Title: A Pair of Eyes
Author: Haikoui
Disclaimer: I don't own anything! All of it belongs to Nintendo.
Summary: Lucina watches her father and his tactician from afar and wonders how her father is so blind. Friendly Lucina/DLC!Marth, onesided F!Robin/Chrom, implied Chrom/Sumia.
A Pair of Eyes
Lucina loves her mother. How can she not? Sumia is talented, wonderful, gentle—not to mention beautiful, but sometimes, she doesn't even know how she's related to her. Her mother is kind-hearted and soft-spoken, and very, very clumsy. (Whenever she's on her own feet, that is. If she's on the back of a beast, she's as graceful as a dancing Olivia.) Lucina prides herself on being sturdy and bold, unafraid to say what she means and to mean what she says. She loves her mother, truly, she does, but she's so disconnected from her that it just—it just—
She doubts she'd feel this way if she kept her distance from Robin.
"Look," she says to the silent warrior beside her, who turns his eyes to the tactician and the general in the distance. Robin and Chrom are inseparable, often meeting in each other's tents to discuss strategy, and Lucina finds herself watching them more and more. "Look at how well they work together."
The hero beside her says nothing. When he does speak, it's but a few words at a time. Lucina wonders vaguely if it's okay for her to summon him from his card when she's lonely. (He is her namesake in some way, after all.)
"Look at how she watches him," she continues, watching Robin. "Did I tell you I spoke with her before? I accused her of trying to seduce my father."
The hero-king chuckles but stays silent otherwise.
"She invited me to tail her for a while," says Lucina, flipping Marth's card in her hands idly. "I took her up on her offer. I don't know why I did. She said she didn't feel anything for him and that they were just friends. And yet, I was offended when she said it."
She sees how Robin flushes slightly when Chrom lays a hand on her shoulder, leaning in close. She sees how the ring glitters on Chrom's hand traitorously and how Robin stares at it too long.
"I told her I wished she would fall in love with him," says Lucina. "Why did I say that?"
She didn't expect the hero-king to answer her, but he does, albeit only with five words. "You and her are equals," he tells her.
Lucina falters. He's right. This memory of the legendary hero-king, this spirit summoned from a card, this being meant only for battle—he is ever observant of his surroundings even when he does not belong there. And yet he reads the people around him expertly. Within seconds. She wishes she could do that.
He is right. Lucina loves her mother—truly!—but her mother does not resonate with her being the way Robin does. Robin speaks her mind. Robin is tactful, loyal, sturdy—she is the perfect rock for her father to lean on, the perfect support, everything Lucina wants to be and more. Sumia is… she is… her mother. And Cynthia is her sister. But neither of them are much like Lucina at all. (Though she can see where some of Cynthia's peculiar behavior comes through. Chrom has always been a little bit of a dork.)
"We're equals," she repeats. "We're equals, and I told her to go fall in love with him, and she—she went ahead and—she fell in love with him. Do you see that?"
The hero-king watches the duo a long way away before he turns his unearthly blue eyes on her. Despite him being only a memory, she can hear his question without him asking it.
"You're right," she says. "Sometimes I do wish she were my mother, instead."
Satisfied, the hero-king goes back to observing the general and his tactician. Lucina mimics him. The rest of the night passes by and she feels her eyelids begin to droop. Beside her, the lodestar is alert, not requiring sleep.
"You are tired," says the hero-king.
She nods slowly, trying to let her chin fall to her chest. "I am," she says. "Where is my father?"
The hero-king looks at Chrom's tent in the distance. She understands. "And Robin?"
"Your tactician is with him," he says to her.
Good, she thinks to herself, and though she knows she should be annoyed, she can't find it in herself to criticize the woman. She is her equal.
"Goodnight, my prince," she says, finally addressing the hero-king by his rightful title. He isn't the hero-king yet, not by his standards, and no one refers to him as such when he is out of his card.
The prince smiles at her. Goodnight, says his gentle eyes. And she taps the card in her hands and watches him fade away. Come the next battle—or whenever she is lonely—he will be back for her and he will have no recollections of their conversations. It saddens her, but nonetheless, she's happy for his company, even if she does have to reintroduce herself every time. (But she never mentions her ancestry. It isn't for him to know.)
When she passes by Chrom's tent on her way to her own, she pauses. The voices in there are low, gentle. There is a relaxed chuckle from her father and an exasperated sigh from Robin before she berates him on something he seems to have done wrong on accident. They share lots of memories and secrets—"You saw my father NAKED?"—and they are each other's halves of a whole.
Sometimes, she wonders what keeps her father from falling in love with his tactician. Perhaps he knows her too well. Perhaps there really is something about Sumia. Perhaps Chrom is in love with her and doesn't want to risk it. Perhaps Chrom is just blind and needs a different pair of eyes… like Lucina's, which see Robin with the air of beauty and light and grace, all because Robin is everything Lucina wants to be.
But she can't change fate. She's learned that the hard way. Robin has fallen hard for the man who found her in the field, and all Lucina can do is stand and watch as fate streams by.
"Thanks, Robin," comes Chrom's voice from inside his tent. It's very late, Lucina realizes, and yet the two have stayed up to talk. "You're the only person who can hear me out like this. I don't know what I'd do without you."
Lucina wraps her arms around herself and smiles before she heads to her own tent.
Hope you enjoyed it! I recently played through Awakening for like the 34984793875th time and decided to see how Lucina and F!Robin's support convos would pan out without Robin and Lucina being mother/daughter. I swear, Lucina is the biggest Chrobin fangirl in the world. It's pretty hilarious, considering Robin says she has never ever ever ever ever thought of Chrom in a romantic sense even though they've both seen each other wet and naked and Lucina is hell-bent on calling them out on being lovers. She tells her to go fall in love with her dad and then this popped in my head and then I made myself sad. But all in all, that stream of support convos is great.
I've admitted this before but I am not a big fan of Sumia. lmao. She's not my slice of pie, quite literally. I admire her and everything and I think she's a great, strong character, but to me she seems so cliché with Chrom that I just want to cry. (I like her with Frederick or Henry. Idc.)
I brought in DLC!Marth because I love Marth and I love the idea of the card units. I also like the idea of Lucina idolizing Marth because it's really cute. And there's something about Marth communicating with his descendants that makes me go crazy. idk. w/e.
For the record, if anyone cares, I am a crazy Chrobin shipper no matter Robin's gender. Female? Get married to Chrom. Male? Can't get married to Chrom so do the second best thing: Lucina! (Jk but I actually love M!Robin/Lucina. Something about Chrom punching Robin in the face. Then bring in Morgan, Chrom's granddaughter. Chrom maims Robin. Idk. Pretty funny.) In all seriousness, Chrobin is so important to me. For me, in all versions of it, Robin is in love with Chrom. No matter what. Even when I have M!Robin/Lucina, I still like to think Robin is in love with Chrom and that he is also in love with Lucina. :)
anyway, that's enough. Please review!