Chapter 17: Foreign Matters
A change comes over Morgan over the next few weeks. Lucina's certain most people are only noticing the sudden growth spurt. Morgan retires her robes emulating her father's for a subtler blue coat. She takes to wearing gloves even when not training, the leather stretching over the back of her hands as she turns the page of her latest read. The fire in her eyes is replaced with an electric spark, her wit razor-sharp as she schools Inigo once more in the rules of chess. Sat watching next to Kjelle, Lucina wonders if Kjelle's noticed too: Morgan no longer feels like the youngest of their group.
"Are you okay Lucina?" Kjelle nudges her. She twirls her drink thoughtfully, glancing at Lucina's face between watching Morgan move pawns across the board. "You seem... distracted."
"I..." Lucina considers deflecting, but she knows the glint in Kjelle's eyes too well. Kjelle has these moments where she can read Lucina like a book. Lucina sighs. "Morgan, she seems different, does she not?"
Kjelle's eyebrows lift in surprise before she turns back to the game in play. Inigo is making some grand declaration as he attempts to distract Morgan from his intended play. Morgan is very clearly not fooled. Kjelle chuckles.
"Ah, you've noticed it too?" she says. "She's more herself than she's ever been, I reckon. It's... nice."
Nice, huh? Lucina watches as Morgan leans forward, responding to Inigo's feint with one of her own as she moves her queen. "Check mate!" She finishes, much to Inigo's bewilderment. She laughs freely as he puzzles over his sudden change in fortune. It is nice.
It is as Morgan comes to swap seats with Lucina that Lucina figures it out. She is grinning, grabbing Kjelle's broad shoulders as she begs Lucina to teach Inigo how to play properly for Naga's sake. Morgan is no longer aspiring to be like her dad. The confidence is refreshing, and for the first time since Miss Morgan's departure, Lucina is strongly reminded of the older Morgan when looking at Robin's daughter. Lucina did not realise how much she missed older Morgan until younger Morgan seemed to embody her.
The resemblance is astounding, really.
"Of course," Lucina nods, finally relaxing properly as she stands and marches towards her brother. Inigo groans as he sets up the board. "Let us do our best."
Under Robin's tutelage, Lucina finds she has a rapidly growing interest in the workings of the Ylissean state and international relations. The complexities of the Valmese continent, with their colourful characters and customs, are a welcome counterpart to the confused but pernickety priests and magistrates answering to her father. Especially welcome when in her dreams, they just deposed the would-be Valmese emperor Walhart. It makes her delight in her correspondence with Say'ri, Virion and Ivy, the current elected head of the remodelled Valmese state. For similar reasons, she enjoys learning about Plegia, though she knows from the history books that she's not seen the end of Plegia in her dreams yet.
Regna Ferox feels like family: the boisterous cousin always ready to cause trouble.
"They're the ones to watch," Robin says, one afternoon as they study her correspondence by the flower beds. It is the height of spring, and Lucina has petitioned for weeks to drag him out of his stuffy study for once. She is glad he has finally agreed. The daisies and lilies are beautiful to look at, and it seems to be drawing Robin out of the funk he has been in for months now. He twirls the stem of the one flower he could not help but pick as he points lower down on the letter from Khan Flavia. "Basilio is feeling his age, and Flavia's got plenty of competition from younger candidates for Khanship now. She's trying to put a positive spin on it, but you can sense her worry. Look, in that phrasing there, see?"
"The 'like dogs chomping at the bit' segment?" Lucina reads out. "It certainly indicates that she doesn't see herself staying Khan for much longer, but I don't understand how that indicates a possible threat to peace on our continent?"
"Think about it, Lucina. You know how the Feroxi think, understand their history..." Robin's got that small smirk on his face as he raises a brow at her. He turns the daisy to face her. "What do you reckon it means?"
There's a fondness in Lucina's breast as she takes on Robin's challenge. Sitting back, a gentle breeze rustles the hair in her ponytail as she thinks it through. She thinks back to Raimi challenging her and her Shepherds as they neared the Feroxi borders. She remembers the Arena, both from her dreams and from her father taking her there to take part in the yearly tournaments. She remembers Basilio in her dreams, keen to personally fight Walhart, despite her dream counterpart's warnings. The Feroxi people are proud, brave, and energetic to the very end, even in the face of death. She frowns as understanding clicks into place.
