Chapter Text
Early mornings in Plegia, Chrom has grown to understand, are slightly less unforgiving than every other moment of the day in a goddamn desert. The air is brisk, yes, but a far cry from the freezing texture of Plegian nights, the day new with pleasant lights. After his usual run at dawn, Chrom's entire body is itching for a fight. Chrom is always, to some extent, itching for a fight.
"Well, get on with it." He taunts his unfortunate opponents of the day, one hand on his hip, eyebrows raised high. "I don't have all day."
The dozen of kids he has been assigned to train look at each other and very much do not attack as they have been told.
"Err, like, all of us at once?" A girl asks with little enthusiasm.
"Of course not, dumbass, he'd die if we all cursed him at the same time."
"Oh Grima, if he dies, Master will have our heads…"
"Stop whining, he ain't gonna die. You don't survive invading a country just to die of a nosferatu, that's bullshit."
Chrom sighs upwards, already exhausted. With all due respect to Ricken, mage teenagers have to be literally the worst creatures on earth. From his personal experience with the younger recruits of the mage squad, they are constantly arguing and snarking and bickering like they need to prove they are the most clever person in the room at any given time.
Perhaps it's a Plegian thing. He doesn't remember Ricken acting out nearly as bad as those rascals did. Or maybe Ricken interacted with him the way those kids interact with their own prince: eager to impress, with countless stars in their eyes and a second away from passing out of sheer admiration. For all he knows, Ricken could have been an A-rated brat just like the rest of them when Chrom had his back turned.
"Don't have all day, uh? What else do you have to do anyway?" A kid grommels from behind the line of his comrades. "Dust the grandmaster's furniture?"
"Rub his feet?" Another giggles.
"Polish his staff?"
The last one elicits a round of guffaws, a predictable outcome considering the age ratio of the audience. There is nothing teenagers love more than a sex joke played at the expense of an adult. It's really too bad for them they didn't get the chance to try their newfound claws on the Chrom from two years ago. How he would have blushed and stammered denials, if he even got the innuendo at all. No doubt the spectacle would have made their day and boosted their confidence to the thousand.
Today Chrom smiles placidly and says: "All of that, of course. Right after I explained to his highness that his new recruits, the brightest students of the mage academy, the elite of Plegia's youth, the very future of the country, are all spineless cowards. I assume he'll need a lot of foot rubbing and, ah, staff polishing, to recover from the disappointment."
A shiver runs down his spine, a tingle, barely an echo of pain, and he almost laughs at the childishness of its bite. It's quite a particular thing, dark magic. Elemental spells have the decency to attack from the outside, they burn the skin, knock out breaths, paralyze muscle. They don't slip into your very being to find it quite lacking and decide to reorganize your insides. It takes a very vicious kind of intent to manage that.
Dark magic, to its most powerful, inflicts the deepest, most horrifying, most intimate kind of wounds.
This is definitely not dark magic at its most powerful.
"Cute," he says, before he leaps forwards.
The kids scatter like a flock of terrified birds, so fragile in their fancy mage robes, so vulnerable. Chrom could cut through them like a knife in butter. They are disorganized, easily overwhelmed despite their superiority in numbers, unsuited to think fast in real life conditions. One of the girls, usually silent and grave, manages to land a flux that truly feels like he's about to stumble in the abyss. Chrom pats her shoulder in approval after he knocks her on the ground.
"I don't get it," the proud and bright future of Plegia moans against the dust. "Who can keep moving while being hit by four curses at the same time?"
Someone with plenty of experience at being hit by four curses at the same time. "You flatter me, kid, but I wouldn't call your tickling curses."
"Can I stand up now please?" the brat Chrom is currently sitting on the back off, who might or might not be the offspring of some marquis or whatever, and who most certainly made fun of Chrom's hypothetical staff polishing duties, asks in a small voice.
"Go ahead," Chrom says as he stretches his legs and leans backward. "Make me move if you can. It's good training, and you guys definitely need some."
A red-haired girl with a decent Nosferatu but no chill inspects her bruised arm and gasps. "Do we have to do that tomorrow too?"
Chrom grins pleasantly. "Oh yes. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after. You get the idea. Until His Darkest and Most Nefarious Eminence decides otherwise."
For all his many, many faults, it cannot be said the grandmaster doesn't care for his charges. And caring is throwing blunt things at it until its skin thickens enough to be trusted to survive in this cruel world, according to Grimleal ideology.
Chrom is the grandmaster's favorite blunt thing.
