Better Places to Sleep

The first thing Robin felt when he awoke was the gentle prodding of the blunt end of a javelin into his side. The banner flown was quite Ylissean, to be certain.

The second, quite subsequently, was the not so gentle rocks jutting into his neck and back. The sedimentary state of said gravel was, to pinpoint, distinctly Ylissean coastline, not too far from the capital of Yllistol. The salty smell reinforced that claim, and Robin knew that he was not too far from water at the moment.

The final thing, Robin had never felt before. He stroked his chin, and the new sensation of facial hair caused him to formulate a conclusion of his where/when/why abouts quite quickly.

1. Grima's dead, but here I am.

2. I'm old as shit, if I hurt this badly and have this disgusting hair on my face.

3. Cordelia is going to kick my ass.

With this revelation newly archived, Robin decided that lying spread eagle on the shoreline was not the ideal battle formation and thus got up disregarding his visitor.

At least, until the javelin quickly rotated danger-side-in-his-face towards the tactician. Robin followed the shaft, up the armored arm, past the plate mail where two distinctly white pigtails accompanied by a most definitely hostile smirk stared him down.

Severa.

Also, his daughter.

Also, pissed and a lot older than he remembered.

It had been a good amount of time indeed if his own daughter from the future had taken on this look. She showed no signs of age, but her composure, her stern facial expressions, and her weathered hands... Severa was not a girl anymore. She was a woman, and a beautiful, strong woman that brought a smile to Robin's face as to what his genetics combined with Cordelia's would turn out to be.

But still his daughter.

Never anything less than his daughter, no matter what timeline she may hail from.

Robin turned, staring the knight up and down before boring into her maroon eyes with his own. Time to play coy.

"Hi sweetie, you wanna help your old man up?" The ashen-haired Pegasus Knight laughed before she knelt to Robin's face.

"Old man? Sure. You're pretty ripe, I guess." She paused, staring him up and down, before adding, "But 'Your'? My father died a hero. He wouldn't need my help with anything."

Robin guessed Severa was in her 30's and judging by her fit physique and the banner on her newly acquired Pegasus, she'd been busy. He crawled backwards and shuffled to his knees slowly, hands up. No need to be entirely carefree with a sharp javelin not too far away from turning his intestines into fertilizer.

"I... I guess that sounds about right." Standing to his feet, he watched as Severa's eyes squinted as she imagined what that face of his would like if it were clean shaven. For punctuation, Robin also inquired, "But how about you help me as to why my daughter's give or take 15 years older than what I remembered?" Robin smirked as he saw Severa's lips part slightly and whisper, no damn way before she dropped her spear and giggled loudly, tackling her father to the ground.

"You bastard! You're strong enough to slay a god but you couldn't have come back earlier!?" Tears, Robin noted, especially the heartfelt ones from his daughter after being gone for as long as she'd been alive, were quite reassuring to the fact that, yes, he was actually home.

"Yes... Yes I'm back." Robin hugged her tightly, noting the faint juniper he smelled in her sweet hair. He wiped the tears from her eyes and grinned along with his daughter as he held the embrace just a bit longer before he backed her up and examined how his daughter had matured.

"You're just as beautiful as I remembered." Severa blushed and scoffed before returning the favor.

"Oh please, my future self is like 4 years younger than you."

"5 actually."

"And you definitely don't look too young with a messy goatee."

"Pah, age is just a number. Yours is..." Severa laughed as she plucked his beard.

"34."

"Hoooly shit." Robin coughed nervously, quickly doing the math in his head. "Assuming you're future Severa, given that I haven't made biological Severa..."

"17 years Dad. I c-counted each day." More tears, The tactician was quick to deflect them though.

"Sorry I couldn't come home sooner."

"You're home dad. You're incredibly late," Severa pouted, "But you're home." Robin stared over at the Pegasus.

"I'll give you three guesses as to what her name is." She rearranged her hair happily, just as white as her mount.

"And If I get it right?" Robin teased with a grin.

