I've been really excited to write this since like chapter 12. This is one of my favorite songs on the OST. And how great that it worked out that I'm posting this on Tiki's birthday :)

Also you know the theory that the MU's are supposed to be reincarnations of one another? Well if you didn't, now you do.

You have power... like mine.

"You have power... like mine."

Tiki sat across from a worried tactician, a branded hand held gently between her fingers. Sunlight and a gentle breeze streamed through an open window, though the mood inside was not so calm as out.

"I know," replied Robin in a muted tone. She had sought out the manakete moments earlier, having found her sleeping in this small room for arms storage. Slowly, the tactician had woken her up, and it didn't take long before the question she'd been burning to ask for weeks began to rise from her throat: Just what had Tiki meant with 'power'? She'd given the divine dragon her hand, hoping she'd be able to read something from the contact like a fortune teller, but so far nothing had been said that Robin hadn't heard before.

"That's what you told me at the Mila Tree."

Tiki chuckled lightly, sleep still in her voice, keeping it low and soothing. "Ah. Forgive me," she excused her slip of the memory. "I was quite drowsy when we first spoke. I'm afraid I can't remember the moment too clearly."

Robin nodded in understanding. Naturally, the woman was tired, and she hated to pressure her with questions she may not remember the answers to. However, not asking and remaining ignorant to whatever might rest inside her was no option either.

"What did you mean when you said that? Can you still remember?"

At Tiki's silence, her eyes still trained hard on Robin's hand and her face unreadable, more desperation began to sink into the woman's words.

"If you can I'm begging you, Lady Tiki, please tell me." Robin leaned forward in her seat, her hand squeezing Tiki's a bit harder. "I've begun discovering and noticing a lot about myself recently, and perhaps it's just paranoia and fear driving me mad, but..."

Ever since discovering her true heritage, Robin had begun questioning everything. Her coat – which bore the same markings as both Tharja and Henry had across their sorcerer's capes, her six-eyed brand, her father's history as a hierarch of the Grimleal church, her odd 'look-alike' they'd seen when last they visited the Plegian capital... Even when she entered holy grounds, she felt none of the peace that the others seemed to, nor did she feel the shift in mood when Risen were near as the others described. What made her different from the others?

When she looked at such facts, she couldn't help but formulate her own answers to that question.

"I fear your words have a very dark ring of truth to them. I fear..." She continued sullenly, but her mind halted. She couldn't bring herself to allow such a fear to manifest in her head. She couldn't speak the words. Grima. "Please. I must know what you meant."

Tiki's soft fingers ran down Robin's right hand, resting at her fingertips. Slowly, she began in a voice like even she was having difficulty understanding, "I can feel..." She paused, choosing her words with extreme care. "Something beyond you."

Robin felt almost stung. How could Tiki think an explanation would be beyond her? Even if it would be, did she not deserve to hear it all the same?

"Please, try to explain," Robin pleaded, her voice shaking as all self-control flooded away and anxiousness took its place. "I'm sure I'll understand if you-"

"Not beyond your understanding. Beyond your being."

Robin's thoughts halted in their tracks. She sat up straighter, her brows pinched in surprise or confusion. Beyond her being?

A somber expression fell over Tiki's face, eyelids sinking lower and leaving her green eyes saddened.

"Human spirits are a difficult thing to explain," she began, pulling her hands back into her lap as Robin did the same. "Though I've lived long enough to come to understand them. Over the centuries, I've come to see that human lives flicker out like candles, and their spirits disappear with them. I've outlived dozens of those I loved and knew well."

Robin couldn't help but pity the manakete as she listened to her explanation. Her words sounded more akin to a lament. Though a life such as hers – each loved one falling through your fingers like sand, like grains in a never ending turning of an hourglass of time – would harden even the strongest people. Robin wondered in the back of her mind if Nowi, too, would someday become so somber.

