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The silver-tipped arrow slides cleanly through the chink of Sylvain’s armour and lodges into his shoulder with a force that knocks him off his horse, choking the breath from his lungs as he hits the bloodied dirt ground of the battlefield.
He thinks he can faintly hear Ashe shouting his name as his vision swims, ears ringing as he tilts his head to get a look at the white feathered shaft of the arrow sticking out of his shoulder like a gruesome sort of flower sprouting from his flesh.
Sylvain doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before there’s arms wrapping around his torso, hoisting him upwards so he’s leaning against someone’s chest. The sudden movement blurs his vision once more, pain lancing through his upper body as his head lolls back just enough to meet Mercedes’ kind gaze.
She’s stronger now, he discerns. She’d never be able to do that when they were students back at the monastery, but he supposes if she hadn’t gotten more resilient in the face of war she’d probably have been dead by now.
Back at the monastery...their days where studying and fighting simple bandits were their biggest problems seem like a lifetime ago now.
“Sylvain,” Mercedes scolds gently, although her words hold no bite. “Didn’t I tell you to be more careful? Five years, and you’re still like this…”
“Well, that’s what I have you for, right?” He attempts a grin that’s quickly wiped off his face along with a yelp of pain when Mercedes responds by grabbing the shaft of the arrow still embedded in his shoulder and yanking it out in one fluid motion.
Sylvain sends her an accusing look of betrayal, but she only meets him with another one of her mellow smiles. “You’re meant to be a healer, Mercie. Who taught you to be so ruthless?”
She doesn’t answer him, but somehow he thinks he already knows the answer.
There's a gentle hand placed on his shoulder, fingers firmly clamping down on the wound still festering there. Before he can register the sting of fabric on torn flesh, the familiar warmth of Mercedes’ healing magic courses through his veins, and he can feel the lacerated muscle there regenerating as the remains of his blood drip through her fingers in vermillion rivulets.
Out of all the Blue Lions, he supposes she’s the one who’s changed the least in the years they’ve been apart. He thinks of Dimitri, Felix, Ingrid, Ashe, Annette and even himself, all hardened warriors with any remaining innocence from their childhood days stripped by the calamity of bloodshed and warfare.
(He doesn’t even want to think about Dedue, carcass left to decompose somewhere in Faerghus five years ago -)
But as the thrum of Mercedes’ magic hums faintly under his skin and his eyes close as he revels in the comfort of it all, he can almost imagine himself in the sickbay of the monastery once again.
When there’s no more fresh cardinal leaking from her clutched hands, she releases her tight grip. He's used to her handiwork after years together in the Blue Lions, but it doesn’t make him any less amazed whenever she raises her hand to reveal completely healed tissue.
“There, there.” Mercedes wipes her bloodied hands on her gauzy skirts as Sylvain brushes his fingertips over the already scarred-over skin on his shoulder where the arrow lying on the ground had once been. “All better now, aren’t we?”
He sighs as he grips his lance in his hands once more. “I suppose I should be getting back. Felix will have my head if he finds out I spent half the siege indisposed.”
Before he can get up to join the bloody throes of battle once again, Mercedes shoots out an arm, preventing him from leaving. She's not particularly strong compared to him, but the unfamiliar look of desperation in her eyes compels him to stay put.
“Wait,” she starts, and the uncharacteristic tone of her voice makes Sylvain realise that perhaps the years of war had changed her in more ways than physical after all. “Can you...can you do me a favour?”
“A favour? You just saved my life, Mercie. I'd do whatever you wish.”
A look of relief breaks out on Mercedes’ face, and one of her gloved hands reaches out to grip his own. “Can you bring me to Emile? He’s halfway across the battlefield, and there’s no way I can get through the ranks of the Empire’s troops on my own, so…”
The name draws a blank in his mind. “Who?”
“Ah, you know,” The hesitation in her voice plants a seed of unease in his stomach. “...Jeritza.”
He can’t help but choke out a hollow laugh, something thick and ugly coalescing in his chest as he stares at her with disbelief clear on his face. “Jeritza. The Death Knight? The commander of the Adrestrian Empire’s imperial army? You want to talk to him? No offence, Mercie, but I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Please, Sylvain,” Mercedes pleads, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He's my brother.”
The memory of a battle at Conand Tower from five years ago suddenly flashes in the forefront of Sylvain’s mind like a sudden physical punch to the gut, so tangible and real that it somehow hurts more than the fresh wound on his shoulder.
