too long, as he began to hear the loud clamoring of voices coming from the street outside the alley. Enough raindrops had struck that he quickly caught on to the fact that the voices belonged to people also escaping the rain, and if he wanted to spend as little time as possible in the downpour, he would do well to get moving.
He made a bolt for the exit, listening to the murmurs of the crowd grow louder. Once he entered the street proper, he took a moment to survey his surroundings. Before him lay a great canal, with a couple of boats unluckily getting caught in the rain as the few crew aboard the vehicles paddled with all their might with wooden oars, sloshing through the water. He ran towards the wall that separated the street from the canal to get a closer look at the boats as they went by, glimpsing a couple of their names. Merric. Pride of Altea.
The names had given him the solution to one of his problems: he knew he had woken up in one of the towns of the halidom of Ylisse. That came as a relief; he would have much better chances figuring out where he should go in the peaceful kingdom rather than the aggressive theocratic state of Plegia, or the militant, rough-cultured land of Regna Ferox of the north. However, it did still did little to remedy his current situation, and he went back to work his way through the crowd that grew denser and denser. He hadn't thought about which way to head, but he figured that if he headed far enough, he'd find some place to find shelter in.
The street got narrower as he ran down a flight of steps as carefully as he could manage, with the rain making his descent slippery and the load of two tomes under his arm making maneuvering difficult. He could no longer avoid making contact with people as he weaved around the foot and occasional wagon traffic, trying to get himself ahead of the flow as the rain continued to pour down upon him. Many people on the street either had a hood to ward off the precipitation or rode in a wagon to shield themselves. He had no such luxury.
Moving became more difficult as the crowd got thicker around him, and he found more than a few stray elbows jab at him and a loose finger or two swipe at him as he shoved his way through the disorganized mess. An impatient, broad-shouldered man ran into him, and he staggered sideways trying to keep his balance when he heard the sound of brass making contact with the cobblestone street and a weight fall from his waist. Had he been carrying a weapon outside the sphere of his awareness? He had no time to dwell on the potential loss as the stream of commoners continued to mercilessly shove him along.
He switched his focus back to the street in front of him, or at least what he could make of it with the large white hull of the horse-drawn wagon in front of him. The welcoming sign of one of the town's inn hung in the distance, and he estimated that he would probably reach it in about a minute. Due to the naturally hospitable nature of inns, he didn't doubt that it had already started quickly filling up with peddlers and vagabonds and generally lost souls alike, but he wouldn't need to necessarily try to find a room there - just a dry roof under which to collect his thoughts.
A steady stream of travelers running from the rain began making its way towards the inn entrance, the double doors already propped open, and he joined the mix, getting in his own share of pushing and shoving while still securing the tomes in the crutch of his left arm. Fortunately the inn still had a little breathing room, although he would still have to deal with some undesirably close quarters. The diffusion of commoners began to spread out once they reached the common room, and he received some much needed relief once he got far enough away from other people that he could move his right arm away from his side. His first action was to secure one of the few vacant barstools towards the end of the counter.
The innkeeper had his hands quite full dealing with the influx of people, and even the dozen or so maids running around to assist him didn't make the load any lighter. Still, the amnesiac needed some respite of his own before settling down and actually working on putting together the hazy fragments of what he knew of himself. Reaching down into his pockets with his free arm, his fingers discovered a few round shapes that he then pulled out and set against the counter along with the tomes. Four gold pieces wouldn't amount to much, perhaps some of the low quality beer that taverns carried around for the really desperate, but he figured he'd fare better with a poor beverage than none at all. Rapping the wooden frame twice to call for one of the maids' attention, he repositioned himself on the stool and opened up the books to examine their contents in the meantime.
The smaller one read in a language he had trouble deciphering at first, but the strange letters began to make sense in his mind. He recognized it as the ancient language of Archanea, the continent of millenniums past that had since morphed into the present geography of the three kingdoms he knew today. The words spoke of calling down empyreal lightning upon the caster's foes and sending them bolting in fear underneath the booming stormcloud, making the identity of the tome obvious enough: a Thunder variant. The larger book had a leather buckle and an ornate cover, making him believe it to have greater significance. While the author had used the common dialect, they had written with a professional diction, and he vaguely recognized it as a description of the government structure within the Plegian theocracy. The page he had opened explained to him the means of succession for the office of bishops in the nation-state, citing a clearly hereditary lineage.
