AN: Greetings, lovers of fanfiction. I enjoy reading on this page for quite some time now, and finally, metallover's Invisivle Ties inspired me to give writing a try. So this is my first try at fanfiction and writing in english in general, as it is not my mother tongue. So therefore I beg for forgiveness if my english is not the best and I didn't manage to get all the mistakes that sneaked their way into my story. I rated this M because of the fights. In case I got this wrong feel free to send me a message with the correct rating and where I got it wrong.
I would be very happy if you could find the time after reading this to leave me a review.
Enjoy yourself, DerEinsameDerZeit
Lucina let her gaze drift over the rough and dead landscape. Just as everywhere else, all life seemed to fade away as Grima, the ancient Fell Dragon, absorbed its force to strengthen himself. In the mountains the effect was even heavier, because the few plants and animals that had adopted to the hard soil were already gone.
But that was simply another reason to her why she could not fail in defeating Grima. Because if they did, every single life, despite how small, would be doomed. Not to mention the extinction of mankind.
Suddenly her attention shifted back to her surroundings. She held her breath and listened closely. There were silent, but fast footsteps of something large coming towards where she was standing. She drew her blade Falchion and set in a defensive combat stance.
Suddenly the steps were gone and before she could react, a large amount of fur crashed into her and pinned her to the ground. Lucina struggled to get free of her attacker, until she noticed a huge bunny was sitting on top of her. As soon as she had stopped moving, the bunny let go of her and turned into a man with long brown hair and bunny-ears.
"Sorry for tackling you, but it was the only way of not getting extinct by you", Yarne explained. "You OK?" , the shape-shifter asked while offering her a hand.
"Yes, nothing 's hurt." she replied, as she pushed a few strands of her short, blue hair out of her face before accepting his help. Why didn't he transform a few steps away from me and approached slowly? The though was pushed of her mind by the news Yarne was telling her.
"I discovered some Risen scouts searching the area. As they didn't bother to move stealthy, they don't care about being seen."
"Damn." She had hoped the flight into the mountains of Southern Ylisse would have bought them more time. They would have to speed up their planning.
"OK, the others need to get to know these news. Come on, back to the camp." As they set off, she questioned Yarne further about the scouts. "How many of them did you find and how fast were they moving?"
"There were about 30 of them, but I believe there were many more in the area that I just didn't spot. That's maybe another reason, why they were moving so slowly. And they were rather careless, every now and then one of them caused a landslide, killing some of his fellow scouts."
Lucina let out a heavy sigh. "That's even worse."
"Why? It reduces their numbers."
"You're right about that, but if they can afford losing warriors like this, it means their army is big enough to cover such losses. Grima refills their ranks faster than we though."
"Aww, don't tell me the last battle has been completely pointless." Yarne visible flinched at the realisation. The remainings of the shepherds had led the united forces of Ylisse, Regna Ferox and even the last Plegians in a gigantic battle against the Risen army of Grima. The Children had been send to gather strength and formulate a plan for a direct attack at the hopefully exposed Fell Dragon. Lucina refused to believe that their parents' deaths had been in vain.
"No. Not entirely" she said more to herself than towards Yarne. "The replacement of the legions of Risen cost Grima a great deal of Energy, so he is weakened now. And now we have knowledge of his weakness." Gerome, who had stayed to watch the outcome of the battle, had seen a large dark-magic spell hit the neck of Grima. And in contrary to every other attack, this one has been the first to affect the dragon.
"Right, by giving up, all this death would be useless." ,Yarne surprised her by saying. "There is a chance, and we must seize it."
Lucina glanced sideways into the Taguel's face, which was full of determination. He has changed a lot, she thought, he is no longer the coward running away from a fight, but facing the unavoidable without fear. "And we will!" With that, they continued their walk in silence.
"Cynthia, I need you to go and find Gerome. Bring him back. FAST." Lucina added as said girl stared at her in concern.
"All right, Luce. I'll be back in a second." Cynthia replied while scrambling up and running of towards where her pegasus was resting. Yarne had left towards their supply-tent to get some water and a few of the last remaining carrots. With his return, the only shepherd off was Gerome, scouting the opposite direction of Yarne. It wouldn't take long for the risen scouts to discover their presence despite all their affords of leaving no traces. Risen were somehow attracted by living beings, and the Shepherds were the only things alive for miles.
