Chapter Text
For the first time in her life, Myrrh felt her age.
The dust of the great earthquake had settled, leaving millions of the unfortunate fallen empire of Grado without home, without life, or somewhere in between. The new leaders of the other nations pooled their resources together to save the people of Grado alongside restoring their own war-torn lands. The great war had taken too much from too many, and among the masses of casualties, the lands and villages destroyed, her father Morva had joined.
--
When everyone staggered blearily out of the temple as if waking from a long nightmare, Ephraim asked her if she wouldn’t come and stay in Castle Renais for just a little bit, and even though she knew she should just stay in the woods and adopt the role of Great Dragon as she was meant to, the sad look in his eyes made her feel that his request was masking a cry for help, for her companionship. She looked about her allies before answering, saw them resting on the stone steps of the temple, saw them tending to each others wounds, saw them stare up at the sky, out into the woods, down at their feet. Everyone silent, everyone shaken. She looked at the forest, her home, felt the absence of bird songs, the stagnant air keeping even the trees still. She looked at the spot where she struck her father down. And between the vulnerable heir and the empty woods, she took Ephraim’s hand and followed him home.
Living with the twins was pleasant despite the miasma of death that still hadn’t dissipated from the halls. The former king’s chambers had been opened up and aerated, but the feeling of death stuck to the walls and carpets like mold, and though Ephraim--new king that he was--should be living in them, no one dared to set foot in there without reason. The only one with a new room was Myrrh, who had selected a smaller room above Ephraim’s chambers, up a spiral staircase and set within a tower. Getting furniture to the room was a welcome challenge for the knights of Renais, who were hurting for something simple and banal to offset all the emotionally heavy restoration work they had been investing their lives into. The collective tension that released while laughing at Forde dropping the dresser on his foot and cursing in pain while hopping around on one foot like a real life looney toon cartoon moment was tangible. Smiles that hadn’t been on peoples faces since before the Grado invasion begun to re-emerge.
Waking up in a bed was strange to her; looking out over the same, unfamiliar landscape from her bedroom window even stranger. Centuries she had slept only beneath the great wing of her father, no roof nor blanket on her, the writhing forest surrounding her. Sleeping in something designed specifically for comfort was alien. For the first week she slept on the floor instead.
They tried to breakfast together at first, the three of them, but as the demands of the jobs got worse, their timelines shifted. Eirika suggested dinners instead, but long hours of being on-site aiding physically with dispelling what lingering horrors remained and clearing debris and rubble also got in their way. They began to take meals separately, and thus, even living together like this, Myrrh became used to patches of solitude.
Any moment that they could was spent in each other’s company. Myrrh wouldn’t leave the castle much, she felt the cautious stares by the people of Renais and understood their origin--their land was just swarmed with strange creatures who had wings just like hers. They lived in fear for months, barricaded in their homes and rationing what little food they had, tormented, attacked and killed by these creatures who seemed to act this way out of malice, and if not malice, boredom. And now, after it’s all seemingly over, in roams a strange girl with the leathery wings and piercing orange eyes of a monster. No, Myrrh stayed in the castle, and when Ephraim was there, you would find her alongside him. When they saw the way that Ephraim looked upon Myrrh, with the softness in his eyes and the relaxation of his shoulders, only then did they know that she was not a threat (Though, were they to see the way that Ephraim used to look at Lyon, maybe even then they wouldn't've been convinced).
She knew she should return to the woods soon and take up her role as the Great Dragon-- the only Great Dragon left. She knew that if she closed her eyes for too long, when she opened them next she might find that the next generation had passed, that soon it wouldn’t be Ephraim who would come to visit, but his descendants. She knew didn’t have much longer with anyone. She knew that Morva’s body was gone, and there was nothing left to mourn but the centuries of solitude that lay before her like a stream that used to be fed by a great river and now must carry on flowing by itself, only to be fed by occasional rain. So there she stayed in Castle Renais, and the days were all too short.
--
Isolation would bear down upon her if she sat by herself for too long and it pressed upon her like a hand against her neck. Morva’s absence was incomprehensible to her, it filled her lungs and throat with dense black water that choked her tears. It blurred her vision and numbed her hands. His death was soundless and immense. She thought of Morva’s corpse disintegrating under her fiery breath, and how it was only her and him left after the first war of the stones. She remembered how her parents entrusted her to Morva, how the clan of the manakete had the two stay behind. How not a single one of those who left returned. She remembered the heartbreaking and nauseating smell of his putrefied flesh burning. She remembered his rotten blood and shattered, charred bones. She remembered how he would smile at her and rest his hand upon her back. She remembered how he taught her to identify the edible plants and fauna of the forest. He taught her how to use her wings. How to light a fire. How to transform. How to sew. How to paint. How to fight. He taught her, if it ever came to it, how to kill him. She was a great student: she used every single thing that she learned.
