Chapter Text
“… wish we had more time…”
The sun peeked above the tree line, bathing the clearing where they stood in warm, almost pink light. Glenn tucked a stray wisp of Ingrid’s hair tenderly behind her ear, his hands coming to rest gently on her shoulders.
“… have to go…”
He kissed her forehead, where faint worry lines were already becoming permanent.
From his spot, hidden in a dense stand of young pines, Felix could see the regret on his older brother’s face, the tension in Ingrid’s back. He could almost make out their quiet vows, but it didn’t matter: he didn’t need to hear what they said to each other. Their mutual love sang as loudly as the early morning birdsong filling the valley. It was unmistakable.
Training helped, on days when Felix woke up itching with memories. Or when the light at Garreg Mach was too pink not to notice. Or every day that ended with y, lately. His training sword’s wooden handle was burnished to a low sheen from friction and sweat. And blood, in the beginning.
It felt exactly right in his hand, but ever so slightly different than his steel sword, with its handle wrapped with leather that warmed like skin, and his iron sword, with its ruts for his fingers that reminded him of a glove. Or, no: like it was holding him, somehow. This morning, he favored the training sword first, to warm up, and then the sharp, perfect steel.
Alone on the training ground, the first to arrive, the way he liked it, Felix thrust and parried, blocked and slashed in the dawn glow. When the vision of an imagined opponent, a motivating scenario, anything but the pure work of training intruded, he silenced it. All he needed was here and real: were these moves he practiced second nature yet? Was he strong enough? Not quite. He pushed harder.
The heavy door squealed on its hinge eventually – maybe 6:30 or so? The daylight was nearly full by then. But Felix couldn’t be bothered to turn and look, and whoever it was didn’t come in anyway. Probably looking for any excuse to choose breakfast over training.
Suitably sweaty, his mind as blank as he could render it, Felix finally headed back for a shower. And then, whether he could manage or not: class.
It was impossible to get in to train before Felix. When did he become so selfish? Ingrid remembered a time when he wasn’t – when they were both children and he seemed always to think of her before himself – but at some point he changed. And hogging the training ground every single morning was just one expression of his selfishness. He knew she liked to train early, knew she’d always been an early bird, more than he ever was, but it didn’t matter to him: he was in there at the crack of dawn, slashing and grunting like a man possessed. There was no way to focus with that going on in the same room.
And to be honest, she didn’t love to be around Felix. Too many hurt feelings. Too much history.
Ingrid shut the door to the training ground, wincing as it squealed. She didn’t want to train beside Felix, but she didn’t want him to know she was avoiding him, either. It was simpler when they just didn’t interact.
The thing was, when they were children Felix was her best friend in the world. He was her world, her playmate and partner and fellow hatcher-of-plans. They grew up together, before it mattered who was a girl and who was a boy, before either knew of the familial expectations that already lay heavy on their shoulders. It was true that Sylvain joined them sometimes as well, his breezy way invigorating and complicating their fun, but he only ever stayed a few days at most, and then it was the two of them again, Ingrid and Felix.
Ingrid and Felix at seven years old, defending the cave below the stream from fantastical demonic beasts. Ingrid and Felix, skinned knuckles and noses, riding horses made of branches across the open grasslands. Ingrid and Felix at ten, laughing until their knees buckled and their cheeks ached. He was her person. If anyone had asked her who she wanted to spend her life with, she would have told them Felix.
If anyone had asked her. But they didn’t.
Instead, her father brokered a deal to marry her to Glenn, the eldest, the Fraldarius heir. She was only thirteen, still mostly elbows and gangly legs and arguing with her body to stop, for goodness’ sake, growing curves and bleeding. She barely knew Glenn. He was tall, and old, and already nearing the end of his training to be a knight – what she wanted to be herself someday. He was intimidating and she didn’t know him and… and he wasn’t Felix. Why couldn’t she marry Felix?
But she couldn’t imagine refusing her father, who had explained so clearly how important this marriage was for her family’s prospects. So even though she was terribly jealous that Glenn was going off to fight, even though she only knew him as Felix’s rather scary older brother, she submitted to the inevitable and looked for the positive. Glenn was honorable. Brave. Well educated, well mannered, not ugly, not angry or mean. He seemed not to hate her. And by marrying Glenn, her friendship with Felix would be unbreakable – he’d be family, right?
On her way to breakfast, Ingrid replayed Glenn’s goodbye that dawn years ago. He kissed her forehead like an older brother or a father might – he was careful with her after their engagement was announced, unerringly polite, and never made her feel like she needed to grow up faster than she was ready to. He said he wished they had more time to get to know each other before the wedding, which was scheduled to take place as soon as he returned.
She didn’t know how to talk to him yet, so she reached into her memory of the knights’ tales she loved to read, and she tried to act like the princesses in them. What did they say to their champions? She told Glenn that she wished he didn’t have to go yet. But honestly, she was relieved. It gave her time to get used to the idea of being a wife – of being a grown up, really.
“Ingrid?”
It was Mercedes, with the patience of a saint, standing beside Ingrid outside the dining hall.
“Are you all right?”
How long had Ingrid been standing here, lost in thought? She thought she remembered Mercedes saying her name more than once.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ingrid said, collecting herself as best she could. “Let’s eat.”