Disclaimer: I don't own Bravely Second, all rights to the owners.
He's so tired. So, so, so tired. He doesn't want to move his arms, he doesn't want to flex his fingers, he doesn't want to do anything. He doesn't want to open his eyes. He doesn't want to, but he has to. If he doesn't do it now, he'll never muster the resolve to try again, and he'll drift back into numb unconsciousness.
So Tiz tries. He's tired, so very tired, but he tries. His eyelids fight against the movement. Years of muscle atrophy try to keep his eyes shut, his lack of energy tries to keep his eyes shut, but Tiz pushes.
He manages a twitch, a brief flutter. Just enough to let light (bright, searing, painful light) through, at which point Tiz squeezes his eyes shut. He technically opened them, and it was very rude of the world to respond by stabbing him with light. Darkness would have been more appreciated. It's much less stabby.
But Tiz knows he needs to open his eyes again. After so long with nothing, he could see. He suddenly, desperately, doesn't want to give that up again. Despite the pain he knows it's going to bring, he forces one eye open again, just a crack.
Light stabs him again. If he had the strength to move his arm Tiz would have brought it up to shield his face, but he doesn't, so he glares at the rude light, mentally scolding it for stabbing him so rudely.
Light continues to stab him anyways, because it has little in the way of manners, though it does have the decency to be filtered through thick blue liquid. Said blue liquid also distorts anything he might be able to see, allowing Tiz to see only a haze of blue and the vague impression of an oval in front of him that the light is shining through.
"Am I drowning?" Tiz thinks. He tries to be conscious of his breath. "I can't swim. How did I end up in water?"
He eventually realizes that, no, he's not drowning. He's breathing air, though something is pushing said air down his throat rather forcefully. A minute of focus on his mouth, his nose, his face, and Tiz realizes he's wearing a mask of some sort. He can feel it tied around his head and secured air-tight around his mouth and nose.
"Why do I have a mask?" Tiz asks dumbly. "If I have a mask, does that mean I have a helmet? Why would I just have a mask?"
It's quite possible he's not thinking straight. It's been a very, very long time since he was last conscious.
"How long has it been?" Tiz asks. It could have been a day or a year for all he's aware. Unconsciousness doesn't give one a good sense of time. "I hope it hasn't been too long. I think I left the bedroom window open. Bugs will get into the food."
After all, if he's going to be awake more often from now on, he should probably make sure he has food. Food is important.
Tiz doesn't know when he closed his eyes again, but they're closed, and the stabbing light is no longer there. He's tired. He should sleep. Normal sleep, not unconscious sleep. Sleep sounds good.
Within a minute, the boy lapses into restfulness.
###
Tiz is getting annoyed at the light stabbing him every time he wakes up. On the bright side (pun not intended) the light has been less stabby every day, or at least for not as long, and he's been able to stay awake for a bit longer every day too.
Over the course of multiple days, Tiz has become just a bit more aware of his situation. For one, he can't move his body all that much because there are things attached to him. Padded shackles keep his limbs from moving too far in any direction, and some sort of jumper keeps him suspended in the middle of the thick blue liquid.
Tiz has decided with relative certainty that he's not in Norende, and that his food has probably gone bad.
"I think I promised to make Edea a cake when she had time to visit." Tiz thinks idly. "I hope the sugar survived. Maybe I can just give her that if all the other ingredients can't be used."
He can't remember if Edea has been willing to eat straight sugar in the past, but it's worth a try if he can't get the other ingredients.
"I hope she didn't drop by unannounced." Tiz thinks. "I hope she sent a letter, so when I didn't answer she knew not to come."
He'd hate to inconvenience her, after all.
Ringabel would absolutely drop in unannounced, and Tiz hopes he doesn't worry too much when he realizes Tiz isn't home.
Agnès has always been relatively sensible. She wouldn't have come without a letter, and good thing for it. He doubts she'd make it to his house without getting lost, especially since his house isn't particularly identifiable from all the others.
"She's busy though. She doesn't have time to visit." Tiz reminds himself idily. "She's rebuilding crystalism."
