It's not her birthday, their anniversary, or any special occasion, but he tells her he has a surprise for her anyway. In their room, he says, because it's somewhat personal. Nothing scandalous, I promise, it's completely clean, I just...well, you'll see!

She follows him to their chambers, where a large covered object hangs on the wall. With shaking hands, Alcryst removes the cover, and Alear's heart skips a beat.

It's her, but it's her from the past. Red hair, red eyes, dressed in pure black and gold, that angry-sad face. The spectre of her Dark Emblem behind her.

While Alear has come to terms with her origins and knows beyond the shadow of the doubt that she's still Lumera's child even if not by birth, knows that the people of Lythos will see her as their Divine Dragon no matter whose child she originally was, it's still difficult to look at that part of her life and not feel some trepidation. The Alear of the past, lonely and scared and only doing her father's bidding so he wouldn't horribly kill her the way he did her brothers and sisters. Or allow Zephia to do to her what she did to Veyle to make her his perfect child.

It got better for her, Lumera found her and saved her and shared blood with her to make them a family as they wished to be. She has friends now, a found family, a wonderful husband.

But the me of back then didn't know. She was prepared to die for her failures.

"I'm sorry," Alcryst's voice cuts through her thoughts. "I'm so sorry, I had a feeling this might be a bad idea, I know your past is a sensitive subject and all...we can get rid of it! We'll burn it, or stash it in the cellar, and I can find a way to get back the money I spent on-"

"Alcryst." She puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm not upset. It's beautiful the artist did a wonderful job, but...why? Why this version of me?" He swallows, closing his eyes for a moment before turning to the painting.

"To show you that I love all of you, even the old you," he said. "I told you back then I didn't care about your origins, whether you were Fell or Divine, and I meant it. Even when the Alear of the past was the enemy, I couldn't see her as such knowing how lonely she must have been...and eventually, she would become you. One of the strongest and most beautiful people I've ever known."

And she remembers what he said to her after Griss outed her to the entire army, after facing that version of herself and getting a glimpse of the past she would eventually forget after her thousand-year slumber. The way he ran his fingers through the red half of her hair, kissed her cheek just below her red eye, reminded her that their eyes matched halfway.

This painting, she realizes, is less a grand gesture and more a culmination of all the little ones that conveyed his message all along.

You're always telling me I'm wonderful and special no matter how much I believe otherwise, he would say. But the same goes for you.

She hugs him, smiling as she rests her cheek against his hair.

"Thank you. And I just got an idea," she says. She lets go of him long enough to retrieve a painting from the other side of the room, Alcryst in shades of blue except for his eyes and the glow of Roy's ring on his finger. She hangs it beside the portrait of her past self.

And suddenly notices a little detail she hadn't before.

"Marth's ring..."

"Even back then its stone glowed blue," Alcryst said. "As if he knew someday you'd be free." He smiled. "And now look at us in those portraits. We match you just as you are now!" Red and blue, side by side.

Past and future.

The Alear of back then was prepared to die if she failed, knew she was only a tool, that Sombron was incapable of loving anyone but himself. But the Alear of now knows she deserved better, that she would eventually gain all she deserved and give it back in good measure.

That she's found someone who loves every bit of her, whom she loves more than anything.

"It's beautiful," she says, and he kisses her.