I was not planning to update today, but I caught a stomach bug and spent most of the day at home trying to distract myself by polishing the next chapter of Visions. Decided to take a break from that after one too many headaches, and so here we are. Enjoy. Once again, this is part one of the update. Not sure how many parts there will be. Last time it was three. We'll see how much I get done this time.

Fellspawn

Chapter Four

It was a familiar sort of sensation, running into a strange, lone fighter on the battlefield, and Chrom had the most peculiar feeling that it was not nearly the last time it would occur. "Are you with the villagers? Who are you?" the latest exalt of the great halidom of Ylisse asked the stranger on the wyvern.

The man hesitated before answering. "...I am Gerome. A traveler."

To Chrom, he looked as though he could handle himself in a fight. "These people are in desperate straits. Will you help us?"

His hopes died as the man replied, "It is not for me to interfere in such matters. Death will always have its due."

From the manner in which he said it, Chrom suspected this was something he told himself often, perhaps as a method of coping from some trauma. Regardless, Chrom could not countenance it. "You would leave innocents to die and lay the blame on fate?" he demanded.

His suspicions were validated when Gerome replied, "I've seen too much of fate's cruel work to doubt it."

Chrom felt a bit of pity for the man before him. When he looked more closely, he saw not a man grown, but a boy who had been forced to grow up too fast. "So you would surrender rather than struggle against such cruelty... I cannot understand such thinking. A bleak past doesn't justify condemning the future to bleakness as well. Nonetheless, I cannot force your hand. Join us if you will."

As he was returning to the battlefield, he heard Gerome speak to his wyvern. "What does he know of bleak futures? It is a fool who breaks himself against fate's tide. That said, I suppose I'm as big a fool as any…" There was a sigh. "Very well, then. Come, my dear Minerva. Join me on one final flight…"

After the battle, Cherche sought out the mysterious stranger who had joined the fight with his partner wyvern. "Do you have a moment?" she asked him.

"What is it?" he replied curtly.

Cherche was undaunted. "I was hoping you might introduce me to your wyvern." She sent a smile to the wyvern.

"Why?" he asked.

Cherche smiled. "To see which of ours is cuter. Not very sporting of me when mine is the finest in the world, I know." She flicked her hair over her shoulder, grinning at her Minerva.

The stranger sighed. "...Do as you please."

Pleased, Cherche thanked him, "I will, then! Thank you." She ran a hand over his wyvern's snout with its permission. "Oh, but you are cute! She's nearly a match with Minerva!" she called over to the stranger, before taking another glance, stepping back to get a better look. "...Nearly so in every way," she said, tapping her chin. "Wait, what sorcery is this? They...they look identical!"

There was a huff of amusement from him. "That's because they are identical. They're one and the same."

Cherche pressed closer to his wyvern, running an awed hand over her eye ridge. "...M-Minerva? How is that possible?"

Gerome sighed again, walking over to her. He studied Minerva idly. "You could examine her from tip to tail looking for scars and marks if you like. ...Or you could just look at this ring."

Cherche's eye caught on the bit of jewelry in his hand. It was small, too small to fit his finger, and it held a solitary sapphire surrounded by gilt silver patterns. "I...I know that ring. So then you're…" My son. But how? Had she adopted?

He inclined his head. "I am, though I had not intended that we meet."

Cherche frowned. "Why not?"

"I came back in time so I might release Minerva. Not to seek out parents to whom I've already bidden farewell."

Cherche was surprised. "You crossed the bounds of time just to set Minerva free? Whatever for?"

Gerome seemed to choose his words carefully. "In the future I know, she is among the last of her kind. I...I could not leave her to that solitude."

Cherche smiled, touched by his concern for her beloved wyvern. "She is lucky indeed to know someone of such kindness. ...As, I imagine, am I." She had barely met her son, and already he was making her proud.

Gerome scowled, although it was difficult to tell behind his mask. "Stay your words. I've no intention of getting close to you. Fate will not be mocked. This war may claim your life anew, and I'll not weep twice for losing the same mother. My burden is heavy enough."

Cherche took a step back, but her gaze was understanding. "But yet you carry it still." Gerome's Minerva nudged her hand from behind, lending comfort.

"That's enough."

"Thank you, Gerome."

Despite his being in the camp for a few days already, Robin had not yet found the time to seek out Virion and Cherche's future son, despite Lucina's insistence. ("She'll see him when she sees him, Lucy. It's not like he's going out of his way to seek her out. He'll barely talk to us," Severa had said when the topic came up.)

But when her duties had been attended to, she made her way to the stables where Gerome had been spending his time.

When she walked in, Gerome and Severa were chatting. "...Are you disfigured? Or just vain? Or are you trying to keep your distance from the people of the past? Personally–" Upon seeing Robin, Gerome nudged Severa to shut her up.

"Grandmaster Robin," Gerome said stonily, his mask concealing any microexpressions she might use to gauge his mood.

Severa stared at Gerome. "What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing."

"Severa—" He turned to Severa.

"Don't 'Severa' me! I know you think I'm bratty, but at least I don't call my mother by her first name!"

Gerome retorted, "Lucina calls her Robin."

"You know that's different, dummy!"

This feeling of disorientation was becoming too familiar. "You're… my child?" Robin asked. "I thought you were Cherche and Virion's?"

Severa looked away. "Cherche can't have kids, Mama."

Her brow furrowed. "I offered to be surrogate?"

Severa shrugged. "I don't think it was planned out, or anything. You three were in a relationship for a while, and I think it just happened, and they welcomed it." She glared at Gerome. "It being Gerome, of course."

"Severa," he growled.

