Abandoned WIP - Death Isn't Sad (AKA "rickenisdead dot odt")

[amielleon]

The majority of this was written in July 2013. I stopped working on it at some point because I felt (and still feel) that the story is distracted and doesn't know what it wants to be about, a problem probably coming out of the fact that Ricken is central to a series of Dickensesque relationships that pull the characters together, but at the same time Ricken is largely irrelevant to all the moving action on-set. Also, some parts were heavy-handed (and when it was heavy-handed it was cringeworthy) and others were meandering and it just generally was pretty sloppily put together.

At some point a few months ago, I planned to do an overhaul, taking out the Henry/Ricken romantic aspect among other things, but never really got the motivation to start said overhaul. So, since I've run out of interest in FE13 and some people seem to still remember that this is a thing, here's what I had.

Parts that I had marked to be cut are in red. I left them in here because the story isn't coherent either way and some of them are cute in their own right.

Title: Death Isn't Sad
Summary: Henry does his best to raise a daughter in an era where little is certain. But he can't teach what he doesn't know.





---

Chapter 1 (June 21)

---

Severa's hair was getting to be so long. Henry brushed through to the ends, reaching down to the small of her back, before neatly parting her hair in the middle. “Daddy,” Severa said aloud, “I want pigtails.”

“Pigtails?” he echoed. “No braids today?”

“Unh-uh. I want pigtails like Cynthia has.”

“Well, I don't know if they'll stay with hair as long as yours. But I'll try!”

He gathered her hair to the side of her head and tried his best to keep it neat and not to pull. Severa stole glances at what he was doing as if he wouldn't notice her head moving. He finished tying one side and thought it was acceptable—though he was unforgivably fashion-blind, according to his daughter. “There, feel that. Is that okay?”

Severa reached up and felt around the band. “That's good. Do the other side.”

“All right,” he indulged her.

The first one was already slipping a little, he noticed. He was working on tying the second one a little tighter when Severa said again, “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Has Mommy's letter come yet?”

“Not yet,” he said cheerfully, as he had for the last year. Not yet was starting to sound dishonest. At least Severa didn't ask so often any more. He pulled the string firm and pressed against the new pigtail to see if it would stay. This one held.

“Daddy?”

“Yup?”

“Do you miss Mommy?”

That was new. In the moment it took to tighten the other side, he decided—for the sake of his little girl—not to answer that on most days, he didn't even think about Cordelia. “Of course,” he said, pulling lightly on the pigtail to even it out. “And I'm sure Mommy misses you.” He patted her head lightly, as he always did when he was done. “There we go. Now let's get going before teatime starts without you.”

“Teatime is in the afternoon,” Severa corrected, even though it was only their game of make-believe. Tea was scarce these days.

“Ahaha, is it? Let's make sure we're not that late!” She rolled her eyes at him, turning her head to make sure he would see.

---

After leaving Severa with the other children at Lissa's place, Henry set off to his own house to gather his things before joining the others to forage. It was overcast as usual, as if the gloom of the war somehow had the power to keep both sun and rain at bay. Miriel said it was because the fires of war spewed soot into the air, and that in a few years, they had worse to fear than a scarcity of sunny weather.

Henry figured they already had worse.

For over a year now, they held down Fort Phila on the outskirts of Plegia waiting for Chrom and his forces to return. It was safer for the children, they said, since Ylisstol—still too devastated to hold under siege—might come under attack. And furthermore, they would provide a foothold to retreat to in case everything went wrong. So they stayed there, filling the fortress's little town, sweeping out the remnants of the Plegians who had once lived there. They planted little gardens for food, though they never grew well. Maybe it was soot or maybe it was the Plegians' ancestral ghosts.

So every day, they sent a party out to forage for whatever they could find. Most days, their findings consisted of bags full of edible (if not palatable) weeds and a bit of small game. On occasion they discovered fields of Plegian crops—date trees and wild hazel and Plegian millet—sometimes abandoned, sometimes still tended by a neighboring village that had somehow survived the swarming Risen. Although Lissa sternly told them to leave the villagers' food be, their rations and stores ran out in late winter. The less noble of them quietly agreed to take back whatever they needed, and made up stories about abandoned fields and fallen travelers.

Now summer was upon them again, with a new generation of weeds and rabbits. They could feed the children properly again. But they had no surplus. Lissa wrote often to Ylisstol asking for aid, but none ever came. If Chrom did not come back by the winter, they would have to choose between starvation and desertion.

[something something transition]

One of the Anna sisters was peddling wares by the well, a thick scar down one cheek distinguishing her from her relatives. He turned his head to see what she had: a few old weapons on the verge of breaking, an assortment of scythes and grindstones that had long lost their purpose, and a tarnished signet ring bearing a seal in the Ylissean style.

Ricken had one like that, he thought. He was always talking about restoring honor to his family. In the end the seal found its way onto the hand of a Plegian dark mage. The one from the old respectable mage family, of course.

Not that their boyish friendship would've come to anything like marriage. At least Ricken seemed content to be married to his other magic mentor. Henry remembered a woman who had once given him a scarf, and married that woman in the army who wanted to avoid scandal, the one who had little interest in any other part of a relationship, which was what he had then preferred.

In hindsight it was a stupid decision made by an eighteen-year-old convinced he would be lonely for the rest of his life. For a stupid decision it turned out all right. Cordelia stayed with the main forces and fought farther and farther away from home while Henry tended to their child, who had captured his heart from the moment he first held her.

Ricken left to fight, too. The last time they had spoken seriously, it was during a time of relative peace in Ylissetol, when Henry had a baby asleep over his shoulder and Ricken had his newborn. They had both taken a walk in hopes the night air would comfort their fussy children. When they met, they whispered as if their infants could've been witnesses.

“How's marriage,” Henry had said.

“Marriage is okay.” Ricken held Noire with both arms like a shield between them. “I'm a part of Chrom's main force now, so... I haven't been spending much time with the family.”

There was a spark to his voice as he said it—telling Henry for the first time that he'd finally risen to Chrom's side like he always wanted, telling him with affected disinterest like a true adult.

“Oh,” Henry said. “I leave all the Chrom-protecting to Cordelia.” And sometime in the last few years, when he finally gained something good in his life other than the excitement of battle, his eagerness to fight had faded away.

Without realizing it, Henry had admitted that they shared little any more.

Ricken, admirer of the exalt and redeemer of his noble house, laughed and replied, “I guess I won't get to fight alongside you.”

They never did have the chance since then, for five years until Chrom led his forces into the Plegian heartland and disappeared.

---

When Henry arrived at his own doorstep, he was immediately accosted by a dark-clad figure. Speak of the devil. “Where have you been?” Tharja demanded.

“Dropping off Severa,” he said unflappably. “Why?”

“You need to scry for her.” Tharja grabbed his hand and pressed a hair into his palm.

That was one way to start off the day. Henry touched the hair with his magic and detected Sumia's lingering essence. He closed his eyes and felt outward: ignoring the traces of her presence left around her house and her daughter in Lissa's care; finding a few of her hairs on her pegasus, which was being tended to in the stables, he noted with intrigue; expanding beyond the fortress walls, over the mountains to the west and down past the cliffs to the north, and to south, where the Risen had been congregating—ah. There.

“Well, the good news is, I've found her. The bad news is, she's pretty dead.”

Tharja pressed her mouth into a line. “I expected as much. Can her... body... be retrieved?”

“Not really. There are Risen all over there. I don't think you want to, anyway. When I said pretty dead I meant her organs are—”

“Thank you. I get the idea.”

Without losing any enthusiasm, he said, “Well, I guess we won't have an aerial scout anymore. By the way, who's telling Cynthia?”

“Not you,” Tharja replied pointedly, and stalked away without saying good-bye. It would probably be one of the other women, Henry thought. Lissa or Maribelle or someone, a friend of the family. He didn't know who Sumia was friends with, other than his wife. Maybe it was a good thing that Frederick was away on the front lines. He would've been tempted to comfort Frederick, and it probably would've gone poorly.

Henry went into his house and rooted around for his canteen. They still had to forage.

---

He knew Cordelia's last letter by heart.

Dear Henry,

For several weeks, we have been following the Grimleal pilgrimage. I do not know what we will find at the journey's end, but I am prepared for any battle.

I'm happy to hear that Severa is starting to read. Perhaps next time I should send her a letter too. Has she taken to a weapon yet? I remember first coming across a spear at her age. I understand the need for play, but she must be prepared for anything that might come. These times are not the same as ours.

Sincerely,
Cordelia

Severa asked for him to read her letters like a bedtime story. It seemed like a terribly tragic tale to him, one told in the formal tones of a knight writing to her housemaid. The letters started with optimistic reports of fertile land that could be sown after the war, towns narrowly saved from the Risen, battles fought and won against the Plegian army. Then they meandered slowly into the rote, dispirited phrases of a good soldier.

We must be ready.

It is our duty to save the people.

