Archive of Our Own

When the dust settles, the Immaculate One is dead.

It bleeds, and yet Linhardt struggles to tear his eyes from it. The green fluid shimmers in the dying firelight, reflects the figures of Byleth and Edelgard still clinging to one another before the creature’s lifeless form. The few remaining church soldiers are scattered across their ruined battlefield, weapons slowly falling from hopeless hands. The Adrestian forces are already moving in, taking captive those who will not come willingly, but Linhardt predicts those will be few and far between. After all, with their saints gone, they have little left to follow.

His crest, which through the battle has been activating all on its own, a beacon for those seeking his help, now lies cold at his wrist. He wonders, for a moment, if it’s changed. Cethleann is no more. It would make sense that her power within him has died, too.

He can’t quite bring himself to look.

A clang of metal on stone just behind him is enough to startle him in the overwhelming silence that seems to have blanketed Fhirdiad since the fall of the beast. He spins, just in time to catch Caspar (whom he was certain had been on the other side of the courtyard, how had he made it all the way here?) as the shorter man drops to his knees. Thank the goddess that his faith isn’t completely spent, because it’s obvious that Caspar needs him now.

“Easy, Cas, easy. Breathe for me."

There’s blood on Caspar’s face, and his breaths come in ragged and short, but at least he is breathing. He shakes, and buries his head in the folds of Linhardt’s tattered robes, worn bare and ingrained with years of dirt, with almost six years of kneeling in the midst of raging battles and saving the lives of his friends. As he envelopes Caspar in warm healing light, his love slumps against his chest and, hopefully for the last time he’ll ever need to, Linhardt closes his wounds, soothes his pain and quiets his sobs. Caspar was the first life he ever had to save, and in this moment he swears to himself that he will also be his last. 

They ride back to the monastery in one of the supply carts. For once, Caspar is the one who spends the time asleep, while Linhardt holds his head in his lap and continues to comfort him, both with magic and with soft touches of scarred hands, entwined, never letting go. Never again.

Late at night, he whispers in his ear to settle him as he dreams. “We won, Caspar. We won the war.”

Days are allowed to pass by without action, for the first time since they were little more than children. The halls and gardens of Garreg Mach bear an air of serenity, talks of peace plans and cathedral bells floating by on the wind. When the hurt are healed and the final ally returns home, a ball is planned for the night the Garland Moon rises in the sky.  Linhardt writes home, and within days, a parcel arrives with new evening clothes, as he’s long since grown too tall to wear anything from his academy days. 

It feels like freedom, to dress in something that isn’t armor-plated or woven through with protective charms, so much so that he can’t even begrudge his father’s taste, the ruffles in the shirt silk and the ridiculous, ornate cloak that falls past his knees. In front of the mirror, he thinks of what Caspar would say if he were to leave his hair loose, but then, there is nothing to hide from now. Besides, Caspar’s habit of untying it when they’re alone is something he doesn’t wish to miss out on ever again. So he takes a white ribbon and twists a simple braid, tied at the end. 

Caspar wears a waistcoat the same blue as his eyes, and Linhardt realises he wants to look at Caspar without his armor every day. Years of wielding heavy weapons have made him broad and reliable and beautiful, goddess, so beautiful he never fails to take Linhardt’s breath away. The veins in his arms when he rolls up his shirtsleeves make Linhardt’s knees a little weak, and all the more so when, after the feast when the band begins to play, his lover takes him into those strong arms and leads him to dance. In all their years together, they have never been able to dance, but the moment of uncertainty is soon forgotten when something in Linhardt tells him to draw Caspar close and take the lead. 

Perhaps it’s Cethleann. The legends claimed she loved to dance. Though her crest no longer glows within him, perhaps a little of her is left somewhere.

Tonight, something takes hold, and they spin together, bodies pressed close. Other pairs surround them, and as the wine flows, the dances get faster, wilder. Their friends trade partners and laughter and happy, happy tears, but Linhardt is content to simply hold Caspar close. That is, until the shorter man is torn away from him by a giggling, flushed Dorothea, and he finds himself relieved of a dance partner before he’s quite realised what’s going on.

It’s all planned, more or less. Dorothea knows what he’d like to do tonight, and she’ll give Caspar a push in the right direction when it’s time, or so he hopes. The good thing about Dorothea is that she’ll do a lot for love, regardless of whether it’s her own or that of others. She’s as ready as Linhardt is, and thus, all he can pray for is that Caspar wants this too. 

The climb to the top of the goddess tower has never seemed longer. He’s thankful for the cloak after all, as he leans against the balcony and gazes up to the stars. All there is to do is wait, and it seems like an age before he hears the echo of telltale heavy footsteps making their way up the spiralling staircase. 

