[He, of course, politely scoots over a bit to make room for Felix, and then scoots back in once Felix gets settled because it's not like he's trying to be inhospitable. Just making enough space for his friend, the lone wolf, and once Felix claims a Felix-sized space? Scooting right back in.]
Yeah, Ferdinand used to drive me nuts but he's actually surprisingly decent? [He'll never be besties with him, but-] Once you get past the entire nobility thing. Hey, you think if my mother moved back to Adrestia and took me with her, I would've ended up more like him, or...?
[Horrors. What a horror story.
They should probably circle back to the blood and the Ingrid thing, but nah.]
[A faint hum of agreement comes at Sylvain's assessment. He'd originally dismissed the heir of Aegir as nothing- avoided him and his boasting of political office and status- thinking that such loud, aggressive assertment of one's nobility and what it meant was merely dressing, intended to cover personal weakness.
Felix had been pleasantly surprised, though. He was loud, yes, but he wasn't weak. He hadn't expected him to hit quite so hard. Nor to put up much of a fight. But he had. And for Felix, that was all that was needed.
However. Here they hide the righteous fury of a lady far more chivalrous then they- but one that hits just as hard as any affronted soon-to-be prime minister of whatever. felix folds his arms around himself as he settles in; unable to hide a faint scoff at what Sylvain says.]
You say that like it was an option.
[It's not explictly said. Of course not- but he knows. Just as well as Sylvain does. He's not a person. He's property. ...Or more accurately, currency. His life could be spent in multiple ways by the Margrave. Used in war. Used in transaction via marriage. Even pissed away on the border with Sreng. Either way, the Margrave held the rights to him.
Any whisper, any, of such valuable currency being taken to the empire would've resulted in blood, thunder... perhaps even the loss of said mother.
Anyway.]
...Fine. We've time to kill, so I'll entertain it. You'd be soft. You'd shiver at the cold, your horsemanship would be lackluster, and you'd be spoiled.
[Like either of them aren't spoiled, but...]
Perhaps you'd even be pathetic.
me being like 'i should use the icon that has the face he uses when being insufferable'
[Felix scoffs; Sylvain grins. Of course it's not an option, of course he'd be bred to a woman of an impeccable bloodline and have her shit out heirs until one came with a coveted Crest. Of course the only thing keeping him from being a part of a large family was the fact his parents didn't get along enough to make that possible. It's a miracle that he managed to be born in the first place. It's a business transaction.
But Felix knew that and there's no reason to not spoil the mood, and the only thing that saved Felix from being playfully nudged (and the only thing that kept Sylvain from being beaten to a pulp) was the fact Felix agreed to play along.]
Of course I'd be pathetic. [He shouldn't be so cheerful while saying it.] I'd have grown up with seasons, as in four, and spices. I'd probably swing an axe and you'd hate me so much, Felix. I'd be even more insufferable than I already am.
[...okay, Felix gets a little playful nudge. Just a little. A small nudge.]
[Oh, he's playing along now. But only for a while- of course. He so hated levity. But just for a while. Just to indulge him.
...And only because the alternative, of acknowledging the absolutely fucked arrangements they both sprang from is absolutely awful. Much less their own mental damage by not discussing it before now. ]
Four seasons? That's a fairytale and you know it. It's a story they tell- as well as stories of uncultured, brutish northmen who don't have a single opera house in the whole of Faerghus.
[Alright. Alright. That's enough joking around. He's irritating himself. He jabs at Sylvain's chest with a pointed finger.]
[He'd laugh, but Ingrid's on the warpath, and he knows better to make loud noises when they'll be stalking their way towards their rooms very shortly. But Felix earns himself a stupid, toothy grin, because-]
Stop making eye contact with 'em, Felix.
[Wink! And...okay okay, Sylvain's holding up the shirt. He's testing the shirt, how dried the blood is- grimacing at the feel of it.]
Couple more minutes and I'll put it on.
[The nippling shall continue until the blood is deemed sufficiently dried or until Felix Felixes a little bit harder.]
How many people saw you? [No.] What did you do to Ferdinand, anyway? Besides. You know, attack him.
You're as round as a plank of wood, you couldn't bulk even if you tried- but it's a good thing. Your bone structure would make you look ridiculous as a fat person.
[What a greeting, as the stonefaced professor walks into the room. It's just them, so Felix could say what he wanted. Since Dimitri's... return to form(?), Felix has seen very little of Byleth. Likely making up for lost time- as well as bringing Dimitri up to speed on the ins and outs of the army, because he hadn't cared less for so very long.
But the blame isn't all Byleth's. Felix had been busy too. Mainly with going through Rodrigue's effects, writing letters to his mother and Matthias Gautier with the news of his death and where on Imperial territory his body had been buried (obviously, burial in his beloved Faerghus, let alone beside his beloved king was not anything remotely possible)- and...
well. Something he never thought he'd wind up doing. Putting things in motion to his very surprised distant family, his intention to inherit Fraldarius.
Inheritance wasn't strictly decided on the concept of agnatic primogeniture. It helped, yes. But it was granted to the most suited of all of House Fraldarius' patriarchs- from multiple branches of the family. Felix had a good claim, being the sole remaining descendant of the past head of the family. The Crest- it being major and no others having a major Crest, just some minors dotted about here and there- helped too. As well as his mother- who had signalled her assent for his claim.
But still, there was surprise when he'd declared his intention. He'd never been interested before now. Arrangements- such as Felix's uncle and a handful of others- had been made. There was talk of even Matthias Gautier being a guardian, of sorts, over the Dukedom until a proper heir could be created, indoctrinated, and matured enough to have the strength to make a claim.
So yes. It was... quite a lot that kept Felix busy, too. He'd needed the training hall himself to swing a sword, and focus his thoughts. Speaking of. He slides the wooden sword he'd been performing drills with away into a holder alongside so many others just like it, and walks forward to meet Byleth.]
[He turns as Sylvain holds up his (not his) shirt- only turning back around, with an overdramatic sigh of irritation, as the other decides to give it a while longer.
...It's just blood, in Felix's mind. And on campaign, he'd seen Sylvain and his horse covered head to toe in it. But to answer...]
Caspar. I'm glad it was him. He'll think me a villain that needs to be taken down a peg or two. [Small stature or not, he knew his way around an axe. That's another unwitting training partner.] And Lorenz. And Raphael. [He's more excited about Raphael than Lorenz. That'll be good for brawling practise, provided both Felix is quick enough to avoid, and Raphael is too slow to land a hit.
But the other question...]
It was easy. I told him [A lie.] that I beat Edelgard in the last tournament. That I thought doing that made me stronger than any of the Black Eagles class. I wanted him to think that challenging me- and beating me- would make him stronger than her.
[Felix, unlike Sylvain, was no mastermind. He was sharp when he tried, granted. Like in war councils where he proposed (surprisingly inspired) stratagems just to make the discussions end quicker. But people. Psychology. Not that great. It'd only been Ferdinand's obviousness about Edelgard that tipped him off.]
The only thing he didn't agree to was losing. And being half-stripped when he lost.
[No response comes, but the message is marked as read. And soon enough, Felix's footsteps echo in the cathedral. It's a sad thing to see- this dark place with no other light but the moon- poking in through the destroyed ceiling. They both remember when it was lit with the warm, flickering light of hundreds, if not thousands of candles. It's a sad thing to hear too, his steps. Once they would be unheard over the fuzz of countless whispered conversations among the faithful filling the silent parts of so many sung hymns for the Goddess and her glory.
And then there's the Goddess herself. Or the depiction. The statue that stood proudly, almost forebodingly, above the altar is decimated. Against the Empire's might, even the divine is reduced to a pile of so many stones, so many useless, unremarkable pebbles.
For a small mercy, however, there's no mad king tonight, arguing with each and every stone- having long, rambling, sad conversations with the voices in his head disguised as ghosts. Sylvain, Ashe, and Byleth had somehow dragged him away from the cathedral to a tub filled with water- and were likely scrubbing away the filth that clung to him as he ranted, raved, lashed at them, and promised them that he would have their heads- as well as that woman's.
Instead, there's only Cyril. Brush and broom in hand, no doubt giving himself an anurism at how exactly all of this could be put back together.
It's... not a good way, that any of them are in. But then there's Mercedes. She suffers. Just as keenly as any of them- if not more given her nature and the decision to focus on the Empire, and not Rhea. Yet she never, ever dwells. She never broods. She never laments. Instead, she makes herself only useful- cheerful enough to lift the lowest of spirits. Insightful enough to lift a soul, should she so wish. Being around her is being wrapped in a shroud of so much care. So much affection. So much light.
Light none of them deserve. Yet they are granted it regardless. Even as she's on her hands and knees scrubbing like a servant at one of the scuffed, dust-entrenched pews. Felix leans against it, his arms crossed around himself.]
...You know that the Goddess won't see that dirt from on high. It's beneath her.
[He's got no whim, no desire, to go into the theological with a woman that could have made bishop thrice over. While he personally had belief (Unconventional or not, he was a noble...) that was the extent of his goddessliness. He'd be schooled with any discussion- serious or not.
But maybe it's a coded request. An ask to not work quite so hard.]
[ Byleth walks in, and he's promptly accosted by the remarks on his roundness —
— and he laughs.
It's rare for the professor to laugh outright, even now. He smiles much more often these days — he's been more expressive ever since his hair and eye color first changed over five years ago — but actual laughter is rare, coming from Byleth.
He just hasn't really had much to laugh about nowadays, despite the circumstances. There's been a lot of change. Some of these changes have been good, but most of them have been sort of bad. He liked Rodrigue, as a man if not as Felix's father, and Rodrigue's death was a tragedy that reminded Byleth, too bitterly, of losing Jeralt — yet watching another father die before his eyes seems to have been the one thing that Dimitri actually needed to pull himself together.
(It is possible that Byleth doesn't give himself enough credit. Rodrigue's death in and of itself was not what Dimitri needed so much as the conversation they had afterward, the desperate heat of it, Byleth's warm hand in the pouring rain. The night they spent together, taking Dimitri apart to put him back together again. Byleth, doing everything he could to make Dimitri feel less like a beast and more like a man. )
Dimitri seems ready to be a king now, but it's slow going, even with Byleth's help. There's been too much to arrange: the trip back to Faerghus, plans to reclaim Fhirdiad, fresh strategies, new steps. This is a different kind of campaign than any of the others they've initiated previously. They need more than military might, this time, though the military might is important; they need a propaganda arm of their own. They need to circulate news of the rightful king's return to the people of Fhirdiad, which means they need messengers and criers and artists and printmakers, and all sorts of other personnel which they have not previously had to mobilize.
And Byleth is exhausted. He loves his students, but he's also not a professor anymore, not exactly, and the emotional exchange between all of them is different now. On a private and personal level, it bothers him that he and Dimitri have spoken exclusively as king and advisor for a few weeks now. They have not really had time to be lovers. They have actually not been intimate at all since the night after Rodrigue died, which at this point does feel a bit strange, and sometimes, in his heart of hearts, Byleth does quietly wonder if this isn't how their romance ends.
What if. He doesn't want to put it into words. What if. Maybe Dimitri regrets it now; it's hard to tell from his face because he hasn't quite been looking into Byleth's eyes. The tales of kings and their trusted advisors never end in marriage, and Byleth has long been aware that he was only ever a common mercenary, in the end. There is no page in the history of Fódlan that ends with a king marrying his teacher. There is no space in the biography of a king for him to take his professor as his lover. There are expectations. There is lineage. There are Crests. Perhaps he has already given the matter some thought, and is thinking now of the queen he will have to take at the end of this war.
What if, what if, what if.
It isn't that he doesn't trust Dimitri. It's just that Byleth has always realized that he has only ever been a tool to be used.
...Of course, this problem pales in comparison to some of the others they are facing. Of everyone, the person with the most reason to be sad and angry right now is Felix. His father is dead. His father is dead. And yet, of everyone, he almost seems to be the person taking it the best. Which, Byleth knows, is not a sign that he isn't mourning. But he thinks that there is almost a great irony to it — the way that Rodrigue, perhaps, was guilty of moving on too quickly from Glenn's unjust death. Perhaps Felix is the same way, moving on just as swiftly from Rodrigue's death. And it is not that any of the Fraldarius men did not love each other, Byleth knows that deeply to his core; most probably, of everyone in the world, Felix knew best that his father would someday die for Dimitri in service to Lambert, and in that regard, this whole thing has not been a surprise to him.
But still. There is an irony to it. Not for the first time, Byleth thinks to himself that Felix is actually very much like his father in many ways.
Anyway. To the present. He does not rest his head on Felix's shoulder, given that they are both standing, but the professor claps one hand on Felix's shoulder, in the friendly way between brothers on the field of battle. ]
Is that so...? To be honest, I've never thought much about my bone structure.
[ A light squeeze, and then Byleth lets his hand drop. ]
I really only ever thought about it in relation to yours.
[Okay, now he's putting on the shirt. Because yeah, at the end of it, he's dealt with worse. And also because while he's willing to have his nips out for the bit, there's a point in which they've overstayed their welcome. And also there's that sigh of irritation. He knows that sigh of irritation.
And also because there's more important things to deal with which are-]
Sorry about Lorenz. [Obviously. Everyone else, fine, but him? Felix would get a lecture with his duel. And, also-] Maybe the Imperial princess'll go after you next and avenge her honor that way. [Or him, but he can('t) seduce his way out of that!] I don't know if I'm envious or worried for you.
[Felix's grief for his father was different, yes. He was uncharacteristically muted over it. At first, he'd thought maybe it hadn't hit because he'd closed himself off to his father long ago. That he contained only so many emotions. That his anger, his upset, at Rodrigue's affront all those years ago and the resentment he had carried had burned through the extent of anything he could possibly feel for that man, so even his death couldn't evoke a single tear- like drawing water from an empty well.
But as shock had left him, it'd turned out to be something else entirely. Grief had come. It was terrible. Soulcrushing. But Felix knew that the routine (the emotions.) he'd displayed as a teenager wasn't anything fit for a grown man. Least of all one with a part to play in a bloody civil war happening all around him.
