Chapter Text
A heart will swell before it's hardened
With the flick of the hair, it can make you old
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… He shall live a man forbid.
Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.
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… I clutched my life
And wished it kept
My dearest love, I'm not done yet
How many years
I know I'll bear
I found something in the woods somewhere
PART ONE.
I. ENBARR.
Days after the end of the war, in a camp outside Enbarr, a messenger makes her way to Sylvain as they start to pack up and tear down camp to make their way back to Fhirdiad. The messenger, a Pegasus knight from Gautier, requests to see him in person by request of his father, the current Margrave. Not even Felix convinces her to give up the letter, who happened to be there close to Sylvain’s battalions because he’s finished his duties. It’s only when Sylvain, emerging from the King’s makeshift war room in the field – a tent set up in the middle of the city – approaches her that the intrepid messenger hands over the letter.
“Your father also has another message, your excellency.”
“What’s that?” Sylvain takes the letter. He glances at the front to confirm the Gautier seal, and rips it open with a dagger.
“He said: go no further.”
Sylvain looks at her. “I’m sorry?”
“He said – ”
“No, I heard you the first time. I just – ” Sylvain runs his hand through his hair. “I see. Okay. Thank you. Is that all?”
The knight nods.
“You’re dismissed. Tell my father I hear him loud and clear, and I’ll have an answer for him soon enough.”
The knight leaves. Sylvain holds the letter in a tight grip in his hand; it’s only when Felix approaches him with a confused look on his face that he relents, and exhales loudly.
“What’s going on?”
“The usual,” Sylvain says. “My father.”
“What’s the Margrave want?”
“The usual.”
“Meaning what, Sylvain.”
“Meaning I have to write to him now.” Sylvain sighs. “I’ll catch up with you later, Felix.”
Felix doesn’t look like he believes him at all, but he watches him leave and doesn’t say a word when he does. He’s grateful for it because it gives him time to think, and it allows him to be miserable without the burden of explaining to a friend what misery he’s shouldering now. Now, when they were supposed to be celebrating; now, when the Empire has been crushed and the King victorious. After all this victory, Sylvain knew where his destiny would lead him: North, towards the cold. Gautier waits.
Gautier, riding from the influence it was enjoying during the Saviour King’s successes in Enbarr, is now in a position to ask for favours. After all, the Saviour King owes much to the Margrave for having cleared the path for his coronation by quelling, and convincing, the other lords to support Dimitri’s position. Having successfully done this work, the first order of business is to tame its unruly heir.
Sylvain always knew this was coming. There wasn’t a day, after all, that his father had religiously reminded him of his duties to Gautier, and what it means to wield the lance that defined their house. He had hated every second of it, and thought that with the war, things would get too busy for his father to contend with the issue of succession. Apparently the Margrave knows how to multi-task, and this is how Sylvain finds out, with a letter from a Pegasus knight as stubborn as the land she came from. He should’ve known.
It's not like he hasn’t given thought about it either. More and more he’d considered it to be a possibly less stressful venture since Dorothea had entered his life. He had been getting along with her quite well, to the point where he is genuinely surprised about the fact that he cares for her. After the war, he had thought that there was more time to get to know each other before he must confront the realities of Gautier; now it seems that he has to make a decision again, same as before when he had to figure out whether it was his duty to take the lance for his brother. All things being equal, they fall onto him like the hammer on an anvil.
Now that he’s in his own tent, eating dinner as he reads his father’s cramped handwriting by candlelight, he reads over the letter slowly. Each line is part of a sermon he’s heard before, each paragraph a summons from the north. It’s not a coincidence his father has sent it after their victory, probably realizing that his son would rather whore himself out than return to Gautier post-haste. He had, in fact, been planning to fuck around. It’s just that lately, it’s been confined to the embrace of one woman, and isn’t that something admirable on its own? He had been praised for his onset of loyalty like a plague by his friends, and Dorothea congratulated besides for taming him. He had allowed it because for a moment, it did feel good, and he was proud of himself for being with someone. And now –
- now he has to write to his father.
Sylvain rubs his eyes with his hands as he rummages for parchment and his quill.
