Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In his earliest memories, he was already at the orphanage.

They said that a soldier had found him washed up on the riverbank, half-dead and malnourished.

They said that he had probably been thrown into the river and left to drown.

They said that he had been abandoned. Unwanted. Alone.

Back then, they called him Fifty-Eight – after his bed number. He was small, even for a child his age. He was quiet, too. That was rare.

The other children sought to show off their strength and dominance, even at a young age. “Prove your worth and die with honor, else perish as scum that no-one remembers” – that was what they had been taught, after all.

The House of Hearth was a bustling, rowdy place. Hundreds of children and only a dozen caretakers meant that they had to fend for themselves.

And Fifty-Eight? He was easy pickings.

Most of it was just jeering and name-calling, ugly chants and the occasional pea thrown into his water. The punishment for causing trouble was severe, and few dared to toe the line.

Fifty-Eight didn’t mind. Rather, he didn’t care.

Humans were uninteresting. Their opinions were uninteresting. He pretended he couldn’t hear them. He pretended he couldn’t see them.

He pretended they didn’t exist, and that worked just fine.

… For a while.

His harassers dwindled in number, giving up as they became bored of his utter nonchalance. But the ones that remained really devoted themselves. They found his lack of reaction infuriating, or fascinating, or both. Shattering the unbreakable ice of his deadpan became a challenge of sorts, an ultimate goal.

One day, as Fifty-Eight was cleaning the windows in a quiet part of the orphanage, a group of them approached him.

“Oh look, it’s Itty-Bitty.”

They seemed to think that was a clever name for him. The three of them, all boys bigger and older than him, had been pestering him for months, but in Fifty-Eight’s mind, they didn’t exist – so he didn’t actually know what their names were, or even what they really looked like.

“Fancy finding you here, in a barren corner where nobody goes. It’s like they threw you here to rot away and be forgotten, haha!”

They loitered around him, scoffing and casting their usual jeers.

Fifty-Eight tuned them out. He climbed onto the window pane and extended his thin arms as high as they would go. If he stretched like this, his rag could just barely reach the top of the window.

“Haha! Look, he’s so tiny he can’t even reach the whole window. Useless little Itty-Bitty!”

“Here, how about some help? Want some help, Itty-Bitty?”

A finger appeared and jabbed into his waist, sending a jolt through his whole body. Gasping, he shied away and finally turned to face them, eyes widening as their sneering faces finally penetrated his imaginary solitude.

“Yeah, let’s help him out!”

Exchanging gleeful nods, they kicked over one of his pails of water. The metal bucket crashed to the floor and spilled its contents all over the corridor, forming a soapy, dingy river beneath him.

Pleased with themselves, they leapt back from the mess, guffawing and slapping each other on the back.

“Haha, there you go! Now you have a bigger job to do! Go on, here’s your chance to make yourself useful! Aren’t you grateful, huh? You’re welco–”

A loud slap interrupted their chants.

They froze, all three of them. The boy in the middle, the biggest one – a soppy rag covered his entire face. Fifty-Eight had hurled it at him.

Slowly, the dirty rag peeled off his face, revealing the look of utter shock behind it. They stared at Fifty-Eight, who stood on the windowsill with his fists clenched by his side… gazing down at them with his ever-icy nonchalance.

And then they lunged at him.

Their hands wrapped around his ankles, grabbed at his shorts, and yanked on his arms. He was dragged roughly off the windowsill and hurled to his knees on the wet floor.

Fifty-Eight couldn’t hear anything they were saying. It was too chaotic, too quick. They wrenched his arms back and fisted his hair, and they shoved his head down – into his remaining bucket of water.

They submerged his entire face into the cold, soapy water. At first, Fifty-Eight only felt a pang of irritation – but when he tried to resist, he realized that he couldn’t move at all. They were holding him down, trapping him there with their oh-so superior strength.

A vivid sensation slid into his mind, like a thick needle threading right through the center of his brain. It pierced the core of his head and continued down his spine, then spread through every nerve in his body – a frigid, vivid emotion that he had never felt before.

No… he had.

Abruptly, the pale water turned black. The muffled laughter of the children distorted into a thunderous, bubbly churning. He was no longer bent over a little pail, but tumbling through a roaring river. The icy water rushed past his face with a oppressive force, forcing itself into his nostrils even as he struggled to hold his breath. He gagged, and bubbles rushed past his face, but there was nowhere to go – no way to fight.

