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Pacing the great quarters of the Supreme commander of Midland's regular army, fine boots tapped on polished stone as their owner wore a track into the floor. An uncharacteristic mess of used parchment spread across the grand desk like a madman had set them free of their neat stack. And, perhaps a madman had done just that.
It must have been madness, or some defect to his perfect godly form, to have the throbbing in his chest rattle his ribs loud enough to cloud his head with the noise. Visions of a time long ago lost to the flow of fate bombarded his mind. The old crest, those familiar voices– and most distracting, a painfully nostalgic face.
Those dark eyes…
He only had one, now.
Skin decorated with little scars…
He had gained so many more since the last time Griffith had walked the earth…
Griffith once thought that nothing could ever change that man, hardened as he was like the blade of his sword. But then, everything has to change eventually, doesn't it?
And change they had…
Drifting apart and pulling the threads that bound them taut with the distance.
For the nth time that sleepy afternoon Griffith sunk back into his seat at his writing set. He'd somehow convinced himself that if he could just force the intense feelings from his chest out onto paper maybe it would subside the pain that those feelings brought. Not a pain like a wound but instead a longing that ate at his frozen chest with a maw so hot and gnawing the ice around his heart had no choice but to thaw a little further.
So with the sun setting on the horizon he began to write again, the scratched quill filling page after page of his thoughts and emotions; of his love and admiration for the man he once called his own. Feelings he should not have been able to feel and yet still he did. For what felt like an eternity he wrote, until the ink ran dry and the words had stopped flowing.
But even after the ink had dried, the feeling he had been searching for still lingered within his chest. He knew that no amount of words on paper could truly capture the depth of it, but he had tried anyway.
Slumping back into his chair he sighed in quiet frustration, allowing himself a moment to take in the warmth of the setting sun that had flooded the room in a soft orange light.
No matter how much time had passed, his feelings for Guts never seemed to subside. He had never been able to put words to the emotion that filled his once frozen heart, but he knew it ran deep.
And so he sat, in the fading light, reflecting on the memories he had shared with the man he once believed could never leave him.
When he finally awoke from his thoughts more pages of unsent letters lay across his desk, the most recent of which he still held between his thumb and index. Blue eyes like ice shards glittered as he scanned over the page. Another letter of devotion his heart was supposed to be incapable of feeling. Why did it seem the more he fought these old human tethers the stronger they became?
Would he ever outrun the blinding light that was Guts?
Even now, as he sat at the top of his kingdom with dream in hand, it lay dim and empty before him without that light he once sought to own for eternity.
There was no sense in trying to fight the inevitable. He was, and always would be, tangled in the emotions of a mere man, not a beast. He may have been a demon king, but it seemed that did not mean he was immune to the feelings of a broken heart.
Curse it all.
Griffith was tired, a god exhausted of perfection and longing for change. He just wanted peace, but it seemed like as long as the thorn in his heart persisted so too would his compulsion to traverse back through his memories for that golden time where Guts was still at his side.
He sighed, pushing himself up from his chair and walked to the wide balcony of his quarters. Walking like a ghost, and footfall so silent one could mistake him for one. The nearly pure white of his person wrapped in the dying sunlight helped the unearthly glow of the specter as he padded to the railing. There, as always, birds of prey sat bathing in the warmth of the afternoon sky.
Pulling the ribbon from his hair, Griffith affixed the rolled parchment to the talon of one of his magnificent raptors without a sound. The animal watched him, understanding in an unnatural way the intent of its godly protector. As soundlessly as Griffith himself had been, the raptor took flight as soon as the ribbon was fastened, sailing off into the sky until it could scant be seen anymore.
He wasn’t sure why he had chosen his most desperate words to send from his balcony that afternoon. Perhaps it was because those pleas were what most clearly echoed the desperation he had been feeling. The thawing of his frozen heart splitting his confidence down the middle and laying him bare. The Godkin of longing was rattled to his core, and every day it only worsened.
Griffith watched the bird until it was out of sight, and then turned back to his chambers, his heart heavy with a desire that could not be sated.
The letter would make it if he willed it.
Night had fallen across the island of Elfhelm, the sounds of night creatures drifting on the wind like a lullaby. Most would have found the allure of sleep too tempting amidst the temperate cool of the evening and the soft dewy landscape. But, Guts was not most. Despite the safety of this idyllic sprawling island, the demons of his past kept sleep from taking him.
They had finally made it here, the place he had been driven to like mad out of duty to heal Casca. And yet, though they had reached their destination, he still felt like there was only moments before it would come collapsing down around him. Like it always did.
