It was nearly sundown by the time I set out from the barracks, with a tray of baked goods and a pitcher of fruit tea pilfered from the kitchens. After a day of meeting Emmeryn and the available Shepherds, while keeping my emotions in check, I only hoped that Lucina would still trust me enough to hear me out tonight.
The so-called hole-in-the-wall was in an unassuming corner of the castle's outer courtyard. Chrom had supposedly crashed into wall during a training accident years ago, and the resulting crack was both a testament to the castles age and to Falchion's might. Of course, the 'hole' has been promptly covered up and remained a secret between the royal family. – although Frederick eventually found out.
After settling into a nearby bench, I did not have to wait long before Lucina's mana signature came into range of my [map] once again, and I watched as she sneaked up to the hidden opening with practised ease. For a brief moment, she disappeared from my [map] – washed out by the wall's wards – and then reemerged from the shadows with Falchion drawn, quickly turning to face me.
"So? Speak."
"Aww, don't be like that, Lucy. You're soo much cuter when you smile. Come on. Sit down. I made sure no one will see us and brought some tea and cookies."
Lucina remained silent for an uncomfortable silence, her eyes still hidden by the mask, before finally sheathing Falchion and sitting down cautiously.
"Very well. So what was it you wanted to tell me, mother? If that is who you really are."
"A story. To answer your first question. A story."
"A story? I'm not a child anymore."
"No, you're right. This is an adult story. One about me, one that you deserve to know now that you have travelled back in time."
"What does time travel have to do with this?
"By the way, the tea is quite good."
"Glad you like it.
"On one hand, time travel is incredibly dangerous and if I never wanted or expected you anywhere near it. But you have your father's sense of justice. You and Morgan both. And without it, I probably would not have this opportunity with you today."
"Dangerous? But Naga didn't mention anything like that."
"I am sure she didn't. And pray tell, why did you arrive to this timeline alone? Where are your friends? Where is your brother, Lucina?"
"W-we had no choice! I was prepared to sacrifice my existence to change the future! "
"And Morgan?"
"I…"
"It'll be okay. Don't worry, we will find everyone. I promise."
"Alright."
"Here, have a cookie. You used to love these…"
"Thanks."
I smiled as Lucy picked up a cookie from the tray and began nibbling at it. It was clear that she remained cautious, and rightly so – but for tonight, I was satisfied.
"Mother…"
"Yes dear?"
"How will I know you won't turn into that Grima again? Last night, you looked just like…"
"I supposed you never saw me in combat in our original timeline, before…. all that.
"See, right now the 'normal' me you know has brown eyes. When I channel large amounts of mana, they glow red, and finally when I channel my flame, they become purple – just like how when you use Aether, Naga's flame, they appear blue. And for how I became Grima, so to speak, that is explained in the story."
"The story?"
"Oh that's right. You were just so cute when you're eating. Okay, here we go:
"A long, long time ago, during the golden age when dragons still ruled the Archanea, there was a city named Thabes. The city, located due northeast of modern Port Ferox, was the leader of league of independent city-states on the northern peninsula. The Thaban league was a land free of dragon rule, a place where the human races, beorc, laguz, and dovah races, colloquially known as man, beastkin, and dragon, could live in harmony. The great city maintained its dominance in the north due to its immense technological and economic strength, built on its strategic location, and was ruled by a democratically elected council.
"If you recall from the history books, Thabes was also the site of Hero-king Marth's battle against Gharnef. Although by that time the city had already fallen to ruin and much of its legacy had migrated to Khadein.
"Among the great mages of Thabes was a beorc alchemist named Forneus. Forneus had been hailed as a genius without equal and was in addition a young promising politician from an influential family. During his political career, Forneus had fallen in love with an earth dragon princess. The princess, youngest of three sisters, had been sent by her brother crown prince Medeus to attend school in Thabes. This was both a diplomatic gesture as well as a way to keep the princess out of the political machinations in the royal court. Having no real claim to the throne, the princess became enamored with the technology and culture of Thabes and decided to stay long after her graduation. Her talent in combat let her to eventually take up post as a general of the Thaban army, and it was during this time that she met Forneus.
"Despite knowing their specieal differences, Forneus and the princess married and lived happily together. Not being able to have children together, the couple had considered adoption, but was always too busy in their professional careers to do so. As he grew older, Forneus eventually retired from public office.
