Chapter Text
It began with an unshakable sense of dissatisfaction. Nothing was right.
His hour at the training grounds became two, then three, and still his gut told him it was all pointless. Felix had more energy than he’d ever had in his life, but nothing he could do would shake it.
He took to hunting instead. Out in the woods with a bow his shoulders could loosen a bit, he could breathe easier, sit still long enough for something to come along. But that couldn’t last forever.
Felix was the son of a duke, an advisor to the king besides. He couldn’t simply spend his days with a bow in hand, searching for deer or rabbits. He scared them off these days, having trouble finding the stillness the woods required. Approaching home from a day out wandering filled him with a new kind of dread. Novel, given the dread home already imbued in him.
This was less specific. More all encompassing.
“Felix stop fidgeting. It’s unbecoming.” Rodrigue’s voice sounded from across his study. Felix gripped his leg, squeezing as tightly as he could to stop the restless shaking that he just couldn’t seem to quash.
Felix nodded, trying his best to take a breath, utilize everything he’d ever learned about patience and stealth. Instead his fingers began tapping on the table, providing only a smidgen of relief.
“Felix!” Rodrigue smacked the table and Felix jumped. He tried to save his dignity, rising from the table and circling the room with his hands pulling at his hair in frustration.
Pacing didn’t even help these days.
Nothing helped.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s… Agh” His sentence trailed off into a groan of frustration.
“You are not a child, I know you find this work boring but you need to sit still and pay attention. It is your responsibility,”
“As your heir, I know father. I just… Would you believe me if I said I can’t control it?” Felix was going to wear a hole in the carpet from his endless pacing at this rate.
“Felix stand still. That’s an order.” Something in Rodrigue’s tone made Felix more nervous than he usually was with the man.
Felix stopped in his tracks, feeling his shoulders rise up to meet his ears and his stomach clench. He needed to move, he needed something.
“Stop tapping your foot.”
He hadn’t even realized he was doing it. Still, as he pressed his foot solidly into the floor, feeling the heel of his boot, his fingers started going again.
Rodrigue’s face steeled into something disturbingly stoic- The face he used in political dealings, calculating as his eyes trailed over Felix’s bouncing form.
“How long has this been going on?” Rodrigue asked quietly, as if he were coaxing a wounded animal.
Felix took the question as permission to keep moving and resumed his pacing. The window felt better, he began tracing the pattern cast by the window on the floor with his feet. “A while. A moon or so? It’s worse today.”
“Suddenly worse today or gradually?”
Felix cast his mind back. He’d returned from his last mission with the king and things had felt normal. Felix was a restless person, he channeled his energy into physical pursuits- it wasn’t odd for him to be on edge for a week after returning to Fraldarius. But this time he didn’t settle into complacency or routine. Felix was a spring tightly coiled, and he felt on the edge of snapping.
“Gradually. It was manageable until recently.”
Rodrigue often disapproved of Felix’s methods, schedule, ideals or lack thereof. They famously did not get along. But he was still Felix’s father, and there was some measure of familial love deep down under the layers of resentment and misunderstanding.
So the gravity felt particularly heavy as he explained, “Son. I think you’ve been cursed.”
Curses were not particularly rare in Fodlan. If one interacted with mages enough, either politically or on the battlefield, it was considered an inevitability that some way or another they would end up cursed.
Curses ranged, of course, in their severity and effectiveness. Felix’s older brother Glenn was afflicted by a curse of nonviolence- he could neither defend himself nor command others to in his stead. It cost him his inheritance- Fraldarius was a military house at its core. He’d been forced to relinquish his knighthood.
Glenn was married now, in love with his wife Ingrid, a doting father, and fully engrossed in using the vast financial resources of Fraldarius to revitalize Galatea’s agriculture. His curse hadn’t ruined his life, merely changed it.
The costs for breaking such a curse were too vast- bloody and treasonous. Curse breaking was private business, and a dangerous one.
In Faerghus men did not break their curses. They lived with them as a mark of honor. Were you really so distinguished in battle if no mage took the time to curse you?
