The sun was hot on the young prince's back that afternoon. Despite being early summer, the weather had become hot, sticky and nearly unbearable within a few days. Luckily for him and his aching back, his scouting mission across the southern border of Ylisse had only uncovered a few minor skirmishes. Such bands of thieves and villains were easily disposed of with a quick swipe of the sword, leaving him free to return to the capitol, Ylisstol. His mind raced as the sun pounded him with burning rays of gold. The reports of disturbances had increased along the border as of late. While he did not mind protecting his people, he did mind the open hostility Ylisse's neighbor, Plegia was flashing their way. He could handle a few brigands and bandits, but he certainly did not feel comfortable with the way the Plegians had been treating his lands lately.
Such is the worries of a prince, he supposed.
The blue-haired royal turned to his right to find his younger sister walking beside him with a hidden flash of irritation, the sun attacking her in her bright yellow dress a bit stronger than he had thought. With her blond pigtails bouncing as she walked, she usually would have been the very picture of ignorant bliss. Lissa was a stubborn little thing, and had insisted on joining him and his family's most trusted knight on their scouting mission. Naturally, being the good older brother he was, he had refused. But, with noble negotiations—which here means a heated argument—they eventually came to the conclusion that Lissa could tag along if she gave her word, swore and promised to stay out of any battles. Being that her current occupation was a cleric, she eventually promised, swore and gave her word that she would stay out of the way of any trouble.
As if that helped Chrom's nerves.
His heavy boots agitated the baked dirt below him, creating a trail of short and half-lived dust that settled fairly quickly. The blue-haired man continued on the well-beaten path, knowing very well that this dirt ribbon would lead them to Southtown, a sleepy local that was merely a day's walk from Ylisstol. He couldn't help but think ahead to the prospect of a night's rest and perhaps some sort of stew; his stomach had started complaining a while back and it just would not cease its complaining.
His walking was made a bit easier by the sheer fact that a recent pair of boots had left a trail to follow straight to the small town ahead. Lissa, being a bit eager to prove herself—which he pretended not to notice—had pointed them out some ways ago, hoping to prove her worth in their little expedition. The young woman was carefully walking beside them, her bright eyes following every twist and turn of the steps. Judging by the twirls of movement the prints took, Chrom would have to say that the person on the path had to be jumping and spinning around for a few feet at this point. The only person the young lord could think of that would engage in such an activity would be some type of show-person, perhaps a dancer or someone else who happened to be nimble.
His eyes lifted from the dusty trail and instead focused on the path ahead, the brown cradled by the swaying grass of the fields around them. It couldn't be much longer now before they reached Southtown. His blue eyes drifted behind him to find Frederick, his loyal and a bit excessive great knight, surprisingly behind them. Chrom chuckled at the sight. Perhaps he had actually taken Lissa's fear of someone following them to heart. It was reassuring to know that he was looking out for them, but also a bit worrisome that he took everything so seriously. He shook off the sight with a light smile before turning his attention back to the way ahead of them, waiting for the familiar horizon of the village's church to come into view. It couldn't be much longer now.
"Hey, why are all the footprints scuffed up?"
The man looked down at the dirt path they had been traveling upon for a single second, merely out of curiosity. He raised a lone eyebrow as he found the light pair of tracks they had been trailing had suddenly veered to the right and become heavier, almost as if the owner was in a panic. His blue boots stopped as he looked up to his younger sister, watching her face crinkle with thought.
"It looks as if they stumbled across someone!" The blond let out a shocked sound as she tiptoed around the tracks, her bright green eyes never looking away for a single instant. Somewhere in his mind, Chrom was a bit proud of her spotting. Seeing as his little sister had insisted on coming along, it was a relief to see her learning some survival skills already. Her eyes danced over the prints for a while before they suddenly widened with horror. "Chrom! There's blood up here!"
A swirl of unease slipped in his veins as the prince of Ylisse followed her gaze and found to his horror that the dried earth was painted in multiple places with scarlet spots. He stopped dead on the side of the road as his sister looked up at him, her hands near her chin as her face contorted with worry. Chrom's eyes analyzed the scene with a trained eye, judging just how the spaced out the drops were and the thickness of the red stains.
