Robin and Kjelle progressed across the roads east of Arena Ferox, already well on the way to their first destination, having set out early in the morning. They now had several hours of travel behind them, though the twenty- or thirty-plus that remained proved as daunting a prospect as ever.
As per what was apparently usual, Kjelle had awoken first, and was required to wake Robin. From there, they had prepared meals and restocked their supplies in Flavia's home and in the thankfully bustling stores across the city, respectively. Kjelle continued to find it disconcerting how empty the city had initially seemed, though she had at first failed to notice the lack of people and buildup of dust as Robin had done.
They had journeyed practically the entire day do far without much small talk. Whenever Kjelle glanced to Robin, he was evidently still mired in thought about some matter or another, and she was reluctant to disturb him. She continued to despise the silence looming heavily in the air regardless of when or why it appeared. Luckily for her, Robin ended the silence himself with a question.
"Did you or any of your friends learn any enchantments in your time?" he asked.
"Uh… a few." Kjelle thought back to her friends, running through a mental checklist of who had been capable of what feats. "At least two or three knew how to use them, probably more, and a fair amount were able to remember them well."
"...Interesting." Robin muttered at a register Kjelle was barely able to hear, the knight going so far as to strain herself to ensure she caught his simple statement.
"Why does it matter?" she asked after a short period of time, her voice absent of wariness entirely and instead filled solely with curiosity.
"Did any of them know how to cast an enchantment that reverses the flow of time?"
Kjelle tensed in her saddle before calming herself with the knowledge that Robin wasn't aware that she had read his journal, and was not currently looking at her to see her slip. She decided to give him an honest answer, hoping it would be the right choice. "One person, and she only attempted to properly use it once. ...It didn't go very well."
"Hm. I see." Robin satisfied himself with solving at least one mystery from yesterday, though it only gave rise to another smaller one that caused him to furrow his brow. "Wait, how does an enchantment not go well? Doesn't it either fail or succeed?"
"She cast it on a corpse that hadn't yet risen." Kjelle answered, her voice unnaturally composed.
"Oh." Robin said as though that answered his question in full, the actual realisation of Kjelle's implication hitting him a second later and forcing his tone into being far more gentle. So much magic exerted on a corpse could in no way result in success, unless the purpose was to destroy. "Oh, gods, that… that must've been horrible."
Kjelle sighed without any trace of being wistful or nostalgic. "Yeah. It was."
"...What happened?" Robin prodded tentatively, preparing himself for the refusal she was likely to present.
Kjelle looked over to him, her expression and nothing more making clear her unwillingness to speak on the subject. He dropped the topic without hesitation, moving on to his next point of interest that had as of late begun to concern him.
"Do you think Flavia's hiding anything from us?" he asked. "Or Raimi, or Basilio, or anyone in power for that matter?"
"I don't see why they would." Kjelle replied honestly, thankful for the change in topic.
"There's something wrong about so many people in the capital disappearing." Robin said. "Also, I think 'Marth' may be working with them. She was already cooperating with Basilio earlier, after she had first arrived, and it would explain how Flavia knew about people becoming risen as well as how she knew to send Gaius after you and your friends."
"You've been thinking about this since at least yesterday, haven't you?" Kjelle asked, remembering his strikes of absentmindedness later in that day. "This isn't some completely random theory. You've put time into it; I can see that. But, at the same time, Flavia said that she hadn't been able to locate Marth since the war."
"Which is why I think she might be lying." Robin stated plainly. "What I'm not a hundred percent on is why she would lie."
"Maybe she's still trying to protect you and the Shepherds?" Kjelle suggested. "That seemed to be her main intention when she was still with us. She probably thought that involving you or anyone else wouldn't help toward that end."
"...Maybe." Robin acquiesced his point, Kjelle's explanation making as much as sense as anything he was able to brainstorm. "I still don't get why Marth wouldn't contact the Shepherds, though. Surely they could help her too?"
"If I know her - and I do - it's because she doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Maybe she thinks that the Shepherds aren't yet ready for such an undertaking." Kjelle said, then hesitated for a second, considering how far she was willing to go before giving way to new ground between them. "Her name is Lucina, by the way."
Catching his raised eyebrow from the corner of her eye, she continued explaining. "Lucina. That's Marth's real name. She's the firstborn to Chrom and Sumia, and has a sister named Cynthia, who became a pegasus knight. I think I mentioned them before, when I was… reminiscing?"
"You did." Robin confirmed solemnly, though not without his own trace of curiosity. "Didn't you say you would only tell me this before you were able to kill me? Why say anything now, considering how difficult that would currently be?"
"Actually, you're the one who said that; I simply didn't bother contradicting you." Kjelle corrected him. "I also mentioned Inigo, Brady, and Owain. There's a guy named Gerome. I think that's every one of my friends that I've yet to name for you, or give you papers on - Flavia didn't have any on them, probably meaning that Gaius hasn't found them yet."
"Why are you telling me this?" Robin questioned her, his caution outweighing his thankfulness. "For all you know, you may have just given me everything I need to wreak absolute havoc as Grima."
"The more I work with you, the more I'm starting to think that cooperating works toward our mutual benefit." Kjelle admitted, looking further down the road to ensure that she wouldn't have to look directly at him, despite her urge to do exactly that. "If I give you information like this, I think that for now you'll do what's best, even if that sentiment doesn't last forever."
"...I see." Robin followed up slowly. He shook his head to clear it, moving on to another, far less grim, subject. "So, is there anything else you'd like to say, or anything you've noticed so far that may be of help to the both of us?"
"Are you kidding me? I didn't even notice that anything was wrong in the capital." Kjelle laughed to herself, her care for the matter fading as they advanced ever onward. "I'll tell you more eventually, once I've ran enough things by my friends. You'll have to wait until I meet them for that, though."
"How could you not notice things in the capital…?" Robin wondered aloud, placing away her promise for more information until it became relevant once again.
"Honestly, it wasn't that different from my time. I guess I was so used to it that I never noticed." she shrugged, her head remaining locked forward while her eyes darted furtively toward Robin at random intervals. Every glance she took in his direction was somehow helping her remain rooted in the present, even if she didn't understand why.
"...How would that remind you of your time?" he asked prudently, his concern for dragging her mind back into her future having manifested long ago.
"There were never too many people after all of the wars and risen, and ashes were pretty common all over the world." Kjelle explained, her voice soon falling into a hushed and insecure tone. "Hey, uh… I'd like to say some stuff about my time for a little while. Can you… look at me while I talk?"
Robin blinked several times before screwing his face up in a complete show of confusion. "What?"
