All the characters and the cover picture belong to Nintendo and the Fire Emblem franchise. In fact, unless I say I own it, just assume I don't. I guess I can at least call the main plot mine, eh?

Soooooo, I wanted to write something with swords. High School AU's are nice and all, but a girl needs a break every now and then (plus there were a few things I've done with the writing I hate myself for. did the same thing with another AU I scrapped before this (Vessels?). urgh.).

I'm actually enjoying where I'm going with this, so expect an update some time over the holidays?

Enjoy!

The freezer, while filled to the brim with frozen meats and vegetables, was disappointingly ice cream-less. "This is just sad, Wren." Robin closed the freezer door and spun back to her brother. Wren quirked an eyebrow and slumped a little lower down his couch. On his right, his best friend, Chrom, granted her a sympathetic smile. "Second year away from home and not a single tub of chocolate ice cream in the fridge. Aren't you supposed to be abusing your college student powers?"

Robin already knew if she had an apartment of her own it would, one, not be nearly as neat as Wren's with its carefully organized bookcase and impeccable coffee table, two, contain more than a couch, coffee table, bookcase, and some beds, and three, have a well maintained ice cream supply. "I thought you were watching your weight," Wren said. He didn't look up from his book, but Robin pouted at the teasing smile peaking over the pages anyways. "Besides, didn't you get tiramisu while we were out to dinner yesterday? And finished half of mine after?"

"Yesterday was my birthday, and it's not my fault you can't hold your chocolate." Robin fished her sneakers out from under her brother's couch. Wren was a little bit of a push-over, an adorable push-over with his superhero t-shirts, the glasses that just kept slipping down his nose, and a shock of perpetually ruffled white hair, but a push-over all the same. By pressing the right buttons, you could get him to do anything, and it was definitely one of the reasons Robin had begged Wren to let her move in with him. It also got her half a slice of tiramisu yesterday.

"You know, I forgot how much of a bully you were, Robin. I'm almost contemplating calling Dad to take you—Are you going out?" Wren's head popped over the couch, closely followed by Chrom's own. The two were staring at her with unnerving intensity. "Because you can't. By the way."

"What? Do you not go out after dark in Ylistol or something?" Robin crossed her arms over her chest. A lightning quick glance shot from Wren to Chrom. Their eerie telepathic link, cultivated since middle school, was something Robin had long stopped trying to interpret. Instead she shrugged. "Ice cream? Priorities? I'm not going to sneak into a night club in these ratty jeans and baggy t-shirt, if that's what you're worried about."

Wren slid back down the couch. "We can get ice cream tomorrow. You just arrived in town yesterday. You'll get lost."

"There's a gas station just on the corner. If I get lost walking a straight line down the sidewalk, then you can say I told you so," Robin said, shifting her pocketbook over her shoulder.

"This isn't small town Plegian." Robin didn't have to see Wren's face to picture his frown, all scolds and seriousness. "You live in a major city now, Robin, and creeps lurk around every corner."

"Good thing I have pepper spray," she sang. Giving the little bottle a quick shake, Robin darted for the door.

"Wait." Chrom pulled himself off the couch. "If you need to go, I'm going with you." Her brother's best friend was built like a cross-country runner, not muscly, per say, but lean and quick. Theoretically, if 'creeps' lurked around every corner, Chrom could probably scare them away with the ripple of his bicep. Or he could also just charm them out of existence with his tanned skin, long eyelashes, and shy smile. Not that he had done that to her during their two overlapping years of high school. "Robin?"

Robin cleared her throat and folded her arms over her chest. She was a strong, independent sixteen-and-one-day year-old who had definitely grown beyond swooning. "Thanks—"

"Oh, Chrom gets a thanks." Chrom laughed softly at Wren's dry tone, but Robin suspected he didn't understand the joke. He was oblivious to his effect on women.

"Thanks, but, once again, I have pepper spray, and in a pinch, those self-defense classes Mom made us take." Robin swung open the door. As if she had opened the door out into a refrigerator instead of a hallway, a gust of cold air almost sucked her breath away. "I'll be back in fifteen. Also, I'm borrowing your coat," Robin called, grabbing Wren's hooded jacket off its hook.

"Rob—" With a slam that rattled the wooden door on its hinges, Robin left her brother to gripe at Chrom, most likely. Unlike Wren's actual apartment, which was well maintained and freshly painted, the complex hallway truly dated the building. The floorboards squeaked with every step, the hideous beige paint was chipping off the walls to reveal equally aged brick, and the hall was so drafty, it felt more like February than August.

