She had always loved fairy tales, but being the rational and logical person she was, she knew that she would never be a part of them.
That had not stopped her from wishing, however.
The way in which evil was always eventually vanquished by the good, the way the long and arduous journeys always fulfilled some great purpose, the way the princess would always find her true love waiting for her at the end of it all—these were all part of some surreal utopia she knew she would never achieve.
But she had never stopped dreaming.
So, when she suddenly found herself caught in the midst of a great war, a war which would determine the fate of the continent forever, a war in which she, the most ordinary, most mediocre little girl was the tactician, the master tactician who would lead the greatest army to be recorded in history to that long sought after victory which would bestow peaceful times on the lands and overcome the evil once and for all, she knew she had walked into a dream that she never wanted to wake up from.
All the legends, all the heroic stories that were to follow, they were living, walking, breathing all around her. She was seeing, hearing, in every respect part of them, part of this legend, weaving and creating this tale. After so much wishful thinking, she had finally, finally found herself being part of the fairytale she had always wanted to be in.
But as time went on, she realized that she was never truly part of it.
All the grand adventures, all the great journeys – she was there, she witnessed them, but nothing more. Always, always, whenever danger was at hand, whenever those events which were worthy of being put into myths and tales happened, she became virtually transparent, merely a passer-by, observing the course of events, never to take part in them, never to confront the enemy face-to-face. That was the role of the heroes, not the tactician. The tactician merely strategized, constructed hypothetical scenarios in her head and selected the best course of action for the heroes to carry out.
After all, she was but a little girl, a mere tactician in the majestic course of history.
So, at the end of it all, when everything has been done, when all conflicts have been solved and the world has been brought to everlasting peace, like in every fairytale—when all was over and would only continue to exist in the form of stories and legends, they would only tell of those valiant deeds. Deeds of the heroes, of the lords. They are the ones who would be mentioned in those stories, almost a myth, unreachable, revered like a legend—they are the ones who would have their lives and deeds recorded, remembered, they are the ones to be woven into those timeless tales, to be preserved eternally through the fabric of time, to be revisited, time and again, by their descendants—they are the ones, not a mere tactician who had simply given the commands quietly, unseen, shrouded and overshadowed by all those heroic acts. In the end, who would remember a simple wandering tactician in their tales of the glorious past? Who would care about how the war had been slowly turned in their favour by intricate planning and exacting execution? They would only want to hear about the moment of glory, a blow-by-blow account of how the final evil had been defeated, vanquished forever. Perhaps a line or two would be devoted to her brilliant strategies, but nothing more. She was doomed to fade away, a mere shadow of the past whom no one would remember in those gallant stories of the times of old.
After all, she was but a little girl, a wandering tactician flitting in the forgotten past.
Then there was him. He whom she had secretly admired, he whose words she had all committed to memory, no matter how insignificant it had been, he whose every laugh, every smile at her she had treasured deeply in her heart. Somewhere in her, she knew she had always hoped for the possibility, however small, that he would be her knight in shining armour and rescue her from the harsh reality, that he would bring her into their own fairytale.
But she knew that it just wasn't possible.
He was a hero; one of those whose names would go down into the legends and live for eternity through those stories. He had great things laid ahead of him, epics of the knightly, chivalrous kind of love befitting for a hero. His destiny would never cross with hers, she who was only a transient, fleeting, insignificant part of his life. In fact, she herself had been the one who had driven him to that destiny, who had commanded him to fight alongside the one he now loved so madly. After all, who was she to interfere with fate? She was in no position to take his love, in no position to force herself into his life. He was a hero, and she a commoner; fairytales would never have it that way. The hero would only have his princess, and that was why she fit so well into the tale, for she was also, in every aspect, as much a legend as he was. Others would say that they were meant to be together, and that would be true. She had no right to intrude into their lives.
After all, she was but a little girl, an insignificant tactician who had by chance crossed the lives of the great heroes.
With a sigh and a longing, almost passionate gaze at his face, he who was entirely, completely ignorant of her existence, she tried to take in everything—every line which made up his face, every curve which showed how the wind played with his hair, every crease in his clothes—before she finally reached for the switch and flicked it to the "off" position, watching the last pixels which made up his face fade slowly from the tiny screen in front of her.
Heaving a final sigh, she closed the device and stashed it into her bag, where it was soon buried by a pile of worksheets, notes and stationery. The fantasy had ended. It was time to return to the real world.
After all, she was but a little girl, never meant to be part of the fairytale.
A/N: The girl is, in no way, supposed to be me. It's just another player who has fallen in love with a fictional character, as we all have. This doesn't even have to be Elibe, actually.
I tried my best making the male character generic. And hence I couldn't do much description of him either.