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The first time Himmel forgot her, Frieren thought he was joking.
He had always been, quite frankly, a dramatic sort of guy.
She arrived carrying a bouquet of flowers from the southern highlands. The flowers were rare ones, from the southern highlands, the kind that bloomed once every seventeen years. She remembered, with the strange clarity that only unimportant days seem to earn, an afternoon decades ago when she'd mentioned offhand that they looked "somewhat pretty."
Himmel had vanished for six hours.
He came back scratched down one arm, mud to his knees, grinning like an idiot, holding a single flower over his head as though he'd slain something.
Time well spent, she'd thought then, amused despite herself. She'd had all the time in the world, so she hadn't minded the wait. She never minded waiting.
She walked down the cobblestone path, awaiting the eventual turn into Himmel’s house.
So when the old man looked up from the rocking chair outside his cottage and smiled politely, she waited for the punchline.
"Good afternoon," he said. "Can I help you?"
She stood on the path a moment too long, the flowers heavy and stupid in her arms.
"...Himmel."
"That's me."
"You don't recognize me?"
His brow creased, and for a second she thought she saw something flicker behind his eyes, some old reflex reaching for her name. Then it passed, and what was left was only concern – the mild, generic concern of a kind stranger.
"I'm afraid my memory isn't what it used to be."
There was no joke.
Frieren blinked once.
"...I'm Frieren."
He repeated the name quietly, as though tasting it for the first time.
"...It's a beautiful name."
Frieren’s life was long.
None of it prepared her for the strange hollowness of hearing those words.
The physician said his sincere apologies.
"Some days are better than others."
"He remembers recent things?" Frieren asked. Her eyes went to the blue bird perched on the windowsill, its head cocked, watching them both with more attention than the conversation deserved.
"Sometimes."
"And older memories?"
"They're... fading."
"Will they come back?"
The physician looked at her with the sort of pity reserved for questions that had only one answer. "No."
Frieren nodded. "I see."
She left.
Halfway to the inn, she realized she was still carrying the flowers.
She returned the next week.
"Good afternoon," Himmel greeted warmly.
"...Good afternoon."
"I'm sorry, have we met?"
"...Not really."
She placed fresh flowers in the vase by his window.
He thanked her, complimented the weather, and apologized for making an old man's awfully dull conversation.
They drank tea together.
When she rose to leave, he waved from the doorway.
"I hope you'll visit again."
"I will."
He smiled, the smile that had once talked down bandits and demons alike, still intact even now, stripped of everything else. "I'm looking forward to seeing you."
She almost replied, Me too.
Instead she simply nodded.
It became a routine. Every Sunday: tea, flowers, conversation, and always, always, the introductions.
"My name is Frieren."
"My name is Himmel."
"I know."
He laughed at that, delighted, like it was a fine joke at his own expense. "Then I'm already behind."
She learned, over the weeks, not to test him.
Not to ask if he remembered the ten-year journey, or the dragon that nearly took his sword arm, or the meteor shower they'd watched. She had spent decades regretting not asking Himmel enough questions while he was healthy.
Now she had thousands.
None of them mattered anymore.
What mattered was whether he'd slept well, and whether the tea was too hot, and whether the flowers by the window still made him smile even though he could no longer say why flowers, specifically, made him smile.
One afternoon, he noticed her staff resting beside her chair.
"You're a mage?"
It was a new question, and something in her chest turned over at the surprise of it – proof, however small, that there was still a person in there capable of noticing something for the first time.
"Yes."
"You must have traveled quite a bit."
"I have."
"I always wanted to go on an adventure." He said it wistfully, the way old men say things they've made peace with never having done.
"You did."
"Oh?"
"You became a hero."
He laughed, a real laugh, surprised at himself. "I must have been a remarkable fellow."
"You were."
"I don't look very heroic now." He glanced down at his own hands, the trembling in them, like he was seeing them for the first time and finding them wanting.
"No,” Frieren said, honestly. “...But I think you still are."
He stared at her.
"You speak," Himmel murmured, "as though you knew him."
