"We are barely able to defend this small town as is," the mayor said, his raspy voice muffled by the large beard hiding his mouth. "And you want to engage them all during the night?"

I shook my head. "No, we will only eliminate the scouting parties before we tackle them head-on. We will be back before anything happens to this town."

The mayor turned to Chrom, who had his hands crossed. "Is this sound, Your Highness? I was expecting reinforcements, not a reckless plan."

My fingers pinched the bridge of my nose before I eyed Chrom as well. He put a hand on his chin, but his answer came quickly.

"Robin wouldn't propose it if it wasn't the best course of action," he said before crossing his arms. "We don't know what their numbers are, but there are enough of them to keep this whole island for themselves. Picking them one by one sounds good on paper..."

Oh for the love of—

"Chrom, we don't have time to mull it over again," I pressed. "They probably already know we're here, so we must strike while the iron is hot."

I switched back to the mayor. "This isn't about being reckless, but securing a victory that will make things easier down the line. We can't just turtle up here and wait for them to strike."

The narrow stare I got was wary, to the point it felt like it was judging me. The mayor eventually turned to face me with his shoulder before sighing. "Do what you need to do. My forces will stay here nonetheless, I have little to spare."

He then eyed Chrom for a moment while moving up the creaky wooden stairs. "I'd tread carefully If I were you, your Highness. This… Pleagian boy seems to brew nothing but trouble."

With a loud click, the mayor returned to his room, leaving the two of us behind. I sat down on the chair with a dull thud, almost bending one of its legs under the force. Dragging my hand across my face, the groan I let out was more drawn out than I'd wished.

Not like the mayor was helping.

"Don't take his words to heart, Robin," Chrom said, his eyes looking down at the small map on the table. "You know people aren't used to—"

"I know, Chrom," I interrupted him while my hand fell limp. "I know better than anyone, but comfort words aren't the thing I need right now."

I looked up at the stairs with a slight glare. "I just want the mayor to cooperate. He's making this unnecessarily complicated with stupid prejudice."

Chrom let out a low hum. "So, what do we do?"

"Go with the plan anyway," I said as I stood up from my spot and aimed for the exit. "I'm not going to let this chance pass by just because somebody is stuck in their ways."

I took the handle and roughly pulled at the doors, but before I could leave, Chrom grabbed my shoulder. Looking back, his face was adorned by a frown. "What's wrong, Robin? You usually don't act like this."

I shook my head. "No, but I have to. Especially when I'm putting lives on the line."

"Then you've done it before?"

The way my body flinched made Chrom pull his hand away. I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. "Let's just say I did and leave it at that. We've got more important things to do."

When I glanced in his way, his lips were ready to speak, but then they closed shut. He was tempted to pry a little further, and yet a sigh was the only thing that came out with him nodding after letting me go. "Alright, I'll brief the Shepherds one more time before sundown, then we move."

I only wordlessly hummed and went outside for some fresh air. I've never gotten used to the wooden shacks and houses, they've always made my nose runny. Probably because I spent more time outside than hauled inside a building during my life, if at all.

However, my small reprieve suddenly came to a halt, as Frederick was eyeing both of us with a noticeable frown. His hands were behind his back as always, but he was stiffer than usual.

Chrom noticed it too and reached the waiting Frederick quickly. "What happened?"

He didn't answer and took a deep breath. His head wordlessly tilted towards their camp and he marched towards a tent Sumia was standing next to. It took a moment to realize whose tent it was, but when I did, a cold shiver ran down my spine.

Once we were close enough, Sumia's eyes lit up, but her shoulders quickly sagged. "You're here."

"What's going on?" Chrom asked and Sumia shook her head.

"It's Theresa. She…" she swallowed, trying to find the right words. "I don't know what happened, but she was fine, until… she wasn't."

I couldn't see it, but I felt it. My face lost some of its color and without waiting for others to respond, I immediately stepped inside the tent. There, Theresa was lying on her mat with Lissa tending to her, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She was breathing evenly and sleeping peacefully.

