Robin had slept through most of his journey, only waking up for about an hour at a time. A day must have passed by as he remembered varying degrees of sunlight, but it must've been nearing midnight by the he reached his destination. He didn't even see the school, all he could do was concentrate on walking in a straight line. He had slept most of the day but he still felt exhausted to the bone. He was in a kind of daze as he registered himself and was led to his dormitory. He didn't see much of the room either as he went straight to bed, falling asleep seconds before his head hit the pillow.

"Hey, rise on shine. No, seriously, wake up. You don't want to be late on your first day, I'm willing to bet that at least one professor is one of those super-strict-be-on-time-or-I'll-bite-your-head-off types."

Robin lifted his head up, narrowing his eyes at the sunlight. Standing next to his bed, leaning down over him, was a boy. He was dressed in sleepwear, no doubt Robin's roommate. Pushing aside the covers, Robin swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked around. Now that it was bright and he was somewhat awake, he was finally able to get a good look at where he would be staying. It wasn't a terribly large room, just big enough for two people to live in without treading over each other. Aside from the two beds, there was one large bookshelf, two desks and chairs, and little else. After getting his fill of the room, he looked back up at the boy who was still standing by his bed. The boy had rather long sandy blonde hair and a huge grin.

"Hey, you've probably figured this out by now, but I'm the guy you'll have to live with for a bit. I'm Leon.

"My name's Robin."

Suddenly feeling slightly awkward of the situation, Robin stood up to at least try to look more presentable; but even so, Leon was nearly half a head taller than him. He held out his hand and Leon shook it. There was something about Leon's palm, it was smooth and unscarred, not the hand of swordsman.

"Are you a mage?" Robin asked.

"Bingo." Leon flipped Robin's hand over, "And so are you by the looks of it."

Looking him up and down, Robin figured that Leon must be at least a few years older than him, he really was very tall. After excusing himself, Leon left to change in to his day clothes. Robin decided to do the same, as he dressed he could help but look over at Leon's travel pack, it was nearly as small and simple as Robin's. Perhaps Leon also came from a rural background, or he simply liked to travel lightly. But in reality, what was there to bring? The academy provided them with a place to live, food, and school materials. All anyone needed was a couple of changes of clothing.

"Here you go." Leon said as he re-entered the room, he tossed something that landed squarely in Robin's lap.

It was a large silver pin.

"Identification?"

"Exactly, the prefect said to wear it at all times. Basically just poke holes in all your clothes."

Robin turned the pin over in his hand, it was in the shape of a wyvern, Valm's national symbol. After pinning it to his lapel, he looked to Leon.

"That is some jacket." Robin said before he could stop himself.

And indeed it was. Leon was in a very peculiar trench coat, dark purple lined with gold and...eyes. Robin had never seen anything like it.

"The guys in charge said it was alright for me to wear it, considering what it is and all that." Leon replied, though he straightened the coat self consciously.

"And what is it exactly?"

"It's a religious order. I'm a priest." Leon rubbed the back of his head, "I know what you're going to say, I'm a bit young to be a priest. But I always say that if you know what you want to be, why wait? And I've got the rosary to prove it to those who still don't believe me."

A priest, huh? Robin recalled the Mark of Naga he had seen in a text book, but this was no Mark of Naga, so that meant...

"You're a Grimleal priest?" he asked.

"Does it bother you?"

Leon's tone had shifted so quickly from upbeat to anxious that Robin was tempted to check his neck for whiplash.

"No, not really." Robin answered, "I've just never seen one before. Never been to Plegia."

"Oh, good." Leon sighed.

"I hear that religion's not all that popular around Valm." Robin said sympathetically.

"I can deal with that easily." Leon shrugged, "Anyways, like you said, Valm's not big on either of the holy dragons. No one really bothers me about it as long as I keep it to myself. But-" he tilted his head to their door, "There's this guy who lives next door, his name's Io. We were in the same school last year, he's in the order of Naga. He's a good guy, but...kinda tense around me."

Robin nodded, "I'm sorry. It's understandable, but I'm sorry."

Once Leon's grin was back in place, Robin headed out. He was quickly directed to meet with an advisor, an advisor who was unfortunately on the other side of the building. As he walked, Robin couldn't help but marvel at the architecture. Despite having seen more than his friends back home, he was still in awe at the Valmese capital. The academy did not look to be only for mages as he passed a large training field filled with lance practitioners. Everywhere, there were tapestries with the royal sigil, a nod towards the Conqueror.

