Chapter Four : A Picture of the Truth

Anna watched enviously as Tharja ran off towards the Hotrealms beach in her tight bikini, joining the others who were already playing and swimming in the waters. Days had passed and her sisters,feeling generous, had given the Shepherds free access to one of their properties, the Hotrealms beach. But knowing her and her sisters there was probably more to it than that... Perhaps it was the Risen problem. The resort was attacked by Risen, and the Shepherds had no choice but to jump into action. When all was through and done with the filthy Risen, everyone excitedly ripped off their heavy armors and shirts and changed into their bikinis and trunks. Anna watched amused for a moment as Chrom berated Frederick for the scandalous piece of swimwear that were his swim trunks, embroidered with the mark of the Exalt right smack in the middle of the behind. For all of Frederick's stiffness, he certainly had interesting fashion choices, for Chrom at least.

That aside, Anna just sat in the sand, fully clothed save her ridiculous cape. She just sat, and watched everyone.

...I'd like to go for a bit of a swim... Anna thought, until an ice popsicle was shoved towards her. She looked up and saw Gaius, holding the iced treat towards her, shirtless and slightly dripping from an earlier dip in the waters.

"Red. I know I'm one sexy devil and you're enjoying what you see, but at least take the popsicle before you stare, hmm? It's melting."

Anna reached out for the popsicle, but also couldn't help but poke at Gaius' belly. "Baby fat," she said.

"Hey! It's not that bad!" Gaius said, taking a seat on the sand beside the red-haired merchant. Note to self-do an extra two set of sit-ups daily. from now on.

They sat there in silence for a while, eating their popsicles. When Gaius was through with his, he finally asked her, "Aren't you gonna join us for a bit? Everyone's asking me why you don't want to join us. This is your family's resort, after all. Heck, even Lon'qu was convinced to swim-as long as women stay at least twenty feet away from him."

Anna chuckled a bit, seeing said swordsman yelling, swearing, and quickly backing away and falling into the water as he'd seen a blonde drawing near him. When Lon'qu recovered, he turned red when he realized it was Libra-and not Lissa or some other blonde with long hair. Anna laughed. The Shepherds can be very funny sometimes.

"I'd like to see you in-what did they call it?-yeah, a bikini. I'd like to see you in a bikini too."

Anna was surprised by the bold statement Gaius suddenly made. She quickly looked up at Gaius and found him blushing red. She blushed too, at the implication that Gaius wanted to see her wearing... that.

But Anna just sighed in response and quickly rubbed her back, as if that explained it. Gaius caught this movement and realized what it meant.

"...I don't want my sisters to see it," Anna simply said.

"...Oh," was all that Gaius could say to that. He remembered the other Anna of the Hotrealms, dressed in that scandalous bikini-she had no tattoos. His-no, their Anna was likely the only one who had a mark, and perhaps her family frowned at it. He looked down at his own blasted tattoo on his forearm. At least he could cover it with fabric pretty easily. It's not like he could just wrap fabric all over Red's back to hide it...

"I'm sorry I don't get to indulge your fantasy of seeing me in a bikini though," Anna said, teasing.

Gaius smiled. "Well, I've seen you in far less..."

Anna playfully shoved Gaius on his side, laughing.

Soon, Gaius got up, and Anna thought he'd head back to the waters to join the other Shepherds, but to her suprise, he quickly grabbed at her, lifting her up in his arms.

"Gaius?! Gaius what are you-?!" Anna struggled, but stopped when she felt Gaius staggering with her weight. And then she realized that Gaius was walking towards the sea, where the Shepherds were all looking up at them, smiling and laughing and cheering.

"Gaius-"

"Someone was asking me where Anna is? Well here she is!" Gaius said, to their allies, who all cheered and laughed and clapped their hands at the sight of Gaius carrying Anna all the way to them. Anna blushed and panicked, but at the same time... felt happy. The Shepherds were looking for her, and were worried about her. They wanted her to join in the fun. They... They cared.

But then all of a sudden she felt Gaius shift her weight in his arms, and she feared what was to come. "Gaius, I'm still wearing my boooooooo-!"

And with a grin, the ginger-haired thief threw her into the water, boots and all.

"G-Gah!" Anna felt salt water enter her nose and her ears and felt irritated as she floated in the seas. But then Lissa unceremoniously splashed water towards her, and Henry glomped at her, and she did the natural thing to do-forget about the damn boots and play with them.

Gaius smiled to himself, watching Anna laughing with the others, before Vaike tackled him into the water and Lon'qu-he swore the damned swordsman had a thing against him-placed a bug on his shoulder. He would never live down the day that all the Shepherds, Anna included, looked at him in shock when he screamed like a girl because of a tiny bug.