I had an urge to breathe a relieved sigh, but there had to be more to it than that.

"Is she alright?" I asked Lissa, and she tilted her head in my direction.

"She should be," she said, while Chrom and Sumia also entered the tent. "No major illness, no wound to heal. The only thing I can feel is some traces of magic."

My eyes glided to Theresa's staff, which was being tightly held by her hands. I turned back to Sumia. "What exactly happened?"

While the question caught her off guard, Sumia eventually explained the entire situation as she remembered it, even if there was little to it. She brought the knife Theresa had, holding it with both hands.

"Like I said, she seemed fine," she exclaimed. "I don't know what could have caused it. I tried to help her, but that didn't amount to much."

Chrom put a hand on her shoulder. "You've done what you could, Sumia. Maybe it has been too much for Theresa to keep up with."

He turned to Lissa. "Do you think she will wake up anytime soon?"

She shook her head. "Hard to say. I tried to wake her up, but she didn't budge."

Instead of asking further, I knelt and grabbed Theresa's shoulder before roughly shaking her. There wasn't a response, not even a groan, but her grip on the staff grew slightly tighter.

"Only a reflex at best," I muttered before standing up and turning to the others in the room. "We'll still go with the plan. I'll pack a few extra vulneraries for our team instead."

Chrom frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. By the time Theresa wakes up, catching the bandits off guard will be nearly impossible."

Chrom tilted his head away and took a deep breath. "Then let's gather the rest of the Shepherds quickly."

He urged everyone with a motion of his hand and both Lissa and Sumia left the tent. Chrom was about to tail them, but when he saw me overlooking Theresa's supply documents on her table, he paused. "Come, Robin. Like you said, we've got no time to lose."

"Right," I exclaimed, but before I turned around, I searched through the papers to find the one with the vulneraries, and added three more marks with her quill. "At least Theresa should know what we're taking as extra."

Only when I put the quill down did I follow Chrom outside Theresa's tent. As we were gathering for the briefing, a quick thought came to my mind and made me hiss.

I probably should have seen this coming.

{*}{*}{*}{*}{*}{*}

Everything was blurry, my head hurt, and my gut was a maelstrom.

All I could see was the brown leather above my head and the faint light of a candle illuminating my tent. I remembered almost everything that had happened. The fact I was able to fall asleep was a miracle and half.

The scariest part was that I almost expected it.

A sudden lurch in my stomach reminded me of what I was going to do before my abrupt nap, and I bolted outside. The first gag was swallowed, but the second made me empty out my innards. The usual burned throat and horse voice accompanied it and once I was able to waddle back inside and take a sip from my waterskin, I plopped back onto my mat.

"Panic attack…" I pondered while leaning the back of my hand against my forehead. "It's been a while."

A sob escaped my lips, and tears started to well up. "I thought I was done with you."

Of all times, during my first mission in the Shepherds, this had to show its ugly head? I knew I put myself under a lot of stress, but to collapse outright like this just meant I was nothing but a burden…

Then it dawned on me.

"The mission!" I shouted before jumping out of my tent and quickly looking up to the sky. My heart sank when I saw the sun still buried inside the sea, and it didn't take long to realize they'd left.

Or the fact the mission was probably over already.

My hands grew limp, my legs began to shake, and before I knew it, my knees hit the ground with a dull thud while I stared at the sea lifelessly. Fredericks' words echoed in my mind, and when each harsh sentence he said to me began to play in my head one by one, a painful smile began to form on my face.

"You were right," I wheezed before shaking my head. "I'm not cut out for this."

My fingers grasped the ground, piling up the dirt and pebbles inside my palms. The rough jagged edges made my hand twitch with pain, but I needed that right now to ground myself.

"All this time…" I pondered out loud. "I was trying to become something I couldn't be."

A mirthless chuckle escaped my lips. "And I didn't even need to see the battlefield to realize that."

