#“ plz take him he has consumed the entire supply ”

[omgcatboi]

Anyone in the market for catboys that are multiple handfuls we got one that keeps eating all the catboy food.

[iturbide]

Tell me about prisoner of war au plz!

Okay so with the understanding that this one is more conceptual than anything at present (I have very little solid plot for it but I really enjoy the general idea of it):

Prisoner of War is basically a what-if AU: what if Chrom’s father didn’t die, and in fact managed to siege and finally capture the Plegian capital? If Validar kept quiet about Robin’s birth, allowing the information to be known only among the cult, it’s entirely possible that Plegia might fall, since I tend to think that news of the Heart’s birth helped give the army a morale boost and allowed them to withstand and even repel the Exalt’s forces; even in canon, where Robin’s mother flees and the Heart goes missing, I think the fact that Grima’s Heart had returned to the world makes them fight harder because they know that their divine is somewhere, even in hiding, and they want to see the day when the fell dragon returns to them. But without that boost, the halidom’s forces might have reached the capital and finally stormed it after a long drawn-out siege, and from there the people scattered, as did the remnants of the army.

This is the world Robin and Chrom both grow up in. Robin is raised in a broken nation that has suffered nothing but war since before she was born; she’s raised in hiding for her own safety, but the community she’s brought up in is, effectively, an army brigade. With their central command gone, Plegia’s resistance to the halidom now comes in the form of guerilla camps hidden throughout the country, raiding Ylisse’s army for necessary supplies, performing ambush assaults at every opportunity, baiting soldiers and vanishing in order to pick off large forces bit by bit. These fighters end up creating communities, but ultimately every member ends up as part of the fighting force — and that includes both Robin and Henry (himself not only an orphan, but a victim of the halidom’s cruelty; he was rescued from an Ylissean outpost, and his scars and pain tolerance both are the result suffering he endured at their hands). Chrom, meanwhile, is raised in a nation coasting on the exultation of its victory, where the anti-Plegian propaganda has reached a fever pitch and the nation at large is baying for the complete annihilation of the Grimleal nation. He’s trained from a young age for combat and command both, and his father intends that his only son will follow in his footsteps and, as necessary, complete the eradication of Grima’s followers and the fell dragon’s memory; to this end, he publicly bypasses his eldest daughter in the line of succession and names Chrom his heir apparent.

While many oppose the notion of Robin taking part in the efforts to defend her home and her family, General Mustafa (the man in charge of their particular camp) allows it on certain conditions: that she never be alone (and she never is, because she always has Henry) and that she never enter an Ylissean camp (she toes the line on that one a lot, and he knows but can’t prove it). Meanwhile, the Exalt makes a point of bringing Chrom into the fray, granting him command of a battalion and charging him with rooting out the Plegian resistance in the southwestern woodlands. This is how the two end up meeting: the guerilla forces attack the halidom’s troops in the dead of night, raiding supplies in the chaos and vanishing into the dark — but Chrom happens to see a stranger rushing off into the dark and gives chase alone while the other troops tend to the fires before they can consume the camp entirely. He finally manages to corner the pale-haired Plegian in a clearing deep in the forest and far from the camp...and realizes, far too late, that he’s the one who’s been led into a trap. Immobilized by magic, he’s quickly bound up and carted off on the back of a wyvern, and none of his struggles or snarls make any difference — but he’s taken aback by the fact that this young woman goes out of her way to check his bonds when he shows signs of discomfort, and openly apologizes as she loosens them, citing that her companion has trouble gauging how tight things should be due to his own lacking sensitivity. Neither of them seem to mean him any harm, and when he demands answers she openly admits that this is only for bartering: the halidom’s soldiers certainly won’t talk to them otherwise...though she is sorry about putting him through this.

Robin actually has no idea of who she’s caught until she and Henry get back to their camp, a warmly lit den at the heart of a twisting honeycomb of caves. Mustafa is shocked and deeply concerned when he sees the Brand on Chrom’s arm, but knows that what’s done is done (and can’t deny that it’s potentially a great stroke of luck on their part). Chrom ends up...ostensibly being a prisoner, but one with significant freedoms, and finds the Plegians to be amicable if understandably wary; Robin and Henry keep him company quite often, and he gets frequent visits from Robin’s mother (especially early on, since she’s the one who treats the rather nasty welts his struggling in Henry’s over-tight binding left behind). Nothing he finds bears any resemblance to the stories of his childhood, and he finds it difficult to reconcile the truth from the fiction he was fed growing up; when it finally comes time to face the Exalt, Chrom realizes that he’ll likely face the hard choice of siding with his father and the nation of his birth...or the friends he’s grown so close to and a nation far different from the one he thought he knew.