The whole existence of the "Doomed" Timeline could potentially make the whole Outsider thing a little complicated. Let me assure you that I don't show up to advise anyone who's in that timeline.
Sure, somewhere out there there's a version of you who's not getting my masterful teachings and will inevitably die, and just because you aren't in the doomed timeline doesn't mean you can't screw it up this timeline somehow.
But, hey, at least Lucina will be there! So that's...that's…
...So, anyway, enough about that! Future me! Yeah, that's only a little existential crisis-y.
So after I met him, we went back to the bar. The other Shepherds had already left by then, and the place was pretty empty. However, apparently future me had made a deal with the bar-owner to lodge in the upper room as payment for his performance, so we were allowed to stay.
"Do you want ice?" The future me asked, as he poured whiskey into a cup. "It's cold enough here, but whiskey does taste somewhat better with ice." He set the glass he just filled in front of him and poised the empty glass in front of me.
I wasn't really focusing on him, but rather observing his appearance. It's not every day you get to see what you'll look like when you grow up. His face had a few scars on it, but nothing too bad. His eyes the same as mine, but they seemed more tired, which made sense, considering where he came from. His hair was graying, in a salt-and-pepper sense, with gray and white hairs littered amongst the brown hair. It almost made the white spot on his head less noticeable. He had also grown out a short beard, which also had the same salt-and-pepper pattern. When I grow out my facial hair, I usually just grow the chin strap, but he had the whole thing, upper lip and all.
His cloak was a dark blue, as opposed to my green one. His armor under the cloak looked a lot like mine, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized it was made of a stronger material. I couldn't get a good look at it, but his sword looked strong and decorated. I bet it had a name. I would totally name a sword, that's a me thing to do.
His lute...wasn't actually a lute. It appeared to be an acoustic guitar, which is surprising. I must have been so distracted by the song, I must not have noticed what it was being played on. Do those even exist in this world? Did he make it on his own? Do I know how to do that? Do I know how to play one?
"Kid?" He repeated himself. "Do you want a drink?"
"Huh?" I asked, somewhat caught off guard. "Oh, yeah, sure."
Future me looked at me strangely, dropped a few ice cubes into the cup, and passed me the cup. "So, before you bombard me with a bunch of questions, I'm going to lay down some ground rules." He folded his hands on the table. "First: I'm not going to tell you any shipping stuff. I know all these kids and their parents, so I don't want you to fuck things up for them."
"Sure." I replied, taking a small sip of the whiskey. "...Tastes warm."
"Yeah, I figured you'd like it." He replied, smiling. "You remember that party at Fish's, when Denz had that Irish whiskey he let you take a few sips of?"
"It wasn't really that much of a party." I commented. "It was mainly a bunch of friends hanging out and getting drunk together. It was fun to see drunk Shields ramble about history."
Future me laughed. "Yeah. He cornered Mitch and rambled about some European war. And Bars was still mad at Bunker for dropping him in that group chat with his exes."
I laughed. "Or that time we all put a crapton of random people in a random group chat-"
"-And I kicked all of us out, leaving all those random people there!" He laughed. "Man, that was evil!"
"Hey, I did it more recently then you did." I jokingly accused him.
He smiled. "Was that a joke? Do you think you're funny or something?"
"I'll have you know I won an award for being funny!" I exclaimed, jumping on the punch line.
"You know as well as I do that was because all the other funny freshmen weren't in improve first semester." Future me commented, taking a sip.
"I'll take it where I can get it. I don't win a lot of things." I added, jokingly.
"Actually-" He began to say, before pausing. "Hmm. That might be a spoiler."
"Come on!" I smiled. "If it's not about shipping, you can tell me! We both know those are the only important things."
He smiled lightly. "There are more important things, but I see your point. You already know everything about the future, and, considering everything that's going to change, there's no reason for me to keep that a secret. As I was saying, we actually get knighted in the future."
"Really?" I said. "That's badass!"
"I know!" He exclaimed. "We had to make up a last name, though. I chose to be knighted as Sir Eddard Aries, royal bard to the Ylissean Royal Family."
"...So you were a knight and a royal bard?" I asked.
"It was kind of more of a honorary thing. It'll probably happen to you as well, so that's something to look forward to." He replied. "For example, Robin was knighted as well, but he was mainly focused on strategy stuff. Well, he was before everything went to shit." He added, his eyes softening and his gaze lowering. His mood seemed to sink, which was understandable.
"...You want to talk about it?" I asked.
"Not really." He replied. "All you need to know is that it was awful. It's not something you'll have to experience, so I'm just not going to tell you."
You'll notice how my story telling methods differ from my future self's style.
Also, to make this easier, I'm just going to refer to him as Aries from this point on. Saying 'Future me' is a bit too repetitive.
"Alright then." I replied, knowing how I usually acted when it came to talking about my feelings. I was great for a joke, but I always have trouble opening up. "So why are you here?"
"Do you mean here in the past of here in Forex?" Aries asked.
"Let's start with the past." I replied.
"I just sort of survived." He replied. "You know, you know stay alive long enough and know the right dragons, and suddenly you wind up in the past." He paused. "By the way,the children don't know I survived, but I'll reveal myself to them in due time. Just don't spoil it for them."
"Gotcha." I said. I wouldn't actually see the brats for well over two years, so that was an easy promise to make. "Now why are you here, as in Ferox?"
"Honestly, I just wanted to watch Lucina fight Chrom." Aries replied, smiling. "She's grown so much over the past few years. I'm proud of her."
"Hey, I thought you said you weren't going to spoil anything about the children, but you're spouting stuff about being proud of Lucina!" I exclaimed jokingly.
