Robin watched as Lucina leveled the golden sword at his chest.

"Dastard," she said. Her eyes darted around the shattered atrium. "Where is this place? What do you think to do, bringing me here?"

Robin idled in the shade of a leaning pillar, a warm breeze at his back. Sunbeams cast through gaps in the roofing and low-sagging rafters, harshly exposing upturned tiles. Dust motes curled and drifted in the light. Strewn along the floor were scatterings of faded red clay that might have once formed a mural, but the image had long crumbled beyond recognition.

"We're in some nameless ruins in western Plegia," Robin said, "far out enough that distractions won't find us for a while. It's rude to interrupt someone while he's talking, and you and your friends wouldn't stop trying to kill me."

"For good reason," she said.

Lucina took a half-step. Motes swirled around the blade.

"The truth is that I wanted to talk," Robin said. He held up a hand, but it did nothing to dissuade Lucina's threatening stance or the scowl creasing her brow. "You're here now, so you might as well hear me out."

"I have nothing to parley with you."

"Yes, you do."

Lucina crossed the chamber in four strides. The sunbeams reflected white off her golden circlet, and her shoulderguards gleamed. Crimson cloak hems fluttered behind knee-high boots. When she stepped into the shade, the Fang of Naga cast a wicked underglow on her intent face. Lucina's eyes glimmered like chips of sapphire. The harp-shaped Brand in her left pupil seemed to pulse light.

"I could've harmed you, but I didn't," Robin said. "At the very least, I could've taken your sword, but I didn't."

He thought he saw a flicker of hesitation. Then it vanished. Lucina examined him coldly, her fingers tightening around Falchion's cloth-bound grip.

"I of all people don't need your twisted mercy," Lucina said. "Countless others you never spared! And now you mock me with this?"

She raised over her shoulder the sword. The edge blazed white.

A pressure began to grip his frontal lobe, and Robin squinted. Curse the Divine Dragon and her magic. What sword needed to glow with the radiance of the sun? What business did anything in this world have, to be so shiny? He began to regret not confiscating Falchion.

"I said, listen to me—"

"Face me and answer for your crimes, Grima!"

The sword arced through the air.

Instinctively, he thrust forward a hand. Searing pain sliced across his palm, and Robin's breath hissed through his teeth. Hot liquid seeped down his wrist. Robin closed his fingers around Falchion's foible. It cut deeper. Fellblood trickled in veins down the blessed metal, sizzling and curdling.

He wrenched Falchion away from his collar. The blade slid off his hand, scoring deep lines. Blood dripped between his fingers, splattering at his boots.

Robin's vision swam red. He closed his fist, feeling the skin of his palm peel back and bubble with blisters.

"I am Robin," he said softly.

"You are not." Her voice sounded like a far-off echo, but the accusation was clear. "You wear his face, but you are not him."

"I am myself." Pain rang in the marrow of his bones, radiating up the side of his jaw. He clenched his teeth.

"Oh, is that what you told yourself when you murdered my father?"

Robin flinched. A strange pain coiled around his stomach: slithering, heavy, and somehow worse than Falchion's cut. "Chrom was—Chrom knew. I didn't want to kill him."

"But you did."

She lifted her chin, and stared him down. Lucina had meant to wound him with those words, but Robin wondered if speaking them hadn't hurt her all the more. The pain etching her face made a poor impression of contempt.

"You're unforgivable," she said.

"Indeed." He glanced at the bloody gravel by his boots, blinking the haze from his eyes. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness."

Silence fell between them.

"I know not your objective here," she said, louder. "But I can tell you this. No matter what you may do to me, no matter what you may do to us all, Ylisse will not break."

"That's fine and all, considering I just wanted to talk. Like I said before, you know."

Her mouth opened in a retort, but he spoke faster: "Look. You clearly love this world, much more than I do. I've decided you can have it."

Her lips pressed together in a thin line.

"You think the world is yours to give, then," Lucina said.

"In as far as the world is mine to swathe in shadows. Yes."

"I suppose that makes for a fine gesture of goodwill." She eyed him with distaste. "A world not basked in shadow. It's a pitiable state of affairs when even that constitutes something positive."

