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She saw her first in the middle of battle.
She and one of her current comrades had ducked behind the ruins of a fort, cursing under their breaths, as Ylissean javelins, spells, and arrows hurtled across the battlefield. A few poor fools had already died before they could even get out a word. For a horde of naïve Naga-worshippers, they certainly did a number on the best Grima’s devotees had to offer.
“We’ll kill the first one to come along,” her fellow Dark Mage whispered. “Pincher attack, they’ll never have a chance.”
“Assuming they don’t survive to deal out a return blow,” she muttered back. “We’re not dealing with a bunch of target fodder here. They wouldn’t have gotten so far if two spells cracked their skulls.”
“That’s why we’ll make the first blow count,” he persisted, even as she ignored him and glanced around the corner to make sure they weren’t the ones ambushed. “Aimed just right, even the strongest man must –”
She didn’t hear what more he said, for her eyes had gone wide and her mouth had gone dry.
A being of intense, beautiful darkness strode through the sands, cutting down foes with a sword and incinerating fools with a spell with equal grace and skill; the darkness spun with glee whenever a new sap threw himself in its way, feeding its lust for slaughter. It moved with perfect, almost mechanical precision, never drawing too many close to it, only drawing to just within range of as many enemies as it could handle, then retreating back to better shelter if it needed a moment to pause in its dance of death. It had the potential to equal – no, surpass – Lord Validar and Lady Aversa – Lord Validar and Lady Aversa combined –
But, for some reason, it would not put out its full power. Yes, darkness swirled beneath its skin, a devouring, consuming void, but it did not breach the surface for even an instant. She puzzled over this, trying to understand why it would bother to hold itself back… as a taunt? A boast? A sneer at its foes that they were scarcely worthy of its attention?
As she focused herself and squinted, the mass of darkness coalesced into a tall, white-haired woman dressed in a strange variant of Grimleal robes – collarless, hooded, and held together at the front by a few laced cords. Huh. She wasn’t familiar with that rank. She would have assumed that it corresponded to some novice, with its lack of even a short collar, but no novice contained such power within it – or, at least, no such novice would stay a novice long. And… was that Grima’s mark displayed prominently on its sleeves? What a bizarre design… it should have been emblazoned on the robe’s collar, surely? If it had a collar. How very odd…
It took her a moment more to realize that the foes the woman struck down so easily were Plegian soldiers. Well. How inconvenient.
“Who are you looking at?” the idiot next to her asked, peeking around the ruined wall to get a look. A few seconds later, his eyes widened, and he recoiled. “By – In Grima’s name! That’s her! Robin of Ylisse!”
“Hm?” She took a moment to place the name. “The famed tactician?”
“Yes! She –” His expression changed from panic to excitement, and his mouth split in a feral grin. “If we kill her, they’ll fall apart! They won’t know what to do without their tactical genius! We’ll crush them with ease, and from there –”
“Quiet, you fool. How –” For a moment, she was about to ask How could you think to destroy such perfect darkness? On reconsideration, however, it was pointless sentimentality, when the better question was – “do you intend to manage that? She’ll crush us both like bugs.”
Her fellow Dark Mage faltered for a moment, then grinned again. “She’s just a mortal like the rest of us. Great men – er, women – die just as well as anyone else, eh?”
“Are you blind, you fool? Can’t you see her power?”
He glanced over in the approaching tactician’s direction – and, with that movement, she knew he had no idea what she was talking about at all. She resisted the urge to ram her head into the block of rubble beside them. “Well…” he said testily. “She’s very good, I’ll give you that. But I really don’t think it’s much of an issue – she can’t kill what she doesn’t know is coming. In a moment, when she comes this way, we’ll –”
The rumors said that Robin of Ylisse was a pragmatist above all; she was not above letting a foe join mid-battle if they swore their allegiance to her, and she valued strength and skill over fawning and simpering declarations of dedication to the cause. That she so shamelessly wore robes of the Grimleal, even while leading the Exalt’s battles for him, implied that she would not refuse another member of the faithful if one would but fight alongside her rather than against her; that she could afford to flaunt such robes implied that the rest of the army could not gainsay her on such a decision. Of course, in such heated circumstances, she would need proof of a potential soldier’s loyalty –
As the hapless fool beside her began to cast his spell, Tharja unsheathed her ceremonial dagger, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and slit his throat.
Robin of Ylisse, not far off, heard his death gurgle and turned, blade in one hand and book in the other, to investigate; Tharja awaited her calmly, embracing the sagging corpse of the human sacrifice. As the woman rounded the corner of the rubble, Tharja threw the body at her feet, the sack of meat and bone thumping wetly on the remnants of a stone floor. She paused briefly in surprise, though staying on her guard, and Tharja smiled at her.
“He meant to kill you,” she said sweetly. “I know he didn’t stand a chance, but it was the thought that counted.”
