Work Text:
⠀⠀⠀⠀ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ, I ᴡᴀʟᴋᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴᴄᴇ ᴜᴘᴏɴ ᴀ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ...
War. It raged upon the rolling green hills, thrashing the ground and painting what was green— red. Soldiers were covered in blood. Horses toppled in the mud. Healers flitted through the chaos. But royals had been untouched by that crimson plague, not a speck on their purple garments. Swords and axes swung. Lances plunged. Tomes and Beaststones shone brightly with deadly intent. Arrows drove into unprotected flesh. All around, men and women were falling.
A single gleaming arrow became the object of Leo’s focus. With a flick of his wrist a pillar of stone shot from the ground to deflect the strange missile. It shattered upon contact, the arrow rejoining the air. Behind it all, the second prince of Hoshido stood on an adjacent hill. The dangerous gleam in the Hoshidan’s eye was familiar to Leo.
The earth trembled, but Leo was unfazed. It was his own fault that the land cracked and quivered. With Brynhíldr grasped in his hand he shaped boulders to pelt his enemy with, and produced vines to punish anyone audacious enough to attack him. Groves of trees became prisons of a slow and painful death, and many men were confined in the ground, left gasping above the dirt. He could not be bothered by such petty armies when the boy from a hazy dream of wishes was across the way with another shaft of wind at the ready.
That gleam. That shine in those chocolate hues was unmistakably hatred. Hatred for Leo. Hatred for Nohr. Once upon a dream, those eyes were friendly and filled with childhood innocence. They greeted Leo as a companion—a playmate if you will—in the adolescent figure only a distant fantasy could reproduce. With some thought, Leo had uprooted the source of that late wish. Loneliness was not uncommon for him, and it resurfaced daily. Surely this wish for a friend was a sign of his isolation. And who else would be fit enough to fulfill the role but the respective second prince of Hoshido?
Yes, once upon a dream they walked together, played together, even talked together in their childish language. He knew the Takumi of the dream. He knew the Takumi that looked at him earnestly and spoke with honest words. He knew the Takumi that would never put him in harms way. He knew the Takumi that held his hand when he was afraid. Yes, Leo knew that Takumi, and he knew him well.
He knew hopes and dreams and 𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴. ⠀
But even if all he knew were hopes and dreams and lies, even if they were at war and were aiming to kill one another, Leo would still ponder upon it and wish an impossible wish. Perhaps, one day, if their differences can be set aside, they can live that which was merely a dream. Yes... that is his wish. ⠀⠀
‘You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.’ ⠀
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