Take's place more or less before the final battle. More over, Natalia's still struggling with who she is with the most recent events, and hence, is having a few reflective moments. I really love Natalia's character development in-game, so I thought it might be interesting to poke at her identity. As it is, I only torture the characters I love. So. Ha.
Validation
Sometimes, in the evenings when the night was quiet and the only sounds in the forest were the monsters and her companions' breathing around her, Natalia let herself dwell on the things she found the most intolerable. Usually, Asch's absence was the one that kept her awake on watch duty, her mind turning gears as she'd wonder where he was then, but truly, she was selfish, and sometimes, she thought about the things she shouldn't have.
Like her father. The situation with Luke. Jade's inventions. Tear's selfless facade. Guy's past. Anise's betrayal. Asch's determination to keep her at arms' length and all the other events that sent her head spinning.
Her non-royal heritage. Her execution. Badaq's resolve as she struck him down with deadly precision and he congratulated her as he fell to the ground.
Apparently, obstinacy seemed to run in the bloodlines, she thought bitterly.
It wasn't to say she was a princess, by blood or heritage or memories or neither, but truly, she was not, no matter what the people thought of her. She was her father's daughter, at the very least, not the King's, eighteen years of memories her token of validation on that. But the dirt under her fingernails said otherwise to her royalty, the callouses on her palms where once soft skin had been evidence to her trials. There was a hardness to her now, an edge, that she shouldn't have had to obtain as a princess. Natalia knew, in between the lines, that leaving Baticul had been one of the most foolish things she'd ever done in terms of protecting her people from war times—and while she regretted it, she didn't regret the bitter lesson taught. She'd learned. She'd grown up. She'd experienced the world first hand with her own eyes and not had to fuss over documented reports of this or that. And the people—they had loved her for it. But she didn't understand how they could stand to call her royalty when dirt streaks marred her face, when, even with half the world at her fingertips, she couldn't keep war or fomicry's nightmares at bay.
Princesses were supposed to be pristine creatures of grace and subtle authority. They were supposed to live in their castles, listen to their fathers and marry their fairytale prince when they came of age. They were supposed to be nescient of everything but their own needs and those of their king. They were also supposed to sit in on council meetings with their betrothed, quietly sipping tea to chase away fatigue from late nights of negotiation bouts, and eventually, when the time was right, they were supposed to take another step and carry on the bloodline of kings both past and present. Looking now at where she was, Natalia didn't feel the desire for any past pieces of the life she'd once lead. She was supposed to be that girl, sitting by King Ingobert's side as a representative of her country, reprimanding him when he strayed from the wrong path or slipped his tongue in speech, but she wasn't, and truly, she didn't think she ever could have been.
She wasn't Natalia. No, not the princess version of herself she'd once been. 'Meryl' rang like a bell in her head. It looked nice on paper, calm, lovely cursive with a curl on the ending letter. But it wasn't grand. Not like a princess' title. It didn't fit her to use, no matter how she wrote it, often with tongue in cheek and a nagging conscience to boot. 'Meryl' was, at the very least, a keepsake of a past she'd never wanted to know. And perhaps, unknowingly, however small that part may be, 'Meryl' was that other half of herself she hadn't known she was searching for on the journey she'd taken, and in compromising with the princess she was supposed to be, the one she was raised to be, that made up the young woman known as Natalia—the Natalia who was bound to her people, and not to her crown.
[Meryl was Natalia. The princess was Natalia. But it didn't go both ways.]
If she had never made that decision to follow after Luke, who was to say she still wouldn't be in her castle? Still worrying about what she should be doing, worrying about her identity - or better, lack of -still worrying about him, and not acting on what was necessary?
She wasn't exactly happy about where she was now either, waiting for Van to hand them their next clue, passing the time with quiet talk over trivialities as the God-Generals tracked their every movement across the globe, and the clock ticked down a little faster, ticks down, ticks down, and Asch had strayed uncomfortably far out of her reach.
She could accept that she wouldn't be able to save everyone, she could accept the world's harsh truths, and she could accept that a future may not be feasible at this point in time if they didn't stop the man behind it all—but she refused to accept failure. She refused to accept a name that wasn't hers to take. Failure meant she was too weak, that, as a person, an individual, with the ability and will to follow through with her decisions, she had not grown enough even with the will and resolve of someone who had learned, she still fell short of the mark she needed to prove herself otherwise. Of course, failure was better than simply lying down the flag from the beginning; it was better than doing nothing at all, but it wasn't good enough, and it would never be good enough if she lost the most important battle of her life to her own inerrant ability to mature, to her own lack of understanding of herself.
She wasn't a princess, staying up late on watch duty with bags under her eyes and faded claw marks on her arms from monsters; she wasn't a princess, not the one Asch could recall with that faint trace of a smile on his face he never showed but she knew was there, beneath the mask and brilliant emerald eyes as they shared a story or two; she wasn't 'Meryl', her father's dead daughter lost to politics, or her mother's daughter who'd drowned herself in her own despair when reality crippled her; no, she was Natalia, Natalia of Auldrant, and she had a duty to her people as a fellow citizen, as a fellow inhabitant, to do her part in keeping the world safe from harm.
—Or at least, when her thoughts strayed from selfless to selfish, and her lids felt heavy, that's what she told herself to ease the ever present discomfort of the truth. She's no princess, no one's dead daughter, no queen or anyone divine. She's as weak and lost as the rest of the world, and Natalia hates the fact that a title means nothing without the iron strength of a thousand behind it.
Certainly, there must be something she has overlooked.