Chapter Text
Severa wakes in her own bed. It’s weird, and she doesn’t like it. She still hasn’t quite unlearned those old habits, groping blindly for her sword, waiting for issued commands or the stern voice of her partner telling her off for sleeping in again. It’s not her fault she needs her beauty rest.
She pushes herself up to a sitting position and blinks. Sunlight streams through the open window, accompanying a breeze that flutters the curtains with warmth and light. She scoots backwards and rests against the headboard.
She’s been home for almost a full week now, waking in her own bed, to the sounds of movement and soft chatter downstairs, sometimes with a plate of cooling breakfast on the bedside table, sometimes tea with wisps of steam curling in the morning air. She rubs her eyes and yawns.
She hadn’t slept well.
It hasn’t stopped yet. The nightmares, the crying out in the night, waking with wet on her cheeks and sweat in her bedsheets, tangled and gasping for breath. Cordelia usually comes to her, the wooden walls thin enough to allow her pain to slip through and into her parents’ bedroom. Severa rests her face in her hands and rubs her temples. Headache.
She slides her legs out of bed and stares at her still-unpacked gear bag in the corner chair, her sheathed sword leaning against the chair’s side. Her nightshirt is sticky with sweat, but the cool air feels marvelous on her skin. The hardwood floor is cold against her bare feet.
Hers is the attic room, with sloped ceilings converging on a point somewhere above her double bed. There’s a chair in the corner, a desk pushed to one side, beneath the window and the fluttering curtains, and a vanity that still sits empty. Robin had promised to take her shopping sometime, but she had found herself too tired to do much more than sleep and eat. Even now, getting dressed was sluggish and felt like a monumental task in the face of crawling back into bed and sleeping forever. She blinks slowly at the unmade covers and slowly pulls her mercenary jacket over her head.
The house is quiet in the mornings, with the younger children probably off at school and Morgan doing something with a shovel out back. Possibly a pitfall, hopefully a garden. Severa yawns again as she walks down the stairs.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” her mother looks up from her book and smiles.
“Hey,” Severa says quietly. Her voice is hoarse, probably from muffled shouting into her pillow.
“You sleep okay?”
Severa makes a noncommittal groan and stretches, cracking her joints. “Maybe. What time is it?”
“Just after one.” Cordelia shuts her book and rests it on the table. “Do you want some lunch?”
Severa nods and presses a hand to her growling stomach. Being up half the night made her hungry. She dutifully follows Cordelia into the kitchen and sits at the table to watch her cook.
“Your father is going into town this evening to buy some things,” Cordelia explains. “Tea?”
Severa nods and sits up straighter.
“He told me to ask you if you wanted anything.”
“Mm, I’m okay,” Severa folds her arms on the table and lays her head down. She feels a hand gently touch the back of her head and starts for a moment, before she realizes it’s just Cordelia.
“You seem tense.”
Severa sits up, letting gravity brush her mother’s hand from her head. “Yeah, sorry.”
“Nightmares again?
Severa nods. Cordelia purses her lips, a sad expression on her face. She sits at Severa’s side and drapes an arm loosely over her shoulders and squeezes lightly.
“I’m okay,” Severa says flatly.
She isn’t quite sure if it’s true. No, she knows its a lie. Things have felt...off. Disjointed. Like she isn’t really here. Because she shouldn’t be, probably. She doesn’t have a place in this world, and watching her younger self run around and play with her sister and her parents just makes that all the more apparent. But it hurts, to think that the only world she belongs to is one of fire and blood.
She tries sitting up again and relaxing into her mother’s embrace.
“It’s okay,” Cordelia says softly, stroking her hair.
“I’m sorry,” Severa says, almost inaudibly.
The day passes slowly, with Severa moving around the house like a ghost, like the silt of a streambed that once swirled refuses to settle. She takes time to bathe and fix her hair, she finally gets around to unpacking her gear, she sits on the back porch, she watches Morgan work in the garden.
“You okay, Sev?”
A shadow is cast over her seat on the porch. “Oh, hey, dad.”
Robin gives a polite half-smile and sits with her. “Feeling okay?”
“I…” Severa sighs. “Yeah, just tired.”
“Seems like you’ve been tired a lot.”
“It’s been a long time.”
Robin nods and hums in agreement. “Your mother’s worried about you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“She thought you’d be happy to be home. We’re certainly happy you’re with us.”
Severa picks at a fraying thread in the bottom of her jacket. “Sorry.”
Robin sighs. “You don’t need to apologize with us, Severa. It’s okay.”
