The scene probably looked very confusing to someone who had absolutely no context as to why they were there. To be quite honest, Morgan couldn't fully understand it either. But he couldn't let anyone die; maybe it was just his personality or the way he was raised, but he couldn't just stand by and sit there. He'd rather watch it happen and know that he at least tried his best as opposed to waiting when he knew what was going to happen.

Lucina wasn't very far behind him when he entered the dusty, abandoned inn. Morgan quickly noticed how Malin was writing something down in his journal, looking up at him and cursing.

"I told you to wait outside," Malin said, standing up. He had the knife in one hand; he was trying to hide it, but wasn't doing a very good job at it. In the corner, Robin's expression was distant, with her eyes closed.

"If you can't tell, Malin, I'm still technically outside," Morgan replied, trying not to seem too worried. "I'm standing by the door, where I can see you, so you don't do anything stupid. Is that alright?"

"No," Malin said bluntly. "Look… I was about your age when everything started getting worse for me. You don't need to be the same way. Just turn around, wait outside—out of sight and earshot this time—and stay there until your mother gets you."

"I don't want to do that if you're going to die," Morgan maintained. "I can't claim to know what you've gone through, but whatever it is, we can still figure out something past this! It might seem impossible, but there are solutions, I swear. No one has to die, and no one has to feel the resulting pain."

"I've already decided on this," Malin replied. "It's the best course of action when you consider that we can't wait forever."

Lucina completely caught up to Morgan just then, taking ahold of him again. He didn't let her drag him away, so it didn't take long for her to stop pulling and just kept him in place.
Malin sighed at her arrival, and took out the knife and bent down towards Robin. "Just…remember that I never really belonged here anyway."

With that, Malin used the knife on Robin. He fell and she immediately groaned. Morgan tried to shake Lucina off of him, but she held a firm grip.

Slowly, Robin stood up. She didn't look at them as she worked with the rope her hands were tied with.

"Mother, think about this," Morgan said, a bit rushed as he let fear enter his voice. Once Robin's hands were free, she took most of Malin's things out of his bag and scattered them around the room, but staying out of Morgan's reach. "I can think of something else—we can think of something else. It doesn't have to be like this."

"Like Malin said…we don't have time to think of another solution," Robin replied. It felt weird hearing her talk in such a quiet tone…or hearing her talk at all, for that matter. "Grima won't wait for us. He'll watch us suffer as we fruitlessly plan, and then strike when we're weak. There's no other way to do this, Morgan. You have to understand that." She picked up the sword that Malin had asked for earlier, and used it to create a series of cuts that looked like they could have been inflicted by another weapon.

"Please, Mother," Morgan pleaded softly, just loud enough for her to hear. "This is all based on a theory anyway. We don't know if this will work; we might just end up losing a friend for nothing."

"It's not a theory," Robin said. "I have learned that most of my 'theories' are very likely to be true. There are ways to use what you were born with, making a weapon into a boon. Just as nothing I know is secret to Grima, nothing Grima knows is secret to me…" She lifted the sword above Malin's heart.

"Wait—" Morgan's protest was cut off as Robin brought the sword down at a crude angle, bringing herself down with the sword so her forehead rested in the hilt.

No one moved for a very long time. Morgan wasn't quite sure how he wanted to feel. Hurt? Sad? Angry? Betrayed? He supposed that some of those were the same thing, but the point still stood. Lucina let go of him, but he hesitated a few moments before walking towards Robin.

He reached out to her for a moment, before she slowly stood up.

"…I'm sorry you had to watch that," Robin said. "But I'm afraid that it had to be done." She raised her voice a little so then Lucina could hear her better. "We have a long trip ahead of us; Ylisstol is weeks away and we'll have to move slower if we don't want to bring attention to ourselves. If asked, this is our explanation: we were taking a short trip to visit some friends that lived in the area when I took ill. Malin was sent out shortly after us as a way to make sure we stayed safe. We came across this town and decided to rest here. This morning, a thief came and Malin told you to leave for your own safety. You two left, for a time, before coming back to find Malin dead and the thief gone. We'll have to do a bit of acting to make it look believable, but it's the closest cover story we can use. Chrom, Frederick, and close friends will be told the truth, while the public will only receive a half-truth. Either way, Malin died from a noble cause; protecting you two and all of Ylisse."

Morgan wished they didn't have to tell lies all the way back to the castle. "We…can't take his body with us, can we?" He asked, looking at Malin. No heartbeat, no breathing…one of the only dead bodies he's ever seen. He felt like that couldn't be it—Malin always seemed like he was closer to Morgan's age as opposed to Robin's. Perhaps it was his lack of memories surrounding his childhood.

Robin shook her head sadly. "I'll have to ask for someone to bury him here. It would take over a month to get back to Ylisstol, and I don't want you to carry a dead body all the way there." She looked over at Lucina. "Can you pass me a pair of clean clothes?"

Lucina nodded, but didn't walk very far in. She pulled out some of the clothes that Robin had packed, and then turned to leave to give her enough privacy to change. Morgan followed her, but didn't go far—he just sat outside the building as the full situation sank in.

(A/N: After this, there'll be an epilogue and two or three bonuses. I hope you enjoyed the story, even when it got depressing.)