Chapter Sixty-One: Dawn Breaks

Lady of Grima: Arielle

"Arielle." Tiki spoke from across the room, voice echoing off the walls of the throne room in a sort of hollow imitation of the echo that Grima or Naga spoke with. "Arielle." I saw no reason to reply, privately hoping she would just leave. "Arielle." Alas, it appeared the world refused to give me rest, and in turn, Tiki would not either.

"Tiki." Not that I would make it easier for her. Standing before Walhart's throne, I regarded my Falchion, still buried in the corpse of a would-be king, taken in by lies and gods alike. The crack running down its length, a dark angry scar, the price of slaying a monster. A monster, beyond any doubt, but it took a monster to know a monster. Having received her acknowledgment, Tiki seemed content to let me carry the conversation, as the silence lingered. "I rather thought the crack superficial; you know. A Divine weapon, forged from the tooth of Naga herself, imbued with enchantments and magics not unlike my own cloak. Something no mortal, not even once graced with quasi-immortality and magic beyond reckoning can deface." I turned, slowly, regarding the Voice. One of the few unscathed by battle, although I saw her eyes dart to the body behind me, to Duma. "But, it is a legitimate crack, defacing both the surface and magical structure of the weapon." Tiki just watched, expressionless, and I shook off my melancholy. Tiki didn't deserve my ire, I knew this. "Duma is dead. He will not return."

Her expression twisted, relief, fear, hope, other things I didn't attempt to identify, knowing they weren't my business. "You are certain." A statement, not a question.

"I am." I could lecture about magic, about the feeling of tearing body and soul apart, about the magic spraying into the room as I drove a divine blade into Walhart's chest. But Tiki didn't care about those details, nor did Naga, who undoubtedly listened in the background. Nor did either of them care about my discontented musings, so I changed the topic again, making an educated guess about something I hated to acknowledge and hated knowing to be true. "You were forbade from fighting."

A long silence, Tiki's eyes dropped, tension flashing across her shoulders. "I was."

"I see." I felt a vicarious flare of rage on Tiki's behalf, even as I knew that, as a Manakete, she would be more at risk from Duma's corrosive power than most, even if Tiki could likely stand her ground in a straight fight better than I did. Her own anger simmered there, in the tension of her shoulders, the way her stance shifted, that our eyes didn't meet. "Every known God possesses some unique trait. Fell Magic, Divine Magic, Falchion, the rumors that Mjolnir, Valflame, and Excalibur exist as pale imitations of some dead gods, I could continue for days. Duma could, perhaps not nullify magic, but corrode it." I decided to stop there, avoiding speculating upon the effects of magical corrosion on a manakete…either Tiki or Morgan.

"I see." Her lips turned, a frown starting and fading away as the implication sank in, bile rising in my throat, as I did Naga's work for her. "That would explain the descriptions of your duel." A whisper, to the floor less than I, as she started to turn away from me.

"I hesitate to call that a duel." I found myself rubbing my shoulder, searching for the reminder of a wound I wouldn't find. Grima cursed me to come back from the brink of death time and again, and without the scars to remember. "I should be dead." Surprise stopped her dead. "My presence here is more luck than skill or strength. To say otherwise is arrogance." Hindsight told me much that could have gone differently if I planned ahead or researched, or any number of things. Lessons to learn for the future.

Eyes drifting out of focus, Tiki seemed to nod, mouth moving in half formed words, doubtless talking to her Mother. With a shake her attention returned, sharper as Naga's attention lifted, satisfied about Duma's end. "Morgan alluded to the same and Robin concurred with the assessment given what she knew." Naga's daughter took a few tries at the next sentence before going on again. "Robin did raise a question, however. If Duma could erode your grasp of magic how-"

I held up a hand, both to stop her and to demonstrate, fishing for the spark of magic, and with a whisper, a small flame appeared over my right palm, dancing orange but laced with purple. Pain lanced down my arm, but I pushed that into a mental box, one to ignore for now. "Sacrifice." Her breath sucked in, loud in the empty room. "The old way…the darker way…to cast magic. Using souls, life itself, to power it. Fell Magic relies on this principle, and I spent a great deal of time learning to adapt it to other magics." Snuffing the magic out I let the implications sink in, knowing it would be my turn to sit and wait while Tiki processed my words.

