Work Text:
And letting go is the hardest part
When holding on has been everything
Well I have this pain deep in my heart
That's why I sing, that's why I sing
Lucina was six years old when she watched her parents march away to Plegia. At the time, she thought little of it; they had left before, and although this time they would be gone for a long time, they were always careful to set a date to return, or at least send a letter, and Lucina had never seen them break that promise. So she sat in the window, watching her parents mount their horses in the courtyard, watched their Shepherds and their soldiers follow suit, and when little Morgan sniffled and pressed a tiny hand in hers, she squeezed back, strong and confident like a good big sister should.
Months and months later, her parents had not returned, and no messenger had returned with a letter apologizing for the delay. When a handful of her father’s troops finally stumbled into the castle yard, bloody and broken, Lucina could not understand. Where were her parents? Why had the soldiers returned without them?
It was Sumia who came, in the end. Who slipped into the nursery, quiet without her armour, and knelt in front of Lucina to put a bandaged hand on Lucina’s small, soft one, while her other hand held a terribly familiar scabbard, and told her –
No.
Lucina ran.
Chrom had been a beloved Exalt, a steady presence after the loss of his sister, and during his rule Ylisse had seemed nearly untouchable. He was at the head of every charge, the halidom’s sword and shield, and every single person Lucina saw had to tell her that, came to her with some story about her father and how he’d personally saved their life and how devastated they were to lose him. Lucina was absolutely sick of it.
Her father, for all his strengths, had never been good at comforting upset children, and so when Lucina was unhappy she’d instead go to her mother’s office to curl up in her arms until she felt well enough to come out of hiding. But her mother was gone too, and her scattered books and papers were put away, and the chair where she usually sat was cold and empty. As Lucina looked around the strangely barren room, she was struck with a sudden, horrible thought - was this what her parents would become? Would her memories become like this room, with everything her parents had done quietly disappearing the moment she looked away? She felt a horrible fear in her throat as she thought of her father’s sword, the one he said she would wield, and then she grabbed her own practice sword and ran to the courtyard.
Lucina spent the next few days in a haze of panic, swinging her sword in the yard until her hands blistered and strained, and then sitting in the shade and replaying every trick she could remember her father showing her, even the ones she was much too small to learn. She’d promised to learn to wield Falchion – Father had said she was the only other one who could, and she couldn’t let him down, couldn’t forget a single word, couldn’t lose this one thing that belonged only to them –
So she went on, until one night she lay in bed, too tired to sleep, too scared of what her dreams would be like when she finally did, when a thought crossed her mind, and her breath hitched when she suddenly realized –
She had forgotten the sound of her mother’s voice.
The castle of Ylisstol had no shortage of ghosts. In between the tapestries and stone carvings lining the walls hung the stern faces of many of Lucina’s ancestors. Owain had been fascinated by them, spending hours making up more and more elaborate stories about their exploits, pulling Morgan behind him as he ran from painting to painting, barely stifling laughter. Even Aunt Lissa had a portrait in one of the sitting rooms, the one next to the west gardens, facing one of Aunt Emm, who Lucina’d never met.
Lucina’s favourite, though, was the one in the library, the one of her and her mother and father and little baby Morgan. It had been one of two commissioned to celebrate the baby, and finished just before Morgan’s first birthday. The first portrait was in the nursery, but it was just Robin and the baby, and Lucina preferred the one that was all of them together. Her mother did too, and she had it hung in the library, right above her favourite sitting area. Sometimes, in the evenings, her mother would gather them all up and take them to the library, and she would read them stories about heroes from long ago, and her father would tell them about all the faraway places he went with the Shepherds, and Lucina would look at the portrait and at her family and grin because why did they need a painting when they were all right here –
Now, when it all became too much, Lucina would go to the library and wrap herself in blankets and close her eyes and curl up very small. She was too old to believe that the blankets and pillows would magically turn into her parents’ arms around her, but there was still a part of her that wanted to think that maybe if she wished hard enough they would step out of the painting and –
The worst part was when she woke up and realized that they really hadn’t, after all. That the weight on her side was just little Morgan, who had curled right up beside her, and her dad wasn’t here to shake them both awake and bring them down for dinner, so Lucina would just have to do that herself. And she did love Morgan, but everyone was already talking about how she had to be like Chrom now, and she didn’t like that, didn’t like having to do her dad’s job because he should be doing it, and –
Part of her knew that it wasn’t Morgan’s fault that she was upset, and Morgan wasn’t the one she should be yelling at. But she couldn’t stop doing it, and that was the real worst part, wasn’t it. That she was supposed to be strong, like she promised her dad when he left, but all she was doing was sulking in the library and making Morgan cry.
