Robin of Ylisse was a brilliant man. He might not believe it, some of the time, but people he trusted said it enough that he was forced to believe them, if only to be polite. He had face enemies beyond measure and triumphed, from bandits to madmen with professional armies larger than most nations to Naga-damned gods. He had done the impossible, if there even was such a thing, before coming back from the grave.

And now he was facing his greatest enemy yet.

He had only one hope now, only one way out. His beloved wife might save him, if she would only listen.

"Lucina. Could you please ask your father…"

"No, dear."

"Well, no. Obviously, that's right out. But Basilio will still listen to you…"

"No."

"I admit this is something of a longshot, then, but if you said it was urgent, and that I was desperate, Virion might…"

Lucina glared.

"Robin. This is a vacation. You [i]are/i] going to make use of it to the fullest, which means that you are not going to work on any strategies, contingencies, or anything else until we get back. Especially not [i]those/i] contingencies."

"Lucina, you know that…"

"I know that Morgan said you were spiraling, dear. [i]Morgan./i]"

Robin looked down in embarrassment.

"...I wasn't that bad."

"You bought dozens of snapshot tomes to make sure that piles of clay weren't moving on their own with time delayed images."

"To be fair, the movement of the grasses when we ran through the images together made a good relaxation aid."

Lucina's gaze stayed firm.

"But you didn't relax. Instead, you tried to build a new strategy game involving nothing but wizards to test how their pointy hats were trying to control them."

"I admit, I might have scared Ricken too much there. It was just an idea, not something that I was sure about."

"And of course, there was the time you aggressively rolled up the new food Stahl was trying to make to ensure none of the sauces would escape and burn everyone."

"I… I…"

Robin sighed and tried to look sheepish.

"I guess I must have looked pretty silly."

"To Father, yes. He laughed when he described some of the things you'd done on the way back home. But you didn't sound silly to me."

Robin looked Lucina in the eye.

"What are you saying?"

Lucina shook her head.

"I'm saying I recognized it. You were afraid. Grima… you were alone with him for so long to kill him. You were facing him longer than I did, when he almost broke me. And that's why you were so desperate."

"How did you know? What do you know?"

"I know you're the bravest man I've ever met. And now you're jumping at your shadow. He must have showed you terrible things. He made you doubt everything. But you're here now. You're safe. And we're going to have a good time together, because, thanks to you, that monster is dead for good, and because, even more shocking, Morgan has agreed to give us some alone time to 'make sure she exists'. How does that sound?"

Robin smiled.

"It… it sounds good. But you're wrong about one thing."

"What?"

"Grima just made me doubt almost everything. He could never shake how much I trusted in you."

Lucina blushed.

"...I wish I could say the same. Still! I did my best while you were away to show the same faith. And look at how we were rewarded."

"I guess so. So… you said something about Morgan worrying about time paradox? Well. We really should put her at ease."

"Let's."

And they walked back to a tent where Robin had something to occupy him other than strategy.