Severa turns to nod at him, but her eyes are cast down, still unwilling to make eye contact. Apologetic even in her assent.
“Did you want to come into town with me? It’s just a short trip. We could get dinner somewhere, maybe, after I meet with the Exalt.”
Severa shakes her head. “N-no, I...I’d rather just stay here I think.
Robin rests a hand on Severa’s. “Severa, I just...I think you should try to get back out there. See some of your old friends, maybe. You’ve been home almost a week and haven’t seen much more than the inside of your bedroom.”
Severa pulls her hand away. “I’ll do it when I’m ready.”
“Did something happen?”
“Hm?”
“Did something happen? Is that why you came back to us?”
“No, I…” Severa curls her hand into a fist. “I...listen, I’m okay.” She stands up. “I’m just going to go lay down for a bit.”
“Severa…”
“Dad, please just drop it. Please.”
-
The other children come home sometime in the mid-afternoon, walking together up the dirt trail from the direction of Ylisstol. Severa spends the afternoon hiding in her room, organizing her things and looking over the drawers and shelves of old belongings. None of it’s dusty - evidently someone had kept the room clean and tidy in her absence, and the knowledge made her heart ache. Was it Cordelia, dutifully sweeping the floor and dusting the shelves, staring at the empty bed where her daughter belonged? Was it Morgan, wondering where her sister had gone?
Severa opens a drawer and sifts through the neatly folded skirts and leggings. The thing she’s looking for is still there, though Morgan had no doubt read it in the intervening years. She pulls a thin leather-bound book out from beneath a pair of frilly lace leggings and sits down on the bed.
It’s old, beat to hell and back, stained with all sorts of unnamed garbage - she can name some of them. Blood, black Risen goop, mud, rain. The pages are scribbled with hasty and unorganized black ink. A diary that she had started long ago. The first entry was detailing finding the book in the rubble of her home.
Severa turns the pages slowly. It’s a keepsake, at this point, and most if it’s illegible - some pages the ink is smeared and unclear, other pages are missing entirely, torn or burned out. Sketches of maps and plans, relics from another life. Another world. And then the pages are clean. They’re whole, written in neat and tidy handwriting. About a different world.
The pages rustle quietly as she reads. Maybe it could help her anchor herself, remember that this is her life. This is the place she belongs. And then, a simple entry. A single line of ink.
I think I do love her.
Severa snaps the book shut and throws it across the room, and it hits her dresser with a dull thump before clattering to the ground. She throws herself down in bed and pulls the covers over herself, tugging the blankets around her into a tight cocoon. She isn’t going to cry. She isn’t going to cry. She was very good at not crying.
Even if ten years hadn’t passed, what was the point? She was...she was what? The princess of Ylisse, the Exalt’s daughter, advisor to the Lord Exalt and the kingdom. Compared to a mercenary, what was that? And ten years had passed. She had moved on. It was a stupid, childish crush, the product of isolation and deprivation more than anything else. Even after coming back through time, they hadn’t been...well, together. It had been three years before they even saw each other again. She had probably forgotten all about her.
As she rightly should: Severa had left, sworn off this life. When she took that mysterious job offer, she was choosing that over her old life, over her friends and family. And now trying to force her way back in was bringing nothing but heartache.
“Severa?” Cordelia’s soft voice appears at some point, after an unknown amount of time. “I thought you might like some dinner.”
Under the covers, Severa remained curled tightly into herself.
“I’ll just leave it on your desk,” Cordelia continued, followed by the sound of footsteps and a plate on wood. Severa can hear her walking, and then the footsteps stop.
“What’s this?” Cordelia asks, and Severa can hear the floor creak as she kneels.
“Don’t touch that!” Severa shoots herself out from under the bed, tearing the covers off. “Don’t read it.”
Cordelia’s fingers brush the air above the open pages, her eyes drawn to the contents within until Severa bends down to swipe the book off the floor.
“It’s stupid, just some stupid old journal.” Severa loudly and angrily pulls her drawer open, deposits the journal inside, and slams the drawer shut.
“I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay,” Cordelia says, taking a step back to give Severa her space.
“Yeah…” Severa nods. “Uh, thanks for dinner.”
Cordelia paused in the doorway before leaving, resting against the frame and watching Severa curiously as she sat at her desk to eat.
“She’s unwed, you know.”
Severa stops mid-way through a mouthful of bread and swallowed. “What?”
“The princess. As far a I’ve heard, she hasn’t taken a lover.”
