Disclaimer: I do not own the characters mentioned; all rights to Konami.
A/N: Just a ficlet I wrote in the dead of the night. Dedicated to my heterosexual lifemate. Warnings for hints of homosexuality (Aldo/Ted, Lazlo/Ted, Tir/Ted) and death.
It has been said that one's life flashes in front of your eyes just before you die. Ted himself had never experienced it, but he recalls how loved ones, acquaintances, and even anonymous soldiers or ruffians died and can't quite remember if they paused, just for an instant, to remember everything.
But it hardly mattered, because here in the dank prison where he had been kept for the past weeks (months?) he surely had more than enough time to look back on three hundred years of life. It wasn't such a huge task as people may think, when a lot of it amounted to traveling, war, and more traveling. The only time he didn't reflect was when the Witch, the sadistic woman she was, took him out to play like a little toy, cooing over how he hadn't changed and how much she simply missed him-- usually just before striking out in a fit of temper and leaving him for the cells again.
And of course, there were also days where Ted wondered why she didn't just kill him. He had no usefulness, and the rumors of how Tir recently was moving through Scarlet Moon, raising a resistance in that Toran Castle of his, had reached even Ted's ears. For this, a distant part of Ted was proud, that his best friend was doing what he himself had never been able to do. But a part that was closer to Ted's heart was sad, knowing full well what had caused Odessa Silverberg's death and to give Tir such an opportunity against the Witch.
Those day's were growing fewer, however. The faint connection Ted still had to the rune gave him vague dreams of Tir's current life, and when Master Teo's and Gremio's sudden presence in the dreams occurred, he was able to piece together more of what was happening outside. So when the Witch gloated, and because she didn't always watch what she said, Ted was able to figure out just what her plans were with relative ease.
In the end, the plan was simple. The Witch knew that Ted still had a connection to the rune, for True Runes never forget their former master's easily, and she would use that, use Ted's body against Tir, to gain the rune back. Afterwards? Ted may be a mere trophy, or perhaps even a weapon, seeing as the old levels and skills he tried so hard to hide were now exposed due to the power of the Witch's rune.
But Ted had experienced more war and bloodshed than the Witch, who had always preferred living a life of easy leisure, and knew full well how to counter such a trap.
With a counter-plan in mind, Ted waited patiently as the Witch herself bided time, entertaining himself with memories in a body that could do nothing but blink. For Ted was used to silence, was used to darkness, and his will was not going to be as easily broken as his body was by merely being thrown in a dark room. There was, Ted thought, going to be no memories to flash in front of his eyes at the end if this kept up.
Such a thought was almost enough to make him laugh, if he was able to, but his body continued to breathe at it's steady pace and only Ted's eyes stung and watered, as if he held his breath too long. It wasn't though he knew what was going to happen for sure, he only had the choice to try and make it happen. So who said he didn't have the choice to have the happier memories as his last thoughts, either?
Yes, the happier memories. Like the days of the Village, where everyone lead a simple life. Of Grandpa, with his all his stern gentleness. The few times he let himself fall in love, and how he could remember with clarity the fall of Aldo's long, black hair across an inn's pillow and yet couldn't remember the name of the blond archer he sometimes worked with.
But also, of the more ironic nostalgia, like when sixty years earlier, he and Lazlo bumped into each other on a deserted battlefield and then spent all their time together since... or at least until the next big war, when they both moved apart due to fearing what their runes could tempt.
And finally Tir, with his happy grin, and how sheltered from the world he was and yet how he also was the quickest of all of them all to be able to make Ted smile and laugh and enjoy life as it was, if even for only the mere two years they were together. How Tir had made him absolutely selfish for the want of a family and how his smile was all that was needed to make Ted stay.
Yes, Ted thought, Tir's smile would make a good last flashback. A sad face would be so much more heartbreaking and so much more difficult to deal with. He would much prefer the thought of Tir to be a happy one, if only out of selfishness and to let Ted delude himself into thinking Tir could live life as full as he could and not be bogged down by loneliness.
And with that thought, Ted felt his body being tugged by the Witch's summoning and kept Tir's smiling face in his mind as one small rebellion, before being completely summoned to the Witch's side.