The splotches were a decent size, about the width you would expect if they had fallen from a standing victim. His eyes soon found a deeply-set pair of bootprints beside a scatter of red, proving that the victim had been well enough to stand for a while at the very least. Blue eyes lifted from the sight to find a thicker patch of scarlet a few feet away, as if the wounded individual had tried to strike back and instead opened their wounds a bit deeper. The man let out an angered growl and bit his lip, sickened by the sight of blood on this peaceful path. Whoever left these stains had fought to stay alive, that much was painfully obvious to him.
"Chrom," Lissa screeched. His attention snapped back to his sister to find her pointing worriedly into the nearby field. His hand instinctively reached for the sword at his hip, thinking that her panic had been from seeing the attacker still lingering about the open road. Instead the young woman turned back to him with tearful eyes and clutched the staff she held at her own hip with shaking hands. "T-There's someone in the grass! They're hurt!" Before the man could open his mouth to reply, his sister raced off with thumping boots. He let out a snarl of worry before dashing off to her side. His feet stopped dead when he found what she was pointing at.
He had never seen so much crimson before.
Red tainted everything in this single spot of the field, painting the green and yellow grass with a vibrant shade of unwanted paint. White lilies, once so pure and perfect were now drenched in red, the color splashed on their petals and dripping off the velvet surface like oil. The perfect scene was tarnished by blood, something that should only been seen on the fields of war. This amount of violence made this seem like a slaughterhouse, not the peaceful way to a small town. A gasp slipped from Lissa's lips as they found a lonesome figure curled in the center of the red, lying on their side with their left arm reaching out for something unseen. This figure was covered in a navy cloak with golden and violet accents, an exotic coat for Ylissean standards. The individual had long, brunette hair that was pulled back in a ponytail and supported by a single braid that wrapped around their head. Judging by the thin features on their grass-shrouded face, this person was a woman of the most unfortunate kind.
Lissa slipped away from the sight with falling tears, hiding her face in her brother's blue uniform. The prince flinched before easing his stance and holding her close, feeling the sinking feeling in his chest that came with the sight of death. Who could have done such a thing? This was not just a killing, it was a brutality. Anyone who could be responsible for this kind of destruction of human life was a monster.
"Who would do this," Lissa sobbed. Chrom looked down to find his sister pulling away with puffy eyes and a running nose, unable to handle such a gruesome sight. "T-This is awful! Why would anyone do this to another person?!" Chrom choked on his own breath as his sister turned away and gave the fallen woman a glance filled with pain. He never wanted her to see this. Never.
Suddenly, the brunette in the stained grass moved.
It was a simple shift of the hand, but it set off the young blond immediately. A spark flashed in her eyes as the woman slowly curled her fingers in the bloodcaked grass, almost as if she were grabbing something. Lissa let out a hopeful squeak before rushing to her side and pulling out her healing staff. Chrom reached out with a call, hoping to bring her back, but the young woman shook her head fiercely and gave him a determined look.
"Chrom, we could still help her!" Her eyes shifted back to the young brunette as her sweet face twisted with a powerful fire. "I-I can heal her! She doesn't have to die. If I heal her with my staff, she can still make it! Then we can take her back to that town with us and get her some help and find out who did this to her!" Chrom watched on with a sickened twist in his stomach as the delicate fingers of the blond brushed against the cloak of the woman.
Red flashed in their vision as the brunette's side was revealed to have a long, deep stain of red that measured a good three inches long. The royal bit his lip before taking a few cautious steps towards his sister, feeling uncomfortable being so close to someone who looked so...so...dead. Dead men carried disease and sickness, something that they could do without very easily. He didn't want his little sister so close to someone on the verge of life and death, but he knew that her stubborn desire to help out would work against him in case. Besides, if her ability as a cleric could save this woman, who was he to stop her?
