Iturbide, my beta, idea monster that she is, has created a wonderful new fic based on a Shadow of the Colossus au: Cursed Fate. Please read it! She's already got the entire thing outlined and on this insanely tight schedule, so updates are weekly! Thank you so much Iturbide!
For the first time in several weeks, Robin's awakening to the faint glimmer of dawn beyond her guest room's window was tinged with (slight) optimism instead of mounting dread. Mary greeted her with a sunny smile and a fresh change of clothes she changed into herself, as usual, and she went off to breakfast with a spring in her step.
Chrom was nowhere to be found in the dining hall; it was Frederick who sought her out as she was finishing her bowl of porridge under the cook's delighted watch.
"Milord Chrom requests your presence in his study." His brow wrinkled in distaste as Robin licked the oats smearing her lips away.
"Now?"
"Yes, it is a most—"
The cook interrupted with a hearty laugh. "Let the poor man finish his breakfast, Sir Frederick! He's only on his first serving!" She proceeded to pour Robin another heaping bowl of steaming shallot porridge.
Frederick, clearly dying to say something, stifled his words with a sigh and watched impatiently as she wolfed it down with her customary lack of table manners. He snatched Robin up from the back of her collar the very second her spoon began to scrape the bottom of the bowl, and she was hauled off to her impromptu appointment with only enough time to wave back sheepishly at the cook as they left.
"You could be a little more gentle about it," Robin huffed once he released her. She licked the corner of her lips, still tasting the delicious saltiness of her breakfast, as she settled into a comfortable pace by Frederick's side.
"Perhaps," he replied tersely, "but my duties cannot wait, nor can yours. It would be wise to keep that in mind."
Annoyance crawled up the back of her neck unpleasantly and coloured her cheeks a bright scarlet. "Look," she ground out, "I understand that you do not like me. I'm not asking you to," Robin raised a hand when Frederick began to splutter. "But I don't think I'm being unreasonable when I ask for a little more confidence in me on your part. I know I've a lot of work to put into the summit to fix what I've done, but frankly, your 'concern' is bordering on nagging and it's starting to get on my nerves."
Frederick's face matched hers in colour after her statement, but he only harrumphed in response and they spent the rest of the walk in a thick, tense silence.
They came upon the doors to Chrom's study mercifully quick. Frederick nodded to the on-duty guards, who saluted him in turn, and he gave three strong and precisely timed knocks to the heavy wood. "Milord," he called out. "I've arrived with Prince Daraen."
"Oh, good!" Chrom's voice was muffled by the door. "Please let him in."
As soon as the enormous door was pulled open to the tune of the guards' strained grunting, a trio of hairy, slavering dogs burst out with an explosion of barking and yipping, bowling Robin over in their excitement. She was immediately assaulted by an onslaught of saliva and bad breath, helpless to stop them as they had her pinned to the floor.
"Boys! No!" Chrom rushed out and pulled one away as Frederick and the guards dealt with the other two—the dog gave Robin one last parting lick over her mouth and nose.
"They seem very nice," Robin hacked and coughed out a mouthful of dog hair as she was pulled to a standing position.
"I am SO sorry! I promise they're friendly," Chrom dusted off her newly furry doublet. "They just get so excited over guests, but I promise I've been working on it—no! Bad Toby!" He held his knee up to prevent the tallest of the three—a lanky wolfhound—from jumping onto Robin again. "He's the worst of the offenders," he glared at Toby. The dog's tongue lolled out of his mouth, dripping with drool, as his tail blurred from its vigorous wagging.
Frederick got ahold of his collar from Chrom. "I shall keep them under close control, Milord," he promised.
"Thank you, Frederick. Oh, uh, please, come in, Daraen! We were expecting you."
The study was a rather cozy place in spite of its size: a rich green wallpapered the first half before giving way to warm wood panelling; paintings of landscapes and still lifes and mythical creatures decorated the walls. A surprising amount of floral ornaments were arranged throughout, including the beautiful mouldings on the fireplace's mantel and header. A blue kilim of Plegian make sat under the blonde wood of Chrom's desk, and behind it, a large tapestry of the Ylissean Brand with Naga passant beneath it was displayed prominently. Robin was vaguely surprised that the room was not completely carpeted in dog hair as she was.
"Greetings, Your Highness," Miriel said. Her workshop uniform was exchanged for a simple beige dress with mutton leg sleeves and a white apron. Valentine, in spite of his far richer wardrobe, looked grumpy and dishevelled, greeting Robin with a perfunctory and ill-mannered grunt as she took her place by them. Robin chose to ignore it under the reasoning that, despite his rudeness, it was early in the morning.
Chrom himself was still in a dressing gown—Robin spied the remains of a hasty breakfast on a trolley tucked away in a corner. She smiled at the charming sight his tired eyes and bedhead made.
"Now that we're all here," he said as he took his seat behind the desk, "we can get to signing this and get it over with."
He pushed a single sheet of parchment towards them. Scanning it quickly, Robin read that it was a work contract—one that named her and Chrom as chief directors, Miriel as the main contractor, and Valentine as the supplier of labour and resources.
Valentine's face turned an interesting shade of puce. "With all due respect, Milord, I simply cannot agree to this. I can't suddenly deviate my mages to this project when they still have so much else to do."
"Well, I did remember that you mentioned these 'other projects,' so I took that into account when I wrote this up." Chrom pointed to a paragraph in the middle. "It says here that they'll devote half a workday to it, and the other half is reserved for their previous duties."
Cornered, Valentine's mouth made a fascinating, fishlike flapping motion. "I—Milord. Why must my workshop be commandeered so? Can I not nominate someone else to spearhead this—this proposal?"
"I would rather Miriel be assigned to it," Chrom smiled and steepled his fingers together in a gesture Robin recognised as him taking delight in Valentine's squirming. "Out of all your mages, she's the one who has the most and best knowledge in areas like warping, and as such, it would be in the treaty's best interests to have her working towards a solution that will bring Ylisse the food aid it needs."
Robin wanted to die of laughter. The minister's lips were now pursed tightly as though he had sucked on a lemon.
"I am humbled and honoured to have been chosen for the position," Miriel added, seemingly oblivious to how her statement was the final nail in Valentine's coffin. "I look forward to working with your Lordships and that the fruits of our labour can be of great benefit to all."
Robin signed after Miriel, and held the stained quill out to Valentine once her signature was scrawled over it as well. He took it without further protest and signed with an elegant yet resigned flourish.
Chrom sighed a relieved, blustery sigh, and took the parchment and locked it safely in a drawer beneath his desk. "Well, now that that's settled," his chair screeched as he pushed himself back to stand, "you are all free to go. Thank you for your cooperation."
Valentine bowed his head and politely as he could and fled immediately. Miriel, unperturbed, repeated the gesture to the two princes and trailed after her superior at a leisurely pace.
Robin suddenly felt a stab of awkwardness, hanging around with seemingly nothing else to do now that her engagement had ended. Should she…stay? Take her leave? Chrom certainly seemed amenable to her company, but her presence seemed to be an unwelcome one according to Frederick's stiff upper lip.
