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“…Stop it.”
Sylvain blinked as he snapped back to reality. “What?”
“Stop acting like an idiot. If something’s on your mind, then say it already.”
Sylvain let himself feel the weight of his body over the silken sheets as he turned lazily to face Felix, whose hair flowed untied like water over the ivory pillows. He propped himself up on one elbow as he began to twirl some strands between his fingers. “I was just thinking about how much I’ll miss you.”
Felix stared back at him, his eyes slithering into a glare.
“I am!” He insisted, letting a small chuckle out his lips.
Silence. Alas, a few more moments, and Sylvain knew that Felix was more likely to decline a sparring match than let this one go. He took a deep breath, and his voice tensed as he let his head fall back onto his pillow, eyes trying to fixate on the carved patterns of the wooden ceiling. “The situation in Sreng is unstable. An entire village near the border was wiped out last week…”
Felix finally released his gaze. He turned to sit up and slightly softened his brow. “… Are you sure I shouldn’t come with you?”
Sylvain’s heart skipped a beat. He took that sudden burst of energy to sit up right next to Felix, cupping his face and turning it gently to rest their foreheads together. It was still so new, being able to touch him so casually, so intimately... Gone were the days when he had to keep himself in check, when every touch was calculated to reveal no more than friendship. His eyes draped over Felix's naked body, counting the loving marks and bruises that served as a testament to their new relationship. He moved forward and plucked a soft kiss on his lips. Once, twice, and once more, slowly tempting the lock on his mouth to open up to him, a cunning lick sneaking in through an opening when Felix tried to retort back.
Felix felt the heat rise on his face, his hands reflectively sinking into Sylvain's hair. A placid moan escaped his mouth as the intensity of their kisses deepened, hungrier, fiercer, zealous. Sylvain’s hands slithered up his back, heat seeping in through the tips of his fingers. He delved deep into the black strands of hair, gripping them with enough strength to gently reel in the beast that had begun to devour him. A scowl formed on Felix’s face, like a hungry animal deprived of its prey.
“Are you worried about me?” Sylvain’s golden eyes glistened as a devilish grin formed on his lips.
Felix’s brow scrunched up again as he shoved Sylvain away from him. “You idiot…” He turned away to lean back on the bed, pulling on the duvet to cover his exposed skin. A few beats of silence floated in the air.
“…Of course I am.”
——————
When the call for aid reached the Fraldarius’ household, Felix’s heart sank.
A few moments later, the Duke and a small retinue of his best warriors galloped out into the snowy fields of Faerghus.
That good for nothing!
Felix bit his lip. The cold winds whipped his face as the sounds of hooves digging into snow echoed throughout the distance.
The war with the Empire was over, but peace was yet far.
Riots had sprung up in the Sreng region, most likely taking advantage of a newly united but weakened Kingdom. Now, a frequent diplomatic hub between the Gautier and Sreng regions had been assaulted by a militia of insurgents.
The ride towards Gautier territory was never a pleasant one. The cold became crueler with every passing hour, and the soil was as inhospitable to its people as it was to any form of cultivation. As a child, Felix would get bored after an hour or two of staring at the bleak and monotonous streak of white, gray, and the occasional patch of pine trees, always impatient to see his friend. Now, his heart beat with terror and anticipation. He pretended not to feel the cold sweat dripping beneath his armor.
A day’s ride felt like three, but it wasn’t long before the wind carried the familiar smells of death, blood and ashes. A tower of smoke rose like a smear against the blinding white snow, the sound of metal and splintering wood reaching the frostbitten ears of his soldiers.
Filling his lungs with frigid air, Felix faced his companions. “Get as many people out of there as you can! And find the Margrave!” And with that, Felix sped his horse into the fray.
The town was but a skeleton of what it used to be. Entire streets of wooden buildings were burnt to ash, civilians cried in panic left and right, running through the smoke only to be cut down mercilessly by an assailant, or be crushed under the crumbling walls of their homesburning homes. Felix’s narrow eyes darted through the battlefield, fingers clenching around the reigns of his horse at every splatter of blood he mistook for a shock of red hair.
Armored footsteps quickly approached him from the side, followed by the sound of a steel cutting through the air. Felix swung his sword back to parry the incoming attack just in time. With a swift blow, he quickly disarmed the bandit and thrust his sword into their chest, ending his life. But from where he had come, more footsteps approached. Felix gripped his sword with a grimace.
