Another what if for y’all.
What if Eli never died? What if Eli and the Mage escaped from Sister’s pursuit together? Do you think Eli would try to warn anyone who would listen about Sister or would Eli convince the Mage to lie low forever?
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My take on it would be:
Summary
The Mage would probably be the one trying to convince Eli to lie low. I think all of the first act with Aunt Bess would be skipped as well, with Eli around then it’s nothing at all for them to just heal the mage’s mana ducts. They come across the White Fangs and Eli heals Ilya while The Mage defeats the Elysium Beast. And of course the WF being the WF they invite the 2 to join them.
The Mage and Eli are guaranteed to save the kids, and assuming that the usual occurs where Mage saves them all but takes a permanent injury then Eli could fix it via their healing Phantasma.
Eli would either singlehandedly cure the village via their Phantasma or purposefully hold it back but still cure it with Ilya and The Mage’s help.
Eli doesn’t strike me as the greatest combatant, the Ball still ends up exactly the same except Eli fills Param in The Mage’s stead. If they haven’t used it already, they reveal their Phantasma to the group. Then the tactic becomes the canon Drop Mage as a Nuke and then heal them except instead of a dedicated team it’s just Eli.
The fight with Miriel goes as it does in canon, except if Eli goes with The Mage then it’s possible for Eli to reveal The Mage’s collar which bars them from revealing too much and Miriel’s plan. They would also have their experiences with it after all.
Eli and Mage are war heroes, everything post war goes the same way. Except since the White Fangs know about what they’re doing any lover The Mage or Eli has won’t do their usual “Will I see you again ;v;?” talk and only reaffirm they’ll pick up where they left off when The Mage/Eli get back.
Eli and Mage run off to Miriel’s lab to find a fix for The Saintess and Eli would fill the gang in on what they’re doing. When they come back they fix The Saintess/Mage defuses her safely. It’s only Ante who delays The Mage in the original and that’s because of their unknown purpose. Eli filling in Leon and the crew on what’s happening before hand means she has no reason to try detain them.
Now Mage and Eli are double heroes, and probably gets the festival in their honor that Book 2 Mage learns they get except like… without the whole Martyr factor.
Also it’s pretty unlikely that without bringing them back to life herself, The Mage and Eli would work for Thalia and her plan. So there’s that too.
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Truly a chad moment.
But imagine how the average Parami citizen thinks of it:
“Damn the siblings of the lady who declared war on us just singlehandedly won us the war, saved our country twice and now they’re married to both our King and our Saintess.”
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Overall, I think thats pretty much how it would went, but if we were making a “What if…?” parody I think it would be a great idea to still have a self-sacrifice theme for Eli to show that this is something in their core. Maybe have Eli be the one cursed by Sister and have a pragmatic Mage along the way. I don’t know, I feel like there is a potential for a great sub-story but since I suck at writing I am just going to leave it at that.
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Honestly, I imagine things wouldn’t have played out too differently provided they still ran into Aunt Bess: I doubt Eli would be any more keen than the Mage to start yelling in the streets about some crazy lady singlehandedly taking over a neighboring kingdom though, and Eli would likely follow MC should they want to join the white fangs. Ironically, with Eli there, MC might just stay a group of two and leave the white fangs on their own (after saving them obviously), since one motivation to join in the first place was simply not wanting to tackle danger alone (safety in numbers and all that).
Assuming they both joined, the only major differences I see would be the war ending a bit sooner since Param has an army that includes two very capable mages with phantasmas, one of which can heal the other, versus Miriel and her army. In an ideal situation, Miriel might even be stopped before she can capture the saintess or curse MC to not divulge Miriel’s backup plan
Now the real spice comes in during the execution (if we assume EVERYTHING plays out exactly the same even with Eli being there up until this point), I honestly think that Eli, Ilya, and Saine would 1000% break MC out or die trying, even if MC outright refused; Eli literally died to save MC, so I doubt the risk of death is a huge concern, plus Eli would probably take all the heat for breaking MC out, so Ilya and Saine may not even be arrested (though they likely would). The only thing I’m not sure about is if it would succeed; if it did, then MC and Eli would probably lie low until the real story got out, or just disappear altogether regardless. If it fails though, well…three angry people who found out their closest friend (and possibly lover in some cases) was killed for ultimately no good reason would NOT fly; if Saine and Ilya already hated Leomar for this, imagine how bad it would be when Eli’s anger and resentment is thrown into the mix. $10 on revolution, $20 on assassination attempt
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I love that everyone has these elaborate theories and I’m just sitting here believing they skip continents and avoid Mireil vs Leon all together. 
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LMAOOOO
“Aight I’mma head out.” but applied to a whole story.
