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It had been…a lot, to put it lightly. Ineloquent, but that really was the best descriptor he could come up with.
When Alear first crawled her way up and out of that strange well like something lifted straight from a horror story, somewhat haggard and unsettled and requesting assistance, Alcryst worried that she might’ve garnered a concussion. Then he found himself in a Firene both familiar yet extraordinarily different from the one they all knew, ruled by a pair of siblings both familiar yet extraordinarily different from the Alfred and Celine who were just having tea back in the Somniel mere hours earlier. Between the foreboding, orange sky, the cloying scent of dried blood and long-decayed corpses, and the open bloodlust from familiar faces, the battle took its toll both physically and mentally.
Returning to the Somniel helped, but only somewhat. After all, their next destination was to be the Brodia of that world.
He’d worried all night, and why shouldn’t he? Every possibility was terrifying. What if he met himself, and the other Alcryst was just as pathetic, confirming his existence as nothing but a stain across all possible realms? Or what if he was even MORE pathetic in a new, spectacular way he hadn’t even considered? Or what if he was just…dead? And then there was the matter of Diamant, and—
Something stole away his vision. The touch brushing his face was slow, gentle, and smelled slightly of metal. “You’re going to damage your eyes if you stare at the fire without blinking like that,” Alear had chided through the darkness of her hands, light and airy yet weighed down by her own evident exhaustion.
Alcryst’s body sagged. He apologized for waking her, for making her come all the way out there to fetch him, for being unable to sleep himself. Alear insisted it wasn’t a problem as she led him back to bed. Finding out she’d also been having trouble sleeping shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was, but he could accept the solace granted in knowing his worries weren’t as absurd as he feared. After a quiet heart-to-heart behind the protective veil of her bed’s curtain, Alcryst put aside his worry to lull Alear back to sleep, fingers curling around strands of (lightly tangled, he realized) hair as he would a bow’s string.
Before he joined her, the edges of his consciousness growing blurry, he vowed to face whatever awful truth awaited them head on. With Alear, he would be fine.
When he finally stood upon the alternate battlefield and witnessed the Alcryst of this strange alternate world for the first time, however, his jaw nearly hit the bridge.
Amazing! He couldn’t believe his eyes! An Alcryst that was (almost) everything he’d wanted to be! Confident, skilled, maybe even more attractive if he could look past the dark circles rimming his eyes. It was practically a miracle!
Even from afar, he could clearly see the other Alcryst watching them, standing tall and proud in an open show of defiance.
Man. He was so cool. He wished they’d met as allies instead of enemies.
Though it would’ve been pretty weird. Not that this wasn’t already weird enough on its own. And, his brain so helpfully added, if they had become allies, then surely Alear would’ve lamented giving the Pact Ring to him instead of waiting for this clearly superior version to come strolling along, so it was probably for the best that they’re enemies. But, no, wait, that was incredibly selfish—
A javelin narrowly missed embedding itself in his skull, cracking the stone a few feet past him instead, and Alcryst all but leapt out of his skin, jerking to find a veritable hoard of approaching winged reinforcements. He shook his head to clear the bulk of the webbing from his mind and nocked an arrow. Fight first, lambast his many failings later. Thank goodness his opponents were all in the air, at least.
With the reinforcements taken care of, and the next wave a good way off in the distance, he turned back to assess the battle at hand.
That was when it happened.
Too slow to stop anything, all Alcryst could do was watch as his otherworld counterpart drew back his bow.
Parrying a blow from the summoned reflection of Sigurd not far off, Alear pivoted back to give herself more room. A second later, an arrow pierced her thigh. She buckled with a scream. Her hand gripped the wound, sword embedded in a crack in the stone to keep from collapsing entirely, eyes wide and mouth agape with startled, wet gasps.
It all occurred so fast yet so sluggish, his brain drawing out a nightmare and sharpening the finer details into crystal clear focus because it hadn’t been horrifying enough as is; the sneer of disgust directed at Alear from himself was an especially nasty sight. His heart squeezed in his chest as though his fear stopped it cold. He couldn’t get his stupid, worthless muscles to move. He couldn’t get his pathetic lungs to breathe. He thought he screamed Alear’s name, terror causing his voice to pitch and crack, but it was equally likely he just imagined it under the blood roaring in his ears.
Sigurd’s horse reared, poised to strike and take advantage of the opening, but a burst from an Elfire tome sent both horse and rider scattering into a mist of red particles.
He barely even noticed. Nothing else around him existed.