She swept a bow, as if to her new Lady. It brought her eyes to Robin’s chest level, and she took the time to note that the darkness’s shell had quite the pleasing figure; when she straightened, Robin was regarding her with a pensive frown.
“He was your ally, was he not?”
“Hm? Sure.” She shrugged. “But there was no point to dying with him. Why should I offer myself up as cattle for a pointless cause?”
“Pointless?”
“Long live the king and all that, but I like living more than I like whatever casus belli he’s decided on for the hour. And I have a bit of a rebellious streak, I’m afraid. A… dark side.” She licked her lips and met Robin’s eyes.
Dark and piercing, they bored into her, evaluating her like a predator sizing up potential prey; they were the sort of eyes a girl could get lost in, she thought, in the same way that a mouse could get lost in the eyes of a swaying snake. As the seconds stretched on, they narrowed, then eventually blinked, and Robin tilted her head back, looking down at Tharja. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t expect you to put that dagger in my back the moment I look away?”
“Heh… you haven’t had your share of idiots who attempted to do just that?” Tharja smirked at her. “I’m not stupid. I have no intention of following them to the grave.”
Robin affected no false modesty. “A sensible Plegian… you see something new every day.” She gestured with the hand holding the tome and eyed Tharja. “I take it, since you decided to stick around rather than fleeing for your life, that you’re hoping to join the Ylissean army?”
Tharja snorted. “I want to fight on the winning side. Unless you’ve changed allegiances since your last battle or ten, that’s the Ylissean one.”
Robin raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Fine. Stay here, then. It will give good shelter, and it’s best for you to stay out of the way of my troops until I have time to inform them that you’re on our side. Until then, kill any former comrade who comes this way.” With that, she turned away and sprinted off, bright magical insignias and runes already appearing around her as she homed in on yet another soon-to-be-corpse.
Tharja let her eyes defocus as she watched the Ylissean tactician go, and the being of darkness once again dominated her vision. She bit her lower lip and turned away, smiling. Unmistakably, she had traded up.
A morbid impulse made her wonder if she should try divining the future with her former ally’s entrails, but she dismissed it as a frivolous thought. She’d been given her orders, after all – by a commander she respected, for once – and she had best follow them. If she could gain Robin’s esteem, perhaps she could ask her about that delicious darkness.
Hm? An archer was coming this way. Heh. Easy pickings…
“This is Tharja.” Robin looked out at her assembled troops, her expression cool and dignified. “She’s proved her willingness to fight for our cause, and her unique brand of magic will prove a valuable asset in the battles to come. I expect you to treat her all as a comrade, and to fight alongside her as though she was your most trusted companion… though I’d advise you also to guard your backs for the time being.”
Tharja didn’t flatter herself by thinking any part of that speech was original to her recruitment, save for the note about watching their backs; the tactician probably said the same about any yokel that signed up for their war-band. Her gaze landed on one of the shorter troops, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. By Grima, a genuine farmboy. She supposed even a tactician of Robin’s caliber needed sword fodder, after all.
“Pardon me, but – with all respect to your good judgment, Robin, how can you expect us to trust someone who so readily betrayed her comrades not long ago?” a red-haired woman spoke up, stepping forward. “Those who betray their sisters in arms are the lowest of scum.”
So the Ylissean army wasn’t filled with brainless sheep… Interesting. Such impertinence to a commander in the Plegian army would have earned the offender a swift execution. Robin seemed to take it in stride, however. “I can’t speak for Tharja’s moral fiber, or her lack thereof, but I believe her when she says she wants to fight for the winning side. At present, she believes that to be ours, and I intend to give her every reason to continue in that belief.”
“But… I… fine.” The woman gave up in frustration, seeing Robin would not budge, and stepped back into the ranks. Tharja gave her due respect for being quick on the uptake.
“What proof do we have that she won’t kill us all in our sleep, eh?” a short-haired, tough-looking cavalier asked, not bothering to step forward. “That would make those Plegian dastards the winners before we even knew we were dead.”
Robin gave Tharja a considering look. “Stronger and stealthier men have tried to kill me and failed. Those who sulk about in the dark don’t have a good record against me.” Hmph. She didn’t sulk. She… brooded. “As for anyone else, I promise that, if Tharja is linked to attacks on anyone in camp, I’ll deal with her myself. And I hope she understands that, if she thinks she can do her dirty work and flee, I’ll pursue her personally – on pegasus-back, if need be.” She nodded at the red-haired woman, who seemed relieved. “Fortunately, I don’t think it will be needed. She seems intelligent enough, and as an intelligent woman, I’m sure she understands that traitors have only wary friends, but twice-traitors have none.”
“Hmph. As you said, I’m not a fool,” Tharja said, tempted to duck her head and look sullen, but instead looking squarely at Robin. In this army, Robin seemed to at least pretend to be on a similar level with her troops, so she might as well adapt to that.
It would give her all the more excuse to feast her eyes upon that darkness, after all.