Tugging her slim arms through the sleeves of Wren's coat, Robin creaked her way downstairs. Despite its thin appearance, the jacket was warm and heavy, more like being wrapped in a dark purple blanket than a coat. Pulling up the hood, Robin started towards the door leading outside.

Chrom's little sister nearly caught her in the face. Swinging the door to his apartment open, Lissa poked her head around the wood to flash Robin a blinding smile. "Yoooooo, Robin." She didn't have to see Lissa's body to know the girl was bouncing on her heels. Lissa was—and always had been—a small, blonde ball of energy, like a golden retriever puppy, but the puppy at least had enough gall to look guilty after dropping a frog down your shirt. "Did Wren give you the coat?"

"Yeah." Wren almost definitely had Chrom sic Lissa on her to delay her adventure. This was the critical first night out mission, however, and it was going to define Robin's nightlife. Her brother was going to need something a little more powerful than Lissa to keep her indoors. Robin edged around Lissa with a smile. Short responses and nothing else were often best with the chatty girl. The blonde twirled around her door and clicked it shut. Already in a thick white coat that turned her into a walking marshmallow, Lissa skipped after her. "And just as I suspected, Chrom already told you my plans. Sure. Come along."

On the street, the cold was biting. It gnawed at every inch of exposed skin, making her bones ache. Huddling deeper into Wren's coat, Robin let Lissa skip ahead of her. You didn't argue with Lissa, and Robin couldn't feel her face well enough to argue anyways. It was below freezing, with the howling wind and the moon and stars swallowed entirely by clouds. Robin knew for a fact it was below freezing because it was snowing. In August. After hitting a high of eighty during the day. "Lissa." Her voice was so faint over the wind it was as if she was hearing herself through earplugs. "Lissa, is it always like this here?"

Lissa, a bouncing white blob with a little pink nose, nodded. Probably. It was rather difficult to tell under the blonde's fur lined hood. "Been like this ever since we moved here." When Wren moved, Chrom and Lissa moved, too, Chrom because they were attending the same college, Lissa because their older sister, Emm, was more away than home. "Wren thinks it's been getting worse, but he's a scaredy-cat about some stuff. All 'don't touch that, Lissa,' 'that's dangerous, Lissa,' 'knives are sharp, Lissa.' I'll drop a newt down his trousers one day, and then he'll learn the meaning of fear. But anyways, now that you're here, perhaps we can figure out how to warm it all up."

"Yeah, with loads of cocoa and blankets," Robin said. "This is just freaky."

Lissa giggled. "You're silly, Robin." Call her silly, but man, this was not normal. The gas station lights were barely visible in the intensifying flurries, lights mesmerizing in the white haze. Skipping up to the door, Lissa nudged it open for them both, and the door jingled shut behind them.

Inside, the gas station was only marginally warmer than outdoors, but Robin could feel her face defrosting, and it was a blessed sensation. Bouncing down the aisles, Lissa waved a hand somewhere near the soups. "Wren and Chrom thought we couldn't handle it," the blonde called. "Wren wanted me to bring you back before we even got outside. He still treats me like a kid, and you and I are the same age. Can you believe it?"

"That's because you behave like a kid, Lissa." The gas station was one designed for truckers, half devoted to aisles of food and car supplies, half devoted to coffee machines, the old classic brewers with the brown handled pots like Robin only saw at cheap breakfast diners. Perhaps everything in Ylistol was old. The checkout counter was deserted, and with the realization the gas station was empty, it felt still, a dead still. "Lissa?" The blonde didn't even squeak. It was one of Lissa's pranks of course, because Lissa loved pranks, even if they came at the expense of friends who felt rather like they had wandered into a graveyard at the moment. "Not funny, Lis. Come out. Now. If you scare me, I will pepper spray you." Robin strode towards the aisles. She caught a glimpse of her face in one of the glass windows, pale and pinched in Wren's giant hood. Beyond that, it was snowing, legitimate snow in the middle of summer. "Lissa?"

The girl was squatting in the soups aisle, enthralled by the can of spaghettiOs in her left hand and the can of alphabet soup in her right. "Oh, thank the gods."

Lissa started, and Robin felt rather silly for breathing it out. Jumping to her feet, Lissa thrust the two cans out to Robin. "Serious decision. Which comes home with me?"

