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The stones were slick with a fresh morning’s fall of water, tumbling from the pail drop by drop. Soil softly gurgled and drank as the water seeped beneath its surface. There was no wind here, no rustle of leaves as the breeze washed by.
Felix stood tall, defying his age in the only way he could. A navy blue coat hung over his aging frame, long since fraying. Patches ran the length of the coat, a smattering of different shades, all just a little off hue. It was too large for him now, but he still wore it. Over his heart was a dented, pin embossed with the Crest of Fraldarius. Just below it, a shiny, pristine pin of the same design, except with Dominic’s Crest.
Something to remember. Maybe he had enough of those already.
For a solitary moment, all was still. He had always hated the quiet as a young man. He’d been foolish then, as so many are. Now he understood, with joints like hinges left to rust, and skin as paper, crumpled and ready to throw out.
There was solitude in quiet, even solace. Long times spent huddled under blankets in the cold, flickering candlelight, and the company of another. Long times in the thicket, treading through thick wood on narrow trails, hand in hand.
Those times were now in the past. When one makes history, they don’t expect to have to close the book, stop writing.
One day, though, the pen simply runs out of ink.
The door to the greenhouse creaked open, something that the new headmaster would never fix, despite her promises. Bother. Felix turned, feeling his bones grind against one another as he pivoted.
A kid—a student, surely—skidded on the stones, nearly tripping over one of the beds. Felix gripped his cane, an old, rickety wooden thing that he needed replaced, paint peeling. That had been a startle. The kids of Garreg Mach certainly knew how to be rowdy.
The student was tall, lanky even, almost like one of the trellises he had been tending. He had light red hair, freckles splattered on his face like a haphazard painter’s flick of the brush. He almost reminded him of…
“I was, uh, expecting the groundskeeper, sir. You wouldn’t mind if I stayed in here a little while, would you?” The kid said, now hiding behind a small stone retaining wall.
“You can stay, so long as you’re quiet,” Felix said, words grinding out like a sword against a whetstone.
“Oh, alright.”
Felix croaked, “I said be quiet.”
“Oh, right.”
Felix made a growling sound from the back of his throat, which seemed to shut the kid up. Thankfully.
Quiet settled back in, an old friend. Felix trimmed and picked, weeded and watered in silence, tending to other old friends. Some of the most venerable of these plants had been growing faithfully here since he was a young man.
His memories of this place were never quiet, whether young or old. Blissful chatter, talk, and even song echoed under this roof. No longer. The one who had filled this place with sound could do so no longer.
So it was quiet. So many places were filled with that expanding, pillowy beast. Nothing could replace that void he now felt. It was like an arm cleaved clean off—there was nothing more he could do.
The kid mumbled something, barely above a whisper, bright, with almost a nasal accent to it. That meant he was from the Western edge of Old Leicester, all but knocking on Galatea territory.
“Speak up. If you’re going to talk, I want to hear it,” Felix snapped, his clippers trimming a branch off of an unruly crapemyrtle. Damn plant always had his allergies acting up in the spring.
The kid spoke louder, “Oh, uh, well I was just wondering why you were doing the, um, garden work today? I’ve never seen you here.”
“I do the work on Sunday mornings.”
“Oh, uh, why?”
Felix groaned, which turned into a grinding cough, spittle soaking into his worn blue sleeve. “It’s been an agreement since before you were alive, boy. I used to work with my—“ Felix paused, that melancholy sinking back in, “Don’t concern yourself with it.”
His children rarely visited anymore. They were growing too old to travel the lengths of Fodlan. His grandchildren and great grandchildren visited with more regularity, but soon enough, they were gone. Then, he would be alone again.
“That’s nice. You, uh, may be wondering why I burst in while you were working,” The kid said, scratching at his ginger hair, curls wind blown and certainly uncombed.
“I wasn’t.”
The kid shied back, unsure of what to make of the terse response.
Felix sighed, orange sun overhead warm against his skin, soft touch all too familiar. With shaking, breathy words, he said, “No. Do tell me.”
“I was running away from a boy, you see, he’d found me in the room with a girl and, well—“ The boy said, running a hand through his hair, a devilish smile glinting through.