"This kind of stuff has to be talked about, right?" Kjelle bobbed her head toward him, watching him intently and compelling him to remember his own words from far earlier. "Doing that will help me, so… please do it. You know, mutual benefit - I tell you information you care about, and I get to work through stuff and maybe even help my friends."
"...Alright." Robin acceded to her placidly, being unable to refute his own talking points. He rotated his head to look directly at her, mirroring her own pose as each of them allowed their horses to trot along with reduced control. "What is it you want to say?"
"In my time, human beings became a rarity that grew progressively less common as the years passed. Ashes would line the ground of every land like the snow here in Ferox, in more ways than one - it would form clouds and storms that would blot out the sun, and would fall en masse in random areas." Kjelle began her explanation with what Robin could only assume was background information, though he still considered it to be useful and pertinent with regard to how much he could potentially learn from each part of her testimony.
"That's why I was so used to everything in the arena yesterday; it was no different than usual for me." she continued. "I think I had almost outgrown it, actually, considering how little I ended up thinking about it while I was training at the Dueling Grounds. Over time I… I think I almost stopped caring. I was so ready to hide from everything… but I guess I haven't forgotten it quite yet."
Robin tilted his head in confusion, but allowed her to progress undisturbed while he ensured that he never looked away from her.
"While I was training here, I spent over a year doing practically nothing, even when the Shepherds passed nearby during the Plegian war. I never even learned much of anything, either - my teacher had urged me strongly to pursue a path other than that of war and death, and although I never truly listened to him, I never bothered learning very much, either."
She took a deep breath and proceeded further. "He used to tell me this story, about how he had killed all of his wife's family while fighting in the arena, and came to know her through that twisted means. Apparently, he resented himself for what he had done, and dedicated much of his life from that point on to helping her."
Robin nodded silently, her claims of the man's story matching the vague testimony he had received from the obscure village's youth days ago, and he then nodded again for her to continue when she hesitated.
"...I thought that his story was tragic. How he had killed so many people close to her, how he had become so strong in combat and then wanted to atone for everything he'd done… I never really understood how she forgave him, and I admit that I still don't fully get it, but she always seemed happy."
"Despite everything bad that had happened in their lives, they loved each other. I think I got so caught up in that, I started to forget my own responsibilities, and my own time… or rather, I started to ignore it." her face grew crestfallen for a moment as her eyes wandered around the forests surrounding them, her gaze returning to Robin in short order and her sadness dissipating. "Once I saw their happiness, I wanted a part of it, and so I stayed with them and leeched off of it as though that would somehow grant me its splendor. I… I wanted to pretend that it somehow made me stronger."
"More than anything, I wanted to pretend that things would be okay, even if I didn't uphold my duty." she persisted in speaking in the face of the growing tremor in her voice, her eyes remaining locked on Robin. "I had hoped that everyone else would be strong, like Lucina, and would've handled things and that I would be able to live in happiness both in Ferox and later with my family in the Shepherds. Only now do I realise how naive that all was, and how I'll need to fulfill my role in slaying Grima."
"Now that I'm seeing everything that's happening in this time, and that has happened, and how strong you are… I'm growing afraid again." she shuddered, clearly suppressing something that Robin would've been eager to press about if he weren't both concerned for her status and unwilling to interrupt her. "I'm in no way weak, mind you. I've always considered myself to be incredibly strong, but being faced with everything in this time, I don't think that I or any if my friends will be able to perfectly rectify all that we should."
"So… now I'm at a conflict of interest. I know what has to be done, and that I have to do something to stop and kill Grima, and effectively avenge everything that happened in my time… to… to make up for it all." she shuddered again, barely noticing that Robin was slowing his horse in time to follow her own unintentional suit. "I also want to have that ideal life, free of worry and strife. A life that doesn't involve Grima in the slightest, or having to fight to survive, with my only drive to become stronger being my own desire. I want to forget what my world was, and move on to something completely different, even if doing so ends up ruining everything. I… I want to know that I'm stronger than anyone or anything, even in this very moment, and in that I'll find my peace."
"...Are you asking me for advice?" Robin spoke up for the first time since she had begun, dismounting his horse after it had come to a complete stop. His eyes remained locked on her, his face remaining in her view despite how awkwardly it caused his movements to become.
"I'm concerned that I won't be able to reach either of my goals." Kjelle explained, following his lead absentmindedly and also dismounting. "If I kill you, I don't think it would be possible to have the life I want, since the Valmese invasion and responses from those around you would ruin everything… not to mention the whole 'you might be innocent and capable of defeating Grima' thing. If I don't, though, then nothing is stopping me from alienating myself from my friends and possibly dooming the world. I don't know which would make me stronger. I just… wanted to say all of that. For whatever reason."
"Because you hope saying it will help you through it." Robin surmised her point, her subsequent nod confirming her aspiration. He broke the lock of their gazes, lowering his face in thought before walking away from where they had tethered their horses and toward the edge of the forest that lined their path. Kjelle's chest tightened for a moment in distress until she was able to relieve the feeling on her own, and then walked in pursuit if him.
"Your goals aren't mutually exclusive." Robin said as they walked, stopping in front of the forest's first trees. He stood in place for a second before breaking into a brief fit of shivering, as though all the frost of Ferox had been brushed across his skin, but it subsided quickly and he turned toward the partially concerned knight behind him to address her properly.
"In all honesty, I can't even begin to imagine a world where I'm not Grima. If I try, then everything becomes real, and… it becomes way too terrifying to think about." he said, then paused in order to withstand another shiver, turning toward the forest again when it had faded. "The Shepherds may vilify you for killing me, but they're reasonable people. They'll see what had to happen, and if you manage to overpower me, then I'm certain that the world will be safe in your hands."
"There are two options for what'll eventually happen: either you defeat me, in which case the threat of Grima is eliminated entirely, or I defeat you, in which case I'll do anything to make sure that I kill Grima as well." He shook again, and Kjelle couldn't help but wonder if he had some form of aversion to Grima itself. "Either way, even if you do end up killing me, I want you to know that there are no hard feelings. We can both try our best, and one of us will gain the power to decide the fate of the world. No matter what happens, the grand scheme will have a happy ending."
Kjelle blinked, his words coming as a surprise while being as supportive as ever. "You're seriously saying that there won't be any hard feelings? That even if I manage to kill you, everything will turn out okay? And that you promise to do everything in your power to stop Grima if you defeat me?"
"Yes to all three." Robin confirmed with a cheeriness that belied his previous and true insecure tone. "So for now, I want you to cast a spell."
"...Wait, what? How do those play into each other?" Kjelle balked, her voice returning to a more pleasant yet confused tone as she too pushed away the dreary segment of their conversation.
