Archive of Our Own

“Imagine a world full of dragons!” Robin said, and when Robin spoke Chrom couldn’t help but listen.

All of his preconceptions about the world as it stood had been quite comprehensively undone by his arrival in Askr. The logic and sorcery that governed Ylisse now seemed comparatively tame, positively one-note. He’d been summoned to this strange realm by yet stranger methods, in a flash of ruffled light, smack dab in the middle of the Day of Devotion festivities. He was still wearing his frills from the occasion. It was meant to be a day celebrating love – but love was suddenly the furthest thing from Robin’s mind.

Now, in its place, was that persistent devil called curiosity.

“I’m getting the impression,” Chrom said, sitting across from him, “that you’ve found a problem for your mind to work on.”

That friendly rumble of a voice had always brought Robin back from his dragon’s-eye, chessboard view of the world. Back to barracks, as it were. Today’s barracks, however, were covered in flower petals and lace, and featured his Chrom bulging out of a gentlemanly coat and hulking over a tea table constructed for people with half his muscle mass. The sight made his heart giggle in his chest.

“I’m sorry, love,” Robin said, taking Chrom’s hand and stroking it, placing it caringly between the silk tablecloth and the warmth of his own palm. His prince’s diligent hands deserved to be swaddled in softness such as that. “It’s just such an intriguing problem. I guess I’m not being polite, am I?”

Chrom tossed his broad shoulders in a shrug, looking completely unbothered. “When Lissa had us get all tailored up for these… clothes, I expected we’d be spending the festival in Ylisse. Being flown away by magic to some other world was hardly a swing I could block. I think you’d struggle to be ruder than that.”

“A world,” Robin emphasised, “full of dragons. Possibly hundreds of them. Alive. Not fossils or myths. Isn’t it intriguing? Don’t you just want to know more?”

“I want you to have a good day, especially as it’s been a bit of a weird one thus far!” Chrom did his best to laugh.

Halfway through a sip of tea, this admission made Robin put cup to saucer and stare at the last puddle in thought. The drink had a habit of revitalising his mind, but right now there was no need for the energy, purely the taste – he was already all but vibrating, and this forced him to slow down a little. While intellectually he understood what had happened to them in being summoned to Askr, he had to consider that Chrom was in something of a state of shock, and so tread gently.

“Chrom, you’ve already done plenty,” Robin said, making calming swirls in his tea with his spoon. “Lissa may have measured us up for them, but if I recall correctly, these clothes were your gift to me. I don’t need more than that. In fact, I’ve never needed a gift from you. Just you yourself, with me.”

Leaning back perilously in a chair that creaked under him, Chrom folded his arms and exhaled. Every so often, he glanced at a luminous white rose sticking out of the vase of decorative flowers on the table. It struck him as too beautiful to say goodbye to when they left their morning tea – not when it could still offer Robin so much joy with its being given. Still, he didn’t want Robin to know it was coming – like the day he’d planned, the gift had to be a flawless surprise. “I know you don’t need anything, but it’s my honour to help you know just how appreciated you are. I had everything planned out.”

“I don’t know what your surprise was,” Robin said, “but am I right in guessing it came with dinner?”

“Let’s just say it was to be the perfect dinner.”

“Perfect, he says! Well then!” Robin laughed, and with his laughs accompanied the tinkling of his spoon three times against his saucer. “That’s a high bar. That you managed you to organise a surprise at all on such short notice, in a totally unfamiliar world, is a typical Chrom miracle. So please, concern yourself not with the Day of Devotion. I already well feel loved.”

That didn’t sit right with Chrom, who tapped his foot, feeling his luxurious clothes rustling all over. He was a restless metronome, in pursuit of solely the most balanced and joyous music. What remained of the surprise was the only thing on Chrom’s mind, and this new shot of stimulus into Robin’s brain, the fascination with dragons that stirred him up – this was a threat. All the same, he knew what was more important. A threat to his plans, or putting a smile on Robin’s face. What could he do but draw the threat closer? Those two were not equal propositions.

“So,” Chrom said. “These dragons.”

Instantly Robin sat up. “Yes? Isn’t it just curious? What is it about this world, I wonder, that cultivates such a pronounced draconine presence…”

“Even to me, the basics make sense,” Chrom said. “Healthy soil. Bone-white clouds, perfect skies, high mountains… it’s a paradise here, and not just for dragons, but everyone. It’s a good thing this is the kingdom our Summoner ended up in. I mean, it must taste pretty nice to you, right?”

At first, Robin didn’t catch Chrom’s meaning. “Taste the… the tea? Yes, it’s pretty – Oh! OH! Yes.” He took a deep breath of the crisp, auspicious Askran air, and felt the dragon within him titter in delight. “The air is clean and clear, here. Rich with magic, and… unspoiled. Not just naturally pristine, but almost… alchemically unbothered. Undisturbed.”

Interested himself now, Chrom leaned forward, inadvertently taking up over half the tiny table’s airspace. “How do you mean? As in, there’s something in this air that might help you keep calm?”

The sentence made Robin flinch. He didn’t need to be reminded that Grima was a pit of acid in his soul, and that acid would eat away at the flesh entombing it at the first opportunity he gave it. Chrom just got excited at the idea of potential solutions, and this made him… indelicate.

“S-Sorry,” Chrom said, moving back a bit, realising his mistake.

“It’s okay,” Robin said. “It is interesting. Something to follow up on. By ‘unbothered’, I mean that… okay. So. In Ylisse, the air just smells a little like Grima. Not a lot, definitely not in a way any normal person can pick up. It’s something in the particulates.” By demonstration he held his teacup up to Chrom and swished around its amber contents, so the curtain of liquid pulled to the side – and revealed a scattering of trace elements, the last undissolved specks of the tea leaves. “It’s likely leftover magic from the war of the First Exalt.”

“That long, huh? Can you smell my ancestor, too? Do… do I have a magic smell?” Chrom self-consciously sniffed at his own underarms.

“No, no, love, don’t worry,” Robin chuckled. “Grima only smells because it’s just that huge and ugly.”

Chrom still gave himself a last spooked sniff.

“Whereas this place,” Robin continued. “There’s nothing like that. No smell that would indicate world scarring. It’s like it never had to face something like Grima, Duma or Medeus… either a place of tremendous peace, or able to recover astonishingly thoroughly. Either way, not a bad place to end up. If we simply must be summoned in the middle of a date with no say in the matter…”

Now Chrom chuckled. He looked around him at the radiant morning spilling its generous light across the limestone castle walls, and mused out loud. “A place of healing, at the crossroads of all these different worlds…”

Looking at much the same thing, thinking much the same thoughts, Robin added. “A great congregation of dragons in peace, and all their knowledge and wisdom…”

Both arrived at the same suspicion at the same time, as if their thoughts were holding hands. “I wonder…”

“I’m curious,” Robin said. “Could this realm, at some point, have been visited by dragons with the knowledge to keep Grima at bay?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Chrom said, with the gleam in his eye Robin knew well from the moments before a battle, when his foe and his goal alike were in sight. “This place must have secrets to offer that will prevent Grima from ever returning in our world. So you can be happy, and just enjoy your day for a change.”

“Are you still thinking about the damned Day of Devotion?” Robin asked, aghast, but secretly flattered.

“I can’t help it!” Chrom admitted, throwing his big hands up. “All I want right now is to host the best surprise possible for you. Any investigations we do will have to work around that, I’m afraid.”

As the surge of good humour passed between them, a few waiters came up and took their now-emptied saucers and plates away, and close behind them was the proprietor of the establishment. When she approached, Robin wasn’t sure whether or not to call her ‘Commander’, as she was not technically acting in said capacity right now, but did it ever hurt to be cautious? Furthermore, was this the same woman who had peddled them wares in Ylisse? Some magical reproduction across the fabric of the Outrealms? The implications of the woman were almost more terrifying than Grima.

“Thank you to the lovely couple for joining us for our Day of Devotion brunch!” Anna said with a wink. “We hope you enjoy the reduced rate, given you haven’t received your first pay in Askran coin yet.”

“I hope that’s okay,” Chrom said warmly. “I really do appreciate the Order of Heroes making a fuss of my partner.”

“It’s our pleasure!” The woman’s scarlet ponytail bobbed as she pressed her index finger to her chin and her smile became somehow more mischievous. “And don’t worry. We get enough visitors from Ylisse that their coin still spends!”

“About that,” Robin added. “Commander Anna, I may not look like it, but part of me is a vessel to a dangerous dragon, and –”

“Don’t worry, we have tons of those,” Anna said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Julia’s a great place to start, as are the Byleths. Oh, and the library! We have texts from all different places and times there.”

Robin blinked. “W-woah, that was… actually really helpful. Uh, thanks. Was I really that predictable?”

“No problem!” Anna exclaimed, nodding sagely. “And nah. It’s just, after a couple hundred Heroes, you learn to read the patterns. You’re not the first person to be worried about who they are – not even the first Robin! Everyone’s looking for some learning to take home for a better tomorrow. If only Queen Henrietta would let me charge for access to the books, oh, the killing I could make…!”

At this idea Chrom looked to Robin and was rewarded with the most horrid look of revulsion he’d ever seen his lover wear. He looked somewhere between a howling Risen and a funerary mask.

“On that note,” came a new voice, and the three looked to the table’s unoccupied flank. Robin wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it – the sight of another of himself, approaching freely like a mirror that knew no rules, wearing clothes and expressions independent to his own. This one was dressed for Winter Festival, a vermillion coat lined with fur and joyous brass buttons. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear, I just think I can help you out.”

Watching Chrom, Robin could see his partner’s breath quicken a little, and his cheeks pinkened to be conversing with two Robins at once. Then, he looked over at the nearby table from which the Winter Robin had come, and saw a similarly-dressed scarlet Chrom looking at him who, when their eyes met, blushed and hastily turned away.

“Please,” Chrom said. “Although if it’s very involved, I hope it can wait until after tomorrow night.”

“Oh yes,” the second Robin said, “this is not so very far away at all. Less than three hours’ ride out from the castle, past the village near the coast, there’s a temple. It was built by dragons from many worlds many years ago, and was made to store the knowledge they held, and act as sanctuary for their kind.”

With every word, Robin’s pulse was quickening and he glanced to Chrom with increasing energy and urgency. “Truly? Did it help you? With… you know?”

To prevent himself from putting his foot in his mouth again, Chrom focused on something, anything else. He took this moment, unseen, to take the gorgeous white rose, and slip it into his quiver of arrows – it might make a nice gift for his Robin at some point, or at the very least play its part in a day gone well.

“Oh yes,” Winter Robin said, with a fond and knowing smile. “It very much did. I feel much better about it all now.”

“Chrom, we need to go. Today,” Robin said, standing up on the spot. Chrom’s blush deepened to have two Robins staring down expectantly at him.

“T-today? It’s already nearly afternoon. By the time we’re ready to go, and by the time we get there…” He scrunched his face up in regret. “I don’t want to be riding back at night in unfamiliar territory.”

“First thing tomorrow morning?” Robin felt the stretch of each wayward minute between him and his answers, but again Chrom rolled his neck on his shoulders indecisively.

“It’s too close to the surprise,” he moaned.

Robin had just about opened his mouth to instruct Chrom to forget his damn surprise when Anna interrupted them by clearing her throat. Not long after, Robin would instantly be glad she had, for she had prevented him from saying something truly stupid and hurting his partner’s feelings. Chrom was not the only one capable of being indelicate in his haste – the problem of Grima could sometimes bring out the worst in them both. It made Robin hate its presence within him even more – it shouldn’t have to be a question of dying to stop it, or bickering over keeping it contained forever.

Now, Askr offered answers hitherto lost to Ylisse. Robin listened greedily to Anna.