"I was worried for a moment that you wouldn't make it, Daraen!" Chrom rounded his desk and clapped a friendly hand onto her shoulder. "Though I admit that it was my fault for mailing those missives so late at night, I was hoping you three would show up together. Everything alright?"
"Missives?" Robin asked, perplexed. "What missives?"
"Now see here," Frederick's sharp rebuke took her aback. "They were very clearly sent out; are you saying you never received yours?"
"No—?"
"What are you implying by that? How could it have not arrived?" Frederick scoffed. "It is clear that you have either lost it or you are simply unwilling to admit that you preferred to skip right ahead to breakfast to gorge yourself silly instead of paying attention to your duties!"
Chrom, with a tranquility so strained that Robin thought he was going to burst a blood vessel, placed his hand between Frederick's shoulder blades and leaned in as though sharing something confidential. "Fred," she heard him say very softly. "We're going to let him leave and we'll have a nice long chat after this. I want you to pay very close attention to what I will say, and I want you to keep that in mind for the rest of summit." He breathed in a deep, exhausted breath. "Understood?"
Frederick, to his credit, took this embarrassingly public admonition with a marked display of composure. "Understood, Milord."
"Good." Chrom was all smiles when he released his vassal and turned to address Robin once more. "I hope you've had a restful sleep! I had to spend most of my night writing that contract and get it done today—I wasn't going to debate it at the table when we'd already approved your motion in the first place! However unorthodox your methods are, they've certainly got us moving forward instead of getting stuck in some political bog."
"I hope that means you can get some time to yourself to sleep, though! I know it's not the healthiest habit as I do it myself, but you should get some rest after staying up all night," Robin advised.
Chrom sighed again. "Unfortunately, I have more audiences to attend to today, but I'll try. Thank you for your concern, Daraen." He clasped Robin's hands in a brief, yet warm squeeze. "I'll let you go now—I'd rather not bore you to death having you wait around as I change!"
Robin tried—and failed—to dispel that particular mental image, and made a miserably pathetic show of coughing into her sleeve to try and hide her beetroot face. "Ah w-well, t-thank you, Chrom. I'll just, uh…be on my way now," she gulped. "I have—have a lot of notes to take! So, uh, thank you!"
She made a mad dash for the door with nary a second thought, past the guards, down the hall, and finally out to the gardens until she realised what she had done: she had quite literally fled Chrom's chambers out of sheer embarrassment.
Oh that's smooth, Robin. Good job.
No! she rebutted. Yes, it was an extremely awkward and foolhardy thing of her to rush out without thinking, but she had to try and stop thinking in such catastrophic terms. Chrom would certainly never hold it against her, she reasoned, and besides, what was important was that she had secured Miriel's position as a key part of the food aid agreement along with Chrom. Valentine had lost this little spat and would certainly be more cautious about goading her so recklessly at the table as he had done for the past week.
And besides…Chrom still owed her for that drunken display in her sheets that night.
So! She would attempt to gear her thoughts in a more positive direction, Robin promised herself. She would march straight to the library, work on her notes and allow herself her allotted dinner break instead of ignoring her hunger to keep poring over books. She would work some more, and she would even permit herself the luxury of sleeping early for a change.
The sun was shining, her breakfast had settled comfortably in her stomach, and her efforts so far had paid off not only in her preferred direction, but by bearing delicious fruit in the form of a thwarted and puce-faced Valentine. Robin set off towards the library practically skipping—her bearing was of such vigour and high spirits that the groundskeepers and nobles walking the length of the gardens stopped to stare.
However, a particular passersby caught her attention.
Little Thomas, who she had not seen since the day she arrived at the castle, was peeking out from behind a column; his astonishingly red hair made his attempt at making himself inconspicuous a moot point. Robin felt a sudden rush of tenderness towards the child who had helped her settle in, and she decided to repay his favour with a short detour from her trip to the library.
"Hello!" she called out to him. "How are you?"
Thomas' face lit up as brightly as his hair. An awkward, shy little smile grew on his face like a little dawn sunbeam, and he returned her greeting with a short wave of his stubby hand.
"What are you doing? Where is your mother?" Robin prompted gently.
Emboldened, he left the safety of the column to talk—only to be pushed aside by a much taller child.
She looked not much older than Thomas, but to call her a 'little girl' felt wrong, as she was more than a head taller. Her neatly styled emerald hair and her authoritative stance—arms held akimbo, legs spread out, scowl in place—attested to a precocious and even imperious bearing.
"Thomas," she demanded, "why aren't you working? It's bad to not work."
He screwed up his doughy face, confused. "But it's playtime, Bridget…you said so yourself."
Bridget brushed away his point as easily as she did a strand of her pin-straight hair away from her eyes. "So? That doesn't mean it's right for us to consort," her mouth formed the word carefully as though savouring a rare treat, "with people we're supposed to serve."
"Oh, but his Highness is nice!" Thomas's beautiful little smile returned. "This is the prince of Plegia. I got to see him up close when he came to the castle!"
"Hello," Robin said.
Bridget's stare was unnervingly cutting for a girl of her age. "Where are your horns?" she demanded.
Her words were a slap of cold water to the face, and Robin caught herself before she could splutter from the shock. "My what?"
Nervous titters and flustered whispers echoed in the colonnade. Robin spied a gaggle of children, all similarly attired in the castle's colours just like Thomas and Bridget, pressed behind a column—a few hid their faces upon meeting Robin's eyes, afraid of being caught in the act or simply of Robin herself. She could not tell.
"Come on out now. All of you," she said gently. "What's all this skulking about like spies?"
The children stepped out hesitantly, their heads bowed. Their feet scuffed the flagstones and they shared timid, hesitant glances with one another.
"You were all misbehaving," Bridget admonished, as though she was not part of their little group, "so he'll eat you all now."
The children quailed. A little girl began to cry in earnest.
"Please don't eat us!" her older companion pleaded.
Robin balked at the certainty of their belief—just where exactly was it coming from? Who was telling them that she ate children of all things? "I can assure you all that I most certainly don't do that." She glanced questioningly at Bridget.
"A-and he doesn't have horns either!" Thomas piped up.
"You can see for yourselves." Robin kneeled and tipped her head forward to the little crowd. She very nearly started as a small pair of hands meshed themselves in her hair, searched, and retreated, only for two more to take their place.
"He's right…" a chubby blonde boy reported to Bridget wonderingly.
"So if he doesn't have horns, maybe he also doesn't eat kids like us?" the little girl stopped her crying to add hopefully.
Bridget, who had overseen the horn inspection with great interest, balked at having her convictions questioned. "My mummy told me that. And she would never lie to me."
Thomas frowned. "But you just saw—"
"I don't care!" she snapped suddenly. "It doesn't matter! They're all bad anyways, and my mummy isn't the only one who says so! You've always been a stupid little boy for wanting to suck up and the only thing that'll get you is eaten and he'll use your bones like toothpicks and then your mummy will cry because she had such a stupid boy for a son. And it'll be no one's fault but yours because of how stupid and slow you are and I won't feel bad when it happens!"
