#warning: profanity

Chapter 5 

Marseille was currently sleeping in her room and for the first 2 hours, it looked like she was going to have a good night’s rest like she has had during her time at Garreg Mach, but soon, she was beginning to toss and turn in her sleep. 

“Hngh... n-no, please, don’t make me...” She said as she was beginning to have a nightmare. 

In Marseille’s dream... 

The sun was currently setting on a plain of grass as she opened and saw another person right in front of her, and that person was Mercutio, or as she previously knew him as Robin, the person that she not only loved but the same person that had sacrificed his life to eradicate the fell dragon Grima permanently. 

She also saw that she was wearing the same uniform that she had worn while she was disguised as the hero king Marth and was also holding the sword Falchion... while pointing it at Robin. and immediately realized what this was all about. 

“My life is yours... it always has been.” Robin said with a small smile on his face 

“D-don’t look at me like that!” Marseille cried “I love you! ...Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?” 

“It’s alright...” Robin replied “I would give my life for Chrom. ...And for you.” 

“Robin...” was all Marseille could reply as tears began to emerge from her eyes 

“Just... promise me that you’ll find someone else who cares for you.” Robin said “Promise to me that you’ll won’t be alone. All that I've ever wanted to see in my life was for you to be happy Lucina.” 

“N-no... ah gods, no...” Marseille stammered 

“Trust me...” Robin said as he walked towards Marseille. “If you do this, All of Ylisse will be safe thanks to you. You'll not only be labeled as a hero, but you’ll also be able to have a peaceful life with the ones that you loved and vowed to protect.” 

“I can’t!” Marseille cried, “What will happen to you?!?” 

“Don’t worry about me” Robin reassured to Marseille, “I promise that one day, I will find a way to return to you and your family. And, if I don’t, then I can assure you that I was able to cherish every moment with you during the time that I was with you and the shepherds.” 

“P-promise?” Marseille stammered 

“I promise.” Robin replied, “Now, do what you must.” 

"I... I must...” Marseille again stammered as she lowered Falchion. 

The two just stood there for a moment before... 

“Robin...” Marseille said and dashed towards Robin shouting, “I LOVE YOU!!!” 

All Robin could do was close his eyes as he braced for Marseille to plunge Falchion into his chest, and ultimately into his Heart. 

As Marseille ran towards Robin, she closed her eyes and shouted “FORGIVE ME!” But before Falchion could pierce Robin’s chest... 

Back in reality. 

“NO!” Marseille shouted as she jolted up from her bed panting heavily as she began to regain her bearings. She decided to get out of her bed and look at herself in the mirror and saw that she was wearing her nightgown fortunate that she was able to wake up from the dream that she was having. 

“Haa... gods... it was only just a dream...” Marseille breathed in relief. 

But while Marseille was looking in the mirror, she began to shed tears from her eyes as she realized what that dream, or more specifically... that Nightmare was all about. 

“Oh Robin... I miss you so much. But why did you have to leave me?” She said as she began to cry. 

What hit her so hard emotionally was that she had lost the one person that had meant so much to her. and what made it worse was that she now had no one meaningful for her to lean on whenever she felt sad. Sure, the friends she had made during her time at Gerrag Mach gave her something to smile but these friends won’t replace the people that she had loved back in Ylisstol. 

In reality, those people weren't Her's to begin with as she went back in time to help end the fell dragon’s presence in ylisse, but with her mission done, she no longer had any reason to stay as those people back home weren't her real family, they belonged to that girl. 

As Marseille made her way back to her bed. She fell onto the mattress and cried her way back to sleep. Unfortunately for her she would not be able to go back to sleep for the rest of the night as her sleep would be plagued with nightmares of her tormented past. 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

Unfortunately for Marseille, that night where she had her first nightmare would be the beginning of a depressing length of time for her at the Monastery as the nightmares that she would have every night would seem to worsen. The duration of each nightmare that she would have would be longer and were more frequent with each one dragging her back to the real world as a screaming wreck. What made it worse was that these nightmares that Marseille had would not only affect her during the night, but also it affected her during the day as well, as she began see and hear things throughout her day which distracted her from her activities and studies despite her best efforts to stay focused. But these delusions also continued to bring her further into grief-fueled madness. Instead of escaping her tormented past, this pain which entrenched into her heart seemed to worsen each passing day and what made it worse, it began to make her delirious. On top of it she began to distance herself from students at the Monastery as she felt that the effects that she was facing from the nightmares she had were only going to make her a distraction to others around her.  