"Misfortune struck not long after, however. The sky dragons (天竜 tenryuu), the very same who would later be known as the divine dragons (神竜shinryuu), had been preparing for war against the earth dragons (地竜 chiryuu) once more. The two superpowers had often clashed in the past, always with the human races under their rule who suffered the most. This time however, the sky dragon senate feared that the always neutral Thabes would ally to the earth dragons due to the presence of the earth dragon princess. While not large in territory, Thabes would always pose a great economic risk and would undoubtedly disrupt the balance of power, should it join in the war.
"Talks about neutrality with Thabes was not viable for the sky dragon high command, for it would alert the earth dragons and provide them time to mobilise forces. Instead, the sky dragons decided to send an assassin to eliminate the princess, so that the deed would be untraceable. The sky dragon assassin had underestimated the princess however, and in the ensuing battle, the princess killed the assassin, but her injuries too grave, died that same day. While not what they had hoped for, the die had been cast, and the sky dragon invasion began immediately.
"Of course, that was the official story. I later found out that in the century leading up to the war, Naga - the pontifex maximus, had slowly replaced members of the sky dragon Senate with her own backers, and began enacting project Ad Astra. The top-secret project meant to unlock the use of Astra, otherwise known as divine magic, had required what would become the War in Heaven, ultimately leading to the fall of dragon civilization.
"Enraged by the news of the princess's death, the earth dragon king led a brutal counterattack, leading to severe losses on both sides. In retaliation to the assassination, Thabes promised to supply the earth dragons with food and arms, so the sky dragons similarly called upon its city-state allies, and the war soon escalated into a conflict of unprecedented scale.
"By the end of the great war, the dragon population on Archanea would be halved, with most of the remaining dragons either taking on manakete forms or fleeing the continent. Degeneration was one of the primary causes of death, which shocked the people, since prior to the war it was only known as a rare disease of madness that only appeared in the elderly.
"At the time there had been rumors of another great dragon war on a faraway continent. Scholars hypothesised the simultaneous conflict had disrupted the planet's mana and dubbed the event 'Fimbulvinter'. Dragons are naturally far more attuned with nature, being comprised of over 90% mana, and powerful dragons usually enriched the land, sea, or sky that was their territory through a resonant feedback loop. With this balance destroyed, lands shifted, climate patterns changed, and dragons died. Of course this is over the span of several centuries and did not happen all at once.
"Back in Thabes, Forneus was heartbroken by the death of his wife. He blamed himself for being unable to save her and became obsessed with bringing Iris back to life. Forneus secretly preserved the corpses of his wife and the assassin and shut himself in an underground research facility from that point on. According to surviving official records, there was also a huge political fallout between Forneus and the Thaban senate, and the senate claims to have sealed the facility to contain his research. Clearly this was an exaggeration as slaves and supplies continued to flow. It would be more accurate to say the senate wanted to claim a political victory despite having done nothing.
"Oblivious to the war raging above ground, Forneus eventually gave up his work on necromancy, realising that no amount of reanimating his wife's body could bring back her soul. He instead turned his attention to creating a new life with her body – which would be the child they could never have. Gossip of the bloodiest of battles trickled in on the mouths of his slaves, a catastrophic degeneration event leads each one. So that he would never lose this child (replacement), he would make it into the perfect lifeform, a dragon free from the curse of degeneration, a dragon of both earth and sky blood.
"With the pinnacle of homunculus creation techniques pioneered by himself in his youth, Forneus adapted the technology for dragon biology and forcibly incorporated the previously incompatible sky dragon blood into his "child". By some miracle, or perhaps by sheer genius, Forneus succeeded.
"A dragon was born that day. A dragon unlike any that had come before it. That very same dragon would later come to be known as Grima - the fell one.
"Me."
Trivia corner
Scholars of the golden age hypothesized that Beorc bodies are on average composed of 2-5% mana. (Some cultures made the distinction of calling this internal mana 'od' or 'qi'.) By contrast, full-blooded Laguz were thought to be half mana, half flesh, with the Dragon races composed of over 90% mana. Nearly all dragons were aligned with a magical element, and the most powerful could exercise unparalleled control over their elemental domain.
This theory was derived from statistical modelling, and never empirically proven. Researchers largely lost interest in the topic following the end of dragon rule around the world, by which time the use of amplifier circuits in Beorc spells had become common knowledge.
AN
Regarding the triva corner this time,
How else do you explain transformations? Where does all the mass go?
In CJK languages, 天('ten' in jp) translates directly to 'sky', but is also synonymous with 'heaven' and the divine. The opposite of 天 is 地 ('chi' in jp) which means 'earth' or 'land'. Its not much of a logical leap for divine dragons to have come from reinterpretating sky dragons.