So he chose to avoid that grief. He buried himself in piles upon piles of papers, and what Rodrigue had left him. A pile of curated weapons, yes. Rare, interesting weapons he intended to give him over a great many years- that he knew he would love. But beyond that, books. Valuable books on how to lead. How to be a just and a fair ruler (but also a successful one- a point that hadn't entered Felix's thinking), and how to best support the crown despite the crown's issues. Blunt, practical lessons that Rodrigue had tried to teach him in the past. Lessons that hadn't sunk in simply because they came from his lips.
Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius had known that he would never reconnect with his remaining son. That there would be no magical moment where Felix would see the world through his eyes- or one that would miraculously grant him an understanding of Felix.
It simply wasn't ever going to happen. Yet still, he wished to support him.
Hence these books. Lessons passed from father to son, without the presence of the father. They must have taken him years. And for all that effort, Felix had thought that he should at least give them a read. As he had read, his opinion hadn't changed. But he'd wondered if perhaps his grief could serve him instead of cripple him, as Dimitri himself had used it (thanks to Byleth's coaching) to improve himself.
Maybe. Either way, it was a personal thing. Extremely personal. No one- not even those closest to him- would know it. Should Byleth have asked Sylvain about it, even he would have barely anything to tell. For the whole of this month, Felix tended to stay within his room penning letters and reading those books. He didn't want company- was so boring when company (Sylvain) insisted on staying, and on the rare times he ventured out of his room- it was to the third floor of the monastery. And there, he insisted on being alone. He'd half shoved company (Sylvain) down the stairs to get rid of him that time.
And he'd probably cried. Or screamed, or prayed, or contemplated jumping- whatever. Sylvain didn't know what he did up there, all alone. Given Sylvain being Sylvain, he'd have complained. Because simply put, Sylvain and Byleth were both quite... bereft at present. But that was the way of things. For both Dimitri and Felix, there was much to do. And what was to be done was exhausting. Grief itself, even when focused into productive matters, was exhausting.
Still. The noodles. Byleth, think of the noodles- yet fortunately, they remain intact, likely packaged to take away from the dining hall and balanced one atop the other within the professor's other hand. They're safe. They're intact. And Byleth just laughed.
Sure. Felix had heard polite little chuckles. Half-forced sounds of amusement, even once- a brief gasp for air and stifled exhales from behind a sleeve once- when Dedue had simply looked at a horse and promptly fell over sideways. Off his own feet. Not even trying to mount the warhorse he beheld. About 10 paces away from it. He'd seen the tears at the corner of the professor's eyes as he coughed, trying to maintain cool dignity and professional kindness as both Annette and Mercedes rushed to help the poor boy up and Flayn simply stared- utterly and completely bewildered, her face the very picture of incredulousness.
But this- an actual, hearty laugh? ...Well. It's a first. He likes it. But still, out of habit- he walks away from the squeeze to a rickety, battered table just off the dirt square of the training area- two chairs scraping across the stone floor to seat them both. As for what he says:]
Hm? Why mine? We've never been the same way. I used to be far more frail than you.
[As a teenager, he was never vertically challenged. Not like say, Caspar. In his build though, far better avoiding hits than taking them. Now, still very much the same way.]
[He'd get a lecture with his duel. Also, given Lorenz being... Lorenz, a lifelong enemy that inflicts massive psychic damage just by proximity. But also.]
...Hm.
[Edelgard taking it upon herself to avenge the honour of her House. ...And poor Ferdinand. Possible. But again, he's no mastermind. But perhaps that would spur Ferdinand to avenge... himself? After Edelgard had avenged him?
In a sort of do-over? For the sake of not losing face? Of undoing her vengence, and declaring his vengence absolute, making himself officially stronger than her? Maybe?
...Imperials are so strange.]
She can come. So can he. The whole house can challenge me if they want- I'll take them all down. Either way, I won't be short on training partners.
[The only thing that scares him, a little, is Hubert and his magic. But. Sylvain finally changed, he turns back around. ...Then he sees the extent of what he'd done to Ferdinand.
...He's probably being carted off to Manuela as they speak. He peeks around the corner of their hiding place- unsure.]
...How long is the longest she's [Ingrid's...] ever searched for you after you've done something?
[ No... don't remind him of the "Dedue looked at a horse" incident... he's going to laugh again... ]
You are, but I expected that you would be.
[ Byleth does not protest the "contest" Felix has implicitly set up here. Serenely, Byleth sets his bundle of noodles on the battered table. They're still piping hot, the spicy soup freshly ladled from its pot in the monastery kitchens, and even if they weren't, Byleth is just as good a mage as he is a healer. Unlike Annette in her wayward youth, he doesn't cause unwanted explosions and never has; he has excellent temperature control. Big hungry dragon needed to invent the microwave for maximum eating comfort.
As he opens the parcel and sets about decanting the soup from its spill-proof container into more traditional bowls, Byleth — in a surprisingly conversational mood perhaps — continues at length: ]
One of the first serious things Manuela told me — [ besides all the unserious attempts to flirt with him, obviously ] — was that I had an unusually good... how did she phrase it? An "unusually good understanding of anatomy." Maybe it's because of all the fighting I did over the years...
But I thought a lot about the physical builds of all the Blue Lions, back when I first came on, and I was deciding how to train all of you. I went to her to ask her opinion as a physician, too.
I was pretty sure that you, Sylvain, and Dedue had finished growing. Ashe, I thought, might grow a little more, so I felt confident training him for longbows and not shortbows. We disagreed on Dimitri... Manuela thought he was finished, given his age and build, but I thought he had the potential to be a larger man still.
[ He lays out their silverware beside the bowls, then slowly takes a seat. ]
I never mentioned this to any of you, obviously, since I wasn't very good at talking about these things, back then. I assumed there would be a discomfort to it... as if I were evaluating you all like cattle. And in a way, I suppose I was.
But — of all the Lions, you have the nearest build to mine and the same affinity for swords. You were more thin, yes, and more fragile at the time. But I thought you'd wind up with more muscle than me in the end, as long as we could feed you things that you actually liked.
[ He turns his wrist so that his palm faces upward, and then taps the gauntlet covering it twice with his other hand. ]
It's your bones. They're bigger than mine. You've never seen me without my vambraces, have you? I have terribly small wrists.
[ ...He is always covered. It's been so many years since that day with the cats, so many years ago, and still, Felix probably can't say he's seen much more of Byleth's bare body than his neck. ]
[Some events in history needed operas. Dedue, now Not Dead and Therefore Perfectly Okay To Torment, needed that opera. Or at least a ballad crafted in the honour of that priceless, beautiful, singular moment he'd looked into that horse's eyes and been, for once, not The Vaguely Intimidating Man From Duscar. Instead, a fainting goat.
When Byleth begins to assemble the food, Felix seats himself at said table, putting an elbow on it and watching him work with his chin in his palm. ...He liked watching him do menial tasks. It's a strange thing, really. The same way he enjoyed Annette's singing- the feeling, in general, of being sung to. It's... care. It's attention, yes. But it's also affection.
He doubted he'd ever said it to Byleth. Neither when he was his teacher back then, nor now, when he was a close friend. But Felix was grateful for that care. That affection. Deeply so.
...Saying that, he can't help but scoff when Byleth explains his reservations about telling them his plans for them. And when he likens the act to comparing them like cattle. Ashe might have been dismayed to hear it, yes. But the nobles...
...They'd been sized up and evaluated their entire lives. Some of them had even been traded like any prize bovine between farmers at a county fair. Simple observations, practical ones, by people motivated to train them into officers and cared enough to do a good job of it wasn't anything untoward. But Byleth hadn't known that then. Not really. He was as any commoner. Far too motivated (for good reason. It was a task unto itself) in staying alive than the habits of the high and mighty, the hoity or the toity.
Even when he'd found out about all of them, each skeleton in each closet, he hadn't ran away. He hadn't simply remained either. He'd advised. He'd helped. He'd taken each of their problems unto himself. ...And again, he's grateful. Highly so.]
You guessed right about him. And all of us, actually. But him... [Dimitri. Note the pronoun, Byleth! It's shaky. But the king is not an It. This time. No promises for the future.] ...You should have seen his father. King Lambert made Areadbhar look like a javelin.
[Dimitri was like him. Large. Impressively so, even in a country where people tended to be tall and broad. But perhaps he would have been even greater in build were the last five years not spent on the brink of death in a jail cell, or getting by on whatever his followers foraged in the wilds.
It's eerie, actually, how the sons of the Faerghus Four resemble their fathers. Byleth had not the dubious pleasure of meeting Matthias Gautier. But Sylvain, in body at least, was a double of him in build now. As well as sheer power. Likewise... as much as it pains him to admit it, he's probably a dead ringer for his own father despite his eyes having taken his mother's colouring. Close enough, anyway, to never forgo shaving his face every morning.
Again, Byleth is the strange one. He'd not aged a day since the monastery fell, obviously. But he's nothing like Jeralt. Not in colouring, not in facial feature, and certainly not in bone structure. Perhaps it was that commoners had more variety in them. They weren't bartered or traded to a total of nine other genepools to produce the best chances of a Crest or favourable alliances. ...Or maybe he just really, really took after his mother. Who knew.
Anyway.]
Slight or not, you're hardly a delicate sort.
[Felix knew better than most that effectiveness with a sword was never a matter of physical strength. It was battle sense- agility and skill that was most important. Knowing the right point to strike, with the right part of the sword, at the right moment could kill someone just as easily as having the strength to hack off something important, and spare a whole lot more energy than swinging blindly with all the strength in the world. Even with armourslayers, the most savage type of sword, using the flared end as a sort of ...pick would pierce even the thickest plate. But even something so brutal wasn't about force. It was striking the right part of the armour. Strength only mattered in pulling it out of the corpse. By the by, thank you for the lessons in all that, Byleth.]
...But it's not just in offense. I've seen you take blows as well as anyone else. I'd think it your Crest that makes you so unusual. But then again, I think not. You're unusual.
[He's going to lift his fork, and gather up as much meat as he can on it.]
...Don't be dismayed. It's a good thing. But only when it's you.
[ They've been here before, in a sense — but Byleth is always sort of like Glenn, while paradoxically also being nothing like Glenn. Because Glenn was not a memory to be crystallized, in truth. He had his flaws. He was much the way that Felix was in his youth; he was young himself even when he died; he could be kind of a prick, honestly, and was a prick more often than not.
And yet. The patient way he's laying out the table. Bowl, soup, utensils, cups. The way that he doesn't in any way expect or leave room for Felix to join him in the laying of it. Takes care of it, so that all Felix has to do is patiently sit there and be cared for.
There is just something so like an older brother about him, when Byleth gets in this sort of mood.
Anyway, Byleth is not even thinking about it. He smiles faintly at Felix's remarks about his slightness — or his unusualness? — being a good thing. But he shifts the topic away from him, quite intentionally, and on purpose. It's not that he's unwilling to talk about himself, of course; it's just that he doesn't have anything interesting to say about the matter. Maybe he is only strong because of his Crest. Who's to say?
Back to Dimitri. Yes. He agrees. ]
He should have been bigger still. But he hasn't been eating, these past few years. And he never ate enough for his frame even before that, anyway. What was it you said about him once...? Right. He always eats like he hates the food.
[ Byleth finally takes up a fork and begins loading it up with food, but he, for his part, starts with the noodles. Not that he doesn't like meat. Byleth likes everything. ]
He's still not as big as he looks, actually. When the armor and the cloak are off. Part of me was almost saddened, to see the way he's suffered, and yet... I felt strangely relieved, too. That he hasn't changed that much. It's a strange and impossible desire, but I... always wanted to keep him exactly as he was.
[ Is that so wrong? is that so selfish? Smiling faintly for the ridiculousness of it — he knows that it is a little wistful and impossible and ridiculous — Byleth sighs and continues, on a topic which he thinks he owes Felix to speak about: ]
...I wish I could have met his father. I liked Rodrigue. I think I would have liked Lambert, too.
[ As for his own parentage... well. If it were possible for Byleth's class to meet his mother they'd probably walk away with more questions than answers. ]
[That's the funny thing about the dead. While Dimitri, and most of Fodlan believe in ghosts and appiritions (compelling people to engage in varying atrocities on their behalf seems a specifically Dimitri sort of thing, but nonetheless, the belief was widespread) and Felix did not- there's a universal thought amongst all mindsets. That the dead are crystallized memories. The dead's faults are ignored. The dead are faultless. They're pure. They're beautiful. They're perfect. And no matter whether they're Glenn's age or Rodrigue's- they're always gone too soon, their passing always, always, a great tragedy.
For Felix, his dissatisfaction with his father had died with him. The subject was now off-limits- the same way any of Glenn's faults had been ignored in retrospect.
Hypocritical. Extremely so. But it was a hypocrisy that was widespread.
Felix, at least, had use for it. To shove it into Dimitri's face when the stormclouds came again. To have it nip at his heels when it was tempting to succumb to despair and simply die. He'd already said it a few times to him, in company. Make my father and my brother's death worth something, an unkind thing to say. But it worked. It working far outweighed what anyone thought of him for doing it- for it was Faerghus itself at stake.
But still. Keeping Dimitri exactly as he was...]
Perhaps. My recollections of him were mostly just being a terrifying giant. [Deadpan. Felix was quite young back then...]
...But my father often said that he was as frustrating as he was inspired. That plans he had of the kingdom's reform would not be popular in his lifetime- that he'd need at least 500 years to be considered anything but a foolish idealist. He'd attend councils, my father said. Spend hours upon hours upon hours advising him on the least dangerous course of action to the Crown, and yet still- His Majesty would choose the harder path.
[A faint exhale. Lambert's plans of reform, indeed. But something strikes him. As he's dipping more meat and noodles into the spicy soup...]
You're not just speaking of the boar's build, are you.
[Keeping him as he was. Keeping him an eventual heir, rather than the King of Faerghus- with a life to spend in service of his ruined kingdom, his destroyed house, his splintered people- where every path available to him was just as fraught as the one his father chose. And beyond that- busy. Terribly busy.]
