Work Text:
Dearest Lysandre,
Though I never intend to send this letter, I hope it finds you well nonetheless, wherever you may be.
What do I even say to you? Where do I begin? There is so much to say, yet simultaneously nothing at all. I think you know well what I mean. You always understood me in a way nobody else ever could. You were the brightest man I ever knew. Kind, clever, chivalrous. You dazzled me with your light so I could not see the darkness that hid beneath the surface.
I supposed there is no better place to start than the beginning.
I remember the day I first met you like it was yesterday. How could I ever forget? Even then, you were impossibly bright; it was as if the world were in a grayscale and you were the only thing in color. I don’t think I could have looked away if I wanted to.
When you shook my hand, Gods, I wondered what that hand could do. I lay awake night after night, thinking about that meeting, lusting for the day we might meet again.
I’m getting ahead of myself. You were never one for sappy, emotional details, after all.
Oh, but even so, you always knew just the right words to say to stimulate me, whether intellectually or in… other capacities.
I remember our first date, walking along Rivière Walk. I remember the lupines swaying in the breeze and the way it ruffled the fur of your coat. I remember the flabébé that settled in your hair, tugging at the orange strands as if trying to uproot a flower, and the way I laughed as you plucked it from your hair and found a real flower for it to hold.
That route was my favorite date spot, walking on that path between the contrasting dark blue river and the bright flowerbeds.
It was on that path too when you kissed me for the very first time. It was at the end of summer, and you had knelt beside one of the patches of lupines, examining the wilted flowers. You lamented the fading of beauty, and how you wished things could remain beautiful forever. I told you that you would always be beautiful to me.
You smiled that knowing smile before you held me close.
I should have known better. I was a fool to trust you.
I didn’t believe Diantha when she called you Icarus. I only realized that was exactly who you were when you were already buried in the ground.
They never found your body. They gave up after only a few days. Perhaps they didn’t want you to have a proper funeral.
I think I can understand why.
You have a grave, hidden from the beaten path of the Rivière Walk. Not even your former teammates know where it is. Only those of us foolish enough to have pure memories of you know where to find it.
I planted lupines over where your body would have been. Can you feel them? The flowers sprouting from your skin, the roots curling around your bones?
The lupines, they are irrevocably anchored in you.
It is somehow both suiting and ironic that those very flowers became the symbol of the revolution you caused.
Lupines are known for their ability to thrive in poor soil. They are a symbol of resilience, imagination, and renewal.
The resilience of the people of Kalos, even in the hardest of times. Their ability to imagine a new future. And the renewal of the world from the rubble of the one you destroyed.
Your betrayal nearly tore the region apart. The streets of Lumiose whispered of a coup as infighting brought the League to its knees. Malva barely made it out alive after the nation turned on her, though nobody knows where she is now.
Diantha is trying her hardest to hold the nation together, but between that and raising her child… Your child…
You betrayed Kalos. You betrayed me in more ways than I could count. I tell myself that you never wanted anything to happen to me, but your crimes implicated me in your acts. My naivité is the only defense against my charges.
Some defend me, calling me an idiot of a man who should have known better.
Others call me a terrorist, no better than you for assisting in your schemes.
Even so, I cannot help the feelings that plague me.
Despite everything, I still wish you were here beside me.
But then again, did I ever really know you? Was everything I knew you to be a lie?
Was I so blind as to mistake your foxglove for lupines?
Even if I did, I find myself drunk on your poison.
There are so many things I wish I could have said to you. So many things I would have said, had I been wiser. So many feelings I wish I could ignore.
Part of me wishes you could read this letter. The rest of me knows it would be best for you to never set eyes on it, wherever you are.
You were a bastard, a traitor, a terrorist. You were a greedy, disillusioned rat of a man who could not fathom the good in other people. You were a horrible sinner who deserves to rot in hell for all eternity.
I hate you. I hate everything you did to me, everything you did to Kalos.
I loved you more than you could possibly imagine.
Despite everything, I think I love you still.
I know you don’t deserve me, and I don’t deserve you.
But I cannot deny these feelings, no matter how hard I might try.
There are lupines in my garden, and foxgloves in my tea.
- Augustine