Being an older sister is hard on Severa. Not that Cynthia is a bad kid, or that her mothers are bad mothers, no. She loves all three of them, and relishes the little moments where they can all be together as a family. But no matter how good Cordelia is at changing diapers, making meals and reading bedtime stories, she can't help but lay all her expectations on Severa. She never says anything, but Severa catches the flashes of disappointment in her eyes every time she makes a mistake and she can't stand it.
By the time Cynthia is born, Cordelia learns from her mistake (Severa) and gives the new baby endearing smiles and the leeway to be whoever she pleases, as she toddles around with an entire fist in her mouth. Maybe it's because Cynthia reminds her so much of Sumia, while Cordelia can only ever see herself in Severa, but the weight of Cordelia's perfectionism seems to suffocate her alone.
Being the eldest only worsens the day their mothers don't come home. She's suddenly responsible for little Cynthia, who's barely seven, and can't quite wrap her head around the fact that it's just them, now. Severa is bossy and snappish, even when she doesn't mean to be. But it's not her fault that Cynthia keeps wandering off and putting herself in danger, nevermind that she doesn't know any better. She can't help but resent the little girl, who doesn't have to worry about things like money, and whether or not they have a safe place to sleep and enough to eat. It's hard to control her emotions. She's only ten, after all.
When she's a little older she can only hope that Cynthia won't grow to hate her for it.
She meets Lucina at age eleven. Properly meets her, that is. She's seen the princess from afar a handful of times. At birthday parties, parades, and other formal gatherings. She has never thought much of her, writing her off as a spoiled brat, if not a bleeding heart like her father. Harsh thoughts for child, perhaps, but Severa has never thought herself an optimist. She knows she's right about Chrom, anyway, her mothers have said as much through fond smiles. Her previous assumptions are proven wrong the minute she learns to know her.
Lucina should be the same as her, Severa thinks. A scared, lonely girl left behind by her parents. But if she is, it doesn't show. Where Severa is brittle, she is hard, and strong. Lucina is infuriatingly patient, so earnest that Severa can't help but find it pretentious, determined to a fault, and set on fixing the world, even when Severa has long given it up for lost. Maybe the bleeding heart bit wasn't so far off the mark.
The day after they meet Lucina beats her in a sparring match and Severa decides she hates her.
It's almost a relief when it gets too dangerous for Severa to stay alone in her family's home with Cynthia. They flee within the walls, and live safely in the Exalt's keep in Ylisstol for two years. Lucina, her brother Morgan, Cynthia, Severa and a steadily growing group of other children who flood in as the war wages on. Every day Severa watches the smoke on the horizon draw closer, and counts the number of merchants and peddlers in the streets of the city. One day she wakes up to find that there are none left. They've all fled, and the only ones in the street are the stray dogs, and a few soldiers on patrol.
Exalt Lissa provides food and shelter for all the young orphans, and Severa finds she has to retract her statement. It's not just Chrom and Lucina, every member of the damned Exalted bloodline has a heart too big for their own good.
She's proven right when Lissa is slain holding the door while the children escape out the back. Lucina throws Brady over her shoulder and grabs Owain by the hand, dragging them both away as they scream for their mother. Lissa smiles reassuringly at them, shouting that everything would be okay, even as the axe slips from her grasp, and red blood blossoms over the front of her dress. Severa shields Cynthia's eyes as they run, terror lending speed to their flight at the screams of the guards and awful howls of the ones they call the Risen.
At age thirteen, Ylisstol has fallen and the children are on their own. They run as far as they can into the woods before Brady collapses in tears and Owain sinks to his knees, shellshocked eyes blank and unfocused. They don't go any further that night, simply rest there, among the ferns and the needles that stick to their clothes, praying no monsters discover them. Lucina doesn't sleep but sits and keeps watch, drawn into herself, white-knuckled fingers gripping the hilt of Falchion. Morgan is curled up next to her, and she keeps one hand protectively on his shoulder. Severa finds she can't sleep either. It's cold and uncomfortable, and the horrible screams still echo in her ears. So she grabs a hefty looking branch for a weapon and sits herself next to Lucina. Neither of them speak. They don't know what to say, so they pretend to occupy themselves with listening for sounds of approaching danger. All they can hear is the distant howling of the Risen and the sniffles of Brady and Owain, who have finally cried themselves to sleep. Hard as it is to close her eyes, Severa is exhausted. She keeps herself present by biting the inside of her cheek and digging up the grass with her tree branch. She doesn't want Lucina to face the night alone. Her grief is tangible, Severa can almost taste it. Yet, when she risks a peek at her hooded eyes, it's not tears she finds there but a burning anger.
