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#01 - Ring
she wears naga’s brand on one hand and grima’s on the other, and she feels as though the irony could crush her.
#02 - Hero
the world remembers them as heroes, but unfailingly they both always think of lucina.
#03 - Memory
he asks her what it’s like to not know so much of her own life, but she always answers that it doesn’t matter, because what she has now, what she’s built for herself with all of their shepherds, is worth endless lifetimes of memories.
#04 - Box
“this plan is crazy,” he says. “you’re crazy.”
“i wouldn’t be a very good master tactician if i always used the same strategies, now would i?” she asks, smiling. “now stop looking so terrified; it’s bad for morale.”
#05 - Run
emmeryn is dead and it’s raining and he isn’t moving, but she knows they cannot stay, knows that if given the choice he will not leave, so she grabs his hand and runs, because he must follow, he must—
#06 - Hurricane
she is a torrent of force, thunder and fire and wind, powerful and breathtaking and terrifying all in one.
#07 - Wings
she clambers off sumia’s pegasus, pale and with her brow furrowed tight, and he can’t help but laugh.
#08 - Cold
“i told you to wear a warmer shirt,” she says, eying his exposed arm. “but you never listen.”
#09 - Red
plegia and validar and the grimleal and grima are red, red and yet more red, and yet—and yet, chrom is a breath of blue in the midst of it all.
#10 - Drink
he is not one to drink heavily, and so when she smells the liquor on his breath she feels the urge to recoil.
#11 - Midnight
they stay by the fire for hours, even after everyone else has left and even after the fire has burned down to ashes.
#12 - Temptation
after catching her in the bath, he spends several nights lying in bed—hands itching and cock straining, trying not to give in; it’s not until after she sees him (all of him) that he finally succumbs, using his glove to muffle the sounds he makes.
#13 - View
standing on his veranda, that first night after their wedding, something in her opens up. she turns around to see him, fast asleep in bed, and--
and suddenly the breath in her lungs is lighter, like something clicked into place.
#14 - Music
cordelia and stahl play a song at her return banquet, and it’s lovely, but he only has eyes for her—even when she falls asleep in the middle of it.
#15 - Silk
when she’s gone, he keeps her cloak next to his, knowing full well it’s irrational, but he’s unwilling to part with it while it still smells of her.
#16 - Cover
“your cape is pathetic,” she says, laughing as she watches the rain soak him to the bones.
“my cape is perfectly suitable--”
she throws her cloak over the two of them and grabs his hand. “try to keep up!”
and then they’re running back to the castle through the downpour, as if they’re not already late to dinner.
#17 - Promise
they made each other so many promises, but in the end the only one that mattered was that they were two halves, tied to each other through time and space, and nothing would ever change that.
#18 - Dream
she’s back and she’s happy and during the day she is nothing but light and buoyant. but then she goes to sleep and it’s as though nothing has changed, because grima is still there.
the only thing that gets her through is chrom’s voice, pulling her back to reality.
#19 - Candle
he blows out the candle.
“i wasn’t done,” she mutters.
“i know.”
#20 - Talent
“you are decidedly unfair,” she says as he deftly undoes the ties on her breeches even as he presses his lips to her neck.
“we’ve had plenty of practice,” he murmurs against her skin.
#21 - Silence
after all the dust has settled and it’s just him in his chambers, it is overwhelmingly, oppressively quiet—the only thing that cuts through it is his one sob.
#22 - Journey
“where did you go?” he asks one day, running his hand through her hair while she leans against his chest. “while you were gone.”
she hums. “i don’t remember much, except that it seemed to stretch beyond any end i could tell.”
“what was it like when you woke up?”
she chooses her words carefully. “eventually, i could just feel it--that it was time to go home.” she smiles. “it was because i heard your voice.”
#23 - Fire
an axe goes flying past his head, and in the next moment there is nothing but the roar of flames and the smell of burning skin—he glances to her and sees eyes bright as steel, and a fire tome in her grip.
#24 - Strength
much as she hates to be manhandled, there’s something thrilling about chrom’s tendency to hoist her legs around his waist and carry her to bed.
#25 - Mask
they keep the two halves of lucina’s mask—one for each of them.