"Simple: you getting stronger by learning to cast magic is the perfect representation of how powerful you are." Robin stepped to her side, leaving a clear path between her and the nearest cluster of trees. "That's why I promised the honourable duel thing would take place after you're able to hurt me with magic, because it means that we're both at a point where we're mostly equals. That'll probably be our penultimate duel, with the last one being where one of us dies."
Kjelle paled slightly at the mention of the final duel, both due to her own perceived unpreparedness and the notion of such a decisive fight. She took a deep breath before she began to draw her tome. "Tell me, how can you be so sure that there'll be a happy ending? How do you know we won't both fail?"
"Because we'll both be strong enough to take on anything, and the one who wins the final duel will be even stronger than that." Robin answered proudly, watching her take out the tome with an eager gaze. "You using magic, and me using physical weapons in our penultimate duel will be the proof of our strength. So, let's get going."
He gestured to the closest tree, urging her to cast a spell at the frigid bark. Kjelle sighed, resigning herself prematurely to a scenario of failure and preparing herself for such an eventuality when it would inevitably appear. She clutched the fire tome in her left hand, flipped its pages open to the first actual spell in its sets, and raised her right hand toward the tree.
Surprisingly enough, she didn't immediately falter as she had expected; instead, a soft orange light manifested a short distance from her hand, a tingling sensation of numbness running up her arm as it intensified. She couldn't help but let out an excited flight of laughter when a small flame materialised in front of her hand and steadily grew. Robin grinned as it appeared, losing himself temporarily to the fire and the notion of her considerable rapid progress.
The fireball grew to a size that was almost large enough to cast before flickering. Robin barely had the time to even consider words of warning before the numbness in Kjelle's arm overtook the entire appendage, any nervous response fading entirely before needles of pain wracked through her, ranging from her hand to beyond her shoulder as her spell detonated itself.
Recoiling at the onset of the pain, it took Kjelle a moment to comprehend what had happened, and a moment longer to form a proper string of expletives. Any trace of the fireball was eliminated entirely as Robin shot off continuous gusts of wind, preventing the misfire from contacting either one of them or even the ground as his face contorted into a frown.
"Okay… that admittedly isn't what I expected would happen." he said once the spell had been pacified completely.
"What did you think would happen?" Kjelle followed up with an unusually high content of venom, her words dripping with the intangible substance. "It's magic; it's as pathetic as always. There's no real need to gauge my abilities by us-"
"Alright, let's go again." Robin cut her off with a wave of his hand and pointed toward the tree once more.
Kjelle blinked before groaning and shaking her head forcefully. "No. I'm not going to waste time I could spend on other better weapons by practicing fruitless spells."
"Seriously? You fail once so you abandon everything? All of that determination from earlier, just… gone?" Robin goaded her, or at the very least attempted to do so. Her scowl showed him that he had either succeeded beautifully or failed horribly.
"I was a fool to buy into all of that crap you spouted off to me." Kjelle turned her back to him and began the short walk to her horse. "Let's get on with the mission. I'll get stronger on my own, in my own ways."
Robin stopped her with the commanding and serious tone he had mastered over the course of directing soldiers in war, despite how friendly he often treated them. "I was serious, Kjelle. We can get stronger together, with no hard feelings between us. I'll help you cast a spell right now so you can get a feel for it."
"I'll pass. Even if you are serious, it's not like I'll suddenly become an amazing mage to surpass even the likes of you." Kjelle spun to face him now, holding her horse on standby for a few seconds longer. "I'll stay as a knight. That way, I can specialise myself. Become someone stronger than anyone else based on my own merit, not the pretentious ways of others."
"Um, ouch? 'Pretentious'. Really?" Robin sighed and shook his head. "I get that you might not care too much right now, but that stuff can help you get more powerful if you give it a shot. Why bother trying to outmatch everyone when you can simply rely on others once in awhile?"
"...I don't want to be the one that relies on others. I want to be the one people rely on." she answered with as audacious of an air as she could muster.
"Come on, Kjelle. One spell. So you can see your own potential."
Kjelle watched him with such utter contempt that Robin considered how she may end up leaving without even giving an answer. Eventually, though, she took a few tentative steps toward him.
"How about we make this worth my time first?" she stopped prematurely, several steps from her original position where she had failed her initial spell. "If I fail again… you won't pester me about magic anymore, and you'll duel me with only physical weapons."
Robin resisted the urge to throw his head back, though a steady laugh escaped his mouth anyway. "Sure thing. Trust me, you won't fail this time."
Kjelle cocked her head and grinned, eager to take him up on the conditions of their new agreement. She raised her tome and hand again, preparing to fail even worse than before. It wasn't exactly difficult, considering how hard she had tried with the first spell, the tingling pinpricks of pain that persisted in her arm serving as a reminder of her actions.
"In all honesty, I'm not nearly as capable of pure magic as Tharja, Miriel, or even Ricken." Robin began priming something Kjelle couldn't distinguish with both hands as she read from her tome, his palms pointed toward her. "Ultimately, I'd like to think that I have a bit of an edge over them in creativity, and my enchantments and blood magic definitely give me an advantage over each of them, but they're still better than me purely as outright mages."
"What about sir Henry? Or is he not with the Shepherds in this time yet?" Kjelle broke herself from her readings briefly in order to make her inquiry, the man having been nothing short of a legend in her time. "He was supposedly stronger than every one of the Shepherd spellcasters, though even that didn't spare him from a similar fate…"
"Henry, huh…" Robin searched back through the limited memories he held, knowing the name from somewhere before he was able to place it to a person. "Oh, him. Yeah, he's not with us yet."
"...But you know who he is?" Kjelle paused again.
Robin tensed silently, taking care to hide it from where he stood at the edge of her vision. He had grown complacent with her, and he had let down his guard, almost forcing something out of the mess of grey into which he never wanted to delve. Thankfully, his situation was still salvageable. "Obviously I've heard about him. He's actually been on my potential Shepherd radar for a long time, considering his strengths and supposed unwillingness to directly oppose Ylisse. I merely haven't had the time to seek him out yet."
"Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make." Robin clapped his hands together in an effort to accentuate his point, the magic in them thankfully avoiding one another to the point that he didn't cause an unwanted distortion. "I'm strong because I can rely on any one of the Shepherds, and I know how to incorporate their strengths into anything, being a tactician and all that. So, to prove to you how strong we can be when we cooperate, I'm going to give you a bit of magical power. I excel in combined dark and anima magic, and my previously mentioned creative uses and tactics, so now you're going to get a feel for what it means to truly have power as a mage."