“If I may,” she said. “That little village by the coast is not only close, it’s also a romantic and… popular destination for those celebrating the Day of Devotion! And, as luck would have it, home to one of the many inns partnered with Anna’s Devotion Day Deluxe Couples Experience!”

Robin had to stop himself from scoffing. Luck, indeed.

“So you two,” Anna explained, “can ride out today, in the luxury carriage provided with the service, spend an idyllic night out together, see the temple, and ride back first thing in the morning with plenty of time for your evening event! We’re used to quick turnover. PLUS, we even have payment plans for the new arrivals! I deduct a single coin from your wages for a couple weeks until it’s all paid. You won’t even notice!”

Ordinarily, Robin would bristle just a little at such a brazen sales pitch, but the thought of that temple, looming on the coast with all its vital secrets, had him running the numbers. It was worth it, but as the manager of his own army’s finances, he hated the idea of being in debt on day one. If he could somehow negotiate –

A sack of coins landed on his table. Chrom’s giving hand left it to hold Robin’s, then he looked to Anna. “You said Ylissean spends, right?”

Anna’s two fingers slipped into the bag’s aperture together and then separated, widening the space allowed by the drawstring so she could see the coinage inside. She grinned. “Sure does. I can still deduct a little if you want to upgrade to the Romantic Getaway Driver inclusive package –”

“I can drive the carriage,” Chrom said politely, then looked back to Robin, whose stare had softened into pure appreciation. “As if I’m letting you go on your own. On the Day of Devotion? No way. I’m coming with you, and we’re going to get your answers, and have a great time, and be back in time for the surprise.” He dabbed his mouth a last time with his handkerchief, stood, and coolly held his hand out to his boyfriend.

As he stood, he caught the morning sunlight, and by all the gods held by dragon and man, he shone.

“Well,” he said. “Shall we get packing?”

Robin leapt up and all but flew into his arms. They went off in a direct path, no more distractions, but trailing petals in their haste all the way. Watching the scattering of those flower-flecks all the way to the couple’s receding backs, a different Robin watched on knowingly – for Askr was just that kind of place.

--

Chrom’s coin had, upon close inspection, not bought much. When they’d packed their overnight satchels and presented themselves at the castle gates, Robin and his partner both had made noises of pleased amazement at the deluxe carriage that had trundled up to them, slow enough that it didn’t show its nearly-fraudulent hand too early. It was tall and white and layered as a wedding cake, with bowties the size of armoured knights hanging from its battlements. Chrom had taken Robin’s hand and assisted him into its shaded interior, with curtains over the windows and cushions on its seats, looking plush and luxurious enough for any passenger in all the outrealms.

Emphasis, Robin thought, on looking.

Two hours on the road had revealed the white paint peeling, the decorations thin and flimsy, the cushions sparse and insubstantial under his weight, the curtains jammed on their rods with just a few centimetres of uncomfortably hot sun unable to be stopped. On top of all that, even Chrom’s excellent horsemanship in the driver’s seat had been unable to mitigate the nauseating lilt in the carriage’s movement, as one wheel heaved on a crooked axle. If he was to get any thinking at all done, he had decided, it was to be on the spine of the thing and not in the churning belly.

So Robin had climbed onto the carriage’s roof and crossed his legs, feeling the breeze feed his racing mind. He draped his tactician’s coat over his head to keep the sun at distance, watching Chrom’s back as the man patiently drove the strong stockhorse below. Robin had no doubt Chrom shared his relief on that note, at least - better a carriage to go uncared for and unmaintained than a living, breathing animal.

“We’re bearing down on the inn, slow as cold treacle,” Chrom said after a few minutes of pleasant reading, the prince lifting his chin to the wind. “Sorry it’s taking a while. I can’t say I trust these wheels going down this hill.”

Raising his eyes to share Chrom’s view, he found instantly that he agreed with the chosen caution. The decline towards the low-lying Askran village below was not overly steep, but when structural integrity was already one’s foe, one should not make an additional enemy of gravity. The motion sickness that had stopped Robin from reading in the cabin had now chased him up to the roof, so he decided to place his eyes forward. Taking handfuls of creaky cream decoration, he clambered down into the seat next to Chrom on the driver’s perch.

“Let’s just hope it’s as sweet as treacle, too,” Robin said as he carefully adjusted himself into his seat on the sparse wooden plank. “Wow. They didn’t build this for comfort, did they?”

Chrom chuckled, but managed to ignore the spectacle, keeping his eyes on the road with some difficulty. “No they did not. I’m telling you right now, you’ll regret joining me here. I am… basically numb below the waist, by now.”

Robin found comfort by taking his weight off his behind as it rattled in the flimsy seat and instead leaned on Chrom, whose unmoving muscled arm felt like a pillow. “I dunno, I feel pretty comfortable here. A man could think up some pretty grand plans in a seat like this. I should have done this hours ago.”

“Let’s wait and see what your glutes have to say about that,” Chrom said, in summation, as he used one hand to draw Robin’s coat over his shoulders and patting it into place, making sure his partner was as comfortable as the seat could allow.

For all his bluster, Robin found he couldn’t work on any of the problems that filled his head. The question of the dragons was just much too tantalising, the implications of this strange world with its other selves too rich to keep his focus in balance. He worried Chrom might still be feeling the shock of his summoning, yet he watched him pilot their flaking carriage with a calmness like he was on Ylisse’s most placid country roads.

Catching sight of Robin staring, heroic breeze in his heroic hair, Chrom’s jaw raised in a self-conscious smile. “What is it?” he asked.

“Just wondering what you think of all this,” Robin said thoughtfully. “I mean, it’s all quite a shock, isn’t it?”

“A realm in need is one I’m happy to help,” Chrom said. He tugged the reins slightly to meet a curve in the road as it levelled out into a rocky flat. “I’m just a warrior, here. Not much more than muscle, which is a bit refreshing. It’s the smart ones like you who need to share their thoughts. You’re the ones who’ll help the Askrans bring peace to this world –”

“No, no, no,” Robin sighed. “I see what you’re doing, love. I won’t allow it. I express my thoughts all the time. That makes them slightly less valuable than an opinion shared rarely, like yours. So I want to hear it, truthfully. What do you think of Askr?”

Both men became all too aware of how shaky it felt under their seats as Chrom turned the words in his mouth before saying them. The conversation felt like its own journey mirroring the physical one they were on - travelling uneven ground.

“I don’t know yet,” Chrom said, with an exhale that communicated absolute truth. “I’ve heard there are a lot of heroes here facing harsh fates back in their own world who are seeing this place as something of a second chance at life. I’m happy for them, truly.” His eyes narrowed. “But there’s a part of me that’s very unnerved by what I see.”

“Well, you can’t just leave it at that,” Robin said, after Chrom had stayed quiet a moment. “What is it?”

With great deliberation Chrom freed his tongue from between his teeth. “It’s the part of me that sees rings.”

“Rings…?”

Chrom nodded. “As a descendant of Marth, and the first Exalt, it’s hard for me not to see history as a big looping cycle, a ring. You have a hero, endowed with Falchion or some other weapon that can get the job done, rising up against the oppressive will of a terrible dragon, like Medeus or Grima. And both hero and oppressor are summoned here, the whole horrible circle preserved in its entirety.”

At the mention of his other self’s name, Robin pursed his lips. He forced himself to remember how they had vanquished Grima, and freed his soul. The battle was done, and now he was untouchably Robin.

“So it’s not just being warped here unexpectedly that makes me feel uneasy, or hearing that Grimas exist here too,” Chrom confessed, “it’s arriving here and seeing that cycle repeated seemingly over dozens of different worlds. You have that Roy kid, and Edelgard, and the Corrins… each forced to face down dragonkind in their own unique ways. It makes me sad. And worried. If evil like that can follow us even here to paradise... what do we have to do to stop it?”

At this, Robin began to feel a little inkling of worry within himself as the carriage and conversation both lurched over the rock. Chrom’s distaste carried a lot of weight in his heart. “Are you worried about open conflict breaking out? The rules that govern summoned Heroes at least makes such a conflict… unproductive.”

“Maybe,” Chrom breathed. “I know that the Order of Heroes maintains peace well. It’s just that the part of me that’s done this before that’s worried. So many great minds testing the boundaries, with so much powerful magic. If someone manages to break the rules, then…!”

The possibility grew the stacking disquiet inside Robin, and he found himself clinging to anything he could, Chrom by knuckle and hope by brain.

“It can’t happen,” he said. “It won’t happen. There are so many good people in the Order of Heroes, and that includes good dragons. I have to believe they’ll stop any threat to the peace.”

“Yeah!” Chrom exclaimed, acting as though the thought was a comfort. Robin appreciated the attempt to downplay his worries, but…

“You’re a terrible mummer, my love.”

Corrin shrugged, his grin shifting but intact. “We have to believe we’ll stop the Medeuses and Grimas. The alternative is too scary to consider. I definitely don’t want all those other Heroes forced to make the same choices we did… one of the great regrets of my life involved someone who I loved very much, who wanted nothing to do with the cruel being infesting their heart, but having to do battle with it anyway. The Grimas would see those heartbreaks played out a thousand times...”

Robin barely replied, remembering. Remembering the feeling of Grima’s darkness in his heart was like imagining parasites, burrowing spiked worms crawling under his flesh. It was remembering pain, his soul stretched and pulled like membrane over the lid of a drum. And recalling, of course, being trapped behind eyes and a tongue that laughed, laughed as Chrom and all his friends were forced with agony to contemplate a killing stroke to their dear friend’s heart.

“I don’t want anyone to have to go through that, here or anywhere,” Chrom added, as though he was privy to Robin’s exact recollections. “But with what we know about dragons, it could happen to any of them. So how I’m gonna help is, I’m gonna help bring happiness now that I’ve been summoned. I’ll help the good dragons however they need it, and that starts with giving you the best Day of Devotion I possibly can under such short notice.”

Instantly, the smile returned to Robin’s face. “Smooth,” he said.

His mind had been jerked back to the now by Chrom’s cool attempt at romance. He could see now that the buildings weren’t the pinpricks they’d once been, measured against his thumbnail. Now they were scarcely minutes away, beginning to look like proper dwellings in place of toys.

“I’m also looking forward to that other festival coming up,” Chrom continued. He knew not to stop a good thing. “Where everyone dresses up as brides and grooms? I’m hoping you get picked. You’d look a sight in white. You’d clean up a bit better than this carriage, that’s for sure…”

Robin couldn’t help himself from laughing out loud. The welcome distraction was from the machinery in his mind, as it turned on the problem of evil dragons with too many unknowns to resolve it. He was beginning to feel truly, acutely thankful Chrom was here with him, keeping him anchored as he fretted over the thought that a world full of dragons might in truth be a dangerous thing. The magnitude of that thought was too great to solve in a carriage ride, so he was happy to chuckle along to Chrom’s spoken daydreams, and feel the growing, numbing soreness in his butt, just as Chrom had predicted.

“Regretting it yet?” He asked as Robin squirmed.

“Not for a second!” Robin answered with a grin, ready to take the answers as they come.

--

Their wheels, however lopsided, still managed to turn. Their flawed chariot, flaking at its hinges, managed to roll to an ungracious stop outside an unassuming inn, made from the same hewn oak and crooked nails as every other modest lodgings ever plonked on a roadside.

“Luxury, she says,” Chrom muttered as he took Robin’s hand and helped him down from the carriage. It made Robin laugh, but neither complained. They’d slept on enough hard ground in field camps to never turn down a bed.

Within, Chrom inquired as to the deluxe couples’ suite, and the tired-looking concierge blinked in utter confusion a few times before handing them a room key with a pair of white goose feathers taped poorly to its chain.

The room door swung open, creaking all the way, and revealing… an inn room. Nothing less, but very little more. The bed was spacious and looked surprisingly plush, with a few flower petals – days old, by the state of their wilt – scattered over the sheets. This gradual browning on the flowers extended to the rest of the room, with the mirror by the vanity chipped down to a keyhole, an uneven table flanked by chairs one wouldn’t trust with their weight, and curtains with strangely-hued stains.