"Do you think anyone saw?"
"Everyone saw! We're in the middle of the training grounds!"
"Shush, the other one is coming!"
Chrom looks up. Sure enough, the other infamous hostage of Plegia Castle and Chrom's de facto partner in crime approaches their ragtag gathering in his usual no-nonsense brisk pace. Even from far away, Chrom can tell he's wearing the scowl that means Serious Business.
"Looks like you guys are in luck today after all. Training's over," Chrom says, raising up and offering a hand to his victim, because he's not that much of a cold-hearted bastard yet. "You better make a better showing next time."
War is coming again. There is always another war coming. They'll need to become stronger, faster, tougher. They'll need to become vicious, vicious enough for their spells to hurt.
"News from the sea." Lon'qu declares in the guise of a greeting. He's blatantly ignoring the soldiers in training, which seem to suit them just fine.
Chrom doesn't ask what sea. He has been waiting for news from the sea for weeks. He follows Lon'qu without another word, single handedly focused in his direction like an arrow shot.
They walk through the training grounds and into the bowels of Grima's carcass. The palace is already bristling with life despite the early hour. Servants rush through the beginning of the day, their measured agitation following the lines of an intricate pattern Chrom couldn't have begun to decipher when he was still an Exalt's son or an Exalt's heir. He merges into the stream seamlessly, just another human among very, very busy humans. No one has time to pay any kind of special attention to him. They don't walk out of his way. They don't bow or kneel. Most of them don't even spare a glance of contempt or hatred for the Ylissean Exalt who brought war in their midst and killed their king anymore.
Chrom is just the guy with a sword who used to be Someone Important on the other side of the frontier and now serves his penance as their prince's dog. No big deal. Why, the last assassination attempt must have been three months ago already. It does feel like Chrom has become irrelevant to those people pretty fast.
At least he can still count on the wyverns to indiscriminately loathe the very sight of him. If one of them doesn't try to bite his head off at least once during the journey, it will be an incredible day indeed.
It might happen though. The day is incredible already. The sun is barely up and so is Robin.
Chrom stops at the entrance of the prince's chambers, arrested in his wild course by the oddity of the moment. Bone white hair and six golden eyes glow dimly under the early morning light they rarely confront. The blazing heat of midday, the gentler hue of evenings, the tenuous glow of candlelights, or the angry flare of a Bolganone, they do know the shape of Robin's face and the walls of his rooms. Mornings in the prince's quarters, however, are dedicated to darkness and silence so he may recover from his perpetual sleepless nights. In two years, Chrom has never seen him awake so early unless a nightmare has plagued his rest.
"Cease with this foolish gaping. You look even more like a cretin than usual."
Tharja's tone is so full of disdain that a lesser man might have withered on the spot. She smirks at him from her vantage point on Robin's desk, ankles and arms crossed, her most provocative outfit crawling over her bony body. Next to her, Robin is leaning over the table, maps and parchments spilled open under his perpetually ink stained fingers. He doesn't bother to turn. Chrom didn't expect him to. A focused Robin is a Robin utterly lost to social pleasantness, or any other non-essential communication skill.
"Thank you for noticing my efforts, Tharja." Chrom says, her familiar vitriol washing over him like water on a duck's back. "I do try to always strive forward and surpass myself."
She bares her teeth in response. Fang white gleams through Grima's black, purple and golden his worshippers adorn themselves with. Chrom finds himself wondering if Grimleals realize how much in common their colors have with bruises. He wouldn't be surprised if they picked their color themes on purpose: by intent and action, they truly incarnate the sore wounds of this world.
"No fighting," the sore wound in chief rasps out, as if fighting isn't the only thing Chrom is good for.
Chrom approaches the table and peeks over Robin's shoulder. The room is in complete disarray, cupboards left open, books, clothes and weapons abandoned on every surface. He spares a side glance at a blank-faced Lon'qu, whose fingers are twitching with the urge to tidy everything up. His need for a contained and clean environment often clashes with the casual chaos Robin incarnates when he's lost in thoughts.
Chrom takes a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of incense, coffee and those Plegian honey sweets the grandmaster can never seem to get enough of. "Valm?"
Robin hums as he points at the lines of Regna Ferox' coast. His right sleeve climbs up, revealing a faded teeth-shaped scar on his forearm, right under the wrist. "Their warships have been sighted near Port Ferox."