He held one hand out toward her, turning the other one inward at himself and casting his spells in tandem. A purple light enveloped his torso, a green counterpart stemming out of his other hand and onto Kjelle, partially illuminating her armour and skin in an ethereal glow.
"By casting specialised nosferatu magic on myself, I can draw out my power and transfer some of it to you." he explained. "Now you should be able to cast magic almost effortlessly, provided that you haven't forgotten how to read."
Kjelle stared at her own body, her legs, chest, and most significantly hands becoming surrounded by the green light. She could practically feel it pushing into her, and she underwent a slight period of fear when she considered the potential dangers of what was happening to her, but it faded instantly when the magic's positive effects began to set in. Sheer power was beginning to course through her, easing the strain of her armour and progressively bolstering the veritable power each muscle in her body held. The ambrosial effects of the spell worked its way through her entire person, intensifying her senses and perceptions and giving her a feeling of borderline invincibility.
"What the hell is this? I've never heard of anything like it… how did you learn this?" Even her voice came out differently as she spoke, her words carried an odd echoing and soothing ring as though she had taken on another, far less abrasive persona purely due to the newfound magic in her veins.
"This is what power feels like. Wonderful, isn't it?" Robin's voice came out as distant yet close, similar to her own, as though he was several metres further from her than he truly was and had projected his voice toward her, if not directly into her ears. "As for how I learned it… study and practice." he answered the second question simply, a coldness hiding beneath the surface of his response that was unnoticeable to Kjelle in her new state. "Now, go ahead and cast the spell."
Kjelle breathlessly prepared her magic, the power from Robin coursing into her palms as flames manifested in front of her. This time, the fireball expanded to a proper size effortlessly, flying away from her palm as she commanded and striking hard the front of the tree. Flames scored deep into the bark, scorching the frozen exterior into wisps of ashes and threatening to engulf the entire tree in short order were it not to have faded out of existence then and there.
Retracting her hands in order to examine them in full, Kjelle gaped at them in absolute awe, barely capable of understanding what precisely had happened, let alone that she was the one to experience it. "Does… does using magic always feel like this?"
Robin slowly shook his head, a smile growing on his face as he remembered coming across the feeling of awe in his own right. "Only when you kill someone."
The empowered blood in Kjelle's veins ran cold as her sharpened mind processed his statement, operating at an addled pace suffused with disbelief. "...What? What do you mean?"
"This kind of power isn't exactly easy to come across." he explained with a tranquility that grew more and more unnerving to her ears with every word. "You could get it through constant training, or you could do what we're doing now - transferring power from one being to another. It can be non-lethal, like this, but the best results come from killing someone and taking control of the energy that made everything they were, from claiming all of their power as your own."
Kjelle's hands began to tremble in her line of sight, though she still felt nothing but the otherworldly power of Robin's magic in them. "Stop… stop casting your spell. Get this out of me!" she shouted, clawing at her armour as if doing do would somehow undo his spell and remove the power.
"Isn't this what you want?" Robin asked without a trace of curiosity as his voice fell into a monotone serenity. "Unparalleled power… strength that can determine the fate of the world, and your own. What you're experiencing is a fraction of what we'll need. It's not like I'm dying to give you this either - only other people from the war and risen died for this."
"I don't care! Stop it!" Kjelle shouted again, no longer batting at her armour as she instead struggled with a horrifying sickness welling up within her.
The lights around the both of them faded as Robin retracted his hands, the spells dissipating into nothingness. Kjelle heaved as the power left her, each piece of her armour weighing down against her even weightier than before and straining her muscles exorbitantly. It was as though her own strength was being sucked out of her alongside the magic of the spell, and she fell to the ground on her knees with a shudder when her legs became too weak to hold the rest of her body upright.
"You need to get stronger, Kjelle. We both do." Robin's voice sounded somewhere near her, but she was unable to see him from her new position as she struggled to hold on to consciousness. "Taking power is the best way to do that. I need to be able to protect the Shepherds from whatever's coming in Valm, and you need to save them too, as well as find your friends. We both need so much power, and taking lives is the best way to go about it."
Kjelle breathed deeply and shuddered as her strength slowly reappeared. She was able to push herself up into a position that could almost be considered standing, were she not trembling violently and still partially leaning forward.
"Do the other Shepherds do that?" she asked with an equally precarious voice.
"They don't do exactly the same thing as me." Robin admitted, a trace of emotion returning to him in the form of borderline annoyance, if not for his underlying acceptance. "Each and every one of them has killed before, though. During the war, that was how each and every one of us got stronger, by killing other people. I'm simply ensuring that nothing goes to waste in the process."
"...What the hell is wrong with you!?" Kjelle cried out once she had fully retained proper posture. "It's one thing to have to kill out of necessity, because there's a war, or risen, or bandits, or whatever else, but to take people's power like this… to enjoy doing it, to call it 'wonderful'... there's something seriously wrong with you if that's how you feel about it."
Robin began to laugh. He laughed more and more, to the point where he had to bend over to prevent himself from falling down, though he never sounded especially happy. "Have you forgotten the whole Grima thing already? That drive for power is what I am!"
"No - you said you would stop Grima, which would put an end to all of this, which means that even if you win the final duel things will turn out okay." Kjelle argued against him, her voice returning to its more characteristic strength as she progressed. "Isn't that what all of this is for? Getting the power to stop Grima, to save everyone in the Shepherds, like you said?"
"I'll do anything to help any single person in the Shepherds." Robin stated decisively, leaving her no room to refute him should she have so desired. "This is my way of doing that. This is how I can get stronger, and it's how I will get stronger, even if you disapprove of it."
Kjelle closed her eyes in a moment of deep thought, reevaluating her situation after her initial outburst. "Tell me… what happens if you do this to a living person? What happens to someone who's dead, or risen? And how does it even work?"
Robin grinned, Kjelle having given him the perfect opportunity to recite some of the information he had taken such care to memorise over his year and a half of known recollection. "On living people, it's only a more powerful nosferatu spell. On the dead, it greatly damages, if not destroys their bodies - in effect ensuring that they'll never become risen - though the caster only gains a fraction of their original power. With time, this power builds up, and lets the user strengthen themselves to the point where they're naturally as powerful or even stronger than they were with the temporary boost."
Taking a deep breath, Kjelle exhaled slowly, giving herself time to gather her thoughts. "Okay, that… doesn't sound as horrible as you first made it out to be. It may even be helpful…"
"It's really not that bad. Kill one person, take their power, and learn to harness the equivalent of it in your natural capabilities. Kill a hundred people, have the strength of a hundred people in one person. Kill a thousand, have the power of a thousand. Slay a god… and become as gods." his smile intensified, practically shining in his ambitious glee.