He was small and weak. Just a wretched child that someone had tossed into the stormy river.

And now, he was going to die.

A sting laced through his scalp, and Fifty-Eight was pulled out of the pail. Faint sunlight flooded the darkness, cleansing his delusion away. As he gasped for breath, he heard the children shouting gleefully.

“Haha! Look at his face! He’s totally freaking out!”

“Are you finally ready to cry, Itty Bitty? Cry like the little baby that you are?”

They tried to push his head back down, barely feeling his struggle. As Fifty-Eight watched the dark, murky nightmare surge back towards him, he gasped in horror, and–

… snapped.

Fifty-Eight only remembered fragments of what had happened.

He remembered the blazing heat that had rushed to his face, and he remembered the bloodcurdling shriek that he had unleashed when it got there.

He remembered the frigid sting that had laced through his heart, and how vividly cold it had felt compared to the boiling rage in his mind.

He remembered how that icy chill had spread from his chest to his shoulders, down his arms, into his fingertips. He remembered clenching his hands around the ice, tightly, and then…

… And then he was standing in the hallway, wheezing. The three children were lying around him, silent… their still bodies frozen in a thin layer of ice.

The entire hallway had turned cold. He could see every ragged breath condensing to mist in front of his trembling lips.

Clenched tightly in one hand was a thick icicle. Clenched in the other was a glowing ice-blue stone… a Vision.

As Fifty-Eight stared numbly down at it, a loud clap shattered the silence. He snapped his head up, stumbling back against the windowsill as slow applause began to echo through the frozen corridor.

A silhouette strode leisurely into view, slowly clapping to his performance. Their slim hips swung elegantly with every step that they took, and their heels clattered confidently on the ice, alternating in time with their applause like a steady heartbeat.

Fifty-Eight didn’t care about people. He didn’t know who this person was. But something… something told him that right now, he should care. He should care very much.

They stopped in front of him, a womanly person with short white-and-black hair. They weren’t as tall as some of the caretakers, but as Fifty-Eight gazed up at her, it felt like he was straining to look at an infinitely high tower.

Her presence was unreachable and absolute. She stared down at him with deadly crimson irises, and slowly, she parted their red lips.

“… Tell me your name.”

Fifty-Eight tried to answer, but he couldn’t. He was too paralyzed by the force of their presence to even breathe, nevermind speak.

His silence continued. A glint passed through her crimson irises, and she reached out her hand to his face. Her fingers weren’t like the other caretakers – they were dark, and claw-like. As they slid across his cheek, they left a strange sting in his skin.

Her fingers slid across his face, following the trail of tears and soapy water down his cheek, past his chin, and onto his throat. She lingered there, angling her hand, pressing the sharp tip of her index finger ever so slightly into his neck.

Then, she grabbed him by the throat.

She squeezed down with abrupt, merciless force. Fifty-Eight didn’t even have time to gasp. He scrabbled frantically at her claws, but she gazed down at him in cold contempt.

“Hmph. You are small, weak and utterly unremarkable. And yet…”

Her irises flickered down to the glowing Vision, and for the briefest moment, the crimson crosses throbbed as though with jealousy.

“To be granted a Vision by the Tsaritsa in her own land… that is no small feat.”

Her claws tightened around his throat. He could feel her subtle rage crushing down on his windpipe, and as Fifty-Eight continued his vain struggle, it appeared again.

That sensation. That needle through the center of his brain.

The woman leaned closer. He could feel her breath against his parted lips, and it was cold.

“Little one… are you frightened? Do you fear death?”

Ah… so was that what this was? Fear?

Fifty-Eight struggled to move his head. He managed the tiniest of nods, but even that proved excruciating, and tears welled up in his eyes. A strange sound dropped from his lips, not a gasp for breath, but a trembling whimper.

The crimson crosses glinted down at him once more – and then the claws retreated.

Fifty-Eight stumbled back, clutching at his throat as he coughed and gagged. He saw a shadowy hand reach for him again and tensed, entire body igniting with primal survival instinct. An icicle formed in his fist and he clenched it tightly, ready to fight back – but the hand, it… it settled gently on his head.

“That’s good. Be proud.”

Her voice had become a pleased purr. There was no longer any menace in her gaze as she looked down at him.

“To live is to fear death.”

Her claw-like fingers combed gently through his wet hair. The icicle in his fist dissipated as he stared up at her, bewildered… hypnotized by her smooth voice.

