Chapter Text
Here he stands, just inches away from the boar. The rain is pelting his skin, his breaths are burning his lungs, and the monstrous excuse for a human is looking at him with sad eyes. What a barbaric sight!
“Must you truly do this, Felix?”
Felix tightens the grip on his sword. The sound of battle roars across the Tailtean Plains behind him. Somewhere in the midst of it all, he hears a familiar voice call out his name; A bright dot of green not too far behind him in the battlefield. The sound of his professor, of Byleth, urging him to wait for backup before charging ahead to face the boar. He ignores it all the same. What can truly happen to him? If he hasn’t screwed up enough time already, can’t the professor easily fix it? There’s no reason to hesitate.
“I already told you, I’ll cut down anyone who stands in my way. Must I repeat myself?”
The boar frowns and somewhere behind that shadow of a frown, a hint of Dimitri shines. But it is only a hint. The Dimitri Felix had once known was lost years ago. There is no king in front of Felix, only a monster who needs to be put down.
“Felix, I…. Right. You have chosen to walk on this path of destruction and I must be the one to end this.”
“Don’t look so sad, boar. This has been long overdue.”
Felix frowns. It burns like fire on his face.
Dimitri is long gone, yet his heart still aches at the prospect of fighting the one who pretends to live on as him. What has Felix turned into? Weak? He had already abandoned all hesitation when he decided to join the Empire on its quest to change Fódlan as a whole. And if he had to face the monster who took away his friend, then so be it. Great, actually! He is doing a favor for the Kingdom. He is doing a favor for all of Fódlan.
It is that thought that spurs Felix forward. He moves with a speed that the demonic beasts howling in the background behind him could not dare to compete with. He moves with a speed that makes him slip with every step he takes on the wet ground. Yet even as he slides, he doesn’t falter. Nor does Dimitri.
Dimitri sends Felix one last sad look before he brings his lance up and charges towards Felix. The rain pelts down on Dimitri, turning the hair on his head into a mop of yellow and the drops trailing down his face like tears. If those are truly tears running down the boar’s face, Felix doesn’t want to know.
Just as he doesn’t want to know what will become of the Kingdom after all of the loss it has endured, all of it partly due to Felix’s hand. It is all due to every soldier of the Empire’s army. Felix is and will always be partly guilty for whatever becomes of the Kingdom once the war ends tonight. But what is there to do about it? What’s done is done, there is no room for regrets.
Dimitri’s blade meets Felix’s. Metal screeches against metal like a cry. Fiery eyes meet monstrous eyes. Every muscle in Felix’s body screams against the overwhelming force that is Dimitri’s strength, but he doesn’t give up. He can’t give up when the boar is so close; When he can put an end to the boar here and now!
Felix lets out a cry as he pushes forward with all his might. The cry comes to its end just as Dimitri breaks through his defenses and flings Felix forward.
The rain turns into acid falling from the sky the second Felix hits the ground. His arm digs into the edge of the stairs leading up to the stronghold before he viciously rolls down the rest of them. With every turn, the air is ripped away from him until he is left oxygenless on the mud.
The rain pours over the mud and his blood as he gasps for air. His eyes frantically look over the gray clouds blocking any semblance of light from the night sky. The only light is the light clawing away at the edges of his vision.
Footsteps fade in and out of his hearing. They’re coming closer and closer yet Felix’s body cries out for a savior. This can’t be it. He can’t be finished after one lousy strike from the boar! He can’t let himself die to the very thing he had set out to kill all of these five years!
Felix grudgingly pushes himself up to his knees. His hand blindly reaches out for wherever his sword had clattered to the ground at but misses its destination once a foot slams down onto the blade of Felix’s fallen weapon.
“Felix, stand down. Do not throw your life away.”
Felix looks up to see the boar’s eyes. They are a vibrant blue that looks at Felix with… guilt? No, Felix is imagining things. The boar cannot feel anything other than bloodlust! He is only trying to fool Felix into surrender so the boar can strike him down easier!
“I will never stand down! I won’t stop fighting until I can kill you myself!”