Everyone else was celebrating for the night, and here he was, seated and writing on a rickety table as he picks ink and sharpens the end of the quill for his damn father. Nothing in Gautier can wait, and the longer he postpones the reply the more the knowledge of it burns in his gut the way everything about his family has been a burden to him. He can’t fully say he loves them, but he is a son of Gautier and feels dutiful, loyalty a crushing and deafening roar in his ears the moment he tries contemplating running away. So Sylvain sits, and Sylvain writes, knowing that everything he tells his father is an attempt to buy time: I understand the gravity of the situation and will be considering marriage. I understand the current position of Gautier and the urgency of the heir to bear heirs. Know, however, that I have no intention of putting a primacy on the importance of my crest as previous generations have. I fully intend to have this argument with you when I return.
Your loving son.
Before they leave the city, there is a feast. It’s a meagre feast given that they’re still soldiers in a city who, for all intents and purposes, disposed of their Emperor and uprooted the way of living for all citizens that lived in its walls. But it was by no means subdued, and Sylvain, long familiar with the stares of hatred, felt it in waves as a quiet people watched blue soldiers getting drunk and singing Kingdom ditties that he imagines they will come to hate in decades to come. In war, nobody else knows the truth and scope of it aside from the people who command it. The further away you were from the King, the more the war becomes personal and minute.
He finds himself on the steps of the Opera house, slightly tipsy, and there he sees Dorothea, sitting by herself with a half-empty bottle of gin. He gives a slight wave. “Not with the rest of them?”
“No. I wanted some time for myself before we leave.” She pats the space beside her. “Come closer, Mr. Knight.”
“Demoted! Right in her hometown, too.”
Dorothea laughed. “It will probably be the last time I’ll be here.”
She takes a swig from her bottle and Sylvain understands it. Who would want for the songstress to return? She had come back to them wearing colours of blue instead of red during the war, and she had become a rallying point for turncoats from the Empire in the Kingdom. She had played the part of the villainess for her people and there will never be good word spoken of her again for years to come, the songstress who has allied herself to the King of Lions. He doubts that the people of Enbarr viewed their King as kindly as they do. He doesn’t even think that Dorothea views Dimitri the way they do to him as friends; they were classmates, and although Dimitri has always been perfectly nice to her, she kept to herself and limited herself to her own smaller projects to help the war effort. Things like taking care of the orphans, healing the infirm. Healing Red and Blue soldiers alike. Where it was a gesture of kindness that benefited the Kingdom in the long run, they turned a blind eye to it because it was something that can be used. Goodness has no inherent value.
Dorothea held his hand in the dark. “Where’s a nice place to live in Faerghus?”
“Depends. We have an Opera house, but it’s not as famous as Enbarr’s. Of course, if you move there, I’m sure your fans will follow.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be singing for a while.” Dorothea laughs a bit bitterly. “Can you imagine how many dirges there’ll be for years to come?”
“There won’t be,” Sylvain says. “Because the focus will be on rebuilding the Kingdom, which means there won’t be time for mourning. Be reasonable, Dorothea. Remember we’re not the villains here.”
Dorothea laughs. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious!”
“I am.” Sylvain gives him a wry smile. “I know what it’s like to be a noble, remember? I know the arrogance of the nobility and its royal house. And trust me, this is how it’ll play out. We’re done the war. We won. We’re heroes. If anything else – they’ll probably revive all the operas about kings and heroes and triumph over adversity, because what the people will be aching for, and what the Kingdom will want them to focus on, is the fact that we’re united now.”
That makes her drink harder, if anything else. When she lays the gin on the ground, Sylvain gently takes it away from her hands, and Dorothea says nothing to it – mostly because she’s crying. She hates the idea of leaving Enbarr, but it’s true. They’ve won.
Victory, however, leaves a bitter taste in her mouth and the feeling of leaving all that she’s known. She can’t fully say she hates the Empire, but she did love Edie, once, and she loved Manuela greatly, and all the people she’d come to know before she realized that transferring classes was a death sentence, not knowing where to go or who to become. And now she is here, standing in the capital city, victorious over their graves. What had she won? She can’t say she understood Faerghus’ penchant for martyrdom, but all the same, she feels no richer than when she had been cast out of a family by her father for not having a crest.
Dorothea leans her head against Sylvain’s shoulder in the dark and holds his hand. Sylvain slips an arm around her waist, keeping her close.
“What’s Gautier like?”
“Everything you’ve been told about it is true.”
“Cold … horrible?”
Sylvain laughs. “Yes. I honestly would rather recommend you stay in Fhirdiad.”
“I don’t want to be there alone.” She pulls on Sylvain’s collar and looks at him, biting her lower lip as she says, “you promised me, once, that you want to spend your life with me even as I grow old.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Will you take me to Gautier?”
