"Bit early for the start of the rainy season," Orochi commented one morning, "don't you think?"
"I suppose," Kagero replied, tugging her hood down further over her eyes.
It had been raining all morning and showed no sign of slowing. The Key Dragons had paused in their march for the Hoshidan half of the retinue to pull out oilcloaks, but the rain didn't seem to faze the Nohrians in the slightest.
"At least this isn't snow," Laslow said to Peri as they trekked onward.
The cavalier shivered. "I'm not sure this armor would hold up in the snow, Lazzy." She looked down to her borrowed spear fighter's armor. It had come to feel almost normal, this Hoshidan armor. She still missed her steel chestplate and her comfy undershirt, but there was something to be said about the loose, freeing quality of the long, Hoshidan skirt and leggings.
"Likely not," Laslow agreed with a laugh.
The odd melancholy of the last week hadn't lifted, and seemed only to be growing thicker as the Key Dragons drew closer to the Bottomless Canyon. Xander hadn't yet formulated a plan as to how they would be getting across the border without attracting attention. For he, his siblings, and their retainers to be crossing the border would raise little suspicion. His father encouraged his wartime maneuvers, after all.
The issue was the Hoshidans.
Getting across the border with them in tow, without being pinned down or noticed, was not nearly so simple. Iago's eyes saw all—or so the sorcerer always said—and the last thing Xander needed was his father catching wind that he, Camilla, and Corrin had been seen in the company of Hoshidans who weren't imprisoned or double agents.
It had been an easy enough thing to forget, deep in Hoshidan territory. Iago had no reason to be looking for them, all the way out there, and so Xander could breathe a little easier. Even the mishap with Hans could be blamed on Ryoma and Raijinto—and the samurai had stated on more than one occasion that he would bear said blame gladly.
But this close to Nohr, Iago's eyes would be out and his spies would be close. Xander had to plan his next move very carefully, lest this whole mess be for naught. And what a fine mess it was, Xander couldn't help but think, rather fondly.
He shook himself to clear the thought. Now was now time to get sentimental.
He supposed they could leave the Hoshidans in the nearest border town, and the Nohrians could simply forge on ahead. In fact, the longer Xander thought on it, the more sensible that plan became. Though for some reason, it didn't sit well on his stomach—like his plan with Laslow's mother's costume chain, still coiled in his breast pocket like a viper.
"Milord?" interrupted a familiar voice. "Are you well?"
Xander snapped from his musings, and found his mark in Laslow and Peri. The man with no past was looking at him expectantly, at the ready for whatever his Lord's answer should be. The reforming cavalier bounced uneasily on the balls of her feet, unhappy to see her lord upset and unable to do anything about it.
This was how it should be, right? All was right with the world? The Crown Prince of Nohr had his trusted retainers by his side once more, and the sky was as gloomy as ever he'd seen in his home country. He should have been comforted by the notion—or at least put to ease—but Xander could only think of how bleak everything felt.
Did Nohr always feel this way? Or had a few weeks in Hoshido merely spoiled him?
"Yes, I'm fine," Xander repeated. "Merely tired."
"I get that," said Peri. "I'm tired, too. War is hard."
"Losing a war is harder," Laslow reminded her.
The banter was so familiar as to be banal. Xander itched to do something to break apart the monotony that was stretching out before them. He tried to brush it off as the march. Yes, it was the march that was interminable, certainly not the impending loss they were all feeling.
Father would be ashamed of me.
-)
That evening when the Key Dragons set up camp, the somber overtones only darkened further when they discovered they were out of ale. Beruka cursed her luck—so much as she cursed anything that wasn't actively trying to kill her—and waited patiently outside of Selena's tent, running a cursory whetstone over her axe.
Although she had waited through far longer stakeouts, Beruka found herself wishing that Selena would just hurry up and go to bed already. The assassin's body ached in ways it never had before, likely due to the… thing growing inside her. And the still-healing arrow wound in her side, but that was more standard.
"Beruka?" Selena's rough voice snapped Beruka's attention forward.
"There you are," Beruka said, as close to reproachfully as she could muster.
Selena looked flabbergasted. "Were you… waiting for me?"
"That would be the implication." Beruka rose to her feet, joints cracking as she did so.
"What for?"
Beruka cocked her head like a curious animal. "I had a question for you."
Selena blinked a few times. "A question?"
"Yes."
Selena looked like there were a few things she wanted to say, but settled for, "Well, what is it?"
What, indeed? Beruka had spent much of this evening trying to answer that very question. What was a plausible enough reason that the famously tight-lipped assassin would seek out her fellow retainer? Something to do with Lady Camilla, surely?
The matter was taken out of Beruka's hands entirely when Selena read her reticence as something else: "Is it about the baby?"
A more lively person might have been said to jump on the question, but Beruka was far too sedate for such things. Nevertheless, she was hardly about to throw away the perfect opportunity she'd just been handed. "Yes."
