Author's notes: I did this mostly in one day. Why the heck is it so long? Urgh. I sort of ramble a bit in it.

My muse decided to visit for a day, though I had to ask for an excuse for one thing to happen. Thankfully, G2G was willing to provide. So if the stress doesn't kill me, I might– MIGHT– resume a normal update schedule. Sort of an anniversary of when I started writing fic.

Also an anniversary of something much more special to me, but I ain't saying what. I missed the day by two days... Ah well. Enjoy this chapter, though. I used a little bit as a vent because cheering up people who are depressed is hard and I have to do it almost every day. Small wonder I've got all this acne.

Enjoy!

Edit (September 26, 2014): Lightly edited some stuff since I redid 36.

This feels like, I dunno, some time a year or so ago. Maybe two or three. Because I've slept in, I'm scrambling to grab my shenai– (bamboo practice sword) and all my training gear, and I know I have like five minutes to get in the car and get.

Well, minus the I'm-driving-myself part, this is pretty much what a Saturday two years ago was like. Go and train, come back with bruises, having learned stuff. Whether my muscles or my mind learned doesn't matter, it's still good.

Mission statement: The goal of the Twilight Knights is the study, reenactment, and recreation of European sixteenth-century style martial arts.

I haven't let that escape my head since I fudged testing a couple years back, but I was a neophyte and I hadn't studied. Funny thing was, I remembered it even when I didn't have the manual, as I'd been dropped for half a year. What? I needed to figure life out. I wasn't adjusted to college yet.

Thankfully, I had last semester– or the latter half of it– to adjust to the whole dual-life shit. This semester should be workable. I can even plan my schedule such that I won't have class just before I fall asleep.

It's amazing, I'm thinking straight even though my head doesn't feel too great. I swear, I only had Storm's sasp! Oh gods, that sarsaparilla... Mm.

Woop, we're here.

Wait, I didn't say I'd left. Woops! Ah well, it works. I just gotta grab my shit and join up with everyone else.

Hey, JP! Oh, he's the dude who trained me one-on-one when I first tried out, we're pretty good friends. Pretty sure he has something of a crush on me, but I'm taken now. Hah.

"You okay, Armordillo?"

Uh. That's my call sign. I... I guess I'm used to it? I dunno. It's been that was since... A long time. I used to curl into a little ball if I fell backwards, it'd break my roll. I also have a thing for scrunching up into a half-ball... Which really isn't good.

But how'd he notice that I'm not up to snuff? Eh, it's probably written on my face somewhere.

I stretch. "Uh, some friends of mine had a party last night, attending was practically mandatory, and it, well, was a mess. A fun mess, though." I plop my fencing mask on the ground with my water bottle and training spear. (Confession time: I'm not at the level to switch weapons, I just bring the spear as a reminder of what I'm working towards. But I'm good with spears because we've tried them a few times.) Actually, I could use some water. Glug glug!

"Ouch. Hopefully no alcohol was involved?"

"Nah." I shake my head and look at JP. He's almost always got this silly grin on his face, sort of a hard to break cheerfulness. (Naturally, he's a bit of a taskmaster. I swear my legs still hurt from the way he trained me.) "I'm twenty, not drinking age yet. Guess that changes in March." I'll just not mention the fact that Chrom's younger than me and got wasted. Different society! Beer isn't that potent in Ylisse, seeing as people drink it to survive. At least, so I think. In medieval Europe, I know that the water wasn't safe to drink, but beer and other alcoholic beverages are, seeing as they're distilled in the making process.

I'm really rambly today.

"And then," JP snaps me back to reality with his usual horrible-person humor (I swear to Naga that's how most of the Twilight Knights describe themselves, awful people humor-wise but gods they're funny), "you'll be able to get wasted every night! Except Friday nights because, you know, we have training."

Also, I highly doubt my liver will be able to handle that.

I roll my neck as a stretch. "Yep. Unfortunately," I frown, "I'm tired as heck and might not be up to my usual self." I really ought to tell the director this, not the sergeant. Eh. Works.

"Well," JP shuffles his kite shield away, "did you have fun?"

You know, maybe I can mention Chrom. "Umm... No, some friends basically took it as an excuse to be idiots." Vaike, while you deserved a punch, you didn't deserve a punch from Chrom. Gods... That was a mess.