Felix rips the sword out from under Dimitri’s shoe and lunges towards the boar.
Dimitri’s face crumples before he swings his lance like a lighting strike against the sky.
The light blinds Felix’s world.
The blade of the lance is colder than any winter as it touches Felix’s skin just before it is going to impale him.
Felix closes his eyes. This is where it ends, isn’t it? Dead to a lowly beast that Felix couldn’t even land one strike against. What a loss.
The world is cold.
Then it’s not.
Time stops.
The thunder, the cries of battle, the rain, the roars of monsters, all of it turns to silence. The silence becomes one with the void of the back of Felix’s eyelids as the air becomes warmer and the ground becomes more dry.
Through the silence breaks through a few faint voices. Then the hectic footsteps come. Then the breeze. Then the “Felix!”
Felix hesitantly opens his eyes. He expects to find himself dying in a puddle of mud and blood, yet what he finds is… actually not too far off minus the dying and blood. The semblance of mud is definitely still there except it is in the form of dirt. But the sky he is looking up at is bright blue and the sun almost blinds him. Not a single cloud is in sight, nevermind there being no rain!
Felix hastily reaches a hand to his stomach. It most definitely feels like he could have possibly been skewered by a lance. Yet when he feels his stomach then pulls his hand back, it comes back dry. There’s not a single drop of blood, just a few specs of dirt.
What the hell?
He has no more time to figure out just what is going on before two hands hastily grab onto his shoulders. Felix immediately looks up into a pair of bright blue eyes. Those same blue eyes that had looked at Felix before striking him down.
“Are you okay?” The boar asks. The tone is almost enough to make Felix think that the boar is genuinely concerned about him. Perhaps Felix would be convinced if the boar hadn’t just impaled him a second ago.
Felix flings himself back away from Dimitri. With the distance in between them now, Felix is able to see just how drastically different the world has turned. While he had noticed the blue skies and very dry dirt under him, he’s able to see the scattered few people either conversing around him or taking swings at each other with wooden weapons. Even at the spot where Felix had been sitting just a second ago lies two wooden swords. But the part that takes Felix’s breath away is not the scene itself but Dimitri and the person standing next to the boar.
The Dimitri crouched on the ground is almost like a polar opposite to the Dimitri Felix had been fighting just moments ago. He looms ahead of Felix in a regal set of armor more fitting of a king than the ragged set he had been wearing just a moment ago, his hair is pulled back into a small ponytail instead of the messy mop it had been, and nothing sits in his hands where Areadbhar had once been. And most obviously, Dimitri isn’t looking at Felix like he needs to put him down anymore. If anything, he’s looking at Felix in quite the opposite way.
The person standing next to Dimitri is even more of an oddity. They have a head of vibrant long purple hair and are wearing an equally vibrant orange set of attire that looks to belong to a mercenary. What a terrible sight. What are they? A mercenary clown?
It hardly matters. Dimitri is sitting there like a fool and not fighting Felix. Has the boar turned into an idiot?
“What are you doing, boar? Hurry up and kill me already! Don’t spare me with a sad attempt at pity!” Felix spits out.
A few heads turn their way but only look for a second before turning back to whatever they were doing before. The bright colored stranger sends Dimitri a crazy look, but Dimitri fails to look away from Felix to return it. Rather, Dimitri tilts his head but doesn’t make any move to try to skewer Felix with a sword or lance or something. Instead, he stands up, raises his palms out in front of him, and slowly approaches Felix.
Felix balls his hands up into fists and readies himself for any tricks that Dimitri may pull, but remains still otherwise. This situation is too unfamiliar for Felix to be too rash. The weather has changed, the time of day has changed, his surroundings have changed, and even Dimitri looks different. Something drastic must have happened before Felix was struck down. Perhaps a sort of dark magic from Hubert? But that’s hard to believe. Felix can count the number of conversations he’s had with the man on one hand. But what other explanation can there be?
After a moment, Dimitri makes it to Felix. He crouches back down in front of the man. This close up, Felix can see the frown on the boar’s face even clearer. It brings no sense of pity to Felix’s heart. His heart doesn’t ache for the boar at all.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Felix,” Dimitri says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
Felix sneers. Of course he’s not okay! One second he was on his way to death’s door and now he’s sitting like an idiot on the ground somewhere else entirely!
