Author's note: To the review about Grima's perspective of Morgan, it is strange and dissonant. Maybe I was too vague on exactly what that laugh in chapter 23 meant...? We'll circle back around to it in the future. Thanks for all the reviews! I tend to fret about my work, so being able to go back and see them is great encouragement.
Morgan twisted side to side in front of the mirror, admiring her dark flier outfit. "Father! How do I look?"
"Like you haven't brushed your hair." Clad in a dark suit with deep red serving as the undershirt and highlights, his signature grandmaster's coat resting on top, Grima placed a hand on her shoulder from behind and watched her reflection closely as he ran a brush through her snowy locks. "The contrast draws attention to it. You need it to be presentable."
"It is presentable!" she protested. "Your hair's not much better."
"Mine is crafted to a very specific style of unruliness. It takes effort to look precisely this casual." Grima frowned. He couldn't get this lick of hair at the very top of her head to lay flat, but the rest came out better than it went in. "You should wear your coat as well."
"It's summer! I'll die if I wear it."
"You marched across Plegia in it."
"But it ruins the look…!" Morgan checked herself out in the mirror and then struck a pose. "Doesn't this show off my amazing figure?"
"Your figure should be armed at all times," he said. Morgan made a pouty face at him. "What?"
"You're supposed to agree and say I look totally awesome," said Morgan. "Go on!"
"I agree and you look totally awesome," droned Grima flatly. He pressed her Elthunder tome into her hands. "Then take this."
Morgan let the electrical sparks jump at her fingertips—it had taken a little longer than her father to recover from her mana shock, but she got away with only having to fend off Kjelle for real. On the flip side, she didn't feel anywhere closer to picking up a new skill for it…
"There's nowhere to put it," she whined. "A tome belt would be way out of place."
"Tie it under those ribbons. You're not wearing the armour plates anyway."
"But Faaatheeer!"
Morgan pouted and complained and made cute faces and did everything she could to change his mind. Yeah, it was a very real matter of safety and all, and it looked fine when she had the tome in hand, but what about all the things she needed two hands to do? She'd have a place to put her tomes in the saddle packs, but not here. The silver locket around her neck didn't quite count as a weapon she could use in any circumstance either.
"How about this?" she eventually asked. "You carry the weapons, I'll stay nearby." She made eye contact with Nah, who was waiting patiently by the door. "Plus I'm sure our friends will protect us if anything happens! You really worry too much."
"Everything must be accounted for," said Grima.
"And that's why you're going to a wedding with four tomes and a sword in your coat? That's more dressed to kill than you are on a real battlefield."
"You and I lack our fangs and claws. We need the ability to kill at all times, especially so in circumstances where the common convention is to disarm oneself. Those are the prime opportunities to strike at any target."
"What about fists?" Morgan put up hers and took a few quick jabs at thin air. She may not have had two wars on Plegia, one war on Valm, and one war on humanity to spend obsessively training up, but she knew the basics. Probably good enough, right?
"Have you earned a kill using only your wings?" Grima opened his coat slightly and assessed the myriad weapons tucked under it. "…Though it is true that this much gear would discomfort the humans. I'll carry Mjölnir and your Elthunder." Setting aside the rest, he added, "Do not leave my sight today. Now come. The first ceremonies begin soon."
"That was the plan!" laughed Morgan, quickly wrapping herself around his arm.
On one hand, the royal wedding meant that Grima didn't need to attend court or bother toiling away in his office for at least one day. It was a refreshing change of pace from his daily life: wake at dawn, work, rest in the dead of night… where 'work' covered mundane paperwork, meetings with the council, training with the Shepherds, burning through one notebook after another with notes on the state of his connections with everyone and how to better foster them, and socializing. That last one further unfolded into analyzing the reactions of the Shepherds to him, tracking how often he interacted with them and for what, and then engaging whichever ones most needed it in airy conversation or sparring or drinking or building bridges or anything else that suited the damn human. The wedding was a single day where circumstances allowed him to think slightly less hard about all those things.
Instead, everything was replaced with despicable Naga worship. Grima hated human ceremony. Good ceremony was when humans made clear their awareness of their station below the fell dragon. The ideal ceremony was maggots disposing of themselves for him, but that was all too uncommon. Plegians always made offerings in expectation of something in return and worship of a god besides himself made his skin crawl.
As they stood in a church while some wizened bishop wheezed on about the glories and blessings of Naga upon Chrom and Sumia, Grima noticed his daughter grow more antsy than she usually was when forced to be still for an extended period of time. His eyes remained locked forward while he brushed the back of his hand against hers. Morgan shuffled closer.
How do you feel? Grima's fingers traced into the back of her thin glove, one letter at a time. The rest of him remained stock-still, looking the part of the disciplined tactician.
Itchy, she responded by doing the same. Everywhere. You too?