Where is that fool!?
——————
After the first wave of attackers had been dealt with, Felix found a familiar face amongst exhausted Gautier soldiers. Leanne, a robust woman in heavy armor, had just ended a pleading bandit’s life with a powerful downward thrust of her claymore. Felix approached her as she dislodged her weapon from the convulsing body.
“Leanne!” Felix blurted out her name as he got off his horse.
“Lord Fraldarius!” The young woman responded. The fringes of her long, brown ponytail were singed black. “They took hostages, milord. We were at a loss. They demanded an immediate surrender of the town and Lord Sylvain, and— they killed the children first—”
“Where is he!? Why is his horse here!?”
“He was trying to redirect the battle away from the town, through the woods— The roots are too dense for the horses, milord—”
She couldn’t finish her sentence before he dashed out, his feet barely grazing the frozen ground as he rushed into the woods. Guided by the sounds of battle, he swiftly jumped and dodged the ancient roots and branches trying to stop him. The occasional dead soldier on the road only helped to hasten his pace, a trail of breadcrumbs leading him to a small clearing within the pine trees. Felix stepped in, sword unsheathed.
A sudden sound of clamoring and cheering in the distance drew his gaze. A mob of Sreng soldiers were gathering further ahead. Steeling himself, he dashed towards them, slashing the back of an unsuspecting guard. The man fell with a cry, alerting his companions, but they were too slow to react. Another combination of slashes, sidesteps, and stabs brought them all to their knees, their limp corpses opening a path to whatever they had been cheering at.
A glimpse of familiar armor casted a wave of relief over Felix, only to be slapped away in an instant. No more than a few feet away stood his friend and lover, gripping a halberd impaled in his stomach. With difficulty, he forced himself to trace the weapon with his eyes, past Sylvain's trembling hands and to the other end of the shaft, where a brutish man the size of a bear still held onto it.
The man locked his dark, venomous eyes on his unwelcome visitor. Without breaking eye contact, he forcefully dug deeper into Sylvain’s entrails. The corners of his lips ctwisted upwards into a smile, savoring the deafening scream that tore itself from Sylvain’s lips.
Felix gripped the hilt of his sword with a strength that shot the blood back to his frozen fingers. Without a thought, he slashed his way through the small field, cutting through the remaining infantry men with the ferocity of a wounded tiger. His feet swirled across the battlefield leaving a trail of lethal footwork, his sword scattering blood like a hurricane of death.
Sylvain’s assailant didn’t flinch at the unstoppable force heading towards him. He kicked Sylvain harshly, dislodging him off of the halberd.
As he swung to cut through the exposed neck of a Sreng swordsman, Felix caught a glimpse of Sylvain’s body falling limp unto the ground. He couldn’t hear the sound it made when it hit the muddied snow, nor could he feel the frostbite in his face. He couldn’t feel the weight of the dead body falling off from his sword, nor hear the sounds of terrified men fleeing from him. Blood and snow merged before his eyes as an invisible chokehold gripped his throat. And then the world went mute.
The spearman, covered in bear pelts and thick, heavy armor, growled at him, but seeing no reaction from Felix made his face scrunch up in anger. He took a furious swing of his halberd at Felix’s legs, as if his halberd were a mere tree branch. In a flash, Felix jumped back, feeling the wind disperse away from the giant’s blow. Using the momentum of his previous swing and the weight of his spear, the attacker deftly turned full circle, lashing horizontally at Felix’s stomach, but he wasn’t fast enough. Felix sidestepped as he crouched, barely avoiding the deadly strike. He needed to focus, focus on finding an opening in his opponent, but his eyes kept straying to the crumpled pile of teal and red. Had he moved from that spot at all? How much longer before he bled out?
The enemy general charged once more. His attacks picked up speed without losing strength, forcing Felix into a misplaced step; he stumbled in a panic for a split second as he saw the man raise his weapon and bring it down for the final blow.
Gripping his sword like a lifeline, Felix rolled closer towards his opponent so that the ax landed behind him, creating an opening for him to attack. Putting everything he had into one swing, he sliced through bone and ligament. The spearman’s head flew off from its body, retaining the same expression it had made when last it drew breath.