“Son of Gautier!” Felix cursed, snapping his clippers shut again, not invoking his old friend's name.
Sylvain would have gotten a rise out of seeing some kid playing the same games he did way back when.
“Maybe, maybe,” The kid said, flipping his hair back out of his eyes, “The stories about that guy are something else, right?. Didn’t he lead on four different girls during his academy year?”
“Hmph,” Felix grunted, Sylvain’s escapades coming anew in his mind. “It was five, actually.”
That year had been…for lack of a better word, disastrous. Romance flew like an arrow, and killed like one too. In this very spot, Felix thought, before recanting the notion.
“Huh. I’ll take your word for it, I guess.” The kid said, glancing out the greenhouse, red creeping into his cheeks, “Shit. I’ve got to go. Uh, nice talking to you.”
Felix set down his clippers, his pail, his tools, letting wrinkled, calloused hands rest a moment. Sitting on one of the low retaining walls opposite the boy, Felix let his mind wander to the past.
This very spot, Felix repeated in his mind. It had all started here. That door hadn’t always creaked, it—
“Sit down beside me, would you?”
“Huh?” The kid paused, halfway out the door, all but ready to make a mad dash through the monastery grounds.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Felix clarified.
“Do you think they’ll find me here?” The kid said, scratching his head, inadvertently glancing back at the door.
“Most don’t check the greenhouse. You’ll probably be alright,” Felix said with a wave of a shaky hand.
The boy sat wordless beside Felix, stiff as an aging tree, still clearly a bit hesitant.
Decades stretched taut before his eyes, truth and memory fraying strings all but ready to snap.
Death loomed like one of the Titanus in his nightmares, poised to strike with its mighty, sweeping sword. It had taken everyone around him. Ashe, Dimitri, Sylvain, Ingrid, Dedue, Mercedes.
Annette.
Still, Death hesitated, the blade held to his neck, but unable to follow through. Why?
He had no answer.
“I’m going to tell you a story, if that’s alright,” Felix said, closing his eyes, words slow, “You can leave whenever you’d like…this is more for me than it is for you,” Felix admitted, running his hands along the coarse stone.
“Um…okay.”
“It all started when I was a young, insolent fool. I thought I knew everything. I…was mistaken…”
The greenhouse had an almost ethereal glow from outside that day, sun falling under the horizon with a meandering gait.
Ivy hung from its stone, light glittering off the heavy glass windows. It was beautiful, even Felix could admit. Something out of a storybook
The world was at peace, as much as that turbulent place could be. Soft voices sounded in the distance, shouts and jeers from the dining hall echoed on the fishing pond’s calm waters. Here they were muddled, quiet.
Another voice joined them, serene as it placidly bounced about, coming from within the greenhouse. It too was muddled, words indecipherable as they filtered out of the stately stone building. There was nothing special about her voice, her singing.
It was beautiful all the same.
Felix made his way towards the greenhouse with some haste, boots clicking against worn paving stones. It was his turn on garden rotation, to water and weed—but that voice!
He was closer now, the heavy doors to the greenhouse just within grasp. Warm metal against his skin, sweet sound just beyond. With a heave, the door opened.
Hair the color of last light, stature small, unassuming, surrounded by that final glow. Felix watched a moment, frozen as that music surrounded him, too transfixed to grasp it’s meaning. She turned.
Something within him had known then, an inkling of what was to come. Those feelings had been buried, left to rest with everything else that had failed him. It would only be later he realized his mistake.
“Who’s that girl anyway, sir?” The kid said, words tacturn, even reverential as he sat, arms crossed beside him. He had not moved since Felix began telling the story. It was a languid affair, fits of coughing interspersing the narrative.
“The most important person I ever met,” Felix choked out, with a bowed head. Tears fell from his eyes, splashing against the dirt-stained floor one by one.
“I…understand.”
“It was a whirlwind year at the academy. I barely spent a moment with her,” Felix said, thinking back to those battles, now painted over with a white fog in his memory. He continued, “We never graduated.”