Selena held up one slim, pale finger, and then ducked her head into her and Peri's tent. She popped back out again a moment later, and gestured for Beruka to follow.
The inside of Selena and Peri's shared space was dark and cool, padded with blankets and the two women's bedrolls (set as far apart as the space allowed). Selena eased herself into her nest of blankets, and gestured for Beruka to sit on Peri's. At the questioning look she received, Selena added, "Peri won't be back for ages. She'll be with Laslow for most of the night."
Her face set into grim lines, Beruka lowered herself gingerly onto the Crown Prince's insane retainer's bedroll. It was surprisingly soft, and Beruka couldn't help but run her fingers over the quilted fabric.
"So what do you want to talk about?" Selena asked, more gently than Beruka would have assumed possible, from the sharp-tongued woman. "Labor? Delivery? The weird things your body is going to start doing?"
Beruka blanched at the sheer weight of what was coming, but refused to dwell on it at the present moment. "You sound as though you've been pregnant yourself, before."
Selena stilled, her hands coming to rest in her lap instead of playing with her pigtails. "I haven't, no," she said quietly, "thank Naga. But a good friend of mine has. Twice, actually. One time was even with twins." She smiled faintly at the memory of the two little Morgans, so inquisitive and playful, like their elder counterparts who plopped into the past a tad late in the game.
Beruka paled even further. "Did she… know, she was having twins?'
Too late, Selena realized her mistake. "Oh yeah, totally." She waved her hands abnout, as if she could clear out the Chrom-like foot-in-mouth she'd just pulled. "Apparently twins run in her family, so she really wasn't all that surprised."
"I see," said Beruka, a bit uneasily.
Selena could have slapped herself. Beruka didn't know her family, and now she'd gone and made the poor thing worry about having twins. Ugh, she was so useless. Didn't an assassin carrying a outlaw's baby have enough issues to deal with?
"This friend of yours," Beruka began quietly, "was she a warrior?"
Selena nodded fervently. "Best damn mage we'd ever seen. And if you gave her a Levin sword?" Selena drew a finger across her throat. "Not a man left standing."
"And how did she handle her pregnancy on top of that?"
"Is that what you're worried about?" Selena asked. Beruka nodded, at first slowly, then a bit more firmly. "Well, Robin fought with us for a time. Eventually her husband made her stay on the back lines and help run tactics and supplies and stuff like that." Selena's face soured as her thoughts turned to Chrom.
Beruka raised an eyebrow. "Did you not like her husband?"
Selena heaved a massive sigh. "There was nothing wrong with him. He was just…" Not my father, she wanted to say, but my mother was in love with him anyway.
Beruka fixed Selena in a steady gaze, and waited for the woman to become so uncomfortable she felt the urge to add something to her previous statement. It didn't take long.
"He was…" Selena stopped, and started again. "Well, his father was a respected knight of the kingdom. Lovely man, if a bit awkward. Half of the women in the kingdom were in love with him, including my mother." Selena drew in a deep breath, and said, even more quietly, "That man is not my father."
Beruka figured that she was supposed to emote something here, but the what was far beyond her. She settled for, "And yet?"
Selena sighed, and flopped backwards onto her pillow. "And yet, my mother married my father anyway." She stilled. "I don't think she loved him, Beruka."
The assassin was surprised that her fellow retainer would reveal so much to her, of all people. "Did you ever ask her?"
Selena shook her head. "My mother's not the kind of woman you can ask that of."
"I see," said Beruka. Maybe family was overrated, after all.
"That man is Odin's uncle, though. So I could never avoid him, and neither could my mother."
Understanding dawned on Beruka. Had Selena stopped run out on the obnoxious mage because of this… "You never mentioned a name."
Selena tensed. "Why do you need one?"
"Names are for people worth remembering," Beruka said, "and clearly, you remember him."
Selena sighed, defeated. "Chrom. His name was Chrom."
Just as Beruka opened her mouth to say something else, she became aware of footsteps outside the tent. "I think Peri is here."
Selena's brow furrowed. "That's strange. Normally she's a lot later than…" She cut herself off when, inexplicably, the round, motherly face of their liege appeared in the entrance gap.
"Oh," said Camilla, "lovely, you're both here."
As she folded herself into a sitting position in what little room was left in the tent (right in front of the entrance, coincidentally), Selena ventured, "Milady? Is something wrong?"
"Yes, actually," Camilla said. She fixed Beruka in a hard-eyed stare that would have made the assassin shiver, had she done such things. "Beruka, darling, when were you going to tell me that you were pregnant?"
-)
This is the part where, if I could, I would stick a gif of Mushu from Mulan rising up out of the snow shouting "I LIVE!"
As ever:
Guest #1: Xander meant Camilla had no patience for studying like magic requires, not that she can't do it.
Guest #2: Thank you :) Glad you're enjoying my work
TooLazyToLogIn: 1, lol, 2, good eye! He has not.