“Well,” Chrom said, breathing the space’s air, examining it in all its lacklustre fullness. “At least it’s not –”

“Please,” Robin said, “not the wall watch comparison.”

“ – At least it’s not night watch hunched over a stone wall eating tough mutton,” Chrom said, smile simple and bright and beaming. The light was turning gold with impending sunset, and Robin’s heart danced with how it made his prince of Ylisse even more beautiful, festooned in amber glow.

“You love that comparison,” Robin noted, unable to stop his voice from dipping into deep affection.

“Hey, never hurts to be a glass-half-full kind of guy,” Chrom said. He was freeing his broad shoulders of their packs. He looked instantly comfortable blending in with the ramshackle room. It struck Robin again, as it had many times, that one might never guess at Chrom’s royal blood if they didn’t already know he bled it. “It’s an okay room! We’ll sleep well enough. Telling that story helps keep things less Chromplicated. Heh.”

Robin snorted, a sound that cracked open and became melodious laughter. It was the first of a few transformations the pun would herald – as the sun began to sink, so too did a confusing rush of a day settle into a long-winged night of blissful simplicity.

At Chrom’s insistence they took dinner in their room, where not even the shabbiness of their environs, with the peeling walls and blunted corners, could diminish the singular beauty of sunset captured through a window on his boyfriend’s face. The best thing about Chrom’s dark blue hair, in Robin’s eyes, was that in this golden hour it glimmered like an ocean at dawn.

Both had to laugh when their meal was served, and was mutton.

“Not too far from the wall, then?” Robin teased, but privately retracted the sledge as, drenched in a smoky, winelike gravy, the meat was tender and full-flavoured on the tongue. It was good enough that, when Chrom kissed him after plates were cleared, Robin had to wonder if he hadn’t just wanted another taste.

“Worth coming out now?” Robin asked, the question dwelling in his arching eyebrows.

“My surprise was still better…” Chrom hummed, then took Robin’s hand in his one, long callused by the leather grips of swords. “…But this is beautiful. Thank you, love.”

They kissed again, Robin leaning over the table with his hands planted palm-down amidst the cutlery. It lasted long enough for them to blush and giggle, their lips pressed together for many long seconds, and they would have continued with relish were it not for the single downside of salted mutton with gravy: their mouths smacked with thirst, and they’d emptied their carafe with their meal. Its last droplets trickled sadly to the bottom of the bottle.

“The things we put up with,” Robin said, his eyebrows half-lidded. He wanted to invite Chrom to further expressions of their love, if he could get away with it – but he really was parched.

“Let me,” Chrom said, standing – but Robin rose after and put his hand on Robin’s arm. He didn’t give his partner the chance to be his usual generous self, instead dancing around his side and lifting the wooden pail resting by the door.

“You,” Robin said, sinking a finger square into the velvet and lace of Chrom’s soft shirt, “have already done so much for me just by being here. Let me at least go get us some water to drink!”

Chrom held Robin’s gaze with a smize of his own, but Robin predicted his true goal from the start. He held the bucket away when Chrom made a swipe to snatch it, and rose his finger to Chrom’s chin, pulling him in for another kiss before breaking away and heading out the door to leave him wanting more.

Stepping into the evening gave Robin room for some clarity. The passing of twilight had left the evening cool and brisk, with no sweat-summoning humidity to glue his hair to his brow. A clean breath was good fuel for his ever-ticking thoughts, a clean shot of oxygen to his brain stem. He needed this time and time with Chrom in almost equal measure – hot blood and cool, each had their virtues, and when they danced in tandem Robin’s brain was able to do its best work.

The inn turned out to be deceptively big. After scaling the steps to ground floor, Robin had to pass through a hallway to the back entrance and into a big square courtyard. Crumbling stone pathways interlaced with overgrown weeds led to other wings of the inn. Their tiles looked like a hopscotch court, leading to a moonlit well in the centre.

Looking first to make sure that no-one was watching, Robin was really feeling it, so he took the suggestion the environment made and hopped across the tiles on one foot, making something of a fool of himself, but landing safely at the well with laughter on his lips. Then he hummed as the bucket to the rope and engaged the winch, watching the old thing wobble its way into darkness and rise again carrying a full-moon pool in which Robin’s face was reflected.

From there, he just had to get back to the room. The pail was much heavier now, so he didn’t skip, but instead walked, realising too late that the crickets had stopped chirping and the wind was too still.

“Ah, there. I know that face.”

The voice was unexpected. Unwelcome. It licked the corners of the inn like a fog. Gathering his wits swiftly about him, Robin turned and looked up. He forced himself to look right into the eye of the storm. It was one of his other selves, but distorted – his own features filled with hatred, eyes red with the curse of Grima.

“I recognise that face from mirrors in long nights of waiting,” the being seethed. “My confused vessel with no harbour.”

Looming ten feet over the cobblestones, Grima was a hanging pestilence. As always, Robin felt his guts daggered and twisted by the sight of his own face contorted in that superior and unearthly smile, his self lost behind those vermillion eyes which glowed like an aurora of blood. The Fell Dragon which wore the skin of his other self was wreathed in acrid, violet flame – it was as though his very presence was toxic, burning away for play the air that others needed for survival. Even so far below him, Robin still smelled him like strychnine and caught the contempt under his smug façade.

Robin’s mind raced. There was no use in fighting – whoever lost would just reform nearer to the Summoner. So he drew neither sword nor tome; a strike to the pride was the only one he could land.

“Get down from there,” Robin said, wishing he could yawn on command. “You’re embarrassing me.”

Souring visibly, Grima swooped down at striking speed with a snarl before stopping just shy of Robin’s face, now levitating head over head, close enough to make sure Robin could see the engravings of the additional eyes, the sharpened teeth… all the parts of his body that being Grima had made bestial.

“Don’t you mean, us? We are as linked as candle and dark. I am before you now as proof in flesh.” There was an unnerving quality to his speech. His voice dipped into draconic growls and snarls, to be sure – but something more, as well. It slithered and reverberated inside Robin as though it had dipped into unknown and forbidden registers of sound picked up only by the hopeless.

“No, I do very much mean me,” Robin snapped, flaring up. “Hover all you want in your own skin, but as we both know, that’s my body.” He thrust an accusing finger in the doppelganger’s face. “In this world or our own, it’s only a matter of time until you’re forced out of it.”

The serpent grinned again, finding comfort under Robin’s skin. “You betray yourself, stabbing at us with such empty bluster,” he growled. “Examine the board, worm. You lost this the moment you chose to engage. I told you already: I know that face. It is failure’s face. Your craven, inevitable resignation. You have found the answers you seek… and you don’t like them.”

Not for the first time in his life, Robin wished to not know what Grima was referring to. He could at least convincingly deny things he didn’t know to be true. “Unlike you, I can admit when I’m wrong. I’m missing something and that’s all,” he said hastily, and tried to turn to leave – but Grima swept in front of him, his sharpened finger digging into Robin’s forehead as he was pushed back into argument.

“The numbers don’t make sense at first, do they?” Grima said, toying with each word like they were morsels to be savoured. “But then, you realise… there is nothing special about this world. No blessing of heavens, no alchemical miracle in the air that stays the decay of dragons. Their numbers here only make sense… when you see the Heroes around the dragons. How many did you count with weapons made to slay our kind? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? How many Hero-Kings, how many of fangs of Naga exist casually together? Only a worm would dismiss such a happening, which explains why all these humans are so blind to the truth… and why you see it.”

Grima dragged his nail from Robin’s forehead down his nose. It crossed his lips, cleared his chin and landed on his stalled throat.

“And then it all arrives in terrible clarity,” Grima said. “There are so many dragons here because they can be contained if they need to be. They are all in a killing field and they don’t even know it.”

“You’re wrong,” was all Robin could lamely croak out. The dragon’s fingernail dug at him. “Those Heroes are good people. They would never –”

Grima laughed cruelly. “What, you think Chrom will stay his hand if the order comes down from that Summoner? Idiot. He must obey. And look past his sweet little bouquet to the true weapon at his side… he is one of our executioners.”

Robin had seen Falchion’s flash in Chrom’s hand many times and known hope. Now he saw it in his mind’s eye, and felt terror.

“But we can escape it!” Grima urged. He lowered himself to Robin’s level and retracted his hand, turning it palm up in offer. “We are a better class of dragon than those who flit about with no awareness of their encroaching massacre. We need not play the humans’ game. We can survive, if you just give yourself to the me within you. I will guarantee your life. I will even guarantee your Chrom’s…”

Gritting his teeth, Robin squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “It can’t be right. Why would this world summon Chrom and I, on this day of all days, if not to offer us a better future than what you offer?”

“To increase your suffering, fool!” Grima cried. “You lack so much imagination! All dragons go berserk! All gods consume their hosts! What better fuel to feed that inevitability, make your final form all the more furious and mighty, than the pain of your love turning to ash?!” His gnarled hand flexed and opened again. “But I can preserve it. I’ve done it before. Chrom can be at your side forever, a grey king on a leash, who never tires nor weeps…”

Something in Robin’s heart leapt at the thought. There was some low part of him, he knew, that would always lurch to imagine Chrom, contented and numb and his. Some shard of his dragon-soul that wanted to hoard and claw jealously at the affections of his Chrom. But thinking of Chrom’s smile given willingly restored Robin to his place above the board, where he could see all the pieces, including all the other parts of his own soul. Those were the pieces that didn’t give into fear.

“You’re a liar,” Robin said simply. “And always have been. And time will prove how wrong you are.”

Hand dropping, Grima’s lips curled upward in contempt, and he rose back up into the air where his thundercloud followed him. The forks of flame shifted and flicked like clanking shackles, and though they obscured much, they could not hide his displeasure.

“We will see what time brings,” he said, “when you burn out and are spent – and I will rush in to fill the space.”

With a final scream through the shadows Grima was gone, only his toxin smell left behind – and Robin dropped to his knees, sweating and retching. It wasn’t confronting that arrogant wyrm that left him sick – it was hearing his own worst thoughts echoed, his own terrible questions asked and given yet more terrible answers. His mind was filled with the blood of dragons. That wasn’t Askr…

Was it?

--

Nightmares seized Robin in their grip. It would have been one thing if they chased him down with fears for his own self - they could be exposed to a salve of logic and strength upon wakeup. No, these dreams placed him in a perpetual cycle of hurting others. Watching from behind his own eyes, Robin witnessed the death of Chrom, and Lucina, and Lissa, and Frederick, and every other Shepherd in a horrid line of friends that stretched beyond a blood-red horizon, and when the last ally was slain the next one stepped up - and was Chrom again, and Lucina behind him, and Lissa again after. The horror never dulled, only cut him fresh every time. Robin’s hand was heavy with blood. He laughed with a voice not his own, and screamed with air that choked him in its absence. He pleaded to his other self to stop, but he was speaking in nightmare, a language impenetrable to the waking. Over and over only Chrom said the one thing he’d always said, leaking from his lips with his last breath. It’s not your fault.

And then Robin was awake. He was contorted in his sheets, limbs splayed, chest thrust out and panting - and Chrom was there, illuminated by the post-dawn glow, hand resting on his chest for stillness.

“It’s okay,” Chrom was whispering, over and over. “It’s not your fault.”

Seizing control of his own faculties, Robin sat up and gulped down the glass of clear water Chrom offered him, slaking his parched throat. “Grima dreams?” Chrom asked, shuffling closer, ever-gentle, eager to calm the violent dreams with the comfortable, waking world.

“Mmm.” Robin watched the last droplets trickle back into the empty glass. “Worse than usual.”