[And Felix can see that Sylvain stills in a way that may or may not be familiar to him, like the time (before everything went irrevocably wrong, when they were all still friends without terms or conditions or an asterisk next to the word) that they were all playing in Gautier, and Dimitri accidentally punched a hole through the roof of the stables while they were in the middle of hide and seek and someone had to break the news to their parents. That sort of stillness.]
Uh.
[He's licking his lips, resisting the urge to poke his head out of hiding to look, bites his lip, and shrugs.]
[ It is rare for Byleth to seem uncomfortable, but today, he does actually sort of — stop. The fork laden with noodles, half-lifted to his mouth, lowers and rests itself on the edge of his bowl for a moment. His eyes are lowered; he doesn't quite look Felix in the eyes.
His hands are not clasped in prayer, but he looks, as he often does, like the priest at worship, vaguely and impossibly guilt-laden, seeking penitence for some unknown sin. ]
...Well... what do you mean by that?
[ He realizes that he is being a bit odd, so he lifts his other hand, tucks his hair behind his ear. Then he lifts the fork again, and eats his noodles. Spicy... ]
Forgive me. [ He offers this almost apologetically. ] I'm not sure if I know what I mean, myself.
[In contrast to Byleth's fork, Felix's is shoved down, prongs first, into his noodles with some viciousness. Even in war and great shortage, the monastery did not skimp on portion size. And it is a good thing. There's enough food in his bowl to allow the fork to stand perfectly upright, rather than falling and possibly upturning the bowl, spilling the contents everywhere.]
You're walking around like you're being marched to your own hanging. Your messages are distant, you're distracted- and that look in your eye is like-
[Like when your father was murdered. he would say. When Byleth spent the best part of a month (understandably) withdrawn, silent and so very, very brittle. Mind working overtime on something so very distant. So far away.
Perhaps, five years ago, Felix would have finished his sentence. If anything, just to see if it evoked anything- anger, tears, an argument, anything.
But the past five years had been years of change. Maturity even- as much as someone like him could mature in a world full of things that disgusted him and keep some semblance of himself intact. He could be as blunt now as back then, yes. But Felix, now at least, had some tact...]
Something's bothering you. It's the boar. You mentioning how he was makes me think that you are dissatisfied with him now. And since he's not committed any massacre recently... it's who he is now, isn't it. Now he's behaving like a king should, you're intimidated.
[A scoff. He retrieves his fork- and he points it at Byleth.]
[ Byleth has changed, too. Not necessarily for the better. Felix has him dead to rights, pinned beneath that accusatory fork; it's true that he's been drifting, empty-eyed, going through all the motions of his daily activities without his heart actually being in it. Kind and gentle as always, except for the way it hasn't reached his eyes.
The old professor at least didn't bother to hide how broken he'd been after Jeralt's death. Now, though, perhaps Byleth is guilty of having become too human: he tries for a smile, but it's forced, the same way Dimitri's smile during his academy days had always been forced.
Maybe he's become too like the boar in his own way. Or maybe it's just that they have all become so much more sensitive than they used to be. ]
No, I wouldn't be intimidated by him. I've never been intimidated by anybody, really.
[ That much is true, at least. Byleth has never been intimidated by another person. Not even Archbishop Rhea, who had seemed so impossibly perfect to most students that she had actually been frightening. All the more so, whenever she'd callously order someone's death. ]
I...
[ Byleth hesitates. Looks down. His mind is clearly everywhere but on the food. ]
I do think... that I...
[ Is it really so hard? For him to get it out? Byleth lapses into silence again, but the silence itself pressures him. Spit it out, he imagines Felix saying, even before he's actually said it. Anxieties needle at his core.
It seems so impossible, from his own perspective, to give voice to the problem. The infinite scope of it, and where it started. I think he might be through with me. Too hysterical, too much blame on Dimitri's part. I think I made a mistake. Too vague, with too much emphasis on the act itself. I think he doesn't need me anymore. Closer to the truth, but also not quite the problem.
He sets his fork down in favor of folding his hands on the table, staring forlornly at his bowl. It's a rare sight, the professor not wanting to eat. ]
[There's nothing wrong with being human, Felix would say. Just your understanding of what being human is. It wasn't this unvoiced misery. Nor was it going through the motions of what one should be doing, yet being so wrapped in something else, that every sensation of being alive felt blunted. Being human was different things to different people, most certainly. But there was a universal truth: being human was being true to one's nature.
He'd never taken Byleth's nature to be this- someone afraid to upset an apple cart.
But alas. That isn't said. There's no opportunity to. So, instead: that intimidation. Or the lack of it.]
Good. If so, I'd have lost a great deal of respect for you.
[A huff. It made him a traitor to his station as a noble to admit that the crown upon a man's head did not make a magical creature above mere mortals such as they. Rodrigue's probably doing pirouettes in his improvised grave for Felix's words, and what those words, were they the words of the entire kingdom, would do to the status quo.
but he speaks them all the same. Just to Byleth. Only to Byleth. Anyone else would have the stony silence of a noble that benefitted extensively from the belief of the smallfolk.]
He might be King now. But he's the same person he always was. He's not changed a bit- and he won't change. He'll be... what [No.] who he is... until the day that he dies. Crown or not.
...What happened to the royal family- His family- altered him. Often, I think that something in his mind collapsed. Just as he cannot taste anything. Just as without trying, he crushes things in his hands. He is still, in the respect of his thoughts and his impulses, as he was when it happened... a child, in some respects. He will always be this way. Chances are it will never repair.
[Uncharitable view or not, it was apt. Felix knew him better than anyone currently living.]
And as I've said, over and over- he needs handling. He prefers you to me. ...And I think that you're better suited for it, anyway. ...But I don't think it's about that. So tell me what you think is your misunderstanding. I'll tell you if you're right.
Edited (clarity edits! last one i pwomise ) 2026-02-03 00:30 (UTC)
[ It's almost laughable. It's really very funny. He would laugh if he could. Byleth knows full well that Felix cares — that Felix cares about him so deeply that Byleth might well be the only, only person (except Sylvain, but even then, maybe still excluding Sylvain) whose troubles Felix has ever offered to shoulder. He also still remembers that Felix has his own problems, and that now is probably the worst of all possible times to talk about this one.
But the description of Dimitri as an eternal child is so, so funny. Because Byleth absolutely knows what Felix means by that. But also, it is such a damning reminder of the real problem at hand. And Byleth doesn't want to say it, but he also reminds himself that Felix wouldn't want him to couch the facts in more flowery, effusive language. So Byleth falls back on the thing he used to be: a mercenary, one who wouldn't sugarcoat things.
May as well just say it. ]
We had sex.
[ That is the only the first of his sins to confess. The second one — ]
It wasn't the first time. The first time was a long time ago.
[ A long time ago. So — when they were all students?
He sometimes wonders if Felix guessed at that already. Or if everyone guessed at that already. Because the way that Byleth minded Dimitri during his moments of madness — it wasn't entirely natural. Obviously it was because Byleth loved him; Mercedes realized that ages ago. Spelled it out, ages ago. But there was always such a guilt to it. Such obligation. Like he felt like he had abandoned Dimitri, or that he had somehow contributed to the problem of Dimitri's unwellness.
Byleth collapses. Confesses, like a regretful criminal might admit to selfish murder. Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped. So utterly defeated. ]
I've always felt... that I shouldn't have done it. Because I was his professor. I should have said no. But he could have had anyone else, back then — the prince of Faerghus — and I always indulged him. And it seemed like it was what he wanted. Both then and now.
[ His fingers are gripped so tightly around themselves that his knuckles would be white if Felix could see them past the gloves. ]
He seems better now. He's been so — kingly. Apologized to everyone for how he's been. Decided we would go back to liberate Fhirdiad. All of these — positive things —
But he won't look me in the eyes now. And I don't know why.
[ Byleth sighs and lifts his shoulders, fixing his posture. ]
When I try to think of what I did wrong... my mind conjures up so many possibilities that I can't even stop to contemplate just one. [ A wry smile. ] All of it was wrong. No? I knew better... I should have known better.
Edited 2026-02-03 01:45 (UTC)
this tag made me think of rhea's face if she knew dimi had her "mum..."
[Excluding Sylvain. Not through a lack of trying of Felix's part, surprisingly. But there's a saying regarding leading a horse(boy) to water, and said horse(boy) choosing to stay obnoxious, flippant, and unserious about the idea of even lowering his head to take a drink- let alone removing the armour of charming airheadedness and affability he wore to actually, seriously speak on things that clearly bothered him.
...Or something. And really, this isn't about that. The details of Felix's relationship- positive or negative- would not be spoken upon. Not to anyone. Not under any context. But regardless, Felix listens on what is offered about Byleth's.]
...
[He can't say he's surprised. Not really. But he pushes his noodles away. So long, sweet noodles and delicious hand-pulled cow. He doesn't feel like eating you any more. (It's a shame. You were delicious. Especially you, cow.)
Food removed, he sighs- fingertips moving against his own forehead.]
You're right. You shouldn't have. Especially then.
[Rhea, no doubt, would have commanded that her precious professor would keep his tenure. But no doubt, his freedoms would have been strictly limited. And Dimitri... prince or not, who knew. Maybe the monastery would have packed him off somewhere. Back to Rodrigue, perhaps? Abyss?
Either way. It's not important. They were not discovered, and that is that. Felix does not see the whiteness of Byleth's knuckles. But he does hear the creak of the material of his gloves. He watches Byleth's hands.]
Yet you did, and you have.
[Recently, by the sound of it. He'd be truly aghast if Byleth and Dimitri were swiving each other while Dimitri was... That.
No. As hardy and as strong as Byleth is, as much as he's inexplicably dodged death in the past, and even survived on ...rainwater, apparently, for the past five years, Felix would not think he'd live through the experience. And besides. Only one thing got His Beastliness' passions up then. Retreating men. Or the thought of the Emperor's severed head.
...A faint twinge of disgust. Less on that.]
I doubt you've done anything. It's him.
[Felix was at danger of Byleth dismissing his answer entirely. Because it was a running theme, Felix knew. He had always blamed him. It's best to explain his reasoning.]
He has guilt. For his people in Ferdiad who he turned his back on- who yet suffer under Cornelia's rule. For those of territories on the front lines, [Such as Fraldarius. Poor Fraldarius.] who are called from their villages to fight a losing battle. For us, even- who stood beside him for you- although he told us loudly and often that he would have us commit his atrocities until the flesh fell from our bones.
...But above all, I think he has guilt for you. For everything he said to you. For the fact that in that moment, he meant every word.
[Sharp words delivered in anger, but unmeant, were one thing. Painful, sure. But forgivable. How Dimitri was, then. How he truly was. Only Byleth could forgive that.]
It strikes me that you've forgiven him. Yet he hasn't forgiven himself.
( byleth: i know he's 23 now, but i just still feel so bad about sleeping with him right after he turned 18, of course he approached me first, but i was his teacher, i should have
rhea: LET ME SHOW THAT BRAT A REAL TRAGEDY OF DUSCUR )
[ Byleth sits braced for a rebuke that does not come. In retrospect, he supposes it was silly to expect one. It's the same sort of problem where he'd thought there was a callousness in evaluating their physical forms like livestock, when in reality, Felix could probably have laughed at that concern for the way their parents and peers had treated them like livestock all their lives. However much sin there was in bedding Dimitri when he had asked for it, that infringement surely paled in comparison to the way that others had infringed on Dimitri in far more serious ways.
Felix is right, of course; there's no sense hand-wringing about that part of it now, years after it was done. Quite probably, Dimitri would have gone mad regardless of any guilt he may have felt over believing that his first love had died in the siege on Garreg Mach. As always, Felix is much more concerned with what is happening in the present, which is whatever has driven Dimitri to avoid Byleth despite their sharing a night together — and really, given the totality of evidence so far, Felix is probably right again. It is far more likely that Dimitri is going through another bout of self-blame rather than that Byleth did anything to offend him.
The professor lets out a long breath and rests his spine against the back of his chair. ]
I told him that, too. That he needs to forgive himself. But even having said that... I don't know if he ever will.
[ He stops tensing his fingers, but they remain resolutely folded in front of him, between his chest and the bowl of noodles slowly growing cold on the table. Byleth swallows hard on a lump in his throat, looking away at nothing in particular, wearing a face that looks almost as though he wants to cry. ]
...I feel so foolish, Felix. I have never had thoughts like this before. I know that I should focus — on our friends, on the war, on the people of Faerghus — on the Empire, and what Edelgard may be plotting —
And yet... all I can think about is what I will do with myself if he decides that there isn't a place for me beside him anymore.
[ He sighs and stares at his bowl again. He does sort of want to eat... Perhaps they can resume their meal after Byleth stops looking as though he has been planning different ways to throw himself off the bridge. ]
I didn't know that I was so afraid of being rejected by him.
Edited 2026-02-04 01:51 (UTC)
who knew you could fight the immaculate one on blue lions
[ooc; all holiness the kingdom of faerghus previously enjoyed is now revoked also it's now a fiery deathpit xoxo]
[Felix would think, were it say... Ashe that had caught the professor's eye, that Byleth would be to blame. Absolutely. Completely. Entirely. Likewise, he would not chide him for it now. But there would be a revulsion ay Byleth's confession that he would not be able to ignore.
Yet not with Dimitri. So what was different? It was not that he thought Ashe simpleminded then or now. Of course not. Fanciful and prone to flights of fancy as the archer might be, he wasn't without his own mind then, or now. Nor was it that he disliked Dimitri. Because... no. Felix's feelings for the boar king were complicated. Dislike was far too simple a term. He wouldn't have watched over someone he disliked within the Cathedral at all- let alone for as long as he did. Or as intently as he did. Or with as much concern as he did. He'd have never offered his own prayers for him either.
What made Dimitri different was... He was as mad as a box of frogs. Obviously. But that madness didn't mean he was naive. Or foolish. Or wide eyed and staring at a world that he couldn't comprehend, despite Felix's thoughts on him still retaining some aspects of a child. That point still stood- but Dimitri's madness meant the opposite. He had the impulse control of a child, perhaps, as well as the foresight of one. But all the intelligence, all the cunning, of someone afforded the finest education in Faerghus- and the tenacity and followthrough of... well, a madman.