Fat, silent tears began to stream out of Thomas' eyes once he had processed the full weight of her tirade, watery snot following soon after. Then came the sniffling—heaving, gasping breaths that shook his pudgy little body as he struggled to wipe his face.
The children stood, petrified, under the situation's heated thrall. Bridget's nostrils flared in self-righteous indignation as she watched Thomas cry.
Robin felt sick. Nevermind that the girl had essentially admitted to not caring over the veracity of such bald-faced lies fed to her by her own mother; Bridget had already come itching for a fight, but the way she turned on Thomas for disagreeing with her, and how quick she was to insult him so callously, shook Robin. Her stomach churned an ugly soup of shock, dismay, and steadily building rage.
And yet, she could not act on her feelings; memories she thought long buried and forgotten came rushing up to her mouth along with the bitterly caustic taste of bile.
"HEY!" a new voice shouted.
If actions spoke louder than words, then Bridget's bared teeth and incensed growl were a cannonball launched across the battlefield. Their latest arrival was either of a foreign mindset who was blissfully ignorant of such an aggressive language, or simply bold enough to disregard the warning shot and wade straight into the fray. She was a girl of Bridget's stature, but far coarser in appearance: her chocolate brown curls were done up in two pigtails with enough straw in them that surely an actual pig or two was hiding in there. Her blue smock was dirty and the knees of her breeches torn and frayed. Most surprisingly of all, the toy sword she held was almost as tall as she was, and was afforded a far higher standard of care in its appearance compared to its bearer.
"What are you doing here, Cynthia?" Bridget ground out.
"You left me behind, so I looked for you."
"We left you behind because you are too annoying to be around. Justice Cabal is a stupid baby game and nobody likes to play it but you."
"That's not true!" Cynthia protested. "You're just too bossy to play it right."
"Am NOT, you're too stupid to play normal games so you can't play with us."
A fresh round of wailing from Thomas reignited with the mention of Bridget's favourite word. Cynthia's pigtails slapped her face lightly as her head whipped around to stare at the scene. Robin suddenly felt sheepish, kneeling in the midst of upset children, and had the oddest feeling that she had seen the Cynthia's intense brown eyes somewhere before.
"You're bullying him again!" Cynthia yelled indignantly.
Bridget huffed and stamped her foot. "He's just being stupid again! He's a crybaby who gets upset over anything and if he doesn't like it, then he can go play with you and your stupid baby frien—"
She was never able to finish her sentence: Cynthia had seized Bridget by her long, silky-straight hair and commenced a savage beating with her wooden sword, pounding the blade into Bridget's head with a ruthlessness Robin thought incapable in children of their age and size. The others began shrieking and howling, morbidly absorbed in the display of such violence.
"STOP. SAYING. THAT!" Each word was punctuated by increasingly ferocious blows until tears and mucus were pouring down Bridget's face, and the girl, blubbering pitifully, tried to hold Cynthia back by pressing her hands to her face and managed to get in a few hard scratches.
"Please! You're hurting me! " Bridget screamed.
Cynthia growled and grunted, undaunted and uncaring in her ceaseless assault. "You should apologise first!"
Somehow, Robin snapped out of the shocked fog her head was swimming in, hooked her hands into the back of the girls' collars, and forcibly wrested the two apart. Cynthia strained and screeched, still swinging her toy sword, and Bridget hid her face in her hands and wept.
"Let me go!" Cynthia panted.
"She hit me! She hit me!" Bridget sobbed.
"That's enough out of both of you!" Robin warned them in the best no-nonsense tone she could muster. "There'll be no more fighting today."
The children whispered in a little huddled mass, worried, wondering what this strange and frightening foreign figure was planning to do. "Are you going to punish them?" a lanky brunette queried.
At a sudden loss, Robin tried to think of an answer. She did not want to fuel whatever other notions of child-eating Plegians they possessed, yet she wanted to impress upon them an image of undisputable authority—one that would hopefully keep them from attempting violence upon one another in her presence.
That, and—she glanced at Thomas, who had taken refuge behind her legs—she would hate to overstep her presence any more than she had a right to, or a perceived one, anyways. Robin could think of a parent or two who would take personal umbrage at their child being subject to the orders of a Plegian, nobility or not.
She settled on a firm "that's for your parents to decide." She was relieved to have hit upon a response that worked well enough; the children stilled like rabbits sighting a dog at the mention of their parents. "Do any one of you think they'd like to hear that you've been involved in a fight?"
"No," they chorused in shame-faced unison.
"Then go. I'll be dealing with these three alone. I don't want any of you listening in while I'm at it."
The gaggle shared hesitant, tentative glances, unsure of their course of action, yet ultimately chose to heed her and slunk away chastened and meek.
A rush of confidence buoyed her. This was certainly not on the level of her victory over Valentine earlier, yet the satisfaction felt the same, having handled the fight in a calm, adult manner. It helped to cement her image as a principled ruler who knew how to diffuse conflicts with subjects of all kinds, even with those beholden to another.
Robin turned to Cynthia, Thomas, and Bridget. "Now, as for you three—"
"I hate you!"
Bridget's outburst stopped Robin in her tracks. "You—"
"Mummy is right about you people! All you do is cause trouble!"
Thomas peeked out at Bridget's tear-stained face from behind Robin's legs. Cynthia held onto him tightly and licked at a scratch near the corner of her mouth that had begun to bleed sluggishly, obviously dying to have another go at Bridget, but Robin's hand on her shoulder reminded her to stay put.
Bridget's eyes, in spite of being clouded by tears, burned with hatred. "You're all evil. I don't care what Thomas says, I bet you do eat people like uncle and I hope you just drop dead!" Her last words were a forceful screech as she turned tail and ran, sobbing loudly as she went.
Robin's heart pounded awfully against her ribcage. She's just a child, she reminded herself in an attempt at calming the ache. She's angry and resentful. She's just parroting what her mother told her.
Just a child.
"Are you alright, Thomas?" Cynthia asked, patting his red hair.
He sniffled loudly, nodding a shaky assent. "Y-yeah."
"She's a piece of work, that one," Robin said. "But you—" she turned to Cynthia, "hitting others like that is most definitely not the right thing to do."
Cynthia huffed, clearly offended, and fired right back. "Why, because scolding her would've worked so much better?"
"Well, ye—"
"No! She keeps doing this," Cynthia stamped her foot. "She's a liar and a bully and a sneak and all the grownups say not to bother her. But it's never worked because she's the one who comes to us! So if she keeps messing with me and my friends then I have to teach her a lesson so she'll stay away." Cynthia bounced the tip of her sword against the flagstones in an quick, agitated rhythm. She frowned at Robin. "And you—you're a grownup too! And you didn't do anything."
Robin froze. "I…"
"Bridget called him awful things and made him cry. She called you awful things and you didn't say anything. But when I do something about it, everyone gets mad, and I bet she ran to her mother to call me more names and go to my mother to rat me out because she's a snitch."
"You hit her very hard—"
"So that's bad but her saying that Thomas is stupid and you're evil isn't?"