Yes. Endure. An unpleasant prickling poked and prodded at his being. It wasn't substantial, not even as pronounced as the chilling aura of Naga's Tear, but that didn't mean they liked it. Naga had as much influence over this piece of human construct as any building across the continent and as much awareness of what occurred in it. The fell dragon hoped the blasphemy of his existence gave her some mild irritation she couldn't place her finger on.
Sumia looks pretty, wrote Morgan, eyeing the wonderful embroidery.
Ignore her. Be on attention at the parade. Lucina may be present.
Always all work, no play with him. Morgan shook her head with a smile and wrote back, Okay, but can we talk about her dress?
It is a dress. Grima didn't get where she was going with this.
I want a fancy dress like that. Morgan huffed in mock-indignation. Sure wish I had a pretty dress like that, Father.
It is your own fault you bought only casual attire before your pay cut. And that your pay was docked at all.
Stop stating facts, I don't like them! The truth was Morgan didn't really mind when she already had the prettiest dress from him! But Morgan was always on the lookout for a way to one-up Grima, even if it was something as small as sneaking a fun needle or two under his mask. She let her gaze wander around the church. I'm bored.
I know.
Pass Elthunder. You think I can score a bullseye on that bishop's bald spot from here?
Grima's sharp exhale was all the amusement he could show. He wrote onto her hand, Do not.
Boring!
He glanced at his daughter. Morgan wriggled uncomfortably in place. That command wouldn't hold her forever and not entertaining her would lead to her starting her own fun. The last thing he needed was Morgan raising hell during the royal wedding, as much as it would amuse him to let her run amok on them.
Grima's finger traced along the back of her hand. Pawn d4.
Morgan blinked. He wanted to go a round on the spot? Far be it from her to turn it down! Straightening her back, Morgan put on her serious eyes and pulled up a board in her mind's eye. Pawn f5.
A bold opening from her. She was playing a dangerous game. Grima wrote back, Pawn e4.
They played using just their fingers to trace their moves on the other. On the surface, he was as calm and unflappable as he always looked. It was fortunate that Morgan served as his second-in-command for everything, and so had the right to be at his side in all of these mind-numbing rituals. This was something he couldn't get away with in meetings and court, mainly because he did need to pay attention there. It provided something much more interesting than listening to the preaching Grima cared nothing for.
They ran into problems on the sixteenth move when Morgan tried to move her pawn through another pawn. They corrected it and played another four moves.
Bishop c5. The moment he wrote it, Grima realized he left a rook hanging when he really needed it.
Morgan's features lit up with the most triumphant grin as she gleefully took the defenseless piece. It was a losing fight from there. Grima stretched out the endgame as long as he could, hoping Morgan would misplay. She didn't.
"Only without a board," he muttered bitterly. "And stop bouncing. People are looking."
It's all over, Father! Morgan wrote hastily into his hand, grinning ear to ear. Now I'm the senior tactician! Gimme the official seal stamper thing on your desk!
Grima scoffed. Again. One illegal move is forfeit.
The first few matches proceeded quickly due to a combination of Morgan botching her mental map of a stray piece or two and committing the exact same mistake as her father. Grima covered his mouth to conceal the vicious smirk on it while she tugged at his arm and scribbled complaints on the back of his hand too fast for him to interpret. She got him to think harder the longer they played, stretching across the hours of the day along with the parades and ceremonies. Grima tuned out the cheering of the people as the Shepherds proceeded down the streets of Ylisstol. Scarlet eyes scanned every face they could reach, hunting for any future child at every opportunity. He didn't spot Lucina mixed in with the crowds or lurking in the shadows with her mask donned, but she likely had some other agent keeping an eye on the proceedings.
The sun spanned its path across the sky, settling low on the horizon by the time guests filed into the castle for the wedding ceremony proper. Pondering how to deal with Morgan's fork against his pieces without hanging something important, Grima threw a perfunctory look at the audience behind him. He and Morgan and the other Shepherds received seats among the front rows. Basilio and Flavia entered bickering about one thing or another. Grima heard the former yelling about his oversized behind almost before he walked in.
As the last few nobles entered, Grima spotted Aversa at the very tail end of the pack.
Their eyes met for a single instant. The fell dragon whirled to face the altar, his placid smile of fake happiness for the prince more diligently maintained than ever.
Morgan noticed her father suddenly become way too happy, and he wasn't responding to her master stroke. She was a bit sad that she managed to put all that pressure on him only to get shunted aside because of something important. But it had to be something really important to break his focus completely, right? Morgan decided against turning and looking for herself. She wrote on his hand, Darn. Just when we were getting to the good part. Draw?
Memorize the position, his hand traced onto hers. At her devious smirk, Grima added, Never mind. I will.
Morgan deflated and flopped over to lean on his shoulder with a quiet groan. There went her plan to subtly nudge the board in her favour. But wait! What if he planned to pull the exact same trick on her? Morgan scrunched up her face, gathered her focus, and burned the imaginary playing field into her brain.
