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Too many pieces of Sylvain were missing. “Faerghus” was but a whisper in history, a name in a book that would soon mean next to nothing. This war had taken almost everything from him.
Almost.
Even with his home changed forever, his position remained the same. As he watched Fodlan slowly piece itself back together after the calamity that had plagued it for the past five years, he sat in his home as the new Margrave Gautier, more alone than he’d ever been in his life. Bleak chatter flitted through the halls, but really, it only reminded Sylvain of how lacking it all was. He had not a friend or foe to lay claim to; he’d cut down anyone who stood in his way, because beyond every opponent was a light that resembled the future—a hope that he could cling to. To walk off another battlefield would mean another step towards peace. But even then, how many steps were left? Would the ground give out from under him?
None of that mattered now. He’d taken the steps, and he was here, on the other side of that pitch tunnel with a similar darkness clinging to his heart. That darkness had a name—several, actually. The names of those he’d lost, those who’d gone and left nothing but a hollow agony in its place. For all he knew, half of them were dead. The others . . . Well, he’d either seen the bodies themselves or heard the news from the professor.
“My Lord,” called a voice, muffled by the door of his study, “it seems there are bandits causing trouble on the southeast road of the territory.”
“Send some of the knights to fix it.”
It was horrible, how little effort he could pay to this. Sylvain stared out the window, and could almost feel that raging wind tearing apart his chest, stealing all life away before he could even blink. There were people still in his care, those who had no choice but to rely on the margrave, and yet, here Sylvain was, sinking further into that whirlwind of pure loss.
“We have, but they’re causing quite the struggle.”
Dammit. “Are they attacking the people?”
“No, My Lord. They seem to be just . . . sitting there.”
“In this cold? I doubt it.”
“Maybe so, but they haven’t moved to attack anyone that hasn’t approached them.”
Maybe if Sylvain got a lance in his hand, found a purpose—however temporary—to hold on to, he could banish this ache that clung to his bones. “Find me a band of mercenaries. I’ll need the extra support if the knights are really struggling this much.”
“Yes, My Lord; I’ll find the best money can buy.”
“Oh, and Barbara? Could you find someone to fetch my armour?”
“My Lord, surely you can’t be planning to fight?”
Sylvain opened the door then, feeling bad when he saw just how much he towered over the petite woman.
“It’s all you’ve been doing for the past five years,” she continued. Sylvain had to praise her; she really took it to heart when he’d told her that she didn’t need to hold her tongue so much around him.
“The fighting never stops, Barbara, just what’s at stake.”
Claude had left the . . . Goddess, whatever Fodlan had become, in Byleth’s hands. Sure, he could hope to never need to lay his eyes on his weapons again, be done with the weight of iron and steel fastened to his body, but he knew it was a false hope. Humans weren’t designed to be peaceful creatures. War and violence came as easy as breathing. You simply had to be the one that came out on top.
“Do you think my little ones will grow up in a world of peace?”
Sylvain wanted to scoff, tell her how it felt to have his old classmates’ blood run down his hands and their bodies go limp on the end of his lance. He wanted to relay the tale of storming into battle on his horse, not thinking of whose father or sister he was stealing away as he drove his javelin into their hearts. He wanted to tell her that no amount of water could wash the blood from his hands. He wanted to cry out for a pair of amber eyes and silver tongue to come reeling back into his life. He wanted to scream about the unjust nature of war.
“Maybe.”
He brushed past her after that, choking on memories and pain and the wind. He blindly staggered toward the balcony in his room. One foot in front of the other, he somehow managed to stay upright as he marched. He threw the doors open, shivering as the wind cut his throat, sharper than any blade.
If he closed his eyes, he could imagine it; blue eyes and blonde hair on the throne, stoic loyalty to his left and right in the form of snowy hair and light eyes—golden locks and emerald orbs. He could imagine walking into the throne room with an easy smile not befitting a noble as he greeted His Majesty with too much nonchalance. He could imagine fiery eyes rolling and the smallest quirk of chapped lips. He could imagine this was still Faerghus, and his friends were still there.
He could imagine, but that was all he’d ever be able to do.
Sylvain near collapsed onto the ground at the sight in front of him.
“Felix . . .”
Not a shred of familiarity. No happiness, not even a sneer that was more affectionate than the swordsman hoped. Felix’s face was as impassive as the professor’s and that—Sylvain would rather Felix scream and kick him than this.
“Do you need my services or not?”
If this were any other time, any other universe in which pain had not wounded them beyond recognition, Sylvain would have made a joke. He wanted to—oh, how he wanted to crack a joke and have Felix stomp off in a huff and a puff, only for him to eagerly fall in step with Sylvain right after. He wanted anything that was untouched by the Empire’s blade and rage.
This, apparently, had been taken from him as well.
“Yes,” Sylvain said, voice tight and formal and everything he hated. He was truly a nobleman now, wasn’t he? “There are bandits causing trouble and blocking off merchants from the Alli—from the east. I’ll have a map drawn up for you.”
“That’ll take too long,” said the man who wore Felix’s face. “Just tell me where it is.”