My head still hurts. I'm never trusting Storm to hand me drinks again. No beer, ever.

JP chuckles, then lifts up his shenai and shield. "Well, they probably learned their lessons really fast."

Please don't remind me. Chrom in that state... He started stirring and saying stuff while I was hauling him back– I'm still amazed I was able to carry him and keep my spine straight with him on my shoulders; I remember when I couldn't carry a desk– he was still sobbing over Emmeryn... Not that I blame him. He... I need to stop. He almost sounded like me three years ago, in terms of tone.

Eugh.

"I made sure they all got home safe, though." My back still hurts. The muscles, not the spine. The muscles. I just overexerted them, I'm out of shape, no need to worry. "But good– good god..." I hesitated because I nearly said 'gods', seriously, what the hell, Ylisse– "the stench. And I thought I had a shitty nose–"

"Fall in!"

Shit, fall in called, grab shenai, scramble into the line– single file because we have like, less than twenty people– stand at attention, okay good. Ought to be workable.

Our lieutenant moves to the middle, I shuffle to the left– I'm always towards the left flank, and usually two of our bigger dudes are next to me. It's hilarious, this teensy-weensy lady smushed between two tall, stocky dudes. I still have the advantage, I swear. I'm good at leg shots.

The director begins to ramble about the agenda, and I pay attention carefully. No more narrating, gotta pay attention.

Someone says something about a taser sword. LEVIN SWORD, FUCKERS–...

Pay attention.

Owwww.

Uggghhhhh.

There's like

a hangover or something

it hurts. Like, oh gooooooooods. Throbbing in my head... I'm going to kill Storm. I didn't realize I drank enough of the beer he kept offering me to get like this, but then again, I'm lightweight as fuck. And Chrom... Oh shit, I gotta deal with him hungover. Not fun.

Eh, nothing like comforting my fiancé to start off the day.

Blegh. ... Footsteps? Ouch! They're... pounding in my ears... "Frederick?"

No, it's a high pitch that answers. "You didn't get that drunk, did you?" That's Lissa. Lissa or a squeaky mouse that speaks English. Ouch. It's like a drill in one ear, and another drill in the other ear.

"Oh. This is where I am." I open my eyes to a... umbral brown ceiling, and I think that's a white mouse in the rafters. Can I keep him? "No, no..." I sit up. "I swear I'm okay." If I'm not, I'm fucked. "It's just my dreams and reality get confused when I'm sleeping."

Story. Of. My. Life.

That mouse looks really cute.

"Oh, good." Lissa sits; I heard a chair creak. Ouch, looks like a rickety old thing. This room– where are we, the barracks? Sit, Shanz, upsy. "Chrom's, well... Robin's complaining because he's basically out of commission."

Robin's complaining? She's not even going to marry him. She sank my fucking OTP! ... Oh gods. Did I just think that? Back to reality. "She'll have to deal." My fiancé, not hers, she should stop bitching. "I'm too sleepy to do shit," I groan. "How do I think again?"

Seriously, I need to know how.

Lissa pulls her lips sideways. "Wow. You weren't even doing much last night."

... How– Okay, unrelated, or maybe highly related. Her pigtails are a mess. Like, not that big of a mess. The sort of mess where it seems she slept with them in and didn't comb them out, but they're still really neat. How? Looks like she didn't toss and turn like I used to. You know, before the dreamer shit happened.

"I," I emphasize that, "was up until gods-know-when hauling Chrom to his bed. That tired me out." That does not excuse the drill-plus-ears thing. Maybe Cordelia can sort Storm out properly.

Lissa stands and picks up her staff. "Well, if you want to see him," she taps me with it, experimentally, "he's in his room." She nods at me, as though affirming that I'm too okay to need healing. Shit. Well, at least today's going to be a calm day. Looks like she's gonna leave, so blurgh.

I clamber out of bed and dress myself. We're both women, so we don't mind being in the same room. "Wow. You look like Olivia."

I belt my pants; I was about to ask how she knew, but Olivia's outfit is, erm, a little... revealing. "High praise, given her figure. Although, I guess I need more muscle on me to be like that." Dancers are fit as hell; that's why Olivia makes a broken swordmaster. Maybe I should take lessons from her.

