Robin didn't know when exactly it had started but it soon progressed from a mild unexplained agitation to feeling the distinct urge to blungeon his head with a brick. Up till now, his re-emerging memories had manifested itself as nothing more than a stream of information. He should have known better than to believe that that would be the extent.

And here he was, on the floor with his back against the wall. If he had thought his ordeal at Mount Prism was bad, he would now be willing to exchange for it at a moment.

He could barely breathe as his chest seemed to be locked in contriction. So many different forms of emotion were volleying at him that they mixed together into a general despondency that dug into him like a lance. It felt as though he had a fever. One minute the air seemed scorching hot and he found himself drenched in sweat. A minute later and the stone at his back was like ice, sending uncontrollable shivers through out his entire body.

Robin wrapped his arms around his knees and rested his head in the space that it created. He couldn't remember how long he had been there but from the gap between his arms, he could see that it was now some time at night.

When he defeated his future self, he had felt nothing in the way of physical pain. This was more of what he imagined dying to feel like. Like the energy was being dragged from his body, leaving him with barely enough strength to struggle to draw in breath. It felt as though something sharp was lodged in the delta of his ribs, cutting into him every time he inhaled.

He wondered if he would make it till morning.

His mind kept flashing to places he had never known, people whom he had never seen before. Or rather people from a past life.

Grima scowled as he watched the scene unfold from a window. The Altean forces were heading their way.

"Grandfather, you must have lost your mind." he murmured to himself.

Medeus had refused to leave, or as he called it: abandon his cause. Tactical retreat didn't seem to register in the old manakete's mind. But it wouldn't matter, Grima, if no one else, could see that the war had been lost. His grandfather had underestimated humans in the exact way that Grima had tried to stress. And Anri was coming for his head with the fang of Lady Naga in his hand.

Medeus still believed that he could destroy the human army single handedly in a last stand. The idea was so saturated with single-mindedness that Grima had to conciously keep his anger in check.

And Medeus even had the gall to advise Grima to escape before the battle.

What hypocrisy.

With any other person, Grima would have long since stormed off and left them to their own stubborness. But even now, while he was preparing to leave Doluna behind, he had to tear himself away from his regrets. The more he found out about the Earth Dragons the more sympathey he felt for his grandfather. In a way, Medeus had been the only one to make a correct choice. He had chosen to reign in his power instead of going insane from sticking to the old ways. For his own sake, as difficult as it would have been, Medeus should have moved on.

Grima walked away from the window and let himself out of a back door. He could help but spare a look backwards towards the castle. He was a sentimentalist by nature and Doluna would forever be the place where he spent his childhood.

But this was no longer a place to call home and the faster he left it behind, the better.

He didn't know where he would go, but anywhere else would have fullfilled Grandfather's order.

Grima pulled his hood over his head to block against the chill, it was a bad time of year for travel. As he walked, a sliver of white caught his attention. Upon closer inspection, it was a skeleton. To an untrained eye, it would appear to be human. But Grima could tell it was a manakete's. The bones were so small, whomever their owner was, he or she must have been young, barely five hundred years old.

Grima bit back a sigh of sadness, what had such a young manakete done to deserve such a fate? To a human, the manakete would have looked like a five or six year old child, who had done such a deed?

He didn't have much time to contemplate, the steady of march of soldiers was coming closer. Hopefully, someone would be able to give the bones a proper burial.

Robin shut his eyes tightly, trying to block out the torrent of emotions. He was beginning to shake again, an uncontrollable tremor that went all the way down to the tips of his fingers. So far, the memories that were resurfacing seemed insignificant in the relation to time. Yet they sent a potent mixture of feelings that meshed together horribly.

It wasn't like an injury whose pain would slowly ease away over time. If anything, it was getting worse. The pressure at the delta of his ribs only seemed to intensify.

"Fell Dragon."

Grima blinked, he hadn't expected those words to come out of a mankete's mouth. A human's perhaps, but what did those humans know? They see something scary and their imagination goes wild. He had never gone out of his way to hurt a human. He had kept himself under control better than most of his kind, foreseeing the disaster that would come with hunting humans.

"Beg pardon?" he asked.

"You heard me." the manakete's voice was dripping with contempt, "You're the one who's been telling those Grimleal to go on with their sick experiments."

Grimleal, was that what those people were calling themselves? Grima was quite genuinely surprised, he hadn't expected them to have an organization. He had only heard a few whispers of human dark mages who were using his name. It hadn't irritated him enough for him to seek out the source of the rumors.

"I don't know anything about the Grimleal." Grima replied truthfully, "I have nothing to do with them."

"Liar! How dare you say such a thing when you've cost the lives of so many. Humans? I wouldn't have cared. But how could you extend such treachery towards your own kind?"

"I've told you already, I have nothing to do with the Grimleal." Grima repeated, though he was bracing himself to be attacked.

"And still you decieve. And to think that I doubted Naga at first."

"Naga?" Grima was stunned into silence. He hadn't seen the woman in years, what could she possibly thought he had done?

He didn't have much time to think as the mankete before him had transformed. Grima blasted through the stream of fire that came at him with a dark magic spell.

"You're drawing a commotion!" he yelled, "What on earth do you hope to accomplish?"

"Your death!"

Another storm of fire and Grima began to become alarmed at the sheer ferocity of his opponent. Normally, manakete would carefully ration their power to avoid their dragonstone from draining completely. Grima himself had avoided that all together by praticing magic despite the disapproval of his elders. But this manakete seemed to be throwing his full force behind each blow with no regard to saving energy.

He was intent on killing Grima, there was no longer any point to pleading his case.

