LH: Wow, so I guess I finally know what people mean when they complain about the plunnies waking them up at 3 AM and demanding to be written. Because that is exactly what happened here.
Disclaimer: Lunar Hikari does not own any rights to the Fire Emblem franchise, and especially not to Awakening, though she can honestly claim to have beaten the game in less than a week.
You float for what seems like an eternity, drifting with no real end in sight. You wonder if this is what death is like – simple nothingness.
You find you don't really mind, so long as it means that they are all safe, that the threat of Grima is finally and forever gone from the world. If that proves true you wouldn't mind this eternal aimlessness because it would mean you had bested fate, had created a world fit for your friends and family.
You don't know if dead people are allowed to smile – or even can – but you think you are when you think of everyone you left behind. You know they must be sad that you've died, but if it means their happiness, their safety, you would do so a thousand times. The smile – if it truly is one – turns just a little bitter when you think of Morgan – dear, sweet, so like you, Morgan – and how devastated your child must be that you're gone.
You – probably – shake your head, everyone else will take care of Morgan, and eventually your amnesiac baby will be fine.
Eventually.
The thought of everyone moving on, as you know they will, makes you a little sad – they are your friends and family, your entire world – but you know they will and must. Everyone needs to heal and you won't deny them that right just to make yourself feel more important.
You've caused enough pain, and you don't want to create more.
Your vision wavers for a moment as a light beckons from the distance. You wonder if this means you've passed some sort of test and are moving on to the afterlife – you've read that people see a light at the end of a long tunnel during near-death experiences, so what must death itself involve?
Your thoughts are cut short as the light engulfs your entire being and your awareness slips away.
"Chrom, we have to do something."
Awareness comes back slowly, as you hear a very familiar voice saying a distinctly familiar phrase. You crack your eyes open, fuzzily making out two equally familiar silhouettes.
"Well what do you propose we do?"
Is this what the afterlife is like? Reliving all your best memories forever? If so, you think you could get used to it.
"I-I don't know!"
You, finally, manage to fully open your eyes – had it really taken you this long last time? – to see Chrom and Lissa's surprised faces. Gods you've missed them.
Still do, you suppose, since none of this is real.
"I see you're awake now."
Leave it to Chrom to state the obvious – last time you'd been too busy not remembering anything to notice – with the nicest smile. And is it just your imagination, or is that smile just a bit happier, those eyes just a bit softer?
"Hey there," Lissa laughs as though at some private joke no one else could get – had she done that last time? You can't seem to remember (and oh, do you appreciate that irony).
"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know," Lissa laughs and nods in agreement to Chrom's statement, almost as though exasperated with you – but that can't be it. This is a memory after all and you are dead.
Aren't you?
"Give me your hand," you reach up to grasp Chrom's hand with your own right hand, absently noting that the Mark of Grima is gone from the back of it.
Wait.
The Mark is gone? But couldn't that mean that, just possibly-
"Welcome back, it's over now."
Gazing up into Chrom's eyes, you feel your own start to fill with tears. Hiccupping slightly, you proceed to tackle him, and feel Lissa, laughing with delight because you're back, follow close behind you.
Laughing through the veritable rivers of tears flowing down your face you smile at the both of them and can only manage to get one sentence out before needing to bury your face in Chrom's chest and grasp Lissa's hands again, to make sure they really are still there and aren't going anywhere.
"I'm back."
You laugh, and cry, and live.
Because the future is yours, and nothing and no one is going to take that away from you.
LH: And that is that. Fun fact, I was honestly about to flip a table while sobbing hysterically when THAT cutscene started, because no you do not get to throw my baby into some sort of stable time loop no you stop that "Welcome back" and then everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
Huh. I'd like to see someone write that Stable Time Loop sequel (Naga knows it won't be me, not with my track record.)