Writing Chrom is SUCH a breath of fresh air compared to the doom and gloom that was Robin's POV and the nastiness that is Validar ;)
Many thanks to peach-powah on tumblr for her art and inspiration, newmrsdewinter for her tireless and invaluable beta work, iturbide for screaming over headcanons with me, and ellisama for being an angst monster.
Chrom loved spring—it was his favourite time of the year. Spring meant tender young grass and flowers peeking out shyly from the frozen earth, and barren trees blooming with the promise of new life in the months to come; it meant new foals in the stables and new puppies in the kennels. Warmer days meant no more of those bulky, horrendously scratchy wool underthings Frederick insisted they wear lest they catch cold. Spring meant sun and blue skies replacing the icy gray bleakness of winter.
Best of all, spring meant that his birthday was to be celebrated soon, with delicious treats coming back in season for a much anticipated feast, where he would be surrounded by all of his dearest friends and comrades in merrymaking and good-natured revelry lasting for days on end.
"Ouch!"
A sharp needle pricked Chrom out of his reverie, and he rubbed the sore spot with a grimace.
"Beg pardon, Your Highness." The elderly tailor did not sound sorry in the slightest and was attempting to thread his needle through a cuff in spite of Chrom's constant fidgeting.
The tailor. The valets. The unravelled spools of silk and linen sitting innocently at the base of the standing block he was made to wait on. He was currently at a fitting.
For his ball attire.
Right.
"Chrom, have you been listening to anything we've said just now?" his younger sister Lissa asked obnoxiously from her settee as she devoured a plate of pear tarts and sprayed crumbs all over her clean pinafore and the couch. Their knight Frederick scowled at the sight and immediately brushed the offending particles into his open palm and out the window.
Flushing a bright scarlet at having been caught daydreaming—again—Chrom tugged at his too tight collar as the increasingly exasperated clothiers tried to stitch and sew him into an appropriately princely doublet. All that gold thread was making him itch. "Maybe I'd be able to hear you better if you weren't stuffing your face right now."
"Maybe you'd be able to sit down and enjoy some delicious tarts with me if you weren't spacing out all the time. I was done ages ago," she added smugly. "Honestly, what's gotten into you lately? You've been so weird the entire week."
Chrom stifled a pained yelp as a small army of needles descended upon his upper thighs with a vengeance. In-between the fitting, the chafing, and the questioning, he was rapidly sinking into a rather foul mood. Could he not have a moment of respite? His attempt at a gruff "none of your business" came out petulant and dismissive instead, embarrassing him further.
"Is this about the council decree?" Emmeryn inquired sagely.
Chrom winced; whether it was from another pin prick or the accuracy of her words, he could not tell.
His elder sister Emmeryn sat on Lissa's right, resplendent in her gold and cream gown and with her beautifully soft blonde curls falling down her narrow shoulders. Even without her state decorations and the green mantle he had become so used to seeing her in, she looked every inch the exalt she was, serene and unbothered by worldly trifles. Her knight Phila stood behind the couch in reticent silence, yet her eyes also betrayed an interest in his preoccupations. In times like these, Chrom wished Emmeryn would play more the part of his exalt and less his sister, if only to deflect the attention and usual worries that came his way.
"Emm," he tried placating her, "it's nothing. Really."
"Admitting your worries is not a shameful thing, Chrom." She sipped smoothly from her cup of mulled cider and set the fine white crockery down on the sideboard—Lissa's hands gripped hers as the two women leaned forward, their green eyes alight with sisterly concern. Gods, was it hard to ignore those eyes. "And I daresay that you're not the first prince to feel uncertainty over his future. Please, do not shut us out when you fret so. You have an entire castle willing to open their ears to hear your problems." Emmeryn spoke with her usual wisdom beyond her years. It reassured him to have the counsel of someone as patient and knowledgeable as she.
Perhaps the general atmosphere had become too supportive as the entire dressing room had gone silent with expectancy. Even the tailors (one of whom was gazing raptly up at him from the rather awkward position of adjusting the points of his trousers) were quiet. What a way to put him on the spot…
Chrom's sigh was deep, bone-weary. "It's just—" he began, feeling rather foolish, and then he pushed himself to just get it over with already. "I feel...I...I had never really wanted to find a wife like this."
In the silence, Lissa arched her brow while Emmeryn did not so much as blink.
