21 – LOST & FOUND

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The Third Timeline

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I open my eyes and am blinded by the sunlight above. I pull myself up and touch my face, feeling tears cold on my skin.

I look over at Henry and see him collapsed beside me on the grass.

"No," I gasp and scramble over to him, feeling his neck for a pulse. He is alive, just unconscious.

I stare at him as I try to make sense of all the memories inundating my conscious mind. Years and years of them, too many to sort through. Many things make no sense to me and I don't know how to begin piecing them together. But one thing I remember with certainty.

"Henry," I say. "Henry, wake up. Come back."

He stirs.

"Henry, I found him. I remember. Wake up."

His eyes flutter open and he takes a long breath, wiping the blood from his face. "Did it work?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Well damn." He tries to sit up but falls back, his body shaking.

"Can I help you up?" I ask, reaching out to touch his arm. He nods and I pull him up so he is leaning against my shoulder.

Henry takes a long breath and says, "I can't believe it worked."

"Me either."

"What do you remember?" he asks.

"Nothing from this life, but I remembered things from a past life."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I've been seeing visions all along of a past version of myself. His life started out the same as mine but as time went on our futures diverged. I see his life all the time in my dreams. But this time, I saw everything and when he discovered the truth, I saw it through his eyes."

Henry rubs his forehead, looking anxious. "Alright, give me the story," he says.

"What do you know about Validar?" I ask.

"Dragon cult. Crazy motherfucker. Trying to convince people that Grima can be brought back to life."

"He needs a host body for the god to do that, but his own magic isn't strong enough. So he fathered a son and tried to train the magic in him. But it didn't work so he tried again. He didn't think the second child had the power either until they he was old enough to confront him and he saw the magic within him. That second child brought Grima back to life."

"Gods damn me, I knew there was a fifty percent chance this spell would turn your brain into scrambled egg. I guess the odds weren't in my favor," he says.

"Wait… fifty percent?" I say. I punch his arm and ask again, "Fifty percent? Those odds aren't in anyone's favor!"

"Oi! I told you you'd have to be stupid to go along with it," he answers.

"No thanks to you, my brain is fine, just overwhelmed with all this."

"You're babbling on about reviving dragons."

"I'm dead serious, Henry. I saw this happen. Validar used his child's magic to bring back Grima and then Grima tried to fucking destroy the world. The only way to stop Grima for good was for the child to kill him using the dragon's own power. But someone else struck the killing blow, meaning that although Grima's body would die, his magic, his evil would live on. The child couldn't live with that so he used the power of the Fire Emblem to reset his reality so he would have a second chance to save the world. And after that I woke up in Ylisse with no memory and a core full of dragon magic."

I see the understanding dawn in his eyes as he realizes what I am trying to tell him.

"Holy hell… You are his child, aren't you?" Henry says. "Dear gods, this is not what I expected."

"You've said all along I have dragon magic," I say.

"It's a term for dark fire magic. It's not literally… a dragon." Henry takes a deep breath and runs his hands through his hair, gripping at the roots. "Shit. Shit. Now we've got to kill Validar, don't we? That's not going to be easy."

"Henry, I think there is a more important revelation here."

"What?"

"We are both Validar's children. You and I, we are brother and sister."

Henry had looked stunned before but now one would think I'd shot a thunderbolt through his chest. He stares at me silently with eyes wide as the moon.

The full weight of the idea is sinking into me as well and I can't explain the emotions rising up powerfully in my spirit. I feel like I've found something incredibly important that I'd never known I lost. I glance at Henry and wonder what he is thinking.

"Are you certain?" he asks.

"I am," I say. "I'm… I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" he snaps. "Are you ashamed to share my blood? I know I'm a strange. Hell, I'm one messed up son of a bitch. It makes sense you would be-"

He is retreating behind his anger and hurt, his body growing stiff and his eyes withdrawn.

"Henry, look at me."

"What?"

"Look at me!"

He raises his eyes to meet mine.

"I can think of no one else I'd rather call my brother," I say. "I would understand if you are disappointed to finally find your family and have it be me. You don't exactly seem too fond of me. But as for me, I feel grateful beyond words. Ever since I lost my memory, I have felt so alone in this new world. I tried to tell myself I didn't need family, that I'd lost them all, but I was wrong. I found you and neither of us has to be on our own in all this anymore. I'm honored to be your family, no matter what darkness our pasts or our futures hold. Our father is a crazy bastard trying to destroy the world but right now, I don't give a fuck about him. I'm just happy."

Henry's shocked expression suddenly breaks as he laughs. "I have to teach you how to talk to animals now, don't I?"

"Damn right you do. A promise is a promise."

He places his hands on my shoulders then pulls me into a hug, holding onto me awkwardly. I hug him back and he relaxes a bit. "Family…" he says.

"Family."

"I'm stuck with you now, aren't I?" he asks.

"Yes you are."

He lets go of me and clears his throat. "I've been told family is a blessing and a curse."

"An unbreakable curse."

He smiles. "I wonder if that stupid crow knew all along. I never understood why he liked you."

"I'm kind and lovable."

"You are a bitch."

I stand up and reach down to pull Henry to his feet. "We have a lot of explaining to do for Chrom and Olivia. I do not imagine either of them will happy with what has to happen now."