Lissa tilts her head and looks closer– wait, the fuck? Is she interested? What? "Fat's useful, too! Have you ever fought with Nin? She shrugs off so many hits because she's well-armored."

As I remember from kung fu and knife fighting, people with more weight are bigger pains in the ass to fight. You can punch someone in the gut, and it'll hurt a fit guy more that a fat guy because fat's a much better cushion than muscle.

I guess Nin is well-adapted to here in that way. Cool.

"I haven't," I answer, "but I do remember hearing that muscle's a poor cushion. Maybe she should skive off Frederick's lessons." Wait, she already does. Smart woman.

Lissa grins. "I do that, too. And look!" She flashes a ring. "I'm his bride-to-be, and he hasn't noticed. What the heck?" Aww, no, Lissa. Don't frown. You're too cute for that.

I hug her. "Count it as a blessing, you don't have to join him in hell. On the other hand, you get to figure out something that's fun for both you and he." Now, there's this one RP blog on Tumblr, guy who runs it is a genius. He's the most accurate Frederick I've ever seen written. His headcanon is that games are boring and tedious to Frederick, but work is fun. The opposite of Lissa and myself. So, I guess with those two, Frederick will have to learn to make work out of games, and Lissa games out of work.

I'm suddenly glad he and I didn't work out. Wait, I'm already glad, because otherwise my crush on Chrom would never have come to fruition.

Anyways, coat on, satchel, knife, everything. Even my tech in my pockets. "Where's Chrom's room?"

She nods her head up to point with her chin. "Upstairs. It's really hard to miss."

"If you say so." I exit the room, but leave the door open; she exits after me and closes it. I find the nearest staircase and set about exploring.

Well, two things on my mind: Lissa might be bisexual, as she seemed weirdly interested in my figure; and I really love the way she explain the location of Chrom's room. The former aside because it doesn't matter, I'm serious. She told me the general direction while leaving me room to putter around and explore. When it comes to a college campus or in this case, a palace, I love having room for exploration. The trick is to not get sidetracked. But thankfully, Chrom's such an important force in my life that I would have serious issues forgetting about him.

I wish I could slide up banisters, but that would take away the sweet training that is going up three steps at a time. (I graduated from two steps about eight months back. Was... February? I don't know, this year's wonky.) I should ask Lissa to teach me the sacred art of banister-sliding. Now, where's Chrom's room? The doors I'm passing by seem too bland, so they're not it. The way Lissa phrased it, it seems it stands out somehow. Hmm... Where...

Well, it is hard to miss. It's all scratched up– at least, the doorframe and the wall surrounding it. The door itself is much more clean, but not entirely unscathed. Maybe it was recently replaced, I dunno. There's a maid standing by it, or so I'd say, except she has a little bit of armor on her and a knife. A guard.

"What the..." I'm trying to find a word to describe the mess here. Does Chrom regularly make his door a training post?

"Oh, 'Ello, there." The guard lady speak with a... medieval peasant British accent. (Not queen's british. This feels more like a southern American accent, but with more consonants.) "Are you 'Is 'Ighness's tactician?"

What?

"No, I'm his fiancé. Why's the wall screwed up?" It's been very well cleaned, but you can't get the scratches off the rocks without weakening the wall.

The maid takes a step back in surprise. "Fiancé? The prince is engaged?"

"Shit." I raise my voice, hoping Chrom can hear me– there's a guard here, there's no way he's not there– "Were we supposed to keep that secret?"

"YES," comes the annoyed voice. Like, Frederick's flat 'yes' voice clip, except Chrom's voice.

Either way, palm meets face. Palmface, not facepalm. "We've belted it all over the place since you proposed!" Oh, gods, did we. "It was dead obvious! Why didn't you tell me?"

Seriously, I feel like an idiot. I don't pick up cues like that well, except between– ... Okay, I'm normally good at picking these things up with Chrom, but this was... not obvious. At all.

There is an audible groan from behind the door. "Not so loud..." Thud. I think that was Chrom that fell over, it's not a straightforward thud, it was sort of thu-thu-thud.

The maid turns to a crack in the door and speaks. "I take it, Your Grace, this woman tells the truth?"