"And...and on my birthday, no less," he finished lamely. On one hand, he felt very stupid for having phrased it thus. On the other...well, he finally said it, at least.
"Chrom," Lissa said, not unkindly, but without Emmeryn's finesse, "did you honestly think that you'd find someone by rescuing them from some ogre's tower like in Sumia's books?"
Yes, he thought, and prayed that particular fantasy of his would never come to light or else he would never hear the end of it.
Frederick cleared his throat politely. "If I may be so bold as to speak, milord, it might do well to remember that as the heirs living under the current Exalt's reign," he bowed his head respectfully towards Emmeryn, "you are quite lucky to have escaped the fate of your female forbears."
"What, paraded in front of older men like some prize horse at the fair before being sold off to the highest bidder and then being forced to have a million babies while hubby dearest goes off gallivanting with some girlfriend of the week?" Lissa deadpanned.
"Well, yes, though perhaps phrased in a less crude way—"
"That's the thing, Lissa," Chrom grumbled. "I do feel like a prize at the fair." He turned to look at himself in the enormous lead-glass mirror and took in his image with undisguised revulsion. "I even look like one!" he exclaimed at the enormous puffed sleeves with long trailing edges, the ghastly patterned hose, and the too-pointed toes of his shoes. "I look foppish. No, better yet, I look like one of those giant squashes the farmers come to exhibit."
"Your Highness, I assure you that your current attire is quite fashionable—" the outraged tailor protested.
Lissa groaned loudly. "Chrom, you totally missed the point on that one."
"What Lissa meant to say," Emmeryn intervened, diplomatic as always, "is that few people born to the court are afforded such opportunities." The room, barring Chrom, found themselves nodding in agreement. "I pray to Naga that I should never again have to see a girl married off to a stranger's house out of obligation to a father or a desire to build political alliances. That she should have the liberty to marry for love." At this, Phila lay a hesitant hand upon her exalt's shoulder. A rosy blush painted the apples of her cheeks when the touch was reciprocated by a delicate hand squeezing it in return, and those assembled were gratified by the (admittedly small) display of affection given the knight's fame for stoicism.
"And though you are most certainly not a girl, Chrom," Emmeryn continued, turning those knowing green eyes back onto him, "I prayed that I would never see the day where you both were to be shipped off to some far-off place and married to a person you had never even met before your wedding, never to come home and see us except on a feast day. Or perhaps even to one of our own courtiers, to be used as a bargaining chip against me should the desire to stage a coup catch someone's fancy."
"Never!" Lissa cried and held tight to her sister's sleeves. The statement had upset her, and Chrom could not blame her, considering the very thought not only hurt him as well, but it had come dangerously close to being fulfilled in the past. The very memories brought bile rushing up to his throat.
Emmeryn stroked Lissa's hair soothingly. "That is why, as Exalt, I am committed to seeing you two having a choice and a voice in the matter. Someone who will love you as much as you will love them."
Chrom felt small in comparison to her magnanimous words. He felt selfish for complaining given the generosity of his sister and the fact that he could have been worse off. And yet, he could not completely dispel his anxieties. "I don't doubt that, sister, it's just…" he sighed again. "I don't know if I can actually be able to find someone for me just like that. And—does it have to be at banquet?"
"Whatever could be wrong with that?" There was a teasing glimmer in Emmeryn's eyes.
With the somewhat heavy mood lifted, Lissa rolled her eyes and laughed. "For a prince, you sure do seem to hate feasts and dressing up. What's so bad about getting to eat fancy food and changing out of your dirty Shepherding clothes once in a while?"
"We already eat nicer food compared to everyone else. And there's nothing wrong with my normal clothes! I just don't see what all the fuss has to be about, with all the courtly posturing, and the etiquette, and being mobbed all the time by people wanting to foist their daughters off on me."
"Oh no, Chrom's popular with ladies? I never would've guessed." Chrom shot Lissa an annoyed glare and she stuck her tongue out in reply.
He turned to Emmeryn, his next words pleading. "I can't connect properly to my comrades and my friends if all they see is this pompous castle brat strutting around in velvet who only talks to other nobles. Can't we host something smaller? Something more informal?"
Frederick tutted. "Milord, as it is the first celebration of Naga's Year since the end of the war, would you not agree that a populace weary of famine and rationing would find dancing and tables full for feasting a welcome sight?"
