Tharja found herself lying in bed suddenly very annoyed to be awake. The complex array of curtains she had arranged around the east-facing window had apparently been penetrated by a valiant ray of sunlight that the forces of the universe had conspired to deliver directly into her left eye. A lesser woman would have taken it as a sign that now would be a great time to get up and start the day. Tharja, finding such demands presumptuous, found herself only motivated to delay the day by any means necessary.
The first order of business was to rid herself of the offending ray of light. She ran through the list of ways she could have shut the curtains, and found herself at a loss to do it in any way that didn't require first getting out of bed and rendering the struggle moot. It took her enough time to start wondering if the Flux spell in her bed stand could hit it gently enough before the word "covers" finally wandered through her sleep-addled mind. She groaned and pulled her blanket over her head.
The comforting dimness of her bed soon brought her back to the brink of sleep, and probably would have been the last thing she remembered were she not jolted back into awareness by a dull thumping at the door. Cursing whoever it was figuratively, and making plans towards the literal, she slowly and painstakingly removed herself from bed and stood up. A mumble and the sound of the sheets shifting brought her attention to Robin, who was still asleep. In spite of her desire to continue sleeping, the sight of him sprawled across their bed unguarded brought to mind all sorts of exciting possibilities to pursue. Not now, though. First punish whoever was at the door, then celebrate.
She glanced down to make sure she was vaguely presentable, which was something of a pointless gesture, since today like every other day she woke up wearing one of Robin's old shirts as an impromptu nightgown. He kept trying to get her to find actual pajamas, but she had deflected that topic of conversation this long into their marriage and as far as she was concerned she could maintain her position well until well after they were both dead. Rubbing her eyes, she deftly stepped around the stacks of books that filled their bedroom, made her way through the small second chamber that served as their living room, and opened the door outside, leading onto one of the countless meandering hallways of the palace's residential wing.
Outside was Lissa, bouncing on her heels in mild impatience. She looked up as Tharja opened the door, and hoisted a hand in greeting.
"Morning, Tharja," she said brightly. Damn it all. Lissa was one of the few people on Tharja's permanent "Do Not Curse" list; now she was going to have the spend the morning stewing in pent-up frustration. She could try practicing her curses on rats like Miriel suggested, but it just wasn't the same.
"Morning," Tharja said flatly. It was, after all, an accurate observation.
"Is Robin awake? I kind of need to talk to him," Lissa said, peering behind Tharja into their rooms.
"He's asleep," said Tharja. "Like any sane person at this hour of the morning."
"It's eight o'clock," Lissa said, sounding confused. Tharja remained silent, waiting to see where she was going with that observation, but Lissa chose to press on instead. "Anyway, could you tell him that Chrom needs to see him in his office as soon as possible? He made it sound pretty serious."
"Alright," Tharja said. Seeing nowhere else for the conversation to go, she shut the door, and headed back into the bedroom.
Robin was still lying asleep where she had left him. Waking him up wasn't going to be a problem. It never took much to stir him; sometimes as little as a poke in the foot or the sound of scissors near his head could bring him around instantly. The problem was that as soon as he was awake and knew that Chrom needed to see him, he would bolt off so fast he would get there before the sand had time to fall from his eyes, and she would feel obligated to follow. The universe, apparently in revenge for ignoring the attempts of the sunbeam, seemed to have orchestrated the most roundabout possible way of getting her active.
She sighed deeply. It looked like she didn't have any choice, Chrom usually didn't summon Robin without good reason, and Robin would be deeply upset if he found out she had let him sleep in after getting that message. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Robin had already gotten the message without her knowing and already fixed the problem. Maybe he had fixed the problem in advance and only needed to send up word to Chrom that everything was fine. He might not even have to work today. Yes, things might be just fine.
Minutes later, as she struggled to fasten on her cloak as she followed Robin's purposeful stride down the corridor, she decided that something that got you out of bed early could never be fine.
"Paperwork," said Tharja indignantly, her arms folded across her chest.
"That's about right," said Robin, sitting opposite her looking between two sheets of paper he had just taken from an uncomfortably large stack.
"Paperwork," Tharja repeated, just in case her message hadn't been clear the first time.
"I'm not exactly thrilled to be here either. We just have to get it over with," Robin said, still not looking up from his work. "You're free to go whenever you want, you know," he said, as if he didn't know how ridiculous that idea was.
Tharja groaned. Of all the things to drag Robin out of bed for in the morning. A riot in the city or an invasion of the royal palace would have been bad, but they would have at least seemed appropriately urgent for the need of a tactician. But signing off on restored versions of the Shepherd's military records just seemed inane. She didn't know who to be more annoyed with: the military's obsession with trivial documentation, or the swarm of vindictive rats that had damaged the original copies.
"Just look at it this way- at least I'm not in Chrom's shoes," said Robin, signing his name on the bottom of the proper sheet and setting it to the side before grabbing another. "I at least get the interesting stuff like troop movements and day-to-day battle strategies. Meanwhile he's sitting in his office looking through a few months' worth of salaries and supply deliveries."
"I suppose," Tharja said, still sulking.
"Besides, it's not like the work is totally joyless," Robin said, looking over the papers he had just grabbed with a smirk. "Look at this. It's an after-action report I wrote about a skirmish we had a week or so after you joined up."
He handed it to her and she took it without comment. At first she didn't see what the fuss was about. Most of it seemed totally unremarkable, just a string of jargon typical of a language devised by military minds as opposed to human ones. She was about to ask what was so special about it when a small section titled "Additional Notes" caught her eye.
"New offensive magic user reported to be capable in action but reluctant to cooperate except under duress. Will personally associate with and observe for further judgment."