"I don't care, Lissa." Robin felt a little lightheaded on adrenaline and relief, almost like she had been floating somewhere in the upper atmosphere where the air was just too thin. "I'm getting that ice cream, because we're here now, and I'm not going back to Wren without it, and we're getting out of here."

Robin found the frozen foods in the far corner of the gas station. If it hadn't been a few aisles away from Lissa, Robin would have dragged the girl with her, because this section was just as deserted as the rest. Whipping open the freezer door, Robin reached for the first container of chocolate ice cream she could find.

A hand wrapped over hers. The frozen foods section must not have been as deserted as she thought, Robin amended, because next to her was a rather pretty boy, studying her while his hand just sat over hers and the ice cream in the freezer. Pretty Boy's hand was freezing, almost colder than the ice cream, like he had been fumbling through the freezer for hours instead of a few seconds. "Sorry, did you… want this?" The boy was staring at her with eyes electric blue and skin so dazzlingly pale it almost seemed to sparkle under the florescent lights. Robin could feel her face heating under his piercing gaze. She had never been good with attractive guys. "Here. You can have it."

Robin released the ice cream, but Pretty Boy's hand only curled around hers. His mouth was so purple it was almost blue. "I… I'm sorry?" She was whispering, because for some reason, Robin was suddenly intensely, intensely scared. She was more a rabbit caught in this boy's trap, and something was off in his blue, blue eyes and the little tilt of his head as he watched her lips move. She wanted to scream for help, but Lissa was here, and sunshiney Lissa was even smaller than she was. Fumbling through her bag, Robin eased out her pepper spray. "If you don't let me go, you'll regret it."

Without even a flinch, Pretty Boy pressed one icy finger onto her still warm, red cheek. The touch on her face was so cold it hurt. He seemed to find it curious, staring as the color drained from her skin. Before Robin could whimper, it was gone, flicking back Wren's hood in a smooth motion. "Valkyrie?" Robin tried to tug her hand out of his, but the boy's grip was vice-like. This close, the pepper spray would blind them both. "Valkyrie?" His voice was deep, gravelly, a voice that belonged on a much older, much larger man.

"Is that the only word you can say?" In comparison, Robin knew she sounded breathless, tiny, weak. With small careful steps, she began to inch away from the freezer. If she could only get a few feet between them, Robin could escape.

"Valkyrie?" Yes, apparently. As if he could sense her slow shuffle towards the door, Pretty Boy's hand tightened on hers. "Val—"

An alphabet soup can crashed into the side of his head, thrown with enough force to send the boy stumbling into the freezer door. "Oi!" Brandishing another soup can, Lissa grinned. "Heads up, icicle brain!" As Robin wrenched her hand from his, a can of spaghettiOs broke Pretty Boy's nose with a sickening crunch. Robin stumbled backwards. Away from Lissa. Away from the boy who leaned against the freezer door, spaghettiOs mingling with blood that was not red, but an inky black. "Robin, here!"

"Lissa… what's going on?" Pretty Boy was beginning to lurch away from the door, piercing blue gaze still fixed on her, entirely unfazed by the noodles sliding down his chin. Whipping the pepper spray up, Robin backed down the aisle. "Lissa?" She was panicked, and even if Robin could pretend her hand wasn't shaking, her voice definitely was.

"Don't worry," Lissa called. The girl was gone, vanished between the aisles, and it was so like when they first arrived, Robin almost wanted to cry. Pretty Boy was still there, trailing after her with increasing speed. His nose was already reforming, and it was like watching the speed construction of a building, except this was a boy's nose and it made Robin want to vomit. "First one's always rough. You're doing great. Just a few more steps."

A few more steps, and a knife whistled down the auto repair aisle, lodging itself in the boy's hand before Robin could even scream. Robin flinched, dropping the pepper spray. The boy whipped his head to Lissa with an inhuman growl. "Lissa! Is that a—"

"Knife. Don't tell Wren?" With a wink, Lissa pulled another from her marshmallow coat. Pretty Boy wrenched her first knife out of his palm with a hiss. It rocketed back down the aisle, so fast Robin could just find the metallic blur. Lissa was going to die. In a smooth movement, the blonde plucked the knife out of the air, spinning it on her palm. "I told you, right? That he's been all 'those knives'll get you killed. Stick to the staves, Lissa. Emm likes staves.' You know what I wanna try. An axe." The knife buried itself back into the boy's hand, driving it and him into the glass separating them from the refrigerated beer. As the boy stumbled to his feet, the knife was followed by its pair, pinning his other hand to the cracked glass. "That'd show him and Chrom."