Young as she was, there was a clear-cut logic to Cynthia's word choice. And judging from the exasperated weariness in her eyes, it was one born of not just repeated experiences of this kind, but of a deep-seated sense of upholding fairness. Could that be called justice? Perhaps. Cynthia's conviction surprised Robin, and shamed her, too.
Robin kneeled before Cynthia and lowered her head, humbled. "I'm sorry. It was—it was wrong of me to not correct that. You stood up for your friend, and all I did was watch uselessly on the side lines. I…I apologise for not stepping in when I was needed."
Cynthia looked fairly surprised, to see an adult (one of such high station, at that) bowed before her, asking for forgiveness; her mouth opened slightly as she stared agog at Robin.
"Wow Thomas," Cynthia said. "She's nice."
Thomas raised his brows, perplexed. "'She?' He's a prince."
"Oh. Right." Cynthia regarded Robin with a newfound sense of respect, studying Robin's borrowed courtly dress with great curiosity. She noticed the little girl fixated the most upon her white hair. "I don't understand. You're a grownup. And Bridget never talks back to grownups."
"But you heard her, Cynthy," Thomas replied. "She doesn't like Plegians…"
The words Bridget spoke, still fresh in Robin's mind, stung as sharply as a hornet's bite, moreso due to how thoroughly poisoned the mind of a girl of Bridget's age had been. If that was what was being fed to a child, then what were her parents like?
Robin tried to shake such thoughts off. "I don't agree with your…methods," she addressed Cynthia, "but that was brave of you. Not many would call others out, let alone stand up to them."
Coward, the snide voice in her head muttered.
Cynthia beamed proudly. "Mother and father taught me to always do the right thing." She swung her toy sword excitedly, forgetting its length and nearly catching Robin and Thomas in the face with its blunt edge. "And I wanna be a knight like them one day so I can save people, so I gotta practice being shrivelruss and not be afraid of anything."
"That's an admirable goal to have."
"Yeah! I practice with my friends lots! Me and Owain and Brady play Justice Cabal all the time so we can grow up big and strong, and we practice for all sorts of stuff, like killing evil trolls and rescuing damsels and riding and fighting bad guys."
"Oh, you're Brady and Owain's friend?" Robin was pleasantly surprised.
"Mhmm. We were playing 'fore I heard dumb Bridget screaming, so I knew something was up." She took Thomas by his pudgy little hand and began pulling him away unceremoniously. "You should come play too, Thomas! You should practice with us so you can teach villains a big lesson!"
Thomas shrank shyly. "But will Brady and Owain…like me?"
"Sure! And if they don't, then I'll make 'em," Cynthia crowed confidently.
Robin smiled to herself. Cynthia was certainly a raucous little girl, but her cheer proved infectious, and Robin simply could not find it in herself to stay upset for long. She watched the children jog lightly to the castle lawn, stopped, and turned to look back.
"Why aren't you coming?" Cynthia yelled.
Robin blinked. "Oh. You want me to?"
"Well duh!" Cynthia rolled her eyes as though Robin had missed the most obvious thing ever.
Chuckling, Robin pulled herself up from her kneeling position and strolled leisurely to them, Cynthia impatiently urging her on with a little push to the small of her back to change her pace to a jog. Thomas gripped the hem of her robe anxiously as Cynthia led them to wherever she wanted them. They crossed the castle green, ducked past a colonnade, and entered a large greenscaped area Robin recognised as adjacent to the Feroxi guest quarters and the smithy. The castle stables were smelled before they were sighted: a handsome stone structure decked out in green and blue pennants, with stable boys and grooms hard at work mucking out the stalls and leading glossy-coated horses through a large guarded gate that presumably led to a private pasture.
Brady and Owain were head-to-toe sweaty and covered in the grass they now rested on together. A wooden sword rather like Cynthia's lay a few feet from them, but the small wand Brady was using was very much a real tool and not a play-pretend toy; he kept waving it, frustrated, over Owain's bruised knee, mumbling unhappily to himself when all it produced was a bright light.
"Oh, Cynthia's back!" Owain waved happily to the trio as they approached. Brady opted to flop back onto the grass instead of replying, covering his face to avoid disappointed tears from leaking out of his eyes.
Cynthia broke from the group to greet her friends. "I brought Thomas so he can play with us."
Owain grinned toothily. "Great! Does he wanna be the bad guy? We need a bad guy to practice on."
"N-no…" Thomas wilted at the suggestion. "I'm not a bad guy…"
"Then you won't be," Cynthia assured. She finally seemed to take notice of Brady's plight, sitting down cross-legged to poke him with her sword.
"Don't do that," Brady whined.
"What's wrong?" she asked him, ignoring his complaint.
"Nothin'," he muttered and rolled over to bury his face in the grass.
Owain sighed, exhausted. "His wand won't make my bruise go away and he's been trying for a while now."
Robin sat beside Brady and began rubbing his back soothingly—the unprompted action startled him and his red face shot up to look at her wonderingly, a few loose pieces of grass dotting his forehead.
"That's alright," she told him. "Magic is hard. But it's good to practice—it's how you get better at it, so don't give up just yet."
"But it's not working," he complained sadly.
Robin gave him a wry smile. "Of course not. It's hard. But that doesn't mean nothing is happening. You're at the age when most start, and I didn't get to it till much later, so I had a lot of catching up to do," she confessed.
The children shared impressed glances, astonished that an adult was confiding such a thing to them. It seemed too odd for adults to have struggled with something that now came so easily to them.
"Can you do healing?" Brady asked.
"A bit. Certainly not up to your mother's level, but just enough to work for me."
Brady mulled over his thoughts carefully, seemingly debating over whether to keep his words to himself or not. "Can you help me practice?" he finally blurted out.
"Of course. Mind if I take a look at your wand?"
Brady handed it over without a fuss. It was very obviously a gift from Maribelle—Robin simply could not see Donnel having a hand in its selection. It was a gorgeous, slim little thing made of ash wood, a handle of mother-of-pearl, and what was most likely her son's name inscribed in runes on the shaft. Owain sat himself down with a grunt and stretched his leg out, eager to see how it would work with a more experience mage wielding it.
"The trick," Robin tapped the wand against the bruised gently, "is to think about what you want the magic to do rather than what you hope the wand will do. We use wands and staves because they are useful conduits—"
"What's a conduit?" Cynthia interrupted.
"Think about it as a channel. For example, an aqueduct is a channel for water to run through—"
"So that means pipes are poop channels!" Owain cackled. The children burst into raucous laughter over the dirty joke.
Robin cracked a smile in spite of herself. "Well, yes, you could say that. As I was saying," she fixed them with a mock glare, and the children shushed themselves with loud giggling, "wands and staves and tomes are conduits for our own power, since casting is difficult. Most people prefer to keep using them throughout their entire lives, though a few graduate to casting without the help of an item." She pointed to Owain's bruise, Brady looking on intently. "So you already know how to feel the magic inside you?"
"Yeah," Brady said.
"Think very carefully about how you want to use it." Robin placed the wand into his hand. "And think about it going through your wand and to the bruise. Think about how you want the bruise to disappear."
Brady screwed his face up, concentrating very very hard, his face turning red from his exertion. Nothing happened.
