My thoughts blur into a mess when I think of you, and you better get used to it, cause a whirlwind is the only way how I'm ever gonna think of you.
That's a little unbecoming of the Khan Regent. I was always the sharp one. You have to be to get this far, to be a Khan. I was always trained to be better. That wasn't a fate laid out for me. Damn fate, like I need to be told what I'm gonna do. I didn't become Khan because it was magically going to occur. I am not so weak as to rely on mythical guidance taking the steps for me.
Though maybe if I did rely on fate it would get me around all this pain.
That's not something to say. I'm sorry, milady. I not only shouldn't minimize you, I couldn't. Forgetting you is gonna be damn near impossible for me. Even if it's just for me. Okay, I should… you weren't no one, you have people in the Ylissean Knights that could never forget you, what an influence you were on them. I'm just saying.
On that day, they acted like only one body hit the ground. And there I go, minimizing someone's death again. Especially the ruler of someone else's kingdom. My thoughts probably wouldn't be good for foreign relations. But even though I wasn't at peak processing Flavia, I recalling several people falling from the sky, out of reach, out of time. I knew I couldn't have run fast enough to catch you, and that's what the oaf tried telling me, but damn it, I wasn't gonna hit my dying bed one day without being able to say that I tried.
And I know, too, because we just had the Exalt's funeral. I wish you were there. You'd have said everything that needed to be said so soon, in that succinct way you always do. Maybe play some music that could stop a stampede in its tracks, bend anyone around the strings of your harp like you did me. Maybe if you did that, you could have shown me how one could think anyone's death mattered more than yours.
And even then I still would have told you that you were gods-damned wrong.
It's gonna be yours in a day. I don't expect there to be a parade in your honor, or thousands to attend with their hearts on their sleeves. I don't expect everyone to feel like they lost something they'll never get back. And I don't expect a single speaker to say that nothing will be the same as it was when you were still alive.
But I guess I don't expect everyone to say the things I feel.
I remember you. It wasn't that long ago when I met you. Some people just have a habit of filling up a book after knowing them for so long. We had plenty of time, after all. I think that's what people didn't know. Our countries were neighbors, and not on bad terms ever since the new Exalt took over. You became her bodyguard, and I was one of the Khans, but as my role lessened (thanks to gods-damned Lon'qu so graciously relieving me of my rule) and and yours grew with Exalt Emmeryn, we managed to meet in the middle, and meet each other as more than the window dressing of foreign affairs.
You walked towards me with the sort of confidence that I rarely saw from a woman. You knew your skill, and nothing from all angry dissenters could measure as anything more than a gnat buzzing near your ear. If it were me, I would probably have thrown them to the ground, but you wouldn't give them the satisfaction of validation.
I immediately admired you.
Kind of strange, isn't it? I guess that's what people would think. A fierce leader like she, so strapping, whip-quick, outspoken, larger-than-life (and clearly full of herself) to fall for a bodyguard? Not just that, but to look up to her? They may say that, because they do not know you. Maybe if they did they'd be as enamored with you as I am.
They may know the concept of you- a stoic, strict commander who never smiled, who always fought on the frontlines, who never let the cost of war change her. But I've heard many a salesperson try and describe the mead they're hawking at me, even though they never drank the bottle they want me to buy.
The sales pitch for Captain Phila never would have prepared me for knowing her.
Wouldn't have prepared me for that graceless little titter underneath your breath when I cracked wise, a snort and breathless little hiss that you always pretended didn't exist even as you couldn't hide a devilish smile. (You seemed to get a kick out of me referring to Chrom as a crazy kid in a passive maternal way.)
Strict? And how! I thought my regimen was as tough as it got, but you busted me in half when I decided to take an "easy day" and train with another strong older woman. (We didn't stop fencing from sunrise to sunset.)
You for damn sure were far from stoic when you were with someone you trusted. You swore, you laughed, you sat up at night regretting things that went wrong (and you did all three a lot, let me tell you). You touched my skin in a way that tried to patch it up, palm on my shoulder cool and dedicated to doing something useful- which fit you pretty damn well.
The cost of war defined you. You had every right to break. I'm just amazed that you didn't. And I'm still not sure if you wouldn't or couldn't. Maybe you spent so much time where you wouldn't that you couldn't anymore. But it changed you. Every loss twisted you like a river, following the path you needed to survive. Cut parts from you that you didn't need but should have had. And all of it smacks me in the face with how much of a waste it was at the end.