...Lucina really was horrible, wasn’t she.
It wasn’t as if she was completely alone, at least. Even before, Aunt Lissa had split her time between her family cottage and the castle, but now she spent most of her time helping look after things in Ylisstol. She couldn’t be the Exalt – Lucina was her father’s heir, after all – but she told all the nobles and councillors that Lucina was too young to rule, and none of them dared to argue with her. Lucina was thankful for it, anyway; her father was strong and kind and charming, and her mother was as good at politics as she was with tactics, and even when she wasn’t feeling horrible Lucina could never be as good a ruler as either of them, even if Aunt Lissa said otherwise. So she sat in the library while her aunt argued with the council, until finally they came up with a system that everyone was happy with. Lissa would be named regent, and she and the council would rule Ylisse together until Lucina was able to do it herself. Lissa would also take charge of raising Lucina and Morgan, and she and her family would stay at the castle all the time now, and Owain would be taking lessons with them.
After Aunt Lissa was done telling Lucina all this, she reached across the couch and took Lucina’s hands in hers and said, “I know I’m not your parents, and I can’t replace them, but I’ll do my best to look after you. So please, if you ever need anything, come to me, and I’ll do my best to help, alright?”
She knew her aunt meant well, but there was nothing she could do to help, because the only thing Lucina needed was her parents, and Aunt Lissa was a very good healer but she couldn’t fix them because they were –
But she didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so Lucina just nodded, and stared at her hands until Aunt Lissa squeezed them and let go.
A few weeks later, Lucina was very thankful she hadn’t said anything, because even if Aunt Lissa couldn’t work miracles, she did look after Morgan, and that was much more helpful than Lucina thought it’d be. At first she felt bad about being happy that Morgan wasn’t following her around anymore – she had promised her mother that she’d help look after the baby, after all, and now she didn’t even want to look at Morgan’s face! But now Morgan was playing with Owain or practicing letters with the tutor instead of following Lucina around, and Aunt Lissa had put herself in charge of making sure Morgan was clean and fed and having naps on time, so if Lucina needed to go into the library and cry for a little while, then at least Morgan wasn’t finding her to ask silly questions when she was trying very hard to be alone. And when Morgan stopped interrupting her, she stopped getting mad and making Morgan cry and then feeling horrible about it, so that was nice, at least.
Except that wasn’t the end of it, because one night when Lucina was lying in bed when she heard her door creak, and then a few moments later a little head peeked nervously around the corner. Lucina sat up and stared right back; after all, it had been at least two hours since Aunt Lissa had put them both to bed. After a moment, Morgan came through the door and up to her bed, but then just stood there, quietly fiddling with a corner of Lucina’s quilt.
Finally, Lucina gave up. “What’s wrong, Morgan?” she whispered.
“...Aunt Lissa’s is wrong.”
Lucina just blinked. “What’s wrong?”
Morgan finally looked up. “The song. It’s not mama’s. It’s wrong.”
Oh.