Lissa's green orbs flashed with confusion as she pulled back the stained cloak to find a distinct lack of a wound. Instead, dried blood stuck to the woman's clothes like sown thread, surrounding the very area where the bloodstain occupied but showing clean fabrics were the cut should have been. Baffled, the young blond gently turned the brunette over and searched for some other wound. Chrom felt sick as they found a deep, almost black stain of crimson on her stomach, indicating that the fallen woman had been dealt a stab to her gut. Lissa delicately moved the navy cloth aside to find yet again a distinct lack of a wound. Again, red stained the areas around the area the wound would have been, but the actual area was spotless. It was so strange, utterly impossible. And yet, they were seeing it with their own eyes.
"It looks like someone already healed her wounds..." Lissa's voice was uncertain as she tilted her head and stared at the bloodstains. "But, why would someone heal her and just leave her here? It just doesn't make any sense..." Abruptly, the brunette shifted again. This time, the woman's face contorted with a display of pain. Chrom reached out and pulled his sister away as the fallen brunette let out a soft groan of pain.
"She's waking up!" Excitement filled the blond's voice as she looked back to her elder brother. "Oh Chrom, she really is all right! I cannot believe it!" The blue-haired man nodded in stern agreement as the woman in front of them continued to shift. Things just continued to get odder by the second. If all of this scarlet had come from this one woman—which was very likely from the stains on her cloak—there was no way she could have possibly lived with her wounds. Men who received similar injuries had died within minutes. That wouldn't have left any time for someone to wander along and heal her. Why, the only way she could have lived was if the person who attacked her or someone they traveled with had healed her! Not only that, but they would have to be someone with an impressive healing skill! No, everything pointed to the impossible.
"Stay back," Chrom warned. He watched as his little sister gave him a confused look. The prince stood a bit taller and placed a hand on her shoulder, a stern and serious part of his mind taking over from the confusion. "If this woman was attacked to this extent, she could very well enter shock. We need to be quiet, calm and act as natural as possible. Coming off as hostile may send her in some sort of panic." The cleric gave him a vicious nod before stepping away from the brunette, instead standing beside her brother.
"Chrom," she pleaded, "we have to do something!" The man turned to find her tying her staff back to her hip with a tight and worried frown. "We can't just act as if nothing happened. This woman might need some help, especially if she does have some sort of wound we can't see."
"Well, what do you suppose we do?" Chrom narrowed his sharp, blue eyes just as the woman in the unnaturally dyed grass shifted and let her eyes flutter. "We cannot rush such things, Lissa. We have to be gentle with someone like this. Who knows what might trigger something? She might get aggressive if she thinks we're the ones who hurt her, or we might accidentally trigger a memory of the attack and send her into a panic. We have to be very careful with—"
The brunette's eyes opened.
Lissa turned to the brunette with a grin, her worry melting from her eyes and being quickly replaced with joy. "Hey there," she cooed. The young woman looked up with weak eyes, unaccustomed to the light. She blinked slowly before trying to look around, her face twisted in confusion and pain. Chrom felt a slight worry in his chest as he took a step forward. He had to help this woman somehow, but the very idea seemed to be a daunting task. With a deep breath to quell the desperate fear in his chest, he gave the woman a smile.
"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know." The woman's eyes jumped back to his face the very instant before he talked, making that worry feel that much more real to his systems. By the way she was looking around, so unfocused and unseeing, he wondered just how alert of her surroundings she was. He decided to check for himself with a simple prompt, knowing that how she responded would give him a sense of how out of it she was. The blue-haired man slowly shifted the hand at his side before carefully reaching out to the fallen woman, hoping to come off as helpful rather than threatening. "Here, give me your hand."
The brunette stared at his hand with a baffled face, the strain of her eyes fading as she adjusted to the light. Her head tilted to her right in confusion as her eyes narrowed, searching his open palm. Suddenly, her eyes gained a sharp quality of analyzing, something he had hardly expected to see from such a person as her. The woman reluctantly reached out with her right hand, the limb shaking before falling in his palm. The pale skin of her hand was sharply contrasted by a strange marking in a light lavender, standing out against the red smear of blood that lingered beside it. From where he stood, it almost seemed like three pairs of eyes staring at him, causing that worry to resurface. He shoved it aside for the moment and instead pulled her up, trying his best to be gentle. His eyes softened as she was lifted from the ground and returned to her feet. He thought for certain that he had accomplished his goal.