"What will it be, hon?" The sound of one of the waitresses alerted him out of his study, and he quickly closed the larger book and set it alongside the thunder tome. "Best make your order snappy, as you can tell, we've got our hands full today."
"Er, right." He racked his mind as he tried to cross the names of alcoholic beverages popping up in his mind with the plausible value that he could acquire with four gold coins. "Cornerstone, please."
"We'll be right with you," she told him as she turned back around to the bar storage, and he silently thanked whatever gods he believed in that his knowledge of beer, at the very least, had not left him.
He shifted his stool closer to the counter and moved his arm closer to the pair of books. If he had some knowledge of magecraft, he would do well to keep at least the Thunder tome with him. The one about Plegian religious hierarchy proved much less interesting, but he had a feeling he should probably hang onto it as well. He made sure to keep one hand on them as he scanned the perimeter, knowing that with crowded inns came a natural propensity for thieves to try their luck in pickpocketing a valuable or two. A wide age range of males comprised the majority of the inn's current population, stretching from the young twenties like he would guess for himself to the late forties, although he did spy a couple of husband and wife pairs and the occasional family.
His beer had arrived at the same time that the crowd had begun to quickly move away from the inn's entrance, where a group of larger men barged in. From his point of view, he couldn't discern the reason for the commotion, and he sipped curiously at his beverage as he watched one of the patrons fly across the room and collide his head with the edge of one of the round tables. Flashes of steel cut through his periphery, and he discovered that the newcomers bore axes. He set the glass down, cringing at the bitter taste of the lukewarm beer. Just his luck to go to the inn being targeted by a group of brigands.
He heard a shout of protest followed by the drawing of steel from leather from the other side of the bar. Someone else had come prepared to fight, and he could hear the sounds of a scuffle begin to develop. He gave another glance at the Thunder tome. It would probably make it easier for everyone if he helped the patrons getting into the fight. Or would it? He didn't know if his rather premature mental capacity could handle the concentration needed to wield a weapon of great potential destruction. Beginning to regret losing the other potential weapon he had on him during the rush of the crowd, he faltered in making a decision, focus shifting between the books and the increasing number of brigands sifting in.
A strained cry came from behind him. Whirling around in the stool, he saw that a couple of the bandits had come through an open window and had shoved an older man from his low seat on a bench, one of them going through his belongings in search of anything valuable. while the other held the threatening blade of his axe towards anyone who would try to defy them. The poor victim shivered in terror, hands raised protectively near his face as he trembled under the gaze of the robbers who held that whole sector of the inn hostage. He met the gaze of the middle-aged man for a second as the older peddler looked into his eyes for any sort of hope.
"There's nothing in this old man's bag besides junk!" the bandit grumbled to his partner.
It was as good of a signal as any. He flipped the tome open, turning it to some arbitrary page and muttering the words of the incantation under his breath, concentrating his focus on the brigand with his hands on the man's bag of valuables.
He didn't know what he expected. A golden bolt of energy materializing from his hand as he pointed it towards the brigand and consumed him in heated atmospheric pressure, bending the beam of light to his will as he administered justice to the wicked? Instead, his hands shook as they reacted to the power emanating from the tome, feeling a magnetic sphere of influence pushing him away before it projected itself away from him somewhat in the direction that he intended it to go, causing an explosion of bright light that he had to shield his eyes away from and producing a fair amount of recoil that he nearly fell off the barstool, catching himself with one hand just in time.
Where the pair of brigands had stood, he saw nothing but the ashen remains of the table upon which the middle-aged man had sat - fortunately, all its previous residents had backed away after the bandits made their entrance. The man remained on the floor, his jaw open and as wide as his eyes as he stared at the source of the uncalled blast of power, but otherwise unharmed. The peddler's possessions, which he identified as some raw pieces of clay, had suffered some damage to them, but he figured he hadn't completely destroyed them. Out of all the products he might have damaged, he considered himself lucky that he had only come across raw production materials. Miraculously, nothing had even caught on fire, a usual unwanted byproduct of a spontaneous lightning bolt reaction.