Minutes passed, Tiki's face twisting in horrors, revulsion, fear, and many other feelings, ones I expected well enough. In the end she seemed to settle into resignation. "And so, you…" The question died unasked.

Unable to meet her eyes, I turned my gaze to the wall, a rather 'Arielle' sized dent in the stone, giving an uncomfortable reminder of what came before. "Threw out a spell designed to kill someone in the more horrible way possible, empowered by my own life? Yes." That proclamation rang, and my gut twisted. Tiki hummed, and I got the feeling she understood enough. "Regardless, you did not come to discuss my ongoing life."

Green hair bobbing with the rise and fall of her shoulders drew my eyes back to her again and Tiki accepted the change of topic gracefully. "Robin suggested you would be wallowing, and as she could not come, ah… 'whack her upside the head' herself, she asked me to do it for her. While I do not believe hitting you upside the head will achieve much, I do agree that you have spent long enough here." A thin haze of white surrounded her, and I hid the urge to sigh. Of course my 'past' self and Naga's Daughter would gang up on me about this.

There would be no winning this battle, and I lacked the energy to fight it, at least for now. "Very well." Turning my attention to my blade once more, I gave the fracture a final consideration before grasping the hilt. Metal and stone shrieked as it came free, and I let the edge catch the light, before sheathing it. "Tell me then, how fare the others?"

-FE:DUL-

Soldiers parted at the edge of the camp, looks of wide-eyed awe following Tiki and I across the rows of tents. Whispers about Walhart's death, about the Voice of Naga, and other rumors raced across the edge of my hearing and a sense of discontent swirled in my chest. Somewhere along the way I realized I took the lead, an unconscious understanding of the camp layout telling me where I would find what I wanted.

"Arielle!" Ragged, unkempt but very alive, Lissa met us at the edge of the area designated for healer's tents, just as I knew she would. A staff kept her upright more than her legs, and dirt and malaise clung to her, and I could watch the questions die on her tongue when she looked me over.

Squaring my shoulders, I stepped around her, only breaking stride for a moment. "Just answer my questions honestly." Seize control, keep control, otherwise, you'll snap. Her footsteps hurried to catch up, and Tiki's fell away, seeming to know her part in this to be over. "Casualties?"

"Everyone who fought Walhart will live." She caught on quickly, dropping into a low tone, and I mentally thanked her for it. Perhaps there was more to the Ylissean Princess than I thought, in either timeline. "They're all still sleeping." Magically induced, from her tone. That implied something about the level of injury that I pushed into the 'deal with later' box. "We…we can't fix everything." Although she tried so hard to hide it, I caught the flicker of hope in the words, the pleading. Grima's blood.

Avoid and ignore if you cannot face it head on. "I understand." Considering the extent of my own wounds, I expected the answer to resemble what I got, so no real surprise, even if I hoped for one in my own right. "Any Shepherds who escaped unscathed?" Perhaps the Gods smiled on at least some of us.

"Everyone had at least a few injuries." Lissa held up her own bandaged arm as evidence, and then in the same move slumped against her staff. "Everyone who isn't here has injuries that could be easily healed." And, to mark that point, we ducked into a tent, giving me a good look at the other half of that group. Far too many, but less than could have been expected, given the circumstances. Lissa stopped beside me, tiredness finally overtaking her. "It's…it's hard. I trained to heal people and here I…"

"You can't even help your own brother?" A guess. Well, not a complete guess. I didn't know the Princess well but I knew that injuring her brother would be the way to play on her emotions, so if she were this upset that stood out as the likely reasoning.

Lissa gulped, and flood of words took me by surprise. "Half his ribs were broken, he was coughing up blood-" I tried not to think about that. I tried not to mentally compare that to what happened to the Chrom in my time, to the horrors I'd seen, to weight the grim math of war against what happened. "And he was one of the better ones!"

