"Asreva? Asreva! Where are you, dear?" A mother stepped onto her porch and called out. She looked around at the nearby huts, lit up through their windows and contrasting against the night sky. "Asreva, please come home!" In the hustle and bustle of the town, a neighbor walked by and stopped before her house.
"I looked everywhere, ma'am, but I couldn't find her." The scrawny boy bowed his head in shame. The mother sighed.
"Thank you for looking…" She noticed that the boy was staring to the left. His eyes were wide and he slowly backed up. "What's wrong?"
She followed his gaze and saw a small army surmounting a hill in the distance, marching towards their town and carrying banners. Banners with the insignia of the Grimleal. "Asreva! Please! Where are you?" Her voice cracked as the quiet murmur of the town changed to a fearful roar.
A small girl with ashen-white hair woke up and groggily looked around in a panic. Blue, scary clouds drifted as far as she could see, and it even appeared as though she was standing on them. Her mouth tasted odd and she had sleepy dust in her eyes.
"Mommy?" She called out as she cupped her hands to her mouth. "Mommy, where are you?" Her teeth began to chatter from the cold and her fear. "M-mom, please..."
"Asreva? Is that you?" The familiar voice of her mother called out. She called out again; her voice echoed and trailed around this cloudy… place. Asreva began to walk forward, following her mother's voice and noticing that the floor she walked on was invisible. She looked around and wondered where she was. Was she dreaming?
Her questions stopped once she noticed her mother before her and smiling against the light blue of the background. "Oh, thank gods I found you!" Her mother bent down and lifted her up.
Asreva giggled as her mother twirled her through the air. She felt the wind blow against her face and smiled as she closed her eyes, forcing away the scary clouds they were in and replacing them with her mother's embrace.
"Put that child down or so help me…" A voice spoke out. Asreva was ripped from her peacefulness and forced to see a masked man wearing blue standing before them. His sword was drawn and aimed at her mother.
"...Fine." Her mother spoke, but it was not her voice that exited her lips. It had a higher pitch and sounded younger.
Clouds enveloped Asreva's mother, causing her to panic and scream as her mother disappeared. The clouds disappeared; in her mother's place was a woman with pink hair and a very gaudy outfit. A smile crept along her face.
"Who are you? What did you do with my mommy?" Asreva screamed and panicked as the woman continued to hold her. "Put me down!"
"Shh… Be at ease, child…" The woman held Asreva close to her chest and held her fingers above the child. Blue dust drifted from her fingertips to the child's eyes; she then fell asleep and rested her head on the woman's shoulder. "Now, Marth, why'd you have to go and spoil my fun?" Her focus turned from Asreva to the masked man.
"Torturing a defenseless child is fun for you?" His sword was still drawn and aimed at her. "Your morals are as low as your outfit, Loki."
Loki took a quick glance to the upper area of her outfit that exposed her chest and laughed.
"Can you blame me for wanting to work in something comfortable?" She snapped her fingers with her free hand; clouds rose from below the floor and molded themselves into a bed. Loki lowered the child onto the bed and tucked her underneath the covers.
"What do you want with the child?" Marth pressed. His tone contrasted Loki's playful one like her outfit against the clouds of the Tempest.
"Oh, not much… Feed her, smother her with affection, give her a temporary home whilst her real one is ransacked by the Grimleal. Very basic acts, I suppose." Loki snapped her fingers again, creating a lounge chair for her to sit in. She seated herself, materialized a cup of tea, and rested her right leg atop her left as she sipped her tea. "Would you like a seat? Some food or drink? Keeping all that frustration pent up inside your mind must be exhausting."
Marth continued to stand, shoulders tensed and sword aimed at this trickster. "And please stop pointing that weapon at me. I mean you no harm."
"You've tried to kill me. Multiple times."
"Water under the bridge. You've tried to kill Robin, yet they forgave you for that."
"That was-" Marth stopped himself. "Stop changing the subject. What do you mean her home was attacked by the Grimleal?" Marth looked to the child, comfortably resting in the bed of clouds.
"In her world, her hometown was pillaged and her family was killed. She, for whatever reason, was adopted by the head of the Grimleal and brainwashed into becoming their second in command." Loki held up a portrait of a woman with ashen-white hair and a black outfit. Marth looked at the portrait, then to the peaceful child sleeping next to Loki.
"Aversa…" Marth shuddered at the mention of her name. A powerful foe who was instrumental in the downfall of her world.
"So, wouldn't it be interesting if this girl was never turned into a weapon for the Grimleal? What effects would that have on her realm? Would Grima be resurrected? Would your father be killed?" Loki continued to drink her tea. "Fascinating, isn't it? What happens to a world when you change one tiny, itty-bitty detail?"
Marth bit his tongue. "In fact, it's not so different from what you're attempting to do. What would happen to the World of Awakening if Emmeryn wasn't assassinated in her own bedroom? If you weren't so adorably single-minded, I'd hire you to help me test out my other theories." Loki pulled out a long, paper list from behind her and began to read it. "What would happen to Elibe if Hector was not killed by Zephiel? Would Julius destroy Judgral if Leif didn't survive the burning of Leonstar? Would Marth survive the War of Heroes if Katarina was someone else?" Loki looked up from her list to see Marth wincing. "I'd continue to list off my experiments, but you don't seem very perceptive right now."
"These are people! Living, breathing people with lives! You can't just experiment on them for your own amusement!" Marth yelled at the top of his lungs. Asreva stirred and frowned.