Felix found the whole thing rather obscene. He did not run headlong at spellcasters on a battlefield but avoided them all together. Why risk losing everything for something as stupid as honor?
Battle curses were usually innocuous. Bad vision. Nightmares. Sweaty palms.
Felix’s own father had taken on a curse as a squire that made him slow of foot. He learned to ride a warhorse and returned to his place at the late king’s side. Most curses were like that. Inconvenient but not ruinous.
Curses such as Glenn’s were more insidious, dangerous. They took real talent and planning, and a true power source to cast. They were incredibly rare. Glenn garnered a type of respect from others because someone took the time to curse him so deviously.
Felix always knew a curse would be inevitable. He just wasn’t expecting one so… life ruining.
“The Wanderer's curse. That is a nasty piece of work Lord Fraldarius.” The royal physician really didn’t need to sound so pleased as he concluded his examination.
“The curse of who?” Felix asked, unsure he heard correctly. At least in Fhirdiad he could sit still once again. The restlessness that plagued him at home had relaxed for a moment. It was still there, Felix could feel the bowstring inside him tensing oh so slowly. He looked out the window of the infirmary and his mind mapped three different paths out of the city. He wouldn’t stay long, he had responsibilities at home. There was a swords tournament he was planning on winning in Gautier in a few weeks time, he’d been too distracted to practice as of late.
He went to Fhirdiad at his father’s behest. If Felix was cursed, and it was the only explanation that made any sense at all, then he’d need to understand what it was to work with it. If the palace had no explanation, then he’d seek out the experts at the School of Sorcery.
If they had no explanation he was, quite frankly, screwed.
“The Wanderer. It’s common in storybooks, but I haven’t seen it since- well, I haven’t seen it in a decade at least. Nasty, you must have really pissed some mage off- this kind of work requires planning.”
“I haven’t. I don’t think I have.” Felix tried to explain, mind trying to think back to any mages he knew. His heart started beating quickly. One mage. There was the one. But she hadn’t known he was coming, she couldn’t have planned for him. Not the way she would need to for such an effective curse.
He told the king the next night, when he could finally get him alone. Dimitri’s private chambers had always been one of Felix’s favorite places in the palace, wide open windows, decorative swords adorning the walls. The eyes of the rest of the world were explicitly forbidden on grounds of treason.
“Oh Felix, I’m so sorry.” Dimitri’s eye cast downward and he almost went in for a hug, but thankfully thought better of it at Felix’s tension. Dimitri was touchy and it always annoyed Felix. Why take up so much space and then try to take more? Kings…
Felix tried to drink his spice blend but couldn’t stop stirring the cup. The movement of the amber liquid was soothing, but the clink of the spoon had to be annoying everyone. Oh well. He was among what counted as friends.
“For what Boar?” Felix said dismissively.
‘
Dimitri didn’t even flinch at the nickname anymore. Just placed his head in his hands, “It’s rather my fault, don’t you think?”
Felix rolled his eyes. Dimitri always took things too personally for a king. People died. People were cursed. It happened when one was keeping the realm safe. Far worse things had happened in Dimtiri’s name. Even worse by his own hand.
Felix finally calmed his hands enough to take a sip. His mind flew elsewhere, Spice Blend was made in the south. It would taste better there. Refocusing on what was happening in front of him he tried to assuage Dimitri. A distracted king was no good to anyone. “I’m the one who killed her. I got her curse. It’s… I’ll be fine.”
“What are you going to do?” Dimitri’s guilt was palpable and Felix remembered for a moment why they were friends despite the mountain of reasons not to be.
“Wander, apparently.” Felix said flatly.
Dimitri couldn’t even smile at his sarcasm.
The Wanderer's curse was straightforward. Felix couldn’t be still. He couldn’t settle. If he stayed somewhere too long he’d be consumed physically and mentally until he left. He’d lasted in Fraldarius while the curse took hold, but it was clearly inside him now.
He’d have a week at most in Fhirdiad, then even less time as the days passed.