"Don't worry. Don't strain so much. Breathe slowly, relax, and just keep at it."
He sucked in a deep, deep breath and closed his eyes less tensely. The children all gathered around with bated breaths, eager to see whatever result could be produced; Thomas was seemingly of the idea that something horrible would happen, hiding his face with his hands.
The edge of the bruise started to fade lightly.
Owain cheered. "It worked! It really worked!"
Brady flopped back onto the grass, heaving a relieved sigh. "I can't believe it worked…"
"He should be our healer now that we're ready for Justice Cabal again."
"No fair!" Brady shot up, cheeks flushed, indignant. "I'm already the healer."
"Well, maybe he can be the villain, since Thomas doesn't want to," Cynthia said. "And I'm already the knight."
They were sweet, friendly children, and their intentions were wholly innocent, yet their words left a sour taste in Robin's mouth. "I wouldn't like to be the villain," she mumbled, crestfallen.
Cynthia scowled. "But we need a villain! If you're not the villain, then who?"
"Cynthia!" a voice called out.
The children stilled immediately. A very pretty young woman sporting the castle's colours (in a modified version of what the groomsmen wore) emerged from the stables. She had very long ashen curls tied back into a sensible braid, large brown eyes, and wore an expression of deep motherly relief as she ran to them. Something in Robin's chest shifted uncomfortably at the sight.
"Where were you, young lady?" the woman asked, not unkindly, yet very directly.
Cynthia had the sense to look sheepish as she scuffed her feet on the grass. "I'm not a lady. And I'm back, aren't I?"
"She went running after Bridget," Owain blurted out.
"Tattletale," Cynthia hissed under her breath.
"Cynthia," her mother—for she was obviously her mother, with that chiding tone she took—sighed. "How many times do I have to tell you to steer clear? Frankly, I'm a little tired of her mother demanding to speak with me over whatever new tiff you've had."
"But she called Justice Cabal stupid. I had to prove her wrong. And when I found her she was being mean to Thomas again. I hate that."
Cynthia's mother brought a finger up to her daughter's face, tracing the now healed scratches marking her cheek, under her eye, and across the bridge of her nose. "She's not worth all that," she murmured sadly. "And you know how upset it makes me and your father feel to see that you've been fighting again."
"Are you mad at me? Please don't be mad at me," Cynthia pleaded. She threw her arms around her mother's neck and buried her face in her neck. "I promise not to do it again…"
"We'll see about that later. For now, we need to head back—it's late and we're meeting your father for dinner." She gathered her daughter up and heaved themselves both up to a standing position, seemingly uncaring of the dirt her little girl was tracking all over her uniform; then again, she was most likely used to the muck and grime, given her occupation.
Brady and Owain immediately stood at attention, straight as proud flagpoles. "Can we come too, Lady Sumia? We're starving," Owain asked.
Sumia's laugh was charmingly amused, delighted even. "We would love to have you over, boys, but I did promise your mothers that I'd have you ready for them at this time."
"Aw," Brady visibly deflated.
"Please don't worry. I'm sure we can all get together soon to eat."
It was then that Sumia finally turned to Robin. Something about those doe-brown eyes was somehow simultaneously rather appealing yet wholly unnerving. As though she was trying to disassemble her and peer into her secrets; a look that was as full of wariness as it was pity.
Robin was not entirely sure what to make of that.
"Forgive my rudeness, your Highness," Sumia dipped into a curtsy. "I hope the children haven't been a bother. My Cynthia is quite the feisty little thing and she can be quite insistent."
Blinking, Robin remembered she had a mouth she could use. "Oh, not at all. I just…happened to run into them. I've made the ladies Lissa and Maribelle's acquaintance before and I've met Brady and Owain."
"Oh, I've heard—I mean," a soft pink coloured Sumia's face, "I was just about to bring the boys to them…I noticed that they're rather fond of you, and I-I don't suppose you would care to join us?"
"I'd be very glad to."
Sumia called the children to them after carefully lowering Cynthia to the ground, bidding them to follow as they began the short trek to the castle's main courtyard. The children chattered happily amongst themselves and laughed over their toys, expressing their eagerness to eat, with naught a care in the world. Robin was envious at such joviality and lightheartedness.
Sumia kept sneaking little glances her way that left Robin wondering: what exactly was she planning? What was she thinking? She mentioned Lissa and Maribelle in such a way that Robin knew they were far closer than being mere acquaintances, but there was a cautiousness—dare she say a shyness, even—to her demeanour that Robin was keenly aware of, and thus left to ponder over whether this new character would be as welcoming towards her as her fellow noblewomen.
Said women were taking in some sun with other ladies gathered around them on lawn furniture, chatting animatedly over their needlepoint and a small game of trump. Brady and Owain broke away from the group to run to their mothers, shrieking delightedly.
"Young man," Maribelle sighed as she and Lissa stood to receive them. "You must remember to use your words like the gentleman you are, instead of running around screeching like a monkey."
"I'm hungry, ma," Brady ignored her reprimand.
"No, first you acknowledge what I have said, and secondly, you must ask for your meal politely."
Lissa laughed. "I see they've been playing really hard today! Have our boys done anything naughty?"
"Nooooooo," Owain declared, unconvincingly wide-eyed.
Sumia shook her head lightly. "Oh, not at all. They had so much fun, and they even brought back a few friends." She gestured casually to Thomas and Robin.
Lissa spied the tiny bruise on Owain's knee and then glanced back to Robin. She shared the briefest look with Maribelle, seemingly able to share an entire conversation with just the slightest of gestures, and smiled brightly at the arrivals. "Well, I'm glad to see our boys have been in such good hands! They were hoping to see you again, Daraen, and they wouldn't stop talking about you last time so I know they'll talk our ears off over dinner right now!"
Robin flushed slightly over the ladies' titters and the way they played at a coquettish appreciation of "his" affinity for children, hiding their upturned lips behind ivory white handkerchiefs and turning their heads modestly. "I'm flattered to hear that. They're fine children—I can see where they get their charm from." The giggling was barely concealed this time.
"Flatterer," Lissa beamed.
Maribelle performed a perfectly executed curtsy, the white hem of her dress barely folding against the grass before she instructed Brady to bow (which he did, clumsily), and took Lissa by the elbow. "We would simply love to stay and chat some more, your Highness, but I am afraid that we've a previously arranged dinner, and our boys need a proper washing up," Brady ducked his head in embarrassment, "if we are to keep to our schedule."
"Oh, don't mind me. I would hate to keep you from your meal," Robin said.
Her rouged lips curling up into a soft, secretive curve, she curtsied once more. "Thank you. I do hope that you can accept a future invitation to lunch again; I've made sure to procure an excellent pheasant from the cooks for next week."
"It would be my pleasure."
The women took their leave and their children, with their cadre of whispering, glancing ladies-in-waiting following soon after. Robin thought it strange that Sumia did not follow them or go her own way; there was an odd look to her eyes that Robin was unsure of, and they shared an awkward, uncertain quietude.
"Um…" Sumia took it upon herself to break the silence. "I was wondering…I-I was hoping…would you care to join us for dinner?"