The affair in the Holy Tomb, Edelgard herself…it all seemed like a surreal memory, a dream. Those times with Annette, though, they were clear, in full focus.
The weight of a phantom sword in his hand, Felix said, “The war was merciless. I never had a chance to—“
“Wait. The War? Like the Great War?”
“Yes.”
The kid’s expression changed into one of unbridled enthusiasm, words falling like Talitean rain from his mouth, “I’ve never actually been able to talk to someone who fought in it…my great grandmother died before I was born. Maybe I’m overstepping here, but do you have any stories?”
“I killed the Emperor,” Felix said, deadpan.
The kid blinked once, then twice. His eyes raked over Felix, mouth agape. He began to babble, “Goddess above. You’re the Ghost of Fraldarius—“
“Don’t call me that,” Felix snapped, running his thumb along the Crest of Fraldarius pinned over his heart, “It’s little more than a fairy tale, anyway.”
“What was the Flame Emperor like? Did she—“
“I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Then why bring it up at all?”
“I said I’m not talking about it, boy,” Felix growled, clenching his fists.
Felix had left Enbarr with burns lashing his skin, blood caking every inch of his body, the scent of ash and smoke forever imprinted in him. He had left as a hero, and never returned.
The boy acquiesced, shying back as Felix continued, “It had been five years…”
The darkness was enveloping, all consuming. The nights were long, the nights cold this far in the mountains. Despite it all, Felix felt warm at the possibility of it.
It had been a foolhardy idea, even reckless. Sylvain had come up with it, of course. A reunion in the ruins of Garreg Mach? Ingrid had sent out the letters, disguised as regular correspondences, to their former classmates. Now to see if it had worked.
He had walked these streets before, the homes cramped yet cozy. Now, overgrown with ivy and weeds, rubble piled all throughout, it was all but unrecognizable.
It was a moonless night, dark clouds far overhead reflecting any light remaining. At the edges of the horizon, though, faint blues began to press against the black sky.
Voices trumpeted in the distance, shouts, then screams. Clashes of steel removed any doubt. Felix broke into a dash, blade already in hand.
In a whirlwind of sword, lance, and magic, it was over.
The dead had returned to life, but that was of no consequence. He had more important things to attend to.
Felix picked his way across the narrow alley, the smell of blood thick in the air. Bodies had fallen like snow, pushed against crumbling walls in drifts.
Death took no sides, bet against no one. It cleaved and it took with no prejudice, nor shame. Felix had brought death with him, glinting on the edge of his blade, still held in a sweaty grip.
The breeze moved back and forth, tattered cloth still swaying. She had to be here, surely.
Still, doubt persisted. What if the way was barred? What if she were locked in that home, unable to leave? What if the letter never arrived?
What if she had chosen not to come at all?
They hadn’t spoken in nearly four years. Why, then, was it her face that kept him awake into the long hours of the night?
A quiet footstep sounded behind him, a rush of wind tousling his hair. Felix turned, and found his answer.
His sword clattered to the ground, useless here.
She had grown up, like all the rest of them. Her smile was more forced, embrace more hesitant. So much had changed around them, but in this, nothing had changed.
And so much had begun.
“The war continued on after that. I’m sure you can fill in the rest,” Felix said, crossing his arms. The battles, the killing, the death…that he could forget. But those stolen moments, those…they would never leave him.
“I…I don’t know why you’re telling me this. I…I feel like I’m intruding,” The boy said, scratching his head.
“In the story comes the lesson, boy,” Felix said, watching as a bee flitted between the petal of a flower, “Should you care to learn, you must listen,” Felix continued.
“Um, what was I supposed to have learned so far?”
“Hmph,” Felix grunted, “If you had been listening, you would know.”
“…Okay.”
Felix sighed. Maybe he was giving the kid too much of a hard time. This was more for himself than it was for the boy anyway.
“Things moved rather quickly after the war ended. We were all unsure of how to rebuild Fodlan, so sought to rebuild ourselves first. It was a strange time,” Felix explained, “For one, I got married.”
The chapel on the grounds of the Fraldarius manor had none of the majesty of Garreg Mach’s Cathedral, even tarnished by war and ruin. It was austere, sterile, and aging.
