Chapter Text
Love is bullshit. Sylvain had known that for as long as he could remember. Your family is supposed to love you. Except his didn’t. His mother maybe loved him, but not in any way that mattered. His father loved what he could provide them. And his brother…loved to make his life a living hell.
Marry someone you love. In Faerghus? Sylvain would count himself lucky if he didn’t hate the woman his father picked for him. His friends were in the same boat. Ingrid was promised to someone the day she was born and even if she did like Glenn, they all knew how that ended.
Love was something that could only exist in art. In paintings filled with lovers’ embraces. In operas with dramatic arias declaring one’s feelings. In novels filled to the brim with daring adventure and bold poetry. Maybe that was why he was such an art lover. He envied that the people in art were happier than he would ever be.
By the time Sylvain arrived at Garreg Mach, he’d long since decided that the only “love” he had was getting back at the world in any way he could. He could never escape it all. He would have if he thought he could. So it was the little rebellions. Sleeping around, breaking hearts. Did that make him a horrible person? Maybe. But since no one would ever actually love him, it didn’t matter, right?
Well…except for his friends. But even that had changed. Ever since Duscur, everything was different.
Ingrid understood she was now a pawn for a political marriage, her hopes of knighthood merely a mask for her loneliness and grief. But she cared about him in her own way, always brutally honest when it counted. Though she seemed to be growing distant, sick of his behavior. She didn’t get it.
Dimitri was no longer the carefree young boy he was. He was shockingly ok for what he’d been through…but he was distant too. He probably still cared, but even his calm exterior couldn’t mask his disappointment in Sylvain. He didn’t get it either.
And then there was Felix.
Out of all of them, he’d changed the most. Gone were the days of the sensitive soul always searching for comfort. Now he was…a shell of himself. Sylvain knew that, somewhere, buried deep inside, the Felix he knew was still there. Sylvain missed that Felix. He didn’t like this new one. And there was so much bitterness. Hatred for his father. Hatred for Dimitri. Hatred for Ingrid’s ideals. Hatred for…everything about Sylvain now.
Ok, maybe that one hurt. Sure, Ingrid’s chiding and Dimitri’s disappointed stares hurt too, but somehow this was different. It made him want to do better. So he tried. He really tried.
When Professor Byleth approached him about assisting on the Black Eagles’ mission for the month, he didn’t shrug it off. He took it seriously. And he must’ve made a decent impression since the next month, he was invited back for another mission.
But the timing could not have been less than ideal.