Chapter Text
Annette hadn’t set foot inside Felix’s bedroom since she barged in with the express purpose of demanding his forgetfulness and silence by way of bribery, yet now she sat (far calmer than last time) on his desk, her legs swinging and the dream book in her hands.
Felix could list all the ways in which his evening could be better spent. He could stay at the training grounds until curfew or finish penning the letter to his father he’d been putting off or sharpen his favorite sword in preparation for their next mission or even write that siege tactics essay the professor assigned them despite it being the last thing he ought to be doing with his time with a glut of strange enemies converging on the monastery.
Instead he’d let Annette convince him of her inane scheme with the promise that it was useful. And he couldn’t deny some part of him simply…enjoyed being near her. It was an alien feeling, but he was glad for the excuse.
“Are you going to sleep here too?” Felix wondered after Annette flipped through a few pages with little more sound than mumbling the text under her breath.
He couldn’t see her face from behind the book, but she stuttered, “W-what? Of course not! Do I look like I’m dressed for sleep? And that would be terribly inappropriate and you know it!”
A scowl twisted his lips, but he turned his head as his cheeks warmed. “Who do you think I am?” he demanded. “Sylvain?” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “You’d have to sleep on the floor anyway.”
Annette snapped the book shut to glare at him. “Is that how you treat a guest, Felix?” she said. “You make them sleep on the floor?”
“You’re not even sleeping here,” Felix retorted, gesturing at the rug lying empty (he’d made sure to clear it before Annette took more than a few steps inside), “so why does it matter?”
“Well, at this rate, we won’t be sharing a dream yet either,” she said. She opened the book again, her brow furrowing before she grumbled, “And now I lost my page…”
A sigh escaped through his nose as he buried his face in his hands. “Dammit, how are we supposed to try this if—”
“Why don’t you read the book and see what you can learn from it?” Annette snapped. “Then tomorrow night you can explain everything to me, since you obviously already know so much better than me how to do it!”
Felix, feeling so chastised Ingrid would be green with envy had she witnessed it, snapped his jaw shut. His ears burned, and if he hadn’t seen the sense in her words he might’ve been more annoyed.
He held his hand out. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll just study it tonight and I’ll read some tomorrow between meals and training, and we’ll try properly then.”
Annette’s eyes widened, but she clutched the book closer to her chest. “Did I…hear you right, Felix?” she asked. “Do you have a fever? Should we go to the infirmary? You do look a little red…”
Felix covered his face with a hand and growled, “I’m fine! Let’s just…start with this now.”
“Huh, well, I thought this sounded interesting,” she said, blessedly eager to return to their objective. She cracked the book open again and read, “‘Dreams are ephemeral by nature. To grasp one you must leave as few variables as possible, so concentrate your intent in the spell and forge a bond with your dream partner.’”
“And that means…” He frowned. “What does that mean?”
She tapped the open book against her chin, gaze faraway as she considered. “I think it means dreams have a lot of variables but we can limit some of them by how friendly we are,” Annette explained.
“And once we’re in the same dream…” Felix wished he knew how to ask, What will you see in my dream?
“I haven’t gotten to the part where it explains what we can do once we’re dreaming,” she said, shrugging. “It just starts with a chapter on theory, then a chapter explaining the components of the spell, and another with warnings to make sure you don’t hurt yourself, and there’s an appendix with questions we can ask each other to—”
“Wait, wait.” Felix held his hand up to stop her, his heart skipping a beat when her gaze fell on him. “Are you saying this is dangerous?”
“No more dangerous than any other spell of its magnitude,” Annette said. She turned a few more pages, her finger skimming down a passage before she added, “It’s mostly just warning us that when we use the spell to share a dream, our mind isn’t truly asleep so we’re not really resting. Also there’s…this.”
“What?” He leaned forward, curious despite his misgivings.
“‘If a dreamer fails to sufficiently put the mind back to sleep, an abrupt severing of the spell risks the dreamer falling into a coma.’”
Felix stiffened, and not for the first time he wondered if this was really a good idea. But unlike every other time, he had to wrap his head around the fact that the magic Annette proposed was far more advanced - and riskier - than anything he’d ever attempted.