He wonders how well that's going. He considered sending her a letter to ask, but he expected to be dead before he could get a response, so he didn't.
"Now that I'm still alive I should probably write some letters." Tiz thinks. "Edea will be mad I didn't stay in contact."
Of course, writing letters entails getting out of his shackles, and not having blue liquid around him that would get the parchment wet, and actually knowing where to find parchment, quill, and ink.
"Have I been kidnapped?" Tiz wonders. It seems odd to him that someone would keep a prisoner in a bunch of thick blue liquid. It seems a little bit overkill. A chair and some rope would have been enough. It's not like he has the energy to do much.
That day is not the day Tiz gets his answers. Answers come the next week (as far as Tiz's unreliable sense of time can tell) when Tiz wakes up to find something has been attached to one of his ears. It's light and metal and a bit uncomfortable, and once he realizes it's electronic Tiz has to wonder how it hasn't shorted out in the blue liquid.
It also speaks.
"Sir Arrior." An unfamiliar male voice says. They have a heavily Eternian accent, so thick it's just barely comprehensible to Tiz's ears. They're speaking quietly, but Tiz winces at the sound all the same. His hearing is hyper-sensitive so as to be able to hear the slight movement of the liquid around him, or else he'd hear nothing at all, and so the man's voice is atrociously loud in comparison. "Can you hear me?"
Tiz nods slowly, and then it occurs to him that he doesn't know if this person can see him. Tiz can't see them, after all. When he tries to speak though, his voice fails him. He manages the barest rasp of a sound through underused vocal chords, and promptly decides that he really shouldn't try to talk.
"Good." The man says. Apparently they can see him. Strange. "We're glad to see you conscious and responsive, Sir."
"Don't call me Sir." He wants to say, but he can't, so he doesn't.
"The Grand Marshal will be here in a minute or two, if you can keep yourself awake for that long." The man continues, and Tiz realizes that must mean he's in Eternia. How did he get this far from Norende? "In the meantime I have a few questions. Just nod or shake your head to answer."
Those questions turn out to be about his health. Is he in pain? (No) Is he tired? (Yes) Can he move his hand/arm/leg/foot/head? (Yes, each with a demonstration) Is he experiencing photophobia? (Yes, the lights coming from the oval are subsequently dimmed) Is his hearing sensitive? (Yes, the volume on his earpiece is quickly turned down) Is he experiencing any stomach cramps? (No) Is he hungry or thirsty? (No) Does he feel like he can talk? (No)
Those questions are followed by a few more practical questions.
Can he see how many fingers are being held up? (No) Can he see out of his pod at all? (No) Are his harness or restraints uncomfortable? (No)
The questions are making Tiz very tired, more so than he was before, but he remembers that the Grand Marshal is supposed to be coming. It would be rude of him to fall asleep on Braev.
The man cuts off the questions abruptly, and Tiz can hear faint noise over his earpiece. Soon, another voice is speaking in his ear, and a rather familiar one at that. "Tiz you bastard, what in the crystals' name were you thinking!?"
"Hi Edea." Tiz thinks, smiling just a bit. He can imagine Braev standing next to the microphone, waiting patiently because his daughter snatched it out of his hands before he could say anything. He tries to wave at the oval in his vision, assuming it's a window.
"Don't you smile and wave at me! You can't go falling into comas without telling people!" Edea growls. "You knew it was going to happen too, and you didn't say anything!"
"I didn't want to worry you. You would have tried to stop me." Tiz thinks.
"You're lucky the inkeep was worried when he didn't see you for a few days or you'd be dead by now." Edea continues. Tiz notices that her voice sounds a bit different. Maybe it's because she sounds like she's going to cry, but her voice sounds just a bit deeper than it once was. "And you're doubly lucky we could get you into a vivipod before you suffered anything too crippling."
That explains the blue liquid.
"You scared us Tiz." Edea finishes somberly, and Tiz stops smiling. "We thought you were dead and that you'd never wake up. I'm glad you're back."