“Why would I care?” Severa doesn’t look up from her plate.
“I just...I know you were close.”
Severa’s room is quiet for awhile, her staring at her plate, Cordelia standing in the doorway, a slender shadow, unwilling to intrude on her daughter’s private miseries. Severa takes an unsteady breath.
“That was a long time ago.”
Cordelia nods and leaves the doorway empty. Severa stares at her window, eyes fixed on the glass pane rather than what’s beyond. Out, past the yard, past the trees and fields, is the castle town. And the castle. And...and her.
But her vision doesn’t extend that far, just to the circle of light illuminated by their glowing windows, the shadowed treeline black against the deep blue of night, with stars sparkling overhead.
She remembers laying with Lucina out in the desert, the rocky cliffs of Southern Plegia, sharing the night watch shift, watching the stars. Lucina hadn’t learned the constellations or the myths, so Severa would point to them and recite stories from her old primers, stories of heroes and old gods and princesses and dragons.
Severa shuts her curtains.
-
“You’re coming with me into town today,” Robin says with decisive finality.
Severa looks up from her breakfast of lukewarm eggs she had spent the past twenty minutes poking with disinterest. “What?”
“I have some errands that I need to run, supplies to pick up, that sort of thing. I’d like you to come and help me.”
Severa frowns and gives a pleading look to Cordelia, and then to Morgan, both of whom shake their heads.
“Ugh, dad, come on! Can’t I just stay here?”
“We just think it’d be good for you to get out of the house. You know, get some fresh air.” Cordelia stands behind her and rests her hands on Severa’s shoulders. “Your father thought seeing the castle town again might help you feel less uncomfortable about being here.”
“How is that going to make it less uncomfortable?” Severa asks. “It’s Ylisstol. It’s the same.”
“Well, you don’t know that,” Cordelia says. “A lot has changed since you left. There’s a whole Plegian district now, new shops, new clothes.” She smiles brightly. “I heard that a Valmese fashion boutique opened up in the market square.”
Severa hates that that’s what it takes to pique her interest. She scowls. “I don’t care.”
Robin and Cordelia make eye contact.
“Don’t make me order you.”
Severa gawks. “You’re my dad, you can’t give me orders!”
“I’m the Exalt’s tactician, high strategist and advisor. I think I rank a little bit higher than a foreign knight.”
“No, no, no,” Severa clamps her hands over her ears. “I’m almost thirty years old, I do NOT need my own father to make me get groceries with him!”
“It’s not just groceries,” Robin says, taking a small notebook out of the folds of his robe. “I need to get some groceries, yes, but Morgan wants me to pick up some gardening supplies, and the Exalt wants to discuss the castle expansion plans with me. It’ll be an all-day affair if it’s just me.”
Severa scowls. “Okay, but I’m not going to the castle.”
“Deal,” Robin grins.
-
Robin and Severa ride Robin’s horse into the town, through the thickets of forest and over small wooden footbridges crossing babbling streams, through the rocky glen that marked the halfway point, and then they emerged from the forest into the wide-open fields that surrounded the city. Severa keeps her arms tight around her father and rests her head (annoyingly) on his shoulder, watching as the countryside passes them by. It’s strange to be back, to see how little had changed since she had left. Maybe it wasn’t so long, but it felt like a lifetime. It felt like she had been a different person - and in a sense, she had been. Maybe that’s what made it so hard. The Severa that held her father tightly and laughed at his ridiculous jokes as they rode into town was a very different Severa than the angry girl who had thought her father dead, who thought her life worthless and misplaced.
The sun beats down through a hot and cloudless sky, warming her skin - if she had spent more time in the sun the past few days, her freckles would have shown up and dusted her cheeks.
The castle loomed large on the horizon, the sheer stone walls towering up from the edge of the fields, the gate and the parapets decorated with bright blue banners that flapped in the breeze. Severa could see soldiers patrolling the upper walls, that distinctive blue uniforms and iron helmets, a far cry from the gothic black and gold of the country she had spent so long calling home.
Robin stables the horse outside the city and the two walk together down the crowded streets.
“So what’s first?” she asks, shouldering past a merchant carrying a heavy crate.
“Well, I need to meet with the Exalt, so why don’t you just familiarize yourself with the city for a bit?”
Severa squints. “I thought you wanted to be with me.”
“Well, you didn’t want to go to the castle.”
“Fine,” Severa shrugs. “Should we meet up somewhere, then?”