--
Months had now passed, but the weary look in the eyes of the great Restoration King Ephraim only seemed to deepen with time. The demands of the position were harsh and Eirika was beginning to be absent for longer and longer periods of time in Caer Pelyn. Myrrh would sit nearby in his chambers, a large book in her lap which she couldn’t read--the modern tongue was written strangely, she couldn’t get a grasp on the symbols--and watch over him when he struggled with paperwork, managing resources, adjusting finances, writing letters and requests. She watched how he would pick his pen up like it was his lance and fix his grip before writing. How he would break quills, tear parchments and spill inkwells. She would watch the dynamic and reliable way that he would discuss and ask advice from Forde and Kyle, who he would summon if there was anything he wasn’t confident about (at those times, he would try and include Myrrh, but she would decline to offer any advice--what would she know about ruling a country, she who lived deep in the woods for centuries, she who only knew how to suppress the monsters that emerged from the great temple in the forest). She would see him gaze out the open window for long periods of time, his eyebrows knotted and a finger curled against his lip, thumb stroking along his chin where a beard was beginning to form.
During those times, if his gaze lingered too long on the horizon, Myrrh would make her way over to his desk and place her hand on his. She knew he was thinking about Lyon. There was never anything intelligent to say. Though she herself had been the one to send Morva’s rotted corpse to its final resting spot, she wasn’t sure what she would have done if he hadn’t looked like the pale horseman. She wasn’t sure if she would’ve been able to kill her father like Ephraim had done his best friend. Unlike Morva’s viscous black sludge, Lyon’s blood had poured a healthy red onto his lance, and his corpse didn’t disintegrate upon death, it just crumpled there upon the floor and stained the cobblestone.
She had told Ephraim once, You’re very brave, and he had only replied with a slight shake of the head and a laugh that was more exhaled air than anything else.
--
She sat in the throne room, watching Ephraim pose for a portrait. The painting was for the history books: it was the original by which the others would all be copied down and the visage of Ephraim, great warrior, slayer of the Demon King, would be engraved for future generations to look upon in awe. But the painter didn’t capture the sadness in his eyes, nor the way that his grasp on Siegmund was tenuous and avoidant. The first thing he had done upon returning to his home, his castle, was not to enter the coronation room and take the position of his birthright, was not to call upon his people and tell them the war was over, was not even to sit down in his room and mourn. The first thing he did was return Siegmund to its resting space; The lance that sealed the Demon King, the lance that cut down Lyon; The great, powerful, sacred and cursed lance by which he saved the world and of which churned his stomach and tore his heart; The ultimate reminder of the lives he saved and the lives that he was too late to save, and of which he had hoped to bury within the crypt beneath the throne for the rest of his life, yet was now made to hold it in his hand and stand triumphant with it for a great, inspiring work that would span the rest of time until the point when people would only know him as a hero of legend, greater than life, fearless and intelligent, charismatic and bold, and not as the man Myrrh knew him as; A man who yes, had these characteristics, bravery and charisma, but was also burdened with regrets, was pensive and overthinking, was emotionally distant and confused; a man who thirsted for battle and who, once received it, drank its sickly sweet nectar and regretted ever being parched.
When asked about the war, Ephraim would only tell the story of Renvall, of storming the fort with just his three finest men. Of taking the Grado empire by surprise, of being betrayed by Orson (though never detailing what his ambitions for betrayal were), of fleeing and of returning to save Eirika from their grasp. That was the last great battle before Ephraim began to understand the truth behind Grado’s invasion, when he thought his father still lived and when the thrill of the fight was informed by curiosity, not by sadness or responsibility.
Myrrh watched him pose, chin held high, wearing his armor littered with scratches and dents. It was the mark of good armor, he would say, and refused to get it fixed. She watched and tried to sew all the details into her heart, knowing that one day he would leave her and the memory she wanted was the one of him picking up his burdens and wearing them so that his citizens would be able to know the truth of how Magvel was saved. The man who was compassionate enough to stand before his people and give them the invincible hero, indomitable and victorious, and spare from them the pains he felt even touching his old armor and weapons.
--
After the painting session, Ephraim returned the lance to its place in the crypt and left his armor beneath it, as he did before.
It’s strange, being a part of history now, he told her as he settled the throne back into its place. The two of them walked back to Ephraim’s quarters. I mean, back when it was the three of us, I would fall asleep when learning about history, about the Great War of the Stones. I thought it was so agonizingly boring and useless. Why would I ever need to know about that, is what I thought, when sparring was much more important and interesting. Now I can imagine little kids just like me, falling asleep to my own name as they look out of the windows of their classrooms. He paused, gazed out over the vast and empty throne room. I suppose that that’s exactly what I fought for. He let out that airy chuckle that revealed more stress than joy and raised his hand in the gesture of a toast. May our future be so peaceful that the mention of our names strike pangs of boredom into the hearts of those who would prefer to be outside wrestling with friends.
Myrrh raised her hand in response and said may it be so, but what she didn’t say was how she was there for that first war, how old she was starting to feel, how young she realized that he truly was when he mentioned these things, how good and peaceful it was to be alongside each other, and that how soon the two of them would be parted forever by time.