Lucina continued her way towards the little command tent, where Morgan was preparing their tactics. To everyone she met, she said the same few words: "As soon as Gerome arrives, war council in the command tent. Tell the others."
All the time she tried to uphold the mask of confidence, for she was their leader and could not afford any sign of weakness. On the inside, doubts were plaguing her. We are prepared as good as possible under the current circumstances, she reassured herself. Everyone is rested, the weapons are prepared and we have the best tatician alive. Morgan was perhaps the only one who could ever hope to overcome his mother Atlana. Which, in fact, was quite necessary, because Grima used Atlana as his avatar.
Trapped in her own thoughts, Lucina didn't realise that she had reached her destination. With a sigh, she pulled the flaps apart and entered the tent. Morgan was standing in front of a large wooden table covered in hastily drawn maps, piles of notes and stacks of his tactical manuals. As he noticed her, he looked up and greeted her in his usual, cheerful way: "Hey sis', what's up?" And, although as usual, Lucina didn't answer to her brother. "Come on, you look even more gloomy than normally."
"Not without reason. Yarne is back."
"Oh. And why does this make you grumpy instead of happy?"
Ignoring the question, she went on. "He discovered a group of scouts, he counted about 30, but estimated a lot more. The move slowly and don't care about killing each other with stone avalanches."
Within a second, Morgans face changed from happy to emotionless, concentrated tactic mode. "OK, so their number is larger than we imagined. Not that bad. Grima loses the advantage of a huge army in the mountains anyhow. How far were they away."
"Ahh, I knew I forgot something. But Yarne can tell you by himself, he promised to come right here after a trip to the supplies."
"Are there still any carrots left? - Come on sister, you shouldn't take everything serious.", he added after Lucina had shot a stern look at him for the joke. She, on the contrary, wondered, how he manage to keep his spirits up that high even in a seemingly hopeless situation like this.
Before she could come up with a proper answer, Yarne entered the tent. "Lucina already told you everything?"
"Yes, but she forgot some details. How long before they discover us?"
"A few hours perhaps. If we're lucky five or six. But not longer."
"With the additional time Grima needs to come over here, this should be enough to get everything done in time. Thanks for the warning Yarne, well done."
The taguel bowed his head in appreciation. Why didn't I think of that? Lucina told herself mentally off. It is my task as the leader to hold the morale up.
"Lucina? Lucina!"
"Yes? Sorry Morgan. Lost in thoughts."
"Understandable. Did you send off Cynthia to get Gerome back?"
"Yes. The moment I arrived in the camp. She should return any time soon. I also told the others to meet here once the two are back."
"Good. Then we just have to wait for them." he said, while pulling out his tome and began to re-ink some of the weaker spells he used frequently.
Yarne sat on a crate in a corner and stared absent-minded out between the tent-flaps. Lucina continued to watch him. He had changed a great deal over the last few months. No longer the coward who tried to avoid or even run from every fight. Every time one of the older shepherds had died, it didn't turn him down like most of the others, but he had grown more couraged and stronger. But he wasn't the only one who had gone through changes. The never-ending war has affected them all. Gerome started to wear that black mask all the time, Owain was always speaking of his sword hand... The constant fear and daily massages of death and destruction has cast dark shadows over their childhood.
The entrance of Severa distracted her from her brooding.
"Cynthia and Gerome just arrived. They'll join us after they finished taking care of their mounts."
"All right, thank you Severa. So the others should show up here any time."
Over the next few minutes all the other young shepherds filed into the command tent. Once only Cynthia and Gerome were missing, Morgan laid down his quill, packed away his tome and mentioned for Lucina to come over. "I know you are not the overly optimistic person, but right now, everyone needs your guidance more than ever. Because if you don't believe in victory, how can those you are leading."
"I know." she replied with a sigh, "I'll do my best. There will be no other chance, so we must win today. We simply must."
"That's the spirit. You just have to repeat that in a more theatrical way later. Maybe you should ask Owain for advice."