Tiz nods. He's glad he's back too, even if he doesn't necessarily feel he deserves it.
Edea would probably yell at him again if she heard that thought. The others too. Tiz reminds himself not to say that out loud in the future.
"You're going to have to stay in the pod for a bit longer." Edea says, breaking the short silence. "Until we can be sure your organs won't fail the moment we take you out."
Tiz nods his understanding.
"You better be ready you bastard, you have a lot of explaining to do!" Edea threatens without much bite. "Now get some rest. I'll talk to you again in a few days."
Tiz gratefully accepts the excuse to close his eyes again. Staying awake for ten minutes took more energy than he knew he was capable of mustering. He has a passing thought that he never talked to Braev, but he's out like a light before Edea has even put down the microphone.
###
Removing someone from a vivipod (stasis pod now, actually. Apparently he was transferred to an upgraded model at some point) is noisy. Tiz can hear the whir of machinery and the slurp of liquid being drained. The liquid drains past his face, and Tiz is greeted with his first proper look of the world. The return of normal sight gives him a headache, unused as he is to seeing anything but shades of blue, but he can now finally see that the shining blue oval is in fact a window, and a window with a certain familiar face standing front and center.
Tiz is vaguely aware that people are talking above him- it's strange to hear voices not through the earpiece, but he's focused entirely on Edea. She's dressed in the steel plate and red cape of templar armor and her face has a few more hard lines than he remembers, and she also has a crown on her head.
He doesn't know what the crown is for, but he assumes Edea must have taken up some official position. She's never struck him as particularly pretentious, so he can't imagine she casually decided that a crown was the perfect fashion choice.
She also isn't wearing a katana, which is more surprising than the crown. Instead she has a two-handed sword on her back that resembles the weapon her father uses.
Beside Edea's smiling face are a few more visages that Tiz recognizes. Alternis is standing one step behind her in full armor (unless that's Ringabel, but no, surely Ringabel would have spoken to him through the microphone at some point if he was around), and Braev and Mazer are also next to their daughter (oddly, Braev doesn't have his own armor on. He's dressed very... normally).
The doctors above Tiz engage some sort of pulley, and Tiz is slowly lifted out of the roof of the stasis pod. He really does feel like a kid in a doorway jumper as he dangles from the harness while the doctors crane him overtop of a stretcher and go about unshackling his restraints and getting him out of the harness.
A pair of strong arms slip under his shoulders as the last of his harness is unlatched, and the arms lower Tiz into the stretcher. The wheels on the stretcher are then unparked, and he's rolled over to Edea and the small crowd.
"Welcome back to the real world." Edea says, smiling. There are, in fact, tears in her eyes, but her voice is remarkably stable. "Feeling fine?"
"Tired." Tiz rasps. He's been working on his speech ever since the earpiece was attached, but speaking even a few sentences leaves his throat feeling raw.
"Yeah, well, you're going to feel like that for a while." Edea says. "You started twitching a month ago after not moving for ten years, so it's going to take a bit before you're back on your feet."
"Oh." Tiz says, slowly processing those words. They don't sound right. Surely he misheard. "Ten years…?"
"You've been asleep for a long time Tiz." Edea says softly. To try and lighten the blow, she smiles and points to her crown. "You didn't think this was a fashion statement, did you? I'm Grand Marshal now."
"Oh." Tiz says again, blinking slowly. He's still trying to process that Edea is ten years older than when he last saw her. That explains the harder lines in her face, but aside from a bit more muscle mass she really doesn't look all that different, not taking into account her outfit of course. "Congratulations?"
Edea rolls her eyes, and then quickly wipes tears out of them a moment later. "Well, you're seven years late on that, but thanks."
"To give you an idea of how busy she is." Braev says in his low, rumbling voice. "She had to reschedule three meetings-"
"Five, actually." Edea mutters.
"-to come see you here for ten minutes."
"Oh." Tiz is tired of saying that, but what else is he supposed to say? It's not like he has anything meaningful to offer. He doesn't know anything about her circumstances. "Sorry."
