a/n: ahh, so the war is over in this one. I've skipped ahead a bit, as Leo doesn't really see much of the endgame. He's still angsty, but at least he's with Corrin ;;

As always, lemme know what you think! Onwards!

iii.

[It was after the war that things settled in and settled down. I was there right before you faced Father and right before the death of my two closest friends. It's funny, the way that one love is sacrificed so that another sort of love may live on. I realized that when I asked you to marry me under a Hoshidan cherry tree.]

It was sunny the day the Nohrian kingdom buried their prince and their princess.

Most Nohrians found it funny that it was actually sunny on a day of such sadness, but Leo was unsurprised. Elise would have wanted the sun and Xander would have done whatever it took to make her happy.

So the sun shone and the dirt was dug and their bodies were lowered, one frail one and one strong one, and the people sang around and around as Leo and Camilla watched. Flowers were laid and tears were wept, but as the soil was dropped back onto their souls, the people dispersed and the royalty was all that was left.

Corrin had her hand in Leo's, but she didn't speak. Her tears spoke for her, mostly, as they left trails on her cheeks and stuck to her chin. He knew she was as broken as he was—yet she had accepted this piece of the blame as her own. Nohr didn't blame her for the war, not when the truth was revealed and the acceptance was found in the dead king. But there were still prices to pay.

Elise and Xander were dead and that was all there was to it.

There was something akin to shock between the three remaining siblings, something similar to surprise, but mostly devastation and pain. It was one thing to speak their sacrifice; it was another to see their bodies lowered into the ground.

But the sun shone and the graves were sealed and it was done.

Camilla had passed on the crown, which didn't surprise Leo in the slightest; Camilla had never wanted the throne, and by all the rights of the law, Leo was the only one left to it. The thought of being the King of Nohr was daunting, to say the least, but he took it up and swallowed it down because he knew he had to.

It was exhilarating, but sad—a horrible, windstorm sort of sad that forced the prince to realize that his older brother was long gone. Growing up, he had never worried about being king; that was always going to be Xander's role. Always.

Leo left a carnation atop the stone marked for Elise, but for Xander, he felt compelled for something more. He had loved them both equally, but because of him, and because of her, they were gone and he had nothing to repay them with.

Over Xander's name etched into stone, Leo sank to his knees and spoke.

"I guess you've left the title to me," he started quietly, his hands pressed into the freshly packed soil. "I, of course, don't know what the hell to do with it. The one thing I'm not prepared for and you can't help but to leave me that." He paused. "I won't ever be half the king you would have been, Xander, but I'll damn-well try. For you. And for Elise."

There were tears then, stained on his face, but he did not dry them.

"I—Thank you, Brother. For your dedication to Nohr a—and to us. Godspeed."

He didn't have anything else to say.

Corrin wiped his tears when he stood, and he let her, let her warm hands mark patterns across his skin. Fairly enough, she was what broke the world—and now she was holding his together. He let himself cry to her, but then he had to hold on. He was all Nohr had left now.

Xander would understand that.

Corrin herself wiped his tears and then took her own place over their graves, said her graces and cried her tears. She apologized, more times than he could count, and she promised and swore that she would make do on what they both had wanted—a peaceful world for Nohr to prosper. It seemed fit when the sunlight shone just a little bit brighter when she stood from her sorrowful stance.

Camilla had given her best, her wishes and her tears, and had graced Elise's stone with so many flowers, there was hardly any room to see the name. It would be harder for her to move on, to adjust; Elise had practically been her child, in ways that Leo could never understand. But she had turned down the crown and went on to find her new path in the life that she was given.

The three stood tall over their siblings' graves and watched as the sun set over the kingdom of Nohr.

His coronation was the day after Ryoma (that was his name) was crowned King of Hoshido.

It wasn't nearly as big a celebration, not in food or in games or in treats, but there was a festival and the people still celebrated for the reign of a king who wouldn't rule so sternly. Corrin had worn a blue dress and her light hair made her shine.

The days passed quickly now, as Leo had responsibilities and enough to learn to last him a lifetime. He spent many days in a room at the top of the castle where he could keep the windows open and study tactics and economy and law. Other days, he spent wandering amongst his people, following Corrin's lead and appeasing when it deemed polite.

Then there were days he traveled to Hoshido with his insufferably insatiable lover who refused to stay in one place now that she had all the freedom in the world. Corrin cheered up after the war, her face finding its brightness again, her beauty still unmatched. She never did find it in herself to forgive what she had caused, but the light returned to her and she reveled in what she had gained, even if she was never quite the same.

