ARISE

Chapter 3: A Voice from the Void

The Shepherds gathered in the War Room. The feel and the scent of the place was familiar to Panne – old paper and maps, vine charcoal and ink used to mark them and to scrawl out battle-plans, leather from bindings, candle-wax and lantern oil. Her children sniffed at the air, as well. They walked beside her, uncomfortable in their clothes. They were still getting used to wearing things like the loose leather armors that allowed for shape shifting that Taguel were expected to wear. The War Room also smelled of dust from many large pieces of furniture having been recently moved to open up the area for simple chairs for everyone to sit in as an audience.

Tharja said that it would be more likely for Robin's spirit to appear if he were summoned to a place that was familiar to him. He hadn't spent a lot of time here, at the palace in Ylisstol – not nearly as much time as he'd spent in tents, but this had been his space during intervals when the Shepherds had been "home." Panne was skeptical of the whole affair, certain it would not work or that Tharja was just going to play some dark magician's trick on them, perhaps asking them for money after the ordeal. She could not believe that the mage had suckered Chrom into this. All the same, here they were – most of the original Shepherds, pinpricking their thumbs to leave smears of blood upon a magic-sigil (why did Tharja have to completely ruin Robin's old desk?)

As Panne sat down, sitting her children down in chairs next to her, she noticed the variant reactions to Tharja and her incantations. Frederick sat stoic next to Chrom with Lissa at her side. Lissa was smiling, Frederick was frowning. Chrom had a look on his face that Panne would describe as "stupidly hopeful." Gaius was chewing on a lollypop. Gregor slapped a knee and laughed, "Oh, Gregor can't wait to see his friend again! Evil-girl can do it! If I got to talk to brother, we'll get to talk to Robin!"

Libra edged close to Nowi and Ricken. He had a guilty cast to his face as he looked at the thumb of one hand and clutched a staff with the other hand. He was worried that he was doing something against his order, something unholy, by participating in this. Sumia rocked Lucina in her arms, standing up in the back of the room. She muttered something about not seeing anything in her fortunes. Cordelia leaned on the wall next to her. She said something about how she thought that if this works, she might like to have Tharja try conjure up Phila for her, or Emmeryn because she had many things left unsaid. Miriel pushed her glasses up on her nose and said something about finding dark magic rituals fascinating.

Muttering something arcane and unintelligible, Tharja cast energy that resembled the blackest and most toxic smoke onto the desk while pouring a few drops from the vial of Robin's blood she'd been carrying all this time. A reaction of purple lightning rose up from where the drops landed and crackled through the air, sending static into everyone's hair. Yarne cuddled close to his mother's side as the black curls of smoke that rose up from the desk formed into something that could only be called a large, dark vortex, opening onto a void.

Motes of light formed within the void like stars as Tharja made a motion with her hands like she was a weaver pulling invisible threads. The light gathered and formed into a figure, washed out like watercolor and transparent, but instantly recognizable.

The specter of Robin blinked and looked at his hands. His face was locked in an expression of pure confusion as he touched his chest. It was Chrom's voice that brought him to attention.

"Robin?"

"C-Chrom?" the ghost asked. "Chrom! Panne! Everyone! Why are you all…why am I? This is my study in Ylisstol… we aren't in the Wastes anymore? What's going on?"

Robin looked back at his hands again and saw the light of the room going through his coat. He blinked and it took him a moment to put two and two together.

"I died, didn't I?"

Everyone nodded as one. "I'm sorry," Chrom said.

"I managed to draw you back through the threads of connections you have with us," Tharja explained. "Welcome back, my love, but this is a temporary spell."

"I'll make use of it, then," Robin said with a smile. The spirit walked over to Panne, who stood up.

"Is it really you, Robin?" Panne asked. She shivered slightly as she held Yarne close and as Morgan gripped her by the chest-fur. "I expect this to be some dark sorcery trick."

"By the soulful way you're looking at me, I'd say you've missed me, Cottontail."

Panne breathed a sigh of relief. It was a pet-name that was unknown to the others. In fact, she'd probably have to beat a few people up later for teasing her with it.

"Snowbird…"

They leaned into each other and touched noses – flesh to sketchy outline, twitching them against each other.