“Please,” something wet drips onto his cheek from where Mercedes is still leaning over him, and the tear slides down the slope of his face as if it were one of his own. “You know how I feel.”
No, I don't, he wants to tell her. I never shed a single tear when I separated my brother’s head from his shoulders.
Instead, Sylvain raises his head just in time to see the glint of Areadbhar's blade in the conflict of battle, the once-white bone glittering with carmine blood visible even from halfway across the battlefield.
“Fine,” he relents, and the way Mercedes’ expression immediately lights up makes him want to throw up. “Only if Dimitri doesn’t get to him first.”
-
“It's not his fault, really,” Mercedes tells him, slightly out of breath as she slings a shot of dark magic towards the pegasus knight in the sky, sending both rider and mount crashing to the ground. She hadn’t been able to do that back in the monastery either, and Sylvain wonders what exactly she’d been up to in the five years he hadn’t seen her. “If Mother and I hadn’t left him behind in House Bartels…”
At that moment, as he spurs his horse on even faster, one of Mercedes’ arms wrapped around his waist for support as she defends them from approaching imperial soldiers, he can’t help but think about how different they are.
He thinks about the ivory lance gripped in his own hands and a face similar to his own, marred by scars and anger alike.
So, you think you can take the lance from me, huh? I’ll kill you...I'll kill every last one of you!
He thinks about the time he spent at the bottom of that well, bones shattered and throat hoarse, seconds stretching into minutes stretching into hours.
Don’t worry, I won’t push you -
They pass Ingrid and Annette, engaged in battle with a demonic beast, and he thinks of an eerily similar black beast overwhelmed by the power of the relic that had always been Sylvain’s birthright.
He thinks of Mercedes, making excuses in a feeble attempt to defend an irredeemable man.
He thinks of the hatred in Miklan's eyes in their final encounter, never wavering since the first time he set sights on him as a child.
It’s always your fault! Do you think you’re so much better? If it hadn’t been for you -
I never thought that, he thinks, even if he knows he’s only talking to ghosts now. I never blamed you.
Somewhere behind them, Ingrid flings her lance into the hide of the demonic beast, the sound of the scream of its concluding breath echoing across the plains.
He thinks of a different fatal blow, of another monster ended by the same weapon.
The battlefield is a blur of viridescent greenery, muddied by the crimson of blood.
Sylvain thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.
-
The kingdom’s troops have already made their way into Fort Merceus, Sylvain realises when they reach the entrance to its interior and find their own soldiers making a beeline inside. He feels a slight twinge of pride and hope in his chest as he slides off the back of his horse - being able to infiltrate the most impregnable fortress of the Adrestrian Empire is no small feat by any standards.
Mercedes doesn’t give him any time to congratulate themselves any further, though, dress swishing around her ankles as she clutches the thick fabric of it in her hands and dashes into the fort.
She passes Felix at the base of the stairs leading to the large open doors, and his sharp blade gleams in the sunlight before he plunges his sword into the chest of an imperial guard. He spares her an incredulous glance before he’s twisting his body again to puncture the neck of yet another soldier, glaring at Sylvain as he runs after her. “Don’t tell me -”
“I won't!” He offers Felix a thumbs up and another grin, getting a scowl back in return as he sprints up the stairs, sliding into the stone hallway of the fort in search of Mercedes who has long since disappeared among the disarray of battle.
Sylvain only manages to catch a glimpse of the swoop of her blood-spattered skirts amongst the silver of armour before he’s intercepted by the professor, hands on their waist as they regard him with an arched eyebrow.
“Sylvain,” they start, and he already thinks, oh no. ''Aren't you meant to be guarding the outside of the fort?”
He lets out a nervous laugh. “Well, you see…”
He doesn’t offer them the luxury of elaboration before he’s darting off again, ignoring the call of his name behind him.
Muscle memory from years of combat kicks in, his movements fluid like flowing water as Sylvain knocks imperial soldiers aside with his heavy lance, spearing the ones that get too close for comfort. Slowly but surely, he advances towards the main hall of the fort, where the battle plan they drew up before the siege said the Death Knight would be.
Sure enough, when he enters the hall, he’s immediately met with the sight of the commander of the Adrestrian Imperial army. He’s seen the Death Knight before, of course, but the hollow sockets of his visor never fail to make him falter.