Grima didn't let himself pay attention to the moment in which Chrom and Sumia were wedded, no matter how much he looked like he did. The combination of the prince, disgusting Ylissean rituals, and Naga worship would've seen him fly off the handle if he let it sink into his mind. Morgan drew a sharp contrast to her father, gasping and cheering with the others and clapping excitedly with all of her passion and whining that Grima grabbed her before she could dive for Sumia's tossed bouquet, though it was probably for the best considering the fifteen-woman pileup where it landed. Grima noted that none of the Shepherds were buried. The concept that the catcher of the bouquet would be the next wedded played along lines much like those of the predetermined fate the Shepherds now knew they had to challenge. Attempting for the bouquet would be tantamount to resigning themselves to the whims of destiny.
Then again, maybe they just didn't want to throw themselves into the pile over a handful of flowers.
"Two bouquets?" said Morgan quietly. Sumia handed the second bundle to the bishop that presided over their vows, the words exchanged inaudible over the music and the cheering.
"A dedication to Emmeryn," murmured Grima. "We never recovered her body from Plegia Castle. I see the prince continues to hold her in his thoughts. The flowers will be placed at her cenotaph."
Chrom stepped out onto the balcony of the castle where his subjects gathered to celebrate the union. He delivered a speech about peace returning to the land, gratitude to and faith in the people of the nation, forging bonds, and so on and so forth. Mounting discomfort in his own body gnawed at Grima's bones, itching to walk away and get to what truly mattered.
The reception and dinner that followed took place in a lavish ballroom. The Shepherds dispersed amidst Ylissean nobles, church officials, the Khans and their retinue, and other foreign diplomats, yet the vast ballroom that stretched seemingly to the very roof of the palace felt both spacious enough to hold them all and close enough to retain the warmth and cheer of the festivities. Morgan marvelled at the titanic tower of a wedding cake, watering at the mouth the whole way to getting a plate to call her own and devour in seconds.
In a lull between idle conversations, Grima paused and turned his head the way they came through the crowd. Munching on her dinner as they walked, Morgan asked through a mouthful of food, "What's up, Father?"
Nah glanced to her side just to make sure the fell dragon hadn't left her sight completely. She simply flagged down the duke in front of her as he departed a conversation with a church official—a well-dressed man with dark red hair nearing his middle ages. He didn't look all that bad at first glance, but the scent of his intentions didn't emerge until after he laid eyes on her and then she immediately regretted initiating conversation at all.
"The Book of Naga is the holy scripture of Ylisse," said the duke. "Tradition holds that the official presiding over the wedding of the royal family would bear the original, but its last owner was the late Exalt Emmeryn. As such, the tome was tragically lost in the war on Plegia."
His eyes wandering over her body made Nah squirm. Her dragonstone rested in its satchel at her side. She wondered how much trouble she'd get in for transforming into a dragon in the middle of the wedding dinner. Chrom would understand, right?
"I believe you were one of the newest recruits of the Shepherds as well?" he continued. "Truly remarkable… you're very mature for your age, Nah. What would you say to some personal tutoring on Naga's teachings? I'm sure a lady of your caliber would have no issue grasping its concepts."
"I appreciate the offer," she said, "but I decline. Thank you for answering my question, Duke Mimas." As in, the only question she really wanted to ask and Nah would really like to walk away now.
"Please, I insist." Her one step to the side was matched with two of his. "It's fortunate indeed you came to me. I am on good terms with many in the higher echelons of the church. You see, it's very refreshing to see a lady your age with a vested interest in religion." Her two steps back brought him four steps forward, leaving her with way too little empty space to call personal space. "Will you not reconsider?"
"No, I won't," said Nah firmly. Not breaking eye contact, she brought a hand to her bag in preparation to open it. If he was expecting her to roll over and play nice, he wasn't about to get it. "Thank you. If you'll excuse me!"
"Mimas." The lack of his proper title and the fell dragon's hand on his shoulder earned Grima the attention of the duke immediately. Irritation oozed through the man's clenched jaw and the tensing of his shoulders under his grip. "Interested in one of my Shepherds?"
"I'm afraid this doesn't involve you," said Mimas, the faintest current of frustration entering his smooth voice. "Do be on your way, Sir Robin." The hand on his shoulder tightened, and Mimas abruptly remembered just who he was staring down.
"Let us negotiate," murmured Grima into his ear. "Come with me. We should discuss this in a less crowded area."
Nah had to follow to keep an eye on him, like it or not. Morgan went along with a skip in her step and a fully-loaded plate of fruits and seasoned meats.
The second Morgan's foot nonchalantly nudged the door shut behind them, Grima struck in a blur of motion and had the duke pinned to the ground under his knee with his arm twisted around behind his back. Untrained, unwary nobles were child's play. "Morgan," called Grima over the man's agonized screaming as his shoulder ejected from its socket with a nauseating pop. "Is anyone paying attention?"
