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Sylvain is much better at this than Ingrid is. He’s always had this way with words. Often, they would annoy her. He’d say something with that playful tone of his, the one he uses when he’s only halfway-joking, waiting to see if she would believe him when he says that she’s beautiful.
She rarely does. It is hard to believe something he says so readily and easily to everyone who can hear. It is easier to leave things as they always were. Two people, side-by-side, with the steady beat of that trust that comes from such longtime companionship.
There had been a line, once.
Sylvain obliterated it.
A week before war, he had asked, what if we tried?
A week before war, she had answered, let me think about it.
Now, none of that really seems to matter anymore.
Even if she’s still thinking about it.
Sylvain’s letters come packaged in comfort. She misses his words more now that she can hold them between her fingertips, tracing her thumb across the ink as she moves down the page as if she could capture little pieces of him in her hands.
They never say enough.
All wartime letters come with the kind of reservation that reminds Ingrid of the smoke and blood that lingers long after battle and into dreams. Sylvain’s signature flare of boyishness is not immune to it. It is tempered by formalities and the benign greetings of distant friendship for fear of interception.
But there’s always just enough of Sylvain left that Ingrid swears she can see him.
He is that handsome boy on horseback somewhere north in Gautier, trotting Blueberry to a slow stop as the snow blankets the mountains in the near distance while the flakes melt into his fire-red hair and drip down onto his scalp. Strapped against his back, his anchor forever designates him a war-man, defending the last bits of home.
It is not an image she likes. It is too romantic now. As a child, Ingrid might have dreamed of a man like this. As a young girl, she had a knight like this. This is too much like Glenn.
She paints, instead, a different picture. A better and truer portrait of Sylvain. It is a boy who tugs his winter gloves off with chattering teeth because he writes better without the barrier even when he freezes. Atop a patient Blueberry, he jots his words down as quickly as he can onto the bundle of folded parchment he keeps in his pocket whenever a stray thought occurs to him. On occasion, the flame he sparks in one hand to keep warm catches the edge of the letter and he has to scramble to save his words for her.
It is not real. Most of his letters come on paper and there are no burn marks to be seen but it still feels honest somehow. It is more honest than that tale he tells her of the lonely frontier, of the refined nature of his new role in diplomacy, of the long letters he drafts about his patrols. It is almost as real as his poetic waxing about the company of the memories they both share, innocent enough to mean nothing.
And yet, they mean everything.
Ingrid, he’d start. Do you remember, he’d say.
Yes, she wants him to know. I do. I think about you too.
Gautier is a lonely, frigid bitch of a region. Sylvain likes nothing about it. He hates the patrols, he hates the cold, but most of all, he hates the quiet. There is no life here in this endless winter. There is barely any sun, only the cruel tease of it in the late mornings before it ducks behind the snow-capped mountains, so far out of reach that Sylvain forgets the feel of it on his skin.
On the darkest days, he thinks that there’s no life anywhere in war.
There is only snow and frozen bones on this wasteland he wanders. Even the halls of the castle are silent and tense. There is nothing for him here. There is only the closed study door and the endless shifting war-maps that move back and forth in the snow.
His friends lose their faces. They are just the little wooden figures that move around the board.
Dominic, Fraldarius, Galatea...
Some days, when he manages to escape into rides alone with Blueberry, he has to remind himself what it is that makes up the parts of himself that still feel like him. He does not want to lose his name to land. He does not want to lose his friends to them either.
The war chisels pieces of Sylvain away into the man he tried desperately not to be. He has always been a square peg in a triangular hole, but frozen red blood on white snow has hammered out the shape of himself—hammered until Sylvain is the right enough make to squeeze through. It is more than his father could have ever done. It is perhaps even more than Ingrid could have done, even when he was willing to try for her.
Ingrid, he wonders. Would you recognize me in all this armor? Have I finally become the man you always wanted me to be?
Letters should be easier to write. Ingrid does not know why she struggles with them. She has always been confident in her words. Sometimes, she is too confident and has to backtrack, apologizing for her haste.
She is not good at this part. This rereading and questioning. She is not good at wondering. She has always let the others wonder. She is simply more inclined to act. It is easier to act.
It is hard when there is nothing for her to do. Her father keeps her in the estate, weary of losing more than he already has. Her friends are scattered far and away. She only has the halls of this near-empty house that has long since lost the warmth of home.
