Are You Game?

Author: intersquid / regentzilla

Rating: G

Warnings: none

Wordcount: 687

Prompt: Dragon Quest 1, Main Character: Twilight Years – What does a hero(ine) do to decide her / his legacy when the end is near?

Summary: After defeating the Dragonlord, Erdrick's life became a constant struggle to keep his destructive powers under control in a peaceful kingdom that has no need for them. When the Princess of Moonbrooke is 6 years old, he sees the first hint that his grandchildren might have inherited his incredible strength.

A/N: I wish there were canon names for the Loto trilogy characters, it gets kinda confusing to write about @__@... For clarity's sake, the Hero of DQI inherited the name/title of Erdrick when he defeated the Dragonlord.

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The young Princess of Moonbrooke was 6 years old when she fell and scraped her knee playing in the castle courtyard and didn't spill a drop of blood.

King Erdrick watched silently from the garden as handmaids clustered about the Princess like bees, trying to stop the tears from welling up in her eyes as she sat in the dirt and clutched her injured knee. Of course her cousins were nowhere to be found, the brats-- they seemed to always be two steps ahead of the Princess.

When she finally moved her hands away from her knee, coaxed gently by the buzzing maids, there was nothing there. No blood, no dirt or mud, just smooth skin. She looked between her hands and the ground where she fell, puzzled, still bubbling up with tears ready to fall at the sight of the cut that didn't exist.

It had been a long time since Erdrick had seen someone cast a healing spell for the first time-- it was before he was even called Erdrick, surely-- but the pale baby grass left sprouting from the spot where the Princess fell erased any question he had in his mind.

He prayed to the Goddess that it would all end there, but it didn't take long for the other cousins to blossom. Soon enough the Prince of Cannock was rubbing away bruises like ink stains and the Prince of Midenhall was snapping quills in his hands as he wrote his lessons. They were, undoubtedly, inheritors of the Erdrick bloodline.

He watched closer than ever as the cousins grew and did things he himself could not anymore-- if he tried to spar with a mannequin he would cleave it in two, and if he lost concentration stoking a fire in the kitchen he could blast the very life out of the castle, sear the bricks and scorch the grounds. Once it became clear that his grandchildren were most definitely cut from the cloth that saved kingdoms, Erdrick prayed instead that they would never have to use that strength. He hoped more than anything that these sweet children would never have to become heroes living in a world that they would outlive and destroy just by existing, a world not resilient enough for them. Erdrick's life had become a puzzle, a constant struggle to keep the strength that killed the Dragonlord safely under control in a kingdom that had no need for that kind of power. Even his lifespan had long exceeded anyone else who had been alive during those times-- nobody these days could even imagine needing the ability to burn forests or freeze rivers with a snap of the fingers. He was a gentle king, but he suspected his subjects were just as fearful as they were reverent.

Lora would have scolded him for underestimating them and imagining the worst, he was sure. What would she have said to him? What would she have said about her grandchildren?

The kingdoms would be safe, no matter what-- Erdrick could rest peacefully knowing that, at least. The cousins would have one another, because even as children they trusted nobody else with their secrets and schemes. They would be strong enough for one another.

And, as always, she would have been right.