“Of course I’m okay,” he hisses. “Are you okay?”
Dimitri’s expression only grows more concerned. But any semblance of a response gets lost when the stranger fails to read the careful nature of the room and comes jogging on over. They send Felix that same crazy look like Felix is the insane one here.
“I think the better question still is, are you okay, Felix? Do you need us to take you to the infirmary? Looking back on it, it was a risky idea to try to shift someone else through reality when I hardly know how my powers work on myself. I still don’t know why you agreed to something like that. I really thought you were going to just turn to me and say ‘Are you an idiot?’ instead of actually agreeing to go on with it.” The stranger rambles on and Felix can only look up with the occasional blank blink as they go on.
There’s just too much to unpack here. Number one, Felix was just teleported away to a random dirt field where Dimitri suddenly wants to be Mr. Peaceful. Number two, this mysterious stranger is implying that they can shift through reality and no one is batting an eye about that. Number three, this stranger tried to shift Felix through reality and Felix agreed to do so? And number four, that was a horrible impression of Felix. He doesn’t sound like that!
The stranger silently looks back at Felix. The expression on their face grows more concerned by the second.
“Do you need help getting up?” They finally ask in a much less confident tone as they hold out a hand towards Felix. Felix is just about ready to accept that reality no longer makes sense and grab the stranger’s hand when he catches sight of the hand that he reaches out.
His heart plummets to the ground.
Instead of his worn out gloves he had just been wearing, a pristine glove hugs his hand that reaches out from a teal sleeve all too familiar to another certain someone’s jacket. It’s almost an exact match that shocks him right then and there. Is this hell? Did Dimitri really kill Felix and this is the afterlife Felix is doomed to endure for all of eternity?
“Felix?” Dimitri tries.
Felix is left gaping at his own hand.
This time it’s Dimitri who sends the stranger the worried look.
“Maybe it’s shock? I’ve witnessed it a couple of times when people I fought with got hurt pretty badly. I remember this one merc I worked with broke his leg real bad and he couldn’t even say his own name.” The stranger tries. It doesn’t make Dimitri look any less worried. Quite the opposite actually.
Dimitri turns that worried look towards Felix.
“Could you say your name, please?”
Felix at least knows enough to scoff at the boar right then and there. He may be in hell but that doesn’t mean he’s lost the ability to think.
“Felix Hugo Fraldarius. I know my own name, boar.”
The concern falls away from Dimitri’s face slightly but it remains the same on the strangers.
“What about the moon? Try asking about which moon we’re in,” the stranger says like Felix isn’t right there.
Felix rolls his eyes.
“We’re in the Great Tree Moon. It’s the twenty-ninth day of the moon. What else would it be?” He cuts in.
The stranger tilts their head.
“Hmm, okay. What about the year?”
Seriously? Do they think Felix can’t keep track of time?
“1186. Is that enough or are we going to keep dancing around in circles?” He hisses.
The air stills.
Any sign of relief falls straight from Dimitri’s face. The stranger sends Felix a wide eyed look.
“1186?” The stranger repeats.
“1186,” Felix urges. Something tells him that number might not exactly be the expected answer.
“Okay…” The stranger slowly draws out before looking over at Dimitri. Dimitri returns said look before looking at Felix even more concerned. It almost looks like he is about to announce that the world is ending or that he is about to introduce this place as hell to Felix. Maybe Dimitri is the devil and Felix is fated to be stuck with him. It wouldn’t fall far from the level of Felix’s usual luck.
Dimitri sucks in a long breath. By the time he exhales, Felix’s heart has begun to beat about just as fast as when Dimitri’s blade was a hair away from piercing through him. A million reasons for why the year 1186 has made the boar and his mercenary friend run through Felix’s head, yet none of them feel logical enough. Nothing feels like it can explain why Felix has found himself still kneeled in the dirt after certainly dying.
Even with as many thoughts running through his head, none come close to the words that leave Dimitri’s mouth next.