Lucina couldn't suppress the little smile in her face. Right then the entrance of the tent opened and the last remaining flying shepherds came in.
"OK, everyone listen up." Morgan began "You all know the basics of the plan, but we'll go over it once again so no one misses some perhaps crucial details. Grima is approaching and as we can't fight all of his dragon-form, we have to trap him. In order to do that, we chose a deep valley between two mountains, that has a large plateau at its bottom. On this, our decoys are challenging Grima." He looked a Yarne, Severa, Inigo and Gerome, who each returned his looks with a nod.
"Remember, get his attention, but don't get bound by fighting him. By the time the trap is triggered, Severa, you hold onto Yarne and Inigo, get on Minierva behind Gerome, they are the only ones fast enough to escape. It is dangerous, especially because the sooner you prepare your flight, the sooner Grima will notice something is happening. Just stay as long as possible after he landed on the plateau." Again the four addressed Shepherds nodded.
"Now for the trap itself. By the time Grima touches the ground, Laurent, you have to give the signal for the other teams to kick off their boulders. Did you decide by now which spell you 're gonna use?"
Spoken mage stepped forward into the middle of the tent. "Yes, I have. I choose Mjölnir. It is the strongest spell I can cast. It consists of a very large lightning crashing onto its aim, so all of you should be able to see or hear it one way or another. Additionally I will aim for the dragon's neck, as it is his weakness. This may distract him for a short time."
"Perfect, I would have asked you to do so anyway. After that, you'll have a hard job protecting him Kjelle, 'cause the Risen don't know he can do it only once."
"No problem, I will hold my position, no matter what it takes.", the female knight in her heavy armour answered.
"If everything goes well, you won't have to do so that long."
"How can anything can go possibly wrong, you planned it!"
"Thank you, Nah, that's the spirit" Morgan replied, before addressing the remaining shepherds.
"You all remember the spots where you prepared your boulders?" He asked, and as everyone nodded in response, went on, "Good. We choose them for two reasons. First, there is a small crack or cave around, so that you can hide until it's time. Second, when you kick the boulders loose, they will hopefully cause a landslide each to hold Grima in place, giving Lucina the chance of getting onto his neck and stabbing Falchion into it. Everyone else, try to keep his attention off his back and onto the ground. Most of the Risen accompanying him will probably get crush by the avalanches, but the remaining will still outnumber us by far. Any questions?"
No one dared to ask what would happen if Lucina's attack didn't do anything to the fell dragon.
"All right, then get yourself ready for the battle. We'll meet in fifteen minutes at the entrance of the camp. We leave everything we don't need for the fight here."
Because either we can retrieve them afterwards, or else... Well there was no else, Lucina thought.
She watched her fellows leave the tent. Morgan packed his tome into his pouch at his hip, then retrieved his sword Mystletainn and strapped it to the other side. As he put on his coat, a rare sadness stole itself onto his features, as it was the one their mother used to wear. But as he approached her, his usual smile was back.
"Come on sis, we got a dragon to slay!"
If she could only share his confidence.
She always spoke to them before a battle. She was their leader, and as that supposed to inspire them to give their best in the upcoming fight. But as she looked in the faces which all stared back, it had never been harder for her.
"OK everyone. This is it. Our final battle. Today we take this beast of fell dragon down, that has slain so many of our parents, not to mention the entire villages and cities it has burned down to ashes. We now know the neck is its weakness and that Falchion here is the blade that defeated him once and will do again today!" With that, she lifted her sword high in the air. Suddenly, she felt the familiar fire of a coming fight rise in her. "Today we can save this world. We slay Grima. For the people! For our parents! FOR YLISSE!" And the others even joined in her last cry, repeating it several times, the echo of the shout bouncing back from the mountains around them. "Everyone to their positions!"
With that the group divided into the teams and each one set off towards their destination. They still had well over two hours before the first risen forces would arrive, Grima even later. Lucina climbed onto the back of Cynthia's pegasus. She would take them towards their hiding place, as they had the highest and best concealed one.
