Flash Fiction February 2025 Day Twenty-Five: The Power Of Friendship (Issy)

A/N: Issy has an odd group of friends with very specific skills and one with a really weird bloodline, and is grateful for all of them even if they are a strange bunch

Flash Fiction February 2025 Day 25 Prompt: Friendship

Growing up I never had many friends, a few close ones here and there that would eventually part ways due to circumstances far beyond our control. Sometimes I think I’m cursed to be alone, it certainly seems that way from time to time, something always happens. Friends move away, lose touch that can’t be picked up again, develop different values incompatible with my own, sometimes in the process of growing up we just end up in different circles…some of them die, like so many others I encounter. It makes me grateful for the people I have in my life now, even if they will not be here forever, they are here for now. Their friendship and even their presence means more than they could ever know. Sitting by the temple of the Divines in the Imperial City one spring day as the weather has finally turned from eternal rain to warm sun and reflect on the concept of friendship. The circumstances of many of my current friendships came about by chance. Baurus and I wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t accidentally taken that piece of bread, Martin and I would never have crossed paths if Baurus hadn’t pointed me in the direction of Jauffre after the emperor's assassination, and I wouldn’t have met Cyrus or Caroline if I didn’t have to escort Martin to Cloud Ruler Temple. Likewise if it weren’t for a series of misadventures and questionable decisions I would not have met Lucien, or in reality met for a second time many years later as he recognized me from his days running up and down the docks where I would go to watch the ships with my brother and father. I do not know how long any of them will be in my life, but I will cherish the moments I have with them, however many or few those moments may be. When the hour grows bleaker by the minute they give me strength and hope to carry on even when all seems lost. It dawns on me then as I sit there plucking at the grass, is defeating enemies with the power of friendship actually a real thing? If your friends consist of three high ranking Blades agents, a professional assassin, and a bastard emperor supposedly of the bloodline that has the blood of dragons running through their veins, I suppose the possibility of such a thing being true isn’t impossible.