Disclaimer: Regretfully, Fire Emblem does not belong to me. If it did, I would have lots more money and also be called Intelligent Systems.

"Heya, Twinkles," Gaius twirled a lollipop around and cheekily stuck it back into his mouth. "What're you up to?"

She sniffed at him, nose in the air, feigning nonchalance. "Nothing that concerns a lowborn like you. Why do you keep persisting in your efforts to converse with me? I'm not going to forgive you, if that's what you're hoping for. Go away."

"Look…I know what I did was pretty terrible…"

"If you knew, then WHY DID YOU DO IT?" Maribelle exploded at him. "My father was innocent! When you were caught that first time, you said that he was the one who had hired you!"

"Whoa, Twinkles. I feel awful about it. I even tried writing a letter to the court after I'd left the country, but I guess that was too little, too late, eh?" Gaius threw up his hands in an apologizing manner.

"That was you? That saved my father from the executioner's axe!" she exclaimed incredulously. "And put Duke and Duchess Orlam there instead," she added as an afterthought. She cleared her throat and regained her composure. "But wait, you haven't answered my question yet. Why did you accuse him? What did they hold over you?"

"Well….they said…" Gaius trailed off, looking uncharacteristically serious for once.

She leaned closer. "What did they say?"

"They said I had to do it or else they were going to…"

"To what, kill you?" she huffed exasperatedly.

"Oh, no Twinkles, not me. They threatened to kill someone I hadn't even met before. Never even seen her before, in fact. All I knew was that she was someone who didn't deserve to die, not even if it meant sending her pop off the swing."

She froze. A chill went up her spine, and she involuntarily shuddered. "W-wait. Those blackguards threatened my life?"

He nodded. "Yup. And now that I know you personally, I'd do it all over again in a second."

Her expression softened, but hardened once more as she thought through the situation logically. She was talking to a branded criminal, one who was capable of lying without remorse. She crossed her arms, looking at him skeptically. "So you'd lie to the court and risk execution for any old knave who threatens to harm an innocent young noble? For some reason, I don't believe that. I know the commoners have little love for us nobles in their hearts, and usually justifiably so."

"The Noble of the People," Gaius replied cryptically, taking the empty stick out of his mouth. He wanted another lollipop, but a thorough search of his pockets revealed nothing. He languidly tossed the stick onto the ground.

"What does that mean? And hey! Don't litter!" She snatched up the stick and stalked over to the trash. "My hands are too good for this," she muttered under her breath.

"That's what we call you. You probably didn't know, shut up in your mansion all the time with your high and mighty father."

"I've always wanted to experience a plebian lifestyle and to mingle with commoners," she spoke haughtily. "But my father didn't let me go out into the town very often. He feared that it would affect my noble upbringing. So why do the commoners have this nickname for me?"

He chewed on his lip, savoring the feeling of knowing something that somebody else who desperately wanted to know did not. It was sweet, he thought. Quite a sweet feeling. But what he was about to tell her would make everything bittersweet instead.

"Do you remember a boy who stole a noble's purse? He only took seven coins and was caught when he tried to inconspicuously sneak the purse back into the noble's purse. You defended him in court."

She sighed. "I don't know. There were so many of them!"

He pointed at her with his sticky fingers. "There! That's exactly the point. That's one of the two reasons why I lied for you."

"What's the reason?" she was not used to feeling foolish, and she still couldn't see what on earth the commoner was talking about. She flushed, and two spots of color appeared on her cheeks.

"You defend us. You're the only noble who cares about the well-being of the common people. You risk your social standing and your image in order to help us, and what's more, you've done it so many times that you can't even remember individual cases!" Gaius exclaimed.

"Okay, I'm listening." She uncrossed her arms. "What's the other reason?"

His wandering fingers had unearthed a piece of chocolate in his trousers. Sure, it was slightly melted, but he needed to satisfy this craving now. He popped it into his mouth, savoring the feeling as it melted on his tongue. "That kid was my brother."

Her eyes widened imperceptibly, but his sharp thief's eyes were able to pick up on the change. "What happened to him?"

"They cut off his hand. He died of infection three days later." Gaius tried to play it off like it was nothing, focusing on the sweet tingling flavor in his mouth.

Her reaction was not so minute this time. Tears began to stream out of her eyes, and her voice held a tremor when she spoke. "H-how…how are you so calm about this all? He was your brother!" He watched numbly as a tear dripped down from her left eye, slipped down her face, and fell of her chin to the ground below.

He shrugged. "That's how life is for the poor," he said nonchalantly. "You get used to it." But she was still sobbing, mourning the child that she had to tried to save so many years ago but failed. Mourning his brother, whose face she did not remember but for some reason she still cared all the same.

Gaius broke.

The chocolate's sweet taste still lingered in his mouth and it melded with a salty flavor. Smiling and sobbing, the torrent of sobs that he had been choking back forced their way to the surface.

She stood there awkwardly, her parasol dangling in an ungainly manner from her hands. She quickly made a decision and dropped it in the mud, putting her arms around the ex-convict.

He smelled of candied figs and sadness. Her heart ached for the injustice that fate had dealt his brother, and she apologized to him, voice slightly muffled by his shoulder. "I'm sorry I've treated you so terribly, Gaius. I spoke without knowing the full truth, and I've truly misjudged your character."

Gaius would have accepted her apology if he could have spoken. His mouth was preoccupied with the task of breathing through his uncontrollable sobbing.

A/N: Otakon is in three days! Holy crap I'm not ready.