but the true heroes don't get happy endings.

i. hero

From the moment the first arrow entered her back, she sensed Fate's knotted, blood-dyed ribbons wrapping her in embrace. Her tongue tasted metal on her lips.

"Risen— How—" she gasped, dust filling her lungs, fingers clawing at the ground. They came so close. How, then? How could Phila, who only sought to serve her mistress, meet with such an obstacle so close to her goal?

Those blasted archers blurred into a soupy brown mass, and she strained to glimpse the woman perched on the overarching precipice. The sun forced her eyes to narrow.

Emmeryn. How long had it been since she felt the name roll around her mouth? "Emmeryn," she rasped, beneath her breath, anchoring her hands in the dry earth. She took a gulp of air, flinched at the pulse of pain, and struggled to meet the eye of the Exalt she served. "Y-Your Grace, I— forgive me..." she cried, wincing, pain searing through her back. Please, forgive me.

"Phila!" Emmeryn called back, her voice projecting across the expanse of desert, soft and gentle as it was.

"Exeunt one pegasus knight!" Gangrel guffawed. His gnawing voice starkly contrasted Her Grace's smooth tones. "Watch how they fall, one by one! Ahahaha!"

She curled into herself at his cackles. Oh gods. Oh gods, if only she had seen this coming, if only she could've anticipated—

Thunk!

Thunkthunkthunk—

Scores more arrows pummeled Phila, the pain near unbearable by now, and the shrieks ringing in her ears let her know the Plegians spared none of her squad, either.

She heard them all; each one, each scream, individually. Others may have heard a mottled, singular cry of terror, but not Captain Phila. She—who saw to their training and ate and laughed and wept and breathed with them—heard them all.

A high, shrill and delicate yelp belonged to the youngest, newest recruit, Lydia. The girl brimming with youthful potential. The girl with the shining eyes, and eager heart, her bouncy ponytail reminiscent of a certain feather-headed princess.

Though the cries of her sisters broke her heart, Lydia's claimed the biggest piece.

I'm so sorry for dragging you down with me. You had your whole life ahead of you.

She thought things with Plegia could finally, finally come to an end — but not like this. Oh gods, not like this.

A sob rushed on her, too fast to stunt before it wracked her body, sending pain arching through her back and ribs and chest. Oh dear Naga, it hurt. It hurt. But it didn't hurt as horrendously as seeing her sisters-at-arms fall, nor did it pain her as much to hear that dreadful king's voice scratching her ears while her queen cried out her name so desperately.

Phila had a high threshold for pain.

But, she was sure, not even the strongest human being on earth could bear so much at one time. Her arms buckled; her body finally collapsed against the dust. Perhaps she could die with the hope of her sacrifice holding some meaning.

Not so— that tactician, the strange one, murmured on to the prince. "It's not right. It's not fair, even, but... Chrom. One life against a million, y—"

"Don't!" Chrom barked, rightfully so in the face of such talk. "Just... Don't say it," he pleaded, his voice wavering, like it'd break if someone so much as blew on it.

Phila's fists, with a lethargy quite unlike her, clenched tight. For the first time in years, decades, she prayed.

Don't let my sacrifice be in vain.

Don't let this happen. You can't let it.

Please. I don't know if you hear me, or care, or if you're real, even, but please, if you can do anything at all, I—

She stopped short at the music of the Exalt's voice drifting across the clearing.

"Plegians!" she began, though Phila listened anyway, and no doubt every non-Plegian within earshot leaned in to grasp at Emmeryn's words. "I ask that you hear the truth of my words! War will win you nothing but sadness and pain, both inside your borders and out. Free yourselves from this hatred! From this cycle of pain and vengeance. Do what you must," she pleaded, a voice like steel from a face of porcelain. "As I will do."

Exalt Emmeryn's shaking breath rattled through the air. "See now that one selfless act has the power to change the world!" she called, and every ear bent to listen, every eye strained to see.

For a single moment, Phila felt the world buzz with silence. Please let this be it. Let it be the moment of distraction, the moment she could die knowing her queen was safe. That was her only regret.

She clawed the ground. How untrue that was, however selfish. She never married a man she thought suitable, nor lived to see the young recruits, with their shining eyes and faces, grow into fine knights.

Chrom cried his sister's name.

Phila only had a moment to recall her regrets before watching the Exalt fall.

"No," she rasped, her vision clouding. "Emmeryn—" she sputtered, red bespeckling the ground before her.

However selfishly, she realized it all too late. She held no wish to live a day without her most trusted friend by her side.

Friend.

Exalt.

Emmeryn.

One might think the words wouldn't click into place beside one another, but Phila knew better. Unfortunately, knowing better made all the difference.

At least... We can go down together.

Phila's cheek met the dirt, and her vision clouded black.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

- Winston Churchill