There was no returning for a wanderer. He’d lose his way, be waylaid, get distracted, or forget where he was going. His only option, for the rest of his life, would be pointless circles of the globe.
Felix tried not to feel disappointed as he resolved himself to his curse. It could be worse. He could have Glenn’s fate. Dimitri’s. “My father always told me I’d be a better mercenary than duke. I’ll manage.”
“Felix you… You can’t live like that. I won’t allow it.” The righteousness coming off of Dimitri was sickening.
“Fine. Thank you for your permission. I’ll take that under advisement. Do curses respond to royal decrees?”
“No. But... if there’s anything I can do to help. Money, resources, assistance. Whatever you require, I will provide. I’ll write you letters of introduction at least, so you can move freely.”
“Do not get in the habit of promising anyone cursed in your name relief. You’ll bankrupt the country.” Still advising, even now. Well, Felix supposed, he wouldn’t be able to do much of that anymore either.
“I don’t. I offer as a friend. Just one with more resources than most. Where are you going next?”
“I don’t know. Around. It doesn’t really matter where I go now does it?”
Dimitri frowned but stayed silent. He seemed angry, perhaps he was trying to hold his temper. His outbursts had consequences far worse than anything Felix was dealing with.
Felix acquiesced, granting the king, his friend, a little honesty. Not like he’d be easy to find, not where he was going.
“I’m looking for a cursebreaker.”
Dimitri broke his teacup, the pieces scattering to the table. “A cursebreaker? But Felix that’s-”
“Foolish? Sacrilegious? Cowardly? Please, tell me more.” Right. This is why he didn’t tell Dimitri things. Forgiveness, never permission with him. He’d learned that as a child.
“No just… That’s very dangerous.”
“I’m aware.” Felix managed. Dimitri began to gather up pieces of his cup, stacking them neatly into a pile.
Dimitri continued his righteous lecture, “Felix cursebreakers dabble in the darkest magics. They're tricksters of the highest degree.”
“Well what would you have me do? Sit and take my curse like a man? You’ll have no advisor. My father will have no heir. Ugh, he’ll take sick pride in it. A family, two sons lost to curses for the crown’s sake. How devoted we are.”
Felix had a choice, and neither option was very good. Either he could learn to live with his curse, wander endlessly and alone.
Or he could find a cursebreaker.
The answer seemed obvious to him. Felix couldn’t stand to sit still and let things happen when he could act. Especially now.
Felix lasted a week at the palace before his feet began steering him anywhere but his room at night.
The curse was done with this place. It was time to get moving.
Felix said his goodbyes to the palace, to Dimitri. The moment felt weighty, painful even. If he failed this would be the last time he was here. A whole lifetime of imagining running away, and this was his fate. Cruel.
Well that was the point with curses wasn’t it?
As he walked through the threshold a hand clapped him on the shoulder. Dedue, Dimitri’s retainer loomed over him. They’d hardly exchanged two words for the duration of Felix’s visit, but he said seriously, “I have a friend at the school. I think she’ll be helpful. Go talk to Mercedes von Martiz.”
For all the time Felix spent in Fhirdiad he had never actually been inside the School of Sorcery. True to Dimitri’s word Felix was loaded up with a dozen letters of introduction for nearly every circumstance. So when the heir to the Duke of Fraldarius arrived with a letter proclaiming he was to meet with whoever he demanded for as long as he demanded, he was rushed by a rather nervous looking mage in a dark robe to a small room marked infirmary .
“Oh! Sorry you’ve frightened me.” Mercedes von Martriz had short blonde hair and wore the clothes of a white mage, though they were stained with all matter of herbs. Another doctor? Was she a cursebreaker then?
“Are you Mercedes?” Felix asked, searching the room for answers. It looked like every other doctor’s chambers he’d ever been in, though this one seemed to have fewer rules about food based on the basket of cookies resting on the table.
She nodded and gave him a warm smile, gesturing towards a small cot placed for examinations. Felix shook his head, choosing instead to stand in the doorway. He knew what was wrong, and he was done being poked and prodded by magic users, each more convinced than the last that their research, their experience, their brilliance would explain this in a way that would make Felix anything less than resigned and miserable.
