And now for something a little different...

In Which Robin Thinks About Slapping Alex

"Sumia, please," Robin pleaded. "If there is anything you can tell me, do so. Something as innocuous as what he was reading just the other day could be important."

The soon-to-be queen of Ylisse shuffled her feet nervously as the tactician asked his questions. Robin, on the other hand, appeared completely calm, despite the gravity of the situation he'd found himself in. On the inside, though, he was deathly worried. Alex's letter was to blame. It read more like a suicide letter than anything else.

Thus, Robin began what he loosely called an investigation. He had to keep it inconspicuous, but after several days of nothing important coming up, that façade was slowly crumbling. Which led to his rather blunt line of questioning for Sumia.

Robin swore the moment he found Alex, he was going to smack some sense into him.

"I apologize for Robin's bluntness, Sumia," Cordelia said, stepping forward. Robin had forgotten she was there. It wouldn't be the first time he'd forgotten someone important. "It's just that we're very worried. We've been looking for some time now. Please, is there anything you can tell us?"

Robin had intended to find Alex alone. It would've been easier to keep things quiet that way. However, the red-haired pegasus knight next to him made it clear once she knew Alex was gone that she was coming along too. He supposed it wasn't too bad letting her help; she was sharp, maybe even sharper than him. It'd be foolish to refuse the help of someone so smart and earnest.

Robin had to be careful how much he let her know about what Alex told him, though. It was not that he didn't trust her. It was just deeply personal.

Sumia played with the book in her hands before taking a deep breath. "I, er, he was in the library a few days ago. We were just talking when he said something about an 'Outrealm Gate'. He looked really disappointed when I told him I didn't know anything about it."

"'Outrealm Gate'?" Cordelia echoed.

Sumia nodded, frowning. "He was trying to read an encyclopedia about legends and myths. I remembered there was this one book series that had something called an Outrealm Gate as a plot point, but not much else."

Robin rubbed his chin. "I've found something called an Outrealm Gate in my studies of Ylissean myths," Robin secretly enjoyed those more than his history and tactical studies. Something about myths and legends just seemed to call to him. "Supposedly a door leading to... other worlds… Hmm."

"Robin?" Cordelia turned to the white-haired tactician; confusion plastered over her face.

Robin said nothing for a few moments, before bowing. "Thank you for your time, Sumia." He looked up. "I apologize for asking this of you, but could you keep this conversation private? I would appreciate it."

Robin knew Chrom. If Chrom thought one of his own was in danger, no matter the circumstances, he'd march to wherever they were and save them. It was one of the many admirable traits of the crown prince of Ylisse. Or should he have said Exalt? No, Chrom had forsaken that title, even though he acted as the Exalt should.

Robin's heart ached. He ignored it. Especially when speaking with Sumia.

Sumia seemed unsure; her eyes darted around like a scared deer. "I-I have no problems with that, Robin. Although, shouldn't I tell Chrom? Couldn't he help you?"

Robin imagined she would get better when it came to being pressed. No doubt she'd have to when she ascended to the position of queen. "This is, well, it's a rather personal matter. Besides, a small group of people could move faster than all of the Shepherds. In other words, we shall take care of it. Isn't that right, Cordelia?"

Cordelia stared at Robin suspiciously for a few moments before looking to her friend. "Yes, we shall. We will be back with Alex in less than a fortnight. If Prince Chrom asks, tell him we are traveling to confirm some rumors we have heard."

Sumia stood silent, before taking another deep breath and nodding. "If you think it is best. I trust both of you. I'll shall see you later."

Sumia walked down the hallway they'd met her in. Once she was out of earshot, Robin sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Robin, you know something I don't," Cordelia said, giving him a level stare. "Why would Alex want to travel to an Outrealm Gate of all places?"

Robin kept his expression neutral. He'd come up with a theory just a few moments prior. It was rough, he had to admit, but along with all of the information Alex had given him, it made a modicum of sense. Alex claimed to be from a country no one had ever heard of, with strange customs unlike those he'd seen or studied from other nations, along with a written language that made Ylissean Common look complicated in comparison. All of it painted a picture, one he was hesitant to show anyone.

No matter Alex's true circumstances, he would not judge him.

"If what I think is true," He began, "then I will let Alex explain himself. Beyond that, I believe I know where he is going."

Cordelia lightly scowled at Robin's deflection but put it aside for the moment. What mattered then was something entirely different. "Fine. As long as we can find him. No matter where it is, I can fly us there."

Robin nodded, pulling out his trusty notebook and jotting a few notes down. "The Outrealm Gate has always been rumored to be on one of the southern isles. Whiteford Isle, if I remember correctly. There is not much there save for a few sparsely populated villages and a monastery. Everything we have learned points in that direction."

