It was the middle of night, but with all the insects and the occasional owl making noise Chrom wouldn't call it dead. Still, the noise was a welcome return from the almost disturbingly still nights of Regna Ferox.
The journey north had been successful, despite the cold taking its toll. The Khan had pledged her official support, with her counterpart pledging his unofficial support as well.
Despite the hard-earned success, the Ylissian prince was having no luck finding any sleep. Grumbling to himself, Chrom slid out of his warm bed and let his feet hit the cold stone floor. Not bothering to go through the effort of fully equipping himself for what should only be a short walk, he grabbed his ancient blade along with a set of keys and exited his room.
The Falchion was a comforting presence in his hand, its weight pushing away any unease he'd been feeling towards the dark shadows that lined the hallways. Their first encounter with the Risen, in that dark and burning forest, must have gotten to him more than he thought.
Stepping out from under an arch and onto the training yard, Chrom made his way away from the sleeping chambers towards the barracks. The stout, stone building loomed ahead of him; it's dark ambience guaranteeing no one would see what he would be doing shortly. Finding the correct key from his ring, the prince went to use it, only to find the door already unlocked. Gripping his sword tightly, he opened the door and walked in.
"R-Robin?"
He wasn't truly surprised to see the tactician up this late; the tall, silver-haired woman often burned (in this case quite literally) both ends of the candle while working out new strategies.
What surprised him was the fact that she was face-down on her desk, her long hair partially covering up the book she wrote ideas down in. A quick look over the rest of the desk reveal a candle that was only barely still burning and the source of the woman's unconscious state: a bottle of whiskey. The very same bottle of whiskey that Chrom was thinking of 'sampling' some of to help him get to sleep.
Grabbing the once full bottle of golden elixir, the prince's eyes widened slightly and he gave out a defeated sigh as he raised the now-empty bottle. Given their absence, he winced as he realized that Robin had drank it straight and without a glass.
"*hic* C-Chrom?"
Turning around, he met the sleep-clouded eyes of the tactician, who was just barely managing to keep her head up enough to look at him. Her slurred speech, along with her rosy cheeks and the fact that she was taking this long to focus on him confirmed Chrom's worst fear: his amnesiac friend was completely plastered.
"Chr-rom!" She jumped to her feet suddenly, chair clattering to the floor with her hair over her eyes as the prince flinched back.
He'd been trained to fight brigands, bastards, and any other way of saying the word 'bandit', but none of his time spent learning etiquette covered how to deal with a drunken woman that could fry his brain with the flick of her wrist!
"Chr-rom! *hic* I'm g-gla-ad *hic* you*hic*'re he-ere! I-I want*hic*ed to g-go over *hic* some *hic* ne-ew i-ideas I'v-ve had *hic*!"
Sighing out in relief at how her eyes brightened and her arms flailed rapidly in excitement, Chrom rested Falchion against the nearby wall and sat down on a wooden stool, "Alright, I'm all ears."
Clapping her hands together with a laugh, Robin swept up her ideas book, nearly dropping it in the process, and flipped several pages back, again almost dropping it, before settling on a page with an 'ah ha!', while actually dropping the book this time.
He could only look on in concern as the tactician seemed to think she was still holding the book, as it appeared she was miming turning it to him and shoving it in his face.
"So-o, t-the *hic* fi-irst idea I *hic* have is s-since w-we ha-ave all the-ese *burp* peg-gasu-us rid-ders *hic* here i-in Ylis-s-se *hic* I-I *burp* tho-ought tha-at we co-ould tak-ke a few *hic* squa-ads of th-hem an-nd pu-ut th-hem o-on a *hic* boat! The bo-oat would *burp* n-need t-to *hic* be cust-tom *burp* built-t, bu-ut I've *hic* al-lread-dy got a *hic* sk-ketch for that! *burp* Anyways, se-e-e here-" Robin pointed with both hands to a place in the air just above his nose, "-and he-ere-" she actually poked him in the nose, "- is w-where *hic* we ca-an put *hic* the *hic* stab-bles! Fro-om there w-we can *hic* rapi-idly dep-ploy squ-uads with the *hic* pur-rpos-se of hit an-nd ru-un raids on ta-actic-cal pos-siti-ions fro-om *hic* a mob-bile bas-se! We co-ould *burp* als-so pro-ovide air a-and gro-ound *hic* rein-nforc-ceme-ents to ba-attlefi-ields if we ke-e-ep *hic* a plato-o-on of def-fensive-speci-ializ-zed soldie-ers *hic* on bo-oard."
