10.

[It's only fair that I should be the one to chase you across

ten,

twenty-five,

a hundred lifetimes…]

Footsteps pattered down the stone hallway as their owner darted from room to room, peering inside and then moving on. "Morgan! There you are! Have you seen Father?"

Morgan stopped drawing graffiti on the castle's priceless oil paintings and turned to look at his sister. "Father? Nope. I think he's taking a nap in his usual place."

"Again?" Lucina wrinkled her nose. "I should have guessed as much. He goes out there almost every day. Will he be gone long?"

Morgan shrugged. "Who knows. You know how he is."

Air hissed softly between Lucina's teeth. "Don't you think that's sad? Sitting in that field isn't going to bring Mother back."

There was silence as Morgan carefully rimmed some ancient hero's eyes in black. "Maybe not. But I'm not going to take it away from him." He stepped back to admire his work. "I never met her, you know? I've only heard Father's stories. She must have been amazing, though, if he misses her this much."

A faint, dream-like image of a woman with onyx eyes and hair like the clouds fluttered across Lucina's mind. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel soft warmth around her and a gentle voice humming an unknown tune. She swallowed hard and pushed the thoughts away. "Give me that ink," she demanded, blinking rapidly. "This needs a mustache."

oOoOoOo

Chrom floated in a pleasant limbo between sleep and awake, enjoying the rays of late spring sunshine filtering through his clothes and warming his skin. A swift breeze ruffled his hair and he sighed. It was a day just like this one…

Something rustled in the grass to his left, but he was too comfortable to open his eyes, and after all, he might just be dreaming. He liked dreaming because dreams were where she was. His favorites were the ones where she was home again and he could lay in bed beside her and just look at her. Her hair and features changed, morphing between all the different permutations he'd seen, but her eyes were always the same mesmerizing, infinite black. Sometimes she'd reach out and touch his arm and…

His eyes flew open; the sensation of someone shaking him had felt too real. He blinked against the late afternoon sunshine, trying to process what he was seeing. When his eyes adjusted, his breath caught in his chest and time stopped.

Was he still dreaming?

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know," she said.

[...until I find the one where you'll return to me.]

The End