4/100 - Dark

In which Tharja is sinking into darkness and decides to save someone else.

Kill him.

Save me.

Tell my family.

Murderer.

The inside of the tent was pitch black. Where was the lamp?

Blood, there's so much blood…

I can't take it any more!

Kill him.

Blinking was ineffective. There was nothing to distinguish between: the black of the tent was the same as the void behind closed eyes. But where was the lamp?

Save me tell my family blood blood kill him kill her kill murderer so much blood want to die such sadness kill kill kill

Tharja forced her eyes wide open and sat up, her spine rigid. Her hand had finally found the iron ring of the lantern next to her cot, and beside that, a tome. She lit the lantern with a spell.

Red and orange permeated the black, forcing the shadows back. Tharja took in a shaky breath and held it longer than she was wont to before exhaling loudly. There would be no sleeping tonight. It had been six nights in a row, and Tharja felt the strain on her body. Before then, sleepless nights had been sporadic, never in a long string. It had started when she had joined the Ylissean Army; now, it was getting worse, and Tharja needed to find out why.

She pulled a robe around herself before sitting back down on her cot. She needed to concentrate. It was ridiculous, losing control, not to mention dangerous. The darkness was strong and ever-growing. It demanded respect and sacrifice, and in return it offered power. The dichotomy had to be respected — and regulated — otherwise the casual user of dark magics would succumb to a hell that could only be spoken of in whispers, whispers that then became a part of that same darkness. It was a vicious cycle, one that Tharja was determined to avoid. Her soul would not be fading any time soon.

Tharja took several more breaths before crossing her legs and preparing herself. As much as she didn't want to close her eyes, she had to. She took a deep breath, then exhaled. She allowed her eyes to close.

She kept a hold on the lamp as she evened out her breathing. In, out, in, out, just like her mother had taught her. One by one, Tharja surfaced memories.

There she was with her mother. With her grandmother. Casting spells, throwing stones into a lake, being able to cure one of her aunt's colds for the first time—

Tharja opened her eyes, breaking her concentration. She hunched over, closer toward the lamp. It wasn't possible.

Kill murderer blood blood blood on my hands burn them all drown drowning killer my family kill

Tharja lurched off of her cot and slipped outside. It was marginally colder, and she stopped several paces from her tent flap. She spun, looking for any light other than the one she carried, and found none. No one else in the damned Ylissean camp appeared to be awake.

It wasn't possible. Her memories, the happy memories that were supposed to be the light to complement the dark, were fuzzy. They were fading.

Tharja's mother's voice rang through her mind. Memories are power. Allow the darkness into yourself, but do not allow it to consume your memories. There can be no darkness without light.

She shut her eyes, trying to call forth clear versions of the recollections she had relied on for years. —Too long, likely. Tharja held both hands against her forehead, willing herself to recall with clarity. They had to still be there — what was her aunt wearing? What were she and her mother doing? Think think think—

Tharja could not think. She could not remember clearly. She bit her bottom lip until she was sure it had started bleeding, though when she felt it, nothing came off on her fingers.

Blood blood murderer

The voices of the damned and departed were insistent, and Tharja couldn't seem to shake them. She spun around in circles, trying to decide on a course of action. What could she do? This was the road to madness, to overpowering darkness. She had to think, but she couldn't think, she couldn't remember, she couldn't see—

There were voices in the darkness. There had always been voices in the darkness, crying out to be heard: the echoes of pleas for vengeance and retribution, of pure passion and hatred. Those were the ones that persisted long after the flesh returned to the earth, for such cries were too strong to dissipate.

These voices, however, were quite different.

"—don't know. Frederick found her on his morning rounds."

"And you've been here ever since?"

"That's right. We can't just leave her behind."

"Are you all right? I know she's a little… You know…"

A short laugh. "Nothing to worry about. Besides, I've got Libra helping me. I'll be fine."

"I see. I'll trust your judgment, then. Tell me when she wakes."

"Right."

A swishing sound, and footsteps. This darkness was different. It was warm and full, like the soft red of blood within arteries safely tucked away under skin, safe and sound. Tharja groaned.

"Oh. Are you awake?"

Tharja tried to open her eyes. She couldn't. She tried to move, but her body was too stiff. She was paralyzed.