The silver-haired woman finished her first idea off by placing her hand on her chin and looking off into the night. Chrom had to admit it would have looked rather sagely, if she hadn't just stuttered on for the last minute between hiccups and burps.
"So, what are you going to do about the feed and manure?"
Robin turned back and looked at the prince like he'd just told her she was the Fell Dragon.
"I-It's not like it's a horrible idea per say, but if you're going to house pegasus on board for an extended period of time, how are you going to feed them and keep their stables clean? You'd need to have supply ships come by at regular intervals to bring in food for the crew and steeds, so I suppose having them ferry off the manure would work. But, that'd just leave the ship vulnerable if they were cut off."
The tactician pouted, pouted, before grabbing her quill with a sigh, "O-Oh, ri-ight *hic*. Gu-ess that-t's a pro-oblem."
Chrom reached over the table and grabbed the woman's wrist just before she was about to cross the idea off her book. Or, in this case, her open palm.
"Hey, hey, hey. It's an interesting idea. I'm sure the pegasus knights would consider any idea that might improve their combat abilities. But right now, they're already stretched thin as it is; without sending off a few of their best squads to live on an experimental ship. So, keep the idea for now. After this war with Plegia is over, I'll bring it up with my sister and see what she thinks."
Letting out a breath of relief as she seemingly relaxed and put the quill, after missing twice, back into its holder. Releasing his grip, Chrom watched as Robin moved her hands again and her eyes brightened once more.
"A-Ah! The-ere's the *hic* o-other id-dea I had! C-Chrom, i-if we *hic* to-o-ok shap-ped ar-rmor pla-ating an-d-"
The Prince literally cut the tactician off, grabbing her hand and Falchion, before moving to the door, "Come on Robin, it's far too late for us to be up like this."
He didn't dare looking back as he opened the door and walked out of the barracks, practically feeling the pout that the silver-haired woman was definitely wearing at the moment. Looking back would mean he'd have to face that stuck-out bottom lip and watery eyes and... Chrom shook his head to get the mental image out of his mind.
Walking back out onto the training yard, he'd forgotten they were still more or less holding hands until Robin tumbled to the ground, nearly taking him down in the process.
"S-Sorry, I *hic* didn-n't se-e-e that ro-ock." Following her gaze, Chrom blanched as he looked at practically the smallest peeble he'd seen in his life. Pulling her to her feet, he couldn't help but brush the dirt off of her coat, his hand palming her cheek as he wiped away a smudge from there as well.
The prince definitely wasn't expecting Robin to lean into his touch with a contented sigh. Stiffening at her move, Chrom almost flinched when she openned her eyes.
"Chrom" She began, with eyes that were far clearer than they'd been before.
He nearly took a half-step back at the look she was giving him, but his hand was still practically glued to her face, "Yes?"
Closing her eyes with another peaceful sigh, she continued, "Thanks for tonight, I really needed something like that."
Blushing at how she worded her statement, Chrom looked around to make sure they didn't have an audience before turning back to her.
He stared.
Robin had fallen asleep. Standing up.
"Robin?"
No answer. Not even a twitch.
"Robin? Come on, don't do this to me!"
Robin began to snore.
"Come on! At least wait until I get you back to your room before falling asleep!"
With a sigh, Chrom lifted the sleeping tactician off her feet and began to carry her to the sleeping chambers.
She owed him a bottle of whiskey, and a few favors for this.
A/N: So, my laptop that I do the majority of my writing on decided to stop working last week. As it turns out, the wifi-card in the computer broke and screwed everything up. So now I'm waiting for that to get fixed. In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and write this idea that I got last night.
Despite not writing anything for it, I'm actually a fan of Fire Emblem, having played FE7 in the past. I've got a friend who is kind enough to let me borrow his 3DS and copy of FE:A so I've recently finished my first campaign for that. Grima, even on hard mode, got RNG'd after Chrom got two Aether's in a row and poor mister Fell Dragon only got Pavise once.
Anyways, moving on from Grima getting some XCOM levels of RNG-screwed, this fic will most likely be a four-shot. Just something quick and simple so that I can get a bit of a change of pace from my other fics. And yes, Robin was trying to get Chrom to start building primitive aircraft carriers. Her next idea was the beginnings of a tank.
Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this.
- Changling96