Robin: 22nd December

We split ourselves into pairs to visit the houses who needed some last-minute assistance for the Divine Fair. Naturally, Chrom and I grouped ourselves together.

We let everyone else choose which stall they wanted like to help out and were left with The Lucky Carrot. According to the instructions Lyle had written for us, the family who would be running the stall lived right at the edge of the village on top of a hill, so we braced ourselves for a long, cold walk.

Most of the Shepherds had already set off by the time we left the tavern, so we walked alone, hand in hand, listening to the crunch of the fresh snow beneath our boots. It was so deep that it rose partway up our shins, and we made slow progress as we struggled to wade through.

"We need new names," I said as we finally approached the hill that bore the family's house. "I mean, a couple called Chrom and Robin could be a coincidence, but --"

"No, we'll think of names."

"You could be Christos." We started climbing the hill. "Like the first exalt."

Chrom grinned. "All right. What will you be called?"

"I don't know. You should think of it. You're the one who'll have to remember to call me by the correct name."

"How about Romina?"

I raised my eyebrows. "All right. Do I get to know the reason?"

"It's close to your real name, so it's easy to remember." He looked away sheepishly.

"Seriously? I named you after the first exalt, and you chose my name because it was convenient?" I elbowed him gently in the side.

We reached the crest of the hill and paused to catch our breath. I turned around and stared at the deep footprints we'd made in the snow, feeling a strange surge of satisfaction. Only our tracks had disturbed the crisp blanket on the slope, as if we were the only people in this part of the winter world.

I lifted my gaze to look at the view of Whiteholt. It was a small hill, so we couldn't see the entire village, but what was before us was beautiful regardless. The rooftops of the houses on the street below were dusted with snow like a painting on a Divine card, and the windows were all lit with candles. Smoke drifted from the chimneys, much finer than the thick, grey air that sometimes choked the cities. A few of the houses had decorated the trees that were beside them, and the baubles and glittery paper loops shone in the morning sunlight.

A robin hopped across the path before us, chirping. It stopped when it reached one of my footprints and looked up at us, cocking its head. I smiled.

Chrom wrapped his arms around my waist. "I bet that robin's thinking about how beautiful this Robin is."

I blushed. "Chrom!"

"Robin!" a little voice called.

The bird startled and took flight. We turned around to face the small house we were meant to be visiting. A young boy was hopping down the steps that led to the front door. "Oh. It flew away. Who are you?"

"Ivan!" A young woman with dark, curly hair appeared in the doorway. "Come back here! What have I told you about talking to strangers?"

"I wanted to see who they were."

"Yes, and I told you Mommy would answer the door. Go inside, now."

Ivan hopped back up the steps with his head lowered. 

His mother came outside and shut the front door, then folded her arms across her chest and rubbed them. "We saw you walking up the hill. Are you the travellers Torin said were coming to help us?"

"Torin's been here already?" Chrom asked.

The woman smiled. "Oh, he gets around the village quickly. He pops in to see everyone all the time, and not half an hour ago he came to inform us that we should be expecting assistance."

"That's right." Chrom took my hand again and led us to the bottom of the steps. "I'm Christos, and this is my wife, Romina. We're here to help with...something to do with carrots?"

"The Lucky Carrot. It sounds like an unusual game, but it's very popular. Come in, and I'll explain it. I'm Annika."

She opened the front door again and led us inside. It was darker than I had been expecting, on account of the windows being so small and the room being so compact. We walked straight into a kitchen where a dirty table was the centrepiece, loaded with more carrots than I had ever seen in my life. A few shelves were pushed against one wall, almost overflowing with pans, herbs, and books. Straight ahead of us was a small fireplace with a pot suspended over it from which the lovely scent of soup drifted. A tiny pine tree was shoved up the corner next to it, and two children were sitting by it. One was Ivan. The other was a girl who looked to be a few years older than him, with dark, curly hair.

A blond-haired man was straightening some wood by the fireplace, a baby balanced in his free arm. He straightened up and turned to look at us. "Annika?"

"Oh, finally," she teased. "I thought you were never coming home."

The man cracked a smile, but he eyed us warily.

"While you were out, Elder Torin came to visit us," Annika continued. "He said some travellers have been snowed in at The Dragon's Flask and were eager to help with preparations for the Divine Fair. Christos and Romina have come up to paint the carrots."

I exchanged a confused look with Chrom. Paint the carrots?

The man's posture relaxed. "That's very kind of you. We've been too rushed off our feet with Cornelius to even make a start on the preparations for tomorrow. I'm Kai, by the way." He stepped forward and shook hands with Chrom and me, almost falling over Ivan as the boy scuttled closer to look at us.

