Leo tries (and fails) to do some research. Corrin gets caught in the rain.

Leo spent more time in the archives than in his own room within the fortress. The smell of yellowing paper and untouched knowledge kept him invigorated late into the night as he studied and read and postulated. Most of his time there was spent alone. At first, a gaggle of teenagers sulked in the lower half of the archives, repairing and rearranging the stacks that they had knocked over before he'd arrived, but they'd finished months ago. Sometimes, Odin would peruse the stacks for "dark tales of evil and woe" or Niles would lounge in one of the armchairs, staring with a dark predation to rival a pack of starving wolves. When Niles was there, Leo could never work properly.

Leo was alone now, standing in the center of the upper level of the archives, at the point where all the rows converged. Four books hovered in front of him, buoyed by a simple levitation charm, and his gaze roved between them. He read a page of one then moved to another, flipping pages and skipping sections as he found necessary.

He had been charged with bolstering the wards, but that held little interest to him. Corrin's mysterious resurrection, her strange quasi-transformation in the arena a month prior, and the undead thralls, the boy from the village called them such and the term stuck, that besieged their forces held his focus. A horde the size of the one that had pursued Corrin and Ryoma had yet to reappear, but the thralls were still a major threat.

He'd found books on all subjects within the archives, but they were all in ancient Nohrian or Hoshidian. The Nohrian ones were easy to decipher, but the Hoshidian tomes proved more of a challenge. He worked through them at night while he lay in bed until the exhaustion dragged his eyelids shut.

All this work and nothing to show for it, Leo thought, swiping his right hand. All four books flipped a page. The antiquated language and unfamiliar grammar gnawed at his brain.

He'd come no closer to an explanation for any of the questions that plagued him. The wards around the fortress were unprecedented. They were like the wards Hoshidian Shrine Maidens summoned during battle to protect themselves as they tended to the wounded, but they were exponentially stronger and somehow permeable so that friendly forces were able to enter and exit at will. He'd managed to extend them out a few miles over the surrounding forest, but he couldn't make them stronger. Even the small adjustment had been a major risk. One small mistake and the wards could have fried them alive. Lilith seemed to have been the only one capable of manipulating the wards to identify between friend and foe, but she'd left none of her knowledge behind.

And Corrin never bothered to ask her about them, Leo thought with a scoff. Just like she never bothered to ask where this place actually is or how Lilith acquired her power or where all these books came from or a hundred other things that would make this whole damn thing a lot less irritating.

Three of the four books proved themselves to be useless, full of information he already knew. The fourth he called to him, catching it deftly as it shot towards him. The others thumped to the ground without his magic to hold them in place. He made his way to an armchair against the wall and then fell into it.

Carefully inked illustrations decorated the pages in his lap. They had haunted him since he'd uncovered the tome over a month ago. It detailed the supposed history of the dragon knights of yore. The legend of the dragon knights was one which Leo was well accustomed to. His father had wasted years trying to establish an order of the same caliber.

The book gave little more detail beyond what he already knew but there was a single chapter that drew his eyes again and again. Surrounded by images of dragons and humans alike, its opening read, "Knights gifted the power of the dragon's blood are powerful indeed, but those born with it are unsurpassed."

In all his years, he had never seen anyone that looked the way Corrin did. Her colorless hair, her pointed ears, and her ruby eyes were unparalleled. When he was younger, he had once entertained the thought that she might have been a faerie and that was why his father kept her so guarded and secluded, but the notion had passed when fantasies and fairytales were beaten from his head. Beyond that, as he'd grown older, he only ever reflected on her unique appearance was when he overheard bits of conversation that labelled her "weird" or "impish" or regarded her as "exotic" or a "temptress," and wondered if the remarks ever bothered her. Even her draconic abilities hadn't provoked him to question her appearance or to consider that they were interrelated. It wasn't until she'd demonstrated that she could summon her draconic abilities without fully transforming and spurred him into searching for an explanation to her affliction that he'd begun to think about it. Then, he'd found the book and hadn't divorced the thought since.

But it doesn't tell me a damn thing.

There was no explanation as to where those "born" with dragon blood originated. They seemed separate from those of royal descent that boasted the presence of dragon blood in their veins because the royal lines couldn't take dragon form. Leo hypothesized that the book was written before the ascension of the Dusk and Dawn Dragons and the beginning of the Nohrian and Hoshidian royal lines, but there was no way to be sure.