Just as the genius tactician predicted. When it comes to warfare intelligence, he's so rarely wrong. In retrospect, Chrom and his rage-fueled concept of strategy never stood a chance. He fell into the grandmaster's trap so easily it was almost funny. He wonders if two years ago, Robin leant on that very same table, plotting the fall of Chrom and his people, toying with them like the wooden figurines carefully placed on his neat little map.
The elusive figure of Plegia's war commander flashes before his eyes, a cloaked shadow followed by the strike of lightning and the smell of burnt flesh. He can see himself running after it, snarling and yelling, a rabid hound chasing the lead of fresh blood without realizing it was running straight into its own cage.
"Why kill your enemy," the grandmaster mused, bone white fingers resting on Chrom's hair, "when you can make a dog out of them instead?"
Too bad he forgot to take into account that dogs, even defeated, cornered and bound, bite, and bite hard.
He takes a step back right as Lon'qu barks out: "When do we leave?"
Tharja clenches her fists at the nerve of a mere prisoner to hound her beloved master but remains silent. Robin's dark eyes flicker away from the desk. Chrom doesn't waver under his calm, calculative glance.
From an external point of view, it's a considerable risk to take, considering Chrom and Lon'qu have not left Plegia since their capture. They're political hostages of the highest value, symbols of Plegia's superiority and its victory over the coalition of Ylisse and Regna Ferox' forces. Plegian people love that their genius fellblood prince is so divine he can keep former Exalts and Feroxian Champions on a leash as his servants, and no one can do anything about it.
The loss of Lon'qu would be acceptable, but Chrom? He's the incarnation of everything Grimleals hate, finally brought under their heel and forced to kneel to their prince. He's the guarantee neither the Exalt nor the Shepherd will make a move against them with his life on the balance.
No matter. Robin and Chrom have an agreement.
"Now," Robin declares, meeting Chrom's glance without hesitation, and just like that, the matter is settled. "Henry and Nowi are waiting for us with our wyvern riders."
The tension knotted in his back eases. Robin kept his word. Chrom's going home. He's actually going home, if only for a fleeting moment and in answer to the threat of mass invasion.
.
"I don't really get it," Henry muses out of nowhere while he has his hand shoved inside a wyvern's mouth, in a very typical Henry fashion.
There is usually a logic driving his seemingly random thought process, but few people can follow it. Chrom isn't one of those, and frankly, most of the time, he'd rather not know. Especially not about the wyvern's cavity exploring.
"Shall you lose a limb due to your own foolishness, I will not assist you regain your body integrity." Tharja narrows her eyes from the rock she climbed up to.
No matter where she is, the royal castle, the Plegian desert, or the Ylissean countryside, she always manages to find a vantage spot from where to ominously glare down at people, without looking foolish. The manoeuver is quite impressive, if Chrom is being honest.
"What is your question, Henry?" Robin intervenes before the dark can launch on a
gleeful rant on why would anyone want to put his limb back when severed body parts are so fun to play with in the first place.
Henry removes a drool-coated hand from the death trap he plunged into, miraculously still attached to the rest of him. The wyvern makes a rumbling noise when he rubs its snout. Animals like him, understand him better than most humans seem to be able to, or bother to try. A bit like Sumia, in fact. Chrom can't help but wonder if they would get along. Maybe in another world, a world where Plegians and Ylisseans had the possibility to become friends instead of the unwilling actors of an interminable tragedy between two gods.
"This fine lady got a gash on her gum," Henry informs her rider, who looks stuck between reluctant admiration and fascinated horror, a common reaction to Henry's… Henryness. Even by Plegian army standards, who took in some of the weirdest folk Chrom has ever met, Henry is quite the special snowflake, in a louder way than his female counterpart. Tharja, although mean-spirited, obsessive and stalkerish, has the good taste to come from an old Plegian aristocratic family and to know how to appear sane when she feels like it.
They are equally as mad though, and Chrom knows what he's talking about when it comes to buckwild crazy bloodlust. One might even say he's an expert on the topic. It's almost like Robin has a type for the kind of people he likes to surround himself with, and that type involves envoying to tear other fellow's human guts out. Even Nowi, with her childlike appearance and demeanor, is only too willing to bite people's heads off. Literally.
"Yet another proof you're weaker than me," Nowi says to the wyvern, hands on her hips, showing off her own gums in a huge grin. "Nowi's got a superior digestive system!"
"Stop," Lon'qu says. "No one wants to hear about your guts."
