Part IV

11. Uncle

A few weeks after Morgan's engagement dinner, Father announced that he and Mother would be spending the rest of spring and much of summer at an estate they had just purchased near a town in the southeast.

"We might stay even longer, based on how much your mother is willing to travel, so be prepared for that," Father told Nina one day just as she had returned from the barracks.

"Who will rule while you're away?"

"We'll still be in charge," Father assured her. "Calladay is just a day's ride from here. It's hardly halfway across the world." He went on to explain that court would still be convened monthly, with one of the ministers directing the proceedings, and that he would would very much like it if Nina continued to attend.

"Overall, it might actually more work to rule the country from outside the capital," Father had admitted. "But it will be good for your mother to be away from the city for a while."

Nina couldn't help but wonder how poorly Mother was doing for Father to whisk her away like this. There hadn't been any repeats of the scene at the engagement dinner. Mother had been more subdued this past couple of weeks. Even when another letter had come from Plegia – this one from Inigo, as Lucina had written the last time that she was resolved to handle the situation herself, but apparently wasn't making much progress – Mother seemed to outright avoid discussing it. Whenever it came up, she would change the topic to taxes, or Nina's lessons, or relations with Regna Ferox. Nina was aware that things might come to a head eventually, but she had nevertheless been hopeful, since Mother at least seemed more like herself again. But now, she wondered what else she hadn't been seeing.

Nina would not be going to the estate, because she was due to complete the first part of her training in June. Though she was too young to be a full-fledged knight, she was about to become a squire. She would be busy in the months that followed, court duties or no. Abel, likewise, was finally learning horseback riding. He would remain at the castle to continue lessons with the single instructor in Ylisstol he liked, though he was supposed to join Mother and Father in a few months' time. That left only Emma, who would be accompanying them from the start; and who, on the day of departure, made a very large deal about wanting her favorite of the castle cats to come with them to the estate also.

"Maybe Mist doesn't want to go," Nina said in exasperation. It was around noon, shortly before her family was slated to leave, and she had let Emma rope her into searching for the cat. "Maybe she's going to have kittens, and wants to stay where she's comfortable."

"But I can't spend months without her," complained Emma from somewhere behind her.

Nina was on her hands and knees, sticking her nose behind a cabinet in the kitchens. She shuffled back on the pressed dirt floor and got to her feet. "She'll still be here when you get back," said Nina, hoping desperately that this would be the case. "Besides, if she does have kittens, they'll be a little older by then, and you'll be able to play with them."

"But if she has kittens I'll take care of them. I don't want them to get older –"

"Princess!" called one of the maids from the top of the stairs. "Your mother says if you don't come to the front gate soon, they will leave you behind!"

That was enough to scare Emma out of the kitchens, cat or no cat, and she ran up the stairs to the main hall at once. Nina followed her. The two of them found Mother standing by the large doors at the front of the castle, which were currently propped open.

"Emma, we're going to leave soon. You should be waiting by the carriage." Mother held out Emma's pink-trimmed cloak. "Come on. I have your cloak."

As Emma hastened to tie it on – she was young enough to still fumble with the laces, old enough to insist on doing it herself – Nina turned to her mother. "I hope you have a good time at the estate," she said.

"I hope so, too," said Mother.

She didn't sound enthused about the whole thing. "Do you want to go?" Nina asked. "Father made it sound like it was all his idea."

"It was," said Mother bluntly. "By order of the Exalt. So who am I to refuse?"

"But...that doesn't apply to you," said Nina. "Right?"

Mother sighed and gazed out the front doors. Just past the gate, a pair of carriages and a wagon waited. Somebody would be bringing horses shortly. Her parents planned to travel with only a small retinue. "It's something I'm willing to try," she said. "It makes me anxious, but your father could very well be right that a bit of distance turns out to be good for me."

Though nothing else was apparent, Nina did not miss how her mother's hand came to rest on her stomach. Then she seemed to become self-conscious about it, and dropped her arm.

"I will trust the country to keep existing without us," said Mother. "And I will trust my children." Then she, usually more reserved with physical affection than Father was, leaned forward and gave Nina a hug. "Take care, Nina. Be good. Don't push yourself too hard in the knights."

"I won't," said Nina into her hair. She was taller than Mother now, just as Lucina was.

Mother released her and went to wait by the carriage with Emma. Nina sat outside on the front steps, watching as servants loaded the luggage and the groom brought over the horses.