"Glory to the empire indeed." Robin mused to himself.

His moment of amusement didn't last long as it took no time flat for him to get lost. It took a great deal of wandering around in circles before he finally happened to the right door. Knocking on it, he was immediately called in. Inside, he found a man holding a scroll.

"Name?"

"Robin."

"Right, I'll be your professor."

Robin paused for a moment, he didn't know what he had been expecting, perhaps an old man with white whiskers that reached the floor. But this man was surprisingly...young. Though he did have a severe look about it, a no nonsense aura.

"What do you do?" his words were clipped.

Robin snapped to attention, "I practice magic...and tactics I suppose."

"You suppose?" the professor gestured to a pile of paper which Robin recognized as his recommendation letters throughout his years of schooling, "Well, your previous teachers support this endeavor. We don't get many students these days looking to be tacticians. Loads of people who can follow orders perfectly but few who can give them out. Now let's see...magic...magic." he flipped through the letters, "Anima magic, am I correct? You did not study light magic at all?"

"No." Robin answered, still standing tense enough that a feather could knock him over.

"What about elder magic?"

"Er...well, I didn't really pursue that very far."

"Really?" the professor raised an eyebrow, "That's curious, I found that many of your mentors from earlier years praised your abilities. A most unique talent, they say, able to use elder magic tomes with just raw force."

"Sorry." Robin felt the distinct urge to slap himself, but it was all he could think to say.

"Very well then." the man gathered up the papers and slid them into a folder, "If that is not a field you wish to study than that is that. I have enough information to structure your courses, you may go."

Once out of the room, Robin was more than eager to return back to his dorm. Perhaps it was a Valmese thing to speak in short simple phrases, straight to the point. Perhaps it was something that he ought to adopt.

The professor, whose name Robin would later learn to be Dulhan, turned out to not be as harsh as Robin had imagined. He worked his students to the bone, that was to be sure, but it was very much a sense that it was better to have his critique. After all, if he did not emphasize your mistakes, he did not feel you were worth the effort.

"I swear that this book is getting longer as I read it." Leon gave a wild gesture with his hand before tossing the book onto his desk.

Robin smirked to himself but set down his book as well, "I thought you would be the kind to rave about heroes gone by, not throw aside their stories."

"I was like that about three hours ago, now, I'm all spent." Leon leaned back in his chair, "Since we're talking about heroes, let me guess your hero. Mark?"

"Well, he was a legendary tactician to be sure." Robin replied, "Too bad no one knows where he came from, or did I just skip that chapter?"

Leon chuckled then the two turned back to their work. Robin quickly found himself reabsorbed into the text he was reading. This book was one of his favorites, it was a rather humorous rendition of the basic battlefield tactics. It illustrated the most impossible situations, including hypothetic battles where pegasi became stuck in lava and fighting in fields of dead fish. But after a while, his thoughts roamed back to Leon. He didn't have to go to Plegia to know that the Grimleal had a rather nasty reputation, his own mother was rather repulsed by them. But he had to wonder why, was it cultural prejudice or did those accusations have real origins?

Since they were talking about history anyways...

Robin turned around in his chair, for a moment he couldn't find Leon. After a moment of fear, Robin spotted him kneeling down with his hands clasped. Robin fully intended to turn back and mind his own business but something about the prayer intrigued him. The concentration that was etched in Leon's expression, it wasn't like how he looked when the two of them were studying for an examination or debating ideas. It was a concoction of focus and serenity, as if he were somehow putting his entire being into that one act.

"What did you pray for?" Robin asked quietly when Leon was finished.

"Oh, just the usual."

Leon's reply was so casual, so colloquial, Robin couldn't help but be amazed at the juxtaposition of the two acts.

"Hey, I have a question for you. What do you think of Fort...Forma...um..." Robin stammered, he quickly wracked his brain, "The Demon King." he finally said.

"Demon King? I'll answer when you can say its name properly." Leon said, crossing his arms mischievously.

"Form...um...Fomortiis. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Fomortiis." Robin said after a moment of contemplation.

"I'm glad you're sure because I didn't have a clue." Leon laughed at Robin's look of indignation, "Anyways, what's there to know? It was an evil demon who tried to destroy and oppress humans."

"But that's just it." Robin said, "Isn't evil a concept created by humans? How does something non-human or rather non-human like become evil?"