“Because of last night?” Chrom asked, unable to disguise the worry in his voice. Robin noticed the tensing in his right hand; it had nothing to grip but silk sheets right now, but the motion, Robin knew, would usually serve to grip tight the sheathe of Falchion.

“I think so,” Robin answered with a nod, not wanting to admit to Chrom how his talk of cycles yesterday had also contributed. “There has to be a reason the other Robin suggested this temple. Maybe it has information on how to not just keep Grima at bay, but exorcise him completely. How could he have been so calm, otherwise?”

Knowing that Robin’s peace all too often could be found in the breadth of his arms, Chrom made to embrace his partner, but Robin wriggled out of bed without even noticing the motion. Chrom watched, more than a little worried, as Robin fretted around the room, picking up garments left strewn about in their relaxation and returning them to their trunks.

“We’ve wasted too much time,” Robin said bitterly.

“That Robin has been here in Askr longer than you,” Chrom offered, as he watched the tactician hastily fold a singlet with shaking fingers. Still shirtless from his slumber, Robin shook all over - and Chrom felt sympathy like a dagger in his heart. He felt desperate to give his lover something, anything, in the way of hope to cling to. “He would know, if anyone.”

“He knew something, that much is clear as glass,” Robin hissed. “There’s answers out there, Chrom. We should get back on the road as soon as possible.”

This made Chrom frown, and he tossed a button shirt at Robin for him to slip on. “Look at yourself, love. You’re shivering. This isn’t right. We should be returning to the Order after a scare like this, getting backup - not striking out on our own.” He saw the primal, displeased glare in Robin’s eyes and met it with all the care he could communicate. “You always did the thinking so that I was looked after, never rushing in without a plan. Well, now I need to do the same for you.”

Though he remained quiet, Robin looked at the shirt in his fingers for several long seconds, unfurled it deliberately, fingers smoothing over the creases of travel, and began to put his arms through its sleeves. Chrom smiled. As Robin began to do the buttons he was looking - and feeling - more like himself. “You’re right,” Robin said. “I want to keep going on to the temple, but we do need a plan.”

“I’m telling you, we need backup,” Chrom argued, now peeling himself out of bed and splashing water from a nearby basin onto his face. “There’s a Grima involved now, and we don’t even know if it’s safe to engage them. The magic that prevents Heroes dying… we haven’t been here long enough to know the rules yet. Does it even work outside Castle Askr?”

“Has to,” Robin shot back, as he shook his boots for pests and slipped them on. “They wouldn’t let us deploy, much less go wandering without so much as a warning if the spell didn’t work outside the Summoner’s influence. Heroes would get given armed guards, or escorts, if that were the case.”

“Maybe we’re expendable,” Chrom offered darkly. He saw Robin’s intense gaze and made his hands a flurry. “I’m not saying we are! I’ve just heard stories of cruel mercenary companies… plus, with hundreds of Heroes on tap, do they really need us two? We’re dressed for teatime, not for battle.”

As Robin donned the coat of lavender crushed velvet that had been tailored for him home in Ylisse, he saw the practical truth of Chrom’s assessment. There were other, battle-ready Robins who were already enlightened with whatever knowledge was inside that temple. What was he needed for? Grima was sealed within him, and he’d felt tired every day since, split to the bone and depleted. He glanced to the corner, where their ceremonial Destiny’s Bow and Falchion leaned together in readiness, form and function equal in Chrom’s militant hands.

“Maybe we’re here because,” Robin said, “we need to learn something. Find something for the good of Askr. Maybe the trip to this temple is the first step.”

Chrom buttoned his azure longcoat over his own frills. “You don’t know that,” he said. “I still think we should return to the castle.”

At the threat of this outcome a swell of energy filled Robin’s lungs and he rushed to Chrom’s side, surprising him. He grabbed Chrom’s hand. “Please,” he said. “I know it’s a tactical misstep, but I simply need whatever information is in that temple. This feels deliberate, for me to be here on the day that you were organising a surprise for me. This feels like the play of some greater and obscured intelligence in a game of wits, ensuring today is everything it needs to be, no matter the danger. If we want to have the best Day of Devotion we and everyone else can have…” He rose Chrom’s hand, and pressed it into his face tenderly. He wanted Chrom to feel his full lips, his warm cheeks, the fullness of his thankfulness for this uncertain journey. “Then we need to go to the dragon temple.”

Blushing at the tenderness and desire that swelled warmly under his palm, Chrom grunted and tried to keep cool – but found himself bewitched by Robin’s earnest plea. “Y-you sure about this?”

He received an answer by way of a kiss on his palm, which heated him even more and made Robin giggle at his squirming.

“I was thinking,” Robin said, his face easing to see Chrom’s agreement, “about what you said about rings.”

Chrom blinked. He looked surprised. “You… you were?”

“Absolutely. I mean, I think about everything, but I gave this one a little extra.” Now that they were both dressed, they sat down together on the bed, Chrom allowing Robin to lead the motion and dictate their pace. Now his partner squeezed Chrom’s bigger hand in his smaller, making up for its size with the added softness of his shirt’s lacy cuff. The world felt silent just for them. “What you said about that tragic cycle… felt sadly true. I can’t help but wonder if we’re here to help break it.”

That piqued Chrom’s interest; sparks came to life in his eyes. “Break it?”

Robin nodded. “Mmm. We’re a dragon and a human, and we’ve been summoned in a way that… brings attention to how in love we are. How defiant we are of all the rhetoric between our two peoples in conflict. Perhaps, we can prove all those tragic stories wrong. Maybe that knowledge, and whatever other knowledge we can get our hands on, is going to help us break this cycle and start up a new, much happier one.”

“A new, happier cycle, huh…” Chrom milled the idea like a seed in fertile soil, feeding it with the water of kind thoughts. “So if you’re right, and we break this cycle… you think we’re here to build something happier? A ring all our own, whatever that happens to mean to us?”

Robin knew when an answer was correct. His ability to see all the disparate pieces and their capacity to fit together had lost him battles and won him wars, and there was no muscle in his being that was more carefully trained. He read the truth like sheet music, heard the symphony in his head and envisioned its sound thundering across the battlefield in a swathe of favourable outcomes and victorious strikes – before a single order had been given.

So, simply put, he knew that that answer felt correct.

“I need you to trust me,” Robin said.

“Love,” Chrom said simply, “I’ve always trusted you, and always will. Let’s show this Grima our resolve. Lead on, to our better ring.”

“Oh, thank you!” Robin exclaimed, jumping up. He repeated the thanks many times over as he bounced around the room with Chrom, gathering their trunks, and equipping the Exalt with both his weapons. His last thanks given was a peck on the nose as they prepared to leave the not-quite-luxury suite behind, gone but for scent of memory.

“I still promise we’re gonna get back in time for your surprise tonight,” Robin whispered.

“One thing at a time,” Chrom said in answer, and was glad he did –

For when they got downstairs, the carriage lay in ruins.

One wall of its ivory exterior was shorn clear, exposing the innards to its outer air. Its ribbons, once proud however ramshackle, lay singed and unravelling in the wreck. One iron wheel lay flat on the ground, another had been twisted semicircular - and the core structure was punctured as if by a great horn. Fortunately, the horse who drove the vehicle remained in her stall, trotting around and whinnying nervously, but unharmed.

“Grima…” Robin breathed as he beheld the devastation. He sighed and dropped to his knees. “What do we do now…?”

For his part, Chrom’s face twisted into anger. He’d lost a lot of happiness to Grima, back in Ylisse. Seen Robin suffer too much and too deeply. Here, where the even the damned got second chances, he was going to make sure his Robin got better than he historically had.

Stepping out, Chrom undid the latch on the stockhorse’s stable and led the mare out, calming her with his broad hand.

“Chrom?” Robin asked, turning on his heel.

“Grab the water skins and dried beef, and leave the rest. We’ll pick the luggage up on the way back,” Chrom directed, as he took a large saddle from a nearby rack and fitted the stockhorse with it. Agreeing and obeying, Robin quickly stripped the bare necessities from their packs and forced them into a compact sling that hung from his shoulder. He couldn’t help but steal glances at the gutted carriage, looking as ingloriously dead as livestock half-rotted in the Plegian sun. Looking back, Chrom was suddenly in front of him - and Robin felt the ground swept out from under his feet as Chrom’s muscled arm gathered him up by armpits and knees and carried him, bridal-style, to the horse.

“I refuse,” Chrom said, as he heaved Robin onto the rear of the saddle, “to let you down. I still have so much devotion to prove to you here, and that starts here and now, with this temple. If Grima wants to stop us… it’s welcome to try!” And with one noble bound, Chrom had taken to the horse as well, and was guiding it from the stables and out onto the road. With a point from Robin they were on their way, sprinting at full pelt, galloping for where the city gave way to older trees, and where the now was beholden to older truths.

--

The fortress, when they reached it, was its own end of the known world. It was a spear of greenish glass stone clearly constructed by a civilisation of flight, as it rose from the tip of a stone pillar that rose, smooth and eroded, out of the sea. The clouds beyond had gathered over the ocean, a grey horizon that Robin looked grimly over as he and Chrom approached the sanded edges of the sheer cliffs.

“One bridge,” Robin muttered, observing the fortress. “Single file.”

The redoubt’s single lifeline to the land was indeed a thin bridge of dark glossy stone, polished to hard glass by dragonfire, and wide enough for only one visitor at a time. The wind whistling perilously at his ankles, Robin found no better time to step forth than the soonest - but Chrom’s arm caught him at his chest, then pointed him to the figure blocking the bridge.

Wearing Robin’s skin and clothes, Grima hovered over the single passageway, back turned.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” he asked, dragon-layered voice overpowering the gust of the cliffs. “A symbol of our supremacy. Untouchable by man. Only those we invite alone, on their knees, may enter our domain.” He turned to face the pair, a foul grin upon his face.

“Give up,” Chrom demanded, taking a step onto the glass bridge and revealing his hand on the glint of Falchion’s gold hilt. “You know you have nothing to gain. Will you really not stop until you’ve ruined everyone’s day?”

Ignoring him entirely, Grima fixed his gaze instead on Robin. “Of course you fly to me. You fly here, to knowledge and power, like a hopeless gutter worm to his drink. You’ve come just at the right time to join me… I am to shift, irrevocably, the balance of power in this world.”

“Does that mean…” Robin whispered, then rose his voice. “Have you seen the knowledge inside?”

“Not yet,” Grima confessed. The wind passed by him, a tremor through his coat and hair. “But it must be enough to twist our chains to breaking for good. Look how proudly your prince bears his dragon-killer. My victory comes not a moment too soon for all our kind.” He elongated his arm. “Last chance. Be one with me.”

“You have nothing to offer me,” Robin said without delay. “I’m already one with Chrom, a victory you will never know.” Chrom stifled his blush. He had to, for the fight that was clearly coming fast on the salted, stabbing gale. Falchion weighed his hip, and his quiver full of arrows was heavy on his back - he hoped they would be enough. He felt the recipient of the greatest Day of Devotion gift ever in Robin’s words, and felt keenly the need to crown them with deeds.

Drawing Falchion in one hand, Chrom started over the narrow bridge without fear. The legendary blade sung its high metal tone as it cut the sky, held aloft in Chrom’s hand. He extended his other, too, with the bow commissioned to show his love – and then, forgoing Falchion for the moment loaded its first arrow. He had to be careful in his selection, his fingers first closing around the ivory rose he’d discreetly tucked into his quiver, but he rapidly passed it over in favour of a proper arrow. He fired it into the sky as a declaration of intent, watching the wind carry it broad, whizzing away off into the horizon. His heart pounded in readiness as the dart sank below the bridge, an unspoken signal for war. He looked to Grima with a set jaw, making sure the Fell Dragon knew that the Exalt, justice and light, was advancing on its position.