Henry, who's always down to discuss digestive systems, manages to stay on track for once. He turns to his liege, his usual grin settled on his face. "I don't care either way, but why are we coming to Ferox' help, uh? I thought they were our enemies, with all this war and invasion and hundreds of years old reciprocated backstabbing business."
Chrom tunes out Robin's patient explanation on the importance of putting a united front against the Valmese threat despite pre-existing tensions. He already heard several versions of it delivered to the different parties of the Plegian government that needed to be convinced while he stood silently behind his master, unflinching and unmoving.
Playing the part of a bodyguard didn't come naturally to him. Chrom had been bred since infancy to lead, not to serve. As a child, he was constantly running around and babbling out his every thought, full of endless energy and little attention, and the feeling of being in a perpetual emergency plaguing his nerves didn't settle with adulthood. People around him adapted to his habits, the pacing, the fidgeting, the regular needs to train, the accidental lack of tact and restraint in the vocalization of his opinions.
People in Plegia didn't give a shit about adapting to him. Chrom had no other choice if he wanted to leave the confinement of Robin's chambers but to force himself to adapt to the world instead of the other way around, to learn stillness and silence, albeit poorly. Lon'qu is better at the exercise, as long as he's not facing a woman, but his presence by Robin's side does not carry the same political weight, or bring the same spiteful satisfaction.
The Grimleals just love to see a Naga's scion humiliated at their fellblood's mercy. They never seem to tire of the spectacle.
And yet, after two years of practical lessons on patience, it takes every bit of his self control not to rush ahead unthinkingly or to scream they have to go faster, especially when his people are in danger. Instead, he must sit there, and wait, wait, wait. Chrom is awful at waiting. Even forced servitude couldn't beat that out of him.
He pulls out his sword from its sheath and a whetstone from his pocket, then sets to work. The repeated movements channel most of his anguish. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Lon'qu taught him the trick. Falchion never needed sharpening after all, and even if it did, Fredrick would have never let him lose his time in menial tasks he could do better anyway.
"You were right."
He blinks up to find Robin standing in front of him, stiff and awkward and trying so hard not to be, the way he's prone to when forced outside of his comfort zone. It still puzzles Chrom to think of the terrifying mastermind behind Plegian's tactical genius as anything but a cold, vicious harbinger of destruction, to reconcile the imperturbable warlord to the man who'll light up incense everywhere because he can't stand unpleasant smells, who pads carefully around his own rooms at night not to wake anyone up, who smiles like a waning moon, its light dim and vulnerable.
"Was I?" Chrom says. "Be sure to tell Tharja about it. At length. Repeatedly."
Robin's eyebrow raises under his hood. His cloak covers him in black and purple from head to toes, fully sheltered from the gaze of others. It looks, admittedly, a bit ridiculous considering the warm weather, and has mostly lost of the mysterious and scary allure it gave Robin on the battlefield now that Chrom has understood the cloak's prime purpose is to serve as a comfort blanket. Now Robin will pretend it's a religious thing, that he's contractually obligated to hide his divine skin from the sight of mere mortals in public, but it's definitely an anxiety coping mechanism.
"Are you two fighting again?" Robin says.
Tharja and Chrom are more or less constantly fighting. It cannot be helped. Tharja hates anyone who takes up Robin's time on principle alone. Chrom has no intention to stop taking up on Robin's time. It's a dilemma that cannot be solved unless one of them softens their resolve to open the negotiations, and that's not going to be Chrom.
"Not especially." Chrom shrugs. "What was I right about?"
Robin turns his head and gestures a gloved hand at the meadow they have landed on to let their mounts rest. "Your country is very beautiful, as you said. I'm glad I finally had a chance to visit it, despite the unfortunate circumstances."
Ylisse is very beautiful indeed. Chrom hadn't truly understood how much before. He took its verdant hills, its peaceful farms, its bustling cities for granted. He had little doubts of his place in this world. He doubted himself, his worth, his abilities as a leader, his boiling temper that reminded him too much of his father, but not that Ylisse was and always would be his home. Where else could a scion of Naga belong but in the land that breathes Her whispers and gleamed under Her light?
Chrom has returned too different a person to ease back into his former place. He's no longer this light-hearted prince who roamed its soil with his friends and unchallenged ideals, and the land knows it. It must resent the weight of his losses, of his grief, of his regrets, the blood he has on his hands and the compromises he had to make.
"Yeah, it is." Chrom grins. "I too am glad you could see it. Maybe one day I'll give you a tour."