“Felix, it’s 1182.”
Felix just about falls over with those words.
“1182?” Felix repeats.
“1182,” the stranger repeats.
“I think I need the infirmary,” Felix croaks out.
The walk to the infirmary is longer than the march to Tailtean Plains. While that walk hours ago had been filled with a conviction to end the war tonight (today? Felix still has no idea what is going on.) with the boar’s head on a silver platter, this one is only filled with a silence joined by a pit in his throat. Instead of conversation, everyone’s worries are conveyed through aggravating stares. Dimitri takes every chance to glance at Felix he can when he thinks Felix isn’t watching and the stranger takes every chance they can to glance at Dimitri when they think he isn’t watching which leads people scattered around the area to take every chance they can to look at the stranger when they’re not looking.
Throughout this silent walk, Felix gets the opportunity to see that he indeed did not just randomly fall into a dirt field. He had merely fallen into a dirt patch that must be a training ground. As the three of them walk, his surroundings morph from the dirt patch into an array of tents and small wooden buildings patterned with blue kingdom flags. Various people in armor stroll around the camp. Some people rush with a stack of documents in their hands while others simply walk around talking with a friend. A fence as ragged as the boar’s old armor surrounds the entirety of the camp. It’s not hard to tell that they’re currently in a kingdom base camp of sorts, most likely in the middle of the war. It’s also not a stretch to assume that they’re probably in the same war that Felix was fighting in earlier.
But the fight against the boar is far from Felix’s mind when the strand of hair lands on his nose for the fiftieth time. No, his mind is much more focused on the fight against this stupid peice of hair that won’t move!
He loudly blows at the strand of hair in his face. It flies up into the air only to fall right back down on his nose. The piece of hair is worse than the boar!
Felix lets out a loud groan that turns both Dimitri and the stranger’s head. He pays it no mind. He is much more concerned about why his hair is as long as ever. The last time it was ever this long was right before he chopped a good chunk of it off when the war started and he wanted to avoid exactly this in battle. Even if it is constantly pulled back, that doesn’t mean that every piece of hair will comply as is what is currently happening.
The stranger sends Dimitri an amused look.
“Bad hair day?” They whisper to Dimitri.
“Shez,” he hisses back.
Felix doesn’t know if he wants to glare at Shez for making that jab towards him, at Dimitri for being on Felix’s side, or at himself for letting just a spec of joy touch his heart for the boar being on his side. He relishes in the way that spec of joy turns into a nauseating turn in his stomach when the boar sends an apologetic look his way.
“Please excuse her,” he says.
The words go through one ear and go out the other. Felix glares at Shez.
“At least my hair doesn’t cover half of my vision. It’s a wonder that you haven’t been cut down in battle yet,” he hisses.
Shez looks wide eyed at Felix for a moment before breaking into a fit of laughter.
“Maybe we don’t need to send Felix to the infirmary. He seems just fine,” she chuckles.
Dimitri does not join in the laughter. His frown only grows.
“I could debate that,” he murmurs. Even if Felix isn’t quite sure if anyone was actually supposed to hear that, he repeats the same phrase in his mind to himself. He is walking through a Kingdom base camp without the boar trying to attack him and no Empire soldier in sight. And that’s not including the part where he should be bleeding out on the ground right now.
Nothing is fine right now.
Felix has just finished counting the number of wrinkles in his glove for the tenth time when Shez and Dimitri go over a different version of the same conversation for the millionth time from where they stand just out of sight around the corner in the infirmary tent. If Shez or Dimitri think Felix has not decided to eavesdrop already, they have a big storm coming for them. Though, it would be crazy to think that a person who has suddenly woken up four years in the past would not eavesdrop on any potential explanations to explain why they’re here.
He shifts on the bed he’s sitting upon. It creaks for far from the first time. If there was anyone actually laying on one of the other beds dotting the infirmary tent, they’d surely be annoyed. Good thing it’s just Felix and his one-step-away-from-an-existential-crisis self.