Lucina let out the breath she was holding. Mother’s…
Mother had always been the one to put them to bed, before. They had a nurse, of course, and a handful of maids, who made sure she and Morgan were washed and dressed for bed, but their mother had always made sure to see them before they went to sleep. Robin was very busy, after all, and even when she wasn’t she sometimes got lost in her books and forgot to talk to anybody all day, until Father himself had to go fetch her for dinner. So she made sure that every single night one of the maids sent for her, and she would go to see her children. That was what she told Lucina when she asked - that she didn’t want them to forget how much she loved them, no matter how busy she got, so she made a promise to be there at the same time every day, so that she could make sure they were okay. The only times she didn’t come were when she had to leave the castle, and then Robin always made sure to spend extra time with them when she got home, to make up for the nights she was gone. Whenever that happened, Lucina and Morgan would ask the nurse every night when Mother would be getting back, and as soon as she did they would run up to meet her in the courtyard, and Mother would hug them both very tight and kiss them each on the forehead one time for every day she was gone. And then Father would laugh, and he would come over and hug them all too, and then he’d scoop Lucina up and swing her around even though she was getting big, and then he’d do the same to Morgan, and Mother would laugh the whole time, even when Sir Frederick and Lady Sumia were shooing them inside to clean off.
That’s what happened this time, too, Lucina and Morgan asking the nurse every night when Mother and Father would get home, and counting every day so Mother knew how many kisses to give, and making sure the courtyard was clear so Father wouldn’t fall if Lucina got too big to swing around. Except then their parents didn’t come home on time, and the nurse got more and more worried every time they asked, and then the soldiers came home and they had Mother’s horse and Father’s sword but Mother and Father weren’t there –
The last thing Mother did every night was sing to them. Mother didn’t sing like the court musicians, with their long, boring songs about noble knights fighting wars in faraway lands or young ladies doing dumb things because they were in love. It wasn’t like the church choirs either, who sang very slow hymns that echoed everywhere and rumbled around in Lucina’s head for hours afterwards, or even like the traveling performers who came for festivals and played fast cheerful music that made everyone want to dance. Sometimes the songs Mother sang were made up, silly songs about something Lucina or Morgan did that day, like when Lucina had her first sword lesson and Mother started singing about Lucina being a strong and beautiful knight and saving people from very unrealistic situations, while Morgan laughed and Lucina blushed red and begged her to stop.
Other times, Mother sang things that she found in books, poems that she made up tunes for, or songs she found in history books that most people didn’t play anymore. Occasionally she even sang songs that she said her mother taught her, even if that was so long ago that she’d forgotten half the words and had to make up new ones. Lucina liked those ones the best, even if they sometimes sounded strange and foreign, because it was nice to think that her mother also got to be like this, curled up safe and warm and surrounded by her family. It made them both the same.
The song Mother sang often, before she left, was one of those old ones. The first time Lucina heard it was a little while after the last war, the one with Valm. Lucina didn’t remember the war very well, just that her parents were gone for a very long time, and they took all the Shepherds with them. Morgan was still very small, so it was just Lucina waiting in the courtyard when they got back, and Mother still kissed her many times, and Father still swung her around, but they hadn’t laughed as much, and for a long time afterwards things had been quieter than usual.
Lucina was smaller too, then, and not as brave, so the quiet scared her, and one night instead of telling Mother all the interesting things she’d done that day, she just squirmed over and hugged her mother very tight. Mother didn’t say anything, but after a moment she held Lucina back and stroked her hair and sang to her. It was a gentle song, and a little bit sad, but then it had a happy ending, too, and it made Lucina feel better about the quiet. Then Mother told her that it was okay to be scared, because even if something is scary, it can still be beaten, and all Lucina had to do to win was be brave and not run away, and eventually the fear would give up and leave.
Eventually, the quiet in the castle went away, too, and Mother and Father started laughing like normal again, and Morgan got bigger and started asking questions about everything, and for a long time Lucina forgot about the song. But then later, the quiet started to come back, and Father spent more time talking with the council or the Shepherds, and Mother read less interesting books and more books about politics, and Lucina saw more strangers going in and out of the castle. Lucina had to help the maids keep Morgan out of trouble, because the officials were too busy to answer the constant questions, and she started seeing Father more at her sword lessons and less everywhere else. At least Mother still came to see them every night, but she couldn’t stay as long, because she was busy too. And she started singing that song again, the one about being brave even when you were afraid. It made Lucina afraid, a little, because she remembered how her parents were gone for a very long time, but every time it had the happy ending, and Lucina remembered that she had to be strong.