She smiled. Partly because it was the first recorded instance of her husband thinking of her, and partly because she knew that she had already been following him for three days when it was written.
"Alright, fine, you managed to cheer me up ," she said, putting it back down. "But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about watching you spend two days signing all of these."
"It still has to get done, I'm afraid," Robin said.
"I'm not saying it shouldn't get done," she said. She reached over and grabbed a pen from Robin's side of the table, and started writing. "We just make sure there aren't any mistakes in the new version and sign, right?"
"Tharja, I'm the only one who has the authority to sign them," Robin said, sounding confused.
"Oh please. You act like I haven't been able to do this for months," she said, holding up her paper to reveal a perfect forgery of Robin's signature. "And don't make this a moral thing, please."
The hours slowly burned away as they made their way through the pile of documents. Even with the occasional item of interest, it was mind-numbing, tedious work that sapped one's energy with remarkable speed. Robin had some of the staff bring them up breakfast from the kitchens, which was a relaxing break from the proceedings that was diminished somewhat when he handed the man who brought up the tray a note with plans for lunch and dinner.
Most of the items she looked over were completely unremarkable. The few errors she did catch she took a vengeful pleasure in crossing out and correcting, but these were far too infrequent to make the experience pleasant. Even getting to see Robin's thoughts on months of military exercise didn't hold enough luster; when he was forced to write with precision even his brilliance could be reduced to the standard droning prose of formality.
Time seemed to move slowly. She wondered if there was anything wrong with the clock in the room, because it only seemed to advance in slow, grinding ticks, like time was digging in its heels and refusing to budge until she apologized. Eventually, after about four days from her point of view, it was afternoon. And, lo and behold, they were almost to the bottom of the stack.
Tharja hummed softly as she read through one of the last documents. She supposed it could have been worse, though right now her imagination had degraded to the point where the only worse situations she could imagine involved being slowly drowned in paper.
She signed her last paper, and Robin did the same. She was about to ask him what he wanted to do with the rest of the day, before he got up from his seat, went around to her side of the table, and brought forth another stack from the table behind her. This one was even bigger.
At this point she felt she had to intervene. "Look, we've been doing this for hours. I'm exhausted already. Can't we just finish for today?"
"I want to get these finished and done with today," Robin said. "I'm sorry if you're getting tired. You're still free to go back down to bed whenever you want, you know."
Tharja didn't say anything, but grunted indignantly and grabbed a fresh page from the top of the pile and got to work. Go back to bed without him, indeed. Why did he always try to invent ludicrous scenarios to resolve problems?
The work was a positive slog this time through. By the time night had fallen and dinner was about to be brought up, Tharja was having a hard time thinking straight. She still had to press on, though. The sooner she and Robin were finished, the better.
"Tharja," Robin said from across the table. She looked up. Robin was staring at him with concern on his face.
"What?" she asked.
"I really think you should go to bed. This isn't even your job, it's mine, I don't want you working yourself sick for no reason," he said, reaching across the table and putting his hand on her shoulder.
"No," she said, shaking his hand off. "If you're working, I'm working. That's the way it's going to be, from now on until we're both dead or insane."
"But-"
"Until we're both dead or insane," she repeated insistently. "Dinner's pretty soon. Have them bring up some tea. If you're working all night, so am I."
Robin sighed and nodded. They ate their dinner quietly, and by the time they were finished the servant who had brought it was back up with their tea. It tasted oddly sweet, but hopefully it would help keep her awake long enough to see the job through to the end.
An hour or so passed. Tharja's eyelids were starting to feel heavy. She found herself reading the same passages over and over again, which wouldn't have been so bad if they had been remotely interesting. She needed to focus. Drink more tea. Get back to work. Help Robin. Maybe rest her head on the table. Yes. That seemed fine for now. Do more work in a few minutes.
Tharja found herself sitting in her chair suddenly very surprised to be staring at the grain of the wood in the table. She raised her head jerkily and looked around. The lanterns were starting to burn dim. The clock on the wall, unhindered by her attention, had managed to advance three hours while she was asleep.
"Go back to sleep," said Robin. She turned her head back towards him. He was signing what looked like the last sheet of paper, and, after turning around to confirm, she realized that was indeed what it was. The ordeal was over, and she had managed to sleep through the last hurdle.
"You put me to sleep," Tharja said accusingly. She wasn't entirely sure why she suspected this until she realized Robin's coat had been draped around her shoulders as she slept. She pulled it tighter around herself.
"No I didn't. You seemed perfectly capable of doing it yourself," Robin said, stonefaced. Tharja had a feeling he wasn't telling the whole truth.
"Except?" she said, trying to draw it out of him.
"Except nothing," he said. There was a pause in the conversation while Tharja stared at him, knowing that there was a second part even if it took a while to get there. He shrugged. "I may have given the staff orders in that note I gave them earlier today not to give you anything that might have kept you awake, but you did all the sleeping by yourself."
"I knew it," she said. "So the tea I drank was?"
"Most likely just sugar and milk in hot water," Robin said, putting the last document on the pile and binding them up. "I wasn't going to sit around and let you work yourself into exhaustion. Just call me insane, I guess."
Tharja groaned, and put her head back down on the table. She was still dreadfully tired, even with the little sleep she had gotten. Even now she felt herself close to drifting off again. She couldn't even find the energy to be annoyed. He had just wanted to spare her as much tedium as possible.
Still skirting sleep, Tharja felt herself hoisted out of her seat and into somebody's arms as they carried her, finally, back to bed. She smiled. When everything was conspiring against her, including herself, it was nice that somebody was on her side.