Felix had seen, but not commented upon, some of what had happened after Jeralt was murdered. He'd seen the ulterior motive behind each and every grab Dimitri made for Byleth; every excuse he'd made to speak to him privately. Every time he'd put himself in a grieving man's way. Assumed that the boar had thought his professor, and the mysterious power he had, was the best means to his ultimate aim. And what was sleeping with someone weighed against a grand idea of vengence? Nothing, that's what.
...But. Something had happened to correct him. Before that explosion- that shout. From Dimitri, of all people- for Byleth. The sheer terror in his voice as he thought, fleetingly, that Byleth was dead. That panic, that scream...
...That couldn't be faked. Even at his most uncharitable, Felix couldn't deny that maybe, maybe- Dimitri cared for someone that wasn't himself. Maybe.
Felix taps his finger once, twice, on the table. Then, he huffs, extending his arm outward, around Byleth's narrow shoulders- and with a firm tilt of the other man's head, rests his temple against his shoulder. ...And yes. His hand lingers, toying, vaguely, with different strands of his cabbage hair.
However. He keeps staring forward. Finally...]
I don't think he'll reject you. Not without harming himself as well. As you say- he wishes to harm himself. But I think the madness that holds him will not allow him to do it.
[Hence looking for his end in other people. Even old Gilbert. Ugh...]
He loves you, as you love him. It's clear. All being well, when the war is won, he will settle. His mind will become occupied with the needs of the kingdom, and not what he has done.
[Poor Byleth. Poor, stupid Byleth. Dimitri has madness as excuse. What of you?]
But I need you to listen to something. And I need you to consider it. What... [A small pause. His fingertips trace, with deceptive gentleness, at Byleth's temple beneath his hair.] ...What if this is to be the way of things from now? What if he needs you beside him, yet he cannot bring himself to meet your gaze?
[That was where Felix's (extensive!) knowledge on wild boars ended. Dimitri... to his eye anyway (Sylvain was far more knowledgable there...) had not thought that the boar had loved any other. So he had no reference. No idea if this would be permanent, or not.]
What will you do then? Will you continue on with him, or will you leave?
Edited 2026-02-05 23:06 (UTC)
omg i'm big cry... felix shoulder... he's so sweet
[ Poor, stupid Byleth. Poor, fragile Byleth. Their sweet and earnest professor — he has spent so long thinking of himself as the predator that it has never occurred to him that he might have been the prey.
Well, maybe that's not quite true. Byleth has suspected Dimitri before, but he wouldn't have spoken of it to anyone else at the time, not to Felix, not to Sylvain. The way that Dimitri had pursued him in the days after Jeralt's murder — there was something sick in it. Dimitri's sympathy for him was real — that, Byleth never doubted — but there was a dark excitement beneath that sympathy, too. A sick bloodlust. Like he was happy that Byleth's father had died before his eyes, because his own father had died like that, too, and he'd been hoping all his life to find someone who could suffer that pain with him. Because it meant that he had an excuse to be the only one visiting Byleth in his quarters, the only one holding his hand, the only one whispering sweet and impossible promises into his ear.
Your enemies are my enemies. My strength is yours alone. So pure, and then, darker and darker: I would kill anyone for you, Professor. I would be the blade in your hands. Take me, use me — leave me broken, if you must —
Something unhealthy. Part of Byleth had recognized it as something unhealthy, but welcomed it all the same.
If he had consulted Felix then, he might have seen more to the picture. Byleth never found out, for example, that Dimitri had always known he was headed for war, with or without the Empire's input. Byleth never heard a word of it, but Dimitri knew that returning to Faerghus would have sparked a contest for the throne against Rufus, and the years he had at the Academy were only meant to be long enough to buy himself some time to raise an army. And that was why — every earnest attempt to invite him back to Faerghus, the patient affection, the warm understanding, the gentle coaxing, all temptations meant to wear him down over time —
A young prince hellbent on revenge, with ruthless cunning, with a madman's tenacity, with a child's impulses. A young prince like that, presented with a man who could have handily won him the war he was bracing himself for — why wouldn't it have come to that? Why wouldn't he stoop to seduction, when seduction was such an easy thing to offer in exchange for a loyal warmaster?
...Felix could have told Byleth a very different tale. Byleth only ever saw the blue-eyed boy with the world on his shoulders and a desperate longing to be loved.
It's too late now to speak of this, though. Byleth is so hopelessly in love with Dimitri now that he would not be able to convince himself to stop caring even if — and indeed even after — Dimitri himself stated that it was only ever a ruse and he only ever meant to exploit Byleth's skill.
But Felix's arms encircle his professor, pull him onto his shoulder. Felix's hand strokes individual leaves strands of Byleth's hair. Felix, of all the Blue Lions, has the clarity of sight to advise him in matters of the heart, and the brilliant compassion to see him for the pitiful creature he really is and always has been.
Tears well up in Byleth's eyes. He pulls his gloves off so that he can wipe them on the backs of his knuckles.
Oh, Felix, he thinks, and he only doesn't say it because he knows Felix wouldn't want him to. ]
...I wouldn't abandon him even if he himself thrust the blade into my heart.
[ Dimitri has madness as an excuse, but Byleth — Byleth is just a fool. All that skill, all that genius, and in the end, he is only another lovestruck fool. He laughs a little thickly through the lump in his throat. ]
Yes, absolutely. Brilliant as you can be- Your head is as thick as any fortress wall. You could have the finest trebuchets in the empire bombard it, and not a single dent would be made.
[Deadpan. He'd told him, after all- that the boar was likely to bite his arm off. And here he was. Their great and gifted professor- with two bloody stumps. Whinging into his shoulder as if all of this was some kind of surprise.
...But perhaps that's too overly harsh. Felix had known that Dimitri was out for himself, at least at first. And despite his warning to Byleth- a little comment- as Felix's memory went, at their very first proper meeting- Felix hadn't done anything to prevent it. Nor would he. In the early stages of Byleth's tenure, Felix would have stood by as Dimitri chewed him up and spat him out should he have been so inclined. He'd have perhaps complained about such a waste of such a good sword instructor- but he'd have stayed loyal to the boar and his crumbling kingdom.
But how far said boar would go... he'd learned that as they went. How he cared for Byleth, as well... he'd learned that as he went.
It's that care which is shown now. Independent of Dimitri. Independent of loyalty. Independent of kingdom and country. Probably, if he'd have chosen another class to teach, Felix would have sought to join it. Sorry, Sylvain.]
...Yet as thickheaded as you are, you deserve to be loved. Mine isn't the same as his. But until he gets his act together and treats you as you deserve to be treated, I'll be here for you.
[Clarification: not in the way a professor loves his pet pig, no. But to talk. To be listened to. To be acknowledged. To be cared for. It's a platonic love. But it is love, of a shape. Of a form.
[ Byleth makes a sound which Felix should now recognize is his laughter. Yes, that is the case, isn't it? Felix warned him time and time again that chasing after the boar would have its consequences, and now here he is — well, he'd protest the characterization of having his arm bitten off. It's more like the boar won't play with him anymore, and he is growing terribly lonely.
But, all things considered. The cruelty of the boar aside. His manipulation, his violence, his rage. It cannot be denied now that Dimitri truly does love Byleth, in the flawed way that he can love anything. The boar has found his mate, and the trouble now is when they'll be able to go off into the forest together. (This may be a better way to think about Byleth's stubbornness, also. Perhaps the truth is just that he's just as pigheaded and boarish as his choice of beloved.)
There might always be a part of Felix that will be exasperated in his professor's awful taste in men, but a few weeks from now, perhaps — after Fhirdiad is retaken, and Dimitri remembers what it is like to put his people first — the king of Faerghus will gaze into Byleth's eyes again, and let himself feel vulnerable enough to be in love.
For now, Byleth sighs a shuddering sigh, turns his head a little so that his forehead is more firmly pressed into Felix's neck, and then pulls away with a nuzzle that is sort of like a kiss but isn't. ]
Thank you, Felix. You are kinder to me than I deserve.
[ He wipes the last of his tears, shaking his head. Then he reaches out for Felix's bowl. His hands glow a little bit with latent magic. It is a simple thing for him to reheat a bowl that hasn't gone all that cold; he does the same with his own. Fortunately, again, he has... much better temperature control than Annette. ]
I'll be alright, I promise. Let's return to our meal. You're fond of most any dish with beef in it, as I recall.
[He's as kind as you deserve, Byleth. Because you don't deserve anything close to what you're going through. He tries to think, briefly, on what he would do if Sylvain grew distant, unyeilding. Uncaring. Cruel. ...But he doesn't get there. He can't imagine himself doing anything other than knocking the cavalryman's block off.
A straightening of the mussed back pieces of Byleth's hair follows, when he turns his head. As well as a gentler than expected pat. Then he withdraws his hand, allowing him to sit straight. He watches the trick- as well as Byleth's skill... not without leaning back a little, Annette in mind.]
No. I've got something better in mind.
[A small pause. Sure. His bowl is now steaming hot. But he could always heat it again. He reaches toward Byleth's hand, taking it by the (narrow) wrist underneath his gauntlet. And he stands, making his way to the dirt square of the training room. He approaches the sword rack, lifting a standard shortsword from it by the hilt. That sword is lightly tossed upward into Byleth's spare hand. Then he takes one of his own.
They're indescriminate things, those swords. Blunted to prevent injury. Forged of inexpensive iron. The most threat they present is the rust that lines them- more casualties of the five years of neglect the monastery ruins had endured.
He lets go of Byleth's wrist. And immediately, without warning, without explanation, he's on him.
Felix had always been a savage fighter. His diminutive (by Faerghan standard) height and stature didn't match theforce of which he could put into his swing- whether he was using his Crest or not. But thanks to Byleth's training, the fact that his professor had bothered to tailor certain things to him to capitalize on his strengths- as well as his own dogged devotion, he was more than uncannily strong now. He was an utter terror to fight. Strong enough to hurt. intelligent enough to see weak spots. Quick enough to capitalize on them. And ruthless enough to win.
Technically, he's brilliant. His initial swipe is followed immediately with a gliding step forward, and a thrust intended to put Byleth on the back foot. He barely has a chance to avoid it before a push comes- Felix's blade crossing Byleth's- forcing the point of his off line. As it is pushed to a distance where being clipped with it was impossible- Felix closes the distance further- delivering a very real blow to the side of Byleth's head. Then, he adjusts his force on the sword, heaving it- and Byleth's own- upward, stepping underneath them both, and to Byleth's back. He'll feel the sole of Felix's boot upon his back. Not in a kick- but a shove- pushing him forward a few meters.]
Come on. Don't hold back.
[Poor Byleth. He must be wondering what the hell is happening at this moment in time. How they'd got from comfort, to... this. But Felix knew. A few swings, a few hits of Byleth's own... and it'd make sense.
Nothing stilled an unquiet mind quite like putting all thoughts into something else.]
[ Admittedly, Byleth is not on his best foot forward at first.
He had been hoping to eat, not fight! Utterly baffled by the sudden betrayal of the man who just moments before had let him cry on his shoulder, Byleth still manages to dodge Felix's he initial swipe and thrust with relative ease. But Felix is fast — bewilderingly so, a trait that Byleth himself had encouraged him to hone — so when he gets in a dizzying blow to the head and a little kick-shove, well —
Byleth is pissed.
It was a trait that took most of the Blue Lions several months to notice. He was terrifying, at first. The Ashen Demon, seemingly devoid of emotions, flatter and more difficult to read even than masked Professor Jeritza (who was, despite eccentricities, still known to have some human qualities like liking ice cream and preferring fresh air). Byleth seemed devoid even of heated feelings during battle. But then, as the ice melted, they all started to realize: Byleth was just as competitive as any other hot-blooded Faerghan man. It was simply easier for him to hide that when he wasn't the one struggling.
Now his students can push him to a breaking point; now the former mercenary has to pull himself together. He does it admirably, recovering from having Felix's shoe on his back to a standing position, and Byleth has always been admirably deadly in a standing position.
The thing about Byleth in a fight — which Felix had always admired in their youth — is that, still and to this day, he makes no unnecessary movements. Felix is fast, aggressive, savage. Byleth is not. His swings are calculated, his footwork precise, and he parries so elegantly. Deadly but graceful, like a dancer on the battlefield. Those long sleeves of his float so beautifully with his movements, sometimes distracting from the real and dangerous lines of his arms. All at once he goes from taken off-guard to back in control again, ever the instructor, standing proud and upright, expertly blocking each of Felix's blows.
...This does clear his mind. There is no time to worry about a distant lover in the heat of battle.
If it were only sparring, Byleth would leave it at that. But he's peeved, so once he sees an appropriate opening — and it takes quite a while for him to get an opening —
— he aims a kick, sweeping out with one leg to catch Felix behind the knee and bring him down.
He bonks — yes, there is no other word to use but bonks — Felix hard on the head with the hilt of his sword for good measure. ]
[That flatness would have unsettled Felix in the past. Unsettled, not scared, for Felix, in the past,'s nightmares had a single figure in them. A man with piercing blue eyes. All the evil in the world ablaze inside them, coated in the blood of hundreds, and yet still not sated- crushing their bones underfoot.
But Byleth can be unsettling. Fighting with a sword was personal. It lacked the distance of lances. The advantage of cavalry. The intimidation factor of axes. It was a violent, chaotic, and often bloody struggle of endurance and strength- of reading an opponent's actions just as much as it was avoiding their blows and outclassing their strength. What a roll of a shoulder meant. Interpreting a glint in the eye as an upcoming attack. …And what not a lot of people realized, just how exhausting it really was to truly try and force a pointed piece of metal through another man's body, let alone pull it back out again.
Those that thought fighting with a sword was a dance, or anything close to it, had never fought with a sword. There was no grace in it. There's no elegance in deflecting a blow that's intended to sever your head from your body. It's poetic, foolish nonsense- and any that felt that way, with a real sword in their hands, on a real battlefield, would soon discover that there's no beauty in clawing around in the dirt, trying to force your guts back into the hole they'd been prised out of.