Robin looks so painfully out of place in there, away from dusty libraries, shifting deserts and dark temples that are his natural habitat, away from the shadows Grima's bones usually cast upon him. Yet, he sounds gently sincere when he responds: "I'd love that."
In the space of an instant, in between the sequence of two rational thoughts, Chrom could picture the possibility. Two friends traveling the world for no other reason than to enjoy the journey and each other's company. What a life it would be.
"Your Eminence; pardon my interruption."
Imir, the captain of the guards, bows in greeting, waiting for permission to speak further. She spares no attention to Chrom, focused entirely on her prince. She doesn't need to look at Chrom for him to feel the weight of her hatred, the bite of her contempt.
He quietly makes an exit under Robin's concerned glance. Plegian blood drips down Chrom's hands still, and there is no getting rid of its stench.
.
.
.
.
The Valmese fleet looms by the shores of Port Ferox, the white of their sails and crimson of their flags blooming amidst the tranquil blue of the sea. By comparison, the walls circling around Port Ferox look small and frail, a wooden fence to hold on against the assault of a sea-quake.
"They haven't attacked yet,' Lon'qu says.
The latent tension buzzing through his frame ever since he announced the imminence of the Valmese army's arrival seem to have tone down somehow, leaving room for his usual battle readiness. Ferox, although not his country of birth, had welcomed him and his skills with open arms. His affection for his adoptive nation and its people doesn't appear to have lessened in captivity, despite the heavy tribute he has paid and still pays for its sake.
Henry whistles as he jumps off his wyvern's back. "That's a lot of boats, ain't it? Your folks sure are in for a treat, haha!"
"I could burn a bunch of those away, ya know?" Nowi boasts on impulse, one hand over her eyes to protect her face from the sun as she inspects the state of the enemy. "It's all wood and canvas, and those go down in flames pretty fast, I bet."
"Oho, that's a plan!" Henry says, already rejoicing at the perspective of blood, fire, and fury on dragon's back. "Mind if I join you? I know some spells that'll help speed the cremation process pretty fast, ehe."
A year ago, the reminder of Henry's enthusiastic willingness to set fire to whatever his prince points at would have been enough to ignite nausea in Chrom's throat, a shudder along his spine, and unadulterated loathing in his heart. He had witnessed first hand the kind of havoc Henry can unleash on his own, especially when freed from the leash his prince keeps on him. Left to his own devices, the mage has no limits of its own, not in body, not in mind, not in heart, and it's only thanks to his devotion to Robin the world has not collapsed into flames yet.
Robin shakes his head under his hood. "It's not a bad idea," he starts even though it clearly is a bad idea, "but you'd get shot down before you'd manage to set fire to more than one warship."
"Idiots," Tharja adds, empathically.
Nowi shrugs, indifferent to the gentle rebuttal and the open insult alike. The scales hiding underneath her youthful skin wards off much more than physical damage. Concepts like embarrassment, remorse or disappointment wash off her like water on a duck's back. The sluggish passing of time, most of which in captivity, would have the effect of thickening anyone's skin to the assault of humiliation, as Chrom can testify on a smaller scale. Unlike the rest of their group, Robin's approval or lack thereof means little to her. She had other masters before, and she'll have others after long after their passing. To Nowi, their entire existence amounts to a mere grain of dust in the desert, lost into the eternity.
Chrom finds her foolproof casualness comforting these days, despite his initial wariness of the prince's 'pet' and her natural tendency to turn the gravest moment into a joke. There's no mistake he can make that Nowi hasn't witnessed before, no foolishness that hasn't been experienced before, no doubt that she hasn't encountered already.
"You're the boss, boss. Another time, right, Henry?"
His hand raises up in preparation of a high five, which is immediately granted. "You know it!"
"Your Eminence," Captain Imir walks towards their group. "We are ready to move."
"Good," Robin says. "Select five of your men to escort our delegation. We're setting out immediately."
She bows before turning on her feet. "Understood, Grandmaster."
Her change of title fits the transition in Robin's posture, the tone of his voice, his expectations of instant obedience. This is no longer the prince of Plegia, the Hierophant of the Grimleals, or the man Chrom told tales of a greener life beyond the infinite stretches of the desert, but the Commander of the Plegian forces, the genius strategist that warded off a coalition of two nations in spite of their numerical disadvantage.
"Chrom."
His body straightens immediately, while his neck curves downward. He too has been conditioned to adjust his stance to the demands of the war lord that holds his leash between gloved fingers, and not only on the surface to appease the bloodlust of the Grimleals. The dog that bit has been coaxed into obedience, in the end. "Grandmaster."
