category: Fire Emblem (SS)
disclaimer: I don't own it.
notes: A lot of people don't like Tana, but I find so much to be explored with her incessant need for approval.
The sleeve of her lance arm is stickily soaked and bright crimson by the time she registers that there is an arrow clean through the bone. Three seconds while the sniper a hundred feet below swiftly reloads for a precise shot and then Achaeus is screaming and they both are falling in a shower of red.
If anyone sees a plummeting figure from the sky, she does not know because no one rushes over when her pegasus slams into the ground and she rolls off and away from the impact. A river is nearly lapping at her feet, and if not for the shooting pain from the tips of her fingers to her shoulder, she could imagine she and Eirika are having another picnic away from the front lines. There are no cakes in a war, but they are allowed three hard biscuits each. Pour the tea, please, Tana.
Achaeus is screeching, and she forces herself to turn her head to at least see him alive once more. The clean green grass around him looks tarnished and rusty with his thick burgundy blood. His wings are fluttering uselessly – she is reminded of the fragile springtime butterflies that vanish within a week. She trains her glance away; this is not how she wants to remember her noble steed.
Perhaps reinforcements will come soon and spot her dying in this remote clearing and do something to stop all this bleeding. Any second now, maybe L'Arachel will dash in waving her physic staff and save her. And yet, she will possibly wither and pass away right here, with the soil between her fingers and the breeze tickling her ears.
She thinks of home. Her father's low, gravelly voice. How proud he was when Innes came back with his own battalion, victorious; when she for the first time unhorsed her commander Syrene during a practice spar. Frelia's hilltops, colored with pink and blue flowers and the endless sunshine. That room in the castle which no one entered anymore because it still carried traces of the Queen's warm scent. The stretching sea outside the windows of the summer house. The feeling of strong wind at her face when flying on cloudy days, and how she never got to fly as high as she wanted to.
She coughs and watches in horror as blood droplets land on her fist. Achaeus does not make any more noise. But the sun seems brighter than ever, gleaming and shimmering. She thinks there's some water in her eyes as her life is dangling on the edge of forever.
She hopes Innes won't despair too much. They were never the closest of siblings, but she is confident he never forgets the inherent ties between them. There was that time she sprained her wrist taking a nasty fall from an unbroken horse and he shook her hard and didn't let go for a quarter of an hour. She's never stopped worrying about him away from her and father, fighting in foreign lands.
She prays Ephraim will have the strength to move on and stop this never-ending war. When he does, he will claim his throne and be the finest king Renais will see. He will live and prosper. It seems unbearably unfair to her. She and Ephraim are together at last, waiting and planning and talking about the things they'll do and the places they'll see once things are normal again, hopeful for the near future and the beginning of the rest of their lives. And still everything, all that happiness, has to be snatched away. She pleads to every higher power for him to never forget his first love.
She knows Eirika will be fine, for she is always smiling and optimistic, without fail. They've been the best of friends for many many years, so naturally Eirika will weep. But she has her silver general to pull her through, and the prospect of a happy nation to rebuild after these battles. She'll get over the loss soon. Everyone will. No one in the world is entirely indispensable, not even her strong father or resilient brother or fearless beloved. With time, the dead princess of Frelia will become a memory of a valiant martyr, the image of a perfect being she is not. She wishes fervently that not many will see her as this mess of grime and drying blood, with her hair – her prized beauty – dirty and dull and disheveled.
She waits. She listens to clanging of faraway swords and distant groans, of a battle she should be in. The sky starts to change color from a blue afternoon to the faintest tinge of orange horizon. The bleeding from her wound slows to a trickle, and even though she never plucked the courage to pull out the arrow and be done with it, she's sure she's lost cups and cups of blood. She can't force herself to look at the sorry excuse for her arm, but she knows everything is red by now. Her sleeve, her white dress, the tips of her hair, the forgiving earth. Red. She feels faint all at once.
There comes with fading out of life a certain raised cognizance of one's surroundings. Even as her mind is fogging up, Tana hears muted crickets and faraway bird calls and the patter of soft paws, sounds she'd never heard once before. She tries and tries to remember the color of her dress at her fifteenth birthday celebration, but the fact slips. Was it the color of water? Of the clouds floating up above? Of the grasshopper moving past her foot? She cannot recall and is instantly frustrated: at her incapacity, at the throbbing in her muscles, at whoever is causing this to happen to her.
She lies flat on her back, right arm stiff and unmoving, all her limbs going numb. She waits.
The color in the sky warms slowly over time, and there are footsteps in the underbrush nearby. Tana feels she has been lying in the grass for days, or maybe it has been ten minutes. Three bodies emerge from the patch of woods, all running to her side and collapsing on the discolored ground next to her, each saying something all at the same time so she can't discern a single word. Innes grasps her shoulder with the force of pincers, Eirika rubs comfortingly at her knuckles, Ephraim establishes a steady pattern in stroking her hair, and she uses every mite of self-control not to break into a fit of red coughing. And suddenly everyone except her is crying, in stifled sniffs and silent tears and gasping sobs. She registers their shallow breathing and revels in the burning of their hands with a sharp awareness.
Tana looks at gathering of faces and offers a trembling smile in a fleeting moment of clarity. "I've long been prepared for this day," she musters with the last of her flagging energy. A deep part of her recognizes that this was the minute she'd been waiting for, a semblance of normalcy in seeing friends as her world is shattering into seven hundred pieces.
This is it. So she gathers a deep, painful breath and exhales a whisper through the trees. "Too long…"
She leaves them behind and finally soars to the sun.
notes: For some reason, I'm captivated by Fire Emblem death scenes. Some of the lines are truly poignant, and I want to write about the all the glorious characters (which I might).