There are only long stretches of time but time means very little when the days feel the same.
There is too much of it. There is too much thinking. It is painful to think. There are not enough distractions in Galatea.
The letters come with only the briefest spark of relief. Ingrid reads them too quickly and fears that she will lose the feel of friendship to the excitement of any form of escape.
She does not know how to say I miss you without saying it outright. Her friends paint beautiful pictures of the implication but anything she writes feels lackluster in comparison to her heart.
It is not enough to say it.
And yet it is easier to say hardly anything at all.
Sylvain, she starts.
She never finds an adequate way to end.
Dimitri’s execution deals a solid knock against the door to her heart. There is something about the distance that makes it feel a little bit imaginary. The words reach across the study from her father’s mouth and into her ringing ears. Ingrid blinks twice before they sink into her chest.
She doesn’t remember what comes after. Not exactly. She just remembers the feel of the paper-knife she finds to cut her hair and the straps slapping steel against her body.
Her father catches her in the stable.
It doesn’t matter.
She takes off.
He thinks he dreams her, descending on him from above, a silhouette on top of white expanding wings, outstretched towards him. He’s been alone for so long that he does not know whether she brings him death or salvation. It isn’t until later that he learns she brings both.
Sylvain has been out in the snow for two days, sure that there is nothing for him left. He does not do well alone for long. His mind travels into dark spaces. It brings him into the damp cold well of childhood and the tower his brother died in. The longer he shivers, the harder it is to hold onto what once kept him warm.
Mostly, he tries to think of Ingrid.
When she lands in front of him, his hands still grip tight onto his lance. “Are you real?”
Ingrid dismounts into the cold white mounds. Her boots sink her lower. She only needs to say his name for him to know.
Sylvain.
They don’t say much at first. Sylvain leads her to the shelter of a nearby cabin and barn.
“Is this where you stay?” she asks after they settle their horses in for the night. It is colder in Gautier than in Galatea but it is not the frozen hellscape of winter that Sylvain describes in his letters. Not tonight at least. Both Blueberry and Strawberry will be fine for now.
“Sometimes,” Sylvain answers as he shuts the barn. The walk up to the cabin is short. The crunch of their boots fills the space between his words. “We commandeered it for the war but no one really uses it but me.”
“Are you usually alone?”
“Not always,” he admits as they approach the door. He fumbles through his pockets for something before pulling out a set of keys. “Not if I have to patrol closer to the border but this is mostly for show. There are other patrols in the area and a guard outpost nearby.”
“Your father ordered it?”
He bristles, bringing a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Not this time. I just needed some time alone.”
Ingrid frowns. She eyes him up and down, staring so hard into him that Sylvain is sure that she can see through him, see right through the armor and into what is left of the boy she’s always known.
“What?” he asks, turning to unlock the door.
“You hate being alone,” she says.
Sylvain sighs and gestures for her to come inside. Ingrid does. He is glad for it. The door shuts out the cold breeze but also what’s left of the evening light from outside. The single-room cabin is dark, its curtains drawn closed. It is somehow easier to talk to her this way.
“Yeah,” he says, “but I was also going crazy inside the castle so I thought that the space might help.”
In the dark, before his eyes settle, Ingrid’s soft voice fills the room. “You shouldn’t punish yourself like this.”
He is glad that she cannot see him. He does not know the expression on his face. He is not ready for her to see the parts of him he is still unsure about. “It’s not punishment,” he says as he moves towards where he knows the hearth to be. “At least, I didn’t mean it to be. It’s just- It’s a bit of a trap you know? I stay home and it sucks so I leave. Then I leave and it sucks so I go home.
Ingrid sighs. “I think I know the feeling.”
“Yeah, so...” he shrugs, before busying himself with setting the fireplace up. “I guess I just don’t really know what else to do.”
The flame that sparks in his hand bathes the room in a low orange glow before being transferred into the fireplace. Behind him, he can hear shuffling. When he turns, he sees Ingrid fiddling with the straps of her armor, busying herself with unbuckling it when she doesn’t know what to say.
“I hate these things,” she huffs as he stands. Their eyes meet again across the room. He is glad for the change of subject, as sloppy as it is. It’s almost charming, were it not for the distance between them.