"Well, I would consider it more of a promise. And not only that, we can end the war if you want."

"Do you expect me to believe that? I think you have a revelry in the war," Lucina said finally. "Remind me, who set torch to Themis Garrison and trapped the doors? Who routed the Galland Knights and had the men butchered as their backs were turned? Hundreds were killed by your decrees; thousands more lost someone dear to them."

"I won't pretend to be blameless, but this war leaves few of us truly innocent. I've lost many a good general and a good man to your allies as well."

"Yes. And as if their service wasn't enough, you raised your men—and mine—from the dead. Corpse soldiers from carnage to beget more carnage."

"It was either that, or see my country destroyed. Plegia might be a wasteland, but I owe at least a responsibility to have it not ground into dust. Before you say your people would do no such thing, remember, this war began with your grandfather's crusade—and I assure you that his zealots didn't disappear with his station."

Lucina bit her lip. She knew. The military reports she received were likely worded to tweak the events of battle, guided by conniving generals. Robin wasn't the only one who held court with snakes.

"And why did they not, indeed?" she asked. As he thought, Lucina didn't deny it. "Hostilities might well have ended with Exalt Emmeryn's efforts, if not for her untimely demise. A martyr to fan the flames anew. Who but a warmonger was threatened by the peace she sought?" Lucina looked him in the eye. "Hardly would it surprise me, if you were the one who had orchestrated my aunt's death."

Say what else she might, this was one of the few things Lucina could not, would not challenge.

"I defended Emmeryn that night, and you know it. Or will you ignore that, too, for the sake of your vendetta?"

Her grip on Falchion wavered, but her gaze did not.

"Enough," Robin said, relaxing his shoulders. "It's useless to blame one another now. We can't control everything that goes on around us; not even I can, if you would believe that. But listen. You can have the end of the war if you wish. As for me, there is only one thing I want in this wretched world."

"That is? Annihilation? Ruin?" Her mouth twisted. "Or how about destruction?"

"Simpler," he said. "Be my consort, Lucina."

Lucina's eyes widened, disbelieving. Then her face darkened like storm clouds.

"No."

"It's not a suggestion."

"Then, do you think to threaten me, Fell Dragon?" She spoke the words with such venom that they stung like a nick from that blasted Fang.

He sighed. "I could. I don't want to."

Lucina studied him with suspicion, but at least she didn't raise her sword again. Robin folded his hands, blood and all, into his sleeves. He stared back impassively.

"My answer is no," she said.

"Why?"

"You come to me with this ludicrous proposition and wonder how I can possibly refuse." Lucina's mouth formed a flat line. "You answer why."

"Fine. That's easy enough."

He unfolded his sleeves, and Lucina tensed as if he were revealing a dagger. Robin flapped his robes about to show that they were empty. Besides the teleportation rod that had since disintegrated, he had brought nothing.

"I would've picked some daisies, but circumstances leave me empty-handed. Ah well, I think it's too saccharine a gesture for my taste. Flowers and I don't get along."

"I don't see what flowers have to do with this, but make your piece."

He smiled, and hoped that warmth reached his eyes. Smiling without looking malicious these days was hard, what with his crimson pupils. From the twitch in her mouth, Robin guessed that it didn't work.

"Remember the day before our final battle against Gangrel?"

"Yes. What about it?" She looked unimpressed.

"When we marched upon the Border Wastes side-by-side, I came to realize that, no matter how I tried not to, no matter how I denied it, I had fallen in love with you. I had fallen in love with your devotion and your unerring resolve to face down any foe. Ever since then, it has been my constant regret that I never got the chance to tell you how I felt.

"Even now, I'm in love with… how you scowl at me and try to kill me? It's true that recent times haven't been favourable to us. But nothing, not even my distaste for this world can stop or change my feelings. I'm still hopelessly in love with you, Lucina."

"..."

"You don't believe me."

"O-of course not." Lucina's face flushed a furious red. "Using Robin as a mouthpiece to utter false affections… How depraved! I should end you here!"

She raised her hands, and Falchion flashed.

