CONTAINS EXTREME SPOILERS FOR THE GAME FROM THE GET-GO!

Off topic: It is ready, the first chapter of my next story. Let's see where this one goes then, shall we.

A couple of pointers. 1: I intend to break the conversations people had in game as much as possible, to give you a different kind of experience. I do not intend to make you read stuff in game twice. Some scenes stay the same, but the text and emotional weight will change.

2: Morgan hijinks WILL ensue, and she will become a very important character(Let us all hope that she becomes a viewpoint character).

3: People that can't die in the game(Frederic or Sumia, for example) may die in this story.

Have fun reading.

Sincerely, Xanedis

EDIT, 22.8.2013: Welcome, all of you. There is only one thing I want to say before you start reading this fanfic, and it is incredibly relevant to how this story turns out along the way:

Please keep in mind that the author - that's me - grew up a lot in his skill of writing stuff in English. As the case is such, I request you to look at the story through the eyeglasses of potential, especially since the latter chapters are much better than the first six or so(which aren't bad, the rest of the chapters are simply just better... MUCH BETTER). What is really recognizable while reading this story is my growth as a writer, though in this case it doesn't mean going through a badly written story while doing that.

No. What I want to produce here is quality, and that's what I'll aim for even while lacking some things in the beginning(and honestly, later on too, though it probably isn't all that noticeable... like I said, I got better :D).

Alright. Now enjoy.

Everlasting bonds: Wings of despair

The night of revelations

It was raining.

Most of the Ylissean force – about two hundred men – was erecting tents, while rest of them guarded the perimeter. Officers were scurrying around in an ordered fashion, making sure that the camp did not become a jumble of wet cloth and rope. It had been a busy day for them, and the pace did not appear to be slowing down. Shepherds would soon start counterattacking the Valmese, and that – the officers supposed – was as deadly business as gambling with a Feroxi warrior.

The earlier attack of the Valmese had come as a surprise, vexing them all and causing winds of unease whirl around the halidom. Hundreds of innocents had been killed, many villages razed, and all the terrors of war had been made apparent. It was one of those times, when the mettle of men was tried and tested, the best survivors lifted up high as examples to them all. The ruler of Ylisse was such a person; he was greeted by the masses as their savior. However, he never accepted the full title of an exalt, and the soldiers knew why. His sister – the exalt Emmeryn - had sacrificed herself to prevent a full scale war between Plegia and Ylisse, and although two years had already passed, some wounds took time to heal. That was doubly true when speaking of the Ylissean people, and apparently their ruler thought that it was not the right time to don the title of an exalt.

Or maybe he did not want to.

As the common soldiers went about their business, a man stood near the perimeter, silent in his thoughts. He was repeatedly going through the events of that day in his mind. There was something there that he wanted to grasp, but as much as he struggled, there was a wall that he could not cross; the wall of ignorance. He did not have enough information.

Sure, the new ruler of Plegia was unbelievably familiar, but what could it mean? Was there another type of Risen – walking dead that plagued their lands - or did the supposedly dead man have a twin brother?

He scrapped the latter thought immediately; it would have been a far too convenient conclusion for him to make. It was better to assume that the man was alive, and a great threat to them all. After all, Validar – whose spitting image the present ruler of Plegia was, not to mention the name – had tried to kill the last exalt. His attempt, however, had been thwarted by a mysterious girl calling herself Marth, who claimed – and the silent man had long since concluded that she spoke the truth – to know how the future would unfold. Their mysterious ally had almost disappeared after that, but some reports claimed that she was traveling around the land of Regna Ferox, challenging – and even more surprisingly. defeating – master warriors that used swords as their choice of weapons.

She is walking a curious path for someone so young, the man thought, noting to himself that he couldn't have been that much older than her. Maybe it was all the battles that made him feel so experienced. Add tiredness to that and call it a day, he told himself, and attempted to flare his wet coat as he turned around in the midst of trees. It followed him lazily and set down again, without so much as flapping even once. The man grunted in dissatisfied manner. This one won't do anymore, he thought while looking at his old tactician's coat. I will have to ask them to make me a new one. And faster he got that new coat, the better; it would not be amusing, if the men's morale fell down, just because his coat didn't flap around like it used to.

He started walking towards his own tent. There was only so much that a moment of pondering could do for him, after all; he couldn't do much without knowing what Validar was scheming.

Robin.

He felt something course through the skin of his arms, as if something outward tried to force its own will upon him. The feeling spread fast, and covered his whole body in a manner of seconds.

Hear me, Robin!

The man found himself increasingly intimidated. What was happening? What was this feeling?