"What are you doing?" Lucina suddenly turns towards Severa and catches her gaze. Severa is fascinated. This is the most she's ever really looked at Lucina, and she finds herself marveling at her mismatched eyes and the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She shrugs.
"I dunno. Just trying to keep my hands busy so I don't fall asleep."
"You can go to sleep if you need to. The more of us who rest the better off we'll be in the morning."
"What are we doing in the morning? What can we do?" Severa eyes her, ready to measure her response, and it's Lucina's turn to shrug.
"Get as far away from here as possible. Find weapons, supplies, survivors maybe." She holds Severa's gaze again, and Severa finds she can't look away. "But I promise I'll keep us safe."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Severa says bitterly, remembering her mothers saying something along those lines before they disappeared forever. Lucina leans a bit closer and gives her a sad smile.
"Alright then. I won't promise. I'll swear it to you." She lets go of Morgan's shoulder and grasps Severa's hand. "I'll keep you safe, I swear. If it's the last thing I do, I'll keep you all safe." Severa's first instinct is to pull away, to write her off as too ambitious, too eager, too much of a child - but she doesn't. Her hand remains in Lucina's sweaty grip, and maybe it's the dark, or the dread that's settled into the pit of her stomach since the morning prior, or the raw sincerity of Lucina's words but Severa finds herself believing her. Putting her faith in this lonely, fourteen-year-old girl beside her with nothing but a sword and sheer determination. So she nods and swallows hard and lays down in the dirt to try and sleep again, and does her best not to think about it too much when she sees the horizon go up in flames above the treeline, the ruddy glow reflected in Lucina's eyes.
In the morning, Lucina rouses them all with gentle but urgent words, and without question they get up and fall in line behind her. She's the oldest, after all, and as Gerome points out - she's the Exalt now, and they are her people.
Slowly but surely they get everyone outfitted with proper weapons. Severa replaces her tree branch with a real sword. It's sharp and she can see her own reflection in its surface, nothing like the dull practice blades she was used to. She accidentally cuts herself when testing the edge and feels both foolish and a sort of buzzing, nervous excitement at the thought of what it could do to the monsters. Cynthia finds a lance of her own, keeping the head of the one Sumia promised to make with her safely tucked away as a keepsake of sorts (Severa tries to fight a pang of jealousy at that. She knows it's her own fault for not wanting to use lances, but she can't help but feel hurt that her mothers never offered to do something similar with her). Inigo equips himself with a killing edge, Noire a bow, Laurent a tome (Gods only know how he found it), until each member of the little band has found something suitable to fight with.
It's soon apparent that the hard part isn't finding a weapon, but relearning everything they know about combat. The Risen aren't like any opponent they've ever faced before, and no amount of sparring can prepare them for it. They are overwhelming, attacking with a merciless onslaught of heavy blows with no regard for defense (because really, the undead don't need to worry about keeping themselves alive), and the children quickly learn to take off the head or hack off the limbs as fast as possible. Severa almost finds it amusing to imagine what their parents would think if they could see their children scrabbling in the dirt, fighting tooth and nail and abandoning all notion of "honorable combat." Lucina is the fiercest of them all, and honors her oath to Severa with everything she's got. The third time Severa helps Brady bandage up Lucina's knuckles after she half-sliced, half-punched a Risen into submission, she wonders if it's healthy for a girl of fourteen to have put so much pressure on herself. Probably not, but what can any of them do? The ever-burning horizon leads her to believe that there are no gods left to care, anyways.
Severa marks her growth by the fit of her clothes. They become baggy and loose as food is harder to come by, then get short in the sleeves and legs, and ride up enough to show her stomach when she stretches. She wears through the soles of her shoes within the first few months on the road, and miraculously comes by a pair of boots after that, even though they're a size too small and leave her feet blistered and aching. The others find themselves with similar problems. Lucina is the tallest for a good while, but all of a sudden Gerome shoots upwards and lays claim to the title. Laurent and Owain seem to stretch like taffy, awkward and gangly, and even Noire, who'd been shorter than Severa, passes her by a head. It feels like who's taller than who should be a trivial matter, but Severa can't help being irritated about it. It's alright for the others, they aren't stuck with the…. Well, the short end of the stick, so to speak. Even Cynthia creeps up on her, but luckily stays securely below her nose. At least Severa has an easier time finding new clothes.
Lucina might not be the tallest anymore, but her back and shoulders seem to grow the broadest, as if to hold up what's left of her crumbling world.
