A/N: An indulgent exploration into Robin's feelings on awakening with no memories.
Consciousness comes in increments. First fingers then toes, followed by a creeping awareness of self. I am lying down, my back cold and damp. My head is tight and heavy, aching with a fierceness that leaves my mind empty and my tongue swollen. Something touches my arms, a welcome warmth that chases away some of the chill from my flesh. There are voices, indistinguishable at first, but rapidly growing clearer as my mind remembers how to interpret sound. They are close. Close enough I can feel breath against my skin. And I realize, with a start, they are discussing me. But my limbs are frozen, my mouth unresponsive. I cannot answer them. I cannot see them. I am blind and bound. Helpless. Panic seizes me.
Then I am gasping. Gulping cold air into hurting lungs, I am plunged into wakefulness. For a moment I am blind and dizzy, the world washed in a bleary haze as gravity shifts and I am suddenly upright. Then my eyes focus and meet those of the young man before me. And my world implodes. Crushing relief overtakes panic, a giddy warmth rising in my breast as I stare at a face that is somehow both painfully familiar and alien at once.
There is a girl with him, I note absently, but my eyes fix on him. He is smiling. A winsome smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and brings attention to the high slope of a noble brow and patrician nose. His eyes are the blue of sapphires and the hair that spills in a fringe to his right is the blue-black of a raven's feather. His attire matches him. The dark-blue of his surcoat is a shade lighter than his hair and thrown over the dark brown and gleaming silver of leather and plate armor. Oddly it covers only one arm, the other left bare from wrist to shoulder in stark contrast to its twin. A symbol sits there, two tones darker than the skin around it, as though stamped into the flesh.
Something about it tickles the back of my mind. But I am too distracted by his voice. He is speaking to me. They are both speaking to me, but I am too dumbstruck to listen. Instead, my mouth moves on its own, all speech lost save for a single name that burns on my tongue. "Chrom," I breathe and it is everything and nothing.
Surprise flickers across those lovely eyes, swiftly chased by casual acceptance. "Good," the man says with some relief, "you know of me. That will make things easier."
But I don't. I don't know him at all.
Chrom the name means nothing to me. Try as I might, I cannot recall where I learned it and this overwhelming mix of relief and affection that fills me comes with no explanation. I tell him as much, saddened when that soft smile curves into a frown.
"How strange… What is your name? How did you come to be here?"
"My name is…my name is…"
I don't know.
I don't know.
Panic steals my breath and my heart beats too loudly to hear Chrom's reply to my startled exclamation. My head veers wildly as I take in my surroundings. Nothing looks familiar. Not the grassy field I find myself standing in nor the verdant hills and the winding road beyond. I do know now where I am. More alarmingly, I do not know who I am. Black spots dance across my vision and my knees buckle. The world tilts. Then strong hands are hauling me up by the waist and saving me with from a swift reunion with the earth.
"Deep breaths," the young man commands. And my breath slows to match his. In and out until my mind clears and I can stand on my own once more.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine…Chrom." I reply, savoring the weight of the name on my tongue. In this unfamiliar reality, it is a keystone grounding me when my entire being feels as transient and insubstantial as mist. He is the only thing I know. While my mind supplies names for the myriad things before me, the knowledge is vague and distant, devoid of the experiences that would give them meaning.
Like words on a page. But this is no book. The wind that kisses my face is real. These people are real. I am real-even if it feels like I shouldn't be.
"Hey! I've heard of this," the girl exclaims. "It's called amnesia!" Eagerness colors her voice, but her gaze is intelligent and assessing. In her hands she clutches a long staff of white wood half as tall as she is. A healer's staff. My mind supplies, recognizing the twined dragon motif at its crest. A white gem shines at its center, iridescent where it catches the light.
She is a tiny thing, delicate and doll-like with hair the pale gold of summer wheat and eyes the deep silver of iron in water. Her yellow gown, complete with crinoline, only enhances the effect. The frilled hems and cinched bodice make her limbs seem longer and her waist impossibly small. It is an appearance completely at odds with the environment, seeming better suited a to grand parlor than grassy meadow.
"It's called a load of Pegasus dung," a third voice interjects, and I startle a little.
Its owner is an older man, though not yet passed his prime. Early thirties, I think, noting the uniform chestnut of his hair and the worried lines on his brow-though stress and strain could just have easily aged him as time. He is ridiculously tall where the girl is short, and the heavy mail he wears beneath his azure tabard makes him a mountain of a man. It seems impossible that I could miss him, yet distraction or deftness has made it so. His umber gaze is stern, his thin-lipped mouth tight with disapproval as he comes to a stop before me.
"We are to believe you remember milord's name, but not your own?"
His tone calls me a liar. Yet I have no answers for him as I have no answers for myself. However improbable my tale, it is truth. I tell him as much and resist the urge to squirm as that gaze grows threatening. Chrom is far more accepting.
"But what if it is true, Frederick? We can't just leave her here, alone and confused. What sort of Shepherds would we be then?"
What connection shepherding has on my own predicament escapes me, but I am grateful for the consideration. In this universe full of unknowns, the thought of wandering alone is frightening. Yet my accuser remains unconvinced. His posture is defiant, his gauntleted arms crossed and chin high. A tension hangs between them, blue-steel and umber speaking in the silence.
"Just the same, milord," my accuser acknowledges, and I can tell by his tone this conversation is not done, "I must emphasize caution. T'would not do to let a wolf into our flock."
Chrom seems unfazed. "Right then, we'll take her back to town and sort this out there."
It is more command than comment and alarm flashes through me. I do not want to be sorted out. I want- I want- I do not know what I want. But I know I dislike being spoken of as though I am not here.