“It means you are alive.”

Chapter Text

The next day, a masked soldier came to the House of Hearth.

The children were all excited. They pushed against the railings and whispered eagerly amongst themselves, bragging about all the chores they had done that month. Surely, they would be next, they all said – next to serve their Tsaritsa.

But the soldier only took one of them with him. He took Fifty-Eight.

They rode on horseback for two hours through the frigid snow, to a small facility along the south-west shores of Snezhnaya. It was late by the time they arrived, and the campus was quiet. Another masked soldier showed Fifty-Eight to his new quarters and told him to stay there until morning.

The next day, Fifty-Eight found out he’d been assigned to a new squad. The squad consisted of trainees, all children like him, training to be covert agents specialized for infiltrating Fontaine.

There were only a couple children in the squad. The facilities housed other soldiers, of course, but it was a far cry from the hundreds of orphans that Fifty-Eight was used to. With such fewer numbers, he thought it’d be quieter.

But it wasn’t… not exactly.

“I’m fourteen!”

See, one of them was loud enough to make up for the rest. It was an older boy, with light blonde hair just like him. He wasn’t particularly big or tall, but he was… bright. Fifty-Eight didn’t know how else to describe it. He possessed a certain aura that naturally made him the center of everything.

“… I’m Fifty-Eight.”

“EH?!”

The boy reeled in shock. Freminet stared dully at him, unaffected by his comedic floundering.

“Ah, no, I mean, uh, that’s my age! My name’s Lyney. And this is Lynette!”

As the boy pointed to the girl beside him, she scoffed in displeasure.

“I can’t believe you gave me the female version of your name to satisfy your own fat ego.”

“Ehh?” Lyney turned to her with a whine. “No, I gave you that name cause I think it’s the prettiest name in the whole world! Just like you–”

He broke off, dodging the girl’s outstretched hands as she tried to grab him by the front of his uniform. The two promptly engaged in a game of chase, Lyney still chortling at the top of his lungs as he darted about. The other trainees laughed along, and soon enough the entire courtyard was filled with the sound of giggling.

But Fifty-Eight felt nothing. He stared at them, at the strangely happy children, expressionlessly.

They noticed, after a while – Lynette, first. She slowed, pretty face furrowing in a look of concern. Lyney caught on soon after, and as they returned to their original positions, he offered Fifty-Eight a slightly puzzled smile.

“Erm, so… what’s your actual name?”

“Fifty-Eight,” he repeated blankly.

“Ehhh…?” Lyney uttered that annoying sound of his again. “You’re still using that pitiful number as your name? That won’t do, not at all, not here!”

He started pacing through the snow, rubbing his chin as though in deep thought. Lynette raised an eyebrow skeptically at him, but he continued mumbling to himself.

“Fifty-Eight… Finny-made… Fin… Fri… Fraum… Fraumi… ehh… ehhhh… Freminet!”

Feet stomping together, Lyney turned and snapped a finger stylishly at him.

“From now on, your name is Freminet Snezhevich!”

Lyney’s face lit up in a triumphant grin and he walked closer with his hand raised in greeting.

“Welcome to the family, Frem–”

“Don’t!”

His own cry was muffled by the deafening sound of his slap. The instant Lyney touched his shoulder, he’d felt it again – the weight on his head, the water against his face. The needle in his brain.

Frozen, Lyney stared at him with round eyes, gloved hand lingering in the air. The boy looked shocked to his core, as though he had never been pushed away in his life.

As Freminet realized what he’d done, a panicked gasp fell from his trembling lips. He took a trembling step back, then another.

And the next thing he knew, he was running, and not looking back.

It took a few weeks, but Freminet began to adjust to his new life in the squad. The training was harder than what they endured at the House of Hearth, but it was also quite diverse, and didn’t always focus on physical combat.

Because of that incident, Freminet remained wary of his new squad mates – especially Lyney. Despite their initial meeting, the older boy still pestered him. He’d ask Freminet to eat with them, or to join them for their evening games. He’d randomly ask Freminet questions when they were stuck in the classroom together.

Freminet did what he always had – ignore them. Sometimes, he’d hear Lyney’s footsteps approach, and he would tense up, his fists clenching and turning cold – but the boy never came too close. He never crossed that line.

And even if he did get a little far, Lynette would come and haul him back, lecturing him for bothering their newest comrade.