"Well, Fomortiis looked like a monster, but from the legends, its thought process is pretty damn human." Leon pointed out. "Why do you ask?"

"I met Io the other day."

"Oh."

There was a silence.

"He was nice, we talked for a while in the library. He was about to leave but he stayed with me for an hour to work on an assignment." Robin continued tentatively.

To his relief, Leon did not seem the slightest bit offended, "I did say that he was nice."

"It just got me thinking, about what you said about him being on edge around you. Don't you think that the priests of Naga equate Grima to something like the Demon King?"

"True...very true." Leon looked deep in thought for a while, "I don't know, whenever I think of what the Demon King's worshipers would've looked like, I always imagine a small wrinkled gargoyle of a man. Call me stereotypical I guess."

"Why are the two religions clashing anyways?" Robin asked, "Where did it all start?"

"I don't know." Leon answered bluntly, "I just don't know."

Another silence.

"Hey, Robin."

"Hm?"

"There's something I want you to know." Leon's voice grew serious, "The reason why I became a priest."

Robin blinked in surprise, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I kind of want to get this out. And maybe you'll find it interesting." Leon shrugged, trying and failing to look nonchalant, "Anyways, it goes something like this. My old man, my father, he's a...I suppose you would call it a cultist. Truth be told, there is a very dark part of Grimleal that's filled with forbidden magic and whatnot. I mean, when you get a bunch of people together under one idea, it's inevitable that some folks go bad. He wasn't always like that to be sure, he was once a normal clergyman. We lived in a pretty nice part of the city, granted, my family weren't nobles but we lived a pretty comfortable life. The priesthood is different in Plegia, it's not like how it is in Ylisse. Not to say that those practicing aren't doing it as there following, but it's a little bit more of a governmental thing than a Naga church. Anyways, my mother passed away when I was fifteen, not too long ago. My father, he...he went mad, or at least that's the only word I can find for it. He seemed to have lost all of his will to live, I'm surprised he didn't off himself sometimes. He tried drinking for about half a year, he wasn't even an angry drunk, it just made him seem more depressed. But then, one day he came home and he was completely overjoyed. To me, he kind of looked like someone who broke out of an insane asylum. He hadn't slept for days, his clothes were a mess, but his eyes were on fire. He said something about some people who were doing research on resurrection. I thought he was kidding so I ignored him. But I was wrong, so damn wrong. He became obsessed, completely and entirely engrossed. Eventually, I became convinced that it wasn't even about my mother anymore. I don't think he even wanted to bring her back all that much. I think he just needed a purpose, something to convince him that he wasn't powerless."

Robin opened his mouth, then closed it, he couldn't think of anything to say. Leon scrutinized him carefully for a few moments before breaking out in a bitter smirk, "Don't start feeling sorry for him, Robin. He was one hell of a bastard. He wouldn't speak to me for days at a time, and when he did say something to me, it was always about how I was distracting him from his work. He didn't come home much, but eventually, that became a good thing. Better off by myself than with that...man."

"What happened then?" Robin asked, eyes wide.

"Nothing. I just one day up and left, went to live with relatives. One of my uncles and his wife were barren yet wanted children, they kind of took me in. They're the ones who encouraged me to take leave on my duties at the chapel and come here." Leon replied.

Robin fell silent, he couldn't help but stare at Leon, at the jovial smile that was back on Leon's face.

"But back to why I became a priest. I wanted to show up my old man, selfish huh? I wanted to show that I could be a better man than him, a better priest, I could be devoted without turning into, well, him. I always had ideas of joining the priesthood when I was a little kid, but that just confirmed it." Leon looked up, reached over, and took Robin by the hand, "I want to become hierophant. I want to flush out those cultists who are smearing the names of decent clergymen."

When Robin spoke, his voice was suddenly filled with confidence, "Those who are recorded in history would not have gotten there if they did not have passion for their work. Your ambition will take you far, you have a grasp on limitations, you'll do well in life."

"Whoa, Robin!" Leon laughed, he gave Robin's hand a squeeze before letting go, "Where did that tone come from? Who's the older one here?" He quickly stopped laughing and looked Robin in the eye, "But, thanks. I wouldn't have told that to anyone else, too risky, I don't want to be mocked. So that makes you the only person to ever encourage me like that."

"A hierophant...a goal worthy of you, Leon."