Chapter Text
No! This couldn't be happening! The Exalt was supposed to die. Validar was so close to the end of the Ylissean Plague, to the realisation of his life of servitude, to the resurrection of the Fell Dragon itself. Death couldn't take him now! The Hierophant was almost ready. He couldn't die now!
"It can't end like this!" Validar proclaimed to his own traitorous flesh. "I won't allow it."
"You always have been stubborn, haven't you?"
His raspy breaths stuttered to a stop in his torn chest. That voice was one he spoke to nearly daily, the words from the throat treasured for what they would become. He knew his daughter far more intimately than he knew himself, his devotion to bringing about the resurrection of the Fell Dragon his only devotion.
"Hello, Father."
But the snarl that accompanied the words, the way the question delved into a roughness those of humanity could not possess; Validar knew he was not talking to his daughter.
"You're-" he coughed on blood that should not occupy his trembling lungs.
"This is not how it happened." The Fell Dragon's hand smudged the blood across Validar's lips. "Lucina is such a clever little girl."
Its blood-soaked thumb stroked his cheek. The action was traitorously gentle, despite the sharpened nail slicing through skin. It could hardly be called a nail now, the hand lacking the flesh that made it once recognisable as human. A claw was more applicable to the limb now, slicing human flesh as though it were a knife cutting through a delicacy like a cake. If Validar did not know that voice even more intimately than his own, did not know the fraying sleeve of the cloak of the Hierophant he had passed on when his daughter become of age, there would have been no recognition of this as the Great Fallen instead of a decaying corpse, coming to drag him into the rotten depths of the Damned.
He raised his arm, fighting the way it shook and screamed for him to stop moving. It didn't matter that he couldn't force air past the blood in his throat now, not when the future was here, the one that had been his entire life.
The Future caught the hand and knelt before Validar, granting him the opportunity to see the Salvation before him. Despite the scales settled over her hands, clinging to the bones beneath, her face still appeared mostly human. Scales trailed around the back of her neck, her gaunt cheeks betraying the lack of food in her diet, unnecessary for the holder of such power. The black, shimmering scales were a clear disparity against her dark skin, but her black hair was bleached whiter than the armour the previous Exalt's armies stained red. It crawled with purple, cracks in the hair that could not remain still. Despite it all, she kept her hair in those box braids that her mother had done since her long hair became a frustration for the girl. Validar wouldn't have been against chopping it all off, if she wished, but her mother offered an alternative the girl fell in love with.
"Do not fear, dear Father." Grima in Robin's far too small vessel spoke, lifting Validar's hand to its cheek, "I shall fulfil your dream and bring about my future, the one you dream so longingly of."
They had never expected Robin to survive, most children of his blood did not. It was hard to believe that the End of Days that had once been such a fragile thing, her tiny face barely bigger than his thumb as he cradled her. She was born silent, her breath nonexistent and no heartbeat. Those moments had been so loud, the entire Grimleal holding their breath as the baby was handed to her mother, as she endlessly slept.
Validar had turned away before her mother's tears fell. He had long since left the room when her joyful screams had echoed through the hallways.
This time, his hand pressed to his daughter's face, to the face of their Future. He held her, just as he had when she still fit in his arm, when he used to explain why leaving their home was not a risk he was willing to take, when he finally named her Hierophant of the Grimleal. Even as his strength failed him a final time, as words clogged to his throat like the blood staining his insides, he held her. He may have fallen before his time, but he saw their Future succeeded. That was what he lived for.
The Fallen One pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand, delicate, despite the fangs poking over her lips as his failing vision struggled to make them out. "Maybe, once I do, I can finally make you proud."
Her eyes glowed with the promise of the blood of nations. Determined, just like her mother. She had always resembled the woman, besides the hair- that was all Validar. Until now.
Validar felt the final strands of his strength fizzle out and the dark welcomed him into their arms.
The last thing Validar expected was to cough out a lung as he awoke. Well, he didn't expect to wake up again, but semantics. He was wrapped in furs that felt far too warm and soft to belong to anyone less than a noble. His body screamed at his attempts to move, his head splitting with agony when he did anything more than move his eyes. He was a little too warm and he was in pain. There were many things Validar had imagined death would feel like (mostly when he pondered his victim's begs for mercy), but the mix of bordering on uncomfortable heat and agonising pain wasn't exactly what he imagined.
"If you're going to be sick, do it on the blankets and not me."
The Fallen One.
Validar tried to wrestle control of the pain, to force himself up and to kneel, as his master deserved no less. His body, however, had different plans. Unable to handle the sudden strain, it failed him and collapsed back into the furs, pants causing daggers of pain to shoot through his body.
"Fool," his master hissed. Validar wanted to beg for forgiveness, to praise the oh so Unfairly Disgraced One, but his tongue was heavy and his throat was rough like he had swallowed an entire desert. "Do not besmirch my work. I gave you the gift of life. Do not squander it so carelessly."
Validar fought his breathing back under his control, the agony of each still lingering in his bones. His eyes trailed to his left, where he could just make out Grima's face over his shoulder. One of her clawed hands reached out, a cloth of white dripping over his bare shoulder as she draped it over his forehead.
Her hands tugged the furs back, exposing his body to the cool air of the tent. Bandages covered most of his chest, already stained a deep crimson. Grima grumbled at those, cleaning her hands and dragging out a new set of bandages.