Grima sneered. “My jailers have visited many indignities upon me,” he snarled. His hand flared with a corona of purple flame. “Now to bring you all down. Bars, warden, and all. It’s about time, you stupid vessel… YOU LEARNED YOUR PLACE!”

Thrusting his arm out, the foul fireball shot from Grima’s fingers towards Robin. Chrom, already on the narrow bridge, ran on the dragon-forged glass and leapt when he had the speed, launching high enough to slice the blast clean away with Falchion’s purifying edge. When Chrom looked up from the swing Grima was already there, glaring with six glowing eyes on his snarling head, hand wreathed in shadow. The dragon grabbed Falchion by the blade, and Chrom saw sparks as his foe scraped at him with a claw wrought from magic scales.

“My reign will be for all dragons!” Grima cried. He tightened his grip on this sacred blade, pulling it into the air and lifting Chrom with it. He floated them high and flung, plummeting Chrom down into freefall. “All dissidents will have their home here!”

“Chrom!” Robin cried, watching his partner fall. Fortunately, Chrom thought fast and acted faster, stabbing into the dragon-glass bridge, carving a deep niche in the glaziered stone that held his weight. There he hung, panting, feeling the overwhelming, swallowing sensation of the drop on all sides.

Looking up, he saw Grima sprout a shadowed pair of wings, and fear of a ruined future filled him as it always had. Obsidian collapse. Horizontal scale. The Fell Dragon was readying a shockwave to scatter them to the bones of the earth below.

Urgently Robin flipped an Arcfire tome out from his velvet jacket and unleashed a stream of fire from between his fingers. Heat washed over even his face, so it must have truly scorched Grima – who sizzled and sputtered, wavering in the sky as the enchanted flame caught him alight.

Swinging on Falchion’s hilt, Chrom shifted his body weight with a great pull of his swelling biceps, lurching upwards and rolling back onto solid stone. Looking up from his back, he knew time was too short to retrieve his blade – he whipped an arrow from his quiver and charged it into their flowered bow. He glanced at Robin, who nodded.

“Now!” Robin cried, and aborted the flame from his fingertips just as Chrom’s arrow flew, slicing the sky and catching Grima in his stolen chest. He roared in pain, the sound echoing with draconic force and rattling off the chalky cliffs. From there it carried far out to sea, where it caused a shivering ripple over the ocean.

“Become flesh for worms!” Grima hollered in vengeance, abominable energy blasting from his wings in arcing curved blades – aimed straight at Chrom.

Eyes going wide, the Exalt saw the death headed for his throat and rolled. He tumbled over chest and back and shoulder in a mad rush along the perilous bridge, feeling the hairs on his arm singe when the purple scimitars impacted mere inches away, but sliced only his shadow.

Running onto the bridge proper, Robin could see nothing through the violet haze of the aftermath – and fired a bolt of flame to part the smoke. Chrom was struggling to his knees. Grima snapped the arrow out of his chest and drew the resultant blood up into his hand, where he gathered more hateful and lethal magic – a ruinous guillotine readied along its path. The dragon was smiling, and now all semblance of the Robin that formed his foundation seemed gone. The elongated, toothy maw of Grima’s true dragon face was visible over the human vessel, gathering energy in its gnashing teeth.

Robin, too, now felt aware of the ocean drop hanging precipitously to either side of him, but could not let himself stop or slow. Chrom needed him. Chrom, who was only in this mess because he was so determined to give, so determined to see his partner smile. Chrom, whose aim was to deliver the best day ever. Chrom, whose love was enough to fill many, many worlds beyond just his own.

In that moment, Robin decided: no more pain for Chrom! Not today!

Filling his lungs, Robin unleashed a roar that surprised even himself with its volume, and sprinted as fast as the legs of a thinker could carry him. He ducked low as he ran and snatched Falchion from its groove in the stone without breaking stride. It wrenched free from the bridge in a glittering crumble of shards. Grima cackled over their heads, thrumming with power. Robin knew the bolt to come. He knew its burn and its edge, how bit the skin, and how deeply it hurt – and everything in his body screamed at him to not let it befall his Chrom.

“Love! Swap!” He cried out, and Chrom’s eyes sparked in recognition. Destiny’s Bow was tossed to him as Robin lobbed Falchion in a lopsided pass, sending the divine steel on an arc to its wielder. The bow, with an arrow waiting in the string, reached Robin first, and he charged the bolt as he buckled his knees and dove, transferring the momentum of his sprint into a heroic slide across the obsidian bridge. He slid with his arrowtip facing skyward, waiting for his sights to align. Grima was shrieking in delight. The dragon’s spectral dragon opened, and its fell flare dropped – a meteor carrying death in its contrail.

Finally, two things happened. Instantaneously, as Robin had planned them on the fly. His momentum crashed him into Chrom, bumping him a metre downrange and out of harm’s way – and his aim came into perfect alignment with Grima, putting his wretched other self into harm’s way. He threw his Arcfire tome and dragged his arrow along its page as it fell, striking the flechette like a match. It caught fire as the tome shredded, burning bright scarlet, and from the cascade of loose pages falling into the ocean below there launched his lone, flaming arrow.

The exchange was brutal for both.

The Ruination spell hit Robin like a destrier at its full pelt, slamming him into the stone and blasting him with searing, excruciating magic. The bridge shook from the impact. Dark smoke rose. As Grima leaned in with a mad grin to witness his victory, the arrow emerged from the purple smog and struck him again in the heart, right next to the stump of the first, and made him roar in agony and fury once more.

“YOU THINK THIS IS ENOUGH!?” He bellowed into the smoke, every word coated in a venomous, growling echo. “You will never be enough! No fire will burn me away! No arrow will pierce me deep enough! We will outlive you always, and break your thrones, and conquer freely at last!” He clenched his fists as went free down his bare chest. “Our names will carve all the worlds between us! Grima, Medeus, Anankos, Duma – and we will not be alone! We will be joined by others who you will come to dread. Jahn. Velezark. Loptous! We will be prisoners no more, and all light of human flame will be smothered beneath our imperishable night!”

He laughed, laughed into the darkness, laughed into its churning dim – until light burst through.

Falchion, fang of the dragon goddess and champion of all man, rose from the debris cloud glowing gold, spinning in artful arcs. It trailed light all the way up to Grima’s eyes, who beheld it with fear, knowing what came next.

The gloom bisected and Chrom leapt after his blade, his might form rich with power. Blade and body channelled the aether as they rose in perfect concert. Chrom stopped in front of Grima and took hold of Falchion, his face like noble thunder as Chrom passed an ages-long second in hangtime before his blade sang a luminous requiem.

Falchion, gifted by Naga, guided by Chrom, sliced through the dark latticework of Grima’s wings, shredding the spectral magic wherever the radiant blade passed. Grima raised a hand to stop it, but the dark claw was no match now for this awakened blade – it scattered into scales and scraps of shadow as mighty Falchion unseamed it. Fragments of a dark god fell and dissipated into the ocean below.

Rearing back, Chrom gathered all his strength for a last blow. He aligned his cutting edge and dreamed a little of Robin’s little smile – and that made the rest easy, to free this suffering one.

Grima howled as Falchion crashed its spectral head, cleaving its horns and splitting its terrible jaw down the middle. The force of the blow broke not just the phantasmal dragon, but carried into the vessel as well. The strike sent Grima plummeting to earth on snapped wings, and he trailed snarling, outraged sound through his entire descent. He fell clean to the end of the bridge, crashing into the rock at the entrance to the temple. He landed and attempted to rise again, but could not, so he stumbled – crawling to the stone, limping towards the ground-borne entrance a lowly human would have to use.

Soaring, his coat open and caught on the wind under his arms, Chrom aimed for the bridge. The rose he’d been keeping in his quiver flew high behind him and separated in the breeze. Robin gasped as his Chrom descended, touching down gracefully in a curtain of sparkling white petals and lace.

“Ah, hells,” he swore, as he tried to catch a petal or two with a shake of his head. “I was gonna give you that…” He stabbed Falchion and took a knee urgently. His hands made eagerly to tend to Robin, who was groaning and clutching at whatever hurt, which was everything. “Are you…!?”

But already Robin was rising again. He waved off the princely hands that made to cradle him. “I’m fine,” he gasped, wincing as he forced himself into a seated position on stiff muscles. The dark burn felt like every one of his organs was being pinched and jabbed as he moved, sloshing about in the bubbling cauldron of his own interior body. “Or at least, I’ll be fine with a few months of sleep…”

Slinging an arm around Robin’s shoulder and bracing him with the other palm on his chest, Chrom helped Robin take to shaky feet. With what strength he had Robin patted himself, eager to at least try and shake the dust from his lovely overcoat and trousers. It did little. The whites of his shirt were too far gone, caked in muck and getting no brighter without water and lye first.

“He’s moving,” Chrom said. It wasn’t an alert, or a call to action; he said it wistfully, almost piteously. They watched the once-proud Grima crawl forward on all fours, wailing in rage as he did. “I almost feel sorry for him.” Chrom’s face fell into sadness as he watched.

“I don’t,” Robin said. “You have so much love, Chrom. It’s sweet. But even if we could save that poor other me… even if we could forgive Grima for all it takes from us… even if we could allow it to have whatever knowledge is in that temple…” Robin placed his hands on Chrom’s, and guided them together to the gilded handle of the Bow of Destiny. Their shared will given artisan, martial form. “…He’d still need to pay for ruining the lovely shirt you got me!”

The bow pulsed in assent between their fingers. It pulsed warm affirmation in their joined hands. In all these realms of magic and manakete, many weapons were just as living as the flesh that wielded them, and now this one took its moment to become radiant in the hands of the devoted couple. Its string became a fibre of light, a thread glowing with delicate strength. Chrom reached for an arrow, but Robin stopped him – and moved his hand to Falchion’s hilt, still dug into the glass at their feet.

“That would do it, and then some,” Chrom mused, and gazed into Robin’s eyes in a search for resolve. “You sure you’re comfortable with this?”

Robin nodded. “We have to break the circle somehow.”

Together, they loaded Falchion into the arch of the bow and drew back the flashing string, nocking the sword like it was anointed lord of all arrows. The runes engraved into Falchion lit up, matching new ones on the Bow, the united arms thrumming with aligned purpose. Falchion waited in the bow’s yawning aperture – a dragon tooth in a human mouth.

Releasing together, Robin and Chrom bit. The fang was loosed, the blade shooting forth with a brilliant shockwave, and it drew a line of sunlight that refracted in the dragon-glass bridge, shimmering every colour in a perfect line. The obsidian sparkled behind the sword as it soared its path –

And then the path ended in Grima’s back.

With a crack and a fatal grunt Grima stumbled forward, blade impaled through his gut. He fell forward, making no further limps to the temple, but still breathing, not yet faded away and recalled to the Summoner’s side.

With the beast felled, it took just seconds for Chrom and Robin to catch up. Their steps took them to the place they were breathless to reach, Grima stopped just short of the enlightenment beyond. It was the place where the dying met a door, and Robin tingled at the thought of passing that boundary.

“Go in ahead,” Chrom said, squeezing Robin’s hand, looking guiltily at the skewered Grima. “I don’t want you to have to see this, love.”

As he spoke, Grima writhed onto his side and spat at Chrom’s boots. “You think I want your pity? WORM!?”

“I think you need his mercy,” Robin said matter-of-factly. “Be smart and accept it. Chrom, you don’t have to do this alone.”

“Robin,” Chrom breathed, tinging pink despite the grim display at their feet. “My Robin… you are never happier than when you learn something new. Go in there so that, when I follow, I get to see a smile as bright as all knowledge.”

His heart going soft, Robin teared up a little and nodded. Chrom touched his cheek tenderly, and his hands seemed much more suited to it than the violence that had brought them here.