"Then we shall set out immediately," Cordelia concluded, walking past Robin. "I will be in the aeries. Grab what you need and meet me there."

Robin watched the prodigy walk briskly down the hallway, his mind adrift in a sea of thoughts. He hated having to hide things from Chrom of all people. In that case,though, as in many others, he considered it necessary. Too many things were at stake. The Valmese invasion that was to arrive in just two years' time, the resurrection of the Fell God of Destruction, even something as small as a certain proposition from Chrom just a few nights prior.

It was better that way.

Robin sighed once more and walked to his room.

Time and Place

"Little lady, what you're asking is, frankly, out of the question," The innkeeper of the Little Light Inn drawled, looking down on the blue-haired princess in front of him. "That's, what, five rooms you're asking to rent out? Unless you're planning to break down the walls and build yourself a fort, you don't need that much."

"I understand that, sir," Lucina replied, her voice and stare level. "And it is not just for myself; my companions are to be meeting here within the hour, and I merely wish to accommodate them with room and board. I have gold, if that is your primary concern."

The innkeeper stared at her for a moment, before leaning a little over the counter. "Listen, the moment your friends or what have you come through that door-" He pointed in the direction of the door, the cold air blowing under it. "-I'll set you all up with anything you need. But I'm not about to let you rent rooms for ghosts, you hear me?"

Lucina sighed before bowing. "As you wish. We shall do it your way."

"Go and take a seat by the fire, if it pleases you," The innkeeper offered, nodding to the roaring fireplace nearby. "Get the cold out. Grawin winter can be unforgiving if you're unprepared."

"So they are. Thank you," Lucina responded, sitting down in one of the well-worn chairs that surrounded the stone fireplace.

So… This is what the Little Light Inn looked like, before it was burned…

There was a reason she proposed the location to serve as their gathering point once they all arrived in the future. Her father, and all of his closest companions, stayed the night there just before they marched to their deaths. Sir Alex told of the singing and drinking that took place, everyone's hopes as high as they possibly could be. How were they to know that night was to be their last spot of merriment before the age of darkness that followed?

Of course, if she had anything to say about it, her father would never step foot in that inn.

Even so, she was glad she got to see it, and what's more, sleep in it. It, along with all of the western city of Grawin, was gone long before she came of age. She was scared all she would know of the place would come from Sir Alex's accounts.

Sir Alex…

The name produced mixed feelings. On the one hand, she would never forget his service and loyalty. The one she knew was with them until the bitter end, and had been fighting against Grima and his armies for as long as she and her friends were alive. On the other hand, it had been revealed to her that he was a liar of omission. He never spoke to her about how her aunt would die, even though she was certain he knew of it. The words of his present self merely cemented that notion. If only she had known, perhaps she could have prevented it.

The fire in front of Lucina crackled as her blue eyes narrowed. A small feeling of betrayal forced its way through her heart. A single word echoed through her mind like someone's voice through an empty cavern: Why? Why would Sir Alex keep such a secret? He deigned to reveal his knowledge of the future, but it was apparent he only revealed so much. How much more did he keep from her? From her friends?

From his own child?

Then there was his present self. That was a contentious issue to Lucina. He had run away, back to his foreign and still unknown country. She remembered his retreating form, hunched over as if he carried a great burden, the stiffness of his iron hand all too familiar to her. The future she had tried to get him to avert had come to pass, and he was scarred once more. It was at his future self's suggestion, and at the suggestion of someone dear to her, that she try to make him flee when she first came to the past.

Lucina had failed at that; history had repeated itself. Lucina wished she had tried harder to get him to leave, while paradoxically wishing that she got him to stay. When her friend had suggested it, it reinforced to Lucina that she wasn't nearly as heartless as she pretended to be. She wanted to see him again, despite their relationship in the future. With that knowledge, she tried to get him to stay, once she had her explanation.

It was a conundrum, and as she sat silently, the light of the fireplace highlighting her fair features, she felt regret.

Lucina was unsure how long she waited in the inn. It could have been as little as a few minutes or as long as a several hours. Nonetheless, once she snapped out of her reverie, she turned to the front door.

…Not here yet.

She wondered how long it would take them all to arrive, if they arrived at all. Lucina was sure her directions were specific.

Meet in the Little Light Inn on the 11th of February, 998 AS.

Most of Sir Alex's information had proven to be correct, withholding of some of it notwithstanding. He had assured them that the Second Plegian War was likely to end before that date, and he was right. Beyond that, he had assured her that all of her companions would arrive in the past before that time as well.

Lucina hoped Sir Alex's predictions of Laurent's difficulties were untrue.

The door burst open, and a familiar, boisterous voice rang through the room.

"Greetings, my compatriots! The wielder of Missiletain and the bearer of the accursed Sword Hand has arrived!" Owain proclaimed loudly.

