Immortality Sucks
by Cyberchao X
"Hello, my children."
Cichol, or Seteth as he'd most recently been known, was naturally suspicious of the voice he heard. "Who goes there?"
"Who do you think?" Byleth returned to speaking in his normal voice. "Sorry, couldn't resist using my original voice, since you're among the few people here who I can be myself with."
"Byleth!" Cethleann, or Flayn, exclaimed. "Or, uh, Lady Sothis?"
"Either is fine, Cethleann. We are one and the same, after all."
"What brings you here?" the "young" girl asked.
Byleth sighed. "I guess I just wanted someone who could relate to my situation. I found you two here, after all." "Here" meant Rhodos Coast, the final resting spot of Cichol's wife, Cethleann's mother. Though it wouldn't be evident to anyone to look at them, she'd been gone for centuries. That was the problem with being immortal, or functionally immortal. You'd outlive everyone you love.
"Surely it hasn't been that long since—no, of course, you would have had to disappear long before your loved ones actually died, because people would notice that you weren't aging."
"I managed. I made myself look as though I were aging, though obviously not at the proper rate. The benefit of having friends who know things about make-up."
"How many of your first class at the Academy are still alive?" Cichol correctly guessed from this statement that there was at least one. Byleth had considered them his closest confidants, the ones who protected his secret.
"I don't know. I wasn't keeping tabs on all of them. There are some. Dorothea, as you likely guessed. Annette's still teaching at the magic academy in Fhirdiad. And of course, Cyril. The leaders have all passed on, though, as have their seconds. And of course…the reason why I'm here."
"Lysithea."
"Does it get any easier?" Byleth asked. "I feel blessed to have gotten as much time with her as I did, after Those Who Slither in the Dark did what they did to her. Ironic, isn't it? Seeing as how I myself am the goddess, I'd be the one blessing myself. I can only imagine what Rhea would think of my flippancy."
"You don't refer to her by her true name like you do us?" Cichol asked.
"I feel as though your true names are the only things I can refer to you as. You're not planning on staying here forever, are you? And when you rejoin the world, you'll have new identities. You won't be Seteth and Flayn. Whereas Rhea…Rhea will never return."
"Why did you do it?"
"Because as wrong as her methods were, Edelgard had a point. There's no place in this world for our kind. Not really. From the moment I arrived at Garreg Mach, I had my doubts about Rhea, because my father did, and she did nothing to assuage me. She went mad with power. And unlike the two of you, she never saw me for me. She wouldn't have hesitated as to which name to call me, the way you did; she'd have called me 'Sothis' without a second thought." Byleth paused. "Even having access to all of her knowledge, I still struggle to think of you as Sothis's 'children'. Because before we completely merged, the Sothis who spoke to Byleth was herself a mere child in appearance. I suppose I still think of myself that way."
"Well, you're a goddess. You didn't exactly mother us in the physical sense, at least, not in the same fashion as the ones you fathered by Lysithea," Cethleann said.
Sothis laughed. "You make a good point. I am quite certain that my original body was never pregnant."
"Well, feel free to stay as long as you need to. Unless you object, father?"
Cichol shook his head. "Of course I wouldn't turn away the goddess in his time of need."
CCX: Yeah I violated my rule about not writing after midnight on this one. I did wait until I could look it over in the daytime to post it, but…it was going to be weird no matter what.
Because let's face it: the ending of Crimson Flower sucked, at least from a fanfiction standpoint. Or alternatively, it was the best one, but I absolutely adore looking at the logistics of romances between beings with vastly different lifespans. This isn't the first time I've done this. And yet, the one ending where we get to go against Rhea is the one where Byleth loses their powers at the end, so I had to kind of make something up.
I had fun writing the confusion of Byleth being both Byleth and Sothis, though. Until next time, this is Cyberchao X, signing off.
(And yes, I'm still working on The Lady and the Thief. I'm just running into a lot of the same difficulties that I had with Crewman Horndog screws his way through the Schwarzwelt.)