For some odd reason, she loved it. Felix could only guess it was because it was away from her family, away from those scars war had wrought.
The wedding itself was a simple affair. Fraldarius’ coffers all but empty after five years of war, they could not afford finery, nor did they want it.
Mercedes officiated, a trend that would continue for all subsequent Blue Lions weddings, excluding, of course, her own. What else were you to do when a close friend also happened to be a priest? Simply a tide of fortune.
Annette, in following traditional Dominic wedding customs, wore blue. Felix, in doing whatever he felt like, wore his formal Fraldarius uniform and coat, sword tied at his waist in an heirloom scabbard.
The vows were terse. Everyone knew their contents, knew its truth. There was no need to waste air.
The celebration inside brief, the cakes (vanilla, chocolate, raspberry, and Noa fruit) eaten quickly. Spilling out onto the Fraldarius grounds, they looked skyward, toward the future, and beyond.
In an infinite sea of stars, they found opportunity and hope.
Felix looked into his wife’s gray eyes, the heavens reflected in her irises. He found something new there, something he had, until now, failed to truly feel directed on him. Or perhaps, he had simply ignored its presence until that very moment.
Undying, unabashed love.
“I still have that coat. I’m wearing it right now,” Felix said, running a hand over the fabric.
“It looks good on you,”
“You don’t have to lie, boy,” Felix said, a slight smile forming on his lips, “I’m a hundred and two damned years old! I know I look like shit!”
“I’m sorry…”
“Bah! Don’t apologize.” Felix snapped. With a sigh, he cleared his throat, saying, “You probably know the rest of ‘my’ story. The ‘Ghost of Fraldarius’ dutifully ruled the duchy with his wife for thirty years before both disappeared without a trace.”
“That’s how the story goes…but is it not how it really happened?” The boy said, watching on with wide eyes.
“Of course not. I left the duchy to my eldest daughter, as had been planned for nearly ten years. My wife and I came here to teach. It was her true passion, and…well, I grew into it.”
The boy rubbed his chin, nodding, “I guess that makes sense.”
“It’s nowhere near as dramatic as the stories paint our ‘disappearance,’” Felix admitted, “I hope you learned something, for both of our sakes. I’m as parched as a damn cactus now.”
“I…thanks for telling me, sir,” The boy said, nodding as he stood up. He bowed his head, before, in a squeaky tone, asked, “What was the lesson, anyway?”
“Don’t listen to crazy old men if they ask to tell you stories.”
The boy’s expression was blank, as he was processing what Felix was telling him. Then, he laughed, saying, “Alright, sir. You have a good day now. If you ever need anything, you can come find me, alright?”
“You’re going to be the one needing help by the sounds of it. Don’t let yourself get beat up too much.”
The boy shook his head with a smile, “I’ve been studying gauntlets,” With a shrug and a wink, he made his exit, the heavy greenhouse door slamming shut behind him.
Then, he was alone. The noises of the academy seemed so far away now, every voice, laugh, and shout filtered through a mile of water.
The quiet enveloped him, suffocating and all consuming. Not a minute had gone by since the boy left, and there it was. Goading him on, snapping at him with it’s foul jaws.
“How do I keep going without you? Without all of you?” Felix croaked, pressing his hands down against the rough stone. Ashe, Dedue, Dimitri, Mercedes, Sylvain, Ingrid, and…Annette. They were all dead now.
Felix was alone. All he could do now was spin elegies for those who could not listen.
Ashe had died first, a little over fifty years ago now. Some altercation with brigands had ended up not to his liking. In the end, he had lived a fair and honorable life on the road, bringing justice to those who could not find it. Then, there were seven.
Dimitri died next, forty seven years ago. He had used his body and his crest to its limit, saving Fodlan and rebuilding as something greater. There was nothing more he could have done, in saving so many from oblivion, after climbing it out of it himself. Then, there were six.
Sylvain died third, thirty five years ago. It had been some dumb plan or another, and Felix, of course, had played along. Sylvain didn’t make it, and Felix had never walked the same again. In the end, Sylvain died like he lived, surrounded by friends doing idiotic things. Then, there were five.