"This is Cornelius," Annika said, gesturing to the baby in Kai's arms. "He's barely a month old. You've already met Ivan, and over there is our daughter, Bella."

Bella glanced up from the tree.

"Come and say hello," Annika told her.

Bella crept over and hid behind her mother.

Annika laughed. "All right, let's get going. Come and sit down at the table."

We took our seats with the whole family, side by side as per usual.

"This was actually Bella's idea," Annika said, picking up a bowl of gold paint. "Each year, we fill a wheelbarrow with snow and carrots. People pay a few pieces of gold to put a blindfold on and dig around in the snow. They pull a carrot out, and if it's painted gold, they win a prize. That's where you come in. Some of these carrots need to be painted. Bella and Ivan will help you while we put Cornelius down for a nap and look for the prizes we've stowed away."

"All right, that doesn't sound too hard," Chrom said.

I grinned. "Keep the bowl of paint away from him, or he'll knock it over."

Bella giggled. Chrom blushed.

Kai laughed and stood up. "We'll leave you to it, then."

He and Annika left through a door on the right-hand wall, taking Cornelius with them. I slid the bowl of paint into the middle of the table, away from Chrom.

Bella reached for one of the brushes that were resting in it. "I like painting."

"I've never done it before," I said.

Ivan reached for a paintbrush, too, his eyes on me. "Really? Not even when you were little?"

"I don't know. I have amnesia."

"Amesi--"

"Whoa!" Chrom caught hold of the bowl as it threatened to tip over. "Look who's clumsier than me!"

"Ivan never pays attention to what he's doing," Bella said, picking up a carrot and starting to paint it.

"I do!"

"I know the feeling," Chrom said dryly, taking his own paintbrush from the bowl. "I try to pay attention to what I'm doing, but things still get broken."

I laughed.

Bella shuffled further up the bench so that she was closer to her brother and directly opposite me. "You haven't started painting yet."

"Oops!" I lifted the last paintbrush from the bowl, feigning hesitancy. "Um..."

"Like this." Bella dragged her brush back and forth along the carrot.

"Oh, thank you." I began painting. "Am I doing it right?"

She stared at me intensely. "Yes."

"Good." I glanced up and caught Chrom's eye. "What are you looking at me for? Get painting."

He just smiled in reply.

Ivan was watching me again rather than what he was doing, which was currently painting more of his hands golden than the carrots. "Um, Romi-- Romin-- Ro--"

"Row-mean-ah." Beneath all the carrots, the table was covered in scraps of old wrapping paper, so I put my carrot down to dry and picked up another.

"Row-mean-ah, what's amnesi-- am..."

"Am-knees-ee-ah."

"Am-knees-sea-ahh?"

"Yes! Well done. It means that I've lost some of my memories."

"From when you were little?"

"Yes."

"Oh." He stared at the carrot he was painting, perplexed. "Why?"

"That's a very good question," Chrom muttered. He reached over me to dip his paintbrush in the bowl again, and our arms brushed. Shivers spread across my skin.

I picked up another carrot. "Um, what were you -- oh, why? We don't know. But it doesn't really matter, because Christos has helped me to make lots of new memories."

"Like what?" Bella asked.

"Like...um..."

"Going bear hunting," Chrom said. "The day I met Romina, we went bear hunting."

"Bear hunting?" Bella's eyes were wide.

"Well," I interjected, "we were actually just looking for some sup--"

"We were looking for a legendary bear," Chrom said. "He lived deep in the woods a little way from Southtown. By day he would terrorise people with his roars, and if they came too close to the woods at night, he would eat --"

Bella's face was draining of colour, so I coughed over Chrom and gave him a warning glance. "Their picnics. He would eat their picnics."

"Why were they having picnics in the middle of the night?" Ivan asked.

"They were special midnight picnics that couples had after their wedding," I said.

"Oh no!" Bella said. "Their weddings would be ruined if the bear ate their picnics!"

"That's right," Chrom said gravely. "So I went to the woods to kill --"

"Get rid of," I amended.

"-- get rid of the bear. And I met Romina."

"So you got rid of the bear together?" Bella asked.

"That's right," I said.

"Well, it wasn't so simple," Chrom said. "You see, the bear only appeared and ate people's picnics if they were married. He knew who was and who was not married, and so I had to marry someone to tempt him out of his hiding place."

"You married Romina!" Ivan exclaimed.

I raised my eyebrows at Chrom.

He nodded. "Yes, I did. I fell in love with her as soon as I set eyes on her. So we got married in the woods that day."

"At midnight," I added, smiling as my imagination ran away with itself. "Under a full moon and a beautiful, clear sky filled with hundreds of stars."

"And the bear came?" Bella asked nervously.