Another groan, then Chrom seems to go for the crispest language he can manage: "If she is a redhead with freckles on her nose, yes."

That was pretty good, actually. The woman turns to me, looks me over. "Well... red hair, freckles... I take it you'd like to be let in, then?"

I nod at her. "Yeah. Need to see if Idiot's okay." Probably isn't so smart of me to call the prince an idiot, but he's my fiancé.

"Don't call me an idiot," he groans noncommittally. Either way, the lady opens the door, I walk in and quietly close it behi–

Oh my god.

And I thought helping people stave off suicide was bad. The walls here are nicked and scratched, and in a few cases there are missing bricks. One of those holes is filled in with ceramic rubble, which brings me to the floor and desk. They're both littered with shards of stuff, because it looks like Chrom went apeshit on his own room. There's even several scraps of wood from his bed, and goose feathers from his mattress have delicately set themselves in various places.

Chrom is on his side on the floor, a part that doesn't have broken glass, stone, wood, or clay on it. He's got one bandaged arm– that includes his hand– and the other arm's reaching for a flask of some kind. I've never seen a bigger mess of his hair, and his eyes are barely half-open.

I'm sort of robbed of words.

"Hey," he weakly groans. Then, he grunts as he rights himself, or tries to; I step in and help him tumble back into bed. "Ohh... I'm never drinking again."

Amen to that, love. "What the gods happened?" I whisper. He's hungover, I don't think he likes loud noises. Particularly my high voice. Thus, a low-pitched whisper. He doesn't respond, he only tightens into a small ball and trembles. I let out my first thought: "Oh dear."

I'm putting a blanket around him when I see his hair move a little, hinting at jaw movement. "What was I thinking?" comes the croak.

Having been in similar situations, the answer is automatic. "'Escape your situation because it's made of suck.'"

"I suppose," he sighs. "Oh, Emm..." I know, love. I know. I curl around him and nuzzle his neck. "I drank to celebrate our victory... A victory she made happen when it cost her life..." I rub his back. "I... did so many things... I spat on her sacrifice..." What? Unless... He's still on about killing Mustafa's soldiers. "She wanted to end the war and stop the killing... I just continued killing."

I lay down pillows like bricks around him, though I don't have any cement to go between them. Not enough loose feathers floating around. Seriously, though, there are still a lot; Chrom must have destroyed at least one pillow.

Poor thing... Yeah, I pity the pillow.

I don't really know what to tell him. My general tactic towards "I hate what I did" is to tell him it wasn't so bad, but in this case... Let's not get into that. It's not like he can take back what he did, all he can do is put it behind him and move forward. But, I might say this in terms one's head might understand, getting it across to the heart is...

...

Well, twenty years and I'm still not sure what taught me diligence. It took almost nineteen for it to sink it. Maybe it was just fucking up, forgiving myself, and setting forth with the attitude to put aside the fun and regard the work as fun. In other words, I took the Frederick approach.

Actually, that's a damn good approach to life: Do what you love and love what you do.

I'm sitting here, wrapped around Chrom like tissue paper, and I don't quite know how to solve his issue. Probably because it isn't my issue to solve...

I want to help, I truly do, but if I let myself become a crutch for him, that's setting us both up for later failure. He can do this, I know he can. He's fated to overcome this, and I'd know that even without the damn game.

It's really hard to impress just how difficult it is to get there. It's the struggle of a lifetime. It took my father yelling at me and angering me into a 'fuck fun, I can't do fun right now. Must channel anger' mood. So... for Chrom... What do I do? I can't just snap at him like my father does to me, but... there's a phrase my therapist has used that rings bells– killing someone with kindness.

This is a load of bologna. I don't even like that shit.

It takes action, not words. Words are useless. You have to do things before anything can get better. Words are only comfort in places where actions fail– when I suffer a panic attack, doing stuff only prolongs it: It's my mother's comfort that really solves the issue.

Chrom... I suppose this is what I get for loving you. All your flaws and weaknesses. And... For you, I am entirely willing to accept them.

Knowing that my words can do nothing but distract him at a time when he needs to confront himself, I say nothing, and continue rubbing his back gently.

"Shanzy," he gasps after a long while of sobbing, "I don't blame you if you leave me for the way I am..."