"I... Whoever becomes next Khan will have strong opposition hindering their rule. They will want a swift means to show their strength and distract their opponents. The Feroxi love battle, and the younger candidates... They're less likely to remember the pain from Walhart's conquests, the fear, and they certainly don't care for the lessons of the Plegian and Ylissean wars." Lucina's frown deepens. "The next Khan will be tempted to turn to war, conquest, to secure his position for the long haul and divert the attention of his competitors to warfare."
"Exactly." Robin nods, clapping his hands together. "Now, as land neighbours to Regna Ferox, Plegia and Ylisse are the most likely targets for such a gambit. Obviously, we don't want to let that happen, so..."
"So... It's our job to prevent that." Lucina picks up the daisy from in front of Robin, looking into its bright face, smelling its sweet scent. She sighs. Turns out, Peace is hard work to maintain. She ponders a moment, her gaze travelling across the yard as she puzzles it out. Her tutor waits patiently, his white hair swaying in the breeze. He looks comfortable, unworried. "Our best bet then, is to ensure all the candidates are aware of how much their kingdoms would lose out on if they attacked us and remind them of our own strength. After all they do not want to take on a battle that they will lose... But..."
"But...?" And here Robin is full on smiling, his eyes never leaving hers.
"It would be even better if we could influence who wins the contest. If we have them in our debt somehow, that nullifies all risk. Depending on how we go about it, we could sow the seeds to make the next khan of Regna Ferox a great ally for Ylisse before they're even in power."
"Throw the Princess a party, she gets it!" Robin cries out with a laugh. "You won't believe how often I've had this conversation with Chrom and he hasn't been able to understand what I meant."
"Really?" Lucina asks, surprised.
"Yeah," Robin chuckles. "He keeps worrying that it'll be interfering in foreign politics and wants nothing to do with it. It's not interfering to keep abreast of developments abroad, and it's good diplomacy to introduce yourselves to all potential future leaders."
"Isn't that why he was so keen for me to regularly visit all these nations in the first place?" Lucina asks, surprised, remembering her father advocating for her first tour abroad just five years ago.
"It is! But in his eyes, that is just maintaining good relations, which is great, but for him to shy away for the Khan candidates is awkward to say the least."
Robin blows a raspberry, startling Lucina as he flops back onto the grass in a mock huff. He reminds her of a much younger Morgan, and she cannot help but laugh.
They talk a while more, of politics, of Chrom, of how nice Sumia's flower gardens are this year and how proud Lucina is of her own small patch in the garden. When they part ways, Lucina heads to dinner feeling suddenly drained and exhausted, she reckons simply that she sat in the sun too long. Her cheeks are flushed, warm. Sunburn, probably. It isn't until she heads to bed, a full hour earlier than usual, that she starts to worry that maybe something else is going on.
The fever burns, but she ignores it as best she can. She swaps her training regimen in the arena for the coolness of the church hall, favours water over wine and lighter meals, but she still spends as many waking hours as she can working in the library, pouring over letters, looking at options to prevent the more war-hungry contenders for the Feroxi crowns from disturbing the peace.
Lucina is on her way to Olivia's dance room, a written proposition in hand. Lucina's mother will be finishing her weekly class soon, and Lucina really wants her Feroxi-born input on her plan before she shows it to her father. She's already got Robin's approval but considering her plan hinges on her mother's previous influence to pull off, it seems wrong not to ask her first.
Now if only her head could stop spinning. And why does the floor tilt so? She has no memory of this corridor being sloped... The light coming in from the windows flares and dulls dramatically as she steps, stumbles, and catches herself on a windowsill. Maybe Robin had a point about her overdoing things lately... No. She can't think like that. It's just a cold, that's all this is...
"Ah, Lucina? Lucina, Hey!" The words echo as Lucina turns to see who's calling her name. Her hand, slick with sweat, slips. She sees a silhouette, in a long coat, swoop in to catch her before she collapses to the floor. In her feverish state, she recalls a moment, from a recent dream, where injured in combat, she'd been rescued from collapsing by a white-haired tactician. She frowns, looking up at her rescuer's face. Their hair is a dark brown... Morgan. It's Morgan.
"Th-Thank you," Lucina gasps. The floor looms large in her vision as Morgan pushes her back up. Why are her eyes so wide? Why does she look... Scared? Lucina frowns, struggling to keep her eyes from shutting. She feels so light-headed...
To the burbling song of a small brook, tall golden grasses sway in a gentle breeze. Boulders form gentle shelters below which flowers bloom. A tree stands tall as the sun sets. The horizon glows gold as the desert sands, as amber wine, as the gold trim on her scabbard.
