Flipped (Super Paper Mario SWAP AU)

Flashback #5

Timpani carefully crept out of her room as the stars shimmered up in the dark blue sky. Merlon had been asleep for hours, but she still was sure to be cautious. He was a heavy sleeper, but she could never be too careful. Especially now.

Their house was fairly small, as were all the homes in the Tribe of Ancients. Not that the size mattered, people only ever slept in their homes. Most of their days were spent out in town.

But even the town had felt small because Blumiere wasn't in it. There was an entire world out there, yet she had been in so little of it. Someday, she and Blumiere were going to be everywhere. They were going to have the chance to be free, just like she always dreamed she could be.

It was funny, she didn't know that was her dream until just recently, but now she couldn't remember a time when it wasn't.

Merlon was sleeping on the couch, where he usually did. It was more comfortable than his bed, and closer to everything important he was trusted with. The Light Prognosticus was next to him, sitting on a small pedestal as it always did. She slowly approached it. The star of the cover glowed slightly. Merlon had always liked stars. After he and the executioner stopped meeting, he painted hundreds of them on his ceiling. He said it was a distraction from his failures, but they sure were pretty distractions.

She took a deep breath, then turned her gaze to Merlon. His chest was slowly rising and falling. Even when asleep, his deep blue cloak covered his face, casting a shadow so no one could see what he looked like. Sometimes she wondered what his smile felt like. He had grown a white mustache long enough to be seen outside of his cloak, so he must have stopped aging at a far older age than most ancients. The longer time passed, the longer his mustache seemed to get. 

When she was younger, he used to wear purple instead of blue. There was a color code to the system, she remembered Merlon talking about it. Blue and green cloaks represented ancients of importance, purple was symbolic of people who were working up to that important status, and red meant beginner. There was a time when she was offered a red cloak so she could begin training as an ancient, but she refused thinking she couldn't handle such responsibility. Or, maybe she didn't want to handle that responsibility. The life of an ancient was a hard one; they couldn't show their faces, they had to follow strict rules, and people depended on them to make hard decisions. There was a lot of weight placed on their shoulders, a weight that she didn't think she could ever carry.

But look at her now, ready to take on something even heavier than that.

"Forgive me for this," she whispered as her small hands wrapped around the book. She took a deep breath, then pulled it off its pedestal. She briefly looked back again, making sure Merlon didn't notice. Luckily, he remained asleep.

Her shoulders sagged slightly as she turned away and silently headed out the door, rushing to the tree where she usually met her love. Her heart was racing with excitement and anxiety all at once. Maybe this was it, maybe their two tribes would finally be united once and for all.

The stars twinkled overhead as she ran up the hill and to their special tree. She didn't know what time it was, but she must have been early since Blumiere wasn't there yet. He promised he'd make it before dawn, so he still had a few hours to get the Dark Prognosticus and meet up with her. All she had to do was sit and wait.

She held the book to herself and rested against the tree. Her heart felt warm at the idea of being able to spend the rest of her life with him. His voice, his smile, he was the warmth in her life that had been missing for years. He was her world, she knew that now. She had known that for a while, she just wasn't smart enough to see it.

Hours passed and the once dark blue sky started to turn a deep orange color on the horizon. No worries, though. He'd show up. He promised he would, and she believed him. Maybe he just got a late start on taking the book, or maybe his father was making things more difficult than they needed to be.