All it really means is that nobody like Corrin has existed for millennia, Leo thought, but the illustrations kept him transfixed. He ran his thumb across the spine of an anatomical diagram of one of the dragons. It caught on the indented paper, dark with ink, and then Leo wished he had some way to know what the notation said. The harsh underlines implied importance, but there was no way for him to translate it.

Light footsteps sounded on the stairs. He turned and then watched the steps to discover the identity of his visitor. Blonde pigtails sprouted and then the rest of his sister came into view. He watched Elise glance around the room, her eyes squinting in concentration. When she located him, she smiled.

"Hi Leo," Elise greeted, drawing near. Up close, he saw that her hair was dappled with water. He glanced out the window. A gentle shower struck the glass.

When did it start raining?

Elise wavered between the rows, staring out from the darkness around her. Leo shifted in the chair, thinking, Should I stand up?

"Do you mind if I hang out in here with you for a little bit?" she asked. There was something wrong with her voice. It was as chipper as ever but there was a brittleness beneath.

"Why aren't you with Sakura?" Leo asked, knowing that her afternoons were spent cavorting with the Hoshidian princess. His sister's lip trembled. Her eyes misted. She said, "I don't think she likes me much."

Thunder boomed outside and then lightning lit up the room. The rain pounded against the windows. Leo thought, Shit, shit, shit.

Then, he thought of Camilla, imagined what she might say or do in his place, but knew that she would leap from the chair and then envelop Elise in hugs and fretful cooing.

If I tried that, we'd both die from shock.

"Do you want to… talk about it?" he tried, hating immediately the hesitancy in his words.

Elise looked at him with soft eyes. The lavender within them had turned liquidous from her burgeoning tears. His throat was full of sand. He thought, Please, say no.

"I'm okay," she said. "I just cry really easy."

She turned from him, looking up at the shelves towering above. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Leo dug his fingers into the armrests, knowing that he'd failed to sate her sadness. The book lay open in his lap, but he had abandoned the mystery it presented.

Due to the storm outside, the only light came from the faint glow of candles lining the walls. Shadows danced in the flickering light as thunder boomed outside.

"Have you read all of these?" Elise asked.

Leo glanced at the endless shelves. There were thousands of books, maybe even tens of thousands. Most of them were written in Vallite which Azura had been able to identify, but not translate. She knew a few words, which she had written out for him along with their meaning, but she confessed that she had no concept of letters or grammar. She had written out three words for him in the lyrical script of twisting curves parsed by upright lines that nearly tricked him into finding Nohrian letters within the swoops. The three words she had written out were savior, child, and god. Savior and child were unfamiliar to his ear, pronounced nimue and kamui respectively, but god he knew well. Azura had written the pronunciation with an unsteady hand.

Anankos.

"Leo?"

He shook away thoughts of linguistics and then announced, "Someday I intend to."

"Wow," she breathed.

Thunder rumbled the foundation. Elise moved to the window, staring out at the downpour. Rain cascaded in heavy sheets from the sky and then hit the ground with such force that the droplets split apart, flying in every direction. Tiny rivers began to form in the grass. They streamed out towards the forest. There seemed to be no end in sight.

Leo leaned back in the chair, still feeling that he should stand but fearing that doing so would only increase the awkwardness in the air, and then he watched the lightning illuminate the finer details of his sister's face.

Out of all their siblings, living or otherwise, he had always thought that Elise bore the greatest resemblance to him. Before his baby fat had finally melted away and left a sharp jaw, hollow cheekbones, and sullen hunger across his brow, he and Elise had been nearly identical.

But then again, she looks a bit like all of us.

As the lightning flashed again, he attempted to conceptualize her face after it had shrunk down to the bones and left her looking gaunt and lean like the rest of them, but the image was too revolting.

She's not meant to get older, he thought, even though he knew that it was only a matter of time before their blood took hold to slim and harden her until everyone forgot that she had ever been young.

A teardrop escaped her eye, cresting over the swell of her round cheek and then streaking off the cliff of her jaw.

Try again, he urged himself. His fingers ached from clutching the armrests.

"Your thoughts seem to be weighing heavily on you," he observed. It was easier than asking outright after her emotional stare. Elise wiped hastily at her face with the back of her sleeve again, smearing tears across her cheeks. She turned to him. Her lips were quirked, but her eyes were dull.

"I was just wondering how a storm like this even happens so suddenly," she said.

Doubt ghosted through his chest and then strained his face, but he didn't press her. Instead, he turned to the pouring rain, saying, "It's called a cloudburst. It happens when a cold, heavy column of air merges rapidly with a warm column of air and results in sudden condensation."

