Author's note: I officially exhaust my stock(e) of plans next chapter. I'm out of scripts–– well, one chapter coming up still has one, and it's gonna be awesome, but I still have no idea what I'm gonna do for everything else.

I kinda messed up sequencing a few things so this chapter is going to seem really weird, BUT THERE'S AN EXPLANATION FOR IT I PROMISE.

I make no promises on updates because I need a writing partner again. BUT if you want more dreamer shenanigans, I've got an archive of a skype rp with my best friend on my tumblr, accessible from the navigation page. Might take some looking because I got a lot of stuff on there. Spoiler warning: it's Fates.

Stocke's point of view.

Sitting at a small table outside of a tavern in the city with my hood up to hide my face, I'm absolutely nonplussed as I stare at my bottle of beer. It's looking really, really tempting right now.

I'd still be trying to explain away what I heard the other night if I hadn't also heard people talking. I want to deny it, but it's right in my face. Aunt Shanz is dead somehow. The gossip goes that when she and Chrom were ambushed as they returned to Ylisstol. I've heard nothing more specific other than wild-sounding rumors. One person said she was burned alive with an Elfire, another had disagreed and said she'd simply disappeared, and yet another claimed that a wyvern ate her. What's agreed upon is that there's no body or remains other than some article of clothing– probably her coat, knowing her. But I just don't get it.

Grima couldn't beat Aunt Shanz until she let him. I know past Shanz is weaker, but Dreamterrors are nothing compared to Risen– and I'm certain it was Dreamterrors that did it. We've had to bail the Shepherds out from the Dreamterrors at least twice already… I'm suddenly really scared for Ylisse. The Valmese are better than the Dreamterrors, and the Risen from the future were certainly stronger than the Valmese. How's Chrom's group going to get strong enough to deal with them with one Dreamer down? They'd need to abuse the Outrealm Gate almost as much as I have.

I reach for the beer. I really need a drink. And the disapproving stare from the seat across me can deal with it.

"This must be some puzzle to drive my tactician to drinking." Lyndis frowns very intensely as I take several gulps and try to ignore the flavor so I can just get wasted already.

I mean, life is just so much better when everything's fuzzy and I have no clue what's going on. I don't have to worry. I can just shrug off things like my Aunt Shanz dying. On the other hand… This is the end of the world that I'll eventually have to handle. I can't go up to a fuckoff big six-winged dragon with a drunken stutter and just cuss him out to death. I'll need planning and cunning and ughghhh…

Can I just… leave the hard work to someone else? I mean there are two Robins. There's Mark and Morgan. There's my dad, for fuck's sake. There's aunt Shanz–

No, there isn't.

I slam the bottle onto the table and put my head down, tears streaming out of my eyes already.

I can't rely on them because I have no idea if everyone will survive. I know one Robin has a good chance of being possessed. The other hasn't even turned to our side yet, I don't know if he even will in this timeline. Morgan's not the best tactician, especially since she'd rather just transform and use her breath on everything. Mark hasn't arrived in this time yet. And my dad… Can I not consider that? I don't want to think about him dying again. I mean, I might actually get the chance to meet him.

I hate responsibility.

So basically, I'm the only one I can rely on. If everyone else is gone or threatened, I gotta step up and take responsibility. Why? 'Cause I'm of one of the only idiots who can.

I push the bottle to the side and sigh, receiving an encouraging nod from Lyndis. "Are you picking yourself up again?"

"Kinda got no choice," I groan, pinching my nose. I don't wanna repeat all that shit aloud especially 'cause translating thoughts to words is a bitch, so I dive right into business. "Okay so, we don't know who's responsible for my aunt's d… disappearance… But if I had to take a guess it'd be Dreamterrors."

"I recall you were being similarly chased," Lyndis comments thoughtfully. "The Black Fang seemed to have it out for you as much as they did for Nils and Ninian. Somehow I don't think it has to do with quintessence."

Yeah, that was one thing that bothered the hell out of me. "Dreamterror beliefs pervaded Elibe just the same as they do here. I'd guess that Nergal did his homework and recognized the Dreamers who did show up, and apparently descendants of Dreamers can be magically detected or some shit." Ohhh, maaan, the morphs had abused the hell out of that. Well, there's that, and it was just tactical smarts to go after the brains of the whole operation– me, of course. "But that's sort of irrelevant, unless you mean to bring it up for a reason."