It was the last song her mother sang before they left, and Lucina played it over and over in her head, hummed it under her breath, until the soldiers came back and told her that her parents were dead.
Suddenly Lucina heard a sniffle, and immediately she remembered she wasn’t alone. She looked down at Morgan, still standing by her bed, hands twisted in the blankets, and sighed. Then she scooted over and patted the mattress beside her. Morgan wasted no time climbing up and curling into her side.
Lucina felt a jolt of guilt when she realized why Morgan had been following her around so much. She’d wanted so badly to be alone that she didn’t even notice how lonely Morgan was, but now that she had her arms full of hiccupping toddler she felt even worse about all the times she’d yelled. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do about it.
...The song. It was the song that was wrong. And Lucina was really scared, even though she didn’t want to say it, but Mother said she had to be brave, and then she sang a song. Lucina couldn’t remember all the words, not enough to sing it. But Morgan was scared too, and she had to do something, because Aunt Lissa couldn’t do it right, so she was the only one who could.
Lucina tucked Morgan’s head under her chin, and started to hum very quietly, and when she reached the end she took a breath and started again. She did it over and over and over again, until Morgan stopped crying and fell asleep, and then she kept going until she, too, drifted off.
Years later, and even further in the past, Lucina watched her mother stare down at a map, a strand of hair tucked absently between her teeth. The Robin of Lucina’s time hadn’t been much older than this, but only weeks ago Lucina would’ve sworn that the face in her memories bore no resemblance to that of the young woman in front of her. But then they’d marched on Plegia, and Grima had awoken, and they’d had to run clear across the continent to speak to Naga, and at some point during all of it Robin’s brow had creased in ways that Lucina found hauntingly familiar. It left her feeling shaken. When she first met her father here, he had seemed frighteningly vulnerable, capable with a sword but unprepared to face the darkness growing beyond Ylisse’s borders. It had been so easy to worry about him when she knew what was coming and saw that his heart was too open to survive unscathed. Robin, though, was as even keeled as she’d ever been, even with less experience. Her mother had always been hard to unbalance, so Lucina assumed she would be fine, that Robin could be trusted to take care of herself.
But now Robin was unsteady, had been ever since Grima’s Table - or perhaps earlier. Perhaps it was Lucina herself who had caused it, when she raised her sword against her own mother, and this was the price of her foolishness. Death flew lazy circles in the skies above, and fear lay heavy in Lucina’s gut, and even the sight of her parents, alive and defiant, could not help her. She had fought Grima before, and failed, and tried to prevent it, and failed again, and if she failed this last, crucial time, she did not know if she had the strength to go on. If, this time, she had to watch as she lost them, she could not bear -
“...Lucina? Are you alright?”
Lucina’s eyes snapped open – when did she close them? – and saw Robin looking back at her, brow still creased, strand of hair still stuck to her cheek. She opened her mouth to reply, but managed only a strangled breath. She was- she had to-
“You- Mother, you can’t. I can’t lose you again,” she choked out.
For one terrible moment, it was quiet. And then Robin’s eyes went impossibly soft, and she reached out a hand to touch Lucina’s arm, and Lucina couldn’t do this any longer, couldn’t be the perfect, unshakable princess that her future had needed, couldn’t bear the weight of a world’s worth of grief, and so when Robin pulled her close Lucina only buried her face in her mother’s shoulder and tried desperately not to cry.
She was dimly aware of Robin’s thumbs rubbing circles into the small of her back, her hair tickling Lucina’s cheek, the uncomfortable cold spot from Robin chewing on it. Lucina took a shuddering breath and tried to stop her shaking. Just a moment, then she had to pull herself together; she could not afford to be weak, not now when everything they’d fought for was on the line.
And then Robin started to sing.
It took a moment for Lucina to notice. She hadn’t heard Robin sing before, not in this time, and it had been so long since she’d last heard her mother that the sound was utterly unfamiliar. But the moment passed, and then she was remembering - that night, before her parents left, the last night she fell asleep knowing they were there beside her. And then, months later, Morgan coming to her room and crying, and Lucina humming a song that she couldn’t recall the words to, until they fell asleep curled together.