“I knew I’d find you here.” Caspar’s voice is quiet, heavy with tiredness. Without even turning around, Linhardt can tell that he’s smiling, just a little. 
“Of course you did. I told you, one day, I’d wait for you here.”

“We were nineteen.” Caspar has come up behind him, taken his place at his right side and pressed up close there. 
Linhardt turns his attention from the night sky to his lover, and finds those beautiful eyes, the colour of the sea that his birth-month names, gazing up at him in the moonlight. He smiles, and a hand comes up to cup Caspar’s face, to hold that contact for a moment he hopes to repeat over and over. “Nineteen. Awake in a fortress in Adrestia, where everyone else was asleep. You should have been sleeping too, and yet, you lay awake and asked me to tell you stories.”
“You tell wonderful stories.” Caspar blinks slowly, a small smile twitching the corners of his lips. Linhardt decides he would quite like to kiss those lips, and so he does, only briefly, but relishing in the knowledge that he can now kiss Caspar’s lips whenever the desire strikes him. 
“I told you the legend of the tower.” He strokes the other’s cheekbone, and something must touch a nerve, because Caspar shivers for reasons that can’t possibly be the temperature. If he were cold, he’d be wrapped up in Linhardt’s cloak by now. “The stories of all the lovers who have sealed their fate up here.”

There’s silence for a moment. “You promised me we could seal our fate, too. But, Lin, it isn’t the Ethereal Moon now. It isn’t the right time.”

Linhardt bites his lip, and retrieves something small from the pocket deep within his clothes, but doesn’t show it to Caspar. Instead, he takes his hand. “There are other ways to commit to someone, Cas. A thousand ways to tell them you love them, and wish to live out your days in one another’s embrace.”
He turns Caspar’s hand palm-up in his own, and in his palm, rests the ring. The silver almost glows in the moonlight, the inset stones a deep, bright green. Caspar’s mouth falls open, but, for the first time in Linhardt’s memory, he appears speechless. 

“I… Caspar, I have been in love with you in every memory I have regarding the two of us.” The words come easily, now. It feels as though a door has been unlocked, and beyond it, are all the words Linhardt has waited all these years to say. “I can’t tell you when I realised it, but I can tell you that I am more than certain of many things. The first is that I would follow you, to the ends of the world and back again, through all of your plans and your adventures and the paths you intend to follow. I also know that, when we tire of the tracks and trails, I wish to remain beside you, and for you to wake in my arms, and fall asleep there, each morning and every night.”

“Lin- I-”
“Let me finish, Cas, I have been trying to give you this speech for years, goddess, I…”

It’s too late, though, there are tears, and the ornate proposal in Linhardt’s mind is taken off course by Caspar, wrapping arms around him and easing him down to his knees, because he’s trembling like a sapling in a rainstorm, and falling on the stone floors would hurt too much to think about. Caspar produces a handkerchief and wordlessly dries Linhardt’s eyes, takes him into an embrace and a kiss. 

“I appreciate the speech. You know I love to hear you talk. But what I love more than speeches is you, Linny. When you wake up in the morning and the first thing you tell me is that you missed me. The way you somehow know I need healing before even I do. You’re at least three-quarters of the whole reason I’m alive and without you, I’d be lost. I’d be missing a real big piece of myself - the part that I know you’re keeping safe right here.” Caspar’s hand presses to Linhardt’s chest, just over the spot where his heart is threatening to beat right out of his ribcage. “You don’t need to wish for things like forever with me. I’m already sure that I’m never, ever leaving you, you utter, hopeless, beautiful, romantic, idiot. ” He laughs, and pulls Linhardt close. 

They’re both crying now, but the tears are no longer hot, frustrated, hurt ones. Caspar’s are of joy, and Linhardt’s something like relief. The latter takes a few deep breaths before he lifts his head, and takes the hand that he pressed the ring into only moments. Caspar fans out his fingers and Linhardt plucks the jewellery from his palm. 

“Caspar von Bergliez… will you marry me?”

They wed one afternoon drenched in sunlight and joy, a few days before Caspar’s birthday, beneath an ornate archway in the gardens draped in white silk and red roses. Linhardt keeps composure all through his vows, and finally spills out all the things he wanted to say in his proposal. This time, Caspar cries through the proceedings, and doesn’t stop until they’re pronounced married and Linhardt can kiss him as petals and rice rain down upon them. 

The war is over. Peace is upon Fódlan, and, from the ashes and rubble, for Linhardt and Caspar and all those around them, a new world is born at last.