“Good.” Robin gave her a single, searching gaze, then turned away and looked around at the camp. “Now, for the basics: that’s the armory over there; over that way is the bathing tent; that wagon holds the rations…”
This week, Robin had eaten five apples, read six books, and practiced her combat abilities for about sixteen hours in total – well below her usual average, but in all fairness, there had been that skirmish two days ago, which had disrupted everyone’s schedule. Afterwards, however, she had slept more soundly than usual, turning over only a few times in her sleep. Something about the slaughter seemed to sate the darkness within her, making it swirl about her body more gently and roil hardly at all – though the satiation likely wouldn’t last for long. Darkness was never satisfied for long…
Robin, bending over her latest book of interest, rubbed her eyes, then placed it on the battered wooden table in front of her and stretched and yawned. “Eyes won’t stay open,” she muttered to herself, extinguishing the small magical light she had kept cast in order to illuminate the pages. “Time to get some rest.”
Yawning again, she shuffled over to her blanket on the ground and lay down, probably pulling it over herself and resting her head on the pathetic pillow. The tactician wasn’t one for unnecessary luxury – those of her army with noble pretensions had better accommodations than she did. Robin muttered incoherently to herself, shuffling about to try to get comfortable, and at last calmed down, her mutterings trailing off.
A few seconds passed, and then, to tell from the rustling, she sat bolt upright, clearing her throat angrily. “Tharja, are you still awake?”
“Uh – What?” She blinked rapidly, despite there being nothing to blink at in the darkness, and shook herself. “How… How did you know I was here?”
Robin gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know why people ask me that question. You’d think that they lost their sense of hearing when they closed their eyes, forgot how to smell when they put their fingers in their ears, and went blind when they pinched their nose.”
“I don’t recall making any noise.” She’d taken effort not to, in fact. And if her stealth had failed her, she knew her silencing hex hadn’t.
“That’s not what I meant.” Robin snorted. “I… Don’t you have any sense of when people are there? Most people don’t seem to, but as a mage, I’d think you would, if anyone.”
“Ah…” Well, she could make out Robin’s outline in the dark, if she worked at it; there was the darkness, and then there was the deeper darkness. “Yes. In a way.”
“So why did you think I’d be fooled? I can tell you’re there, plain as day. Plainer, in some ways.”
Because I had to work at it, and even some fools who trained appropriately couldn’t sense Grima himself if he was doing a merry jig right behind them. “I… underestimated your abilities. My apologies.”
“Get some rest. How much sleep have you gotten in the last several days? You’ve watched me sleep enough that you’ve had little time to get any of your own.”
“What?” Thrown, Tharja scrambled to recover. “You… you knew that, too?”
“When I say that I sense people, I mean that I sense people,” Robin said, irritation growing in her voice. “Let’s see – do you want to hear what you’ve been doing? Tonight, you’ve occupied that space for a few hours. About an hour ago, you shifted from foot to foot and stretched as subtly as you could, probably because your cramping limbs wouldn’t permit you to stand still any longer. Yesterday, you hid behind three tents and two wagons in all, and took some time away to, according to other camp members, study your hexes and retreat behind some bushes. In the battle the day before that, you stayed within a certain radius of me the entire time, moving only to dispatch an enemy a short time before I would have encountered it or to aid me in a fight before immediately swooping away again –”
“Huh… It seems all that skulking was pointless.” Tharja shook her head. “You’ve been paying such close attention…” She grinned, despite herself. She felt as flattered as a schoolgirl being noticed by her crush… Well, whatever that was supposed to feel like, at any rate. When she’d been a “schoolgirl”, the only kind of “crush” she’d cared about was that involving a great deal of physical force. “Of course you would, with our fates entwined so…”
“Mm? No, it was just to make sure you weren’t attempting to do away with anyone while I wasn’t looking.” Robin’s voice seemed curiously flat, which piqued her interest. Did she detect a notice of forced nonchalance? “What’s this about ‘fates’?”
“You don’t know?” She raised an eyebrow – could Robin sense that in the dark? “The very first moment I laid eyes upon you… ‘She isn’t like the others,’ I thought. ‘She is the one I’ve sought!’”
A tad more coherent than her actual thoughts, of course, but she could wait until she was deeper in Robin’s confidence to go into… more detail.
Robin snorted. “Right. Thank you, I suppose.” She lay back down and rolled over. “Is that what you told your last three commanders?”
“Hmph. If you think I would have betrayed my country for my last three commanders, you overestimate them grossly.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Tharja waited for a bit, then raised both eyebrows. “That’s it?”
“Yes. Unlike you, some of us have to sleep.”
“You’re taking this remarkably well, I have to say.”
Robin shrugged. “Normally, conversations in my tent at this time of night begin with ‘Die, Ylissean scum!’ and end with –” She did a reasonable imitation of a man choking to death on his own blood. “This is all very civil, as things go.” Her blanket rustled again. “Now, will you let me get to sleep?”
