Work Text:
Panel 1:
(Douxie): Sometimes… I don’t know… it just feels like nothing I do is good enough. I try so hard, but it just doesn’t measure up anymore. The kids barely needed me at all in that last battle, and more often these days, I just feel like I’m getting in their way. They’ve grown so much and I look back at my life and feel like I simply never do.
Ah… maybe it’s just time to throw in the towel. Leave it to the younger generation to clean up the world’s messes. At this rate, I’d be hard pressed if anyone even realized I was gone. That’s just the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? Forgotten to history over and over again. The great legacy of Hisirdoux Casperan… almost one-thousand years and still just as pathetic as ever.
Panel 2:
(Zoe): That’s enough!!!
I’m not going to hear another word, Hisirdoux!
So you had a rough day. You’ve had rough days before, but you always come out of them stronger!
You have been protecting the realms for centuries longer than anybody else has even been alive— and you never did it for praise or glory— you did it because that’s just what you chose to do. You help people no matter what, and never ask for a thing in return.
You’ve been in the background of the world’s salvation time and time again, and history is better off for it, even if you never got the credit... Even when time outgrew you!
You’re Hisirdoux Casperan, the man who fights for what you think is right even when the odds are stacked against you.
Panel 3:
(Zoe): Look, you may think that you haven’t been changing with the rest of the world, but it’s you who’s been changing the world by just being there.
So the kids are getting older and more experienced? So the faces and battles change every few decades? It’s you who’s been the constant every single time. You, who has changed the outcome of each battle just because you stuck your nose in it and decided to get involved, and I've seen it with my own two eyes just how much you've grown from it all!
You’ve learned more spells than any other wizard we know, and you did it all on your own, through centuries of hard work and nothing but your own drive to become a great wizard and help your friends time and time again.
And, newsflash, Douxie, but you’re without a shred of doubt, the greatest wizard I’ve ever known, and ever will know in this or any century.
Panel 4:
(Zoe): So stop feeling sorry for yourself already and start seeing the you that I do because he’s come a long way from pushing a broom in some stuffy old castle. He’s become someone pretty damned great, and I’ll remind him of it for the rest of friggin' time if I have to until it finally gets through that thick skull of his that he’s somebody who’s made countless lifetimes better by just being there, ready for anything when everyone needed him most.
Panel 5:
(Zoe): Got it?
Panel 9:
(Douxie): Loud and clear. Thanks, Zoe.
Panel 10:
(Zoe): Yeah well, don’t you forget it. As many times as it takes—
Panel 11:
(Zoe): I’ll always be there to help you out.
Panel 12:
(Zoe): UNLESS SOMEBODY DECIDES TO RUN AWAY TO ANOTHER CITY AND DOESN’T BOTHER TO TELL ME THE WORLD IS ENDING, SO I'M NOT AROUND TO KEEP ALL HIS SHIT FROM TURNING SIDEWAYS IN SOME GODDAMN CONVOLUTED TIME TRAVEL ALTERNATE REALITY BULLSHIT ADVENTURE!
(Douxie): Ack! It was one time!
(Zoe): IT WAS SEVERAL TIMES ONCE! THERE’S A HUGE DIFFERENCE YOU ABSOLUTE CODGERING GNASHGAB!
Panel 13:
(Douxie): Absolute codgering gnashbab? Really pulling that one out of the vault, aren’t we luv? If you’re going to insult me, can’t you at least pick a word from this century?
Ah, but it does bring back memories, doesn’t it? You. Me. That time in Tuscany...
Panel 14:
(Zoe): Oh shut up. You don’t even remember last week you total ass!
(Douxie):That’s more like it!