Elise stared at him. Sometimes, when people stared at him like she did now, he felt like a freak. He swallowed and then added, "It happens a lot in the mountainous part of Hoshido."

"I wish I knew as much as you," she said. He didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything.

The storm continued to rage. Leo watched Elise press her fingers against the glass. Her reflection in the window was drowned in somber greens and blues like the stain glass martyrs that decorated the cathedrals in Windmire.

It never rained like this in Windmire.

It only ever stormed in Windmire. The rain was always secondary to the bellowing thunder and piercing lightning.

"Leo?"

He barely heard her question over the slamming rain.

"Yes?"

She had pressed her hand flat against the glass. The rain ran down the opposite side, disappearing into the cold ivory of her hand and then reappearing beneath her wrist, racing down towards the courtyard below.

"When everything's over, when we go back home, do you think Corrin will come with us?"

The answer hit Leo in chest. He felt like he'd been knocked over onto his ass. The thought existed in his subconscious, buried beneath questions and mysteries, but he'd never let it grow. He knew exactly what Corrin would do, where she'd go. It stuck in his throat.

Do I tell her the truth or do I lie?

All he managed was a stunted, "I…" and then the rankling silence suffocated.

"That's okay," Elise said. "I don't think she will either."

Elise remained at the window, staring out into the storm. Leo sat in the chair, watching her reflection melt over and over again and wishing he could sink into the floor and disintegrate among the dust bunnies and cobwebs.

Before the storm came, Corrin was deep in the woods, desperately trying to remove her sword from the bark of a tree. It had been her doing. She had been experimenting with her newfound power, calling and dismissing the shield of scales and manipulating the output of her draconic blood, but there had been a misguided swing with too much vigor and now her blade was lodged deep into the tree's core. Outside of the adrenaline of combat, she found it impossible to summon her superhuman strength and was left with nothing but the unamplified, coiled muscle in her arms. The sword wasn't Yato, but it still needed to be retrieved and returned to the arena.

Gunter will have a fit, Corrin thought as she gritted her teeth, wrapped her hands tight around the sword's hilt, braced her good leg against the tree, and then yanked with all her might. The sword didn't budge. She lost her footing and then tumbled into the mud underfoot. It squelched beneath her. When the sky steadied above her, Xander stared down at her.

"Would it kill you to help me?" she snapped. The mud was freezing. It clung to every inch of her. The chill of it saturated through her training leathers and down into her skin.

"You seem to be doing a fine job on your own," he said, extending his hand to her.

Prick, she thought, but she took his hand. He pulled her to her feet.

It hadn't been her idea to start up training with him again. She would rather have sparred naked with Niles than endure the gaping silences that festered between them, but Leo had made too many good points in suggesting it for her to forsake the idea entirely.

"Xander's the only one that can take the brunt of your power and not die immediately. Well, besides maybe Ryoma but you're not nearly as familiar with him in combat," Leo had said. "Whatever bad blood between the two of you is irrelevant. You can't afford to let this power go dormant and untrained. Not now that Anankos has shown his hand."

He didn't say that if she'd had a grip on her abilities, then thirteen people might have been saved, but he didn't have to.

Corrin swallowed the permeating dread that chilled her more than the freezing mud on her skin and then returned her attention to the predicament of her waylaid sword. It jutted from the bark at such an angle that she had a better chance of snapping it in half than pulling it free.

"Try pulling it again," Xander suggested. She scowled at him.

"And take another mud bath? No thanks."

She began biting her lip. Then, she squeezed her eyes shut and thought, Fire. Big axes. Hordes and hordes of Faceless. Jakob on a humid day. Big wyverns with nasty teeth. Blood and rot and decay and—

Images of the decimated village and the twisted, shuffling corpses shuttered through her mind's eye before she'd even fully embraced where her thoughts had shifted to. With a sharp inhale of the cold fall air, Corrin squeezed her eyes tighter and then drove the thoughts down until there was nothing but residual horror.

"What're you doing?"

She opened her eyes. Xander stared at her. Sleepy bemusement hovered at the corners of his mouth. She glared at him. It was instinctual, a natural thing to do given the knot in her chest that formed when she interacted with him, especially since he was often inclined to return the gesture. But he didn't now. He only looked at her as if he might smile if she said the right thing.

"I'm thinking."

He didn't respond so she frowned and then began to think again.

Charging cavalry. The tang of combat magic. Brynhildr. Garon's ugly, snarling—

"Can you think any faster?"