Robin nods. “Do you remember the fountain on the east side? That little plaza in the shade of the castle walls? How about there, in say, two hours?”
Severa nods.
And just like that, she’s alone on the streets of Ylisstol. No, not alone - she’s surrounded by the swirl of crowds, the city streets ablaze with life and laughter, women hanging linens in the alleys, children playing in the street, wagons blocking off alleys to the ire of merchants, life, normal, peaceful, happy life.
Severa hadn’t spent too much time in Ylisstol, except when she was very young, and then Ylisstol was ash. She didn’t know the streets as well as her friends did, for the most part, but she could make her way around without stopping to ask directions too many times.
She sticks her head into a blacksmith’s shop, she browses jewelry at a market stall, she uses pocket change to buy a cream pastry to nibble on as she walks.
She keeps startling herself, not feeling the heft of her sword on her belt, and she gropes for it, checks the ground, and then remembers that she hadn’t brought it. There was no need to. Other than skirmishes with bandits and some splintered remnants of the Grimleal, Ylisse had no enemies. Relations with Ferox and Valm were flourishing, and even Plegia held a cautious but optimistic truce. Aversa was the queen now, Severa recalled hearing, having led her nation’s repair with cold and calculated precision.
The sun creeps through the sky and Severa makes her way through the quiet streets slowly, like she’s navigating a dream and any harsh movements will send her careening back to wakefulness. She’s in the middle of examining a shopkeeper’s selection of hand-sewn dresses when she remembers the time.
“Oh, crap, dad!” she curses, darting out the door, leaving the welcome bell ringing in her wake.
She sidles between market stalls and vaults a pile of crates in an alley, trying to get herself to the quiet side streets that border the main market square.The streets are more narrow here, winding and maze-like, multileveled, with stairs and walkways crisscrossing gutters and cart-roads. She stops at an intersection to familiarize herself.
The sun sinks lower, casting a cool shadow across the lower quadrant of the castle town, turning the stone from bright gray to a muted bluish in shadow. She descends a staircase into an open stone plaza, almost entirely empty except for a few pedestrians crossing. At the center of the plaza is a great marble fountain, elegantly shaped in the image of a dragon, and from her mouth a deluge of crystal water pours.
Severa stands on her tiptoes and gazes around the plaza. Nothing. Crap. She must have missed him.
She sighs and sits at the edge of the fountain. This is just like her, isn’t it? Well, he’d show up eventually. In the meantime she can enjoy the silence save the distant chitter of birds and the found of flowing water.
“Hey.”
Severa almost falls backwards into the fountain. Instead, she scrambles to her feet and pats her sides, desperately looking for a sword that isn’t there. She whips her head up and -
“Woah, woah, calm down there,” comes a low, steadying voice.
Severa stares at the voice’s owner.
The years had been kind to Lucina. She seemed fuller, softer, the bony angles of her adolescence grown to slender muscle and a soft, kind face. Where before she was all skin and ribs and gaunt cheeks, she has a softer quality to her, something kindly and warm. She’s dressed plainly, in a black skirt and a button-up shirt, no doubt tailor-fitted, matched to her high ponytail and her slight tiara that glints is the fading light. She has flowers in her hair. Daisies.
Severa blinks.
“Hey, Sev.”
Severa struggles to even process what she sees before her. She fumbles on her words, her tongue thick and useless in her stupid mouth. “I...Lu…Luce.”
“I almost didn’t come.”
“What?” Severa can scrape herself together enough to ask that one question.
“When your dad told us you were back, I…” She isn’t looking at Severa, instead she staring into the water of the fountain. “I was so mad at you, Severa.” She curls her hands into fists and blinks slowly. “I was so mad at you for so long. You...you broke my heart, you know? Leaving without saying anything. Without telling me.”
“I…” Severa doesn’t have an excuse. There’s only so many times ‘I was young and stupid ’ gets the point across.
“I just…” Lucina sucks in a deep breath. “I just want to understand. Why...why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t…” Severa blinks and sits on the fountain’s edge, trying not to cry. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t face you. Face him. Your dad. I thought...I thought it’d be easier if I just left.” She looks up to Lucina and reaches a wrist up to wipe the tears from the corner of her eyes. “We didn’t belong here. Or...or, I didn’t. I don’t know.” She can’t bring herself to look at Lucina. “I’m sorry.”
“I had to hear it from Owain. Do you know how that felt?!” Lucina asks. “You could have just told me. You…” She purses her lips and steadies herself. “I would have come with you. You know I would have.”
