Author's note: I'm slowly, SLOWLY regaining my muse. SLOWLY. I'm honestly just going to go 'fuck it' and forget about doing the bad timeline in order. It'll be like G2G and Time Matters Not (which everyone should go read if they haven't, it's hilarious, for those of you who don't like fluff).
Anyways, this is chronologically the last thing to happen in the bad timeline.
The poor girl– yes, she's still a girl in my eyes, what do you expect? I'm her mother. The poor girl nods tearfully, really, she just looks like a waterfall of melancholy blue. "Mother, please... Survive and come back. Please..."
That's not my intent and she knows it. It's time I was granted the sweet release of death. Chrom... Wait just a little bit longer. I've got to stave off the blackguards for our daughters.
"Come on, Lucina!" So rings Noel's voice, always clear as a bell in this din. "Let's go!"
Beside her is a little brown-haired boy. Five years was all he's had to live so far... I fight in the hopes he'll live far longer. "Moooom! Moooooooom! Don't goooo!"
"Brennan, go with your siblings," I tell him in the softest voice I can manage. "They'll keep you safe." It's his small, rounded, and tearful face I burn into my mind last... I'll never see his smile again. I finally turn away from my children to regard the approaching shadows.
"Come, O brave Brennan! Never fear, for Owain shall keep you safe!" Hah. Of course... Owain does continue my tradition of keeping levity about. Well, he inherited it more from Lissa... Even though she's been dead a good while.
Shadows moving with the spark of dark magic become clear– I recognize their faces. "Kiddos, go. Get out of here!" That is a snarl. I see what Grima has done, and it angers me nearly beyond my control. However, Grima will never conquer my temper, I have seen to that. The children's footsteps patter into nothing, leaving an untouched blue glow behind me. I raise my spear.
Would that I had some Grimleal whose lives I could leech– but no, Grima grew wise to my magic a long time ago and claimed for himself the life force I would otherwise have used to return to live the man before me. Besides, the gift is given.
Eyes once a gentle blue stared at me in a malevolent red, unable to see past my skin as they once were. I dig my spear into the ground and slam it with a spell– enacting a force field around the gate of time, bound to my life force. The one way to bring it down is to kill me.
I step outside the field and pick my spear back up. "Come then, Grima. It will take more than the enslaved corpse of my husband to bring me down. It will take a personal visit from you!" I rush at the Risen– these twisted forms of those who were once Shepherds– with every intent to make their bodies useless to the magic animating them.
The ground before me rumbles; I stop dead. The faces of the familiar dead are gone– obscured by a singular thick hide. A small cloaked figure descends before me– the sole foe whose eyes are not illuminated with evil red.
"Ready to join him, Your Grace? Are you ready to fall in with the man who so trusted his mortal enemy?" He laughs at me.
I respond with a gentle smile. Pride, the vice I once clung to desperately, fades; as a plot unravels before me, I know what must be done. "Claim my life, then, Grima. Claim it if you can."
He grins widely, excited at the prospect. "Your life magic shall be mine to control! And once I claim that, no mortal will stand a chance against me!"
Ah, the fool. Life magic is not mine to wield any longer. It belongs to someone else, one whose blood is worthy to carry on the tradition. My smile widens. "Take me, then. Let me pass into death's sweet embrace, and at last join my love."
"With pleasure, Shanzira Dinrel!"
A bolt of magic buries itself in my chest, draining my energy from me, and I fall to my knees, still smiling as Grima laughs– then, he abruptly ceases. "What did you do?!" He rages. "What happened to the power of the Life-Thief?!"
It is my turn to laugh. "I take life and I give it to others. It is not mine any longer." The power is tied to my life force– my unique life force. I exchanged mine for another's, for a blood relative. One who had the determination I would require to do this.
"Who?! Who did you pass it to?!" Grima roars. I laugh all the harder, my entire body shaking despite my strength draining away. Ah, Grima can't force me to live now, can he? He can't torture it out of me. "Tell me! It is that little girl of yours?!"
I grin all the wider. "So uncertain. You'll never know. I wiped the knowledge from my own mind. Even when you command my corpse, you'll never have the answer." Things grow hazy, but I can still see Grima's furious face twisting that of the one-time friend I had known for so long. Ah, Robin... I'll see you once Grima screws himself over and releases you from his grip.
How I wish I could draw that angry, twisted face... to record its hilarity for all time... and share it with... those to whom I gave the future to...
Hello, Chrom. It's been such a long time... I missed you dearly.
Hi. That was fun to write. I like torturing people.
I wish this was longer!