"You have a fever," Grima told him as she peeled the bandages from his chest. Validar could feel how his skin tried to rip open again, fighting the magic that was knitting it back together. "My speciality is ripping people apart, not stitching them back together. I never held much need for such a mortal necessity." Yet, Validar could hear the hum of faint healing magic that sunk into his mortal wounds. "Lucky for you, Father, I learnt a few tricks from an old friend long ago."
Validar was dead. He had to be. The Fell Dragon was the One Naga Felled long ago, one who would bring destruction to those they all called enemies. It destroyed; it did not heal.
He wanted to ask, to know if this suffering was eternity or temporary. Did he get to be part of the future he dreamed of? The one he dedicated his entire existence to. But all that he managed was a strangled whine that wrestled its way from his throat.
"You would not be you, if you were dead. The dead are supposed to remain dead."
Validar had seen many a dark mage, those strong and those weak, but even the strongest of all had never managed to raise the dead. But perhaps the darkest mage of all could, even if she could not raise the soul.
"However, you were very close, Father. It is good that Naga's offspring struggle to know me or they may have left me nothing to fix."
"Y-you," Validar coughed out. His jaw was heavy with pain, creaking under the words.
"Hush, Father." I do not need you wasting my efforts.
Validar's eyes went wide. His master's mouth had not moved. How-
Perhaps I shall teach you one of these days, her grin was far too similar to that little boy she held such fondness for, as you once taught me.
Was this really the Fallen One?
You question your own work?
The Hierophant born of his cursed blood had managed what his brother once considered an impossible dream. The dream that led to countless ancestors who never got to breathe or live beyond those early years unless they were failures. After far too many tries, he had succeeded and his success had yielded the Vessel. He had won. The woman in front of him was proof of that victory.
You have not won yet.
Validar could not understand. She was here, proof. The Future was secured.
"You won in a world long gone. I am here to ensure that future comes to pass once more."
What could have prevented such a future? They resurrected the Fell Dragon and all Naga's descendants held was the empty Emblem. What could stand against their power?
"They came close, once. Four of the five, united in one." The corner of Grima's lip stretched up, a smile that tugged too hard at the gaunt skin of the Vessel. "Not enough to win, but Lucina now has what she didn't before. Time."
There it was again. That name. Lucina.
"You remember her, don't you Father? The girl that killed Chrom's assassin and fought by the Exalt's door? Little Lucina, all grown up now." The fond sigh held no rumbling undertone. "How time has flown."
Her. The blue-haired pest that kept him from claiming the Exalt's head. Who alerted the princeling and his flock to their approach, not even the loyal Pegasi knights could notice. Who fought by the princeling's side, covering his back and ultimately the one to strike Validar down.
The Fell Dragon's laughter echoed around Validar's already broken skull. "That's my girl."
WHAT?!
"I suppose the surprise is to be expected." The wet towel upon Validar's forehead was replaced. This time, he could feel the cold of the water sink into his skin, an instant relief. "She took after her father in looks and weaponry. She has my stubbornness though. And temper, if you asked Chrom. Rich, coming from the one so angry at his own peop-"
Validar clung to those words as Grima's rant continued on. He did not need to hear about the many marital spats his daughter, the literal Fell Dragon, had with the Future Exalt.
"-and Morgan was ever so clever and loyal, my perfect baby boy, but lacking any of my scales, unfortunately."
Validar refused to even think about the second child. He had enough to think about right now. His granddaughter, from the future he brought to fruition, had almost killed him. His daughter, the Vessel of his master, as he had always been preparing her for, was treating his wounds with such tenderness.
The girl, Lucina, she fought to protect the Exalt. She tried to doom their future. Where was that disrespectful child's loyalty?
"To her family."
The glow in his master's eyes had returned, a reminder of the endless hunger they held. One of such power would take until he would be left with nothing more to take.
…my apologies, Risen One, I mean no disrespect, Validar could not bow, but his mind's screaming apologies hopefully conveyed the message to the mighty dragon in human form. I do not see why her loyalty to the Exalt surpasses her loyalty to her… mother.
In her eyes, Grima killed her father. The grief almost choked Validar more than his own blood had. Perhaps there was more truth there than his master would share. In her eyes, her mother is no more. She holds no love for Grima.
But the Fallen One still held love for her child.
She is still mine to love. Just as her father was. Just as her brother is.
If the Fell Dragon held such love, why did she interfere in the girl's attempt to stop Validar? Why not let her 'fix' the future to her own standard?
"What a silly question, dear Father." Validar bit back a scream as his back was lifted from the ground. "I do value my own existence. I do not wish to disappear." A bowl of water was pressed to his lips. It was cool; it felt like daggers were attempting to pick the sand from his throat.
But why was he still alive?
"You still have a purpose to fulfil. One of crucial importance to our future. A future I can get back on track." Her eyes turned to the exit of the tent. "But my presence may be a detriment."
Laughter rung in Validar's ears as his hand brushed through long blue locks of hair. The girl kept trying to wrestle out of her unrelenting grip to join her brother in wrestling their father by the pond, but Robin refused to release her. Last time had ended with screaming and tears when her daughter's tangled hair ended up caught in one of her father's buttons.
Validar blinked the memory that was not his from his mind. His master- no, his daughter was still in the Vessel, still clinging to her silly attachments to their enemies. She was holding their Risen Master back, keeping them from the Great Future ahead, finally free from the hanging threat of another Ylissean Crusade.
He could fix this. He had to fix this. For the Future.