Severa shakes her head. “No, I...I couldn’t let you. I know you would have, or you would have tried to stop me, and I just…” she curls her fingers around her knees and squeezes. “If you had asked me to stay, I would have. And I couldn’t be here. Not after what happened. Not after...after daddy vanished. I...I’m sorry, okay?!” her voice is suddenly loud in her throat, louder than she wanted. “Is that what you want to hear?!”
“Severa…”
“I loved you, Lucina!” Severa cries out, tears openly dripping down her cheeks. “I loved you so much it hurt! And I couldn’t...I…” she lifts shaking hands to her face to wipe her tears, but they’re only replaced with more. “I knew I didn’t deserve you. I never did. And I thought leaving would make the pain stop. But it did.” She whimpers and blinks. “Every day...every day for ten years, I thought about you. I couldn’t...I...I saw you in everything. In every lonely night, every quiet pond, every bright blue sky and every shooting star I saw I thought of you, and nothing but you. I…”
She gasps a pitiful sob and clutches her arms around herself. “I loved you so much, and I couldn’t...I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It hurt so much, because I didn’t belong there, either!” Severa rests a hand against the fountain to keep herself from collapsing. “So I’m sorry, okay?!” It takes a second for her to catch her breath again through rasping sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Severa…” Lucina says quietly, taking a step forward.
“So hate me! Go ahead, it’s what I deserve.” Severa wipes her eyes with a balled fist.
Lucina shakes her head, and in the movement is shaking uncertainty, trembling hands as she steps closer. “Severa, I…” She blinks, and she’s crying too. Spilling out like water from a broken dam, like the crystal breath of the marble dragon behind them. “I...I’ve always loved you, Severa,” Lucina confesses, trying to force a smile through her tears. “Always. It’s always been you.” She takes another step closer, watching the incredulity take shape on Severa’s tear-stained face. “I was mad at you because I would have th-thrown it all away for you.” She shakes her head. “I don’t care about any of it. We did what we set out to do, and...I don’t belong here either, I...I belong with you.” She cautiously reaches a shaking hand to Severa. “I belong to you.”
“I thought about you, too,” Lucina continues. “Every night I would walk on the parapets, and I would watch and I would hope and I would pray to Naga that you were safe and happy, wherever you were.” She touches Severa softly, like she’s afraid she’ll shatter. “I...I was mad at you, but I...I cursed myself for never telling you. For never admitting how I felt. So...so I waited. I...I lost track of the days, but I used to count them. I waited for you. And I would wait longer. As long as it takes.”
Severa stares up at her from her half-collapsed position on the fountain, still crying. “Lucina…”
“I know you just got back, but…” Lucina wipes her eyes. “I thought I owed it to you to tell you. To free myself from the regrets I’ve held onto for so long.” She forces a smile through her tears.
Severa pushes herself to her feet and takes Lucina’s offered hand, touching skin she hasn’t touched in so long. She threads her fingers between Lucina’s, melding into a half-embrace, their bodies pressed together and brought close by shaking hands.
“I love you, Severa,” Lucina says quietly, to the face tucked into the crook of her neck. “I love you.”
“I love you too…” Severa says quietly. She pulls back just a little and cups Lucina’s jaw in her hand. “I missed your stupid face,” she laughs, through tears.
“Just kiss me, you idiot,” Lucina mutters, reaching her hand up to grasp the back of Severa’s head and tug her into a kiss. Soft lips meet soft lips as Lucina dips her head down to catch Severa’s mouth.
Severa’s world explodes with sparks, with fire and love coursing through her veins and tearing through her heart and spilling out from between her lips as she pulls Lucina closer, urging her tighter, urging her to kiss her and never let go, to never be parted again. She lets her lips brush Lucina’s and then she kisses her again, deeper and stronger, cupping her face with both hands and stroking the damp skin and the tangled hair, and Severa never wants to be parted from that bliss ever again - the flowers in her hair, the scent of vanilla on her skin, the taste of her lips and the warmth of her breath and the beat of her heart against Severa’s body.
It’s perfection, and Severa hates the word, but gods dammit it’s perfection. It’s like nothing she’s ever wanted so badly, and it takes all of her strength not to pull Lucina closer, to collapse onto the ground and never let their embrace be broken.
Lucina parts first, pulling back, gasping for breath and wiping tears from her eyes, unwilling to pull herself from Severa’s arms and clutching her head to the crook of her neck.
“Severa…” she whispers, hoarse and shaky.
“I’m sorry,” Severa says into her collarbone. “I’m so sorry.”