“You disgust me,” Grima spat, but the curse went unheard. The tears brimming in Robin’s eyes made him too overwhelmed to say anything, much less hear Grima’s defeated bleating. Too overwhelmed to reply, Robin simply gave one big nod to Chrom, pecked him on his cheek, and ran as fast as his wounds would allow through the beckoning gate, the slate green doors open wide to him.

Chrom watched his lover’s back disappear into the great, ageless structure, and was happy. The temple accepted its own kind, and Chrom had manifest faith that Robin’s gigantic and generous mind could use this place’s wisdom and create the battle plan to end them all – the one for lasting peace.

Then, war stumbled to its feet. Grima teetered, but fixed his loathing gaze on the Exalt.

“Ah, right,” Chrom said. “You.”

Falchion was still lodged in Grima’s torso, so Chrom knew his reply was coming from some spectral organ. There was no breath in those split lungs.

“The vessel,” Grima seethed, voice like lightning trapped in a canyon, “that you mistakenly believe to be your friend. It will succumb to me, sooner or later, as it was crafted to. It matters not what dances you do with what fortunes. All paths lead to me.” His bloody grin stretched across his face.

As he listened, Chrom considered just pulling Falchion out and ending the farce here and now. He could see that the ruined body was leaking motes of light in a steady escape, the common currency of souls that would reform nearer to the Summoner. Only the force of Grima’s hate was holding him together for these last seconds – and whether they passed in peace or pain was in Chrom’s hands.

“Robin,” Chrom said firmly, “is a person.”

“No!” Grima’s eyes went wide, and his voice lurched like it was reaching for the top shelf. It was gloating, yes, and cruel, yes, but it seemed almost… desperate. Like it was struggling to communicate the gloriousness of its truth to Chrom, in hopes, perhaps, of an understanding. An alliance that could never be reached. “There is no person, except for the person they will become. And they will become me. You have seen the proof in the haunted eyes of your other selves. Validar has played you all for fools. He set the board for my return with immaculate precision, and it cannot be stopped in any Ylisse. Do you not see, you play brinksman with the inevitable! You throw away the lives of all your friends and family for Robin, when you could save them all if you but accept what is immutable and submit to Grima.”

Though he tried to be an optimist – a habit only encouraged with Robin around to gild his fortunes with good strategy – Chrom let his face fall. “It’s true,” he said. “Robin’s father, while we were all sleeping comfortably in our fake peace, skulked around at night, sewing the pieces of his corpse-god together. We can’t prevent it. For Robin, all roads lead to you.”

At the unexpected turn, Grima brimmed with pride. “I misjudged you, Shepherd. You do see how doomed is your flock…”

“But!” Chrom interrupted. “You are just a point, a place, in Robin’s life and travels. You are not his final destination. Roads do lead out of you, and I will help him find them!”

Rearing back, Grima turned again to snarling. “Just when I thought I might be getting through to you! Why do you make it so hard for me to save you!? Forget it. I care not. You will see your end in the night I am planning. And what a wretched end it will be for you both. You play at lovers, yet I will teach you that of all the acts of intimacy… murder is the most amatory.”

Save you. The words made Chrom’s heart thump – he had a hunch.

“Robin?” He asked. “Robin, are you in there?”

For the briefest moment, the purple fire faded, and the face took on a singularly human sorrow. “Chrom…”

The pain he saw now in that Robin’s tortured eyes made Chrom hurt. Too much sorrow in the sight. He was caught between having hoped Robin was within, and now – NOW – knowing it, and knowing also that Robin was trapped in his own body, a hell beyond imagining.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I don’t how long, or if it’ll even be me, or the Chrom of your world – but we’re going to free you. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Like blood flowering outward from an exit wound, Grima’s expressions contorted Robin’s face again. “You’re a liar, Exalt,” he growled. “The Chrom of my world is a cold corpse. I crowned him King of the Risen in mockery.”

“Or in love,” Chrom said. “And if I’m right about that, he will still save you.”

The Robin was gone now. Only Grima remained on the face. “I do not want. I do not love.” He said it with gritted teeth and sad eyes, like a child covering a bruise with a hand.

“Then what good is having a world? I suspect you’ll quickly get tired of your own company. That’s the trick, Grima. A good shepherd understands why we have sheep, and why we have to look after them.” Chrom advanced forward. Grima recoiled with what limited strength was available to him, which was a pittance. Seethe as he might, Chrom’s advance could not be stopped. “They are not fleece and meat. They are shelter and sustenance, and Robin taught me that those things, duly applied to the right person at their most lost and confused… well, it can change a world.”

Grima flared up and hissed in Chrom’s face, but he didn’t flinch. Instead he grabbed Grima by his thin wrist and twisted him around. Then he took Falchion’s hilt, still sticking gruesomely from the body’s back, in his hand which he tensed to keep from shaking.

“When we return to the Summoner, their magic keeps us from death, but we still get that painless moment of release in our souls,” Chrom said. “Robin… I’m sorry this moment of freedom is all I can give you right now. By my hand, by my word, by the crook or the blade… I will give you more one day.”

The shining path of a tear trickled down from the lost Robin’s eyes. Grima rose his fingers to it, and stared at the liquid marring his shadowed hand in offence and confusion.

Chrom twisted his sword, and Grima split into strands of light that unravelled into motes, from motes into particles, and from them into something yet smaller but no less potent, that travelled vast distances in granular time. Chrom felt it as a flutter in his matted hair, but in his soul, he felt it as a measure of relief, as though the thankfulness of the momentarily-freed Robin was phasing through his chest and sparking off his heart.

Staying on the edge of the cliff for several seconds, Chrom cherished that wind that might have been his other half. Here, where land met ocean, where bridge met bastion, he could be the meeting point at which one could see, or build, or simply imagine, a more beautiful horizon than the one they had walked to thus far. He stood in the breeze until he was sure the last afterimages of Robin had passed beyond his ability to help them, then took a long and stabilising breath, and turned to enter the temple.

His own Robin, his own love, still needed him today.

Up close to the temple walls, Chrom realised there was more to this strange sanctuary than he’d first assumed. It wasn’t just a structure. It was an argument, detailed and compelling, articulating in cold glass how the world would look if dragons, not humans, had spread the awesome power of their culture across the wide world. This close, Chrom could see his own murky reflection in the walls of the temple. He could see its globular imperfections, still as beautiful as the most intentional of touches. Carved by dragon fire and chipped by ocean water, the walls curved at angles that resisted the light, forming an optical illusion that boggled Chrom’s eyes: on some steps the walls looked as straight as rulers, others the tiles drizzled like melting pearls. And across it all, like a mould of the sea wind, the frost of salt crept up its gaps and mortar.

He felt dwarfed by the hallway, made to envelop the shoulders of two or three dragons abreast. It took him some minutes to cross with his human stride what would have been a brief crossing for dragons, but he saw the footsteps smeared in the salt below, where Robin’s boots had led him to the library and all its forbidden knowledge. He took a breath and entered, striding in –

And shot back with alarm as Robin’s arm caught him just in time.

“Careful!” Robin cried, breathless with concern. Chrom’s feet skidded upwards with his momentum, and kicked a stray piece of green glass that fell away with a clack and plummeted down the gaping shatter where the library used to be. It bounced off jagged pieces of masonry, remnants of lower levels long broken away from the building, and finally fell out of sight and into the ocean, so far below that they saw no splash.

Chrom and Robin held each other and stood, breathless, on that unexpected cliff. Around them no building remained, not above or below or before them, instead facing an obstructed line all the way out to the grey horizon. It stared back at them with a lidless, compassionless eye, and kept its secrets.

“It’s gone,” Robin breathed. “All the knowledge. It’s all gone…”

Chrom felt his heart sink as the magnitude of the loss began to hit him as well. “When did –” He frantically looked around for an enemy not present. “When did this happen? And by whose hand!?”

Robin kneeled down, which caused Chrom to snap out his hand and grab his partner’s shoulder for stability. They only had inches of the glass to stand on, and the merciless ocean churned and swelled below them. The wind whipped around their feet, carrying bitter salt that gave their revelation the rank of saline. It dried out their lips. Robin slowly reached out and touched the edge of the glass, expecting to draw back a bleeding finger, but his hand passed over it. It was smooth and eroded, pleasant to touch.

“Centuries ago,” Robin mused, with a bitter laugh. “Maybe longer.”

“Then – they why would that other Robin send us here?” Chrom snapped, wheeling around. He was thrusting his question into what few corners of the room remained, as though seeking an answer from the salt-scum. “Why would Grima commit himself to this position?!”

“Because it’s a cycle,” Robin said, first to Chrom, then to himself, as understanding dawned on his face. He scoffed as the comprehension threw its light across his big, chewing brain. “Oh, I’m crazy about this. This is a stroke of genius, even for me.”

“You’re telling me this was intentional?” Chrom asked. His jaw was slack with disbelief. “No way. You, you’re pretty good at keeping things close to your chest. But Grima is a terrible liar. The one we just fought was fighting for real. He wanted whatever was in here.”

“He did, and he just learned the same lesson we did.”

“Which is?”

Robin stood and overlooked the horizon, bigger than all his plans, unchangeable, unaccountable.

“You can’t change everything,” Robin says. “The ring goes around and around. The Summoner pulls us here, and every single one of us is predictable in the extreme. Every Robin comes out, thinking our plans can tip the scales permanently in Askr’s favour. Every Grima emerges, thinking this is the world they can carve a throne out of. But there’s nothing here, for either of us. We both have all our powers, but are singularly powerless to change anything here, and yet we still meddle. Despite the fact we can’t even guarantee our own survival in our home worlds, we get here, a second chance at a peaceful life with our friends, and loved ones, and with you… and yet, we can’t just be thankful. We just HAVE to look at this world whose conflicts have resolved themselves without us for untold millennia and think, we’ll be the ones to fix it, or to end it. Break the cycle when we should be making a new, kinder one of our own. So the first Robin and Chrom to arrive here… they must’ve thought this up.”

Robin turned to face him just as the sun broke from behind the clouds, grey drab erupting into gold light that captured Robin’s silhouette and bathed his silver hair in polychromatic light. Chrom blinked, and suddenly found himself standing at a crossroads that he could not describe, but identify only by instinct. Askr existed at the gateway between worlds, and Chrom now had a brilliant, mind-expanding awareness of his place at the end of a cherished chain. There were many Chroms extending in place behind him, having stood in this same moment, and there would be many more in the future as well. The Robins extended, a similar undulation in space and time, potentially infinite variations of the same two people – dressed in all kinds of costumes coloured and silly and grand – learning the same invaluable lesson:

While you’re here, things will be okay.

“Guess you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, huh?” Chrom asked, daring to smirk, trying to lighten Robin’s humbled face.

“Yeah. Clever clogs, we are,” Robin chuckled, but his face fell shortly after. “I think I understand what we wanted us to learn. Feels weird saying that. But all the same…” Robin looked at Chrom, sighed, and Chrom could see his eyes start to glisten with oncoming tears. “I dragged you all the way out here for nothing.”

Watching his partner with great concern, Chrom’s heart contorted with pity. He stepped forward and took the weeping Robin into his broad arms, calming him with a bracing hand on his ivory hair. His deadlines and petitions? Chrom forgot them all, shaking his own concerns away like he’d loosened a great weighted cape off his shoulders, and let it fall forgotten.

“My Robin,” he whispered, voice low and rich. If Robin had been a spell, just a concentration of magic in the listless air, this was the voice Chrom could have used for an incantation. It shaped his heart and bent his focus, and his drew his dripping eyes to Chrom’s steady and loving gaze in the moment he needed it most. “My brilliant, burdened Robin. You’ve always been too hard on yourself. You and Grima are always locked in this horrible game of strategy, but even when you’re winning, you’re not happy unless you can call checkmate in three turns or less. Am I right?”