At age fifteen, Severa realizes she is wrong again. Lucina is not hard and strong and patient. Well, she is, but she's also scared, lonely and falling apart at the seams trying to keep the rest of them together. In truth, a child like the rest of them. It's almost with triumph that Severa thinks she is the only one to see Lucina cry. They're silent tears, shed in the dark of night when she thinks everyone's deep in slumber. But Severa is awake, and her back is pressed against Lucina's, so she can feel her shaking and hear her breath as it comes short. It feels wrong to see Lucina like this, so at odds with the unshakeable girl she embodies in the light of day, but it's also with a certain relief that Severa tells herself Lucina is not perfect. She is flawed, but she's trying her damndest anyways. That's more reassuring. Perfection scares her. Her mother was perfect, or so they say, and Severa never felt good enough for her. Knowing Lucina isn't makes her feel more at ease. There's no need to try and keep up appearances, her facade can't fool her, anymore.
They stay lucky for two years but that luck runs dry all at once. They're in a bad spot, trying to ford a river at the bottom of a valley. The tall, rocky cliffs on both sides screen the approach of the Risen until it's far too late, and suddenly there are arrows and blasts of magic whistling through the air, and a veritable horde of undead warriors charging towards them, hissing and screeching. The group panics, and all sense of leadership and control Lucina has vanishes in an instant. She tries to yell over the sounds of rushing water and screams, but nobody hears her, and somehow she gets shoved into the reddening water, felled companions splashing down beside her. She struggles to her feet, coughing and spluttering, trying to raise her sword. Before she can get it up, an arrow catches her in the shoulder and she falls again with a pained yell. She grits her teeth and snaps the arrow off near the entry point, leaving the head where it is. Then she shoves Falchion into the riverbed and forces herself up once more, getting her blade ready just as the first wave of Risen smashes into the group of soldiers like a battering ram. Their defenses crumble with little resistance, as they fail to find footholds in the shifting pebbles and silt.
Severa splashes her way through the massacre, ducking under blades and leaping at the Risen with a feral scream building in the back of her throat, her sword flashing through the air to rain blows down upon them. The muddy riverbed sucks at her feet every time she lifts them, and she can feel her movements slowing more quickly then she would if they were on solid ground. Her throat is raw, her eyes sting with unshed tears and desperation fuels her every move. Her clothes are heavy with wet and weigh her down. She prays that none of the corpses she passes will have Cynthia's face, wide eyed and staring upwards at the uncaring heavens. She catches sight of Gerome and Laurent, making a desperate bid for shore, Inigo at the water's edge clearing the way for Brady and Owain, Yarne and Kjelle giving Noire cover as she shoots upwards at their assailants in quick succession - then Lucina.
She's still in the middle of the river, water swirling around her knees as she rips through Risen with a vengeance. Falchion is a blur in her hands, and Severa can tell even from a distance that her voice is already shot from the battlecries tearing from her throat. Her cape is in tatters and there's blood running down her arm from a wound in her shoulder. Severa changes direction immediately, sprinting towards her as fast as the water will allow. She trips on someone's blade, hidden in the bloodied current, and falls face first. There's a brief moment of cold fear as the river rushes into her mouth, her eyes and ears, but then she's pushed herself up again, the tang of iron on her tongue. She looks up just in time to see Lucina fall. It's a spectacular fall, all things considered. Her blood arcs above her, bright and scarlet against the gray sky. She seems to crumple in slow motion, a pillar of strength brought low by sheer numbers. It's the work of an axe, and the rotting hands that hold it lift it high once again, as if to finish the job. Severa launches herself forward with a strength she didn't know she possessed and parries the blow, knocking the Risen off balance before stabbing through its throat. Its eyes go dim and it collapses with a strained gurgle.
Severa uses the brief respite to tug Lucina up and over her shoulder, before more begin to pour from the bluff into the river. The left side of her face is coated with blood. Severa can't tell if she's breathing and that scares the hell out of her more than anything. She tries to hold back a choked sob, and turns to fight her way through the current to the other shore, vision beginning to blur with tears. If there are any survivors of Lucina's army, they've all fled. Nobody is in sight save for corpses, and when she finally reaches solid ground, she just runs as far and fast as she can, without thinking of where the others might be, or if they're all dead, or if they think she's dead. Thoughts of if Lucina is alive or lying slain in her arms are not so easily banished. The young Exalt's boots drag across the ground and Severa cries and feels the greatest loneliness she's ever known begin to smother her.