A/N: Only a couple of reviews for the last chapter, which took me twice as long to write as others. I didn't think it was that awful, although to be fair I probably shouldn't have posted it on the 4th of July XD

Reminder: If there's any of the previous Robins you'd like to see more of, feel free to leave a request! (I might just put this notice at the start of every chapter.)

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated!


The two warring parties had been locked in battle for days now. The stalemate was dragging on and on. Neither was willing to give in or concede an inch of ground. The Shepherds were on edge, exhausted, their nerves shot by the seemingly endless struggle.

"To tell you the truth," said Gaius as the Shepherds milled about in the mess tent, "I don't even care anymore."

Sumia stopped pushing her food around with her fork and jerked her head up. "Gaius!" she said reproachfully.

"No, actually, I don't care." Gaius threw down his spoon. "I don't care who wins anymore. I just want it to be over."

"We all want it to be over," Stahl said. The usually cheerful Shepherd was unusually gloomy. "It's been way too long."

"Matters such as these cannot be hurried past their pace," Virion sighed. "Alas, we must allow this war to run its course."

There was a gloomy silence as the Shepherds considered the thought of even more days of tension and conflict.

"I, for one, agree with Gaius," Frederick said suddenly.

"Frederick!" Sumia said in surprise.

Frederick shook his head and stabbed at a piece of sausage with his fork. "This petty dispute has continued for too long."

"Indeed," Maribelle scoffed as she set down her teacup.

"It's friggin' stupid, that's what!" Sully said loudly, smacking the table. "I'm all for marching in so we can—"

"So we can what?" someone said quietly.

The Shepherds froze. As one, they turned their heads.

The past days of stress had not been kind on Robin. His eyes were bloodshot, his yellow hair out of its usual ponytail and hanging about him in flyaway strands. One twitching hand clasped a Thunder tome tightly.

"N-nothing!" Sumia yelped. "I-it's nothing, Robin! Uh, good morning!"

Robin stared right through her. "Morning," he said, turning away and slouching towards the table of food, where Cordelia was still serving the straggling and late-rising Shepherds. The group watched him leave.

"As I was saying," Sully hissed, "I'm all for marching in and beating some sense into the two of them."

"You can't strike Lord Chrom!" Maribelle said, scandalized.

"I've been beating Chrom up since he was five," Sully snorted.

"That's probably not something to brag about, Sully," said Stahl.

"Whatever!" Sully threw up her hands. "It's stupid!"

The tent flap swung open and a disheveled Chrom marched in. He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Robin at the breakfast table.

"Uh-oh," Stahl muttered.

"Should we say something?" whispered Sumia.

"No," snapped Frederick suddenly. "You all are displaying far too much concern over a simple argument between milord and Robin, for Naga's sake!"

"It's not just any argument!" Ricken burst out. "They haven't talked to each other for five days!"

Chrom was staring at Robin with a focus that could melt through stone, clearly deciding whether to not to leave in a huff or swallow his pride and eat breakfast.

"Yeah," Sully said. She drained her mug of coffee in one gulp. "Stubborn sons of bitches."

"That's not a nice thing to say about the late queen," Sumia said reproachfully.

"I could be talking about his dad," Sully said. "Hey, look."

The alluring smell of Cordelia's sausages had won. Chrom was grudgingly making his way over to the breakfast table.

"If Blue and Bubbles got in a fight," Gaius said, twirling a spoon, "who do you think would win?"

Robin looked up from where he was dropping hash browns onto his plate and saw Chrom inching his way over to the scrambled eggs. Both of them froze and glared daggers at each other.

"You just might get your answer," Ricken said quietly.

"If you eat too many of those you'll get fat," Chrom said loudly.

"I guess you'd be the expert on that," Robin snapped back.

Chrom scowled. His hand inched towards where Falchion was sheathed at his side.

"Ouch," Stahl whistled.

"My money's on Bubbles," Gaius muttered.

Maribelle raised an eyebrow. "Milord is the better swordsman."

"And Bubbles can shoot lightning," Gaius said. "Care to bet?"

"Those of the nobility do not engage in such low-level behavior," Maribelle sniffed.

"I'll put you down for ten chocolate bars, then?"

"Shh!" Sumia hissed, making urgent warning gestures with one hand.

Gaius jumped as Robin sidled up behind him and grabbed his shoulder.

"Gaius! My beeeeest friend," Robin said, dragging the words out deliberately. At the breakfast table, Chrom twitched as he set the coffee pot down with a bang. "Scoot over, will ya!"

Stahl made a disparaging sound. Maribelle coughed politely and when Gaius glanced at her, shook her head imperceptibly. The thought of sitting next to an angry Robin was, apparently, even more terrifying than the thought of watching him and Chrom fight.

"Gaius," Robin said firmly, in his I Am The Tactician Voice, the same voice he used whenever he was being particularly shouty about his orders.

There was no disobeying the Voice. Almost automatically, Gaius got up and moved to make room.

"Thank you," Robin said, setting his plate down.

"Nice job, Chuckles," Sully muttered. Gaius rolled his eyes.

Chrom walked over to the table, gritting his teeth. "You're being incredibly immature about this, you know," he informed Robin.

"Did you hear anyone talk?" Robin asked Gaius, staring at a forkful of scrambled eggs. "It must be the wind." he shoved the workload of egg into his mouth and chewed forcefully.