"Wait a moment! Do I not have a say in this?" It sounds petulant even to my own ears. This is the most logical course, I know, but something in me rails at the thought of being treated so dismissively. Even if it changes little, I should like the right to make my own choices.
"Peace, friend." Chrom states raising a hand. It is a regal gesture, full of the certainty of one who expects to be obeyed and I know then I have already lost. "I promise, we shall hear all you have to say back in town. Now come."
And just like that, I am dismissed.
000
The girl's name is Lissia and she is sixteen. Chrom is her brother, and Frederick is a knight serving as both her guard and companion on the year-long journey to complete her studies. She is a cleric, a type of healer as devoted to the divine as the arcane and the journey is as much a test of her ability as a it is a chance to learn herself and decide her focus. So far, there has been much of the former and little of the latter. Brigands, she informs me, have been plaguing the border, ransacking remote villages and towns and leaving chaos in their wake. It has made her excellent at patching wounds, though the blood, she admits, still makes her queasy.
But there is nothing she can do for my memory. Mind-healing, she explains as she we walk, Chrom in front and Frederick leading the horses from behind, is still a new art. Developed during the early years of the Crusades, it had started off as a treatment for what had been thought to be an unknown hex that affected many men and women dismissed from the field. They had learned soon enough, there had been no hex, only horrors so deep they were etched into the soul. Now twelve years after that discovery, there were spells and tonics aplenty aimed at quelling terrors and sudden rages, but nothing for memory. Time would see to my healing—or not. Some amnesiacs earned their memories in days, others in years, and some, not at all.
I am disappointed and relieved at once. While the thought of remaining as ignorant and unknowing as I am is frightening, I am uneasy about what my memories may reveal. What if I was one of those brigands? The knight has spared me none of his suspicious. My coat, with its repeating eye motifs, is plainly Plegian. My hair is the rare silver-blonde of the conquered people of Syrah, a border kingdom claimed by Plegia some twenty years before. Most damningly, I was found just a hundred feet north of the remains of a massacre. That nameless hamlet had been burned to the ground, its inhabitants slain, its buildings still smoldering.
I do not think I am capable of murder, but the bronze sword and worn spell-book I find on my person fills me with doubt. That I am unbloodied is little comfort. A mage needs only to see their target to kill.
Lissia, sensing my unease, shifts the conversation towards lighter topics. Self-appointing herself my guide, she gives name to the various sights before me, filling in pertinent histories as we go. The river we follow is the Tyne. Forty-seven miles long and thirty-to-two-thousand feet wide, it runs from the Aquilae mountain northwards towards the Emerald sea. Southton, fourteen miles away, sits at its base, one of the many port-towns south of the capital. It is a fisherman's village, with a population of three-thousand best known for their gaurum, a flavorful sauce made with fermented fish and barely-malt. It is also, where we are headed.
When I ask her why we see no ships on our way, it is Chrom that answers.
"It's too rocky and too steep." He says, breaking his silence. "Ships have a hard time making it past the falls and the roads are much safer...or they used to be," he adds quietly, and I know he is thinking of bandits and burned hamlets. A heavy silence falls over us, and the look in his eyes leaves me uneasy.
"What will you do with me?" And damnably, my voice trembles. "Am I to be your prisoner?" Despite Fredrick's accusations, it is only now, under Chrom's scrutiny, such a fate seems likely. There is little I can do should I be blamed. Lacking memory, I have neither alibi nor explanation. I am helpless before them.
Chrom laughs as though I have made a joke. "No, no. You'll be free to go one we establish you're no enemy of Ylisse." Mirth replaces his earlier intensity, and relief spills through me.
"Is that where we are," I inquire, curious, "Ylisse?" Lissia, eager lectures, has overlooked this particular detail and it had not occurred to me to ask.
"Ha!" The knight guffaws. "Someone pay this actress! She plays quite the fool! The furrowed brow and wide eyes are especially convincing!"
My eyes narrow at the mockery and something vile comes to my tongue—
"Fredrick, please," Chrom protests, then turns to me. "This is the Kingdom of Ylisse. Our ruler, Emmeryn, is called the exalt, and all are welcome to this kingdom should they come in peace. Only brigands and warmongers need fear."
"That's right," Lissa chimes in. "You're lucky the Shepherds found you. Brigands would have been a rude awakening!"
I can only agree, but something in her comment bothers me. "Shepherds?" The word conjures the image of white sheep lead by humble youths—nothing at all like the trio before me. "You tend sheep….in full armor?" It feels incongruous. Only wolves and mountain lions come to mind as predators of sheep, and both are more easily scared-off than slain.
Chrom snorts. "It's a dangerous job," a sly smile plays on his lips," just ask Fredrick the Wary here."
"A title I shall wear with pride," the knight retorts. "Gods forbid one of us keeps an appropriate level of caution." To my surprise, his gaze softens as though my confusion has laid some of his fears to rest. "I have every wish to trust you, stranger, but my station mandates otherwise."
This I can understand. My situations seem ridiculous even to me. And did I, not doubt my own innocence not so long ago? I recognize it as the apology it is and extend an olive branch of my own.
"My name..." I pause, recollecting the tiny volume-only as long as my palm-and the faded dedicatory inked there:
To my Little Robin,
May you be as wise and free as the Robin of Rosanne.
With Love,
Your Mother
It is a guess and just as likely to be right as wrong, but something to the name feels familiar. "I think my name is Robin."
"Robin? That's unusual." Chrom comments agreeably, but the knight's eyes are once again narrowed in suspicion. I open my mouth to explain, when Lissa interjects.
"Chrom look! The Town!" Her eyes are huge as she points off to the distance. A town lies at the base of the hill, its white-washed buildings gleaming red and gold in the waning sun. Then I notice the smoke. And realize that fire, not twilight paints those brilliant hues.
We run.
000