"Yeah, no, never mind, I'm not doing that. Ever." Kjelle shuddered again and turned back to her horse. "If you want to do something that messed up to compensate for your lack of natural talent, then go ahead; you'll need it to keep up with me. But, seriously… stop saying things that are so Grima-esque. It makes travelling with you way creepier than it has to be."
Robin paused for a moment before shrugging and following after her, toward his own horse. "Alright, fair enough. It's not like you'd be able to cast the necessary magic anyway."
Kjelle rolled her eyes as she mounted her horse. "I'm not going to fall for such obvious bait. I'm not you, after all."
"Was that your attempt at a quip?" Robin laughed, without his monotone traits that had apparently managed to disappear in full during the short walk to his horse. "You're only right because of… what, the one time on the pier? Meanwhile I have dozens of battles already under my belt from before you were even here. I'd say I'm already pretty strong and capable in my own right."
"Well, of course you'd give yourself a shining seal of approval." Kjelle gave another, more exaggerated, eye roll.
Once they had prepared to depart, she pushed her horse along the path in silence for a short time once, another matter soon pressing into her mind in turn. "Out of curiosity, how many people have you used that spell on?"
Robin brought a hand to his chin in thought, calculating numbers and estimates as their horses trotted along. "Including risen, who mind you give way less energy than living people… somewhere between two and three thousand. Closer to three, if my math is right."
Each of their horses were made to stagger as Kjelle recoiled, unintentionally moving her mount in Robin's path and causing them both to compensate for the unexpected turn. She coughed before speaking, her words catching in her throat alongside her shock. "You… you've killed three thousand people?"
"For people, no more than two hundred, tops. And that's total; I haven't used the power draining spell on all of them." Robin clarified, giving his horse a small push back toward its true path. "Risen account for almost everything I've done, and I've ended well over two thousand of them."
"Gods, two thousand…" Kjelle balked, her horse once again veering and eliciting a curse from Robin as he, too, was forced to change course. "That's all in less than two years?"
"Uh, yeah…" Robin said slowly, uncertain of where her surprise was originating from. "They appeared pretty prolifically after the portal showed up… er, portals, I guess, if you arrived through one as well. Were they not like that in your time?"
"They were, I just…" she trailed off, collecting herself and starting anew. "They were everywhere in my time, to the point where they could overtake entire cities in a matter of days. I never thought that there would be so many already, even if some had followed my friends and I through time."
"I'm willing to guess that the war against Plegia didn't help in that regard." Robin said. "Hundreds if not thousands of people died during that, and if they all come back as risen… then…" he froze up as a new realisation struck him. "Oh gods, then Emmeryn… Phila… they're…"
"...They died in this time, didn't they?" Kjelle connected the same set of dots, her horse slowing but not stopping as she reached the same conclusion. "They're going to come back as risen… no, the Plegian war was so long ago, they undoubtedly already are risen."
"No, no… you said that people wouldn't come back as risen if their wounds were grievous enough, right?" Robin latched onto her earlier words, knowing that a corpse couldn't rise from nothingness. "Emmeryn jumped off of an execution platform and her remains were too scattered to bring back to Ylisse after the war… and Phila was filled with arrows from a horde of archers. There's no way they could come back… right?"
Kjelle withered under his expectant gaze, her answer coming slower than she thought possible. "...I don't know. If there was no body left to rise, then no, but I would have to see them to be certain."
The two continued on for a short ways in near silence, Robin's whispered curse at her words being the only sound either made until Kjelle had formed another question.
"Hey, Robin… would you drain their power too? Emmeryn and Phila, I mean?"
Robin glanced over to her as their horses trotted onward, his face shifting in authentic consideration. "I… I don't know. Is there a way they can be… healed, or revived, or… whatever would have to happen for them to be made normal?"
"If it were possible, I'm sure the Naga or mages of my time would have already accomplished such a feat." Kjelle answered soberly. "You don't suppose it's possible, do you?"
"I don't know. Maybe?" he replied vaguely. "If it's possible, then I would try to help them. If not, then yeah, I would drain their power too."
"I see." Kjelle shivered at the concept of doing something like the horrific drain to one of the Shepherds, and again at the thought that the power Robin had fed her may very well have been of similar origin. "Don't you think there's something wrong with that?"
"They're already dead." Robin replied simply. "Like I said, at least this way the living will have some kind of use for them."
"Gods, you don't have any respect for the dead, do you?" Kjelle gave him a reproachful frown. "Does none of that never seem wrong to you, purely from a moral standpoint?"
"Not in the slightest." Robin said, his voice conveying a total seriousness that left nothing up to question. "You might fake respect for the fallen out of some need for posturing or vindication, but I'm fully willing to accept the reality that they're of more use feeding me power than they are in the ground."
"Remember what I said about the Grima-esque stuff?" Kjelle asked, astounded by his turns from tactician of the Shepherds to Grima's vessel all without becoming a different person. "Well, having morals seems like a pretty not-Grima thing to do, and not having them is very, very Grima."
"Oh, come on, you practically dragged that one out of me." Robin lolled his head toward her and leaned partially off of his horse, dramatically drawing some shrewd laughter from the depths of her lungs at his absurdity. He righted himself as they moved, allowing the atmosphere to grow comparatively amicable before a question of his own came forth. "Kjelle… did you feel good when you had that power?"
Kjelle quivered at the all too recent memory of his spell. "Yeah, I felt amazing. I think that was the most terrifying part of it all."
A monosyllabic hum originated from Robin's mouth, giving Kjelle a slight cause for concern when he gave no further reply.
"Do you feel something similar when you do it?" she asked after almost a full minute of silence.
"Not anymore." Robin shook his head. "I mean, I haven't used it since the end of the war, but even then it felt like each individual person was progressively worth less and less. Guess that means I'm getting stronger, huh?"
"Probably." Kjelle said, her tone noncommittal. "Did you enjoy taking their power, or was it out of necessity, with the good feeling being nothing more than an added bonus?"
"...I enjoyed it." Robin responded after a short pause.
"...Oh." Kjelle, too, paused for a time before responding, her voice growing darker and softer at the same time. "Did… did you enjoy killing them?"
Robin took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he considered her question, the vision in his eyes fading an instant before he shut them and kept them closed. "I know that Grima would." he answered vaguely, giving Kjelle as much reason to justify her fearful concern as to have it dispelled. She changed her focus from him to their path, allowing his statement to fade with time as they travelled ever onward.
Daylight broke, as certain of a constant as ever, over Ferox. Kjelle and Robin had stopped their progression for the day a few hours after sunset, Robin having used magical flames to light their path as darkness had descended. They had pressed on over a considerable distance, Robin claiming that they had spent longer than anticipated at Arena Ferox, and had retired for the night immediately upon stopping without waging a duel.
