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She looked up into his eyes. "I was running... I hid in a house... but then I wasn't in the house any more. I showed up outside in those mountains two and a half years ago... It was storming badly, so I had to find shelter quickly... When I came to this place, there was nothing here but a castle overgrown with plants and a small deserted old town. I have a feeling... That I could go back. I could go back if I just... found a key. There's a door in that little house on the hill outside of the town. I don't know why I didn't show up inside the house that day. But I... I know that's the way back. So you see, I wasn't born here. I've only been here three years!"

Nino got up and ran to the door, first trying the handle then pounding on it. "Come back! Destroyed the world?! What are you talking about?! You can't do this! This is ridiculous! I did live in Elibe and my name is NOT Nadalia!" She sank to the floor. "What is wrong with you?" She hung her head in the darkness. Her memories were not false. She did come from a place called Elibe. Was raised by a woman named Sonia.. A man named Brendan. Lloyd and Linus Reed. Uncle Jan and Legault! Then... The mission to kill Zephiel. She remembered Jaffar. Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector. Nergal and Limstella. Then... Rei and Lugh. She had been running from those men that were chasing Jaffar. She remembered the first time she'd seen his tears as he told her to run... As he told her to protect herself and their children. She remembered her own crushing feelings as she handed her children to her trusted friend. To Lucius. She remembered running back to find Jaffar.. Maybe she could help in some way. Maybe she could... And then she ran into those men again... Then the house she hid in... And that's all there was to it. That was the last she had seen of Elibe... It was all real. She couldn't have had any other life than that. She was not Nadalia. She had to escape and save FEF Kingdom... She may have come from Elibe, but this was her home now. And Leander was violating it.

Leander looked up from where he was poring over his magic tome in his study when he heard the loud noise from Nadalia's room. He leaped up, grabbing the tome and his staff, and rushed back across the hall. A soft murmur of an Unlock spell prevented all that nasty business with stopping to unlock the door, and Leander ran inside and froze on the spot, staring at the hole in the rug.

The rug was placed over top of a trap door that, when pressure was properly applied, would open downward into a long chute to the catacombs, for escaping assassins-- he remembered that now! The rug was carefully cut so that it would swing down as well! Nadalia must have remembered THAT, hm? It was fortunate that he knew exactly where it led-- he raised his stave and murmured a Warp spell, and the head of his stave momentarily glowed bright white.

He appeared in front of his wife down in the catacombs, waggling a finger. "Now now, my dear, you won't escape so easily! Nadalia... Come with me. You're confused. Let me take you back upstairs," he offered, reaching out to take her hand.

Leander growled as she stepped out of his reach and ran past him. He spun and raced after her, his cloak flapping in the dark as he chased the sound of her retreating footsteps, calling, "Nadalia, you come back here this instant!" There was a muffled thump somewhere ahead, then a crash of marble striking stone. Leander lifted his staff and whispered a soft word. The head lit up to illuminate the catacombs, which were dark and littered with boxes and odds and ends and even a few skeletons, the remains of would-be thieves who fell victim to traps.

Passageways led off through the walls in the mazelike catacombs, and Leander navigated corners, following the sound of heavy breathing, magnified by the cold stone walls that carried its echo to him. At last he came to a stairway that led down, and he could hear the heavy breathing down there. It appeared to be some sort of tomb, which meant that his dear confused Nadalia was trapped-- no way out but the one he was blocking.

"Don't be afraid, my love... it's only me..." He made his way slowly down the stairs, holding his staff out to light the stairwell, and finally came down into a large open room, lined with shelves covered in caskets. And there, at the other end of the room, was his dear Nadalia, pressed to the wall. Seemed she'd run into the wall, and one of the caskets had fallen. "I'm just going to take you back upstairs and put you to bed," he added, smiling.

Something about the casket on the floor, though, caught his eye... it was marble. The others in here were wood, mostly, or perhaps stone, but smooth marble? It was well-preserved, too... only someone very, very important would be entombed in marble, though.

"And who is this," he murmured, holding up the light to read the ancient text engraved into the top of the casket.

He recoiled and shouted, dropping his staff and falling onto his back, pushing himself back along the floor until he hit the wall.

'Rest in Peace, Nadalia, Last Queen of Learania
Wife of the Lost King Leander
Died in the Year of Loki, 1097'

"N-Nadalia," he choked, crystalline tears frozen on his cheeks and shining in the light from his staff. "Sh-she's dead," he sobbed, his face dropping into his hands as his shoulders shook. "She died... I... Wh-what year is it?"

He stared at the coffin through his fingers and murmured, "N-nine hundred years," his breath coming rapidly as his whole world crashed around him... and then he sort of deflated, all the fight gone out of him. "I'm so sorry," gasped Leander, allowing Nino to reach out to him. "I... I can't believe I did this to you... I..."

He stared down at the book, which he had brought with him. It lay on the floor beside his staff, and he murmured, "The book... I... Nino, I... you look so much like her... I'm so sorry..."

He sniffed and pulled his legs around to sit cross-legged, trying to keep his eyes off of Nadalia's cold white coffin. "I don't know how you came to be here... But I want to tell you a story. Because I don't know if anyone really knows it but me." He wiped his cheeks, flecking away the tears that had frozen to them.

"I... well, nine hundred years ago, I suppose... I was the king of Learania... this Kingdom. We were one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, you understand... But... There were many wars that scarred the land, wars that spanned the world as whole continents clashed against one another. We of Learania remained neutral in this... we sought not to fight. I searched long and hard for an answer, and...

"He came," Leander said after a pause. "A great god came to me and offered me a great power. He said I could use it to... to end the wars. To establish Learania as the greatest, the only power in the world, and that I could unite all nations under Learania and usher the world into peace! He... he offered me the answer I sought..."

His cheeks again shone with frozen tears, and he wiped at them until they were clean. "Nadalia... she begged me not to use the power. She said it was not the way to solve conflicts... I d-didn't list-sten," he choked out, his breaths heavy as he forced them past the lump in his throat.

"The power was... was too great," he said when he had regained his composure enough to continue. "A simple show of power, that's all I was trying to do... B-but... the great storm froze the ocean, and it buried Malvet... And then, and then the lightning... it split the earth, and fire rose up and consumed all of great Salna, and... and the sea melted and destroyed all that remained... all but Learania..." He nearly began to cry again, but stifled it with a soft hiccuping noise.

"That God kept his promise... he made Learania the only power in the world... But it... I fled. I fled to the mountains, I ran away in shame, and fear... To protect my own people from the wrath of the gods... I turned my power against myself, but... but I never meant to destroy the world, I... I just wanted peace," he whispered, and now the tears rolled freely down his cheeks, each freezing after a moment, until his cheeks were both covered in frosty patterns of ice.

He sniffed and slowly climbed up, gingerly picking up the fallen book and staff. "Okay... alright." He forced a smile, moving to Nino and hugging her gently. "Just... think of where you want to go... I can't stay here... it's not mine anymore," he murmured, closing his eyes and murmuring the words for Warp, letting Nino's mind supply the location. Anywhere in the land that she wanted to go, his magic power could carry them.