Lost in thoughts, Lucina pulled out the mask she had bought in a village on their retreat into the mountains. It was butterfly-shaped, made from a dark blue metal, which matched perfectly with her blue combat outfit in the style the legendary hero-king Marth had worn centuries ago. She let her fingers glide over the cold material, wondering if she should wear it for the upcoming fights. Deciding to do so, she placed it on her face. Noticing the movement, Cynthia turned her head and her concentrated face turned into one of surprise. "I thought Gerome was the one with the mask?"
"I think I can understand now how he feels when he's wearing it. I'm going to keep it on."
"Why? Don't you want to be yourself in this battle? Killing all those Risen and finishing Grima off! This will make you the greatest heroine of all times, perhaps even equal to Marth himself! I doubt it feels that personal if you're wearing this thing."
"That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want all this glory. If everyone says she's the one that slayed the fell dragon, it makes me feel I did it all by myself. But all those brave people giving their lives to fight him, to provide us this chance, have done so much more than myself. Wearing this mask gives me the feeling of some anonymity. It gives me the feeling I'm doing this not for myself but for all the other people."
"I see. But still, even with this mask you'll be a heroine, just like everyone else of our team, including me!"
"Yeah, I cannot completely evade this. But I'm much more content with the thought of us all being equally remembered and celebrated."
"I just can't wait to become a true heroine like my mother in all the legends they are telling about her!"
Lucina couldn't help but smile at the eagerness of the girl in front of her to step into her mother's footsteps. "Didn't you forget something, Cynthia?"
"What?"
"We still have to kill that dragon first."
"Ahhh, easy-peasy. As if that stupid overgrown lizard-thing stands any chance against us!"
"I so hope you're right. Anyway, we about to reach our place. That's our cave over there."
"Got it." Cynthia replied, as she pulled the reins of her pegasus to guide her towards the entrance, where a large boulder was sitting on the edge of the small platform in front of their hideout.
"Okay, what now?"
Lucina motioned towards Cynthia's pegasus. "Take her inside and make sure she stays there quietly! Then we'll wait." As the pegasus knight guided her mount into the deeper regions of the cave, Lucina sat down, leaning onto a rock, facing the valley and the direction from where they suspected Grima would be coming. She was joined by Cynthia soon, together they kept watch, waiting for the first Risen to appear.
After the better part of two hours, they could see a huge black and purple wave advancing towards their valley. Lucina felt her grip around the hilt of falchion tighten. "It's time." she said, rising up.
Cynthia simply nodded and stood, too. As they retreated into the cave, Lucina unconsciously checked on her mask. While her friend settled herself next to her mount, she couldn't sit down and instead started pacing around in the cave. Waiting for a battle was far more worse than marching straight against the enemy. Even worse made it the fact, that their decoys had to fight the first waves of Risen all by themselves. After some time of nervous walking in circles she could hear them. The moaning and howling in addition to the sounds of weapons told her, that the Risen had began to pass their position. She had to fight the urge to storm out and tear as many of those monsters apart as she could. But she had to wait. At last until Grima was caught in their trap. A ruffling noise made her spin around with her hand on her blade, but it was only Cynthia, readying her steed for their later assault. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she once again faced the entrance. And froze dead in her tracks. Lucina could make out the glowing pair of red orbs, caused by the eyes of a single Risen. Without thinking, she darted forward, dodged the axe he was swinging at her and tore falchion through his chest and neck, causing him to dissolve into purple ashes. After she closed her eyes to protect them from the mist, Lucina realised she couldn't in any way catch the axe that was flying through the air before it hit the ground, surely giving away their position with the loud, echoing clattering. But as no impact could be heard, she dared to open one eye, discovering a smiling Cynthia, waving the axe at her, mouthing: "Didn't you forget something?"
Lucina felt a short wave of relief spreading through her, but not for long. As Cynthia gently placed the foreign weapon on the ground, a loud thud could be heard. It was the sound gigantic wings made while flying. Lucina saw her friend tense as she recognized the sound, and she herself couldn't suppress her muscles from stiffening. Grima himself had finally arrived. In front of her inner eye she could see Yarne darting up the mountain with Severa clung to his back, above them Minerva, Gerome's Wyvern, carrying both him and Inigo out of the range of their trap. But as the flapping continued, she grew worried and started to edge towards the entrance of their cave, followed by an even more nervous Cynthia. Before they could reach it, a deep voice boomed through the air.
