"Lucina?" A familiar, masculine voice called out to her.
"Hm?" Lucina said, jolting a little from her resting position under the big tree. It sounded like Robin, the group's genius tactician, who was calling for her. Sure enough, she spied his scruffy, white hair and signature heavy overcoat as he approached her from a few meters away.
"Calm, Lucina. It's only me." He said, holding his hands outstretched and cautiously pressing down to ease the blue-haired girl's obvious nerves.
"Oh, Robin, you startled me." Lucina told him, moving into a up-right sitting position.
"Sorry. I just saw you out here all alone, and then those..." Robin motioned to the myriad of felled wooden warriors laying in a messy pile nearby, "And, well, I guess I just wanted to check on you."
"I'm fine. It's just training, those things are too easy for me anyway." Lucina answered back, speaking rather fast. She folded her arms and looked away.
"I see." Robin said with a sigh. "Well, I suppose I'd best be taking my leave, then."
"Wait.." Lucina suddenly spoke, scratching her temples with some uneasiness before facing Robin and offering him a seat by her side. "I'm sorry for my rudeness. Please, come join me. Is there something you need?"
Robin smiled, and went by her side, standing against the big tree with his arms folded. "Not necessarily, I just wanted to check up on you."
"Thank you, Robin. You're always so kind and caring." Lucina smiled up at him. Then, she gave him an inquisitive look and asked, "Father didn't happen to send here, did he?"
"Ha! Nothing gets by you, Lucina." Robin laughed, rubbing his nose nervously. Lucina groaned, and Robin could told she was not exactly displeased with how overbearing her father could be at times.
"So you know about yesterday?" Lucina asked. Robin nodded silently. Lucina sighed, "I guess I can't be upset with him, I didn't tell him to keep it a secret, but still..."
Lucina slouched down to lay on her back, folding her hands behind her head to use as a "pillow' of sorts. She stared up at the clouds in the sky wistfully. Robin, meanwhile, just looked at her, unsure of what to say. For all his knowledge of war and other things, he found himself lacking in wisdom at times, even moreso when he didn't quite know the full details of what had transpired the day before.
"Maybe he sent you because he thought you might have some kind of spell that could help me?" Lucina asked.
"Maybe..." Robin replied, somewhat cautiously, as he still didn't know what the nature of her problem was. "Tell me, then, what ails you?"
"I just wish I stronger. That way, no one could ever put me into a position like that again, and I wouldn't need to have father risk his own life for mine." Lucina admitted her feelings.
"So, you want to become stronger?" Robin asked, thinking of a solution. "I might have a spell that could boost your strength, or defense, or both!"
"Ha ha! Thank you, Robin!" Lucina laughed, but she sat up and shook her head. "But I'm not talking about using magic to get stronger, I need real training. Otherwise, what would I do if you weren't around?"
"I see. You've got a point there..." Robin nodded slowly. Being a mage, he'd placed all of his stats, so to speak, into magic and the pursuit of mystical arts. "In that case, I wish I could properly spar with you, but I'm afraid I might not be much help in that regard."
"I know." Lucina replied. She got up and paced around with her blade, swinging it in practice swipes.
"Ouch!" Robin feigned pain.
"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to poke fun at you!" Lucina apologized. "It's no use, I wouldn't want to train with anybody else, anyways. I don't want them to start to think that I've got a complex or anything like that! Worrying everybody like that wouldn't do us any good..."
"So, you want to get physically stronger without magic and without training on these because they're too easy?" Robin motioned to the mass of dummy graves. Lucina nodded. "But you also don't want to train with anyone else, either?" Lucina nodded again.
Robin sighed, he had to look away from the cute, albeit sad, looking girl. Not only was her desperation taking him off guard, but her request of him was leaving clueless for any real solutions. Honestly, he thought she was plenty tough as is, but he couldn't tell her that now, she'd not accept such advice in her current funk.
"Wait..." Robin started, thinking more seriously about things. Lucina turned and looked at him hopefully. A moment passed, the tactician murmuring to himself all the while. Finally, Robin snapped his fingers happily, and told her, "I've got it!"
"Yes?!" Lucina was beside herself. A moment ago, she was prepared to give up on her somewhat selfish ways of gaining self-improvement. But Robin was always one to come through in a pinch, and it looked like this time was no different.
"You want to train in secret, but these dummies are too weak for you, and you don't want magic make you stronger, so..." He pulled out a tome and flipped through it's many pages while speaking, getting lost in its contents.
"Yes..?" Lucina asked again. Robin stopped the book on a certain page and pointed down at it. He smiled and motioned for Lucina to look. Immediately interested in what Robin had in store for her, she read along where his finger lead her eyes.
It was marked "Spell of Reduction" and went into detail about how to cast it on someone with a simple flick of the wrist. Further going into detail about how the caster could choose the height and also restore the victim with the same spell.
"..." Lucina wasn't sure what to make of this. She stared up at Robin with a raised eyebrow. Sure, she trusted him completely with her life, even if that meant shrinking her, but she wasn't sure how this all related to her issues with training. Robin could tell she wasn't convinced, so he explained,
"So, instead of making your sparring 'partners' stronger, why not have it so you're weaker?"
"Hmm.." Lucina still wasn't convinced, but seemed to understand the point he was trying to make. "Is this not a little counterproductive?"
"Hear me out! This isn't a spell designed to make one weaker or drain their energy, but it is to simply shrink them. You'd retain all your physical strength and build as you have now, but you'll be reduced, shrunken in size. You'll be smaller, so comparatively..."
"Oh!" Lucina exclaimed, now seeming to get why Robin was so insistent on using the shrinking spell on her. She clasped her hands together, and finished for him, "The dummies would be stronger! I see..! That is a clever idea, indeed, Robin! Forgive me for having doubts!"
"Not at all. I'm sure you'd not want to be made little for just any reason, or by anyone, really." Robin surmised. Lucina nodded. There was a pause between the two, as both Robin and Lucina thought about using the spell.
"Yes... and it's simple to reverse as it is to cast, right?" Lucina asked. She'd already read the page on the spell, but wanted to hear Robin confirm it.
"Of course." Robin told her with confidence. This was his tome, after all. Not some weird, ancient, old, secret, spellbook lost to legends or given to him by some unscrupulous-seeming character. This shrinking spell, and every other one in the tome had been used by him in previous tests. No risk was involved whatsoever, and he told Lucina as much.
Intrigued even further by Robin's assurance that nothing would go wrong with her "magical" training, Lucina found some renewed energy in herself and became more excited to try try his little training regime. Lucina gave him the go ahead, and Robin cast the shrinking spell on her...
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