Robin had been in the middle of far more dangerous situations before, but there was something uniquely uncomfortable about the fact that she was about to share a meal with Frederick.
Robin had accepted Sumia's offer without thinking—food had always been a particular weakness—and followed her and Cynthia to their dwelling close to the castle gardens. The exterior was hidden in the shade of a cheerfully blooming lilac tree and well-kept beds of irises and lupines. It was rather rustic looking on the inside compared to the rest of the interiors Robin had seen so far, yet very cozy and homey. There were a variety of lovingly crafted details (crocheted throw pillows, furniture carved with equine features, knitwear in soft colours and handmade toys in a woven basket) that gave the whole place a warm, human touch.
Sumia seemed to open up now that she was in her domain, shedding the shy persona she had previously presented in favour of a talkative, smiling, rosy-cheeked image. She donned a white apron as she welcomed Robin and bade her to sit at the table whilst she bustled around in the adjacent kitchenette. Sumia prattled on about this and that as she gathered ingredients for their meal, and Robin wondered at the apparent lack of servants. Not that the place was in need of them; it was evidently very well cared for.
"Oh, you're back just in time, dear!" Sumia exclaimed to the door. Robin choked on her cup of mulled wine as Frederick, of all people, crossed the threshold and was received warmly by who were evidently his wife and child. "I brought a guest over."
"I can see that," Frederick ground out.
And so their dinner progressed in an awkward fashion as Robin and Frederick mostly kept to their plates (a hot slice of meat and fiddlehead pie with a generous side of green onions and ramps), listening as Cynthia and Sumia provided most of the conversation. Sumia discussed her work at the stables, the newborn foal and expectant mares they were caring for, and Cynthia her day of fighting imaginary dragons and evildoers with the Justice Cabal.
"Was a wicked sorcerer the one who gave you that scratch? Or was it Brady or Owain?" Frederick, who had been quiet until now, asked pointedly.
Cynthia's smile dropped along with her face, unable to look her father in the eye. "Ummm…"
"We can discuss that later," Sumia began to clear the table briskly. "Cynthia, why don't you go out back and play some more before dessert? I'll bring up some strawberries from the cellar and we can have them ice cold and drizzled with honey, just how you like them."
"Okay." Cynthia seized the chance to postpone her father's questioning and raced out the back door. The spacious windows revealed a garden even lusher than out front and a lovely carved swing set hung from a blooming apple tree that Cynthia flung herself onto with unrestrained gusto.
In spite of the happiness the sight brought to Robin's heart, she could not help the jealous pang that followed; Cynthia had a childhood many would have given anything for.
Frederick was clearly dying to protest, but a sharp, exasperated look from Sumia's end quieted him. Even his wordless offer to help tidy up was rebuffed, and thus he and Robin sat across from each other in a forced, uneasily silent companionship as they watched his wife scrub their pewter trenchers and cutlery at an implacably fast pace.
When she finished, she sat at the head of the table and folded her hands primly before her.
"Now then," she began, "I have to admit that I had an…ulterior motive for inviting you here, your Highness, and I have to apologise for that."
"Sumia—"
"Please, not now. I need to finish," she cut her husband off. She took in a deep breath and continued. "I heard everything from Lissa and Maribelle."
Robin gaped at her with all the charm and verbosity of a fish left to die flopping on the riverbank. Was the arrangement she made with Chrom and Maribelle supposed to be kept a secret or not? Just what was going on here? "H-how many others know?"
"Just the relevant people, I promise. That would be me, Lissa, Maribelle, I guess Fred counts, and Sully."
Sully? The red menace who wanted to punch her the second they locked eyes? "Can I ask why?" Robin sighed.
"Sumia, with all due respect, this entire plan in of itself is farfetched and harebrained," Frederick burst out, "and I see no good coming of it. I do not approve of what Lissa and Maribelle are doing, and I certainly don't approve of you being involved in their schemes, especially," he flung his arm out in Robin's direction, "colluding with men like him."
"Frederick." Sumia slammed her hands on the table and her chair skidded back with a screech, startling everyone with her sudden, unforeseen display of anger. "I am not asking for your approval!"
Tension crackled between the couple: Robin was able to pick out equal parts exasperation, frustration, and a stinging resentment of sorts. This was clearly a sore point between them, and as much as Robin wanted to dig a hole and hide in it, being at the crux of their argument made it rather impossible at the moment.
Thankfully, Sumia's sigh brought her back down to her chair and ended the standoff mercifully quick. "I'm sorry. It's just—it's something that's been weighing on my mind lately. I don't want to fight with anyone. I just want to help Chrom."
"I apologise as well." Frederick reached out to take her hand in his; Robin was struck by the massive difference in size between his bearlike palm and Sumia's slim, ladylike fingers. "I too wish to help him, even if I disagree with your…methods."
Robin raised her hand tentatively. "…Can I ask just what exactly is going on here?"
Frederick and Sumia exchanged a quick yet heavy glance, and Sumia heaved another sigh, extricating her hand from Frederick's to steeple her fingers pensively. "Well, better to start with what you already know…that you're playing matchmaker for Chrom."
"I'm aware of that."
Sumia sighed yet again. "My point being that I don't think you've been given a very thorough explanation, I think, as to why you were chosen for it. I daresay you've already got your hands full with the summit…and while Maribelle isn't one for mincing words, she sometimes doesn't consider that the backstory is important to the plot, too."
Robin's eyebrows stayed put, belying the interest piqued by Sumia's statement. "…I'm listening."
Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Sumia pursed her lips pensively before easing into the waters gently. "Chrom…is not in a very good position right now. He wasn't raised for the job like…like Emmeryn was."
The ticking of the winsomely decorated clock (a curious thing that produced a tweeting bird hanging on by a spring mechanism upon the stroke of every hour) on the wall underscored Robin's discomfort. Chrom was one thing, but mentions of his dearly loved deceased elder sister complicated things. There were still a lot of unsaid things to try and process.
Robin was not even sure how she felt over the woman, or what she felt towards her legacy.
"Even when she was still here, Emmeryn…well, she was a bit famous for dawdling on the marriage front. Her council pressured her to find a husband and produce heirs quick ever since the previous Exalt passed, but she would always push their efforts back or work on some other things to keep them away. And when she died…the only way I can describe what it was like here was pure panic on their end."
"But according to what I've seen and heard, Owain was born around that time, correct?" Robin pointed out. "Doesn't he qualify as an heir? What does Chrom have to worry about now?"
"Oh, we all wished that would be the case," Sumia said, ruefully. "But the thing is that, unlike Chrom, Lissa never manifested a Brand. At least, not a visible one like her siblings or—or your Highness." Her brown eyes flicked down to the bruised coloured sigil on the back of Robin's right hand; Robin hid it in the safety of her left palm out of self-consciousness. "And it seemed to be the case for Owain as well. His didn't show up until a year ago. The council wanted someone with a Brand to ensure a ruler that could use the Falchion and perform the Awakening ceremony. And even if his Brand would have shown up since birth, he's too young to take part in the Awakening."