"I think Olivia will be thrilled that we have to kill Validar. He murdered Basilio."

"She didn't strike me as the type for revenge," I say.

"What do you know about her? She's coldblooded as a snake," he replies. "Why else do you think she would like me? We are both beautiful weapons of death."

"Neither she nor Chrom can come with us, though. It's too dangerous."

"I know. But there is a chance we will survive this and then maybe…" He shakes his head. "No, we will still be broken even once we make Validar pay for it. I will have to be satisfied with watching him die. That's all I want."

"In the other life, Validar did not come after me to use me to revive the dragon until several years after the war with Plegia," I say. "We have time to think this through. We cannot act rashly and risk everything. Right now, I do not know if you and I can kill Validar."

"I'm not going to wait years," Henry says.

"Then at least wait a month or two. Let yourself recover, let me learn to control my magic. And on second thought, let's wait to tell Chrom and Olivia of all this. I do not want the weight of this kind of fate bearing on their minds."

"You just want a little more time with your prince before you go on your suicide mission."

"There is nothing wrong with that," I tell him. "Olivia and Chrom deserve better from us. Let's stay a while with them. I do not want to die with regret."

"And what if you slaughter us all in our sleep with dragon magic?" he asks.

"I won't. I… I can control it now. I understand it."

"You are willing to bet their lives on that?"

"You'll have my back," I say. "If I'm wrong, you will keep them safe."

We return to the camp and wake Olivia and Chrom. It makes me uneasy to hide the life-changing events of the past few hours but I stand by my decision to wait to tell them the truth.

Olivia touches Henry's forehead and looks at him in concern. "You feel feverish. Did you not sleep? Did you use magic?"

"Gray was trying to hex me so I turned her into a dog. But then she wouldn't stop howling so I had to turn her back into her miserable self," he says.

Olivia looks at me and I nod solemnly. "It's true. But I still don't feel like myself. I feel- oh gods- oh no- it's happening again-" I choke and let loose a wolf howl.

Olivia rolls her eyes and makes herself a cup of tea. As we eat breakfast and prepare to set out onto the road again, we see a flash of black swooping through the sky and Jasper alights on Henry's shoulder. Attached to his leg is a note.

Henry and Olivia read it then hand it to Chrom and I. Scrawled on the piece of paper in jagged Feroxi handwriting are the words, 'We have Ylisstol. The Exalt is safe. Your bird bit me.'

I smile at the words, knowing they are Flavia's. Then my heart falls.

"We didn't tell her about Basilio," I say.

Olivia stares down into her tea. "Let me tell her."

I glance at Chrom and see him clutching the paper with a look of relief. "Emm's safe. Thank the gods."

I put my arm around him and say, "We can rest easy now."

"Let us hurry to Ylisstol. We must speak with Flavia about what we are to do now. Emmeryn will return to the capitol and she and I will have much work to do." Chrom hugs me and adds, "I will need your strength and help more than ever now. We have much to rebuild."

His words fill me with sadness. I open my mouth to speak, but I see Henry shaking his head at me. I nod and tell Chrom, "You've done it before. We can do it again."

As we set out, Henry pulls Olivia up into Lilly's saddle in front of him, her warhorse following along behind them on his own. Henry wraps his arms around Olivia's waist and nuzzles her neck, pressing his lips across her skin.

Chrom and I nudge our horses to ride well ahead of them. "The two of them," he says, shaking his head.

"Young love," I answer. "I remember those days."

He laughs. "Those days will come again for us. We have a lifetime still ahead together."

I smile at him. "Indeed."

I wonder how he imagines our future will progress. With his hope restored and the likelihood of peace ahead of him, does he expect a normal life for us – he a prince protecting his country and I his wife, living beside him?

I still don't understand how the rules of time and space had been broken through to send our lifetimes converging and resetting, but I remember my visions of our children vividly.

The first Gray had given birth to them and raised them before her death, and then when they managed to break through time to make it into the second Gray's lifetime, he had taken them in as his own.

Morgan's face lingered in my mind – my eyes, Chrom's dark blue hair, and a face and spirit completely his own. His magic strong and yet innocent, free of the darkness that poisoned my own.

But he had only been able to break through time once, since the male Gray never had nor adopted a child. I would never see Morgan nor Lucina in my lifetime unless Chrom and I have children of our own.

"What is on your mind?" Chrom asks.

"Something quite irrational," I answer. "It is impossible but I can't get it out of my head."

"What is it?"

"You and I having a normal life in peace, forgetting our responsibilities, settling down, arguing about what to name our children."

"There is no argument," he says.

"Oh?"

"It would be Morgan."

"It's almost as if you've been planning this."

"Why wouldn't I?" he smiles.

His words only deepen the sadness and longing within me.

"Alright, Morgan it is for our hypothetical and impossible child."

"Why is it so impossible?" he says. "I want to spend my life with you. Perhaps I haven't exactly put that into a formal… well... an actual question. But I don't see my future being without you and I don't see how once all this war is over we could not have a bit of peace for ourselves."

"This fight isn't over yet, though," I tell him. "And even if it were, I don't think I could ever bear a child." Not with this magic in me.

"No one knows our future, not even you."

"Maybe you are right."

He looks over at me with that beautiful earnest expression only Chrom could have. "In this one thing, I have absolute faith."