“Here,” he says, taking a step forward. “Let me help.”
Ingrid freezes. For a moment, he thinks she won’t let him but then, her expression shifts. She looks exhausted, too exhausted for any pretense so she drops her hands to the side and turns. He is a little thankful for her back towards him. It would be much harder to do this face to face although he wouldn’t much mind it.
He realizes, as he helps, that Ingrid’s armor does not fit quite right. “Who’d you steal this from?” he teases.
“My brother,” she admits as he finishes. He takes a step back so that Ingrid can discard the rest of the plates on her own onto the nearby wooden table.
“We should get you a new set when we get back to the castle,” he tells her seriously as she lays the armor down. “It’s not safe.”
“I appreciate that Sylvain but I don’t know how necessary that’ll be. I doubt my father will let me out of his sight after what I’ve done.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Ingrid, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
He can’t help it. The grin that stretches across his face is almost unfamiliar.
Ingrid crosses her arms and faces him. “What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
He means it.
At first, he thinks that she might smack him on the arm like she used to when she thought he was teasing her but all she does now is lean back against the table behind her, her hands curling around the edge. “You shouldn’t be. It was stupid and dangerous.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“I guess I didn’t know what else to do.”
The room quiets. There is only the crackling, burning fire behind him and the soft, muffled sound of the wind outside.
Eventually, when it’s clear that Ingrid has nothing more to say, he finds himself brave enough to ask. “Ingrid,” he starts, voice heavy, “Ingrid, what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. I just-” her face twists into something Sylvain can’t read. She shakes her head, her short choppy hair falling into her eyes. “I just needed to see you.”
Sylvain’s heart beats hard against his chest. He should be thrilled but something else creeps in, a deep dark fear of a looming something. He swallows thickly. “Did something happen?”
Ingrid’s eyes snap to his. She blinks, surprised. “Oh,” she says, expression falling. “You don’t-”
Sylvain watches her take a deep breath. Somehow, he knows what’s coming before she even says it.
“Sylvain, it’s Dimitri. He died.”
The air leaves his lungs. He stumbles back a few steps, his hand finds the mantle of the fireplace. Something in his chest catches. It pierces. His eyes close as he remembers how to breathe.
And then Ingrid is at his side. And then, her frozen hands are on his face. And then, he buries himself into her neck.
“Damnit,” he says against her skin. “Damnit, Dimitri.”
They drag the blanket from the one bed in the room onto the floor in front of the fire. Sylvain finds himself with his head in her lap. Ingrid does not seem to mind. Her hand is buried in his hair. She stares off into the fire mostly, although she does occasionally glance down at him with something like a smile.
Sylvain doesn’t know where to start. Neither does Ingrid.
His hand reaches out. His fingers dance at the ends of her hair. Ingrid does not push him away.
“You cut your hair,” he says.
“Hmm?” Their eyes meet again. “Oh, yeah. I did.”
“How do you like it?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
Sylvain’s hand drops to lay against his chest. He considers for a moment what to say, wondering if the conversation is even worth chasing. It probably isn’t, but he tries anyway. “It suits you.”
Ingrid frowns. “It’s choppy,” she says, “And I did it without a mirror.”
“I can help you fix it if you like,” he says. “But for what it’s worth, I still think you’re beautiful.”
Ingrid’s breath hitches. He is close enough to her to tell. It warms him, more than the fire ever could, and for the briefest of moments, it keeps everything at bay. There is still a whirling growing feeling of something dark and awful from the guilt that follows his grief, but for now, he is willing to let himself feel this, even if he can’t quite feel everything else yet.
“ Sylvain ,” her tone is a warning, although it is not her old scolding. There is something careful in it. It’s almost like fear.
“ Ingrid, ” he whispers. Her hand, the one in his hair stills. Her eyes gaze softly into his. “Do you remember the last time we talked? I mean, really talked.”
She lets out a slow breath. “I do.”
“You never gave me an answer.”
Her fingers trace down from his scalp to his jaw, where she lays it gently upon him. “I’m not sure now is the time.”
“I disagree. I think now is the perfect time.” He takes a breath as he shifts up off of her lap so that he can settle cross-legged right in front of her.” “Ingrid, it might be the only time.”