Watching the duke squirm under her father, she swallowed her food and poked her head back into the ballroom. "Doesn't seem like it," she said. "The music's pretty loud. Ooh, Father, can I take a swing?"
He took a moment to weigh the costs and benefits of it. Now that he was making enemies among the court, Morgan was a target by proxy. Even so, it was better that she didn't draw more attention to herself than they needed… except that she just made that request out loud. The die was cast regardless of his permission. Grima rolled his eyes and applied more weight to the duke. "His other hand."
Morgan stepped closer and then remembered she had a big plate of food in hand. Hmm…
One hard stomp, followed by the crack of bone and a pained shriek. That did the trick!
Grima forced the man's shoulder back in place and got up. Mimas hobbled to his feet with a murderous glare, nursing his broken fingers. "Plegian scum," he spat. "I should've expected as much from you!"
"The Shepherds are my property." He spread his arms wide and goaded him on with a gleeful smile, every advancing step of Grima's mirrored by a hasty retreat from the maggot in his sights. "Come on, then. Come at me whenever you like. But you'd best make it count, seeing as you won't have a second chance!"
"I didn't need your help," said Nah as the duke scurried away. "I could've dealt with him on my own."
"And the consequences?" asked Grima. "There are repercussions for rejecting a noble. I'm better suited to receive them."
"Rejecting, maybe. You broke his bones!"
"As an animal deserves." Grima dusted off his clothes and threw Nah a sharp glare. "Never forget that humans are monsters, whelp. Vicious beasts that will devour whatever falls into their clutches. Has Nowi told you how she met the Shepherds?"
Nah rolled her eyes and groaned, "You're really going to turn this into a lecture on all humans being bad? Is that all you wanted?"
"And after all you gave me for breaking a few dishes," said Morgan, still grinding down her mountain of a plate. "Why is it bad when I do it and okay when you do it? That's so unfair!"
"Life is unfair," he shrugged. He had no doubt Nah was right, but a flippant attitude served him better in this situation. She could continue to think he just felt like kicking over a stray human for no good reason. "Nah, how did you come in contact with Mimas?"
"…I'm trying to learn more about Naga," said Nah.
"Why are you asking random humans?" chirped Morgan. "I bet Father could tell us all about her!"
"More than most humans." He grimaced. He would've preferred not having to think about Naga as much as he could. "She is a disgrace to the blood of our kind. I take it you've heard of the one they call Naga's Voice?"
"Of course I have," said Nah.
"Naga would have her daughter killed for the crime of being born," said the fell dragon. "The crime of existing in the world of humans when her child's strength may suffice to topple it. Naga's mercy was to seal her for millennia and then strip her of all power when set free. I'm sure the dogma of humans decided to let this stain fade from the pages of history."
Was that true? Nah saw the hateful sneer creeping across his face before it snapped back to neutral. Any tidbit from the fell dragon had to be taken with a mountain of salt. He could be inaccurate or deliberately misremembering… but he was also one of the most ancient beings in existence. If anyone was in a position to amass extensive knowledge of the world's history, it'd be Grima.
It didn't feel right. Nah watched the body called Robin walk around the royal wedding while it housed the spirit of the world-ending fell dragon. Naga was an unseen deity who pervaded Ylisse, answered to prayers and bestowed blessings on the faithful. Grima was… a stuffy tactician who fussed over his hyperactive daughter. She stood before Naga's nemesis, but she couldn't equate the two in her mind. The demon dragon that laid waste to the planet in the future was far easier to digest.
"How do I know you're not lying to me?" asked Nah.
"The pages of history are bloodied and torn enough that I have no need to lie of it," said Grima. With that ever-infuriating mocking smirk, he added, "But I have no proof to offer you. Choose to believe whatever you like and live in a web of lies."
Morgan gasped. "Idea! We should do bedtime stories!"
"I'm not a kid!" protested Nah.
"But I wanna hear Father's stories, and you're in our room, so you're getting bedtime stories anyway. Heck, why stop there? Let's have some fun and have a slumber party every night! I can't believe I didn't think of it before, we can tell ghost stories and talk about guys—really, talk about any of the Shepherds!"
"Just because we sleep in the same room doesn't make it a slumber party!"
"Why not? Might as well make the most of it!"
Returning to the vast ballroom while Nah and Morgan bickered back and forth, Grima scanned the crowd for his proper quarry. He found her by the edge of the room at a table with a gaggle of enraptured men, her eyes meeting his in the midst of her own search.
"So sorry, boys." Aversa shooed them away. "Do be a dear and give us a moment for a touching family reunion. Oh, no need to look like that. Plenty of lovely ladies are out there waiting for you…"
Nah had to do a double take. "Gregor?! What are you doing here?"
"Gregor meant to be looking for you!" he laughed. "Beautiful lady very distracting. Sit, sit!"
