Kjelle had a new cut under her left eye.

It wasn't terribly large, in the grand scheme of things. Considering it was attached to Kjelle, most people wouldn't notice it at all. The woman spent most of her free time in sparring, when she wasn't in actual combat. Bruises, cuts, scrapes, and scars shifted their pattern on her face as easily as countries on a map of 12th century Valm. No-one in Ylisse could be blamed for missing it, not so soon after they had a dark god flying over their heads and not with the undead still clawing at their feet

It took Robin less than five seconds to spot it.

It took him much longer to decide what to say on the subject.

Kjelle knew what she was doing. Better than he did, at this point. She was easily one of the greatest soldiers in the world, he'd put money on her against a dragon in close quarters, and ever since that first sparring sessions she'd been eliminating her weaknesses with the sort of brutal efficiency she normally reserved for…

Kjelle was brutally efficient in more or less everything, if Robin was honest. He still remembered the wedding. Even Sully thought it was short. But that drive was why he loved her. She could take care of herself, cut or no.

On the other hand, that gash… gods only knew how long it had been since she'd gotten an injury like that. Lucina wouldn't have gone for that kind of blow even if Kjelle had found her, Robin couldn't land a hit like that, not on his best day, and almost anyone else in the whole damn country would be on the ground sobbing before they could even finish the warmups. The last thing that could hurt her that much…

Well, the last thing that did was him. Robin sighed. It might be selfish, but he couldn't see it happen again. Not if he had a choice in the matter.

He cleared his throat.

"New sparring partner?"

"Yes."

Well. Robin winced. Kjelle didn't seem that angry at Inigo most of the time. The ground beneath him shifted from dirt to ice.

"Do you mind if I ask who?"

Kjelle's face went through more variations on irritated than Robin saw in an average month before settling on 'disgruntled'.

"No."

Well, ask a stupid question, get a bitter answer.

"Who?"

"Walhart."

"...Oh."

THAT explained the cut. Kjelle's head still being attached was now the more curious part of the whole affair. Robin weighed his next words very carefully.

"I'm… not sure this is the best way to handle things. I know you're… gods, you've beaten Lucina a time or two. There are gods who I wouldn't give good odds against you. But right now… it took Lucina and Chrom together more luck than we have left to kill him. And he came back from that."

"I don't need to kill him."

Kjelle looked away like it settled something. Robin looked down at the table.

"I need him not to kill you. And if you..."

"Are you telling me to back down?"

"No. I've learned that never works. I'm asking you to think about things. And be careful."

Kjelle smiled. Just a little.

"Why do you think I'm still alive? I was careful. And I'll be careful again. I still remember our sparring sessions."

"Careful again."

"Yes."

"As in you're fighting Walhart again."

"...Yes."

"Perfect. Gods only know how you found him. Gods only know why he's still around, hell, gods only know how we stopped him the first time, but you're going to fight him again, on his terms. After you somehow lived through doing it once. I'm guessing I can't talk you out of it. Even for Morgan."

Kjelle looked down, like the weight of the world was on her.

"...No."

Well. Robin frowned.

"There's only one solution, then. I'll be your second."

Kjelle looked at Robin.

"You mean that?"

"This matters to you. Too much for me to stop it even if I tried. Meanwhile, keeping you alive and combat ready matters to me. Too much for me to risk you dying, even for a good cause. This is the closest I can get to a solution. If you have anything better, I'll listen, but for now, I think it might work."

Kjelle grunted out something that, for anyone else, would have been a flat thank you. Robin smiled.

"I'm glad I won't be a burden."

Kjelle shrugged.

"You never are."

The rest of the day passed without another mention of Walhart. A messenger pigeon arrived with a short note from Morgan asking about some finer points of naval tactics. Robin wrote three pages back covering the details she asked for, a few suggestions for general reading, and updates on how her parents were doing. While Robin readied the bird for her return journey to his daughter, Kjelle added a post script.

"Don't slack on your damn training. -Mom."

Robin lifted an eyebrow.

"Long letter today."

""I missed her."

