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Before Twilight took this job, he was told to abandon the life that he had until he became a spy. His habits, his name, everything should go away. If he could let go of the memories, even better.
There was one memory he couldn't let go.
A day from when he was a soldier. A girl from Ostania crossed paths with him and they talked about the oddest things as he had her under the aim of his gun. A bullet hit his helmet and even if it wasn't fatal, he probably would have died as the enemy was so close.
The girl saved him and said she was his daughter from the future.
Twilight couldn't, refused to, forget anything about the short moment they had. Her wavy pink hair, the green eyes, how she dressed, how she talked and everything she said about what was yet to come. It wasn't a lot, but he held it on him for his dear life.
To know the future of the war was important, but the only thing he cared about was the family she talked about.
On the following weeks of Anya's departure, Roland would overthink everything that happened around him. The first big thing to happen was the discovery that his childhood friends were alive. That meant that all his life he had lived a lie, blaming himself for deaths that weren't in the end.
They did end up dead, in the end, because of an Westalian mistake. Not Ostanian. In the end, this was all the fault of both sides, not one.
He remembered what Anya had said about the war. Both countries are too proud to end it on their own. So, at some point, it wasn't a matter of win the war to stop it. It was a matter of who had the upper hand to show they're the best. And until the important old men with their cigars and expensive suits decided it was over, men like him and his friends would keep fighting each other to death.
Roland had days, rather dark ones to be honest, that living was just a triviality. If he would wake up to see the next day or not, it didn't matter. What mattered was that he would go down taking as many Ostanian soldiers as he could.
Things were different after meeting Anya. Now he had something to look out for in his life. He didn't know when or how, but at some point he would have a family of his own. So he needed to take care of himself until them.
An offer came in for him to become a secret agent. It did look quite suspicious, but he was told to trust his heart in these decisions. He wasn't in the spirit to stay in the fronts, to be fair. So if he could fight for world peace with information, then so be it.
Years went by and Roland, now Twilight, changed bit by bit. He perfected the art of lying and manipulating. Killing was a last resort, but he never stopped doing so. If in his youth he was congratulated by his deeds as a sergeant, now he was just a worker of the shadows.
To get attached to people was simply impossible.
He didn't forget Anya, especially when the events depicted in her notebook became true one by one. He remembered the dates in her notes from college, he guessed she should be just slightly older than him when they met... He came up with a timeframe of when she should be born. And during those six years, everytime he had to seduce a woman for the sake of intel made him a bit sick. He didn't know if one of them could be Anya's mother. He couldn't even lie to himself and say he truly cared about any of them as more than a stepping stone for a greater good.
Maybe it was just a dream, he thought briefly as he coughed up blood stuck in a fallen car in a rift after a chase. Maybe at that time he was just so close to death he hallucinated a girl telling him he would be a good father. Maybe his fate would be dying as a spy before having the chance of falling in love with someone. It was a beautiful dream while it lasted, he was thankful for it...
Backup arrived in time of keeping him alive. When they put him on a stretcher and in the helicopter, Handler was there to welcome him.
"You're such a lucky bastard, sometimes." She muttered mockingly, but he could see a trace of relief in her eyes and words. "It's not today you're getting out of this."
Well, so there was his answer. The dream wasn't over yet.
Fast forward a couple of years and he receives the nonsensical task of getting married and have a child. Anya didn't even cross his mind at that time, because it was all so ridiculous. It would be way easier for him to do it all alone, why involve civilians like that? In the end, he accepted it, with the clean conscience that this was all a mission like any other. He wouldn't be attached. This wouldn't be his real family.
He walks over to the shadiest orphanage he could find in Berlint. He asks the oily and drunk director for a child that could read.
Hey, Anya, the man calls gruffly.
Twilight freezes at the name, but doesn't let the shock get to his face.
A girl, no older than five. She held a chimera plushie safely in her arms. Her dress is a bit oversized. Her green eyes watch him curiously as the orphanage's caretaker talks about her being the only one to know how to read and write and being quite smart. She has a pair of horn-like hair clips. Her hair is wavy and pink.
Twilight doesn't believe in his own eyes.
She skips over to the table and does the newspapers' crosswords to prove her habilities. Twilight can only pay attention to how small she is. To overlay the images of the Anya he met to the Anya in front of him is so strange. The first was confident, healthy, a bit sassy and talked proudly of her parents. This one has been alone holed up in an orphanage, now trying to convince him to take her.
Twilight choses her, but keeps a cool demeanor during the whole ordeal. Far too different of the turmoil of emotions in his head.
They walk on the street and Twilight is overly conscious of the tiny hand held in his by his side.
Once they're far enough of the orphanage, Twilight kneels down in front of her to take a close look one more time.
Pink hair. Green eyes. An age that actually fitted his guessings.
Twilight felt his mouth dry as he asks cautiously.
"What was your name, again?"
"Anya!"
"Anya... If anyone asks, you've always been my daughter, okay?"
Always.
Forever.
Since a time before she didn't even exist, she was already his daughter.
"Okie-dokie!"
"And... Can you call me 'Father'?"
"Papa!" She answers excitedly.
Twilight's mind is thrown back to a barrack in an Westalian military camp, when he's all patched up and a girl in pink hair and Ostanian accent just called him 'Papa' and made him cry. Right now, he wanted to cry again.
A bit hesitantly, he opens his arms for her. She watches him suspiciously, before stepping closer. He hugs her, a bit awkwardly at first, but she's comfortable enough to respond to the hug and hold his neck tightly. He sighs in relief as he can, after all these years, hold her safely in his arms.
Finally.
He finally found her again.