Yeah that would make sense, but I feel it really depends on how Mage is characterised and I don’t see any version of The Mage letting up enough during that sequence to let Miriel target Eli unless Eli actively jumps in the way of Miriel collaring the Mage which to be fair does sound extremely possible. Either way it wouldn’t change the story much, just that The Mage is the one explaining what’s up to the Parami royals instead of Eli.
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Assuming everything else still goes the same, the Mage is still thrown into the dungeons, etc, I don’t think the Mage would’ve been executed had Eli been there! We already know that they are self-sacrificial to a dangerous extent for most people they care for/innocents, and with the Mage, that’s just amplified by… A lot.
Eli also has some very intense dedication to their morals, and they’re willing to put them aside for the Mage, which I think is just as important when it comes to considering what the story would’ve been like with them along.
So I think the Mage probably have gotten out with Eli’s (and Ilya, and Saine’s) help, with Eli being able to get them back to a much more healthy state after the misery that was the dungeon, and then the two would likely have left for anywhere that wasn’t Param.
I guess this version of Eli wouldn’t even know about Arcadia’s issues, either, so as far as we know, there’d be like, three people that this Eli would be dedicated to post-execution attempt: the Mage, Saine, and Ilya- maybe this version of events would include Saine and/or Ilya leaving Param as well?
We also get hints of how they feel about Leon after the burning, and it clearly is NOT positive, so I doubt they’d feel any sympathy for him here, either. Especially given that they’d see what the Mage puts themself through to aid him, and they’d likely be the main one responsible for healing them every time.
They’d have no real reason to stick around if the Mage (and probably also Saine, considering I’m pretty sure I saw some mention that he’d likely remind them of their younger brother at some point) was out of immediate danger and could be safer anywhere else. You try to straight up murder their best buddy who has hurt themself repeatedly to aid you and they probably aren’t gonna want anything to do with you, which is… Pretty reasonable!
If they couldn’t get the Mage out, I think Eli might even offer to be punished in the Mage’s place, somewhat like the way they sacrificed themself in the actual game!
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I don’t think Ilya and Saine would leave with Eli and a rescued Mage considering they have extremely important roles in Param (The Saintess and King’s Brother/Diplomat specifically) and they’d feel pressured to stay out of Duty. Duty’s why The Mage can talk them both out of breaking the mage out of the dungeon after all, and if Ante attempts to stop them then they kinda go “damn well I guess I can’t help” even if I think Saine and Ilya could individually defeat Ante 1v1 (and especially if Eli fights as well). The only thing I could consider Ilya leaving for is if she’s in a romance with The Mage.
But I do agree if the execution happens then Eli will take The Mage and dip. Ain’t no way Eli’s just gonna let Leon execute their sibling 
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You wouldn’t believe who suggested that and got it confirmed. 
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WAIT THAT WAS YOU??? Damn I’ve been thinking about that detail for forever bc it hit me so hard!!
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I only considered it because of the flashback where they describe Eli’s younger brother as having brown hair. The fact it was on the money is kinda hilarious.
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Soooooo.
We gonna ignore the obvious one for the Thaum specialist?
“I burn.” Kinda on the nose.
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Thinking of Eli does anyone else get the urge to switch sides to Param just for the sake of seeing how tense it can get by having Eli and Leon in the same room together? Bonus points to anyone who romanced Leon and then romanced Eli.
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Do it! Do it!
Me: Eating popcorns while watching Eli beat the crap out of Leon
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Yes.
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I would love to see something like that (even though I romanced Ilya), the drama levels are over 9000!
Just imagine:
MC: “Eli, this is Leomar.”
Eli: “The same Leomar who-”
MC: “burned me alive, yes. And Leomar, this is my lover, Eli”
Leon: “Oh…so you’ve moved on”
Eli: “You mean ‘upgraded’.”
MC: “Yeah, it was kind of a sudden change, I wonder what could’ve caused that? Hey Leomar, Can you think of anything that would cause a sudden change in our relationship?”
Leon: “Was it…you dying?”
MC: “Yes, but I seem to recall you being involved in that in some way. Can you remind me of how you were involved in my death?”
Leon: “I…killed you?”
MC: “What was that? A little louder for the people in the back.”
Leon: “I killed you!”
MC: “Correct Leomar, you killed me. So I suppose you could say our relationship ‘went up in smoke’”
Leon: “I see…well, as long as this ‘Eli’ makes you happy, who am I to judge?”
Eli: “It’s pretty easy, all I have to do is not burn my lover alive”
Leon: “By Jove, this is gonna be a long war…”
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That’s the plan.
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I am most definitely going to cry when/if this happens
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