[ he doesn't know what sleep is. when the archbishop catches him and reminds him to rejoin the land of the living he remembers, otherwise he forgets and he moves through the living like a dream. each strange encounter with a person feels like he was talking to a ghost. glenn tells him he can't let his guard down. his father tells him that everyone is always out to kill him. their voices are too loud. everyone gives such complicated advice.
today the skies are cloudy and that is how he knows it'll be an awful day. more than usual. they are making plans, again, to split their forces, the kingdom being so poor, nothing else to be bled dry from this stone, and the archbishop tells him there is salvation at the end of it. feels like the way his father screams it in the flames. he nods and understands.
sylvain was not in any of the maps they've expected him to be. like she was holding him as a card. will he be in arianrhod, is that where she'll lay down her pieces and tell him to yield? he had thought many times of his once-friend, sylvain's easy smile, and rage ripples thru his body like a disease.
he was always a liar.
yes. yes he was. all the women he'd taken to his bedroom, they all fled afterwards, pain on their faces like indelible ink.
and you believed him, you stupid boy.
not quite, he wants to argue, feeling his head heavy again the way his migraines creep into his vision. dimitri pauses where he walks and grips the stone. in my childhood he was -
a thief. stole your friends. stole your smile. you were weak, should've been immune to such easy tricks.
i -
you cannot bring salvation otherwise if one man makes you falter!
he will not. dimitri clenches his fist. breaks the wall where he leaves it, his cloak of blue and ragged fur following him after. he will not, he will not, he will not, i am the king, i have heard your pleas, i will answer your call.
he wants to break something. some thing. the urge to commit violence always palpable in his air, no-one more dangerous when the king stalks through the halls with his matted hair and blue eyes and the way he drags his cloak behind him like a dead body, like multitudes of bodies. the guards fear him. in the dark, the night's watch runs as they talk to each other, spooked, about the king: he is talking to himself. he is counting bodies in the dark. he is naming names.
that night, it'll be noticeable that the guards of the night watch refuse a certain area of fhirdiad. they'll tell anyone that there aren't enough people to man the entire palace, lying baldly to church knights, the fraldarius heir. the king's den, they call it, the halls that run from dimitri's room - barely used save for an opportunity to fall like the dead on his bed - empty of guards if only because dimitri stalks the halls, muttering promises to the dead in the dark: ]
... yes. It will come. It will happen. I will kill her. Stab her in the gut. Break her neck. Grind her spine, bathe in her blood, bash her skull. To hang it on the gates of Enbarr. I swear. And him. Wayward son of Gautier. I do - I will - I understand. But it is not easy -
[Perhaps he should have seen it coming. Sylvain wasn't exactly the best at hiding anything about himself, at least not to Felix. Or perhaps Felix himself had been in denial, or too caught up in the hellscape that was navigating a brutal, seemingly endless war with his father breathing down his neck and...the boar, living up to what Felix had been calling him for years as he loses his grip on reality day by day.
Still, Felix should have seen it coming. Sylvain's philandering was well-known but this much, and to this degree, it had to have been a sign of something. A cry for help, maybe. And Felix did nothing.
What could he have done, really?
He tries not to dwell on answers he may never get and answers that will not change anything. Besides, there are more pressing matters.
The Margrave had learned of his son's defection and promptly disowned him, demanding the Lance of Ruin returned to House Gautier no matter the cost. How swift he made the decree wasn't much of a surprise -- Sylvain isn't the first scion of Gautier to be disowned, after all. It was the cold dismissal of the heir he had once put everything into that made Felix's skin crawl.
Even Rodrigue had found that unsettling. Ironic, considering he had been more than happy to send his eldest son off to die in the name of his future king, then honored his senseless death as something to be celebrated. Felix reminded his father of that last bit as he snatched the Margrave's letter from him and muttered, under his breath, that he'd be the one to tell the boar and for Rodrigue to prepare the remaining soldiers to prepare for Arianrhod.
But now that he's stepped into the halls where the boar stalks through random hours of the day, muttering to himself and snarling at anyone brave enough to approach, Felix wonders if it would be even worth telling Dimitri any of this. Would it make a difference?
Does he even remember Sylvain?