Gaius, from his place at one end of the room, noticed the jealousy in Tharja's eyes from the other end. The friendly thief felt a pang of jealousy, himself. He'd been with Tharja for a long time, even as he knew that she'd always hold another first in her heart. Their "marriage," such as it was, had come with an unusual arrangement. Gaius insisted that he and Tharja would belong to each other most days and nights, but if he got the urge to savor the "sweet candies" of the dance halls once in a while, that he would be allowed to. In exchange, Tharja had been free to pursue bed-privileges with Robin if she could convince him to give them to her. As it was, the tactician never had and now that he was dead, Gaius sometimes pretended to be Robin for Tharja to illicit her elusive smile. It got to be quite grating, however. He really did wish the dark mage was well and truly his.

Much to Tharja's annoyance, even in death, the tactician was well and truly Panne's.

Panne separated from the specter and presented the two children before her. "Meet your children."

Robin's ghostly eyes widened. "My children?"

"I was with them when extinction found you," Panne said. "This is your son, Yarne, and this is your daughter, Morgan. I remembered that you'd wanted to name one of our future children Morgan."

"Daddy?" Morgan asked, looking up.

Yarne clutched his mother's leg and hid his face.

"Yeah, that's your daddy," Panne said.

Morgan tried to touch him. "Sparky… light…all sparky…"

Robin smiled and wept spectral tears. He cursed his lack of a physical form because he could not touch or feel anything. It seemed the spell only allowed him to see, hear and speak. "Hey, Yarne…. It's okay…" he said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you. Dead people can't hurt you, okay?"

The little Taguel boy cautiously reached out to "touch" his father's face. He smiled and bounced lightly on his haunches.

Robin sighed. "Panne, if I'd known…"

"You would have gone into battle distracted and you might not have gone at all. You probably would have ordered me off the battle," Panne answered matter-of-factly. "You wouldn't have been there and present-minded to help Chrom, he probably would have been killed and we would be in an even worse situation. The war ended, Robin. We've been at peace."

"How long have I been gone?"

"Two years."

"They're so grown…"

"They are Taguel."

"Well, I was hoping that I could go somewhere without war, where I'd be out of a job but glad of it."

"Don't you come from such a place?" Libra interjected. "I mean, surely, in the land of the dead…"

Robin shook his incorporeal head. "I've been nowhere, Libra. At least, I don't have any memory of being anywhere." The ex-tactician smiled sourly, "I guess that's a problem with me, isn't it?"

"You… haven't been anywhere?"

"It kind of felt like going to sleep… after the hurting stopped." He noticed the distress on Chrom's face and decided to be honest. "I suffered. I know you don't want to hear that, but I did. The bolt from Gangrel's sword hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. It ran all through my body… and then everything was dark and I felt really sleepy." He turned to Libra. "It's not so bad, really."

"You're a good man, Robin!" the priest protested. "You deserve better!"

"Good…" he sighed. "That might be a matter of perspective. I've killed people. I'm not sure those folk would call me 'good."

"We've all killed people, Robin," Chrom said. "You know as well as I do that it was only by necessity – to protect ourselves… to protect innocent people."

Robin shrugged. "I don't think I've been trapped in a starless night because of my work. I think it may be because of what I am."

"What you are?" Chrom asked. Panne was at attention. Everyone was looking toward the ghost of their late friend.

"When I was dying," Robin began, "I… I got my past back. Memories came to me as the lightning was arcing across my brain." He paced. Tharja seemed to be working the spell again to try to keep him there. Sweat was pouring down her brow and her eyes were twitching. "I'm not exactly a normal, innocent person. I am a Plegian, as we've all guessed… but it turns out that I'm sort of an unwitting member of the Grimleal cult."

"What?" Libra asked. "Unwitting? Robin…"

Robin held up a spectral hand. "It doesn't seem to have marked my soul, but that mark I had on my hand? Don't you remember it, Chrom? I know Panne does."

Chrom nodded.

"I'm the son of one of the higher officials in Pelegia, and of the priestly order – of the Grimleal. I was bred into the world for the sole purpose of becoming the vessel for the awakening of the Fell Dragon, Grima."

Everyone gasped and was at rapt attention. "Oh, I knew you were special," Tharja said, sultry as silk.

"So," Robin continued, "I'm a Fellblood. My mother saved me and took me to a border-village to raise me so, I'm also a refugee and sort of became Ylissean that way." He looked at Libra, "It may be that a Fellblood just isn't worthy of the blessings you enjoy. Maybe my status as a vessel means it's my destiny to just fade away… sleeping forever."

"You deserve better," Libra assured. "We will pray for you – more than we already have."

"He is right," Chrom said. "You deserve more than this. Your origins are not your fault at all! You have saved too many of my people's lives not to deserve better than what you got!"

"It's okay, it really is," Robin said, holding his hand up. "It would be nice to have more, but I am at peace. I just regret that I couldn't be with you longer and I regret that I cannot raise my children. As my status is, it might be safer for me to be dead."

