Chapter Text
Ingrid had seen Felix grieve.
Saw him refuse to eat for days, wasting away until he finally, finally got up to train. It had been Sylvain to pull him from the depths of his grief, who handed him a sword and said "Fight me." Who convinced him that there was still something left to fight for .
Maybe that was why this was so much worse.
They buried Rodrigue with the few soldiers they could, on a patch of land far enough away from the horrors of the battlefield. It would prove too difficult to bring them home, but at least they were buried. At least their bodies weren’t left to rot on the fields of a battle they didn’t win. At least they weren’t left behind, like far too many of their dead.
Like Sylvain.
It was Ingrid, too, who saw him fall.
At first, she didn't realize what she was seeing. Who she was seeing. She was too far away, the smoke and chaos too difficult to see through. Black armour with a black horse could have been anyone. It could have been. It wasn't.
The healers were too far away to help, the line was collapsing, Edelgard was slipping away as her army pressed on. The battalion was lost, there was nothing she could do. Had she known, would she have acted any differently? Could she have? Would she have saved him? Died herself?
Their army called their retreat, and Ingrid pulled back with the rest of the survivors.
The hour or so after battle was always chaotic. In some ways, even more so than the battle itself. The healers helped those they could, grieved those they couldn’t, and moved on to the next. Friends searched for friends, desperate to know if they made it out.
The former students were scattered across the camp, tending to their respective duties. A few gathered in time to see Rodrigue take a blade meant for Dimitri, but enough weren’t that it wasn’t cause for alarm. Usually, the Professor would track them all down. Usually, they hadn’t just lost one of the Kingdom’s greatest men. Everything else was forgotten in the aftermath.
It was Mercedes who found out first.
She was with the healers, trying to save as many as she could, when a soldier was brought in. He begged for one of the generals, his comrades begged for a healer. Mercedes was both.
The man was in bad shape, blood and broken bones. Internal bleeding. She recognized his uniform as a member of Sylvain’s battalion.
He rambled, begging the goddess for mercy, apologizing for his failure, apologizing for Sylvain.
The man died, there was nothing she could do.
Desperation drove her to the Professor, who turned to the rest of the camp. She accounted for every one of her students, other than Sylvain.
It was only then that Ingrid realized what she’d seen.
Felix didn’t take the news well. By what must have been divine intervention, they convinced him not to turn back to the battlefield, but that didn’t stop his denial, nor his rage. Wisely, they kept Dimitri away from him, gave him the space they thought he’d need.
His anger got him as far as the tent he shared with Sylvain, where in private he fell apart.
Three days later, they were forced to return to Garreg Mach, and Sylvain’s named was officially added to the list of the missing.
There was nothing of him to grieve.
War is cruel, Felix always knew this, but there was little crueler than having no time to mourn.
It was as if part of him died on that battlefield too, as if the wound where his heart should have been was left to fester and rot. As if every step he took was walking on shattered glass, feet bleeding but unable to stop.
At night, he dreamed of battle, of Sylvain. Saw him lying on the ground, blood covering his armour, pleading. Dreamed he was lost in the darkness, he had to find Sylvain, had to . Something was wrong, why wasn’t he there? He was drowning, he needed Sylvain, he needed -
It was always worse when he woke up, the name on his lips belonging to a dead man.
Eventually, he did he best to stop sleeping.
The dining room was too noisy, too full of friends and their condolences. Their “are you okay” s, and “you don’t look well” s. Too many people watched him with pity. The food made him sick anyways, he used to eat it with Sylvain.
After the third time he throws up, he decided that he didn’t need food.
He trained, putting everything he is, everything he ever was, into finding away to end this, because if Sylvain was dead (he isn’t, a part of him argued, he can’t be) then there was nothing left but this conflict. Nothing to live for but being the one to put a sword through Edelgard himself. He wanted her dead even more than Dimitri, since his grief turned him back to rationality.
His friends tried to help. Ingrid brings him food, doesn’t frown when she finds it uneaten even though she wanted too.
“You’re not the only one grieving,” she told him once. “We all miss him.”
He ignored her, because they didn’t. They didn’t even know him. They saw the person Sylvain wanted them to see, not who he really was.
As their sights turned to Fhiardiad, and thus, Arianrhod, Felix tried, desperately, to keep himself together - to keep from falling apart.
He made risky decisions in combat, went against orders to follow what he wanted. It was selfish, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was winning, no matter the cost. After all, his cost had already been paid.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” Dimitri yelled at him, after they took back Fhiardiad. Rodrigue would have loved to see the day. Too bad he was dead as well.
Felix only shrugged, not gracing the question (or scolding) with a verbal answer. He didn’t have to, king or no, he didn’t owe the boar anything. Besides, so what if he died? There was nothing to live for anyways.
He wished he could walk away, but the injury he received from the - what had it been again? A Titanus? - kept him bedridden until the healers could regain enough power to heal him properly. Mercedes had been horrified when she got a good look at him, told him he would be forced into bed rest until he was healthy again, until he ate enough to regain his strength.
