Chapter Text
This can’t be happening.
‘I am so sorry, Chrom,’ his older sister utters from the head of the council table, her back straight but shoulders heavy from years of carrying the weight of the halidom. Her face is tight, strained from the situation as she stares at him, something broken about her eyes.
Chrom can only guess his own expression; he’s never been one for politics, he's too straightforward, candid - like their mother had been. ‘It’s not worth saying if you’re not ripping the words from your chest,’ he can vaguely remember her saying with a crooked grin but dark eyes in retaliation of a chastisement she hadn’t thought she had earnt.
His heartbeat's echoing in his ears and numb as Chrom was, he barely has it in him to acknowledge her apology.
‘Milady - you cannot in all seriousness actually be considering -’ another voice tries to reason; tries to save Chrom from the consequences of the the document Emm has in front of her, under her nose like it's beneath her, but still unable to touch it.
Emm’s eyes open from where they had clenched shut, turning sharply to pin Frederick with ice and all the pain that came from knowing what was awaiting Chrom, from understanding, but not wanting to risk a war to stop it. They cannot be their father, they cannot send a death sentence to the lower townsfolk; to their most innocent of people, who would surely have to be drafted to stand a chance should the worst come to the worst.
Emm, just eight-years-old when their mother died and their father’s sanity snapped, had been instrumental to stopping the conflict their father started with their Eastern neighbours, but it was accomplished through regicide. It took years of planning and work so that when she was ten, Emm was exalt and their father was dead.
She's used to sacrificing things for what she believed to be the greater good.
‘Please, Frederick,’ Emmeryn murmurs softly but with steel that halted the wary knight from the tirade he no doubt was about to go into. ‘This is not something I have wandered into willingly; these arrangements were agreed to long before I took the crown but it was also signed with the exalted seal.’
Something stamped with their seal meant that the royal family has sworn it to Naga; that they vowed the documents true and officiated their contents. Emm’s eyes are gleaming; sad and grim. ‘Our engagement has made me unable to fulfil them but someone within this house still has to, so what would you have me do?’ her question is marked with silence and Chrom can't bring himself to look at anyone. ‘I have promised myself to another, Lissa is still yet to become of-age and we must honour this.’
Frederick swallows and his gaze flickers to Chrom, frozen where he's sat, stiff with his stomach clenching as it attempts to squirm itself free from inside him. ‘Your Grace -’
‘Dear Frederick: stop,’ Emm orders and Frederick instantly quietens, his jaw locks from whatever tirade he would have otherwise gone into. ‘I would have been able to ignore this document and could have - ah, accidentally lost it, but with Archbishop Validar calling for our restitution and the King Gangrel backing this request…’
Emm trails off but there is a buzzing in Chrom’s ears that wasn’t there this morning as he tries to swallow back this overwhelming sickness down: it is a hot, thick sensation that he struggles not to urge around. He clenches his fists in his lap, allows his blunt nails to dig into the toughened skin of his palms to try and focus on the pain, rather than the mounting hurt and panic that was burning in his gut.
‘B-but!’ Lissa stutters as she sits forward, gripping hold of the table for dear life as she watches the proceedings with large, frightened eyes. ‘But Emm! Chrom can’t - not for this! Validar’s refused our peace talks too! This can’t -!’
‘We are at council, Princess,’ Emm interrupts sharply, as close to losing her temper that Chrom had seen in a long time. Their mother had had a short fuse but Emm grew up bathed in fire and raised with conflict: she's learnt to discipline her’s in a way that the rest of her siblings hadn’t. It's a reminder to Chrom that this is upsetting to her and he isn’t sure if that made this easier.
Lissa’s face shutters and a hard tilt to her chin shifts her disposition as she straightens, tension bristling her frame into something colder. ‘My opinion stands,’ she says finally with only a tremble in her voice giving her unstable emotions away, ‘Exalt,’ she adds if only to be petty.
Emm inclines her head in acknowledgement. ‘I understand this concern, it is not something I haven’t thought myself,’ she admits with her heavy stare resting on Chrom, ‘but we are duty bound. King Gangrel has been looking for an excuse to start further battle since he took the throne. With the last war, I cannot begrudge his anger.’
‘Your Grace,’ Lord Bernard gasps in outrage.
Emm raises a hand to halt the murmurs that whisper around the table. ‘A ruler to this throne, in Naga’s name, instigated a conflict on a neighbouring country that we had been peaceful with: our sister land. It was senseless murder on the command of a man who had lost his mind with grief. That the Plegian people still feel this hurt: this anger towards us is deserved, Lord Bernard. To deny such feelings is to deny our own responsibility and while that may enable us to sleep at night, it does not undo the atrocities committed.’
‘I do not want you to…forget, the many Ylisseans that were, too, killed during the Blood Wars, Exalt Emmeryn,’ Lord Bernard says with his eyes to the table but a horrible red splattered across the cheeks. He's one of many apologists of the acts Ylisse wrought onto Plegia and Chrom couldn’t bare listening to it.
‘Oh, Lord Bernard, I cannot forget as I paid tribute to my people: I walked through the town streets with the grieving, I helped bury men and women and children. I gave sermons and speeches. I aided the rebuilding of Ylisstol. I was there.’ Emmeryn’s voice powers through that monologue and although her calm serenity isn’t present, her rage is just as steady as she stares one of her lords down. ‘But I also cannot forget my father’s order to march on an unsuspecting people, who had done nothing wrong. I cannot forget how our own streets were paved red with the blood of Grimleals. I cannot simply ignore how we invaded Plegian soil and then killed and pillaged and raped and burnt our way through their countryside, unprovoked.’
