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And Ferdie was there.
Oh, he looked handsome on his horse. His hair had grown long, even longer than Dorothea’s. He looked like one of those mighty and kind knights she had so often sung about at the Opera.
But his face was pale and filled with sorrow and a resigned confidence. He didn’t want to be there, he didn’t want to fight the people he had shared meals and rooms with. He was so similar to her in a sense and she realized it fully only in that painful moment.
She had hoped not to see him there on that battlefield. She had hoped he would somehow manage to escape Edelgard’s long reach and fight for what he truly believed in. It would have really been like an opera, an adventurous drama with Ferdie fighting for the commonfolk and then joining the Kingdom to fight his own Empire.
She should have known better. Songs and arias were one thing; reality – the reality of war – was another.
Ferdie was looking at her, grim and cold like he had never been. She remembered calling him a bee, despising his nobility. She remembered the treats he had prepared for her after working and earning the ingredients like any other person. She remembered tending to his minor, but reddened injury.
She remembered his smile and his hope when he had realized they were becoming friends. Eating with him after that hadn’t been as difficult and annoying as before – she had discovered a new side of him, the selfless, thoughtful, funny side she didn’t think nobles could have.
… We killed Ferdie, Professor.
She saw his blood on the ground, the gruesome twist of his neck and right arm. He was half-buried under his dead horse, his armour still shiny, his hair still lustrous. He looked asleep, as she had never seen him. He had always been so active, lively, industrious ( like a bee, like a bee ) – what need did he have for sleep?
Good night, sweet knight! a sick part of her mind sang, recalling one of her very first operas. But when her mouth opened, only a wail came out, her sight blurry, not with the lights of the theatre and the sparkles of the audience’s jewels, but with tears.
She knelt by his side. She couldn’t see his face; it was turned the other way. She didn’t want to, anyway – she wished to remember him as he had been, alive and strong, not dead and pale.
She knew he wouldn’t have liked to be seen in that condition either; he was proud of his beauty and nobility and he had always admired brave deaths for honourable causes, but his death wasn’t honourable. The cause he had been forced to fight for wasn’t honourable. There was nothing just or brave about all this – it was only sad and bitter and mortifying and he deserved better.
He used to be our friend.
“Oh, Ferdie.” she murmured again, repeating what she had said upon witnessing him in all his soiled, perverted glory on top of his horse. Yes, his very purpose, his true nature, had been perverted.
The bee had been turned into a fly, useless and lost, leashed and maimed.
“Oh, Ferdie. You opposed Edie for so long…” She breathed in and out, trying to catch as much air as possible. Her long battle dress was dirty with his blood, her knees wet and sticky with it. “I had real hopes for you, you know?”
“I know.” Ferdie’s corpse replied as he turned his head to her. There was a gash on his neck from which most of the blood had poured out and his eyes were vacant and sad, the life within them already long gone.
“I know.” he repeated as her scream got stuck in her throat. “I am sorry, Dorothea.”
- - -
“Dorothea! ”
Ferdie’s face was before her again, but he was alive, she was sure of it. No corpse would look so panicked, so out of his mind, so worried. There was life in his eyes, here and now – here, in their bed; now, in the new future they had built together.
He wasn’t dead. He had never been part of the Imperial army. He had fought alongside the Kingdom’s soldiers, Dimitri, and the Professor – alongside her – against Edelgard’s senseless plans.
But she couldn’t help sobbing and crying, despite knowing that.
“Dorothea!” he called again, his broad hands holding hers. She felt his calluses and raised scars and cried harder.
“My darling one, you were screaming! Was it a nightmare?” She whined, biting her lips, and he pulled her into his arms, resting his cheek on the top of her head, caressing her hair and back. “I know, my love, I know. Such are the effects of war.”
They often had bad dreams about it, but this had been the first time she had dreamed of his death. It had been such a close possibility – maybe if the Professor hadn’t talked to him in a certain way, if she hadn’t befriended him, he never would have defected the Empire and Dorothea’s nightmare would have been a reality.
A minor, single factor might as well have been the only thing that had saved him and brought him into her arms. The mere thought of it made her stomach turn and her head spin.
“Dorothea, love.” he murmured soothingly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“We…”
She checked his neck with her long, deft fingers, making him laugh out in surprise at the tickling touch. There was no wound on it, no blood, no gash, no life pouring out of him. And yet, she could still see it and feel it.
“We… no, I killed you.” she said, certain as though she had really done it and she was now speaking with his ghost or the very corpse that had talked to her. “I killed you because you were part of the Empire’s army.”
“Oh, love.” His smile was soft and kind and Dorothea wanted her throat to be cut open, so that all her tears and unreasonable grief stuck in it would finally pour out and let her enjoy that night with her husband.
“I am perfectly fine. Look at me! I was never part of the Empire’s army – I fought at your side, remember?”
“Y-Yes, but…” She gulped, trying to ease the pressure into her chest. “In another life, in another reality… you are dead on that battlefield. Killed by me.”
“Well, I consider that an honour.”
Oh, why was his smile so strikingly beautiful and kind, always so kind! What once had seemed to her a condescending expression of sympathy was now the most reassuring sight she could behold – a smile she could never live without.
He had once called her a water nymph – for her, he was a gentle guardian angel, robed in gold, his long hair fluttering behind him like some sort of cape, his hands always ready to support her, his voice always there to reassure her and boost her confidence.
They were married, she was sure she was expecting – she hadn’t gone to the healer yet, but she was sure ! – and the Kingdom had finally started to heal and reunite all Fòdlan under the banner of peace and order.
So why was she letting that nightmare ruin their night?
“You were dead.” she breathed out, recalling the corpse’s empty, sad eyes. She looked at the real version of them – concerned, but comforting, warm, so in love.
“I am here, Dorothea.” His tone was serious, now, to help her settle back on reality. “War did not claim my life and you certainly saved me more times than I can count.”
His smile came back and he cupped her cheek, brushing his nose on hers. She let out a tiny, low whine, her eyes still wet.
“Do not feel guilty for something you never did.”
“It could have happened. It was a possibility until the Professor convinced you to change House and helped you see how wrong Edelgard was.”
“Yes, indeed.” His nod was solemn and her lips quivered again. “However, that possibility never came into fruition. Why fear something that was never allowed to exist?”
“Because…” She bit her lips, trying to find the right words to explain her cold shame and the scorching guilt in her heart. “Because I could have killed you. I would have killed you, despite my burgeoning love for you. I…”
“But you did not. I am still here, in our marital bed.” He kissed her and it was like kissing the sun, so warm he was. “My love, are you happy with this life? With me?”
“Oh, Ferdie, how could you even ask that! Of course I am!”
“Then let our love and this joy carry you onward. Do not look back, at what could have been. That is a path we never trod, one that will never meet our current one.”
He beamed at her and she couldn’t help but smile back, even though her heart was still beating too fast and the wound she had caused him with her magic still looked vivid in her mind.
“I am proud to be your husband.” he continued and tears ran down her cheeks again at those words.
“And I’m proud to be your wife.” She sniffed and kissed his neck, right where blood could have been, but it was not. She felt his pulse beneath her lips, strong and steadfast like his soul, and she hoped that the Dorothea of that other world where so many things had gone wrong could find peace.
She – she had already found it, there in his arms.