She couldn’t possibly be a cursebreaker. Not here besides. Such things couldn't be accepted at an esteemed place like the School of Sorcery. Felix crossed his arms uncomfortably, trying to parse the room for its purpose. Why did Dedue send him here of all places?
“Would you like to sit down?” She asked, taking a seat at a small table.
He would while he could he supposed. The school was too close to the palace, his mind or the curse or whatever was controlling him wasn’t satisfied here. Felix sat, and raised a hand in refusal as she pushed the cookie basket towards him.
The pattern woven into the basket was vaguely familiar to him- something Adrestian in the coloring. His mind started listing several notable markets in Adrestria, places his father would import fine goods from. He wondered if they kept the best wares for themselves. He could go see for himself- He’d never seen the south ocean before.
“So I take it you’re not injured.” Mercedes asked, breaking off a small piece of cookie and popping it into her mouth.
“No.”
“Well, that’s a relief then. I so rarely have anyone making social calls. I would appreciate knowing my visitor's name if it’s alright with you?”
“Felix.”
“It’s very nice to meet you Felix. Are- are you okay?”
Felix’s leg was bouncing and he wasn’t quite used to it enough to not be embarrassed. He was so sick of this whole mess, and it hadn’t even taken full hold yet. He was always a restless person, this wasn’t so different. He jammed his heel in the floor, begging for stillness.
His body disagreed.
“What do you think?” He bit out.
“You seem a bit anxious Felix. Can... Do you need help with that? There are some herbs and…”
“No I'm not. Ugh. I’ve been in Fhirdiad a week and my body can’t bear it any longer.”
“Well politics can be quite stressful-”
“It’s not politics I’m cursed.”
Mercedes’ expression turned serious and her eyes settled on his still bouncing leg. “You can’t sit still.” She confirmed.
“Correct.” This was pointless. Felix resolved to hide his condition from everyone he met going forward- the long sharp looks made him feel more like an object than a person.
She actually smiled, “I hope you’ll pardon my directness… it’s not a Wanderer’s curse is it?”
Felix actually liked her directness as far as things went. Everyone treaded lightly around him, too polite to ask what was wrong when something was so clearly off. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know, the conversation stopped in any room he entered. It was exhausting, another social dance that Felix would rather skip. It was rude, of course, to ask about someone’s curse. But Felix was rude.
“What if it is?” He considered if Enbarr was too big a place to head right away. If entire cities weren’t palatable for long it would be reasonable to ration them. Maybe Fhirdiad was just too familiar though. He’d have time to try different tactics.
Mercedes peered over at the door and got up to close it. Felix’s hand drifted towards his sword out of habit.
“You poor thing.” The pity was unpalatable, too sweet for his constitution. Why did Dedue send him here? For vulneraries? Supplies?
“You’re looking for a solution then?” She said quietly and Felix felt his heart skip. Did she mean a cursebreaker? Did she know one?
“Would you want to live with this?” Felix tried not to shout. Mercedes began bustling around the infirmary, grabbing a small satchel off a hook on the door. Cabinets opened and closed, and she seemed to place objects at random into the bag. Books, herbs, a bag of something that smelled strongly of sugar and apples.
“No. I certainly would not. I dislike exercise more than most. Wandering would simply not suit. Well… Do you have a plan of where you’re going next?” She asked innocuously, continuing her work.
“I… I’ll head south before it gets cold,” and because he still had a lingering sense that she actually might be able to help him, “I’m having trouble planning ahead.”
“I’m not overly familiar with the symptoms but I’ll take your word for it. If you’re in no rush to get anywhere might I suggest you stop by the Rhodos Coast. I have a delivery I need made to a friend, if you happen to find her.”
Mercedes placed the bag, now stuffed full of odds and ends, on the small wooden table. Felix stared at it angrily.
His mind wrapped around the Rhodos Coast and he had to stop himself from springing into action. His heart pined for the place, for the road, for the week it would take to travel on foot.