"Yes, but—"
"And if you are so concerned with, ah, 'being able to connect to others,' then I think you will be pleased to know attendance has been extended to the peasantry as well as the nobility," Phila said.
"That should give you a wide enough pool of ladies to choose from," Emmeryn winked at Chrom.
"At least that means their expectations might be lowered if he's so concerned about looking too well-mannered," Lissa smirked.
Mercifully, the barracks' bell rang, signalling the beginning of practice drills for the day. Chrom practically tore off his clothes in his haste to escape, leaving behind a trail of gaudy yellow fabric and the fading echoes of his hurried "goodbye!" bouncing off the walls of the tower. Frederick and the valets sighed and began the chore of collecting the discarded garments off the floor and returning them to their hanging stand as the women enjoyed a laugh at the flustered prince's expense.
"It's a shame," Lissa gasped and wiped the tears away from her eyes, "that you didn't cart him off to the spring vegetable fair, Emm. You could have submitted him as a lovely squash and he would've won us a ribbon!"
Today was going to be a very good day, Chrom assured himself as he rose from bed and washed in the nightstand basin. It was going to be a very good day because today was the start of his annual hunting trip. Usually, it was planned for the week before his birthday, but given the circumstances, he had ceded to the council's pestering (and Emmeryn's gentler prodding) and rescheduled it two months earlier.
But! It would be of little importance, he decided. It would be a wonderful few days of nothing but the thrill of the chase through the meadows and the wood, feasting on the results of the hunt and sleeping under the starry skirts of night's black mantle. Yes, he enjoyed his Shepherding duties, he loved his friends dearly, and he took his princely devotion to his people and his family with utmost seriousness. But, he was a man, and he found it perfectly within his rights as a man and as a prince to find some time away from it all and lose himself to the wind in his hair and the rush of adrenaline in his veins.
No more of Vaike's well-natured but increasingly annoying ribbing about a wife, Chrom thought as he flung open the doors to his balcony. The leaves on the oak that stood guard over his room were budding anew and he was immensely satisfied to see that the shoddily built birdhouse he made as a boy had withstood the snow and the mated pair of jays that came, without fail, every spring to raise their babies greeted him with happy chirps.
No birthday punches from Sully, no Maribelle fussing over the state of his clothes. An entire few days to himself of not having to be the third wheel in Stahl and Cordelia's relationship. Chrom's cheer increased with each thought as he mowed through an excellent breakfast of ham and eggs.
Yes, it would be a fine trip indeed. It would give him the strength he needed on his return to deal with Emmeryn's insufferable cabinet and his rowdy, but entirely lovable Shepherds.
"What took you so long?" Lissa asked as she crawled out from under her mare, satisfied that the saddle girth was steady and tight. "I wear more layers than you and even then I still got here before."
"Remind me again why she's coming?" Chrom pinched the bridge of his nose.
"As a healer, her skills are quite remarkable, and you would very much miss them should you have foolishly decided to ride out by yourself and then fall into a ditch and risk dying of exposure," Frederick said as he picked off imaginary specks of dust off his horse. "Or perhaps by being mauled by a bear."
"Thanks," Chrom replied drily.
"And," Lissa added smugly and threw straw at him, "I'm one of the few women that can be around you right now without the council pitching a fit."
"I don't know about calling you a woman…"
"Hey!"
They made up swiftly after they mounted their horses and Chrom tidied the bits of straw out of Lissa's dress and hair out of Frederick's sight. With a final bag check, they bade the stable hands to open the gates for them just as they were intercepted by a few of the Shepherds.
"Thought you could escape from us without saying goodbye?" Sully punched his leg from where she stood. Chrom had to hold back his grimace of pain or risk being laughed at by her.
"Hey, from the way you all were acting up at supper yesterday, I don't blame him," Stahl yawned and ran a hand through his perpetual bedhead. "Severa kept Cordy up all night. But she sends her regards." Stahl waved sleepily and left almost as quickly as he came.
"Soon that'll be you, Cap." Vaike added his own punch. Now Chrom was not so sure if he was right to call them lovable. "Married off to some pretty little thing and complaining when the kids won't let you catch some shut-eye. Or...you could always use that as an excuse," Vaike grinned and waggled his brows suggestively.