She found her place in the kingdoms, a strange but equal share that she held between her hands; she was, in all ways, the one who arranged the peace between them, who signed the treaties and arranged who got what and what went where. Ryoma was a peace-loving king, but he was sometimes a stingy one and for that, Corrin often knocked him upside the head, laughing, her face stern but her eyes bright. Hoshido provided Nohr with the food it needed during the winter, while Nohr gave Hoshido what materials and firewood it needed during its cold months. It was a truce, and though many expected it to be rocky, it was anything but, what with the Princess of Hoshido being the King of Nohr's leading advisor.

Camilla visited every so often on the arm of her new husband, and Silas was only too keen to visit his best friend again. It was to Corrin's surprise, of course, when she got a letter from both Silas and Camilla claiming they were getting married—though both of them left out they were being married to the other. In any case, Silas gave Camilla the family she had always wanted and for that, Leo was grateful.

Some days, Corrin left him and went to Hoshido alone, and those were the days that Leo struggled with the most; it was harder to want to live if she wasn't around. Xander and Elise still haunted him in the castle, and it was perhaps Elise's laugh that gave him the worst dreams. He would struggle in the night, tossing and turning, sweat broken across his skin and his hands clenched tightly together. It was a burden he would have to bear for the rest of his life, the pain of his kingdom and his siblings and his failure.

The people of Nohr were asking for funds and compensation, the royal court was all but destroyed, and if anything, the entire castle was going to crumble under the weight of the sky if it wasn't fixed before winter came. So many demands and requests and offers—everything and anything at once hit the new king, but he was smart and he found his way through. Some days were just bad. Even Corrin couldn't fix those.

But then again, there were the good days.

Leo let Corrin lead him through the town, her thin hand grasped onto his, and she pulled him through the throngs of people gathered beneath the sun that had emerged for the day. The marketplace was bustling, children were getting tanned, and there was something so achingly strange about it, the central plaza of Nohr being happy and bright, that Leo could have laughed.

If only Elise could see it now!

He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised by the people's affections for Corrin, though he was—she was labeled a traitor to the entire nation only a year ago, but now, they handed her flowers as she passed, waving and smiling, catching her attention any way they could. She claimed it was only because she walked with him that day, but he knew it was no one-time thing; she came home with bouquets every day.

Corrin led him to the fountain, the big, flourished one that had been built upon his brother's death, inscribed with something Leo had said in his coronation speech. "Let us bless those who left this world seeking only something better."

She pulled him up onto the stones and he smiled, sitting down beside her and watching as she dropped a gold piece into the water. It shimmered beneath the reflections of the sun, but Corrin wasn't watching.

"What do you think?" She asked him, so proud of what she had accomplished. The fountain had been her idea, and with a little help from Niles and Ryoma, the feature had been brought up and was now spewing clear water up into the dusty sky. "Pretty cool, right? Everyone in town has said they loved it."

"Eh," Leo said, and he shrugged. "I suppose."

Corrin hit him. "Leo!"

He laughed at her, and, straightening out his collar, Leo nodded. "It's amazing. I'm sure it will boost morale and spirit in the town in no time."

"That sounded rehearsed."

"Damn it, you weren't supposed to know…"

She smacked him again this time, only this time, her hand caught onto the front of his collar without meaning to, and she dragged him backwards by the seams of his shirt.

Leo skidded a minute across the stone, and his eyes only had enough time to widen before he fell backwards into the fountain.

The townspeople were watching now, but he was beyond caring—a king could take a break every once in a while, right? He floundered for a moment, his dark and heavy clothes soaked through and through, heavier than even silver armor and dragging him down like a weight.

Leo scowled at Corrin, who was still sitting upon the stones of the fountain. She was, however, laughing so hard she was crying, tears streaming across her face, and had bent so she could clutch at her stomach. Without much flourish, he reached forward and yanked her in too, pulling her so she was flush against him in the middle of the fountain, right in front of all of his subjects who looked on at the scene with glimmering eyes. Their king was young yet, still, both in love and in peace, and had brought them happiness and full stomachs—that was more than anyone could say about King Garon, so they only laughed as his son splashed in the fountain.

Corrin was protesting, flailing her hands, but he was certain and he yanked her further, the water coming up to around his waist as he sat cross-legged behind the stones.

She stopped wiggling for a moment to look at him—and then they caught one look at each other and burst into laughter again, his hands around her waist, her arms around his neck. He kissed her there in front of the crowds of onlookers, his hands caught into her hair, and smiled—it was something Leo from pre-war, as he liked to call it, never would have done, his rational and determined self-incapable of such a public display of love and affection.

But he had lost her once, the world had nearly ended, his brother had died, his father had turned out to be some demented, controlled beast, and he had been crowned king and, really, at that damn point, he decided he very-well just did not care.

