With little-to-no attempt at hiding her smirk, she had sneaked up behind her father- easily pouncing on him as she jumped, curling her arms around his neck.
Alright so as with all these metas I’ve written/am planning on writing, this info will affect interactions that are assumed to take place in Tempest’s main verse, unless there’s some sort of conflict (i.e - I’m interacting with a different Chrom, a Chrom-specific child that isn’t Tempest’s or a Lucina with a preferred other mother, stuff like that).
It also, uh... causes a fairly important section of Awakening’s plotline to be... sort of canon divergent too, but uh. We’ll get to that when it comes up I don’t wanna spoil it.
Anyways alright here we go.
Tempest is recruited very early on during the first war with Plegia - before the Shepherds have successfully won the tournament for Khan Flavia. It’s on their way to Regna Ferox that they stumble upon a village near the border of Ylisse and Ferox, separated from Plegia only by an inland sea. It’s being attacked by a group of Risen, all of which are being fended off by what looks to be one dark mage - that would be Tempest.
When Chrom and co. approach her she almost takes Chrom head off with a spell because he surprised her and she thought it was just another Risen. Upon the clarification that they are not, however, she does apologize, but follows it up with telling them to leave if they’re not going to help, as they’re only serving to distract her. They agree to help, much to her surprise, and when the battle is over they ask her to join their group, having been impressed by her skills and in need of as many helping hands as possible. As luck would have she was impressed by them as well, and agrees to tag along - although she does state that if something better turns up, she’ll leave as it suits her - no guarantees on her staying forever.
From this point onwards, plot proceeds as regular - they head to Ferox, win the full ruling for Flavia and secure an alliance, go back to Ylisse, rescue Maribelle, all that jazz. Over the course of time all this takes place during, Tempest and Chrom gradually grow closer - Chrom attempting to coax Tempest into actually maybe becoming friends with everyone, since she stays pretty much closed off from the group out of a desire to not form attachments, while Tempest takes a great liking to flirting with and teasing him whenever the opportunity strikes - she takes great pleasure in making him blush and splutter, she finds. This leads to them becoming friends (much to Tempest’s surprise, honestly) and eventually starts to lead to them developing feelings for each other as well - something Tempest refuses to acknowledge and sits in outright denial of for the longest time.
Eventually, though, things come to a head and they end up sleeping together. It’s after this that Tempest realizes the true depths of her feelings for Chrom, and to be honest it terrifies her - she doesn’t have a good history with love, it’s not something that’s done her any favours in the past. This realization causes her to start to pull away from him a little bit, though she tries to hide it (albeit not very successfully).
It is during this time where she pulls away, also, that Tempest discovers she is pregnant.
Shortly after this is the ambush attempt on the Shepherds when they’re escorting Emmeryn to the Eastern Palace. While that is successfully stopped, with Emmeryn returning to Ylisstol while the rest head to Ferox to make their request for reinforcements, suspicions among the group begin to mount, especially to those who seem distant or are not known very well by the others - especially Tempest, with how withdrawn she’s been ever since the incident with Chrom (in her defense, she’s... trying to figure out a lot of things, there are a lot of things she has to figure out how to tell/talk to Chrom about...). But they’ve already been betrayed once, by someone who had been a trusted friend to the royal family for years - who’s to say they wouldn’t be betrayed again by someone they knew even less well?
As it so happens, another ambush does occur while they’re on the way to Ferox. There is no tip off that anyone betrayed them and set them up for it this time (and in fact, no one did - this group had been relying off of the same information passed on by the Hierarch, with orders to intercept them should the first group fail). While no one says anything outright, suspicion is thrown Tempest’s way, and it leads to the core group of Shepherds having a meeting later that night after they’ve made camp, to discuss the situation and what to do with any potential traitors.
Seeing as Tempest is one of the ones under suspicion, she is not informed of this meeting, and unfortunately for her she decides that it’s probably about time she told Chrom about everything and they talked things through. She gets to his tent just in time to hear someone accuse her for setting them up for the ambush, and turns around and leaves almost immediately, before she even has a chance to hear Chrom leap to her defense (which he does).
Taking advantage of the fact that they’re all busy pointing fingers and unaware of the fact that they were just overheard, Tempest makes a rather hasty, snap-judgement decision to leave, without telling anyone. She packs her things and darts off into the night, heading back to Plegia, to a small village deep in the desert. She remains there for the remainder of the war with Plegia, hearing news of the Exalt’s death and eventually Gangrel’s as well, and it is here that she eventually gives birth to Lucina. She spends the next two years in this village, living among the locals and raising her daughter. Meanwhile, back in Ylisse, Chrom, having been distraught when it was discovered Tempest fled, remains unmarried.
When the first of Valm’s fleet steps foot in Port Ferox, it doesn’t take long for word to spread, and it does reach Tempest’s ears. It takes her a sleepless night or two to decide on what to do, but eventually she does come to a decision; leaving Lucina in the care of an older Plegian couple she trusts in the village, she makes her way back to Ylisse, intent on offering up her services as a sorceress to help in the war effort, for she knows that should Valm successfully invade, there will be no safe haven for she and Lucina to stay in any longer.