He twirls his mind around the same mountain of theories he has been venturing since the moment he entered the tent and was examined by the army’s doctor only to come up injuryless. And at the peak, he has seemed to come to some sort of understanding of what has happened.
To start, Felix is four years in the past, except it’s not a past that he’s lived through before. There’s no sign that Felix left the Kingdom to fight for the Empire from the way no one at the base camp has looked at him with animosity to the way he’s training buddies with Dimitri. And he has no idea of how he got here from his timeline. Perhaps it would be safe to call where he is right now an alternate reality.
So he’s been sent to an alternate reality four years in the past from his own reality right before he was about to be killed by Dimitri, great! Felix’s life couldn’t pick just one way to screw up, it had to both time travel and go to an alternate reality.
Felix curls then uncurls his fist. There’s a new set of wrinkles on his glove once his palm is visible again.
So while he has time traveled/dimension traveled, it seems that he isn’t in his original body if his current clothes and hair have anything to say. It would be safest to say that he switched bodies with the Felix that belongs to this alternate reality. But that then begs the question: If there is an alternate Felix, did it replace this Felix in his original reality?
Felix digs his head into his hands. His brain hurts from all of this. This is all quite the jump from the professor's ability to turn back time to a certain point to now Felix time traveling though alternate realities. To think that he would be thinking back on the time when Byleth had stood and explained to their closest knit group of people that they had been granted powers by the goddess to be able to travel back in time as the simple times.
Wait. Byleth.
Byleth can travel back in time. If there is anything or anyone that can help Felix, it would be the profesor!
“Something is not right. What could the doctor possibly have missed?” The boar’s voice echoes through the tent.
“I don’t know. Maybe he time traveled or something, Dimitri. What else do you want me to tell you?” Shez tries this time around the conversation.
Well…
Dimitri sighs.
“He looks exactly the same, Shez.”
“You saw the way he looked at the strand of hair in his face. That is the look of a man who had long chopped off his hair and never wants to see it long again. He probably mind time traveled.”
The next sigh is even greater.
“Shez.”
“Dimitri.”
The silence that follows is so consuming that a pin drop could be heard. Felix freezes as best as someone who is already sitting down can freeze so he can’t be heard. Any useful information could be lost if the pair remember that Felix is still here.
Shez is the one to finally break the silence with a sigh.
“It’s not your fault. I was the one who suggested trying it while sparring since it’d simulate a real battle better and maybe make my powers work better,” she says.
“It is my fault, though. I was the one who swung my sword when he was still in front of me and struck him down.”
“You didn’t know he was just going to stand there. Any other sparring match he would’ve easily dodged that. If anything, it’s my fault. I was the one who used my powers on him. He was probably dazed by that.” Shez pauses for a moment before continuing in a lower tone. “I saw him flicker for a second when I tried moving him away from you, like he was flickering out of reality. I think he might’ve disappeared for a split second. I’m guessing it worked for a second but not all the way and that’s what put Felix into such a daze. Maybe the whole situation messed him up. But if the doctor says nothing is wrong with him, nothing is wrong with him. He most likely needs rest. With a good night’s sleep tonight, he’ll probably be just fine in the morning.”
“Do you really believe so or are you attempting to stop me from worrying?”
“Both. He’s going to be just fine with some rest. Speaking of rest though, you should get out of here and do something simple to pass the time. You’ll eat away at your health if you sit here and worry if a man who is already starting to feel better will get better.”
There’s a beat of silence before Dimitri sighs.
“If his condition gets worse, let me know the moment you are made aware of it.”
“Yes, yes, Your Majesty. It's not like you wouldn't find out, anyways. His tent is right next to yours. Now go do something productive that is not paperwork- I see that look, Dimitri- and stop worrying. He’s going to be just fine.”
Felix can imagine the pout that is sure to be on Dimitri’s face before he hears footsteps shuffle on the ground until they grow muted. It’s when Dimitri has long walked away from the tent when Shez walks into view and heads over to Felix.