Instead, he sent her crashing into his chest with a quiet loss of breath.
Chrom stumbled back with a worried look as the brunette swerved on her feet and faltered back, unable to keep her balance. The woman in the navy cloak swayed and nearly toppled over backwards, her eyes snapping wide with panic. Before Chrom could reach out and try to catch her, she lifted her right arm at a sharp angle, similar to a wing of a bird. Then, she dug her boots into the dirt toes-first, uprooting a bit of stained grass. Her shoulders heaved as she looked back to the siblings, her eyes narrowed with something similar to stubbornness. The prince gave the woman a somewhat forced smile.
"Are you all right?" The brunette gave him sharp eyes that seemed to take in every inch of him, making the brave royal suddenly feel self-conscious. With the sunlight streaming down and her eyelids lifted high, he could clearly see that she had sharp, brown eyes that had a strange sort of undertone to them. They were not exactly a dark brown that would be close to a black, but they were not light enough to qualify as hazel. Instead, they were a strange sort of mutt, seeming darker around her pupils but being a sharp contrasting tone towards the edge of her irises. They were certainly odd-looking. Such a thing, he thought, might prove to be helpful in identifying her to the nearby village.
The woman continued to stare, almost as if she wasn't even looking at him anymore. The hair on the back of Chrom's neck rose as Lissa shifted beside him, the blond giving their discovery worried eyes. Why hadn't she spoken yet? Blue eyes narrowed on the cowlick that reached for the sky on the woman's head. She didn't seem to have any injuries that would hinder her speech, such as a blow to her head or her lungs. Could she speak? Fear slipped in his veins as he thought that she may not be able to speak. How could they help her or even find who did this to her if she couldn't talk? This fear made him forget for an instant that he was supposed to be cautious and instead made him blurt out the words that were plaguing him.
"Are you dumb?"
"Chrom," Lissa snapped. Chrom looked to his sister to find her lips drawn back in a snarl, her green eyes sharp and angry. The royal lifted his brow in confusion as his sister put her left hand on her hip and reserved the other one to wag in his face in scolding. "Don't be so rude!" Her snarl faded to a simple puff of her cheeks before she let her anger melt only slightly. "People who cannot speak are no longer called dumb, thank you." She shut her eyes with a faint smile and let her scolding finger point to her chest instead. "Let the cleric handle this, you dolt."
Lissa then turned to the young woman with a smile, hoping to seem friendly. "Miss, are you nonverbal?" Chrom watched as the woman stared for a moment, her body easing as her footing seemed to gain some sort of stability. The blond waited for a moment as the cloaked victim stood normally and looked at them with a slight lift of her eyebrow. The cleric paused before letting out a sigh and pointing to her mouth. She then slowly asked, exaggerating her mouth's movements, "Can you speak?"
The brunette gave them an offended look before nodding violently, slapping herself with her ponytail. Chrom instinctively cringed as he found the edges of her hair carrying dried blood, sticking to her chocolate hair just as it did the grass and her clothes. She then brushed some of her bangs aside with a humph, a bit of stubbornness slipping out into the air. She calmly tested her mouth, opening and shutting it with slight movements before coughing into her sleeve. The royals gave her a pity-filled look as she then looked to the older brother.
"Yes, I can. Thank you, Chrom."
Shock took over Chrom's mind as the young woman spoke his name with no trouble at all. Her brown eyes shifted to them with a hint of confusion before they widened with a surprise of her own. The prince shifted in his place as his mind whirled. She had said his name as if it were nothing, but he's never even seen her before. He didn't think he looked that out of place; but then again, blue hair was kinda hard to find except in his family. Still, he certainly didn't expect someone who he found lying in a patch of stained grass to refer to him by name.
"Uh, have we met before?" The prince held out a hand gingerly, hoping to seem easygoing despite the odd circumstances. The woman gave him a thoughtful look before shaking her head, her eyes downcast. The sound of racing footsteps met his ears just as the brunette took a step towards them on shifting feet.
