A/N: Well THIS one was depressing to write…I suppose a lot of it embodies my own personal philosophies, things I learned very early in life: that painful things never just disappear—they must fade first; and that nothing lasts forever. Usually in my writing I try to get my points across loud and clear, exploring everything, but in this chapter—though I do make my point, I should hope—there is a lot of it I leave for you to analyze yourself (I simply love stories like that!).

Focal Characters: Hector, Eliwood

Relationship: Friendly

Genre: Angst, rather philosophic

Chapter Two—To Remember

“It looks like I was right after all,” said Eliwood, trying to hold back a slightly bitter smile. “Fourteen to twelve.”

“Nonsense.” Hector glared at his friend. “You didn’t count right.”

“Did you just say that to me?” the marquess asked with an eyebrow raised. Hector glowered for a moment longer before turning away, tugging at his beard irritably. The argument was so familiar.

The two men were standing on the outskirts of a forest, deep inside the grounds of Castle Ostia. With legs that somehow still remembered where to carry them, and minds muddled deep inside what felt like an old dream, they had wandered off the polished stone pathway that lead to the Castle, over the lush grass of the enormous gardens, past the dirt training arenas that Ostia’s knights sparred in—which Eliwood and Hector had also practiced in, many times—and down to the forest at the edge of the grounds. Above them, sprawling against the sky in a myriad of ancient and gnarled branches, was a gigantic tree. But Eliwood and Hector weren’t concentrating on its height…they were staring at the slashes gouged into its thick, solid trunk. Although the wind whispered through the grass and birds chirped here and there, it all seemed unbearably quiet to Hector.

“I’m glad we came alone,” said Eliwood in a low voice, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Hector agreed. He thought back to a few minutes ago.

“Do you think it’s time to settle the score?” Eliwood had asked with a small smile.

Hector grinned in return, feeling his old competitive blood come rushing back to him. “Of course. But…” His cheerful mood suddenly dissipated. “It…might scare the children.”

“What’s scary, father?” his daughter had asked, staring up at him with her wide, bright eyes.

“I’m not afraid!” Eliwood’s son protested, lifting up his wooden sword. Eliwood smiled at the boy.

“Now now, Roy…I think you and Lilina would be much happier fighting that monster I saw over behind that tapestry.” Eliwood pointed, feigning fear, and Roy gleefully grabbed Lilina’s hand and charged away. Hector smiled to hear his daughter’s laughter, and turned to the door.

“Wait…” Eliwood said suddenly. “Hector, why would our children find our old scores frightening? They’re just numbers carved into a tree—nothing that could scare or hurt them.” He raised an eyebrow as he glanced towards his son, who was busy pummeling the poor tapestry with his toy sword as Lilina pretended to be captured by the curtains of the window two feet over. “And those two will probably hurt themselves if we leave them alone.”

Hector chuckled. “Oswin’s right there, see? He’s got them under control.” He waved to the general down the hall, and returned his attention to Eliwood once he received a salute. “And…I don’t know, Eliwood, I just don’t want the children to see this. It was so long ago…so many memories…”

“I understand.”

So there they were, standing beneath that enormous tree. Hector studied the trunk, counting the marks in it once again—one slash in the tree for every battle won. It was their tally, their record of all the spars they had fought as children. There were twelve marks under the rough “H” hacked into the tree, fourteen under the more cleanly carved “E”, and four off to the side, which were the draws—those excruciatingly long battles that neither Hector nor Eliwood had given an inch in.

Blast, he won more than me after all…

Hector looked over to see that his friend was studying the marks as well—but not with a look of triumph. It was actually a rather sad look, empty and melancholy.

“Something the matter?” Hector asked.

“…We were hurting that tree,” Eliwood said softly.

“What?” Marquess Ostia gave a start and turned to face the tree again. “What are you talking about? We made some nicks in the bark, that’s all.”

“No, look.” Eliwood gently reached out and ran his fingertips lightly over the cuts in the trunk. “They’re still here, Hector. As deep as ever. And over the years this tree has grown and grown…but the marks have never faded…”

“So what’s your point?” Hector didn’t quite understand what his oldest friend was getting at.

“Don’t you see? We did this to it, Hector. It’s lived for so long with these wounds…and it will have them for the rest of its life. They will not heal, they will not go away. Does that not…sadden you? That we have cut into it so deeply that those marks will never fade? That our children will live to see them, and their children as well?”

“That is a bit creepy,” Hector admitted, “but…it’s just a tree. I don’t see why you’re so worked up about it.”

“I feel like we stole something from it.” Eliwood guiltily dropped his gaze from the tree trunk to the grassy ground. “It could have grown up whole and healthy, if not for us. I know we were young, and didn’t think ahead before we acted…on anything...” The redhead chuckled softly. “Still…it is as if we have crippled it. There is something wrong with it now.”