"Don't be. You have no idea how little I want to listen to another tax report." Edea smiles. "Get better quick alright? I haven't had a good excuse to take a day off in forever."
That makes Tiz laugh despite the situation, though he quickly devolves into wheezing and someone flashes a healing spell on him. He and Edea both grimace when they realize his body just isn't capable of handling laughter right now.
"Take him." Edea says, waving the doctors on. They start wheeling him out of the room. "We'll talk more when I have time Tiz."
"I'll look forward to it." Tiz mumbles, though his voice is too quiet and he doubts Edea hears over the sound of the stretcher.
Within a few minutes Tiz has been moved to a room somewhere in the fort that is not the infirmary he expected. It's a guest suite, and a well-furnished one at that. Not that Tiz can explore at the moment, seeing as he can't walk and has heart rate and breathing monitors hooked up to his chest as soon as he's settled in the bed.
The doctors don't fuss over him for all that long, mostly just reminding him of what he's not to do (which he knows already thank you very much, considering they went over it ten times in two days through the earpiece) and that the button on his side table will immediately call someone to his side and so on.
Finally the doctors leave, but Tiz isn't alone. There's someone else in the room, sitting sullenly on a chair nearby.
"Alternis…" Tiz says slowly, staring at the armored man. "Why are you here?"
"The Grand Marshal," Alternis grumbles, "has decided that since I have repeatedly refused to take a vacation, I'm to be responsible for your care and answering any questions you might have after your long sleep."
Tiz rolls his eyes. He just got out of the stasis pod and Edea is already using him as a tool against her subordinates, though he can think of worse things than being used to force someone else to relax. At least he's being helpful.
"I'm mostly just tired at the moment." Tiz says. "So you don't have to stay now, if you don't want to."
"I haven't a choice." Alternis says. "I am not just your caretaker, I am to be your guard until you are recovered."
That seems like massive overkill to Tiz, he's hardly anyone important who would need a guard, but maybe that's just an excuse to make sure Alternis doesn't go back to work when Tiz isn't awake. "Ah well… thank you I suppose. I hope I'm not imposing too much."
Tiz would say Alternis gives him an odd look, but with the helmet on Tiz has no idea what Alternis' expression is whatsoever.
Actually, there's no need for the man to be in full plate armor to guard a relatively unimportant shepherd in the heart of the most heavily defended place in Eternia, so Tiz suspects the armor is on purely because Alternis is uncomfortable without it.
Maybe. It's not like he knows Alternis that well.
"Orders are orders." Alternis says stoically. He sounds like he was assigned to shovel horse dung, not the easy task of watching over someone who's going to be asleep for twenty hours a day. "My feelings on the matter aren't relevant."
"Your feelings always matter." Tiz mumbles, and closes his eyes. He looks forward to the day he isn't tired after ten minutes of being awake. "But it sounds to me... like you're being stubborn."
Alternis sighs deeply. "That's what everyone says."
"Maybe they're right."
A small pause. Then: "Rest well, Sir Arrior."
That's one way to end a conversation. Tiz does just as Alternis says, slipping into sleep quite rapidly.
###
"Eternia and the Crystal Orthodoxy have formally been at peace for seven years." Alternis explains. He's sitting next to Tiz's bedside as the boy struggles to keep the spoon in his hand steady, lifting soup to his mouth. "Though aggressions were effectively ended shortly after the defeat of Ouroboros. The treaty signing was interrupted by the Second Fairy Crisis, courtesy of a man called Kaiser Oblivion and the dark fairy Anne, but decisive action by Edea, the Pope's guard captain, a Moonish elite soldier, and, after talking sense into him, a well-respected astrologer, the second god Providence was defeated and the treaty went through."
Tiz swallows his soup. It's warm and a welcome addition to his empty stomach. He makes sure the food is going to stay down before he speaks. "Another god?"
"Indeed, and one that was manipulating celestials at that."
Tiz shudders. It sounds terrible, and Edea had to go through a second harrowing adventure without himself, Agnès, or Ringabel by her side. She's gone through more than all of them by this point it sounds. "I hope the years beyond that have been less eventful?"