She has him, her father's would-be-murderer, in front of her. She cannot bear the thought of failing to prevent Chrom's death, not after failing her aunt... She knows full well that this is wrong, can feel the tremors threatening to shake her hold on the hilt of her blade as she draws it. Her words are only coming out clear and steady because she always knew there was a chance that she might need them. They are practiced, the same way her stance is practiced as she points falchion towards his heart.
She had hoped that it would never come to this. Each time Lucina practiced the words and trained her swing in the dim cover of dawn or dusk while pretending her target's face was unknown -might never be known-, she prayed that it would never come to this: to murder.
But it has. She knows this as deeply as she knows that the world that she came from is gone, is dead, and that it will be so all over again if she does not act swiftly and decisively. She cannot blindly trust this man, no matter how hard he has worked to earn her trust, no matter how much...
No matter how much she wishes there were no war, no battle to fight. No matter how much she wishes she were just here to smile and hold his hand. No matter how much she wishes they could just sit among the flowers and enjoy a golden sunset side by side.
She makes the mistake of looking him in the eye.
Lucina remembers the first time that she killed a person, not a Risen or brain-washed cultist... It was on the battlefield, a thief, their blade quick and nimble but their face had been full of terror. Their terror was justified: she'd seen them slash at her friend, draw blood. No one harmed her friends if she could help it. No one hurt those under her protection without facing retribution. She'd been merciful. The death blow was short, quick, efficient. It was much better than the end they'd planned for her ally.
Robin's eyes are steady as he returns her gaze. He doesn't step back when she draws her blade, he makes no move to defend himself, even as he calls for an explanation. It is as though he still tries to see into her soul. It cuts her, deep, that even now... Even when...
How could he? How could he still trust her?! Even when... Even when she...
Her words entreat him not to struggle, but it is her that is struggling. She begs him to surrender himself to her judgment for the love of Chrom, but it is her heart that shatters.
"Very well..." Robin closes his eyes, his lashes gleaming gold as he raises his hands. He smiles, a sad, but tender quirk to his lips. She recognises that smile. "My life is yours... It always has been."
When Lucina awakes, she is aware, acutely, of three things.
Firstly, her fever is lifting. There's a cold compress on her forehead. The room isn't spinning anymore, and, for the first time in days, she feels that her thoughts aren't bogged down by pain and exhaustion.
Secondly, her dream: Her dream counterpart had spilled the words with such passion, such pain as she'd dropped her sword in shame, misery, and abject failure. The Lucina who had travelled back to the past, she... She had fallen in love with Robin. And he loved her back. Lucina couldn't quite wrap her head around it. It was hard to process, to understand. It didn't make sense to her. What did, however, cause her to promptly put a hand to her mouth as she felt herself gag, was the deep-set knowledge that her dream world counterpart had been fully prepared to murder in cold blood the person that she loved. Who did that? What kind of monster did that? What kind of monster was she?
"Hey!" Said the third thing. Morgan. Morgan was at her bedside. The infirmary. Morgan must have brought her to the infirmary. "Take it easy! The Tonic's still taking effect, and Maribelle's working at making an antidote as we speak... You need to rest, Lucina!"
"Wha-... Antidote?" Fighting back the nausea is easier as Morgan takes hold of Lucina's hand. She's not wearing her gloves, Lucina notices, feeling the warmth of her friend's fingers in her palm. The worry creasing the girl's brow feels all too familiar. "What... What do you mean..."
"Shh... Don't talk, and I'll explain." She pulls Lucina up into the pillows a bit, reaches for a cup of water. "First drink this. It'll help. I can't believe you let this go unchecked this long... It's a good thing Dad sent me to check on you when he did!"
The explanation comes in a torrent of words. Lucina finds it hard to keep up. She manages to gather that she'd been foolish to brush her fever off as just a cold, a minor ailment that would pass. Morgan is quick to point out the rash at Lucina's throat, under the long collar of her undertunic, and the cold tinge on Lucina's fingertips. Poison, Morgan explains. They're not sure how Lucina was exposed to it, but Morgan's father and Chrom are investigating as they speak. Lucina frowns as Morgan starts theorising, her hands dancing in front of her eyes. She may no longer feel as feverish, but she can feel the fatigue coming on once more.
The warmth of Morgan's hand in hers anchors her. Lucina drifts off into a dreamless sleep.