Hector settled his hands on his hips and leaned his head backwards, looking up at the network of branches winding against the blue sky. “So should I cut it down?”

“NO!”

Eliwood flung himself at Hector, who had not suspected such an outburst and almost toppled over. But he managed to regain his bearings and instead of falling, stared at Eliwood. The marquess of Pherae had a handful of Hector’s silk shirt in his fist, and was looking up at him with those blue eyes—still as bright and determined as they had been fifteen years ago.

“Hector, you can’t.”

“Why not?” Hector glanced back at the tree. “You’re the one who said something was wrong with it, after all. If it has to live out the rest of its life scarred and suffering and all that, why not just end it all? Why not cut it down?”

Eliwood’s grip on Hector only tightened in response to that, however. He fixed his eyes on his friend’s as he spoke, his voice frighteningly quiet and solemn.

“If you kill that tree…you will have to kill us too.”

Hector froze and stared at Eliwood, who also seemed unable to move. Have…have we, too, been so wounded? The two looked at each other, stuck inside the moment, for a long time. Finally Hector noticed that Eliwood’s eyes were glittering, and felt his own eyes sting as well.

“So…” he said gruffly, pulling away from his friend’s grasp and blinking rapidly, “We’re still seventeen…”

“I still have nightmares, Hector,” Eliwood confessed in a whisper. “Even after all this time…I dream of Ephidel, of Nergal…”

“Me…me too.” The words spilled out of his mouth before Hector had the chance to stop them. “In my memory, it’s hard to see the glory and salvation the bards sing about…I can only see fire, and blood…so much blood…”

“Hector, do you realize how much pain we caused?” Eliwood was clutching his own shirt now, as if trying to hold his heart. “Everyone we killed in that war…we hurt them, their comrades, their wives and their children…we left our mark on the world, and it is one that will hurt it for as long as history exists…” The redhead paused, then touched the old and gnarled tree again. “And on top of all that…we are a part of it. We have seen losses and injuries and horrors beyond anything anyone could imagine. We have been scarred as well.”

“Shut up,” Hector ordered softly. He wasn’t trying to be cruel, but rather had always spoken so abruptly. Eliwood was used to it, and understood, so quickly fell silent. Hector just closed his eyes and placed a hand on the tree as well.

Yes, we caused the wounds…it’s so ironic, isn’t it, that in the end we would be wounded in turn? Now we have cuts that refuse to heal…deeper than flesh and bone…within that quintessence that Nergal wanted so, we have been tainted…

“Why did we choose this tree?” Marquess Ostia muttered finally. “We could have kept our score on anything…”

“Maybe back then…we could sense that someday…it would be just like us,” mused Eliwood.

Hector stared back up at the tree. It was just unfathomable to him that those nicks would remain for all eternity. If there was one thing that the war had taught him, it was that the wheels of fate would always turn. Perhaps one could reverse their direction—but a mere mortal could never stop them. Time passes, time goes on. That was the pure and simple fact of life, and nothing—not morphs, not dragons, not magic, nothing—could dispute that. Life flows along, uninterrupted. And change…change was inevitable. None could stop it, as well…and that was why nothing remained the same.

Our happy childhood was destroyed, and we had to become men so quickly…we were never the same, after the war. To think, it’s been fifteen years since I have last seen Eliwood…? And still, after all this time, we are haunted by our pasts and afraid of our futures? That simply can’t continue for all time…it can’t…

“It can’t.” Hector had blurted out the words before he realized it.

Eliwood, who had been gazing unseeingly at the tree, suddenly blinked and turned to face the bearded man. “What can’t, Hector? What are you talking about?”

“This can’t be how we will always live our lives!” Hector repeated forcefully. “I still dwell on the past, yes, but not as much as I did five years ago, or ten! Not as much as I did once the war had ended, when hardly an hour went by that I didn’t remember what had happened! Eliwood, nothing lasts forever. Mountains crumble, mighty empires dissolve, the tides of the oceans recede…no wound, not even the remembrance of it, can exist for so long. You know how life is as well as I do—there are good times and bad, and they take turns. Everything changes. That tree…” Hector broke off and jabbed his finger in the direction of its etched trunk. “Sure, it has some marks on it…but it’s still alive, isn’t it? It’s still growing, and at the rate of any other tree! I don’t think it hurts as much as it used to. And someday, decades from now, wind and rain will wear those cuts away, and no one will ever know that this old tree used to be our scorekeeper. Perhaps even it itself will forget.”

Eliwood stared at the tree a moment longer, tipping his head back to survey its network of branches. His eyes began to shine again, with an emotion—perhaps relief?—that Hector found hard to name…and as a gentle breeze picked up, ruffling his crimson hair, he closed those eyes peacefully.

“It’ll heal,” Hector said softly, reassuringly, perhaps for his own benefit as much as Eliwood’s.

“Yes, it will heal,” Marquess Pherae echoed in a whisper. “And…so will we.”