The splash of red flaring in the corner of his eye pulled Felix back to his senses. He dropped his sword and ran.
The pool of blood forming beneath Sylvain’s armor threatened to swallow him whole. A small gasp for breath escaped his lips, now an unnatural shade of blue. Felix knelt next to him, the blood seeping in from the tainted snow into the fabric over his knees as he tried to gently lift his head with frozen hands.
“Sylvain! Sylvain!”
Sylvain’s eyes twitched before they struggled to open through the frost on his eyelashes. “F… Felix?”
“I’m here…” Felix stuttered, in a tone that clashed desperation and comfort. Sylvain reached out as if to touch Felix’s face, but his hand missed its mark, grasping at air. Felix took the wandering hand in his own, gently redirecting it to his cheek.
“H-help me…” Sylvain gasped. “I can’t open my eyes…”
Felix’s stomach turned as if the ground beneath him cracked open to swallow him in an impenetrable maw. The knot in his throat tightened as he clasped onto Sylvain’s hand even harder. He took a deep breath to steady himself:
“Sylvain...” His voice cracked as tears began to freeze around his eyes. ”They’re open…”
“Oh…” The corner of Sylvain’s mouth lifted just slightly, a shadow of his usual coy smirks. He breathed in, no doubt to make some smart quip, but a burning sensation filled his body, forcing him to try to pull some precious air back into his lungs.
Felix let Sylvain’s hand fall limply onto his knees before trying to cast the only healing spell he knew. The halberd had completely penetrated Sylvain’s armor, breaking his ribs and leaving a gruesome gash across his abdomen.
“Felix...” Sylvain’s eyes widened with increasing despair, “I can’t feel my legs.”
“Shut up...” Felix begged, his voice now a broken thread.
“I...” he raised his hand once more, forcing Felix to stop casting his magic. His weak fingers tugged blindly at Felix’s clothes, clinging onto what they could find. “I’m… so sorry, Felix…”
“Stop. Just… stop talking…” He resumed casting, failing to stifle the sobs welling up in his chest.
Blood splattered from Sylvain’s chapped lips with a cough. “I don’t want to go yet…” His voice cracked like glass. “Felix…”
He swallowed his heart again. “I’m here….”
Sylvain kept opening his mouth, but an invisible ax hacked at his chest everytime his voice tried to leave his lips, pushing out deformed groans and gasps in its stead.
Sylvain reached out again, weakly gripping Felix’s collar. His chest puffed and his stomach bled from his muscles trying to hold the air in his lungs. Somehow, his eyes stumbled their way to Felix’s, where they anchored themselves with ferocious accuracy, as if he had willed his eyes to see and speak what his mouth was failing to say.
Thank you.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
Felix’s mouth twisted in anguish as Sylvain’s eyes went dark and his body limp. The armored hand fell onto the snow, its sound muted by a shrill pitch growing louder and louder, like a knife slicing through Felix’s brain. Blood and white swirled in his eyes as they lost their focus, the weight of Sylvain’s body now imperceptible under the void in his chest. Felix screamed until his throat was raw and the frigid air dulled his vocal chords, until all they could muster was a pathetic whimper. The whisper of death and her newly joined swelled with the pain in his chest, like a chorus of fresh bodies turning their heads to assure him: he is dead.
He is dead.
With nothing but the frostbitten ears of the dead to bear as witnesses, he wept.
——————
Everything after that was a blur. There was no way to tell how long it took for the troops to find them. Was it minutes? Hours? Days? At some point, Leanne arrived at the clearing. She gasped at the sight in front of her, a quiver heard in her voice as she ordered the men around her.
Other voices hovered idly in Felix’s ears, muted by the fresh layer of snow that had begun to accumulate over his head like a protective blanket.
He couldn’t sense the trembling of his arms, stiff from holding Sylvain to his chest. Cracks of ice and metal snapped as Leanne and a few others cooperated to tear Sylvain’s body from them and hauled their fallen commander unto a makeshift stretcher. His eyes lingered on the imprint of Sylvain’s body in the snow: a pitiful testament to his final moments, carved into the snow only to melt away in a few days’ time.
More muffled sounds. His knees creaked in dull protest when someone lifted him off the ground. Another hand ushered him into a carriage, and exhaustion lulled him into sleep.
