Chapter Text
Dimitri was worse than he expected. His father had made him travel to Fhirdiad to travel with the boar prince in a vain hope of making things better. It didn’t work. Dimitri’s mild facade and calm acceptance of his insults painted fresh blood over two year old memories. Dedue would be nice company if he weren’t such a disgusting sycophant. Felix would have preferred to travel with Ingrid, but apparently traveling to Garreg Mach required enough ceremony that it was unseemly for someone from such a poor House to join the heir apparent.
He didn’t consider that Sylvain could have been an option until he saw him standing outside his room, watching his servant in pressed Gautier livery unloading his things into his room. Felix ignored his own servant doing the same and stepped up to his once-friend. He hadn’t seen Sylvain since before Glenn died, since they promised to die together with the conviction of invincible children.
“So you’re not dead, after all,” Felix said because as a red-eyed child he could think of no other reason his friend didn’t visit him.
Sylvain put both hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall with a smirk. “Worried about me? Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to our promise.” He winked and ruffled his own hair. White. Snow white and nothing like the blond that ran through the Blaiddyd and Galatea lines and certainly not Gautier red.
Felix narrowed his eyes. “What did you do to your hair?”
“A little of this, a little of that. You know girls are crazy for it. I had to get some use out of practicing so much magic.” He laughed, pushed off from the wall and disappeared down the stairs before Felix could press further.
Not that he’d intended to.
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Neither geography nor girls were Felix’s strong suit, but even he… Rather, only he noticed something wrong with Sylvain’s sudden close friendship with Lysithea von Ordelia. Ordelia territory was as far from Gautier as any part of the Alliance could be -- Felix checked -- and Hilda gossiped to Ingrid in his hearing range that Lysithea was only fifteen. Fifteen. Rumor had it Sylvain was a cad, but even the nastiest ones left him with some boundaries.
But the Ordelia girl had the same diamond white hair. And so did the Imperial Princess. Sylvain wasn’t an idiot, so maybe he was right about the hair thing, not that it mattered.
Three weeks into their schooling, two days after the boar almost died to mercenaries, Felix caught Sylvain walking through the gardens and shoved a training lance into his hands. “Let’s train. I need to see how badly you’ve slacked off.”
Sylvain spun the weapon expertly and stuck it over his shoulders, propping his wrists on the wooden shaft. “I’m a mage now, haven’t you heard?” He shook his hips in a manner that he probably thought was alluring, which caused a thick tome strapped to his belt shake.
“How are you supposed to wield the Lance of Ruin if you’re a mage?” Felix regretted the words before Sylvain reacted. How had he forgotten that Sylvain resented his place as heir? He didn’t intend to beat himself up over it -- he hadn’t seen Sylvain in years, but then Sylvain’s face morphed into something ugly and primal for a moment before it smoothed into Dimitri-esque blandness.
After dropping the lance and holding it out for Felix, Sylvain winked. “Don’t worry about that, Felix. My father’s got a plan for everything.
He wasn’t reassured.
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Sylvain’s magic was sharp and hard in a way that left a sour taste in Felix’s mouth, and not a good one. The magic was wrong and completely unsuited to the Faerghus Nobility who bathed in traditions like water. Felix knew the feeling of Thoron and Bolganone and Sylvain’s magic was nothing like it.
Effective, but wrong, with purple motes that floated through the air and stained the tips of his fingers. Felix hated it.
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In time, Felix remembered more of his childhood with Sylvain. Remembered when his tears were for his friend and not himself. He remembered chapped hands with bandaged fingers. He remembered frostbite. He remembered bruises that didn’t come from training.
He remembered an all-encompassing fear-hatred of Miklan that was like nothing before or after. At the cusp of adulthood, Miklan didn’t inspire the paralyzing fear and hysterical tears, but Felix was displeased by the prospect of facing him. Maybe it would be a good test of his skills, but he would rather convince Jeritza to have a bout with him. Even Catherine would do in a pinch, if he could get her to stop talking about Rhea.
However, Felix followed the professor and his class to Conand Tower to retrieve the Lance of Ruin. He remembered the ugly look on Sylvain’s face and couldn’t see the care-free mask underneath it in the present. He fought through Miklan’s thugs, annoyed by each one that stood between him and his goal.
At the pinnacle of the tower, Miklan bared his teeth when he spoke. “Sylvain, you idiot brat. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see? I’m doing this for you! So at least one of us can have a life!”
Sylvain laughed and the sound was sharper than his magic. “Sorry, Miklan, but it’s too late for that.”
When Miklan transformed into a demonic beast, Sylvain didn’t react. He casually walked up to Ingrid as if they were back at the monastery and took the iron lance from her hands. The rest of the Blue Lions were frozen in a mixture of shock and horror when Sylvain lunged forward with a precise spin of his torso and thrust of the lance head. The Crest of Gautier flashed over his head when he killed the beast that was his brother.
A chill settled in the pit of Felix’s stomach. Something cold, an old memory frozen in time and covered by newer memories, crawled up, digging icy claws in Felix’s insides until it could whisper in his ear.
It spoke with his father’s cursed voice, the one that said Glenn died like a true knight. Does Sylvain have a Crest?
Sylvain didn’t have a Crest.
Rather, Sylvain hadn’t had a Crest.