"Lissa, Lissa, you have to tell me what's going on." Pretty Boy was still staring at her, nonplussed by the knives pinning him to the refrigerator door. "You—you can't just—you just threw knives at that man."

"S'not a man. Did you even listen when Wren gave the lecture? It's a jotun. You know, big scary ice giant. Probably ate the cashier, which is a shame." Spinning out a third knife, Lissa pressed it to the boy's throat. She looked so very tiny and pink with the blade against his pale skin. "Go on. The Book. Let's take him home for Wren and Chrom"

"Book?" Lissa nodded and smiled. Was this some code? Some crazy word she was supposed to interpret? "This—This must be a tiramisu dream. It's still my birthday, and I just haven't woken up yet." Pretty Boy growled a more realistic, organic sound than Robin had ever dreamed before. "Lissa, I don't know how to use knives, if that's what you're somehow asking. Just, just let's get out of here. I'll call the police."

"Not knives. The Book. If we end it with knives, he'll just come back later. The only way to truly end him is to absorb his Word into the Book. If we come back with a jotun's Word, just the two of us, Wren and Chrom will have to admit we're good." Pretty Boy was beginning to squirm against Lissa's blades, eyes fixed on Robin. "Don't worry, Robin. I've seen it enough to coach you through it, I think."

"I have no idea what's going. Lissa, please."

Lissa's eyebrow's knit slowly knit together. "But the coat… That's Wren's coat. Only Valkyrie can wear that coat. He didn't give you permission to wear that?" Robin shook her head. "Oh, well—"

Pretty boy nailed Lissa in the stomach, sending her flying through the far window and rolling into the snow. "Lissa!" Marshmallow coat camouflaging perfectly with the accumulating snowbanks, Lissa remained motionless. As Robin started towards the window, the first knife fell to the tiled floor with an ominous clatter. The boy wrenched the second out, coating the dark handle in black blood, and with one strong fist, shattered the knife. As the shards fell from his palm, Pretty Boy smashed its pair on the floor under his heel, twisting the metal as if it had been plastic.

Robin backed down the aisle as the boy, who had just sent Lissa flying with more force than a car could've, watched her. Her hands were shaking even worse than before, and fumbling for her phone felt like an eternity. She was helpless, pathetically useless, and it ate at Robin's insides like some small rodent. With numb, tingly fingers, Robin found her speed dial. Wren's beaming face flashed up at her, Lissa's, and then her father's right underneath. Her last phone call.

At the dialer tone, Pretty Boy perked up like a dog to attention. "Wren—" Pretty Boy flung himself farther than any human could jump, toppling Robin into counter. With a grip like iron, he yanked the phone from her hand. The boy was so close Robin could see the lights reflecting off his teeth, slivers of ice instead of bone.

"Wren." Pretty Boy dragged out her brother's name as if tasting it on his tongue. Gasping against the countertop, Robin tried to move her hand, but at the first wiggle, pain laced up her wrist like lightning. Pulling his gaze from Robin to her phone, demolished in his hand, the boy stared at the purple plastic and wires. "Wren." While the boy picked at the shards of phone, Robin fumbled for anything, anything to defend herself with.

It was one of the old glass coffee pots, still full, but it was better than nothing. Robin swung it at Pretty Boy. The coffeepot cracked against the side of his face and ricocheted off. Scalding coffee sprayed everywhere, and even as Robin gasped, the boy began to hiss. He stumbled backwards, clutching at his face, and Robin realized the hissing wasn't coming from his mouth, but from his skin. Steam was billowing between his fingers like mist rolling down a mountain. Where droplets had landed on the back of his hands and forearms, the skin was beginning to melt away.

The boy started to scream, high pitched wailing of a train whistle, and Robin ran. Slipping across the tile and into the snow, Robin glanced over her shoulder. The skin that peeked through his fingers was no longer fair but cracked, milky, and somehow Robin knew Pretty Boy was staring at her behind his hands. "Lissa? Lissa, can you hear me?" The flurries had grown into a gale, and even if –as Robin hoped against hope—Lissa was somehow alive, the roar of the wind swallowed Robin's voice. But there, only a few feet away, Robin could see a little tuft of blonde. "Please, dear gods, be light enough for me to carry."