Sully groaned. "Ugh! Is there a moment where you can actually not be such a perv for once? And I'm the only one who gets to punch him, ya meathead!"
Before they could be treated to the completely common, completely loud spectacle of Sully and Vaike quarreling, a crash and a shout from the direction of the stables revealed barrels and hay strewn everywhere and Sumia running as fast as she could to them. Adding to the sense of general amazement was that she managed to do so without tripping over her own feet.
They allowed her a moment to catch her breath. Sumia recuperated quickly enough and smiled nervously through her lashes and long ash-brown curls that had fallen into her pink face. "S-sorry I'm late Captain, I didn't want you to think that I wasn't interested in seeing you off—not that it's any of my business if you wanted to leave by yourself—oh, never mind." She held out an impeccably wrapped parcel to him. "I remember you said that old Nan used to make you rhubarb and fiddlehead pie...I thought you might enjoy it as a special treat, even if it isn't your birthday just yet."
Sumia's presence was a balm that saved their small send-off from potential disaster. Chrom accepted her package with utmost gratefulness. "Thank you Sumia. I'll be sure to remember you once I get around to eating it." He refrained from mentioning that he hated rhubarb.
Pink soon deepened into a strong cherry red that spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. "I—I hope you like it, Captain." Without further warning, she turned abruptly and ran back to the stables, before turning again to wave shyly, and turning once more to a sprint and promptly falling flat on her face when the toe of her boot tangled with her shin. The amused stable hands were completely used to her clumsiness and helped her up.
"Well, now that we've settled our goodbyes…" Lissa teased. Chrom rolled his eyes at her before waving once more to his friends. He snapped the reins and was soon off with Lissa and Frederick close behind.
Past the castle gates, down the stone bridge and into Ylisstol proper, the city was alight with anticipation for celebrating Naga's Year. Rows of cheerful pennants were being sewed onto sturdy ropes to hang over the roofs in a month's time. Housewives and their children pulled old clothing apart at the seams and set the scraps of cloth into a collective tub to be washed before their reuse, for it was customary to purchase or make a new wardrobe for the festivities. Grocers in the square haggled with farmers over the size and price of their crops, girls laughed and sang as they painted a maypole, and the rich scent of ham and ale floated out of the pubs as they opened up shop for the morning. There was nowhere Chrom loved more than Ylisstol, and he greeted the citizenry with as much joy as they did for him.
It was still hard to believe he would come to view the city as such.
They rode out of Ylisstol in a companionable silence, focused more on the small collection of villages and farmland that surrounded the city walls before reaching the mighty forest that separated the city from the southwestern province of Themis. Chrom was completely lost in thought to the chain of events that brought them to where they stood.
Gangrel the Mad King was beloved by the Plegian capital he ruled over, yet he struggled to unify the nation surrounding his walled city under his banner. Despite opposition from his subjects in key areas in the east and the south, most pledged their loyalty to him when he proclaimed his intention to steal the Fire Emblem—Ylisse's most prized treasure, passed down from the legendary Hero-Kings Anri, Sigurd and Marth—to restore Plegia to its former glory. While Gangrel was not universally beloved, the Ylisseans were despised by all.
Chrom used to hate them for it. His grandfather poisoned his son's heart with his increasingly toxic religious fanaticism, and upon his deathbed after the hateful old man died attempting to subdue a Plegian border town, his newly Exalted son took up his cause along with his crown. The heathens, he would declare at each mass, have death and decay dwelling in their hearts. They are not children of the light as Naga's Will has declared us to be. Grima's breath of ruin has darkened their flesh and corrupted their earthly souls—if they refuse to accept Naga's light, if they continue to spurn Her Truth and Her Love as they submit themselves to Grima's whims, then we shall cast them down and smite them as Naga sees fit.
What followed was a bloody war as his father penetrated deeper into Plegia and terrorised the populace under threat of conversion or the sword. In the end, he, like hundreds of conquerors before him, failed to even reach the walls of Plegia's fabled capital, but not before cutting a swathe of torched temples, ruined villages, and leaving thousands orphaned, injured or dead. Adding to Plegia's woes were a terrible drought and pestilence that struck soon after and left their farms scorched and their cattle barren; those who had survived the war either succumbed to starvation and disease, or could only watch helplessly as their entire community died around them. Chrom could only recall so much from his history and geography lessons. What he did remember was growing up with an embittered father who bullied his court and his servants and who had neither the time nor inclination for his family. When he was bedridden in his final months and died in his sleep soon after, Chrom could only think of it as too lenient a punishment.