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Sylvain is quiet. Dorothea looks at his face, impassive, unreadable, and exhales. “I knew. I knew you didn’t mean it.”
“I meant it.”
“Then what, Sylvain?”
“You don’t understand what you’re asking for,” He tells her evenly. “If you go to Gautier you will lose the freedom you’ve had so far living here.”
“Because I was doing so well – living with an army that crawls day to day - ! Killing my friends!”
“Dorothea. Gautier needs an heir.”
She stands up, turns to him angrily. Her dark curls frame her face, red, angry, and Sylvain thinks that she’s never been more beautiful but dangerous all the same. He holds onto her hand and she doesn’t let go but she is frustrated with him. “You don’t trust that I can give you heirs? I thought that crests don’t matter to you, Sylvain.”
“It doesn’t. But we have my family to contend with, and Gautier has never been crestless – until I change that. Until I fight my father when I return. That’s what’s waiting for me when I go back, Dorothea. There is so much work to be done before I make everyone realize that. Do you want that life?” Sylvain stands up, taking her hands in his own, gazing at her eyes as he speaks frankly to her. “I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you in Gautier if you choose to come back with me, but know that Gautier has always been as awful as you’ve heard about it and more. They don’t like outsiders there. We’ve been trying to kill outsiders all our life, Dorothea. Now I’m about to tell them we actually don’t have to do that anymore. That’s centuries of fear and hatred that I’m about to open up.”
Dorothea wavers in his gaze, just for a moment, before steeling herself with the slight lift of her chin. She had heard about the stories of House Gautier and just how far they take their obsession with crests, but hearing Sylvain talk about it frankly is upsetting. What do they have, together? Sylvain is with her, sometimes in a manner that she feels she can also honestly say they are together. But the knowledge that Sylvain will very easily leave her should something prove more interesting is also plaguing her. Everyone knows about his reputation, even when Sylvain is trying to become something more than the philanderer people have always said he was, or he has proven enough times to them. The fear that she will be the next one hurt is a danger she courts with Sylvain, and yet – Sylvain had, against all odds, remained courteous and deeply honest to her since then.
To the point she believes him, to the point that she would seriously consider being hurt if he betrays her now.
She hadn’t thought of Gautier, hadn’t thought of Sylvain as the heir to their house until now. There wasn’t any time during the war, after all; easier to think of kissing him, easier to make morbid jokes about dying together; easier, still, to imagine him dead. Close calls and the inherent danger of fighting the Empire made it easy enough to think of the many nights she would’ve spent alone again. And that truly was the trap she’d laid for herself: she is pretty, but now, not anyone would do anymore.
Her fault for letting him in to her heart in the first place.
She inhales sharply. “So – what then, Sylvain. We break up here?”
It’s a familiar refrain, after all.
Sylvain shakes his head.
“All I’m saying is that you have me,” He murmurs. “But Gautier is not something easy to love, and in all honesty, I don’t want you to fall for it either.
… I just want you to be happy, Dorothea. And I don’t think being in Gautier would make you happy.”
In fact he had been thinking of this more and more, the awfulness of having to take her all the way north to find what he has always known since he was a child: a people who did not love him, a people who had made him so miserable he had always considered running. Not even his closest friends know the extent of his family’s awfulness towards him, the issue with Miklan being confined solely to several japes that are out of the left field for him. And now here he was, considering the possibility of opening it to a stranger whom he might possibly love. Dorothea who is looking for a home and is now intent in seeing to make a home out of Gautier. It is a crushing choice.
But Dorothea only looks at him severely. Dorothea holds his gaze in his own and Sylvain feels his heart arrested by her ferocity even as she holds his hands, in the dark, in the steps of the opera, the only other place she’d felt at home, and she tells him –
“I will go with you. Let me decide for myself. Let me decide for myself what is miserable and what is awful for myself in Gautier!”
And Sylvain smiles.
He takes her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it, and murmurs, “you are my love. And I am at your mercy, dearest Dorothea.”
Like that it became an oath. Like that he would remember it fondly; her eyes shining in the dark, determined to prove his fears wrong. Love, or what it seemed to be, thickly choking his throat as he gazes upon her. Let the goddess prove me wrong, Sylvain thinks as he kisses her, his hand tilting her chin for lips to meet his own. Let her prove me wrong one last time. Just let me be happy for once. Let us have this.