He’d never use a sword crafted by a master like Zoltan before he knew he was capable of wielding it, just like he’d never seize upon a risky technique in battle without first mastering it in practice (unless his life depended on it), so why would he for something Annette simply thought would be “interesting”?
“It’s a small risk,” Annette said as if she read his mind as easily as she did the book, but the smile she flashed him lacked an edge. “It’s like the risk of being struck by lightning.”
“If a mage adept with Thunder attacks you in battle,” Felix quipped before he could think better of it, “or if you’re sheltering from the rain in a tall tree.”
Her smile faltered. “Felix, I swear I wouldn’t make you do this if I thought it was dangerous.”
He exhaled slowly. “I know,” he said, “but maybe it doesn’t matter what you think.”
“This book has some precautions we can take,” Annette told him, brandishing the book just like he might a sword when challenging someone to a spar. An effective weapon when battling ignorance, sure, but unlikely to keep him alive. “Let’s just try it once and…see what happens.”
And Felix, because he had no choice but to believe her, agreed.
***
When Felix wakes, his heartbeat throbs dully against his temples, and he knows he dreamed for too long. That realization almost frightens him more than the rope binding his wrists and the sounds of an unfamiliar camp beyond the dark canvas of his tent.
He sits up slowly and strains against the bindings, wincing when they chafe at his skin. “Damn,” he hisses. What’s the point of binding him? He’s in the midst of an enemy camp, doubtless under heavy guard, unarmed, may as well be naked…
(No one needs to know that he looks down, just to ascertain he’s still dressed.)
His tent is bare of any sort of furnishing or marks. All he has is a bedroll and the clothes on his back and the shadows of the soldiers likely standing guard over him to make sure he doesn’t escape now that he’s back to (mostly) full health.
As it is, the specter of an injury makes his side ache, just one more thing to add to his list of complaints. He stands on his knees before touching his hands to the floor and standing, stooping when his head brushes the top of the tent. He takes careful, quiet steps towards the flap, but just as he reaches to lift it, a hand pokes in and knocks on the poll.
Felix jumps, a strangled, startled gasp escaping him. He steps back with his heart in his throat, and not even the steady voice that calls to him calms him.
“Hello?” They sound familiar, at least, but Felix can’t place them. “Lord Fraldarius? Are you decent?”
Is he decent? Felix snorts and stares down at his shirt, wrinkled from sleep; he doubts it’s his since it hangs a little loose on his frame.
For a moment he debates either refusing to answer or denying, just to be difficult. But he needs information to give to Annette next time they share a dream, and Felix isn’t so daft he’d risk losing his (thus far) only source.
So he rolls his eyes and grits out, “Yes, I am decent.”
“Oh good,” says the voice. “If you weren’t, I would’ve been curious to see how you managed to undress while your hands are bound, but I suppose that’s no matter.” The tent flap lifts, and a wisp of a man in dark green robes - really, Felix thinks a fledgling mage’s Wind spell could knock him down - enters.
“I take it you don’t remember me,” says the man. His eyes droop, making him look as if he’d rather be sleeping than talking to him (and, well, Felix can almost relate), and he toys with the strap of a boxed kit hanging from his shoulder. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I barely remember you seeing as I avoided the training grounds whenever I could help it, and we were in different classes…”
“And you slept through the few seminars we shared,” Felix remembers. He shrugs and says, “What does it matter? Does your general think that having someone familiar talk to me will ensure I cooperate?”
Linhardt shrugs but sits on his bedroll, uninvited. He arranges his robes around him before settling the kit in his lap and opening it. “I admit that’s something he mentioned when he sent me,” he says, “but that’s not really why I’m here.”
“Why are you—”
“Sit down.” Linhardt pats the spot on the bedroll beside him. “I’m to ascertain you’re fit for travel, and to what extent. Also please don’t hit me like you did the last healer who tried to see to your wounds; if you do, you’ll surely be confined to a wagon, and though the opportunity to lie down for the whole journey would appeal to me, he would be quite angry for that slowdown.”
“Slowdown?” Felix says, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“Please sit,” Linhardt insists more pleasantly than he thought him capable of. “It’ll be a quick examination.”
He sighs but does as he’s bid.
“Lift your shirt.”
Felix does that too, his spine stiffening as Linhardt leans close enough towards him to inspect a stripe of too-red skin stretching from his navel to his side. While he plays the part of a cooperative prisoner, he tries to probe, “Where are we?”