I am prepared for any battle.

And in the very end—in a cynical confession, as if she knew it would be the last letter she would write—These times are not the same as ours. He never did tell Cordelia about his own 'times', but that didn't take away from her words' sense of foreboding.

He wondered if Severa caught on to the way hope drained away from Cordelia's letters. Mostly, Severa seemed excited at the prospect of receiving a letter from Mommy meant just for her. At times, he thought it would have been better if Cordelia had skipped all pretenses of writing to him and just written her letters to Severa to begin with. It wasn't as if she had ever been successful in feigning affection. Half the time, she even neglected to sign her letters with Love.

He had memorized Ricken's last letter too, but he didn't like that one very much. Henry preferred an earlier letter:

Hello Henry!

I know I've said this before, but Plegia has the worst weather. How can anyone live in this heat!? (I'm not just exaggerating. We took a break the other day because Frederick fainted.) If you have any advice for how to survive, you need to tell me.

Robin says he knows where he's going but I think we're lost. We just found civilization today. If you never hear from me again, we ran out of water in the desert because Robin didn't want to spend 50g/day on a guide. Next time we march deep into Plegia, maybe we should bring a Plegian friend?

I think you should have come instead of me. There are way more Risen than before. We fight every other day and night. They even interrupted lunch yesterday. You'd like a skirmish for dessert, but I'm sick of it. I guess it's a little better than facing down a living army, but that's not saying much.

How's Fort Phila? I hope Severa's teeth come out okay! One of mine wouldn't come out on time and it was awful, but I've told you that story before. Is Noire losing her teeth yet? Please check for me, I think my wife might not notice. All she writes about is research and how gross the food is. Tell me how things are going, and don't leave out any of the good parts!

Ricken

It reminded him of a younger Ricken, a boy with boundless energy, a little excited to see everything. One so unafraid of defeat that he had the capacity to worry about the enemy.

In his later letters, he sounded as serious as he always wanted to appear, and Henry hated it. If Ricken had grown up naturally Henry would have been proud, but something unseen had changed him. Henry didn't want to entertain the thought of that.

If they didn't come back, Henry would be free to imagine any Ricken he pleased, and he chose this one.

He suspected that they did all meet their end. But so long as he didn't know it for a fact, he let Severa have her hopes.

“I wanna read it,” Severa said, reaching for the letter in his hands.

“Mommy's letter?”

“Uh huh. I wanna read it today.”

“Okay! Let's read it together.” He wrapped one arm around her, his hand resting on a pillow, and with the other, held the letter before her.

“No, Daddy,” she insisted, grabbing at the cheap parchment. It surprised him that it didn't tear. “I don't need any help.”

“Ahaha, you're pretty good at reading now, aren't you? Okay, I'll listen.”

Severa mimicked a throat-clearing sound. “Dear Henry, for sev-ral weeks we have been following the Grimleal pill-gri-midge...”

Henry suspected that Severa had the letter memorized, but he played along and listened to her recital. It was too bad there were so few books around, he thought. In his own parents' home there had been a shortage of food and sanity and love, but not books. He had been a reader ever since he could talk. His father's family had passed down a small library of books through the generations, a tradition that ended with him—

Severa tugged on his sleeve. “Daddy, pay attention.”

“I'm listening.”

“Has she taken to a weapon yet? I remember first coming across a spear at her age. I understand the need for play...”

This was his least favorite part of Cordelia's letter. He didn't like repeating Cordelia's veiled disappointment to Severa over and over again before she slept. He wondered if Severa caught on to it.

Henry thought Severa was fine. She was seven. She was allowed to be whimsical at seven. She should be.

“...Sincerely, Cordelia.”

“Hey, that's great! You can read the whole thing!” He reached over to take the letter back and stow it safely away, but Severa stubbornly held on.

“Daddy?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Why hasn't Mommy's letter come yet?”

“I dunno. Maybe the messengers have been getting lost. I bet they've been having entire adventures. When they come, we should ask them for the whole story.”

Severa looked at him, with three fingers at her mouth, as if studying his face. Then she said, “Cynthia's mom died.”

Henry's heart sank. Here was the conversation he never wanted to have.

“Who did you hear that from?” he said to buy time.

“Kjelle.”

Sully never spared her daughter anything. “It's true,” Henry admitted. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” Severa said, hands still at her mouth.

“It's all right if it does,” he said anyway. “You can always tell me.”

“It doesn't bother me, Dad,” Severa said insistently.

He kissed the top of her head in the way that always annoyed her and said, “You look bothered to me.”

“You're bothering me,” she whined. “Go to sleep, Dad.” She crawled over him and stuck the letter back into its box. Then she blew out the pungent candle and made a show of pushing down on his shoulders.

“Okay, okay. Let's go to sleep.” He let her tuck him in, sliding down on the pillows and into the blankets. Something jutted against his head; he reached under his pillow to nudge the tome to one side. Severa pulled the blanket uncomfortably high, up to his chin. He waited until she burrowed under the covers before adjusting them. “Good night, Severa. Thanks for taking care of me.”

“Good night Daddy,” she mumbled back.

In the quiet of the night, with Severa's familiar figure curled up by him on the bed, Henry wondered where Cynthia slept tonight. Perhaps in Lissa's church and home. Death had become so common that Sumia's death didn't faze him, but when it came to her daughter—the same age as Severa—he could not help but entertain what-ifs.

He imagined Severa staying there, suddenly parted from family and home alike, trying to sleep in a strange room by herself. Henry would never stop being viscerally horrified by the idea. Lissa and Libra were kind, he supposed, and they would care for Severa, but—he justified his fear by imagining a Risen attack crushing the two of them like kindly, gentle twigs. There was no one he trusted with Severa's defense but himself.

---

Chapter 2 (July 2-4)

---

It was a cool July. Maybe it was the dust covering the sun. Henry combed through Severa's hair and for a moment was at peace with this calamity of nature, for it spared his moppet a haircut.

“No, Daddy,” Severa said. “I want braids.”

Henry undid the pigtail he had just created and combed back through her hair. “I can do braids!” He loved making them, in fact, for the feel of her hair through his fingers as he wove. Although his hair was as light as hers, Severa's hair was thick and soft while his own was coarse and sparse. “Hmm, but I wonder why you've changed your mind?”

“Because I don't want to look like Cynthia.”

“Oh? I thought Cynthia was your best friend.”

Severa made a very bitter face and said, “Cynthia's not my friend anymore. Now she only plays with the boys.”

Henry thought about reminding Severa that he was a boy—well, a man—but as he was in the middle of braiding her hair, he wasn't sure what point he would be making.

“I'm sorry you're not friends anymore,” he said sympathetically. “Well, maybe you'll find new friends too.”

Severa huffed and gave him her best skeptical look.

---

When Henry, Miriel, and Maribelle returned from the day's forage, they found the fortress in an uproar.

Libra told them the news with unusual solemnity: “Tiki's back.”

She was apparently recovering in the back of the church and was not to be disturbed, but Libra retold all the news that Tiki had brought with her. Last September, when they confronted King Plegia at the Dragon's Table, Chrom had died, and Grima had been reborn. She didn't see him fall, but she heard later that a good friend had betrayed him. The army quickly fell into chaos without its leader. Some fled. Others regrouped around a new leader. Others stood fast and died right there to Grima's power.

Tiki herself, mindful of her place as Naga's envoy, fought her way to the fallen holy sword and snatched it before she ran, a gambit that had early cost her life. It took Tiki months to shake his trail and recover before she dared return to the fort. Lissa had her lie down, then immediately set about to write yet another message, pleading and urgent, back to Ylisstol asking for reinforcements to cover their retreat from the fortress. If they still would not reply—who knew what the next few months would hold.

For now they had the newly dead. Libra recounted names of those confirmed to have fallen at the Table. Henry listened for those he knew. Frederick (of course). Cordelia. Of course.

Ricken.

Of course.

---

Of course. He knew that already.

But now that it had been confirmed, it was as if they had died a second time.

Henry tried to piece together when he had first decided that Cordelia was dead. It was sometime around Severa's birthday. There was no real reason to believe that the messengers would have been able to make it through swarms of Risen because it was the anniversary of his daughter's birth, but after enduring the way Severa set aside a little bit of everything to “show Mommy when she gets back,” and enduring her disappointment when the letter still had not come, something in him decided that Cordelia must have been dead, or she would have done something to soothe her daughter's want.

But Ricken had no such obligations in his mind, and for a time Ricken had floated between death and undeath. On good days, with Severa at Lissa's and a lucky find on the hunt, he would imagine that Ricken would somehow find his way back, narrowly dodging death at every turn, sheltered and fed by animals along the way. Given Henry's own luck in life, it didn't seem impossible to him that Ricken might somehow pull through. Usually, however, he considered Ricken dead and gone, and for a time in early spring he had spent several days thinking mournfully of him.

Now, without meaning to, he started thinking about Ricken again.