"Don't say that, Robin," Chrom said, his voice edged with frustration and sadness.

"If you haven't already," Robin added, "I think you might want to seal up my body in a vault somewhere and put some magical protections on it. Ashes, too, if you did that to me."

Chrom raised an eyebrow. He did not breathe a word of what had recently happened to Robin's grave and wondered why this would suddenly be brought up. "How come?"

"I was bred to be a perfect vessel," the dead man answered, "That means that all that careful breeding is in all parts of me, blood, skin, bones… It's why I had such an easy magical aptitude. I believe that to awaken in full power, Grima would have needed my soul to devour, but that my body or remains alone might provide a way for him to awaken with less power, but to still resurrect. Whatever is left of me should be sealed."

"Robin…" Chrom began. His late friend ignored him to turn to his wife.

"Panne… watch our children closely," he said. "I don't think they're in any real danger of my unfortunate past since they are part-you, but… I'm worried I may have given your race a curse."

"Robin…. Snowbird… You saved my race." The rabbit-woman reached out to "stroke" his transparent cheek. "Thanks to you, I have a warren again. The Taguel will live."

"I…" Robin began as his form began growing sketcher. "I feel myself slipping. I'm tired. You woke me from sleep and I feel it pulling me back in."

Tharja nodded. "The limits to this spell have been reached, love. I do not know if I will be able to bring you back in the future, but I will try."

"I don't care about that," Robin said in an increasingly dry whisper. "I want all of you to live and to find happiness. You've earned peace. Don't worry about me. I lived as well as I could and I'm no longer in pain." He suddenly switched gears. "No… not yet… I don't want to go back to sleep yet! I want to stay just a little bit longer!" He reached out a spectral hand as his legs and shoulders began to spark off into motes of light, dragged off into the dark smoke from which he'd come. "Panne! My children! Chrom! I'm so sorry! I'm so…s..o..r..r..y…F…a…r…e…w…e…l…l…"

The last the Shepherds saw of him were his sad eyes as the sketchy outlines of his form vanished completely and the smoke vortex collapsed upon itself.

"I will pray for him," Libra said, putting a hand on Chrom's shoulder.

"Do so, my friend," the lord answered. "We need to get him out of there. If it is possible to get him into light…"

Panne hugged her bunnies. The rest of the Shepherds started arguing about what had just happened: whether it had been real or an illusion, about things that the ghost of Robin had said. Ricken was comforting a crying Nowi. Lissa was sniffling. Frederick said something about how he "just knew it" about Robin's sinister origins, but that this point, did not care about them because the man had proved himself to even the Wary. Tharja was exhausted. Gaius was giving her chocolate. Kellam felt more like a ghost than the ghost. Miriel had gotten up and was studying the sigil that had been drawn on the desk. Stahl said something about how lively Robin had seemed for being dead, but the joke fell on irritated ears.

Cordelia brought up the topic that they all seemed to want to forget about. "Chrom," she said, "What do you think about what he said about his body? We didn't tell him… it's…"

"It's gone, I know," Chrom replied. "And now we know it may have been taken for something truly horrible. Gods-damn it."

"Well, what are we going to do?"

"I already have soldiers and spies doing an investigation, no leads yet. I suppose I didn't take it seriously enough because even though it's Robin… it's not really him. We have left… our own on the battlefield before when we've had to."

Cordelia gave him a sympathetic look. "We all know that, all too well."

"Getting him back has suddenly become important for more than just honor-reasons."

Chrom wandered out to one of the gardens to get some fresh air. He stood shock-still when he saw a figure framed in moonlight, their blue hair fluttering in the wind.

"Marth?" he asked.

"I think it is time that I fight under my own name from now on," the woman who had previously presented herself as a man said.

"What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since…"

"Two years ago," she said. "When I tried to change fate for Exalt Emmeryn. I have been looking for my friends. I am afraid that time has been flowing back upon its original course – the disaster I came here to prevent."

"What are you talking about?"

"Father…"

"Father?"

The young woman stepped into a better lit area. "Look into my eyes."

"Hmm?"

"You may find this hard to believe, but I am from the future. I came here with my friends from a terrible place caused by events that happened in this past. History has already deviated from itself, but the chain of events leading to disaster is still on course. The future of this world depends upon a changing of fate!"

Chrom recoiled from shock upon seeing the brand in the woman's eye. "Lucina?"

"Father, I've come from the future to prevent the rise of the Fell Dragon, Grima. You must believe me."

Forward, march!