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Tick, tick, tick
That sound. It will always pound in her head, the clearest part of her muddled memories. She is so young, but age is not a factor for monsters who poke their needles into children. Andromeda, her little sister, is so young when her screams stop. Apollo, her older brother, is supposed to be strong. She does not remember what Apollo looks like anymore. She remembers his voice though, the sounds he made, the way he cries like a child. He is a child. He was a child .
It is silent now, and all she hears is that horrible ticking sound. Nails against stone? Needle against metal? Perhaps it is all in her mind. A fragment of torture left behind. It joins the pool in her gut where a flicker of something electrical and sparkling is now bombarded with a parasite. A disgusting, pulsing, painful parasite. It is powerful. It is magical. It hurts so bad . Everything hurts so bad, and the loud ticking makes it all the worse.
Her cries and pleas for her brothers and sisters are met with silence. All she has left is a rumble of Charon’s storm, the parasite, and that awful, awful ticking.
Time is a prison. She wants her mama.
Tick, tick, tick
She spends her childhood fighting it, long after the vile monsters who infect her scuttle away like the rats they are. The prison cell is pried open, and yet there is no refuge from this parasite. It worms its way into her blood and her body. Lysithea curls her bruised fingers into her mother’s skirts. She is held in quivering arms, and yet all she hears is a gut-wrenching cry. Her mother does not let go of her, covering her tattered sleep gown with tears.
“Lysithea!” Her mother screams her apologies into her skin, as if it will make that awful parasite go away. It never does.
“My baby!”
Her father watches. Perhaps that is the scariest part.
Lysithea is young, yet she can understand now that his silence is born of his own torture. Did they put a parasite inside of him too? Lysithea boils with a child’s fury at the thought of monsters coming to take her papa away from her. She imagines them stealing all the blood from her mama’s heart and making her scream like Apollo did. The parasite wriggles beneath her skin, and she fights it with everything her little body can offer. Her mother is so, so distraught.
“Lysithea, love. What’s wrong? Samuel, she’s burning up! She’s burning!”
The sparking sensation in her belly rises up, electrifying her skin and making the parasite screech. Lightning streaks across the sky, searing light into her eyes. The Crest of Charon is terrifying yet it is the lesser of two evils here. Her mother’s sobs are drowned out by the sudden storm and suddenly, as soon as the onslaught starts, it ends. Lysithea’s eyes are heavy as stone as a shower of rain soothes the heat upon her skin.
The parasite loses this battle, and little Lysithea knows that it will not stay quiet for long. It blisters in her chest, magic coiling at her throat. It hates her. She hates it. One day it will burn her skin to ash and turn her bones to dust. Then, when she stops screaming, it will still be there, lying in wait for the body of another child to eat and destroy.
Charon brings storms and lighting, and it protects her this time. Lysithea closes her eyes as the skies cry for her alongside her mother and father. She is so tired. She wants to sleep. She just wants to sleep .
“Lysithea!” Her father screams this time. “ Lysithea !”
Tick, tick, tick
The parasite, though she supposes that she is too old now to act as if the Crest of Gloucester does not have a formal name, becomes more and more hungry as she begins her time at Garreg Mach. She theorizes that it can tamper with her dreams, when it is not busy tampering with her magic. Her peers wonder how she can possibly be so proficient with magic. Lysithea must ignore it.
She wants to say it is only because of her tireless work ethic, though that is not the only reason why. She has to keep it a secret or it will destroy everything and everyone around her. They said she would not last long. They said her time is running out, ticking away, and Lysithea cannot put the first friends she has ever had in her life in that kind of pain.
The parasite is killing her. The Crest of Gloucester is killing her. So she stays silent.
She fails, even now, but it is not the parasite that gains another’s attention.
In her bid to hide her ailments, Lysithea fails to realize that she is not the most observant person that walks the Monastery walls. Catherine, unyielding, powerful, larger-than-life Catherine, sees right through her fibs. She sees right into the electricity that thumps in her heart and she understands. She understands because that same lightning breaks apart the skies above her too.
“You can feel comfortable with me. Since we have the same Crest, we’re basically sisters.”
