Author's Note: For ages: Like the previous chapters, Lissa is 5 here, and Chrom is 9.
Chapter Four: Curses
Lissa was happy to be up in the tree.
Trees were nice. Trees were fun. The sun was warm on her cheeks and the bark rough under her hands. It had rained for so long, she thought it would never be spring again.
Winter had been yucky and cold. She had lots of ladies in her room every morning who pulled her hair when they brushed it and made her wear all kinds of stupid skirts. Lissa hated skirts. They were hard to run in, and when she tried, the ladies all said that princesses shouldn't run. Princesses were also not allowed to carry frogs in their skirts. Or in their hands.
Lissa was a bad princess.
All winter, Emmeryn was busy and had weird bruises on her face and arms from falling out of bed. The spring came eventually, and Emmeryn was so great that people started to cheer when she went to go see them, and her bruises went away, but Lissa didn't want to forget the thought. Emmeryn was a very good and lovely princess with a big shiny crown, so Lissa found it funny that her big, big sister still did silly things like fall out of bed in the night. Even Lissa didn't fall out of bed anymore.
She also missed Daddy—or, at least, having a Daddy. When he was around, she got to see Emm a lot, but that wasn't an option anymore. On the bright side, she got to spend lots of time with Chrom. They played all kinds of silly games. Today she was a rabbit and he was threatening to catch her and shave all her hair off for a nice pair of gloves.
"Lissa!" he called grumpily from the ground. "Rabbits don't climb trees!"
"Can't catch me!" she called back breezily, ignoring that.
"Come down! You might fall!"
"I won't! I don't even fall out of bed. I'm a big girl! My hand ladies are wrong and I'm very, very big!" Lissa spread her arms, lifted her chin proudly, and began to walk out along a branch.
"Lissa, don't do that!"
"Make me!"
"I'll tell on you!"
"I'll tell on you!" she mimicked in a high voice that made him mad. Ever since Emmeryn gave him Daddy's dumb old sword, he'd decided he was a big, manly man with a deep, manly voice. Lissa knew better, and liked to remind him of it.
"Fine, I'll never play with you again. Watch me!"
"I'll come down if you kiss my hand!" Knights kissed Emm's hand all the time, even when she told them not to. Lissa wished she could be so grown up.
"Never! Don't you know? If you kiss a girl, you get a sickness called cooties and you die."
"Emmy gives us kisses almost every night!"
"I don't let her." He lifted his chin. "I'm the man of the house and I can't take care of you both if I get sick and die."
"That's dumb."
"You're dumb!"
"No, you!" She turned her head to glare down at him and lost her footing.
A swoop in her tummy, wind, blurs of colour, red behind her scrunched eyelids, crunch.
xXx
"Lissa, no!"
Chrom couldn't get to her fast enough and she hit the ground hard. He slid to his knees beside her so fast that he scraped them on the twigs in the grass.
"Lissa, Lissa!"
She was clutching her right wrist, which was bent funny, and crying so loud he wanted to cover his ears.
"Are you okay?"
No answer. Only tears.
"Calm down!" he tried to bargain. "We're going to get in trouble!"
"It hurts!"
"I know!" he stammered. "It looks like it! But you're a big girl, right? Isn't that what you said?"
"Chrom, make it stop!" she wailed, and his chest ached so badly he wanted to claw at it.
"I will!" But what could he do? What healed wounds? Staves and magic? Then they'd have to tell Emmeryn, and they'd get in big trouble. Bandages? It would take him too long to find some, and Lissa was suffering. Kisses?
Oh, gods.
"Hold still," he said, trying to keep his voice calm, though it trembled anyway. "I'll kiss it and make it better."
"No!" She winced away as he ducked his head toward her hand. "You'll die!"
"But Lissa!"
"I won't let you!"
"You're my only baby sister!"
She was crying too hard to protest now, so he scrambled to her left side, where she was cradling her wrist, and pecked his lips against it. Impending Death smelled like grass and was pleasantly sunny. He supposed he could go in peace, if he had helped Lissa.
"There," he said. "Better?"
But she was still crying.
"Better?" he repeated anxiously.
She sobbed and hiccoughed and wiggled her legs in pain, and then finally shook her head.
"It didn't work?!"
"Uh-uh!"
"Gods!" All that for nothing! Despite himself, Chrom started to tear up, too. There was such pain in Lissa's voice that he was sure she was going to die, and he had been able to do nothing about it. And now he was dying, too.
"Lissa," a voice called, commanding but oddly calm. Chrom lept to his feet as Emm swept into the garden. "What happened?"
"I fell out of the tree," she bawled as she stuck out her wrist. "Emmy, it hurts!"
"Here, love." She knelt and scooped Lissa into her arms, but she looked over at Chrom.
"I did everything I could!" he insisted. Emmeryn had to believe him; she had to! "I kissed it like the storybooks always say to, and now I'm going to die from cooties, but she still isn't any better! She won't stop crying!"
Before he knew it, he was sobbing too. He'd give his own life up for Lissa, but the sacrifice was useless. And he'd promised when she was born to be good to her. He was the worst older brother ever.
"Oh, Chrom," Emmeryn said with a big smile. She stood gingerly with Lissa but reached down to wipe his tears. "Don't you see? Kisses can't take away pain. The storybooks always leave that out. Pain is forever-it will teach us lessons. But by loving her, you've broken Lissa's curse."
"Curse?" he asked with a hiccup, and even Lissa quieted in confusion.
"That's right," Emmeryn said solemnly. "She was going to die, you know."
"I know. I've never heard anybody cry that hard."
"But with your selfless act, braving the kiss, you broke the curse, so even if you can't take Lissa's pain away, you saved her life."
"Really?" Lissa asked in a soft voice. Emmeryn took her hand from Chrom's face to wipe the youngest's tears. "Thanks, Chrom."
"I'd die for you any old day, Lissa," he said, trying to sound brave and just crying more. Death was scarier the more he thought about it, and it was hard to confront without Emm's hand. She just smiled in that quiet way of hers like she had some big secret.
"You're not going to die, Chrom. An act of True Love will always save you."
"You mean it?" he and Lissa asked at the same time.
"I do. Because you are such good siblings, you will both live. I'm very proud of you."
Chrom scrubbed at his eyes while Emm stood with Lissa in her arms.
"Come, dears. We must get this wrist healed and splinted right away."
"I'll kiss it again, to tide you over!" Chrom insisted, which made Lissa weakly stick her tongue out.
"Maybe I don't want your cooties."
But she extended her tiny, oddly-angled hand, so Chrom kept to his word.
Author's Note: Chrom and Lissa, Most Annoying Siblings 2k14.
I didn't think anybody would be reading/reviewing this fic, so thank you so much to everyone! It's nice to know people have been enjoying it. (If you have critique, I'm super open to that too!)