Tharja noticed the deeper darkness beginning to churn and backed away hastily, bowing as she shuffled towards the tent flap. “Thank you,” Robin muttered, her words muffled by her pillow. “Get some rest – that’s an order. Can’t have you –” She yawned – “-falling asleep on top of… the bodies of your enemies…”
She saluted, closed the tent flap, and started running back to her own tent. Well, stumbling, more accurately. Perhaps Robin had a point about the lack of rest.
Robin could sense people as well, eh? And more easily than Tharja herself – she could make out Robin’s form in darkness or through walls only by sensing the darkness within her, and she had never sensed anything near Robin before – neither in power nor in closeness to the darkness. The darkness of Master Validar and Lady Aversa – Validar and Aversa, now – had shown through more clearly, but only because they made an effort to exude their inner darkness into the outer world. Robin, if anything, seemed to be restraining her inner darkness. For it to fill her being so completely, and to show itself so clearly…
Well, naturally their fates were entwined. Tharja wasn’t about to let anything short of death part her from the source of such glorious darkness – no self-respecting Dark Mage would – and, even in death, she would attempt to return as a vengeful ghost. And, naturally, she would like the source of that darkness to devote especial attention to her, too… and she wasn’t one to let anything get between desire and reality.
She didn’t delude herself into thinking that she would be anywhere near as visible to Robin, however. Not that she suffered from modesty, but she understood very well that, when it came to power, there was the class of the average hex-hedging hack, and then there was her own class, and then there was the class of Validar, with his rumored sacred blood, and Lady Aversa, his prize pupil – and then there was Robin’s class, which was beyond what she would have thought possible. In her wildest dreams, she could aspire to Validar’s tier… if she pretended that, on top of catching several lucky breaks, she worked every hour of the day and cast hexes without ceasing, which wasn’t likely. She admitted to a certain amount of laziness.
Her inner darkness, without anyone specifically looking for it, was probably visible on a good day around twilight if somebody chose to squint hard and she was working to make it known to them. On a very good day. And if she chose not to be detected? Not a chance. Except, apparently, if one’s name was Robin of Ylisse.
It seemed the tactician’s power took more forms than one. Huh. She wondered if the woman had received any training. The oblivious camp members seemed not to know anything about Robin and hexes, or indeed any sort of dark magic – apparently, all that they knew about her was that she’d been in a town that Ylisse’s Shepherds happened to be passing through when bandits attacked, and she’d fought so well in the resulting brawl that she’d been taken on as a mercenary companion. Several battles later, they’d decided to keep her – just in time for Exalt Emmeryn’s assassination and her successor’s near-death at the hand of another assassin, leaving Ylisse’s army in the hands of an untried ex-mercenary wearing some “very queer” robes and wishing to speak little of her origin. It was a classic tale of a ruined army, a betrayed country, or a humiliating decline in the making. Possibly all of the above.
That Robin had instead turned the tide of the battles against Plegia, managed to instill enough political order to leave the capital in the hands of an invalid king, and done wonders to curb bandit epidemics wherever she went was, in the eyes of her troops, proof that she was a True Ylissean of Great Patriotic Feeling and Utter Faithfulness to Lord Chrom. Personally, Tharja had to wonder if it had less to do with nobility of spirit and more to do with not wanting the collapsing country to collapse on her head – but, as Robin had said when they met, there’d been the option of fleeing for her life. She must have had some reason to stay.
Hm… at any rate, Robin did have a point about the lack of rest. She’d think about it more in the morning.
After all, she’d have a bit more space freed up to think, now that she knew plotting and scheming how to remain undetected was a waste of her time…
The foe crumpled, his armor screeching against itself as it collapsed under its own weight. As Tharja admired the sizzling, blackened hole in the chestplate, Robin turned to her, eyes wide beneath the sweat-soaked hair plastered to her brow.
“I… My thanks,” she said, once she had glanced around enough to determine that no other foes were immediately heading her way. “He attacked me while my tome wasn’t at the ready…”
“No need to thank me. You were sure to bring him down in the next exchange of blows anyway.” Tharja shrugged. “I just wanted to finish him sooner rather than later.”
“What were you doing fighting alongside me?”
“A funny question. You’re the one who introduced the Ylisseans to the idea of fighting in pairs.” Much to the disadvantage of Plegia’s army… but she wasn’t fighting with them anymore, anyway. “What’s the surprise of someone taking your advice?”
Robin wiped her hair away from her forehead, looking at Tharja strangely. She began to open her mouth, as though to say something, then turned and ran to assist the left wing of the army, which was staggering back to safer terrain under an onslaught of Wyvern reinforcements.
Tharja switched to her Elwind tome, shoving her Elfire tome into its freshly-emptied holder, and followed after her, taking a moment to skirt around the prostrate body of the fallen general. Time to clip some wings.
