Author's notes: A little thingy for everyone crying because Shanz/Frederick isn't canon. Here's something so not canon it hurts: A drabble of an alternate good future.
The reason I wrote it was because I got hit with inspiration and I found myself shipping Shanzira/Frederick myself. Still not going to be canon, because I'm not a slave to shipping.
This is so meta, I'm writing a fanfic of my own fanfic.
"Noel, must I remind you again to stay close to me? You don't know the sort of people you'll encounter."
I turn and blow raspberries at my brother. He's such a worrywart! Biggest worrywart ever! "Are you saying you don't trust your own people, big bro?" I place my fists on my hips and smirk at him. I'm sure I have him this time–
"Must I remind you that you, mother, and I are all targets of the dreamhunters?" Cedric's face remains stoic as always. Gaaahhhh. I keep trying to respond with wit, and he just ignores me and flat-out logicks his way out.
I wish I had a brother who I could actually have wit spars with, but noooo. Cedric managed to inherit NONE of it. Even none from Dad, who might look serious, but MAN is he a good snarker. Easy to see why Mom married him. I hope I can marry a cute guy one day, but–
"Noel."
I just can't think in peace, can I? I turn back to my straight-faced, straight-laced, and nut-cased of a brother. (I could've done better than that, argh.) I ball my hands back into fists, punch them into my hips and keep them there, and show him the best pout I can manage. And I'm a spitting image of Mom, only cuter, so I can pull that off really well.
One of Cedric's eyes twitches, concealing a bit of brown iris behind red lashes. He reaches out and grasps my wrist– whoa, I'm going to have trouble breaking that grip, but he's not cutting off bloodflow or anything. Grr. He knows exactly how to toe the line. He got Dad's standards and Mom's ability to be good at everything. Me? I just got wits and magic and potential for badass.
His eyebrows curve into gentler lines of auburn as he squats to my height (He's really tall, and I... Well, I'm like Mom. Little bitty) and whispers, "Noel, you're my only sister. I look out for you because I love you. So don't run off and get yourself hurt, all right? Mother and Father would never forgive themselves if anything happened to you." He takes in breath and steels himself to say the next thing: "They seem to love you more than me, at any rate, so I must protect you."
I introduce my heel into his toes.
While he's howling in pain– you'd think he'd have learned to wear steel-toed boots by now!– I scold him. "Listen, buster. I don't know what makes you think Mom and Dad like me more. You're my big brother, their first son, and you're good at everything you do, to boot. Oh, and did I mention Mom keeps kitties around just to make you happy? I might be a little ray of sunshine, but without you they'd still be sad."
At the mention of kittens, Cedric went red in embarrassment. "Not in public, Noel. Please. No one needs to know–"
"That a knight of Ylisse has a weakness for all things fluffy? That you call Father "Daddy-bear"? That Mom's collection of squishies is heaven to you?"
This I got from Mom, the habit of embarrassing my brother. We used to wrestle when we were little, and he always won, so this is me getting back at him. While I'm at it, I pick up a stray cat off the pavement and hold it up to him.
Instantly his eyes grow round as coins. He takes the cat and begins to stroke it, mew at it, and whisper words of affection. See? Every time he sees something fluffy, he hugs and kisses it. He can't help it. He thinks they're ridiculously cute and loses control of himself.
About a minute later, the cat worms out of his grip and runs off, ears folded back. After that, Cedric promptly wraps his arms around me in a tight bear hug. Urf!
It's mean of me to use his weakness like this, but it's sooooo useful. He'd grill me half as often as he normally does. "Can we go home now?" I whisper to him. The crowd in the city just got really thick, and I don't wanna have to weave my way through.
He smiles at me and ruffles my hair– Oh, Naga! It took half an hour to tame those curls! Why?!– before saying, "Of course." He stands, lifting me with him, and I quickly streeeetch on my toes and ruffle up his red hair as well.
The crowd actually moves out of the way, but that's because nobody messes with the son of Frederick.
Thus concludes another time Lamby decided to play with everyone's feels. I wrote this as a filler or something. A present. A side-story. Yeah. Like a paralogue, or a... xenologue. Hmmm.