‘Exalt -’ the man tries to interrupt, intent to argue but Emm has heard it all before; they all had.
‘No, Lord Bernard,’ Emm says without a lick more patience to give Lord Bernard than to respond. ‘King Fridolin declared war on a group of people for no otherwise then one member of such blood was unable to save his wife.’
Chrom feels his eyes shut and senses Lissa mentally retreat as she always does when this is brought to attention. Exalt Lucille - their mother - died during childbirth. Her midwife, a woman of Plegian descent, who had aided with Chrom’s birth and Emm’s, was unable to stop the bleeding. Their mother was lost due to complications and Lissa almost past with her if it hadn’t of been for Ayra’s quick actions.
She was Emm’s Nanny and had even taken care of Chrom, from what little he remembered about her but the life of Friodlin’s daughter was not enough to save the woman’s life. She had been executed for treason, in the city centre: something that would have made Marth, himself, weep but Fridolin was past sense; devoid of reason as his sanity slipped with grief.
‘Plegia retaliated, yes, you are quite right but do not forget why,’ Emm warned. ‘We are lucky that after killing their former Archbishop and King both, that Plegia has been so forgiving with us. On a purely self-serving issue, our army has long since been depleted and I cannot be seen recruiting anymore to our force: we are in a perilous position to incoming attack.’
They used to have open boarders with Plegia, truly allied. Many biracial children were born and mixed families lived happily on Ylissean land. Fridolin's first attack were against these people. Normal townsfolk; everyday people. Many of the "half-breeds" were imprisoned. Chrom can still remember their screams.
‘But this arrangement, Your Grace…’ Lord Althalos, Maribelle’s father begins but is unable to finish his rejection. It's rare for the man to waste even a breath so Chrom almost felt honoured that the man had done exactly that with a whole sentence.
Emm inhales quietly and seems to centre herself while the alermen stay silent, ready for her to speak. ‘Please understand this when I say to you: I do not have goodwill to bargain with,’ she states with brevity, ‘Plegia is demanding we uphold a sworn commitment. They may be doing it with…nefarious intentions, but we are not in a position to contest this, not without risk of restarting a conflict we cannot hope to engage with. I listen to your protests; I take them to heart and I see the risk, however -’
‘I’ll do it.’
Chrom does not, for a second, recognise his own voice or even register that he spoke until every eye is again looking at him. His heart beats like it is engaged in a battle unto itself and his nausea increases but he forces himself to look at his sister’s stilted expression. ‘I agree, we can’t risk another war. If - if my agreement can prevent anymore bloodshed then…’
‘Chrom,’ Emm says and Chrom knows that if they were alone; if it were just himself and his older sister, that she would allow herself to reach out to him, to try and comfort him. As it is, she simply looks devastated. ‘This document - it is for your hand in marriage, it…the Archbishop’s child is to be your consort. This would be irreversible, you…I must know you understand what you are agreeing to.’
Chrom’s vision is palpitating with the force of his heart, body thrumming with stress, and his ears are banging along with the tightness in his chest as he nods. His neck creaks from the stiffness to it, but that’s ignored with everything else. ‘I understand,’ he replies and people graciously ignore how is voice breaks.
‘Chrom -’
Emm wasn’t able to refuse Plegia this, they could not, but Chrom wasn’t about to make his sister force her own brother into accepting a document like this: he would agree for that alone, to save her from that choice.
‘I said I agree, Emm.’ Chrom couldn’t get very many other words out than that, making himself remain sitting at the table is hard enough. This was about duty and however much he felt more like a fool than a prince, didn’t mean he wasn’t one.
Emm’s eyes are starting to shimmer even if she’s keeping it together like the ruler she is. Lissa has started to cry with her face buried in her hands. ‘Chrom -’
Chrom’s feels heavy and he’s starting to sense the impending need to lay down, but he keeps himself planted in his seat. ‘For Ylisse, for Plegia, I -’ his voice wobbles and suddenly Chrom feels like a little boy all over again, who didn’t understand the what dead bodies were yet, or the cries of prisoners or the smell of bodies. He's done his part since then in forming the Shepherds and training their fighters, but Chrom also knew his efforts were shallow in comparison to what their world so desperately needs.
‘I said I agree,’ Chrom repeats.
Emm’s lips tighten in that way that speaks volumes of her upset even if she refuses to shatter. She had been holding it together so long, Chrom thinks that if she stopped Emm would simply fall apart and there’d be no fixing her.
‘Robin Caeronvar,’ Emm finally says as she folds her hands in front of her with an edginess that is very rare. Her knuckles are white.
Chrom blinks as the words don’t quite sink in. ‘Huh?’
Emm’s shoulders flex, another sign of stress that Chrom's had to learn and pick up on. Emm has few tells, she's too good for that. ‘…Archbishop Validar’s -’
Chrom’s stomach flops and without his consent he's stood, wooden chair skidding out from underneath him. He can vaguely feel his hand jump into Falchion’s hilt as they both tremble at his sides. ‘I - right, of course. Robin. Foreign? Oh…but then it would be, wouldn’t it?’
‘Chrom -’ Emm tries again to reach out, as she too rises from her seat.
‘So, you don’t me to finalise the details for this. I can leave this to you while I - attend to my Shepherds,’ Chrom rushes to say, hates his habit of rambling under pressure as he all but trips over his own feet to get out of the room. ‘Excuse me.’