"No...I do not think we have." Her eyes lifted once again and this time held a strange spark within them. Her voice was pretty light for someone who they had just found on the ground, and she seemed in good enough condition now that her footing had been restored. She narrowed her eyes in thought, still holding that spark within them. "It's strange. The name just...came to me, I guess." She opened her mouth to speak again only for her to be interrupted by a sharp extension of a lance and a shout, causing her to stumble back with a shout. The siblings let out a similar sound before turning sharply to the person who had shoved the weapon into their circle.
A young man with brown hair stood tall in heavy armor and his weapon extended, the silver shimmering in the sun. The man was a bit taller than the royal beside him, and a few years his senior as well. The newest entrant was a great knight of the highest caliber, and the finest knight of the Ylisse House. Chrom knew that tight frown far too well as the brunette man glared at the woman he had shoved aside. To his surprise, however, the woman was giving him a glare in return.
"Frederick," Chrom sighed, "just what are you doing?" His blue eyes sharpened as the knight lowered his weapon and slipped silently between the two individuals, providing a human shield from the recently-discovered victim. "This woman means no harm. You have no reason to come in here, weapon raised and ready to strike her down."
"Yeah," Lissa chimed in, "we just picked her up from there!" Interest sparked in Frederick's eyes as she jumped excitedly and pointed to the harsh sight of bloodied grass. The great knight turned out of duty only to let his composure slip down the stream, revealing wide eyes of shock. His black eyes shifted to the brunette woman on his right with confusion before snapping back to the royals. "We would rather not have any more blood in this field, Frederick!"
"Milord!" Frederick's calm and deep voice was edged with worry as he tightly gripped his weapon and shifted it to provide a makeshift barrier between the ponytailed woman and the princess. Chrom narrowed his eyes as his friend and knight gave him a familiar look. "Are you certain that such...signs...came from this woman?" He motioned to her with obvious disgust before looking back to the young prince. "Anyone who would leave behind such stains would most certainly be dead! Perhaps she left those marks by some unfortunate soul, not from her own veins!"
"Frederick, do not be so anxious." Chrom narrowed his eyes before taking a stubborn step towards the young woman he had found with his sister's aid. His blue eyes became a bit softer as he found the young woman looking down at her clothes with hurt and confused eyes. "As you could plainly see, she has the stains on her uniform. However, they were already healed by the time we got here. As to how they were or who did, we have no idea."
"Besides," he added, "What kind of Shepherds would we be if we had just left her here, unconscious and surrounded by that filth?" Chrom gave his knight a grin before letting it fall off. He then turned to the brunette in the grass, her eyes narrowed in confusion once again. "This is no place for a woman to be taking a nap. Who knows what would have happened if someone else found her instead?"
"Yeah! Brigands would have been a rude awakening!" Lissa chimed in with a grin once again, her smile bright despite her knight's suspicious gaze locked on the cloaked woman.
"Shepherds?" The brunette tilted her head with a frown and lifted a hand to her temple, giving it a gentle rub as she stared at the blue-haired prince. "You tend sheep...in full armor?" Her voice was not exactly suspicious, but it held a similar quality in the tones of her speech. Chrom gave her a chuckle before shrugging his shoulders.
"Hey, it's a dangerous job protecting our flock."
"But Milord," Frederick pleaded. The prince and his sister gave the man a questioning look as the woman behind him fidgeted, her gaze sharp with a searching clarity. "Do you not fear she may be a wolf, waiting to devour the flock?" The woman jolted at the mentions of a wolf, her eyes suddenly fogging as if trapped within her own thoughts. It soon faded, however, and was replaced with the sharpness of earlier.
"Nonsense, Frederick." Chrom waved off the great knight's concern with ease. "There's no way that—" His voice suddenly died as he realized that they had no idea what her name was. A blush crept on his face at his own carelessness before it faded with a cough. Lissa looked to her brother to find him reaching past the brunette man in armor and extending a hand to the young woman covered with stains. "Excuse me, but you never did tell us your name."
