No POV

A woman carrying a heavy bag on her shoulders leads a fourteen year old girl along the road, both hooded by their purple cloaks, starts slowing down as she stumbles over a rock. "Are you okay?"

The young woman nods. "I'm alright, Mother."

The sound of horses on the road ahead of them makes them pause, and a small party in fine clothes approaches, slowing down as they reach the traveling pair. They are a group of teenagers, two boys looking fifteen and another seventeen, and with one girl about eleven, another about nine or ten, out for the day.

"Chrom, can we stop yet? I wanna have a lunch break," one of the boys, wearing green and with incredibly messy hair, asks the other fifteen year old.

"Yeah Chrom, I agree with Stahl!" the nine year old girl cheers from behind the eleven year old sharing her horse.

The blue haired fifteen year old sighs. "I guess we might as well," he murmurs as he looks ahead, finding the two travelers watching them cautiously. "Travelers, would you like to join us for lunch?"

The woman slowly nods, leading the girl at her side over to the group as they dismount, the two girls doing so much more recklessly. However, before they can near the ground, a boy in light blue armor follows Chrom in catching the girls. While the younger one laughs and hugs the armored boy, the eleven year old with coppery tinted hair pouts in Chrom's arms.

"It's not like we were gonna get hurt, Chrom! Sheesh!"

He squeezes her in his arms, making her yelp as he laughs. "While I am confident in your abilities to keep yourself from getting hurt, I am not so sure about Lissa. She's picking up on too many of your bad habits already."

She huffs and pokes Chrom in the side of the head. "You worry too much, Chrom. Now put me down."

He makes a show of thinking deeply, then shakes his head, shifting her and tossing her over his shoulder. "Nope, I think I'd rather annoy you."

"CHROOOM!" she whines, hitting him lightly in the back. "Please, put me down!"

He rolls his eyes and complies, wincing as she gives him one last smack to the back of his head. "Fine, fine, as you wish, Becca."

The girl stands to the side awkwardly with her mother, watching the entire scene in shameless amusement. "Thank you, oh precious protector," she mutters with an exaggerated bow, even adding a goofy flourish with her hand. With that, she ducks under the boy's swipe and grabs a saddlebag from her horse.

"So, Becca, what did you pack today?" Stahl asks, leading his horse to her side and trying to peek into her bag.

She holds the bag out to him and he takes it immediately, holding it while she pulls out a bundle of cloth. "I packed some sandwiches, fruits, chocolate and vanilla cake with extra icing like Lissa enjoys, and some pasta."

They shake their heads. "Becca, you need to stay out of the kitchen. Next thing we know, you'll start up a restaurant, or be made a chef," Chrom mutters under his breath as he takes the reins of the horses and leads them to the side of the road where they can graze.

She walks a couple yards from the horses and spreads out the cloth, proving it to be a giant picnic blanket. "But if I don't go in the kitchen, then I won't be able to perfect my apple pies with Sumia!"

The boy in blue armor sighs. "Milord, you know this will turn out just like the sledding argument."

"I know Frederick, but I still want her to improve on her fighting abilities."

Lissa bounces out of Frederick's arms and over to the travelers. "Come on, her food has got to be the best you'll find anywhere!"

Becca blushes furiously. "It's not that impressive, honestly," she mutters, embarrassed at the praise.

The mother and daughter step over to the cloth and pull back their hoods. The mother has pure black hair, bangs cut over the right side of her tanned face to cover one of her dark brown eyes. Her daughter reveals shining platinum blonde, if not white, hair, cut along her jawline with her bangs falling into her blood red eyes, set into an almost sickly pale face.

The daughter looks nervously to her mother, who gives her a smile. "I'm Robin, and this is my mother Katarina. Obviously, we're travelers."

Becca smiles widely at them and grabs the bag from Stahl before he can let his stomach control him. "I'm Becca, blueberry over there is Chrom, the one in armor is Frederick, the little blond goofball is Lissa, and this black hole of a stomach here is Stahl. It's great to meet you."

"Stop calling me a blueberry, Becca!" Chrom whines as he pulls off his boots to settle down on the blanket as everyone else starts pulling off their own boots. "That got old five years ago."

She shakes her head. "Nope! I think it's amusing to see you get all annoyed with that nickname."

Katarina lets out a small laugh. "You seem close, are you siblings?"

Becca's smile instantly drops, a frown taking its place as she looks away. "No, we're not."

"She's a close friend, but Lissa is my sister," Chrom clarifies for them, putting a hand on Becca's shoulder. "She's like a sister though, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her just as if we were related."

The frown remains as she pulls out covered trays of food, revealing massive amounts of food crammed into their containers that could feed an army. She shrugs away Chrom's hand and hands around plates to everyone, including two extras to the mother and daughter. "It's a story I won't tell, if you were hoping for me to divulge you," she mutters in a dead tone, eyes empty of anything but sorrow and suffering.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware this was a sensitive topic," Katarina apologizes, before she realizes she's holding a plate. "Wait, how did you know to bring extra plates?"

Frederick and the others come to the same realization. "So it seems that you did know. How is that?" he asks, frowning at Becca.