So he kissed her and she kissed him back and they fell further into the water, laughing still, as the onlookers either blushed, raised a brow, or applauded, most of which did the latter.

It was quite something, to see the people of Nohr applauding for their king as he laid with Corrin in the new fountain of the town.

Then again, it was really something that Nohr was still standing to begin with.

It still rained more than anything in Nohr, though.

Corrin didn't find it as depressing as she once had, as she had once had no option to go out and dance in it. Still, the rain set her in a very quiet mood, her voice much softer, her eyes a little duller. It was usually on the days that it rained that Elise had once visited her, so many years ago, though it wasn't really all that long ago.

Leo had finished up a meeting with his advisors and had returned to his room, only to find her sat at the windowpane, her legs folded across the window-seat. She stared out the window, but turned to face him when he shut the door.

"Quite the storm outside," he said casually, pausing at the door to take off his coat and shoes. Leo discarded them neatly at the front of the room and shook out his hair, his hand running through it in a restless sort of way, and left him in long trousers and a white button-up. "Niles came crying about it earlier, but you know him."

Corrin tilted her head, nodding, and her face turned thoughtful for a moment. "He's afraid of the lightning, right?"

"Fire in general, really," Leo answered as he crossed the room, his exhaustion clear in the way he walked. He was overworked, the poor king of Nohr, trying to find the money and the resources and the morale, though his people loved him and his advisors had turned the nation into a place where money was no longer scarce and the children were happy and full. "He's gotten a bit ridiculous about it."

His room was fit for a king, though he had actually refused it to begin with, the room itself three times as large as his last. A huge desk was pushed up against the wall, two-sided and lined with neat papers and sorted letters. Beside it stood his dresser, and then beyond that was a sitting area, three chairs and a table arranged for tea or such. The room itself kind of dipped into a circle of open space then before the bed was met on the opposite wall—a massive bed with dark sheets and a patterned quilt that Camilla had sent him not too long back.

Corrin sat at the window on the other side of the bed, and she welcomed him as he sat beside her, pulling the girl into his lap and leaning his head back against the wall. She ran her fingers across his chin, smoothing out the wrinkles of stress that were pushed out between his eyes as he furrowed his eyebrows, and her touch was soothing, like it had always been.

It was hard to remember where they were sometimes, that they were a king and a princess, not just a boy and a girl locked away in a tower. In the moments like this, with the rain spattering on the glass and her touch warm across his face, it was easy to lose himself—to lose the weight that clung to his shoulders.

His hands settled across her waist as she shifted, twisting so she could straddle over him, and he sighed in content, if just for a moment, lost with her.

Her breath was warm, her touch soft, and Corrin was content just to sit there with him, for that was proof enough that their love had survived all and had grown stronger still. Anything that had survived the war was precious to them, for many things had not; siblings and retainers and loves.

"Have you seen Nina recently?" Corrin's outburst was of no surprise; the new child was mostly what the princess talked about these days, ever since she had been put on babysitting duty every so often.

Even Leo smiled at the thought of his retainer's newborn daughter, the small girl being a tiny victory in a big world of doubt. At least some things were certain.

Nyx claimed that Niles drove her mad for the duration of the war, but as soon as the last battle was fought and won, they had been caught up in each other—to absolutely no one's surprise. He married her on the first day of the summer and Nina had been born eight months later in a frenzy of panic and lots of consoling from Leo to his retainer. Niles, believe it or not, had been the most nervous father during childbirth the castle had seen in decades.

"She's so small," Leo said, opening his eyes to see Corrin tracing patterns over the bridge of his nose. Her finger caught on the place where Xander had hit him with a training sword and broken his nose, but she continued tracing without asking about it. "I mean, I know they're supposed to be by statistics, but she's not even ten ounces!"

"She'll be spoiled rotten, that girl. The first child born in the new era…even Ryoma was fussing to see her in his last letter."

"Really? Is he not content with Shiro?" Leo teased her by poking out his tongue, his face a little sly, his eyes narrowed. He knew fully well why.

"You know he missed out on Shiro," she chided, pausing her path across his face to look him in the eye. "He's fully grown now. I'm an aunt to a seventeen-year-old and I'm only twenty!"

"A shame," he said. "It must be strange to miss so much of your child's life."

"It hurt him," Corrin said softly, and she resumed her patterns, this time a bit more hesitant. "Scarlet, too. To be parents and yet, miss the chance of parenting…"

They were quiet a moment. It was unsaid between them, though they both knew it to be true; they had said nothing of marriage, nor of being married, since the day she had returned to him. For what he held out on, Corrin was unsure, though she knew it to be of good reason, whatever it was. They were young-yet still—she had fought for her twenty years thus far and knew she had many more left in her.

Leo she was certain in, so there was no rush.