“Say. You there, kid.”
The red-haired mage stopped in his tracks, looking disgustingly cute and confused. Blech. He looked like he should have been evading blows from his tutor’s cane, not trying to dodge myrmidons on a daily basis. “Huh?”
“Doesn’t anyone else ever pair up with Robin? I’ve noticed I’m the only one who gets near her in most battles. Shouldn’t you all be flocking to get a scrap of the glory?” It was less blunt than I would have thought that most of you would have grasped that “behind Robin” is the safest spot on the battlefield.
“W-well… Um…” The boy bit his lip, shifting from foot to foot and looking away. “Uh, I really don’t know how to say this… Robin’s amazing and all – she saved me and Maribelle from a situation where we should have been dead in minutes, and that’s not the only impossible thing she’s done – but…” He continued to avoid her eyes. “I don’t know… She’s really… intense?”
“What? Do you want her to play ball with you in the middle of the battlefield?”
He flushed overwhelmingly red, as only a ginger could. “Of course I don’t mean that! But – don’t you feel it, too? She’s really kind of… scary. And yeah, I know I should be glad about that, since she’s on our side and not the enemy’s, but… eh…” He gave up, shrugging and looking deeply uncomfortable. “I just don’t… want to be around her too much. Ditto for everyone else, I think. Even the toughest people in our army want to keep their distance.” Frowning, he glanced up at her. “Don’t you know what I’m talking about?”
Tharja, meanwhile, was resisting the urge to start laughing hysterically. So the Ylisseans – even the untrained and ungifted – could feel Robin’s power, but they feared it! The fools… They should have considered themselves blessed by the gods to be permitted in its presence! And they shunned it?
Well, well… They weren’t gifted in the darkness, after all. They had neither the training nor the inclination to appreciate what went amongst them, lending aid to their friends and striking down their foes. She knew that even some of the Plegian soldiers, devout Grimleal or not, spoke ill of their sorcerous comrades behind their backs… But still, what an atrocious waste. Of all the people in this army, was she the only one who gave Robin even a smidgen of the appreciation she deserved?
“Heh heh… Little boy, have you considered that some of us might enjoy that… intensity?” She drew out her words, grinning, and licked her lips for extra emphasis.
The boy jerked back, his expression at once both panicked and disgusted. “I – Yah! Creepy lady!” He picked up his robes and ran, to the sound of Tharja’s giggles. Once he was gone, she let herself become a bit more subdued, but still let out the occasional chuckle as she went off in search for Robin.
Hm. She wondered if that extended to Robin’s personal interactions as well. Yes, some of the other camp members had mentioned in passing that they’d had conversations with her, but never any… deep ones, from the impression Tharja had. Talks about cooking, work-outs, and trashy novels. Not the stuff of high romance or heart-to-heart friendships. Not that Tharja had any idea what those were like, but she’d heard enough to know what they weren’t.
Perhaps she ought to pay Robin more personal visits.
“Mm?”
Tharja sidled up to Robin, looking down at the book open on her desk. “What’s wrong, Robin? Mind a bit of company?”
The tactician frowned at her, then gave an uncomfortable shrug. “I… suppose not.” Several seconds passed as she returned to investigating her latest tome. Tharja glanced at the title; it was a translation of an ancient treatise on tactics, its original version supposedly dating back to Grima’s last rising. It had a few sections too many dealing with destroying monsters and several sections too few dealing with intelligent opponents to be of much use to the average tactician, but perhaps Robin had extracted some usefulness from it. Her strategic abilities were uncanny.
As if sensing the thought, Robin looked up at her again. “Is there anything you want from me?”
“Hee. Is it such a strange concept that someone might enjoy the pleasure of your presence?”
Robin’s expression grew increasingly disconcerted. “I’ve never had it described that way before.” She made as if to turn back to her book, but decided against it. “Try honesty, Tharja. Flattery will get you nothing from me. What do you want?”
“I was serious. Is that so hard to believe?”
Robin gave her a disbelieving look, but turned back to her book and shrugged. “Well, if you insist, you can find out for yourself.”
Mildly annoyed but not about to argue, Tharja took up a position at Robin’s left shoulder, eyeing the treatise as Robin read through its pages. To her surprise, the tactician lingered in the sections least applicable to modern combat – those dealing with the countering of dark sorcery and fell beasts. Leaning down slightly to catch a look, Tharja examined Robin’s face, noticing an expression of rapt fascination and… longing? Huh. Now that, she hadn’t been expect–
Robin jerked her head up to look at Tharja, her face reddening, and snapped, “And what are you looking at?” Her breath came in short pants between her teeth; she had the look of someone caught in an intimate act and resenting it dearly.
“Just wondering what caught your eye. I didn’t think we’d had any sorcerers rotting the flesh off our bones or abominations eating our tents in one gulp recently.”