What Chrom remembered was a man who tormented his firstborn in his attempts to mould her into his own image. He remembered his unyielding obsession with passing down the Falchion to her in the hopes that she would finish what her grandfather had started. He remembered, just barely, the councilmen who either resigned in disgust, or were stripped of their posts for voicing any opposition whatsoever, soon replaced by fawning, simpering sycophants who could care less as the treasury was drained in fevered attempts to reorganise their army for another campaign.
After his death, mother followed him after birthing Lissa. His Halidom passed onto Emmeryn, and she shouldered all its grief and troubles that came with it as though a stately mantle, never once shedding a tear in public despite the rocks and the hate thrown the way of the Exalt's daughter.
Chrom hated the aftermath of the war, and thus hated Plegians for being part of it. Most of all, his deepest anger was reserved for the countrymen who heaped abuse and resentment on his sister, his sister who was not yet ten years old, whose crown barely even fit her head and yet was viewed as nothing more than an extension of his father's legacy. His anger simmered for years after, until one day where Emmeryn was due to give a speech in Ylisstol's square. She came back to the castle with blood pouring from her forehead—a well timed rock, from someone who was never caught. In the sick ward, where she was patched up and reassuring little Lissa, who fretted over the inevitable scar that would form, Chrom let his pent up fury explode.
"What's peace anyway? It's just empty words! What's real is that you've been hurt! Can't you see?!" He had cried, and screamed, and kicked at his nurses and at Frederick when they tried to restrain him. Emmeryn, poor, sweet, patient Emmeryn had nothing but kindness and understanding for his outburst.
"Chrom...one cannot let hatred ruled their heart. I must speak of hope!" she said softly. Lissa was huddled worriedly at her side. Despite the pallor of her face and her bandage, she still had a smile just for them. "See? Just as my head will scar and heal, so too will Ylisse. But like any other who is hurting, all they need is patience, care, and time."
Even at the tender age of 14, Emmeryn was no less wise than she was today. Her words, spoken with such conviction, became a reality when her steadfast dedication to rebuilding the Halidom and the unflinching love she had even for her harshest critics earned her the support of the nation. The fields turned golden with barley and rye once more, towns previously razed to the ground blossomed like the poppies planted to commemorate the dead, and the people bustled and thrived as Ylisse came to know peace once more.
And yet, the gods seemed to loathe their happiness, and with a carefree toss of the dice, hardship rolled onto the gameboard once again.
Emmeryn had shuffled her cabinet several times in the first few years since her ascension to the throne and Naga's acceptance of her in the Awakening ritual. The courtiers in her employ three years ago knew of Phila's long years in Emmeryn's service: her loyalty, her strength, her devotion to Ylisse and to Her Grace. The rumours of her intimacy with the Exalt were brushed off as mere girlish flights of fancy: "what care I if a lady devotes her spare time to courtly romances?" But when their bond deepened, the council fell into a panic. Having lovers and indulging in bodily pleasures and gestures of affective caprice were a mainstay of any self-respecting court. An Exalt spurning the attentions of suitors in favour of her knight—her inferior—was not to be tolerated.
Fearful of losing another Exalt and triggering a dynastic crisis with no heirs to succeed should Chrom and Lissa be endangered as well, the council prepared a squad of the Halidom's noblest sons to try and woo their reticent Exalt: all spoilt, pompous brats to whom humility and toil were foreign concepts in their gilded existence. Chrom had grown accustomed to being disappointed by many men in his short life, but his cousin (his mother's nephew, once a close confidant) suddenly seizing the chance to proclaim his suitor's candidacy was nothing short of a betrayal.
With the threat of Gangrel looming close, wedding preparations were hastily made. Phila was brutally separated from her lady and forbidden in her presence by the overzealous council. They admired his cousin's acceptable pedigree and his father's status as a prominent clergyman of Naga's church and selected him as their future prince consort. Thus, a quietly resigned Emmeryn and their preening bastard of a cousin were bundled off to be married in the eastern palace and spend their honeymoon there.