As he carted Nah one table away, Grima and Morgan seated themselves with the sultry dark flier. "Don't seduce my Shepherds," deadpanned the fell dragon. "They're not disposable." Despite his words, Grima knew that Gregor immediately pulling Nah away was likely not a coincidence. He expected that Aversa noticed the manakete tailing him earlier in the day and no doubt decided to stall Gregor when he mentioned Nah at some point.
"It's been too long, big brother." Aversa rested her chin on her hands, coincidentally framing her assets in the process as she took a moment to watch her god's face stubbornly refuse to react in any meaningful way. She straightened up with her wine in hand and remarked, "Goodness. Sturdy today, are we?"
"Aversa?" asked Morgan. She looked back and forth between her father and the woman that just referred to him as a sibling. "…Auntie Aversa?"
The dark flier almost choked on her wine, one hand over her heart in shock. She collected herself and said, "Lady Morgan… it's an honour. Speaking to the prodigious young tactician, that is." Aversa's eyes met the gaze of her god. There was no other reason to be particularly interested in Morgan, such as divine heritage. "I don't believe we had a chance to speak during the war."
"Ooh, she called me Lady!" Morgan beamed at her father. "I'm feeling more noble-ish by the day!"
"You've carved out quite a name for yourself." Aversa eyed the young girl's attire. "And seeking to spread yourself further, I see. My, my… tactician and dark flier at your age? Your father must be proud."
"Dark flier-in-training, actually. I'll get there soon! Once the pegasus I want stops trying to trample me every time I go in her stable."
Grima leaned back and casually told the chandeliers, "Unfortunately, I happened to come down with a sore throat this morning. I don't believe I can talk freely."
Aversa raised an eyebrow over the rim of her wine glass. "King Validar sends his regards," she said.
"Do you come bearing anything else?" Grima's gaze sharpened. "…Good tidings?" His last order to Aversa was to install Validar as king, kill Lucina, and not return until both were accomplished.
"I'm afraid not," said Aversa. "Times have been difficult in the realm since Gangrel's passing. Ah, but my liege often says it is his faith that keeps him going. He is quite devoted, after all."
Grima curled his lip. Silently digging through his memories for every single direct order brought up the ransom to claim Emmeryn and the remark that the fell dragon had little desire to see his face again. That was why Aversa became Grima's contact during the war in Validar's stead. Blind, ignorant faith in their god left them to assume that there was no need to host a meeting in Plegia with him, seeing as Grima never explicitly ordered them to. He wanted to break the table in half.
What were the future children doing? Grima glimpsed them skulking about on occasion, slinking to and fro amidst the other Shepherds and avoiding his eye. He would've expected them to obsessively watch him like hawks without rest, never daring to so much as take one step away from his side. They were doing something beyond his sight—something so incredibly important, it was worth taking their eyes off the fell dragon. More plans lay in store besides the obvious; Grima would do no different in their situation.
"You know my disdain for Grimleal," said Grima. "Those fanatics that discard all thought and follow their religion's decrees without thinking… though I do have respect for the likes of the writers of the Truth's many texts. The authors that pen the pages of history are the remarkable ones." In other words, Aversa was free to act without being fed direct commands from the mouth of God. It worked in his favour—a third party disrupting Ylisse independent of himself would obfuscate his own actions while the future children struggled to navigate both. He leaned forward on the table, eyes briefly settling on Morgan. "And you have received training as a tactician too, no?"
"She's a tactician too?" asked Morgan. "Wow, it really runs in the family! You should stay for a few days! I bet I could learn a lot from you!"
"My liege awaits tales of this wonderful day," said Aversa. "I wouldn't wish to leave him waiting any longer than I must. Perhaps we shall return together?" The syntax left room to mean Aversa and Validar returning to Ylisstol, or her immediate company going with her to Plegia.
"The roads are becoming more dangerous these days," said Grima. On the surface, the immediate threat was Risen. They both knew the real intent to be the future children lying in wait. Grima needed Lucina dead, or at the bare minimum located before he could act with any degree of confidence. She was the only one that merited such caution. All of the Grimleal's resources at his disposal and the Risen under their command, and she was still a ghost on the wind that had simply disappeared after her last sighting in Law's End months ago. He didn't even know which nation she was in! "Excessive travel always poses a risk, even with armed escorts. Best that the roads are searched and lurking dangers disposed of before acting so boldly."
His body loosened up slightly. Aversa took the hint, and the conversation drifted into meaningless small talk about the state of affairs and how the Risen were such an inconvenience for merchants and transport. Grima remained careful with his words. Nah was in earshot. If she had any suspicion (and rightfully so), any attempt to communicate exactly which of the Shepherds were future children to be disposed of would be a glaring red flag. Morgan looked back and forth between them with a small frown. As far as she could tell, it was all the sort of big boring nothingburger of a discussion that all the fancy upper-class sorts talked about. But since her father already scarfed down his one plate ages ago, she got to hop in his lap and finish her fifth plate in the best seat in the ballroom!