Eventually Father came out of the castle with Abel in tow, and Nina was able to bid him goodbye as Mother said some words to Abel. Then it was time for them to go. Nina and her brother sat together beneath the midday sun as they waved their family off.

Nina was used to being alone at the barracks or the training grounds, and often kept such a different schedule from the rest of her family that she could go days with hardly seeing them. Yet their absence from the castle was still lonely. She supposed that this was because she had spent so much more time with Mother and Father over the past few months. There were of course people around, working at the castle, as there always were; but there were fewer now that half of the royal family was away, and Nina did not want to somehow intrude upon their work by making idle talk. Her nurse had been retired for years, and Nina had been so busy at the barracks for so long that she did not deeply know any of the staff.

Even her brother Abel was busy with his own schedule. He took lessons in riding, archery, history, mathematics, natural science, whittling, and, at Mother's insistence, speech. Except for that last one, he devoted a lot of time to all of them. Nina could see exactly why he had wanted to stay at the castle longer than the others, though if she were in his position, she would still be looking forward to a summer reprieve.

Again Nina threw herself into training. She showed for group drills and sparring matches with the same consistency she once had. (When this started, one of the other trainees made a joke about having wondered if Nina had dropped out to follow Jeanette to her new household. Nina did not indulge her with a response.) She was anxious to catch up in whatever ways she had fallen behind over the past few months, while still finding time to attend court and read the books her parents had left for her. Nina was as busy as she had been at the start of her training; but in that, she began to feel happy again – the happiest she had been since Jeanette left.

One day, shortly before her birthday, Nina received a note from her aunt and uncle in the village of Barma. She read it over breakfast – since it was only Abel and her, they usually took it standing in the kitchen – and thought.

"They're asking if I want to visit them," she told Abel, who was briefly a captive audience. "Should I go?"

Abel swallowed a mouthful of bread. "Do you want to?"

"I don't know."

"Then don't go."

Nina had once heard the opposite – that when you were uncertain about something such as visiting somebody, it was better to do it than to not. "Would you go?"

Abel was silent for a moment. "Maybe," he said. "But it's you Uncle upset, not me."

Nina thought about it for the rest of the day. She thought about what Morgan had told her about their aunt and uncle, and how being with them had allowed him to feel normal. And she thought about how, at the very least, it would please her aunt.

So, the next weekend, after putting in a short morning's training on the castle court, she saddled Lehran and flew southwest from Ylisstol to the village of Barma.

Though she had visited a scant few times in her youth, she remembered enough to pick out the house. It had a weathered front room that had once been the entire hut on its own, with a sprawling series of additions that spread out to the sides and the back. It was easily the largest house in Barma, but had a ramshackle appearance due to the piecemeal expansion. Nina directed Lehran to land in the clearing at the center of the village, and before his hooves even hit the ground, a gaggle of children had swarmed the area.

"It's a pegasus! A pegasus!"

"Who're you?" asked a teenager standing amongst the rest. "What're you here for?"

"Oh! She's prob'ly related to the Lady!"

"Hey!" yelled a harsh voice over the others. "All of you, get off!"

The cluster of children, some of whom had gotten very close and started to grab at Lehran's wings, obediently stepped away. This agitated Lehran, so Nina patted his neck soothingly as her cousin Imogen stepped through the crowd.

"Hey," said Imogen. She had grown into a lanky kid with scraped knees who kept her blonde hair short and held back in a kerchief. "My parents have been hoping you'd show up." She watched as Nina dismounted, then inclined her head towards one of the small houses on the periphery, where a man was standing in front of the door in order to observe the commotion. "You can leave your pegasus with Mr. Hector. He's good with horses."

With some amount of trepidation, Nina did this, making sure to check that the man knew how to secure the winged variety, and that his stable had a roof. Lehran was reluctant at first, as he was towards all men; but as Mr. Hector made no move to ride him, he eventually gave in to Nina's coaxing and went along.

After seeing Lehran safely lodged, Nina followed Imogen across the village center to her family's house. "Are people already calling you 'Lady'?" she asked, remembering how the children had immediately followed Imogen's command.

"Me? No," said Imogen with a scoff. "Don't you remember? That's what they call my mom." She opened the door to the house without knocking, and led Nina in.

Aunt Lissa greeted her cheerfully from the first room on the left. "Nina!" She stood from her wooden chair in the large, cluttered sitting room. It was full of trinkets and furnishings, with every available surface covered by some kind of rug or cushion. "Oh, I'm so glad you could come!"

