It's interesting, Archanea always gets such a bad rep among some fire emblem fans, but I actually really like it even though the world doesn't seem to be as full or detailed as say Jugdral or Tellius. And since I both own a copy of Shadow Dragon and a device to play it on consistently, I figured I'd give a shot at writing one of my favorite characters during a break from the fic from hell.
So without further adeiu, have some angst.
Just as a child knows that nothing lasts forever, Tiki knew that she would watch everyone she knew die. But it didn't prepare her for the pain.
Mar-Mar had always been there. Even when his hands had grown too tired to hold his sword, and the blue in his hair gave way to grey, he'd been there when she woke crying in fear, or when she was lonely, or just because. He celebrated the happy times and mourned the sad with her, and she lost track of how fast those years could go. He'd already been twenty when she'd come to stay.
And yet there was a part of her that noticed that first he struggled to read the fine, fading ink on her favorite books, relying on a memory that was not perfect to tell her the tales of when dragons walked the earth without fear or special stones to protect their power till it ran out with overuse. That noticed when he no longer got up quickly every night when she began to cry from her nightmares that snapped at her little feet no matter how fast she ran. That noticed when he stepped down from ruling and let his son, the man she'd thought of as brother when he was the same as her. How fast it had all passed, in story nights and days to play, and suddenly there was no more time.
He died after sixty one years, and she knew that he would, but not so soon. Caeda had been the one to go to her room that morning, with gray hair coiled into the fine braid that she'd taken up after becoming queen, and told her that Mar-mar had died.
And then she'd cried and cried, and was held, but that didn't bring comfort. Because for the first time in all of her centuries, something had happened that she couldn't will away with dragon breath or any of the perks that immortality and long years never changing brought her. Knowing something in your head does not know you know it in your heart, and she didn't want to accept that the father she'd chosen, who'd always tucked her in and soothed her, andbeen there, was gone. For good.
And with that unwilling acceptance, she grew. Not in her body, she would stay young for a very long time, but in her soul. A death close to her changed the way that she always saw things. And still it didn't help when Caeda passed on too, scant years later. And with that, she was alone. The children who had grown up past her didn't want her to need them, and she didn't want to lose them too. She learned how to withdraw, how to pull back. And still it didn't help as the last of the humans from the great wars died around her, having lived out a whole life while she was a child.
Once, Mar-Mar had read her a story that she'd told him to put away after the first time, but there was a dragon and a human in it. And the human had said to the dragon on his death bed "We are as mayflies to you. We pass by so quickly, and we can't come back." and he'd said "I'm sorry." But sorry didn't change anything.
And even withdrawn and knowing that it would never change, Tiki could not stop loving those mayflies for all they were. Even when they were gone.
Just like the humans to the animals that pass them by in lifespans that barely encompass theirs, she still would remember them.