"That man at the bar!" he heard a deep voice call from the other side of the room. He whirled around to see a trio of people standing amidst the bodies of fallen brigands; they must have dispatched the main force while he carried on with his magical antics. In the center stood a blue-haired man, wearing a white cape over one of his shoulders that left the other forearm bare to expose… a tattoo? He carried a sword that signified some sort of nobility to him, as no common sellsword would carry a weapon with such an ornate hilt. A young blonde woman stood next to him, a bonnet covering the top of her head and two curly pigtails cascading down the sides. She carried a healer's staff and looked at him with a curious, if not mischievous, expression. The third person wore a full suit of light blue armor, his helmet removed and carried in the left arm to reveal a stern face with a messy mat of brown hair while he carried an imposing lance in the right. It didn't take a genius to figure which of the three had yelled and gotten his attention. Perhaps they had seen his display of magic and had come to thank him for cleaning up the other end of the fight?
"Look at his robes, milord!" the knight pointed out. "A Plegian mage, likely the ringleader of these barbarians!"
He barely had enough time to glance down at his apparel to see what about him had the knight so much in a fuss. Perhaps the robes did look out of place, looser than normal clothing, but he didn't see anything that out of place… until his eyes alighted on the emblem of Plegia on the side of his sleeve. A Plegian mage, was he? It brought up the question of why he had awoken in a Ylissean alley, but he had the strange gut feeling that he belonged in the halidom rather than in the oppressive desert. And he would have to convince them as well, for the two men had drawn their weapons again and began to walk towards him.
"Hold up a moment, I can explain things," he said, raising his arms away from his body in a conciliatory gesture, looking to the man whose life he just saved for some support. "He can attest, I attacked those brigands! Like many of the people here, I just came to the inn for some shelter from the rain."
The peddler did not act very convincingly. "What do you want from us, sorcerer?" So much for his attempt at generosity. Did all Ylisseans act so spiteful towards charitable acts?
"I'm no sorcerer!" he insisted. "I barely even remember who I am!" That got an interesting look out of the blue-haired swordsman, who took another step forward, close enough to reach out with his weapon and slice off his nose. Maybe he shouldn't have said that.
"You've lost your memory? A strange thing to claim, from a man wearing Plegian robes who has some control over thunder magic."
"I swear I had nothing to do with this bandit attack." He had already begun to run out of options. Perhaps he could grab hold of that waitress that gave him that drink, although he had a feeling that this little merry band of travelers wouldn't think much of any receipt of purchase he could procure to show them. "If I was really so involved, there would be no reason to draw attention to myself with a display of magic."
The knight frowned. "Something about his behavior feels too smug, milord. It's best if we take him into custody and bring him ba-"
"H-help!" The innkeeper came running back into the common room; he hadn't seen the stout man since he first walked in. "The wall in the back's sprung a leak! We need to stop it else the water will get in here and ruin our storage!"
"We'll help you!" chirped the blonde, and the swordsman and knight retained their suspicious look at him.
"Don't worry about keeping an eye on me. I'm going to help." They gave each other a look of silent consideration before nodding. The swordsman went to follow the blonde, and the knight pushed him along, staying behind him to ensure he didn't try to pull anything funny.
He could feel the effects of the water before even coming to the wall, noticing his boots splash against a shallow layer of water that filled the floor. The group came to the leak in question, a steady stream of water pouring from the gap and threatening to cross over the small partition leading to the inn's storage room, as the innkeeper had said. He noted the hole's dimensions, perhaps two feet by one and a half. The stream of water did not take up the entirety of the space, although if the storm persisted any longer it would increase the rate at which it flowed in and it could exponentially grow into a serious problem if not treated immediately.
"There's bound to be some loose material that we can use to patch the hole up," the knight suggested. "I will go around and ask if any of the patrons have any sorts of strong cloth or other material that can block it."