He mustered his willpower to move his hands to cover his ears in hopes of pushing the voice away; it did not help. The mysterious voice started echoing inside his mind, alongside those vibrations that pushed deeper and deeper inside his body.

Then he recognized the voice.

"Vali…dar", he said arduously, feeling something flow inwards from his open mouth. It felt like air, but was vile and disturbing, something that he had never tasted before. It was even worse than the foul air that Risen emanated, but there was something about the two that was the same; the feeling of sickness and stench of death were both prevalent, making the man feel extremely nauseated.

The air crackled before the man as the dark-skinned ruler of Plegia manifested before him. He had a proud and authoritative figure – that could have caused much jealousy in a weaker person– as well as a slender but forceful build. Validar held his long finger at the man called Robin, and exclaimed;

"Why do you not heed his call? Why do you resist?"

Robin could feel those words resonate with… something. He did not know what it was, but it felt… wrong. Dark.

"Could you truly have no recollection?" Validar mused.

Robin could feel his head splitting apart. The pain… It was too much!

"Get out from my mind!" he shouted in rain, unable to notice another approaching persona. There was too much anguish, and the pervading feeling of control squirmed there, near the core of his being.

His words did not baffle Validar, who simply laughed.

"How amusing. But there is something in your demeanor that I need to address" he said smugly. "Did you think that I would allow you take such a tone with me? With your own father?"

"My what?" Robin asked weakly. He felt somehow loose, as if almost drifting outside his body and observing words that someone else was saying. He tried to suppress the feeling, and had some measure of success. A wave of pain assaulted his head again, but this time he was grateful for it.

It let him grasp onto something real, to his body.

"You are of my flesh, and of a sacred blood. Yours is a destiny far beyond the comprehension of mere mortals!"

Validar seemed somehow entranced, imprisoned in some sort of delirium. His eyes, however, held fast on Robin. The excitement was only in his other expressions, but his eyes gazed upon the pray that would not escape. That could not escape.

"And you know it to be true. Search your heart; face the glory of your destiny!"

"No… Way…" Robin said, huffing from the pain. "Get… Out… NOW!"

The rain started to pass through Validar's figure. Whatever Robin had done, seemed to have worked.

He pushed on to bellow at the sorceress;

"I… WILL… NOT BE… YOUR PAWN!"

Validar's shape started flickering, as if slowly slipping away from existence.

"You ought not to waste your time with these doomed servants of Naga" he said, shaking his head.

Then he was simply gone, no trace of him left.

Robin took hold of a nearby tree, huffing. He was exhausted from exerting his willpower to such extremes.

"Robin? Are you alright? I heard you shouting", a familiar voice said to him. Robin tried to lift his head, but he felt too weak to do so. He wanted desperately to jump into his sleeping bag, and be done with this day.

"It is nothing", he answered quickly. Steps circled him till the person that had spoken to him stood in front of him. He wore a shoulder pad made of steel on his left shoulder, and was clothed in an outfit that made him always ready for battle. His regal figure proved him to be a lord of some sort, although many of his friends simply called him Chrom. He – and his army – had no use for fancy titles.

"I am alright", Robin said to Chrom again, feeling at least slightly better than moments before. His headache had turned into simple waves that caused his head to convulse in pain, but there was none of that feeling of control that had held him in its grip.

Chrom squeezed his friend's shoulder.

"It has been a long day. Get some sleep" he recommended, and Robin nodded feeling more than happy to oblige. Apparently Chrom had not heard the content of his shouts; Robin would have to share it, preferably soon. But not today, he thought tiredly. There was too much to consider, and he wanted to be ready for Chrom's reaction, whatever it may be.

A sudden shout rang out from the camp's perimeter;

"To arms! Risen are attacking us! To arms!"

Not now, Robin screamed mentally. He felt so tired.

But the Risen would not give him time to gather his wits. The Shepherds would have to assemble their defenses immediately.

"Are you sure you are capable of this?" Chrom asked worriedly, his figure compressed as if it were readying itself for the incoming battle.

"I may not be", Robin admitted to Chrom, forcing himself to smile. "But I adapt fast."

Chrom nodded in acceptance and bolted off to what had essentially become the battle's front line. Robin began to run as well, rushing towards the tents to take his place as the army's lynchpin; for he was their tactician, the very same that had helped Ylisse to victory in their last war with Plegia. It did not matter that he still felt like hurling up. These people were his only known family. He would sooner die than let any one of them get killed by the Risen.

And as Robin ran, his coat flared around him, fluttering against the blowing wind and rampaging rain.