They had fought together so often that memories from one battle blurred into the next. He remembered events seemingly disconnected from space and time: Ricken getting knocked over by a Risen that bared its teeth at his throat; Ricken giving him his second tome tome when both of Henry's own had crumbled; Ricken sprinting across the field on his short little legs with the point of his hat bobbing side to side, waving a staff about and screaming something about Henry's injuries.

Henry couldn't really pin down what he found in Ricken that he had never found anywhere else, but somewhere in between a thousand tiny things it was there. For about three years, Ricken shared everything with him. Then he suddenly proposed to Tharja and disappeared.

A few years later, after Henry had finished secretly feeling abandoned and bitter and vengeful, and after he had married indiscriminately, he found Ricken again, who said, “Wow, it's been awhile since we've really talked,” as if nothing much had happened. Henry played along. They talked about magic and bedbugs and Ricken's growth spurt. At the end of the day, Henry said, “Let's do this again sometime,” and Ricken agreed, but nothing much came of it until he left on campaign.

Then, for some reason, the torrent of letters came. Suddenly Henry was his closest confidant again, for everything from mundane complaints about the weather to anecdotes about his childhood. Henry didn't question this blessing and wrote back every time. He'd sent out his last letter near the end of last summer—two months before Ricken had died.

From September until April, he had waited so hopefully for a letter from a dead man.

And now—well, he supposed he ought to move on. Again.

---

That afternoon, when he went to fetch Severa, Libra intercepted him at the door. “Henry, if you have a moment.”

Libra escorted him to one of the church's side rooms. A pair of chairs waited in this little room, small enough to be a closet if not for the tiny window high up on the wall. Libra gestured to one chair, and sat in the other.

“What's up?” Henry asked, expecting the priest to say something about the news they'd received.

“It's about Severa,” Libra said. Dread settled into Henry's stomach. “I'm concerned about her behavior.”

“What's she been doing?”

“Well—she hasn't been getting along very well with the other children lately.”

“Oh!” That was a relief. “I hear she's been going through a rough patch with Cynthia.”

“Yes, ah... that's part of it.” Libra folded his hands and said, “I had hoped that we would be able to manage the situation ourselves, but by now I am certain she will not listen to us. She persists in disrupting the younger children during their naptime, and in the past, she has teased one of the boys to the point of tears.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yes,” Libra replied, now looking a little uncomfortable. “I was hoping you would talk to her about her actions.”

“Sure. I'll definitely talk to her.”

“Yes,” Libra said once again. Before he stood up to let Henry go, he said carefully, “It would certainly not do to kill her with kindness.”

---

“We had a visitor today,” Severa said.

Henry's arm was getting sore. Severa was starting to get heavy. He awkwardly brought his right hand with the tome back behind him, traded the tome to his left hand, and shifted Severa's weight onto his right. “You did?”

“Uh-huh.” She didn't say anything more after that, and they lapsed into silence. They must have kept the news from the children, Henry thought, so that their parents could tell them.

Henry's mind spun between his wife being dead, Ricken being dead, Severa's purported behavior, and Libra's disturbing comment. She ought to take up a weapon for self-defense, he supposed. She had taken well enough to books. Maybe she'd be good at magic.

—Though that surely was not what Libra had meant. No, Libra's polite remark was almost certainly the last in a long line of requests, suggestions, and complaints that he was too soft with discipline.

When Cordelia had been around, Severa had risen with the rooster and slept with the sun and always wiped her feet before coming into the house. Cordelia had also being willing to yell and spank routinely, which Henry had never even wanted to watch, much less continue by himself. Henry supposed that Severa had never given Cordelia lip like she gave him, and there were never complaints about her back then either.

Maybe he was doing something wrong. But he had no idea about what fathers ought to do—merely a list of things he was fairly certain they shouldn't.

“Severa,” he said. She grunted in acknowledgment, her chin on his shoulder. “Has something been going on at Lissa's?”

“No,” she said, sounding bored.

“Libra says you haven't been listening to the adults.”

“I listen.”

“Well,” Henry said, trying to sort out what to say next, “it seems they're not happy with how you treat the other kids.”

Severa huffed and muttered, “The other kids are stupid.”

“Now Severa,” he said in his best attempt to sound stern, “you know that's not true. They're all good at something, and I'd bet they'd love to be your friend.”

She didn't give him a response either way, instead simply swinging her feet a little where they hung by his sides. Henry wondered how much farther he should push the issue. He still had to tell Severa about Cordelia's death at some point. Maybe it didn't have to be today. He didn't want to tell her right after chastising her—

“It's not like you have any friends.”

“What?”

Severa didn't repeat it, going back to swinging her feet. She was going to tire out his arm.

“That's cruel, Severa. Of course I have friends,” he said.

Well, there were several people he had been on friendly terms with. Compared to Severa's delicate childhood friendships, they probably counted. Maribelle and Frederick and Cherche—that was three, though the latter two were gone. And he had never felt close to them anyway.

Deep down, he was only certain of one friendship—and Ricken was dead, too. Maybe he had lied after all.

And Libra was probably right about being too permissive of his daughter, but at that moment he had no words.

---

He sent her to bed at nightfall without a story amidst a flurry of Severa's whining. He hoped that was enough to convey his displeasure. After she stayed put in bed, he went to his study in the next room over. Everything was so quiet that it was as if he could hear her pouting.

He took out a [slender folder] from his rough wood desk and opened it.

Hello Henry,

—read the letter on top, as if welcoming him to its contents—

I said I would write, so here I am. There's not a lot to say about our trip so far, but I thought I'd send a letter so you know that I'm well.

We're supposed to get to Plegia Castle in a week. It took months for us to cover that ground during the war. It's almost unreal, but I'm not complaining.

I'll send you another letter when we have the chance again. Hopefully I'll have more to say next time.

Ricken

Such a tentative first letter. He carefully turned the parchment over and laid it on the desk to reveal the letter underneath it.

Hello Henry!

It was great hearing from you. ...

In the span of a month and two more letters, Ricken had warmed up again and wrote happily at length about everything. Then, before half a year had passed, the stream of letters slowed, then stopped.

Henry wouldn't be getting any more. No messengers to the afterlife.

Wait. Actually—

As quietly as possible, he began to ransack his study for reagents. He unearthed a bag of dried herbs (still good, judging by the smell), a cord of silver, and a few various dried reptiles. For a moment he was frustrated with himself for having such a small and erratic supply of reagents. But then, he usually didn't bother with strange curses—most of the curses he favored for day to day use required nothing more than a blood sacrifice, a silver catalyst, and sometimes a sigil. He could cast them whenever he needed by slitting his palm with the silver dagger he kept in his boot, and with his power and proficiency they were tremendously effective.

Talking to the dead, on the other hand, required half a dozen rare metals and some strange and convoluted sigil he didn't remember.

He heaved a sigh and sat back to think. He could probably find the recipe in one of his books. But he was fairly certain it required white gold and quicksilver. If he searched hard enough, he might find a merchant selling reagents, and they'd probably carry quicksilver. But white gold? That was rare enough even in times of plenty. Unless he sailed over to the Valmese mines himself and started digging, there was no way he could find any.

Henry had nearly given up on the idea when it occurred to him that Tharja might have some. In fact, Tharja could probably perform the spell on the spot. He would have needed another person to work with him anyway. Truly speaking with the dead required two people: one to contain the soul and the other to speak with it.

He picked his supplies off the floor and put them back into his cabinet. He would ask Tharja about it tomorrow after the forage. In the meantime, he had to put his questions into words.

---

He dropped by Tharja's home before picking up Severa. As he would have expected of her, the windows were all closed despite the warm weather. Henry would have attributed it to mourning, if it weren't Tharja. Melancholy was part of her personality.

Besides, even if she were to mourn someone, he would have guessed Robin first.

Henry knocked on the door and waited a full minute for a response. He knocked again, and shortly after, Tharja creaked the door open by a crack and greeted him with, “What.”

“Hey Tharja! I was wondering if you'd team up with me on a curse.”

“What makes you think I want to team up with you,” she deadpanned.

“Well, there was that one time you were cursed, and you came to me saying that we could—”

“Ugh. Fine. Come in.”

Henry stepped through the door. It was noticeably warmer in Tharja's house, but he didn't want to push his luck by asking to open the windows.

As she led him through the halls, a little redheaded girl peeked at him from a doorway. He smiled and waved at Noire. She quickly shrank back into the room and disappeared. She was just as shy as he remembered.

“Aww, she's so cute,” he remarked.

Tharja muttered something under her breath as she unlocked her study and gestured for Henry to enter.

Stepping into Tharja's study was like stepping into the world of the past. As if they were in times of plenty, little bottles lined the shelves, carefully labeled with the names of rare herbs, animal parts, potions, and metals, some of which Henry had never even heard of.

“Miriel's White-Gold? Did you borrow some from her?”