On their way across the aptly named Breakneck Pass, the couple and their retinue were ambushed by a company of sellswords under Gangrel's pay, having been tipped off to the Exalt's movements by a traitorous hierarch who had once been one of Emmeryn's greatest supporters. Instead of the court position in Plegia he was promised, the elder was executed on the spot. Chrom was informed that his cousin did not even attempt to come to Emmeryn's defense and the coward ran off from their litter and fell to his death with his expensive white wedding clothes streaming behind him like a banner.
What arrived at the eastern palace was a ransom note instead of a royal couple: Bring the Fire Emblem with you, or your Exalt dies.
Chrom did not trust the council after their astounding level of incompetence and inability to take action. He summoned his Shepherds, his militia formed by some of the strongest, most courageous people he knew, and they set off across the border and into Plegia's sands with the Fire Emblem in tow. He could care less for whatever fabled properties the shield may have possessed in the past; an heirloom was nowhere near as valuable to him as his sister. Through scorching air and snarling brigands, they soon reached the walls of Gangrel's stronghold, where they were almost killed in a neatly set ambush under the watchful eye of Gangrel's smirking betrothed. Their mission would have ended in total failure had it not been for the Pegasus Knights.
The traditional guardians of their monarch since the times of Queen Caeda, Phila led her squadron in a noble and gallant rescue as they cut down the archers in their paths with the use of their own arrows and wind magic. Emmeryn, who had endured ignoble imprisonment and was made to stand on the city ramparts, was pushed off by Gangrel, furious that his plans had been thwarted. Phila performed a daring jump and caught Emmeryn in mid-air. The fall was hard, and left them both permanently injured and disfigured...but Emmeryn was not killed that day. Their return to Ylisse was triumphant and heralded with much fanfare and joy. The council had no choice but to award Phila her lady's hand after she had won the hearts of the nation and had proved her devotion to her Exalt at the risk of her own life.
To Chrom and Lissa's glee, Emmeryn decided to shed her pacifism for a day and performed a thoroughly brutal excision of her cabinet once more, choosing from a wide variety of lawmakers, soldiers, nobles, and even lay peasantry for her new council. Ylisse had prospered under her rule before, yes, but much of it had also been the result of extensive tampering and delays by the old guard. "Now," she had proclaimed with much optimism, "we can hope for an even brighter future for our people."
"Wouldn't having so much power to dismiss a council just like that be a little too close to a tyrant?" he had teased her.
Her reply was measured but equally mischievous. "Perhaps."
Three years after the new council appointment, Ylisse was coming into the spring of its glory. Of her many reforms, her decree of freer marriages benefitted youth who would have otherwise been shackled to a house not of their own desire, and children who would have been born into unhappy families now grew and thrived with much love and care. Best of all, Emmeryn's council could not give two damns over her choice of spouse.
"But," they had still reminded them. "The previous council was not entirely wrong. Should you wish to pass on your throne, you will need heirs."
"Is adoption not acceptable?" a more progressive courtier had inquired to the panel.
"The Awakening ritual calls for a blood relative of Deidre's line. Unless our ladyships suddenly develop an interest in men, then it is out of the question."
Truth be told, Emmeryn had no desire to conceive a child of her own. She had admitted to her siblings that their mother's death during birth had traumatised her and left her less than desirous for the same experience of blood, pain, and nursing. Having a baby, she felt, would impede with her duties to the Halidom. "The people are my children," she had declared with a sense of finality. "I should be no less devoted to them as a mother to her babe."
Chrom and Lissa had no qualms with her aversion to childbirth. For their sister, who had raised them, nurtured them, protected them and given them so much love during times of darkness, they would gladly play the part of the spares to her heir.
However, there was still the issue of the council breathing down their necks for them to find appropriate spouses during the festivities ("of your choosing, Your Highnesses") and making babies with them.
"I'm not a stud and my wife won't be a broodmare," Chrom grumbled into his sleeping roll after they had made camp for the night.
"What was that?"
"Uh, nothing Lissa. Go back to sleep."
Their entire trip had been unproductive thus far. It was still early in the year for the deer, fox, boar and pheasant they caught during their usual May hunts, along with a wealth of berries and fish and whatever else of the forest's bounty caught their fancy. Still, the landscape was undeniably lovely. Hoary white frost still decorated the grass and the trees and made a beautiful contrast to newly budding leaves. Birdsong was a constant, uplifting tune.