Honestly, I was surprised that it had taken me this long. I was never meant to swing a sword or be brave enough to power through the bloodied waters or burned skin.

How could I?

The answer was simple: I couldn't. That left me with only one option.

I had to go back. Back where I'd come from, whether I liked it or not.

"I was hoping too much for a clean slate…"

My weak legs lifted me up and slowly guided me back to my tent, completely ignoring everything around me. It didn't matter if someone passed by or called me out, I completely shut myself off until I was inside the leather confines.

Sitting down next to the table, I noticed one paper in particular that had the miscellaneous supplies count and it had a few extra marks under the vulneraries. A defeated sigh escaped my lips.

"I can't even do that right anymore either, huh?"

My best guess was that either Frederick or Robin had written that down. It just went to show my incompetence even more. Shivers ran down my body, but not from an incoming episode.

Something within me just snapped.

A snarl spread across my face, my hands began to ball up into fists, and I had a strong urge to just scream. All I could do was raise my arms high and slam them against the table with a loud bang. The bottle of ink, the candle, the quill, all of it shook under the sudden force, but it wasn't just once, it was multiple times.

With each hit I made, the more my hands began feeling numb, but something had to give out eventually. It was either the table, or me, and when I hit the table as hard as I could, the wood snapped, destroying the furniture completely, and knocking everything to the ground.

It made me heave.

Bangs hung in front of my face as if to hide the damage. Splinters lodged themselves into my long sleeves, poking my skin, yet as I looked down at the crumbled mess of wood, ink, and wax, all I did was stomp on it, further reducing the pile into pieces.

Eventually, my stomps slowly calmed down into weak taps before stopping altogether. With my eyes barely open, I spotted the staff lying on the mat and clicked my tongue.

I picked up the rod, stepped outside one more time and reached the shore. The sun barely coloured the water in a dark blue hue like an abyss. At one point, a stray thought made me curious about what would happen if I took the plunge and experienced the aftermath.

But the waves crashed with purpose, the surface calm and serene - the exact opposite of how I was feeling at that moment. If anything, the water would spit me right back up because I didn't belong there.

The hand holding the staff grew rigged from a tight grip, eager to let go of its cargo in a spiteful way. It would be so easy to just throw everything away and only search through piles of parchment to find a way back home. Not only I wouldn't be constantly under pressure, but also relieve the Shepherds of someone like me.

Useless cargo that could only count other cargo.

My free hand instinctively reached out for the socket of the staff and removed the gem attached to it. There was still a use for it after all, and I wasn't about to get rid of something probably worth more than me. Just this piece of rock has done more than I did in the past several weeks.

I raised my hand with the staff and took a stance, ready to let go.

One deep breath in…

One deep breath out…

I took a step forward and—

"Theresa?" Sumia's worried voice made me freeze in place. Instantly, my stomach jumped to my throat and I was almost too scared to turn around. Meeting anyone face-to-face was pretty much impossible for me.

Even though I didn't say anything back, Sumia stepped closer, her feet crunching under the coarse sand. The sound poured cold sweat down my back, and my body refused to move, daring to not flex a finger.

Eventually, I jolted in place when her hand gently touched my shoulder. It rattled with every movement it made because of the plated gloves, but somehow, even through her glove, it felt warm.

I gritted my teeth, the hand holding the staff slowly fell, hanging limply. "What do you want?"

Her hand twitched ever-so-slightly, gripping my shoulder more tightly. "I wanted to check on you when we came back. To make sure you were alright." Her voice began to quiver. "I wasn't expecting what you left behind in your tent. Theresa, are you al—"

"I'm fine," I forced out, interrupting her. "I've just realised something, that's all."

"B-but what about that outburst!?"

"Ever heard of a panic attack?" I asked, almost venomously. "Guess not, but I'm used to them anyway. Nothing new to me."

My eyes were glued to the ground. It was much easier than looking up. I wiggled away from her arm and turned back to the camp.