"Look," sighed Nah. "I appreciate the recipe for reducing manakete rampage frequency… even if it probably won't work…"
"What was that?" Gregor cupped his hand by his ear. "Gregor cannot hear soft mumbling over crowd."
"You're talking around something!" Nah said louder. "Just say it!"
"Should not be placing old man onto the spot! It is of future. Employer order us not to ask questions that will be pressing kids from future, no?"
"I'll bet it's about Mother. What else could it be about?"
"Nah." Laurent joined her and Gregor at their table. "Do you see who Robin is conversing with? Her name is Aversa. She is a high-ranking Plegian officer and formerly one of King Gangrel's tactical advisors. I believe she serves King Validar now." He added in a quiet voice, "What are they talking about? Have they shown any sign of suspicious activity?"
Grima's hand traced meaningless lines into the back of Morgan's hand as he scolded her for trying to shake salt into Aversa's drink. Nah lifted her head and tasted the air. The din of the ballroom and the mixture of perfumes were suffocating, but the fell dragon's hatred boiled with all of its usual fervour. She couldn't get a good read on the two dark fliers.
"Not picking up anything unusual," said Nah.
"He may be communicating," said Laurent. "But how? Could he be using the telepathy tome I showed him?! No, that can't be. He isn't holding his breath…"
"Are you sure?" whispered Nah. "He's always sticking his nose in politics nowadays." She turned her head and zoned in on the fell dragon's conversation. It was nothing of note—an unremarkable discussion of Risen attacks, also known as a topic equivalent to talking about the weather. "And they mentioned she's a sister to Robin."
"Implausible, provided my estimate of her age is correct."
Aversa sneezed.
"This will be taken into consideration," muttered Laurent.
"Also, do you mind? I was in the middle of talking to—Gregor?" Nah looked around. He was gone. "Gods, again?! I know he's trying to ask about Mother and he just won't come out and say it!" Nah just wanted to explode and yell out every single correct pairing so they could stop fretting over it! "I thought you were investigating ways to confirm the laws of temple casualty apply to us! When are you getting results?"
"Temporal causality," he corrected. "This is a tremendously difficult undertaking when none of us have yet to be born. I completed an experiment recently. Notching Mother's hat had no affect on my own. This suggests that causality may not hold absolutely between our actions and our existence."
"Laurent," deadpanned Nah. "It's a hat. Don't you think that would be repaired in the time leading up to your birth and coming back through time?"
"…I didn't consider that."
"What happened to being the smart one…?"
"But it suggests, at minimum, some small level of flexibility after we come back through… after we… after…" Laurent drew himself up, shaking his head violently with an expression of abject shock.
"What's the matter?" asked Nah, unnerved by the sudden change.
"We crossed time to stop Grima. In the event we succeed, our selves born in this world would have no need to travel back in time, generating a paradox! Unless—unless—" Laurent scrambled for a logical explanation that wasn't concluding their fate was sealed and the fell dragon would win. "Unless our alternate selves come back in time anyway to fulfill the same duty. But would our memories not change as a result? Those iterations would not be our current selves, so there still remains the possibility that succeeding in our role will end in our deaths…"
Nah rubbed her temples to relieve the growing headache. "Umm… maybe Naga's blessing protected us when we crossed time, so we'll survive even after the future changes."
"Can you confirm that?"
"I've tried. She won't answer questions like that no matter how many times I pray."
"The situation has too many unknowns." Laurent grimaced. "We require proper information, yet any test for causality risks death as its result. Owain refused to steal and damage Lissa's ring—"
"Who wouldn't?! They're important to us!" Nah groaned at the ceiling far above. "Are you sure we're not jumping at shadows? This could be a wild goose chase for all we know!"
"Indeed," muttered Laurent. "We don't know. Morgan claims to have inherited her coat from her father, but any experiments involving her would lack relevance to us given that she almost certainly originates from a different iteration of the timeline. And so we arrive again at the great conundrum, where the only one who may hold the answer is…"
Grima rose to his feet, exchanging a nod with the prince. Dressed in a silver suit with his iconic single-sided pauldron, Chrom led Sumia to the middle of the ballroom as the crowd backed away. Morgan swept by Nah's table in a whirlwind of motion and dragged Laurent out, babbling excitedly about showing off their amazing dancing skills.
"The first dance is at hand," said Grima. "It's unfortunate that we can't talk any further."
"So it is." Aversa shot a smirk at him. "Shall we?"
"I'm subject to enough rumours." Grima would never be caught dancing with a Plegian officer, his vessel's adopted sibling, and aide to the king of another nation. "Go ruin some other human's life."
Out on the battlefield of ballroom dancing, Morgan tripped and stepped repeatedly on Laurent's toes. All manner of inquisitive eyes fell on the elder tactician of Ylisse. Social convention demanded the fell dragon dance and doused him with the ice-cold revelation that he hadn't prepared a partner for himself in advance. Grima was very particular about the image he cultivated for himself, but the one region that stumped him most was the field of romance—specifically, how to make the court shut up about it.