Chrom scowled and dug his fork into the table. It left gouges in the wood.

"They're going to kill each other," Ricken whispered frantically to Stahl. "With forks."

Thankfully, Chrom did not stab Robin with a fork. Instead, he snatched up a piece of toast and began buttering it with a vindictive intensity.

Ricken gulped.

"Don't worry, I hate it when Mom and Dad fight too," Gaius whispered sarcastically. Robin twitched.

Having finished mangling his toast, Chrom picked up his mug of coffee and took a swig, but spat it out.

"Gack!" he sputtered. "What—what's wrong with the coffee?"

The Shepherds glanced at each other, bewildered.

"The coffee's fine," Sully said.

"Oh no," Robin said, staring at the ceiling with exaggerated focus. "You must have put salt in it instead of sugar. What a shame." he tsked.

"I didn't—wait a minute," Chrom said. "Was that you?"

Robin ate a piece of bacon thoughtfully. "Who knows?" he said. "It is a mystery."

"How old are you, five?" Chrom set down his mug in disgust and began shoveling food in his mouth to remove the taste. "This tastes awful!"

Robin scoffed. "Like you would know about taste, you freaking blueberry."

Chrom stopped eating. "What did you call me!?"

"Blueberry," Robin snarled.

There was a blur of movement as Chrom stood up and threw out his arm. The Shepherds beside him instinctively cringed and ducked, then relaxed as they realized that he couldn't possibly reach Robin from across the table.

Then there was a moment of collective terror when they saw the piece of jam-covered toast plastered to Robin's hair.

Gaius glanced down at Chrom's plate. Chrom was missing one piece of toast.

"I've-got-to-go-check-on-the-pegasi-goodbye-everyone!" Sumia said in one breath, leaping up from the table and dashing out of the tent. Ricken looked panicked, then threw his dignity to the wind and dashed after her. The rest of the Shepherds were too stunned to move.

"Oh dear," Maribelle said quietly.

"Oh, shit," Sully muttered.

Robin stood up. Unholy wrath burned in his eyes. "You got jam in my hair."

There was a split second of silence as Chrom appraised his tactician thoughtfully.

"It's an improvement," he said.

Robin grabbed his plate and stomped over to where Chrom was sitting.

Frederick stood up quickly. "Milord, Robin," he said, "This quarrel is getting out of hand—"

That was all he had time to say before Robin emptied his plate of scrambled eggs over Chrom's head.

The resulting brawl was legendary.

"Now," Frederick said, a maniac gleam in his eye, "I believe you two have something to say to each other."

Chrom and Robin glanced nervously up at the knight. In any other situation Chrom and Robin could have very easily overtaken him, but Robin's robes were sticky with syrup and Chrom had hit his head after trying to tackle Robin and slipping on a stray piece of toast, and the two of them had worn out all their energy trying to fight each other. Frederick, on the other hand, had a near-berserk look on his face and was wielding a broken-off table leg as a crude club. It was no contest.

"Chrom," Frederick growled. "You first."

"Robin, I'm sorry I threw toast at you," Chrom said obediently. Frederick had helped raise Chrom, after all, and old habits die hard.

Robin glanced up at Frederick. His tome was in lunging distance, but he was also certain that at this point, all a Thunder would do was make Frederick angrier.

A good tactician knew to surrender when beaten. "I'm sorry I dumped scrambled eggs on your head," he said meekly.

"Good," Frederick said exaggeratedly, in the same tone one might use to talk to very small children. "Now why don't you two apologize for whatever it was you were arguing over in the first place?"

A brief, strange expression flashed over Robin's face. "Chrom," he said quickly, "why don't you go first?"

"I went first last time, it's your turn now," Chrom retorted equally as quickly.

"No, you go."

Robin glanced from side to side. Chrom shifted uneasily. Frederick stared at them.

"…do you remember what we were arguing about?" Robin whispered.

"I was hoping you would," Chrom muttered.

The two of them slowly turned their heads to glance at Frederick. The look in his eyes could have pierced through dragonhide. There was a cracking noise as he snapped the table leg in half.

"As the tactician," Robin said carefully, "I suggest that we retreat."

"Let's," said Chrom hurriedly. The two of them bolted out of the tent. Or tried to bolt. Moving deceptively fast for a man who spent most of his time covered in metal armor, Frederick lunged forward and grabbed them by the shoulders.

"How thoughtful of you two," Frederick said, grinning in the same way Tharja did when she was casting a particularly nasty hex, "to volunteer to clean up."

"…when did that happen?" Chrom said.

Frederick glared.

"Alright," Chrom said quickly.

"No problem," Robin agreed.

"This is never going to come off," Chrom said, scrubbing furiously at a sticky patch of syrup on the wall of the mess tent.

"When you're done with that, come help me over here," Robin said. "There's a piece of bread or something stuck on the ceiling and I'm not tall enough to reach it."

"When you two are done with that," Frederick said, sitting nearby and watching them, "there are dishes that need to be washed."

Chrom and Robin groaned.

"Who's really in charge of this army, I wonder?" Robin said under his breath.

"What was that?" Frederick asked politely.

"Nothing!" Robin said. "Nothing at all."


A/N: I...don't really have much to say for this author's note. I guess I'll just say hello and that my favorite dinosaur is Allosaurus.