Notes: I like Robin as a bachelor a lot. This story is unrelated to I'm not sure how the scales were tipped, which also features him and an Einherjar.

Stats: 1000 words for Einherjar!Lyn and Robin. The Request and Receive Saga enters a hiatus, please see my profile for more details.

Chrom often teased his tactician about being single.

Surrounded by many unmarried women in the Shepherds' army, and looking at none for longer than his job required of him, Robin avoided the delightful marital bliss most of his male companions had already found and secured. And with the timelines crossing, some of them even got to meet their children from the future, surrounding themselves with a loving family before they even started it...

But Robin had to focus. All that happiness depended on him doing a good job. He had no time for a bride. He had no time for a child.

So when Chrom handed him Marth's Einherjar card at the end of their mission, he was happy to return to his tent to start drafting strategies that used such a powerful spiritual weapon, saying he had no time to celebrate their army's triumph upon the ghosts of legend.

After a few rounds of his tactical games, he realized it was the perfect new addition he needed, a soldier that didn't tire or die for real, brought out from the side of the light instead of the darkness Risen came from. Everyone could be spared the suffering from this long war if he could just fill the battlefield with them.

And so they marched into the Outrealms again and again and again...

"You look like a maniac," Chrom told him, chuckling.

For good measure, Robin struck a pose while holding all his ten cards. "You're just jealous I'm so awesome."

"Don't let it go to your head," the lord warned with a big grin, patting his shoulder. "Or stay up to late with those things. I still need your bright mind to get us through."

"You make me blush," the tactician replied, smirking. "How could I say no to you after that?"

Lucina clapped loudly, startling them. "Your flirting is making people uncomfortable. Split up!"

Laughing, the pair of friends said good night, and they left the campfire to go to their own tents, the time traveling princess sighing and looking wistfully at the retreating tactician, though neither adult noticed...

Robin lighted a candle and held his latest acquisition close to it to admire the card better.

Lyndis, eh?

He concentrated on bringing her forth. He wanted to ask her more about her fighting style, to see how better to employ her skills. He always did these interviews with his Einherjar... This time it would be no different.

Except that as she turned her eyes to meet his, they flashed with a strange recognition. "You are..." she gasped, and suddenly he had her arms around him, a sigh of relief right against his shoulder, "Mark, it's you! I feared I would never see you again!"

There was a lot of emotion in her words, something completely unexpected from an Einherjar. Her body also felt warm and alive; he had never touched one of the spirits before.

Robin held her away carefully. "I'm not the person you remember, Lyndis."

"What? No, you are Mark, my tactician friend," she whispered, sounding confused.

"Tactician?"

"Don't tell me you don't remember," she pleaded, starting to look distressed, the spirit wavering before his eyes.

He couldn't understand what was going on, but as the silence stretched between them, her form became blurry, disappearing with a pained little gasp.

The tactician looked down at the Einherjar card. It didn't look damaged, or out of the ordinary. But she had held on to a memory, and projected it onto him to the point it had destabilized her within seconds.

Robin sighed, putting her card into an inner pocket; he couldn't use her just yet in battle.

The next night, he tried again, after he had found some books that mentioned the legend of a tactician by the name of Mark, who had served under Lyndis and other lords of his time, before he vanished, never to be seen again. He would play the role for her, and see where that took him.

"You are... Mark, it's you! I feared I would never see you again!"

He hugged her back this time, finding her arms oddly comforting. "I'm so glad to see you too, Lyn," he whispered.

They had let go, and sat together at his desk, sharing stories he had read that he passed as his own memories. It pleased Lyndis greatly, though she corrected him in some details, as if he had just forgotten instead of the legends being incomplete. By the end, her form back in her card, he had gotten the information he needed directly from the source, strategies starting to form in his mind...

She fought for him, unlike the other Einherjar. She trusted him deeply, he could see it in her eyes, as long as he kept up the Mark act. He started wishing he had met the real Lyndis... the real Lyn.

After every battle, when back at the camp, Robin would summon her in his tent. "You are... Mark, it's you! I feared I would never see you again!" Her imagined Mark would hug her tight, sometimes lifting her off her feet, amusing her greatly. They would talk about their adventures until the candles burned out. This, they did every time.

Then Robin made the mistake of kissing her.

Lyn stared at him, bewildered. "Why...?" Her form vanished immediately.

Dread washed over him for a minute, staring down at the card. He had destabilized her, like that first time. He called her again.

"Why did you kiss me?"

She disappeared.

"Damn..."

He made her materialize for a third time.

"Why, Mark?"

And she was gone anew.

Robin cursed loudly, pocketing the card. Somehow, he had made Lyn create a memory. His kiss had broken the spirit within the card. She wasn't even alive. And he had fallen for her.

...it was nighttime outside his tent, and he wandered over to join the Shepherds at the campfire, something he hadn't done in months. The tactician let Lucina sit beside him.