The swordsman picked up one of the loose stones lying on the ground. They had probably come loose from the wall when the hole was created. "Putting these back will probably help, too. If we fill up the gaps with any material that Frederick can find, it should make a good enough cover for now."
"No, this won't do." All three of them stared back at him as he walked closer to the source of the leak. He continued explaining. "You lack a cohesive mortar to fill the gaps between the stones. They fell out of the wall in the first place because that part didn't have the strength to hold back the water."
The knight, Frederick, had returned during the tail end of his explanation holding a couple of cloth towels. "Then I wouldn't suppose you had a better plan, Plegian?"
He cringed at the label, believing it completely false even though he had no way to do so. But if his words wouldn't convince them, maybe his actions could prove his good intentions. His thoughts turned back to the peddler that he had saved, remembering the contents of his bag and how he found it odd that a traveling merchant would have unfinished molds of clay with him that he couldn't sell.
"I do, in fact. Hold here for just a minute. In the meantime, we should start plugging up the hole with what we do have, namely the stones and cloth that you've gathered." He sped off to the far end of the bar, where he hoped the peddler remained. Fortunately for him, the man had stayed in the same position, idly talking to a couple of younger men when the amnesiac's loud footsteps got his attention.
"What do you want from me now, mage?" His dark eyes were lined with suspicion.
"It's a matter of utmost importance, I can assure you." He pointed to the bag slung over the peddler's back. "The material in your bag - the unsculpted clay. The innkeeper is in dire need of something that can plug up the hole in the wall. Even if you bear me no good will, at least do so for the sake of the establishment."
He held his stare for a couple more seconds before finally relenting, bringing the bag around from behind his shoulders and tossing the load over. The bag felt heavier than it looked. "Take what you must. I feel indebted to you only because you did save my life, but I want no more association with someone like you."
He didn't waste any time trying to decipher what the peddler could've meant as he headed back to the gap in the wall where the swordsman and the knight had worked on filling up the gap. Though they had the hole completely covered up, their efforts had done little to actually halt the water coming out.
"Here's some mortar that should be a lot more effective when we combine it with the stones that fell out," he announced, opening the bag and pulling out a lump of clay around the size of the wall, fairly soft and malleable. Pulling it apart with his hands, he moved over towards the hole and began pressing the clay into the small gaps that the irregular shape of the stones had left over, slowly but steadily imitating the structure of the wall around the hole.
"...I see the wisdom in your strategy," the knight admitted as he moved aside. "Are we still in need of the cloth, or should I dispose of them?"
"They'll still be useful. The clay should not make up the entirety of the barricades that we're using to stop the water. They're better off filling in the gaps that our materials leave open, because it makes our repairing of the wall all the more compact." He took one of the pieces of cloth from Frederick and jammed it into the remaining portion of the hole, taking the small lump of clay in his hands and pulling pieces off it to fit into the small cracks in the wall left. After a grimy session of fitting in as much clay into the small spots as he could, he eventually stepped back to admire his work.
"A thousand gratitudes for your help, milord," the innkeeper thanked him, bowing somewhat clumsily.
"You did a good job," the swordsman agreed. "I didn't expect a Plegian to be so knowledgeable about fixing water leaks."
Back to the mysterious point about his origins. "That's the thing. I'm confident I have nothing to do with the theocracy. I've felt like an Ylissean man for… well, I can't quite say it's my entire life. I have no recollection of who I am before the point where I awoke in one of those side alleys. I don't even know my name."
"Then how did you make that big bolt of lightning?" the girl asked. Big? Lightning? He was sure she had made some kind of exaggeration.
"I can't say. If I am a mage, then the knowledge of magic is something I probably know my instinct, like riding a bike would be. Either way, I'm fairly sure my understanding is little more than the basics."
"So you have no idea what you're doing here in Southtown," the swordsman provided. The name of the town did little to jog his memory.
"Not at all, Chrom." Where did that name come from? He took another look at the tattoo on the man's arm, recognizing it as the unique brand that each of the Hero-King's descendants bore on their body. The Mark of the Exalt.