#26 - Ice
chrom has always been firm, but with her gone—sumia puts it best when she mentions how cold his eyes have become.
#27 - Fall
she does not go near tharja’s tomes, does not dare, because when she does there’s such a thrill of power, boundless and without limits—a path she refuses to tread, for fear it will be her undoing.
#28 - Forgotten
she stares at it, mouth agape.
“they built me a statue?”
chrom looks at her and smiles, fond and soft, which only makes her cheeks go red. “you didn’t really think what you did would go without a memorial, did you?”
#29 - Dance
their first dance as husband and wife is a dream, but it’s the last one—when it’s just them, alone in the dimly lit ballroom—that makes her feel entirely at peace.
#30 - Body
he has nothing to bury, and thus no reason to stop searching.
#31 - Sacred
“you avoid anything to do with naga,” he observes one day, and from the look in her eyes he knows she never expected him to notice.
#32 - Farewells
after emmeryn, he hates to say goodbye. after robin, it’s downright paranoia.
#33 - World
he grows well-acquainted with the world in those two years, and he thinks she would be proud, putting his sword aside for words, sealing wounds instead of creating them.
#34 - Formal
she pulls at the sleeves. “this is far too tight.”
“that’s not what chrom will say,” lissa says from the bed.
“pretty sure he’ll be more interested in taking it off,” she mutters.
#35 - Fever
he presses a cool cloth to her forehead. “i told you you’d get sick without a thicker cloak, but do you ever listen?”
#36 - Laugh
there’s something undeniably honest about the way he laughs, and she wants nothing more than to press that feeling to her chest in hopes she’ll somehow absorb that energy for herself.
#37 - Lies
she lies, and she lies, and she lies more, because she can’t bear the idea of seeing his crestfallen face when she tells him that she knows she must end her life.
#38 - Forever
she goes to wyvern valley searching for her daughter, but gerome is alone. he spares her one glance before looking away, mask hiding the frustration she knows is there. “she’s gone,” he says.
she considers. “she’ll come back.”
“how do you know that?”
she smiles and thinks back to the first moment she saw chrom, after everything. “i did.”
#39 - Overwhelmed
robin doesn’t easily succumb to pressure, so when she does--that’s when chrom really begins to worry.
#40 - Whisper
“milord, milady, i understand you’ve only just been reunited, but if you could refrain from whispering while i overview this report i’ve been building since milady’s absence, i will be out of your hair far sooner.”
“sorry, frederick.”
#41 - Wait
chrom has never had to wait for anything in his life, so the years of her absence yawn like a gaping eternity.
#42 - Talk
she starts to consider that there may be something going on when she realizes that she and chrom can communicate without even speaking.
#43 - Search
the map room has since bled into his chambers, parchment sprawled over every flat surface available and ink staining the sheets. behind his back, the shepherds exchange glances, but they never breathe a word.
#44 - Hope
in emmeryn’s eulogy, chrom says she was a beacon of light for the entire country, and that no one would be able to replace that.
in the years that follow, robin watches him prove himself wrong.
#45 - Eclipse
grima blots out the sun, and he thinks it can’t possibly grow any darker. a few hours later, she’s gone, and he realizes he couldn’t have been more wrong.
#46 - Gravity
it's not hard for the other shepherds to notice, really, considering the two of them always find a way to the each other's side, even (or perhaps especially) in the heat of battle.
#47 - Highway
they spend a month away, after she’s back—traveling, wandering, relearning roads she might have forgotten, and relearning them together.
#48 - Unknown
“we don’t know her origins, we don’t know where she comes from, you can’t possibly expect this marriage to be accepted--”
he stares the councilman down. “emmeryn trusted her, and that’s all i or anyone in ylisse should need.”
#49 - Lock
she wonders for a long time, why she doesn’t spend more time wishing she could get her memories back, but it isn’t until she overhears chrom talking about it with lissa that it clicks.
“--it doesn’t make her any less of a person, or any less of a friend.”
so when he asks her about it sometime later, she’s ready with an answer.
#50 - Breathe
there’s a surrealistic quality to it: holding the future exalt in ones arms and soothing him through his third nightmare in as many days, and yet it feels like it’s the most of chrom she’s ever seen.