It’s safe to say that her reunion with Chrom is... incredibly tense and awkward. She’s hiding the fact that they have a child together, he feels betrayed and hurt by her having left without a word, and it’s been two years for all those feelings to be left to sit and fester. For quite a long while they go out of their way to avoid each other, only interacting as is necessary for official duties and such.
Of course, this.... becomes a problem when they’re ambushed on Carrion Isle and it’s revealed that ‘Marth’ is actually Lucina from the future. Chrom has no idea Lucina even exists, remember, but it doesn’t take long for the full truth of the matter to come out - that she is indeed Chrom and Tempest’s daughter, from a future where Tempest didn’t leave and she was raised in Ylisstol with both parents, rather than in a desert village with only her mother.
Things are kind of... even worse, after that. While they don’t have an outright fight, Chrom does confront Tempest on the matter, and she does tell him the truth of it all, and things seem to become even more tense between them, if that was even possible. Matters are definitely not helped when the rest of the future children start to appear and Leilani appears with them, also claiming to be their daughter - a story which both Lucina and the brand over Leilani’s heart confirm.
It’s safe to assume that they try to keep the exact particulars concerning Lucina and Leilani’s origins relatively hush-hush, as well, though. It’s not hard for the others to draw assumptions, of course, concerning the girls appearances and the rest of the future children in tow, but the only one who is told of the full situation by default would be Robin. Others will have to be discussed on how much they know, although it is safe to assume suspicion by default.
It’s safe to say that for a little while Leilani and Lucina are concerned about this time’s Leilani even having a chance to exist, as their parents are on less than good terms and the chances of them getting back together seem incredibly slim. This leads to them trying to bridge the gap between the two, with varying rates of success (read - very little or none at all).
Eventually, though, the rift does begin to mend little by little. Something that helps immensely with this happens at one point when the Shepherds have returned to Ylisse and are making their way back to the capital - Tempest asks Robin if they can stop at a certain village nearby, as they need to rest and resupply, and now would be as good a time as any. It’s agreed to with little hesitation - and as it turns out, the village they arrive at is the self same one Tempest had been living in - where she’d left this timelines Lucina. It is for this reason mainly that she suggested they stop, and she takes Chrom to meet their daughter for the first time while the rest of the Shepherds are preoccupied elsewhere.
Aaaand this is what we’ve got for now. At some point, the pair does eventually fully make up and get together, although tbh Via and I haven’t gone into to much detail about how/when/why it happens, we just... know that it does.
SO yeah. The main things this affects are which of the Shepherds will know Tempest and when - going by in-game chapters, she leaves shortly after the events of Chapter 7, before Chapter 8 starts, and doesn’t come back until after the two year skip, shortly after the events of Chapter 12 - meaning characters recruited in between that time will not know her or of her past history with the Shepherds. It also means that Chrom doesn’t automarry any of his options or the village maiden, nor is there a lil baby Lucina left in Ylisstol when the war starts - instead she’s two and in Plegia and no one knows about her until the ambush on Carrion Isle.
I think that’s it tbh? If I realize I forgot something I’ll edit/reblog it later.
It is still strange, to think of herself as his wife, but it isn’t hard to grow to like the idea when he offers little presents and makes time in his schedule to be with her. Oh, there are moments where his attempts border on fumbling, but they nonetheless bring a smile to her lips and warmth to her heart. She doesn’t know if his attempts at courtship were always this way, nor does she know what a proper courtship ought to look like. But she wouldn’t trade what he gives her for the world, now that she knows she’s allowed to feel this way.
Despite his affections, she hasn’t the faintest idea of what she’s allowed to do. Is she allowed to tuck herself against his side while they watch little Lucina and Morgan play in the gardens or to reach for his hand in the quiet moments when it’s just them? Can she surprise him with tokens of her own affection, the way he does for her? And, well, can she kiss him? She hasn’t dared to try since their conversation in his study, but she can’t help but think she would like to, if she’s allowed.
She knows he’s certainly held himself back--more than once she’s caught him pulling back his hands just short of her cheeks or her hair, as if he were reaching for her out of habit before his mind caught up with his hands. Yet she can’t help but worry that it’s a sign that things ought to stay the way they are now. So to watch him break into the widest smile she thinks she’s seen yet is absolutely a relief, his words even more so.
TFW your wife is also a knight and you both have light-hearted competitions to see who can life the most daughters. Lucina and Cynthia love this, but I think Violet is getting worried about Adelaide falling (since she inherited her mother’s clumsy ears). This was the last one I made, so you can see where I started to get tired last night, looool.
BUT HAPPY FATHER’S DAY CHROM! You got all the princesses you could ever ask for.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that...” And she’d thought herself successful, too, as her husband had appeared to be asleep whenever she slipped back into their bedroll after clearing her mouth of the taste of morning sickness. He lifts her hands and ghosts kisses across her knuckles, and she chews on the inside of her lip, unwilling to meet his gaze.
“You’re not upset? Truly?” She risks a glance upwards to find a smile upon his features. Her shoulders begin to straighten from their hunched position born from the terror that raced through her heart when Chrom spoke her condition aloud, and she lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“I know you will, my love. Just remember that we need you to come home with us, equally safe and sound.”