Lysithea finds more comfort in those words than she could ever imagine. Catherine is so sure and so bold, that it consumes her. It is as painful as it is wonderful. For the first time in a long time, it feels good to have Charon in her blood. Someone as powerful as Catherine as her big sister…
They stand together in the rain, laughing like children at the storm above their heads. Catherine lets her hold Thunderbrand. The weapon’s warmth feels right upon her palm. She returns it with a smile, though she never forgets the feeling of it in her hand.
It brings her comfort to have a sister again. To know that Catherine will be the first and only sibling to outlive her.
Tick, tick, tick
“I would think it beneficial that we discuss our houses and how we can better manage our territories’ trade agreements. Surely you can spare a moment and join me for tea?”
She is not the only one with a parasite. Though, to Lorenz, the Crest of Gloucester is no writhing creature. To him, it is something to worship, something to find pride in. To Lorenz, Gloucester is warm. The crest protects him. It protects him, and it courses through his veins like spring water. Fresh, clean… right at home beneath the pale skin.
He never has to cover up scars. He never has to hide the gift that he swears he has been given. Lorenz will never stop loving the very thing that is slaughtering her from the inside out. Even now, as she curls her frail fingers, she feels the way her crest burns in her belly, roiling with hatred. Yet, when she is around the purple-haired fop of a boy, she feels that burn blaze hot. She feels her crest reaching for Lorenz, and she realizes it is because that is where it belongs: Inside of Lorenz, enriching his blinding optimism, fueling his desire for the perfect future he seeks, the future that Lysithea will never get to see.
For a second, she wishes that he felt a parasite inside of him. She wishes that he covered his scars and screamed at the nightmares and clawed at his own skin. She wishes that he understood what it felt like to be preyed upon by the beautiful little being inside his body.
Lysithea feels sick, so utterly sick at this envy that drives such horrible, horrible thoughts in her head. The parasite is not to blame this time, and she prays that Lorenz’s will never become the kind that feasts on every fiber of her being. He does not deserve this kind of agony. Nobody does.
“Thank you, but no thank you.” She spits, because she is afraid of herself when she talks to him. “I don’t have time to talk about our parents’ jobs when I have magic to study. You should be doing the same.”
She cannot tell him. So she turns away from his invitations and from the confused hurt in his eyes. She keeps walking. The ticking starts again.
Tick, tick, tick
Five years is a lifetime of ticking. The sound never goes away, yet Lysithea wears down the cogs and gears of her body until the mechanisms act on instinct. They are past expiration, and somehow they still move. She waits for the end. It never comes.
Instead, war settles on her doorstep and buries itself into her skin. There is no escaping her death, this she accepts, yet she refuses to breathe her last breath beneath the Empire that dragged her into every ounce of torment she had ever faced. She thinks of her mother and father, thinks of the children they have lost. The child they will lose. She prefers to see them unconquered before her life ticks away.
She misses her Golden Deer.
She misses Leonie’s sisterly confidence, and Raphael’s boisterous laugh. She misses Marianne’s compassion, Hilda’s honeyed words, Ignatz’s stuttering shyness. She even misses Claude’s trickery, Lorenz’s utter refusal to leave her be, and the sweets and tea he brings with him everywhere he goes. She misses them so much.
There is regret within her, in the way she knows she must have pushed them away so many times. For all of the cruel words she spit in her agony, she knows that time ticks away at the immaturity she claims she cannot have. Lysithea knows she will die young, but she refuses to die without thanking the people she will miss the most. It drives her onwards, to leave her parents and fight for their future.
So when she sees them again, perched in their colors like a flock of birds on the breeze, she holds them tightly and she dreads to let go. Claude ruffles her hair as if they had never spent five years apart.
“There’s our favorite little brainiac. Think you can give us some new tricks to work with out there?”
She has plenty of tricks up her sleeve now.
Her parasite becomes her protector and the lighting sparks against her skin. These creatures work in tandem. Her crests bring her victory in their clash of pain. Brutal magic blasts a path forwards, and storms slide between her fingers. A cacophony of power, raw and protective, combines her crests together as one. Byleth raises her sword, and Lysithea’s beloved deer follow at her side.