"Stop being such a jerk and say hello to Mama!"

"She's not my mother," he insisted.

Robin's breath shuddered in and out. "Did I do something, in the future, to make you hate me?"

"You died," he said bluntly. "And the you that is here now might as well be a stranger."

Robin had grown a thick skin over the years. Hateful glares from Ylisseans for her dark skin and Plegian coat, taunts from enemy Plegians who tagged her a deserter, the occasional cold comments from her friends in the early days before they had all learned to trust each other–all had hardened her heart to cruel words. But nothing she had encountered thus far had prepared her for being rejected by her own child. Regardless of whether she had borne them yet, they were hers, and she loved them. "Gerome," she said, her voice stuffy with pain even as she savored the sound of her son's name on her tongue.

Severa tugged the mask off Gerome's face. Gerome snapped at Severa, "Give that back!"

"She's your mom!" Severa hissed. "Now go hug her before she cries and I have to kick your ass across the continent."

Robin laughed through her emotions. She stepped forward and ran a hand through her daughter's hair. "My strong defender. Thank you."

"Anytime, Mama," she smirked, and Robin turned her attention to Gerome.

Robin ran a hand over his face, memorizing it. Now that his face was bare, she could see the angels of his face that were all Virion, the soft porcelain skin typical of Roseanne. But he had her dusky lips and small, round ears. "I'm so sorry I left you, Gerome."

Although he did not look entirely at ease, he did let her pull him into a hug.

When she had recovered from the emotional meeting with Gerome, she sought out her oldest child. "Lucina!"

"Yes, Aunt Robin?" Robin was starting to get used to that address, and she now felt mostly fondness as opposed to that initial hurt.

"My little light," Robin began ominously.

Was it her imagination, or was that a sweat drop on Lucina's forehead?

"Y-Yes?"

"We need to have a discussion."

"Actually, I was just on my way to tea with Mother," Lucina said hastily.

Robin smiled, showing teeth. "I'm sure she'll understand."

"I-If you insist…"

"Oh, I do."

"Very well." Lucina's shoulders dropped as she seemingly resigned herself to having this rough conversation.

"Perfect." Robin grabbed her child by the shoulder and tugged her across the camp to the command tent, whose heavy canvas walls would prevent them from being overheard. Robin closed the tent flap behind them. "So…" she began.

Lucina stayed quiet, bracing herself.

"How many children do I have in the future, Lucina?" The question was almost anticlimactic, after how long it had been ruminating in her head.

Lucina hesitated just a little longer. "I'm really not sure I should upset the timeline like this…"

"Please," Robin interrupted. "If they all came from the future, I'll likely be meeting them myself eventually. Now, I'll ask again. How many?"

Lucina sighed. "Eleven, counting myself."

"E-Eleven?" She felt faint. "That's impossible."

"Two of them are twins," Lucina offered.

Robin grew thoughtful, this new mystery momentarily distracting her. "If twinning runs in my family, perhaps that explains the hierophant with Validar at Carrion Isle. She might be my twin."

Lucina seemed thoughtful. "Didn't you say she called herself Robin, as well, though?"

"That could just be Validar playing mind games with us," Robin mused. "Or perhaps we were separated at birth and whoever named us saw no use in inventing another name."

Lucina's relief was difficult to discern, but her hands were no longer shaking. Robin thought this was rather premature.

"You seem to be taking this well, Aunt Robin."

"Oh, I'm in shock. Just wait a few minutes," Robin said blithely.

Henry whistled and bounced on the balls of his feet as he spotted Lucina and Robin fleeing from a tent that had caught flame. A stray Fire tome, maybe? Or perhaps a mage had just gotten a little too upset. "Nyah hah hah!" He had made the right decision joining the Shepherds, after all. They knew how to have fun.

As it turned out, Robin really did take the news well, compared to Chrom.

"Eleven kids?" Chrom hissed. "Eleven kids! I know you're an amnesiac, Robin, but did no one ever teach you to use protection?"

Robin snorted. "Says the man whose child came first. You lucked out with Sumia's acceptance, and you know it."

Chrom smiled ruefully. "I did. But Robin... Eleven kids." He shook his head.

"So you've said," Robin remarked with not a little amusement. "I imagine it's less that I didn't know how to use protection and more that I didn't want to," she explained.

He frowned at her quizzically. "I know you want a family, Robin, but you know we're here for you, right? You don't need to build one from the ground up."

Robin laughed. "I know that, Chrom. And from the looks of it, I took great advantage of the Shepherds' willingness to comfort me." She smiled salaciously.

The sound that came from Chrom was somewhere between a choke and a laugh as he ran his hands over his face. "Please don't make me imagine you in bed with my men."

"And Tharja," she reminded him helpfully.

There was another choking sound, and a faint, "Gods".

"I like kids, Chrom. And if I got close enough to my partners to sleep with them, I imagine I would enjoy raising their children. As long as none of them were in committed relationships with other people, I'm content with the course of my future." She frowned. "Well, not the dying or apocalypse parts, obviously. And I honestly shudder to imagine what having nine pregnancies would do to my figure, but I'm sort of comforted by the fact that eight can't have done too much damage if there was someone willing to go for round nine."

Chrom sighed very loudly. "I don't know how you can say half the things that come out of your mouth." He rested a hand on her arm. "But your lack of propriety aside, if this is a future that makes you happy, I'll just have to get used to it. You're my best friend, Robin, and I'm glad you found a place among the Shepherds, even if it's not a conventional one."

Robin stared at him for a few seconds, awe in her eyes, then began to laugh heartily, clutching his hand on her shoulder. "Chrom, never change."