...But Byleth's an exception to that rule.
There is a grace and a beauty in the way he fights. Even the (silly) way he holds his sword on his shoulder, for no apparent purpose, should be something that has him vulnerable and ...dead, basically. But he's strong. His quickness, at this point, isn't quite Felix's. His sheer strength isn't quite Felix's own either. At this point, in regard to talent- the student far outclassed the teacher. In mentality too. Felix had trained under Byleth for far too long to be distracted by his turns, his sweeps, or how floaty his sleeves are as they whip around him. Whereas most would focus upon the prettiness of Byleth's fighting or the emptiness within his eyes, Felix sees his arms. The legs. Everything that could- and would- hurt him given half the chance.
Yet still, Byleth's so very strong. Every blow Felix gives him is deflected. Felix knew that it wasn't a simple matter to do so. Not any longer- but Byleth himself gives no indication of any difficulty he might be facing. Even his kick barely catches him. But catches him it does- and the soon to be Duke Fraldarius is knocked to a knee. Not the end of him. Not be a long shot. He adjusts his hold upon the hilt of his sword to thrust it backward and to his side to stab Byleth through the gut (or in this case, make a sweep at his own legs!) but before he quite gets there...
Bonk.
And then there's that shout.]
...Ha...
[Prepare yourself, Byleth. Something never before seen or heard is imminent.]
...Ahahaha…!
[Okay. The bonk to the head hurt. There's no doubt about that one. Felix would probably have a fine lump there, come morning. But... laughing? Actually laughing? Not sniggering, or a sound of incredulous bemusement?]
Hahaha-
Almost. I almost had you. -Ha...
[He had no idea if- just for a moment- Byleth was scared. But it's hilarious to him that for once, he might have been surprised. The hand holding that sword drops it upon the dirt in surrender- raising to be pulled up.]
-No. From now until this... predicament with the boar king is settled, I'm attacking you on sight.
[Helped up or not, as he stands, he turns and views his once-professor. His expression, as ever, is blank. But the exertion seems to have done him good. His face has a fair bit more colour in it. And he seems less sad.
[ ...He's never seen Felix laugh so — so brilliantly before. Byleth is so taken by it that he sinks back into old habits, throwing his sword over his shoulder in his usual manner (it was a habit he developed as a child when the swords he used were too heavy for his thin arms, and it doesn't leave him that vulnerable, he swears) before he remembers that there's no reason to take that stance now that the fight is over.
Sighing, he lowers his blade, then extends his hand to pull Felix up. ]
You're just saying that because you'll have fun doing it.
[ ...It is nice, though. Being able to see Felix smiling and laughing like this. Despite all the time that he's spent in the company of other people, this is a new position for Byleth: it's not often that he finds himself so surly while a friend laughs brilliantly at his expense.
But he thinks he understands, now. He gets it. The way that the others talk about Felix, like he used to be so sweet, so harmless, so pure. Obviously Felix has become a harder man than most, and Byleth will never meet the boy that he used to be. But he thinks he might understand now. The next time that Sylvain talks about how cute and clingy Felix used to be. He can see it.
Byleth squeezes Felix's hand — just once, clasping it, like a handshake between men — and then lets go, turning round to clap Felix on the shoulder instead. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
for ~laidtocrest
oh my god this sent me, somehow
Yeah, Ferdinand used to drive me nuts but he's actually surprisingly decent? [He'll never be besties with him, but-] Once you get past the entire nobility thing. Hey, you think if my mother moved back to Adrestia and took me with her, I would've ended up more like him, or...?
[Horrors. What a horror story.
They should probably circle back to the blood and the Ingrid thing, but nah.]
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Felix had been pleasantly surprised, though. He was loud, yes, but he wasn't weak.
He hadn't expected him to hit quite so hard. Nor to put up much of a fight. But he had.
And for Felix, that was all that was needed.
However. Here they hide the righteous fury of a lady far more chivalrous then they- but one that hits just as hard as any affronted soon-to-be prime minister of whatever. felix folds his arms around himself as he settles in; unable to hide a faint scoff at what Sylvain says.]
You say that like it was an option.
[It's not explictly said. Of course not- but he knows. Just as well as Sylvain does. He's not a person. He's property. ...Or more accurately, currency. His life could be spent in multiple ways by the Margrave. Used in war. Used in transaction via marriage. Even pissed away on the border with Sreng. Either way, the Margrave held the rights to him.
Any whisper, any, of such valuable currency being taken to the empire would've resulted in blood, thunder... perhaps even the loss of said mother.
Anyway.]
...Fine. We've time to kill, so I'll entertain it. You'd be soft. You'd shiver at the cold, your horsemanship would be lackluster, and you'd be spoiled.
[Like either of them aren't spoiled, but...]
Perhaps you'd even be pathetic.
me being like 'i should use the icon that has the face he uses when being insufferable'
But Felix knew that and there's no reason to not spoil the mood, and the only thing that saved Felix from being playfully nudged (and the only thing that kept Sylvain from being beaten to a pulp) was the fact Felix agreed to play along.]
Of course I'd be pathetic. [He shouldn't be so cheerful while saying it.] I'd have grown up with seasons, as in four, and spices. I'd probably swing an axe and you'd hate me so much, Felix. I'd be even more insufferable than I already am.
[...okay, Felix gets a little playful nudge. Just a little. A small nudge.]
hahaha the shithead wink, perf
...And only because the alternative, of acknowledging the absolutely fucked arrangements they both sprang from is absolutely awful. Much less their own mental damage by not discussing it before now. ]
Four seasons? That's a fairytale and you know it. It's a story they tell- as well as stories of uncultured, brutish northmen who don't have a single opera house in the whole of Faerghus.
[Alright. Alright. That's enough joking around. He's irritating himself. He jabs at Sylvain's chest with a pointed finger.]
Redress. Your nipples are looking at me.
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Stop making eye contact with 'em, Felix.
[Wink! And...okay okay, Sylvain's holding up the shirt. He's testing the shirt, how dried the blood is- grimacing at the feel of it.]
Couple more minutes and I'll put it on.
[The nippling shall continue until the blood is deemed sufficiently dried or until Felix Felixes a little bit harder.]
How many people saw you? [No.] What did you do to Ferdinand, anyway? Besides. You know, attack him.
for ~bladehand
You're as round as a plank of wood, you couldn't bulk even if you tried- but it's a good thing. Your bone structure would make you look ridiculous as a fat person.
[What a greeting, as the stonefaced professor walks into the room. It's just them, so Felix could say what he wanted. Since Dimitri's... return to form(?), Felix has seen very little of Byleth. Likely making up for lost time- as well as bringing Dimitri up to speed on the ins and outs of the army, because he hadn't cared less for so very long.
But the blame isn't all Byleth's. Felix had been busy too. Mainly with going through Rodrigue's effects, writing letters to his mother and Matthias Gautier with the news of his death and where on Imperial territory his body had been buried (obviously, burial in his beloved Faerghus, let alone beside his beloved king was not anything remotely possible)- and...
well. Something he never thought he'd wind up doing. Putting things in motion to his very surprised distant family, his intention to inherit Fraldarius.
Inheritance wasn't strictly decided on the concept of agnatic primogeniture. It helped, yes. But it was granted to the most suited of all of House Fraldarius' patriarchs- from multiple branches of the family. Felix had a good claim, being the sole remaining descendant of the past head of the family. The Crest- it being major and no others having a major Crest, just some minors dotted about here and there- helped too. As well as his mother- who had signalled her assent for his claim.
But still, there was surprise when he'd declared his intention. He'd never been interested before now. Arrangements- such as Felix's uncle and a handful of others- had been made. There was talk of even Matthias Gautier being a guardian, of sorts, over the Dukedom until a proper heir could be created, indoctrinated, and matured enough to have the strength to make a claim.
So yes.
It was... quite a lot that kept Felix busy, too. He'd needed the training hall himself to swing a sword, and focus his thoughts. Speaking of. He slides the wooden sword he'd been performing drills with away into a holder alongside so many others just like it, and walks forward to meet Byleth.]
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[He turns as Sylvain holds up his (not his) shirt- only turning back around, with an overdramatic sigh of irritation, as the other decides to give it a while longer.
...It's just blood, in Felix's mind. And on campaign, he'd seen Sylvain and his horse covered head to toe in it. But to answer...]
Caspar. I'm glad it was him. He'll think me a villain that needs to be taken down a peg or two. [Small stature or not, he knew his way around an axe. That's another unwitting training partner.] And Lorenz. And Raphael. [He's more excited about Raphael than Lorenz. That'll be good for brawling practise, provided both Felix is quick enough to avoid, and Raphael is too slow to land a hit.
But the other question...]
It was easy. I told him [A lie.] that I beat Edelgard in the last tournament. That I thought doing that made me stronger than any of the Black Eagles class. I wanted him to think that challenging me- and beating me- would make him stronger than her.
[Felix, unlike Sylvain, was no mastermind. He was sharp when he tried, granted. Like in war councils where he proposed (surprisingly inspired) stratagems just to make the discussions end quicker. But people. Psychology. Not that great. It'd only been Ferdinand's obviousness about Edelgard that tipped him off.]
The only thing he didn't agree to was losing. And being half-stripped when he lost.
for ~pliant
And then there's the Goddess herself. Or the depiction. The statue that stood proudly, almost forebodingly, above the altar is decimated. Against the Empire's might, even the divine is reduced to a pile of so many stones, so many useless, unremarkable pebbles.
For a small mercy, however, there's no mad king tonight, arguing with each and every stone- having long, rambling, sad conversations with the voices in his head disguised as ghosts. Sylvain, Ashe, and Byleth had somehow dragged him away from the cathedral to a tub filled with water- and were likely scrubbing away the filth that clung to him as he ranted, raved, lashed at them, and promised them that he would have their heads- as well as that woman's.
Instead, there's only Cyril. Brush and broom in hand, no doubt giving himself an anurism at how exactly all of this could be put back together.
It's... not a good way, that any of them are in.
But then there's Mercedes. She suffers. Just as keenly as any of them- if not more given her nature and the decision to focus on the Empire, and not Rhea. Yet she never, ever dwells. She never broods. She never laments. Instead, she makes herself only useful- cheerful enough to lift the lowest of spirits. Insightful enough to lift a soul, should she so wish. Being around her is being wrapped in a shroud of so much care. So much affection. So much light.
Light none of them deserve. Yet they are granted it regardless.
Even as she's on her hands and knees scrubbing like a servant at one of the scuffed, dust-entrenched pews. Felix leans against it, his arms crossed around himself.]
...You know that the Goddess won't see that dirt from on high. It's beneath her.
[He's got no whim, no desire, to go into the theological with a woman that could have made bishop thrice over. While he personally had belief (Unconventional or not, he was a noble...) that was the extent of his goddessliness. He'd be schooled with any discussion- serious or not.
But maybe it's a coded request. An ask to not work quite so hard.]
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— and he laughs.
It's rare for the professor to laugh outright, even now. He smiles much more often these days — he's been more expressive ever since his hair and eye color first changed over five years ago — but actual laughter is rare, coming from Byleth.
He just hasn't really had much to laugh about nowadays, despite the circumstances. There's been a lot of change. Some of these changes have been good, but most of them have been sort of bad. He liked Rodrigue, as a man if not as Felix's father, and Rodrigue's death was a tragedy that reminded Byleth, too bitterly, of losing Jeralt — yet watching another father die before his eyes seems to have been the one thing that Dimitri actually needed to pull himself together.
(It is possible that Byleth doesn't give himself enough credit. Rodrigue's death in and of itself was not what Dimitri needed so much as the conversation they had afterward, the desperate heat of it, Byleth's warm hand in the pouring rain. The night they spent together, taking Dimitri apart to put him back together again. Byleth, doing everything he could to make Dimitri feel less like a beast and more like a man. )
Dimitri seems ready to be a king now, but it's slow going, even with Byleth's help. There's been too much to arrange: the trip back to Faerghus, plans to reclaim Fhirdiad, fresh strategies, new steps. This is a different kind of campaign than any of the others they've initiated previously. They need more than military might, this time, though the military might is important; they need a propaganda arm of their own. They need to circulate news of the rightful king's return to the people of Fhirdiad, which means they need messengers and criers and artists and printmakers, and all sorts of other personnel which they have not previously had to mobilize.
And Byleth is exhausted. He loves his students, but he's also not a professor anymore, not exactly, and the emotional exchange between all of them is different now. On a private and personal level, it bothers him that he and Dimitri have spoken exclusively as king and advisor for a few weeks now. They have not really had time to be lovers. They have actually not been intimate at all since the night after Rodrigue died, which at this point does feel a bit strange, and sometimes, in his heart of hearts, Byleth does quietly wonder if this isn't how their romance ends.
What if. He doesn't want to put it into words. What if. Maybe Dimitri regrets it now; it's hard to tell from his face because he hasn't quite been looking into Byleth's eyes. The tales of kings and their trusted advisors never end in marriage, and Byleth has long been aware that he was only ever a common mercenary, in the end. There is no page in the history of Fódlan that ends with a king marrying his teacher. There is no space in the biography of a king for him to take his professor as his lover. There are expectations. There is lineage. There are Crests. Perhaps he has already given the matter some thought, and is thinking now of the queen he will have to take at the end of this war.
What if, what if, what if.
It isn't that he doesn't trust Dimitri. It's just that Byleth has always realized that he has only ever been a tool to be used.
...Of course, this problem pales in comparison to some of the others they are facing. Of everyone, the person with the most reason to be sad and angry right now is Felix. His father is dead. His father is dead. And yet, of everyone, he almost seems to be the person taking it the best. Which, Byleth knows, is not a sign that he isn't mourning. But he thinks that there is almost a great irony to it — the way that Rodrigue, perhaps, was guilty of moving on too quickly from Glenn's unjust death. Perhaps Felix is the same way, moving on just as swiftly from Rodrigue's death. And it is not that any of the Fraldarius men did not love each other, Byleth knows that deeply to his core; most probably, of everyone in the world, Felix knew best that his father would someday die for Dimitri in service to Lambert, and in that regard, this whole thing has not been a surprise to him.
