UNDER CONSTRUCTION
For the sake of convenience, the Player Character of Fire Emblem Fates will be referred to by their canon name of "Corrin" and regarded as male. These synopses will also assume all characters that can be saved from death survive.
All spoilers are unmarked.
Corrin finds himself caught in the midst. As soldiers from the Nohrian army attack him, he is given aid by three members of the Hoshidan royal family: Hinoka, Takumi, and Sakura.
Eventually, there is a lull in the battle. Xander approaches Corrin, along with his own siblings: Leo, Camilla, and Elise. He asks Corrin to come home with him to Nohr, while Ryoma claims that the Nohrians lie and his true home is in Hoshido...
On this dreary Nohrian morn, he has sword training with his elder brother, Crown Prince Xander. He performs well in his training and receives high marks from Xander. Afterwards, he is joined by his siblings: Camilla, his doting older sister; Leo, his studious younger brother; and Elise, his high-spirited younger sister. They come with good news: their father and ruler of Nohr, King Garon, has requested Corrin's audience at the capital. It would be the first time in a long time that Corrin would be allowed to leave the Northern Fortress. Thus, Corrin sets off with his siblings to meet with his father.
A skirmish breaks out within the castle, but Corrin is able to fight off Rinkah and Kaze and leave them unable to fight. Garon orders their immediate execution, but Corrin refuses, unable to see the sense in killing the helpless. Garon launches a magical attack at the two, but Corrin uses his sword to deflect it. Xander begs Garon to forgive Corrin's slight, and Garon, in turn, orders Xander to execute the prisoners and anyone who tries to stop him.
As Corrin and Xander come to blows, Leo uses a magical attack on the prisoners, appearing to kill them and satisfying Garon. When their father departs, however, Leo reveals his attack was non-fatal; he didn't want Camilla and Elise to fuss over Corrin's dissatisfaction.
That night, Corrin and Xander escort Rinkah and Kaze out of the castle and tell them to run. Rinkah vows revenge for her humiliation before she and Kaze depart.
The fort is located along the Bottomless Canyon, a deep and seemingly endless chasm that spans the middle of the continent and acts as a natural border between Nohr and Hoshido. There, they find the fort occupied by Hoshidans. Before Corrin can turn back to report his findings, Hans suddenly attacks the Hoshidans.
Corrin is ambushed by two Hoshidan ninja named Saizo and Kagero, but is rescued by Xander and his siblings. As he and Gunter prepare to fall back, however, Hans suddenly turns on Gunter and knocks him into the Bottomless Canyon. Enraged, Corrin's arm transforms into a bestial form as he lashes out at Hans. As Hans runs, Ganglari begins to react, and Corrin falls into the canyon. He is rescued by Lilith, a stable worker at the Northern Fortress, who is actually a dragon that Corrin mistook for a bird and nursed to health in his childhood. Lilith uses so much magic in rescuing Corrin that she is unable to transform back into her human form, however.
Before Corrin can return to Windmire, however, Rinkah reappears, ambushing him and knocking him unconscious.
To Corrin's surprise, Mikoto hugs him. Corrin is shocked to hear that Mikoto is actually his mother, and Ryoma, his older brother. He doesn't believe it: his whole life was lived out in Nohr, there is no way these strangers could be his kin!
Before he can make sense of these developments, however, news arrives of a raid on a village in the valley. Ryoma takes Corrin with him to the village, where Hinoka and Sakura are defending the people from strange, brutish abominations known simply as "Faceless". Hoshido is protected by a barrier, erected and maintained by Queen Mikoto, that robs any would-be invaders from Nohr of their will to fight. Since the Faceless do not possess any will outside of their destructive impulses, the barrier doesn't stop them, but they are a relative nuisance.
When the dust settles and the Faceless are vanquished, Hinoka breaks down in front of Corrin, having not seen him since he was taken from Hoshido and for whom she took up the naginata in the hopes of finding him again.
Corrin returns to the Hoshidan royal castle after the battle, but even though he can feel some sort of familiarity with his surroundings, memories of life in Hoshido still evade him. By a lake, he finds a young woman, a songstress named Azura. Corrin appears to share much with Azura, including similar pasts: as he was supposedly a Hoshidan prince taken away to Nohr, she was a Nohrian princess who had been kidnapped and brought to Hoshido. Also like Corrin, she came to view Hoshido as her home, as he had Nohr.
Corrin remains conflicted of how to proceed from here...
A ceremony is being held for Corrin to sit upon the throne. He is escorted to the ceremony by Sakura, his timid but kind younger sister; and Takumi, his sharp-witted younger brother. Takumi regards both Corrin and Azura with distrust, however, due to their ties to Nohr.
Everyone gathers in Shirasagi Castle. Before the ceremony could begin, however, a mysterious hooded figure summons the sword Ganglari and shatters it, creating a devastating explosion and causing the shards to fly at Corrin. Mikoto intercepts the attack and is fatally wounded, dying in Corrin's arms. As Ryoma pursues the mysterious assailant, Corrin, overcome with grief at his mother's death, flies into a rage and transforms into a fearsome dragon, attacking other strange assailants as they appear.
After the assailants are chased off, Azura begins to sing in the hopes of helping Corrin return to his human form. Although Corrin reacts to her song with pain at first, he eventually sheds his draconian form and returns to his original state, having regained some of his lost memories in the process: he remembers, as a young child, witnessing his real father, the Hoshidan king Sumeragi, being felled by a trap laid by Garon before the young prince was kidnapped!
In the battle, the village surrounding Shirasagi Castle was devastated. Ryoma speculates that the sword Garon gave him was part of a plot to assassinate Mikoto. In the chaos, the ancient sword Yato was unearthed. Similar to Ryoma's Raijinto and Takumi's Fujin Yumi, the Yato was a sacred weapon that could only be wielded by one most worthy to bring peace to the world. The sword flies into Corrin's hand and becomes his.
Kaze appears with dire news: the Nohrians are invading! With Mikoto dead, the barrier protecting Hoshido is now gone. Corrin leaves with his Hoshidan siblings to confront them, but not before receiving a gift from Azura: a special stone that allows Corrin to control his draconian powers, and prevent him from giving into its violent influence.
It is here where Corrin, a child of two different worlds, makes his choice, one that would determine the course of both Nohr and Hoshido's histories...
Branch Of Fate-Choose Your Path
Xenologue Chapters