He had no wish to draw more attention towards himself but Grima also had no patience left for toying around. In his transformed state, his power outclassed the other manakete several times over despite Grima being the younger of the two. It only took one blow at the right moment to silence him. Quickly reverting back to his manakete form, Grima took a few steps back.

What had they been saying about him? He had kept to himself for the longest time, he hadn't done anything to garner a threat.

And Naga...

I thought we were friends, Grima thought furiously.

Robin felt his muscles seize up. Not this again, he was over this, he had to be over this! He didn't want to hear it anymore. He didn't want to hear the words Fell Dragon ever again in his life.

He clenched his jaw, forcing back a scream. He should have become desensitized to scathing comments. His future self had seemed so apathetic, so impassive towards the world itself.

Grima watched solemnly as a crowd of humans were headed his way, several white banners in their midst. For the past decades he had been seeing more of those banners, they were branded with the Mark of Naga.

These days, he couldn't walk down the street without hearing someone uttering "Fell Dragon", whether they were aware of his presence or not. And now, somehow, the humans had found him.

He didn't need a guess to know who had told them.

"Naga, is this what you would do to achieve your so called peace?" he asked the air.

The humans were drawing closer, he could hear their angry voices, their condemnation of his name.

A dark god, that was apparantly what he was. A manifestation of all that is wrong with the world. A harbringer of death.

"You would sacrifice your friends without a whim? But I suppose we've broken the definition of friend by now, haven't we?"

Spears and swords glinted in the fire light, as if those things could hurt him. Naga hasn't been the only one who had been steadily growing stronger.

"Stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back into you."

With that, Grima transformed. He had used his magic to create a pseudo-image, one far more terrifying than anything in a human's nightmare. They had worked so hard on spreading their myths, it would be a disservice to not fulfill their wish.

They wanted a monster, and they now they have one.

Robin gasped for air. His hand closed around the cloth over his chest. Anger racked through him despite the fact that he lacked the strength to act on it. He felt horribly lightheaded, the room seemed to be spinning around him.

Morning, he just wanted the sun to rise. There was no guarantee that it would help him in any way but anything was better than the black fog hanging over him. It reminded him too much of his battle with the Fell Dragon. This time, his surroundings weren't trying to break him on the outside, but from within. And he couldn't fight something that he couldn't reach.

He had promised his future self that he would be at peace, that he would live on. Robin knew that accepting his old memories would include all the baggage that came with them, but he wasn't quite prepared for a glacier breaking over his head.

Thousands of years worth of reactions were swarming through him at once.

He wouldn't revert back to the state which his future self had embodied. He owed that to everyone, it was the least he could do. He could at least fight this battle on his own, couldn't he?

Despite his pleading for sunlight, he didn't notice when the sky began to lighten. It was some hours later when the stream of memories finally ended. It was so abrupt that Robin had not believed it for a while. When he finally convinced himself that it was alright to relax, his head fell sideways and banged against the wall. Too tired to acknowledge the hard surface against his skull, he was instantly out.

"Robin?" someone was shaking him, "Robin!"

Forgetting that he was safe within Yisstol's palace, Robin jumped violently to his feet. Doing so, he nearly knocked Lucina over.

"What?" his voice trembled, "Did something happen?"

"We're not being attacked, if that's what you mean." Lucina's smile quickly faded at the manic look in Robin's eyes, "Why were you on the floor?"

"Floor?" Robin backed up against the wall to steady himself, "Oh, I couldn't sleep."

"You look like you just fought your way through an army of Risen!" Lucina pointed to the scratches on his wrists.

Robin looked down, he must have accidentally scratched himself, "It's fine. It's over now." Even he had to admit that he didn't sound very convicing.

"If you're having trouble adjusting-"

"No, it's nothing."

Right, spending the night feel like your very soul was being ripped from your body was nothing. Robin could imagine how he looked, Disheveled and looking like he had just seen a ghost.

He shook his head a little, trying to rid himself of the sensation that the floor was tilting. He caught a glimpse of the sword Lucina was holding under her arm. It was Falchion. It shouldn't have been surprising, ridding oneself of a trusted weapon after the war was difficult, especially for someone like Lucina.

But this time as Robin stared at the weapon he could feel a few sparks of lightning magic leaping instinctively from his fingers. The only time his magic would activate on its own was during confrontations with an exceptionally dangerous enemy.

"Lucina." he said slowly, his eyes still fixed on Falchion, "Is there anyting that I'm needed for?"

"Father's busy so he sent me to ask you why you didn't show up for breakfast." Lucina replied, perplexed at his behavior.

"I see." Robin slowly looked away from the sword. It was ridiculous for him to fear that weapon, Lucina wouldn't attack him. He wasn't afraid of Falchion during his time as the Fell Dragon, so why was he so on edge now?

Turns out, it wasn't fear, it was a tapering remainder of anger that reminded him of Naga.

Of course, the sword was crafted from her mother's fang. But it was still just a sword, it was the wielder that mattered.

"Sorry about that." Robin said, his voice far clearer, "Tell Chrom that it wasn't anything important, I just had a rough night. And also remind him that if he wants to avoid being nagged, he'd better get started on his paperwork. We need to head to Plegia soon, he can take his anger out on the negotiators."

When Lucina left, Robin let his shoulders sag. He needed to resolve his issues with Naga, he would never get a day of peace if he didn't. Whether he ended up killing her, screaming at her, or whatever else struck him at the moment. No, he couldn't kill her. Robin nearly laughed, their army owed part of their victory to Naga, and by default, so did he.

Drawing a deep breath, he did his best to rebuild his composure. He owed it to Chrom to stay in control of himself. The future of despair had occured because of the memories that were reappearing with in him. As his future self had put it, memories were sacred. They still existed despite their product being averted.

Robin would just have to accept them with open arms and set them aside. He had to keep looking forward, looking towards a different future.