He—Alcryst—had just shot Alear.
Time started moving again for his mental faculties, and he felt something snap.
Or maybe spark was a more apt descriptor, as anger unlike anything he’d felt since Destinea Cathedral lit him up from the inside out in a blaze, narrowing his attention down into a single lethal point solely upon his mirror image. His body moved, actions at once automatic and deliberate as he swapped bows and took a new arrow from his quiver, legs carrying him to crouch behind one of the many spiked barricades dotting along the bridge. Over the sounds of battle around him, over the patter of rain on stone, all he heard was his own slow, controlled breathing. He watched the other Alcryst stroll along the layered panels, peering over to witness—to enjoy the damage he’d caused. Any remaining admiration held went up in smoke.
How dare he. How dare he hurt Alear while wearing his face!
They may have had different personalities, but their bodies were much the same, and from what he’d observed on and off throughout the encounter, so were their techniques. That made him glad, in a sense.
After all, it meant he knew exactly where to aim.
As the other Alcryst raised his bow almost languidly, a predator trying to toy with its prey, he let the arrow fly through a narrow opening in the barricade. It struck the other Alcryst’s wrist as he went to nock an arrow of his own, sending the bow flying from his hand and his counterpart reeling with a howl of pain, a splash of blood. Before Alcryst could fire another and be rid of the scum, the hunter-turned-hunted ducked behind the shield of a bulky armored knight, belting out all manner of obscenities over the din of the rain.
Spying an opportunity, Alcryst risked exposure to the cannoneers to search for Alear, only to find that she’d managed to limp herself right up to the edge; he nearly knocked smack dab into her in his rush around the corner. “Alear!” he exclaimed, dropping his arrow to give her an arm for support and to usher her to the relative safety behind the barricade, where she almost collapsed. Alcryst kept her from toppling, and lowered her gently to the ground.
“Thank you,” she breathed, then hissed in pain, keeping a hand pressed firm around the broken arrow shaft jutting from her thigh. She must’ve snapped it to make moving less cumbersome.
“I-I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I…h-he…” Alcryst stumbled, mouth growing numb and words turning to jelly as his laser-focus waned and his heart began to race, the edges of his vision blurring with a panic-haze.
“It’s okay. Breathe,” Alear soothed, and he mentally kicked himself; she had an arrow in her thigh, blood was soaking her uniform, why in the world was Alear comforting him?! As if predicting his reaction—not that it would’ve been difficult to predict, per se—her free hand rose to cover his, and she smiled, a lopsided yet earnest little thing through the sweat and rain dousing her face.
For her, he managed to take a deep breath. Feeling returned to his jaw. “Right. This isn’t the time. Where’s—”
“Right here.” Pandreo took care to avoid splashing through the puddle as he reached the pair, shoving his Elfire onto the holster at his belt to grab the Mending Staff. “Prince Alcryst, can you cover us?”
Alcryst nodded, and rose to his feet, more than relieved to have some form of direction to pull the rapidly fraying pieces of his nerve back together, even if “cover us” was a pretty broad request. Behind him, he could hear Alear exclaim as the arrow was dislodged. He ignored the urge to look back, stomach roiling.
By now the summoned Roy had clashed with Louis at the side of the bridge opposite them, Gregory heckling with spells from behind the security of a stone pillar. Further in the distance, Zelestia knocked a cannoneer off of their wooden platform bridge. A ways behind Roy, still waffling up on the stairs with the uncomfortably familiar stance of someone trying not to wet himself and pass out, stood Diamant—this world’s Diamant, Alcryst had to mentally correct himself before the shock of the sight could take root and knock him out instead.
After all, there was someone much more important he had to watch for. No sign of him yet, though.
“Thank you, Pandreo,” Alear breathed, sounding far, far more alive than just a few seconds ago.
“No problem, Divine One. Does it still hurt anywhere?”
“Not at all.” Her boots squelched against the stone as she rose and bounced on the balls of her feet. “In fact, I feel great. Or, well, as great as I can in a situation like this.”
“Awesome, because we’ve got more reinforcements right on top of us. Think you can spare a hand before we get pinched?”
That got Alcryst to turn. Ugh, right, he was supposed to be fending them off! Of course he had to go and mess it all up! Before he could attempt to right one of his many, many wrongs though, Alear’s (firm, warm, alive) hand clapped on his shoulder.
Not that her hand mattered when her dazzlingly fierce gaze was what really rooted him to the spot. “We’ll take care of it. Stay here and hold the line as best you can,” she ordered. Then her lip quirked in a ghost of a smirk and her brows raised. “And try not to get too carried away with this world’s Alcryst. I’d like another opportunity to speak with him myself.”