"Much less so, thankfully." Alternis confirms. "Most of our major problems now are the result of stray Ba'al that went unaccounted for during or after the Second Fairy Crisis when Moonish defences couldn't stop them from landing on Luxendarc, and those incidents have become exponentially less frequent over time with Fort Lune being repaired and Providence being killed."
Tiz has no idea what a Ba'al is, but he has a feeling he doesn't want to find out.
"Eternia has had extreme technological growth within the last decade, your stasis chamber being only one example." Alternis says. "Incidentally, the stasis chamber reduced your physical aging by about tenfold, so you should be little more than two and a half years older, physically, than when you went comatose, as you spent two years in the vivipod and eight in the stasis chamber."
Tiz never even gave a thought to his age, but now that he thinks of it that means Edea is older than him. Actually, all his friends are a decent bit older than him now. He's twenty one, Edea twenty eight, Ringabel thirty three, and Agnès thirty.
Speaking of… "What happened to Ringabel and Agnès?"
"The rake has been in and out of Luxendarc on 'business' for the last decade, and the Grand Marshal hasn't deemed me worthy enough to know what that business is." The irritation in Alternis' voice isn't subtle. "Lady Oblige is the pope, and resides in Gathelatio."
Ringabel must have caught up in something. Tiz was expecting to hear he was away on a trip, hence why he wasn't by Edea's side. He can't imagine that Ringabel has willingly kept his distance from her for this long, unless they had some sort of falling out.
And Agnès is the pope. He can absolutely see her doing that, and doing it well. That also makes two of his friends who are now some of the most important and influential people in the world. How a random shepherd from Norende ever got caught up with them is beyond him. Their adventure feels like some sort of fever dream when he thinks about it, yet at the same time Tiz knows as far as his memory goes it may as well have been two months ago.
Agnès… no. Best not to dwell on old feelings, best not to go down that path. A decade is a very long time, no matter how recent the past feels to him.
"I don't suppose there's any way to get in contact with Ringabel?"
"Wait for him to show up." Alternis says unhelpfully. "He always shows up just after he would have been useful.
Tiz is getting the distinct feeling Alternis doesn't like Ringabel.
"The pope, on the other hand, would be easy to contact. For you at least." Alternis suggests. "If your name on the letter is not enough for it to be let past her assistants, the Grand Marshal has informed me she would happily provide her seal to ensure the letter is properly delivered."
"I can't accept that." Tiz refuses. There's no way he's taking advantage of a seal that's supposed to be for official, important messages just so he can send a letter to Agnès. His words aren't that important by any stretch of the imagination.
"As you wish." Says Alternis in a tone that suggests he expected such a response. "Just so you're aware… the Grand Marshal has told me to put her seal on any letter you send regardless."
Tiz sighs in exasperation. He knows Edea means well, but honestly, she shouldn't go around pretending he's important enough to use the Grand Marshal's own seal for friendly letters.
"She also instructed me to tell you that, if you won't send a letter to her Holiness for whatever reason, I'm to send one under your name anyways."
Tiz straightens indignantly. "You wouldn't."
"I think you underestimate my devotion." Alternis replies dryly.
"But for something so foolish-"
"My loyalty is to the Marshal, right or wrong. Foolish or not."
Tiz groans. Apparently he's writing a letter to Agnès then. It would help if he had the slightest idea of what to say. When did Edea get such a read on him? "What am I even supposed to write? 'Hi, I know I've been asleep for ten years, but I'm awake now and I wanted to check in and see how you're doing?'"
"The contents of your letter are not my problem."
"You have to have some ideas!" Tiz says, trying not to sound desperate. This shouldn't be a big deal, it's just a letter, but it feels important. "You said you have to write a letter if I don't, so surely you have something!"
"I said I have to write a letter if you don't, I can't promise it will be any good." Alternis replies flatly.
