Chapter Text
I suppose this is hardly the first time that F. surprises me.
And yet here I am. As catatonic as I am shaking with anger, as methodical in this written approach as I am manic in my thoughts. Even now, bent as I am over my desk, delaying our evening appointment under false pretenses of work, my heart trembles as my body tenses.
It is almost as if I’ve caught a sudden chill. No, worse even, it is the cold sweat of fever, of my body fighting off an unbearable heat that it cannot handle.
Pathetic. Simply pathetic.
Is this what you are to be, von Vestra? A spineless, lovesick coward who excuses himself when faced with discomfort?
Focus. You are not in the habit of losing grip so easily. But, as usual, there can only be one cause. That cause being: an unwarranted, disproportionate reaction to the words and actions of a certain colleague, recently turned lover.
In any case. To avoid further embarrassment and childlike behaviour, I have decided to turn to these pages, commandeering a resource usually dedicated to war and strategy for my own internal conflict. A justified investment surely, given that clear reasoning and a calm mind are the most valuable tools known to man, and mine seem to be momentarily blunted.
Yes, yes, I know. Delaying the inevitable, even here. Even in private conversation with myself, it pains me to admit it:
F., do you know how I felt when you so briskly pulled away from my touch before the meeting a few hours prior? I had only meant to call you to attention, to touch your arm in reassurance and signal that we were about to start. What crossed my mind when you straight away turned to a visiting lord, took his hands in yours in greeting, plied him with that dazzling smile and those thoughtful words of consideration for his health, his mood, his taste in brocade embellished by the finest adrestian embroidery?
Do you know how I felt, when eyes turned and murmurs reached my ears, in the split second it took for you to leave my side and show your back to me?
I felt a fool.
And when our eyes met as I made to slink away before the appointed hour, the cold stare you gave me was more chilling than any I have had the displeasure to face to date; you turned away without saying a word.
I felt I could die.
And so I fled.
I thought to close the door to my heart before you could, to leave myself out in the cold before you cast me away, to return to the indignant scorn and bluster I held for you before the war.
Anything to stop that moment in time from rising to the surface of my thoughts, preserved frozen in memory.
Do you know F. that ice floats in water?
It is a fact of nature as much as it is a fact of the mind. One I thought myself brilliant to have tricked, molded through the years into a heavy frozen sheet of my own, a barren desert to serve as an infallible defense against the reality of our vulnerable existence. Nothing was to break this glacial resolve, to rise above it, to hit hard enough for cracks to show. At first, its purpose was to curb murderous intent, to stand tall against the impossible injustice that children face when hurt by selfish adults. Then it became a crutch to keep up with Edelgard, who leapt ahead regardless of her own hurt. I’ve never had time to feel for myself, not when the only beacon in my life was the promise made to my dearest friend, hair whitened beyond her years, whose chill I made my own to give her a chance to feel. My own footsteps to leave hoarfrost in our wake, so that her resolve could light a path for those yet to come.
But you…You do not light—you burn, burn brighter than the sun, ablaze a wild passion and determination oft beyond your own control. A celestial body so alien and distant that your presence overhead casts no shadow for me to hide in. You taught me of a strength born from warmth rather than cold steel, of a fire that ignites the soul, of a young love untamed that spread like dangerous wildfire, to later mature and settle into a hearth, inviting a tired, weary soul to share its home.
And while patches of snow and ice on the ground may gladly melt away from the gentle touch of the sun, an iceberg will roar, felled through its center, as the cracks born of rising temperature shatter its shape from within.
No matter how thick the ice on the surface, you light a fire in me that crackles away deep in my core, far from the reach of the cold.
And now that I know I am in love with you, the ice has given way, leaving me exposed to the woes of the heart.
So please forgive me F. for hiding, for nursing wounds away from prying eyes. I’m afraid of those unspoken words, of the answers you might give to the questions on my mind.
Does my name really carry such a burden that even your burning presence is cooled by its overbearing shadow? Does my touch repulse you when witnessed by others, a fresh brand of sin on bare skin that has you screaming for more, until you are reminded that wanting never trumps propriety?
Do you not want me, as dearly as I do you? At all times, in all places, in an infinity of ways?
Oh, how loathe I am to feel this fear, to flounder within its icy grasp…For now that I think of it, the admission stings all the more: you have never once left me out in the cold.
I am always the one who flees.
...And flee I did again, to pace around the office and brew a cup of coffee.
You’ve told me time and time again to not be afraid to feel, to ask rather than assume, to confide rather than withdraw, and here I am doing it again.
F., I am sorry.
Of all the things I could accuse you with, being cold should not be one of them. I simply…I cannot stand it, to see how you play social mores in your favour, how you use the most special and brilliant parts of you to pander to fools and sycophants, how you allow them to think they have your esteem in order to gain the upper hand.
You are the only one who earns my touch, my rarest of smiles. But that is not a request you’ve ever made of me, nor is it fair that I should expect the same in return.
And I’m ashamed to admit that while I paced furiously like an animal caged, I remembered…The lord whose hand you took in yours also sided in favour of the motion Edelgard had hoped to pass without resorting to authority. Without resorting to my methods further down the line.
I know exactly what you would say:
“Oh, Hubert, you forget one thing. Politics is a simple matter of winning favour!”
I have to laugh, because I did chastise you so when we had that debate. When your reasoning proved sound, and your evidence plentiful. I am sorry then, for confusing politics and matters of the heart. I shall endeavour to not let my disdain taint your efforts, and to learn to appreciate methods I would consider torture.
For, had you let me touch your arm and whisper close to your ear, I have no doubt the flame you hold for me would’ve lit up your sun-kissed complexion so that no one could deny for whom your heart burns so bright.
It is possible then, that the name von Vestra indeed would’ve lost us a battle that your strategy otherwise so effortlessly tipped in our favour.
I am sorry for being selfish and insecure, Ferdinand.
From here on I shall endeavour to study the threads of your own carefully crafted schemes, while I watch them work their intoxicating magic from afar.