He spoke the last words with a gentle laugh, and it persuaded Robin to glance at him and nod imperceptibly in admission. He looked away instantly after, though. His cheeks were pinkening to hear himself described from afar.

“So, you’re a perfectionist. That’s totally okay with me. Hells, I basically need you to be. Without my other half I’m more or less useless, whether it’s waging war or remembering where I put my coat last night. I need your big, beautiful mind at my side, my love.” Now it was Chrom who went rosy as he spoke. His thumb went to his lover’s cheek, to stroke it as it warmed. “But I also need you to stop flogging yourself just because you’re in stalemate here. It’s not your fault, Robin. Robin, listen to me.” He made the averse, embarrassed man meet his eye to say what he knew. “It’s not your fault. There’s nothing we can do, and there are no wasted moves when the game is just to survive.”

Holding Chrom’s gaze, the tears now fell freely, streaking wet-dust trails down Robin’s cheeks. He looked frustrated, perplexed, all the churning inner machinery of his clogged and tortured brain dragged out to the surface, where the air was acrid and the wind spontaneous. Dragged into the moment, Robin tasted the salt, of the ocean air and his own tears mingled, on his tongue and thought for a moment how bitter and how rusty it was. It tasted like exile. Looking at Chrom should have eased him, but it didn’t. It only made the frustration worse to see that puppy of a nobleman’s smile writ blue in his eyes – Robin loved him so much, and wanted to save him so badly, that everything else fell away, now lost to a luxurious, frivolous past. The lack of this library, with its secret to instant victory, felt as good as an omen of inevitable defeat – even if Robin knew professionally that there was no sense in confusing the two. Retreats made sense all the time. Victories were often hollow. Chrom was right in that the only move that made sense was the one that ended in survival.

And that just made him cry harder. It all just felt so uncertain.

“So that’s it, then?” he choked. “We could be here months, years, and we can’t do anything to stop Grima? We just keep our pieces circling the board, surviving?”

Chrom shook his head. “No, love. While we’re here…” He held Robin’s trembling hand and calmed him. “…We pack away the board.”

Before Chrom’s very eyes, Robin was transformed by grief as the magnitude of his burden hit him all at once. He never let go of Chrom’s hands, but he dropped to his knees and wept into Chrom’s stomach, Chrom’s silken shirt warm and wet with his partner’s sobs. What Chrom would have given to pull him up, and sweep him away, and kiss him better. What worlds he would have forsaken and what bonds he would have broken just to see the light of hope fill his lover’s eyes again. But Chrom had seen enough years and felt enough grief to know that sometimes, there was no substitute for release. So he stroked Robin’s hair, and held his squeezing hand. He made of himself a presence, a constant, as kind and certain as the waves which aided him with their soft and ceaseless rhythm.

--

With time he saw Robin shuffling on sore knees to rise, and when he rose his head, Chrom had a surprise waiting for him, though a curious one – the bare and verdant stem of a stripped white rose. It had been plucked clean by Chrom’s earlier descent, with only bent leaves and perhaps two baby petals to its stalk, but Chrom offered it to Robin all the same.

“I know it’s not perfect,” he said. “But I still want to offer you this rose. Happy Day of Devotion, my love.”

Wiping his eyes and gingerly taking the bald stem, Robin examined it with a growing smile. “Wow,” he said. “Even without its flowers, it’s still so pretty. You know, its phyllotaxy is the exact same as the stem of the rose that adorns the battle standard of Valm’s Priestess Corps, the Mila Eternal!”

“I was not aware of that!” Chrom said, as earnestly as possible.

“And the legends say that the white rose is the closest earthly relation to the light that surrounds Naga in Her Divinity.”

“Then may that light see fit to bless us,” Chrom added, as he helped Robin back to his feet proper. He’d only ever known roses for their beauty and their message of love, but the more niche and personal ways Robin found to enjoy his wrecked gift, the better. His smile made him wonder if it was even wrecked at all. Robin smiled and twirled the bald rose in a circle as he and Chrom made back for the temple’s entrance together.

“My surprise was,” Chrom said, knowing its moment had passed, “to throw you a big dinner with every one of our comrades who’s made it to Askr. Not that original, I know, but it was short notice. My original plan, back home, was to have Tiki there as well, and she was going to attempt to commune with Naga so you could talk to her about… well, whatever you wanted to know. In her 5000 years of life, she’s bound to know something you don’t, though I’d need to see that with my own eyes to believe it!”

Robin listened intently, eyes glinting with appreciation, listening to how that gift, too, had been stripped of its petals.

“Then we got here, and it’s all been chaos. Tiki is here, but she can’t commune with Naga here, and then I learn Naga Herself is here, but She might not be the Naga from our Ylisse, and it just all got too complex to arrange in a single day. So I thought I’d keep it simple.” He looked to Robin, grinning. “If you can wait to know everything until we get back, then for now we’ll just have fun with all our loved ones who make it here. No Grima nonsense to interrupt a good time.”

Though he usually kept the matter of Grima close to his chest – perhaps too close for some – Robin made no secret of liking the sound of that, very very much.

“Sounds like the perfect dinner,” he said.

“Though…” Chrom added, wheeling around to measure the sun’s progress through the sky, “if we don’t pick it up, we’ll be waking the chefs to make it happen!”

“Then we better be off!” Robin laughed, and sprinted off with his arm linked around Chrom’s, dragging his muscled prince with him back outside to where the ocean air crystallised in salt on the pillars and spires of the dragon temple. They ran back towards their horse, leaving the cracked glass place with all its learnings (both lost and found) behind them.

Unbeknownst to them, the circular structure of the library stretched out below them as they ran, visible only from the skies where the dragons might have flown. They had designed and forged it as a great spiral of knowledge leading up and down simultaneously to pinnacles of wisdom and enlightenment, but in their absence it had half-fallen to the sea. This was visible from its floors, of course, but what remained hidden to all but the skies above it was the shape that remained: from Naga’s point of view, looking down on Her rose, carried by Her enemy’s vessel turned dearest ally, all that stood of the structure was a broken circle.

--

Castle Askr sat throned on a hill and was crowned by the sky, and this Robin could not criticise. Its white spires entranced the clouds into its orbit, and at its back great cliffs fell like a cape of bronze to the feet of the land below. It was the most fabulously defensible position he could imagine, impregnable and unassailable without incalculable loss. It offered so much to the knight and the sniper, the defender, and so little to those who would see it toppled.

But to Robin’s doom-fixated mind as their laden horse climbed the hill that had been so easy to descend the day previous, there was one kind of person to whom the castle offered even less: the pilgrim. The seeker of knowledge, who might be returning empty-handed from a fruitless quest for greater truths having found only cold disappointment. On these wizards and wanderers the pearled towers of the castle stood imposing and full of judgement, its cathedralic masonry the lined face of a censorious judge. It was even crueller now in the dying moments of sunset, returning in failure to this limestone titan lit by blood-scarlet dusk.

Robin’s heart shook with every step of the mare beneath him. His breath was seized and shook down in its rattling passage to his throat. Even if he’d been meant to learn this lesson, how was he to tell everyone that he had no solution? Grima was his problem, a bomb brought to this sanctuary inside his beating heart, and it was not just good courtesy, but the professional duty of the tactician to provide solutions to such weaknesses. That he had nothing, not even an inkling of how to stop his cruel other self from endangering their every effort at peace here? It felt worse than just failure. It felt like being a bad guest. Guests and fish both start to stink after three days, so the saying went – he couldn’t help but think the timeline was even shorter for those who brought their dragon self bent on the subjugation of all things.

“You alright, my love?” Chrom asked from behind him, bracing him with his muscular form, their hands enjoined on the reins of their steed. “You’ve a face like you just called in the hound that sniffs for cadavers.”

“Just thinking about it all,” Robin sighed. He rubbed his temples. “Actually, just this once, I wish I could stop thinking about it all. It’s not a problem I can just solve the way I might cure a bad stratagem. It’s like the world has given me rags and told me to stop a flood.”

“Well, let’s lay down our bags and clear our minds a little, shall we?” Chrom said. Above them there was a great groan of metal as the night sentries opened the gates for their returning Heroes, and the lamplit safety of Castle Askr was revealed warmly to them. Suddenly the crimson frown of the judge had dissipated in the twilight, and was replaced with the comforting and universal language of home: smiling faces all around, hay for the horses, easier breathing, and the promise of a hot meal.

“Oh, welcome back, you two!” Anna’s cry sounded from across the courtyard, and the gilded jangle of her step followed as the Commander strode up to them. She had a sack of coins in hand and seemed to be paying the sentries their wage – a fair and sizable one, but she parted with the gold with some reluctance. “How was the excursion?”

“Hollow,” Robin said, quickly. “Quite literally. Did you know the Dragon Temple is just a wreck hanging over the ocean?”

“Uh-huh.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed as he glared down from horseback. “And you still sent us there?”

The coins made a musical tone, like a clapped tambourine, as Anna slammed her hands together in a prayer for clemency. “I’m sorry!” she chirped. “We’re sworn to secrecy! If the Order of Heroes hadn’t thought this up, things would be a lot worse! All our Robins would be roaming the great libraries of Zenith, and all the Chroms would be absent protecting them! This trip is the only way we get anything done with you lot.”

Now his eyebrow raised. “…And yet you still sold us the Devotion Day Deluxe Couples Experience?”

With the right vantage point, behind her clasped and apologetic hands, one could see Anna’s smile widen unrepentantly. “Isn’t it the time spent together that matters, not the destination?”

Robin was just fed up enough to get a bit angry – primarily at himself – but it was Chrom who placed a caring hand on his shoulder and kept his partner’s frustration from those who had little to do with it. “Thank you, Commander,” he said warmly. “Do we still have our private room in the dining hall, or did we get back too late?”

Watching Chrom say this, Robin was astounded at how they’d switched demeanours from when they’d set out. Once concerned only with their timely return, Chrom now accepted their failure with the ease of a cool westerly breeze, all the while Robin grew redder and steamed like a teapot the more he thought of facing his other selves inside.

Anna perked up; possibly the scent of further profit on the wind. “Oh, you’re not too late at all! I kept the room for you just in case. I can go and tell the chefs if you’d like to take a moment to freshen up? You have a little…” She trailed off, looking at Robin and gesturing to his own face.

“Sounds good,” Chrom chuckled, a chuckle that heightened to a deep laugh when Robin wheeled around to face him, pouting and fuming.

“Do I really –!”

“There’s nothing wrong with your face,” Chrom said, and he was telling the truth. As far as he was concerned, the adorable rosy blush on his boyfriend’s cheeks was exactly were it belonged. It was the proof of a living and joyful man, one he couldn’t wait to kiss over flowers and food. The compliment seemed to calm Robin some, and as they dismounted the horse and began to drag their trunks back up the stairs and ramps to their quarters, Anna took the mare’s reins and patted her gratefully on her tough muzzle.

“Good girl, thanks for looking after them, you’re my perfect girl for that carriage! Now that I think about it, where is the carriage? Hey guys?”

Chrom and Robin broke into a sprint as her voice trailed up and out of earshot.

“Guys…?!”

--

With a splash of cold water on his face, Robin felt ready for however supper would serve up what remained of the evening. He’d defiantly decided to leave on his dust-smeared frills and velvet; part reminder to himself, part warning. It was a reminder that he was here, he was alive, and however humiliated he felt by the lesson he’d been dragged to, he would do well to learn its lesson of enjoying the extra time he’d been given in Askr. Then, of course, the warning: if Grima had already reformed, and was wandering, and should happen to see them, he would know by dirt and by blood that he had been bested, and would be over and over again by his and Chrom’s joined hands. Survival was an act of intimacy and defiance, and living well? Well, that was the best revenge of all.

By the flawed light of a diminishing sunset, there was a very different feel around that very same little dining hall they’d left from the morning before. Its door was shut, for one, and the Day of Devotion flowers that guarded its skirtings very much looked like yesterday’s decorations. They seemed drooped and blue in the twilight.