“No,” she said, her tone of voice implying that he was an idiot for asking. “It was her discovery. It is the metal left when white-gold is dissolved in regal water. In many ways it seems similar to traditional white-gold. And yet its interaction with other components in spellwork is quite... different.”

Despite her condescending tone, life entered her voice as she lectured him. Her enthusiasm reminded him of Miriel herself. “You really like curses,” he observed gaily.

She smiled and said, “Of course. It's my life's work.” She pulled her chair from her desk and sat down without offering him a seat. “Now, then. What have you come for?”

“Well, you know about Ricken, right?”

Her mouth twisted. “Naturally.”

“I was thinking you might be able to do the talking-to-the-dead curse.”

“Oh. I see.” She looked away in thought and leaned her chin against her hand. “Interesting.”

“Yeah! So one of us can channel Ricken, and the other one can talk to him.”

“You channel him,” Tharja corrected, “and I'll talk to him. I'm not wasting the time and materials so you can have a nice chit-chat.”

“Sure, I can channel him. But ask him something for me?” Tharja muttered in assent. “Ask him how he can be avenged.”

He had promised Ricken as much, after all.

Tharja smiled wryly and said, “I was going to ask him the same.”

[Note: The following sequence is overly long and I had marked it to be abridged, but it's also dorky and great.]

She ordered Henry to clear some space on the floor while she went and picked out a few bottles. She rolled him a bag with colored chalk, string, and nails, and said briskly, “Square rune base in blue. Ether augment in red, concave form. Draw it as large as possible.”

“Really? Ether augment? What uses ether augment anymore?”

“Almost any hex that involves manipulation of souls. Do you know how to draw it or not?”

“I'll draw it, I'll draw it,” he sang, tying the string around the blue chalk, and the other end to a well-placed nail in the center of the floor. He stepped four paces out and surveyed the room with a critical eye. The room was large for a house in the fortress, but small for a casting room, and two bookshelves, a desk, and various boxes took up even more of the floorspace. As large as possible, indeed—the edges of the sigil could brush up against the bookcases and it'd still be so small as to make things difficult. Henry half wondered if Tharja told him to channel because he was more likely to succeed at casting it.

Well, he was all right with that. Humming, he pulled the string taut and traced out a circle.

Stirring a flask, Tharja turned around and watched with a critical eye as he drew the rune. “You draw sigils from the outside in?”

“Yeah, it really helps with the proportions. You draw them inside out?”

“Of course. How do you keep from smudging it?”

“Hopscotch,” Henry answered. “It's never really been a problem for me!”

Tharja kept quiet, but he could feel her gaze upon him with faint disbelief and disapproval. But she trusted his abilities enough to let him continue, which was enough. The flask in her hands went cloudy, and she preoccupied herself with her share of the work.

“I only have enough for one attempt,” she told him as she mixed and poured. “After this, I'm out of white gold and saltpeter.”

In other words, don't fuck it up.

As Henry trade his blue chalk for red and began to fill in the sigil, he quietly wondered when Tharja had become close to Ricken. He hadn't spoken to her personally in years, not since the Valmese campaign a decade ago. Back then, it seemed that she only had eyes for Robin. He was shocked when she was the one to take Ricken from him. And it was terrible to imagine that Ricken had been bound to someone who took him so lightly, when to Henry he had been so precious.

But now, with her only channeling spell, Tharja chose Ricken.

“Is it ready?” Tharja said.

“Alllllmost. Gimme a minute to check that the points all line up.”

Tharja watched him hop about the sigil with what might have been grudging approval of his work. “I have the elixir prepared.”

“Great! Hand me the chalice?”

Without stepping into the sigil, Tharja reached over and handed him the chalice, which Henry received with the tips of his fingers. Stepping carefully between the chalk lines, he set the chalice at the center of the sigil. Then he received the elixir, a pretty cloudy blue, and carefully poured it into the chalice, not spilling a drop.

“Are you ready?” he asked Tharja. She nodded. Henry glanced around the room to make sure everything was in place. He thought about asking whether this spell was one of the spirit-calling spells that required all the windows and doors to be shut, but they were already shut anyway, so he didn't betray his ignorance.

“Okay. I'm casting it. Think lots of Ricken thoughts.”

Henry put one hand over the other and held them over the chalice, his fingers pointing toward Tharja. He closed his eyes and drew magic from the elixir and desire from Tharja's mind. Energy swarmed and clashed within the limits of the too-small sigil; he clenched his teeth as he fought to keep them under control. The energy harmonized and resolved into the spell; he released it. Not a second later, he felt magic strike him, and Ricken's presence fill his body.

Tharja? Tharja, is that you?

“Yes,” Tharja said. Henry kept his focus on keeping Ricken's ghost within him, but he couldn't help but notice that Tharja's demeanor had transformed into something unexpectedly tender. “We've called you here. There's something I need to ask you...”

Ask me anything. But Tharja, listen...

A click. Magic suddenly tore out from Henry's body.

For a moment he had no idea what had happened. When he opened his eyes, looking up from where he'd fallen onto the ground, it felt like hours had passed. But Tharja looked surprised—it must have been only seconds.

Tharja looked over him to the door and marched out of his field of vision. “Noire!” she hissed. “What did I tell you about interrupting my work!?”

A small voice said, “I... I heard Daddy...”

Henry discovered that he didn't have the strength to even lift his head. Not a moment later, the sound of a slap rang out, and his heart raced. “I can't believe this. Get out! I told you not to intrude!”

He heard the door slam. Tharja sighed and approached him as the muffled sounds of the little girl's crying met his ears.

“Are you alive?” Tharja deadpanned, looking into his eyes.

“I'm—I'mall right,” he managed.

“Heh. A lesser mage would've died. Still, considering it was enough to even knock that fool grin off your face, you'd better take some of my magic.”

He was still catching up with what she said when Tharja took his hands and squeezed them as she pressed his magic into his body. He felt life return to his muscles and he took a deep breath he hadn't known he'd needed.

“There,” Tharja said.

Henry lifted himself into a sitting position and shook his head to clear it. The world was still a little dim, and even making himself sit up had been an exertion, but he guessed that probably had enough strength to get home. “Thanks,” he said.

“I'm sorry about my useless daughter,” she said.

“No—it's okay. I'm okay. Really.”

“I was talking about the spell,” Tharja said pointedly. “We'll never have a second chance. Ugh! I should have locked the door.”

Henry looked toward the center of the sigil, where the chalice still stood upright. The liquid inside had gone clear.

“Coming to think of it,” Henry said, feeling the need to defend Noire for some reason, “asking Ricken was probably unnecessary anyway. I mean—we know how he died, right?”

“Didn't you come to me with this idea?”

“Well, hearing from him would've been nice. But now that I think about it, we already know what he'd say.” All he had really wanted all along was to hear Ricken's voice again, and he suspected Tharja had felt the same way.

Tharja looked at him skeptically.

“He'd want us to do something about Grima, don't'cha think? He died trying to stop him.”

“Right,” Tharja said slowly. She gazed off again, toward the closed window. Henry noticed again how warm the room was.

Then he felt a curse coil around him.

“Oh? What's this?” he said. In truth he didn't feel so nonchalant—he didn't have the strength to remove any curses right then, if it turned out to be a problem.

“You know how this goes. Tell me the truth,” Tharja said. “Are you loyal to Grima?”

“Oh, you mean my being a Grimleal? Nah, it's just something I grew up with. I don't care about Grima or servitude or world domination or any of that. Hey, if Ricken wants me to kill Grima, I will.”

Tharja was obviously trying not to look suspicious of him as she lightly brushed him with magic, presumably to check if her curse was still there.

“Do you honestly believe Ricken would have wanted us to avenge him by defeating Grima?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uhh, pretty sure.” Or, at the very least, the idea made a great deal of sense to him.

“Fine.” She turned away from him, this time with an air of finality as she said, “Come back later. I need some peace and quiet.”

---

Tharja didn't remove the truth curse and Henry didn't ask. Slowly, mindful of his poor sense of balance, Henry walked down from her house to the main path.

He still felt emptiness within him where his magic should've been, a helpless feeling he hated. He hoped most of his strength would return by the morning—there was no guarantee, given how poorly he had been eating (like everyone else these days). But something else was missing too—Oh. He still had to pick up Severa.

All in all, his day really could've gone better.

It was almost dark by the time he made it to the church. He was still several paces away when the front door burst open, and Severa came running up to him, nearly knocking him over as she latched onto his side.

“Where were you?” she cried, her eyebrows pressed in tearful anger.

“Easy there,” he cautioned, placing a hand against her head to steady himself. “I'm sorry I'm late. I messed up a curse. It left me in pretty bad shape, hahaha. If I walked any faster, I'd fall right over.”

“You need to be careful, Daddy,” she said, still clinging onto him. “You have to.”

The door of the church opened again, and Lissa silently poked her head out. Henry waved to her, and she went back in. “I know. Sorry for worrying you.” He patted Severa's head and said, “Here. Let's hold hands and go home, okay?”