"What if the Dreamterrors here are associated with your parents' antagonist?" Lyndis questioned. … If they got along with the Grimleal that'd be scary. But… I dunno. In the stories Dad told me, they were sort of religious, and saw Dreamers as hailing from some kind of tainted, godless world. (Well, they're not wrong.) But at the same time, Grima's a sort of taint itself, and if you ask Naga, not actually a god.

"… No, I don't think they'd side with the Grimleal. I think it'd be more accurate to think of Grima as some sort of… anti-deity." Shit, this is getting technical, I might be a little tipsy for this. Back on topic. "Besides, my uncle just crushed Plegia; the Grimleal are busy trying to repair the damage. They don't have the time or energy to spend on going after Dreamers. As for Valm, I have assurance that they're too busy with they're own troubles to try and conquer a new continent."

Lyndis squints at me– oh, did I not tell her? "Valm? Is this another country?"

Well, to be technical– fuck it. "Yeah. Kinda like Bern, super militaristic. And their ideologies clash with the Dreamterrors too. So they're on their own." Man, why do we have a grand total of four opposing forces? Can't we just all agree on an enemy– the Grimleal, probably– and go after them? Ugh. "So I need to remember how my father dealt with them in the future. If I had to guess what country they're based in, I'd say Ylisse. I've already mentioned Plegia and Ferox doesn't care for gods that much, they're more focused on the here and now."

That's a thought. Dreamterrors in Ylisse. We're being sabotaged by our own people. "What if they have figures in the court?" I continue this train of thought in my head. If that's so, then they're privy to all the knowledge of Aunt Shanz's movements– since she's the queen– and who she's got with her, so they would know what kind of a team to form to go after her and– "The devils are inside the walls!" I slam my head on the table, knocking the bottle of beer over.

Lyndis jumps a little at this, probably surprised. "Stocke…? Are you okay?" I feel her hand on my shoulder before I sit up again, probably bruised and definitely angry.

"Why did I not stop to think about this before? I could have prevented this shit! Ugh! Okay, so… The palace belongs to the royal family, so they can't exactly keep their assassins garrisoned in there. So they've got a place nearby. Probably in this city." I reach into my pocket to pull out a card. I think Sothe can help with this––

FWIP FWIP, WOOSH

What the hell?!

"Stocke– two cloaked men being chased by a woman in green robes." Yeah, I don't need to be told who that was. I'd recognize that rush of wind anywhere. Noel. She likes to do this trick where she boosts her speed with wind magic, it's like her habit of blasting herself places but more controlled and less last-ditch.

I knock the table over, probably causing quite a bit of damage and shattering the bottle but I don't care, I gotta follow. Noel leaves a wide wake of wind for me to follow in so I have relatively little trouble following– and of course Lyndis comes up, grabs my wrist, and helps drag me along. Thanks, Lyn.

People are noticing the chase going on and crowding themselves out of the way for the cloaked men, then being blown out of the way for us by Noel's magic. Convenient. There's a lot of confused shouting at this noise and some guards try to join in, but the magic leaves them a bit too dazed. Do none of them have decent magical resistance? Wow. The chase leads us to a heavily shaded alleyway, and the two men turn around, dismayed at how well this girl's gone after them.

Noel growls at them, presenting an ominous image with her hood up. I don't hear anything else from her but a quick chant as she slices one of them in half with a wind spell and cuts off the legs of the other. Naga, Noel… She steps up to the one still alive and points a finger still tingling with magic at him.

"I'll make your death a lot slower and more painful if you don't tell me where you stay." She speaks lowly, like Aunt Shanz did when she was pissed. Like mother, like daughter. "Where are your dear comrades staying?"

"Like I'll tell you, heathen witch," the man hissed through gritted teeth. "I don't know anyth– AGH!"

I just jumped at the force with which Noel slapped him across the face. She used wind with it, didn't she? Holy gods. She's… I guess if anyone's pissed or upset over this development, it's her. I mean, with how angry she is and how he's talking, this guy's with the Dreamterrors. And he was dismayed to find that the younger generation kicks ass.

She twirls a heal staff from her cloak and holds it over the man. Its light shines over him and roughly seals his– oh gods– leg stubs closed. She means to torture him. In my pocket, I feel something warm– one of the Einherjar?

