Chapter Fourteen: Ancient

Author's Note: I'm soooooo sorry about taking almost a year to update. What can I say, writer's block is a pain. I sincerely hope this chapter makes up for it though. Thanks to StoryMaster64 for the word.

Birthdays, for most people, were a time of excitement. They were a time when people would get together to help another celebrate the joy of having lived another year. So why did they have to make you feel so old?

Rosalina sighed as she stared at her reflection. Naturally she didn't look old, being immortal did have its perks, but there was no denying that she was. She was older than almost all of the stars that floated outside her observatory. Why, she had been there most of them had been created!

So it was only natural that once a year she would take the time to fully revel in how old she really was. Most years she just felt amazed, and a little bit proud, about all that she had accomplished through her many years of life. But not this year. This year, she just felt sad.

For most of her life prior to this point in time, she had been a bit of a recluse, never leaving her observatory for hardly anything, having almost no social interaction other than her Lumas. And then she met Mario.

The cheerful plumber completely turned her whole world upside down from the first time she brought him to her observatory. It was because of his friendliness that she even went to the Mushroom Planet and met the other inhabitants of it. They, in turn, became her new friends, and, for the first time in centuries, she didn't feel so alone.

Until today, that is. Today just happened to give her a painful reminder, that no matter how close she got to Mario and her other friends, they would one day all leave her. While she may be immune to time, they were not, and someday, death would come and steal them all away from her, leaving her as lonely as she had been before she had ever met them.

It was just one of the curses of being immortal. You could wield almost unlimited power, have eternal youth, and roam the galaxies as you please; at the cost of watching the ones you love grow old and die as you remain the same.

So, until that day came when she looked around and found that all her friends had gone away, she would make the most of the time she had to share with them. They were the people that made her feel the way she looked, young and carefree. When she was with them, they didn't expect anything of her. She didn't have to be the perfect example, or the loving mother, she could just be herself.

That was why she would always cherish her time with them, and in years to come, would think with a smile about the few people who never made her feel ancient.

Author's Note: Again, my apologies for taking so long. If you see any mistakes, please point them out to me, there will probably be a few, it's late here, but I felt inspired and needed to write this out before I lost it. So anyways, review, and feel free to suggest more words!