She finally released him at that suggestion and took his hand, walking slowly and patiently alongside him.

Severa's silence made the walk home feel strange. Henry wasn't in the mood for conversation, but still, she seemed so concerned about him and that made him feel guilty. It had really been his own stupid fault. He should've admitted to his ignorance and asked if the spell required a closed room. It would've spared all of them a little grief.

Henry was also well aware that a mistake like that in the wrong time and place could kill him.

There had been a time when he wouldn't have cared. A time when he was deliberately reckless, when he toyed with his life and challenged the world to destroy him. That was when he needed no one and no one needed him.

Things were different now. He wouldn't be the only one to suffer from his own stupid risks.

“Daddy, does it hurt?” Severa asked.

“No,” he said truthfully. His muscles ached but it wasn't really painful. “I'm just feeling pretty tired.”

It occurred to him that didn't want Severa dabbling in dark magic. He didn't want her to pay its prices.

“You should go to bed early today,” she said.

“That sounds like a good idea. Are you coming too?”

She scrunched up her face but didn't give a response. Henry laughed a little.

“You can stay up a little later, okay? But promise me you'll be good.”

“I'll be good,” she said immediately.

Henry leaned a little against the doorframe as he unlocked the door. Severa helpfully held the door open for him, then scurried ahead to open the bedroom door. Henry kicked off his shoes, fell into bed upon his stomach, closed his eyes, and didn't feel like moving anymore.

He felt Severa tug at the blanket underneath him. “Leave it,” he murmured. “It's warm today.”

“Okay,” Severa said. But he could hear that she hadn't left his side yet. After a few moments, she crawled into the other side of the bed and laid down next to him, her heat almost uncomfortable.

“Daddy?” she whispered.

“Mmmn?”

“Is Mommy coming back?”

He opened his eyes and saw her serious little face. She had to ask that question while he was under the truth curse. She had to ask. Her, Severa, the only one he loved enough to lie to.

“Severa...” he whispered back. “Let's talk about this tomorrow.”

Severa's lips curled into a frown. “So she's not coming back?”

“No,” Henry admitted. He heaved one arm up from his side and draped it over Severa's shoulders. She pressed against his chest like she always did when she was a toddler.

“Don't worry,” he murmured into her hair. “I'll be here.”

---

He knelt before his dead wolf-mother, dead Ricken, dead Cordelia. Magic spent, blood dripping from his nose. He could hardly move, only cry and cry. His parents left him there, in the barren church. There they flayed him open; half-aware on the stone floor he heard Ricken's girl crying. His back burned and he was helpless.

Someone moved his arm. They dragged him to the Pit. They told him he had a choice. He did as he was told and fell back, onto the spikes.

Someone put a blanket over him.

He opened his eyes and saw Severa hopping off the bed. “Morning,” he said.

She looked back at him and said, “Good morning.”

Feeling stronger but plagued with a terrible pounding between his ears, Henry dragged himself up. He stopped by Maribelle's home next door to tell her he wouldn't be able to help with the forage, refused her insistence that he stay to receive medical attention, then went home and promptly fell back into bed.

Severa was ecstatic about not having to go to Lissa's. She fetched them both some flatbread from the pantry and dragged her beloved dolls into the bedroom, narrating as she played by his bedside.

“'What will you have today, Lady Apple?' 'I'll take the leafy tea!' 'Here you go, one leafy tea coming right up.' Sluuuurp.”

Henry watched her play by herself through one half-lidded eye, thinking that she had bounced back quite well from last night.

“'And what will you have, Lord Bobcrank?' 'I'll take the spicy tea!' 'Here you go, one spicy tea.' Sluuuurp.” She lifted one ragdoll—Lord Bobcrank—into the air and narrated with some urgency, “Cough! Hack! 'Oh no, what's the matter Lord Bobcrank?'”—Missus Apple said—“'My tea was poisoned!'”—Severa said in a croak—“Hack! Wheeze! Bleeeegh.” She dropped Lord Bobcrank to the floor.

Then, breaking out of character, she looked around the room contemplatively before scurrying out of the room and coming back with a bag.

She stuffed Lord Bobcrank into the bag. Then she had Lady Apple round up upon the tea server. “'What did you do to Lord Bobcrank!?' 'Ha ha ha! I poisoned him! And now I will get you too!' 'Noooo!'” Amidst some action sounds, the tea server pummeled Lady Apple on the floor, hopping several times upon her before Severa tossed Lady Apple into the bag.

“'Ha ha ha! I win! I killed them all!'” crowed the tea server. Here, Severa interjected, “Not so fast, King Evil! There's still me.” And she tore King Evil's flimsy cloth head from his body and threw both into the bag.

She opened the neck of the bag, just a hair, and whispered, “How are you doing, Lady Apple? 'I'm dead.' I killed King Evil for you. 'Thanks.' You're welcome.”

Severa sat back, wrung the neck of the bag into a tight coil, and stared down at it contemplatively.

“Severa,” Henry said from the bed, “do you play like this at Lissa's house?”

She wrinkled her nose and said, “No. Cynthia makes me be the evil witch.” Henry privately wondered if there were beheadings there, too. “I don't want to play with them.”

Between his dream and his headache, he couldn't help but hear it as I don't want to go back.

“You play with me, Daddy,” she said.

“I will later,” he promised. “Why don't you play with Lady Apple right now?”

“Lady Apple's dead,” she said.

“Can't you bring her back to life?”

Severa rolled her eyes at him. “Don't be dumb, Daddy. She's dead.” In her hands, she wrung the opening to the bag—the one that contained all the dolls she owned.

He had to do something. He wasn't sure what.

“Do you remember Noire?” he said.

“No.”

“You used to play together. You got along pretty well.”

“When we were babies?”

“It was awhile ago,” Henry admitted, “but I think you'll like her. Why don't I bring you to play with her sometime?”

Severa only shrugged.

---

Chapter 3 (August 24-25)

---

While they remained in the fort, days at Lissa's were still a necessity. Henry felt more comfortable with Lissa watching over Severa than Tharja, and he obeyed that instinct no matter how much Severa whined that she just really wanted to go to Noire's. He consoled her by reminding her that they always went there after. And then Severa and Noire would play with each other in the main room of Tharja's house—which Henry swept free of any lingering ancient curses, to Tharja's dismay—while Henry and Tharja conferred in her study about the details of their revenge.

“If we're going to do this,” she said again, “we need to split from them soon. If we retreat with them to Ylisstol, we lose our chance to strike.”

On the folding table between them, Henry stared at the figures they had drawn marking strongholds, Risen swarms, and concentrations of dark power. They had been pooling scouting data and casting scrying spells for a month. A few days ago they managed to determine that Grima was probably visiting all the strongholds in Plegia. They weren't sure why—Was he simply gathering supplies? Overlooking operations? Or was he looking for them?—but no matter the reason, it would only be a matter of time before he came to Fort Phila.

They had to evacuate the children. They told Lissa and Libra, who promptly called a meeting where everyone else agreed to retreat to Ylisstol. Tharja and Henry remained silent, but—as those who had raised the alarm—had been assumed to agree.

But here was the perfect opportunity to confront Grima for themselves.

“So, any ideas on how to kill him?” Henry said, another refrain they'd worn out between themselves over the last few days.

“There should be some way to subdue him without the Falchion. He's bound to a mortal body. There must be some way...”

Henry fiddled with a feather quill and said, “I wonder if Lissa could help. Do you have to be good with a sword to use the Falchion?”

Tharja gave an ever-suffering sigh. “Idiot. Lissa never received the Holy Brand. Aside from the question of whether she knows the pointy end from the hilt, Falchion doesn't answer to her. Why else do you think we're twiddling our thumbs in this backwater?”

“Well, I thought it was because we didn't have the numbers to break through his army, but your reason works too.”

Tharja looked at him like he was a sore loser and snatched the quill from his fingers. “Stop that. You're going to ruin it.”

“So basically,” Henry continued as if he hadn't been chastised, “you think needing a human vessel might make him weaker than he was, back in the day when he was a dragon, so we might not need Falchion?”

“That's what I'm hoping.”

Henry thought for a moment, rubbing at his fingers in lieu of the quill, before remarking, “This would be a lot easier if we had some of his hair.”

“Genius. We'll just disguise ourselves as barbers and ask Grima if he wants a haircut.” The heat was making Tharja more sarcastic than usual.

Henry laughed. He picked up a drawing compass and toyed with it as he pondered what they could do. He sensed that Tharja also thought what they both wouldn't admit: Even given their successes so far in locating Grima, they were at an impasse when it came to defeating him.

“If you have no better ideas,” Tharja said, “stop playing with my things and go home.”

He set the compass back down sheepishly. “See you tomorrow!”

---

“Time to go home, Severa!”

Severa stuck out her head from their improvised house, a blanket draped over two half-broken chairs. “Just ten more minutes?”