"He did," Chrom said. "Just as we sat down to eat our wedding picnic, he burst forth from the bushes with a roar!"

Bella squeaked and shrank back.

"We drew our swords --"

I poked him with the wooden end of my paintbrush. "Bear-vanishing swords."

"-- our bear-vanishing swords, and..."

"Vanished the bear together."

Bella's eyes were wide. "Wow!"

"You're like heroes!" Ivan exclaimed.

Chrom grinned at me. "I suppose we are."

"What else have you done?"

"We make new memories together all the time," I said. "In every single moment. Each one of them is special to me."

"Like right now?" Ivan asked.

"Like right now," Chrom confirmed. He lifted his paintbrush and pressed it against the bridge of my nose, then dragged it all the way down to the tip. "Romina will remember the day she came to your house and I painted a gold stripe down her nose."

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling as the children giggled.

The door to the kitchen opened, and Annika and Kai came back through. Kai gave us a bemused smile. "There's a lot of laughing and not a lot of carrot-painting."

"Whoops, sorry!" I said. "We were too busy talking about bears."

He took in my painted face with raised eyebrows. Then he chuckled and sat down with Annika. "All right. Let's take some of these carrots off the table so that we can put the prizes down."

While the children continued to paint, Chrom and I downed tools to help shift the carrots. For now, most had to go on the floor.

Once about half of the table was cleared, Annika laid her prizes and some translucent mesh bags out. "Each prize needs to go in one of these to protect it while it's on display tomorrow."

The prizes were an amazing array of trinkets and knickknacks: tiny wooden dolls, a rattle, a little toy soldier missing an arm, a dice with some of the dots worn off, a few pretty buttons, a paper ornament, and even a chipped necklace. They may have been far from perfect, but anyone could see that with a bit of love and care, they would be wonderful.

Chrom picked up a mesh bag, floundered with its intricate opening for a moment, and then put it back. "You can help with this, Romina. I'm going back to painting."

I laughed. "All right. Annika, where do you get all these amazing things from?"

"Around the house, mostly. The toy soldier was Ivan's, but it scares him now that he's broken it. The rattle was Ivan's as well, when he was younger. He used to give me such a headache with it. I want it gone before Cornelius is old enough to shake it around." She laughed. "The buttons are from the children, too. I find them on the floor every now and again without knowing what clothing they've fallen off. And I noticed the necklace at the back of my wardrobe the other day. An old boyfriend gave it to me a very long time ago. Obviously, it's of no value to me now, so I decided to get rid of it."

"But surely you could sell it?" I asked. "It would be worth more gold than people will be paying to play this game tomorrow."

"Yes, it would. But I think it will make someone like me, who doesn't have a lot of money to spend on jewellery, very happy if they get a golden carrot and choose it as their prize."

"That's...very kind-hearted of you."

"Knowing how happy it might make someone else pleases me more than gold. Wouldn't you do that, if it was your stall?"

I looked down at the mesh bag I was trying to slot a doll into. "I don't know. I've never done anything like that before."

Bella and Ivan started laughing at something Chrom had said. Kai smiled at them. "I think you would. You and Christos have already won the children over. You seem like good people."

Would I sacrifice something for the good of others? I supposed that in a way, I already had. I'd sacrificed the chance of a relationship with Chrom until the war had been over. And I'd been prepared to sacrifice my life for his cause. I was prepared to sacrifice my life for his cause.

I put the bag down and reached for another. Then I picked up the closest prize to me, a pair of brown leather gloves that were creased with previous use. "What about these?"

Annika's face fell. "Those were my father's. He died a few years ago. I've kept his things for a long time, but now I think that I've reached the stage where I need to get rid of them completely and move on. I want to focus on the family that I do have while I still have them all. The Plegian war made me realise how lucky I am. I was lucky that Kai came home again -- he signed up, you see."

I hesitated over slotting the gloves in the bag. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear about your father. Are you certain you want to give these away?"

"Yes. It's time. My father would've liked them to have been donated to a soldier during the Plegian War if he'd still been alive, but I wasn't ready to let go of them then. Now it would be nice if they went to someone who fought in the war, whether they have gloves or not. I admire all the soldiers, you know. Everyone who went this time chose to. I also admire both Exalt Emmeryn, gods rest her soul, and Prince Chrom for that. But anyway, soldiers or no soldiers, I can only hope that they go to a wonderful home tomorrow."

I glanced at Chrom, still engrossed in painting carrots with the children. "Me, too."

***

We packed and painted for a while, Annika rising every now and again to check on the soup in the pot. I didn't realise it was afternoon until she was suddenly clearing the table and setting bowls down. "Here's dinner. I'm sorry that it's so late."