She glances to her side and up before she shakes her head. "You wouldn't like how I knew."

Lissa, unhappy with the gloom over her best friend, jumps on her back. "It doesn't matter! Let's eat this feast!"

The sudden distraction puts a smile on Becca's lips once more, and the entire group laughs at her antics before serving up the delectable meal.

They all help to put away the empty food containers into the bag while Becca and Chrom go to the nearby stream to clean the plates. They take care of the dishes quickly and efficiently, before Chrom notices Becca staring off into the woods, holding a clean plate in her hands.

"Becca?" he asks, unsure of how to get her to focus. He touches her shoulder and shakes her lightly, getting no reaction. "Becca?" he asks again, worry setting in.

A light laugh echoes through the woods, and Chrom follows her line of sight, finding a ball of dark light moving their way through the woods, taking on the human form of a Grimleal priest. "It seems I've been caught in the act. At least we know the girl lives, after all this time."

Chrom rises and draws Falchion from its scabbard, leveling the ancient blade at their uninvited guest. "What have you done to her?"

He laughs again, this time much more darkly with an insane glint in his eyes. "Oh, I've just put a little memory spell on her, it should wear off in a few weeks. That is, if she can live through her memories again and come through intact."

A snarl mars his face as Becca slumps, the plate falling gently into the grass as tears build in her eyes. "Release the curse! Now!" With a mad cackle, the priest vanishes with a childish wave of his fingers. Knowing the enemy has gone, Chrom falls to his knees next to Becca as sobs wrack her body, her gaze far away and blind to the present. "Frederick! Somebody, get over here!" he shouts helplessly, pulling her close when she clutches her head in both hands, falling into hysterics quickly.

The summoned knight charges over on his horse, lance at the ready, only to pause at the sight before him. "Milord, what's happened?" he questions as he dismounts.

"She's been cursed by a Grimleal Priest, and I'm not sure how to deal with this." A small, muffled scream issues from Becca. "She's trapped in her memories, but she might not survive based on what that priest said."

Frederick reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out an expensive elixir. "This might help for the time being, but we need to see if Katarina or Robin can help in any way." He opens the bottle and tilts some of the potion into the girl's mouth, forcing her to swallow the bitter liquid, but it clearly eases some of her suffering, calming her down enough that she eases her grip on her skull and leans more into Chrom. "Take my horse back to the others, I'll bring the dishes back."

Chrom wastes no time in mounting the horse, holding the girl close as he hurries back to the others. As soon as they see Becca's condition, they lay back out the blanket they were about to pack up, Katarina throwing her bag to the ground as she pulls Becca from Chrom's arms as he approaches, carrying her to the blanket and setting her hand on the girl's forehead, frowning in concentration.

"Chrom, what happened?" Robin asks, kneeling beside her mother.

"Some Grimleal priest cursed her to relive her memories, and mentioned that it would wear off in a few weeks if she can survive," he answers as he dismounts, holding the worried Lissa close as they walk over and kneel next to Robin. "Can you two do anything for her?" he asks, remembering from their lunch talk that both were mage refugees from Plegia in the last years of the war, welcomed for their protection against Plegian invaders in Ylissean villages.

Robin sighs. "I know I can't, but Mother might be able to do something, at the very least offer advice."

Frederick returns and Stahl helps him to put away the plates, and they linger in silence with the horses as the others wait for an answer at the blanket for an hour or more.

Finally, Katarina pulls her hand away from Becca, who sleeps with tears still falling down her cheeks. "This is a strong spell, one I can't hope to fight off here, or without help."

Chrom grips Lissa tight as she clutches at him. "Is there anything you can offer? Anything at all?" he begs.

Robin perks up, determination sparking in her eyes. "You mean the Outrealms, don't you?"

Katarina nods slowly. "Yes, and even then there is only a chance for her to get through it. Currently, she is too weak to survive long enough for the curse to wear off naturally, but if we took her to a different dimension, we could get her the help she'll need. Although, that's not all, I'm afraid."

After a moment of tense silence, Stahl steps over and sighs. "What else?"

Katarina closes her eyes, which seem to have filled slightly against her will. "Her mind was already unstable as it was, and the short time she's been under the curse has made her much worse. She would have to stay away from this realm for years in order to fully recover."

"I- I refuse to believe that to be her only option," Frederick growls, having become highly attached to the girl as he protected the royal family. "There has to be some other way."

"There is the option of letting her suffer like this until she dies, which could be days to a couple of weeks at most," Katarina snaps, "or we can save her body and mind with a few years separation."

"What would we need to do?" Stahl asks when he finds it clear Chrom is unable to ask.

She opens her teary eyes, and Robin turns to him, answering for her mother, "Have faith in her, and help us get there."

Okay, I got them all tied together. Next time, I don't know yet how long the time skip will be, but know it will be another few years. And I'm sorry about all the skipping around, but I think you get the idea of how these things turn out when your mind follows a billion ideas and mashes them into a whole new story once more. This is exactly what happened, so sorry for having to tolerate me being a weirdo like this again.

I do not own Fire Emblem Awakening.