Summary: Elincia; when she is four, Elincia worries that her parents don't love her.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem, nor am I in any way, shape, or form associated with 20_Truths or any community similar to the aforementioned since I am lacking an LJ account.
1. When she is four, Elincia worries that her parents don't love her. She doesn't get to see them at all, really, and they gave her to Count Delbray and his wife to raise, after all. She never really gets over this worry.
2. Elincia's first major crush is on Ike, and she's positive that everyone knew about it. It's really very embarrassing, especially since she's aware that he will never return her feelings in that way.
3. She's gotten over her crush by now, of course, and she's glad to have Ike as a friend, possibly verging on a brother, and she thinks he really needs to get over his shyness and kiss Soren already.
4. Elincia is well aware that Geoffrey doesn't love her like a sister. She doesn't want to hurt his feelings, and she does love him like a brother, but that's really all that it is. She can't feel the same way about him that he does about her, and she says nothing, knowing that that is perhaps the worst thing she can do to him under the circumstances.
5. The man Elincia loves is one she cannot have, and so she knows that she could marry Geoffrey, but that would be lying to him and she doesn't want to give him less than he deserves.
6. Lucia is Elincia's sister, but Elincia now knows that she would sacrifice Lucia if she needed to for Crimea. She would hate it, but she would do it.
Lucia knows that, too.
7. Elincia is incredibly jealous of her "sister's" open relationship with the Hawk King's Eyes. They will never have children together, and they aren't married, but they enjoy each other's company whenever their paths cross.
She knows that what she is most jealous of is that Lucia can be with the man she loves, the man so close to the one that Elincia is in love with. But she buries that jealousy as deeply as she can, for Lucia definitely deserves to be happy, even if that happiness flings the bitter truth in her queen's face.
8. Elincia hates war and she hates killing, but some of her favorite memories are from traveling with everyone during those hectic wars.
9. When she has been on the Crimean throne for several years, Elincia looks into her family lines. She finds no close (living) relatives other than her unmarried and childless uncle, confirming the vague fear that she would need to marry and produce children.
Elincia swallows her heart, placing it under lock and key, and asks her uncle and Count Bastian about good marriage alliances.
10. She nearly screams at them when they both recommend Geoffrey.
11. When Geoffrey announces his engagement to Nephenee two days later, Elincia breaks out into tears of relief. Everyone else assumes that it is because of either joy or heartbreak.
12. A full year later, all of the rulers of the countries meet to reaffirm their friendships and the good relations between their homelands. All of the others mention Elincia's lack of an heir in some way.
Sanaki dances around her lack of a husband while Micaiah asks with a sad smile if she's planning on adopting. Skrimir wants to know if she's planning on adopting the laguz traditions while Kurthnaga hesitantly asks if she's found someone she likes. Nailah tells her quite bluntly that she doesn't need a husband if she doesn't want one and Tibarn teases her about not finding anyone up to her exacting standards.
Elincia wants to hate them all, scream that it's none of their business, run out of the room. Instead, she calmly asks Sanaki about the man courting her and lets that become the talk of the group.
13. Almost three years later, Elincia decides that enough really is enough and she needs to marry, regardless of personal feelings. She approaches one of the men of her Council whom she trusts and gets along with, and warns him that it's not because of personal feelings.
14. Elincia loves her son and daughter more than her husband, and even her young children pick up on that for she has always been a terrible liar.
15. When her husband dies of disease, her son calls her heartless and runs away to Greil's Retreat for a week. Her daughter says nothing, for she is truly her mother's daughter.
16. She wasn't expecting to see him at the funeral, and it throws her off balance. He looks at her closely, and says, "I'll never get you beorc."
She knows then that he would never marry someone he didn't love, and she thinks once again that the laguz way is better, but she can't—probably shouldn't—knock down years of beorc tradition just for a silly little whim, a silly little girl who loves who she shouldn't.
17. When her son is twenty-five, old enough to take the throne, capable enough to rule, she considers abdicating and running away, but that is a cruel fate to inflict on anyone, least of all her own son, and she has hurt him often enough.
18. When her daughter runs away to marry a tiger laguz, Elincia sends a note, telling her daughter to be happy. She smiles as Lyre collects the letter and runs it to Gallia, but as soon as she is alone, her composure shatters and she sobs into her hands. It's not fair, she thinks, and lets her son comfort her, thinking she mourns the loss of her daughter.
She wants him to think well of her, after all these years and all those cruelties, and it's not right for a mother to be jealous of a child.
19. Elincia grew up without the cage most royal children have, but she thinks that coming to it later in life makes it that crueler, that much harder to escape as her daughter escaped.
Her son would disagree if he knew what she thought.
20. She never quite reconciles with either child, and she dies having lived a full life without all of the joy that she should have had.
She is able to admit, on her deathbed, that it is her fault.