Despite herself, Lucina couldn't help but smile lightly.

City of Gold

Regna Ferox was always a cold country, even during the height of summer. With it being February – the coldest month of the year for the entire continent of Archanea – the cloaked man's decision to travel through Southwest Ferox could not have been poorer.

It did not matter. What did matter was what he would find at the end of the long, cold road.

The bone-chilling air whipped around him as he stepped forward through several feet of snow and ice. Snowflakes fell from the cloudy sky, making his already poor eyesight worse. The sun was still in the sky, but the cloud cover made it all but moot. To any normal human, all of those factors would be crippling. They might have possibly survived for an hour at most, before succumbing to the harsh conditions. Thankfully for him, he was not like ordinary men. He was a mage, and he had the power to keep the cold at bay. For a while. Like so many things, though, it did not matter to the hooded figure. He pushed forward, through the icy winds and the white mist that surrounded him. He would make it, even if it was the last thing he did.

He stumbled and, despite his determination just moments before, nearly collapsed and died then and there.

Then he heard their laughter. So clear in the freezing air. For a moment, he was no longer in southwest Ferox. Instead, he was within the halls of that damned college. One of the premier magical institutions in Ylisstol, they had called it, when he'd entered so many years ago. Yet, they scoffed at his ideas. Made him an object of ridicule.

You hope to find this, what, 'lost city'? You've lost your mind. Khadein is gone. If we haven't found it, what hope do you have? They jeered. Taunted. And you said something about the wondrous things to be found there. What sort of madman are you?

Khadein.

He had found the location of the City of Magic, thought to be lost long before the Schism. Before the Fell Dragon washed the land with blood and reshaped the very earth itself. The small amount of information he had of the city was vague but told of a great power that still lay hidden beneath what remained of it. According to the texts he'd found, the area used to be a desert. Combing the archives for years had not gone to waste. Of course, his colleagues believed differently.

So, despite his ailing and aching body, amid the imaginary cruel laughter of what he used to call his friends and family, he got up. His bones creaked and his breath left his mouth with shaky gasps, painting the air in front of him a bright white. Just over the mountain range, he'd find it. He imagined what it'd look like. Towering cathedrals and spires, sparkling in the snow and sunlight like a city made of gold. And inside, the great power the texts spoke so reverently of.

It was with those images that he was able to push himself even further, through the near-impenetrable wall of frozen wind and snow that seemed determined to keep him from his objective.

In spite of all of it, he eventually pushed past those obstacles, and looked down into the mountain valley.

After a few moments of blank staring, the man laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Even with his awful eyesight, he could still make out structures in the snow. Khadein used to be surrounded by desert, but in the present age it was surrounded on all sides by cold and unforgiving jagged mountains that reached up to the sky like the teeth of a massive beast. Thus, from the outside, no one would never see the ruined and toppled buildings that the cloaked man bore witness to.

He, at the very least, could make out spires, defiant against the wind that blew past it. The exhausted mage swore he could hear the wind itself screeching as it went past the largest one, in the center. It was clear, however, that most of Khadein was buried beneath the ground, with only the topmost structures still above the snowy earth. For over a thousand years, the City of Magic lied there, forgotten and abandoned. No records existed of it beyond a certain point, and through his explorations the man would find out why. However, his main obsession was with the power supposedly held within.

He gleefully fantasized what that power was. Immortality? Magical prowess beyond any seen by mortal men? The possibilities were truly endless.

All that mattered to him was that the power held within was enough to show his 'friends' the error of their ways. When he came back with the power of Khadein, he would show them. He would show them all how wrong it was to laugh at his ideas. To scoff at his notions. He would show them all what a mistake they made casting him off as if he was garbage. They would be in absolute awe of his terrible power.

The cloaked man threw his head back and laughed like a madman, causing his hood to fall off and allow his thinning grey hair to flail wildly in the wind. With crazed blue eyes, he smiled down at the ruins of the ancient city.

"At last!" His voice sounded like the grave; scratchy and deep, like a rat scurrying through stone corridors. "At last, I have found you! They shall all see once I return! They will rue the day they dared ridicule me!"

With his chest feeling like a man twenty years younger, he nearly skipped down the mountain, the power of the City of Magic awaiting him.

Dead Man's Land

Gangrel was not dead. Not yet. That would change very soon.

The Mad King of Plegia laid in a field of bodies, gazing up towards the blazing sky with glassy, fish-like eyes. His body was cold, like he'd spent all day napping in the tundra up north. The only warmth seemed to come from the puddle of blood that leaked out of the wound in his chest. The princeling had missed his heart by a scant few inches, it seemed, otherwise he would not even be thinking at that moment. Not that thinking had gotten him very far.

