I'd LIKE to write a Chrom/Grima siren au for mermay but since no way in heck is THAT going to happen, allow me to just TELL you about this hypothetical story...

Okay so like, Chrom's a sea captain and the Shepherds are his crew and they went off to Valm but are now returning to Ylisse. They're bringing back medicine because there's an illness spreading through the countryside and Emmeryn herself fell ill after going out to help people

(Don't worry Emm will be fine NOBODY'S DYING IN THIS AU... or, well... nobody people like, anyway).

But anyway, while they're at sea a storm blows them slightly off course and into Grima's territory. Now Grima's known as the scourge of the whole fucking sea and if you go into his territory you do NOT come out...

Except when Grima tries to lure Chrom to his death by singing to him, it doesn't work. Why? Well, because Grima is singing about pretty women and pretty men and wealth and power, i.e. the things he thinks all humans want (and to be fair, his songs have always worked in the past).

But all Chrom is worried about is getting medicine back to Emmeryn, and Grima doesn't have a "save your dying sister" song so... Yeah, it doesn't work, but Grima doesn't know why and just thinks Chrom is immune or something.

It really pisses him off, so much that he follows Chrom all the way back to Ylisse.. Of course, there's one slight problem once they reach land... Grima can't exactly keep following him.

So here's where it becomes a little bit like The Little Mermaid, only instead of being motivated by love, Grima is motivated by a burning desire to kill Chrom, because wtf that bastard can't just sail through Grima's space and make it out alive. Absolutely unacceptable.

So he strikes a deal with Validar the sea witch who despises humans too (and who's always been obsessed with sirens' power...). In exchange for his voice (which Grima doesn't think he NEEDS since it doesn't seem to work on Chrom anyway) he gets legs.

As soon as he kills Chrom he'll come back to the ocean and trade back and he and Validar will go their separate human-killing ways.

So yeah, that's the PLAN, but what actually happens is that Grima washes up on the shore, Chrom comes down in concern and meets this beautiful man who can't talk...

and obviously Chrom is NOT going to let this guy who seems to have no place to go (since Grima doesn't exactly know what to say when Chrom asks what he's doing and where he's going).

He brings Grima (who he's calling Robin because when Chrom asked for Grima's name, Grima tried to pantomime "mask" but Chrom understood it as "bird" and eventually Grima just gave up and shrugged when Chrom suggested "Robin") back to the castle with him.

Grima thinks this is great because there are SO many opportunities to get rid of Chrom this way... Only since, y'know, this is a Chrom/Grima story, he accidentally falls in love with Chrom instead. Oops.

Now Grima eventually accepts his feelings and realizes that he wants to stay with Chrom and that he never felt like he was home in the sea anyway

(a note on Grima's background here: he's an artificially created siren from the ancient city of Thabes, which sunk to the bottom of the ocean like Atlantis after the people angered the sea god Duma).

This would be fine and good, except Chrom's still a sea captain and so like, he goes back out to sea? And Grima goes with him of course; they're in love after all... but uh, Validar never exactly got that memo.

So Validar sees them and is like "oh okay I guess we're doing this murder tag-team style" and... remember now that he has Grima's voice, i.e. the siren call... so this time when Validar sings a song of love, it works because Chrom's got nothing but Grima on his mind now.

Of course, it's a little confusing because Grima is also RIGHT THERE and talking to Chrom, so he's getting mixed messages. That's how Grima figures out what's wrong.

He gets super pissed once he realizes what Validar's doing and basically jumps into the water to go punch Validar in the face... but that's not exactly the best idea, because Validar just knocks him out and then tells Chrom he can save Grima if he jumps into the water, too...

Okay so Grima actually DOES pass out and when he comes to he's in Validar's underwater cave with fins again (but still no voice because Validar's a bastard, you know what I'm saying?)

and Validar's like "oh yeah Chrom's totally going to kill himself trying to rescue you haha great plan" and Grima is now even MORE pissed. Validar doesn't care that Grima wants the deal to be off and he definitely has no intention of ever giving Grima his voice back.

That's annoying, but Grima has bigger problems, like saving Chrom's life.

Now if I were actually writing this fic I'd have to write some epic battle between Chrom, Grima, Validar, the storm that's raging outside, and the ocean itself... but lucky for me this is just a summary and I don't actually have to figure out the logistics of all that.

ANYWAY, at the end of the day, Chrom kills Validar (which gives Grima his voice back)

and Grima barely saves Chrom from drowning (throwing him back to his crew with a heartfelt command to live, because what's the point of giving him his voice back if he's not going to use it to try to magically force Chrom to survive).

And then there's the whole awkward "so you're a siren" conversation that they have to have, but the fact is they're still deeply in love and never want to be separated...

so the epilogue is that after a while of sailing the world (being at sea is the best option because Grima can swim alongside the ship... and also kill anyone who tries to harm Chrom haha he's still a ruthless force of destruction)...

they find someone else who can do the voice-for-legs trade and then as soon as Grima is human he and Chrom get married and live hapily ever after.

The end!!!