Originally posted: 5/2/2015
Ruined Village Jail
Robin
The only light in the prison was a single lamp hanging by the door that illuminated her as she walked in. The second she did every eye was on her.
Robin forced herself not to shrink from their gazes. She stood confidently and looked back with a steely gaze. Least, she hoped that's what it looked like. That front became harder to hold when she looked over them; eleven men, including their leader, all packed into the only cell in town. They smelled horrible, all packed together, and Robin had to resist the urge to cover her nose. Some of the men were sleeping but the rest looked straight at her; many of their looks were hard to read. Many of them were stoic, not giving a hint to what malicious thoughts lied beneath. Others looked at her with a certain...hunger, and she recalled the states in which they found many of the female villagers. Fewer still looked at her with complete hatred; like she had done something wrong. The most hateful of which was their leader.
"Come to take more limbs?" he said, holding up his handless arm. Funny, how he can recognize me when my own guardsman can't
She looked at him straight in the eye, "No." She had been enraged when she gave him that wound. Not thinking. If she had, she probably wouldn't have done it; or maybe she would have aimed higher. Either way, she didn't regret doing it, and she swore to herself that she wouldn't regret killing him. After all he's done, he needs to pay. I won't regret...
He snorted, "Then do whatever ya came to do and get tha ell out!" He sat back against a wall and continued glaring at her.
Robin couldn't help herself, "You think you're the one who's been wronged?!" The anger broke through the stoic demeanor she had been trying to force, "You destroyed these people's lives!"
He snorted again, "Cut tha sappy crap. If ya came ta make me feel bad, ya might as well leave." Robin tossed a small amount of the lamp oil on him and he recoiled, "The ell?! What was that?"
Robin regained her composure, "Lamp oil," she said while nodding her head toward the lit lamp by the door.
The other Plegians looked at each other and she saw fear on some of their faces. "Ur bluffing!" the leader shouted, "You don't ave the guts!"
He was partly right. Under normal circumstances Robin wouldn't be here. Anyway you cut it, killing a group of unarmed men was murder, mass murder, a crime against all mankind. She looked again at the group. She looked them in the eyes. "When you kill them, look them in the eyes." Lon'qu had told her, "Only cowards and beasts kill people without looking at them." She wasn't a coward, and she wasn't a beast. She was just doing what she had to. What she must.
Many of them looked afraid. They attempted to put on a brave front for their comrades, but she saw it in them. They didn't want to die. Her thoughts went back to the first man she killed. He had been afraid too.
Ever since that first night on the road she hadn't talked about her first kill. In truth, it may not have been her first at all. She couldn't remember anything before that horrible day. But she knew it wasn't right. She knew then that killing him was a waste of life.
It seemed to hit her right then what she was about to do. She knew they had to die, and she promised herself that no matter what she wouldn't regret what she was about to do. But right now, here in a dark cell with no chaos, no violence, no distractions, she began to really think clearly for the first time since she walked into this village. She was about to kill eleven people. Who are these people? She didn't know their names. It was no different than the first kill. She hadn't known his name; he could have been just following orders, maybe he had a family, friends, people he cared about. Maybe he was a savage who had no one and killed for pleasure. She didn't know then, and she didn't know now. The only difference was that then she was taking one life, now she added ten more to the number. Eleven lives. Eleven mothers who will mourn eleven sons. How many people will curse her for taking away their son, or father, or brother, or husband? Or maybe people will thank her for killing their tormentor. She had no way of knowing.
All she knew was what she had seen; these people needed to die. Once she had done enough looking, she began to slowly pour lamp oil around their cell. Trying to get it on people when she could, and when she couldn't she aimed for the wood. The entire structure would go down if it meant taking them with it.
Panic began to spread among the group. Some began pleading with her, or cursing her, or shouting for help to anyone outside who would listen. It made no difference. Tonight, I am Death. Nothing and no one can save you from my wrath.
"You won't do it!" the leader insisted, "You're too spineless! Ne'er in a million years would you kill me!"
She splashed threw a little more lamp oil on him and continued about her work. Once the bucket was almost empty, she tossed it between the bars. She looked around one last time and the men she meant to kill. Tonight, I do what I must. For a more peaceful land. She picked up the lantern that lit up the room, and the leader finally let his fear shine through.
"Wait...if ya do this, ur just a killer like me! What're you leaving behind?!"
"A world without you."
Ruined Village
Chrom
Chrom paced back and forth in his tent as his frustration grew.
The deaths of the Plegians didn't concern him, as far as he was concerned their deaths were the bright side to all this, but the uncertainty of it all made any form of rest impossible. At first glance it looked like an accident; most of the prison was wooden, after all. But how did the jail burn up so fast? Why was the guard unconscious, and still unconscious after numerous attempts at trying to wake him up? Who dragged him away from the jail after it caught on fire? There were too many inconsistencies for this to be an accident. But if it isn't, then someone in their camp was guilty of murdering eleven people. If it was a Shepherd...
Chrom shook his head. He'd rather not consider the possibility.
Just then, Fredrick opened the flap to his tent. "My lord, he has awoken."
Chrom nodded, "Bring him in."