"Your lives are finite. Your spirits never grow in quite the way those of a manakete or immortal being would." Robin began to feel quite small, but then the corners of Tiki's lips turned almost invisibly up. Her face softened. "But they become large in their own way."

My spirit is one single culmination of my many years on this earth, as was my mother's," Tiki explained. Robin could picture the wisdom both Tiki and Naga had accumulated across their seemingly-endless lives. Such a vast knowledge and understanding of the world, such wisdom was surely what helped build their very spirits. "But when I look at your daughter, hers is a collection of what she's inherited from her past ancestors."

Robin followed Tiki's gentle gaze out the small, open window. Outside, Lucina carried a crate full of some supplies or another alongside Laurent. He was struggling to keep his own load up, and she graciously took some weight away into her own arms with a soft smile.

"I can feel her parents in her." Tiki finally allowed a full smile onto her face, tinted with an emotion unable to be read. Robin smiled back, though her gaze remained on her child. To think that any part of her contributed to making the beautiful young woman she saw outside the window was enough to make her feel honored. Though a small fear came with it – what else had she passed onto her daughter? What power?

The unread emotion on Tiki's face slowly manifested as something akin to nostalgia, further twisting Robin's heart into a knot. The older woman's eyes were far away as she looked at Lucina, clearly longing for a time long gone.

"I can feel Marth." The statement was not spoken unhappily. Rather, Tiki seemed almost comforted being reminded of the man she'd loved most, even if they did nothing to ease the sadness on her face as she continued. "Human spirits are a collage of inheritances and legacies. And bonds to loved ones."

"And what about my spirit?" asked Robin, almost worried to steer the topic back to her and whatever lay within her.

"Yours... is different somehow. I can practically see the bonds you hold so dear, I can feel a soul and a heart of immense kindness and love. You remind me of a friend I once knew..." Tiki chuckled quietly, looking down at the wooden table between herself and Robin as more memories came back to her. "Kris too had an indisputably good heart. But underneath that - that which struck me about you - is something much larger."

Robin's stomach sank as her brown eyes widened. Something larger? What did she mean?

Tiki's answer surprised her, intriguing enough to slow her panicked thoughts: "I can feel a spirit more similar to my own."

Robin blinked once, confused. "You mean something... more immortal?"

"Yes," answered Tiki. She clarified, again choosing her words slowly and with care, "Alongside your humanity – your bonds and your love, there is something larger and less finite. A... presence that extends through more years than a hundred generations of humans need worry about suffering through."

A presence? A timeless one? Was it good or evil? What presence could this be? There were too many questions fogging Robin's brain at once. She couldn't make herself even begin to speak. Rather, she stared in hopeless shock at the manakete across from her.

Tiki quickly realized the hint of fear on the tactician's face and quickly made to calm her down. "Do not fret," she said. "You've lost your memory, have you not? I'm sure it's a tie to some holy being or another that you've forgotten in your amnesia. Perhaps you come from a family such as Chrom's."

Robin thought about the brand on Chrom's shoulder, in Lucina's eye – proof of their sacred covenant with Naga. The Brand was proof of Naga's presence. Was her brand of the same purpose? But if their brands were truly of the same art – proof of a holy presence... "Why could you not sense a presence in Chrom?"

"It's been so many centuries, too many forefathers between himself and the bond to Naga. He has her presence in him, but that power has not the strength that I sense in you."

Strength. Robin's blood curdled in disgust, her feet went cold. Her chest seemed too small for her heart, and it was shrinking, pushing down on her and robbing the breath from her lungs. Whatever this presence was, it was stronger even than Naga's in Chrom.

"Gods..." she whispered, placing a tense hand to her heart as breathing seemed to grow more difficult. Though when she realized just which hand she'd lifted, the one marked by whatever this 'presence' was, she lowered it back to her lap. She didn't want the source of her fears trying to calm her timid heart.

Tiki stretched an open palm across the table, beckoning for Robin's hand. With soothing certainty, she gripped Robin's palm as it was placed in her fingers, and she said, "You have nothing to fear, Robin. This power mustn't define you. Had I not said anything to you, you probably never would've known it was there, correct?"