"So those men wanted someone they could kill Grima's vessels with, huh? How lucky for them that we surrendered," Robin muttered bitterly.
Sumia lightly slapped Frederick's hand away just as he was about to raise it in protest. Her husband grumbled, but did not contest her action and leaned back into his seat. "Yes. But before that, they were determined to find a husband for Emmeryn to carry Marth's line and secure the throne. They'd already started on Chrom's prospects in the event that she would keep defying them." An acerbic press of her lips emphasised the fine lines around them, so young yet already starting to show signs of stress. "And with her death, and war upon us, they turned desperate."
The clock's ticking only served to make Robin feel more at ill-ease. "I don't mean to pry, but…how do you know all this? About Chrom?" Robin asked after a pregnant pause.
A soft, wistful nostalgia turned Sumia's eyes a misty gray, and her lips twisted into a wry, regretful smile. "We were courting. Once."
As awkward as Robin felt, knowing the implications that Sumia's past with Chrom held, she also felt a deep sadness for them. "I'm sorry," she said with complete sincerity. "It must have been a very happy time for you both."
"Oh, it was." Frederick's hand clasped his wife's shoulder in a show of reassurance. Sumia reached back to hold it, and Robin spied a matching pair of simple silver wedding bands glittering on their fingers. "We were—we've been friends for a long time. I knew him since childhood and I grew up with him, Sully, Maribelle, Cordelia…" she trailed off. "Even when I announced my entry to the Pegasus Knights, he was completely supportive of my decision. I was so clumsy back then, and I had zero self-confidence. I was the youngest child out of six. The other girls teased me over anything and everything, and my family didn't think I had much in the way of prospects." She sighed. "But from the moment Chrom told me he loved me, I was so happy, and I didn't care what the others thought. With him by my side, I felt I could do anything."
"And then what happened?" Robin prompted gently.
For a moment, it seemed as though a stray tear was threatening to spill out of Sumia's eye; a strong, reassuring squeeze from Frederick's hand brought Sumia back to her senses, and she wiped the corner of her eye with a rueful smile. "We were pressured into announcing our engagement immediately. We barely had any time to ourselves: everything down to the times we could have dinner together was overseen by the council. The other Knights—they began to resent me for my connection to Chrom. It affected my performance with them, and soon I was dealing with accusations of favouritism from them."
"I found out about them as soon as they were reported," Frederick was clearly sore over it, too. "Phila was a dear friend, and as their Captain, she saw it fit to share them with me. Their words were nonsense, of course."
"They didn't think so, Freddy. I had their relatives—some parents, even!—trying to start fights with me during practice drills, friends snooping around to find something unsavoury about my private life…there was one time I caught a servant looking through my linens and trying to plant evidence of unfaithfulness on my part."
So, in other words, their engagement was a nightmare. Robin felt nothing but sympathy for the poor young woman, and silently thanked whatever higher power that might have been watching that she was too young by Plegian standards to have herself forced into an engagement back then. "Chrom was helpful at least? That sounds like something he would have taken immediate action against."
To Robin's utter confusion and more than a little horror, the couple looked away to their sides and sucked in uncomfortable breaths. "Um…how to put this…" Sumia began.
"Milord Chrom has always been a very kind and thoughtful man, but he was far more naïve back then and not of much help, I'm sorry to say," Frederick supplied for her bluntly.
More naïve than he is now? Robin wanted to groan out loud.
"It's not that he didn't help," Sumia stressed, "but more like it was combination of things. Not only were his hands tied with constant council interference, but he thought, bless him, that he could appeal to their better sides with a chat and thought that would solve things."
Frederick hummed in agreeance. "He is always trying to see the better sides of others."
"And it didn't help, I take it," Robin deduced.
"It actually made things worse," Sumia murmured. "I started to get threats over running to Chrom every time there was an incident, and I felt so helpless to do anything about it. I kept my mouth shut and pretended everything was fine so I wouldn't burden him with more issues. I didn't want to be more deadweight to carry."
Oh, Chrom. Oh, Sumia.
"But the worst part was after Emmeryn died. He became a total mess," Sumia sniffled. Frederick immediately offered her a snowy white handkerchief to wipe herself with, and she accepted but did not use it. "Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, drink, or think straight. I took a nasty blow myself the day of the Fall—"Sumia patted her side absently; Robin had a sudden, vivid memory of watching archers shooting their targets that day, and thinking how slowly the feathers fell compared to the pegasi and their riders—"and I was completely bedridden for a week. The doctors said that it was possible I might not even be able to have children after."
Robin spared a quick glance to Cynthia playing happily outside, totally oblivious.
"Naturally, I became completely useless to the council overnight," Sumia said with a bitter smile. "I was told Chrom got hundreds of letters pressuring him to drop me and find a new fiancée immediately. But he was in no place to negotiate anything. He was too lost in grief."
"Chrom made a lot of unwise decisions during that time, unfortunately," Frederick added sadly.
Sumia exhaled. "He was so afraid of losing more loved ones that he—he told me I was to quit the Pegasus Knights and leave the front lines immediately. For my safety. And I broke our engagement over that."
"Why?" Robin asked. "Not that I'm saying he was right to demand that of you…but it seems like such a final decision to make."
The dimming light of the day cast a soft glow on Sumia's face as she turned to watch her daughter leave her swing to pick up a toy lance and wooden pony, her brown eyes turning that liquid, misty gray from before as her child pranced and charged with naught but her imaginary enemies to worry her. Years of previous hopes and fears, years of past hardship gave Sumia an aura of indelible maturity, and Robin felt awe at the sight. "Working with pegasi has always been my dream. Since as long as I can remember," she finally replied. "I loved him. I still do. But I was never going to throw my away dreams; not for the people calling me to step down in the first place, and not for him either."
"I'm sorry…"
Sumia reached out to take Robin's hand in hers, surprising with how her soft and delicate appearance disguised years of callused skin and damaged nail beds. "Don't be. Dwelling on the past constantly doesn't teach us anything. It just hurts," she reassured. "And besides: I always looked forward to sitting on the back of a pegasus more than I did on a throne." She wiped her eyes carefully and then turned to Frederick with a radiant smile. "And it's how I chose Frederick, in the end."
"Oh, you don't have to tell that story—" the sudden show of bashfulness from Frederick was shocking to Robin.
"But I want to!" Sumia beamed. "I know he seems like a killjoy and a wet blanket and a sourpuss—" Frederick's shyness immediately morphed into a displeased frown, forcing Robin to try and stifle her laugh—"but he nursed me back to health and stayed by my side the entire time." She grasped his enormous hands lovingly and ran her thumb over his thickened knuckles. The upturned corner of Frederick's mouth was totally new to Robin, and she wondered what was it exactly about Sumia that was able to bring that out in him. "I would've never recovered were it not for him telling me that he believed in me and supported me wanting to stay with the Pegasus Knights."
"And yet you ended up taking up a non-combatant's role."
"So? I'm still a Pegasus Knight! I'm just the primary breeder now—I'd rather leave the spear end of things to Cordelia."
"Ah, hold on," Robin was still trying to piece things together. "How do Sully and Maribelle play a part in all this?"
