I've been running since I was small. Running from my cruel father, who wanted to sacrifice me to his gods.
Running from my destiny.
I have my mother to thank for that—she kept me alive, kept me on my feet until I was old enough to run on my own...
Then she died. As all things end.
.….
It was a strange day, when I was woken in that field. I'd passed out the night before, exhausted from the day's struggle to get on—to find food, to stay alive.
And when I opened my eyes...there he was.
Tired as I was, it took me some time to realize who they really were. Chrom was Prince Chrom of Ylisse; Lissa was his younger sister, the princess; Frederick was Sir Frederick the Wary, the prince's faithful knight since they were children.
What were the chances that they, of all people, would find me—the daughter of a man determined to see the world destroyed, the woman who had the capacity to become the greatest enemy mankind had ever known—me, of all people, lying in a field?
Destiny's never been so obvious with its intentions.
.….
Of course, it wasn't long till the war between Ylisse and Plegia was declared. My new home, versus my birthplace.
I fought for Ylisse. I fought hard. I lay out battle strategies and we took the field every time. Chrom was the real hero—it was he who ran out into the fray, who defeated West Ferox's champion to enlist their aid and led the charge of every battle.
Good things never last, of course. Not long after the war's start, assassins came to Ylisse. Exalt Emmeryn was killed; Chrom, crippled by an assassin's blow, was hurriedly put in her place to continue the war.
It was a long war. A painful war. But we won in the end, and the mad king was struck down.
By then, I was only fighting for Chrom. Not Ylisse—only for its exalt. The man who led the way into everything—who fought on with all his wounds—who had stolen my heart with just a smile.
When he proposed, I thought it was the happiest day of my life.
.….
Two years passed. A daughter was born, whom we named Lucina. The rush of power I felt whenever I was addressed as "queen" never went away.
War came to us once again. Ylisse and its wounded exalt, Chrom, versus Valm and its great conqueror, Walhart. I fought just as hard.
But I could feel myself slipping.
All these wars, all this death—what was the point of it all, really? To rule over a pile of godforsaken rocks and hear the peasants call you "king"—was that all humanity could ever hope to accomplish?
Not even Chrom was above it. A voice in my mind had showed me all the truth, no matter how much it hurt. I could see what he truly was, now—all my love couldn't hide the fact that he was just a man, an ordinary man struggling through a war to keep his land.
If handing the land over would stop all this death and stupidity, wouldn't that be worth it?
I asked him. He said the death wouldn't stop if Walhart took Ylisse.
I didn't believe him.
Gods, he was such an...old man. Limping around whenever the air got cold, with all those horrible scars, and I could just see what he'd been like before, when I'd first met him—so strong and vibrant and young, so much better than what he'd become.
He didn't deserve to be my husband.
He didn't deserve to father my children.
He was just another stupid human and I hated him.
.….
But then the war ended. We won.
Even when I started slipping so badly that I sent Chrom into a suicide charge—he survived. He won the day.
Stupid, fucking Chrom won the day again. Like he always does. He won the day by slaughtering people and I hated him for it.
At least the war was done, now. We could go home. I could see my baby daughter again—my baby Lucina, the best thing in my life now.
I made a decision then. I was going to take her and run away, as my mother had done with me. I would escape Chrom who had failed me, my father who had murdered an exalt, and all the rest of them I hated. I would run far, far away, and not stop running until they were gone forever.
The voice in my head made it sound so appealing.
But there was still a part of me that didn't want to go just yet...not quite yet.
.….
So I stalled. We returned to Ylisse and I gave myself excuses to stay around. The voice became angry, then furious. I couldn't sleep for the screaming in my head.
Chrom did notice. He asked me what was wrong. He tried to make me feel better.
He could never understand that he was the problem. It was him, not me, that was what the voice showed me. He was what was wrong.
Before long, the screaming in my head had come to the outside. I screamed for him to go away, to leave me alone, not to bother me. He never screamed back and that just made me angrier.
Now we weren't sleeping together anymore. I had the bed to myself; he found another room for himself and tried not to bother me.
It was around then that I found I was pregnant again. Funny. All those times when I would stare at the ceiling and not feel a thing because I just couldn't love him anymore, and something had come from it anyway.
I hardly talked to anyone except for screaming. When Chrom tried to talk to me, I screamed. When Lissa tried to talk in his place, I screamed. Everything made me angry, and nothing made me happy but my baby.
My precious baby Lucina. I was finally ready to flee again, but I was scared. I didn't want to have another baby out in the wilderness somewhere, all by myself. I couldn't escape my life when this new one in my belly was weighing me down.
The voice suggested I get rid of it. A little pain, and then freedom.
For once, I couldn't believe what it was telling me. Surely the voice, who seemed to know what I wanted before I did, didn't think that I could force myself to miscarry my own baby?
As much as I wanted to get away, this baby was mine.
.….
The voice apologized later, but I didn't trust it anymore. I wondered what other horrible things it had suggested. For the first time, I thought about my last battle plan in the last war—how I'd tried to get Chrom killed.
How could I do that? How could anyone try to kill their own husband—the father of their children—the man to whom they owed so much?
Gods, I was such a child. I thought he was old, but I was just too young. Too much of a child to understand anything—to understand what I had.