“Every map that I do have is disgustingly out of date.” Sylvain wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t mind allowing his composure to crack along the edges. Not around this one person. “My father had never been too on top of the little things.”
“You’re trying to hire me for a job, and you don’t even have the proper resources?” Sylvain hated the grin that carved itself into Felix’s lips, void of any emotion. “Pathetic.”
“How many are you?” Sylvain asked in lieu of a response. There was no telling how much hurt he’d let through if he acknowledged those words.
“It’s just me.”
“It’s just—What?”
Felix snarled, the first bit of feeling Sylvain had gotten from him, bristling like a cat and ready to bolt from the room. “Your handmaid didn’t seem too distraught about hiring me. I’m good at what I do. Not that I can say the same for you.”
“Hey.” Ice laced that voice he’d once loved so dearly, and it did nothing to quell the storm in his heart. I can’t lose him. I can’t. “I’d watch your mouth.”
“Or what? You’ll have me banished from Gautier territory? Believe me, I always hated coming here.” Indifference blanketed Felix’s face one more, but not before the beginnings of hurt had slipped into place. Sylvain wanted to wrap his arms around the younger man and never let go, but he’d probably get a sword in the gut before he got one foot closer.
“It’s cold, isn’t it?” Because Sylvain wanted his friend back, he asked. He talked and spouted useless nonsense because he missed things he hadn’t appreciated well enough before. Those twinkling ambers were one of them.
“Listen, I could be making money right now; if you don’t want to hire me, let me leave.”
Maybe part of his immaturity had never left, or maybe he was acting more like Felix than Felix himself, because he grabbed onto that red-hot rage sitting idle in his lungs and hurled it right at the man across from him. “Fine. You’re hired. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your price. But if your skill has dulled any, and you get us killed, I hope you know it’ll be because you overestimated yourself.”
He imagined Felix’s colour vanishing, all the pink brought on by the cold outside vanishing—but it was probably just the lighting. “You’re coming with me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Felix spat.
“Because my word still has value.”
“And what promise is that?”
Sylvain thought he might die, that this unadulterated pang in his chest would never subside and he’d choke around it for the rest of his days. “I—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
There was only one thing right in the world in this very moment, and that was Sylvain finally fighting by Felix’s side once more.
Sure, there were Gautier knights littered around the path, but most of the bandits got a taste of Felix’s blade before they bled out onto the snowy road. The fighting never stops, only what’s at stake. Sylvain wished he could be done soaking his hands in blood.
Felix fought differently now. His steps were heavier but no less agile, his blade’s arcs swifter and impossibly more deadly. He fought like he knew nothing other than combat, like Mercedes had never baked him a thing or Ashe had never rambled on about the tales of a knight. His body had become just as lifelike as the blade in his hands, and Sylvain—he hurt, watching it unfurl. Why did he do this to himself?
With hose heavy steps and singing arcs came a certain sort of recklessness. Felix had let go of all of his defence, opting to drive his blade into whatever chest was in front of him.
Sylvain wouldn’t stand for it; charging forward with only one goal in mind, he tried to push down the sickness that arose as he watched the tip of his lance embed itself in the skull of his enemy. Loosing his weapon, Sylvain encouraged his horse to ride away. To ride it now was useless; there were but two bandits left, and they were quicker than the rest.
An arrow grazed his arm, grating against the edge of his shoulder plate as it cut his skin. Three, then. With a curse, Sylvain shifted his stance and went on the defensive as the bandit wedged its axe into the wood of his lance. Grunting, he pushed the bandit off, making full use of his opponent’s stumble and driving his lance home, ignoring the scratching of steel against the man’s ribs. He twisted it, sick with himself that such violence was in favour of his own guaranteed safety, and turned back to Felix—
Just in time to see a lance catch him in the side.
Sylvain saw red.
All the teachings he pretended to slough off back at the academy came flooding back, every hard-learned lesson on the battlefield coming alive in his veins like molten lava. His ears were ringing, but there was not a force in the world that could made him care. Blood sprayed his cheeks, but that, too, was insignificant.
Felix, Felix, Felix—
Sylvain picked Felix up with less gentleness than he should have, and the harsh, pained noise Felix sent ringing out against the trees was proof of that. Still, Sylvain ran as fast his legs could carry him, getting them both up onto his horse and setting off quick as a whip back to the Gautier estate.
“What—the hell—are you doing?”
Sylvain did not answer. If he did, tears would fall and he would surely endanger them further. He would not let Felix die—not if it meant his last breath.
As it turns out, Sylvain did have words he could grit out without breaking down. “You don’t get to die on me.”
“Don’t . . . get to, huh?” Felix scoffed. “You’re really making me keep our promise.”
“I didn’t think you remembered.” I didn’t think you cared, was what Sylvain didn’t say.
“I’m not . . . who—” Felix coughed roughly, sending vibrations through Sylvain’s chest.
“Shut up. Don’t talk.”
“Sylvain—”
“Shut. Up.”
When Felix opened his eyes, he thought he was eight years old again.
