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Throwing my headcannons in the ring because this age discussion has been hilarious.

So I personally believe that Alfonse and Sharena’s age difference is pretty small. About 1 year apart, two at max. What set that in stone for me was meeting their parents in book 3 and seeing that their difference in maturity derives from the two very different expectations put on them. This coupled with a generally sheltered life prior to joining in the Order leads to the wonderful concoction of mirroring issues they’re both sporting.

Speaking of, how old were they when they joined the Order? I want to say about 18-19, as that age range generally correlates to when people usually start to break free from their parents and become more independent. And we know that’s what joining the Order was for them because this decision led to Alfonse getting entirely kicked out by his dad. It’s all very “good luck kid, you’re an adult now. Figure it out yourself” coded. So from there, let’s give them a few years in service. Maybe four years? So when book 1 actually starts, Sharena and Alfonse would be about 21 and 22 respectively.

Now Commander Anna has always come off as older than the royal siblings. This woman has had a whole military career up until this point. She has enough combat experience to warrant becoming the commander of an elite army battalion whose original purpose was espionage and in the coming years is about to be responsible for killing multiple gods. However, despite this, she’s not THAT much older than them. Maybe about 25? So how on earth does that work? Well, it would make a lot more sense if she was child soldier of some kind. Fighting on the front lines since she was 13-14. That logs her over a decade of experience and would help explain why she is military commander of all things and not another cutthroat merchant.

Bruno is unfortunately singing a similar tune as Anna. He is about the same age and was made into a solider around the same time. Maybe even sooner. We know his life started hitting its downward spiral with the death of his mother, so it would make sense that as a form of survival, he would start learning how to fight. Then within this 10+ year time period, he could be sent to Askr, meet Anna, join the Order, become close with the royal siblings, leave, etc.

Veronica, meanwhile, is like 13-14 in book 1. She’s baby. She’s a brat. She’s around the age where things started going very wrong for Bruno, so he feels morally obliged to try to be there for her as a result. Be at least one adult in her life that has her best interest at heart. But he’s also extremely depressed and going through it, so that becomes increasingly complicated as time goes on.

Last but not least we got Kiran. In my mind they’re about 24. Nothing too complicated going on with that conclusion. They’re not older than Anna, but not younger than Sharena. Think it would be funny if they were like “Wait Alfonse you’re 22? Oh my god you’re a baby” while only having a two year age difference.

(Also I think it could be really interesting flavor for Kiran’s character if they’re old enough to have a college degree that can no longer use but Kiran’s past is a Ted Talk for another day)

Now what’s actually complicated is how old everyone is in current day. I think, on average, it could be safe to say that each book takes canonically about 6ish months. For example, making book 1 and 2 take place in the same year feels right to me, especially since they kinda flow into each other. Embla was presumably winning for a time, but since in introduction of the summoner, they’ve spent half a year getting absolutely no where. At that point, it makes sense for Embla call upon Múspell to help turn the tide. But the key world is average, because then you have seasons like book 4 which explicitly takes place over the course of 3 days. This means that book 3 and book 5 are WAY closer to each other timeline wise. Niðavellir probably chooses to attack Askr when they did because they were still recovering from Hel’s near world ending assault. This makes book 6 take place around the start of year three. But then book 7 makes things complicated again because of course it does but instead of trying to decode it I’m just gonna slap it with the 6 months sticker even tho it’s definitely wrong. Which makes book 8 happening at around year 4.

With all that in mind, my headcannon ages for our main cast in book 8 are as follows: Alfonse is 26, Sharena is 25, Anna is 29, Kiran is 28, Veronica is 17, and Bruno is dead (died at age 28.)

I would LOVE for some updated portraits to convey how much time has passed with the Askr trio. I want to draw it so bad. But alas I am busy and Alfonse growing into more Líf similarities will have to wait.

LMFAOOOO

It's very unclear! But Alfonse's "It's been at least 10 years since Sharena was a child" line is a rough estimate itself. I feel like it could place Sharena anywhere to 18 to 20 when she joined the Order of Heroes (this is just my headcanon though, based on what's typical irl -- there's also a possibility that in Askr, the age you're considered "an adult" is different, but that's also speculation)

But if Sharena was anywhere from 18 to 20 when she joined the Heroes, and granting that a few years have passed to get to Book 4. Maybe 22? 24? At oldest? If every book is a year. Which in that case!

Yeah she could be at this point actually 🤔 Or maybe 26.

And really you can throw any random number at Alfonse like. I kinda hc he's 3 years older than her, if not 4. They do seem close in age, but far enough that Alfonse has always felt more "grown up" to her (possibly by the way he was treated/raised, many possibilities). But going off those numbers, he could be 29 or 30ish current Book, if we're going w Sharena being 26 (makes me wonder if his Brave alt is gonna make him look "more mature"... like his portrait always read as young adult to me, but I wonder if he'll be a little less baby faced.)