He resented the relief and snapped, “I’m not a delivery boy.”
“I never implied you were, Felix. Just… Something concrete might help you focus. It’s a good ways away.”
“And your friend?” Felix let the unsaid words linger in the air.
Can she help me?
“My best friend from school. Nicest girl you’ll ever meet. She’s… Our magical areas differ quite a bit.” Curse breakers weren’t nice as far as Felix heard, but he supposed he’d never met one. Maybe Mercedes thought he was frightened. Funny. What did he have to be frightened about?
Felix began picking at the strap of the bag, “And you want me to pace the coast until I find her?”
“Well what else will you do?” Mercedes smiled and then burst into laughter, “No. Let me draw you a map.”
She pulled a piece of parchment out from a drawer and started scribbling vague lines. “So I can’t give you an exact location but she lives in a house with a lot of weathervanes about a day’s walk inland from the coast. It’s in these woods here.” She circled a scribble.
Felix clenched his fist, feeling his fingernails dig into the meat of his palm. “I can’t read that.”
Mercedes looked up at him, surprised, and then she turned a little pink. “Oh I thought I did a pretty good job. Here, let’s go find a map. I don’t have one here but in case you couldn’t tell we have a pretty vast library.”
Felix shouldered Mercedes’ bag and followed her out of the room. The School of Sorcery’s layout was pleasing to his mind, all winding paths and steep staircases. He felt a bit like he was traversing some kind of impossible lair. He ran his hands along the walls, the cool texture of the stones comfortable against his fingers.
“Oh, wait up Felix.” Felix turned to find Mercedes nearly ten paces behind him. Well, she was nearly his height- that felt like her problem. He turned another corner and another, until huge wooden doors stopped his path. Mercedes came up behind him, “You are fast! Is that…?”
“I’ve always been fast.” He stopped her. Curious people annoyed him, another reason to avoid mages. Not everything was about his stupid curse.
“Well you found the library! Let’s go find a map.” She moved forward and he let her take the lead. Every inch of the room was piled with shelves upon shelves of books, with small reading tables packed into corners. In the center of the reading room there was a huge abstract sculpture laid out over a table. It was a smooth polished brass that raised and lowered, with silvery inlays cutting across.
Mercedes walked around it and pointed, “There I think.”
Felix dropped his gaze under the table. Were there books inside? Was it a drawer or a puzzle that opened at the right words?
She grabbed his hand and pulled him around, standing right next to him, “Come on, you can’t take this one with you but I’m sure your memory will suffice, and you’ll have my map for reference. It’s an approximate anyway.”
Felix stared blankly at the sculpture, trying to sense the magic. Was everything at this place a riddle?
He admitted defeat, “What are you talking about?”
Mercedes just smiled patiently, “So this is the coast, and here’s the main road. There’s a wooded area between the town just on the edge of Mateus,” She pointed to a blob, “And the coast. You’ll take the wooded path and you should be able to find her. Listen for the wind chimes.”
Felix rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of what she was saying. It all seemed like gibberish, trying to match up her instructions to a weird art piece.
“Do you have a proper map? This one is... “
Mercedes eyebrows raised and she grabbed his hand, placing it over the blobs. “You can’t see what the map says?”
His fingers traced sharp contours of what his mind instantly filled in was a small metal house. He looked up at Mercedes face, her features clear as day. “No…” he mumbled, groping along the map, feeling roads and trees that his eyes couldn’t translate.
“I… I don’t think a map is going to help you very much, is it?” She said gently.
The realization sent a chill through his spine and he swallowed thickly. A map. The sculpture was a map, and apparently a very detailed one at that.
“No.”
The first day on the road Felix was too relieved to think of much at all. His mood lightened, and energy became manageable- no nervous tapping or shaking. He could hunt without scaring off prey. He could sneak past bandits without his fingers or feet giving him away.
It imbued a sense of rightness that he once only found from dueling. Even drawing his sword, running through a few drills against a tree before he settled in for the night didn’t feel half so good as the air on his face, and the dirt underneath his boots.