He likes it, in a sort of way that makes him feel slightly inhumane, in a way Sylvain will never voice out loud. Monsters have always been easier to kill than people, after all. The more the death knight covers his face with that loathsome mask, the less regret Sylvain will feel when someone inevitably plunges their weapon into him.
(Is he really one to speak, though? He thinks of the trail of bodies he’s left behind to make it this far, and comes to the conclusion that maybe his opinion isn’t the most impartial.)
The ground around the Death Knight is littered with the cadavers of fallen kingdom soldiers, but it doesn’t seem to hinder Mercedes, who stands boldly in front of him, hands held out in front of her like she’s attempting to confront a scared animal.
He can’t see Jeritza’s expression from behind the mask, but the shock and wariness in his voice betrays him. Even a bystander like Sylvain can tell that he never intended to reconcile with his sister in the turmoil of war, two siblings on opposing sides. “...Mercedes? What…”
“I came here to get you. Let's return together.” The anguished look on Mercedes face is foreign to Sylvain, but he’s only allowed a glance of their tearful reunion before the enraged yell of an axe-wielding imperial soldier demands his attention.
Sparks fly as their blades clash, bone against metal, white against silver. It’s like a dance, almost, the way they move - one strike followed by a parry, dodge, one parry followed by a strike, dodge -
As the tempo of their dance increases, the imperial soldier falters, off-beat as his heavy armour weighs him down. A fatal mistake, as Sylvain raises his lance once more to impale him cleanly through the chest. The metal of his breastplate is no match for the relic, and the edge of it slides through the man as easily as a hot knife through butter.
He retrieves his weapon just as effortlessly, the slide of it made smoother as the slick blood flowing from the wound serves as a macabre sort of lubricant. The soldier’s corpse slumps to the ground, the reverberating clang of his bulky armour as he hits the stone floor lost in the chaos of sanguinary strife.
Sylvain doesn’t allow himself to linger on yet another adversary added to his body count as he attempts to make his way back to Mercedes once again. Sometime during his entanglement with the enemy, he’d strayed from her side.
It’s not hard to find her, still embroiled in a seemingly futile conversation with Jeritza. Her attempts keep him occupied, though, meaning that he isn’t actively spilling blood on the battlefield, and Sylvain supposes that’s something to be grateful for.
He twirls around in yet another dance, this time engaged with a fortress knight but still in the vicinity of their conversation. Straining to hear their words through the rushing of blood in his ears, he strikes down the knight in front of him, decapitating him in one fell swoop.
“Leave. The place of your death is not here.”
“Emile…”
“Leave.I will not hesitate to cut you down if you continue to stand in my way.”
Although any other outsider would think she was fighting a losing battle, Sylvain notices the way the Death Knight’s unyielding grip on his scythe relaxes slightly at the sound of her tender intonation.
For a second, he wonders if her plan might actually work, if she might actually be able to convince him to stand down.
He’ll never find out, though, because before Jeritza can open his mouth to utter another word, the signature cartilage blade of Areadbhar’s head bursts forth from the centre of his stygian armour, the ivory of it contrasting against the dark ichor trickling from the gape of his chest.
The lance retracts, and the Death Knight slumps over onto the ground to reveal Dimitri’s figure behind him, an empty sort of look in his one eye as Mercedes cries out and rushes forward to intercept his body from hitting the ground.
Around them, kingdom soldiers cry out in victory, newfound vigour coursing through their veins as they raise their blades to finish off the remaining imperial soldiers and secure their victory. In turn, the remnants of the enemy scramble around like ants, frantic with no real direction now that their commander is dead.
Or dying, Sylvain supposes. Jeritza is still alive, he notes, as Mercedes leans over him like she had done to heal Sylvain earlier and pulls that skull-like mask off his face to reveal a face sickeningly similar to her own, save for the trail of blood dribbling from his lips.
“Mercedes,” Dimitri warns, and the discordant tone of his voice somehow manages to be commiserating at the same time.
“I know,” she sobs, voice thick with emotion he’s never heard her express before. Although her back is to Sylvain, bent over the moribund body of her brother, he can imagine the look of despair on her face. “I know.”
Once again, he’s reminded of how different they are.
He notices that she isn’t making any attempt to heal him, but as he watches Mercedes cradle the head of that murderer in her arms, as he watches her whisper apologies to him as disconsolate tears drip down her face onto bloodied obsidian armour -
The scene is so alien to Sylvain, and he turns away as nausea ferments in his stomach and bile rises up his throat.
Would he have despaired this way over you?
The evocation of a different rotting corpse comes to mind.