"Oh, that's alright." The woman gave a faint smile as a bit of pride slipped in her voice. "I guess we didn't exactly introduce ourselves, did we?" She let out a ghost-like chuckle before extending her own hand, her pale fingers nearly brushing against his own. "My name is—" Her smile faded as her eyes slowly grew wide. Chrom watched as her shoulders started to shake violently, her eyes wild and lost. Lissa let out a gasp as her hands, now quivering violently, reached for her head and held it lightly. "O-Oh gods," she gasped. "O-Oh gods!"
The prince watched in fear as she bent over on herself and shook, her eyes clouded. "O-Oh gods, I don't remember my name... M-My name... How..." Her voice shook as she gasped for breath, almost as if something had triggered some sort of memory. Lissa jumped up before clapping her hands together with a serious expression, focusing on the shivering woman.
"I've heard of this!" Her eyes brightened as she stared across the gleaming armor and straight at the woman. "It's called amnesia! It's when you forget things. Your memories just go poof and disappear, never to be seen again." Her smile was nearly sickening with the sharp contrast of her words. Frederick narrowed his eyes as she continued, "It usually happens from some sort of blow to the head or trauma." Her smile died as she realized the meaning of what she had just said. "Oh...Oh dear."
"It's called a load of pegasus dung!" Frederick corrected the young blond with a sharp glare. He turned to the brunette to his right with hostility painted all over his sharp features. "How are we to believe that someone could remember the name of Milord, meanwhile forgetting their own?" His eyes shut with a cold air. "It's pegasus dung, I tell you. No amount of shaking and exceptional acting is to convince me otherwise."
"Not to worry," Lissa cooed. Chrom looked to find his sister looking over the great knight with a smile to the young brunette. "We can go ask that town if they know who you are! I'm certain someone must have some sort of idea of who you might be." She turned with a smile before letting her pleasant expression fall clean off her face. Her hand slowly lifted with a strange mix of fear and worry, shaking in the air. "Chrom! Look, the town!"
The prince turned to find a horrible sight.
Black smoke churned in the summer sky as the grand pillars of the Southtown church burned, lighting the air a strange orange shade with the sight of fire. The town seemed to be crumbling, the thatched roofs of the villagers burning like kindling as the fire spread to the far corners of the small town. Chrom grit his teeth before shoving his cape aside in anger. "Gods, the town's ablaze!" He quickly turned back to the knight behind him, his eyes lingering for a split second on the woman as she held her head with lost eyes. "We have to do something! The people may need our help!"
"But Chrom, what about her?" Lissa stepped a bit closer with worried eyes, her gaze occasionally shifting to the brunette in the cloak.
Chrom growled before pulling out his sword, the long blade shimmering in the light of the sun. He regretfully looked back to the brunette Frederick was holding back. She had ceased shaking, but her eyes continued to look lost and distant. As much as it pained him, he couldn't let a whole village burn for one woman's sake. He tightened the grip he held on the sword's hilt before turning away, trying to choke the guilt that was rising in his gut. "Unless she's on fire as well, it can wait!" His voice was angry as he ran off, leaving the great knight and cleric to race after him with shouts of their own.
The brunette woman lifted her gaze to find the man with blue hair running down the dirt road with dust rumbling in his wake. Her hands seemed cold as she swallowed hard. The blond's words had somehow made her feel weak and filled with fear. "Di-Disappear?" Her voice was quiet as she glanced down at her cloak. She was covered in dried blood in places she somehow knew would have killed her. If what they said was true, then she had almost disappeared for good. The thought made her feel so small. "I-I don't want to disappear. Not now. Not yet..." Her voice faded as she suddenly caught a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to find something that made her fear stick in her throat.
Resting against a pure white lily was a blade of a blood-red shade, shimmering in the afternoon sun. Her feet walked to it without her prompting, her eyes nearly hypnotized by it. The blade was jagged and rough, seeming brutal and violent by just the color and form of the metal. Her hands slowly reached down and picked the sword up, her fingers brushing against the soft lily as she did so. She gazed into the blade, seeing her own reflection staring back at her.