"I'll help you for once." Severa giggled, while mounting it expertly, "Getting home, I mean."

"Well, Robin," Robin patted the Pegasus gently, admiring its pure white coat, "I'd like to visit home." Severa grinned as she helped her father mount, and giving a sharp command, Robin felt the air rush beneath him, along with his stomach, as the ground he was just lying down on 10 minutes ago quickly sped into indistinguishable brown.

"Why the sudden change from Mercenary to Knight?" Robin opened, already guessing the answer.

"Well Mom's perfect bones got too old, so I deserved a second try."

"You're certainly quite good at it." At the word good, Severa stuttered before she fumed straight forward.

"Hmph, It's not l-like I trained 10 years on it to be just g-good."

"Is that so?' Robin challenged, to which the knight scoffed.

"Of course! I mean, I just found you on a whim, right?" Robin stopped, his thought process clearly not deriving Severa's reasons on being here anyway.

"Wait. Where are we?"

"I... I don't know."

"And you supposedly found me on a whim?"

"..."

"Severa... What are you doing here?" The knight looked downwards, her smile dissipating.

"I... Morgan and Marc have done so much compared to me... But they couldn't find you. So much crap has gone while you were gone... So when I felt your presence return? I couldn't believe it. The twins couldn't either. So that's why I flew off on a whim, in the general direction that I felt your spirit come back! I'm the one that felt you, not them!"

"What do you mean, felt?" Severa looked back at him in confusion.

"You mean you haven't done it before?"

"What," Robin asked.

"But you're the one who bears Gri- His... Spirit the strongest! Shouldn't you be closest to Naga's power?"

"I'm not exactly tracking, Sev. Is that about Grima?"

"Dad... Don't you realize it now?"

"What?! Just stop beating around the bush and-"

"If you're back and still alive... You're the fell dragon now."

Robin rested his head on his daughter's back while he was lost in his own thoughts. In the meantime, Severa kept up the conversation, still excited on seeing her father once more.

"King Chrom has been looking for you for about 10 years before he issued the decree that you weren't coming back. He holed up in the castle for a good week before the funeral, and we gathered every Shepherd and Shepherd's child before we laid your spirit to rest. Mom didn't even bother showing up, and she brought me along the day of your burial to go look for you. Even while the country was in mourning." Robin smiled sadly at his wife's actions. Ever since he married her, he had been the center point of her world. Every breath and exhale was for his existence, and she was the most vocal in letting Chrom strike the killing blow against Grima.

The most vocal on never letting Robin go.

"RETURN TO ME. WE ARE ONE AND THE SAME!" Robin winced as he stood back to back with Cordelia, who was dismounted due to the battle. Chrom stood opposite him with Lucina. Two Falchions, a Levin Sword, and a Lance formed a diamond of death around Grima, but he did not pay any heed except to the Shepherd that his visage mirrored.

"We will end your terror, fell dragon!" Chrom shouted confidently.

"I lost to you once, devil. My future... Our future, depends on my blade piercing your heart!" Lucina's hands shook as she finally lay within striking range of her father's killer.

Robin lay silent, staring Grima alone, no other thing mattered in this very moment. Not his wife, not his best friend, and not his children, who lay injured in the back. It was just him versus a god, and he was going to save everyone. And he would die happy with that revelation.

Noticing her husband relaxing slightly, Cordelia too steeled herself for a fight.

"You may share his face, his voice, and his name, devil... But he will not SHARE YOUR END!"

Grima laughed, drawing in a purple aura before unleashing a deafening scream.

"ARROGANT MORTALS. I AM YOUR END! I AM-" A slight whoosh followed by a sinking sound rang as Robin's Levin Sword lay embedded in Grima's neck, forcing the god to gurgle on his own blood. Instantly after, both the Exalted Falchion and the Parallel Falchion made mirroring paths through Grima's side, causing him to fall to his knees, arms eviscerated.