Corrin opened her eyes into a glare. She opened her mouth to ask what had him in such a godsdamn jolly mood and to shout that she had half a mind to throw her sword at him provided she ever dislodged it from the tree when something cold and wet splashed across her forehead. Her ire shuddered against the backs of her teeth as she slammed her mouth shut. She swiped at her forehead. Her fingers came away wet but otherwise unblemished.

Then, the rain began. It started as a gentle drizzle, dripping through the leaves overhead to dust her shoulders, but, within a matter of seconds, it grew into a downpour so torrential that even the thick canopy could not protect her.

Clothes thoroughly soaked and hair so wet that her curls had gone straight, Corrin shouted above the roaring deluge, "There's an overhang somewhere near here I think."

"You think?"

"I know there is."

Then, she set off through the pouring rain. He followed behind in silence. It wasn't a long trek, but the screeching wind and occasional lightning strike made for a slow trip. By the time she'd found the outcropping of rock, the rain had soaked through her leathers into her undergarments.

As soon as she had stepped inside, leaned back, and taken in her surroundings, Corrin tensed against the stiff rock wall. Surrounded by carved graffiti detailing various love affairs interlaced with crude, phallic imagery, she felt very exposed. In her haste to escape the rain, she had completely overlooked the basis of her awareness of the cave. Some months ago, it had been reported that several soldiers were sneaking into the forest late at night. Concerns of mutiny had sent her and Kaze tracking them through the woods and discovering the overhang. It hadn't taken them long to realize that the soldiers had no interest in rebellion but had great interest in each other.

Her heart thundered in her chest as Xander eyed the graffiti.

Gods, don't let him get the wrong idea.

She couldn't even imagine what his reaction would be if he thought she was propositioning him. Or how she'd respond if it was agreeable to him. She rung out her hair, staring intently at her drenched curls rather than her companion. The water cascaded from her hair, breaking against the rock underfoot in a splashing fury.

Movement drew her eye. She watched in stifling silence as Xander removed the wrought iron circlet from his head and then wrung rainwater from his hair with his empty hand. The circlet dangled from his curled fingers. She had never seen him without it.

He caught her staring, but she turned away before her eyes could betray her thoughts. Her face was on fire. The storm had turned the air muggy. Every breath she took was heavy. As lightning lit up the sky behind the leaves, her thoughts twisted to Silas.

"It's going to rain," he'd said before she'd headed off into the forest with Xander. His tone was only slightly bitter. He didn't think she should have started training with Xander again.

"It's just going to piss you off," he'd told her when he'd first learned that Xander had accepted her offer. Azura had suggested that Silas' apprehension was borne from jealousy, but Corrin thought that was ridiculous. Silas had only the upmost respect for Xander. If he was jealous of anything, it was that she wasn't training with him instead. His leg had long since healed and he didn't seem to understand why he hadn't been chosen as her partner.

"You should really consider wearing shoes," Silas had suggested as they stood at the mouth of the forest. She had rolled her eyes and kissed him on the cheek then, but now she regretted ignoring his advice. The grass had been reduced to mud. The walk back to the fortress would be grueling. Going barefoot already meant that she had to set aside an extra ten minutes while bathing to properly clean her feet. Today, it was going to take her far longer.

Wind ripped through the trees. Errant leaves flew in every direction, some even blowing against her feet. Rain thundered on the canopy and dripped steadily from the leaves, forming shallow puddles on the forest floor. It sounded like hate and wonder in a single crashing heartbeat of water. Though monstrous, the sound of the storm did little to weaken the smothering silence around her.

"So, uh, how are you?" she asked, trying to break the silence. He didn't look at her. The storm held his interest.

"I'm well."

"Good," she said quickly, shooing her eyes to the shining floor. She willed the rain away so that the awkwardness might go with it.

They'd trained every day after her encounter with the undead but their conversations started and ended with passing comments about form and stance. Back at the Northern Fortress, she'd spent entire days talking to him about the world beyond the gates, his life in Krakenburg, his siblings, her studies, books, plays, music, clothes, history, poetry. Every thought that popped into her head, he entertained. Talking with him had once been the easiest thing in the world.

I don't know how to anymore, she thought. She bit her lip even though her teeth stung the raw skin beneath it. The habit had gotten worse ever since the undead had laid their hands on her. She could hardly sleep anymore. Most of her nights were spent talking with Orochi until the exhaustion took her and then the nightmares shook her awake. Despite the gruesome scenes, Orochi returned every night to observe her dreams. She had yet to locate anything of concern.