Robin gave Tharja a singularly foul look and flipped the pages to a section dealing with more mundane forms of combat; from the ease with which she did it, Tharja wondered if this wasn’t her first time reading the treatise. She pointedly put her thumb beside a paragraph on strike-and-flee warfare and began reading, the hostility in her aura palpable.
Tharja took a moment to appreciate the wrath rolling off the tactician in waves, indulging in the sensation while Robin wasn’t looking at her face; then, suppressing a satisfied little sigh, she decided not to comment that Robin would doubtless go back to the prior section the moment she wasn’t being watched, and instead remarked, “Not that I mind, of course… I’ve always had a fondness for the more graphically descriptive passages. And the illustrations, my, my…”
Some of the tension went out of Robin’s posture, and she straightened up and gave Tharja a curious look. “You’ve read it?”
“Heh… And why not? It’s one of the few sources that gives some idea of what the great war was actually like.” She snorted. “The Plegian accounts are all about ‘And then Lord Grima ate a village, hurrah’, and the Ylissean accounts are all about ‘Oh, what evil and darkness and horrors ruled the land in those awful days, but then the first Exalt slew Grima and everything became sunshine and daises again, hurrah’. Dress it up in all the fine phrases you want, but it just makes me want to either yawn or puke.”
Robin didn’t manage to suppress a smirk. “Well, yes. It can be very… educational.” She glanced down at the page for a moment, then tapped her index finger against a calculation midway down the current page. “Can you believe this figure? Seems the author just fabricated it to make his countrymen’s heroism more impressive.” She spoke with equal aggression and awkwardness – inexperienced with discussion, dear Robin?
Tharja glanced down at the calculation, recognizing its context after a moment. Oh, yes, a grandiose claim about how much mightier the armies of the fallen were than any mere mortals. It had some merit, but by the time the multipliers got involved, it became truly ridiculous… “Heh… naturally,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “All sources exaggerate the power of Grima’s forces – Grimleal want to strike all with the fear of Grima’s might, and Naga-worshippers to astound all with the hideous strength over which their goddess enabled them to prevail. Pity, really – childish blot upon a good book.”
“Yes, well.” Robin pointed to some cramped notes in the margin – in her hand? Probably. “I made some rough estimates of my own, based upon what it said elsewhere, and I want to know if you’d find this any more plausible…”
Tharja restrained her urge to say that anything would be more plausible and bent down, squinting. Well, those estimates seemed to be reasonable enough – and huh, she wouldn’t have thought of that formula, but she supposed it made sense…
Wouldn’t hurt to discuss it, anyway. The closer she got to Robin, the more chance she had of having some of her questions answered.
Though she still seemed not to trust Tharja’s explanation for her sociability, Robin didn’t seem to mind her company; perhaps the unsuccessful stalking had habituated her to the Plegian’s presence. At any rate, Tharja wasn’t about to question it.
“How do you know she’s not just waiting to gain your trust and stab you in the back?” the short-haired cavalier, who was named Sully, had asked.
Robin had given a dismissive shrug. “Don’t worry. Just because I let her get near me doesn’t mean I’ve gone so-” She’d spun on her heel, ducked, and grabbed the apple that had been aimed at her head out of the air, juggling it clumsily for a moment before getting a firmer grip.
Tharja had smirked at the cavalier as Robin straightened. “Hee. You gravely underestimate Robin if you think I’d stand a chance.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. Didn’t you listen the first time?”
A typical encounter with camp members, as things went. Her proximity to Robin brought a welcome lack of social interaction; though they greeted Robin with respect, reported information about the status of the camp, and received their orders gladly, the soldiers excused themselves from the tactician’s presence with amusing speed. It seemed the boy mage had the right of it.
Of course, in addition to sparing her from muttering tiresome pleasantries, that left Tharja with Robin all to herself… and what a lovely experience that was, when she was allowed to just trail behind and observe. The way the darkness within her smoothed out and sharpened when she devoted her energies to study… the way it spiked and swirled during a battle or in sparring, yawning wide and hungering for blood… the way it darted about and churned on a scouting mission in hostile territory, keeping watch for any foes and tensed to attack any fool who raised a hand against it… Lovely. Absolutely lovely. She felt as though some cabal had dredged out the richest corruption from a festering boneyard and fashioned it into a living form, then capped it with a comely exterior to conceal from the cowardly what lay within. But that was unkind… rot had too much of the mundane about it. And this darkness was certainly not mundane…
She came out of her thoughts with a sigh as they entered Robin’s tent, the tactician yawning and stretching by rolling her shoulders and arching her back. She wasn’t in the habit of extending her arms above her head. Funny, that.
“Wait, is that – A Rexcalibur tome?” Tharja asked, actually slipping up and gawking for a moment as Robin withdrew the book from her sack. “When did you get your hands on that?”