Tiz deflates into his bed. It's just a letter. He's making this out to be something much bigger than it should. He's only being forced to do something he really should be doing anyways, and even "forced" is putting it lightly, as he somewhat doubts Edea's instruction to fake a letter was sincere and Alternis just takes things way too literally.
It still feels important. It's Agnès. How can it not feel important?
No, no, he's overthinking things. It's just a letter. He can write a letter. He talked to Edea just fine. He can write to Agnès. She's another old friend that will be happy to hear he's alive.
Or maybe she'll have mostly forgotten him. He's just a shepherd from Norende after all.
"I'm going to have to have a word with Edea about abusing her power." Tiz sighs, and takes another spoonful of his soup.
"You can try." Alternis says in a tone that says someone else has absolutely tried that before to precisely zero effect. "Maybe if you succeed, I can be free of this and get back to my job."
At that moment Tiz understands there's no way he's going to talk Edea out of making him write the letter.
###
"You're staring."
"Well excuse me! You've been asleep for ten years! I think I'm entitled to a bit of staring." Edea huffs.
The mismatch between Edea's meal and Tiz's is laughable. Tiz has a bit of bread, soup, and a glass of water, and Edea has a steak, cheese that is probably very expensive, and several kinds of vegetables.
There's also a cake. Tiz is almost certain Edea used having dinner with him as an excuse to bring a cake just so she could eat all of it herself. He's certainly not recovered enough to be eating cake.
"Eat your steak before it gets cold."
"Yes Mom." Edea huffs. Despite her attitude, she dutifully cuts a part of her steak and chews on it. Tiz is silently amused to see that her table manners have improved over the years. He debates mentioning it, but knows that if he does Edea will intentionally start to be messy, so he decides to just enjoy this new luxury quietly. "So-" She says, mouth still full of food (well, so much for that luxury), "-is Alternis doing his job?"
"This is the first time he hasn't been by my side." Tiz says. "Even when I woke up in the middle of the night. Did you tell him to sleep here?"
"No, but that sounds exactly like something Alternis would do." Edea sighs. "The idea of assigning him to you was so he'd relax. It's not like you're troublesome to guard."
So exactly what Tiz expected. "It's not like I need a guard in the first place."
"Yes, well, I'm not risking losing you to anything after you just woke up. Agnès and Ringabel would be furious." Edea says casually. She pops a carrot slice into her mouth. "So deal with it."
"It still feels like too much."
"Too bad." Edea flicks a cucumber at him. Tiz catches it with more dexterity than he thought he could manage. "Oh, by the way, I don't know if Alternis mentioned it, but you should really write to Agnès. Ringabel is off doing stuff, you can't contact him easily, but Agnès isn't too far south of here in Gathelatio. I already sent her a letter about you waking up, but you should really send her one yourself."
Tiz licks his lips. "What should I even write...?"
"How about: 'Marry me'?"
Tiz chokes on his bread, and Edea reaches over to thump him on his back.
"Okay." Edea says with a straight face, as if she didn't just give him a completely absurd suggestion. "Maybe don't lead with that. Put that in the second letter."
Tiz coughs and regains his breath. "Very funny Edea."
"Thanks. I try." Edea says, cracking a smile. "Either way, you're overthinking it. You could write about the history of sheep farming for all she'd care. She'll be happy to hear from you at all."
There is no way he would ever send a letter about the history of sheep farming to Agnès, much less Pope Agnès. He can imagine Agnès opening up a letter from him and seeing the utter confusion on her face as she reads about sheep for half an hour. She'd probably think it was some odd custom, naive as she is about the world at large…
Wait, it's been ten years. There's no way she's still that naive. She's almost certainly travelled as pope. She might be a totally different person.
"C'mon Tiz, talk. What's up?"
"How… different is Agnès?" Tiz asks hesitantly.
"She knows where an arrow goes in a bow now." Edea says cheekily. "But seriously. I'd like to think I'm not too different than you remember me. Agnès is the same. Older, more mature, but the same."
"You're more mature?" Tiz says with genuine disbelief.
"Fuck you too." Edea says, and gives him the middle finger. She takes a large bite of her steak. "You're the only person I can talk to that has no expectations from me. If I can't be a brat around you, when can I? I'm mature outside of dealing with you."