“Severa, the sun is going to finish setting.”

“Five?”

“Severa.”

“Fine.” She crawled out, dusted off her knees, and ran over to take his hand. She insisted on his right, and he passed his ever-present tome to his left hand to indulge her.

“See you tomorrow, Noire,” Henry said, in hopes of setting an example.

“See you,” Severa echoed. Noire poked her head out from the blankets and watched as they left.

Henry hadn't been exaggerating—the light of day had already dimmed, and tonight promised a new moon. Severa walked alongside him quietly, her energy exhausted from play. Bringing Severa along to his trips to Tharja's place had been a good idea, Henry thought. She and Noire were so different in temperament from he and Ricken, but the moment they met, they were such fast friends that it was as if they were continuing a friendship that had began before them.

“What are you thinking about, Daddy?”

Was it that obvious that he was lost in thought? “I'm wondering if we should have veggies or nuts with supper tonight.”

“Veggies,” Severa replied decisively. And it had been veggies yesterday and the day before, too—a preference Henry was glad for. They had to finish off their struggling little weed garden before they left. But their share of the foraged nuts would keep.

“Veggies it is,” he said, just as he spotted a figure in yellow running about frantically. “Hey, is that Lissa?”
[maybe this scene can happen in an earlier chapter]
It was Lissa, and when she noticed them she came running over. “Oh, Henry! Thank goodness I've found you. I was looking for you but you weren't at home.”

“I'm just headed home right now,” he said, wondering why everyone expected him to be at home all the time. He had obligations like everyone else. “What'cha need?”

She took a comb out of her pocket and presented it to him. “I can't find Owain. He's been missing for over an hour. I'm worried he might've found his way outside.”

Henry let go of Severa's hand to accept the comb, and with a little probing, identified a hair that must've been Owain's. He cast out his magic, searching for its owner, and found him some distance away to the northeast, probably close enough to be within the walls.

“Well, he's over that way,” Henry said, pointing. “And inside. And alive. Here, I'll come with you.—Keep close, Severa!”

It was dark by the time they found Owain sitting by himself on a large rock at a crossroads by the edge of the farming district. As soon as he could see them, Owain leapt from the rock and rushed into his mother's arms.

“Owain! I've been so worried! Why in the world are you all the way out here?”

“I got lost,” he blubbered with his face hidden in Lissa's dress, plainly crying. Severa gave a pointed giggle.

“Why did you run off?” Lissa persisted, peeling him from her skirts and holding him at arm's length. “You should have stayed in the house! You don't just go running off, especially not without telling anyone, and especially not at night!”

“Didn't want a haircut,” he muttered.

There was a moment of silence before Lissa slapped him across the face. Henry was glad he was still holding the comb; Severa didn't feel him flinch. Owain's yelp of “ow!” was nearly drowned out by Lissa's ensuing rage. “What if we'd been attacked? What if Risen came flying in while you were hiding from a haircut!? You could've been hurt or killed! Do you have any idea how worried your father and I have been?” Before Owain could get a word in, Lissa took him by the wrist and continued, “We are going home RIGHT NOW. You have not dodged your haircut, mister. And you are going to apologize to Henry for the trouble you've caused him in making him find you.”

“Sorry,” Owain said sourly.

“No problem!” Henry replied. “And here's your comb back.” Lissa took the comb from his palm and apologized again for the trouble as she dragged Owain back toward the general direction of the church. Severa watched him leave, seeming very satisfied about his comeuppance after wasting her evening.

Henry leaned in toward Severa conspiratorially and said, “Think they can make it back without our help?”

“Let's just go home,” Severa said, too tired to entertain him.

So they headed home. Halfway there, Severa complained about her feet hurting and Henry hoisted her upon his back. In minutes, her head lolled onto his shoulder and her arms hung limply around his neck. Careful not to disturb her, he shifted her weight onto his other arm.

With his companion fast asleep, Henry found himself alone with his own thoughts. Lissa hadn't done anything wrong, but seeing her slap her child unsettled him. Seeing that sort of thing always had. It was absurd—he could ravage armies and let villages fall to ruin and tear bodies apart without a thought, but a child's momentary pain could capture him.

For years he had never minded it. When he was younger he would watch the staff punish the other children and only felt relieved it wasn't him. Some years later he felt a passing pity for animals, then people, suffering at the verge of death. It wasn't until one day, when Severa had gotten sick for the first time and kept fussing weakly in the haze of fever, that Henry found it unbearable to be unable to comfort someone. Not because he wanted to make himself useful, not because he wanted to win someone's favor, but he felt her pain for her and he wanted it to stop.

Within the span of a few minutes it was as if some part of him long dormant had woken again, a part he had long forgotten how to manage. He paced around their room carrying Severa, trying to decide if he should find Cordelia somewhere in the capital and foist the baby upon her, or bury her in blankets and go out to where her crying wouldn't reach him, or perhaps even put his little daughter out of her misery. (Why had he agreed to bring someone into this awful world to begin with? What good could have come out of that?) But he was saved from doing anything rash when Severa fell asleep to his gait, her ridiculously large head lolling slightly over his arm. He supported her head with his hand like Maribelle had taught him to and kept pacing until he'd calmed down, feeling very stupid for all the drastic measures he had considered.

Since then he had gone soft. When he wasn't being driven mad by it, it was sort of pleasant. It was like proof he might be a decent human being after all.

But more often, it left him unduly upset when he shouldn't have been. It wasn't as if Owain was in serious distress. Lissa hit him out of love and worry. ...Or so went the explanation Henry had always been given. He knew very well that children were not always struck out of love. But this time at least it seemed to be true.

Severa stirred. Henry asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Nnno,” she grumbled.

He let her fall back asleep as he unlocked the door. It was just as well—they'd have more food for tomorrow.

---

The next day, after helping to sort and load the convoy for their trip back, Henry stopped by Lissa's to pick up Severa, and found Lissa with Sully and the kids in the courtyard in the back, doing spear drills. Kjelle and Cynthia looked like tiny little soldiers, moving with power behind their thrust and grace in their maneuvers. Henry knew that their mothers had already trained them in lancework.

The others were only starting out, and it showed. Severa wasn't any clumsier than the boys but she kept stealing jealous glances at Cynthia and it was clear that she was frustrated with herself.

When Lissa noticed Henry, she left Sully's side at the head of the formation and came over to him. “We're trying to make sure the children know some basics so they can defend themselves, just in case,” she explained. “But I'm worried about the ones who have never trained with a weapon before. They won't be able to pick up enough before we leave.”

“I'm pretty sure this is Severa's first time holding a lance,” Henry volunteered, feeling vaguely guilty for not starting her earlier.

“She's all right,” Lissa said carefully. “She'll be fine with some practice. I know her mother held the spear like it was part of her body from the very first time she picked one up—but Severa's going at her own pace so it's important not to rush her.”

Was Lissa cautioning him not to compare Severa to his wife? The thought was amusing. Clearly, Lissa had been too optimistic to notice the chilliness of his relationship with his late wife.

But Severa had overheard, and she was less amused. Without a word to Sully, she broke rank, rammed her blunt practice lance back into the barrel of practice weapons with more force than was necessary, and stalked over to where Henry stood, shooting Lissa a sulky look.

“Hold there, rookie!” Sully barked. “You stay until you're dismissed.”

The other children stared at Severa. Cynthia and Owain exchanged whispers. Severa scrunched up her face and gave Henry a do-I-have-to look.

“Haha, listen to Sully, okay? I'll wait.”

“Ugh, but there won't be any time left to play with Noire!”

“Come on, Severa. If it takes too long I'll ask if you can leave, okay?”

She sulked back over to the barrel, plucked out her lance, and returned to her place. Henry thought to himself that Sully was more relaxed with the children. Normally, she would've ordered them to run laps for something like that.

“Do you think you could work on this with her at home?” Lissa said, continuing their conversation.

“Oh, I've got no idea about lances.”

“We have a few practice swords, too. You can use those, right?”

He didn't have any formal training, but—he watched Severa swing the lance in an exaggerated imitation of the prescribed form, leaving her whole body open and throwing her balance dangerously to the side. Maybe starting with forms and style wasn't the way to go, when they needed to know how to defend themselves in two days. “Yeah,” Henry said. “I can do swords. Lend me a pair?”

---

Henry walked over to Tharja's house with a belt of two sword sheathes and leading along a still-sulking Severa.

“How about I teach you a little swordplay when we get home?” he proposed cheerily.

“No thanks,” Severa muttered.

“Aww, why not?”

She didn't respond, but Henry had his suspicions.

“Is this about what Lissa was saying?”

She didn't respond to that, either, but the way her lips curled in said yes.

“I don't mind, you know,” Henry said. “I can't use a lance at all.”

“You're a mage,” she said. “You're not supposed to.”

“Maybe you'll become a mage too,” Henry said optimistically.

Severa huffed and said, “You don't think I'll become a mage.”