Why would he want to go home? Back to a desk and politics and endless stupid responsibilities? Wasn’t this better? He slept well each night, felt at peace each day. It was wrong. Painfully wrong to try to squeeze himself into any other role. Felix always loved the outdoors, long hunts, marches on missions for Dimitri. He was a loner by nature, who had friends out of history and convenience rather than any sort of effort he put into maintaining relationships with others.
He was going to find Mercedes’ friend to deliver a package. Then follow the coast down, maybe head east through the southern Kingdom.
It took him three days to start feeling disconcerted in his joy. Felix was many things, but overwhelming happiness was foreign even in the best of circumstances.
He reached into his pack to find his bedroll and brushed over Mercedes’ satchel. His stomach dropped.
Mercedes’ friend, the cursebreaker.
The curse. Of course. Felix let one shout of anger and threw his bag to the ground. His own mind was tricking him, trying to make him forget.
Every new thing Felix learned about his stupid affliction made it seem worse, more impossible by the day. He’d been cursed hardly a few weeks by his most likely guess (his only guess), and it was rapidly getting worse.
Despite his anger, he slept well. The walking exhausted him in a way that felt well earned and he woke each morning refreshed. Ready for another day.
Felix avoided the town entirely. He’d yet to try to revisit a place but the court physician had made that part clear- it wouldn’t be good. As long as his supplies were in good repair, he could do everything on his own.
Even without a map, and going nearly a day without a road, Felix felt like he had a good sense of where the coast was. He looked up at the thick trees surrounding him but something told him he was close.
He’d be strategic, sweep the forest in directions until he hit the road.
Without a path that was easier said than done, but still, he knew what way west was from the sun in the sky and a certain surety in the back of his mind. It would take him a few days to find her, most likely, these woods were thick as mud. He stopped in a small clearing and began picking at his lunch, some leftover rabbit from the night before.
He could eat nothing but meat on the road unless he stopped at an inn. His younger self would be thrilled.
He shook the thought from his head, biting into the unseasoned, overcooked skewer. He tried to hate the rubbery texture. Remind himself of how much better food could be if spicy-
Almyra had spicy foods, his memory reminded him. No- not the point.
Appetite satiated Felix tried to center himself. He closed his eyes and began counting breaths, feeling his lungs expand, imaging air at his fingertips, his toes, the top of his head.
A small tinkling noise distracted his thoughts. It was coming from the south and he remembered Mercedes’ words- wind chimes. He was looking for weathervanes and wind chimes.
He followed the noise and felt it get louder and clearer. Not one chime, a whole cacophony of chimes all different sizes and materials. Loud, but somehow relaxing.
He spotted a house with a large weathervane on top, and another at each corner. There was a large fenced in yard overgrown with plants packed into neat rows.
Reason, in the chaos.
He approached the fence quietly, and his ears picked up a different sound, more consistent than the chimes.
“ Chick, chick, chickpeas, all in rows. Chick, chick, chickpeas, grow grow grow.”
“Excuse me” he said loudly enough that he hoped she could hear.
“ All your vines are nice and long, all your plants are big and strong,”
“I don’t mean to interrupt.” He tried again, leaning against her fence.
“ So many meals both hearty and sweet, fix you up and then I - Agh!" A shock of red hair peeked up over a bush and Felix jumped back at her scream.
“Who are you? How dare you sneak up on me like this?” It was a woman’s voice that demanded his answers.
“I… I tried to announce myself. Just the chimes and the singing-”
“What singing?” She started to turn red and Felix realized two things.
The first, there was wind pulling towards her fingertips.
The second, she was probably one of the prettiest women he’d ever seen in his life.
Trying his best to avoid being on the painful end of a wind spell he raised his hands up, “Mercedes sent me. I have something for you.”
The wind died suddenly and Felix could hear his heart pound in his ears as the chimes stopped.
The redhead smiled, “Oh! Well why didn’t you say so? Please come in, I’m Annette.”