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Where the traces of white moonlight fit the lake's still surface, and where the breeze played with the autumn leaves gathering on the wet surface, forming little boats as they glid across the water tenderly, slowly, a thin figure was sitting down on a small wooden platform reserved for fishermen, yet his feet dangled from the wood to touch the cold water, no rod in sight, as his gaze wandered over the horizon, small specks of light giving the image a rather picturesque design.
Upon hearing footsteps coming closer, the silhouette of a man turned around, his pale face illuminated by the moonshine above him. He showed the tiniest of smiles as he was approached, greeting merrily, “Hello, professor.”
Byleth stood still for a moment before getting closer, the figure’s lithe frame turning to take in the sight of the man that approached him, still in his professor clothes. Byleth cocked his head to the side in question, and Linhardt’s smile faltered.
“Oh. Are you out for fishing again? This might disappoint you, but they won’t bite this late at night.”
Byleth’s stare lingered for a while before he merely shook his head, then sat right next to the young man. Linhardt froze but decided against saying anything. His gaze landed on the lake again, silent and completely still. The moonlight was slowly melting in the watery surface, a few insects coming into view as they reached the white splatter of color in the dark blue.
“You know, professor. You kind of remind me of the lake here sometimes.”
Byleth’s head turned towards him, indubitably questioning the man’s logic.
“Well. It’s silent, it’s still. But also incomprehensibly deep, and filled with all kinds of fish.”
Byleth shook his head, visible confusion orchestrating his expression. Linhardt silently laughed.
“Alright, I get it. That comparison was kind of lame, but still. You are a mystery one would want to explore. I can’t be the only one who thinks that.”
Byleth’s brows furrowed, a frown creeping its way to his face. Linhardt gently smiled at his professor before his sight flew back to the still horizon. The fresh autumn wind blew, playing with the man’s long green hair, his eyelashes fluttering. If one would listen closely, you would hear the last few crickets silently chirping in the sedges around the lake. A bird swooped in from above, grabbing a mouthful of water – a fish in it, perhaps. The cool wind felt good against Linhardt’s warm cheeks.
“Professor… Do you ever wonder how life would have been if you had not met us?”
Byleth looked to him, an unreadable expression on his face, before shaking his head.
“I suppose so”, he stretched and yawned shamelessly, “It’s a wasteful question, after all.”
The professor’s brows furrowed.
“I don’t think so.”
Linhardt’s head snapped to take in his expression – blank as always. Still, his blue eyes widened.
“To fill one’s thoughts with something as bland as a parallel universe, where you chose to spend your youthful days working with monetary documents instead of idling in the shadows of trees, and by the lake, and fishing and reading a book or two when it rained outside, and no one would tell you to get to work… Well, they would, but that never stopped me. You have to agree it’s rather inconvenient. I can already hear Hubert’s scolding once he catches me here.”
Byleth sat cross legged, trying to read the other’s expression as Linhardt sighed.
“Turns out the easier solution led to a far different route than I had anticipated. Who would have thought a war of all things would break out in the midst of our tutelage, and initiated by Edelgard nonetheless.”
“So, you would choose documents now?”
“Oh, goodness, no”, Linhardt huffed, shaking his head exasperatedly, “If I were to ever choose documents before a nice nap in a tree’s shade, it’s safe to assume everyone would think I had been kidnapped and replaced by a Slitherer.”
Byleth’s brows furrowed and the other quietly hummed.
“Well, maybe they would just want me for my blood. Or crest. Which would be the better alternative, really.”
Byleth shook his head. Linhardt didn’t respond, but looked to the horizon again, his forehead illuminated by the moon as he lowered his head to look at his dangling feet underneath the clear water.
“It has been five and a half years since I have taken a nice, nightmare-less, long nap.”
Byleth watched his features intently from the side. His pale face, his small pointy nose, his half-closed eyelids adorned with long dark eyelashes, his quivering lips as he forced himself to speak. Byleth was sure the silence was unnerving him, but he himself never could speak of a lot. He lacked the necessary upbringing to do so, and he never really had a need for words himself. But seeing his friend struggle to speak of something clearly weighing him down, a part of him wished he would have Edelgard’s strong resolve, Hubert’s sharp-cut oration, Ferdinand’s friendly disposition, Dorothea’s smile, Caspar’s booming voice, Bernadetta’s kindness, Petra’s strong heart. But he only had a stoic face to offer. He frowned again.
“Then again, that fact would probably stay the same, if I had decided to remain at my father’s side five years ago. War would reach us eventually, and considering Edelgard had talked to Caspar’s and my father beforehand I would hear of it much sooner than some too… Then again, it would be nothing like fighting on the front lines…” he sneered.
