AUTHOR'S NOTES: And with the prologue out of the way, the mystery as to how and why so many Shepherds are present in Hoshido and Nohr has been answered. To answer the question of how many there are, there are 7 in all (not counting Odin, Laslow, and Selena, who are canonically in Fates). I chose the ones I did mostly because I felt like they offered some of the most exciting dynamics for the type of story I want to tell.I don't think any of them will necessarily marry, but that might change depending on how things go. This is a very character-driven story after all.
That said, here is chapter 6, where the games begin for real. The focus now shifts to Corrin and Kamui, alternating periodically between the two in order to show both the peaceful, idealistic lifestyle of Corrin in Hoshido, and the belligerent, truthful lifestyle of Kamui in Nohr. The story will loosely follow the first 5 chapters of the game (including the opening "premonition" dream-sequence), but from there there's no telling where it'll end up going.
Happy Reading!

ACT I: THE DAWN AND DUSK DRAGONS

CHAPTER 6: In the White Light

Sing with me a song of Bloodlines and Dawn...

The border between Hoshido and the Bottomless Canyon leading to Nohr now served as a battlefield between the two warring kingdoms, with the invading Nohrians literally on Hoshido's doorstep. Corrin had always envisioned that this would happen someday, particularly as a child back when his sister was still with him and his father still alive. The difference this time was that a new member of the Nohrian army was present in this dream.

"Is this how swiftly you turn against your own flesh and blood?!" Corrin shouted across the battlefield, where his defiant sister Kamui stood among the ranks of the Nohrians.

"You have no right to speak to me of betrayal!" Kamui shouted in return. "I chose this path of my own admonition, just as you have chosen yours."

"My mind was not tainted by the poison of Nohr!"

"And my life has been surrounded by nothing BUT the hardships that Nohr faces! And yet despite that, these people are my family—they are the ones that raised me; that supported me in my times of need. I am not siding with Nohr because of a hatred for Hoshido. I am siding with Nohr because it's the only way I can think of to keep your prejudices from launching you into the fray to cut them down."

"Betrayal is never the answer, sister!" Hinoka barked. "I didn't wait 15 years to see you again only for you to rip yourself away from me again!"

"And those 15 years were spent bonding with the most loving sister a girl could ask for!" Camilla retorted. "If you preach against betrayal, why then are you asking her to betray the people that she's known so much longer?"

"I told you she was nothing but trouble, brother!" Takumi argued, "Nohrians always are."

"Can you really blame me for trying to bring her back though?" Corrin frowned.

"I don't know; can I?" Takumi was practically dripping with sarcasm. "Maybe we should go ask mother. Oh wait! She's dead! Because of HER! Maybe she belongs there, Corrin. Maybe she belongs in Nohr where she shows her true colors as a traitor and a murderer!"

"Takumi…" Corrin gritted his teeth as things began falling apart around him. "Ryoma, talk to him! No—talk to her!" he motioned towards his sister.

"I respect her decision." Ryoma sighed, "I do not like it in the slightest, but if that is where her heart lies, I cannot fight it. However…" he paused, drawing his sword, "I will fight to protect those that I hold dear to me, even if it means slaying my own blood sister. Keep your focus on Kamui, everyone. If she makes one wrong move, attack her."

"Not so fast, Prince," Xander warned, "you lay a finger on her and we will cut you down where you stand."

"It's as I feared…" Kamui frowned, "Hoshido is hospitable only if you're in their good graces. The moment you fall from that grace, you're target practice. What I am doing is not betrayal, Corrin. What you are doing when I wish to return to my family peacefully is betrayal. I'm going back with them to Nohr—for good! And damned if I ever see any of you again; My life was better before you came into it. I wish to return it that way!"

"Betrayal…" Hinoka was seeing red and trembling as she watched Kamui put additional distance between them, "Be… trayal…" she reached for a knife at her side. "BE… TRAY… AL…"

"Sister, stop!" Sakura ran up to Hinoka as Xander, Camilla and Leo moved to surround Kamui.

"I've done my waiting…" she muttered ,"15 years of it… and I'm not… going to just sit down… and let her slip from my grasp again…"

"I hope you realize the bitter taste of betrayal yourself, brother!" Kamui warned. "You pretended to love me, only to stab me in the back the moment I try to unite with my family and friends."

"The same family and friends that murdered your real family! You know how our father died, and your ties with Nohr are the reason our mother died! How am *I* the traitor?"

"Tell you what… you spend two weeks in Nohr and then tell me if returning to your family makes you a traitor to me and mine! Since when did rational reasoning become betrayal?"

"You… want… betrayal…" Hinoka had taken a guttural tone, "I WILL SHOW YOU… BETRAYAL!" in that moment, Hinoka's eyes flashed red and the knife in her hand soared swiftly towards Kamui. Sakura gasped, and Ryoma shouted. Camilla shoved Kamui out of the way of Hinoka's knife and took the hit herself, staggering but staying upright.

"So…" she looked understandably upset at this point, even if Elise swung her staff to quickly curtail the bleeding, "is this how Hoshido plays? By throwing tantrums when they don't get their way! Fine then… say hello to my little friend!" Camilla brandished a wicked-looking axe, licking her lips.