Thus followed what was, thankfully, an enjoyable couple of hours with her aunt. Aunt Lissa asked after Nina's family; then spent a long time talking to her about Nina's cousins, and the house, and what it was like when she had been growing up the castle, and all manner of other stories about the family from before Nina was born. Not liking to sit idly, Nina offered to help with something, and her aunt put her to sewing a curtain as they sat – though Nina couldn't imagine where this one would fit. So Nina worked in slow, unpracticed stitches while her aunt talked. Though Imogen left before long, her two brothers, Duncan and Aaron, came in and out of the room and would occasionally join in the conversation.

Following a story about some blunder her father had made and mended in his first month as the Exalt, Nina asked: "Aunt Lissa, did you ever think about the possibility that you would be the Exalt one day?"

Her aunt looked up with a small smile from the shirt she was mending. Aunt Lissa's sewing was also slow, which Nina found reassuring. "Well, you see, I don't have the Mark of the Exalt. No matter where I had been born in the family, I would have been passed over for anybody who had it."

Nina was aware of this fact, though it hadn't been at the front of her mind. "But the Mark has skipped generations before. If Father had died before he had me, you might have still been Exalt, at least until you had children."

"Oh – but it always seemed like such a slim possibility." She sighed, setting down the shirt. "Truth be told, I didn't think of it often. I was the last in line, and I could never follow politics as easily as my siblings. But" – she turned to look towards the window – "there was a time, shortly after Emmeryn died, that I thought about what would happen if it came to me. Yet even then, I wasn't that scared." She met Nina's eyes again. "Of course I hoped nothing would ever happen to Chrom! But if something were to happen, I would still have the rest of the Shepherds to lean on – Frederick, and Sully and Stahl, and Miriel, and even your uncle. And all the ministers besides. I was surrounded by so many people loyal to Ylisse, who all had some kind of sense, that even if the Exaltship were to fall to me, I never doubted that everything would be all right."

Her smile was warm. Nina was about to respond, saying that it sounded like her aunt had been lucky, when the front door clattered open. Uncle Vaike – who, Nina had been informed, had gone out with another few people from the village to repair a common fence – leaned into the sitting room, wiping his brow. His shirt did not have sleeves this time. Aunt Lissa's smile now aimed towards him.

"Hey, Nina," he said, sounding as casual as he ever had. "Good to see you." Then he inclined his head and spoke to his wife. "I passed Imogen out in the village. Told her to be home before dark this time."

"Well, it's her turn to be in charge of dinner, so I hope she comes back earlier than that," said Aunt Lissa.

"Yeah, yeah," said Uncle. "I'll go out again to get her if she's late. Anyway, I'll make sure the stove's clean."

"That sounds good, dear!" called Aunt Lissa as he turned to go off towards the kitchen.

Nina stared at the doorway. What had she been expecting? An apology of some sort?

"So – I hope you don't think of that as too naive," said Aunt Lissa, continuing the conversation from earlier. "I don't know what I would have thought if I was on my own. But you never truly are, are you?"

Nina looked back down at her sewing. "It sounds like you were lucky, to know who you had around you," she said. "When the time comes, I hope I'll be lucky as well."

When Imogen finally returned from her rambling, Aunt Lissa invited Nina to stay for dinner. Although Nina was a bit concerned about flying back to the capital after dark, the hopeful look on her aunt's face made her agree.

As she witnessed it, preparing dinner at her aunt and uncle's house, at least when Imogen was in charge, was akin to a crew of sailors frantically trying to keep their boat afloat. Imogen constantly yelled through the halls to her parents – asking Aunt Lissa where to find ingredients, or asking Uncle for the next step in the recipe. On one occasion Aunt Lissa got up from the sitting room to go out to the back of the house and hastily cut more firewood, as each of them had been sure that somebody else was in charge of it. Once the meal was in the oven, Aunt Lissa apologized to Nina for all the commotion as Imogen stepped outside to angrily scrub flour off her breeches.

At some point in this process, Nina and her aunt moved to the table in the kitchen. Nina counted four teapots among the myriad of dishes, many of them travel souvenirs, that lined the shelves. Uncle Vaike joined them after one of his own interludes helping Imogen. The conversation continued about idle things, and Nina, who was a bit wary, couldn't tell if Uncle was acting more reserved than usual around her, or if she was imagining it.