Felix frowns at that last intrusive thought. Of course he should. He better.
Determination renewed, Felix marches further into Dimitri's chambers, the letter crinkling in his fist. He can already hear the madman's mutterings.]
Boar.
[Felix shoves the chamber door open without so much as a knock or pause for decency. They've abandoned decency long ago when they found Dimitri, fresh from eating eats and drinking out of puddles, talking about beheading the Emperor with the same glee as he once did about Zoltan's swords.]
We need to talk. No -- I need to tell you something and you need to listen to me for a change.
as it is with any interruptions, the ghosts fall silent, and resentfully so. he can feel it severely, as if it were an extension of himself, more real than whatever this shell means to anyone or anything at all. he turns to glance at him, barely visible from the mound of fur that he wears around him like a second skin, and dimitri turns his head away in irritation after. there's a sense in him that is angry in being defied: he always does this, he thinks in murderous tones until he can't ... remember why he's thinking of felix (felix? alive, still? no, glenn was the one that is - ) in such terms.
we need to talk. they talk all the time. they talk all the time and dimitri is exhausted, often, and felix more so, weary than he started and angrier than before. and in dimitri's head, crowded of all the things he has to keep track of and more, he finds himself drowning amidst the voices he tries to keep straight: alive from dead. living from non-living. talk about what? all they ever do is talk. all he ever does is listen. (to whom?)
he is still, against the dark walls of fhirdiad. an open-air prison for a wild king. ]
... Speak.
good lord that last post of mine had lots of errors
[Felix's typical approach is to curtly announce himself, say what he wants in blunt terms, and take his leave once he's finished. No matter the audience. His father had given up on scolding him over it years ago after realizing such a thing was futile.
But now that he's stopped here, just a few meters away from where the would-be Tempest King of Faerghus stands, Felix can't help but think that, perhaps, he ought to do things a bit differently.
Although part of him is too weary from years of resentment and war to consider that.
So he holds up the crinkled parchment to draw Dimitri's attention to it. He doesn't hand it over, as they'll need it and he's certain Dimitri will just imagine Edelgard's handwriting (or face) on it and tear it to useless shreds.]
Word from Margrave Gautier.
[The words have barely sunk in before Felix swallows and shifts his weight to his left hip. This is even more difficult than he ever imagined.]
It's about...him.
[Of course it's about Sylvain. The Margrave only ever concerned himself with two things: protecting the land from Sreng and his son. Well, his now-disowned son, anyway.]
The Margrave wants the family Relic returned to him.
[The Lance of Ruin is a pretty fitting name, all things considered. And here Felix thought being the shield was burdensome...]
He doesn't care how, as long as it's back in the hands of an actual Gautier. His words, not mine.
[The last part wasn't embellished despite Felix's bitter tone.]
Scouts and messengers alike have reported seeing Sylvain marching with the Emperor towards Arianrhod, along with the rest of the Imperial Generals.
[Sylvain had been suspiciously absent on the battlefield since he'd defected. Felix wondered if it was a conscientious strategy or if the redhead had fallen back on purpose to avoid encountering them...
He couldn't put his finger on which option. Both were just as likely to be the case.]
[ of course the margrave would make such a demand. and of course it falls onto him, once more, to discipline an unruly knight, perhaps to save the father from the burden of having to kill his son. margrave gautier was not a man known for sentimentality and would never be accused of such a thing, but in that moment, dimitri wonders whether he was truly just thinking of sylvain and begging the king to take the responsibility from him. save him from the trouble of killing his son. he had been spared of having lost anyone in duscur, and now, it seems that fate has turned on the margrave with his wayward son.
what was he supposed to do with him? deliberately in arianrhod, sylvain, who never does anything without intention, lets himself be seen walking with her. walking with a beast. the betrayal doesn't sting anymore. he only remembers his cruel laughter whenever he dismisses his lovers. he must think of the kingdom as one such thing: another spurned lover, same story as before.
dimitri's smile cuts across his face like a knife. ]
We will meet their forces with our own strength.
I will give the Margrave what he is due.
[ cornelia should be able to handle it. cornelia, and ... now is the time to show the shield of faerghus his use, isn't it?
his father at the corner of his eye, agrees with him. a sacrifice for a sacrifice. and with the wayward knight coming back it falls upon his friends to set him to the correct path. to teach him the error of his ways.
