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It couldn't be him.
Vicious heat clung to Cyril like a second skin, sapping his strength until his legs felt infused with lead. Thick smoke curled in his throat and made it difficult to breathe. The ground below was so hot that he worried it may melt the soles of his leather shoes. His eyes watered from the intensity of the environment, making it difficult to tell friend from foe from a rocky outcropping.
None of it mattered. In that heat Cyril had seen a mirage, and he couldn't focus at all on the battle until he'd chased it down.
He ducked besides a jagged boulder and took stock of his surroundings. There were only a few enemies nearby, and his allies were sparser still. It had been stupid, suicidal even for him to rush headlong into the foray, ignoring the cries of his comrades as he broke off from his squadron. He could still hear Ignatz screaming his name, Claude calling out to him, both of them only stopped from following by a barrage of enemy arrows.
No-one had ever proclaimed his name with such desperation. Even back in Almyra, when he had first borne witness to the horrors of war, none of his allies had been focused on his well-being. Most of them had been orphans like him, the dregs of society, salvaged from the streets to serve as fodder for the fight that would never end. They barely cared for their own lives, much less for those of their compatriots.
But now he had people who noticed when he disappeared. People who cared about him and wanted him to be safe. Cyril squinted and wiped the water from his eyes. There wasn't time for sentiment on the battlefield.
He pushed off from the rock and continued in the direction that he'd spotted the flash of silver. His eyes would see through the smoke and pick out a glint of armour or steel, neither of which he was looking for. No, what he sought after was special; silver that glowed brilliantly in the midday sun yet was soft as a bird's feather to the touch, something Cyril had discovered when his idle curiosity had gotten the better of him. His heart clenched at the memory, a delicate fragment that he'd nestled through five years of war and turmoil. There were precious few things from the past that Cyril had any desire to keep: recollections of the endless Almyran sky on the rare day that it had brought him peace rather than listlessness; a blurry remembrance of his mother nestling a garland of flowers atop his head; his first time sleeping in the cosy warmth of the church's library; and now memories of him, the first person to look at Cyril with an unassuming smile and say "We're friends, right?"
The words echoed in Cyril's head as he caught movement out the corner of his eye. He darted around just in time to see something duck behind a wall of rock. The string of his bow dug into his fingers as he tightened his grip, the sounds of battle becoming naught but noise as he focused only on the potential threat before him. He stilled his breath and prepared to pounce, reciting Shamir's teachings to distract himself from the nerves that rattled his breath. He had ran across a battlefield to confirm what he'd saw, but now, faced with the reality of it, he could feel himself faltering.
He heard leather scrape across stone. Forcing his reservations aside, Cyril leapt forward, bow fully nocked and aimed down at where he'd seen the movement. An arrow and bow greeted him in turn, held in a shaking, bloodied grip. Cyril saw first the wound, a gaping slice in the person's leg that was staining the blue of their coattails.
And then Cyril looked up, and he saw himself reflected in mint green eyes, and he knew in that moment that, regardless of which side he was on, regardless of whether it'd kill him, he would not- could not let loose his arrow.
"Ashe!"
"Cyril?!" Ashe had grown much in the past five years- he was slender now instead of spindly, with hair that didn't tuft in every direction and a keenness in his eyes that hadn't been there before- but the lilt of his voice was unmistakable, even distorted as it was by the heat of Ailell and the shock of their reunion. Cyril didn't know which of them lowered their weapon first, but in the next moment he was knelt by Ashe's side and frantically searching his person for something to cover the wound.
"Cyril," Ashe repeated, and Cyril could see now the purple crescents under his eyes, the shortness of his breath, "what are you doing here?"
"That's what I was gonna ask!" Unable to procure a spare bit of cloth, Cyril gave Ashe a quick once-over and then reached for the sash wrapped around his waist. "Why are you fighting against Claude?"
"You're with the Alliance? No, they stand with the Knights of Seiros... of course..." Ashe's eyes fluttered shut, then contorted in pain as Cyril hiked up his leg and wrapped the fabric around it. "House Rowe were one of the first to join the Empire... it's my duty to serve them, as the surviving heir of Gaspard."
"But the Empire were the ones who started this war!"
"I know that." Cyril tightened the makeshift bandage and winced at the hoarse whine he received in response. He looked back at Ashe and saw his eyes were now half-lidded, misty with pain and other complexities that Cyril couldn't hope to decipher.
"You need a healer. If I can get you to Marianne-"
Ashe shook his head. "It's too dangerous for you to drag me across the battlefield."
"Well I'm not just gonna leave you here."