"The wind's picking up."

Corrin stared.

"What?"

"The wind's picking up," he repeated.

"Oh, yeah."

She dropped her gaze to the floor, toeing a drenched leaf that the wind had blown in. It was slimy against the calloused skin of her toe.

"How did you know of this place?" he asked.

"Oh, Kaze and I tracked some suspicious soldiers here but we found them…"

Her cheeks burned at the memory. She would never forget the black sun tattooed on one of the soldier's ass cheeks winking at her in the moonlight, the stillness with which Kaze had regarded the situation, or the coy invitations for her to join. Even now, she caught a whiff of raw sex eking from the stone.

"Entangled."

Xander glanced at their surroundings and then scoffed, "There are much better places for that than here."

She couldn't breathe. Heat crawled up her neck and then spilled out into the rest of her face. When she looked at him, incredulous and stunned, she found him staring at the graffiti. New understanding seemed to dawn on him. Her discomfort deflated in her chest, leaving behind a hot frustration.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" she huffed.

He still didn't look at her. She couldn't tell which piece of crude art had captured his attention, but he seemed enamored by it as he responded, "Am I in a good mood?"

His voice was slow and resonate, seeming to ask the question more of himself than of her. Then, he finally met her eye. Her joints grew stiff from his gaze and then she thought, I need to get the hell out of here.

"I suppose it's due to the news that the army's repelled my father's forces from Cheve."

She had heard him correctly, but the words were tangled. The army hadn't mobilized since the Bottomless Canyon.

And it certainly hasn't been to Cheve.

"Army? What army?"

"The army I organized before I left for the Bottomless Canyon."

He crossed his arms as he said it.

"You raised an entire army?"

"Did you think you were the only one that could?"

She wasn't sure whether that had been a barbed insult or a harmless jest. She blinked at him.

"Did you really think I'd leave the country defenseless against my father's bloodlust?"

She hadn't thought about it at all. Her tongue felt thick and viscous. She swallowed.

"I… Of course not," she said, but she thought, I'm an idiot.

His advocacy for more scouting expeditions and exploration, his vehement opposition to doubling patrols, everything suddenly clicked.

He wasn't trying to run away.

She tried to imagine the strain of leading an army through words on a page, but the swell of empathetic panic was too great. The rain continued to rage.

"You've never mentioned it," she said.

"You've never asked."

She didn't appreciate the insinuation.

"Well it's not like I ever had the chance to."

He stared at her. The darkness blurred his features. He looked more like a bust of marble than a man.

"You've spent a very long time hating me. I'm not an idiot. That doesn't just go away."

And it's not like you've made any efforts to make it, she added silently.

The sky lit up in bright fury and, for a single, fleeting moment, she saw something raw and agonized well in his eyes, but she turned from him before the light had faded. When he did speak, his words were slow and deliberate.

"You didn't choose us."

Her fingernails carved divots into the soft peach of her palms.

"My family fell apart around me. They blamed me for your decision and for the war that came after. They never admitted to it but they all resented me, hated me. So, in turn, I hated you."

His admission was smothering. There was catharsis in the truth, but it was like a bone being reset. The pain had to blind before it could end. Corrin's thoughts were rumbling static inside her skull.

"It was easier than…" he trailed off. In the silence, she turned to him and found only resolute detachment.

"He trains his emotions like he trains his sword," Camilla had once said in passing conversation.

And its paid off, Corrin thought as she tried and failed to parse the emotion behind the mask. The wind brought in a bounty of leaves and twigs to lay at her feet. She watched them wilt as the rainwater puddled atop of them. Then, he said, "You can't know what it's like to have the people you love the most refuse to look at you."

Her spine stiffened and her hands clenched and there were a thousand things she could have yelled at him to make him understand the stupidity of his comment but she didn't. She let the anger pool with the rainwater at her feet.

"I have a pretty good idea," she said. He looked at her, stared at her like it was the first time he'd ever seen her, and then that was the end of it.

They rode out the rest of the storm in mutual quiet. As she listened to the storm's death throes, a burgeoning warmth nestled into the hollow of her chest. Things felt different.

I hope they actually are, she thought. Her heart could only break so many times.

A/N: Hmm, so this chapter seemed better in my head now that's its all posted and everything lol.
I don't really have much to say for this chapter honestly. Its self indulgent because I love storms and coming up with pretentious descriptions of rain lol. But anyway... I hope you enjoyed! Til next week!