Freminet now had a new life, a new name… but he couldn’t forget what that mysterious woman had told him.

“To live is to fear death.”

He realized now that she had been a Harbinger, none other than the Knave herself – the master of the House of Hearth.

As he lay in bed at night, accompanied only by silence and the snow-reflected moonlight streaming through his small window, he would think about what those words had meant.

He hadn’t particularly enjoyed that feeling – that needle through his brain. But… it had definitely made him feel.

It had been different. It had been vivid.

The facility was close to a stretch of ocean. Protected by the nearby cliffs, the waters were relatively calm and warm, at least comparative to the rest of Snezhnaya.

One day, Freminet found himself approaching the shore.

Entire body trembling, barely able to breathe through his fear… he clutched his cryo Vision tightly, and waded into the frigid sea.

The water only rose up to his knees before he couldn’t take any more. He stayed there, eyes squeezed shut, entire body battered by an alternating cycle of blazing panic and icy horror. He didn’t normally experience such fiery emotions.

He supposed this was what being “alive” was supposed to feel like.

He started training himself. It began as just a few minutes standing in the water, but gradually, he began wading deeper. He would go to his thighs, then his waist, then his chest, then his neck… and then it took a much longer time before he could go any further than that, but he did.

Eventually, Freminet was swimming. He would dive under water and press his hands against the cold sand at the bottom of the ocean, and he would force himself to stay there as long as he could.

There was a good thing about the water, he came to realize – it was quiet. He could experience utter solitude, without having to use his imagination. There were no voices to drone out and no gazes to avoid.

But while part of Freminet came to relish the serenity, part of him remained terrified of that unending darkness.

The two sides fought each other constantly while he meditated beneath the surface. He learned to feel calm.

But only barely.

“To live is to fear death.”

… When Freminet was underwater, he felt very much alive.

During one of his training sessions, on a rare and particularly sunny day when the light penetrated deeper waters, Freminet found a rock.

It wasn’t just a rock, but a smooth, rainbow rock, with a friendly shape.

Freminet didn’t know how to explain its friendly shape. It just had a shape that felt friendly.

He brought it back to his room and put it on his windowsill. At night, he would sit on his bed and murmur quietly to it. It glimmered in the moonlight, reflecting auroras of different color against his wall, as though reacting to the things that he said.

He would talk about the training they did, the things they learned, and the feelings he experienced underwater.

Sometimes, he would even talk about the other trainees.

“… Lyney said something today.”

Freminet had been feeling odd that day. He didn’t know what it really was, but he could even hear it in his voice – a slight tremor, and a slight sense of awe.

The rock gave him a warm, orange flicker, gently encouraging him to continue.

A long time had passed since he left the House of Hearth and joined the new squadron. To Freminet, every day felt the same, so he hadn’t really noticed. But if he looked back to the first day he’d arrived, he’d realize that many things had changed.

Unknowingly, Freminet had lowered his guard around the others. It had happened gradually over the course of many months, an inevitable side-effect of being stuck in small rooms with the other children for so long. He no longer tensed up when he heard their footsteps passing. He no longer squeezed his eyes shut when he heard their voices. They had left him alone enough that his body instinctively began to trust them. He knew they weren’t going to hurt him.

That day had been yet another ordinary day of training and lectures. After finishing their morning combat drills, Freminet went for a quick dive over lunch break.

But he had underestimated the consequences of their morning training. He hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and their drills had been harder than usual. That day, for the first time in a long time, he felt fear again.

The ocean was a little rough from the high winds, and Freminet hadn’t noticed his own weakness until it was too late. By the time he realized he was struggling, he was already at the bottom of the sea floor.

He turned towards the vague light of the surface, and suddenly it looked so far away. The vivid horror that he thought he had tamed flooded back in an instant, igniting his senses all at once.

But he had done this many times before. It had become instinct, even through his panic.

Freminet swam quickly back to the surface. The adrenaline from his fear had given him the strength he’d needed to make it there. Bursting through the waves, he gasped for breath, ears filled with the dark rumbling of that stormy river he had once been trapped in. He flailed, whirling around, searching for the shore through his blurred vision, yet unable to find it, until–

“Oi!”

Until a familiar shout, bright but a little sharp in alarm, redirected his gaze.

Lyney was standing on the shore, waving frantically at him. The sight of a familiar person did a strange thing… it swept the panic away. Freminet found his gasps slowing, turning into deeper, calmer breaths. He took a big gulp of air, then swam towards the boy.