He’d only stared at this ceiling a couple of times, but those memories were interweaved with such happiness that, when mixed with the softness of the sheets below him, he had to sink further into the bliss he’d never know again—because when he rose, he would wander the continent once more, losing himself along the way, keeping his blade sharp as the light in his eyes dulled. He didn’t care. Wasn’t sure how to.
“You’re awake.”
Sylvain. Goddess, everything in his body was crying out to lose himself in that voice, the low kindness making his fingers quake and resolve shudder like a shack in a storm. But he couldn’t. Not anymore.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” But even as he said that, as he tried to rise from the bed, he had to fall back with a grunt.
“The lance was laced with some cheap poison. You’ll be here for a couple of days.”
“I can’t afford that.”
Sylvain’s brow twitched. He looked angrier than Felix had ever seen him—but that softness around his eyes, that line next to his mouth . . . Was he worried? No, that couldn’t be it. “I’ll pay you for a week if it will get you to shut up and heal properly.”
“You couldn’t afford that. No one could.”
“You’re right. So don’t make me.”
“What are you trying to do, Sylvain?”
“Keep you from dying!”
“Why!?” His eyes burned, his heart felt like nothing more than a thin sheet of glass ready to crack under the weight of Sylvain’s gaze—this whole thing was too much for him. “What do you stand to gain, keeping me alive? Believe me, you’re not doing anyone any favours.”
Sylvain made a noise as if someone had punched him. “How can you say that?”
“I don’t know if it’s some twisted sense of nostalgia that made you save me, but if that’s it, stop it. This isn’t the Academy anymore. You’re supposed to be an adult, not chasing after things that don’t exist anymore.”
Something familiar was being pressed into his hand. Felix looked down—and shouted when he saw it was his sword. Sylvain’s grip was stronger than Felix’s, no doubt a result of the medicine he’d been given, so the younger male had no other option but to watch as Sylvain pressed the steel against the gap in his armour.
“If you want me to stop caring about you, do it.”
“Let go,” Felix whispered, horrified. This was the one person he would not hurt, the one person whom he could not lose himself with. The one person who knew him that still had air in their lungs. “Let go!”
The clatter of Felix’s sword against the ground was deafening, but louder still was his ragged breathing. Sylvain had collapsed next to the fallen weapon, fingers clutching his hair as he sobbed silently.
“You’re the one thing that hasn’t been taken from me. Please don’t leave.”
Felix didn’t bother to stop the tears as they spilled over from his eyes. Sylvain looked broken—no less bent and bruised than Felix felt. He was powerless to stop his body as it moved, despite the screaming his wound gave, to bring Sylvain closer to the bed. Hands bigger than his own came to bracket Felix’s hand as he reached out, and Sylvain sobbed louder as he held it.
“Felix, please.”
Felix soothed him for a moment, unsure of what to do but certain he needed to make Sylvain’s pain stop. Eventually the tears slowed and Sylvain’s breathing evened out, if only a touch, but Felix—apparently he had more to say.
“We couldn’t save him,” he found himself saying. “How can you live with yourself, knowing we didn’t do all we could to help him?”
Sylvain bent further over the bed and pressed his forehead into the part of Felix’s middle that was unhurt. “I can’t.”
“Then how can you blame me?”
“I don’t. I just know I need you.”
“You don’t need anything I can give. Do you want to know why?” Felix stared at the ceiling again, but couldn’t find the strength to pull away. “Because I have nothing left to give.”
“If you believed that, would you have come?”
Felix frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“You knew who was asking about you before you came here. You knew exactly what you were doing when you walked through my door. If you have as little to give as you’re saying, if you’re truly so hopeless as to be nothing but a burden to me, you wouldn’t have come to my aid.”
“Money is money.”
“If you really wanted nothing to do with me, you would have found a job elsewhere.”
Maybe he was just as foolish as he’d been making Sylvain out to be.
Everything about this was familiar, and yet so much of it new and untended to. When he looked at Sylvian, he saw the memories of others’ smiles, of stories they both knew from different perspectives, of times past, never to be given back to them.
“What do you think would have happened, if we’d gotten to him before the Empire?”
Sylvain shrugged, loose and tired. “Maybe we’d still be in Faerghus.”
Felix closed his eyes. Took a breath. Comfort awaited him, right in his lap, run haggard and emotionally raw. For too long, all he’d known was the feeling of a sword in his grip—but right now, he found those calloused hands of a redhead to be much more tempting.
“I’ll stay. But only until I’m better.”
Half a decade after the war ended, Margrave Gautier found himself in need of a mercenary’s skillset. His search for aid quickly came to an end when Felix, a renowned mercenary, offered his services. After fighting one last battle together, Sylvain forfeited his title in a land he no longer recognized, leaving his territory in the capable hands of a neighbouring lord. It is said that he and Felix travelled the world together, walking away from a land laced with history they could not bear to face. They were said to have died on the same day, and when it came to their burials, a note was found; Felix wished to have his blade buried alongside Sylvain, so that the latter may always have his protection.