"Oh!" Corrin exclaimed, and she nearly jumped off of him; Leo had to catch her tightly and bring her back to him before she fell off the seat. "Speaking of which, Hinoka is expecting! Can you believe it? She's going to be such a wonderful mother, don't you think? I wonder how Jakob feels about it, though I'm just glad he's finally gotten past sending me three letters every day…"

"Mhm…"

Leo dozed off a bit, but his mind was lost in her words.

Corrin would be a wonderful mother, wouldn't she?

A particularly warm afternoon in Hoshido, they were sat together under a cherry blossom tree. Corrin liked to laugh at how funny Leo looked amongst all the color and the brightness, his starkly black outfit a little intense for the fading whites and pinks natural to the land. But she loved him there, and her siblings found it easy to have him, though it was strange for him to be a king and so casual amongst others. He refused to wear lighter clothes when he was out on 'formal business' because he wanted to represent Nohr, which, to all extremes, was nothing short of entertaining.

"Corrin," he had said, and she had turned up from watching the blossoms of the tree settle onto the stones that lined the path. "I never thought I'd be here doing this—well, I mean, maybe doing this but not here—and I know you've been expecting it for a long few months, but Niles said I'm going to lose you if I don't do it soon and my book says—"

"Are you trying to ask me to marry you, Leo?"

He flushed red, his cheeks lighting up. "Maybe."

Corrin was quiet for a minute, as though this was of no surprise to her whatsoever as she contemplated his attempted marriage proposal while they sat together on a bench in Hoshido. She ran a hand across his, and then smiled. "You told me once that everything had become uncertain to you," she murmured, her hand caught against his. She brought it to press against her cheek and skimmed his knuckles across her skin, humming across the hardened skin of his calloused fingers. "Leo…would you let me be the one thing you never find uncertainty in?"

Leo nodded once and pulled her to kiss him.

She was half-sprawled across his lap and it was messy and unrefined, but it was real and true and in the world of war they had lived through, it was all that had survived, the only thing that had made it through. Maybe not unscathed, but still strong, if not stronger still.

They were broken, but they were rebuilt, and days of rain and of fountains and of teasing had brought them to a point where their souls may as well of been one, just meshed together and sewn with thread, tightened and holding stronger than ever. Leo loved her and he knew that was all there was to it, no matter how many times he had been ordered to kill her, nor how many times she had chosen against him; they were here now and both knew that there was nothing that they would ever want more than they wanted each other.

"I'd like to do it proper," he gasped as he pulled away from, breathless, a smile spread far across his face. He was shining like she hadn't seen him do since before the many months of bloodshed and hurt, smiling like he hadn't been completely and utterly sure that she would agree to be his wife, though she was completely and utterly lost to him anyways. "Hold on, let me try again."

Leo slid away from her grasp and he could only grin harder at the way she was watching him, her cheeks flushed and her face soft. Of course, her eyes were bright, but that came of no surprise; they were gleaming now with what he could only deem as tears.

He nearly fell onto one knee, and as he held her hand onto his, the petals of the tree fell around him and the sun shone onto him and even though he wore Nohrian black and purple, Leo felt as though the light had finally found him and he was free; the weight on his shoulders faltered as he held tighter onto her.

"Corrin," he breathed, and his words were literal breaths of air as he tried to tell her all that she was to him. "I never thought fate would bring us here, not as in Hoshido, but here as in the way I love you so fully, it hurts when you're gone. I don't want to be apart anymore, not ever, and I never want to have to choose against you when you are everything I have. Before the war, I was never uncertain, but after, it became harder for me to be.

"But you are all I'll ever want, even when I'm done breathing and the world has sealed me away. If I've ever been certain in anything, Corrin, it's you. I didn't ask you before because I was still uncertain—not in you, but in myself, to provide a home for you like my father didn't. But I'll certainly try if you'll do me the honor of becoming my wife."

He finished by pulling a ring from his coat, but he couldn't reach to put it on her hand before she had her arms around his neck, her body pressed against his. "Of course," she mumbled, and he knew she was crying. "Of course I will."

Leo pressed his mouth to her hair and breathed her in, just like he did all those months ago when he had finally found her again, and it was nostalgia, an old, weary sort of feeling that made him want to cry.

Corrin was his—it didn't matter that now she would be the Queen of Nohr and things between Hoshido would be the best they had ever been, nor did it matter that the people would likely shout their names in praise as they found a pair of rulers who would finally watch over them with a loving eye. It mattered that she was his and only his, forever, even when the sun set for the last time and he took his final breath, she was his.

And Leo was found.

a/n: poor Xander and Elise. They get so much angst from Leo. What a guy. Also, I'd like to point out that Leo is perhaps the biggest dork in history. Alright, cool.