“You okay?”

Lyney jittered as Freminet hauled himself onto the sand, heaving from his excursion. He could sense the boy’s overwhelming desire to help, but Lyney didn’t try to reach out to him. Still mindful of their first encounter… Freminet felt a slight pang of gratitude.

A hand did reach out, but it wasn’t to touch him. It slid beneath his face, presenting him with a box wrapped in familiar-looking fabric. He recognized the pattern as one of long ribbons Lynette liked to sew.

“I was looking for you. Lynette noticed you hadn’t eaten lunch yet, she was worried.” Squatting in front of him, Lyney smiled and gestured for him to take the box. “I know you’re good at swimming, but the ocean is a dangerous place. You should be more careful.”

Unwillingly, his stomach uttered an obnoxious rumble. Startled, Freminet grabbed the box and lowered his head, hiding his red face as Lyney stood back with an incredulous chortle.

But Lyney’s laughter wasn’t like the haughty sneering of the other orphans. It was warm, and bright, and contagious.

Clutching the box tighter in his cold fingers, Freminet tried to move his lips.

“Th… Thanks…”

Lyney broke off abruptly. His eyes widened for a moment, as though surprised – and then he relaxed again with a pleased grin.

“Don’t mention it, we’re family! And family always looks out for each other, right?”

Later that evening, Freminet tried to return the lunch box.

It wasn’t something he would normally do, but Freminet had already been feeling strange since the dive. He walked hesitantly to the area where the others usually hung out, holding the box and the neatly folded ribbon in his hands.

He whispered to himself, telling himself to be brave as he forced his feet forward. But when he got closer to the open door, he heard Lynette’s scolding voice, and he stopped.

“You really should knock it off, Lyney. For all we know, you’re the reason he hides out in the ocean every day! If something happens to him, it’ll be your fault.”

“Ehh?! K-Knock what off?!”

The other children laughed, but Lynette sounded genuinely cross.

“Don’t play dumb!” She sighed heavily. “I get that it’s your nature, but you should adapt yourself around him. We’re actors, after all – we need to learn to hide who we really are.”

“But I don’t want to,” Lyney said. “He never shows any emotion on his face, it’s like he’s encased with ice.”

The boy’s voice was pure and devoid of malice. But his words pierced Freminet like a gnarly thorn.

“I want to break it.”

A chill surged through Freminet’s body, colder and more painful than the temperature of his Vision. He stared down at the box, at his fingers clenched tightly around it, but that wasn’t what he saw or felt.

It was the dark river again, the acrid burn of water rushing into his lungs. Then it was the pail, and the pressure on his head, the sneering in his ears.

And then it was Lyney’s voice, lifting his words back up to the sunlight with an innocent chirp.

“I want to make him crack a smile, even if just a tiny bit!”

His friend gave off a rainbow glow against the wall. Staring dazedly at the dancing aurora, Freminet exhaled slowly.

“I… I think…”

His whisper turned hoarse and wavered. The rock shifted its glow, turning its blues and greens into brighter, warmer yellows.

Lifting his finger, Freminet touched its smooth surface, comforted by its familiar presence. He took a shaky breath, and tried again.

“I think… maybe… they’re not so bad…”

Chapter Text

The months past, and the seasons cycled. The other children grew taller, but not Freminet, and to be honest, not Lyney, either – at least, not by much.

It was summer again, for the third time. To Freminet, that meant changes in the water as glaciers melted and shifted the current. It was a good time to train, and a good time to find interesting objects on the sea floor.

To the others, it meant longer days, later nights… and the Midnight Solstice Festival.

They were soldiers, so it wasn’t like they could just prance into town like normal children. But on the last night of the festival, Lyney brought them to the highest part of the cliffs for a final celebration.

Freminet wasn’t part of it, of course, but he happened to be meditating in the waters below. He was simply floating on his back, letting the waves rock him into a stupor.

He could hear their voices from here, though – they weren’t exactly quiet. As if their shouts and laughter weren’t rambunctious enough, they were also setting off fireworks. The entire beach flickered with explosions that they were unleashing into the sky, and their cries grew shrill with delight.

Freminet struggled to tune them out. He could feel his brows furrowing in annoyance. He didn’t have the gear to dive into the pitch-black waters at night, but he was tempted to submerge himself anyway. At least down there, it was quiet.