Inevitably, the topic came around to Nina's parents' vacation, with Aunt Lissa saying that she hoped it would be good for Nina's mother, and how grateful she was that her father had taken her. But the disaster at the engagement dinner that had precipitated the whole thing could not be avoided. It came shortly after.

"I really am sorry we had to leave so abruptly," Aunt Lissa said, turning to Nina. "I know we'd intruded a little at the start, but I didn't think we would cause any problems. Honestly."

There was silence. Nina felt a sweep of air around her legs, and suspected that her aunt had lightly kicked Uncle Vaike under the table.

Uncle Vaike cleared his throat. "Right," he started. "Listen, Nina, about anythin' I said...I got into things more than I should have, and probably said some things that I wouldn't have if I was in my right mind." His voice had turned plain and serious. "So I'm sorry...if they hit you the wrong way."

Nina looked directly across the table, at a space between her uncle and her aunt, her own expression neutral. "I think," she said, "that the person you should really be apologizing to is Morgan."

"We spoke to Morgan after you left dinner," said Aunt Lissa softly. "He and Kjelle came here right before they left to go back north."

"Oh." Nina toyed with the edge of her skirt. There was a thread from the curtains stuck to the hem, which she pulled off. She was not going to lie and say that all was well, but she was also not going to take affront as though she had been the target of Uncle's dismissal. "Then it really does not have much to do with me."

"Or does it?" exclaimed Uncle. "I – crap, you know what I mean." He leaned back in the chair with his hands on his head.

"Vaike," said Aunt Lissa, "you shouldn't –"

"Yeah, I know," said Uncle. He sighed. "Look." Then he lowered his hands, and looked straight at Nina, elbows up on the table. "Look. I saw that kid go through some kind of hell. Well, 'kid' – it's all relative. He sure acted like a kid longer than the rest of them, except mine."

"Owain's done well enough for himself," Aunt Lissa interjected.

"Yeah, but it took him some time too, didn't it? Anyway, what I mean is – I don't want to see him putting on some kinda show for the benefit of your parents if it's not what's right for him, yeah? There's the nonsense he was gettin' into five, ten years ago, but then there's – this. The complete opposite." Uncle had a pained look on his face. "Sure, he seems happy from what little I've seen, but how can I tell? I had trouble tellin' when all his other problems first started, too." He took a deep breath. "Since Owain isn't around, you're the person here who knows him the best, I think. At least in regards to what I'm not gonna ask Robin about. So: does Morgan honestly seem like he's goin' to be happy to you?"

Nina leveled her gaze with him. "Yes," she said. "Yes. I really think so."

"Then," said Uncle with a shrug, "that's that, isn't it? I don't have to know more. Just to still be there for 'im." And he left the extension of that, the hand that reached out towards Nina, in the air, unspoken. Nina nodded in acceptance.

"Nina," said Aunt Lissa, when the silence had gone on too long for her to bear. "I'm sorry I didn't offer earlier – would you like tea?"

Nina left shortly after dinner. She explained to her aunt and uncle that while she often flew around the Ylisstol at night, she hardly ever left the city bounds after dark; and if she waited too long, there would be too few lights on the way to follow. The whole family went with her to pick Lehran back up from the man in the village – the boys, especially, wanted a chance to see him – then all waved her off as she headed home under darkening skies.

It was indeed dark by the time she got back to Ylisstol, but she had been able to spot the lights and walls of the city early enough to make her way home. She stabled Lehran as usual, and gave him a couple of sugar cubes as she told him how proud she was that he had behaved himself in the village. Then she trundled up to her room in the castle.

As she checked the calendar she kept on her nightstand – a new ritual, and critical to remembering court dates – she realized that in exactly one week, it would be her birthday. She would be fifteen.

On her birthday, which fell on the weekend this year, Nina went out to the balcony at midday and waved to her people, as she had every year that she could remember. Celebrations in the castle were sparse since her family was away, but it was still her duty and her honor to present herself. And by this point in her life, the crowd beneath her called out "Lucina" and "Nina" in equal measure.

Nina went to the temple of Naga in the city to receive a blessing, as she also did every year; but this was the first time she had gone alone. Kneeling at the altar, as the priest who she thought she recognized by name as Marie's mentor intoned over her, she clasped her hands and prayed more fiercely than she ever had before: for her family and for her country; for the knights and for Jeanette; for Marie, for her people, for herself.

She would soon need it, for it was just a few days later that the next letter from Plegia came.

A/N: The holidays are coming up. Apologies in advance if updates are erratic for this last stretch.