“You heard how worried he sounded? I don’t know how you calm him down like you do. You’ll have to teach me your ways one day,” Shez remarks. Felix would love to know how he calms Dimitri down, too. That is certainly news to him. All he knows how to do is drive the boar to stab him. What Felix does know, however, is that Shez and Dimitri’s conversation was far from a secret if the expression on Shez’s face has anything to say. Is Dimitri’s excessive worrying not a secret?
Felix grimaces.
“Trust me, I have no luck with that boar either.” He tries to hide at least some of the venom from his voice. While he still has no idea where exactly he is, he knows well enough that he and Dimitri are not mortal enemies here. It’d do him well to follow the act somewhat until he can figure out what is going on and how he can fix this. If he can fix this.
Shez lightly chuckles.
“You have more luck than the rest of us.” She pauses. “I wasn’t lying to Dimitri to make him feel better. You do look and sound better. Earlier when you first got hit, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call Dimitri a boar with so much venom in years. But looking back on it, you must’ve felt irritated or something similar after flickering in reality then getting hit right in the stomach with Dimitri swinging a sword of all people… I really am sorry about that by the way. I shouldn’t have even asked to try to use my powers on another person when I don’t even understand them fully myself.”
Felix can take a couple of things from Shez’s words. First, Felix hasn’t called Dimitri ‘boar’ or at least said it with full seriousness for years implying that in this reality, Felix actually has positive feelings for Dimitri. That one observation is enough to raise bile into his throat. Second, Shez saying years confirms Felix’s assumption that she and this reality’s Felix know each other well. That all but confirms that Felix hasn’t even thought of joining the Empire in this reality much to his dismay. How crazy must he be in this reality to actually follow the boar?
But there’s no point in reprimanding this backwards version of himself he’s learning about if he doesn’t know all of the facts. For all he knows, he could be an Imperial spy in this reality biding his time before Edelgard comes to strike the Kingdom right in the heart.
“Save your apologies, I was the one who offered myself up for experimentation. If anyone is at fault, it’s me.” Felix comes to a halt for a moment. He doesn’t know much about what is going on, but he can easily learn more from the one person who knows time travel the best. “But if you really do want to make it up to me, you can bring the professor in here.”
The smile falls from Shez’s face. Felix instantly sees that this is a repeat of the ‘1186’ conversation.
“The professor?”
Ah, how could Felix have been so stupid? It’s 1182, the professor is probably still asleep.
“The professor, Byleth. Are they still missing?”
Shez’s expression twists through an array of emotions before stopping in between two different expressions.
“Oh, the Ashen Demon. No, we theorized that we should be facing them in one of our upcoming battles seeing how far we’ve indeed the Empire, remember? I wouldn’t be surprised if we see them during tomorrow’s battle with how close we’ve gotten to more Imperial troops.”
Felix huffs.
“Of course we will. Byleth is one of the most loyal people to Edelgard.”
Shez’s expression swirls together even more.
“I hear the Empire is paying the Ashen Demon and Jeralt’s mercenaries a good amount of money. Any mercenary would be loyal to that price.”
Now Felix wants to swirl his own face around. The professor is still a mercenary? If Byleth is only a mercenary and wasn’t their teacher, then what form of mercy is going to be used on them that will allow Felix to talk to them long enough to figure out what’s going on? By the goddess, he’s going to have to find Byleth before the Kingdom does!
Felix is brought back to reality when Shez begins to wave a hand in front of his face. It slowly brings him back in between blinks that take him out of his daze.
“You alright there?” She asks.
Not by any means at all.
Felix nods.
“Of course I am. I’m just sitting here, what could possibly have happened to me?”
Shez raises her hands up in surrender.
“Just trying to make sure you’re alright before Dimitri comes running back in here. But it seems I will be leaving you alone. Rest up, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”
Felix rolls his eyes.
“Please do.”
Felix’s chest begins to untighten for the first time in hours as Shez begins to make her out o the infirmary. It’s just when she’s about to walk out of sight when she suddenly freezes. She turns to look over her shoulder at Felix with a questioning look.
“By the way, who’s the professor?”
Felix grimaces more than he smiles.
“The professor? When did I ever mention a professor?”
Shez gives Felix a long look before she breaks into a sheepish smile.