Just as he was seriously considering it, a loud sizzling and sudden bang! echoed down the cliff, followed by a sudden shriek.

It wasn’t a happy shriek. The shouts that followed weren’t delighted shouts.

Freminet snapped his eyes open, and when his gaze met hers, for a moment, time stopped.

It was Lynette. She was above him, in the air, trapped in the middle of the dark sky.

Her violet eyes widened and glimmered in the moonlight. It was alit with a vivid sensation that Freminet thought he knew, but couldn’t think of, not in that moment.

And then, she hurtled down.

She struck the water nearby and plummeted into the shadows beneath. Freminet stared at the rippling ocean for a moment, stunned. He felt his mouth open, then grow wider, slowly, in shock.

Then he gasped. He took a big, deep gulp of air, and dove into the water.

Under the surface, light faded quickly. In the few seconds that Freminet had hesitated, she had already disappeared.

Freminet had never seen Lynette in the water. She was a Kätzlein, and he’d heard that they didn’t like getting wet. He wasn’t sure if she even knew how to swim.

He submerged deeper, searching the darkness for any signs of her. Locks of her blonde hair, air bubbles, fluttering clothing… nothing. It was too dark. He couldn’t see anything, not even his own fingers in front of him.

A frigid sting prickled at his fingertips, the beginnings of despair – but with the cold sensation came a rush of inspiration.

… His Vision.

Grabbing it, Freminet held it out in front of him and drew on its power. The glow that the orb emitted was faint, but it was better than nothing. He swung it around, searching the darkness until he caught sight of a glint – a violet glint. Lynette’s irises were reflecting the light. She wasn’t far.

He swam quickly towards her, hands outstretched. She was conscious, he thought in relief – that was good.

Or at least, he thought it was, until she latched onto him.

She was panicking. He could feel it in the way her fingernails dug into his skin, and the force with which she dragged him close. He was yanked into her embrace with such strength that his lips parted in alarm, allowing some of his precious air to escape.

Wincing, Freminet grabbed her flailing arms and struggled to reposition her, but she didn’t want to let go. She clung to whatever part of him she could reach, eyes wide in animalistic terror.

Suddenly, Freminet remembered what it was called – that vivid sensation he had seen in her eyes. It was something he was intimately familiar with.

Fear.

He was running out of air. His cheeks, once full of oxygen, were deflated. Lynette’s struggling had grown weaker, but her wet clothes were tangling their limbs and dragging them down. Frustrated, Freminet grabbed one of her long ribbons and wrenched it away. He watched the fabric rise into the darkness and tried to follow it, struggling to drag her through the heavy water.

The surface… where was it? Everything around them was dark. They hadn’t gone that deep, so he ought to have reached the surface by now, right?

A terrible chill crept through Freminet’s gut. He slowed to a stop, hesitating. He watched the ribbon twirl through the darkness, and suddenly, he realized…

It hadn’t been floating up. It had been sinking.

He had swam the wrong way.

He whirled around, searching the darkness around him with wild eyes. Lynette had stopped struggling, but her face had glazed over. Her mouth had fallen open, and bubbles escaped from her lips with each passing second. The darkness was so oppressive that it snuffed out even the light of his Vision. Freminet lurched in one direction, only to stop and falter uncertainly in the other.

It was no good. He didn’t know where they were. He didn’t know how far they’d gone.

… They were going to die.

He turned, and as he faced the darkness, Freminet stopped moving. The dark waters that had once terrified him was now a familiar companion, and he let it wrap him in its embrace.

Down here, it was quiet. It was serene.

… But like all peace, it didn’t last.

A burst of flaming light penetrated the darkness, piercing his eyes with such intensity that Freminet flinched away from it. As he lifted his hand over his face, he saw a silhouette swimming through the explosion. Its blonde hair was tinged apricot from the distant flames, and its purple irises blazed with determination in the darkness.

As Lyney swam down to them, Freminet couldn’t move. He stared at the older boy, awed by the unfamiliar expression on his face. It wasn’t crinkled in his usual charismatic smile, but stiff and serious.

Lyney swam around them, wrapping them securely in a long red ribbon. Underwater, his movements were clumsy, and he was rushing so much that air bubbles were rushing past his lips.

A waste of precious resource, Freminet thought. There was no way Lyney could bring both of them back on his own. Now all three of them were going to die. But even so… Freminet found himself feeling a little grateful. Lyney had come for them.