“Sure thing, but uh…” his laugh was only half-nervous, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t make any promises on that last bit.”
“That’s why I said try.” With a very light, affectionate nudge, Alear wasted no more time and took off with Pandreo to intercept the reinforcements.
He allowed himself a few more moments to watch her sprint without a hint of a hobble before he returned to scanning the battlefield, fire lit anew in his veins.
At the first flash of blue hair, Alcryst again took aim, waited, and fired.
It was almost a shame Alear hadn’t wanted them killed. A shot to the thigh would have to be sufficient.
===
Alcryst sighed into his cup, watching his breath create ripples and warp his already muddied reflection further.
Two days since the battle, and he simply couldn't shake the turmoil clogging up his head.
His anger had eclipsed all other emotions until the other world’s Alcryst retreated from the battlefield in disgrace. In its wake, he was left with nothing less than an utter mess. Horror renewed over the state of that world, heartbreak over how thoroughly despondent the other Diamant had been, and then there was the shame. Shame over his own behavior, shame over realizing that he still held a flicker of admiration for the other Alcryst’s confidence. All melding together into a horrible, charred weight, one he didn’t even fully register until he’d slipped back out of the well and saw the blue sky of home. His knees buckled on the pavement.
It clung to him, smothered him. Sharp edges sliced up his ribcage whenever he thought about that awful sneer to the point where even swallowing his sips of tea seemed to hurt, the warmth doing little to soothe the guilt hooking its claws into the pit of his throat. Worse yet, there he was wasting time being sullen while Alear, who arguably needed to rest much more than he did, was off tinkering with the well again.
Unable to protect her, admiring her attacker, and leaving her to do all the work? How much more wretched could he possibly get?
He'd just finished his tea and set the cup aside when someone dropped down onto the café couch next to him, making him flinch ever so slightly. The following sigh told him who it was without needing to see, however, and his entire body relaxed, even taking the liberty to lean back and sink into the fabric a little as he turned to look at Alear. His heart fluttered weakly against the weight when she stretched her arms over her head and her face scrunched up.
“H-hey,” he tripped over the greeting, scoffed internally, and wrangled his stupid mouth to properly ask, “how are you feeling?”
Alear finished her stretch with the cutest little huff and smiled at him. “Better, now that I think I've gotten the hang of how the well works.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“If the bucket's in the well, it acts like an anchor of sorts and slows down the passage of time. If it's up, then things just speed along.” She demonstrated with a single finger as she rattled on, gesturing about in the air like she was drawing a picture. “Or, well, like I said, I think that's how it works. We'll just have to find out when we resume traveling tomorrow.”
Alcryst nodded, but his gaze dropped. “And…your leg is doing fine?”
Alear blinked. “Hm? Oh, it's just peachy.” She gave her thigh a firm thump right where the arrow had pierced skin. Not even a flinch.
“Good!” Alcryst tried to smile. ‘Tried’ being the keyword. It came out lopsided and forced and, ugh, he must’ve looked awful. “That's…that's good.”
And of course, Alear had to pick up on it, as her voice softened the tiniest bit. “What about you?”
“Me? Oh. Well. You know.” He shrugged, considered whether such a minor, inconsequential thing as his well-being was worth confiding in her and ruining her chipper mood, and his mouth made the choice for him. “I'm still a little shaken up, I think.”
“Alcryst…” That warm hand found his shoulder again. “It's natural to be uncomfortable. I’m…not sure what to think of this whole mess myself. Vander told me it’s something we’ll probably have to take our time with.”
“I know, just…” Now his own hand moved to touch Alear's knuckles. But the urge to fidget grew overpowering, tingling his skin, and his hand abandoned Alear’s to scrub at his face and run up into his bangs. The hair clip caught on his fingers. “I can’t stand that I shot you. I'm so sorry.”
Alear shook her head. “You didn't shoot me. An Alcryst shot me, yes, but that he wasn’t you.”
“Then I hate that someone who looks like me shot you.”
That one was a little harder, given her silence. Not that he really expected her to absolve him of his sins, no matter how much she insisted on trying, or that he didn't appreciate her effort in doing so.
Then his mouth, already an open dam, added, “It makes me feel like a bad person. I'm already worthless refuse compared to everyone else, but knowing that there's a me out there capable of maliciously hurting you—AND Diamant, apparently, I…” And of course, that was when his brain decided to clam up, throat growing dry enough to turn words to dust on his tongue. He dropped his head into his hands.
