First Time Destiny | Fire Emblem Awakening (Oneshots)

The Sword-Wielding Poet

Original prompt: Poetry

Chrom had always known he didn't have a way with words. When Emm had been alive, they'd obeyed her. When Chrom used them, he felt as if they were crossing swords. Arranging words was like taking part in a particularly gruesome fight on the battlefield. It was an exhausting slog.

He would spend days writing and rewriting his speeches to his people, and he was starting to think that he should have done the same thing here. It was the night before his first wedding anniversary, and he was trying to write Robin a card. The easy stuff was already on the paper, her name and the plain words about how much he loved her. But he felt like he should be doing something special, and he had thought that poetry was a good idea.

He growled quietly as he screwed up another scrap of parchment and threw it towards the fire that was warming his study. The flames gobbled it up, always happy to have more of his failures even though he'd given them ten already. They were insatiable hounds, and he was the idiot who kept making a mess and feeding them.

He grabbed another sheet of parchment and dipped his quill in his pot of ink. Then he tried to let his heart guide him. The problem was that it was hard to put his love for Robin into words. It was hard to describe the exact way she made him feel in perfect stanzas, or explain just how the feeling grew stronger each day.

The parchment stayed blank. Chrom sighed, placed the nib of the quill against the paper, and decided to write everything that jumped into his mind.

Five minutes later, he was reading it over and sighing heavily. This was hopeless. He should have given himself a week to write it, at least.

Someone knocked on the door, and his heart skipped a beat. That was another thing he couldn't explain. He and his wife had no secret codes, but he always knew that it was her when she knocked.

"Come in," he said, turning the parchment over and thanking Naga that he'd burned its predecessors.

Robin opened the door and stepped inside his study, her pale hair almost glowing in the firelight. She smiled at him, her eyes brightening. Chrom wanted to capture the joy in her expression and put it in a jar. That was it – that was the way he felt, too.

"Hello." She approached his desk. "You look stressed. I came by to see if you're ready to turn in for the night, but obviously not."

It took him a few agonizing seconds to organise his thoughts into a reply. Oh yes, he was ready to turn in for the night with her, and there was plenty he wanted to do before they fell asleep.

He sighed softly. He wished he could go to bed with her now, but he wanted to see the smile on her face when she read his beautifully-penned love poem. He wanted to see the smile that she'd given him when he'd proposed, or when he'd bought her the locket, or when they'd got married. The one that she gave him for smaller things, too, like an unexpected appearance in her day, a new strategy textbook, or a long cuddle. He was a lucky man, because she smiled at him more times than he would ever be able to count. Yet he still wished for more.

Perhaps that was love: wanting to make his partner happy more than anything in the world.

Robin reached forward and flipped the parchment the right way up. "What are you doing, anyway?"

He tried to cover the paper with his hand, but it was too late. She pulled it out of his grasp. "Chrom...what is this?"

He covered his face and groaned. "You're not supposed to be looking at that. It's not finished. It's meant to be for you, but I just can't find the right words."

She made a strange choking sound, then blushed and turned it into an awkward cough. "Well, this is...it's...um..."

She looked up from the parchment and caught his eye, her lips curving into a smile even as she tried to hide it. Then she started to laugh. "I-I'm sorry, Chrom! It's...i-its..."

He grinned. "It's terrible, isn't it?"

She nodded, tears of laughter slipping down her cheeks.

Chrom laughed with her, his heart warming. Perhaps it was not the effect he'd intended his poem to have, but it was possibly even better.

Robin rounded the desk, and he pulled her into his lap. They clung to each other for a while, laughing until their sides ached.

Once they'd finally calmed down, they sat quietly for a few minutes and caught their breaths. Eventually, Robin lifted her face from his shoulder and offered him a cheeky smile. "It was sweet of you to try, though. I have to warn you, I didn't attempt to write any poetry myself. I bought you a normal card."

Chrom smiled. "Perhaps it's better that way. Oh, well. I suppose I'll just have to give you this instead."

He placed his hand under her chin and titled her face up towards him. Then he kissed her, hard.

"This is how much I love you," he whispered.