Once they had been properly secured, Lyney turned around and yanked on the ribbon. He was tied to it too, Freminet realized – all three of them were, now. It extended far into the darkness and into the lingering ash beyond.

The ribbon yanked back, hard.

Freminet was so startled that he gasped and took in a mouthful of water. It surged into his throat and he fought to stop himself from coughing, from making it worse.

They flew through the ocean, surging past the heavy water. His ears began to roar from the speed of their ascent, and for a moment, it felt like he was trapped in the roaring river again.

But then they were out.

They burst through the surface of the water, dragged to safety by the long ribbon and the joint effort of their squad mates. As soon as he felt solid gravel beneath his feet, Freminet dropped to his hands and knees and began to cough, gasping and spitting out water. He could hear the others clamoring around him, shouting, adding to the ringing din in his ear.

“Holy Archons! Are you guys alright? Lynette?!”

And then, a burst of watery coughing.

He recognized Lynette’s voice. Relief cut through his own gagging, and Freminet managed to take an actual breath.

He closed his eyes, focusing on getting air back into his lungs. As he was starting to recover his breath, Freminet heard something tumble into the ground next to him, and he opened his eyes warily.

Lyney had sat down beside him. Flipping back his soaked bangs, the boy turned to Freminet and bared his teeth in a half-grimace, half-smile.

“Thanks.”

A strange jolt seized his cheeks. Quickly lowering his head, Freminet tried to hide his face.

“Th… Than… Thanks…” he echoed in a mumble.

Lyney laughed. From the corner of his eye, Freminet caught the boy’s eyes gleaming with mirth. The strange feeling shivering through his face went deeper, to his throat, down to his chest. It started spreading through his body, like the chill of water against his skin, but not quite.

“Ugh, I’m freezing!” Lyney stood up, returning to the crowd with a shout. His teeth chattered obnoxiously loudly, and Freminet couldn’t tell if it was just an act. “Guys, let’s make a fire! Make sure to get Lynette and Freminet warm!”

The others immediately began to disperse and get to work. Thinking that perhaps he was safe from their attention, Freminet sighed and relaxed again in relief – but before he could lift his head, a hand slammed over his back.

He tensed, half of him instinctively wanting to fight back, the other half too exhausted and wet to move.

Grabbing him by the back of his soaked suit, Lyney grinned and hauled him up.

“Come on, gather round with us. No excuses this time, you’re the hero tonight!”

The others had already formed the sturdy basis of a campfire, and it didn’t take much for Lyney to light it up. The flames roared high into the sky before settling down to a steady blaze, and the others gathered thankfully around it. Lynette was still disoriented, and they started fussing over her, covering her with their coats and offering her water.

Dragging him over, Lyney pushed him in with the others. Freminet was flustered by the sudden crowd, but he had been shaken from the ordeal too, and couldn’t bring himself to protest.

“Aw, Freminet! Get over here! Warm up! Have a cookie!”

Someone threw him their coat, nearly squashing him beneath its weight, and someone else shoved a cookie in his face. He grabbed it, only because he didn’t know what else to do. They urged him to take a bite, so he did, though he almost spat it out again when someone slapped him roughly on the back.

“Good job, Freminet! You were really cool, going into the water like that!”

“Eh, what about me?!” Lyney collapsed next to him with an indignant whine. “I went in after them, too!”

The others laughed and scoffed dismissively. “Yeah but the whole thing was your fault in the first place.”

Trapped between their jovial bickering, Freminet nibbled on his cookie and gazed silently into the bright fire. He felt numb, but… it wasn’t the kind of numbness he usually felt. It was softer, and lighter, and it settled into his stomach in a way that felt… soothing.

“… Hehe.”

A pleased chortle slid into his trance. Stirring, Freminet glanced over his shoulder and saw Lyney smiling at him, head tilting in curiosity.

“What’s with that face? Are you feeling okay?”

Was he making a face…?

Freminet couldn’t see his own expression, so he looked down at his hands, instead. He stared at them, flickering from the bright orange flames, and pulled them dazedly into his chest.

“… Warm,” he heard himself mumble.

Yes… that’s what it was. The numbness in his body, it was warm. Not sharp and hot like rage, or cold and piercing like fear. Just soft, and vague, and… warm.

He was warm.

Lyney tossed his head back with a bright laugh. “Haha, well of course!”