Sumia sighed for the hundredth time in that conversation, wracking her mind to try and find a way to condense what was clearly a long, impossibly tangled web of relationships. "How do I say this? We all had our little crushes on him growing up, and we had a falling out when Chrom announced we were courting…I'm so thankful it didn't last though, I would've hated to lose their friendship over something like that. But the thing is," her eyes crinkled anxiously, "after I broke things off with him and started seeing Frederick…he faced a lot of pressure of the council and basically tried to woo them in my place."
Chrom. You complete, utterly, feckless idiot. "And I take it that trying to use them as replacements didn't go down very well," Robin deadpanned.
"As well as a leaden wyvern," Sumia confirmed. "Sully's barely on speaking terms with him."
Robin considered this new information carefully. A long and complicated history with several women, all of whom he very nearly burned his bridges with due to his impulsiveness, fear of loss, and general naïvité made for a difficult job indeed, much more difficult than she had anticipated. Two of them had children whose age confirmed to Robin that they were conceived and born shortly after their mothers married, and right before the war ended as well. Adding to everyone's woes was Chrom's infuriatingly meddlesome council, and Robin wondered, not for the first time, if she was biting off more than she could chew.
"And how did he meet Olivia?"
"It sounds romantic, when you think about it," Sumia mused. "He saw her tending to the wounded and refreshing those who needed it in the battle before the war's end—it was love at first sight for him, apparently. He asked around and it turns out that not only was she the one who also helped secure the troops' escape from Plegia after the Fall, but Basilio is her uncle as well."
"And why her?"
It certainly was a difficult question to answer; there was no fault in Sumia delaying her answer as she hemmed and hawed for suitable words. "Well—she's obviously very beautiful; she's from a noble family with important connections, and it would work well to help keep Ylisse and Regna Ferox closer than ever. Other than that, I can only guess as to why her and not all of the other available young women who I know would be more than happy to marry him. I…I haven't spent much time with him lately to know his reasons."
"Sully is better equipped to explain that," Frederick added cryptically.
Robin leaned forward as if sharing a secret, and with complete seriousness, said "and why me?"
Sumia was somewhat at a loss for words. Robin patiently awaited a response; she remembered Maribelle's reasoning over choosing Robin, yet Sumia mentioned she did not think Robin was briefed sufficiently on the subject. What would she say? What was there to know that Robin did not?
Frederick, surprisingly, answered in his wife's stead.
"Milord Chrom believes that, as a third, neutral party, you will be disinclined to probe into his personal affairs the way his council has in the past," he explained, "and continues to do so despite Milord's attempts to push back. However," and this was said with a distasteful, long-suffering sigh, "he believes it to be a way to foster closer relations between our nations, and prove to the rest that bygones can be left to rest."
It was a ludicrously convoluted plot that made Robin want to brain herself on the table's edge. Chrom was no tactician, that was certain, and his awkward, fumbling attempts at romancing a woman who had rebuffed his advances several times could have been solved by ceasing his pursuit in favour of a far more willing partner, or simply eliminating the foolish need for a middleman and attempting to talk to Olivia face to face for once.
But by the gods, did Robin owe Chrom. Robin owed Chrom an enormous debt whose depths were unfathomable to the average bystander in the whole affair. Stupid matchmaking plan or not, Robin was deeply touched by Chrom's trust in her, and was determined to repay her debt and honour that trust and by carrying out his wishes down to the dotted i's.
"Thank you for sharing this with me," Robin scrubbed her face tiredly, mentally exhausted from still attempting to processing the giant information dump she had just received. "It's a lot to take in, but I think I understand this mess better."
Sumia's curls bounced softly as she shook her head. "We're just looking out for Chrom. We'd hate to see him get hurt, and since he trusts so much in you, we want to do what we can to help you all out."
Her words were kind, yet settled into a leaden weight at the bottom of Robin's stomach as she felt a familiar mounting sense of dread.
How much more would she be hated if she failed at such a monumental task?
"Does Chrom know? About you all being involved?" she queried shrewdly.
"Milord has only a vague notion," Frederick replied, sourly. "But we would prefer to keep it that way in the event of a catastrophic backfiring, as the councilmen have decided that the involvement of former Shepherds in his personal life is not to their taste."
Oh, that's not a big obstacle at all. Nope. Not at all. "I need to look more into these ministers, now that you mention it; I know a thing or two about meddling, but these men sound like they're on an entirely different level, and especially with such high stakes at risk during the summit."
"Perhaps another time," Frederick was curt. "We've spent a little too much time on the subject for my comfort."
Sumia took that as her cue to call Cynthia in for dessert. Robin herself was glad for the reprieve, and watched the little girl shriek delightedly as her mother brought out a bucket of gleaming, glossy red strawberries, fresh from the cellar, and a pretty silver boat full of golden honey. Frederick carefully laid out tiny forks and corrected their positions with his usual fastidiousness, then plated the berries into bowls decorated with flowers and fruits. Sumia did the honours of drizzling the honey over the strawberries, and gave Robin an extra heaping serving with a wink and a smile as Cynthia cheered her thanks and dug in. Frederick scowled and kept swooping in to wipe her stained face every few seconds with his napkin.
Robin had no idea of the fatigue that had creeped into her skin and settled into her bones until Frederick and Sumia began clearing the table and she was made aware of the sinking heaviness of her body and the way her eyelids began to flutter warningly. The next thing she knew, she had been pushed into the plush couch and a thick, woven blanket tucked over her snugly. She closed her eyes blearily and began to drift off slowly.
"Look at him," she vaguely heard Sumia say. "The poor thing."
"He doesn't need coddling," came Frederick's sigh. "He's a grown man."
"Oh Fred, he barely looks a day older than we started started our own training. Don't you remember how nervous and afraid we all were back then?"
"That was a long time ago, Sumia. He's 18, he can handle himself. They didn't make him their main tactician in the war for nothing—"
"You're not the only one dealing with losses," Sumia snapped. "We're all trying to mend and move on. And I know he did horrible things Fred—gods, do I know—but look at him. He's trying so hard, he's making such an effort to make things right—you're being much too hard on him. Why don't you give him a chance?"
Robin was steadily sinking deeper and deeper into slumber, but had a vague image of Frederick rubbing his eyes with a tired hand. "You speak as though he needs a mother looking after him."
"Well…maybe he does. I always did know that Cynthia wants a sib—"
"Love, we can have as many more babies as you want, but the thought of having a son like him is, frankly, a bit terrifying."
They shared a chuckle right as Robin was lost to the dark. She did not feel Sumia's hand brushing her fringe away from her face, nor did she feel her being tucked in more snugly after her boots were removed. Most crucially, she missed Sumia's hesitant query:
"When should we tell him that Cordelia still has a crush on Chrom?"
This was LONG, but it was a lot of fun to write, because I love Sumia…my pie waifu for laifu…can't believe Intsys did her wrong by only putting importance on her as a potential Chrom spouse and then yanking her out of the story by chapter 12 regardless of pairings! She deserved better!
(well a lot of the characters did but I mention it because of the completely irrational hate she got, ugh)