Nemesis crumbles to dust in the arch of sunlight that streaks across the sky. A new dawn, as Claude dramatizes, yet it is fitting. The sunlight is so beautiful, the cheers and embraces and celebrations of her closest friends and chosen family are beautiful. For even in the face of death, Lysithea knows that she has given her mother and father a chance at life beneath this beautiful dawn.
Perhaps when the ticking stops, it will be beneath this beautiful dawn too.
Tick, tick, tick
“I felt it. The Gloucester Crest. My crest.” Lorenz admits as they sit for one last spot of tea. The air is cooling, their paths cross before they are set to depart to their homes. She wants to stay though, one last time before he never sees her again. He always tempts her with sweets, even if lately they have been as delightful as a Demonic Beast. Healthy treats, he says. What a ridiculous notion. Lysithea bites into one anyway, because she cares about the way he cares so much about her.
“I did not want to think that it was true, but I felt it many years ago. I understand now why you have it…”
She swallows. Crumbs dot her lips, and it is such a simple thing to think about, but it is so human. So alive. So she smiles, even as she hurts.
“So you know then, why I will not last.” She ignores his sharp turn and watches the clouds roll by. She admires their existence. She admires that she got to see them for so many years.
“I’ve accepted it though, Lorenz. When we fought all those battles together, for the first time in my life, I felt like the things that were killing me were actually worth something to this world. I finally understood what you meant when you bragged so much about your crest. It felt powerful. It felt exhilarating. I felt…”
“Invincible?” He murmurs, and she finally turns then, and drinks in the anguished empathy in his eyes. This is what he always felt. This was the only time she felt it. She nods once, and looks at the sky again. The wind is so nice against her skin.
“Invincible.” She murmurs back. “But nobody is invincible forever. That’s just how it is… but, so long as my parents live their lives peacefully, then all those extra years I’ve lived will be more than worth it.”
“Lysithea.”
Lorenz chases her eyes with his own. She can feel the way he looks at her. Still as stubborn as ever. Still the same.
“You are not going to die.”
As if he gets to decide her fate. As if he gets to press his finger against the ticking arms of the broken clock within her body. As if he gets to plant his feet into the ground and hold his arms out and stop the world in its tracks. She stares at him, baffled that he defies her acceptance of her bleak future.
“You are not going to die, because you are Lysithea von Ordelia. The woman who stopped squadrons in their tracks with a single spell. Who spent every moment of her youth perfecting the life she believed would end, day after day. I know no other who would express empathy for the life of a wildflower while mourning the thought of anyone or anything else dying besides herself.”
He pauses, looking at her as if he can’t understand how she doesn’t see what he does.
“How can you possibly die, when the only one who could cure these ailments is a person with a mind like yours? How can you die when the world still needs you here?”
He stares at her, and for a moment she feels a spark of his light. She feels it envelop the darkness plastered to her spirit. It does not break through, but it worms its way into her, nestling beside the parasite, the lightning and the war. Invasive and enticing.
“...You truly believe that we can find a way to remove them?”
“Professor Hanneman already expressed his interest in succeeding in just that. You know that I would support you and him at every step to do so.” His gaze does not waver, and she feels the new spark in her heart crackle at the meshing inside. “The real question I must ask, Lysithea, is are you willing to keep fighting to find that answer out?”
“What if I run out of time, Lorenz?” She asks. She has to ask.
He answers. He always answers, somehow.
“Surely there is still time left, Lysithea. There is always time left. We will make time, if need be.”
Lysithea feels her tongue in her mouth, the lumping in her throat, and she teeters on the edge of acceptance and refusal. Such optimism is unrealistic. It is foolish. And yet…
Today’s dawn is as beautiful as the last, and today’s dawn had been fought for with all of the foolishness in the world. She stares at the sky again. All of the creatures in her body burst into flames. They yearn for life, to be free of her skin, and for the first time in a long time, she yearns with them. And is it truly so wrong to yearn again?
“Okay.” She whispers to him. To her parents. To the new dawn, and the brand-new world.
To herself .
“Okay… I’ll fight. One last time.”
Tick... tick... t i--...