"You know, Inigo might say you were getting soft."

"Inigo might get a broken arm."

Robin shook his head.

"Just one? Gods, I was joking before, but now…"

Kjelle's fist rammed his arm.

"Now you have a sore arm."

"And the most perfect wife in the world. Meanwhile, you have a mildly sore fist and a husband who can barely keep up on his best day. I think I still come out the winner."

Kjelle smiled. Nodded. And hit Robin's other arm even harder.

Robin sighed.

"I'm still winning."

Dinner was up to the cherished family standard of "Technically edible", the night kicked off without another accidental call for Severa, and Robin drifted to sleep with a smile on his face.

He woke up without one.

Looking at the window, it was still dark. Looking at his wife, she was no longer in her bedclothes.

"I still don't understand why you waste so much time sleeping."

"I died, Kjelle. It takes a lot out of a man."

He rolled out of bed and grabbed his greatcoat. Good old magic. No matter how he abused the thing, it felt like it was fresh off the drying rack.

"Where are we going?"

"Crossroads."

"It's midnight."

"Yes."

Robin nodded. He agreed to be the second. He knew more than enough about the role to know he shouldn't ask too many questions.

The path through the forests wasn't bad, not by army standards, and they found their destination before the moon had moved enough to notice. An old road, long abandoned.

Even with Grima's soul gone, Robin could feel the cries of the dead and the moaning of the damned. This was not a holy place. Not for any kind of holy he cared to believe in.

Kjelle smiled. Robin looked at her.

"Remind you of home?"

"It reminds me of father."

Robin smiled in response. At least, he smiled as much as he felt was appropriate, given the surroundings. That is to say, his lips moved. Barely.

"Because it would make him feel at home. Please say you didn't bring any of his old…"

"Mother made him burn most of them."

Robin actually smiled.

"Have I ever said how much I love her?"

"Yes."

"Good. Gods, this is going to be bad enough…"

A bolt of lightning crashed into the ground.

"already."

A huge figure stood before him, a man in red armor. If Robin hadn't seen him before, he wouldn't believe the man could bleed. If he hadn't buried him, he wouldn't believe the man could die. And if he wasn't standing there, glaring, gods only knew what he'd think.

Robin wished Morgan was there. She'd have a joke, maybe something about how everyone's hair was turning white. Something to break the tension and let him think. Instead, he just had the only person he'd met who made his wife look small glaring down at him.

"Tactician."

"Walhart. I haven't seen you since we fought Grima."

Since Robin… died. If it was anyone else, anyone even slightly less terrifying, Robin might have made a joke about a shared hobby of resurrection. If Morgan was there, she might… she would have made the joke. Unfortunately, she'd inherited more than her share of her grandfather's sense of humor.

But all Robin could do now was gulp.

Walhart stared down again, like seeing a dead man walk was an everyday…

Well, for him it was. (Another Morgan joke.)

"I never thought you would die so easily. Have you realized the folly of your talk of 'bonds'?"

"They're the only reason I'm alive. No."

"So be it. You will see in time."

Kjelle shook her head.

"He won't."

Robin felt a little less pressure and allowed his mouth the ghost of a smile.

"Thank you, Kjelle."

"I've tried to make him give up on bonds speeches for more than a year now. He won't. He might not act like it, but he's the only person more stubborn than I am."

One end of Robin's smile dipped.

"Thank you, Kjelle."

"Don't mention it. You're not why we're here."

Walhart was still looking at Robin.

"Tactician. Are you here to challenge the conqueror?"

Robin shook his head.

"I'm here to witness. My wife is your opponent. I'm just trying to keep anyone from getting killed."

"I defeated her. Her position…"

Kjelle stepped forward.

"You didn't."

"Bah."

"I'm still alive, and I never surrendered. I haven't been defeated."

Walhart slowly turned to face Kjelle.

"You wish to challenge the conqueror again? You wish to break yourself on the man who could defy the gods and crush death itself?"

"I want to break something."

Kjelle took another step forward and drew her lance.

"You can yield, or you can fight. Unless everything you've said is a lie. Unless you're a coward."