The frontlines comment… that's one I think it's accurate. Accurate, but not even scratching the surface. You were on the frontlines of your own life. Everything you did had passion within it. Every time you talked, it was with all of you. You made cooled orders to your fellow knight and desperate proclamations to the Exalt with the same intensity in your voice, like every decision mattered.
When we talked, it was never about anything so big. I'd gossip about the fellow Shepherds from the perspective of a window shopper, and you'd sneak a little laugh, even as your eyes were on fire, like you shouldn't at the same time you wanted nothing more. I'd tell you about how harsh the winters were in Ferox, how it could hole you up in whatever home you had for weeks. (You asked how that differed from the summer months. I think I cackled like crazy, and you had the sneakiest freaking smile on your face like you weren't even gonna feign innocence.) You would tell me about what you wanted to do after the war, which involved even more training and even more leading the Knights. I asked what you would do after that, after it all was gone from your life, and you never bothered with an answer. It was like you didn't hear me.
I can't blame you. I plan to rule Ferox until the day I die. I plan to be eighty-nine, in my sickbed, still giving out orders. I plan to make history books where they praise my rule centuries after my time has gone. I want to make it so that I never really die. I'll never be as okay with dying as you were. It'll never be an acceptable demise. An inevitability. I will be a part of history just as much as you were okay with your pages flying away.
Gods, how did you do that? How were you okay with what you had? Why were you? Were you out of your mind?! Why did you never want to change it? Why was it enough? Because now, you're gone, and someday you'll be dead, and when I kick the bucket no one will sing your praises like I do. They may speak of you as a fantastic knight, a loyal bodyguard, but they'll never speak of you as someone who has the best laugh, someone who dedicated herself to strength, someone who cared deeply about the grief of her fellows more than her own, someone who could hold my hand and touch my shoulder and make me confess that I didn't know everything, and who made me feel okay with the fact that I wasn't some sort of deity when everything she did was to achieve perfection. Someone who loved me, who let me hold her, let me catch her like if she fell I would never find it all that bad, until you fell and it will never fucking be alright.
You did what you wanted. You were perfect in my eyes. You stood with your arms either behind your back or holding a spear or lance you used perfectly, twirling it around like a circus trick before it flew into the body of some brigand or enemy soldier. Your pegasus always came to your call, always treated you like the regent queen you were, and you caressed it as well as you did me when we couldn't sleep, letting us know we were loved.
And everything they say isn't perfect, every slip of the dedication you pledged to House Ylisse, every time you came back from a battle with scrapes and bruises, how you used to sneak to my tent when we all marched together and always look out the flaps like someone would find you out and deem you unworthy, the way you faltered when you tried to remove the armor from my chest (I still have a bruise from when you accidentally slammed it into my back trying to get to me) and when you lost your breath kissing me while I tried to give it back, well, that was perfect to me.
You were ten times the woman I will ever be. If fate exists, then damn it out of existence for spending so long accepting the fact that you would die before changing the world. Damn it for letting such perfection slip out of existence, out of consciousness. You're always going to be a goddess to me, one I wasn't worthy of, and if I have to worship you alone, then fate has truly missed out. And honestly, it's what it deserves, to let someone so divine slip from its fingers.
Okay, I'm getting emotional. This is a little ridiculous, I'll grant you that. It's happened to me before. It's gonna happen to me again. But goddamn, sometimes I have to step back and realize that even though I'm used to it happening all the time doesn't mean it doesn't happen too much. And to be quite frank I am not quite sure I like that I'm used to it. It's a defense mechanism, I know, but it shakes my bones as I try to stand when I realize how much loss I've experienced, how much we all have.
I'm sorry my words aren't like yours. I'm sorry they're a mess. I'm sorry that they don't honor your legacy like you deserve. I'm sorry that my tears have interrupted my thoughts, Gods that's pathetic. I'm sorry that I was the only one to see you for the beauty that you were. I'm sorry that the world didn't know how much we loved each other. I'm sorry that even if I were to tell the world everything that you are, you were, and how you never should be forgotten, I'll be the only one who will never forget you. I'm sorry about the fact that my life will move on and yours won't. I'm sorry I can't give you the peace that you never let yourself believe you deserved. I'm sorry… for a lot of things, really.
Sorry we don't have the time to fix it all.
But I'm not sorry that fate led me to you.
Someone has to remember who you really are, and I'll take that burden on myself. Even when thinking of you burns my heart and brings me to my knees. Even if the pain makes me wish I wasn't there to carry it, I'll never forget who you are.
That's a Khan's promise.