It was an incredibly innocuous comment at the time. To reduce investigation into their past, Grima had at one point stated the woman that had Morgan was not a factor in their lives. To reduce the target painted on Morgan's back, Grima had at one point stated she would hold no judgement for any prospective partner and merely be happy to have a mother at all. Both were the truth.
He was at the royal wedding without anyone in mind. The right hand of Prince Chrom, chief strategist of Ylisse's military and elite Shepherds, was single and free for the taking.
Dancing with some regular noblewoman was out of the question. That lent her too much power. And if she expected anything more from him? Grima only had need for so many mortal enemies among the powerful and influential. He needed a Shepherd, preferably one uninvolved in politics. But many of them were taking to the floor as well and irrelevant nobles greeted his eye at every turn. He could barely see his loyal soldiers through the mass of worms. Who could he call on?!
Grima's scarlet gaze fell on Nah, just a table away. Both gagged and swiftly turned their back on each other.
Kjelle stuck out like a sore thumb among the formal wear and pompous outfits, clad in full armour. Separated by an ocean of insects, Grima bared his teeth at the knight's satisfied smirk as she drank in the fell dragon's growing panic. He'd rip out his own spine and drive it through his skull before he danced with any future child of Naga.
He had no choice. Grima's shoulders slumped, he spat a thousand silent curses at every being in existence in his mind, and he admitted defeat with a low growl.
"…Tharja…"
"I thought you'd never ask!" Thankfully in a flowing black dress far more modest than her usual attire and possibly manifesting from thin air, Tharja was there and giggling like a maniac as they took to the dance floor.
"Don't let this get to your head," muttered Grima. It was merely easy to predict she would be on hand, if not in sight, in this moment of all moments.
Tharja was too busy swooning to listen. "I must be dreaming… Never wake me up!"
"Wake up. I have questions."
"Can a girl not get five seconds to enjoy heaven?" grumbled Tharja. "Please."
Grima was tempted to make a veiled death threat playing on the mention of heaven. "After this. Nah, Owain, and Laurent have all had alternating days of sickness not long after arriving in Ylisstol. These illnesses all lasted exactly twenty four hours from the moment they woke and disappeared with no traces after this time period. Stop hexing them. They're going to notice and start thinking I'm doing it."
"First you tell me not to break into your room at night, now you tell me not to hex your other stalkers. I thought you'd appreciate it." But another long look into his scarlet eyes and Tharja conceded with a sigh, "Fine."
"Can you find Lucina? You were able to locate me for Morgan's request." It was an innocent question at face value—searching for the prince's time-displaced daughter and leader of the future children. Anyone would ask it.
"Like I haven't thought of it already," muttered Tharja. "The ritual you're talking about uses the tie from child to parent. And I don't see any third-generation time-jumping babies running around, so…"
Grima exhaled. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy.
"But while we're here…" Tharja tried to step closer in time with the music, only for Robin to match her with an equal retreat. "Isn't it time you stopped holding out on me? I know who I want to find next time Morgan asks me to scry for her mother."
"Consider her demeanour," said Grima flatly, pulling her back into a proper rhythm. "Consider ours. Does this seem plausible to you?"
"Are you saying you want me to be more cheery? Hop and skip about like I have a thousand bees in my clothes?"
"Your natural self is ideal. Don't change." Grima frowned. Why was she swooning again? He leaned in closer and whispered under the music, "More importantly, she is a manakete. This is biologically impossible."
"Anything is possible with love," said Tharja. "And dark magic. Hee. When you're tired of looking for alternatives, I'm always waiting…"
"Hmph. My final question… When did you hex me to bring this scenario about?"
"Last night," she answered immediately. "I snuck a few curses into your coat back when you asked me to weave Nosferatu into it. They didn't bind to the wearer until yesterday."
"Damn you," muttered the fell dragon. "I thought I got rid of them all. Clearly, I wasn't thorough enough. It won't happen again… but you've earned this."
"Yes, yes, yes! I'll sear this into my brain forever! Ah, ahhhh…!"
Grima retreated into the deepest recesses of his mind to escape his physical predicament. Tharja was a double-edged sword. Her loyalty to Robin and powerful grasp of dark magic had the makings of an incredibly powerful ally… except that she herself was a Shepherd and unaware of his true nature. Her obsessive stalking of him forced him to tread carefully and her knowledge of dark magic enabled her to track means of communication that would be invisible to others. Grima doubted she would side with the fell dragon against the world. Tharja was dangerous. She wasn't to be trusted. She had to be disposed of before he could truly act.
Grima would consider his options for doing so when he wasn't utterly seething with embarrassment. For the time being, he could at least distract himself with the last position he and Morgan left their match in…
"Your father wakes at sunrise," said Laurent. "He wakes you next and you exit the bedroom together with an average delay of thirty minutes."
"Trying to dance," said Morgan. As it turned out, a dance lesson every few days over several weeks wasn't quite enough to become a master dancer—or for that matter, all that passable. "Let's focus on that!"