"Ha, did you really think I, the Fell Dragon himself, could be fooled by such an obvious trap? Then I have to disappoint you. Nothing will happen, except from you being slain by the forces that have already circled this valley!" This revelation was followed by mad laughing, during which Lucina slowly turned around towards Cynthia, her features frozen behind her mask. Written on the other girl's face was pure horror. She felt a similar feeling rising up inside of her, but with sheer willpower, she forced it down, struggling to recover her spirit. The same spirit that kept her head held high at all of the seemingly endless funerals she had attended. The same spirit that kept her fighting against the inevitable end of the world. It would not fail her now. Her parents sacrifices would not have been in vain. Thinking about them, she felt a familiar flame rise, powered by all the hatred of Grima for taking them away from her. Slowly lifting her head, she started whispering: "Cynthia, come on." As spoken girl showed no reaction, she straightened herself and shouted: "This isn't over yet!", before turning around, drawing her sword and running of to the entrance.
The moment she stepped out of the cave, she realised that Grima hadn't been lying about them being surrounded by the Risen forces, as three of them tried to jump down on her from above the entrance.
Inside the cave, Cynthia still hadn't moved. They had risked everything by setting up this trap for the Fell Dragon. Why should they continue to fight? There was no chance of getting onto Grima's back now. A great wave of hopelessness washed over her and she sank to her knees. She did not have the same strength as Lucina, or her determination. Then she remembered her mother and one of the legends they were telling about her came to her mind. Sumia should lead a squad of pegasus knights around a large forest to flank unnoticed a Risen army. But when they turned around the edge of the woods, they were greeted by several lines of undead archers, raining down a hail of arrows onto the unsuspecting Ylissans. Three quarters of her warriors were hit. But Sumia did not give up and retreat, she shouted at the remaining knights to follow her and charged right into the archers formation, so that they could no longer use their bows without killing each other. As the others obeyed, they managed to kill the entire archer-squad without any further casualtys... A true heroine never gives up, but turns the enemy's strength against them. Grima wanted to demoralize them. And she, Cynthia, pegasus knight and daughter of the great Sumia, would not do him the favour of succeding! Grabbing her inherited lance, she jumped onto her mount and urged her steed towards the entrance. Obviously just in time. Lucina was laying on the ground, two Risen around her vanishing in purple ash clouds, a third standing above her, swinging his axe in a mighty arc.
With a challenging war-cry she launched her lance right at the back of the enemy in front of her.
Lucina cursed her bad luck. She had managed to kill two of her attackers in the air, but the last one had tackeled her to the ground, causing her to lose grip on her Falchion because of her head crashing into the ground, stunning her. Before she could focus on the axe aiming for her chest, she heard a familiar cry and her attacker stopped dead, as a spear tip suddenly protruding from his belly.
"Luce, you're OK?"
"Yeah, all 's fine." Lucina answered as she shook her head to get it clear. Reaching for her blade, she asked, "How about you? Got your spirit back?"
"I remembered mum, and that a true heroine..."
But she couldn't finish her sentence, as a deafening thunder made them spinning around, just in time to see an enormous lightning hit Grima's backside. Obviously exactly in the right place, as the wings stopped to flap for a few seconds. He tried to steady himself, nevertheless it had been enough. The huge body of the dragon descended into the valley.
"Luce, that's our chance!"
Spoken person hadn't wasted time for speaking, instead she had instantly began to sprint to the huge boulder, throwing all her weight in as she crashed into it with her shoulder. It moved slightly and as Cynthia and her mount joined her, the rock slid of the plateau, hitting others on its way down, creating the stone avalanche just as they had originally intended, smashing hundreds of Risen into dust that were so unfortunate to stand in its way. On the other sides of the valley, similar clouds of purple ashes were rising into the air. So the others too had realised their chance to carry out the initial plan.
Lucina couldn't believe their luck as Grima crashed into the ground in the same moment as the avalanches reached the bottom of the valley, therefore burying him under tons of stone.
"Come on, I'll get you down there, and if that's the last thing I'm doing!"
Lucina nodded as she allowed Cynthia to pull her onto the pegasus.