Of course, Kjelle had been certain to meet her required hours of daily training despite their constant travel, though she had taken significant liberties with what she considered training, relying more on stretches and a quick run than anything else. Now, she had awoken yet again before Robin, and found herself fully prepared to depart before the grandmaster had shown any signs of stirring from his tent.
Without the duel to set her mind at ease, Kjelle had been left to mull over everything that had happened the past day over the course of the night, and now the morning. She felt almost weak whenever she thought about it all, the power he had transferred to her being as terrifying as it was delightful. Now, she felt as though she were beginning to understand the strength people could actually have, and the true allure of what she had desired for so long: power to overcome all else.
It was with a heavy mind, concerned with the implications of her own drive toward strength and that of Robin, that she entered his tent with the intent to wake him. Inside, she found that he was still soundly asleep, and suddenly became hesitant to wake him. He seemed happy now that he was asleep, free of his relation to Grima and the Grimleal, as well as the responsibilities of being a grandmaster to what was quite possibly the most significant nation on the planet. It felt wrong to ever wake such a pleasantly unaware person. Still, she resolved that she must, as he would only end up berating her if she allowed him to sleep in and expend more time on their schedule - and if he didn't, she certainly would herself.
Then again, she could kill him now and be done with everything. She had considered such an option before, and now found herself wondering how she had forgotten such an eventuality could occur. Killing him in his sleep, putting an end to everything that had troubled her and her friends for their entire lives… it seemed so simple now, stood over his peacefully sleeping form with her weapons resting firmly on her back.
Slowly and breathlessly, she drew her steel lance and carefully rested the tip of the spearhead against his throat. So simple of an opportunity was presenting itself to her, and now that she was so close to attaining her goals, she thought of herself as not much more than a fool for not taking advantage of her ability to slay Grima without major effort. She tightened her grip on the hilt of the lance, the tip pressing further into his skin and whitening the area it touched as blood was pushed away from the new source of pressure.
Her hands faltered when she began to think of what pressing down at this point would mean. Could she even kill him, knowing how he had helped her so far, and was going to help her, and how they were both supposedly capable of driving each other to new heights? She lessened the pressure on her weapon slightly, grimacing when a speck of blood appeared on the man's throat from where the lance's tip had punctured skin.
Staring down on him now, she realised that she didn't see Grima or their avatar anymore, but instead only Robin. He was the driven tactician of the Shepherds, and while he had his moments of troublesome overly-ambitious power craving in what she could only assume was behaviour similar to the fell dragon, he was still kind at heart. While he had made it clear that he was in fact Grima's vessel, she couldn't help but wonder if it was even truly possible for him to be so vile a person as she had originally believed.
After all, how could he be so evil as to destroy the Shepherds, and the world, when they were what drove his desire for power in the first place? Even if he had his faults, they served to make him somewhat more human, not more evil-dragon-mage-god. She wondered now more than ever how evil one person could ever be, even if they were set on a course of villainy by a future predetermined. And now, she also began to wonder if perhaps her future really could be averted peacefully, by working alongside the man who had proven to be a friend to the Shepherds before becoming their greatest foe.
She was here to rewrite history, wasn't she? This would be exactly her purpose, then, to save both the future and the man who somehow became so twisted as to be the fall of the Shepherds, of her family and those of her friends. She did have the same drive for power as him, and at this moment, she couldn't find it in her heart to condemn him for having what was in effect so similar an inspiration.
This was Robin. Not Grima, or their avatar, or anyone from the Grimleal. Withdrawing her weapon to her side, she resolved to grow stronger along with him until their final duel, and perhaps even after then should they be able to settle that in a cordial manner, regardless of how far-fetched such an ambition was. Because this was Robin, and Robin could be trusted.
Smiling as she watched the semi-regular rise and fall of his sleeping chest, she realised that she was reassured purely by the thought of having him accompany her. He was representative of this entire time, a wonderful shred of something that could so easily come to ruin that she would have to grow stronger in order to protect and nurture it. And he was powerful. That part made her feel happier than any other.
She repeated to herself that this was, in fact, Robin, tracing her gaze up to his face where his inspiring features still lay at rest. This was what she sought to protect, the peacefulness and serenity of the world. Though he may not encompass those values all the time when he was awake, he certainly possessed them now as he slept, every aspect of him denoting him as a simply complex man of flesh and blood, with not a trace of Grima in his entire body.
Reason screamed against reason, and emotion against emotion as she continued to watch him. A desire to kill him and avert everything that had happened to her, to fix everything, fought desperately against the tiny, guilty spark of hope that urged her into believing that she would be strong enough to do anything, to save even Grima's avatar. New resolutions danced in her mind, the ability to save even him and prove her strength through so great of a challenge charging into place alongside her previous ideals of saving the past and sparing the world of her future.
Her gaze wandered up to his face, and she accepted that she would not be able to kill him in such a worthless way as in his sleep. If he were to fall, if either of them were to fall, it would have to be at the culmination of their greatest strengths, not some cowardly assassination.
Every one of his features still radiated nothing but calmness, and were without a doubt her new connection to this time. The features that had grounded her, that had always appeared so soft despite her hostility, his ambition, and their shared knowledge, were what made him seem so amiable. How could his warm smile ever be evil, or the soft hazel of his eyes reprehensible when they so peacefully stared into her own as they now did?
"Gah!" Kjelle jumped backward as his eyes came into the focus of her own, a small wave of melancholy washing over her when her surprise prevented her from taking in the brilliance of his gaze, and the remainder of his features. "You… y-you're awake!?" she sputtered out, her face reddening involuntarily as she only now took in her discourteous actions and the oddly private internal monologue she had hosted.
Robin blinked, a nonexistent film clearing from over his eyes as he did so and allowing him to take in his surroundings. "What?" he asked groggily, his sight outpacing his thought as he absentmindedly brought a hand to rub at the spot of pain that had appeared on his neck.
"Ah, of course, I must've… woken you up." Kjelle admonished herself for forgetting her original purpose, and again when she saw that her lance was still drawn, causing her to hurriedly sheathe it away in the loops on her back. "I, uh… was going to wake you. We should be leaving soon, and you slept in. Again."
Robin said nothing for a short time as she stood awkwardly, shifting her weight from foot to foot in anticipation of an excuse to leave and not explain herself. Her chest tightened slightly when she saw that he was holding his hand up into his line of sight, his two foremost fingers smeared with red from the miniscule puncture on his neck.
"...Why didn't you do it?" he asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Killing me would have prevented the horrors of your future."