But still. There is an irony to it. Not for the first time, Byleth thinks to himself that Felix is actually very much like his father in many ways.
Anyway. To the present. He does not rest his head on Felix's shoulder, given that they are both standing, but the professor claps one hand on Felix's shoulder, in the friendly way between brothers on the field of battle. ]
Is that so...? To be honest, I've never thought much about my bone structure.
[ A light squeeze, and then Byleth lets his hand drop. ]
I really only ever thought about it in relation to yours.
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[Okay, now he's putting on the shirt. Because yeah, at the end of it, he's dealt with worse. And also because while he's willing to have his nips out for the bit, there's a point in which they've overstayed their welcome. And also there's that sigh of irritation. He knows that sigh of irritation.
And also because there's more important things to deal with which are-]
Sorry about Lorenz. [Obviously. Everyone else, fine, but him? Felix would get a lecture with his duel. And, also-] Maybe the Imperial princess'll go after you next and avenge her honor that way. [Or him, but he can('t) seduce his way out of that!] I don't know if I'm envious or worried for you.
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But as shock had left him, it'd turned out to be something else entirely. Grief had come. It was terrible. Soulcrushing. But Felix knew that the routine (the emotions.) he'd displayed as a teenager wasn't anything fit for a grown man. Least of all one with a part to play in a bloody civil war happening all around him.
So he chose to avoid that grief. He buried himself in piles upon piles of papers, and what Rodrigue had left him. A pile of curated weapons, yes. Rare, interesting weapons he intended to give him over a great many years- that he knew he would love. But beyond that, books. Valuable books on how to lead. How to be a just and a fair ruler (but also a successful one- a point that hadn't entered Felix's thinking), and how to best support the crown despite the crown's issues. Blunt, practical lessons that Rodrigue had tried to teach him in the past. Lessons that hadn't sunk in simply because they came from his lips.
Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius had known that he would never reconnect with his remaining son. That there would be no magical moment where Felix would see the world through his eyes- or one that would miraculously grant him an understanding of Felix.
It simply wasn't ever going to happen. Yet still, he wished to support him.
Hence these books. Lessons passed from father to son, without the presence of the father. They must have taken him years. And for all that effort, Felix had thought that he should at least give them a read. As he had read, his opinion hadn't changed. But he'd wondered if perhaps his grief could serve him instead of cripple him, as Dimitri himself had used it (thanks to Byleth's coaching) to improve himself.
Maybe.
Either way, it was a personal thing. Extremely personal. No one- not even those closest to him- would know it. Should Byleth have asked Sylvain about it, even he would have barely anything to tell. For the whole of this month, Felix tended to stay within his room penning letters and reading those books. He didn't want company- was so boring when company (Sylvain) insisted on staying, and on the rare times he ventured out of his room- it was to the third floor of the monastery. And there, he insisted on being alone. He'd half shoved company (Sylvain) down the stairs to get rid of him that time.
And he'd probably cried. Or screamed, or prayed, or contemplated jumping- whatever. Sylvain didn't know what he did up there, all alone. Given Sylvain being Sylvain, he'd have complained. Because simply put, Sylvain and Byleth were both quite... bereft at present. But that was the way of things. For both Dimitri and Felix, there was much to do. And what was to be done was exhausting. Grief itself, even when focused into productive matters, was exhausting.
Still.
The noodles. Byleth, think of the noodles- yet fortunately, they remain intact, likely packaged to take away from the dining hall and balanced one atop the other within the professor's other hand. They're safe. They're intact. And Byleth just laughed.
Sure. Felix had heard polite little chuckles. Half-forced sounds of amusement, even once- a brief gasp for air and stifled exhales from behind a sleeve once- when Dedue had simply looked at a horse and promptly fell over sideways. Off his own feet. Not even trying to mount the warhorse he beheld. About 10 paces away from it. He'd seen the tears at the corner of the professor's eyes as he coughed, trying to maintain cool dignity and professional kindness as both Annette and Mercedes rushed to help the poor boy up and Flayn simply stared- utterly and completely bewildered, her face the very picture of incredulousness.
But this- an actual, hearty laugh?
...Well. It's a first. He likes it. But still, out of habit- he walks away from the squeeze to a rickety, battered table just off the dirt square of the training area- two chairs scraping across the stone floor to seat them both. As for what he says:]
Hm? Why mine? We've never been the same way. I used to be far more frail than you.
[As a teenager, he was never vertically challenged. Not like say, Caspar. In his build though, far better avoiding hits than taking them.
Now, still very much the same way.]
Now, I think that I'm broader than you.
[Not by that much. Not really.]
no subject
...Hm.
[Edelgard taking it upon herself to avenge the honour of her House. ...And poor Ferdinand. Possible. But again, he's no mastermind. But perhaps that would spur Ferdinand to avenge... himself? After Edelgard had avenged him?
In a sort of do-over? For the sake of not losing face? Of undoing her vengence, and declaring his vengence absolute, making himself officially stronger than her? Maybe?
...Imperials are so strange.]
She can come. So can he. The whole house can challenge me if they want- I'll take them all down. Either way, I won't be short on training partners.
[The only thing that scares him, a little, is Hubert and his magic.
But. Sylvain finally changed, he turns back around. ...Then he sees the extent of what he'd done to Ferdinand.
...He's probably being carted off to Manuela as they speak. He peeks around the corner of their hiding place- unsure.]
...How long is the longest she's [Ingrid's...] ever searched for you after you've done something?
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You are, but I expected that you would be.
[ Byleth does not protest the "contest" Felix has implicitly set up here. Serenely, Byleth sets his bundle of noodles on the battered table. They're still piping hot, the spicy soup freshly ladled from its pot in the monastery kitchens, and even if they weren't, Byleth is just as good a mage as he is a healer. Unlike Annette in her wayward youth, he doesn't cause unwanted explosions and never has; he has excellent temperature control.
Big hungry dragon needed to invent the microwave for maximum eating comfort.As he opens the parcel and sets about decanting the soup from its spill-proof container into more traditional bowls, Byleth — in a surprisingly conversational mood perhaps — continues at length: ]
One of the first serious things Manuela told me — [ besides all the unserious attempts to flirt with him, obviously ] — was that I had an unusually good... how did she phrase it? An "unusually good understanding of anatomy." Maybe it's because of all the fighting I did over the years...
But I thought a lot about the physical builds of all the Blue Lions, back when I first came on, and I was deciding how to train all of you. I went to her to ask her opinion as a physician, too.
I was pretty sure that you, Sylvain, and Dedue had finished growing. Ashe, I thought, might grow a little more, so I felt confident training him for longbows and not shortbows. We disagreed on Dimitri... Manuela thought he was finished, given his age and build, but I thought he had the potential to be a larger man still.
[ He lays out their silverware beside the bowls, then slowly takes a seat. ]
I never mentioned this to any of you, obviously, since I wasn't very good at talking about these things, back then. I assumed there would be a discomfort to it... as if I were evaluating you all like cattle. And in a way, I suppose I was.
But — of all the Lions, you have the nearest build to mine and the same affinity for swords. You were more thin, yes, and more fragile at the time. But I thought you'd wind up with more muscle than me in the end, as long as we could feed you things that you actually liked.
[ He turns his wrist so that his palm faces upward, and then taps the gauntlet covering it twice with his other hand. ]
It's your bones. They're bigger than mine. You've never seen me without my vambraces, have you? I have terribly small wrists.
[ ...He is always covered. It's been so many years since that day with the cats, so many years ago, and still, Felix probably can't say he's seen much more of Byleth's bare body than his neck. ]
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When Byleth begins to assemble the food, Felix seats himself at said table, putting an elbow on it and watching him work with his chin in his palm. ...He liked watching him do menial tasks. It's a strange thing, really. The same way he enjoyed Annette's singing- the feeling, in general, of being sung to. It's... care. It's attention, yes. But it's also affection.
He doubted he'd ever said it to Byleth. Neither when he was his teacher back then, nor now, when he was a close friend. But Felix was grateful for that care. That affection. Deeply so.
...Saying that, he can't help but scoff when Byleth explains his reservations about telling them his plans for them. And when he likens the act to comparing them like cattle. Ashe might have been dismayed to hear it, yes. But the nobles...
...They'd been sized up and evaluated their entire lives. Some of them had even been traded like any prize bovine between farmers at a county fair. Simple observations, practical ones, by people motivated to train them into officers and cared enough to do a good job of it wasn't anything untoward. But Byleth hadn't known that then. Not really. He was as any commoner. Far too motivated (for good reason. It was a task unto itself) in staying alive than the habits of the high and mighty, the hoity or the toity.
Even when he'd found out about all of them, each skeleton in each closet, he hadn't ran away. He hadn't simply remained either. He'd advised. He'd helped. He'd taken each of their problems unto himself. ...And again, he's grateful. Highly so.]
You guessed right about him. And all of us, actually. But him... [Dimitri. Note the pronoun, Byleth! It's shaky. But the king is not an It. This time. No promises for the future.] ...You should have seen his father. King Lambert made Areadbhar look like a javelin.
[Dimitri was like him. Large. Impressively so, even in a country where people tended to be tall and broad. But perhaps he would have been even greater in build were the last five years not spent on the brink of death in a jail cell, or getting by on whatever his followers foraged in the wilds.
It's eerie, actually, how the sons of the Faerghus Four resemble their fathers. Byleth had not the dubious pleasure of meeting Matthias Gautier. But Sylvain, in body at least, was a double of him in build now. As well as sheer power. Likewise... as much as it pains him to admit it, he's probably a dead ringer for his own father despite his eyes having taken his mother's colouring. Close enough, anyway, to never forgo shaving his face every morning.
Again, Byleth is the strange one. He'd not aged a day since the monastery fell, obviously. But he's nothing like Jeralt. Not in colouring, not in facial feature, and certainly not in bone structure. Perhaps it was that commoners had more variety in them. They weren't bartered or traded to a total of nine other genepools to produce the best chances of a Crest or favourable alliances. ...Or maybe he just really, really took after his mother. Who knew.
Anyway.]
Slight or not, you're hardly a delicate sort.
[Felix knew better than most that effectiveness with a sword was never a matter of physical strength. It was battle sense- agility and skill that was most important. Knowing the right point to strike, with the right part of the sword, at the right moment could kill someone just as easily as having the strength to hack off something important, and spare a whole lot more energy than swinging blindly with all the strength in the world. Even with armourslayers, the most savage type of sword, using the flared end as a sort of ...pick would pierce even the thickest plate. But even something so brutal wasn't about force. It was striking the right part of the armour. Strength only mattered in pulling it out of the corpse. By the by, thank you for the lessons in all that, Byleth.]
...But it's not just in offense. I've seen you take blows as well as anyone else. I'd think it your Crest that makes you so unusual. But then again, I think not. You're unusual.
[He's going to lift his fork, and gather up as much meat as he can on it.]
...Don't be dismayed. It's a good thing. But only when it's you.
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And yet. The patient way he's laying out the table. Bowl, soup, utensils, cups. The way that he doesn't in any way expect or leave room for Felix to join him in the laying of it. Takes care of it, so that all Felix has to do is patiently sit there and be cared for.
There is just something so like an older brother about him, when Byleth gets in this sort of mood.
Anyway, Byleth is not even thinking about it. He smiles faintly at Felix's remarks about his slightness — or his unusualness? — being a good thing. But he shifts the topic away from him, quite intentionally, and on purpose. It's not that he's unwilling to talk about himself, of course; it's just that he doesn't have anything interesting to say about the matter. Maybe he is only strong because of his Crest. Who's to say?
Back to Dimitri. Yes. He agrees. ]
He should have been bigger still. But he hasn't been eating, these past few years. And he never ate enough for his frame even before that, anyway. What was it you said about him once...? Right. He always eats like he hates the food.
[ Byleth finally takes up a fork and begins loading it up with food, but he, for his part, starts with the noodles. Not that he doesn't like meat. Byleth likes everything. ]
He's still not as big as he looks, actually. When the armor and the cloak are off. Part of me was almost saddened, to see the way he's suffered, and yet... I felt strangely relieved, too. That he hasn't changed that much. It's a strange and impossible desire, but I... always wanted to keep him exactly as he was.
[ Is that so wrong? is that so selfish? Smiling faintly for the ridiculousness of it — he knows that it is a little wistful and impossible and ridiculous — Byleth sighs and continues, on a topic which he thinks he owes Felix to speak about: ]
...I wish I could have met his father. I liked Rodrigue. I think I would have liked Lambert, too.
[ As for his own parentage... well. If it were possible for Byleth's class to meet his mother they'd probably walk away with more questions than answers. ]
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For Felix, his dissatisfaction with his father had died with him. The subject was now off-limits- the same way any of Glenn's faults had been ignored in retrospect.
Hypocritical. Extremely so.
But it was a hypocrisy that was widespread.
Felix, at least, had use for it. To shove it into Dimitri's face when the stormclouds came again. To have it nip at his heels when it was tempting to succumb to despair and simply die. He'd already said it a few times to him, in company. Make my father and my brother's death worth something, an unkind thing to say. But it worked. It working far outweighed what anyone thought of him for doing it- for it was Faerghus itself at stake.
But still. Keeping Dimitri exactly as he was...]
Perhaps. My recollections of him were mostly just being a terrifying giant. [Deadpan. Felix was quite young back then...]
...But my father often said that he was as frustrating as he was inspired. That plans he had of the kingdom's reform would not be popular in his lifetime- that he'd need at least 500 years to be considered anything but a foolish idealist. He'd attend councils, my father said. Spend hours upon hours upon hours advising him on the least dangerous course of action to the Crown, and yet still- His Majesty would choose the harder path.
[A faint exhale. Lambert's plans of reform, indeed. But something strikes him. As he's dipping more meat and noodles into the spicy soup...]
You're not just speaking of the boar's build, are you.
[Keeping him as he was. Keeping him an eventual heir, rather than the King of Faerghus- with a life to spend in service of his ruined kingdom, his destroyed house, his splintered people- where every path available to him was just as fraught as the one his father chose. And beyond that- busy. Terribly busy.]
