The found the town pretty quickly—Malin wasn't lying about it being close. Robin had decided that she wanted to acknowledge them, but all she did was glare. Her eyes glowed red, as well, which Morgan had decided was a sign of Grima's control.
Malin led them to a little inn, which seemed mostly abandoned. Overall, there were only about a dozen people there—most of them being in groups, so they were probably just visiting for a little bit.
Malin, Morgan, and Lucina settled down in one of the rooms after Malin made sure that it was okay. Robin sat within sight but out of earshot, simply looking at them. Morgan found it hard to look at her without feeling a bit guilty; he found that interpreting her gaze as hostile helped (he wasn't completely comfortable with seeing her as an enemy, though).
"What should we do?" Morgan asked, eventually looking over at Malin. "So far, I don't think we have any other way to get rid of Grima without killing something."
"Unfortunately," Malin agreed, sighing a bit. "We never established what the knife could do—if it only worked on humans, or if it would work on animals, too. Then we could just track down a forest animal that no one would miss, use the knife on it, kill it, then bury it before anyone thinks it's food. But it isn't really something we can risk, either." He turned to Morgan. "Grima didn't say anything to you about it, did he?"
Morgan shook his head. "No. The closest I've ever gotten to any sort of motivation is nightmares of things burning and the unseen memories. He didn't tell me what his plan was, or how he's alive. He obviously didn't like Mother, but other than that, I don't think he really showed any other opinions about those he dislikes."
"I guess we're at square one, then," Malin said. "We can't wait very long; Grima will get impatient eventually. Robin would have a harder time keeping him under control than Morgan had, for various reasons—among those will probably be threats. She'd do pretty much anything for all three of us, and it would be hard to trust her even when she's in her right mind."
"We can't let anyone get killed and we can't afford to experiment with the knife," Lucina said. "What other options do we even have? Condemn someone to have Grima in their mind until they die naturally?"
"Grima can't be trusted enough for that," Morgan replied. "And if we did something similar—chose a person with a criminal history or just pick up the next person we see—we might as well just kill them then and there out of mercy. It would be an unnecessary and risky torture method, when the person is unlikely to have deserved it. Maybe if there was a person alive that made some sort of serious problem for the halidom—like Gangrel, for arguably aiding and-or causing Emmeryn's death, or Validar, for bringing Grima back in the first place—we could justify it, but it would still be cruel in its own right."
"You have a point, but we don't have much choices," Malin maintained. "Human or not, death seems to be the only way to get rid of this problem and get rid of Grima. We can't rely on pure luck, so it's not like we can just hope that whoever gets stuck with him can keep him under wraps. I've never had a dragon in my head telling me what to do, but I'm pretty sure that Morgan's 'it's pretty much torture' argument is correct. It would be just as morally questionable if we did that than if we just killed the person outright. It would be easier to explain why they're dead as opposed to talking nonsense about a voice in their head that isn't theirs."
"So it's condemn someone to lunacy or condemn someone to death," Lucina summarized, sighing. "Not very pleasant options."
"They normally aren't," Malin said. "Take the choices Robin and Chrom had to make as an example—the fire emblem or Emmeryn; letting a close soldier kill you to save your friend, or refuse and endanger your friend's safety; admitting to sacrifice and gain distrust, or deny it and possibly bring false security; having a friend deal the final blow to an enemy and have the enemy return at some point, or deal the final blow yourself and risk your death while destroying your enemy. In most cases, it was a life-or-death situation, and they all ended up having unforeseen consequences. Robin and Chrom were willing to give up the fire emblem to save Emmeryn, but she still died; Robin accepted death in place for Chrom's, but the soldier was prevented from actually doing anything; she wanted to deal the final blow to Grima, and she did, but here he is—right across the room, using her as his vessel."
"So we're essentially screwed no matter what?" Morgan asked to confirm.
"Maybe not necessarily…but it's pretty likely that will be the case," Malin replied.
Morgan didn't like feeling this…helpless. There was nothing they could do. They could wait it out and hope for the best, but that probably wouldn't happen. Ultimately, their only choice is to have someone die, which meant that they had to find someone willing to die…and Morgan was pretty sure there were at least two volunteers in the room. He was also pretty sure that, whenever the decision was made, he would be one of the last ones to be told…
(A/N: You now know what choices Robin and Chrom made during the events of Awakening that are considered canon in this AU. I'm not really sure if there are canon answers to the choices, but that's what I decided would be best for this AU considered how everyone acts.)