]
You will go there and you will kill him.
It shouldn't be hard. [ dimitri scoffs. it sounds like a blade skipping on rough stone. ] Sylvain has never worked hard in his life - only to betray others, which he does exceedingly well.
[ whether a king, or a woman. if dimitri was being honest, he only wish he'd known earlier so he never had to feel like he ought to trust him. dimitri's hands are curled like talons, shaking in his rage. ] Show him no mercy. Break him alongside her. Tear them apart - limb to limb - and then it will only be her. Only Edelgard that needs worrying about -
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
better off dead
today the skies are cloudy and that is how he knows it'll be an awful day. more than usual. they are making plans, again, to split their forces, the kingdom being so poor, nothing else to be bled dry from this stone, and the archbishop tells him there is salvation at the end of it. feels like the way his father screams it in the flames. he nods and understands.
sylvain was not in any of the maps they've expected him to be. like she was holding him as a card. will he be in arianrhod, is that where she'll lay down her pieces and tell him to yield? he had thought many times of his once-friend, sylvain's easy smile, and rage ripples thru his body like a disease.
he was always a liar.
yes. yes he was. all the women he'd taken to his bedroom, they all fled afterwards, pain on their faces like indelible ink.
and you believed him, you stupid boy.
not quite, he wants to argue, feeling his head heavy again the way his migraines creep into his vision. dimitri pauses where he walks and grips the stone. in my childhood he was -
a thief. stole your friends. stole your smile. you were weak, should've been immune to such easy tricks.
i -
you cannot bring salvation otherwise if one man makes you falter!
he will not. dimitri clenches his fist. breaks the wall where he leaves it, his cloak of blue and ragged fur following him after. he will not, he will not, he will not, i am the king, i have heard your pleas, i will answer your call.
he wants to break something. some thing. the urge to commit violence always palpable in his air, no-one more dangerous when the king stalks through the halls with his matted hair and blue eyes and the way he drags his cloak behind him like a dead body, like multitudes of bodies. the guards fear him. in the dark, the night's watch runs as they talk to each other, spooked, about the king: he is talking to himself. he is counting bodies in the dark. he is naming names.
that night, it'll be noticeable that the guards of the night watch refuse a certain area of fhirdiad. they'll tell anyone that there aren't enough people to man the entire palace, lying baldly to church knights, the fraldarius heir. the king's den, they call it, the halls that run from dimitri's room - barely used save for an opportunity to fall like the dead on his bed - empty of guards if only because dimitri stalks the halls, muttering promises to the dead in the dark: ]
... yes. It will come. It will happen. I will kill her. Stab her in the gut. Break her neck. Grind her spine, bathe in her blood, bash her skull. To hang it on the gates of Enbarr. I swear. And him. Wayward son of Gautier. I do - I will - I understand. But it is not easy -
no subject
Still, Felix should have seen it coming. Sylvain's philandering was well-known but this much, and to this degree, it had to have been a sign of something. A cry for help, maybe. And Felix did nothing.
What could he have done, really?
He tries not to dwell on answers he may never get and answers that will not change anything. Besides, there are more pressing matters.
The Margrave had learned of his son's defection and promptly disowned him, demanding the Lance of Ruin returned to House Gautier no matter the cost. How swift he made the decree wasn't much of a surprise -- Sylvain isn't the first scion of Gautier to be disowned, after all. It was the cold dismissal of the heir he had once put everything into that made Felix's skin crawl.
Even Rodrigue had found that unsettling. Ironic, considering he had been more than happy to send his eldest son off to die in the name of his future king, then honored his senseless death as something to be celebrated. Felix reminded his father of that last bit as he snatched the Margrave's letter from him and muttered, under his breath, that he'd be the one to tell the boar and for Rodrigue to prepare the remaining soldiers to prepare for Arianrhod.
But now that he's stepped into the halls where the boar stalks through random hours of the day, muttering to himself and snarling at anyone brave enough to approach, Felix wonders if it would be even worth telling Dimitri any of this. Would it make a difference?
Does he even remember Sylvain?
Felix frowns at that last intrusive thought. Of course he should. He better.