Oh gods, he's pulling me into this. Sigh. Pat pat. What do I say... "I'd never leave you. If you fall down, I'll lower the rope so you can pull yourself back up."

I suppose politics is little different from the same psychiatric bullshit I deal with every day. Seriously, my friends come to me with problems... I've even had a few on the verge of suicide. It's... I won't pretend that it hasn't made me all the stronger for it, but it weakened me at a bad time.

"But I'm a killer." Sobbing. "And you... I treated you like a possession... like a trinket I'd gotten. And you're not. You're... part of me. Or at least... I want you to be– Augh," he slaps himself; I grab his hand in a firm 'no' gesture: "I want to make you happy, and if you want to, you can make me happy. And I was horrible to you..."

All this has sat in him since we left Plegia? Sighhhhhh.

"I... can be just as bad sometimes," I admit slowly. "It's in a similar vein when I absent-mindedly rambled about which of the Shepherds I'd marry, assuming the entire way that there wouldn't be a 'no' involved. There's also a lot of creepier stuff..."

I... I write and draw some things. I'm comfortable with it, yes, but admitting this to Chrom in a culture where such things are vulgar and frowned upon isn't that easy.

Chrom looks at me quizzically, and I groan. I know his question, so I may as well answer it. "... Sometimes I write, um... Stuff that some people would rather not see. And I don't mean torture."

I know I should find the flat stare of disbelief Chrom's showing me to be frightening, but frankly, knowing him, he'll probably just accept that we were both behaving like idiots and forgive me. "Really?"

Oh no why does he want to know more.

"I... God damn it. This isn't easy to say, given this realm's society..."

He tilts his head; a few strands of his hair block his eyes for just a moment. "Well?"

Somebody kill me. "I write smut."

He flushes and buries his head in the pillow. Believe me, men: Women think about that stuff just as much as you, if not more. I mean... I can't wait to see how b–

Stop right there, that's incredibly inappropriate.

"Anyways!" We desperately need a change of subject, so here we go. "How's your hangover treating you?"

His response is a wordless groan. Excellent, subject changed. I reach over to his bedstand and pluck up a flask he'd reached for before. "I take it this stuff's supposed to help."

He lifts his he– oh my, what a red face– and reaches for the flask. "Yes." I hand it to him, prompting a quick drought.

...

Smile. I have an idea.

"I have a better fix."

Chrom puts the flask down and seals it again. "What is it?" The way his eyebrows are raised, he's definitely hopeful. Well, it should definitely work.

To answer his question, I close the distance and kiss his cheek, leaving a little red spot from the suction. "This."

The rest of his face flushes red to join that spot, and he seems to wonder what I'm thinking. I can tell he's kneading a bit of pillow in his hands, quite near his... Yeah let's not go there. "Sh... Shanzy?"

Something hits me. "That was our first kiss, huh."

Trembling, Chrom nods– small and quick. "Well, let's make the second even better." And to preempt a question, I shut him up with my lips.

He lets out a low moan of what I regard as relaxation, and becomes much less tense in my arms. Yes! That's how you do it. I pull away and give him a soft smile. "Howzat?"

"I..." He plainly doesn't know what to say. "Shanz..." He's groping for words in the dark. "Th-that..."

"Oh noooo," I exaggerate playfully. "Did I take your breath away?"

Chrom gets the idea to play along, so he says nothing but holds the same face. "Maybe I can give it back." Hello, kiss number three!

Yeah I'll just not bother to describe it beyond "oh gods yes that felt nice." Actually, 'nice' is the best word. Innocent, I can't see someone like me using it in a dirty context. So yeah, nice.

It's really quiet, or it would be if we couldn't hear the heartbeats of the other individual. Mm...

WHAM!

Chrom slams himself backwards into pillows, I pick him back up to hold him and gently soothe his face with some marshmallow hell, then glare at the door. Whoever it is– Frederick– is going to receive the full brunt of my wrath.

He looks weird with an eyepatch. No, seriously, he now has a brown leather eyepatch.

"Milo–" And then he sees what we were doing. He also sees a snarl on my face, not entirely intentional, but I am aware of it.

Chrom removes his face from my chest and rubs his ears. "Yes, Frederick?"