Byleth took a nearby rock and threw it towards the lake, watching how it skipped along the surface for a good ten seconds. After the initial shock, Linhardt took a pebble himself, examining it close to his face in his hand before deciding for another nearby.
“But I am allowed naps during daylight, so… Fair trade, I guess?” he threw the pebble; it skipped once, twice, then sank pathetically to the bottom of the lake. Linhardt laughed; it sounded hollow. He looked down again, a strand of hair hiding his eye. Byleth wondered whether he should clear his vision from the green – then he wondered whether he could, even – before Linhardt seemingly read his mind and tucked the strand behind his ear himself, his expression unreadable; somehow vulnerable.
“Are you alright?” Byleth muttered in lack of better words and sentiments. Linhardt didn’t respond for what seemed like eternity, the hushing and dancing of leaves occupying the space his low baritone had claimed before. The young man traced the strand he had put behind his ear again, his lips parting, yet hesitating.
“Don’t you ever wish to just, disappear? Even if only for a day”, he deflected. Byleth cocked his head to the side again.
“Disappear?”
“Just – fade… So no one and nothing bothers you”, Linhardt elaborated, his eyes stuck on that same spot his pebble had vanished into, suddenly smiling as he pulled his legs out of the water, to his chest, “Listen to me. Everyone must have felt that way at some point. I really am thinking too much.”
Byleth didn’t want to disagree, yet felt a sting in his heart for not doing so. He couldn’t bring himself to say the thought had never occurred to him at all. And feelings weren’t something he listened to very often – not knowing what most of them were half the time on top of that.
“I probably shouldn’t show my doubts, much less share them. But really…” Linhardt trailed off again, his mind wandering off somewhere into the distance, over the slightly sunlit horizon filled with pinkish clouds, over the walls of the monastery and over the shattered red that stained his pale visage from the day he had hunted bandits for the first time, “Those endless fights, the screaming, the blood, I… I thought I had grown accustomed to it by now, but they still haunt me. When Bernadetta asks of my opinion on color, I always end up suggesting a shade of red – red, of all colors… And then the funerals. Gosh, I hate the funerals”, he burrowed his face in his knees, falling into silence, “And the thought of one of us dying isn’t exactly appealing too. I keep thinking ‘this looks like a fine place to die’ whenever I enter a battlefield. Just my luck to see each battle through.”
Byleth watched him curiously as he looked back to the horizon, his brows furrowing.
“I’d much rather just be free”, he silently added, “For once in my life, just to be free”, he sighed, scooting back, his head falling against the professor’s tense shoulder, Linhardt’s eyelids fluttering shut, “Then maybe, for once, I wouldn’t have to dream so much.”
Byleth didn’t know what to do with his hands that wished to envelop the younger man, didn’t know what to do with the warmth in his chest that threatened to combust him into flames. So he just steeled himself as the head on his shoulder kept relaxing into him, slowly travelling towards his chest as the mage’s pale, calloused hand helped him steady himself over where Byleth’s heart was supposed to be. Linhardt was silent for a while, his breath ceasing as if in deep concentration. The wind played with his long dark hair since it was loose, and Byleth’s hand reached up instinctively to collect the strands that fluttered about –
“Hm. So you really don’t have a heartbeat. Interesting…”
The professor dropped his hand in an instant, snapping out of the trance he was in. Byleth shook his head.
“I should have known this was about my oddities…”
Linhardt smiled victoriously.
“Sorry. I cannot help it, you’re just so fascinating!” he pressed further into his chest, “Not even a sound. I wonder… how you’re alive, even. Do you think it has something to do with your crest?” he looked up at the Ashen Demon, eyes glinting at the discovery, “Maybe you do not require a heartbeat as the crest gives you all its power…! Oh, or perhaps it is keeping you alive, and without it you would have been long dead – now, Professor, that’s just a thought, it’s not something I’d like to be the truth! You can stop making that face now… Hm. Maybe if I press it a little? Can I press your chest a little? Hm. Nothing. Well, I don’t know what I expected”, he attached himself to his chest again, listening intently.
“Linhardt…”
“Just a moment longer, please”, he responded, and a moment turned into minutes, and at some point, Byleth could see the intense frown of a researcher being replaced by a barely visible smile, soft and frail. The professor was afraid to speak so it wouldn’t falter, especially since the other’s eyes had closed at some point. Byleth was already sure he had fallen asleep, but his claim proved false when Linhardt’s voice mutedly mumbled, “Thank you for listening to my ceaseless rambling, Professor. Strange as it sounds, but you listening to my minuscular problems like this… well. It's one more reason to remain in this goddess-awful war."
Byleth found himself smiling as he watched Linhardt’s chest rise and fall slowly to an unknown rhythm, his hand finding itself in Linhardt’s soft hair.