Elnini

Elnini is the het ship between Eliwood and Ninian from the Fire Emblem fandom.

Canon
Eliwood is one of three main lords in the 7th Fire Emblem game. Ninian is a quiet and mysterious girl traveling with her younger brother; on first glance, the two appear to be a dancer and a bard traveling the world, but the story later reveals that the main villain Nergal has been chasing them for the past few years.

Eliwood first meets Ninian when he rescues her from bandits during Lyn's story, but the two do not properly interact until the main story following the first story arc. Ninian blames herself for the tragedies the group suffered, including the death of Eliwood's father, but Eliwood reassures her that none of it was her fault. Ninian officially joins the party, becoming a playable unit after this talk.

The two are clearly attracted to one another, with Eliwood going out of his way to look after her and Ninian slowly falling in love with him. However, Ninian is a dragon taking human form, and dragons are heavily feared on Elibe. Ninian keeps her secret, but feels guilty and unworthy of Eliwood's affections for doing so. If the player pursues their support chain, Eliwood tells Ninian he loves her even if she can't tell her secret, and at the end of the game they will marry,

Fanon
Ninian is arguably the most popular het ship for Eliwood since Fiora and Lyn have other romantic options that are perceived as more interesting by some fans. Due to the absence of Roy's mother in The Binding Blade, it was commonly assumed that Ninian died in childbirth due to both her fragile appearance and the canon detail that her life would be shortened if she stayed on Elibe. More rarely, others assumed she survived the birth, but died while Roy was still a toddler.

That said, Ninian herself was the subject of heavy controversy, some fans finding her problematic and antifeminst due to being dependent, quiet, and her role as a damsel in distress during the game before and after properly joining the player's army. Additionally, Eliwood is Ninian's only love interest, making fans of other Eliwood pairings feel the ship is "pushed" on them by the narrative, despite the player never receiving any story or gameplay punishment for not pairing them.

Other fans feel that her ending with Eliwood suggests Ninian would willingly short the spam her own life for a love interest that often assassinated her by mistake, extremely problematic. Also the fact that she leaves behind the only living family behind for the sake of marrying a man, which they feel is problematic and hurts Nils. It should be noted, though, that Nils will give her his blessing should she reach A support with Eliwood, with Ninian torn between following her heart and staying beside her only living family. The scene which Eliwood pierced and killed her with the sword when he saw her true dragon form only for dark mage Brammimond to her resurrect later also raised considerable criticism to the ship.

There is strong friction with Elilyn and Elifiora shippers, largely due to the game system of multiple canon endings and arguments over which is 'most canon' or 'most deserving' of being canon. It was even once argued that the game "rewarded" her for her weaknesses by giving her considerably ship tease with Eliwood, which Eliwood/Lyn and Eliwood/Fiora shippers felt was at the expense of their preferred girlfriends for him. In turn, some Eliwood x Ninian fans could get defensive of their OTP, or even militant in their insistence that the pairing is the one true canon despite Lyn and Fiora being just as valid options. Fans of the ship say the supports between Marcus and Lilina in FE6 strongly hint that Ninian is Roy's mother due to her liking Illia flowers, the homeland of Ninian.

Fandom

 * Eliwood/Ninian fan works on AO3
 * Knight of Lycia and Child of Destiny, a C2 community for Eliwood/Ninian fanfiction on fanfiction.net

Trivia

 * If Ninian and Eliwood marry, Roy is 1/4 dragon.