Gaius' decision to throw Anna into the water along with the other Shepherds didn't seem like such a good thing when evening came. Anna hung her clothes-trousers, shirt, gloves, boots-on a makeshift clothesline near the campfire... which Frederick was keen on keeping stacked high. Every other minute it seemed, the Ylissean knight would wonder off into the Hotrealm forests or walk the shores of the beach and come back with branches for kindling. Anna's sister, Anna, had expressed concern that Frederick was off to cause a forest fire. Well, let's hope not.

Anna changed into a red shirt and a pair of shorts, looking on at her Trickster clothes that had no hope of drying in the morning. She shook her head to herself. Silly Gaius... Said ginger-haired thief sat across the campfire, being forced by Cordelia to mend the holes in his shirt. Well, he was being punished enough. Gaius sewed on, eyebrows in a furious knot. Anna chuckled at little at the sight, but then caught herself.

She really was thinking of Gaius way more than she should. While she used to shrug aside what everyone else in the camp said about her and Gaius, now Anna found she was thinking of him a little too much... He was a big part of her life now, and all the Shepherds treated them as if they were married-telling Gaius if they needed something to get to Anna, and vice versa.

Anna frowned. Surely it couldn't be love? Not from her, neither from Gaius. Relationships were transactional. You stayed because you had a benefit from it. And Gaius was a low-level thief with barely any ambition...

Gaius raised up his shirt, patched perfectly with even sewing, smirking proudly at his handiwork. Anna found herself smiling as well. Yet at the same time, Gaius was impressively skilled and smart-whether it was with sewing or baking or metalworking or information trade. He wasn't rich, but he was widely skilled. His skills could benefit any business... He had little to no ambition, but that was because he cared for others instead, even opting to do the dirty work in the shadows so others could just focus on being the heroes and saving the day. Gaius was nobler than many rich men that Anna had seen...

But Anna frowned again, as she decided to head into her tent and call it a night. Good intentions never made anyone rich. Merchants needed fame, fortune, and reputation. And sadly, Gaius had none of that.

She felt something poke at her cheek. Poke. Poke. Anna swatted it away drowsily, thinking it was a bug.

Poke. Poke. "Hey, Red."

...Did someone just call her... Anna opened her eyes quickly, and scrambled out of her bedroll as soon as she saw Gaius sitting there beside her. "G-Gaius! What are you doing in my tent?! What if someone saw you?!"

"Well, they were already thinking it ages ago anyway," Gaius said. And then he started getting up, pulling up Anna by the arm. "C'mon now, Red. You shouldn't doze off too much-you'll get fat that way, you know."

"Excuse me?!"

"Humor the tourist, will you, Red? I wanna see more of the beach before we go off on our merry ways back to fighting those vile Risen."

Despite herself, with a big moan, Anna pulled herself out of bed. Too late in the evening for this. There was work that needed to be done in the morning, wares to sell and all... "Just for a few minutes, right?!"

"Yup," Gaius said, "that's all I ask."

The breeze was rather gentle as Anna and Gaius almost aimlessly walked by the beach shore. Anna only followed Gaius, curious to see where the thief was getting at. But Gaius seemed to have nothing in mind in particular. They talked, teased, and laughed as they usually did. Nothing special.

"And-Gah!" Gaius screamed a little, nearly tripping over something in the sand. "What the hell is this?" He bent down and picked up a soaking, rectangular object of some sort.

Anna looked on curiously at it, and lit up when she realized what it was. She took the item and patted it a bit, hoping the water left it a bit intact. "It's a Snapshot tome," Anna explained. "One of our very own creations! Wonder why it's here though. Perhaps my sister threw it out?"

Gaius watched most curiously as Anna shook and poked and examined at the box-like thing, as if testing to see if it was alright. "You call this thing a tome? It's not even a book, mind you."

Anna sat down on the sand, still examining the contraption and pressing little buttons on it. Gaius sat beside her, just noting how much of a tinkerer she was, too. Anna was just as good as him at locks and doors, too. It made sense that she'd know how to use her hands. ...I wasn't thinking of that in a perverted way of course.

"What does a... 'Snap shot' even do?" Gaius asked. "Does it shoot some sort of arrow?"

Anna laughed. "No, silly! It... well, I suppose let's try this thing and show you." To Gaius' surprise, Anna suddenly scooted closer to him. And then she held the box-contraption thing in her hand and pulled it back, so that it overlooked them. Gaius looked confused. Anna was just looking at the thing while smiling.

"Anna?" Gaius was so confused he'd forgotted to call her 'Red'. "What is this supposed to do? Why did you turn it towards us? Is it gonna shoot a bunch of nasty things?"

