When You're Gone

[perfectteatime]

And in the night, I could be helpless
I could be lonely, sleeping without you

The thing about living for a long time is that nothing is novel anymore. There are no surprises. You watch life go and the same mistakes and stories are repeated, over and over in an endless circle. Sure, the names change, the faces are fresh, but after a while even that blurs together. The beginning of the school year. Seven-hundred-and-eighty-two school beginnings, not counting those years he elected to take off from teaching.

Fhirdiad Community College left a lot to be desired. The parking lot was really just one giant pothole. Once upon a time, Byleth had a strange pride in being able to remember where every single one was, but time sucked the joy out of everything, so his car lurches and bounces as he pulls into his very mediocre spot. Or he would pull in, but someone has parked their shitty beater truck there. Probably a new student. He sucks in air through his teeth in mild irritation. It's not even worth calling the parking monitors. He just takes a spot next to it and drags himself into the building, shuffling through the halls, the beaten leather book bag tucked against the itchy argyle sweater vests that he had decided to own twenty of in only slightly varying colors. Dark blue hair pulled into a very messy excuse for a tiny ponytail, it doesn't stop it falling over his eyes, getting trapped behind the scuffed glasses perched on his nose.

A few people greet him, some of the older faculty, but most simply let him pass by. His reputation for being at best terribly dull and at worst outright unfriendly has the desired repelling effect. He slides into his lecture hall, dropping his bag at the desk in the same spot he has off and on for the past eighty years (off and on of course). The floor is visibly worn from it. He settles in, organizing the opening syllabus and paperwork as people shuffle in here and there. A drink of lukewarm tea in a cup that he's had for who knows how long. The bell rings, and he exhales willing himself not to simply walk out as he stands up, scrawling on the whiteboard with immaculate handwriting.

"I am Professor Eisner. Welcome to World History 200. Everything we will cover is in the syllabus but don't think that's an excuse to skip class. I will know if you pay someone to write your essays so don't waste your or my time." Another slow inhale, exhale.

The other thing about living for a long time is that you have to stop feeling things. It seemed like some kind of cosmic joke, that Byleth truly learned to feel but the whole purpose of that reformation seemed to really be only so he could feel pain. The formative years after his marriage had been amazing. He never knew anyone could be so happy. Sure, it was stressful, miserably busy, but he had everyone there to support him. He had Dimitri.

But Dimitri died young, ravaged by the damage done to his body, fell to sickness and slipped through Byleth's fingers. Just like that. The first hundred years after were no better. The worst part however, was not watching everyone grow old, wither and die while he stayed young as the day he emerged from that crevasse that had swallowed him. Perfect and beautiful. No, the worst part was having to remove himself from the world. To cease to exist. Guiding things from the shadows, watching but never able to touch. The children of his friends, and their children's children, thinning the bloodlines until crests were a myth. Until heritage didn't matter anymore. He knew that when the Church of Seiros sat as a lesson of the dangers of unchecked religious power in textbooks, he had done his job.

By that time, all the emotions he had worked so hard to cultivate and learn slowly faded into a sea of gray. Until things were meaningless again. Until he didn't have to hurt all the time anymore. It faded to a dull backdrop of low-level grief that he could tolerate outside of the days, months, years he couldn't get out of bed.

The dry erase marker clacks hard against the tray at the bottom of the board.

"Now. Who can tell me what countries were at the center of power before the Great War of 1207?"