Selfish
a/n: Written circa November 2008.
This is another drabble I wrote for the Fire Emblem drabble community on livejournal (fe_drabble). Even though it never amounted to anything, I really, really liked this one, since I've always wondered how Mist reacted to these events.
In regards to the length of this; the word limit for the drabbles on the community each week is 500 words. Hence why it's short. ;)
The sun was setting, but she didn't feel cold. She didn't feel tired. She couldn't feel anything. Nothing.
Just separate things. Weak sunlight. Hard uneven ground. An edge of a rough axe. Her brother standing behind her. Her own words that she couldn't hear. She couldn't get her mind to link it all, to connect the pieces. Nothing fit.
Even when her brother spoke, still, nothing. Nothing, but to clutch her knees tighter, feel the strange sensation of her vision going bleary, and only be surprised at the freshwater tears that had already been running down her usually rosy cheeks.
When she realised it, she only wrapped herself up inside her mind more. To hide away from the reality that was overwhelming her. Making her sink down into the abyss, to naturally cling on to what she'd had. How odd it was... to have someone, to have something, and then to have it all stripped away...
And you couldn't even say goodbye.
She noticed in passing the texture of the ground had changed. Soft. Like sheets. Her head against a feather pillow. She was in her bed, staring up at the cold, hard, silent ceiling. She heard a door creak - it occurred to her she should say thank you to the retreating green haired figure, but he'd already left as she moved her frozen lips.
She thought a lot that night. Staring. Occasionally noticing someone ease open the door to check on her – worry in his eyes. Her own fear. Fear for what was to come. Fear for her brother. Fear for her family.
Her family.
There was still her family. Her brother, and the other mercenaries. They were still alive. They were still here, fighting. Doing what Greil would want.
What would have Greil wanted her to do? To never move on, to sit and to cry? Not forever. He would have wanted her to change... to move on, to keep living, to make her choices.
Mist knew her choices now. And she knew the one she wouldn't, couldn't, choose. The one she would, Ike would protest to the ends of the earth, but as light came over the fort through the slatted hole in the wall, her mind had decided.
"Ike?"
Ike looked at her, his face drawn. Sleepless. "What is it, Mist?"
"I'm going with you."
She wouldn't go back home like he wanted. She wasn't going to wait. She wanted to be there with them.
She was selfish... but in this war, she wasn't going to leave when her family could die.