"In the duration of this mission, I'll be relying on your… diplomatic abilities, in addition to your fighting skills."
Chrom raises his head to meet Robin's eyes. Underneath the armor of the warlord, underneath the crimson of the Grimleal and the confidence of the prince, the concern the Chrom from before would have never been able to recognize lurks in troubled waters. "You can count on it."
"Yours as well, Lon'qu."
Lon'qu replies with a grunt, his attention still focused on the Valmese fleet. The moment of solemnity is therefore discarded, left to agonize and Tharja quickly takes upon herself to put an end to its misery.
"Which diplomatic abilities? You two have less subtlety than a rock."
Chrom jolts in faint surprise. "Wow, did you guys see that? I didn't know kettles could talk."
Tharja's chin tilts up, and her hand rests threateningly on her grimoire. "I don't see why they shouldn't in a world in which dogs take the liberty to lecture their betters."
"Enough, you two," Robin says. "Keep your combative spirit for the battle ahead."
They set off for Port Ferox with Captain Imir and five carefully selected elite soldiers, leaving the rest of the men and their wyverns to install the temporary campsite. In spite of the ongoing crisis, a welcoming committee has been detached from the headquarters to greet their unexpected guests, composed of Feroxi guards and one representative of the Shepherds.
Sumia's calm, collected composure stutters when she spots among the band of Plegian soldiers Chrom first, and his captor second. Chrom's heart races at the sight of a face he has not glimpse in two years, aged beyond her years and marred with a scar running from mouth to forehead. Her attention flicker from diverse points of interest as if unsure where to settle, from Chrom's face to Lon'qu scowl, from Henry's infamous grin to Nowi's impatient jumps, to the six-eyes branded on their uniforms to the hooded figure at the center of them all.
"State your names and intentions, Plegians," the Feroxian leader barks.
"Mind your tongue when you address the crown prince, mongrel," Captain Imir retorts.
Sumia clears her throat. Regardless of the initial hurdle she faced and the tension of the situation, the evenness of her manners have recovered in a timely fashion. Chrom can scarcely recognize her, so removed from the bubbling young woman she used to be.
"Greetings to your highness and his entourage," she says in a serene, but firm tone. "Our most sincere apologies for the modest welcome to a prince of your importance. If I may, your highness has chosen an interesting time for an impromptu diplomatic visit."
"We're grateful for your hospitality, Sergeant, Vice-Captain," Robin says, perfectly able to identify insignia from the Feroxian army and the Shepherds respectively in spite of the lack of introduction. "The intent of our visit, since it remains to be stated, lies not in diplomacy, but in military assistance. I hereby request an emergency meeting with your leaders."
Sumia's eyes flutter to Chrom, questioningly. His microsimal nod is barely perceptible. She perceives it nonetheless.
"I personally believe it would be wiser to listen to what they wish to say, Sergeant," she says, "but the decision is yours to make, of course."
"Course you would," he grunts. "That's your Exalt in there, ain't it? Brat, something you'd like to share with the class?"
Lon'qu recognizes himself in that loose description and responds accordingly. "You're losing time, old bastard. If we were there to kick your asses, you'd fucking know. Let us in already."
This outburst of Feroxian diplomacy has surprisingly effective results. The sergeant cackles at their faces and gestures for them to come. "Good point. Fine, we'll escort you all to the Commander. No funny business, sand fuckers."
Captain Imir's hand clasps around the handle of her sword, and Tharja's eyes darken with a focus that usually precedes the use of horrific dark magic. Robin halts any intent of payback with a single look. "We'll stick to serious business only, upon my word."
"Eh, you're funny, princeling. Would have never believed that."
Chrom wouldn't have either. In his mind, the grandmaster was barely human, crafted in fangs, claws and fire, more scales than skin, more rot than flesh, more shadow than breath, more thunder than blood; a monster born of the Grimleals' most delirious dreams to destroy them all. He could never have imagined in a thousand years that the harbinger of the end had a sense of humor of any kind, that he smiles in secrecy, when he thinks no one can see him under the hood.
"Come along then, your highness."
Sumia calls for one of the younger soldiers. "Please run ahead to inform the headquarters of our guest and his companions' arrival."
It bemuses Chrom to no end to remark how politically savvy Sumia has grown in his absence. Was it so long ago that Sumia would regularly make a social faux-pas, or stumble in the middle of a meeting? it must be. HImself has changed so much he can scarcely recognize his image in the mirror.