I pull out the card trying to talk to me. Right next to Sothe, it's Micaiah. She takes her form quickly and pushes Noel's arms down, undoubtedly meaning to stop her from attacking further. "There's no need, miss…" The dawn priestess turns around and stares intently at the man. "… He's very nervous. The lair you're looking for is close by. In…" She squints. "In a… tavern? His thoughts ring of ale…"

"I know the place," I pipe up. I've been lurking in Ylisstol enough to be familiar with its streets. The tavern in question is probably The Full Gullet, their slogan being that they'll feed you until your gullet's full. Of course they're expensive as hell. It's nearby and I've seen their people give me dirty looks. At first I thought it was because I look like some homeless wretch– no, they know I'm tied to the Dreamers. "Let's just finish him off before guards catch up–"

The loud clanking of plate metal and jingling of mail tells me that oh yes, they're nearby. Micaiah disappears into her card, Noel brings down a vicious lightning bolt that ends this Dreamterror's life, then I see a few spears poking around the corner and into the alley.

"Follow me," I tell Noel before darting back, rushing the guards and using their surprise to sneak past them. Noel simply uses wind to blast herself over them while Lyndis puts to use some excellent parkour skills. Swordmasters. I just need to find the tavern– and of course it's closed for the day, locked door and everything, probably. I mean, there was a hell of a ruckus to warn them. "This is it."

Noel just kicks it open with an arcane blast, blowing the door off its hinges and destroying whatever locking mechanism it had. A couple of very startled men jump and look, and that's the last thing they do before Noel tears them to shreds with a sharpened gale.

"Holy Naga, Noel, you're pissed." No, duhh. I've even said it a million times already. But I've… I've never seen her like this. In the future, she was small, timid, shy, more inclined to cry than fight. She ignores me and begins to search the place, turning over barrels and kicking the stone floor with wild abandon. Lyndis and I start to help, but a lot more gently than my cousin is.

I catch a squeaky sort of noise from Noel while turning over a table. A… sob? And right after, she shatters a stool into splinters with wind magic. And sobs again. "She's gone," I hear her whimper.

Ah. Of course. This is how she's grieving– her mother's dead, but now she has the power to get revenge. That's… dangerous.

I turn and gingerly approach her, possibly to hug her. "Don't destroy the whole city over it, cousin." She slaps my hands away, thankfully without magical force. "It's hard… All of us went through the same. I'll help you however I can, just… don't destroy yourself getting revenge." Gah, I don't even know what I'm saying!

Noel hesitates and pulls her hood further over her face with another squeaking sob. Then, she inhales, and resumes tearing around, eventually cutting into a wooden trapdoor painted to resemble stone.

"That must be it…" The three of us huddle around it– an extremely aggrieved Noel, an understanding Lyndis, and my alarmed self. Noel opens it up and jumps down.

The insides are like a sewer– it smells like a room piled high with loaded chamber pots. Noel and I both cough ourselves silly while Lyndis waits. Lucky Einherjar don't have to breathe. Of course, Noel recovers long before I do and tears off on her own.

"Should I give chase?" Lyndis questions.

"Please. Someone has to keep her safe," I splutter, desperately failing to to cover up the stench of feces with my own sweat. I've got a whole deck to watch me anyways– I'm thinking Hector would be a good idea to bring out about now. Lyndis vanishes into the depths while I flash a certain card.

Hector, armored and confident as he is, just picks me up over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, the other slinging his Wolf Beil over his shoulder. "You were raised in some sort of hellscape and you can't take a little stink? You make me look spoiled," he snorts. He starts to march, even with me as a burden.

The apocalypse has its own special stench of death and decay– not exactly feces and other leavings. "There's a difference between blood and sewage," I justify to Hector. Ugh, I might just vomit. Even my own stomach would smell better than this– actually, I take it back. Can't fight if I'm sick.

A thief stumbles into our path, a number of gashes up and down his form. I don't know whether my cousin or Lyndis got him, wind magic and swords look alike to an untrained eye. Hector brightens up at the sight of him and lifts Wolf Beil off his shoulder. "Hey, why am I the cleanup? I get to pick a fight and all I get is bare bones?"

His axe smoothly cuts the thief in two vertically. Blood and brains spill out. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand I'm horrified and disgusted by killing, but on the other, blood is an almost soothing smell next to sewage.

Actually, I know how I feel now. Entirely horrified. I should be retching and emptying my stomach, not thinking about what disgusting thing smells worse. Hector keeps clanking and marching, following the distinct path of blood left by the ladies like he's right at home.

And this guy was born a noble. I come from pegasus knights, I'm accustomed to literal horseshit, and I'm so green. I've fought with this guy and directed him on a battlefield, he wasn't even much older than me at the time. Even if he doesn't have to breathe the smell because Einherjar, I have a question to ask, barely coughed out: "How?"