Ingrid’s teeth bite down on her lip as she considers it. He blocks her view from the fire, blocks the ability for her to get lost in it. “Yeah,” she practically whispers, “okay. How do you want to start?”
He doesn’t know. He has thought about her every day since the war started. When he writes to her, he imagines speaking to her like this, with honest plain words that he doesn’t have to hide behind memories or formalities. He has dreamed of her often. He dreams of this. When he is lonely in this cabin, waiting for sleep to carry him, he thinks of her voice. He hears it in his head, asking him to be stronger, to be better, to strive towards something good even when there is very little of it in war.
It is easier to hold a lance when it is in her image. It’s the only reason he hasn’t yet wavered.
But Ingrid does not ask anything of him now. She does not yell or tease. There is no exasperation in her eyes. There is only grief and exhaustion.
Any words he comes up with feel lackluster in comparison to the wear on her body. In his letters, there is time to pour over words for her, over thoughts of her, of the things they once shared. He cannot get carried away in his dreams when she is right in front of him. Real and close enough to touch.
His hand reaches out to hers. Ingrid does not pull away.
Her expression softens with that light of affection she has always had, even when it was deeply hidden underneath all that she has made herself out to be.
“I think I love you,” he says.
Ingrid’s grip tightens in his hand but she ducks her head down to escape his eyes. “You think?”
“I’m pretty sure.” She still does not look up. It disappoints him. “I think about you all the time. I think you keep me sane among all this.”
“But?”
“It’s been a long time since we last saw each other.”
Ingrid sighs. She shifts but does not let go of their hands. “A year.”
“Yes.”
There’s a pause. There’s his thumb brushing over the back of her hand. He doesn’t know how to continue. He is thankful that Ingrid does.
“I’m sorry about my letters,” she says, meeting his gaze again. She looks defeated, disappointed in herself.
He frowns. Then, he opens his mouth to say something but Ingrid barrels on. “You always write these elegant letters to me and I never know what to say. I feel like they’re nothing in comparison.”
“What’s there to compare?”
She considers this for a second. Her voice lowers to almost a whisper. “Your heart?”
He laughs. “My heart?”
Ingrid flushes. She shoves him a little with her free hand but Sylvain catches it before she retracts it.
“It sounded less stupid in my head,” she says, ducking her head again. “This is what I mean. Everything I say or write sounds so silly.”
His lips quirk into a fond smile. “You always were more straightforward.”
“It’s hard when I’m not allowed to be.”
“You’re allowed now.”
Ingrid lifts her head. Her gaze hardens as she stares into him. The warmth is still there but now it’s blazing all of a sudden. Sylvain’s breath holds. “In my worst moments,” she says, “I think of you. It helps. More than I can say, Sylvain. Your letters...I’ve kept every one.”
It’s not quite relief that allows him to breathe again but it’s something close to. Maybe that’s the best he can get given the circumstances. “I like writing to you,” he admits. He focuses on their hands, now both in his lap. Ingrid’s hands are calloused and rough. A mirror to his. “Sometimes they ground me. They remind me of things outside of this. Reminds me that there’s more to life than war.”
“Am I just a reminder of a life outside of war?”
He had expected this question, or at least, some version of it. If perhaps he had fallen in love with some idea of her or the memory of her. But Ingrid is real, sitting in front of him. Her hands are in his. She is real and here and warm. His heart is better for it. “No, you’re what I’m fighting for, I think.”
Her hands leave his but only so they can cradle his face. “You always were a romantic.”
“That’s not what you used to call it.”
“We’ve changed. Everything’s changed.” Her hands drop from his jaw down to his shoulders as if she is using him to steady herself. “I miss you, Sylvain. Not just the man in the letters. You. As you were and as you are.”
“I’m not really sure what I am these days.”
“Neither am I.” Ingrid sighs. She is close enough to him that he can taste her breath. “There’s not much I’m certain of these days. Some days, I question what we’re even fighting for.”
Sylvain frowns deeply. He had not expected that from Ingrid. She has always had more conviction than the rest of them. If she wavers, what hope do the rest of them have? “I didn’t expect that from you.”
“Me either.” The admission lays heavily between them, thickening the air in the room. Sylvain watches her swallow. “But it’s hard and now with Dimitri…”
The room feels colder at the mention. Ingrid lets out a shuddering breath before she finishes. “Sometimes, I wish we could just get a pause.”