"You dare?"

Walhart was almost smiling when he said it. If it was anyone else, that might be reassuring. For Walhart, it seemed more like a private joke, that anyone even thinking they could challenge him was too ridiculous to bother with, and anyone stupid enough to insult him might be worth talking to just for the novelty.

Kjelle was not smiling. As usual.

"Dare risk my honor by fighting with a dead dog? I think I can."

Walhart reached for his axe.

"Even the Feroxi was not enough of a fool to fight me twice."

Kjelle gritted her teeth.

"He didn't have anything to prove."

Kjelle aimed her lance at Walhart and stepped forward.

Walhart grasped his axe and took a step closer to Kjelle.

Robin took several steps back from both of them. He didn't have anything to prove either, and in the months since coming back, he'd been rather attached to his life. Standing too close to his wife when she went full tilt was a good way to lose it and his limbs in the bargain.

More importantly, a little distance would help him judge the flow of the battle before it even started. Most fights were decided that way. The terrain, the weapons employed, the stance… Ninety times out of a hundred, he could call the victor without a drop of blood on the ground. Seven times out of ten, he could even call the winner from the look in one of the combatant's eyes.

Walhart's eyes said as little as ever. The same blank white fighting against a peasant and against a god. His stance was a little better from an observer's perspective, aggressive but somehow… calm. A man who came to bloodshed as easily as he came to breathing.

As for Kjelle, Robin felt like he didn't have to look. They'd fought together a thousand times. She'd guard at first, look for openings. Then, the gates of hell would open.

The exact form of attack varied depending on the conflict at hand, but it was usually something simple, brutal, and effective. Growing up around dark mages gave you good instincts on how to best apply pain.

If anyone could stand against Walhart, it would be Kjelle. If anyone could teach the dead how to bleed again, it would be Henry and Sully's girl. And if anyone could pull a win out of this mess, it would be the finest knight Ylisse had ever seen.

Robin turned, ready to see a familiar Goldoan defensive stance. Instead he saw Kjelle charging forward at full speed.

Walhart swatted her aside in one smooth motion, a hundred pounds of armor knocked sprawling across the grass as easily as you would dismiss a child. Kjelle rose. Charged again. Fell again.

Robin winced. She was better than that. Gods, CYNTHIA was better than that.

Anyone else fighting like that would be out cold or worse. It would be insane to keep fighting, to keep standing up. The pain would border on unbearable, even if you could filter out the sounds of bones crunching with every step.

Kjelle stood up again, and trudged forward. Robin sighed. He hated this. He hated every part of it. And she'd hate it too, in just a moment.

But for now, he just had to run. He could save being hated for when he had time to be hated.

"HOLD! Both of you, right now! Not another step!"

Well, points for surprise, at least. Walhart froze in his tracks. Kjelle teetered on her feet. Both of them glared at Robin, but neither was attacking. All in all, about the best he expected.

Robin took a breath, and tried to keep a level head. He had a plan. He had a dozen plans. He just needed to remember one of them long enough to go through with it.

"I need to talk with my wife. Could you give us a little privacy?"

Walhart turned away and walked away into the dark without another word. Robin blinked.

For an awful, half-formed plan, this was going far better than it had any right to. He turned to Kjelle and reached for one of his emergency vulneraries. He was ready to be hated for, at minimum, the next few nights, but everyone still being alive to hate each other was a net win.

"Kjelle, I'm…"

"Thank you."

Well. He'd already been surprised tonight. What was a little more? He handed the vulnerary to Kjelle while he tried to think. It was a little easier without Walhart glaring.

"...You're welcome. But I just…"

Kjelle arced an eyebrow.

"Interrupted me in the middle of something stupid?"

Robin smiled.

"Well, I wasn't going to say it that way."

Kjelle looked down as she rubbed the vulnerary on her wound.

"I would. I just charged in like I wanted to die."

"Even though you knew it was stupid?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to ask why?"

"No."

Kjelle's teeth ground against each other for a moment.

"But you should."

Robin nodded.