"Just look at it and say 'cheese'!" Anna said, staying still and holding her position-still smiling at the silly contraption and holding it up.

Gaius just decided to follow the merchant and look at the thing. But he didn't like cheese. "Sugar?" he said instead. And the moment he said that, Anna pressed a button on the object, causing a sharp flash of light that made Gaius wince. Ouch. What was that all about? Was that some sort of weapon against enemies?

The thief rubbed at his eyes and opened them again to see Anna giddily looking at the box. A piece of paper was slipping out of it from a slot it had. Gaius peered over at it. It had an image of him and Anna-sitting on the beach sands, him looking puzzled and frustrated while Anna had a wide grin on her face with her finger to her lip. The signature Anna pose.

"This is-this is you and me!" Gaius looked at the photo, surprised. "It made a picture of you and me? Just... whoah." He stared on at it in wonder. He always heard Annas were great merchants and inventors but he didn't expect them to be this great. He stared on at the picture. He realized his hair was looking messy and that stubble of facial hair that was growing on his chin did not look flattering. No wonder Cordelia always told him to clean up.

Gaius took the contraption from Anna's hand. "Let's take another one!" He held the 'Snapshot Tome' away from them to take a picture, and then draped an arm around Anna, pulling her close. Anna didn't seem to mind. She settled into her usual pose and Gaius pressed on the button, the flash going off, and another picture printed.

Gaius and Anna giggled over their photos, Anna savoring the fascinated look on Gaius' face. Material objects could make people happy in that way, too. Gaius was tinkering with the contraption shaking it and trying to figure how it worked. It was just amazing-the thing just made instant pictures! Was that even possible? It was beyond its time, he hasn't heard of anyone-

He suddenly looked up to Anna, surprising the merchant. "Did this come from the future?" he asked.

The question was blunt, and Anna was surprised by it. "W-what?" she said, shocked. She moved away from Gaius, wrapping her arms to herself. "Gaius, why are you asking that?"

"Because I read something from that journal of yours and I thought-"

"T-That's silly," Anna said, flustered. "Are you hearing yourself? Do you think anyone from the future would go back in time just to sell a bunch of contraptions?"

Gaius thought of it. "...Actually that sounds like something the Annas would do."

"Well I am not like any of the other Annas-"

"I know," Gaius quickly butted in, grabbing onto Anna's hand before she could storm off and walk away, as she always avoided questions about her. "I know," Gaius said again, more softly now, as of assuring her. "You're a special snowflake. But will you answer one of my questions, for once?"

Gaius should be forbidden from using that soft, pleading tone. How could you say no when he asks like that? Anna sat back besides Gaius with a heavy sigh. She took the Snapshot Tome from his hands, and looked down at it.

"There are bigger and better cameras in the future," she said, almost just murmuring.

"...There are what?" Gaius asked, surprised. Anna was talking about it. Anna was talking about it.

"Cameras," Anna said, more audibly now. "...It's what they call this over there."

"I-I see..." Gaius said, now with eyebrows knitted as his brain jumped off into other questions about the redhaired merchant. So she really was from ahead in time. Did she travel back, like Lucina and the rest? Why? Was there someone to save?

Jake maybe?

"...So... all you Annas are from ahead in time?" Gaius dared to ask. She might answer.

Anna gave a slight shrug. She really didn't know why she was talking-it was all whim maybe-but perhaps it was Gaius. He always makes me do stupid things and cloud my decisions... "No, not exactly. There's only one Anna from there, possibly. My sisters call her the 'Original Anna'. They say she passed down to us lots of books and knowledge from both the future and the past. That's why we're versed in the events way back and far ahead. There was one Anna who paved the way for all of us. ...Of course she's probably a myth, though." Anna said, with a little mysterious smile.

One Anna travelling back from ahead of time, passing on knowledge to all her descendants... Sounds like a long history. Gaius frowned. This was all too much for him to swallow and he couldn't bet on it being real. But that was probably how Chrom felt when he saw an all-grown Lucina before him.

"...And do you believe all this?" Gaius asked Anna importantly.

Anna just smiled glumly. "...All my sisters say that the Original Anna is real, and is probably roving somewhere, thinking of more ways to profit. They say she she can be identified by the butterfly tattoo on her back."

Gaius was shocked silent.

And then Anna got up, exhaling loudly. "Whew. Doesn't it feel sort of humid? Shall we go take a swim?" And she peeled off her red shirt, leaving her in her smallclothes. Gaius just stared at her back, slack-jawed. He stared at her butterfly tattoo.

A/N

Gaius discovers the meaning of 'selfie'

I bet if he were in this time he'd post selfies and

lots of #foodporn.

"I just ate the best candy in my life. #sweets #candy #foodporn #sorrynotsorry "

short update is short