"Chrom... Cordelia..." Robin stepped forward, opening his Thoron. "This is it."

"Don't do it Robin!" Cordelia warned, and turning to Chrom, "Well? That sword is the only way to kill Grima! Do it, 'King!'"

"Think of your family Robin," Lucina added, "You've invested far too much just to die now!" Robin sighed, backing up and closing his tome, dropping it and letting it fly away as the fell dragon sped faster beneath them.

"You're right." He looked at Grima disdainfully, "No shepherd dies today... Not even me." Robin looked at his king sadly, and nodded.

"Chrom..." The King stepped up and pointed his sword clean between Grima's eyes.

"This sword may not give you death, but it will save our world from the likes of your machinations."

"F-foolish mort...tal." Grima closed his eyes wincing for his defeat.

"Luckily, I can't kill you." Chrom quietly said.

"Luckily, for the rest of us, I can."

"NOW CHROM!" Instantly, Chrom threw Robin Falchion and tackled Cordelia to the ground, just as Robin ran up to Grima, catching Falchion with both hands before rearing to swing the holy blade.

"You may be wondering what a vessal of Grima may be thinking holding Naga's tooth."

"We both know you can't hurt me with a sword meant for the E-exalt..." Grima spat.

"Naga sends her regards."

Robin closed his eyes as lightning and fire coursed his hands, Grima's power combining with Naga's to deliver the strike that would kill a god. He smiled viciously as his clean stroke decapitated his doppelganger, the body falling to his right as the head flew into the dark beyond. He turned, watching as Cordelia overpowered Chrom with a punch to the jaw. She subsequently vaulted past Lucina to Robin, sobbing into his coat.

"You bastard! You said... Forever..." Robin held his wife's head one last time, whispering into her ear just as he faded.

"I intend on coming back. It's up to you to find me."

For 17 years, she didn't.

Cordelia hummed casually as she took inventory of the cooking ingredients in her kitchen, marking each item in sequence on the checklist. Noting that her stock on chicken was still a few short, she remembered she sent Severa on a 'mission' to retrieve some from the market. She should've arrived an hour ago, but there was no rush.

Sighing, she washed some more vegetables, wiping her wet hands on the front of the tactician coat she wore. Her husbands coat, among the few memoirs of his death that she held close to her heart, was her usual garb, long forgoing the knight armor and bodice or the white dress she wore sometimes. Just a coat, a worn Levin Sword, and a library of books were all Cordelia had of her husband.

That and three wonderful children from the future, just a few years younger than her.

At 39, the former knight was blessed with children just like most other Shepherds, but obviously with her husband's deat- No... departure she could not have the biological equivalents. Then again, having another teenage Severa would kill her slightly sooner...

Speak of the devil, she heard the slight landing of the Pegasus as it dropped behind the house.

"Severa! Did you grab the chickens?" Severa peeked her head in the curtain separating kitchen from outdoors, before nodding, giggling sheepishly.

"Well they were out of chickens, so I had to settle for the next fowl poultry on the list." Cordelia scratched her head, seeing nothing in her hands. Severa fumed and excused herself as she peeked back outside.

"Uh, Severa, the market just received stock from the farmer's sales yesterday." Cordelia frowned as her daughter stared outside, clearly entranced with something not in the kitchen. She opened her mouth to say something but her daughter's shouts interrupted her.

"I SAID, THE NEXT FOWL POULTRY ON THE LIST!" Huh?

'Oh, that's my cue!' Cordelia heard a voice say, not recognizing it.

Another head peeked into the kitchen, a stranger's visage for just a few moments to Cordelia. Then all of a sudden, the coat, the hair, those eyes... She hadn't seen those eyes... Until...

"You know, a Robin isn't exactly poultry-" A red blur tackled him into the ground, followed by rapid fluttering kisses and finished with a slap to the face.

"ROBIN!?"

"Yes? Mmph-" Robin shared a deep kiss with his wife before grinning sheepishly into her bright red eyes.

"Sorry I'm late."