Fortunately, some of the students that saw her before she got too far from them, were able to notice her change in behavior and tried their best to help her. One of those instances was of course the leader of the Black Eagles, Edelgard Von Hresvelg as shortly after breakfast, she noticed Marseille sitting alone on a bench feeling down. 

“Um... Marseille?” Edelgard began. 

“Huh?” Marseille nodded up at Edelgard snapping out of her downcast mood. “Oh... hello Edelgard...” she replied. 

“It’s good to see you Marseille” Edelgard said, “You feeling alright?” 

“Hm? Oh, not really, I just am feeling mentally ill.” Marseille said telling the truth. 

“I see...” Edelgard said feeling sorry for her friend. “Well, Mercedes and I need help to finish a task with weeding and I was wondering, would you like to help us?” 

“Oh... sure that would be nice. I'll come and help...” Marseille replied with a fake smile. 

“Great!” Edelgard said happily, “I’ll see you there. Oh, and by the way, just take your time when you are ready to work with us ok?” she added as well. 

“Alright...” Marseille said back. 

1 hour later... 

By the time Marseille found the duo of Edelgard and Mercedes, one hour had already past which for Marseille, was unusual for her to be late to a part of her daily schedule by that length of time. 

“Marseille!” Mercedes said sounding surprised, “Where were you, all this time? We were worried about you!” 

“Oh...” Marseille said sounding sad, “I was just thinking about... well... nothing really. Let’s just get to work and get this over with alright?” 

“Um... ok...” Mercedes said sounding concerned as the trio began to work on weeding in the garden. 

30 minutes later... 

As the trio were working on their project, Edelgard noticed that Marseille was working at an Extremely slow and lackluster pace, which for was definitely an unexpected sight from Marseille. She could tell that Marseille looked troubled and decided to ask her what was wrong with her. 

“Um... Marseille?” Edelgard began, “Do you think you will be able to work in your present condition? Because I'm worried about you given how you slowly you have been working today...” 

“Huh?” Marseille replied “Oh of course I can work, but even so... there is no guarantee that I could be a potential roadblock from accomplishing the task that we were given today...” 

“Hm... indeed...” Edelgard said sounding worried “Let’s just get through with this as best as we can alright?” 

“Ok...” Marseille said “But that only leaves me feeling even worse because I can’t bear to be useless to either one of you... because the thought of that leaves me feeling week and helpless...” she added while beginning to shed tears from her eyes. 

Mercedes looked at Marseille and couldn’t help but feel sorry for her friend and asked, “Are you feeling alright Marseille? Because if not, maybe you should rest a bit and let me and Edelgard do the work for you...” 

Marseille then looked at Mercedes and proceeded to say, “I appreciate your thoughts, but it won't matter because all you could consider me is nothing but a burden... as I *sniff* merely only exist just so you could toil me at your command...” 

“Don’t say stuff like that!” Mercedes said sounding shocked, “throughout the time you have been here at the Monastery, you have always been working hard and what I've noticed is that you have been making more mishaps from all the hard work that you have been doing! This time it is my turn to pull us through.” She added with a smile. 

“Unfortunately, Mercedes, you are Incorrect...” Marseille responded, “As long as *sniff* as I am to be working with you, it will always be my turn.... and it will be my turn the next as well. All that you will be good for is to just wait until these tasks that we do are finished.” she ended while shedding more tears from her eyes. 

“Oh no, that just won’t do!” Mercedes replied “It will be much better if we work together.” 

“Fine...” Marseille groaned in disappointment. 

As the trio got back to work, Edelgard noticed up on the balcony, she saw Mercutio, the professor of the Golden deer walking by and then looked back at Marseille and thought “I wonder if he could the reason why Marseille is feeling so down recently? I’m going to have to get to the bottom of this.” 