"Oh, we weren't expecting to be fed," I protested.

"There's enough to go around," Annika insisted, ladling soup into our bowls. "Besides, I think we've painted all the carrots we need, and we've packed the prizes. I never thought we would get everything finished. This is our way of saying thank you." She put soup in her own bowl, hung the pot back up, and then sat down. "I never even asked you two what you're doing in these parts."

I bit my lip. "Er, just --"

"Bear hunting," Chrom said, winking at Bella and Ivan. "But don't worry. There were no picnic-eating bears."

"Bear hunting? Out here?" Kai asked. "Where do you live?"

"Everywhere," Chrom said. "Home is the whole halidom to us. We were just passing through on our travels."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere in particular. We and our party wander as we please and see what fate has in store for us. Being snowed into Whiteholt is just part of the adventure."

"I must admit, I'm surprised." Kai leaned forwards and studied us carefully. "You were both soldiers in the Plegian War. Am I right?"

My mouth turned dry. "How can you tell?"

"You have that world-weary look about you. You've seen a lot." He sat back again. "I was only in the reserves, but it turned out that the reserves were quickly needed, didn't it? After the travelling of the Plegian War, even if it was only brief, I was eager to become rooted in the world again. But perhaps that's because I had my wife and children waiting for me."

"Where have you travelled?" Bella asked us.

"Everywhere." I smiled as I thought back upon our adventures. "Well, almost. We've been all over Ylisse, from its heart to its outskirts. We travelled across Plegia during the war, and we've travelled through much of Regna Ferox, too. Last year, we attended their Winter Festival."

"Wow!" Bella exclaimed. "What was that like?"

"Exciting! None of us had ever been before. It was absolutely bursting with stalls, and there was a big ice rink that we went on for ages. Christos and some of the others taught me how to ice skate."

"I skate sometimes, when Reindeer Lake is covered in really thick ice," Bella said proudly.

"Wow! You're probably miles better than me."

"Have you been to that big arena?" Ivan asked.

"Arena Ferox?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh, yes," Chrom said with a wry smile. "We've...looked around."

"They say Prince Chrom fought there to form an alliance with Ferox," Kai said. "Best fight for as long as anyone can remember, or so I've heard."

I stared hard at my soup, fighting the urge to laugh.

"That's, er, what we heard from the Feroxi when we visited, too." I could hear the massive smile in Chrom's voice. "It's a very impressive place."

"I'd like to see a tournament there one day," Kai said thoughtfully. "Perhaps in a few years' time, when Cornelius is older, we'll take a leaf out of your book and travel to the next one. Would you like that, Ivan?"

Ivan was grinning from ear to ear, soup slipping from his spoon as he stared at his father. "Yes!"

Bella looked at me doubtfully. "Would you be there?"

"We just might be."

She smiled. "Then maybe I would like it, too."

"I'll tell you what you'd like: all the amazing ornaments they sell at the Winter Festival. I noticed the decorations on your Divine tree. Did you make those?"

She blushed and ducked her head. "Some of them."

"They're so lovely. They remind me of what I saw in Ferox. Last year we did actually stay somewhere for a little while, long enough to buy a Divine tree. When we were in Ferox, Christos bought some glass decorations that looked like an ice skate and a sleigh, and then we hung them on our tree when we got back to Ylisse."

"Oh, I've always wanted to ride on a sleigh," Annika said wistfully. She caught my eye and smiled. "No, don't tell me -- you've ridden on a sleigh on your travels, too?"

"Last December," I said with a grin. "Also while we were staying in Ferox. Christos surprised me. It was a mountain ride. I don't think I'd ever been so high. The view was amazing." I sighed happily and turned to Chrom. "We must go back someday and do it again."

He grinned, his eyes sparkling. "We will."

"If we go to Regna Ferox and watch a tournament, Kai, you have to promise to take us on a sleigh ride," Annika said firmly.

"Oh, yes please, Daddy!" Bella said.

Kai pretended to frown. "Now look what you've gotten me into."

"You have to tell us about everywhere else you've been," Annika said. "I'm glad that we have our home, but I would like to just occasionally be as free as you two are."

I almost laughed. Free? I was Princess Robin, bound by duties.

But right now, I did feel free. I felt much more like Romina than I had done when we'd first arrived. Like I was a traveller who could go wherever she wanted.

And I could go wherever I wanted as Princess Robin, really. Being with Chrom was the very reason why I had visited so many places and done so many amazing things. I would not have even been in Whiteholt if it was not for my role as his tactician.

The last grains of my homesickness faded away. It was good to know that Castle Ylisse was waiting -- in fact, it felt more like a home to me than ever. But I wanted to enjoy my time in this new place before I returned to her again.