"So? Take a look in a mirror, sweetie. Think about all the happy members of the Grimleal whose lives you're ruining by preventing Grima from returning. Doesn't their happiness matter? They're living people, just like you, so surely they should get a say before you interfere with another world." Loki's calm expression never changed. She was enjoying this, and Marth loathed that fact. "How many lives are you willing to ruin just to save your parents'?
"I-I… That's not-t-t…"
"Oh, just drop the 'Moral high ground' act and admit it." Loki made air quotes with her fingers. Marth was quaking with rage. "You're no different than I, so acting superior won't change a thing, honey."
After a long, furious pause, Marth spoke.
"Why are you so interested in toying with worlds?"
"Well, say you have a rock tumbling down a hill. Now, the rock is set to launch off of a ramp and into a ditch. What would happen if the ramp was moved, say, a few feet away? Would the rock end up in the ditch? Would it end up at the base of the hill? Would someone pick up said rock for their collection? Would that rock be their most prized possession? What if the ditch was moved? Would it be where a town was going to be?"
Another pause followed, Loki knew that Marth deserved some time to ruminate. "The art of a 'what if' is fascinating, is it not? For example, what if I was your mother?"
"You wouldn't…" Marth's cheeks flushed and his shoulders tensed.
"Oh, I would." Again, Loki smiled and snapped her fingers. Clouds rose from the ground and twisted themselves until they resembled Chrom and Loki, both passionately sharing a kiss.
Loki's stomach was enlarged. Marth's stomach twisted and retched. "You were a lovely daughter, Lucina. No matter how many times I married Chrom, I always looked forward to the day of your birth."
"No, that's impossible. My mother is-" Lucina took a step back and averted her eyes from the recreation of her father.
"Not me, correct. But, in a reflection of your world, in many of the infinite again reflections, I was indeed your mother." Loki's smile was gone. She looked rather serious, a rare sight indeed.
"H-how? How did you-!"
"It started with a simple question: what if I replaced Robin on the field in that fateful day? Besides, I was still an 'amnesiac' girl who happened to be in a field that Chrom was strolling through. In fact, why stop there? What if I replaced Sumia? Sully? Any of his potential mates?"
Lucina's silence spoke volumes. "If I told you that being the queen of Ylisse was my favorite position of power, would you believe me?"
"How many times did you marry my father?" Lucina's sword drew closer and closer to Loki's neck.
"Many, many times. There was the time we had a honeymoon in Regna-Ferox, I believe. My memory isn't as sharp as it used to be. I think there was another world where he and I embraced underneath the shade of a palm tree, and six months later, you were born." Lucina's fists were clenched and shaking with rage.
"Who gave you the right to interject yourself into these worlds? Into the lives of other Lucinas?"
"Myself." Loki smiled. "The best part about never aging is that I can force myself into these worlds as many times as I want." Loki waved her hand over her face. Suddenly, she appeared to be Robin, but fifty years older. "I just feign my death when the time is right and move on, eager to list my findings and start again." She waved her hand again, changing her appearance back to normal. "Sometimes I woo another man, like that dashing Eliwood, or I do a repeat experiment with a different stipulation. In fact, I was just about to see what happens if I replaced Deirdre and saved Sigurd from the Battle of Belhalla."
"Except you won't." Lucina's sword was now pressed to Loki's neck. "You'll stay away from my father, and any other poor soul who falls for your tricks."
"Again, who are you to deny me that right? Every man or woman I've ended up with has loved me dearly. So what if it wasn't their fate to marry me? It's your fate to suffer Grima's wrath, so why are you exempt from your own logic?"
"Because I'm not inserting myself into other's lives to try and feel something! You want everything! You want to be a mother to this child and still feel like you learned something! You want every man or woman to love you, but again you try to justify yourself with statistics! You-"
"Good heavens, I had no idea my daughter could be such a hypocrite," Loki smirked.
"I. am not. your daughter." Lucina's tone dropped a few octaves as she gritted her teeth.
"Your father was a great kisser, by the way. He was also a dream in be-" Before Loki could finish her mocking speech, Lucina screamed as she brought her sword back and slashed right at this witch's throat.
Loki's head tumbled to the side. Blue mist poured out of her neck and fogged up the area. Lucina tried to fan it away with her hands but could not clear her vision.
A loud voice boomed. Loki's. "It is time for you to leave."
Lucina looked up to see a massive, mist-covered dragon with purple eyes looming over her. Blue fog rolled off what she believed was its skin and made her cough. "Now." Loki's voice boomed from the dragon's mouth.
The dragon watched as Lucina began to turn around, laughing while her potential daughter fled the scene. Its body shrank and contorted until it was back to a more 'comfortable' form: its human appearance with pink hair and a gaudy dress.
Loki stopped laughing and looked down to the small child at her side. "Now, what am I going to do with you…" She lifted the child in her arms and cradled it against her side. The rage of the Tempest was not a suitable home for this child, so Loki's only option was to deliver her to her only surviving family.
Loki disappeared in a puff of smoke, only to reappear five minutes later without the child in her arms. She grumbled something to herself, summoned a chair and a bottle of wine, then seated herself. The lights around the Tempest dimmed as she snapped her fingers.
Two figures materialized. One depicting Chrom, and the other depicting her. They were both sitting underneath the shade of a tree and enjoying a picnic, holding hands while their daughter romped around in the fields.
This memory gave her a fluttery feeling in her stomach. A feeling that she thought was happiness, but couldn't remember.