Regrets, half formed recriminations that had been fighting their way up my mental priorities peaked, the thought that I could have torn Cervantes apart, I underestimated Duma, a thousand things I could, should have done differently. Apologies that meant nothing were squashed. "I…" I didn't know what to say in these moments. I never did, and hundreds of years made it worse. My default response of 'he's fine, so it's fine' didn't exactly hold any weight in this moment…and I couldn't say that I felt it did anything just.

"It's not your fault." Lissa mumbled. "Chrom will be okay, everyone will, it's just, seeing so much…" All I could do was put a hand on her shoulder, and then as the smaller cleric collapsed into me sobbing, holding her awkwardly, stirring those words about in my head.

-FE:DUL-

Touched by Darkness: Severa

Dew clung to my boots, as I trudged up one of the few hills in the area. Hunting for peace and quiet amidst the camp proved impossible, and as one of the few 'Shepherds' with the ability to fight, everyone wanted my time. It all could be overwhelming, and I needed some me time. Or at least, some time without being interrupted every hour.

Unbuckling my sword, I tossed the scabbard into the grass, settling down on the hilltop. If anyone begrudged me watching a sunrise, then…I'd figured my threat out later. Atop the hill, I couldn't hear the chaos unless I strained my ears, although the sound of distant crows did reach me without much issue. At least this would be something, a small moment of time to myself.

Fishing in my tunic, I pulled out a necklace with a ring on it, staring at it for a while. Mother's wedding ring, silver dulled slightly with age. In all of the chaos of the past few months I hadn't found the time to bring it up with Mother. Running a finger around the band, I sighed, letting the necklace and ring fall against my tunic.

"Severa?" Scrambling for my weapon, I whirled about, fumbling for a weapon before catching up with who owned that voice. "Er..oops?" Mother flushed slightly, her Pegasus pawing the earth as I brought myself back down to from the fight or flight response drilled into my head by years of running.

When I did, I blurted out the first question on my tongue. "What are you doing here?" Smooth, Severa. Way to seem like a total bitch.

"I can't be curious why you're sneaking out early in the morning?" Sure, she could but that didn't mean she had to follow me. "You don't seem the type to brood on a hill." How would she figure that out? We'd spared some, talked some, but mostly about Arielle, magic, or fighting, not about us personally.

"I guess." I flopped back down onto the grass. "Too much noise, everyone wants a piece of me." Cordelia moved over, sitting down with less vehemence. "I get I'm amazing and I kick ass, but I want some privacy." A bit of a small flashed across Mother's face. "And that explains what you're doing here, because it's not just stalking me."

Mother hummed, looking out towards the slowly rising sun. "I can't be worried about you?" I bit down the reply 'you never were before', but some part of it made it onto my face, as her expression dropped. "When we were fighting you said…"

Fuck. We were having this talk then. "I'm not attending your funeral again." I repeated the words, turning my own gaze away from her. "When you vanished, everyone assumed you died. No body, just a flight of butchered knights, bodies mangled so badly the healers couldn't tell who went to who." I swallowed the rage, trying to tamp it down, at least for a moment. "I watched about half the other idiots bury parents…the rest usually just buried an empty box." I cried for a long time, before being angry for longer still. "I buried everything associated with you in an empty casket. I took up a sword, and joined Lucina on this insane quest to defeat a God, because at least then I wouldn't be you." Swallowing the tirade, I took a breath. "Cynthia took up a lance and a Pegasus to become like her Mom. I took up a sword to escape."

Mother didn't try to reply to that, sitting, listening, even if I could feel the question bubbling up.

"Back then, when we first set out, I didn't have this." I touched her ring again, just to remind myself it was there. "You left me nothing."

"Then…"

I tried not to roll my eyes. Tried. "You weren't dead. Duh."

Mother released a long breath, laughing quietly. "I suppose I walked into that one, didn't I?"