"Strike them down." Kamui ordered, and the last thing Corrin saw before waking up was the Nohrian army advancing on him.

"SISTER!" Corrin sat bolt upright, breathing frantically as he glanced around the dark room. It was a dream, but it had been a vivid one. Was this how the confrontation with his sister would go? Was the projection of her in the dream even real? Was that what she even looked like?

It had felt so vivid, but he had to try and separate the myths from the facts. Hinoka very well could act out of impulse like that, but there would need to be some serious provocation. Ryoma would have warned her against a preemptive initial strike anyways. But the real worrier was himself and his sister. Would she remain loyal to her family if she came here and then they came for her? Perhaps this was a portent of things to come. No, there had to be a way to prevent this needless violence. There had to be a way to unite Nohr and Hoshido against the enemy that was perpetuating this war. Corrin was a pacifist by nature. He knew that there had to be more at work than just Nohr and Hoshido feuding over this or that. He did not imagine a war would start over his sister. If she remained with the Nohrians, it would be a cause of great heartache, but not likely something lady Mikoto would decide necessitated war over.

...Which brought him to another point in his dream. Takumi had stated that mother was dead by that point. What had happened to her? Had Kamui murdered her own mother? Was she going to come here and do exactly that? Normally he was able to dismiss dreams like this, but this one felt so strikingly real…

Almost as if his mother knew his troubles, Mikoto stepped into Corrin's room, lighting a dim lamp to offer a little illumination to the place.

"Is everything alright, sweetheart?" she asked softly.

"I'm fine, mother," Corrin sighed, "I just had a vivid dream is all. Takumi said you were dead; killed by Nohrians."

"What manner of…" Mikoto stammered, wondering why Takumi would say such things, before Corrin clarified what he meant.

"No, no; this was in my dream. We were at the border, facing against who I can only assume was the Nohrian Royal Family."

"The barrier I placed over Hoshido still stands." Mikoto reminded him. "And as long as it does, the Nohrians will lack the will to fight or continue hostilities upon crossing it."

"That wasn't what worried me." Corrin frowned, sitting up, "what worried me was that I saw my sister with them."

This brought pause to the queen's face as she frowned as well. It was not well-known among the other siblings apart from Corrin, but Mikoto thought of her missing daughter almost every day since that fateful night when she had been taken along with the life of her husband. What pained her was not only the lack of closure for the girl, but also realizing that Kamui was alive, but out of reach, and beyond her power to try and save.

"I harbor no ill will towards the ones she calls her family," Mikoto whispered, "should we meet again, I would that she came to her own conclusions about what is right and what is wrong?"

"But if that does occur, what happens if she does decide to stay with Nohr?"

"That is her decision to make. She is alive and she has grown as much as you have. I think the two of you will actually cross paths again very soon."

"How do you know?" Corrin suddenly seemed much more focused. It seemed out of the ordinary for Mikoto to suddenly make a prophecy like this.

"My diviners are not just crackpot old fortune-tellers," Mikoto chuckled, "and I believe their words. There is more to the battle between Hoshido and Nohr than meets the eye, although I am not at liberty to explain it right now."

"Why not?" Corrin tilted his head.

"To put it simply, It would cost me my life." Mikoto warned. She was familiar with the curse placed on the Kingdom of Valla. It was for reasons like this that she and her sister Arete had called it the Invisible Demon Kingdom shortly before they had parted ways. Similar to the warning Anankos had given Roku, Zenzi, and Arozza, speaking of Valla outside of Valla would erase one from existence entirely, and Mikoto was not one to do that to her family that was still grieving over the loss of their father and sister even 15 years after the fact.

"Can nothing be done then?"

"We will be able to make the necessary move only after the skies change above Hoshido and Nohr," Mikoto warned, "do not worry though. No matter what else King Garon tries, as long as I live neither he nor his armies will infiltrate our country—not with a will to fight, at least."

Corrin smiled. He had always been an idealist at heart who just wished for peace and for the world to get along. Perhaps some day it could become a reality. He hoped it could, anyways. He hoped to see his sister again, and hoped to see her on the same side of the battlefield as him. No more fighting; no more death; no more bloodshed; no more violence. That was the peaceful world that Corrin wished to live in.

While Hoshido strived for peace, Nohr strived for war. It was easy to remain peaceful when all of one's needs were met, but in a blighted kingdom where only the toughest and most resilient could survive, it was either become strong or die by the wayside.

And it was for this reason that Kamui trained to become stronger with each passing day.

AFTERTHOUGHTS: After rereading this chapter several months later, a thought or two crossed my mind. There's a chance that at some point I might make AUs of this story based on "Birthright" and "Conquest", which, like this story and Revelation, would basically be rewrites of the atrocities that were the stories in Birthright and Conquest, except that a LOT more people would die (including likely one of the twins) depending on the side. Either way, if this seems like an intgeresting concept for me to tackle sometime in the future, let me know in the comments or via PM. Thanks for reading!