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Uh.
[He's licking his lips, resisting the urge to poke his head out of hiding to look, bites his lip, and shrugs.]
If she finds us I'll buy you time to escape.
[That's sure not an answer!]
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His hands are not clasped in prayer, but he looks, as he often does, like the priest at worship, vaguely and impossibly guilt-laden, seeking penitence for some unknown sin. ]
...Well... what do you mean by that?
[ He realizes that he is being a bit odd, so he lifts his other hand, tucks his hair behind his ear. Then he lifts the fork again, and eats his noodles. Spicy... ]
Forgive me. [ He offers this almost apologetically. ] I'm not sure if I know what I mean, myself.
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[In contrast to Byleth's fork, Felix's is shoved down, prongs first, into his noodles with some viciousness. Even in war and great shortage, the monastery did not skimp on portion size. And it is a good thing. There's enough food in his bowl to allow the fork to stand perfectly upright, rather than falling and possibly upturning the bowl, spilling the contents everywhere.]
You're walking around like you're being marched to your own hanging. Your messages are distant, you're distracted- and that look in your eye is like-
[Like when your father was murdered. he would say. When Byleth spent the best part of a month (understandably) withdrawn, silent and so very, very brittle. Mind working overtime on something so very distant. So far away.
Perhaps, five years ago, Felix would have finished his sentence. If anything, just to see if it evoked anything- anger, tears, an argument, anything.
But the past five years had been years of change. Maturity even- as much as someone like him could mature in a world full of things that disgusted him and keep some semblance of himself intact. He could be as blunt now as back then, yes. But Felix, now at least, had some tact...]
Something's bothering you. It's the boar. You mentioning how he was makes me think that you are dissatisfied with him now. And since he's not committed any massacre recently... it's who he is now, isn't it. Now he's behaving like a king should, you're intimidated.
[A scoff. He retrieves his fork- and he points it at Byleth.]
You. Intimidated. I better be wrong.
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The old professor at least didn't bother to hide how broken he'd been after Jeralt's death. Now, though, perhaps Byleth is guilty of having become too human: he tries for a smile, but it's forced, the same way Dimitri's smile during his academy days had always been forced.
Maybe he's become too like the boar in his own way. Or maybe it's just that they have all become so much more sensitive than they used to be. ]
No, I wouldn't be intimidated by him. I've never been intimidated by anybody, really.
[ That much is true, at least. Byleth has never been intimidated by another person. Not even Archbishop Rhea, who had seemed so impossibly perfect to most students that she had actually been frightening. All the more so, whenever she'd callously order someone's death. ]
I...
[ Byleth hesitates. Looks down. His mind is clearly everywhere but on the food. ]
I do think... that I...
[ Is it really so hard? For him to get it out? Byleth lapses into silence again, but the silence itself pressures him. Spit it out, he imagines Felix saying, even before he's actually said it. Anxieties needle at his core.
It seems so impossible, from his own perspective, to give voice to the problem. The infinite scope of it, and where it started. I think he might be through with me. Too hysterical, too much blame on Dimitri's part. I think I made a mistake. Too vague, with too much emphasis on the act itself. I think he doesn't need me anymore. Closer to the truth, but also not quite the problem.
He sets his fork down in favor of folding his hands on the table, staring forlornly at his bowl. It's a rare sight, the professor not wanting to eat. ]
I think I might have misunderstood him.
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He'd never taken Byleth's nature to be this- someone afraid to upset an apple cart.
But alas. That isn't said. There's no opportunity to. So, instead: that intimidation. Or the lack of it.]
Good. If so, I'd have lost a great deal of respect for you.
[A huff. It made him a traitor to his station as a noble to admit that the crown upon a man's head did not make a magical creature above mere mortals such as they. Rodrigue's probably doing pirouettes in his improvised grave for Felix's words, and what those words, were they the words of the entire kingdom, would do to the status quo.
but he speaks them all the same. Just to Byleth. Only to Byleth. Anyone else would have the stony silence of a noble that benefitted extensively from the belief of the smallfolk.]
He might be King now. But he's the same person he always was. He's not changed a bit- and he won't change. He'll be... what [No.] who he is... until the day that he dies. Crown or not.
...What happened to the royal family- His family- altered him. Often, I think that something in his mind collapsed. Just as he cannot taste anything. Just as without trying, he crushes things in his hands. He is still, in the respect of his thoughts and his impulses, as he was when it happened... a child, in some respects. He will always be this way. Chances are it will never repair.
[Uncharitable view or not, it was apt.
Felix knew him better than anyone currently living.]
And as I've said, over and over- he needs handling. He prefers you to me. ...And I think that you're better suited for it, anyway. ...But I don't think it's about that. So tell me what you think is your misunderstanding. I'll tell you if you're right.
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But the description of Dimitri as an eternal child is so, so funny. Because Byleth absolutely knows what Felix means by that. But also, it is such a damning reminder of the real problem at hand. And Byleth doesn't want to say it, but he also reminds himself that Felix wouldn't want him to couch the facts in more flowery, effusive language. So Byleth falls back on the thing he used to be: a mercenary, one who wouldn't sugarcoat things.
May as well just say it. ]
We had sex.
[ That is the only the first of his sins to confess. The second one — ]
It wasn't the first time. The first time was a long time ago.
[ A long time ago. So — when they were all students?
He sometimes wonders if Felix guessed at that already. Or if everyone guessed at that already. Because the way that Byleth minded Dimitri during his moments of madness — it wasn't entirely natural. Obviously it was because Byleth loved him; Mercedes realized that ages ago. Spelled it out, ages ago. But there was always such a guilt to it. Such obligation. Like he felt like he had abandoned Dimitri, or that he had somehow contributed to the problem of Dimitri's unwellness.
Byleth collapses. Confesses, like a regretful criminal might admit to selfish murder. Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped. So utterly defeated. ]
I've always felt... that I shouldn't have done it. Because I was his professor. I should have said no. But he could have had anyone else, back then — the prince of Faerghus — and I always indulged him. And it seemed like it was what he wanted. Both then and now.
[ His fingers are gripped so tightly around themselves that his knuckles would be white if Felix could see them past the gloves. ]
He seems better now. He's been so — kingly. Apologized to everyone for how he's been. Decided we would go back to liberate Fhirdiad. All of these — positive things —
But he won't look me in the eyes now. And I don't know why.
[ Byleth sighs and lifts his shoulders, fixing his posture. ]
When I try to think of what I did wrong... my mind conjures up so many possibilities that I can't even stop to contemplate just one. [ A wry smile. ] All of it was wrong. No? I knew better... I should have known better.
this tag made me think of rhea's face if she knew dimi had her "mum..."
...Or something.
And really, this isn't about that. The details of Felix's relationship- positive or negative- would not be spoken upon. Not to anyone. Not under any context. But regardless, Felix listens on what is offered about Byleth's.]
...
[He can't say he's surprised. Not really. But he pushes his noodles away. So long, sweet noodles and delicious hand-pulled cow. He doesn't feel like eating you any more. (It's a shame. You were delicious. Especially you, cow.)
Food removed, he sighs- fingertips moving against his own forehead.]
You're right. You shouldn't have. Especially then.
[Rhea, no doubt, would have commanded that her precious professor would keep his tenure. But no doubt, his freedoms would have been strictly limited. And Dimitri... prince or not, who knew. Maybe the monastery would have packed him off somewhere. Back to Rodrigue, perhaps?
Abyss?Either way. It's not important. They were not discovered, and that is that. Felix does not see the whiteness of Byleth's knuckles. But he does hear the creak of the material of his gloves. He watches Byleth's hands.]
Yet you did, and you have.
[Recently, by the sound of it. He'd be truly aghast if Byleth and Dimitri were swiving each other while Dimitri was...
That.
No. As hardy and as strong as Byleth is, as much as he's inexplicably dodged death in the past, and even survived on ...rainwater, apparently, for the past five years, Felix would not think he'd live through the experience. And besides. Only one thing got His Beastliness' passions up then. Retreating men. Or the thought of the Emperor's severed head.
...A faint twinge of disgust. Less on that.]
I doubt you've done anything. It's him.
[Felix was at danger of Byleth dismissing his answer entirely. Because it was a running theme, Felix knew. He had always blamed him. It's best to explain his reasoning.]
He has guilt. For his people in Ferdiad who he turned his back on- who yet suffer under Cornelia's rule. For those of territories on the front lines, [Such as Fraldarius. Poor Fraldarius.] who are called from their villages to fight a losing battle. For us, even- who stood beside him for you- although he told us loudly and often that he would have us commit his atrocities until the flesh fell from our bones.
...But above all, I think he has guilt for you. For everything he said to you. For the fact that in that moment, he meant every word.
[Sharp words delivered in anger, but unmeant, were one thing. Painful, sure. But forgivable. How Dimitri was, then. How he truly was. Only Byleth could forgive that.]
It strikes me that you've forgiven him. Yet he hasn't forgiven himself.
i'm actually wheezing thinking about this
rhea: LET ME SHOW THAT BRAT A REAL TRAGEDY OF DUSCUR )
[ Byleth sits braced for a rebuke that does not come. In retrospect, he supposes it was silly to expect one. It's the same sort of problem where he'd thought there was a callousness in evaluating their physical forms like livestock, when in reality, Felix could probably have laughed at that concern for the way their parents and peers had treated them like livestock all their lives. However much sin there was in bedding Dimitri when he had asked for it, that infringement surely paled in comparison to the way that others had infringed on Dimitri in far more serious ways.
Felix is right, of course; there's no sense hand-wringing about that part of it now, years after it was done. Quite probably, Dimitri would have gone mad regardless of any guilt he may have felt over believing that his first love had died in the siege on Garreg Mach. As always, Felix is much more concerned with what is happening in the present, which is whatever has driven Dimitri to avoid Byleth despite their sharing a night together — and really, given the totality of evidence so far, Felix is probably right again. It is far more likely that Dimitri is going through another bout of self-blame rather than that Byleth did anything to offend him.
The professor lets out a long breath and rests his spine against the back of his chair. ]
I told him that, too. That he needs to forgive himself. But even having said that... I don't know if he ever will.
[ He stops tensing his fingers, but they remain resolutely folded in front of him, between his chest and the bowl of noodles slowly growing cold on the table. Byleth swallows hard on a lump in his throat, looking away at nothing in particular, wearing a face that looks almost as though he wants to cry. ]
...I feel so foolish, Felix. I have never had thoughts like this before. I know that I should focus — on our friends, on the war, on the people of Faerghus — on the Empire, and what Edelgard may be plotting —
And yet... all I can think about is what I will do with myself if he decides that there isn't a place for me beside him anymore.
[ He sighs and stares at his bowl again. He does sort of want to eat... Perhaps they can resume their meal after Byleth stops looking as though he has been planning different ways to throw himself off the bridge. ]
I didn't know that I was so afraid of being rejected by him.
who knew you could fight the immaculate one on blue lions
[Felix would think, were it say... Ashe that had caught the professor's eye, that Byleth would be to blame. Absolutely. Completely. Entirely. Likewise, he would not chide him for it now. But there would be a revulsion ay Byleth's confession that he would not be able to ignore.
Yet not with Dimitri. So what was different? It was not that he thought Ashe simpleminded then or now. Of course not. Fanciful and prone to flights of fancy as the archer might be, he wasn't without his own mind then, or now. Nor was it that he disliked Dimitri. Because... no. Felix's feelings for the boar king were complicated. Dislike was far too simple a term. He wouldn't have watched over someone he disliked within the Cathedral at all- let alone for as long as he did. Or as intently as he did. Or with as much concern as he did. He'd have never offered his own prayers for him either.
What made Dimitri different was...
He was as mad as a box of frogs. Obviously.
But that madness didn't mean he was naive. Or foolish. Or wide eyed and staring at a world that he couldn't comprehend, despite Felix's thoughts on him still retaining some aspects of a child. That point still stood- but Dimitri's madness meant the opposite. He had the impulse control of a child, perhaps, as well as the foresight of one. But all the intelligence, all the cunning, of someone afforded the finest education in Faerghus- and the tenacity and followthrough of... well, a madman.
Felix had seen, but not commented upon, some of what had happened after Jeralt was murdered. He'd seen the ulterior motive behind each and every grab Dimitri made for Byleth; every excuse he'd made to speak to him privately. Every time he'd put himself in a grieving man's way. Assumed that the boar had thought his professor, and the mysterious power he had, was the best means to his ultimate aim. And what was sleeping with someone weighed against a grand idea of vengence? Nothing, that's what.
...But.
Something had happened to correct him. Before that explosion- that shout. From Dimitri, of all people- for Byleth. The sheer terror in his voice as he thought, fleetingly, that Byleth was dead. That panic, that scream...
...That couldn't be faked. Even at his most uncharitable, Felix couldn't deny that maybe, maybe- Dimitri cared for someone that wasn't himself. Maybe.
Felix taps his finger once, twice, on the table. Then, he huffs, extending his arm outward, around Byleth's narrow shoulders- and with a firm tilt of the other man's head, rests his temple against his shoulder. ...And yes. His hand lingers, toying, vaguely, with different strands of his
cabbagehair.However. He keeps staring forward. Finally...]
I don't think he'll reject you. Not without harming himself as well. As you say- he wishes to harm himself. But I think the madness that holds him will not allow him to do it.
[Hence looking for his end in other people. Even old Gilbert.
Ugh...]
He loves you, as you love him. It's clear. All being well, when the war is won, he will settle. His mind will become occupied with the needs of the kingdom, and not what he has done.
[Poor Byleth. Poor, stupid Byleth. Dimitri has madness as excuse. What of you?]
But I need you to listen to something. And I need you to consider it. What... [A small pause. His fingertips trace, with deceptive gentleness, at Byleth's temple beneath his hair.] ...What if this is to be the way of things from now? What if he needs you beside him, yet he cannot bring himself to meet your gaze?
[That was where Felix's (extensive!) knowledge on wild boars ended. Dimitri... to his eye anyway (Sylvain was far more knowledgable there...) had not thought that the boar had loved any other. So he had no reference. No idea if this would be permanent, or not.]