Robin shot a glance at the mark on her hand. Had Tiki truly not said anything, she still would've suspected something of its meaning. But at least before the Mila Tree, she could tell herself it was merely a tattoo – some mark given to her by her father as part of a dark ritual. That wouldn't have been out of the ordinary, would it have been?

Not as out of the ordinary as it being tied to a greater power. That, Robin would've written off as a fanatic idea.

"No, I wouldn't have."

"Continue as you'd been," Tiki gently commanded. "I'm no goddess nor seer; do not let these ramblings of mine cause you worry. This doesn't have to change who you are."

The words sank in, but somehow Robin didn't believe she could ever feel the same again. There was still so much uncertainty: What was the presence in her? Whose? Was it dangerous? Would it bring harm to her loved ones?

But she nodded. She could deal with those worries later. She had gotten the answer she'd wanted from Tiki, and now she just needed to sort through the repercussions. She had to find a way to make peace with all she'd heard and all she now knew.

Tiki spoke up once more, her voice remaining soothing and wise, but falling on ears that were beyond truly listening. "You remind me of Marth, in your kindness and fairness. Your wisdom. Your unshakable devotion to your friends," she said with a small smile. She looked at Robin fondly, hoping to calm her spirits. "Don't forget these things, Robin. These define who you are before anything else does."

It took strength and effort for Robin to look into her heart at that moment. To look in and see the love she held for her friends and family, to see the devotion she felt to peace, and to take any of Lady Tiki's compliments as truth. It was difficult to look for such positive pieces of herself when she knew not what secrets could be resting beyond them. But they were constants, true pieces of who she had become since waking up without memory.

For now, those were who she was. Until she could learn more about what lay within her, those pieces of her heart were who she was.

"Thank you, Lady Tiki," she said gratefully. She didn't feel completely calm yet, but hearing the words of praise did help her get back on the right track.

Now all she needed was a moment or two alone with her thoughts. A moment to get back into normal routine and remember just how it was she'd lived before. She was certain that with a strategy board in front of her, life would return to feeling normal again, and she'd be able to continue as she had been. It was as Tiki said: This knowledge didn't have to change who she was.

And she repeated that to herself over and over until she could trick herself into believing it.

"I think I should be going." Robin smiled politely, standing up to excuse herself. "We've a big battle ahead, and I should be formulating our strategy. Thank you again for your wisdom."

"It's a pleasure to help," replied Tiki as Robin left for the door.

Before she left, the tactician paused with a hand on the door handle. Barely, she turned her head to the side, over her shoulder.

"Please... Could you keep this conversation between us?" she asked, her eyes on the floor as she tried to force a reassuring smile. "The last thing I want is rumors and uncertainty spreading through camp."

The weak smile wasn't enough to mask the worry from Tiki, but the dragon said nothing of it. "Of course," she replied without worry or pity, sparing Robin her pride.

"Thank you." A ghost of sadness slipped of Robin's tongue, but it was gone in an instant as she pulled the wooden door open. "Have a nice afternoon," she bade Tiki before slipping out and closing the door quickly behind her.

Tiki was left behind, the sounds of training and bustle in the camp now floating through the open window. She laced her fingers together, stretching her arms out tiredly and closing her eyes as she did so. An image of a man flashed through her mind, blue hair and kind eyes.

A sigh escaped her lips as she leaned her head back down on the table, lost in thought as she fell into another sleep.

I don't believe for a damn second that genius Robin wouldn't have started putting two and two together and figuring out she's tied to Grima. I was careful to avoid her BEING Grima in this chapter, though, cause really no one could've foreseen that curveball.

I hope my explanations of stuff were okay. I figure: Robin feels Grima's darkness all the time and therefore can't feel those shifts in mood; humans get a lot from ancestry, but gods and semi-immortal beings take more from their own long lives (like a collage making one image vs one big single painting).