The boy smiled at him, and his irises danced with the bright vivacity of the fire, sweeping Freminet with even more of that lovely warmth.

“You’re alive, after all.”

Freminet felt his eyes widen. He stared at Lyney, clarity gradually illuminating his own irises as he absorbed the boy’s lingering voice in amazement.

So to be alive… was also… to feel warm…?

A strange sensation swept over his face, more fervent than the softness in his chest. It bubbled through his nostrils and tugged at his cheeks, making them lift. His lips twitched, ever so slightly, and a puff of air fell from his lips. A small, faint laugh.

Lyney’s eyes turned round in a double-take. The boy stared at him for a moment in disbelief, then leapt to his feet and pointed down at Freminet with a dramatic gasp.

“Ahh!Just now! Just now, did you just smile?!”

Immediately recovering his deadpan, Freminet lowered his head and replied quietly.

“No.”

“You did!” Lyney was all but shrieking now. “You totally did! Guys, Freminet just–!”

And then, as usual, an exasperated cry cut him off.

“Give him a break, he just saved my life!”

Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, Lynette dragged Lyney away. She tossed him into the shadowed sand, then stood threateningly over him with her arms on her hips.

Cowering beneath her in mock terror, Lyney tried to protest.

“Ehh, but I… I helped?! Everyone helped?!”

“You call that helping?! You were the one who accidentally set off that firework early! Forget drowning, I nearly got blasted to smithereens!”

“S-Sorry? I’m really sorry?!”

Just like that, as though nothing out-of-the-ordinary had even happened, they were back to their usual rowdy selves. Lyney and Lynette, captivating everyone with their charismatic act – and their squad mates, goading them on with laughter and joyful cheers.

But for the first time in his life, Freminet was in the center of it all.

Freminet looked down and touched his fingers together, rubbing the cookie crumbs distractedly off of his damp skin. He waited until he thought they were all too distracted to notice him… and then, he let that sensation rise to his face again. That bubbly, almost ticklish warmth.

Muffled beneath the rambunctious noise of his family, Freminet laughed quietly to himself.

The next fall, they graduated.

The squad lined up in the ceremonial hall, standing rigid and upright, deathly silent beneath the ominous steel light of the cold castle.

With merely the snap of a finger, those rowdy teenagers had turned into somber, grim-faced soldiers.

“Congratulations, children.”

Their master, Lady Arlecchino, strode slowly through the room. She carried in her arms a set of folded parchment scrolls, bound and embellished with glittering ice from the Royal Highness herself.

For a child of the House of Hearth, this was the utmost honor.

Lyney received his scroll first. It was difficult to imagine that the solemn-faced young man standing there now was the same person who’d knelt in front of Freminet yesterday, smiling gently up at him.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay. No matter what happens, we’ll protect each other.”

Freminet wanted to look over, to sneak a glance. He wanted to see Lyney’s face – he wanted to know if his indigo irises were gleaming with relief, or with dread. But he didn’t dare.

Freminet didn’t dare to move. He barely dared to breathe. The Lord Harbinger’s presence flared around her postured soldiers like black wildfire, at complete odds with the elegance that she exuded on the outside.

“The Tsaritsa has granted you the privilege of exacting her will.”

The Lord Harbinger spoke in a deep, calm voice as she made her way slowly down the line.

“You shall roam the vast world as her keen gaze, her pure touch, and her clear voice.”

When she stopped in front of him, Freminet gulped. His throat stung as it remembered the sensation of her claws clamped around it.

The crimson crosses in her eyes bore deep into his own. Slowly, she held out the last scroll.

Struggling to muffle his trembling breath, Freminet took it. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, holding his breath as he waited for her to move on.

He felt a shadow fall over him and instinctively flinched, muffling his gasp – but the force that came down on his head was gentle. Familiar… even after all this time.

Her sharp fingers trailed through his smooth hair and down the back of his scalp, then trailed away.

Freminet released his breath with a quiet gasp. The Lord Harbinger’s heels echoed through the crystalline walls as she returned to her seat at the head of the ceremonial hall.

Sitting down, she crossed her legs and gazed down at them. They lowered their heads before her, clutching their scrolls in their hands, lips pressed firmly together in silence.

“Now, open the scroll, and be born anew.”

Her voice, deep and commanding, swept through the hall and through his entire body, filling Freminet with a haunting echo.

“… But do not. Forget. Your mission.”