What will you do then? Will you continue on with him, or will you leave?
omg i'm big cry... felix shoulder... he's so sweet
Well, maybe that's not quite true. Byleth has suspected Dimitri before, but he wouldn't have spoken of it to anyone else at the time, not to Felix, not to Sylvain. The way that Dimitri had pursued him in the days after Jeralt's murder — there was something sick in it. Dimitri's sympathy for him was real — that, Byleth never doubted — but there was a dark excitement beneath that sympathy, too. A sick bloodlust. Like he was happy that Byleth's father had died before his eyes, because his own father had died like that, too, and he'd been hoping all his life to find someone who could suffer that pain with him. Because it meant that he had an excuse to be the only one visiting Byleth in his quarters, the only one holding his hand, the only one whispering sweet and impossible promises into his ear.
Your enemies are my enemies. My strength is yours alone. So pure, and then, darker and darker: I would kill anyone for you, Professor. I would be the blade in your hands. Take me, use me — leave me broken, if you must —
Something unhealthy. Part of Byleth had recognized it as something unhealthy, but welcomed it all the same.
If he had consulted Felix then, he might have seen more to the picture. Byleth never found out, for example, that Dimitri had always known he was headed for war, with or without the Empire's input. Byleth never heard a word of it, but Dimitri knew that returning to Faerghus would have sparked a contest for the throne against Rufus, and the years he had at the Academy were only meant to be long enough to buy himself some time to raise an army. And that was why — every earnest attempt to invite him back to Faerghus, the patient affection, the warm understanding, the gentle coaxing, all temptations meant to wear him down over time —
A young prince hellbent on revenge, with ruthless cunning, with a madman's tenacity, with a child's impulses. A young prince like that, presented with a man who could have handily won him the war he was bracing himself for — why wouldn't it have come to that? Why wouldn't he stoop to seduction, when seduction was such an easy thing to offer in exchange for a loyal warmaster?
...Felix could have told Byleth a very different tale. Byleth only ever saw the blue-eyed boy with the world on his shoulders and a desperate longing to be loved.
It's too late now to speak of this, though. Byleth is so hopelessly in love with Dimitri now that he would not be able to convince himself to stop caring even if — and indeed even after — Dimitri himself stated that it was only ever a ruse and he only ever meant to exploit Byleth's skill.
But Felix's arms encircle his professor, pull him onto his shoulder. Felix's hand strokes individual
leavesstrands of Byleth's hair. Felix, of all the Blue Lions, has the clarity of sight to advise him in matters of the heart, and the brilliant compassion to see him for the pitiful creature he really is and always has been.Tears well up in Byleth's eyes. He pulls his gloves off so that he can wipe them on the backs of his knuckles.
Oh, Felix, he thinks, and he only doesn't say it because he knows Felix wouldn't want him to. ]
...I wouldn't abandon him even if he himself thrust the blade into my heart.
[ Dimitri has madness as an excuse, but Byleth — Byleth is just a fool. All that skill, all that genius, and in the end, he is only another lovestruck fool. He laughs a little thickly through the lump in his throat. ]
I expect you'll tell me I'm a fantastic idiot...
only for byleth! anyone else can get to fuck
[Deadpan. He'd told him, after all- that the boar was likely to bite his arm off. And here he was. Their great and gifted professor- with two bloody stumps. Whinging into his shoulder as if all of this was some kind of surprise.
...But perhaps that's too overly harsh.
Felix had known that Dimitri was out for himself, at least at first. And despite his warning to Byleth- a little comment- as Felix's memory went, at their very first proper meeting- Felix hadn't done anything to prevent it. Nor would he. In the early stages of Byleth's tenure, Felix would have stood by as Dimitri chewed him up and spat him out should he have been so inclined. He'd have perhaps complained about such a waste of such a good sword instructor- but he'd have stayed loyal to the boar and his crumbling kingdom.
But how far said boar would go... he'd learned that as they went.
How he cared for Byleth, as well... he'd learned that as he went.
It's that care which is shown now. Independent of Dimitri. Independent of loyalty. Independent of kingdom and country. Probably, if he'd have chosen another class to teach, Felix would have sought to join it.
Sorry, Sylvain.]...Yet as thickheaded as you are, you deserve to be loved. Mine isn't the same as his. But until he gets his act together and treats you as you deserve to be treated, I'll be here for you.
[Clarification: not in the way a professor loves his pet pig, no. But to talk. To be listened to. To be acknowledged. To be cared for. It's a platonic love. But it is love, of a shape. Of a form.
...And until he had better, he'd give it.]
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But, all things considered. The cruelty of the boar aside. His manipulation, his violence, his rage. It cannot be denied now that Dimitri truly does love Byleth, in the flawed way that he can love anything. The boar has found his mate, and the trouble now is when they'll be able to go off into the forest together. (This may be a better way to think about Byleth's stubbornness, also. Perhaps the truth is just that he's just as pigheaded and boarish as his choice of beloved.)
There might always be a part of Felix that will be exasperated in his professor's awful taste in men, but a few weeks from now, perhaps — after Fhirdiad is retaken, and Dimitri remembers what it is like to put his people first — the king of Faerghus will gaze into Byleth's eyes again, and let himself feel vulnerable enough to be in love.
For now, Byleth sighs a shuddering sigh, turns his head a little so that his forehead is more firmly pressed into Felix's neck, and then pulls away with a nuzzle that is sort of like a kiss but isn't. ]
Thank you, Felix. You are kinder to me than I deserve.
[ He wipes the last of his tears, shaking his head. Then he reaches out for Felix's bowl. His hands glow a little bit with latent magic. It is a simple thing for him to reheat a bowl that hasn't gone all that cold; he does the same with his own. Fortunately, again, he has... much better temperature control than Annette. ]
I'll be alright, I promise. Let's return to our meal. You're fond of most any dish with beef in it, as I recall.
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[He's as kind as you deserve, Byleth. Because you don't deserve anything close to what you're going through. He tries to think, briefly, on what he would do if Sylvain grew distant, unyeilding. Uncaring. Cruel. ...But he doesn't get there. He can't imagine himself doing anything other than knocking the cavalryman's block off.
A straightening of the mussed back pieces of Byleth's hair follows, when he turns his head. As well as a gentler than expected pat. Then he withdraws his hand, allowing him to sit straight. He watches the trick- as well as Byleth's skill... not without leaning back a little, Annette in mind.]
No. I've got something better in mind.
[A small pause. Sure. His bowl is now steaming hot. But he could always heat it again. He reaches toward Byleth's hand, taking it by the (narrow) wrist underneath his gauntlet. And he stands, making his way to the dirt square of the training room. He approaches the sword rack, lifting a standard shortsword from it by the hilt. That sword is lightly tossed upward into Byleth's spare hand. Then he takes one of his own.
They're indescriminate things, those swords. Blunted to prevent injury. Forged of inexpensive iron. The most threat they present is the rust that lines them- more casualties of the five years of neglect the monastery ruins had endured.
He lets go of Byleth's wrist.
And immediately, without warning, without explanation, he's on him.
Felix had always been a savage fighter. His diminutive (by Faerghan standard) height and stature didn't match theforce of which he could put into his swing- whether he was using his Crest or not. But thanks to Byleth's training, the fact that his professor had bothered to tailor certain things to him to capitalize on his strengths- as well as his own dogged devotion, he was more than uncannily strong now. He was an utter terror to fight. Strong enough to hurt. intelligent enough to see weak spots. Quick enough to capitalize on them. And ruthless enough to win.
Technically, he's brilliant. His initial swipe is followed immediately with a gliding step forward, and a thrust intended to put Byleth on the back foot. He barely has a chance to avoid it before a push comes- Felix's blade crossing Byleth's- forcing the point of his off line. As it is pushed to a distance where being clipped with it was impossible- Felix closes the distance further- delivering a very real blow to the side of Byleth's head. Then, he adjusts his force on the sword, heaving it- and Byleth's own- upward, stepping underneath them both, and to Byleth's back. He'll feel the sole of Felix's boot upon his back. Not in a kick- but a shove- pushing him forward a few meters.]
Come on. Don't hold back.
[Poor Byleth. He must be wondering what the hell is happening at this moment in time. How they'd got from comfort, to... this. But Felix knew. A few swings, a few hits of Byleth's own... and it'd make sense.
Nothing stilled an unquiet mind quite like putting all thoughts into something else.]
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He had been hoping to eat, not fight! Utterly baffled by the sudden betrayal of the man who just moments before had let him cry on his shoulder, Byleth still manages to dodge Felix's he initial swipe and thrust with relative ease. But Felix is fast — bewilderingly so, a trait that Byleth himself had encouraged him to hone — so when he gets in a dizzying blow to the head and a little kick-shove, well —
Byleth is pissed.
It was a trait that took most of the Blue Lions several months to notice. He was terrifying, at first. The Ashen Demon, seemingly devoid of emotions, flatter and more difficult to read even than masked Professor Jeritza (who was, despite eccentricities, still known to have some human qualities like liking ice cream and preferring fresh air). Byleth seemed devoid even of heated feelings during battle. But then, as the ice melted, they all started to realize: Byleth was just as competitive as any other hot-blooded Faerghan man. It was simply easier for him to hide that when he wasn't the one struggling.
Now his students can push him to a breaking point; now the former mercenary has to pull himself together. He does it admirably, recovering from having Felix's shoe on his back to a standing position, and Byleth has always been admirably deadly in a standing position.
The thing about Byleth in a fight — which Felix had always admired in their youth — is that, still and to this day, he makes no unnecessary movements. Felix is fast, aggressive, savage. Byleth is not. His swings are calculated, his footwork precise, and he parries so elegantly. Deadly but graceful, like a dancer on the battlefield. Those long sleeves of his float so beautifully with his movements, sometimes distracting from the real and dangerous lines of his arms. All at once he goes from taken off-guard to back in control again, ever the instructor, standing proud and upright, expertly blocking each of Felix's blows.
...This does clear his mind. There is no time to worry about a distant lover in the heat of battle.
If it were only sparring, Byleth would leave it at that. But he's peeved, so once he sees an appropriate opening — and it takes quite a while for him to get an opening —
— he aims a kick, sweeping out with one leg to catch Felix behind the knee and bring him down.
He bonks — yes, there is no other word to use but bonks — Felix hard on the head with the hilt of his sword for good measure. ]
At least ask next time!
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But Byleth can be unsettling. Fighting with a sword was personal. It lacked the distance of lances. The advantage of cavalry. The intimidation factor of axes. It was a violent, chaotic, and often bloody struggle of endurance and strength- of reading an opponent's actions just as much as it was avoiding their blows and outclassing their strength. What a roll of a shoulder meant. Interpreting a glint in the eye as an upcoming attack. …And what not a lot of people realized, just how exhausting it really was to truly try and force a pointed piece of metal through another man's body, let alone pull it back out again.
Those that thought fighting with a sword was a dance, or anything close to it, had never fought with a sword. There was no grace in it. There's no elegance in deflecting a blow that's intended to sever your head from your body. It's poetic, foolish nonsense- and any that felt that way, with a real sword in their hands, on a real battlefield, would soon discover that there's no beauty in clawing around in the dirt, trying to force your guts back into the hole they'd been prised out of.
...But Byleth's an exception to that rule.
There is a grace and a beauty in the way he fights. Even the (silly) way he holds his sword on his shoulder, for no apparent purpose, should be something that has him vulnerable and ...dead, basically. But he's strong. His quickness, at this point, isn't quite Felix's. His sheer strength isn't quite Felix's own either. At this point, in regard to talent- the student far outclassed the teacher. In mentality too. Felix had trained under Byleth for far too long to be distracted by his turns, his sweeps, or how floaty his sleeves are as they whip around him. Whereas most would focus upon the prettiness of Byleth's fighting or the emptiness within his eyes, Felix sees his arms. The legs. Everything that could- and would- hurt him given half the chance.
Yet still, Byleth's so very strong. Every blow Felix gives him is deflected. Felix knew that it wasn't a simple matter to do so. Not any longer- but Byleth himself gives no indication of any difficulty he might be facing. Even his kick barely catches him. But catches him it does- and the soon to be Duke Fraldarius is knocked to a knee. Not the end of him. Not be a long shot. He adjusts his hold upon the hilt of his sword to thrust it backward and to his side to stab Byleth through the gut (or in this case, make a sweep at his own legs!) but before he quite gets there...
Bonk.
And then there's that shout.]
...Ha...
[Prepare yourself, Byleth. Something never before seen or heard is imminent.]
...Ahahaha…!
[Okay. The bonk to the head hurt. There's no doubt about that one. Felix would probably have a fine lump there, come morning. But... laughing? Actually laughing? Not sniggering, or a sound of incredulous bemusement?]
Hahaha-
Almost. I almost had you. -Ha...
[He had no idea if- just for a moment- Byleth was scared. But it's hilarious to him that for once, he might have been surprised. The hand holding that sword drops it upon the dirt in surrender- raising to be pulled up.]
-No. From now until this... predicament with the boar king is settled, I'm attacking you on sight.
[Helped up or not, as he stands, he turns and views his once-professor. His expression, as ever, is blank. But the exertion seems to have done him good. His face has a fair bit more colour in it. And he seems less sad.
Still angered, perhaps. But less sad.]
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Sighing, he lowers his blade, then extends his hand to pull Felix up. ]
You're just saying that because you'll have fun doing it.
[ ...It is nice, though. Being able to see Felix smiling and laughing like this. Despite all the time that he's spent in the company of other people, this is a new position for Byleth: it's not often that he finds himself so surly while a friend laughs brilliantly at his expense.
But he thinks he understands, now. He gets it. The way that the others talk about Felix, like he used to be so sweet, so harmless, so pure. Obviously Felix has become a harder man than most, and Byleth will never meet the boy that he used to be. But he thinks he might understand now. The next time that Sylvain talks about how cute and clingy Felix used to be. He can see it.
Byleth squeezes Felix's hand — just once, clasping it, like a handshake between men — and then lets go, turning round to clap Felix on the shoulder instead. ]
Come on, eat your noodles.