Exiting the massive forest led them further south, close to the meadows, the coastline, and settlements such as Southtown. Frederick was preparing their usual travel breakfast of pine needle tea and quail eggs when one of their hounds began to whine.
"What is it?" Chrom asked, setting down his drink to try and reassure the dog. "Did you scent anything?"
The dog's wrinkled jowls flicked anxious drool at him as it continued to cry and paw at the ground, sniffing furiously and begging to be released. Soon, it had the entire pack howling and straining at their leashes alongside it.
"Allow me." Frederick loosened them free. The hounds took off immediately with a scandalous cacophony of barking that nearly spooked Lissa into falling off her seat. Silence. Then, they returned with confusion evident across their plaintive faces. They had indeed managed to catch a whiff, but were somehow unable to track it.
"Odd," Frederick mused. "The terrain should be clear enough for a scent. No winds to blow it away, either."
"Maybe it's old and they just lost it?"
"I highly doubt that, milady. Old scents would not pique their interest in such a manner."
"Wait a moment," Chrom said as the dogs' ears pricked up again. Distantly, barking could be heard.
The dogs took off once more. Chrom, Lissa and Frederick waited in patient curiosity for them; it was a strange turn of events, to be on a hunt in the company of some of the finest animals bred specifically for such a purpose, yet for them to be unable to find their quarry. If they ended up bringing back nothing or perhaps something as equally useless—a discarded shoe, perhaps?—they could all at least enjoy it as a lark.
Instead, they brought back a smaller, much weirder kind of dog back with them. It was clearly a puppy: short and bright sandy brown fur, very long legs and snout. It possessed a pair of enormous bat-like ears that were pinned to the back of its head and it had a very prominent limp along with a collection of bruises and cuts.
"Oh, you poor thing!" Lissa ran to it and scooped it up to her chest. It yelped when some of the more obvious bruising was touched. "Don't worry, I'll fix you up right away!"
"Milady, it would be highly imprudent to use part of our items convoy on a stray—"
"Too late!" Lissa had already mixed the contents of a potion bottle into a dish of water, which the wounded animal gulped down gratefully. The last dregs of the potion were poured onto a clean sheet of gauze that Lissa rubbed onto the puppy's skin to dissipate the bruising and close some of the cuts.
"You look so much better already! But what happened to you?" Lissa scratched behind its ears.
The dog wriggled out of her arms and began tugging and scratching at the laces of her boots, spinning in place and barking and whining and wagging its tail with the other dogs joining in to bark as well. It would run to the edge of their camp and return to them still barking and pawing at the dirt.
"I think…" Chrom said slowly, "that it wants us to follow it somewhere." Chrom kneeled closer to its eye level. "Can you take us?"
"Milord, it is—" Frederick was unable to even finish his sentence as Chrom quickly saddled his horse and set off with the sandy dog leading the way, Lissa following and Frederick catching up soon after. The din of hoofbeats and barking rang in their ears as the puppy led them deeper into the grass, looking over its shoulder periodically to make sure they were still on track, and continued further into the plains.
The dog stopped and looked back at them knowingly, seemingly having arrived at the location it remembered. It led them up a grassy knoll after the horses were left behind and the rest of the dogs followed. The curious sensation that Chrom had been feeling since they left camp grew stronger and stronger still...it was as if the Brand on his shoulder and Falchion, strapped to his hip, were tingling in excitement.
"Oh no!" Lissa gasped and pointed. Safely nestled within the tall grass was a robed figure who lay flat on (his? her?) back. Their breathing was soft and untroubled. Peaceful even. Despite being very much alive, they were also gravely injured and weak.
The duo ran to the person and the puppy bounded over and started licking and licking at their slack face, partially masked by the large hood of their robe. Blood that had been trickling out of their cut lip had crusted over into a scab. The siblings hovered anxiously over the mystery person, unsure of how to help, and Chrom wondering just what on earth was about this person that prompted such a reaction from his sword and from his Brand.
I'm sorry for leaving this on a cliffhanger, but I thought that it would benefit from having this chapter written out this way; if not, this would have ballooned to over 20 pages and I wanted to keep it shorter. Contrary to what my beta thought, and in case anyone was wondering, this is NOT part of the doomed future. This is simply a different kind of timeline altogether.