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It all starts when the Boss finds a streak of grey at his temple.
"Huh..." He does that mopey-broody thing at his reflection in the mirror, and Nimona's sure it adds another wrinkle to his already pretty wrinkly brow. "I'm going grey..." He kind of deflates. "For goodness' sake...I'm only twenty-five..."
The Boss's ex-nemesis wraps himself around his back like a three-toed sloth on a tree branch. For once, Nimona doesn't feel like shifting into the animal that pops up in her mind. "Aw, don't worry, Bal. It suits you!" He proves his honesty by pressing a kiss at his temple. "Makes you look distinguished."
She can't even bring herself to make exaggerated gagging noises at the saccharine display. She slinks off as a pink cheetah with red spots.
The Boss finds her moping--no, brooding, he would say, brooding--among the rusted machinery outside their evil lair. "Nimona?"
"You're aging."
His hand immediately goes to that grey streak in his hair that he spends so much time obsessing over. Not as much as his boytoy, maybe, but it's still something he does. She's seen him in the mirror in the mornings. "Oh. Uh..."
"Come on. Not saying that to make you feel old." It's kind of weird that premature greying is what he's insecure about; he's been this stupid kingdom's underdog since he was a kid. It's not like it's the worst thing anyone's ever said about him. "I mean...you're aging...but I'm...not."
"Oh." The Boss's big-ass eyes somehow manage to get even bigger. "Oh." He then sits down next to her. She's shifted into a mountain lion; absently, he runs his prosthetic hand over her fur. "Is that what's been bothering you today?"
She manages to give him a toothy smile. "Hey, you're not the only one who can get all soul-searchy." She leans into him. "Immortality's not all it's cracked up to be. You're the first person I've gotten attached to in over a millennium, you know? Eventually you're...you're gonna..."
"I'll die."
She shifts back into her usual human form and pulls her knees up to her chest. "But I won't." And then she'll be alone.
Again.
He gives her a one-armed squeeze. "I'm sorry...I wish I knew how to make this better."
"Just...stay alive as long as you can, huh?" In befriending him, Nimona...may or may not have forgotten just how fragile human bodies were. Maybe she could have been gentler when she'd freed him from prison. Maybe she hadn't needed to drag him back to the tower.
In her defense, the way he tended to throw himself into stuff, she wasn't convinced he was aware of his own limitations, either. How many times had she seen him headbutt someone during a fight? To people who were wearing helmets, at that.
He chuckles, a warm sound that makes her smile, despite the heaviness of the conversation. "All right. I think I can manage that."
That's really all he can do. And he keeps his word, becoming less suicidally stupid in his heroic stunts from then on. He gets a job making prosthetics for other people. Gloreth's distant spawn goes from the Institute's Golden Boy and the Kingdom's most Promising Potential to the Boss's happy househusband.
Things are great for the next few decades. Early on, Nimona can ignore how the Boss gains more and more grey hairs. She's able to laugh off Gold-Dick's dismay at losing his own; by the time he's fifty, he's started just shaving it all off. The Boss fares better; though fully grey, he's still got a full head of hair by then.
There's a lot of ways for Nimona to ignore how they change while she...doesn't.
Right up until she can't anymore. One day, the Boss falls and can't get up without her. By that point, Ambrosius uses a cane; it takes a lot of work for the two of them to get him to the doctor. A few weeks later (a few weeks too long, in Nimona's opinion), he receives a shiny new wheelchair.
A few months after that, Goldy needs to have surgery. If this had been when the two of them were still in their mid-twenties, he would've been up again in no time. But he no longer has a young, strong, healthy body; by the time he's fully recovered, over a year has passed, and he's even more sluggish and creaky than before.
One evening, the two of them ask her to take them beyond the wall and to the river's edge. While there, she notices the Boss shiver, despite the sweater and shawl he's wearing. Without thinking, Nimona shifts into a fat, fluffy house cat and curls up in his lap. With a warm chuckle, he places his mismatched hands in her thick fur, and she begins to purr. "Oh, Nimona..." His voice is as brittle as the rest of him.
She responds by flexing her paws against his bony knees.
"It's so hard to imagine a time when you weren't in my life."
"Same here, Boss." What she doesn't say is that she isn't sure what she'll do when his time comes and she'll be alone again.
She's been alone for most of her life, well over a thousand years. But that doesn't mean she likes it.
As she suspects, his time comes much sooner than she's prepared for. She's taken to sleeping at the foot of their bed; a pointed fox ear raises as she's awakened by the sound of sobbing.
No...she thinks. Not yet...