"Alright then. Why?"

Kjelle looked past Robin to Walhart's distant shadow.

"What do you see when you look at him?"

Robin opened his mouth. Closed it. And thought. A mountain of a man? The tyrant who brought half the world to its knees? A top ten candidate for the most terrifying person he'd ever met?

None of those fit. Or all of them fit, but none well enough. They weren't what mattered most.

"An ally."

Kjelle almost snorted. It didn't suit her nearly as well as it did Lissa.

"Of course you do."

"And of course you don't. I wouldn't expect you to. I'm guessing… you see an obstacle."

"And a mirror."

Kjelle mumbled the words without a trace of her usual blunt drive. Robin got the feeling she wouldn't have said that much if anyone was there who wasn't, well, him.

"If it makes you feel better, my reflection looks even worse."

"He wasn't you."

"He was. I was in his head, remember? I know exactly how I could have fallen, how much I owed you and Chrom and Morgan and everyone else. For all Walhart's faults, he's not a dark god. Just a man who lost his way. I'm sure some day..."

"I'll be stronger."

Robin waved his hand.

"It's not like…"

"I have to be. Otherwise, the only way to be the strongest knight in the world is to stop being a knight. Abandoning the weak and crushing them beneath your heel."

Robin looked away.

"I'll admit that you had some bad habits…"

Kjelle glared.

"I never wanted to abandon my duties."

"You spent half an hour on our first real date complaining about how weak most of this army was."

"I just had constructive…"

"You said Inigo would be more useful to the army if he died, since his skeleton might make a halfway decent training dummy."

"You can't count Inigo."

Robin thought back. Considering what else had happened that day, he really couldn't.

"Fair enough. You still said Brady should focus on his violin since at least then he won't embarrass himself quite as much, that Sumia should have just stayed home since then her flower fortunes wouldn't distract actual soldiers, I don't even remember what you said about Nowi, except that it made her cry..."

"Fine! I said some things I shouldn't."

Robin shrugged

"Naga knows we all make mistakes. Then, if all goes well, we learn from them. You're much slower to dismiss people now, more willing to help them with their flaws."

"Not that a lot of them can be helped."

"But you try before giving up now. Hardly anyone would have believed it then, but now you do. People change. Walhart..."

Kjelle glared at Robin again.

"No matter how bad I was, no matter what I did, I was never what he is."

"I didn't say…"

"I looked down on people, I was rude, I could have pretended to care more about other people's problems, but I still knew my place. A knight fights for those who can't. We don't add another boot to their necks."

"Which is why you hate him so much."

Kjelle nodded.

"One of us has to break."

"And if things stay on course, it's going to be you."

Kjelle nodded again, a little slower.

Robin almost went into the old speech, how there was nothing to be ashamed about in relying on others, how every part of an army depended on everyone else, and no man or woman was an island.

But Kjelle was hurting, in more ways than one. It was hardly the time to try to score a few cheap points for use in some future arguments, especially when it didn't quite apply. After all, there were sometimes things you had to do for yourself, no matter how much you wanted someone to pull you out.

Kjelle had something to prove. If Robin tried to throw himself in the middle again, she couldn't, and he'd leave her with doubts for the rest of her life. Just what everyone needed.

Instead, Robin looked from her to Walhart's distant shadow and back.

"If things stay on course."

"What are you trying to say?"

Robin doodled a quick sketch on the ground with his finger, a few basic attack patterns. Or possibly a new gazebo. It was hard to tell, even for Robin, and he drew the damned thing.

"I'm saying that you can do a lot better, and he's not prepared for it. If you don't charge at first, he's going to have to advance himself, and you managed to nick his arm just enough I'd trust your counterattack over his initial blow."

Kjelle looked skeptical.

"If."

"Alright. When. Your only problem is that you're fighting… you're fighting like the old Kjelle. You're better than that. You don't have to charge in…"

"Except that I see his smirking face."

"So see mine instead. Treat it like another sparring session, only I'm having a miraculously good day."

"You've never had a day that good."

Robin smiled.

"I'd argue for our wedding."