“Okay,” Chrom said, one hand leaning on the door, the other holding its handle nervously. “All our friends inside still think they’re giving you a big surprise. Can you look a bit more surprised?”

“What?” Robin asked, grinning. “Do you want me looking glum or something?”

“No, just… you’re basically glowing. It looks like you’re expecting it.” Chrom couldn’t help himself from chuckling as he said it. It felt like such a silly thing to debate.

“Of course I’m glowing,” Robin said. “Surprise or no, my boyfriend invited me out to a special dinner. It doesn’t make a lick of sense for me to not be glowing. C’mon, Chrom, this is basic stuff. Haven’t you even read about the gambit of Antonious, Smiling General of the Fourth Exalt?”

“I’m sure I glazed over it,” Chrom answered, holding curled hand to chin in a concerted effort to look smart, the way someone reading two books at once is trying to look smart. “In any case, think less of generals and more of plants. The magic comes when they grow, and so it is with your smile.”

“When that door opens, I’ll see as many of our friends and family as Askr’s been able to muster,” Robin said. He pulled his lapels to straighten his lovely waistcoat on his narrow body, and while his hands were busy he ran them through his hair to restore his preferred volume of elegantly dishevelled. Then, looking as good as he ever had, he smiled at Chrom. “This smile, the one they’ll see? I mean every inch of it.”

With nothing more to say, Chrom held Robin’s hand in one hand and readied the doorhandle with the other. This close, his enamoured eyes looked glossy and magical, like the stone that had been forged in dragonfire. “Good to know,” he whispered, “that even here, with every book in every world, we can still hold your attention.”

“Them, my attention,” Robin murmured, then rose up on tiptoes and touched his lips to Chrom’s, a private, trembling little kiss that made them both wobble on their knees. When they parted, and Chrom looked at Robin, he looked near-ready to cry, gratitude the liquid that comprised the ocean behind his eyes. He was breathless, waiting on Robin’s blessed word, and Robin intended to reward him for everything – his patience, his strength, his generosity, the whole prodigious lot.

“You,” he finished, “my devotion. Always. I will always find myself at home in your arms, my Chrom.”

He kissed him again and then they turned to the door together, joined hands turning its mechanism open, eyes and ears straining in tandem together for the surprise beyond, expecting a clamour of noise –

And getting an eruption of it.

“SURPRISE!” The cry almost frightened the hair off their scalps, so sudden and sharp and loud it was, coming from the distant corners of the room and stretching all around into a crowd of what must have been nearly a hundred people dressed in every colour of every world that knew what colour was.

Shock rattling his skull around in his head, Robin looked to Chrom and found him just as awed, so he turned to the still-cheering crowd, who now applauded as thrown confetti fell around their heads. There were so many, not just their loved from Ylisse but whole hordes of come-from-aways, men, women, and more. Their smiles were wide and sincere, and as he looked closer Robin began to notice something about the unexpected guests: they all had out their scaly tails, or their leathery pinions, or bore those pointed, draconine ears. This was no mere family gathering; this was the welcoming celebration of a whole wing of dragons.

“You really must forgive me,” called out a familiar voice, and out from the crowd strode the other Robin, the one who had started them out the morning before, in his scarlet winter coat and mittens. He shrugged and looked sheepish. “We know it’s embarrassing to get humbled like that. Fortunately, that’s not our only tradition. Gathered here before you are fifty-four dragons, every one currently in Askr excluding the hostile and the deployed.” He looked proudly to them, then back to Robin, and spoke with the authority of the assembled crowd. “I think they can help answer a few of your questions. I should know. They helped me, after all!”

“And me!” Chimed another Robin, a woman, from the back.

“Me, too,” said a Tiki from the time of the Hero-King. “Just thinking about how much there is to know about dragons here…” She yawned. “It’s enough to make one awfully sleepy…”

“Even if you’re only a dragon a little of the time, there are nice people here who can help you figure out what that means!” said a violet-haired youth from Magvel, one Robin hadn’t gotten to know yet but knew was a sacred figure in her own world. Beside her, a dark-cloaked, raven-haired misanthrope with a curious red marking on his forehead nodded curtly in agreement.

“Believe you me,” spoke one of the Jugdrali, an emerald-haired balladeer wearing a headscarf patterned and feathered. “You’d be frightfully surprised at just how strange one’s association with dragons can become. Much to discuss, to say the least!”

“And our advice isn’t just for the dragons,” said a gentle woman with a cerulean dancer’s sash who looked like moonlight given shape. She had a fiery, redhead noble by her side, and scarlet eyes full of peace and wonder. She put a reassuring hand on Chrom’s arm. “To those who would love dragons, and be their partner, give them safety and joy… well, it would be our pleasure to talk…”

Though he thanked each dragon – and each human, for among them were allies and lovers of dragonkind – as they approached, it didn’t take long for Robin to lose track of all the introductions. He was sure he would come to know them all over time, especially with the breadth of questions he was already cultivating for them all, but what struck him most of all were how different they all were, and how uniformly happy they were to be here. Robin was no fool. He could see tragedy and anxiety – the weight of deep history – in so many of their eyes, the way he would behold a mirror. And yet all that pain, all that agony and uncertainty… it all seemed to be on pause here. They were free to extend themselves, express themselves, hold hands with lovers in the open, bare fangs and talons to all without fear of judgement or prejudice. Imagine, that a world full of dragons –

That it would look like pride.

And suddenly, Robin saw this world, with its million hitherto-impossible curiosities, for what it was: a place immune to comings and to goings. This was no post, nor bed, nor wall, not a place to spend a night and then resume one's travels in the morning. The walking, whether done on foot or claw or hoof, came from points that were not entries and went to points that were not exits, instead staying, staying, staying in happiness so sweet it stung his eyes with tears. Askr lacked the line structure of every place the tactician had ever known; it was, really, more of a circle.

It was tempting to lose himself in the counsel, to attune himself into the beckoning stream of knowledge and perspective he was now offered. He thrilled to have a taste of the future on his tongue, mysterious and bold – he tasted grass, and molten gold, and the richness of flowers in February. With such fragrant components he could reforge his future a thousand times over before he got back to Ylisse, and he was ready to jump right in.

But he couldn’t forget who’d brought him here.

Turning to Chrom, Robin ran into his arms and leapt, laughing as Chrom caught him and spun him around with his legs in dangling flight. Robin blinked back tears in his eyes, tears heedless of the awesome, unprecedented council that was now witness to their love.

“Fifteen minutes,” Robin said firmly. “No matter how many dragons are here, no matter how many questions I have, I will join you at the table for your wonderful surprise dinner in fifteen minutes.”

“I’d like that,” Chrom admitted. “But seriously, you don’t have to! There’s so many dragons here, it’d be wrong for you not to take every second you want to soak it in. It’s such a perfect surprise I’m mad I didn’t think of it myself. All the knowledge in all the worlds! It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

“It is!” Robin exclaimed, cradling Chrom’s face by his cheeks, always so angular with the burden of duty. “But it’s only one half of what I’ve always wanted – the other half is you! Knowledge, then you. Knowledge, then you, knowledge, then you, over and over in the happiest sequence of seasons I can imagine. That’s the cycle, the ring, whatever you want to call it, that I want to forge with you here!” He took Chrom’s doting hand and kissed it, where his soft lips intermingled with his hot, falling tears, and he dragged the wettened hand over his heart where Chrom could feel it beating. A steady, timeless, ceaseless rhythm. “So,” he said. “Fifteen minutes.”

Now blinking back his own tears, Chrom couldn’t hope to hide his gladness. His face glowed like it wanted the whole world to see it. “F-fifteen minutes,” he said, in joyful echo.

“I must admit though, I’m curious,” Robin whispered. “How does this stack up to your original surprise? The one you had lined up back home?”

A chuckle bursting through his happy sobs, Chrom tried – and failed – to turn the suave back on, though the smirk in his smile made a heroic effort. “Oh, that’s still the best. This is pretty good, but what I had planned…” He let out a low whistle and spiked his eyebrows up playfully, seemingly still very impressed with himself.

“That’s not fair,” Robin said, pouting in jest. “Now you have to tell me what else there was, if it’s better than this!”

Chrom shook his head. “No way. Look around you! You’re already spoiled! It’ll still be there whenever we get back to Ylisse. Maybe even sooner! But… no matter what, no matter what world we’re in or who tries to stop us, I will treat you to that surprise one day.”

Robin’s hazel eyes extracted a toll of truth. “Do you promise?”

Chrom kept his hand on Robin’s heart, joined it over his own, and felt both leap in tandem when he purred, “I promise.”

Another kiss, and the oath was sealed. Some of the dragons, mainly the younger ones and those besotted with their own relationships, clapped. The applause faded out across the crowd, polite but fleeting, and served more to herald Robin returning to the group, and the beginning of his many questions. He found the grandest-looking dragon he could – a great bald king from Tellius, bafflingly dressed for the spooky season in the wonderfully frivolous manner of Askr – and started his great work.

The other half of this devoted duo, Chrom retreated to the sidelines for now, but never stopped watching, never stopped waiting, and never stopped hoping. He watched for the little gasp Robin did when he connected two pieces of knowledge that had previously been separate. He relished the widening of his lover’s eyes whenever he put a face to a great and hallowed name. He took joy in the numerous little wiggles and jolts of excitement he did every time he learned something that made the peaceful, loving world he was trying to build just that little bit more complete.

“Sorry to take over your surprise,” said the other Robin, surprising Chrom with a pat on the shoulder. “I’m quite certain I got the same one from my Chrom, and it’s something truly special.” He had a sensitive smile, one that tried to seem knowing, but one look at the young man’s hand and Chrom grinned. The young man knew nothing at all.

“It’s nothing. I can wait,” Chrom said. “Thank you for giving him hope. Making him feel connected to all of you. You know him, he gets caught up in bad cycles up here.” Chrom gestured at his head.

“Yes, I’m fairly familiar,” the other Robin said. “In any case, just keep being you, okay? That way, no matter how lame that surprise might finally be, he’ll still love you.” The Robin giggled and slipped away, leaving Chrom to chuckle and lean against the wall by their table.

“You’ll be surprised,” he said to the receding backs of that Robin, and the enthralled back of his own. From the private space behind his eyes, Chrom pictured his perfect surprise, still waiting in a suspended moment back home, for their return. It allowed no fewer than all their friends and family, past and future, Einherjar and all, watching on. It was a moment Chrom wanted to be ready for, to be worthy of, so he sat down at their dinner table, laid his serviette over his lap, and waited. Robin wasn’t the only person ready to rebuild themselves here, and that meant patience. Chrom drew from his pocket first a watch on a gold chain, and took note of its current place in the notches so he would know when his fifteen minutes had passed. But he was thinking beyond that. His moment, his surprise, required him to be what Robin had always seen him as – his brightest, strongest, most patient, most luminous other half.

Seconds ticking away on his timepiece, Chrom’s gloved hands ran along the delicate links of its lustrous chain, following the delicate gold band back into the folds of his velveteen coat. There his hand slipped into the private recess of his pocket, into its infinite possibilities. He followed the chain to its end, and drew out the small thing within. There he gazed at it in his hand, unseen by the wider party, but destined all the same. Fifteen minutes or years, however long it took for the time to be right; it would happen. It was a certain thing. Night, then day. Knowledge, then him.

Watching his beloved Robin, alive and home in a nest of smiling dragons, Chrom wondered if Robin really had no idea what his surprise was – because, in his mind, he’d spoiled it easily a half-dozen times already.

“A ring all our own,” he chuckled to himself, and to his future husband, so close nearby. Then he sat back, closed his fingers around his lustrous promise, closed his eyes, and counted down the seconds.

THE END