“I must’ve misheard you. Or maybe you really did hit your head. Either way, rest up. We have a big battle tomorrow.”
Felix couldn’t be more relieve when Shez leaves the tent.
When Felix is finally alone, he comes to one conclusion and one conclusion only: He needs to find the professor before the Kingdom does. And the only way to do that is to leave today to look for them. But it’d be impossible to leave now with two people on his back with worries about his memory. Ugh, he’ll have to wait until the nighttime to sneak away and search the area for a mercenary camp. It’s not his first choice to try to look for Byleth, but it will have to do.
He waits until the sunlight shining into the infirmary tent turns into moonlight to make his move. It’s when the outside bustle and hustle turns into the songs of crickets that his feet touch the ground. And it is when the only company he has are the stars in the sky and the pair of soldiers meant to keep watch asleep on the ground that he ventures into the camp.
The air is like a cold hug as he gently walks across the grounds. It cushions each step as he quietly maneuvers himself in the full moon’s light towards his tent.
The tent next to Dimitri’s, he tells himself. He surveys each tent. He instantly checks off tents that are too tattered to be fit for a king, ones that slump towards the ground, and any other like them. It’s when he catches sight of a grand tent with a line of candle light shining from the crack of space in between its closed flaps that Felix comes to a stop.
Bingo. That has to be the tent to belong to an insomniatic king. And to its left, has to be the tent of the man subjected to the hell of dealing with said insomniatic king.
Felix opens his tent to a messy pile of paperwork on a desk as its highlight and the stack of armor in the corner as its background. The Sword of Moralta sword leaning against the Aegis Shield is the final detail to confirm that this truly is Felix’s tent.
He gives the paperwork another glance. It’s a pile large enough to give the piles of paperwork his father had when he was younger a run for its money. What has left Felix with so much paperwork? Is he the lord of Fraldarius territory or something now? Hah, what a sight that would be. But if his father has met the same fate as the one Felix had witnessed not too long ago, there would be no one else to call lord other than Felix.
The next time Felix blinks, the memories of the last few flames of the war he was forced to endure scorch themselves against the back of his eyelids.
“Felix, why? You've betrayed His Majesty, Glenn, and Lord Rodrigue. You've betrayed just about everyone!”
“So, my foolish son... You took it upon yourself to leave your family behind… It's a father's duty to settle his child's failures. Felix... You must die here and now!”
"Hey, Felix? Remember when we were kids and we made a promise about dying together... Well, seems we're about to kill each other."
He rips his eyelids open when the echo of Dimitri’s voice begins to crawl into his mind next and the rain invades his lungs. The next second, he snatches the closest bag he can find and stuffs it with his necessities.
It’s just paperwork, there’s no need to get emotional over it.
Still, if the echoes of those who had once loved him haunt his mind as he makes his way out of the tent and on his way to the outside world, maybe he allows a space for them. If just for tonight.
The full moon still shines from its throne in the dark sky when Felix steps out of the tent. Once again, Felix marches during the twenty-ninth day of this year’s Great Tree Moon. If he had not experienced it himself, he doubts he would ever believe that he was experiencing the same night twice. Except, it isn’t the same night.
The Great Tree Moon of 1186 was when he had faced the boar in the pouring rain until his death. The Great Moon of 1182 will be when… what exactly will it be? It would be fruitless to attempt to fight the boar to the death once again. It would almost certainly lead Felix’s death and he doubts that being sent to another reality will be his savior again. But if his purpose for marching in the night is not to fight the boar, then what is he here for?
Ugh, he’s getting off track. There’s no time to think of stupid things when he doesn’t even know how he got in this weird reality in the first place. His main priority is to find Byleth, nothing else. He can’t do with any distractions, even if he’s wearing one right now.
Felix hugs his jacket closer to him as he approaches the edge of the camp. The fabric of it cuts his skin like a knife. Maybe his memory is just playing tricks on him, the jacket can’t look that close to-
“Felix?”
Felix pauses in place for just a split second. It is the shock of hearing his name called out in the middle of the night from a familiar voice that stops him in his path. But it is only a mere second that passes when he pushes through the shock and continues walking. If he keeps on walking, maybe the person will believe it’s not actually Felix and leave him alone.