I didn't see a reason to answer an obvious question. "I watched Arielle kill you. At your request. You looked me in the eyes when you asked her to kill her. You…." Gawds, I hated that my voice cracked as I said the words, I'd told this story before damnit, why couldn't I stay composed. "You said that you have hope…hope that we'd find a way to win. Hope that we'd free her. Hope that I would forgive her." My eyes dropped. "After…after all the fighting ended, I went back…I…" Tears that threatened to escape. "I buried you once, got you back again, only to bury you a second time. I'm not about to bury you a third gawds damned time." I couldn't take it.

Wordlessly, Mother put her arm around my shoulder, and I let her pull me into a one-armed hug, as I blinked away a few stray tears. "I'm sorry, Severa."

"Don't." She started to talk, and I cut across her, words rough. "Don't. I don't want apologies, or pity, or any of that. It's what happened, and words aren't going to fix it."

"Do you really think I pity you?" She released me, letting me sit back and bringing our gazes level. Her jaw set in a harder line than normal, expression firm with a sort of muted anger, in direct contrast to the softness of her words. I could recall that expression on her face in my youth, in those moments when someone brought up painful memories.

"Are you trying to tell me you don't?" I couldn't keep the disbelief out, no matter how I tried.

"Yes." Mother took my hand. "You're an incredible woman, Severa. You didn't curl up and break when faced with loss. You saw, found something to believe in, and threw yourself at it without any hesitation, became stronger." Her eyes dropped. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I understand at least a little."

The differences in what they told us back in Ylisse. "Validar. When your original squad died." The mental voice of Cynthia started yelling at me about tact. I told her to shut up.

Cordelia grimaced but nodded. "Validar. He…Arielle never told me what the magic was, but it tore at my mind, throwing my worst fears, every bit of suffering it foresaw for me." A suitably horrible piece of magic. I didn't know much of magic properly, only instinct, Grima's whispers, and imitation but that sounded less than pleasant. "Failure, of every kind. As a wife, a Knight, a mother..." She pushed a bit of hair back as it tried to fall across her face. "It made it sound so easy. To give in, because those horrid futures might not come to pass if I did." She licked her lips. "I told that…thing…that no child of mine would bend a knee to them, and neither would I. It laughed and said that my spawn would suffer a thousand torments for my arrogance. It tried to show me."

"Oh. Fuck." I knew firsthand what sort of hells that might have been, gawds I probably lived most of them firsthand, probably just detailed one of them.

Her expression didn't waver, although her eyes darted away from mine for a moment, then back again. "You said that in the future, I hoped you would defeat Grima."

A shrug, but that felt like not enough so I said the words anyway. "That's what you said."

Mother's smile faded, a wan, tired expression forming, the hardness bleeding away to something more earnest. "I don't need to hope, Severa."

She lies. The Fell Dragon inserted himself.

"Grima will not succeed." The assertion seemed a direct answer to the Fell Dragon as much as me even I knew he never said. "Whether he falls on your blade, on Lucina's blade, on Chrom's, Arielle's, or Morgan's doesn't matter, because I know that in the end, he will fail." Her expression suggested no argument on the matter, and even if I couldn't believe that myself, I couldn't bring myself to say that out loud.

"I guess." I desperately wanted to change the topic, to anything else, but I couldn't come up with something else to say, or some other way to drag the conversation.

For a long time, Mother said nothing, and I said nothing. The sun broke the horizon, and the first sounds of the day started, birds, insects, even a low breeze.

"What are you going to do when this is over?" She broke first.

"Dunno." Never thought about it, even less talked about it.

I could feel the eyes on the side of my head, imparting disbelief better than the words ever could. "You don't know?"

I could only shrug. "Never thought about it. Had more important things to worry about." Surviving… getting to the point where I could tell her I didn't think about what to do when I didn't die.

She sighed, and I heard her head shake, or at least her hair hustled quite a bit. "Cynthia hasn't tried to talk you into things?"

Somewhat. "Occasionally. She's more prone to flights of fancy." Maybe an obvious statement, but I didn't really want to talk about Cynthia with my mom. That sounded horribly awkward. "I've always figured survival first, solve after, after. And keep that idiot out of trouble."

"Keep her out of trouble?" A mistake, one Mother took too immediately, and I cursed my careless words.