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

Robin looked at Kjelle. It would be easy to stare, but duty called. He only had time to check her wounds and weigh them against her past performance at various levels of injury. He hated it, always hated it, but a little pain gave her an edge, and it was best left alone.

She was still hurting. Hurting more than he ever wanted to see, hurting in body and soul, burning with a fire Robin could never put out.

In other words, she was ready.

"I'd wish you luck, but I don't think you'll need it."

Walhart might, but it would be bad form to mention that. Even by Kjelle's low requirements for supportiveness, actively rooting against her in one of the most important fights of her life seemed… tacky.

Kjelle nodded and rose to her feet.

"Walhart!"

The mountain turned to face her. And Robin watched it all.

Walhart's first attack came a little more quickly than Robin expected. The man was used to cowards and men whose steel broke when they saw him. He must have assumed Kjelle had the same problem.

The second her arm trapped his axe, he learned better. Kjelle's lance sliced his leg, hobbling him before he crushed it under his heel.

They fell to their secondary weapons, and when those shattered, to their fists. Walhart began to slump. He still fought, still struggled, but if blood still flowed in his veins, it would cover the ground.

Meanwhile, Kjelle's blood did cover the ground. And she was still fighting like a demon. A very careful, very clever demon, but a demon all the same, sent by some dark god to curse Walhart for his arrogance.

Neither knee bent. Neither stopped. But if Robin had to make a bet… well, he knew who was winning.

Robin remembered his advice and winced, suddenly glad that he'd never had that miraculously good day. There were ways he was glad to push Kjelle to her limits. This was not one of them.

Finally, Walhart coughed.

"Another on the path of the conqueror, after all. I had assumed you were another of the prince's dogs. Ha. A wolf hiding in the midst of the sheep. Take what you earned and be done with it."

Kjelle's fist froze in place the second Walhart coughed. Now it fell from the air to her side.

"Earned?"

"The conqueror takes what falls before them. And I have no desire to serve."

Kjelle took her broken lance and lifted it. Robin moved a step closer to the fight. He noticed his feet took the order as several steps. They were almost running, but never seemed to close the distance.

In an instant, Kjelle jabbed her lance into the earth near Walhart.

"Learn."

Walhart looked up at Kjelle. Robin would swear that, if the man still drew a pulse, he'd have spat in her face by now.

"I am still the conqueror, even in defeat. We walk the same path. The strong…"

Kjelle jabbed her lance on the other side of Walhart.

"Serve. You didn't lose to a conqueror. You lost to a knight."

"A knight. A fine word for a coward. Too entranced by their ideals to dirty their hands. Too weak to finish an enemy before her."

"A knight defends the weak and defenseless. No matter how you feel about them. No matter how much you hate them."

Kjelle looked to her husband and smiled as she gestured towards Walhart.

"A true knight would never strike down the weak."

Walhart glared at her as she and Robin walked off into the dark. Robin looked up at the stars as he helped Kjelle keep pace.

She was right all along. Someone broke.

(Author's notes: And we come to the end of another chapter. Hope you enjoyed it, as usual. I admit it's a bit of a shorter one. I'm working on something longer, but since it was having some trouble, thought it was for the best to put this up in the meantime.

I'll be honest. Writing this was like pulling teeth. I liked parts of it a good deal, I might even like it as a whole (really hard for me to tell right now, if I'm honest), but it kicked and struggled the whole time. Had to start from scratch more than once, deleted long passages, kicked around different viewpoints and relations between major characters, and on and on.

One of the things that was actually fun about writing this one, though, (and therefore one of the things I most hoped worked) was trying to figure out how a Robin and Kjelle relationship would work. I mean, ignoring the whole Robin-as-one-of-Sully's-friends awkwardness that comes with all the second generation characters, Kjelle's... kind of an asshole. And not even like Severa where it's covering for low self worth. She's just kind of a jerk, in a blunt no nonsense way, which plays off Robin's general attempts to see the best in everyone.

So, yeah. That was the chapter. I hope you liked it, thanks for reading, and be careful out there.)