Tiz is oddly touched. That doesn't mean he's not going to poke fun at her though. "That's why you 'maturely' abuse your power to force Alternis to guard me as an alternative to him taking a vacation."
"Exactly." Edea says, ignoring the sarcasm in Tiz's voice. "I could have yelled at him until he took a vacation, but I didn't. Very mature."
"That sounds like a low bar to clear."
"It really is." Edea says. "Most adults are brats and just hide it behind civility, so their idea of 'mature' is that facade."
"Says the brat."
"My point exactly."
Edea finishes off her meal and starts on the cake while Tiz slowly works through his soup. He's less exhausted than he was a week ago when he was first brought to this room, but that doesn't mean he does anything quickly yet, aside from falling asleep that is. Tiz watches in morbid fascination as Edea demolishes the cake in record time.
"You really haven't changed, have you?" Tiz says with a quiet smile.
Edea pauses. She takes a second to swallow her last mouthful of food, and wipes her hands with a napkin. Her carefree attitude from a moment ago is completely gone, and her words are carefully considered. "Of course I have. Ten years will do that to a person. I haven't touched a katana in years, some days it's hard to find time to train at all, sweets are now more of a comfort food than a treat, I can't help but feel alone without you or Agnès or Ringabel around, I have a whole nation looking up to me, and I frequently doubt I'm making the right decisions. I'm plenty different Tiz."
Tiz grimaces. That was foolish of him to say. He was naive. Of course ten years would change someone. It would be weird if it hadn't. That was just wishful thinking on his part. His self-scolding thoughts are interrupted by Edea passing him a small slice of cake. Apparently she saved him a piece.
"But, it's not like I wasn't the person you remember, at some point." Edea says. She props up her head with an elbow on the table and regards him with cool eyes that make Tiz sit up straighter. "I'm me. I can't not be. Some things are bound to be similar. Maybe the same, if I've had no reason to change it, but don't be fooled into thinking I'm the same fairy-fighting Edea you remember, just with a crown on her head. I wish I could be her sometimes, but I'm not."
Tiz hesitates, then reaches a hand across the table and lays it overtop of Edea's. "You're still my friend. That hasn't changed."
Edea snorts, then grins and sits up properly. "I forgot how much of a sap you are sometimes."
Tiz frowns and pulls back his hand, but Edea grabs it with her own, keeping it there.
"Of course that hasn't changed. At least, I hope not. If I've become a tyrant without knowing it, please tell me." She says. She shakes his hand just a bit. "I think I had a point I was trying to make, but honestly I totally forget. Something something, change isn't all bad but it sure can suck, I'm super cool and mature now except when I'm not, et cetera."
"Inspirational." Tiz says dryly.
"Yeah, I'm a regular orator." Edea says with equal sarcasm in her voice. "There's a reason I don't write my own speeches."
"You make Alternis do it?" Tiz shoots back.
Edea's grin gets even wider. "He took my joke seriously, didn't he?"
"Yep."
"Ahh, that's Alternis alright." Edea hums. "Well, take it as an incentive to actually write to Agnès. I'd bet money you were considering sending nothing because of nerves. You probably 'didn't want to be a bother' or something."
"That's not it." Tiz grumbles, even though it absolutely was, among other factors.
"So you admit you were considering not sending a letter." Edea hums. "Tsk."
"She might not even remember me all that well." Tiz tries to protest.
Edea snorts again, this time giving him an incredulous look. "Yeah, sure Tiz. She's totally forgotten one of the three people who helped her kill a god."
Tiz opens and closes his mouth dumbly while searching for another excuse, but it's just that: an excuse. He knows it's an excuse. The truth of the matter is that he's just nervous. "I… It's Agnès, Edea."
The grin on Edea's face is evil, and she patronizingly pats his hand. "I look forward to hearing about the letter you're sending to the pope in two days time."
Tiz's shoulders sag in resignation, and Edea laughs like a madman.
Edea is so much fun.