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[Six years is a long time. People grow, things change, and the world pushes forward. To some it might not be so much, but in the last six years, Terca Lumireis has changed so much it's almost hard to picture what it was like before. Blastia are dead and gone, talks on mana rather than aer are what's frequent now, and in their place are spirits of every kind. Some are friendlier to humans than others, but it's the same for everyone in this new world. There are those who reject the change, but the are also those who are working together, striving to improve this world of theirs as best as they can. What seemed like an impossible dream before is now reality, the Empire and Guilds working together to protect the people as best they can. It's a beautiful thing, change, and Estelle feels blessed that she's alive in a time where she can witness it all.
Things are changing so, so much, and she finds it absolutely wonderful. What's frightening is how little she's changed herself.
Everyone has grown so much. Puberty treated both Rita and Karol nicely, their heights having shot up within the last few years, so much so that even Yuri is worried about Karol ending up taller than him. Raven has a few new wrinkles compared to before, laugh lines etched on his face where they weren't any before. For all her wisdom, Judith's only become wiser still, and Yuri... It's hard to place any specific change on Yuri, but she knows—He's become so strong now. Estelle is proud of all her friends, but she couldn't be prouder than when it comes to Yuri. Time could change a lot of things about her friends, but it couldn't change the things that made them them. Yuri, with a confident smile and sarcastic response always within reach, was no exception. They'd changed, but not enough to make them different.
As for Estelle? Here she was, not looking a day over eighteen.
At first, she didn't think much of it. She wasn't at an age where she'd look hugely different after a a year or two, her height having stayed pretty much the same since she was seventeen. As the months and years passed though, the lack of changes just kept on piling up. She started cutting her hair once every year instead of every five months, her hair growth having slowed down to a snail's pace. Tiny things like paper cuts would heal and close up almost instantly, with neither the passage of time nor her artes to heal them. With how stressful things could be, long talks going late into the night with the Council and Knights over the state of affairs, she thought that by twenty-two she'd either have to get more sleep or face small wrinkles, maybe at the corner of her eyes. At twenty-four going on twenty-five, she still had nothing to show for those meetings that only increased over time. It was at the point where even Rita was wondering if something about Estelle's heritage made her even more different than she already was.
So she throws herself into finding out, pouring over every book she can find, every single text related to the royal family or the Children of the Full Moon, something that could explain what was happening to her. In the end, she turns to the spirits—she turns to Undine, who was Belius, who had lived far longer than anyone else she knew, seen things that were otherwise lost to history. She asks her what is happening to her now.
And she gets her answer.
It's not that she had a great number of ancestors, that world was filled with Children of the Full Moon when they came up with the plan for Zaude. The reason their collective life force could be used to power such a powerful blastia was because they had so much of it—life force, that is. Years and years and years of it, the strongest of them having been alive for centuries at the time they were sacrificed. Estelle, with her powers being so strong, is facing the same thing.]
I'm going to outlive everyone. [In the castle library, surrounded by all the knowledge and information she could find, the only affirmation Estelle gets is Undine sadly inclining her head before disappearing. The horror of it all only sinks in further.]
I'm going to see them... die.
Things are changing so, so much, and she finds it absolutely wonderful. What's frightening is how little she's changed herself.
Everyone has grown so much. Puberty treated both Rita and Karol nicely, their heights having shot up within the last few years, so much so that even Yuri is worried about Karol ending up taller than him. Raven has a few new wrinkles compared to before, laugh lines etched on his face where they weren't any before. For all her wisdom, Judith's only become wiser still, and Yuri... It's hard to place any specific change on Yuri, but she knows—He's become so strong now. Estelle is proud of all her friends, but she couldn't be prouder than when it comes to Yuri. Time could change a lot of things about her friends, but it couldn't change the things that made them them. Yuri, with a confident smile and sarcastic response always within reach, was no exception. They'd changed, but not enough to make them different.
As for Estelle? Here she was, not looking a day over eighteen.
At first, she didn't think much of it. She wasn't at an age where she'd look hugely different after a a year or two, her height having stayed pretty much the same since she was seventeen. As the months and years passed though, the lack of changes just kept on piling up. She started cutting her hair once every year instead of every five months, her hair growth having slowed down to a snail's pace. Tiny things like paper cuts would heal and close up almost instantly, with neither the passage of time nor her artes to heal them. With how stressful things could be, long talks going late into the night with the Council and Knights over the state of affairs, she thought that by twenty-two she'd either have to get more sleep or face small wrinkles, maybe at the corner of her eyes. At twenty-four going on twenty-five, she still had nothing to show for those meetings that only increased over time. It was at the point where even Rita was wondering if something about Estelle's heritage made her even more different than she already was.
So she throws herself into finding out, pouring over every book she can find, every single text related to the royal family or the Children of the Full Moon, something that could explain what was happening to her. In the end, she turns to the spirits—she turns to Undine, who was Belius, who had lived far longer than anyone else she knew, seen things that were otherwise lost to history. She asks her what is happening to her now.
And she gets her answer.
It's not that she had a great number of ancestors, that world was filled with Children of the Full Moon when they came up with the plan for Zaude. The reason their collective life force could be used to power such a powerful blastia was because they had so much of it—life force, that is. Years and years and years of it, the strongest of them having been alive for centuries at the time they were sacrificed. Estelle, with her powers being so strong, is facing the same thing.]
I'm going to outlive everyone. [In the castle library, surrounded by all the knowledge and information she could find, the only affirmation Estelle gets is Undine sadly inclining her head before disappearing. The horror of it all only sinks in further.]
I'm going to see them... die.
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