First Time Destiny | Fire Emblem Awakening (Oneshots)

Echoes

Original prompt: Echoes

The castle was almost empty. Blood streaked the stone walls and filled in the carvings along the pillars. Parts of the magnificent ceiling had caved in, leaving piles of rubble and scorch marks on the floor. The bodies of the Risen had long since vanished, but the bodies of the fallen soldiers were everywhere. Some had stab wounds. Some lay in two pieces. Some had their eyes open, and others, closed.

Lucina wished that she had the time to walk around and shut the eyes of each one, or better yet, give them a proper funeral on a pyre. But she didn't. Morgan and Gerome were waiting outside for her, and everyone else had either left on a mission or were dead. Perhaps both.

She stopped in front of the grand staircase and touched the hilt of Falchion, not long cleaned and returned to its sheath, for comfort. Then she ascended.

The rooms on the ground floor had mostly been for things like greeting guests and holding meetings. Up here was Lucina's real home. This was where the private quarters were, easily identifiable by the plaques on the doors that caught her eye as she walked passed. Hers. Morgan's. Owain's. Cynthia's. Sumia and Frederick's. Lissa and Lon'qu's. And...that one.

She lifted her eyes from the plaque on the door and pressed her palm against the wood, taking a deep breath. She would just get the pendant, and then she would leave. It wasn't too hard.

She began to push the door open.

Someone started laughing. Lucina paused. It was not the ferocious laugh of Grima's roar, or what she imagined Mad King Gangrel would have sounded like. It was a soft laugh of a contented man, and a feminine giggle joined in. The sound echoed off the empty walls, filling the castle with pleasure.

"You're such a tease, Chrom," her mother said. Her voice was just as lovely as it had always been. "I didn't think you were going to do that."

"I wanted to see it. It's beautiful."

"No, it's not. I don't like it. It makes me feel uneasy."

Lucina had heard this conversation before. In fact, she'd been standing just like this, about to enter the room. She knew that it was nothing more than an echo of the past. But she stood and listened to her own mind anyway.

"I think you're imagining that. Are you just jealous because it doesn't look like mine?"

Another giggle. "Well, I do like yours..."

A pause. Lucina could imagine her mother tracing her fingers over the brand on her father's arm. She probably had been, because he seemed to have trouble speaking. "I-I like yours. You shouldn't hide it – beneath those gloves. It's not something to be ashamed of. I...Robin, what are you..."

At this point, Lucina had turned away in disgust, deciding that she would just come back later. But now she would give anything to throw the door open and see her parents kissing. She would give anything just to see them again.

She gingerly pushed the door open. The room was empty. The voices in her head faltered, leaving yet another hole in her heart.

Taking another deep breath, she tiptoed towards the dresser, as if her parents were asleep in their bed and she was trying not to wake them. She tried the top drawer. It was locked, as she'd known it would be. She had the key. But she'd wanted it to be open, just as it had always been.

"I'm leaving the pendant behind, this time," her mother had said. "Just in case something goes wrong. This is a dangerous mission, and...I want you to have something to remember me by."

Lucina had fiercely told her that she was being silly. That they would all see each other again.

Now, she took the key out from her pocket and slotted it into the lock. She opened the drawer and lifted the pendant out. It was heavier than she'd expected, weighed down by all of the love that her mother had left behind. Lucina thought that she was going to need every scrap of it.

She fastened the chain around her neck, then tucked the pendant beneath her tunic.

"I love you, Chrom," her mother suddenly whispered behind her.

"I love you, too. More than anything."

Lucina froze in place, waiting, willing her parents to continue. But the conversation was over. She could feel the room's echoes floating away, taking the last mites of happiness that had resided in the castle with them.

She turned around. The room was still empty, but it felt even bigger and colder than when she had walked in. It wasn't her parents' bedroom anymore. It was just a box made out of stone.

She walked out of the room and out of the castle, leaving a cold and dark building filled with death in her wake.

All the last traces of love in it had been eradicated.