“Edelgard?” Mercedes asked which snapped Edelgard out of her thoughts. 

“Oh right!” She replied as she got back to work with Mercedes and Marseille. 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

Another instance in which it troubled a student at the Monastery was of course Ashe, Marseille’s best friend, as he was doing a little better on his studies than Marseille given that she was still struggling to get control of her life. But every time he saw her, he could not help but feel sorry for her as he could see that Marseille was struggling but he could do little to help her. 

He was currently sitting on a bench feeling troubled for Marseille when he heard a familiar voice. 

“Ashe...”  

“Huh?” Ashe said as he looked for that voice and saw it belonged to Mauris. “Oh, it's you Mauris, how are you doing?” 

“I could say we are on the same boat if you are talking about what we are feeling at the moment, Troubled.” Mauris replied. 

“You too?” Ashe questioned. 

“Yes, and it all relates to one person...” Mauris answered. 

“Does it have to do with Marseille?” Ashe said. 

“Yes, she seems troubled. To a level that even I could not have predicted.” Mauris replied sounding concerned. 

“How so?” Ashe asked. 

“Well...” Mauris began while sitting next to Ashe, “I have seen other students trying to have a conversation with her, but all she does is just ignore them. Why she is doing this, I just can’t seem to have an answer for... but all I know is, she is refusing to let go of her past. Surprisingly, even I can’t seem to have a chat with her...” 

“Really?” Ashe said sounding surprised. 

“Yes...” Mauris replied while nodding and frowning at the same time. 

“Well...” Ashe said “What kind of breaks my heart whenever I see her, I try to talk with her to see what is wrong with her just like what you did... But what makes it worse unlike you is whenever she sees me... All she does is tell me to stay away from me.” 

“Why is that?” Mauris asked. 

“Well... she thinks that I closely resemble Mercutio, the person that broke her heart a few days ago.” Ashe replied. “And I have a feeling that my level for concern for her has taken a turn for the worse given what happened the last time I saw her...” 

“What do you mean?” Mauris said. 

“Well...” Ashe said. “Take a look at what she did to me...” He said as he showed Mauris patches of dirt on his uniform. 

“She did that to you?!?” Mauris replied with a shocked expression in his face. 

“Yes...” Ashe said “She shoved me to the ground...” 

“Oh, my goodness...” Mauris replied sounding extremely concerned. “This is turning out to be far worse than I expected...” 

“Yes indeed...” Ashe responded sounding just as concerned as Mauris. He then asked. “But what can we do? Given that there is so little that we can do to help her in this situation...” 

“Well...” Mauris replied, “The only thing that I could do is to erase her memories of her past, but I highly doubt that this would help her in any way as it could make the situation even worse as I would literally regret making this decision.” 

“Well, could we try and... maybe try and make her let go of her past, like not...” Ashe began but was promptly interrupted by Mauris. 

“Ashe... Like I said, trying to make her forget the past isn’t going to help in this situation.” Mauris replied “Given the fact that she has had so many friends and family in her past, making her forget about all of those memories is going to make her hole of sadness that much bigger probably to a point where it could never heal.” 

“Oh... right, completely forgot about that” Ashe said feeling dumbfound because of his idea. He then had to go to his next class and said, “It was nice talking to you, I hope we can find a solution to help out Marseille...” 

“I’m sure we will” Mauris replied. He then replied “But until, I'll see you soon.” 

“Same here” Ashe said. As he left toward his class, he looked up to the sky and said to himself in a concerned tone, “I just hope that she doesn't do something where the situation that she is already in gets even worse..."

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Unfortunately for Ashe, Marseille’s situation would indeed worsen, even to the point where some of the students like Ashe would be harmed in some way. An example of this occurred a few days later with Sylvain and Ferdinand a few days later, who saw Marseille down like previous times and asked if she was alright. But unlike others who just backed off at the first warning that Marseille said to stay away, they continued to attempt to talk to her, and this led to her shoving the two onto the ground and then just running off, which completely caught the two-off guard. Surprisingly, the two did not get angry at her, instead they too were concerned for her, especially Sylvain given that he was in the same house at her. 