——————
A gentle nudge on his shoulder jolted him awake. The gates of the Gautier residence greeted him outside his window, and Leanne, who had apparently ridden with him, gripped his shoulders and spun him to face her. His brain shook within his skull, blending the dull colors of the inside of the carriage, but he forced himself to focus. His eyes narrowed in on Leanne’s mouth, opening and closing slowly…
“… body… funeral”… .
A rush of bile rose in his throat. In a panic, he flailed to open the door and stumbled out of the vehicle, knees hitting the cold pavement. His stomach twisted, and he vomited, retching uncontrollably as Leanne rushed to his side, clumsily gathering his singed hair with one hand, gently rubbing his back with the other. His entrails burned and his eyes stung with tears as he struggled to keep his lungs down his throat.
Leanne waved a hand at some servants who had finished transferring Sylvian’s body onto another stretcher and covered it with a white sheet of cloth. Felix’s eyes, bloodshot and vacant, clambered onto Sylvain’s hand, hanging limply from the side of the stretcher. It was the only part of his body that had been left exposed under the heavy fabric. How he wished he could fool himself into thinking that he was simply asleep under it. Body intact, skin flushed pink and warm, with no gaping hole in his stomach; eyes vibrant and sweet, not bruised and sunken into a deformed skull; his heart beating softly, tethered steadily to his soul.
He kept his eyes fixed on that hand until it was carried out of sight. As soon as it was taken into the Gautier mansion, Felix felt his own strength fade away. His face was inches away from slamming into the ground when Leanne caught him brusquely with the hand that had been holding his hair. She gripped Felix’s hood and lowered him as gently as she could.
Hazy figures scrambled about his periphery, calling his name, until the howling wind drowned the world in its shrill screams.
——————
“Felix… Hey, Felix…”
A hand nudged him gently. The sounds of robins chirping through the window announced that it was the early hours of the morning.
A warm chuckle danced over him as he was nudged again. Grunting in response, he turned around on the bed, opening his eyes and squinting at the morning sunlight draping the room. Softly, a cold, metal hand gently cupped his face. The sudden contact with the frigid material caused him to shiver, pulling his eyes into focus. Muttering under his breath, Felix followed the hand to its owner—
"It’s time for me to go now.”
Sylvain.
Felix saw his own brow furrow in the reflection of Sylvain’s eyes. An invisible hand crept along his chest towards his neck, tightening its grip around his windpipe. He opened his mouth to protest, but Sylvain was quicker.
“I have to leave soon, or I’ll get in trouble…" Sylvain continued. "Actually, I’m already late as is, but Mr. Sleepyhead here is refusing to wake up, and I can’t leave without my goodbye kiss, now can I?” He gave Felix one of his devilish smiles, but it quickly contorted into confusion. “Felix… Are you—Are you crying?”
Felix seized Sylvain's armored hand and pressed it to his cheek, welcoming the chill of iron sending waves through his body. Tears dripped onto the dark metal like stars on a night sky, shooting down the smooth surface to a quick demise.
“You’re here…” He whispered. “Don’t go…
“I’ll only be away for a week.” Sylvain smiled at him, his eyes concerned. “I’ll be right back…”
“No…” Sobs bubbled up in his chest, and he brought the gauntlet over his mouth in a pitiful attempt to stifle them.
“Felix… What’s wrong?”
Everything, he thought, but his voice wouldn’t come out, save for stilted breaths and sobs. Panic flashed in Sylvain’s face, but Felix shut his eyes. The mere sight of him made his lungs flare in pain.
“Don’t go…” he gripped the gauntlet tighter, burying his face in it.
“Hey Felix. Look at me, Felix.” Sylvain tried to tug at his face gently, but he wouldn’t budge. “I won’t leave you behind. We promised, remember?”
“LIAR!!!” Felix swiped Sylvain’s hand away, lifting his bloodshot eyes to glare at him in a flash of rage.
Felix sucked his breath in.
Where Sylvain’s hazel eyes had been, black sockets stared back. A hollowed skull grinned menacingly as a bony hand reached again for Felix’s face, digging its sharp fingers into his cheeks. They turned his face slowly, forcing his gaze downwards. Felix’s stomach twisted in horror as his eyes fixed onto a shattered rib cage, grotesque petals of splintered bones blooming outwards, ready to swallow him into the abyss.
Felix awoke with a scream.