Theme 11: 33%

The soft orange glow of candlelight illuminated the small tent, making Lissa uncomfortable and unable to sleep. She tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable spot on the cot. She even tried covering her head with a pillow to block out the light. But nothing worked. Without her husband next to her in the bed, she couldn't possibly fall asleep.

Robin, on the other hand, had no plans of sleeping. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and he was constantly yawning, but sleep was out of the question. The piles of tactical tomes on his desk were too high to simply blow off. A large map of the Valmese Fort Steiger was sprawled on his desk. If he didn't finish his work by the end of the night, next day's battle could spell the end of a Shepherd's life.

With a huff, Lissa threw her blankets to the side and jumped out of bed, approaching the figure hunched over the desk. Her usual yellow dress was gone in favor of a much more comfortable nightgown.

"Robin, honey, can you come to bed now?" She stood behind his chair and wrapper her arms around his neck lovingly.

"Mm. Can't… Not yet." He replied simply, flipping through his small notebook.

"Come on! Do you know just how late it is?" Lissa pouted.

"Not yet. Need to finish." Robin moved to pick up his pen from its vial of ink, but subsequently knocked over the pile of tomes onto the ground. Seeing this, he dropped his head on the desk with a defeated sigh and the thunk! of skull meeting wood.

Lissa gathered up the books and set them aside. "Alright mister, I'm gonna help you finish this work. Tell me what's wrong."

Robin spread the map back out. "Well, there are three main entry points into the fort, here, here, and here." The tactician pointed at a few places on the map. "Since we can't knock down the wall, we're going to have to funnel through three gates. Chrom, Sumia, Lucina, and I are storming their main defenses at the western gate, while Frederick and his team provide support through the main hall, meeting us here." The last team, led by Stahl and Sully, are sweeping out the enemy axewielder division in the east gate. Archers and healers will hold the backline."

Confused, Lissa looked over the map. "What's the problem again?"

"Well, archers are stationed at points throughout the western quadrant, but we have no idea exactly where. With Sumia and Cordelia especially, we only have a thirty three percent chance of no injuries. No sane tactician would ever take that chance."

Lissa rubbed her chin in thought. "Hmm… What if we move the flying units east, so Stahl and Sully would take the archers out. Sumia and Cordelia can both fight with swords, right? So the axewielders wouldn't stand a chance! That way the flying units would stay safe of the archers, and we can move the other units of Stahl and Sully's team into the other two. The mages could help take care of their archers too." Lissa turned back to Robin. "Would that work?"

He thought for a moment. "That would… That would be perfect! Lissa, you're a genius!" He jumped out of his chair and pulled his wife into a tight hug. "I've been stuck on this for a good five hours."

"Maybe some of your tactical know-how rubbed off on me!" The princess giggled. Robin returned to cleaning up his desk area, putting his pen and ink away in a drawer and the tactical books away on the small shelf.

"Thank the Gods that it did. Now I can finally get to bed." He yawned, stretching his arms. "We need a full night's sleep if we want our plans to go as planned."

Lissa giggled again. "Oh, no you don't. I've been waiting for you to come to bed for hours now. We'll have to push sleeping off for another few minutes…"