“Is that not what this is?”
Ingrid’s eyes shut. Her hands fall away from his shoulders as she pulls away. “Maybe.”
He follows her gaze towards her fingers which trace idle patterns into the blanket. “Ingrid,” he says, trying to catch her attention. Her fingers pause then lay flat against the floor. She glances up at him again. “What am I to you?”
Her expression hardens but her voice is quiet and soft when she speaks. “I’m fairly certain I’m in love with you, Sylvain.”
He does not know what he expects to feel when he hears her words. Perhaps elation, the kind that would make him want to jump and cheer, but instead, he feels the warmth that she had set in his chest course throughout his body and drum a soft beat to his steady heart. This is better somehow. This feels like solid ground after years and years at sea. This is waking up to the spring sun after drawn-out months of too-brief winter mornings.
He leans forward and reaches his hand out to graze her face. He is delighted when Ingrid leans into it, bringing one hand up to hold his against her cheek. She’s warm and her eyes are lit only by the low glow of the fire behind him. He is sure, in this moment, that he is ruined for beauty because nothing could ever compare to the softness in her expression against the uneven ends of her hair and the slow upward curl of her chapped lips. From this close, he can feel her breaths, quick-paced as if she’s nervous.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
Ingrid’s lips part, then she barely nods. It’s all he needs.
It is the softest kiss Sylvain has ever had. It is better than any other kiss he’s given. It is even better than their first one together, all that time ago in her dorm room when he had confessed to her the first time.
No one knows me like you do, Ingrid. And I like you. I want to try. What do you think?
There is no one like Ingrid for him. He is sure of nothing else but this in this moment with her lips against his.
Ingrid pulls away first but Sylvain chases her to rest his forehead on hers. Her eyes are shut. Somehow, this makes him brave again. “I love you,” he whispers on her lips.
Ingrid’s eyes flutter open as she retreats fully. For a moment, his heart stalls, but then she smiles even as she moves their hands to her lap. “I thought you were still thinking about it.”
“I was scared,” he confesses. It’s hard to look at Ingrid when he says it. She knows the parts of him that he doesn’t like, she has parts of him she doesn’t like, but it’s strange to admit. It is terrifying to admit but a weight presses in on him. It’s been pressing since he’s learned of Dimitri’s fate. He does not know what else he has to lose. He just knows he cannot bear for it to be her. “I’m still scared. I’m scared I’m not the man you want. The man you deserve. I’m trying though.”
“You’re the man I want.” Her tone leaves no room for discussion. It is the same voice she uses when she makes him promise to change. She brings the hand not holding his to rest flat against his chest, right over his heart. “Whatever you are Sylvain, you are the man I want.”
The firmness of tone, the fire in her eyes, the ferocity of which she loves - Sylvain will remember that forever, he thinks. This moment glues some of the broken shape of himself back together. Maybe that’s all he needs.
Sylvain falls asleep tucked against her chest. His steady breaths accompanied only by the slowly dying fire and the occasional sound of the wind outside. He must be exhausted. Ingrid is too but she is fatigued less by long drawn-out physical exertion and more from the toll that comes with war and loss.
There is very little good these days but in this little cabin, in this pocket they have together, Sylvain feels a little bit like everything.
She would have laughed once at the thought, even when the quiet suppressed part of the girl who loves deeply rebelled, but now this feels like the last bit of goodness she can hold in her own hands.
And Sylvain is in her hands. Not just his words, but the body of him against hers. Her fingers curl in his hair, longer than it used to be, and she can press her broken nails softly against his scalp. Occasionally, when she does so, he will make a pleased sound of some sort, even in his sleep. When she fears the night, when thoughts of loss creep back in, Ingrid does it on purpose to calm herself.
Sylvain does not mind.
Do it again, he had insisted sleepily at one point. He will likely not remember the request in the morning.
Tonight, they do not mind anything. It is funny how honest one can be in the wake of devastating loss. And it is still loss. Dimitri is dead. Her friends are still scattered. Her father will have words to say if he has not already sent men after her. She half expects them to barge in and drag her away but for now, Sylvain is in her arms. For now, she can press a soft kiss against his crown and whisper desperately the only certainty she has.
Sylvain,
I love you.
-Ingrid