Lucina pulls back and takes Severa’s face in her hands. “Never leave me again. Okay?”
Severa nods, a smile cracking through her tear-stained face. She lets out a gasping laugh and kisses Lucina again, wrapping her arms tightly around her.
Lucina’s body is warm and soft, and Severa can’t remember a time she’s ever felt so inviting. They had embraced in the past, even kissed, sure, but Severa could feel Lucina’s ribs beneath her thin skin and threadbare clothes in those days, and it was the desperate huddle of adolescents seeking connection in an empty and heartless wasteland. This wasn’t like that, this was the heat of Lucina’s body, the softness of her skin, of her clothes, her hair, her lips, full and soft rather than cracked and bleeding. This was love, not desperate and clawing, but patient, and kind, and welcoming.
“I love you,” Severa says again, quietly.
“I love you, too,” Lucina replies, pressing a chaste kiss to her brow. She lets out a sigh into the deepening darkness as the sun casts the sky in streaks of orange and gold.
Severa suddenly pulls back and scowls. “That jerk! My dad put you up to this, didn’t he!”
Lucina laughs and puts a finger to her lips. “I couldn’t say.”
“Ugh, he’s been trying to get me to come into town all week! Was I making you wait even longer?!”
“It’s okay,” Lucina laughs and her voice is like music as she takes Severa’s hand in her own. She squeezes. “It was enough for me to know that you were safe. I knew you’d...take your time.” She smiles and presses her lips into Severa’s cheek. “In your funny Severa way.”
Severa furrows her brow. “What’s THAT supposed to mean?!”
Lucina laughs again, and even Severa can’t bring herself to be irritated by it. Lucina lets her hand slip from Severa’s fingers and skips ahead, light and laughing. “Owain told Lissa as soon as he got back,” Lucina turns.
Severa frowns. “Owain is back?! What?!”
Lucina nods. “He’s up at the castle with his moms.”
“That idiot!”
“What?!” Lucina latched onto Severa’s arm as she stormed past.
“He’s going to pay for leaving me on that dock in Port Dia!”
“S-Sev!” Lucina hurried after her. “W-wait, please don’t punch my cousin! Please stop rolling your sleeves up!”
-
Lucina twines her fingers through Severa’s as they walked the wall of Ylisstol Castle, watching the sun sinking low behind the mountains on the horizon. It seems like they can see forever here, across the fields and forests, stretching out into the infinite horizon. The snowcapped peaks of the mountains in the north, along the Ferox border, and the flattening of the land to the west as the rolling hills turn to sand and rock.
Severa and Lucina talked and laughed, sharing stories of their time apart, of Severa’s duties in service to the Princess of Nohr and Lucina’s travels around Ylisse and beyond. She had visited Tiki many times in the intervening years, both in devoting to Naga but also to spend time with dear friends.
“I have a kid now,” Severa says flatly as they stare out from the wall.
“You have a WHAT?!” Lucina cried out. “Why didn’t you tell m- oh, I don’t like that face. Are you pulling my leg?”
Severa laughs. “He’s just a chicken, don’t worry. A friend got him for me as a, uh, a gift. Well, I guess it’s because I lost a bet. It’s not important. Are you ready to be a mom?”
“Oh, gosh,” Lucina laughs. “It’s all so sudden! Is he toilet trained?”
Severa smacks her. “Ugh, don’t be gross! He’s very well-behaved.”
Lucina stifles a giggle. “Okay, chicken, got it. Anything else I should know?”
“Uh, I have like, a hundred more scars than before.”
“Oh?” Lucina shifts behind Severa and wraps her arms around her stomach. “Any of them sexy?” She rests her chin on Severa’s head.
“Why are you so dang tall?!” Severa squirms in protest but allows it. Lucina smells nice, and her arms are warm. “No, none of them are sexy.” She scowls. “Mostly just like, burns and stuff.”
“Mages?”
“Mmhm.”
They stand like that for awhile, Severa nestled in Lucina’s arms, both of them facing out at the great swath of Ylissean land that spreads out before them.
Severa closes her eyes and allows herself to sink into Lucina, feeling that maybe, just maybe, if Lucina was there. Ylisstol didn’t need to feel like home. Neither did her bed, or the crackling fireplace in her parents’ living room, or the streets of the castle town. Home was this, watching the sunset, watching the sky turn from orange to streaks of purple and beyond, wrapped in Lucina’s arms. Lucina is her home. Lucina is her king, always her king, no matter what world.