"Not necessarily." Kjelle shook her head, ceasing her awkward movements and steadying herself in order to carry out conversation. "There's still Valm, no matter what. And that looks like it's going to be absolute hell…"
"You still would've averted everything about Grima, and the second Plegian war." Robin argued, his voice gradually pulling out of the alluring grasp of sleep.
"Flavia's handling half of that, remember?" Kjelle adopted the same tranquil tone as him, excluding his sleepiness, hoping that it would somehow place them on equal ground in a battle that didn't actually exist. He blinked, causing her to raise her eyebrows at his apparent forgetfulness of the Khan's gambit.
"Right, right, the Grimleal stuff…" Robin's memory returned to him after a few moments, though his voice sounded anything but pleased. "Didn't you say that she was likely to die on that little excursion?"
"Anybody is, but I also said that if anyone could pull it off, it'd be her."
"She's already strong, probably more so than most of the Shepherds." Robin admitted after a short period of silence. "But what about Grima, and everything else that could happen leading up to or as a result of avoiding the second Plegian war? Shouldn't that still be a major concern for you?"
"It absolutely is." Kjelle nodded, her face boasting a contented smile nonetheless. "That's still a long ways away, though. There's a lot of training, and a lot of dueling left in the meantime."
"...You're really focused on getting stronger, aren't you?"
Kjelle nodded again. "We share an ambition in that regard. I believe the best way for us both to get stronger is together, through the means I said. ...I may not be at your level as of right now, but I promise, one day I will be, and when that time comes I'll prove to you how powerful I really am."
"I don't doubt it." Robin laughed easily, using his merriment to suppress a frown.
"So let's get to it, then." Kjelle extended her hand to him, angling it toward him and expecting him to take it and use it to rise for the new day. "Come on, we've got a lot ahead of us. May as well go together, for now."
Robin watched her armoured hand astutely, seemingly becoming enraptured by it, but made no move to accept the gesture. "Uh, I… still have to change clothes, and get ready, and… everything…" he murmured at an almost inaudible level, blushing slightly when he ruined her inspirational moment.
"...Ah. Right." Kjelle's blush returned as well, though to a lesser extent than previously as she began to ungraciously backstep out of his tent. "I'll… uh, wait by the horses, I guess."
She exited the tent and made her way to the horses as she had indicated. Robin took longer than anticipated even now that he had awoken, and she found herself gleaning over her fire tome as she waited. She even attempted to cast a few spells, albeit still unsuccessfully, before Robin approached her and they began the next stage of their journey.
Unbeknownst to her, Robin had spent the majority of his time since she had roused him mulling over her actions and words alike. His frown had taken control over his expression as soon as she had departed, her claim that they could cooperate striking a chord within him that he hadn't realised he possessed, only for that fact to agitate him more than anything.
This is good, isn't it? Us working together will be of far more benefit than operating against one another… he thought to himself. Sure, it'll complicate things when it comes time for the final duel, but… it's worth it, isn't it?
He had groaned, lowered his head into his hands, and spent far too much time considering the multitude of pros and cons of their cooperation, unnecessarily causing her to wait for far longer than necessary before he joined her. When he did, he bore no trace of his tumultuous line of thought, his expression the same as ever.
Sparks fizzled away from Kjelle's hand as she failed to cast another basic fire spell. Most disappeared immediately when she groaned in frustration and cancelled her cast, but a few lazily descended onto her horse and fewer still managed to grace the frost laden ground at an even lower height, the small trace of magic within them sustaining each particle for their short lives.
"Was that… thunder magic from a fire tome?" Robin asked incredulously from his position atop his own horse next to her. "How the hell did you do that?"
"...I'm messing something up really, really badly." Kjelle admitted after a short pause. She sighed and reattempted the spell, though nothing happened whatsoever in this iteration, not even the erroneous sparks.
Robin watched her try and fail a few more casts before he decided to intervene. "You know, it's fine if you only get the incantations down for now. It's a fair bit easier than casting the entire spell at once, which is incredibly simple once you've mastered its components individually."
"...I don't even know if I'm getting the incantation right…" Kjelle muttered, her voice obscured from his hearing when another failed spell created a loud popping noise, ever so slightly startling their horses. She cursed and dropped her book unceremoniously into one of her bags, then turned to address Robin.
"Is this actually the best way to tell if I've gotten stronger? It seems like I'd be better off with physical weapons, like my lance, or even the sword and axe we picked up at the arena… not trying to master something that's completely foreign to me."
Nodding, Robin didn't avert his eyes from their path. "It is the best way, and that's because it's foreign to you. You've trained all of your life with a lance, so now's your chance to prove that you're far stronger than ever before by mastering something difficult, like magic. Also, and I may be biased on this, but my personal opinion of magic is that it out classes all other weapon types. Even if you think it won't make you stronger, you can at least see it as a means of reaching your potential."
He shot a glance in Kjelle's direction and saw that she was still looking at him, an expression of skepticism written plainly across her features.
"...Honestly, it's more about the concept of mastering it, not actually learning magic." he continued with uncertainty, his words being true but coming with a surprisingly personal uncomfortable sensation. Kjelle tilted her head in confusion, making it evident that she wished for him to explain without ever giving verbal acknowledgement.
"It's about proving that you can learn it that matters, you know?" He attempted to clarify his point, but was met with a shake of the head from Kjelle. "If you're good enough with a lance, it doesn't matter how good you are with magic, since strategies can be built around buffing your strengths rather than making up for your weaknesses, so it's the drive to succeed that matters instead of actually succeeding."
"...I still don't understand. How would having the drive to learn something pointless prove my strength?" Kjelle furrowed her brow in even further confusion, glancing back to the bag with her tome in it periodically as though it somehow held an answer. "Also, I'd like to point out that my strengths far outweigh my weaknesses in any situation."
"Sure, sure… I mean, I haven't seen you fight any large scale battles yet, but you seem fairly strong. As long as you have the drive to succeed at anything, you'll be perfectly fine."
Kjelle's confusion remained at the same level as before, his response doing nothing to assuage her repudiation. "So, I have to bother enough with something I dislike to see it through, and to you that'll make me strong? Not mastering different techniques and weapons, or other actual strengths?"
"Without the drive to succeed, there's no real reason to try getting stronger, because you won't be able to do very much." Robin explained casually, suppressing the sincere gravity behind his words. "For you with magic, you think it could ultimately be useful, but you don't want to have to put too much effort into something that might be fruitless, right?"
Kjelle nodded slowly, and with partial uncertainty, but allowed him to continue.