"Libra, come help me for a second, I think she's coming around."

Another set of feet, lighter — the man who resembled a woman. Libra.

A cool hand rested itself against her forehead. Tharja hadn't realized how warm she felt until she shied away from the touch.

"That she is," Libra said. "Her fever has nearly broken. She can hear us now, Naga be praised."

"How can you tell?"

"Her eyes move behind her eyelids. She is coming to, though she may not wake entirely for some time yet." There was a pause, long enough that Tharja wondered if she had lost the ability to hear in addition to all else. Then: "You should go. You have more than done your part."

Another short laugh. "What, and you haven't? No, I think I'll stay."

"With all due respect, you are the lynchpin of this army. You have better things to do than worry about a single soldier."

The humming sound that followed made Tharja shudder. She could feel it next to her, the tone resonating with the darkness inside of her. If only she could open her eyes, find the source—

"I disagree. An army is made of individuals — single soldiers, as you put it. If I can't care for one person, what gives me the right to direct multitudes?"

Robin. The darkness thrummed in Tharja in response. She had noticed it before, a certain aura around Robin, and she had been drawn to it to be sure, but this…

"As you say. May the blessings of Naga fall on both of you."

Footsteps left, and there was the sound of a tent flap being pulled back. Libra was gone. She was alone with Robin.

Tharja felt saliva collecting at the back of her throat, but she couldn't swallow, and not for lack of trying. She knew she was still breathing, but the air felt heavy and thick. It had to be a curse. Something to simulate drowning, perhaps? If only she could tell Robin—

But Robin's hand was resting on her head. Robin knew how trapped she felt. Tharja's throat belatedly resumed functioning, and she coughed. She still could not open her eyes.

"Libra says you can hear me," Robin said. Tharja strained her ears. The strategist sounded far off, though the dark mage knew that such a thing couldn't be so. "On the off chance that you can, stay with us."

Tharja sensed it then, and she knew. She felt a great pulse of darkness, emanating from Robin's hand. The strategist was somehow responsible for the growing darkness in Tharja's heart. She tried to pull away, but all she managed was a thin groan. Robin's hand disappeared, and Tharja groaned again. Whatever it was, Tharja felt hollow without it, as Robin's darkness, once removed, took everything else with it. But if that darkness was powerful as Tharja thought it was, her own will would be nothing against it. She would drown.

"Tharja? Come on, stay with it. Can you hear me?"

Tharja couldn't hear much of anything. Robin's fingers were interlaced with her own now, and there was so much raw power that Tharja's body lost control of itself. She was twitching and convulsing, and though she knew she must present quite the spectacle, she couldn't stop it. She was aware of herself, but she couldn't control her own actions. It was humiliating — and fascinating. To completely lose control, to be completely overcome by power… What could that mean?

Robin was calling for help, and people were running to answer the plea. Tharja could hear them as if she were the earth itself, could hear the pounding of their metal sabatons against the ground. There were healers and fighters alike, all coming for her — but now that they had arrived, where was Robin? Where was that power and that overwhelming darkness?

By the end of the day, Tharja had decided that she was a masochistic idiot and that something had to be done.

She was recovered by the day's end, but not without a great deal of help. Lissa, Maribelle, and Libra, with consultations from Miriel and Ricken, managed to get her awake and back in control of her body.

Between the five of them, it was concluded that Tharja had neither been cursed nor hexed. No outside party, they said, had interfered with her health.

What they didn't say, and what Tharja knew, was that they had no idea what had happened to her. She, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea, and a pretty good plan to follow up on it. That was where the masochistic idiot part came in: what she was going to do was destructive and dangerous. Her number one priority had always been looking after herself. This, though, was different. She found herself aching to know. She had to find out for sure.

Foolish or not, though, Tharja knew that another opportunity to do what she wished would be a long time in coming. The army was exhausted and making little progress. Though they were far enough away from the Plegian forces to dally, they slogged through the harsh terrain in hopes of finding ground where they could take a stand. At times like these, resting was of the utmost importance, especially for the most important figure in the army, the strategist.

Robin tended to stay up late, working on plans. Lately, that was not the case. The strategist had been retiring early, and encouraging the troops to do the same. The campsite was nearly deserted by nightfall most evenings. Who knew how long Tharja would have this window of opportunity?