“Maybe I do!”

“You never taught me magic.”

He had no answer to that. He hadn't, because magic took a great amount of theoretical study before it bore any fruit, and Henry knew Severa didn't have enough patience with herself. Not that telling her that would make things any better.

“Well,” Henry said after a brief pause, “I'm teaching you swordplay now, so is that proof I think you'll be an awesome swordmaster?”

She looked at him very seriously, and if she had the maturity to put it into words, Henry suspected she would've told him that he had won the argument but missed the point entirely.

Henry didn't want to begin to compare Severa and her mother, not even to raise the topic. They were wholly different to him—he saw so much more good in Severa.

Cordelia had been cool to him. He expected it—he was cool to her, too. Sometimes it hurt anyway. At times he felt lonely in the middle of the night and reached over for the reassurance that someone was there with him. When she was in a good mood, she indulged him for a few minutes before pretending to roll over in her sleep. When she was grumpy, she just pushed his hand away.

If there had been room in their march or their stay in the fortress for them to sleep separately, Cordelia might have. But as it was, those arrangements would have required talking to several people and explaining the situation, and Cordelia would have never subjected herself to that kind of public embarrassment.

So instead, she kept to her half of the bed and he mostly kept to his.

It was a better arrangement than the one they had in the earliest days of their marriage. On their wedding night, Cordelia stripped down to her smallclothes, laid down upon their bedroll, and looked at him expectantly. He had thought she liked sleeping bare, brought over the blankets, and tried to go to sleep next to her when she said, "I want children," as if that explained everything.

"Okay," he had said, thinking to himself that a woman as flawless as Cordelia would be a perfect mother and his own failures wouldn't matter.

Then she heaved one of her world-weary sighs and said, "Children have to be made. Do you know how?"

To her credit, she was patient and explained his role step by step as they went through the motions. And to someone else, someone who didn't find the entire thing bizarre and unsettling and exposing and awkward, she probably would have made an excellent lover. Henry just felt like a beetle that had been pushed onto its back to flail helplessly while belly-up. Cordelia sighed and kept trying to entice him. And at the end of it she explained that it might not have worked.

Severa came after several attempts. One day Cordelia refused breakfast and looked quite ill, and Henry wondered if it she too was starting to feel like the entire process was unbearable until she explained that it was a sign that they had finally succeeded. Thank the gods, she only wanted one child and they never had to do it again.

Cordelia was a perfect mother. Or so everyone said. Henry had gone along with that assumption, giving her the final say in everything even when it felt off to him, until the evening she told him, "I'm going with the next expedition. Will you stay to watch over Severa?"

He said, "Of course," by which he meant of course he would, she was their child and he was her father before anything and he would never leave her behind like that. (There was a time when he would have killed anyone who kept him from battle, but then things changed.) Why was she a knight before she was a mother?

Henry thought then that there was very little about Cordelia that was perfect up close.

“Let's try you out with a sword tonight,” Henry said to Severa. “No drills. It'll be fun. Promise.”

“Okay,” Severa said grudgingly. She perked up when Tharja's house came into sight, and ran ahead to meet Noire—waiting eagerly for her—at the door.

---

Half of Tharja's study had been thrown into disorder, little bags of bottles all over the floor. “So I guess we're retreating?” Henry said.

“No thanks to you,” Tharja retorted, moving bags out of her way as she made her way to her desk.

“Huh? Me? Did you have an idea?”

“I was doing research,” she said pointedly. “I've gotten quite far on creating new curses that don't require the victim's essence.”

“Really? You didn't tell me you had new curses!”

“I was going to wait until I had something that would be of use,” she muttered, “but I don't, and there's no point wasting our lives here.”

There wasn't. As Tharja took more things from her desk and sorted them into the bags, Henry's eyes lingered on the sketch of Ricken on the desk. He was forever seventeen in that portrait, young enough to throw courtesy to the wind and beg Libra to draw him. That was how young he was when they had been at their closest, and Henry had said their friendship was different—

How distant that all was. And yet here he was, feeling guilty for reneging on his oath of revenge.

“Think we'll have another chance at Grima?” Henry said to kill the silence.

“Feh. You'd do better to focus on what we can do when he finds us.”

“Well, he might not be chasing us...”

“No,” Tharja said, “but my point still holds.”

Henry was of the mind that they'd just see Risen and Risen until they died, but he kept his mouth shut as he watched Tharja carelessly toss her collection away. Either way, he knew they would probably never succeed.

“Can I have some?” he said, pointing to her bag of unwanted reagents.

“Help yourself.”

He went through the little bottles, picking out ingredients for spells he might have to use on the road. Most of them weren't often used in spellwork—probably why Tharja chose to leave them behind—but he found some good things here and there, cicada sheddings for trance spells, cat teeth for sensory work...

“Did they teach you theoretics?”

Henry looked up from the sack. That might've been the first time Tharja had asked him anything vaguely personal. “Well, the practical parts.” Tharja gave a derisive chuckle at that oxymoron. “Why?”

“If you knew enough, we could work together on a spell. But if all you've been taught is basic interactions, my research won't make the slightest sense to you.”

Henry had the sense he was being insulted, but it was certainly true that he never bothered with the details, having never needed them. He shrugged off the comment with, “Oh, probably not,” and picked out some reagents to take home. “So should I come back?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I guess we're not getting our revenge for now, and you said I couldn't help your research. Should we keep meeting up after we start marching back? I'd like to, it's been kind of fun—”

“Fine,” Tharja said, trying too hard to sound disaffected. “We can keep meeting. As colleagues.”

Henry wondered if the term Tharja was dancing around was simply friends or something more clandestine. Maribelle certainly suggested as much several mornings ago. He was pretty sure they weren't lovers, or at least there was nothing about Tharja that interested him like that, and if Tharja had any interest in him she expressed it with all the warmth of a frog.

But Henry hoped they were friends. No one had the time and energy to heed a stranger's grief over a single all-too-common death. He would rather like having someone with him to mourn Ricken.

He dropped the reagents in his satchel and said, “Well then, see you tomorrow!”

Tharja escorted him out, shoving bags out of his way and muttering vague apologies about the mess. They came upon the children in the main room—where Severa perched upon a chair stacked atop their dining table.

“Get down from there!” Tharja snapped.

Surprised, Severa clambored down with a guilty look as Noire whispered, “I told you not to.”

Henry looked at Severa without any change in his expression as she padded over and took his hand as if pretending nothing had happened. Tharja gave the two of them a look of distaste.

“That's kinda dangerous, Severa,” Henry said. Severa gave him a sulky look, fearing no danger. “It's also not good to do crazy things with other people's stuff. This isn't our house, you know? You need to listen to Noire and her mom about their house rules.”

Tharja stroked the top of Noire's auburn head with a vaguely proud look on her face. Henry could've sworn she was showing off how obedient her daughter was. Meanwhile, Noire watched them intently with quiet eyes. Privately, Henry decided that Noire had her father's sweetness.

Severa muttered, “Can we just go now?”

Henry only replied, “We're going, but I'm counting on you to remember next time,” and took back the practice swords he'd left by the door. As he turned back around to take Severa's hand, he noticed that Tharja's expression had morphed back into distaste.

Was Tharja expecting him to make a show of punishing her for her satisfaction? Well, that was just silly, Henry thought. She was his child. He knew she wouldn't do it again, and considering that she had already been scolded twice today, being any harsher with her probably would've been counterproductive.

“See you tomorrow,” Henry said cheerily. “Bye Tharja! Bye Noire!”

Severa muttered, “Bye Noire,” as they left.

---

Severa stood there sulkily holding the wooden sword in her hands like some stick picked up off the ground.

“Come on, Severa. Don't you want to play?”

She gave him a look like he was trying to trick her into running headlong into a boring chore.

“It's simple. No drills or anything, and you can run all you want. I win if I touch you with this sword. You win if you touch me with your sword.”

“We're play fighting?” she said skeptically.

“Yup,” Henry said, testing the weight of his practice sword in his hands. It was a little shorter and lighter than he was used to—aside from being blunt and made of wood, of course—but it was well made enough that he could've killed a Risen or two with it if he had to. “You used to play fight with your friends, right? Well, it's sorta like that, except the better fighter wins.”

Henry raised the sword in front of him. Severa, still looking a little skeptical, mirrored his pose.

“Here, Severa, I'm taller and older and everything, so I promise not to go for a hit until I count to a hundred.”

“Really?” Severa said, suddenly looking quite excited to get the jump on her father.

“One, two—”

Severa ran haphazardly over to him as he trotted backward to keep distance between them.

“—three, four—”

Giggling, she swung the sword at him horizontally as if trying to tag him with it. Her grip was so loose and her swing so wild (“—five—”) that when he forcefully parried it, the sword flew out of her hand. (“—six—”) Severa watched it fly to the side with shock on her face.