She looked terrible; her brown hair was slipping from her ponytail and falling over her shoulders in some places, while it slipped in her face in others. Her skin looked ghostly pale and was coated with her sweat. On her right cheek she could see traces of blood and dirt, perhaps from whatever had left her there in that field. Her brown eyes were lost, searching for something in this ghastly reflection.
It was a Wyrmslayer, a special blade that inflicted high damage against wyverns. Somehow, this blade felt familiar to her. Her eyes drifted to the hilt to find it wound with a satin ribbon of a magenta shade, an odd dye. She gently took hold of an edge of ribbon and unwound the material, soon finding that it was a hair ribbon someone had tied around the handle to give it a better grip. She discovered that the original hilt had been worn down, most likely from constant use. Her eyes flickered to a splash of gold to find a name carved in to the handle of the weapon.
"Wyrmsblood..." The name rolled off her tongue with ease, almost as if she had said it before. Her mind was practically blank on the object, but she had the oddest feeling that she was connected to the blade somehow. Guiltily, she looked around. She really was alone out here. With a sigh, she wound the ribbon back into place and tied it tight. She then looked to her hip to find a sheath resting there, already holding an occupant. She gently tugged at the leather to find it to hold a bronze sword, a much weaker weapon than the Wyrmsblood she cradled in her hands. To her surprise, she found a second pocket behind the first sword, leaving enough space for a second blade.
Silently, she decided that she was going to take this weapon with her. She didn't understand her fascination with the dark crimson blade, but she knew that it was something that she felt connected to. She quietly slipped the weapon in the hidden sheath, taking a quick notice of an empty ribbon loop beside her sheath. She shoved off the hauntingly empty space and instead turned back to the burning village.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight. What should she do? Currently, she was a young woman who was discovered on the side of the road with nothing in terms of memory. She literally could not remember a second before she heard that young woman talking to Chrom. She opened her eyes as she thought of the blue-haired man. How did she know his name? She didn't know him...so how had his name entered her head? Nothing was making sense! Why, the only thing that made sense to her now was that someone must have left her there in that patch of reddened grass!
"Disappear," she muttered. Her eyes glanced back to a red-stained lily near where she had been standing. She could have disappeared just then. Someone had wanted her to disappear. But no, she was not going to go out like that. Not without a fight. Her hands reached for the bronze sword in her sheath before she slowly walked towards the burning town. A fire burned within her chest as she angrily narrowed her eyes. "I am not going to disappear. Not now. Not ever."
She then dashed after the three that had found her, her sword's tip pointing to the dust she was leaving behind her. She may not know who she was, but she was going to find out. If that meant she had to trail those three for a while, then so be it. She was going to find out who had tried to kill her on this dirt path, even if it took the rest of her life. When she found that person, oh, gods help them! She was going to make them disappear!
Author's Note: Hello and welcome to "The Shepherd and the Wolf", a fifty theme challenge for the pairing of Chrom and Robin. One summer and spring, one author, one pairing. Can it be done? The answer is yes, dear readers! I, Illusion Of Insanity, shall dedicate myself to telling the story of the wolf and the shepherd that took her in.
As you may have noticed already, things are a bit different from the usual telling of Awakening. This is indeed a bit of an AU. However, most important plot points will stay the same. What has changed, you ask? Well, I'm afraid you'll just have to stick around and see!
I have another chapter that directly connects to this one, but after that, things flow pretty freely. We will not follow every chapter, but instead follow key points to where they may lead. So not to worry, this will not be a retelling. Each chapter will have a certain theme, whether it be a noun, adjective, verb or something else of that nature. Each is a one-word prompt.
Have a specific prompt you want to see? I do take suggestions! However, keep in mind that this writing is "T", so nothing above that rating, thank you. Just leave a word you want to see become a one-shot in your review, and you could see yours appear as well! However, I do have a plethora of my own prompts, so yours may be on hold for a while. However, I will respond to you and tell you if yours will be used far before you see it written down and posted.
I hope you stick around for "The Shepherd and the Wolf"!