As predicted, that night the strategist retired to sleep early, telling Chrom that they could review battle plans in the morning. As soon as Tharja heard so much, she hid herself in the shadows behind the strategist's tent and waited.

Eventually, the light in Robin's tent disappeared. Tharja listened closely, and when the strategist's breathing evened out, she snuck inside.

Unlike most soldiers, Robin did not have to share a space. The strategist was all alone — and utterly defenseless while sleeping. Tharja knew from experience that Robin slept soundly and did not easily wake. Robin was the perfect sleeping subject.

Tharja came up to the cot. Carefully, she spread her tools in an array. It was a relatively simple spell, but it was not one she was familiar with because it necessitated that one's target be stationary and alive. In Tharja's experience, those two conditions rarely came about simultaneously.

The spell was designed to trace the target's power to the source. It was of particular use for dark mages, who often used it on their sleeping children to determine whether or not the child had the potential to work magics and where that power source would be located.

In Tharja, it was her forehead. In Robin, as Tharja found, it was the right hand.

Tharja frowned. The right hand. When Tharja had been ill, Robin had sat to her left, meaning the right hand had been the closest one, the one with which Robin had touched her.

Without making a sound, Tharja peeled back Robin's blanket to expose the strategist's hands. Tharja was in luck: Robin slept on the left side, leaving the right hand exposed. The answer to all of Tharja's questions stared her in the face: the sigil of Grima glowed an iridescent purple in the strategist's skin.

Tharja stared at it for a long moment before gathering her tools and going outside. She didn't so much as hesitate until she was tucked into her own tent and sitting down.

She had to admit, that was unexpected. A strategist serving Ylissean nobles, followers of Naga, branded with the mark of the Dark God? It was inconceivable. And yet…

Tharja felt a surge of power that ebbed away slowly. She recognized the darkness as Robin's. She shivered; perhaps it wasn't Robin at all. Tharja had never seen that kind of dark power before, but she had read about it. Only Grima had possessed true darkness.

A shiver tore through her. Grima, the Fell Dragon, and Robin, the striking strategist. There was a link, and Tharja knew she had to find it. With every ounce of blood in her body, she knew that her life depended on finding out where the darkness ultimately stemmed from and controlling it before it could control her.

Whatever was happening with Robin, it wasn't happening consciously on the strategist's part. Rationally, Tharja knew that couldn't be possible. Such power couldn't just seep out of a person unbidden. But Tharja had seen it happen, and she had been following Robin everywhere.

She had modified one of her mother's spells so that it would hide her in Robin's shadow, invisible to all others unless she willed otherwise. It was quite convenient for what Tharja wanted, and she found herself enjoying it. She knew she had liked Robin, but this was something else. This attraction, as it seemed, was more than fleeting.

Tharja sensed several pulses of darkness over the next few days as the army travelled. One had been when Lissa was severely, though not fatally, injured after Robin had sent her into the field to heal some nobody with a scratch. Another had been when Robin had nearly decapitated Chrom while training with poorly blunted swords. A third had been when Robin's battle formation had fallen apart and the army had been forced to retreat, losing valuable ground. Then there were the weaker pulses that Tharja sensed whenever Robin was alone. When the strategist wasn't around others, the darkness seemed to gather persistently, if not strongly.

There was the answer, then. Robin wasn't doing it on purpose: whenever the strategist felt pain, or fear, or any negative, distancing emotion, the darkness surged and grew stronger. Whatever had happened to the strategist — whatever Robin really was — isolation was bad. Robin was drowning in darkness and didn't even know it, and as a consequence of being physically close, Tharja was being affected as well.

That couldn't stand. Tharja wouldn't allow herself to be dragged under by anyone, not even Robin. The thought of the strategist fading away irked her just as much.

Tharja could only come up with one solution.

She would always be there. Not hiding, not lurking, just there. If Robin wanted her to act normally, she would. If Robin asked her to wear a silly hat, she would. If Robin asked her to disembowel herself, she would probably cast an illusion of herself doing it, but she would consider doing it all the same. Maybe, knowing that someone else was there would make Robin less vulnerable to the darkness. Maybe, they could face the dark together.