“We’re somewhere between—oh, yes, that’s healed nicely,” Linhardt says. “Something like that should’ve killed you, yet you’re already well enough to stand.”
Felix scowls. Of course he’d cut himself off just before revealing crucial information! “But—”
“You can let go of your shirt now.”
He drops it. His heart races as he watches Linhardt rifle through his kit, glass clinking against glass until he pulls out a corked vial. “So about where we’re going—”
“You look terrible,” he interrupts, squinting at him. “Did you sleep at all?”
Felix stiffens all over again, his heart skipping a beat. He’s not sure why he should be nervous - how can anyone possibly learn of a meeting in a dream when he never left this damn tent? - but Linhardt’s pointed question fills him with as much anxiety as any accusation.
“Surely even you understand the value of sleep, Lord Fraldarius,” he adds.
“Of course I slept,” Felix retorts. “What else would I have been doing all night?”
“You are a prisoner of the Empire,” Linhardt notes in an infuriatingly calm air. “Such a predicament may have made it difficult to sleep, though truth be told being in a helpless state is the best time to sleep.”
“What are you going on about?” he demands. He raises his hands, brandishing his bound wrists. “You really think anyone can rest easy knowing they’re a prisoner?”
“You just said you did.”
His face warms with embarrassment at being caught on such an asinine contradiction, but he snaps, “I slept as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”
“As you say,” Linhardt says, utterly undeterred by his hostility. He offers Felix the vial in his hands. “Drink this vulnerary with breakfast. You may be nearly healed, but you’re likely still lacking in strength, especially since you slept poorly.”
Felix eyes the vial, suspicious. The liquid within is the same transparent blue of a vulnerary, and he doesn’t doubt it’ll smell as foul as one once he uncorks it. But he’d be a fool not to suspect it conceals a more nefarious substance, especially after he - as Linhardt reminded him - punched the last healer who approached him while injured himself.
(He can still see the bruises on his knuckles; apparently no one bothered to heal those.)
As if Linhardt knows what Felix is thinking, he says, “I’m not in the business of poisoning my patients, unlike someone else I could name.” He rolls his eyes and mumbles something unintelligible under his breath.
He accepts the vial then. If any other healer faced Felix, he wouldn’t put it past them to force the liquid down his throat, but since it’s Linhardt…well.
“Where are we going?” Felix blurts as Linhardt shuts his kit and stands.
“We’re on our way to garrison Fort Merceus,” he says to Felix’s shock. “I suspect from there you’ll be carted off to Enbarr for trial, or something. Frankly, it’s none of my concern, so I didn’t bother asking.” He turns back towards him and frowns. “Although you do have a Crest, and unless I’m misremembering a major one at that…”
Felix glares at him. “Enough to interest you?”
“Perhaps not,” Linhardt muses. “The Emperor hates Crests and probably doesn’t think Crestology has much use as a result. Besides, so long as I can’t observe you in battle, any experiment I design around your major Crest of Fraldarius fails. Although…” A peculiar half-smile rises to his face. “Did you activate your Crest yesterday when you punched your healer?”
Felix can’t tell if Linhardt is poking fun at him or not, and he’s not in an especially generous mood if he is. He raises the vial - which he clutches awkwardly in both hands - and says, “Why don’t I chuck this at you and we’ll see?”
Linhardt looks utterly unruffled when he replies, “Let’s not waste resources now. Good day.” Without another word, he slips away from under the tent flap, leaving Felix alone with his thoughts again.
Fort Merceus…and once he’s ensconced within the impenetrable walls of Fort Merceus and closer to the heart of the Empire, it’ll be nigh impossible for his allies to mount any kind of rescue, regardless of Annette’s insistence. Unless they plan to don some disguise to blend in with the Imperial army…
Maybe there is merit in that. Felix lacks subtlety - as does Annette - but he’s certain the boar’s armies aren’t nearly close to prepared to besiege Fort Merceus, much less to rescue one man. Although it is on the way to Enbarr, he realizes, and any plan to take Enbarr will require taking Fort Merceus first.
Felix almost wants to lie down right then and there and cast the spell that’ll take him into the dream he shares with Annette. His whole body itches to return, to tell her what he’s learned (though he’s no closer to determining their position than from when he woke), to hear her voice and reassure himself that she - and his friends, loathe as he is to admit it - is still all right.
