This is set after New Mystery of the Emblem (FE12) and may contain spoilers for it. Thanks to Raphiael for the beta.
The stone felt frosty under Elice's feet. Merric spoke now and then of inventing a system of fire strong enough to heat the whole palace, but his own research time had shrunk once he began taking students, and regardless, it was her own fault for neglecting to wear slippers. She'd woken in a sweat from the dreams that often plagued her, casting her blankets aside as if they were on fire, and she'd only thrown on a robe for modesty's sake before leaving her chamber, desperate to prove to herself that she could, that a field of magic wasn't caging her in.
Her study door was unlocked when her feet carried her to it. She pursed her lips. Had she been so out of sorts the evening before? When she opened it, a lit lantern made her pucker further—what carelessness, leaving a fire on all night near her books! Yet it burned white and orange, lacking the blue core of her magic, and after entering she saw the figure sitting at her desk, hunched over a messy array of parchment.
Marth didn't seem to notice his company. He wore only a basic blue robe, and like hers his feet were bare, though he held them off the stone. Had he always sat cross-legged in chairs? Surely their father would have broken him of such a habit. It must have been one of many that he'd picked up while on campaign, rarely afforded so much as a chair in the first place.
Elice moved to join him, stopping when she stepped on a piece of parchment. She bent to pick it up, noting there were others strewn across the floor; she planned to reprimand him from making a mess of her study, but became distracted by the page. It held a crudely drawn map, parts of which had been blotted out with blobs of ink now stamped with toe prints. She sighed; she'd have to bathe before she could return to bed. It would wash off the sweat, at least.
The original map sat on the desk, she noticed when she peered over his shoulder, along with half a dozen of his copies, all jotted on with notes and numbers. Touching his shoulder, she realized that what she'd mistaken for a shiver was a quake. He jerked away, looking up with bloodshot eyes that relaxed when they found her face. "Sister. What are you doing up so late?"
"That was my question," she said, setting down the map. "That, and what all of this is doing on my desk."
"I am sorry. I will clear it away before sunrise." He looked at the rejected draft and scowled before returning to his newest one. Elice crossed her arms.
"That was not what I asked."
"My own question did not exactly beg more questions, did it?" Marth laid down his quill and pulled the original map toward him—a mountainous territory in Macedon, Elice noted. "Shall we start that again? You are up rather late."
Elice shook her head; Marth could keep them both up past sunrise with his pedantry, if she let him. "I already slept. I woke early."
At that, he finally turned to her, and not for the first time it hit her how broad his shoulders had grown since she sent him away to Talys. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking her up and down. "I believe the healers have a potion for sound sleep. And you cannot be warm enough without even your slippers."
In response, Elice couldn't resist tickling his foot, which was sticking out from the seat of the chair. With a yelp unbecoming of an emperor he drew his knees in. "Point taken! I was… Well, these are all battle strategies, if you can even call them that."
"Are you planning on returning to the battlefield?" Elice asked, rocking from heel to toe to minimize contact with the floor.
"Of course not. I would rather there be no more battlefields, in the near future or otherwise." Turning away from her again, Marth closed his eyes, his arms folding around his knees. "Regardless, war springs upon the unsuspecting—I would rather not be unprepared next time, if there is a next time, Naga forbid."
Getting the sense he didn't want eyes on him, Elice returned her attention to the maps. Anri's heir had never gotten to be entirely unprepared for war, even before Altea's invasion. Father had made sure he was tutored vigorously in tactics and politics along with swordplay. Still, it all looked rather different in ink than blood. The scrawl was messier than his slowly penned letters and documents, but eventually Elice made out the groups of numbered soldiers, dispersed differently in each map but mostly centering around the trees hugging the mountains. Smaller groups clustered out in the open, each one crossed out with angry strokes. Still a minimum of twelve decoys—unforgivable! read the note beside one.
Elice's jaw set. Her instinct was to hold him, but instead she pulled the chair out roughly from the desk, finding it gave only an inch. Time was she could have plucked him up from it; she didn't know whether to blame his bulk or the fact that she hadn't eaten properly in years.
"You have a meeting in the morning with Macedonian dignitaries," she said. "You cannot let them see dark circles under the emperor's face simply because you spent all night wallowing in the past."
He looked up at her with as much surprise as when she entered—whether because he'd already forgotten about her or because of her tone she didn't know—and his face bore shadows that bent when his brow wrinkled. "You say that as if I am moping. This is not a waste of time, I—"
"You're treating this as a child's game, chasing some fantasy," she snapped. The nightmares she'd been distracting herself from found her in snatches—locked away in that dark room, and neither Marth nor Merric could come for her. She sucked in a breath and lowered her voice. "There is no war that does not claim victims."
Marth slammed a hand on the desk and stood, whirling around with slanted eyes. "I am aware of that! I am no child. I was there, on all of those fields, not you. I…"
He stopped; Elice had flinched, to her shame, her arms hugging her chest. She'd accepted months ago that he'd grown taller than her, but perhaps it was the room's dim lighting, or his aggression.
"Elice," he said softly. She'd squeezed her eyes shut but could picture him swallow. "Elice, forgive me."
Forcing herself to breathe, she opened her eyes, staring square at his chin. "I am fine. You do not need my forgiveness." She wanted to summon more anger to ground her, but she was drained of it. It wasn't like she was angry with him for growing—she was angry with the body and world around him for growing too quickly, at herself for not keeping up.
"No. I…I was not there for you, either," Marth said. "I had to turn tail and run all those years ago, and it has plagued me ever since, the thought of such a sacrifice. I never wanted to allow it again."
"You made the right decision. Altea could not continue without a king."
"And I am supposed to continue without a sister?"
Stricken, Elice tilted her chin to meet Marth's eyes. The lines in his brow had sagged along with his shoulders, his robe barely holding together. Her hands at a loss elsewise, they reached to fix it, pulling it snug around his collar. He looked down at them, and then at the floor, laughing dryly.
"I was going to offer you my shoes," he explained when she cocked her head, "but, well…"
She couldn't help but chuckle. "Then let us both retire," she said, patting his shoulder, "before we begin to argue about who most deserves the chair."