"Yeah." I slumped back into the grass, resigned to talking about this at least a little. "She's obsessed with living up to being a 'hero'…and is better than she used to be." Now she'd only charge a horde of twenty Risen instead of a hundred, as if that could be considered 'better'. "But someone has to keep her in check…" The memory of her burned, unmoving from flashed up, and my fist clenched into the grass. Cold crept up my limbs, and the mental images shifted, flashing to faces caught in soundless screams, the thin tendrils of magic reaching out, bodies thrashing in agony before falling limp.

"Severa?" I jerked, eyes flashing to my Mother. "Are you alright?"

I almost told her to fuck off. The words made it to the tip of my tongue and I bit them off, physically, copper flooded my mouth. "She got hurt. Before you arrived. Badly." I turned my head, chewing on more words. "I…I didn't handle it well." That hung between us, a sort of grim understanding of what I did. "She fought off most of a flight of wyvern riders by herself, because the rebel Pegasus knights were useless. Brady didn't think she'd live…" I took a breath, then another forcing my heart to slow down. "I stopped caring if I lived, for a while. Or caring about those I killed. I…I'm not Cynthia, obsessed with being a hero and right and good and all that. I'm perfectly willing to gut you like a fish and let you bleed to death…or rip the souls out of anyone who annoyed me." She gasped, and I made damn sure our eyes didn't meet, not wanting to see the disappointment. "Just…bad memories. Almost losing her…"

Mother waited a long time for me to pick up the thread before speaking. "It breaks something. Makes you face parts of yourself that you don't enjoy thinking about."

Figures she has good words for it. "Yeah." A hand rested on mine. "Turns out, I'm a fucking monster."

"You are not." Direct, sure. For a second spite rose, drowning out the unpleasant taste of blood on my tongue.

We'll see about that Mother. "Tearing people's souls out says otherwise." Or any manner of horror I committed.

Mother's hand gripped mine tighter. "You are not." She repeated, sharper this time.

"Whatever." I didn't want to talk about this.

"I mean it, Severa."

"Whatever."

A long quiet again, this one awkward, uncomfortable, a weight hanging on us both. "How did you know you wanted to be with Dad?"

"Nothing specific, just…lots of little things." I didn't interrupt her, she'd done the same for me so I'd return the favor. "He…he cared. About me, not about the 'perfect knight' or anything, just me. After the war, when we weren't always fighting, he'd drag me away from whatever task I started to obsess over." She sighed, wistful, longing, even. "I don't think I could put a finger on the exact time when I knew if he asked I would say yes."

"Gawds, you're useless." I couldn't muster any bite to put in the words though. "Not that I care, but…"

"As long as you are happy, you have my full support in anything you choose to do." My vision swam, and I blinked rapidly trying to restore it. I couldn't imagine her seeing me cry, actually crying, not the few tears of earlier in the day. "Severa?"

Pushing myself onto my feet, I offered her a hand. "Coming?" A raised eyebrow greeted me, seeing through my dodging of questions for what it was. "We should get back, before the whole damn army falls apart without us." Mother took my hand, and I didn't have to work very hard to pull her to her feet. We started down the hill when I realized something. "You owe me about a decade's worth of birthday presents."

She stopped dead, and I spun on my heel, smirking. "Pardon?"

"You owe me a decade of birthday presents. And they better be good ones." A half laugh started in my throat at the absurdity of the words, but I managed to keep my serious expression plastered on for long enough to add, "Got it?"

She seemed to realize the game, a smirk forming in turn. "When all of this madness is over, I'll take you shopping and we can see about making up for those, alright?"

"I'm going to hold you to that." Letting the matter drop, I resumed the trek back towards the camp, a little bit lighter.

AN: Guess what, I'm not dead! This chapter is a piece of shit, but I'm not dead, so great success. Hopefully, back on more consistent updates, IRL isn't not as terrible. We'll see. Plan is to swap between this and Faded Glory.

Much thanks to Branded King for the beta help, and apparently he is 'now dead' , so apparently I did something right.

Reviews, questions, comments, all that are good. Until the next time, hopefuly a bit faster now that I'm not trying to pack all this nonsense together.