“One of the troops found it while he was clunking around an abandoned outpost,” Robin said, placing it on her desk and dusting it off gingerly. “I’d assign it to Miriel or Ricken, but it’s acknowledged that I’m the best magic-wielder in the army. They can have it for their research if there’s anything left of it after the war.”
About to respond, Tharja paused as she caught a glimpse of a deep purple tattoo peeking out from under the very edge of Robin’s right glove. Huh. Robin hadn’t seemed the type, but – No, more than that interested her. The bottom of the design seemed so familiar, she swore that –
On impulse, she grabbed the flap of cloth covering the top of Robin’s hand and pulled back an edge, hoping to see more of that “tattoo”.
Three violet eyes stared back at her, almost seeming to glow with an inner light. And that was only half the design – she knew well the other half.
Robin tried to yank the hand away from her, but she seized onto it with both hands, staring down at it reverently. Hesitantly, then recklessly, she moved a thumb under the flap and sent a spark of dark magic into the insignia.
It seemed to accept it, drawing the power into itself like a vast sinkhole – then surged outwards in a blast of magic that sent her hands flying back, excruciating pleasure and exhilarating pain traveling up her forearms in cramping waves. As she stumbled, Robin stared at her with wide, dilated eyes, her cheeks flushed and her breathing heavy.
“Get out,” she said, her voice shaking.
And Tharja fled as though Grima himself was after her.
Perhaps he was.
As the shadow fell over her, Tharja did not bother to look up. “Hello, Robin.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the darkness moving, its flow tight along its circuits and dangerously slow. “Why did you do that?”
“Honestly?” She gave a shrug. “To see what would happen.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re dealing with?”
Yes, and it was lovely. She half-expected it to wipe her from existence, leaving nothing but corruption scattered in a wide swath around where she now stood. “Do you?”
The darkness’s breathing was steady and shallow. “More so than you do.”
“Tell me what you are, then.” She turned, meeting Robin’s eyes, and let the longing come through in her voice. “It’s all I ever wanted to know.”
A hand came up and seized her jaw, her chin nestling in the soft, elastic space between forefinger and thumb, and wrenched her head up to stare the tactician full in the face. “You go too far,” Robin breathed, stepping forward until her breath was hot on Tharja’s face. “You have no idea –” Her hand tightened until Tharja could feel bruises beginning to form – “-what you want –”
“Then show me,” Tharja whispered, grinning widely.
“You stupid – stupid practitioner of dark magic,” Robin snarled, her voice dropping, filling with a deep, rumbling growl. It sent a shiver down Tharja’s spine. “You think – you think you know what darkness is? You don’t have any idea at all.”
She couldn’t respond. She couldn’t seem to get her muscles out of that delighted smile enough to form words.
“You’ve never suffered for it –” A hard twist to the side – “You’ve never had to hold it back –” A rough return to the vertical axis, and a yank upwards – “You’ve always had it coddled, and told you were so special for whatever pathetic fraction you could summon up, and never been made to live in fear for it, every last one of you miserable, sniveling Plegians –”
“You should have never been made to live in fear for it,” Tharja gasped, her skin stretched against the cartilage of her neck. “Never, for such glorious darkness –”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what it was, what I want –”
Tharja reached up and slipped her fingers beneath the fabric of Robin’s glove, curling them along Grima’s sigil. “Yes,” she breathed.
Robin’s other hand seized her by the upper arm and together threw her sprawling on the forest ground, the book she had had in hand flying off and smacking against a tree. Tharja stared up at her, heart hammering wildly. The darkness churned furiously; she did not think she had ever seen it this agitated, even in the depths of battle. Oh, what a wonderful way to die, came the stray thought.
Came its successor, But why only now, when I stand on the abyssal precipice?
“You want it, do you?” came the voice, curious and cold. “You do want it.”
And then came its successor, cheerful and cold –
“Careful what you want.”
A smile filled with too many teeth, and then it was gone.
She had never quite seen it billow outwards like that.
Gingerly, she sat up, rubbing her jaw; she took pleasure in the soreness, probing hard with her index finger to find where it hurt the most when she pressed. Her arm hurt, too, where it had taken the pain of impact; she savored that as well. Her sheer garments did little to cushion sharp sticks and poking stones; she hardly minded, but took the time to appreciate each of the little pains in their turn.
Finally, she thought of how close she might have come to death, and let out a sigh of longing.
And gave a shiver of pleasure.
Careful what she wanted?
Oh, but what lover of the dark was careful?
That night, she awoke to numbing, biting bonds crushing her wrists, sharp, hungry mouths ripping at her flesh, tendrils made of the absence of light and heat caressing her every crevice, and a darkness above her made of ultraviolet eyes and far too many teeth.
She hurt. She hurt, and ached, and shuddered, and it was not entirely with the pleasure, and not entirely from the chill.
And she would hurt more as the night went on, and feel limbs grow sticky with blood, and her body start screaming from abuse, not only of tender flesh and whining nerves, but true damage and bone-deep injury. And when she whimpered and moaned and writhed, it would not be only from painful lust and lustful pain, and not all of her would wish to remain in this bed.