"Spoiler alert: You aren't Lucina's mother." He countered. "I'll give you a moment to let that sink in."
"But Chrom's so dreamy…" I joked, clasping my hands together and sighing, which got a laugh from Aries.
"Ok, easy there, Cordelia!" He replied, smiling. "Speaking of the kids, there are some small things I should tell you. No big spoilers, but I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into."
"Alright." I said, leaning back in my chair. "Shoot."
"First of all, while I'm not going to tell you anything about how we fit in the shipping charts, I can tell you that, since we're the last surviving Shepherd, we eventually take all the kids in." Aries said.
"Well, I mean technically Robin-" I began to say, but the way he narrowed his eyes at me made me think better. Right, this wasn't some fan speculation, but rather something Aries actually lived through. "A-Anyway, you went all Mother Hen. Anything else?"
"You can probably guess how all the kids view you, depending on their personalities." He continued, ignoring my flub. "The only outlier I can think of would be Nah."
"Nah?" I asked. "What different about her?"
"You haven't met Nowi yet, but you might remember that she and her husband died shortly after having Nah." He said, a distant look in his eyes. "In the original story, Nah was bounced around a bunch of foster homes, although she was never really accepted. Most of the time, her foster parents treated her horribly."
"Yes, and that's just awful." I said, nodding along. He raised his brow at me. "I haven't even met Nowi yet, so Nah's still kinda a character to me."
"She's not one to me, but I see your point." He replied. "Anyway, knowing all of that, I decided to screw that nonsense and adopt her myself. It was frustratingly easy to convince her first foster parents to give her up. They literally made me buy her from them. She was terrified until I explained to her that I knew her parents. From that point on, I raised her as my own. She spent more time under my care then she did with her own parents."
"...Huh." I thought about this. I always liked the idea of being a parent. I don't know, there's just something nice about being there for someone like that that appeals to me. Knowing that I had that kind of relationship with Nah was actually kind of nice.
Also, considering the fact that he said he wasn't going to tell me anything about how the pairing work out, it was possible I had another kid of my own…
Speaking of that…
"Hold on a second." I said. "Did you just spoil a shipping thing to me? You just told me Nah wasn't your child, meaning you didn't marry Nowi!"
"...Were you even considering marrying Nowi?" He asked, furrowing his brow. "Believe me, the character art doesn't do justice to how young she looks."
"I probably wouldn't have married her, but it's more of the principle of it." I replied. "Kinda like seeing dicks in Game of Thrones."
"It's not that you want to see it, you just want to know that it's there." He replied, remembering the philosophy I had thought up with my friends from home. "That actually reminds me. You've probably been so caught up with your new musical skills that you haven't noticed your new storytelling skills."
"What about them?" I asked. I've mainly been playing songs to everyone, but, now that I think about it, once we go to war, I'll have to start providing them with more subtle entertainment.
"Knowing you like I know you- which is pretty well- you were planning on retelling a bunch of old stories and movies from our world." He said, a knowing smile on his face.
"...Probably." I admitted.
"A convenient new ability of ours is the ability to tell any story ever." He said.
"Any story?" I asked.
"Anything." He replied. "It's sort of the same feeling of playing a song."
"Yeah, but aren't stories a bit more...vague?" I asked. "Would I be able to tell them any story, like a random play written by an English student, or an old man's crazy ramblings?"
"Just whatever you can think of." He replied. "If you only think you remember a little bit of a story, you'll remember all of it. It's subtle, but handy." He finished off whatever was left of his whiskey.
"Right." I said, finishing off my own whiskey. "Is that everything you wanted to tell me?"
"...Yeah, I guess so." He said, standing up, pulling a few coins from his pocket, and putting them on the table. "I'll get in touch with you later if anything comes up."
"And what are you doing in the meantime?" I asked. If Aries wanted me to, I could probably convince the Shepherds he was my uncle or something and have him come along with us.
"Make myself sparse." He replied. "I don't need to do anything for a while." Aries made his way toward the door of the bar.
"What do you mean 'do something?'" I asked, getting up myself.
He laughed. "I can't tell you everything, kid. You'll find out when you're older." Aries pulled his hood up and opened the door into the night.
"Wait!" I exclaimed, suddenly remember a really big question I had. "What about the dragon?"
He stopped suddenly, turning sharply and glaring at me from under his hood. "What dragon?" He asked, somewhat accusingly. It was a little startling, considering how happy and open he was earlier. He kept his secrets, but he was coy about it. In this case, however, he acted like he was threatened.
"You know, the dragon? The one in our dreams? Says it'll reward us?" I elaborated, pushing down my discomfort.
"...I have no idea what you're talking about." He replied, relaxing a little bit. "Sounds pretty ominous. I wouldn't listen to it if I were you." He waved. "I'll see you…" He paused, trying to think of something clever. "...I'll see you when the story demands it."
"...That's pretty cheesy." I commented.
"Shut it, kid." Aries replied. "I've gotten old and these things don't come as easy to me as they used to." WIth a passive wave, he left the bar.
I'll admit, at that moment, it was nice to know that there was someone else out there, someone I could rely on, someone who knew me as well as I knew them.
If it were common for outsiders to run into their future selves, I would add in this lesson: Time changes people. Time changes you. He may have known me, but I would eventually discover that I knew nothing about Aries.
But that's getting ahead of the story.
And thus we are introduced to Aries. It's was actually strangely easy to write a conversation between two versions of myself. It was like my usual writing style, but cutting out the middle man of character.
Anyway, the next chapter is about more Shepherds, so look forward to that!
Let me know what you thought of the interaction between the two versions of Ned, as well as what you think is the significance of what Aries told Ned, or the significance of what he didn't tell him.