"After eating, you work on the office until noon," he continued. "Robin attends two meetings on most days prior to this and then participates in court afterwards. In this same timeframe, you have a fifty percent probability of visiting the stables or engaging in miscellaneous playtime activities. You then reconvene in the office and continue working for four hours."
"I'll bet you're all worked up about dancing with such an enchanting girl and wanna take your mind off it!"
Laurent ignored the red in his cheeks and pressed on. "This is followed by training with the Shepherds for up to six hours, averaging four. The remainder of the day is spent mingling with others until dinner, after which you will commonly spend seventy percent of the evening studying with Robin and thirty percent on other pursuits. You sleep one hour short of midnight and your father three hours after you. You steal his shirts, wear them overnight, and insist he tucks you into bed."
"Um, wow, knowing that makes you super creepy. The last person who knew that much about our schedule was Tharja." Maybe Morgan should've picked Owain as her dance partner. Then again, maybe she shouldn't have—no fancy promised meal, no fancy ballroom dance!
"Ignoring the immaturity of your treatment of a man that isn't your direct father—ogh!" Laurent winced as her boot slammed down on his toes.
"Whoops! I slipped." Morgan beamed and spun him back into motion. "Sorry, what were you saying?"
"Case in point regarding immaturity," he muttered under his breath, pain throbbing in his foot. Laurent dodged the second stomp. "You also refrained from the use of magic in the last several months. You claimed to fight Kjelle without holding back and yet refused to use magic. I disagree with her claim that this was done to mock her. Another reason exists."
"Hm?" Morgan's cheery smile didn't change despite the cold tickle on her spine. "And what might that be?"
"You were incapable of using magic," concluded Laurent. "According to my studies, Robin afflicted himself with a similar condition by activating a skill he should not have been capable of using. His recovery time was several weeks. Yours was over two months."
"Maybe… but what if that's what we want you to think?" Morgan winked. "My turn to hyper-analyze you! You, umm…" She didn't have much to pull out of her hat. This wasn't fair! They got to stalk her around the clock while Morgan had other non-creepy things to do. "You need to clean your glasses! They keep blinding me."
"Cleaning them will not improve lens glare." Light reflected off his lenses and did exactly what Morgan complained about. "I recently added the body-searching spell to my repertoire. I trust there are no complaints with using it on you?"
Wait a second. The nature of the dance meant he had Morgan's hand as he spoke! "Um, y'know, there's really no reason to, I'm perfectly fine!" Too late. He was already muttering it under his breath. Morgan considered snapping her hand away or fighting back, but the small spell circles faded before she could come to any decision.
"Ah, yes." Laurent frowned. "You're wearing gloves. Please remove them."
"Excuse me?!" Morgan went bright red and exclaimed, "You—y-you want to—you want to have unprotected hand-holding with me?!"
"No! I mean, yes—but no! Not like that!"
The song came to an end not a moment too soon. Morgan twisted out of his grip and swooned across the ballroom, reeling at the inhumanity of it all. "Oh, the horror! All this time, I took you to be the serious, studious type. I never knew you were such a beast! I should've expected as much from my dedicated stalker…!"
"You are completely misconstruing the scenario!" Laurent looked around in horror at the rapidly growing number of people turning their heads. "I consider it my duty to monitor everyone's condition in order to preserve their health! It is entirely chaste and free of any and all lascivious intent!"
"See? He is stalking me!" Morgan twirled away to the edge of the hall and sank into a chair, wiping at her imaginary tears. "I'll be ruined for marriage… How could anyone let this happen?"
Laurent threw his hands in the air and rushed off, face burning bright red. When he returned with Lissa in tow and offered to have her handle the scan, Morgan was all too happy to present her bare left hand and watch as calculating the possibilities got smoke rising from under his hat.
"Perhaps you unlocked a new skill… could it have occurred on the evening when Nah wasn't present to conduct observation?" Laurent muttered under his breath as the war cleric wandered off. "But how? There exist cases of exhaustion by excessive strain but his was the first case of an impossible skill."
"Maybe nothing happened to me," supplied Morgan helpfully. "I just pretended I couldn't so you'd think I was less of a threat, provoking you into attacking and falling into our devious trap. Now, what kind of trap do we have? Maybe I'm saying this so you'll think that because I'm saying we have a trap, then it can't be the truth, so it must be that I unlocked a new super awesome power and blew myself up for a couple months doing it. Ooh, but then because I said that, you know I know you know I know it's a trick, so we really do have a trap and I'm distracting you from thinking about what kinda trap it is! But what if it's neither and we actually did something completely different? Uh-oh, I presented another option! But wait—what if we didn't plan anything at all?! Father and I did some exercises based on that a while ago—beat the bush, drawing attention and costing yourself nothing to see what the enemy's reaction gives away! Okay, so! Am I saying it because I know you know I won't confess the real plan openly, or—"