She was not gagged, of course. She could cry and plead for mercy, if she so wished.
If.
She spread her legs as far as she could and arched her back as much as the darkness would allow, rubbing herself against the tendrils that ventured down to explore.
Morning light came and stung her eyes, and with it came awareness that set her entire body alight with pain.
She groaned and carefully extended one arm, cracking one eye open to see skin torn and mottled with bruises, some in the shape of handprints, others in the spirals of dark coils. It was healed, partly. All over her body, she could feel healed injuries: those slowly repairing themselves in the natural manner of young flesh, those too-quickly mended in the manner of Vulneraries, and those roughly knitted together, the flesh forced against its will to mend and mend instantly, in the manner of…
…Well, she didn’t know, in the strictest sense. But she knew. She knew.
All her flesh sang with pain.
All her flesh was exhausted with pleasure.
These were not exclusive.
She breathed shallowly, her memories filled with phantoms of ecstatic nightmares and nightmarish ecstasies, and considered getting up. All of that aside, her skin did feel vaguely disgusting where blood and sweat had dried, and what blanket remained was bunched up and in disarray. It was uncomfortable. And it was a funny thing that agony could be delightful, but discomfort could not.
She tried to push herself up, but decided against it. She felt more alive than she ever had – but she did not feel like getting out of her tent.
When she finally left her tent, she kept her cloak tightly around her (“For warmth,” she snapped at anyone who asked, but in truth to conceal the marks of the prior night). She’d keep it quiet until after the next battle, passing off damage as battle wounds so long as she didn’t let the healers get too close a look – she’d still be able to do her part even in her current state, either leeching off foes with Nosferatu magic or hanging off to the side and picking off stragglers. Whatever worked –
Robin passed by her, giving her an indifferent glance. “You emerged late. Was your sleep last night satisfactory?”
Tharja met her eyes and smiled. “Indescribably so,” she said in a husky voice.
The tactician’s eyes narrowed, and, subtly enough that no one else could see, her lips curled in an unpleasant smile.
“Good.”
Epilogue
She’d… changed.
She was at once less stiff and more cold, and more discomforting, yet more comfortable in her own skin.
He didn’t like it.
He wanted to, but he couldn’t be. Not when it felt like something else had taken up residence in his friend’s body.
(or like, he didn’t allow himself to think, a pretense had left)
“Robin – Robin, I swear it’s the influence of that Plegian woman,” he said, his breathing beginning to come hard as the assassin’s old strikes started to make themselves known. The physicians said he shouldn’t do anything to strain himself for just this reason. He didn’t care. “I can’t understand what you see in her, but all I know is that, if you just come back to Ylisse and leave her behind with the rest of the army for a while, you might –”
“You’ve been away for a while, and you don’t understand anything, Chrom,” his tactician snapped, and again he saw almost nothing of his old friend in her face. “Around her, I can be myself. I can –”
She stopped short and regained control of herself, and in her weary face, he could see some of the Robin he knew again. “Chrom, I’m sorry. You and the other Shepherds were – were the first people who didn’t reject me. And for that I owe you.”
“Robin, it was never a matter of ‘owe’,” he said feebly, but by now he knew she would never accept the words. She had hardly seemed to ever understand them.
After his period of enforced retirement and contemplation in the palace, he had begun to grasp that it was something other than sheer modesty, and to glimpse the damage that went too deep.
“I understand how much I owe Ylisse, Chrom,” Robin said. “But Tharja – she wants me for myself. She only lets me be myself – and that’s the only ‘influence’ she has upon me. I swear to it.”
“We want you for yourself, Robin,” Chrom said in a lost voice. “We always did.”
An odd expression crossed Robin’s face, one he had never seen there before: something sad, a little wistful, strangely remorseful, and very, very pitying.
“I know you thought you did, Chrom,” Robin said. “I know you thought you did.”
“They’ve no love for you. And you no love for them.”
Robin shrugged, indifferent. “And where else would I go? Plegia? Valm? Regna Ferox? They’re all weak. They all disgust me.” In the twilight, she tossed an apple in her hand, and let a tendril of darkness crush it.
She was learning fast, and learning well; her untrained might was becoming sharpened, forging itself into a weapon that could destroy empires.
“Break them all, then,” Tharja suggested, lying on her stomach and gazing reverently up at her master, her idol of supreme power. “You’ve the might. And if you don’t, you will. Gangrel’s neck is ripe for the snapping; Aversa and Validar will join him, in time. And the Grimleal will be yours, with their deaths – they can be no other’s. Or you can kill them too, if that’s what amuses you more. They live to die for Grima, after all. And if you aren’t darkness’s answer to the Exalt – who are you, then?” She rested a hand against the bared Mark, and began to stroke it with an obscene devotion.
And Robin smiled.