Frieren looked into her untouched tea, gone cold in the swirling golden hue of sunset outside the window.
"I did."
"I envy you."
"So do I."
Winter came, and the walks slowed to almost nothing. His hands shook too badly to lift the teapot, so she poured for him instead, the way he used to pour for her on cold mornings on the road, back when his hands were steady and hers were the ones too tired to bother.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"For making you look after me."
"You've looked after me before."
"Have I? You know, my memory’s not so good these days. I wish I remembered."
"...Me too," Frieren said, and found, to her own quiet surprise, that she meant that too. ."
One snowy afternoon, Himmel asked,
"Tell me about this Hero Himmel." He said it almost shyly, the way a man asks about a rumor he's afraid to confirm. "Everyone speaks so highly of him. I'd like to know what kind of man I used to be."
Frieren frowned.
"You've never asked before."
He laughed softly.
Frieren watched the snow fall past the window and didn't answer right away.
Where would she even begin?
The fearless speeches he practiced in his head and delivered like they'd come to him on the spot. The ridiculous heroic poses he struck before battles he had every reason to be afraid of. The way he'd smile just before something impossible, as if reassuring the whole party that the victory had already happened and they were only walking toward it.
The ten years he never once complained, not once, not even the week his boots fell apart and he wrapped his feet in cloth and pretended it didn't hurt.
The way he'd learned her favorite things from one offhand comment and never forgot it, not for the rest of his life – his life, which was so much shorter than hers and yet somehow held more of her in it than she'd realized until it was almost over.
"He was selfish," she said finally.
Himmel blinked. "Oh?"
"He always helped people."
"...That sounds rather selfless."
"He did it because seeing people smile made him happy."
"...I see."
"He pretended to be perfect."
"I can imagine."
"He cried when nobody was looking."
"...Really?"
"Yes."
"He sounds... very human."
"He was."
Silence settled.
Then Himmel smiled.
"I think I'd have liked him."
Frieren laughed.
"I think," she whispered, "he would have liked you too."
There was a tinny, ringing sensation in her head.
Spring took the spoon from his hand. Summer took names. Autumn took faces. Winter took words. The physician stopped apologizing somewhere in there, because there was nothing left to apologize for that hadn't already happened.
On the last day, Himmel opened his eyes while Frieren was adjusting the blanket at his shoulder.
"...Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Have we met?"
Frieren looked at him.
She studied him well – at the wrinkles earned over a life of living, the silver hair that had once been gold, the eyes that had stared down demon kings without flinching and now struggled to focus on her face.
She could tell him everything, right now, at the end. The journey. The statues raised in his name in three different kingdoms. The ring he worked up the nerve to give her. Every sunrise they'd watched in silence because words would have ruined it. Every ridiculous speech.
She could spend his final moments asking him to remember.
Instead she smiled – a smile she realized, only as she made it, that she'd learned from him. The kind that expects nothing back.
"My name is Frieren."
"...Frieren."
"Yes."
"...It's a beautiful name."
"I know."
He smiled at that, one last time. "I'm glad you came."
"So am I."
His eyes drifted shut again.
He never opened them.
Years later, travelers still find fresh flowers at the base of the Hero's statue every Sunday morning, and nobody has ever seen who leaves them there. The flowers bloom, and wither, and are replaced, and wither again, on and on, a small stubborn cycle that refuses to stop no matter how many seasons pass over the stone.
The tree wishes for stillness, but the wind will not cease. Elves remember because they live long enough that nothing has to end. Humans forget, sometimes even themselves, because they don't have that kind of time to spare. Frieren used to think there was something cruel in that asymmetry – that she would go on holding every detail of a man who could no longer hold himself. She doesn't think that anymore.
Perhaps, Frieren thought, there was no cruelty in either.
Only love, measured by different clocks.
And every Sunday, before leaving the flowers, she introduced herself one last time.
"My name is Frieren."
The stone hero smiled exactly as he always had.
He never answered.
He never forgot.
He was Himmel, Frieren’s hero.