But there's nothing for it. As Nimona gets to her paws, the foot of her boss doesn't move beneath her. She doesn't have to look up at the headboard to know that Goldy's holding his body close as he cries.
Unsure of what else to do, Nimona curls up on top of them. He must've gone in his sleep...Considering the sheer chaos that was his start to life, if he had to go, this is the way he deserves.
The thought doesn't make her feel better. He's only been dead for a few hours; there isn't a cadaverous smell to his body yet. All she can make out is the coconut oil he's always used on his hair.
"I'm sorry..." Those are the only words Nimona can think to say. Ambrosius just muffles his sobs by burying his face in Ballister's hair.
They're not ready for this. She'd known they wouldn't be. But once they get close to it, that's when she calls the authorities. Just before they wheel his body out and take it to the hospital, Ambrosius presses one last kiss to the Boss's forehead with tears in his eyes.
Maybe it shouldn't surprise her, the sheer amount of people who show up to his funeral. But then again, he's now known as the new Hero of the Realm. He's the one who who stopped the Monster's March; he's the one whose kindness and understanding encouraged her to take the canon hit that would've killed hundreds of people in the kingdom.
He'd definitely come a long way from the Commoner who Dreamed of Being a Knight. Despite her grief, Nimona's happy by the outpouring of love and support.
By the time the sun starts to set, only she and Ambrosius are left. "I think he woulda been touched, you know? How many people showed up." His grave is piled high with flowers and cards.
"It's what he deserved." Nimona shifts into a bear, which cushions his frail body as he leans into her. "When my time comes, I want to be buried next to him."
Nimona breathes deep through her nose. She doesn't want to think about Ambrosius dying; this day had been bad enough. But she supposes it would've come up sooner rather than later. "Gotcha. Will do." The Goldenloin Estate has its own family graveyard. The fact that this is what he wants, instead, speaks volumes about his character.
"What will you do now?"
She manages a smirk down at him. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Boss'll come out of the grave and kill me if I don't look after you. Sorry, Goldy; you're stuck with me."
Despite everything, he chuckles. "Good to know."
Goldy gets two more years, three more months, and five more days. Nimona knows because she's counted them. It's a stroke that takes him. When it starts, she flies him over to the hospital as a giant owl. By the time she gets there, he's already passed, limp in her talons.
It's been nearly a century since she passed as a phoenix and rose as a girl. There are no looks of horror tossed her way; what she gets is sympathy from the doctors who tried, but couldn't do anything to save Ambrosius's life. What she gets is an embrace from a woman in the waiting room as she breaks down. If she minds getting snot and tears on the front of her tunic, she doesn't say anything.
Afterwards, she sits with her, possibly understanding that she doesn't want to go back home, which will now be cold and sad and lonely. "I'm sorry," the woman says.
Nimona sniffs and wipes her nose on the leather bracer she always manifests when she turns into a human girl. "Thanks."
Her hand, dark brown and weathered, is warm and dry and comforting on her shoulder. "It'll hurt; it won't ever stop hurting. But it'll get easier to live with."
Nimona snorted against her wrist. "You know what it's like?"
"I do. My wife passed five years ago."
Finally, Nimona looks up at her, at her dark eyes that have grown cataracts and the sad smile on her full lips. "I'm sorry."
"You...don't remember me, do you?"
Nimona doesn't, so she dumbly shakes her head.
"We met back when Ballister was on the run." She winced. "I was in danger. The knights ran like cowards, but you...you saved me."
"Oh." Nimona's eyes widen. "Oh! That's right; you were that little girl."
"You saved my life...and I held a sword at you." She squeezes Nimona's shoulder. "I never apologized to you for that...and I never thanked you for saving me. So, I'm sorry. And thank you."
"Heh...Sure." Better late than never, right? "I mean...You can be a little easier on yourself. A childhood of brainwashing'll do that to you, ya know?"
"I suppose." She moves her hand from Nimona's shoulder to her lap. "I was at Ballister's funeral. Do you need help planning Ambrosius's?"
Nimona manages a weak, watery smile. "Yeah...I think I do. There's no way whatever I come up with'll be as glorious as he'd want."
Despite everything, she chuckles warmly. "I'll see what I can do."
She lets Nimona sleep in her house that night. She dozes off as a leopard and wakes up as a wolf. All of her ideas for Ambrosius's funeral are better than Nimona can come up with. It feels nice, giving those reigns to someone else.
A lot of people show up. The turnout is even bigger than the one for her Boss.
Human mortality is an unfortunate truth, and this is far from the first or last time Nimona will have to come to terms with it. But when a handful of people, including the little girl she saved so long ago, stay with her long after the sun sets, it occurs to her.
She's not alone anymore. Maybe she never will be again.