( The letter that arrives to Gautier from him has an addendum:
In the interests of time and knowing the urgency that my duties have impressed upon me I will bring home a wife.
Your loving son.
Margrave Gautier reads it in the light of the fire in his study. He holds it over the flame of a candle, burnt to its wick with the letter. He sweeps the ashes from the surface of his desk. )
II. FHIRDIAD.
Several letters make it to Dimitri’s desk early that morning before he even settled down to read his correspondence on the day of his coronation. Most of them are well-wishes, and he glances at them to read something other than the template that the nobles pay to their new king; one, however, was slightly worrying as it did not bear the same kind of congratulations as the other letters have. It bore the Gautier seal, and it was a request from the Margrave.
Dimitri frowns. He fishes for something to tie back his hair before he opens the letter. A servant enters with his tea and breakfast for the morning, reminding him of the ceremonies later; he thanks him, and tells him he is not to be disturbed as he deals with his letters. The servant nods before closing his door.
Dimitri takes the butter knife from his tray and opens his letter with it. He thinks Gustave would frown at him if he sees him, but he’s trying his best not to miss his meals anymore. He eats toast while he smooths the letter on his desk and weighs it down with random objects as he reads it. When he’s done, he frowns and leans back on his desk with a heavy sigh.
The letter on his desk, in the hand of the Margrave none less, specifically asks for the King to intervene with Sylvain’s decision to bring home a wife, and for him to give the political equivalent of dressing him down, so to speak, in order for his son to adhere to tradition and serve his house, and by extension, his majesty to Gautier’s full capacity. Furthermore, if he refuses, that the King ought to apply the royal judgment towards the heir of a house who refuses to serve, for Sylvain abandoning the tradition of Gautier to uphold the need for the heirs to bear its Crest is to abandon its duties to the crown. Signed, etc. etc.
He feels sorry that Sylvain must deal with this already.
Dimitri knows the history of Gautier and the primacy it puts on heirs that bear crests. How could he not? Sylvain had always complained and alluded to it in sideways conversation, never frankly to avoid upsetting him, he figured, but also, as a prince, he has had enough lectures about the importance of the border up north in Sreng to the security of the Kingdom. He knows enough about the history of the Gautiers to understand how important the work Sylvain intends to do with bringing about peace with Sreng, but also, just how brutal of a battle it will be when he returns to his house, knowing that his friend doesn’t even want to deal with crests the way that his father or predecessors had done.
On another note, Dimitri is outraged that this is even a thing of consequence to the Margrave. He had already lost a son; does he intend to lose his second? He did not have a father and he always longed for the days that he was there; even at his worst he always thought of Lambert and how he would be as a King and whether or not he’d be proud of himself. That the Margrave could be callous to his dear friend is abhorrent to him, and he thinks of sending a missive to remind him of his place, but refrains: he knows that he owes the Margrave too many favours to truly make an enemy of the north right now, especially with the unification of Fodlan only having recently been done and on shaky foundation.
The issue of Sylvain bringing home a wife is something he hadn’t heard either. He knew that Sylvain had been minding himself quite well these past few months; he also knew, from having spoken to Ingrid and others, that he and Dorothea had become closer recently, and he felt happy for his friend having found, he hoped, something stable for himself. It seemed not too long ago that he was yelling at him for wildly carousing with women in their youth and now Sylvain can be seen settling with someone he seemed comfortable in his own skin. Dorothea was a lovely woman and had lent her considerable talent as an individual and as a mage to the Kingdom’s efforts to defeat the Empire. It must not have been easy for her either, considering how close she was to Edelgard. Dimitri can’t say they’ve had much time to talk, but he was always nice to her, and she returned his niceties all the same. He can tell, most of all, that she’d had a positive effect to Sylvain, and observing her with him in turn, he can at least say with certainty that she cared for him.
And now she has to deal with Gautier. Dimitri thinks that perhaps Dorothea, not having anywhere else to go, has decided to go on with Sylvain; he doesn’t know if it’s prudent for her to do that, but knowing Sylvain, he thinks that he probably would stubbornly bear his father’s disappointment going home.
It is outrageous to Dimitri that his son’s victories doesn’t even matter to him at all. But he also reminds himself: this is one such house. In time, Sylvain’s problems will become his own problems as well, considering that he is the King. The issue of his own wife will be on the table soon enough.
He calls for a servant and calls for Sylvain to his office. This can only be settled with a talk, after all.
Sylvain arrives promptly enough and he is welcomed warmly into his office. “Have a seat,” Dimitri says grimly. “This will take long.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, your majesty.”