"Hold on tight!" With these words she urged her mount into the air, giving Lucina barely enough time to wrap her left arm around her friend's waist, while she tried to maintain her grip on the divine blade. As they soared down towards the back of the gigantic Fell Dragon, Lucina noticed a black shadow heading for the same destination. A closer look told her it was Minerva, Gerome's wyvern, with her rider and Inigo on her. Not as planned, but they probably could use some backup, as Grima was already freeing itself, shifting under the rocks. Then she saw her mother, no, Grima's avatar running down from the head, blasting the boulders off his dragon form with powerful wind and lightning spells. Damn it, how she had hoped to be able to avoid this confrontation.
"Cynthia, can you see the Avatar?"
"Yes, what are we going to do about her?"
"We, nothing. I will challenge her by myself while you and the other two are watching my back."
"NO, Luce, this is insane! Alone you have no chance of defeating her!"
"Well, then it's good that I'm not intending to do so. Go and tell the other to keep the Risen of this area!" With these words Lucina jumped of the pegasus, rolling on the sharp scales of the dragons back.
"There you are. I should have thought of you doing something foolish like facing me by yourself. You know you are no match for me. But I'll give you a chance. We'll keep magic out of this." the dragon told her in his echoing voice through her mothers body, while putting away her tome. With a fluid motion she drew both of her blades, pointing them at Lucina.
"Let's end this!" she thought, settling herself in her usual defensive combat stance.
Both opponents glared at each other, waiting for the other one to make the first move. Finally her mother dashed at her, swinging both her swords from different directions, using her advantage of having an additional weapon. Lucina sidestepped one blade and parried the other, then swinging around and attacking by herself.
They exchanged blow after blow, Lucina most of the time only defending herself, while her mother kept toying with her. Then she saw her chance as her mother swung horizontally in a wide arc. She battered the other blade away, span around to get between her mother and the weapon, then pushed with all her might against the cross guard above her opponents hand while throwing her head back, hitting her mother directly into the face. It was a desperate move, but it did the trick, as her mothers blade was send flying across the back of the dragon, vanishing in the purple clouds that hovered through the valley. Hissing in pain, her mother jumped away to recover from the blow.
"I underestimated you, but this won't happen again!" Her now free hand retrieved her tome from her pouch and began casting various spells at Lucina, not allowing her to come within close combat range. She dodged all the spells her mother threw at her, always seemingly retreating backwards. She silently prayed that her mother did not recognize her true aim, as every retreat brought her further towards the dragon's neck, its weakest spot.
Suddenly, the breaks between the attacks increased, as her opponent switched from the fast but weak to the slower, but stronger and wider spells. This allowed her a to catch her breath before jumping again. After another fire spell that send a jet of flames in her direction, Lucina risked to take a brief look around, noticing that they had already reached the shoulders of the huge dragon.
The next second, she crouched down, as the dragon was moving again, threatening to throw her off. Then she realised that her mother had stopped the fight too, and was clinging to the sharp scales of the beast.
She wouldn't get another try. Lucina scrambled up and started to stagger upwards to the beginning of the neck. As she heard a cracking sound behind her, she threw herself down, but the spell was poorly aimed and missed her by several meters. Continuing forwards, she noticed that the scales grew smaller and probably thinner. Behind her back her mother cast spell after spell at her, but they all seared past her.
Just until a lightning bolt hit her left shoulder and burned its way through her armour, exploding on her skin, throwing her some meters through the air. Hissing at the increasing pain, she rammed her blade into the scales below and pulled herself up. Deciding it was now or never, she lifted Falchion above her head and brought it down with all the strength she could muster, causing several cracks in the scales she had hit. The third attack finally shattered one into sharp, black splinters. But before she could stab her blade into the gap in the dragons natural armour, a strong gust of wind caught her and send her stumbling away.
Her mother had closed the distance between them. The only reason why she wasn't dead was the fact any spell damaging her would have also hit the exposed flesh of the Fell Dragon.
"What do you think you're doing? You really thought such a tiny sword would suffice to finish the great Grima, the Fell Dragon itself? Fool! I'm going to finish you off right now and you will die, knowing that there is nothing that can be done to stop me."