Goddess above, he missed Sylvain.
Ingrid died fourth, twenty seven years ago. She had exceeded every expectation placed upon her and ensured, beyond a shadow of a doubt, both the safety of the kingdom she loved and the people therein. She had been enough. Ingrid died in her sleep, knowing she was loved. Then, there were four.
Dedue died fifth, ten years ago. He made certain that his people were liberated, and could never forget their heritage nor their worth. He died while working with his wife to treat the sick people of Duscur, saving many lives, and costing his own. Then, there were three.
Mercedes died sixth, nine years ago. Her work in both Duscur, Fodlan, and beyond saved many lives, and ensured that no one, regardless of age, were alone in her care. She died in her sleep of a broken heart, that not even she could mend. Then, there were two.
Just the two of them, and there was nothing they could do.
It had been a clear, sunny day. They always liked to picnic behind the greenhouse on these kinds of days, arm in arm. She wasn’t up to it, though. Something about feeling ill, achy. He had stayed by her side, giving her water, and maybe a few sweets.
Her smile was still so sweet, her words soft and bubbly, even with age. It had been a long, long time since either of them were young, but that didn’t stop the imagining, the memory.
She couldn’t remember how many girls Sylvain had led on during the academy at any one time. It was six. No, five. Eight? As it turned out, neither had any idea.
The birds warbled outside their window, chirping as they picked at the feeder Annette had first placed…thirty years ago? One hot, boring summer, they had tried to take up bird watching as a hobby. They soon found out neither was well suited.
Her condition deteriorated over the coming days. The doctors and healers both could do nothing. They said it was simply her time. He shouted until his voice became hoarse, but that could not change the inevitable.
Death loomed, and he could not divert its course. It had taken his family first, then his allies, then his friends. Finally, it had come to take his one and only love.
And there was nothing he could do.
He did not leave her bedside the day of her death. He had not eaten, drank, nor slept. It was only his hands in hers, as it had always been. His children urged him to step aside one moment, but he could not.
Never with Annette.
It did not happen all at once. A grinding cough became weaker, as if she were putting up less resistance, less fight. Her gasps for breath became more forced. Felix knew it was coming and there was nothing— nothing —he could do.
He sang with her as she died. They flitted between each song, never settling on one. Annette had her favorites, but Felix could never pick. It was a raspy, turgid affair, out of tune and out of tempo. Still, he had never heard anything so beautiful.
Annette Fantine Dominic died seventh, four years ago. She had guided, loved, and knocked sense into Fodlan and her husband both. Few have matched her wit, fewer still her kindness. She inspired generations to sing and make music of all kinds for all purposes, simply for the love of doing it. Annette was a beloved mother, wife, and friend. She died surrounded by those who loved her.
Then, there was one.
Felix cried in a quiet greenhouse, for those he had lost and never find again, except in the annals of memory.
Footsteps clicked on the stone outside, soft, and so, so familiar.
The door to the greenhouse swung open, light streaming like the Goddess’ own beams from the stars above.
“Annette?” Felix mumbled, scrambling to his feet, cane clacking against the greenhouse floor. He squinted against the light of the open door, the figure small, wind blowing through their hair.
“Annette?” Felix called out, losing his balance. He toppled to the floor, staring up at that warm sunlight radiating on his skin. Where had his glasses gone? The silhouette reached down, and pulled him up towards that light.
“Felix?” The groundskeeper said, her black hair wrapped in coils down to her waist, “That was some fall you took there? Do you need me to grab the healers?”
“No, no, that’s…I’ll be alright,” Felix said, taking deep breaths in and out, in and out.
“Next week, I’ll send someone to collect you, alright? Staying here in the hot sun doesn’t seem like the best idea for someone of your age.”
“T-thank you Nadeen,” Felix stuttered.
“It’s no problem, sir…let’s get you back to your room for some rest, okay?”
It wasn’t his time. Death’s blade waited another day. Felix had to…live despite the quiet, the silence left behind by all those departed. Live for himself, in whatever way he could, Annette forever in his heart.
Maybe then, he could join her, and sing one last song.