“—seven, eight, nine—”

She ran over and quickly retrieved her sword. With a serious expression this time, she gripped the sword with both hands, then swung it down at him like an axe, apparently no longer concerned about hurting him. He easily blocked her stroke with his own sword, and gave a push, sending her stumbling backwards. “—eleven—” Severa regained her balance and ran in to try the same swing but lower, going for his knee. He hopped to one side. She'd put too much weight into it, and fell over with her momentum. “—fourteen, fifteen—” Scrambling to her feet, she stood there and looked at him with a measuring expression on her face. Henry continued to count. “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two—” And then she suddenly dove in with another axe-swing as if trying to catch him by surprise.

Laughing, Henry counted twenty-three and parried, sending her stumbling back again. She regained her balance quickly and dove in again, and again, until after a little flurry of blocked attempts, she stuck the sword in the ground and cried, “You're too good at this, dad!”

“—thirty-six, thirty-seven—”

“Dad.”

“—thirty-eight, thirty-nine—”

She sat down on the ground and gave him a sulky look for ten counts.

“Fiiiiifty... fifty-oonnnnee... fiiiftyy... twooo...”

As if indulging a petulant child, Severa sighed and stood back up, picking up the sword in one hand. She walked up slowly to Henry, as if seeing what he would do. Henry paced back and around, keeping distance between them.

“... fifty-seven... fifty-eight...”

Severa started running at him, and Henry gave a laugh as he thought how smart she was, to notice that he wanted to keep some distance, and to realize so soon that she shouldn't let him get away with what he wanted. But, alas, the way she was running was too reckless to go unchecked. He simply held the sword straight in front of him and Severa skidded to a stop.

“... sixty... sixty-one...”

She looked at his sword pointed at her, and looked at him, and looked at the sword again as if she were reading and trying to sound out a particularly difficult word.

“... sixty-two... sixty-three...”

Severa adjusted her sword, holding it point-down by the blade, and Henry took a few steps back again, wondering what in the world she was up to.

“... sixty-six, sixty-seven...”

She ran at him again with the sword in one hand, and when he pointed his sword at her, she held the sword over one shoulder and threw it at him like a javelin.

“Seventy!?” he exclaimed as he dodged the sword.

Honestly, it hadn't been a bad throw considering that swords weren't shaped for that kind of treatment. Severa had indeed learned something from Lissa's lessons. As Severa dashed over to pick it up, Henry calmly reached out and grabbed her arm. “Seventyoneseventytwoseventythree...”

“What! Dad, that's not fair!” she protested, wriggling in his grasp. “Let me go!”

“Ninetyninetyoneninetytwo...”

Severa gave up on trying to squirm away.

“Ninetynine, oooone hundred.” He tapped her lightly on the head with his sword, then released her. “I win.”

“No fair,” she protested. “You grabbed me!”

“Ahaha, grabbing's fair! It would've been a bad idea for me to grab you like that if you had your sword with you, wouldn't it?”

Severa looked at him with annoyance.

“Never throw away your only weapon, Severa. Not unless you're really, really desperate.”

For a moment he was afraid he'd discouraged her from the sword as well. But Severa walked over to her abandoned sword and picked it back up, saying, “Let's play again, daddy!”

“Okay! But this time I'm not giving you until a hundred.”

“Whaaat? But I can't even win with a hundred...”

“I'll go easy on you! Besides, now you've seen how I defend myself, right? You can use all my tricks right back at me.”

Severa still looked skeptical and hadn't raised her sword. Henry raised his sword and tapped her arm lightly. “Looks like I win again!”

“That doesn't count, dad.”

“It doesn't? Well, I guess you'd better get me before I do it again!”

He raised his sword and slowly swung it at her. He smiled as Severa raised her sword in a clumsy parry.
[the detail in the above scene is really excessive.]

---

Severa was a fast hands-on learner. Henry thought to himself that she had something of her mother's keen sense of balance and control—though, of course, he didn't say so. She won with a glancing hit to his arm in their seventh spar, and another in their tenth. In the eleventh spar, he took advantage of her clumsy stance to kick her lightly on the hip, sending her toppling over. Severa cried foul, but she caught on within two matches, staying alert of all the dirty tricks he tried to pull.

She won their sixteenth match. He was going easy on her of course, but she was still doing very well for her first day. Over the course of the evening, she had naturally learned how to hold her sword and how to stand, and Henry thought that in a week's time she could probably manage to keep herself safe for awhile against the average Risen.

He brought in a bucket of water for both of them to wipe themselves clean of dirt and sweat and give her hair a cursory wash. He noticed that despite his restraint, he'd left a few bruises on her—he'd have to see if someone, maybe Sully, had some spare leather armor for her size.

After wiping off, Severa crawled into bed without being asked, looking half asleep already.

“Tired?” Henry said as he sat down beside her.

Severa gave a sound of agreement and muttered, “So tired.”

Henry ran his fingers through her damp hair. “That was some good practice today. I think you're pretty talented at swordfighting.”

Severa watched him through half-lidded eyes and mumbled something.

“Hm? What was that?”

“I asked if you practice magic.”

“Oh, not exactly. We run into enough Risen outside to keep our skills sharp.”

“Oh. Okay.” Severa yawned and closed her eyes. “Don't practice on me, daddy.”

“Hmm? Of course I won't.” He let his hand rest on her back. “Why are you worried about that?”

“Noire's mom practices on her,” Severa said matter-of-factly with her eyes still closed.

“Really?” It wasn't that Henry couldn't believe it—but he was caught off-guard and so he said the first thing that came to his mind.

“Mmhmm.” Severa laid limply like she was already half asleep. Henry stroked her back and didn't press the issue. Even if he wanted to, he had no idea what to say next.

---

While they lived at peace in Ylisse, Cordelia used to have the women over from time to time. She was ever a busy hostess, preparing wonderful foods for them and baking the dessert while the others enjoyed supper so that it would be fresh. On one such occasion, in the middle of preparing some pastries, she asked Henry if he could see why Severa was crying. He went and tended to her, and when he returned to them with Severa over one shoulder saying that her diaper had been full and he had changed it, he instantly became the subject of conversation.

“You're so lucky, Cordelia,” Maribelle declared while bouncing her own child upon one knee. “My man still tracks dirt into the house, and I have to bribe him with sweets if I want any help with the housework. If I asked him to help with Brady, he might just up and disappear for the night.”

Cordelia smiled politely and said, “Henry is very helpful. I appreciate that about him.”

Sumia kept quiet while Maribelle and Sully roundly praised him for not being a lazy oaf. She knew better about their relationship.

At night, long after their guests had gone home and Henry had settled into bed, Cordelia came into their bedroom with her wet hair dripping dark spots upon a too-large nightrobe that concealed the body she was so self-conscious about. Even with his personal disinterest, he saw that she was beautiful even months after her pregnancy and in the late hours of disarray. She settled down quietly in her half of the bed without disturbing him, and he thought to himself then, as he often did, that Cordelia deserved better. Perhaps the Exalt was unattainable, but surely someone would have appreciated her more than him. Someone could have loved her, if she had looked.

It probably wasn't his place to say so. He had been the one to propose to her because he wanted nothing. Besides, he was not privy to her inner self. It was only through Sumia that he had learned anything of importance to Cordelia at all, like how she had been the only one of her squadron to survive a Plegian ambush, and still felt it wrong that she had lived. Maybe if they had gotten to know each other, their differences wouldn't have seemed as insurmountable as they thought. But Cordelia didn't seem interested in that, and Henry hadn't been either, and now Cordelia was dead and he would never know who he had married.

Recently he remembered her in imperfections, but it never seemed clearer than now that it was unfair of him. He had gotten along with Tharja and thought that she was secretly kind and sweet, but now it seemed obvious that he'd just never known enough about her.

He had been so privately critical of Cordelia, but in the course of seven interrupted years, what was the worst that he had ever discovered? That she valued her career, that she was a little vain, that she could lose her temper, that she was a different kind of person from him? Why had he expected absolute perfection from her? All that had meant was undue disappointment.

Henry knew enough about Cordelia to realize now that she really was a good person. And she deserved better than to waste her youth and the only years of her adult life on an aimless boy who had no greater designs in life than to fuck around until the world destroyed him. He should have died; she should have seen her thirtieth birthday; and although it was totally irrational, Henry thought that if he hadn't made the mistakes he did, somehow she and Ricken and all the others wouldn't have died young, and Severa and Noire could both grow up in happiness.

---

Chapter 3 (August 27-x)

---



Open chapter 4 with flashback to Ricken's departure, Henry seeing happy, and Ricken saying that he wish Henry weren't so cheerful about it. Henry thought he loved Ricken but in hindsight it wasn't so deep and he was still a mask-wearer.


showing ways his relationship with Ricken had set the stage for his emotional awakening with Severa



at some point they come under attack (by a human army) and henry protects severa brutally


overcome with feelings because he wanted better for her but the world is going to shit. she fails at people like him too.



Ricken's letters