“I know. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but some things, unfortunately, are just what they are.” Dimitri sighs. “Tea?”
“Might as well.”
Earl grey is brought. To Dimitri’s credit, Fhirdiad has the best selection of them, and he wishes for Sylvain to at least enjoy something out of this talk.
While the servant scurries for his tea, and the door remained closed, he pulls out the Margrave’s correspondence to him. Sylvain raises his eyebrow at it.
“My father wrote to you,” he says flatly.
“That he did. I suppose you’ve an idea now what this is about and why I called you.”
“I do. How bad is it?”
“… I can’t let you read it, just in case the north decides to secede and you’re accused of being a collaborator – ”
“What!”
“Sylvain. I’m just looking out for you.” Dimitri sighs. “Trust me when I tell you it’s better for you not to have seen this letter at all, in case someone accuses you of something when you return to Gautier and makes it easier for them to retaliate against you, politically or otherwise. I can’t protect you in Gautier. But I will summarize for you: your father is not pleased with the fact that you intend to bring home Dorothea. He wants me, in no short order, to punish you.”
“… that’s fantastic,” he says with scorn. “And he can’t do it himself?”
“That’s not the point here,” Dimitri says firmly. He leans back on his chair and folds his arms. “Technically you are going against the tradition of your family – which is, of course, to provide crest bearers for Gautier in order to – ”
“- support the protection of the north against the Sreng invasion, etcetera. I know my history, your majesty. Spare me.”
Very gently, Dimitri says: “I am not your enemy.”
Sylvain bites his lower lip.
They are interrupted by the arrival of the servant, who brings his tea. Sylvain drinks it quietly, and Dimitri dismisses the servant. He looks at Sylvain, whose anger is barely contained on the tense line of his shoulders. Dimitri allows the silence to permeate the room, Sylvain carefully suffocating before him as he watches him become smaller and feel harder, meaner. The look in his eyes a carefully-controlled façade he puts on because he will lose his temper and yell otherwise. He knows the look of an animal cornered; has felt it as himself, many times out in the wild, and that’s what he sees in Sylvain now.
Sylvain sets his cup aside. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. It’s a frustrating situation.” Dimitri sighs. “Again. Let me explain to you the situation, just so you understand what’s going on and what this means. Your father has written to me. Your father, the Margrave, has written to me, not as the future King – yet to be crowned, of course – but as the King, already, regarding his heir. The issue is that you are not adhering to the tradition of Gautier. Gautier serves as our bastion to the north against Sreng. The importance of crests in your house, I don’t need to go over again, but suffice to say that this gesture of yours – bringing home Dorothea, who herself does not have a crest – is a political taunt, and your father isn’t going to let it slide. He is writing to me to force my hand to punish you. I am technically still bound by the previous laws of this land considering I am not yet crowned and I have not, in fact, sat in council to debate the reforms I want to push, which will hopefully make it easier for people to live with or without crests. Therefore, your father thinks he can bind you before those reforms are pushed.” Dimitri tilts his head to the side, his fingers resting on his chin as he regards him, lost in thought. “With the previous laws still in place, it’s actually rather easy to accuse you of something administratively paltry just to ruin your life. Enough to make the point that this defiance will not stand. It’s rather cunning of him.”
“Please don’t praise my father in front of me.”
“Right. Sorry.” Dimitri takes the letter and puts it away. “Anyway. I won’t even pretend to scold you. I’m not in the habit of making things miserable for my friends. But what I will do is to try and make it easier for you to push for reforms in Gautier and to an extension, Sreng. It won’t come … quickly. You know how slowly this Kingdom moves. You know how the council is. But I can promise you that with my authority, you are protected by the crown in Gautier, and by extension Dorothea as well. For now, hopefully, that will be enough until real change happens.”
“… I thank you, your majesty.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Dimitri warns him. “Nobody’s going to like what I’m about to do – in fact, I don’t think any of the old guard is going to like what I’m going to do for my friends. I imagine soon enough, Ingrid is also going to face the same kind of pressure as you are. Same with Felix, with him becoming the duke of Fraldarius formally, very soon. If anything else, I’m going to make you an even bigger target for Gautier. But you will both have my protection. Whether your father likes it or not, he is still bound to serve me as his King.
All I ask is for you to be patient, Sylvain. In the meantime – whatever you do to secure power in Gautier, I will support it.”
“You have me, Dimitri.”
