Work Text:
That summer rolls through consciousness like an ingot of thunder and light, rumbles with the voices of hawks, the clang of weapons, the clatter of hooves and the groans of opponents; shines with the summer sun, its reflections on the tips of swords, on the relief of the lathered bodies of horses and on your own hair; is motley with diverse bodies; flares up like a candle flame, and like an almost forgotten, nameless feeling in the chest, arising from the memory of the strong body, to which that similar trembling flame of the campfire gave a copper coating and deepened its reliefs, and the searching gaze of that man, that only man, who...
Your eyelids open calmly, your chambers are flooded with light, you hear the hum of the streets below. You see the solemn white robe of your country as if in reality, as if you sense the people's unwavering awe. The very sight of Falconia inspires triumph in them.
This is probably how the boy from the crooked, filthy alleys imagined the kingdom.
When thinking about the triumph, almost forgotten fragments of memories emerge in your memory, as if torn from someone else's life - the triumph of hawks. Not yours— your hawks stand in formation in solemn respect for you, or triumph, feasting among the steaming entrails, no,, no, these are the hawks who patted you on the shoulder and rubbed your helmet for good luck, started a lousy howl in honor of victory on the battlefield and continued in camp, stopping only to drink to this victory, to past ones, to future ones and "to our Griff!" and, sometimes, to Captains Guts and Casca.
You feel like something deeply ancient and ingrained in the world, but these events of several years ago seem even older.
There's a ghost of something in your chest, of something that you seem to have never experienced, like ghost of someone else's longing and joy.
You don't dream like the rest of people— your brain doesn't immerse itself in uncontrollable abstract wanderings.
It's strange, from what depths this vision of the long-gone past has risen. You yourself, it seems, have never experienced it.
You blink.
Those feelings, never existing for you, are still lingering in your chest. The country outside your windows is full of people and non-people, waiting for you to lead them.
About this you don't feel anything more than this ghost of feelings of a dead person in your chest.