"I..." He's really caught off guard. Wonderful. (not sarcasm.) "I suppose it isn't too important... but... ahem, several villages along the Plegian border have been razed and the survivors are now rioting. Is it not your responsibility to calm such events as these?!"

Gods damn it, it took only one sentence for our master of deadpan to recover. Chrom moans in pain and buries his head under goose feather pillows, I roll my neck and sit up. "I'll do it, I'm not hungover." I get the feeling that if someone whistled, though, I would be dead in a minute. "Besides, I make an excellent diplomat in a pinch. Oh, yeah, not to forget the fact that I can get there really quickly." I have an awesome mount.

Frederick begins to protest. "Milady–" Yeah no.

"I'd haul Sleepy here with me but he's in no state to be atop a pegasus, so I guess this thingy will have to suffice as proof of who I am." I hold up my hand and wave that signet ring Chrom handed me back in Plegia. It's very nice.

Frederick steps forward, examines it, then steps back, shocked. "I... I had thought your words to be but bluster, but–"

Okay, not in the mood. "Yeah, we're a thing. Excuse me, I gotta go get ready." I kiss Chrom's cheek, then stand to get stuff done. "Be back soon, love."

I briskly skirt Frederick and march out the door while Chrom's voice floats after me in some sort of a dreamy daze. "Farewell, my love..."

Okay. Where the shit's my stuff? "Eldrad, where the shit's my stuff?"

He jumps, surprised to see me– he was writing some stuff on a parchment. "Convoy? Uh, Anna's guarding it. It's right over..." He takes me through a corridor and into the armory. "Yeah. We shifted this stuff this morning."

That must have been fun, Mister Celebrate-With-Southern-Comfort. "Thanks." I grab a Bolting an Arcthunder, and stuff those into my coat, then look to the spears. Hmm... Better grab one and keep it holstered. So I pick up the same silver thing I used on that stormy day we last fought.

Man, it's been a bit. It feels like forever.

"So what the fuck are you doing?" Eldrad asks.

"Gonna take care of some shit." Got my knife? Good. Tomes, spear– Ah, elixir. Never leave without that. Into the pockets.

"The border shit I heard Frederick screaming about?" I exit the armory and stride for my room.

"Yep."

"Right." We arrive at my door, I enter but leave it open. "What's your plan? Because if they ask you to send money, we can't. We're broke." Eldrad for the love of Naga, stop telling me what to do. "Unless we borrow more from Ferox... Or, I guess, beg the future in-laws again, although that's not a good first impression."

Wh– "Future in-law– Oh." Eldrad's in-laws. My family's broke and can't help, so I thought he was referring to Chrom's future in-laws, who he's never gonna get to meet. "Right. Anyways, I was going to try diplomacy." Works pretty fuckin' well in my experience. Then again, the experience I speak of is role-playing with Shio.

"Diplomacy doesn't un-salt farms." I consider offloading my electronics– I don't have my 3DS, so it isn't like I have that to protect. On the other hand, I leaving my iThings at home when I go out, so those stay in the pockets.

I look at Eldrad. "You have a better idea? I don't think Chrom will be so happy with the idea of sending an army to keep these guys down." Also, we don't have any soldiers to spare. "Besides, I have a hell of a persuasive tongue." Just imagine I'm... that one OC.

He considers it, I return to my stuff. ... Food. Riding shit. Okay. Time to relocate again. I shut the door as we leave and head for the kitchens, Eldrad silently thinking up until I find the cooks. "Honestly? Bring Donnel. He's familiar with that kind of blight with all the bandit stuff, and he might be able to give you some advice if you need to bullshit some kind of recovery plan in front of them so we don't end up trying to do something impossible."

"Some salted beef, a head of lettuce, and a loaf of bread, please. That I can do. Although, not too sure he'll be happy… But I don't think he'll hold a grudge for me being such a bitch back in that battle we tried to save Emm. Eh well, we can work well together."

That day is not one I fondly remember. It has everything I hate in it: Bad shit happened, and I also embarrassed myself. Badly.

I take a cloth-wrapped bag of goodies from the chefs, and we leave. "You're actually taking my advice?"

He sounds so shocked. "Donnel's input beats my lack of research. Seriously, this just got sprung on me. Also, I doubt people will expect me to understand them, as the prince's fiancée they'll probably assume I'm some fucking noblewoman."