Determination renewed, Felix marches further into Dimitri's chambers, the letter crinkling in his fist. He can already hear the madman's mutterings.]
Boar.
[Felix shoves the chamber door open without so much as a knock or pause for decency. They've abandoned decency long ago when they found Dimitri, fresh from eating eats and drinking out of puddles, talking about beheading the Emperor with the same glee as he once did about Zoltan's swords.]
We need to talk. No -- I need to tell you something and you need to listen to me for a change.
no subject
as it is with any interruptions, the ghosts fall silent, and resentfully so. he can feel it severely, as if it were an extension of himself, more real than whatever this shell means to anyone or anything at all. he turns to glance at him, barely visible from the mound of fur that he wears around him like a second skin, and dimitri turns his head away in irritation after. there's a sense in him that is angry in being defied: he always does this, he thinks in murderous tones until he can't ... remember why he's thinking of felix (felix? alive, still? no, glenn was the one that is - ) in such terms.
we need to talk. they talk all the time. they talk all the time and dimitri is exhausted, often, and felix more so, weary than he started and angrier than before. and in dimitri's head, crowded of all the things he has to keep track of and more, he finds himself drowning amidst the voices he tries to keep straight: alive from dead. living from non-living. talk about what? all they ever do is talk. all he ever does is listen. (to whom?)
he is still, against the dark walls of fhirdiad. an open-air prison for a wild king. ]
... Speak.
good lord that last post of mine had lots of errors
But now that he's stopped here, just a few meters away from where the would-be Tempest King of Faerghus stands, Felix can't help but think that, perhaps, he ought to do things a bit differently.
Although part of him is too weary from years of resentment and war to consider that.
So he holds up the crinkled parchment to draw Dimitri's attention to it. He doesn't hand it over, as they'll need it and he's certain Dimitri will just imagine Edelgard's handwriting (or face) on it and tear it to useless shreds.]
Word from Margrave Gautier.
[The words have barely sunk in before Felix swallows and shifts his weight to his left hip. This is even more difficult than he ever imagined.]
It's about...him.
[Of course it's about Sylvain. The Margrave only ever concerned himself with two things: protecting the land from Sreng and his son. Well, his now-disowned son, anyway.]
The Margrave wants the family Relic returned to him.
[The Lance of Ruin is a pretty fitting name, all things considered. And here Felix thought being the shield was burdensome...]
He doesn't care how, as long as it's back in the hands of an actual Gautier. His words, not mine.
[The last part wasn't embellished despite Felix's bitter tone.]
Scouts and messengers alike have reported seeing Sylvain marching with the Emperor towards Arianrhod, along with the rest of the Imperial Generals.
[Sylvain had been suspiciously absent on the battlefield since he'd defected. Felix wondered if it was a conscientious strategy or if the redhead had fallen back on purpose to avoid encountering them...
He couldn't put his finger on which option. Both were just as likely to be the case.]
...
So, are you going to do anything about it?
don't worry about it!
what was he supposed to do with him? deliberately in arianrhod, sylvain, who never does anything without intention, lets himself be seen walking with her. walking with a beast. the betrayal doesn't sting anymore. he only remembers his cruel laughter whenever he dismisses his lovers. he must think of the kingdom as one such thing: another spurned lover, same story as before.
dimitri's smile cuts across his face like a knife. ]
We will meet their forces with our own strength.
I will give the Margrave what he is due.
[ cornelia should be able to handle it. cornelia, and ... now is the time to show the shield of faerghus his use, isn't it?
his father at the corner of his eye, agrees with him. a sacrifice for a sacrifice. and with the wayward knight coming back it falls upon his friends to set him to the correct path. to teach him the error of his ways.
]You will go there and you will kill him.
It shouldn't be hard. [ dimitri scoffs. it sounds like a blade skipping on rough stone. ] Sylvain has never worked hard in his life - only to betray others, which he does exceedingly well.
[ whether a king, or a woman. if dimitri was being honest, he only wish he'd known earlier so he never had to feel like he ought to trust him. dimitri's hands are curled like talons, shaking in his rage. ] Show him no mercy. Break him alongside her. Tear them apart - limb to limb - and then it will only be her. Only Edelgard that needs worrying about -