Why was I thinking that Chrom was only a human, when I was the same?
When I was only human as well?
.….
A few years passed. I bore my second baby, a son we called Morgan. He looked just like his father. Chrom taught Lucina how to swing a sword—using a stick for practice, of course.
I learned to stop screaming. I learned how to say sorry, how to ignore the voice's cries. I started to love him again.
I learned what being forgiven felt like, and then I loved him even more.
.….
Then Frederick came one day with a message from Plegia. How its king, Validar, wanted to meet with us on a matter of great importance.
Validar, my father. I didn't trust the meeting, but I went along with Chrom all the same.
.….
The Fire Emblem. The goddamn Fire Emblem.
If it weren't for the Fire Emblem, none of this would've happened. The voice wouldn't have returned with such a vengeance, to seize control of my body and rip it out of Chrom's hands.
The ceremony wouldn't have begun. The ceremony to awaken the fell dragon, the god that my father worshiped—the god I was intended to be sacrificed to. That had always been my destiny.
.….
The voice was the only one that understood. It spoke soothing words, comforting me about my loss of control, convincing me it was for the best.
Seducing me with its idea of peace. That humanity couldn't be trusted with itself—the best thing for it was to eliminate it altogether, and by doing so save the rest of the world.
I began to see its point of view. What was humanity, after all, if saving it would doom the world?
.….
So when I felt it begin to invade my body once again, that day at the Table—when my father had fallen, and the day seemed to be nearly won—when the red cracks crossed my eyes, I didn't resist.
The voice knew what was best. The voice would take care of everything.
I was so tired...
.….
I nearly didn't see what happened.
When lighting formed around my hands, when Chrom picked me up from the ground...
.….
I only saw it when it had already happened. When he cried out in pain.
When I saw my magic piercing his chest.
Through the horrible scars I hated, he was run all the way through, and then he was gone, gone forever—
He was dead.
.….
He was dead.
.….
How could he be dead?
.….
He was always there... Always ready to pick me up again...
.….
Gods, how could I have ever hated him?
I loved him. Even at his worst, even at my worst, I had always loved him.
And the voice had taken him from me.
.….
Gods. Gods. He was gone.
.….
I cried then. As I never had before.
I cried as new enemies appeared from nowhere, as my comrades either fled or were killed. As the whole building began to shake and crumble.
I just cried.
The only thing that numbed the pain was power. Sweet, delicious power, as the voice had described, and now I felt it flooding into me like a storm.
.….
It was only then that I learned the voice's true identity. The voice's true intentions.
The voice was Grima. The fell dragon I was destined to be sacrificed to had been in my mind the entire time.
Of course it was. It was my destiny.
Destiny couldn't be changed. Destiny was decided. Destiny was permanent.
Destiny was everything humanity wasn't.
So why bother denying it?
.….
I watched as the dragon's bones grew flesh, and its mighty roars filled the air. As the Table crumbled to dust, as those who had once been my friends fled Grima's sight.
But Grima was all-seeing. They would all die, eventually—either at Grima's hand, my hand, or the dead soldiers that were being summoned from the ground.
They would die. Humanity would die.
They would all be destroyed until I was all that was left—then, maybe, the world would be safe.
.….
I wanted my children to join me. Grima did, too.
But Lucina had run away with the rest. And Morgan was still so tiny...
I took him anyway. I raised him on the back of the fell dragon, and he grew to love me while the rest feared.
.….
So many years went by. It felt like an eternity.
Ylisse was burned. Valm was burned. Plegia, Regna Ferox...everything was burned and destroyed, everyone I saw was killed.
Morgan helped. He was a strong young man, nearly as powerful as I had been, and devoted to me entirely.
While Lucina was leading those that tried to resist me.
.….
Brother versus sister was the hardest fight I've ever had to witness. As Ylisse burned around them, they fought like the world depended on it.
Sister won. Sister ran her blade through brother's chest.
Brother looked like father when he died.
I wanted to cry, but my eyes weren't mine anymore.
.….
The world is almost gone now. I took everyone away, until Lucina and the children of my old friends are nearly all that's left.
Then Naga interferes. She summons a portal, to take the children away.
Away to where?
...To the past. Before Grima was awoken, before either exalt was killed—to the past, to stop me.
To save the world from me.
.….
Chrom will be there.
.….
...I want to go, too.
Please.
Not for Grima. Grima wants to go back and stop you.
Grima wants to kill that world, too.
...I only want to see him again.
So I go through the portal, too.
.….
And I wake up in a field once more...
And he's there.
.….
He's there.
Not dead. Not wounded.
.….
He's there.
.….
Grima be damned. Destiny be damned.
I can do nothing but watch, unnoticed. Like a ghost.
Nothing so far seems different.
And yet...
.….
Maybe this time, things will end differently.
...Who doesn't love some weird depressing first-person stream of consciousness? X'D
Yeh, this was a weird idea that came from considering writing something about the universe that Lucina originally came from...then of writing it from Robin's point of view, since I've been told I'm decent at first-person stream of consciousness...and this happened.
...
I'm better at getting into Zelgius' head than alternate-universe Robin/Grima. Ohwell...
Reviews are always very much appreciated! Thanks for reading!
~DarkieDucessa