The guardsmen was just as he was the moment they found him asleep on the ground ten meters away from the burning prison. Neither the fire, the being dragged, nor their own attempts had woken him up which made Chrom suspect he had either been knocked out or drugged. Now he stood in front of Chrom with his head hanged and his hands fidgeting
"Tell me what happened," said Chrom, firm but not accusing
The guard tried his best to keep his head up, "Well, sir, I replaced the last guardsmen that evening, just as the sun was going down. I don't know how long I was there, probably hours, and the town seemed really unsettling at night. The prisoners were quiet for the most part. I think most of them were sleeping. Anyway, nothing really suspicious happened. I don't know how I fell asleep."
"Nobody asked you to let them in or talk to you?"
"Well...someone did talk to me, but she didn't ask to go in. She couldn't be involved."
"Who?"
"Oh, just a serving girl. Sweet girl, sir, couldn't have anything to do with this. She brought me coffee."
Chrom and Fredrick shared a glance, "What was her name?"
"Robena, sir, she said it was a Valmese name."
"There is no one in this camp named 'Robena,'"said Fredrick, "I'd wager there's no one in Valm named that either."
"B-but she said..." the guard looked like he'd just been slapped. Chrom had to feel bad for him.
"What did she look like?"
"Well, she was really pretty, and nice. Really sweet, came to bring me coffee and we talked for a bit..."
"What did she look like?"
"Well, aside from the servant's outfit, she looked like kinda the bookwormish type. Long silver hair that covered some of her face, really deep blue eyes..."
Fredrick nodded to Chrom, "That's enough guardsmen, thank you."
"S-she isn't in any trouble, is she, sir?"
"We'll just have to see about that," Chrom muttered, "You're dismissed. Get some sleep."
The soldier walked out sullenly and Chrom looked at Fredrick, "Bring her in."
Ruined Village
Robin
"My lord needs to speak to you."
Robin froze when she saw Fredrick walk into the tent. She had been lying in bed for the past two hours, tossing and turning in her vain attempt to sleep with her loaded conscience. She had promised herself she wouldn't regret her actions. Don't make promises you can't keep.
And now Fredrick stood in the flap of her tent. He wasn't forceful, but the tone of his voice made it clear that this wasn't a request. How did they know? Was there a survivor? Did I leave something there? Did Miriel turn me in? The questions burned in her mind as she walked with Fredrick to Chrom's tent.
Chrom looked up from his own thoughts when the entered the room. She searched for some hint as to what he was feeling but his face was unreadable. "Thank you, Fredrick," he said solemnly, "Could I please speak to 'Robena' alone?" The guardsmen...
Fredrick saluted and left the tent. Alone with Chrom, Robin felt like she was on trial. He sighed, "So, let's start from after the meeting. Where did you go from there?"
"I needed to be alone, so I went to the lake we passed by," said Robin, having thought out her story during the walk between her tent and his, "After I spent enough time thinking about it, I decided I would kill the Plegians before you could let them go free. I stole some sleeping draught from Miriel's cabinet, she wasn't supposed to find out it was missing until tomorrow morning when it was too late, and picked up a bucket of lamp oil from the requisitions officer. Disguised as a servant, I took coffee drugged with sleeping draught to the guard and let it knock him out. Then I went into the jail, doused the Plegians and the woodwork in lamp oil, and set it on fire. And yes, I acted alone."
"And why wasn't the guard where he was when you drugged him?"
The part that I thought would get me caught. "I realized after I'd set the fire that the guard was in danger of burning himself, so I dragged him away from it. I made sure he was at a safe distance before I ran," she shuddered to think she had put his life in danger at all, "I didn't want any innocents to get hurt."
"That's something, at least," Chrom sighed, "You do realize that if anyone found out, you would have been tried for mass murder."
"I know."
"Was it worth it? Did killing them bring anyone back? Did it make you feel better?"
"No. But it's better than the alternative," she wouldn't back down. Not this time. "I'm sorry, Chrom, I never intended to fight you. But I couldn't stand by and let them get away with everything."
"Robin, do you really think I would have let that happen?" That surprised her
"But you said-"
"When we were finished with everything in town, we still had eight hours of daylight left. So why would I have us set up camp?"
Robin began to realize what he was saying, "You were stalling."
He nodded, "We both know war with Plegia is coming, and soon. I would stop it if I could but everyone knows it's an inevitability. Once we got back, it would have been easy to find reasons to delay the prisoner transfer until then, and we'd try them as war criminals. Or we would have, if they weren't all dead!"
Robin shook her head in disbelief, "But...why didn't you tell me that?!"
"Because I didn't think you would kill them all! I thought you were better than murdering eleven men!"
"After what they did, of course I killed them! I wasn't going to sit back and hope everything turned out for the best! Something had to be done about it!"
"That doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want! You can't ignore laws just because you don't agree with them, that's not how the world works!"
"The world is rotten!" she screamed at him, "You keep talking about people's virtues, about 'good places' and 'kind people' but there's none of that! It's just a bunch of people killing each other!"
Robin wanted to be anywhere but there. Away from Chrom and his idealistic pegasus crap. Away from the village and its ghosts. Anywhere but there.
"...We're going back to Ylisstol," Chrom's voice lost all judgement and anger it previously held, "When we do...you're staying there."