But Sumia stopped me, catching my arm. "At least…"

She hesitated for a moment. I didn't know why because I couldn't care less at that moment. I just wanted to disappear from everyone's sight.

"Can you at least tell me you're fine while looking me in the eyes?"

A sharp breath assaulted my lungs, and my hands grew rigged under the question. With tears starting to well up and my eyes wide, I couldn't help but clench my teeth.

"I…" I whispered, barely audible under the crashing waves. "I can't."

"What?" Sumia exclaimed, her hold on my hand loosening.

"I just can't, Sumia," I repeated. "Leave me be."

"I can't do that either," she retorted. Her voice was still quivering, but it had an edge of determination. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you back then, so please, let me help you now."

"But there's nothing for you to help with!" I suddenly snapped, my bloodshot eyes finally turning around to face hers. She gasped, hiding her mouth with her free hand. "I'm not fine, but that's because it's my own doing! It has nothing to do with you!"

A sob escaped my lips, and my face scrunched up. "So why… why aren't you letting me go!?"

She was too stunned to say anything back and could only stare back at me with shaking eyes. There was a small, but still noticeable moment when she almost let go of my arm. However, her grip suddenly tightened, and she pulled me towards her before fully embracing me.

Sumia almost knocked the wind out of me, but that feeling was swiftly drowned by the warmth on my back. Her chest plate was still cold, yet it almost didn't matter.

"Let it out, Theresa," she whispered pleadingly.

I didn't want to. I really didn't want to.

All this time, I constantly fed myself lies about how I could be of use if I just put myself to work, to find a way to contribute. When I was faced with the fact this was going to be more than just manual labour, everything crashed under my feet.

How could I voice all of this out loud without sounding like a crybaby?

The answer was simple, because I was a crybaby.

However, none of what I thought ever reached Sumia's ears. The only thing I let out were sobs and a sniff or two to pull back on the mucus filling my nose.

Eventually, I leaned my head against Sumia's shoulder. She was slightly shorter than me, but I didn't need to lower myself to her height. My hand let go of the staff and I hugged Sumia back. Maybe a shoulder to cry on was what I needed right now, but the guilt boiling inside my mind said I didn't deserve one.

"I'm so sorry," I said, hissing under my breath. "I'm so sorry I'm not good enough for any of you."

"You know that's not true," Sumia stated, tightening the hug. "You've been a great help so far. It would—"

"Just tell me the truth already," I interrupted her. "I don't want to hear it, but I need to. Please, Sumia, don't sugarcoat it."

While she was taken aback by my words, her head shook unapprovingly. "I think you have a wild imagination. All of us went through this one way or another." Suddenly, I could feel her hands shake slightly. "I still remember the moment. It was… scary, to put it simply."

Sumia then nudged me away without breaking the hug. She looked me in the eyes and tried to brave a smile despite the wreck she was seeing in front of her. "I would be lying if I said I'm over it, but I wouldn't be able to walk forward if I was constantly thinking about it."

"So," she guided me close to the shore and found a place for us to sit down. "How about we talk about it? I overheard your situation from others and I don't know how you can bottle everything up without exploding."

I jolted in place and averted my gaze while my tears kept falling in the sand. "But I just did — and at the worst time possible too."

"Then let's prevent it from happening again," Sumia stated. "Together."

I only stared at her with my mouth agape. Letting out a quiet sob, I brought my legs closer to my chest, shaking uncontrollably.

"I don't deserve any of you."

AN: More than two months for an update... Well, at least I can be happy about putting something down.

To be fair, at the moment, most of my time is eaten up by Under A Wing's schedule, but at least I'm able to pull through with a few words now and then. I'll just hope it won't take me this long to post such infrequent updates.

But nevertheless, the chapter's out, and I'd like to thank Cavik for proofreading the chapter. He's of huge help, and I recommend giving his fics a try. They are great in their own way.

Thank you for reading today's chapter.

God's speed.