Felix makes it three steps forward before the voice tries again. This time harsher, clearer.
“Felix.”
Felix holds back a sigh and halts in place. He tries the best he can to hide his bag behind his back and turns to face the source of the voice.
“What, bo-” The memory of Shez telling him that he hasn’t called Dimitri ‘boar’ so viciously in years cuts through his thoughts. “What?”
Felix refuses to add the ‘Dimitri’ after ‘what’ and opts for just ‘what.’ He’d rather be sent back to the reality where Dimitri skewers him with Areadbhar than to call that boar by his name.
The darkness of night parts way for a small stream of light. The shadow of the boar approaches Felix behind the source of light, a small lantern held in the boar’s hand. It lights up the edges of the fence lining the outside of the camp.
Rather than answer Felix’s question like a normal person, Dimitri frowns. Surely it can’t be that big of a frown, the shadows from the lantern are just making it look much more apparent that it actually is.
“Are you going to talk or are you just going to stand there? Your light is going to wake the entire camp up you know,” Felix hisses.
Dimitri gives Felix a long unreadable look before he sighs. Even so, he opens the lantern with a quiet creak and blows the flame out. The lantern is creaked back shut as darkness engulfs Felix’s surroundings once more.
“Is that better?” Dimitri quietly asks.
Felix huffs.
“Sure. What are you even doing out here?”
Even without the candlelight, Felix still catches Dimitri’s figure tilt its head. He can already imagine the sheepish expression on the boar’s face.
“I’m merely taking another night stroll. The insomnia is quite strong this week I suppose. Maybe it is because our next battle against the Ashen Demon is sure to arrive soon. With how far we have traveled into the Empire, it would do the Empire a better service to send in Jeralt’s mercenaries now rather than later.”
Felix nods along, mentally filing the information away for later. So Dimitri walking around the camp in the middle of the night is nothing new and Felix is supposedly already aware of this if Dimitri is mentioning it like it is a simple thing. That’s quite… odd. What business would Felix have with the boar?
A soft chuckle is what breaks Felix out of his trance. He blinks away his thoughts to find the boar’s shadow shaking slightly with the laughter. It’s a bout of laughter that brings Felix back to a time where the world was happy and every day was an excitement to look forward to. But he refuses to linger in it for long. The past is the past, there is no use in lingering in such a place.
“Now it seems that you are the silent one. What has caught your attention? Are you contemplating possible ways to explain away why you’re taking a walk while you're injured?” Dimitri goes on to ask.
Felix crosses his arms and huffs.
“I’m hardly injured.”
Dimitri’s lips quip up into something knowing.
“Is that so? Well, would you care to take your walk with me?”
Dimitri holds a hand out. It has barely moved, yet Felix can feel it reach into his soul. It reaches into the same spot that lights up at the smile curved on Dimitri’s lips lit up under the moonlight. It reaches the same part that those bright eyes are staring right into.
That’s exactly why Felix flinches back and sneers at the boar. Felix is acting like a fool, letting himself get fooled by the boar’s attempt at acting sane.
“As if I’d want to take a walk with you. Go to sleep already, boar. You’re going to ruin everything if you’re not awake for tomorrow’s battle,” he hisses.
Dimitri hardly any time to utter a confused ‘Goodnight’ before Felix begins to stomp back off to his tent. Stupid boar, stupid camp, stupid tent, stupid reality. Here he is stuck in a world where he has to be buddy buddy with an even more infuriating Dimitri than the one he was last in. Why does he have to be the one to deal with this?
Felix hardly knows.
Dimitri finally lets the frown take over his smile when Felix walks out of sight. He knows Shez said he’ll be fine in the morning but everything in Dimitri’s being tells him the opposite. Felix was just about to try to sneak out of camp to go to the goddess knows where when they'll almost certaintly be encountering the Ashen Demon tomorrow! Just what happened to Felix when he flickered out of reality for that second?
Dimitri hardly knows, but something tells him that the day he will know is fast approaching.