Robin sets the group in motion to enter the city. Chrom follows at the place he has grown to acknowledge as his, at the prince's left, one feet behind, close enough to brush his hand to the dark cloak fluttering in the wind, without ever crossing the line. Not in public, at least.
The imminence of war weighs heavily upon Port Ferox. Entire families hastily evacuate the would-be frontline, barricades are erected on key areas, weapons are distributed to every citizen that asks for it, and who don't already nurture their personal armory at home. This is, after all, Ferox.
And they don't seem too happy about this armed delegation of foreigners roaming their streets. The ominous Plegian regalia their squadron proudly sport, those six all-seeing golden and crimson eyes stitched to their uniform, most certainly don't help with public opinion. For once, even Chrom bears the mark of Grima on his uniform, like the rest of the troops. Usually, the divine emblem is forbidden to an heretic like him, in order to remind him he's not worthy of Plegia and its god, which suits him just fine. Today, however, they want to make a point to his fellow countrymen on who exactly their former Exalt belongs to.
Sumia keeps staring at the grim sigil branded on his arm at the exact place where his Exalt mark should be exposed, back and forth, like a moth attracted to the flame. Chrom tries to convey reassurance through small smiles and other precarious facial gymnastics, with moderate success.
Robin takes the hostility in stride, his attention fully focused on observing the environment and mapping the field. As far as Chrom is aware, this will be his first fight outside of Plegia and its treacherous sands. The Grimleals have never allowed their precious Hierophant to leave the country before, let alone lead troops on foreign soil. Chrom chokes back the urge to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, a simple gesture that would no doubt enforces a diplomatic incident on so many fronts it hurts his head to ever consider it.
The divine figure of the Hierophant, like the grandmaster, is untouchable, least of all by an Exalt-blooded dog.
Another greeting committee has gathered by the entrance of the garnison, thanks to Sumia's foresight.
"Damn," Vaike whistles as he leans against the door, effectively blocking the way with his big frame and massive ax. "It really is the Plegian Overlord, in the flesh. Thought that kiddo had too much beer in his belly, or somethin'. Finally decided to return our Captain to us, highness? Right on time too. Quite obliging of ya, really."
Robin tilts his head to the side. "Vaike of the Shepherds, isn't it?" He ventures, strong of the knowledge acquired through his encyclopedic memory of enemy forces and Chrom's nostalgic tales of his Shepherd days. "I'm afraid I still require Chrom's services, as of now and to the foreseeable future. I can only compromise on a temporary loan under supervision, for now."
Vaike snorts. "You use big words to confuse me. Smart of ya."
"His phrasing, albeit nebulous, implies he'll let the Captain participate in the incoming battle under his banner," Miriel clicks her tongue. "Move aside, big oaf."
"I don't like it any more than you do, Shepherd," the sergeant grunts. "We're kinda in a hurry, though."
"Please," Sumia adds in a soothing tone.
Vaike shuffles to the side with a sheepish grin. "Yer words' are my command, Miri."
Miriel and Vaike's eyes burn through Chrom's skin out of sheer intensity. In passing, Chrom allows himself a single brush against Vaike's arm, the closest gesture he can to the arm squeezes they used to greet each other with once upon a time. They have always been creatures of bodies over words.
"And Yllisseans wonder why they are perceived as savages among civilized people," Tharja mutters under her breath.
"I hope you don't count yourself in the rank of civilized people, witch," Lon'qu retorts.
"Enough," Robin says as they enter the commander's office behind the Feroxian sergeant.
A table at the center of the room has been improvised as the strategic map, where the different military leaders in charge of organizing the defense of the city gather. Chrom immediately recognized the unmistakable figures of Ferox' two Khan, Balisio of the West and Flavia of the East, the latter of which Chrom once fought in the stead of, in addition to the Commander of the Guard in Port Ferox. As for the Shepherd, they are represented by Sully, bearing the arms of the captain, and Virion, bearing the arms of none but himself, as usual. Sumia swiftly slides to stand by their side.
"There, I've brought the Plegian intruders," the sergeant summarizes in the characteristic simplicity of Feroxian manners. "Ten of my men are monitoring the rest of their troops and wyverns. Do of them what you will."
Sully takes a look at them, snorts, and flings a coin at Virion. "One day, I'll learn my fucking lesson and stop betting against you. You'll trounce me out of my last coin eventually.'