He longs to find her, the desire as sharp as a knife through his gut.
But Annette should be awake now, should be searching for some small task to occupy her just like he wishes he could find something to occupy him. He lacks the strength to cast the spell now too, so he uncorks the vial Linhardt gave him with his teeth and upends the contents into his mouth before he catches a whiff.
It feels a mite thicker than water sliding down his throat, its taste almost too sweet to be palatable. Lysithea claimed to like the taste once, but even Annette makes a face whenever she drinks it.
He hates waiting like this, with his wrists tied together and his stomach twisting itself into knots. He paces the tiny tent as more and more sunlight streams through the canvas, listening to soldiers calling out to each other. Snatches of conversation trickle in, and it’s enough for Felix to guess that breaking camp has been delayed.
He wonders why, and he’s tempted to poke his head out of the tent - perhaps even ask for breakfast because he is starting to feel an edge of hunger - to inquire.
He doesn’t get the chance.
A soldier in light armor and wearing a helmet enters his tent, parting it open with a lance. “You,” he says, pointing at Felix. “Come with me. The general wants a word.”
Felix jumps, surprised by the sudden appearance but…oddly encouraged. Speaking to the general of the army - if it was the Emperor herself Linhardt would’ve mentioned it…probably - will surely yield better results than simply asking any soldier lurking around his tent.
And perhaps if the opportunity presents itself after, he may even find a chance to escape…
When the soldier steps aside, he shoves his way out of the tent. Sunlight pierces his eyes, and he squints against it.
The soldier’s gloved hand closes around his arm, another stepping to his other side to grab his other. Felix stiffens and tries to shrug out of their grip until a third soldier prods his back with the butt of her lance.
“Move,” she barks.
“You don’t have to hold my hand,” Felix grumbles.
“You may be a noble,” she sneers, “but that won’t get you special treatment here.”
“Are you sure?” he retorts tartly. “I’ve had such wonderful accommodations.”
The soldiers, ever so steadfast, don’t dignify him with a reply.
Felix walks without forcing them to drag him, though they insist on holding his arms, their grips as tight as the rope binding his wrists together. He still has his own pride and so refuses to look down or stumble along on their path.
He takes in his surroundings as best as he can. The Imperial army’s war camp resembles any of the Kingdom’s: neat and orderly tents, soldiers on duty with their weapons and soldiers off-duty milling about in uniform, talking amongst themselves. Officers snap orders, soldiers snap to attention, and civilians snap around and about, bearing weapons in need of repair and packing supplies away into wagons.
At what he assumes is the center stands a wide pavilion with a flag bearing the black double-headed eagle rustling with a slight, barely discernible breeze. More officers than rank-and-file soldiers file around here, including warlocks with their tall hats and paladins in crimson tabards with helmets tucked under their arms. They all glance at Felix with suspicion in their eyes, judging him for an outsider.
He stares back, imagining all the ways he can cut through each and every one of them, if only a sword sat in his hand.
His own impotence frustrates him. He tests his bonds again and finds them as unforgiving as the last ten times he tried.
The journey from his canvas prison to the pavilion was but a short walk, but Felix still gasps for breath as subtly as he can. His abdomen aches from his wound, and his head spins from a night poor in rest. He’s likely red in the face from exertion, and it’s pathetic.
He’s no closer to discerning the camp’s location either, too distant from the edge of the encampment to note any landmarks or settlements.
Felix grits his teeth as the soldiers force him to halt at the entrance to the pavilion. The one marching behind him, constantly poking him with a lance, walks around and steps under the shade of the tent to announce, “Sir, we brought the prisoner like you asked.”
“Thank you,” says a low, smooth, chillingly familiar voice. “You’re dismissed as soon as you send him in.”
“Thank you, sir,” says the soldier.
They guide him under the shade of the pavilion, but Felix doubts that’s the only reason the temperature plummets.
A man sits behind a desk littered in documents, leaning back in a flimsy camp chair and sipping from a painted porcelain cup. He lowers it and fixes Felix with a piercing, pale green stare.
“Good morning, Duke Fraldarius,” Hubert greets him with something resembling a smirk. “Shall I offer you my congratulations or my condolences?”