Kneeling at the girl's side, Robin brushed the snow from Lissa's face. Crumpled on the ground with the color washed from her face, the blonde looked like a doll, but unlike a doll, Lissa was somehow—miraculously—still breathing. Robin wanted to cry with relief. Perhaps she wasn't entirely useless. As she scooped the girl into her arms, however, Robin dropped Lissa to the ground again. Her injured wrist felt like it had caught fire the minute it supported her friend's weight. With the sickening realization Lissa wasn't going to be moveable, Robin glanced up.

Stepping through the same broken glass he had sent Lissa through, Pretty Boy shrieked at her as if he were more bird than man. Gathering Lissa into her arms as best she could, Robin couldn't pull her gaze from his face, half-skin, half-ice sculpture. "What are you?" she cried.

With a wave of one hand, Pretty Boy sucked the nearest falling snowflakes into his palm as if they were trapped in some miniature tornado. "Please. Just tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you?" His snowflakes melded and compacted into a fine spear that fit into his hand perfectly and sparkled under the gas station lights like diamond dust. Something was wrong, wrong, wrong, but as the boy bent back to hurl the snow spear that was surely deadly sharp, all Robin could do was curl over Lissa and squeeze her eyes shut.

The boy wailed again, piercing through the darkness. She couldn't keep her eyes closed. Instead Robin snapped them open. If she was going to face… pain, this strange ice boy was going to see everything in her eyes. If there was nothing else Robin could do, she would force him to face the consequences. Pretty Boy was on his knees, snow spear rolling out of his grasp. Above him was Chrom, hand wrapped around the silver and gold blade rammed into Pretty Boy's chest.

With a snarl Robin had never seen, Chrom ripped the sword back out, and the boy began to melt. Black fluid spilled out from his chest like oil welling from the ground, and as Chrom wiped his sword in the snow, the boy's wound grew outwards until it was so large it was a window Robin could see Chrom's jeans through. The puddle that the boy dissolved in to vanished, absorbed by the snow. The snow spear puffed back into a mound of snowflakes, and then it was like he never existed at all. "Tell the rest of your kind what happens when you touch my sister or her friends." Chrom planted the sword in the ground, and it disappeared, too.

Crunching through the snow, he bent to Robin's side. "Are you okay?" Chrom's tone was casual, like he hadn't just killed a man—jotun?—with a vanishing sword. He lifted a hand to her chin, but Robin jerked away at the touch. She could see the hurt in his eyes, a quiet sting that buried itself in her stomach. Chrom, with his rosy cheeks, hair as blue as the sea and eyes even bluer, his face might look like a scolded puppy's, but he had held that blade in the same hand that reached for her chin. "Wren sent me. I'm going to take you home."

"Lissa…" Chrom gathered his little sister in his arms and rose to his feet. Lissa's head lolled back against his shoulder as if she was only sleeping. If Robin hadn't been such dead weight, she knew the girl would be skipping about right now.

"She's been through worse," Chrom replied. He began to slog through the feet of snow that had piled while they were in the gas station. The snowfall itself had stopped, and under a clear sky, the city looked peaceful.

"What the hell is going on here, Chrom?" Robin stumbled to her feet, cradling her injured wrist to her chest. "Tell me, or I'm not walking back with you. You can tell Wren to get me himself."

"You don't have a choice. The thing that just tried to kill you—I didn't kill it. He'll be back with some friends in twenty—thirty minutes tops, and explaining this all to you is going to take time. If you want to understand what that just happened, if you want to outlive tonight, you need to come with me, Robin." Chrom turned back down the street.

"Wait." The boy stopped under the gas station sign. Running back to the building, Robin hopped through the broken window. Shattered glass, busted soup, and coffee everywhere, the gas station looked like a bull had rampaged through the place. Swooping the pint of chocolate ice cream off the ground, Robin picked her way to the counter. It was still deserted, and Robin couldn't crush the curling suspicion in her gut that the cashier was dead. She slapped a five on the counter anyways. Kicking open the door, Robin waved the pint at Chrom. "Couldn't come all this way for nothing."

Chrom snorted.

Ehh? Good, bad, indifferent? Rather just see more of the high school AU instead?

I 100% welcome all kinds of feedback, and pairings are very much open, more so than in my first fic. Of course, I love you silent readers, too! :)

Thanks for reading!