mark_asphodel | Fic Update: "While the Springtime Turned, Slowly Into Autumn"

Yes, that's a Dylan quote.

Anyway, I was inspired to write something other than "Starchild" (still plugging away at Chapter 13 with that one). I'd been wanting to write some adult!Eliwood for a while, and I kind of wanted to write a non-sappy Mother's Day story, and the two came together in my head to form this.

I didn't want something super-depressing, and it ended up being a little more melancholy than I wanted because I couldn't totally escape the cloud o'doom hanging over Eliwood's head. But, seriously... it's a portrait of a guy in his early thirties (close to my own age, yikes) whose active life and career and usefulness are all about to end. Ouch. Even if I do prefer to believe he recovers at least somewhat from the illness that has him sidelined during FE6, being put out to pasture while your baby-faced teenaged son fights the war your best friend died in... no. Not nice.

And I like Eliwood. While I enjoyed the spurt of messed-up!Eliwood stories we got last year, I do prefer him, uh, sane. Stable. It's a nice change of pace. Plus he's the only main character of an FE game who ever gets the chance for some father-son bonding that we see (Sigurd's life went to hell too fast for me to feel good about any of it, really). And he seems like he would be a good father... especially compared to some of the other Lord characters out there. :/

Totally hooked on Eliwood/Fiora. Yeah, it's not the pairing the game "wants" me to go with, but if we go by, say, the canon of the novel adaptation, that gives us Eli/Ninian, Hector/Florina, and Lyn/Rath. I don't see hordes of people shipping Lyn/Rath just because the official novelization says so, so have some more Eliwood/Fiora. Have lots more.

Also, a fairly new writer has produced a Kyle/Lute romance that is very enjoyable except for the unfortunate depiction of Forde. Since Forde isn't the focus of the story anyway, give this a whirl.