Felix wasn’t sure he deserved that.
The return to Garreg Mach was far more joyous than the previous time. They had won, Faergus was returned to its proper monarch.
Sylvain was still gone.
Felix had never been a particularly religious man. He believed in the goddess - how could he not, with their professor who she was - believed in the teachings of Seiros, the warrior she was, but he did not pray. Stopped doing so long before war raged across Fodlan, long before he lost himself. He does then, when the depths of the night pulled him from his training. He found his way to the cathedral, stood in front of the ruins that felt so much like his heart, and prayed.
Prayed because Sylvain, as much as he denied it, always believed in the Goddess. Always whispered hymns taught since childhood before bed. Could name the saints and their stories by heart.
Felix prayed, because there was no power in the world that could bring the lost parts of him back, that could bring Sylvain back, aside from maybe the Goddess.
Claude’s plea came as a surprise, and then they were off to save Derdriu. Somehow, they managed it. Claude planned to leave, and Felix wondered if he had ever wanted to be a ruler in the first place. The alliance was no more, but they at least gain the lords’ military support.
“Felix?” Claude came up behind him, as he sat staring at the water. It was late, long past midnight. After that day, most people were asleep. Claude should have been asleep as well.
The water lapped at the docks, moving gently with the tide. Would anybody miss him if he threw himself in? Would his death finally end the agony he felt?
Even two months later, it still felt as if he was forced to walk the Valley of Torment until the end of time.
He didn’t reply to Claude. Didn’t even look up.
The other sat next to him, letting the silence multiply between them. Whatever reason he had for seeking him out, Felix didn’t care.
“I know you’re tired of hearing this,” he said, “but I am sorry.”
Claude was right. He was tired of hearing it.
“Your friends mentioned that you’re struggling,” he continued, “and honestly? I can’t blame you.”
That drew Felix’s attention. Claude was leaning back on his hands, watching the stars above them.
“Why are you here Claude?” he asked sharply.
The other sat up straight, and let his eyes meet Felix’s. “I know how you felt about Sylvain. I know you didn’t want to admit it, you probably still don’t, but Felix,” his gaze was intense. “It’s okay that you loved him; that you still love him.”
He wanted to say something, anything. Wanted to deny it, snap at him, storm off. He couldn’t. Not when the feeling of grief was bubbling up inside him. Not when his entire world felt like a kaleidoscope, twisting and turning, reflecting emotions that he never wanted to feel. It tugged at him. It felt like he would bleed to death from the pain of it all, the dagger still plunged in his heart. The way it felt like Sylvain was dying, over and over, piece by piece.
How could he put any of that into words?
Claude was looking at him like he was staring into his soul. How many people had he lost?
“It feels like I’m dying,” he admitted. “It feels like everything that ever held me here, every reason I ever had to live, is gone.”
With the words, the feeling came rushing in. The burden that he had been trying to starve off for so long. For the first time in two months, Felix cried.
“Every time I wake up, I have this terrible moment of clarity, this moment before the ugly reality of the world comes crashing back down and I remember he’s gone.”
“You’ll win this,” Claude assured him, “you’ll end this war, and end the loss with it.”
“That won’t bring him back,” he argued, half out of his mind with grief.
Claude put a hand on his shoulder. There was no shame in his eyes, not even pity.
“No,” he agreed. “And I won’t say the hurt will end. If I know anything, it probably won’t, but peace will give us a chance to remember them, to carry them with us.” He sighed, looking back at the sky. “My father once told me that as long as a name is spoken, they never really die. Don’t make an enemy of the world Felix. Find a space within it, create one if you have to., to remember him. To remember them all.”
He stood, and left Felix to his thoughts, and tears.
Claude was gone come morning.
The conversation didn’t end his grief. It didn’t stop the feeling of broken glass, or a storm swirling inside him.
It did, however, help him process the realization he had been running from for years. He loved Sylvain. The stupid, skirt chasing, brave, dead, idiot. With that knowledge, came an entirely different kind of grief. The loss of something that could have been, but never was.
If he had done something different. If he had told Sylvain before, maybe he would still be there.
By the time they made it back to Garreg Mach, ready to plan their invasion into the Empire, Felix had settled into a completely different routine.
Most days, he was not found in the training yard, but the cathedral. Praying, begging. He would do anything, anything , to get Sylvain back. He would trade himself in a heartbeat.
Mercedes took to sitting with him, Ashe too when they realized he wouldn’t push them away. Others came to sit with him too, convince him to eat or train. He always came back.
“I love him,” he whispered once, into the dark of the night.
“I know,” Ingrid replied, the chill of the night seeping into through the ruins. “I know you do.”
Three months after the Battle of Gronder, three months after Felix lost the only thing he loved, the Kingdom Army started the attack on Fort Mercues.