I'm on autopilot, I swear. What are words?

"Excuse me, I need to go check if there's flying pigs or four ominous mounted figures outside." Well, we're about to go outside.

"Storm, Cordelia, Nin, and myself if you give me a moment." All of us but Cordelia have magic, too. Ha.

"YOU ARE NOT THE RIDERS OF THE APOCALYPSE!" Eldrad shouts, startling several servants. They stare, I keep walking, and he shushes himself, embarrassed. "For a start, all of you still have your heads. At least one of you needs to lose it."

I could make a joke about how I never had a head in the first place, but that got kicked out of my style long ago. "I was kidding. We can always grab Sumia's corpse."

What the fuck?

"Jaysus, lady." I can hear, see, smell, feel, and taste the shock. Yeah. I know.

"I know, I feel like it's Cards against Humanity. Shush. Go find Donnel for me, will you? Provided he isn't wandering with Olivia." Did I mention they're a thing? Yeah.

He stops in place, then catches up. "That's the ship we're going with? Seriously?" Pause. "... Then who's getting Nowi?"

He's not good at paying attention, is he? "Vaike already took Nowi." Provided her apparent amnesia hasn't changed things. Did she remember stuff yet? ... Seriously hoping it's temporary.

"Right," Eldrad snaps, "sorry for being pre-occupied with trying to make this country not broke..." He sighs. "The fiancee's not helping."

Him snapping doesn't make me want to slap him less. "I thought you were the shipping-chart dude. Guess Storm took your seat." Or he would have, if he'd arrived sooner. At any rate, both dudes are shippers.

"I stopped caring as much when Lucina/Robin got torpedoed harder than the Bismark."

Something about that analogy makes me laugh.

"Fine. Go get Donnel!" And stop following me!

"A, you're not my supervisor; B, he's in the stables, you'll meet him when you go to grab your demon horse."

You mean like I am now? Also, "Elincia isn't a––" and then I remember the riders/apocalypse joke. I genuinely thought he was insulting her.

"I hate flying," he groans.

That's totally irrelevant, he's totally irrelevant. "Sucks for you." I dash, having sighted the stables, and the very kid I need. "Donny! Need you for something!"

He steps away from a mule, jumping. "Whoa! Oh, ma'am. I thought yeh'd be with His Lordliness?"

I shake my head and beckon him as I go for Elincia's stable. "Nah, there's a mess on the border villages. They got razed, these are farmer folk." It's like note-taking form out loud. It works whenever I'm busy... like I am now while I'm putting a saddle on Elincia. "Need you for diplomacy."

He's puzzled, but after a bit, nods. "Okay, ma'am! Not sure what I can do, but I'll help." Right, in his supports, Donnel's a surprisingly good kid at what he's put to. Particularly with Maribelle.

"Cool." I adjust the saddle so two can fit. "You're riding with me. Need help?" I take Elincia out, then offer my hand to give him a leg up.

"No need, ma'am! I already got tons of experience back home." Dawww. He's smiling so proudly. A cute face really brings me up in stressful times like these.

Snort. ... Apparently Elincia begs to differ. I think I know what she takes issue with. "Elincia ain't a horse, she's a pegasus."

Donnel pauses... then nods. "Right. Sorry, Elincia! And Ma'am, how'd you do that? You sounded jus' like me!"

Well, yeah, my parents are southerners... so I would inherit a bit of the required accent... I suppose, then, as an actress, this is right up my alley. "Sounds useful." I hop into the saddle and grasp the reins. "Let's get, shall we?"

After a cheerful "yeah!" I dig my heels into Elincia's sides, prompting a takeoff... and my, it's great to lose myself in the sky again.

Kinda hard to realize that I'm gonna be diving straight into hostile areas, seeing as the exalt's my husband.

I'm so tiiiiired and streeesssed... Sister's being a bitch, I'm tired of trying to be nice to her, everyone I talk to is depressed or busy and I always feel obligated to help the former.

Fuck.

Anyways... bluh bluh. Exhausted. I write well when exhausted for some reason.

New theme of the chapter: Dealing with your mistakes is a pain in the ass, but it beats leaving them there to be a bigger pain.