And now Robin was singing a song about fear, and loss, and finding the strength to go on despite it all, and Lucina felt the words jar something loose in her chest, some near-forgotten fragment that was less memory and more emotion. The wind whistled through the trees, and the cold seeped through the tent and through to her bones, and somewhere above Grima flew tirelessly through the night, but Robin was singing and swaying gently back and forth, and despite everything Lucina felt like a child again, wrapped tight in her mother’s arms, completely and utterly safe.
It could have been minutes or hours later when Lucina pulled herself together enough to become aware of an additional pressure against her back. She blinked blearily and attempted to step backwards when she heard a sudden squeak, and realized it was Morgan’s hand digging uncomfortably into her spine. And then Chrom chuckled quietly from her other side, and Lucina flushed red and hurriedly tried to wipe her face on her sleeve.
Chrom let her go, and after a moment Morgan gave up too, settling into the newly empty space in Robin’s arms. Lucina finished scrubbing her cheeks before giving her parents a shaky smile. She opened her mouth to apologize, to reassure them that she was fine, that she was strong enough to fight Grima, still, but Chrom beat her to it.
“It’s all right, Lucina,” he said. “We are family, after all, and what’s family good for if not the occasional ugly crying?”
Robin snorted. “I’ll have you know that I look perfectly fine while crying, thank you very much.” Lucina smiled too, despite herself, and she thought she heard Morgan giggle from somewhere inside the mass of coats.
Then Lucina looked down at her hands, tapping her fingers nervously. She had to say something, needed to explain, to have some sort of reassurance that maybe her fears were unfounded, but she couldn’t find the words. Her parents seemed to understand, and even Morgan was quiet as she struggled to put her thoughts in order.
Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at Chrom and Robin. “I just… I lost you both once already. And, coming back here, I was always afraid of losing Father, because I knew there were so many times that I nearly did. But now you’re both in danger, and it’s Grima now, and I couldn’t stop Grima from destroying everything I had once already. I couldn’t stop it, I could only watch, and if I lose you both, if I’m forced to watch Grima take everything again – it scares me. More- more than anything else. I need to fight. I couldn't bear having to stand back and watch. But…” Lucina looked away, suddenly exhausted.
Then she felt someone step closer, and she jerked her head up, only to see Robin looking at her with a strange intensity. Morgan slipped out from between them and stood pressed against Lucina’s side, and Robin reached out to lay a hand on each of their cheeks before speaking.
“Lucina, love, listen to me. The two of you, and Chrom, and the baby back home – you’re my family. You mean everything to me, and whatever happens tomorrow – no matter how this ends, I swear, I will not leave you. Even if I must defy fate, or Grima, or death itself, I will not stop until I return to you. You must believe this.”
Robin’s eyes burned in the fading candlelight, shone faintly red, and for a moment Lucina was filled with a terrible certainty that her mother was speaking the truth, that her power surpassed even Grima himself, and their victory was as inevitable as the tide. Morgan’s hand grasped hers, as if in agreement, and even her father seemed struck by it, and for a heartbeat the entire world stood still.
And then the candle flickered, and Lucina let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and things seemed to return to normal. Robin pulled them each close, and pressed a kiss to Morgan’s forehead, and then to Lucina’s cheek, and then told them firmly that if they wanted to be part of the battle tomorrow, they should go wash their faces and go straight to bed. Chrom chuckled and hugged them quickly as well before letting Robin shoo them out. Lucina glanced over her shoulder as she left and watched her parents fold together, before pulling the tent flap closed behind her and waving Morgan goodnight.
And as she walked to her own tent, Lucina hummed an old, familiar tune, and thought about her mother sitting in the library, singing to the baby the way she once sang to her, and thought to herself that maybe, finally, things would turn out all right.
For the first time in years, Lucina went to sleep smiling.
And letting go is the hardest part
Holding on, some semblance of control
Well I have this pain deep in my heart
But I am still whole, I am still whole