All around him were the reminders of his failure; bodies upon bodies, some Ylissean and Feroxi, but most Plegian. Face down in the ground or eyes staring up just like him, it didn't matter. Soon, he would join them. Others were about as lucky as he, judging from the moans he heard sometimes. It sounded as if an army of the dead were around him. Those noises slowly grew sparser, at the very least, leaving his ears alone.

Or perhaps they weren't going away. Maybe he was so close to death that he could no longer hear the world around him. What a boon that would be! To finally die as the failure he was, surrounded by the men he'd promised the world to. Truly a fitting end for the likes of the Mad King himself.

Despite it all, Gangrel found himself chuckling. It hurt. It hurt more than when the princeling stabbed him with that sword of his, and yet he couldn't help himself. Blood seeped between his teeth as he gagged and giggled like the madman he was.

The Mad King? Ha! More like the Corpse King. In the land of the dead, the man left alive is king, is he not?

Gangrel's mad giggles ended when he heard armored footsteps nearby. Perhaps his hearing wasn't as far gone as he'd thought. He couldn't move very well and twisting his head from side to side hurt more than the chuckling. Even then, he could tell it was getting closer. Whoever it was, they were a big dastard.

And what a big dastard he was.

Whatever he was, he was no ordinary man. He entered Gangrel's field of view, as if on purpose. At first, all the Mad King saw was the red light that came from its helmet. As it stepped forward, he could see more details. Black plate armor covered its entire body like the carapace of a giant beetle. A sword of silver was held in its left hand, looking like a piece of the moon itself. Gangrel shivered just looking at it, which sent another jolt of pain through his body.

The armored man came up slowly until he stood in front of Gangrel.

Gangrel twitched at that. The armored man, no, the armored thing in front of him looked like one of those experiments Aversa had been working on before she disappeared from his castle. He'd planned on hanging her from the gates of Medlun when she was found, but that wasn't going to happen anymore. Nonetheless, the thing in front of him looked to be like those things. He couldn't remember what they were called, exactly. Was it Dreadlord, or Deadlord? Both titles suited the being in front of him.

Whatever it was, it growled at him.

"…Hah," Gangrel managed to bark out a laugh. "Are… you here to… gawk at the corpses…?" He coughed instead of chuckling. "You've come to… the right place… friend. The King of Corpses… himself lies… before you…"

The armored thing stood as still as a statue. For a moment, Gangrel believed it had been so shocked by him speaking that it couldn't even move. Then it sheathed its sword to its back.

The next thing Gangrel knew, he was being held in the air by his throat. A hand as sturdy as iron and as cold as ice clasped around his neck like a vice. He spat out blood and spit as his hands gently pried for any leverage possible. His wound became aggravated, sending a wave of agony through his body so intense that he nearly blacked out.

The red eyes of the armored thing pierced through him, like it was studying every part of him. It growled and snarled as Gangrel feebly struggled in the air, like a rabid dog tearing apart its prey.

Time seemed to slow. Gangrel still attempted to get away. He was already dead; his wound had insured that. To die like that, though, at the hand of whatever the armored thing was - something in his head, something primal, demanded he not be toyed around with. To get away and die like he was supposed to.

The armored thing did not care for that, and as if it could feel Gangrel's internal struggle, it began to shake.

It took him a few seconds to realize that it was laughing.

"…Haaaaah…" It breathed out after a moment. "…Gaaaangrel…"

The thing knew his name. Somehow that was the most frightening thing of all.

It looked as if it was struggling to speak. Its words felt wrong to his ears, like a bear with a human tongue.

"Mad. King. Gangrel." It enunciated, its voice sounding like a desert wind. "Here you are, in front of me now. If only it could have been like this before." When the thing breathed in, it sounded like a dying man's last breath. "But you will not die this day. You do not get to die. Not yet."

The thing put him down but kept a firm grasp on his throat. It dragged him through the bloody battlefield like a sack of rotten potatoes, small chuckles escaping its helmet every so often. Actually, he couldn't tell if they were chuckles or sobs.

"It is time to pay your dues, Gangrel."

Slowly, Gangrel's vision became blurry, and soon enough he knew no more.

So, that was different.

Props to DestructionDragon360 for giving the names to these wonderful little snippets, as well as betaing almost all my chapters. Go read her story 'Madly in Love' and "Heavy is the Head'. If you don't, the Deadlord will hunt you down and drag you away like poor Gangrel over there.

Yeah, it's a pretty bad day to be Gangrel right now.

Anyway, I hope this chapter gave some... insight? I guess. I certainly enjoyed writing it, even if it's smaller than usual.

Here's a link to our Discord: discord .gg/9XG3U7a

Hope you enjoyed!

Edited on 2/22/21. Short but sweet, this one.