"Shut up! This will end today, and if I die, it was meant to be. But I am going to take you with me! This is Falchion, the divine blade and with it I will seal you into another millennium of sleep." She scrambled back to her feet, holding her sword in an offensive position in front of her.
"No. I don't think so." And as she finished her sentence, glowing rune circles around her body signalled she was preparing another powerful spell, with would surely hit his aim at this close range.
But instead of turning around and running, Lucina directly charged at her mother. Then the lightning spell broke loose from her mother's hands, surging at her and burning the air in its path. Just before it connected with its target, Lucina brought the divine blade into the way, letting the energy get caught and with a swift motion the spell crashed into the ground beside her, showering them with small, black scale-shrapnels.
This distraction bought her enough time to reach the exposed patch of dragon hide. Using all her momentum from the run, she drove her falchion as deep into the neck of the beast as she could, ignoring the heat of the fire spell her mother was just about to throw at her.
Then a blinding flash of white light extinguished the world around the warrior princess. The next thing she noticed, she was still standing on the back of the Fell dragon, but it had stopped moving. Everything around her had stopped moving. Obviously the Divine-Blade had caused the flash, as it was emanating a bright white glow. And behind Falchion, she could see the flames of the spell her mother had hurled at her frozen in mid-air. She was the only thing that could still move. Before she could decide what to do, the light was again getting brighter and within it, the outline of a person was becoming visible. It was female, with long green hair, her sharp, long ears betraying her as non-human.
"Greetings, exalted. I am Naga, the divine dragon. A part of my consciousness is embedded within this weapon. The power surging through it after you stabbed it into my arc-enemy freed my spirit within the blade."
Unable to accept the fact that the divine dragon herself was standing right in front of her, Lucina stood there motionless until she could get herself to speak.
"So it's right, this weapon was made by you to destroy Grima?"
"Yes, princess. It was forged under my guidance and blessed with my spirit. Its wielder has the power to seal Grima away for a millennium, as neither of us dragons can kill the other. Only he himself can do so."
"Wait a minute. So all I can do is lay down the burden on the shoulders of our descendants?"
"Yes and no, young warrior. Yes, you could pass the burden of Grima on, but no, you cannot."
Losing her patience, Lucina asked:
"And why can't I seal him?"
"The divine blade only carries a small amount of my power. To seal my dark brother, it takes everything I have, all of my might must be awakened in the Falchion. You did not awaken it. Even by using all the energy that Grima is pushing through his wound, I cannot seal him."
By hearing this, Lucina sank to the grounds, all her hopes of ending this dammed war crushed by the divine dragon's explanations.
"But there still is one way. There is the chance that you will not succeed and it could even turn out worse than what you are facing now. But I can send you back in time. Back to when the fist of Grimas servants began to gather. Back to when your father, the exalted Chrom, found your mother in the fields and started to gather the shepherds. Then, you could interfere with history, changing the time line into a better shape. But you need to be careful, as time and history do not want to be changed and struggle to stay as they are."
"I don't care whether there is the chance of failing. In this time line I have done all that I could, but it still wasn't enough. By going back, a can change the future of this world for better."
Then a thought struck her. All the heroes in history, the hero-king Marth and her father all had their friends and allies with them. So Lucina asked of the Wyrm-Goddes:
"What about my comrades? If they stay here, they'll die soon for sure. By coming with me they could help re-shaping the future."
"You are speaking wisely. Only the fool marches alone to war. I will send them with you. But I shall warn you. You are so wide apart in this world and it will cost almost all of the strength I poss and the energy I can draw from my fell-brother. So you all will probably appear in different places, maybe even in different times, the ones close here staying close there. Only you I can send to a special time and place."
"I am ready. And I am sure my friends are as well."
"Good. I shall explain to them what will happen before sending them on. One last thing. Don't reveal your Identity, for it could cause disturbances that could kill you."
"I will not. I shall keep myself hidden beneath the mask I'm wearing, fighting in the name of Marth, the ancient hero-king, the last one defeating Grima."
"Goodbye, then, Lucina. I am sure we will see each other again."
Before the princess could bid farewell, a bright light engulfed her, white with purple streams within. Then she felt like she was torn apart by the light and knew nothing more.