Casca was going to be healed soon, they didn’t have to constantly run from terrors in the night, he should have felt like the journey was at a comfortable end. Instead, he felt lost. What came next?
What would Casca want?
What did he want?
Would they stay here on this island and live out their days?
Would they leave and go back out there, to the world and the dangers it held?
Would he still be able to protect Casca even as his body failed him?
The questions swirled around him like the wind, but no answers came. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, teetering on the brink of the unknown, and all he could do was wait and see what the future held.
He sighed, his breath fogging in the night as he looked out over the expanse of the island. He was no longer alone. Casca was safe, he had his new found companions, and for the first time in a long time he felt like he had a place he could belong. But he still felt uneasy, like he was waiting for something.
What that could be, he did not know.
Something was missing, still.
Or someone.
A wing-beat on the wind answered his anticipation and he sat up from his resting place against a tree, the shadow of a mighty bird passing over him before circling back to land at his outstretched legs patiently. Tied by a pretty blue ribbon, a roll of parchment folded neatly sat affixed to its left talon.
A letter?
His mind immediately convinced him it was some sort of messenger from Schierke telling him to come back to the witches’ settlements. She could have just sent Puck.
He carefully untied the ribbon, unfolding the parchment to read the words written in a neat, flowing script. A very familiar script.
The brief reading lessons he had during his time with the Band of the Hawk came flooding back to him. Those nights spent reading carefully and trying to copy handwriting made by a hand much more delicate than his own. A hand that had sought to hold the whole world one day.
Gut’ eye widened, the air leaving his lungs as barely a whisper.
“Griffith…”
His jaw tightened.
‘Guts,
Much time has passed us by, hasn't it?
The world around us is unrecognizable now, and yet still your face haunts my every thought.
Why?
Why can I not forget you?
Why can I not break away from this hold you've had on me since long before I had forsaken my humanity?
Why did you leave me?
Can you not see what we've become, my friend? The lengths to which we have both run endlessly, and for what? Have you been able to forget me?
This hole in my chest is your fault, Guts. You left me in a place that I can never escape from. And I ask myself why it is that I love you, despite all of this.
But I do. I still love you.
I always will.
~ Griffith’
Guts felt his heart sink into his stomach, rattling where it settled. To hear from Griffith after all this time– and strangest of all like this. He had thought the man was incapable of feeling anything, a shell of the boy he once knew. It’s what the man himself had said on the Hill of Swords. But here was a letter, a reminder of all that had been and all that could have been, as if the human man that had felt those things lived still.
Loved him still?
Guts' hand shook, the muscle in his forearm tense.
He wanted to cry out like an animal, to scream, shred the letter and forget about it. But he couldn't. The words were burning their way into his memory, pulling up with it the image of the Griffith from his youth. The one that dazzled him, led him, built him. It was at that moment he again knew his hatred was beginning to drain away from him like sand through his desperate fingers. In its place a fatigue like he’d never known before. He felt the wind knocked from his lungs. His heart was tired of fighting, tired of running, and somewhere in the blackness of his mind he could hear his beast snickering at his submission.
Give in... Let go... Go to him... It's what you really want...
He couldn't deny that he cared in some unspeakable way for Griffith any more than he could deny that Griffith was still the fixture of every dream and every nightmare he had. There were times when Griffith was all he could see, blinding and burning him with every memory. That inferno he once sat close to for warmth, and the one he regretted ever walking away from.
The words of the letter stung like he’d been scolded.
They were going to eat at him until he went mad.
‘Why did you leave me?’
Why did you betray us?
Guts wanted to ask in return.
Somewhere deep in his heart he knew the answer to that question, or at least he feared he did.
It picked at his mind like a scab and the beast within him lapped at the fresh wounds.
Guts knew that staying like this, here in the peaceful place, was never meant for him. He couldn’t be like the others, the shadows around him would always follow him. Why darken the doorstep of a peaceful paradise like this? Casca would be safe here, he knew that. The others, too. Life on this island was suited for them, people who still had light left in them. Not him.
His light was somewhere else.
He tucked the letter away in his pocket and stood up, brushing the dirt from his pants. He had a purpose now, and he was determined to see it through before he died.
He needed to see Griffith.
Part of his mind tried to convince himself it was vengeance tugging him to his feet and pushing him forward aimlessly, but deep down where his beast cackled he knew, it was an entirely different feeling compelling him. A feeling he could never quite bury.