"That sword," Robin said, "really hurts, and I don't like it. Don't swing it at me. Don't."

"I see now," Lucina said slowly, "you won't let me go free unless I force you."

"Or if you say yes—"

Falchion's tip whistled. The aftershock of the blow whipped Robin's hair against his cheeks. The hood of his robes lifted, and the wide hems fluttered. Dust kicked around his boots.

The gleaming edge stopped just short of the skin between his eyes.

"Why do you not fight back?" Lucina demanded.

"I already showed you, I have nothing and I will do nothing."

She paused, looking him over again. Falchion seemed to lose some of its lustre as she lowered it. Robin breathed a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't guessed incorrectly: Lucina had a limit to how willing she was to attack someone unarmed, even someone like him.

"Now, do you believe me?"

Lucina raised her chin. She exhaled sharply through her nose.

"I don't," she said. "I don't understand this. You seek the world's destruction. You hate Ylisse and its people."

He shook his head.

Ylisseans… they were pawns of the Divine Dragon, no greater among them than the Exalted bloodline. The zealots, headed by Grand-daddy Exalt, had understood their role best. They followed Naga with a sickening fervour, all the while demonizing Grima and the people of Plegia. But merely had they chosen one banner over another; in other regards, they weren't so different from the ones who called themselves Grimleal. And Robin didn't care much for the Grimleal.

Destruction? Robin barely needed to interfere, and the land unraveled itself just fine. He supposed blaming higher forces was easier. The world wished for a god of destruction, to worship or to vilify, and they would have their god—with or without him.

As for hate, there was only one being worthy of his hatred. The one who used this game of banners and dichotomies as a means to an end: Naga. Even thinking her name made him sick with loathing. By comparison, everyone else was a wasted effort.

"I have plenty of reasons to dislike this world," Robin said. "But the closer truth is that I don't really care. I would give it up—and the war, too, of course—if I could just have you instead."

She glanced around the chamber again, the corner of her mouth tightening with uncertainty. "You've already brought me here."

"With a teleportation rod." Robin shrugged. "It's not the same. Else I wouldn't have gone through all that trouble, getting my hand sliced open and everything."

He wagged the blistered and bloodied palm at her. The blood had congealed like tar; he could feel the sticky grit in the wrinkles of his skin.

Robin returned his hand back into its sleeve, but by then Lucina had paled. Well, if he needed remind her, she was going to stab his face. Things could have been a lot worse.

"... Then you swear, for all the good that would mean," Lucina said, "you will pull your men from the frontlines? Dismantle your military outposts and incursions? Put an end to the Grimleals' cruel practices?"

Finally, she was talking some reason. She might be leering at him, but she was talking reason nonetheless.

"You have my word. I will see an end to the war if you would join me. And I most certainly won't kill your friends, else I might've killed them all already."

She glowered. Robin smiled.

He held out his hand, the clean one. Robin felt that perhaps he had chosen wrongly, that Lucina could take another good look at the nasty wound she had inflicted. He did like irking her. It hadn't been so easy to get a rise out of her in the past.

"Be my consort."

Lucina looked between the outstretched hand and his face, and back again.

"Your word," she said.

"My word, as the wings of despair and the breath of ruin." Oh, she did not like that. "Fine. As Robin. Or as Grima, whichever you want. As the Grandmaster tactician and crown prince of Plegia. As the Fell Dragon and all that is unholy? I'm not sure what you're looking for here."

"Make no mistake," she said, "I don't accept your proposition with trust or confidence. It remains to be seen if your words are any more than empty air, and of that I have little hope."

"O-okay…?"

Lucina met his gaze with a steely keen. "But if it is for the sake of this world, and for Ylisse, and my friends…"

Falchion flicked up. For a moment, he thought Lucina meant to strike him again. But with a flex of her wrist, the blade slid into its sheath at her side.

"I accept nonetheless," she said. "Let it be done."

Slender fingers slipped around his hand, grasping firmly.

Her expression softened for the first time he had seen in months. For a moment, he could almost imagine that Lucina was looking at him—not as Grima, but as Robin.