"It's alright, one of Rowe's men should find me first..."
Now it was Cyril who shook his head, stubborn panic starting to bubble in his stomach. "You've gotta help a friend when they need you. That's what you told me, and now you need my help."
Though his breathing was laboured, Ashe managed a chuckle lacking in mirth. "You shouldn't be helping your enemy."
"But I don't even know why you're fighting against us."
"I told you, Cyril, it's my duty as Gaspard's-"
"Why does that matter?" Ashe blinked in surprise. Cyril cast his eye over the rock and then, once certain that they were still a safe distance from the battle, ducked down again and placed both of his hands on Ashe's shoulders. He winced at the feeling of liquid squelching against leather, forgetting that he was now coated in his friend's blood. "It only matters what you want."
"...I wish it could be that simple." Ashe said. And then he smiled in a way that touched those fond memories Cyril had been carrying close to his chest. It wasn't a happy smile, not like Cyril remembered it, and he was struck with the sudden and intense desire to change that.
"Why can't it be? You can join Claude right now, and fight for us!"
"I'm not even sure I'd want to do that." His smile slipped until it was gone altogether, replaced with a furrowed scowl that Cyril had never seen before and made him swallow nervously. "You won't want to hear this, but I don't want to stand by the church. They killed my father, and my brother before that. Regardless of the circumstances, I... I can't forgive that."
A lump formed in Cyril's throat. Words that he'd only confessed in private were itching at his throat, but saying them aloud granted them a finality he wasn't sure he was ready for. But if he didn't then Ashe would slip through his fingers, and the thought of that hurt even more.
Perhaps it was selfish of him, to want both to stay at Claude's side and to have Ashe at his. But he had never been selfish in his life before. He'd never wanted for anything as much as he wanted to see peace between Fódlan and Almyra, and to watch it happen alongside his very first friend.
And so, Cyril took a deep breath in and spoke. "I don't stand by the church either."
His eyes had slid down to the rocky earth below, but he could still feel Ashe's surprise in the way that his shoulders stiffened. He was quick to continue. "I've had a lot of time to think, and also Claude's talked with me about some things. He wants to change Fódlan, and the church, same as the Empire. But he doesn't think a war's the way to do that, and... I agree with him. War doesn't change anything."
War was where children were made into orphans, and then orphans were made into soldiers. Cyril couldn't say he cared about Fódlan, not as a whole, but he cared about all the kids who might end up like him. It was, maybe, the first belief he could hold onto with full sincerity, and it was for that reason that Claude had never had reason to doubt his allegiance.
I don't care whether you side with me or not, though I would hate to be your enemy. Claude had said, on that fateful night when Cyril had confessed all of his doubts and confusions. I just care that you're making the choice that you want to make.
Cyril had never been given that freedom before. When once he would look to the sky and feel lost, he could now turn to it, free from his cage, and appreciate the world that awaited him. The realisation had left him breathless.
"I want to help make the world better. And..." Though he was sweltering in Ailell's heat, it was a different kind of warmth that coiled its way around Cyril's heart. "I want you to be there too."
And maybe he didn't just want Ashe as a friend. His newfound conviction had been like steel until this point, when the thought of fighting Ashe to achieve his goal had threatened to shatter it as easily as glass. There were still a lot of things he was figuring out about himself, and about what he wanted. More than anything, he just didn't want to make that journey alone.
So when Ashe's smile returned, closer than ever to the joy that Cyril had held onto for years, he felt that the intense heat and raging battle and murky, twisted feelings he had yet to untangle were suddenly not all so bad. "You've really grown," Ashe said, and Cyril felt his cheeks flush hotter. "Once I'm healed I can speak with Claude. Hearing him out is the very least I can do."
The battlefield was not the place to proclaim his joy, so even though Ashe's answer filled him with relief from top to toe, he merely offered an eager nod and then a shoulder to help Ashe up to his feet. Where once Ashe had stood nearly half a head taller than him, they were now much closer in height, to the point that they could nearly see eye-to-eye. When he noticed it, Cyril felt a strange but not unpleasant giddiness.
Ashe's injured leg hung limp between them, though he was trying his best to shoulder most of his own weight. "Thank you, Cyril." he said. Cyril thought it in reference to his helping hand until Ashe continued. "I'd been so focused on what was expected of me that I hadn't even thought to consider what the Alliance's goals were, and whether I might agree with them. Perhaps this battlefield is not where Lonato would've wanted me to be after all..."
Cyril knew it was up to Ashe to figure out where his allegiances lie. But, much like how he wanted Ashe to be at his side, Cyril was more than willing to be at his for every step of the journey.