The two Khans laugh loudly at that, while Virion sighs in an overly dramatic fashion. "My dear Sully, you're the one who consistently insists on the monetary stake of our little guesses."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sully shakes her wrist in dismissal, before leaning down on the table to observe the model of the field. "Come over here, Grima spawn. We'd like to know what your genius tactician brain makes of our odds."
Robin approaches the table. "Straight down to business, then, Captain. That's fine by me."
"We were expecting you, your highness. This one," Flavia points her thumb in Virion's direction, "predicted the high probability Plegia would lend emergency forces to counter the invasion of Valm, spearheaded by the Grandmaster himself. And here you are."
One bony finger trail alongside the coastline replica. "And here I am. We can only hope your predictive abilities apply with equal accuracy to the Valmese's movements as it did with mine, Duke."
Virion's smile turns wary. "You flatter me, your highness, but I believe previous iterations in the past have proved my ability to predict your movements to be insufficient at best."
Sully's jaw tenses at the reminder, her fists clenched over the table and the precarious neutrality of her expression soured with bitterness. Something in Sumia's tensed posture wilts, crumbling unto itself in utter silence. For an instant, they are all transported back to that tent in the desert two years in the past, helpless witnesses to Virion's outbreak secondary to his failure at outsmarting the Plegian forces and their mysterious, unstoppable grandmaster.
"Let's focus on the on-going battle, shall we?" Flavia coughs.
"Of course," Robin concurs in an even tone.
All along the delibaration, Chrom remains on the sidelines with the other retainers of the Plegian delegation, easily falling back to the servile role that has been assigned to him; too easily, it could be argued. Not so long ago, rooms and meetings such as this used to be his to prowl and dominate. it would have been him joining the other leaders to strategize on the best course to take, pondering over risks and consequences on a precarious balance, making decisions that could ruin a nation. Decisions that did, in fact, ruin a nation.
He would die before he admitted it to anyone, when he can barely allow himself to, but a part of him is relieved he doesn't, cannot, is not allowed to carry the weight of his people's fate any longer. The burden that has been his to bear since his sister's death has been forcibly taken away from him. The only duty he has left is to plow his back, endure the humiliation and avoid turning into the cause of another conflict between Ylisse and Plegia.
That, and the dreadful duty Robin personally entrusted upon his shoulders.
It's a crass, shameful feeling, of course, but eventually Chrom has found reprieve in obedience. He has even grown to nurture a masochistic pleasure in watching Robin in the height of his craft, better at it than Chrom could ever hope to become. There is something riveting in the spectacle of his intelligence at work, to try and follow his line of thinking from his muttered rambling and the movements of clay figures on the map. The world becomes simpler when seen from Robin's perspective, in numbers, advantages, reach, movement and the likes. In there, Chrom only has to do what he's told, nothing more, nothing less.
"Chrom." Robin calls out, softly. "Come."
His legs set in motion before his head does. His former allies all watch him approach and stand by his captor's side in a show of deference. Sully's face in particular struggles to hide her abhorrence, despite the astonishing progress she has made in that regard since the last time they saw each other. As childhood friends, Chrom still knows her too well to be fooled.
"Your Eminence," he croaks.
Robin points at a strategic crossing by the center of the city. "Can you hold it?"
Chrom ponders upon the map. "Paladins and knights?"
He nods. "I can lend you Henry, Nowi, and half a dozen wyverns riders to cover you from above."
Chrom blinks up at Sully. "Would you consider allowing some of your men to temporarily join my squad, Captain?"
She tilts her chin up, defiance sparking in her eyes. "Name what you need, Captain. The Shepherds still answer to your call."
Whatever can be seen of Robin's face under the hood remains pleasantly indifferent at this open jab at his authority over Chrom. His end goal, after all, relies upon the cooperation between Plegia, Ferox and Yliss against Valm, a feat almost impossible to accomplish considering the vivid wounds the last war caused. Robin, however, intends to accomplish it nonetheless, and Chrom plays a key role in that. Sully, inadvertently, is walking straight into his machinations, a fact Virion has most likely guessed, considering the dark amusement tucked in the corner of his smile.
"Kellam, Vaike and Miriel," Chrom decides. "Libra, if he's still part of the Shepherds."
"He is. T'will be done."
Robin moves a swordsman figure in the middle of the model, at the center of the action where a majority of people were likely to see him.
"Then I believe we have found a functional defense strategy. I'll prepare my men accordingly at once."