"I'm not just the teenager you knew," he explains as he lazily beheads another of Lyndis' scraps. "I kept living, I died, and even then I still existed as a spirit. Between when we met and now, it's been a long time and I've done a lot."

… So again, I'm just inexperienced. I go through the Outrealm Gate, spend over a year in Elibe and in other places, and I just still can't stack up. That's… depressing–

OOF

After bouncing me on his shoulder, Hector lightly pats my head. "You weren't originally cut out for this, that was easy to see from the first time I laid eyes on you. Just because you've gotten used to it doesn't mean you're like one of the Black Fang, ready to fight and kill whenever. You're more like Eliwood. You're soft and empathetic. But he was still handy to fight with."

… Yeah, okay. Like Eliwood. But all of my friends are like that. Every human life was precious in the future. Seeing a body fall hurt no matter how many times I'd seen it, because I knew without them we'd be all the weaker. I knew that, even as small as I was.

I squirm in Hector's grip, and he lets me down. I neatly land on my feet and look ahead, at the pre-carved path. "I wanna know what's lurking in here." I wanna see what's around before Noel destroys it all.

The smell of sewage actually fades as we go further in. There's a formal barracks down here, wherever we are. There are far less corpses littering the place, strangely enough– just one or two in my view. Doors have been blasted open, though the rooms they lead into are relatively untouched. Noel knows what she's looking for.

BANG

She's still looking. Just blasted down another door somewhere, probably; maybe a larger one. Hector and I run after the noise and find Lyndis outside of a splintered double door… sword sheathed. Past the doors, I can see a swish of familiar green fabric.

Hector looks at Lyndis with an eyebrow raised. "Where'd all the soldiers go? Did they just run in fear of you?" There's the faintest of laughs in his voice– confident that any smart warrior would do so.

Lyndis shakes her head, looking pensive. "There were almost none to be found. It seems they sounded some sort of alarm after we first broke in, and escaped while they could." Hector growls in annoyance.

These guys were very willing to abandon their stronghold, so they've probably got some kind of last-minute backup hideout. If 'the devils are inside the walls,' then their leader has them hidden away within the castle guard. Something else I've noticed is that Dreamterrors here can't defend worth crap– when we attack, they fall like paper. They're purely assassins– nothing matters so much as the target's death. The units used are entirely disposable. Disposable… such tactics tell me they're accustomed to numbers.

Where the hell do they get all these guys, then? Ylisse only has so many soldiers. And the Dreamers have only been around a year or two so far, and training soldiers to be quite this way takes longer than that. It's really hard to just erase empathy and humanity and turn someone into nothing more than a killer.

The journal I read comes to mind. Two Dreamers who arrived years and years ago. They started preparing around their arrival, probably. So that's gods know how long– hell if I remember the math. If their leader was around back then, then it's either inherited, or held by one of the older farts.

Noel shuffles past the destroyed door and begins to rifle through the room past. Not quite an office, but it has parchments lying around. Though a lot of them are blank and some even burned, Noel tears through, looking for something…

She brandishes a parchment heavily laden with writing, a small and neat script. The air itself seems to fall still as she scans it over– I can hear her breathing, staggered as she shakes with emotion, probably anger. I can see her lips move ever so slightly, mouthing the words. Her eyes seem to gleam like a cat in bright light, the slightest bit of light reflected by her small, silvery earring studs– When exactly did she get her ears pierced––?

The sound of parchment being rolled up cuts across my thoughts; she stuffs it into her cloak and begins to run– starting off with her usual blast of wind magic, with no regard for anyone around her.

"What the hell?!" Hector's shout reflects my thoughts as all three of us are knocked prone by her force. After tripping over a chair and landing on my ass, I start to put the puzzle together. Pierced ears. Angry low tone. Never seen her like that. But that's her cloak, and I know I saw red hair, brown eyes, and gleaming pale skin. Used wind magic, used Noel's usual tricks.

I flash Hector's card, calling him to return to the deck. As he disappears into a spirit, I turn to Lyndis. "We need to follow her," I pant. My heart's pounding from the surprise wind blast and my own confused thoughts. "I've got to make sure she doesn't get herself killed getting revenge!"

Lyn's hand wraps tightly around my arm, clutching it like a hawk to keep me with her as she sprints out the way we came.

I just hope to the gods that we can find her before she gets into a fight!

PLACE YOUR BETS, TAKING ALL BETS ON THEORIES!