"The thing is, whether or not your task is something that absolutely has to be done or a simple hobby or anything like that, you need to have the motivation to succeed or else nothing will come of it. You have to save the world, and so you've been working toward that constantly, which is good, but you also have to get even stronger."
"You're saying that without any motivation, whatever I do is useless?" Kjelle attempted to surmise his argument, though his position still made as little sense to her as ever. "Honestly, I don't see how that would work. Once I've done something, I've done it; it's as simple as that. I'm not going to become incapable of doing it because I'm somehow not driven enough."
"No, it's not that. It's more that you won't be able to do it in the first place because you lack motivation." he fumbled with some unformed words for a moment before deciding on a course of action, pausing to collect himself and then continuing.
"Do you know what it's like to try to do something, whether you want to or not, and then have nothing happen because you don't do anything or aren't capable of doing anything?" he asked, having finally collected himself in full.
"Vaguely, I suppose?" Kjelle shrugged, his point coming off as debatable to her no matter what he said. His point did resonate with her, but she preferred to avoid that truth. "It kind of sounds like trying to stop you- er, Grima. I wasn't able to do it in my time, so now I've come back here to stop you- ah… them. ...Is that kind of what you mean?"
Robin eyed her curiously at the moments of her corrections, his look veiling something darker beyond what she was able to see before he cleared his expression with a shake of his head. "Not quite, but close enough. You want to stop Grima, meaning you would have to kill me or the dragon itself, so you train to get stronger. To get stronger, you practice as much as you can. When you practice, you learn to use a tome, no matter how much you spurn it, because you know that it will eventually make you stronger."
"That's how I'm saying your motivation helps you to succeed, by going down to the lowest possible factor and working up from there." he continued. "It doesn't matter how small your progress is, as long as you're doing something toward what you want."
"Your drive to succeed is what makes it possible to reach new heights in the first place, no matter how little progress you make, as long as you make some. Even if it's just one more swing of a sword, or one word in a book, or even just managing to get up for the day and telling yourself 'today is going to go well'... it's all what allows you to improve yourself. That's the proof that you're strong, that you're able to keep trying."
"It's okay to keep failing, as long as you keep trying. For every failed spell, every misfire or every time you don't manage to reach your goal, you still make progress toward it. No matter how small that progress is, as long as you keep going and learn from what's happened, you can't go wrong. That's the strength everyone needs in order reach their dreams. It's the strength you need, and it's the strength I'm already certain that you have, even if you haven't found it yet."
Kjelle watched him silently, the skepticism in her expression having faded somewhere over the time of his monologue due in no small part to his surprisingly genuine inflection. Once he fell silent, she couldn't help but wonder if it were somehow personal to him - he hadn't shown that much care to something so seemingly minor before, at least as far as she knew.
She cleared her throat, ensuring that she wouldn't be accidently cutting him off mid speech. "Is that something you do yourself? Try and try again, no matter how little progress you make, and you're okay as long as you keep trying?"
"Of course." Robin nodded, his voice happy but with a constrained somber edge. "During the war, I actually wasn't as good at coming up with strategies as Cordelia, or Frederick, or even Chrom sometimes, as bad as that may sound. Still, the Shepherds relied on me and trusted me to see them through each battle, so I never gave up until I had created a winning strategy."
"There were a lot of times where I would spend days making only one or two troop movements worth of progress, and half the time I would have to go back and change those later. Still, I always saw it as progress, and no matter what happened I would make sure to get at least one thing done every time I looked at my planning sheets, even if it was something miniscule. As long as there was some form of progress, or even at least an attempt at progress, I felt that things would turn out okay." he sighed and lowered his head, and before Kjelle was able to speak up he had launched into another line of his own.
"After the war, I tried taking up a wide variety of hobbies. Swordplay, lances, bows, axes, riding, flying, reading, more strategy, everything I could think of. I've ended up mastering practically every one of them - if you gave me one of your lances right now, I'm sure I could wreak as much havoc on enemy lines as you."
His voice lowered in tone to a level that was difficult for Kjelle to hear; however, she heard it nonetheless. At the same time, the inflection on each and every one of his words became subsequently more foreboding, and sounded as though they were laced with loathing.
"I actually thought that doing all of that would help… but it didn't. Why would I ever think that learning to fight more, or learning more and more and even more strategy would ever help…?"
Kjelle watched him carefully, her concern outweighing her curiosity by only a small margin. Through the way he spoke, she sensed that this was a topic she wouldn't be intent on delving too far into, lest she bring out the unwanted more sinister side of the tactician.
Wait, when the hell did that happen? Kjelle questioned herself, finally pulling her gaze away from Robin in her moment of self-reflection. The entire point of being here with him, of going through all of this… it's all to expose him for what he is, or what he could potentially be. Why would I not want him to slip up…?
She glanced back to the grandmaster, who had raised his head again from its lowered position, but with his body language simultaneously making no indication that he would be keen on discussing any matters further. No, he might be good… but, he might also be the greatest evil this world has ever known.
Exhaling deeply and slowly, she resolved herself to a final course of action. I'll need to find out what he really is, good or evil before I can do anything. If he's good, then he can live and help save this world… if not, then I'll have to stop him, no matter what. ...Right?
Kjelle shuddered slightly at the grave weight of her own resolve, the unease in her chest almost requiring physical aid in order to be calmed. With a thinly restrained, insecure certainty, she reached down into one of her bags and pulled out her fire tome, flipping it open to the first spell in the book.
If Robin noticed what she was doing, he gave no indication. For several more hours she attempted to cast a simple fire spell, never once succeeding but also never once giving up the hope that she one day would.
I'm technically a day late on this, but that's in terms of hours and I've still got that grace period, so it's mostly okay. A lot of these chapters tend to go up late enough at night that timezones decide the date anyway, but at least I'm still proving that I can do this much writing. Have to adhere to that ideology I had Robin spout at the end, after all.
In retrospect, I feel as though I've been a little unnecessarily hard on this story. I'm still more than proud that I've done so much work on it and have learned so much and all that, but I don't think that really comes across in my writing or these notes. Oh well. I'm not about to go back and retcon my work, unless there is some massive, horrible mistake, so I guess everyone reading this gets to see my opinion of the story develop alongside each chapter. I still like to think that I'm a great writer, by the way.
I've started working on another story, though that isn't about to slow down my work on this one. That story will also be far smaller and hopefully better controlled than this one. Seriously, this story has grown to be insanely large, though I'm not exactly complaining. I like writing.
Status: as of 17-05-18, I'm finishing chapter 26. This hopefully means that I'm about halfway through the story, and I'm going to try to keep the pace up on much of the next major arc, though I don't want to rush anything.
Thanks for reading!