After that incident and the ones that followed where students continued to try and talk with Marseille which led to more students being pushed to the ground from Marseille, they began to stay away from Marseille and soon, she had no one left to talk to except for the friends that she met the first time she arrived, and at times, she even refused to talk to them. 

But none of the incidents could even come close as extreme to the altercation that would happen between Marseille and Mercutio, as on the day before the houses of Gerrag Mach were to go out on their mission to the holy Mausoleum, the two would meet again and unfortunately, things wern't going to be pretty between the two... 

It did start out fine enough though as Mercutio was currently sitting with Hilda having tea together. 

“I really like it when we have moments like these together when we are alone!” Hilda said happily. 

“I’m glad to hear that.” Mercutio said with a nod. “But your constant motives in following me all the time can be a bit of a concern to me as I can’t seem to get anything done.” 

“Oh!” Hilda gasped. “I’m so sorry if I'm becoming a distraction to you!” 

“It’s alright Hilda.” Mercutio replied “But I would appreciate it if you could limit the number of times that you follow me, Ok?” 

“Alright!” Hilda said in agreement “Now then, shall we talk about...” Hilda began but then saw Marseille walking. 

“Oh look! There’s Marseille” Hilda pointed at her. “Boy... she looks down...” she then had an idea, “I know! You should go talk to her!” she said happily. 

“Um Hilda...” Mercutio said concerned, “I’m not sure if that would be a good idea given that...” 

“Oh, come on silly!” Hilda reaffirmed Mercutio “I’m sure she would want to talk with you!” 

“Are you sure?” Mercutio questioned Hilda. 

“I’m sure!” Hilda replied. 

“Alright...” Mercutio said as he slowly made his way over to Marseille while trying his best to avoid being seen. When he got close enough, he began to greet her. “Um... Hello, Marseille, is it?” 

Marseille turned around, and when she saw Mercutio, she jolted backwards away from him. “N-no... s-stay away f-from me...” Was all she could stutter as she held her hands forward to keep distance from Mercutio. 

Mercutio was confused at what she meant but he decided to come closer to her. “What are you talking about? I just wanted to talk with you... see what is wrong with-” 

“Please s-stay away from me!” Marseille said as she began to panic. 

Mercutio then remembered about their talk back in his room and remembered that he was the one that told her that he was no longer the person she loved even though he resembled that person. He had to apologize quickly before it got out of hand. “Marseille, I just wanted to say that I am-” 

But Mercutio got too close to Marseille and that was a big mistake on his part because something inside Marseille's mind snapped and what happened next caught both Hilda and Mercutio by surprise. As quickly as Mercutio was to apologize, Marseille was even faster to land a right-handed punch on Mercutio’s face which sent him tumbling to the ground. What was even more shocking was what she said to him. 

“F**k you Mercutio!” She shouted in his face in a tone that was both angry and also heartbroken at the same time, “You were the one who made me into what I am, A Broken-Hearted student you F**king B***h!" Before Mercutio could react, Marseille shouted, "I don’t ever want to see you ever again because I F**KING HATE YOU A**HOLE!” She then stormed off in sadness and ran from both Mercutio and Hilda.

After witnessing what just happened Mercutio expected Hilda to get upset with Marseille for what she just did to her professor, but instead she was truly worried for her friend as this was just not what Marseille was used to doing, considering that she was not just of the hardest working students at the Monastery, but she was also kindest students as well. 

“Um... Mercutio?” Hilda said as she helped him up. “First off, are you okay? and second, what in the goddess did we just witness? 

All Mercutio could do was shake his head in sadness. He felt horrible not form what he just witnessed, but also for his actions to Marseille. “This is all my fault...” he said. 

“Why is that?” Hilda questioned. 

“I should have never been so harsh to her by just ignoring her while she was here...” Mercutio replied, “Then none of this would have ever happened, she could have succeeded as a brilliant student, and she would have been so happy even without me, but now... seeing her like this, it's just...” That was all he could say as he got up and started to walk away from Hilda. 

“Where are you going?” Hilda questioned. 

“I’m going to do something that I should have done a long time ago.” Mercutio said in a concerned tone. “Something that I should have done when she first got here...”