Evening of Mask

With the mask fixed to her face as usual, Lucina’s boots kicked up dust that had settled on the cobblestone path as she watched the people of her city (to be more accurate, her past city), bustling through the narrow streets. A woman wearing a white bonnet rushed through the crowd of other olive green dresses and grey aprons to scoop up a reckless little boy; merchants squatted by their low tables covered in an array of rare herbs, the various aromas combining into pungent odour that wafted through the shouts and promotions for new imports. Close by, a group of red-faced men roared with laughter as they held their foaming jugs of beer, the smell of alcohol on their breaths reaching Lucina as their frog mouths clasped open and closed to grunt about some pretty clerics or village girls they had recently seen.

Everywhere, everyone was occupied with some petty business bustling in their hands.

Lucina’s traced the right side of her mask with her fingers, feeling each ridge and embossed pattern pressed into the precious blue metal. She remembered that day, her hair tangled and knotted with dry lifeless dirt as she stumbled through the ruins of her homeland without a single chance, she felt the mask pushed into her hand.

“Here.”

“Gerome, why are you…?”

“You’re going to reclaim the state by rearranging the past, right? Not everyone needs to know who you are.”

“How did you—“

“Besides, don’t you want to be someone’s Marth?”

She stared at it, thinking back to the stories of the hero Marth the nurse had told. How swordplay to him was like breathing. How he travelled great distances and fought with valour. How he had been a righteous ruler to his people. That was the sort of exalt she desired to become. As soon as she began to fall into the past, the mask became an affirmation of the hero she would become if she succeeded.

Nevertheless, now she often desired to just throw it off, unbind her hair and walk through the streets as the honourable princess of a peaceful Ylisse. But no one knew her here; this was her city, but at the same time was not. If she did that, people might understand more about that grime future than she wanted them to. The ground shaking under Grima’s victory dance, the flames flicking in infernal flags marking the sovereignty of a dark era. Then her own hoarse imperatives, raking through the flying sparks and smashing steel. Commanding to the few soldiers left, then just raving to no one.

Not crying though.

Now, as she realised that night was falling, Lucina entered the inn and dumped a small pouch of gold on the counter.

“One night,” she muttered.

“This way,” a gruff voice replied as a chair squeaked against the wooden floor boards. As they walked, her gaze remained glued to the floor, determined to catch a glimpse of his face in case she noticed the younger eyes of an old man she had known in her world or some vague resemblance to a friend of hers. There was no point in suffering that knowledge.

Outside, a large carriage rumbled through the streets. For a moment, it reminded her of the shuddering rocks beneath her feet as the beasts, coated in cracked, dry mud as though they had just clawed their way out of Hell, rushed forward. Flames flashed around her as her vision blurred and gaze way to the clashing of steel on steel from all sides, soldiers falling like stalks of wheat during harvest season, their armour crashing to the royal carpet matted with their blood.

Then there was her. Still fighting. Her sword held upright, screamed and screamed until—

“Hey! You can’t use that here!”

Lucina, jolted from her nightmare, blinked twice before glimpsing the innkeeper’s face. No traces of anyone she knew. Just your average, grisly old man.

“Oi!” he boomed again. “You listening?! Put that down right now!”

After some fair time, she noticed her right hand had been gripping (for goodness knows how long!) the handle of her Falchion, its blade shining with metallic cleanliness from yesterday’s customary polishing. In any case, now was not the time to have it drawn.

“My apologies,” she said, blushing slightly. The innkeeper, as if catching a whiff of femininity in her voice, twitched his bushy, grey-matted moustache before proceeding to groan all the way upstairs.