Oh, how utterly pathetic.
“First of all,” Alear began, soft and soothing and just the slightest bit chiding, “you’re not worthless refuse. No matter how many times you say it, I’ll keep reminding you otherwise. And second…” she hummed, pausing, weighing how to word her thoughts. “The other you and Diamant there were complete opposites to the both of you here. You saw it yourself,” she said eventually.
Lifting his head to look, all Alcryst could do was nod. Witnessing Diamant all but cower and meekly accuse him of plotting assassination sure was…something, alright. Both baffling and viscerally unsettling. Having gone on to shoot at him anyway really did not help matters. He swallowed the thought back down, body shivering.
Alear's thumb began to rub circles into the muscle of his shoulder as she continued, “When that other Alcryst glared at me like that, talked to me like that, it was…well, it was certainly off putting, for one, but it also emphasized how much of a good person you are in turn.”
“How…how does that…?”
“To put it bluntly, if you're opposites, and he's a jerk, then that means you’re entirely sincere in being a total sweetheart.”
Alcryst sat there and stared, and stared, and stared, and then rather than drop his head again his hands came up to cover his face with a strangled noise of embarrassment.
“Alcryst,” Alear huffed, fond. Her hand moved to his back, and his ears grew hot when she scooted closer, leg pressing against his.
“You're just teasing me now,” he accused, weak and papery.
“I'm not! I'm being serious. Though I could tease you if you wanted. Affectionately, of course.”
“Aaa…”
Alear dropped her head against Alcryst’s shoulder, her hair tickling his very pink ear. “I'm just trying to tell you that you're a kind and gallant person, who always goes out of his way to protect his loved ones, and no amount of otherworldly doppelgangers will ever change that.”
A beat, and Alcryst peered out from over his fingers to look at her, nearly struck dumb. “G-gallant?”
“Mhm.”
“You think I’m gallant?”
“How could I not? Especially when you do things like practically leap out from behind cover to help me.”
“You were injured, I couldn’t just leave you there…”
“That’s what makes you gallant!” she chirped, triumphant.
He was going to pop. He was going to wink out of existence when the fluttering in his stomach and chest and head grew too full, and the last thing he’d ever hear was that little sing-song cadence in her voice whenever she was certain she’d made her point. “Divine One,” Alcryst all but whined, the squeaky warning of a balloon growing too full of air.
“Alear.”
“Huh?”
“Call me Alear, like you did back on the bridge.”
“Oh…right, I did, didn't I? I, um,” he sighed, deflating all at once as the butterflies left on his breath, and his hands dropped back into his lap, eyes following them “I'm sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize over. In fact, I prefer it when things are casual.”
He leaned away just enough to shake his head without accidentally bumping her, and tried to not seem too disappointed when she sat up properly again. “No, I mean you've been asking people to use your name for a long time. Since we've met, actually. It's a hard habit to break, but it's something I should be putting more effort into, especially since you've given me the Pact Ring.”
“You remember stuff like that?” She could hardly keep the surprise from her voice.
Alcryst nodded. “Of course I do. Which is why it's especially inexcusable that I keep falling back into old habits.”
The noise Alear made prompted him to look, somewhere between a cough and a snicker. Her wide smile told him it was something closer to the latter. “And that right there is just further proof that you're your own, sweet, gallant, thoughtful person!”
“Alear!” Alcryst squealed when her finger booped him in the cheek, the fluttering feeling back so suddenly that, without any warning, laughter began to bubble up and out of him when she continued to lightly prod. His body instinctively curled in on itself to defend against the onslaught, but he remained helpless before the fearsome Divine Dragon and her affectionate cheek poking. A weakness he didn’t mind one bit.
Once she’d had her fill, the finger became a hand cupping his cheek, thumb rubbing as if she were trying to be rid of an invisible mark left by such a ferocious attack. “How’re you feeling now?” she asked.
Alcryst breathed one final, huge breath as his laughter subsided, and took a moment to sit and let it all simmer. The weight in his chest remained, but the levity had dulled those sharp edges, no longer scratching his throat when he swallowed. “Better, I think,” he murmured, nodding as his confidence in the assessment grew. “Not great, probably not for a while, but…better.”
“I’m happy to provide what help I can.” Alear tilted her head closer.
Smiling, Alcryst leaned in, pressing his temple against her. “Thank you. I really appreciate it, and…I’m so glad you’re safe.”