All three seemed quite taken aback. "You… you know my name?" Chrom asked, bewildered.
"Tch!" the knight interjected. "The man is thinking to play us for quite the fools. If you have no ties to Plegia, as you say, and cannot remember what you are doing here so close to the capital, then how do you know my lord's name and not your own?"
He had no easy answer for that. "I have a basic understanding of the political setups in each kingdom and their respective rulers," he admitted. "I have never seen any member of the Ylissean royal family, but the brand is in plain sight for anyone to see, if one is learned enough to be aware of it. The late Ylissean king only had one son, so he must've been Chrom. That makes you" - he turned to the female, who looked at him expectantly - "Princess Lissa, and your elder sister the exalt Emmeryn." Perhaps he should have bowed in their presence, but it would only make submitting to them easier.
Lissa looked somewhat impressed. "That's… right. But it's really creepy that you know so much about us!"
Chrom raised a hand. "It's alright. It's not like our existence is exactly private knowledge. I suppose there's no need to introduce ourselves. We are the prince and princess of this realm - a title that I've never been comfortable with. The stern one is Sir Frederick."
Frederick gave no indication of acknowledging him. "You must understand that there is nothing good that can come out of associating with this man, sire."
"Maybe not, but we can't just leave someone without memories alone," Chrom argued. "If he does end up being affiliated with Plegia, then it's better that he's with us." He turned back to him. "I would assume you don't have any living arrangements, then."
"Not that I can recall."
"Then you should have no objections heading back with us to Ylisstol," Chrom told him. "While you were mostly right about us, there's one thing you should probably know." His face darkened as he looked like he had just recalled a particularly gruesome memory.
"Emm was… captured by a group of Plegian infiltrators while we were away," Lissa explained. "We had just heard about it, so we started making our way back home from the outlands. That puts my brother as the temporary acting exalt."
"You can understand how we don't take kindly to anyone related to Plegia," the prince said. "Frederick is wary enough as is, but given recent events, I'm surprised he didn't already try to run you through with a lance."
"The prospect was tempting, milord."
"Glad to know you think so much of me." He began to feel more and more uneasy being around this group, but he definitely preferred the plan of joining them than spending some more quality time in the alleys of Southtown.
"The circumstances of our meeting were quite strange, but I can tell you have some good intentions with you," Chrom admitted. "Your skill with solving problems is unusually adept. If you are not some rogue Plegian mage, at the very least, you probably spent some time at one of their academies."
"The only memories I have are waking up with some crazy theory from some old treatises in my head. If there was any connection to make to my previous life, I suppose it would be to reading," he agreed.
"That seems to be the case." Chrom turned to his sister and Frederick. "Well, we should be heading back home. I propose taking him to the castle, conducting some proper interrogations… and then figuring out what to do with you. Lissa?"
"Works for me!" the princess answered. "You have this aura around you that makes me really want to believe you, mister. So I hope you don't disappoint me!"
Frederick did not share her sentiments. "It is too dangerous to leave such a man to his own designs."
"It's settled then," the prince decided. "From now on you're with us, er… right. You said you haven't remembered your name."
It came to him like the final note to an unfinished symphony.
"Robin." How he could say it with absolute confidence was yet another mystery to add to his new life, but he felt the name would suit him.
A/N: Yes, it's another one of those 'retell the story of Awakening' fanfics. There are some blatant deviants from the plot already, however: most importantly, Robin is rather self-aware of the world (it makes little sense for him to know magic but not the universe he's in). And there will be even more changes as the story goes on.
It was really tricky to think of a way to portray Chrom and co when they first meet Robin. I don't like the fact that Chrom basically wants to make him a Shepherd right after they pick him off the side of the road, so I have him take a much more skeptical approach to the problem of running into an amnesiac. In the canon story Chrom cites his older sister's benevolence as the reason for him being so trusting, so I decided I'd just take that away from the very start. Have him associate Robin with the people that are responsible for depriving him of his sister and see if he's still so generous after that.
also this is probably the worst time to start a large project considering it's only one month till Fates but this story idea was really bugging me and I couldn't not entertain it