Dimitri nods. “Finish your tea.”
“I’m all done and ready to be dismissed – ”
“You’re going to take out your temper on Felix in the training grounds and you’re going to perform poorly, anyway, because you’re thinking of things too much still. Finish your damn tea.”
“Fine.”
Sylvain finishes his tea. Dimitri pens a response to the Margrave. Their conversations were lighter after that, more jovial, and even had room for a few jokes, but Sylvain thinks that Dimitri’s right, anyway. As always. He was just planning to take it out on Felix and call it a night, him being angry. But being with Dimitri helps to calm him down, and Dimitri allowed him to stay with him all morning until he finished his response, until he felt better, until he could stand by his King and escorted him to his quarters to get ready for his coronation.
Before Dimitri leaves him, he takes his hands in his own, and leans his forehead against his.
“Have faith in me.”
Sylvain closes his eyes. It is not a command, but he imagines it was one. All he says is: “Your majesty, my life is in your hands.”
The feast was certainly one for the history books, and Sylvain did his best to appear polished and professional considering his position in Gautier following his father’s letter. If he is to return to challenge him he’ll have to be seen as the paragon of good behaviour here, and he despises every minute of it. But for the promise of protection from the King: he smiles. For the promise of his friend to protect him and Dorothea, he makes small talk, he behaves. He drinks, but not excessively. He flirts, but doesn’t offer an opening. He is enameled in his charms. The Gautier heir, impermeable, from whom offences bounce off like marble. And his current date, the lovely songstress Dorothea, whose history has redeemed herself considering she had allied herself with the victors. Dressed in blue and gold.
Sometime towards the night he removes himself from the crowd and finds himself with Felix out in the stables.
“Thought you were still there.”
“I’m tired of dancing.”
“You left the boar to fend for himself?”
“Ingrid’s there. She’ll keep the crowd in check, so will Dedue.”
Felix shakes his head. “You’re out of your element tonight.”
Sylvain shrugs. “I owe Dimitri a favour. I have to be on my best behaviour because of it.”
“What kind?” Felix narrows his eyes. “Your father?”
Sylvain doesn’t say a word. Felix clicks his tongue, dissatisfied, balancing on the razor’s edge as he tries to determine what to ask. What to say. He’s bad at this, he’s not Ingrid, he can’t offer words of comfort. Wouldn’t know the first thing about it himself.
He stabs the straw beneath their feet again and again with a training lance someone had left on the side, the blunt edge of the point hitting stone again and again. Sylvain pats the nose of his horse, running his fingers through its soft mane. Finally, Felix says, “you don’t have to obey the Margrave.”
“I do. I live there.”
“You have the King’s ear.”
“That means nothing once I go back to Gautier. Only that I can’t be killed. But they can make me miserable.” Sylvain closes his eyes. Leans his forehead against his horse’s head, and kisses it gently on the nose. “They can make Dorothea miserable.”
“They will make the head of Fraldarius territory irritated,” Felix says, bitingly. “And he can march there on his own to chew their heads off if necessary.”
Sylvain laughs. “You don’t even want the position.”
“It’s falling onto me. You know that.”
“More than that – you’re not yet the head. They haven’t done a formal transfer.”
“They will soon.”
“Felix,” Sylvain says, and he feels weary as he says his name. He turns to him and folds his arms over his chest. “You have to understand that how Gautier operates is separate from how Fhirdiad operates. It is its own entity.”
“Which means, what? Surrendering your freedom?”
“No. It means I have to be careful when choosing my battles.” Sylvain sighs. He leans against the wall, his horse nuzzling the side of his arm. “And my options are very few.”
“… has it always been like this?”
“Some days it has been a lot worse.”
Felix throws the training lance across them. It hits the bottom of the wall and sticks out jutted against the soil. “Then why didn’t you tell us? We’re your goddamned friends. Ingrid, me, or the boar. Any of us would’ve listened to you.”
“And?”
Felix glares at him.
Sylvain holds his gaze.
“I’m not mocking you. I’m genuinely asking: what would you have done?” Sylvain raises an eyebrow. “None of you were in any position to help me. You were either too far geographically or already dealing with problems of your own; I’m sorry if I don’t want to compound it with my actual problems other than, you know, I fuck around with women. Hey, that’s easy and uncomplicated. But the rest of it – do you want Dimitri to pause his anguish over Duscur to deal with Miklan? You want me to stop your ranting against your father so you can lash out at my father instead? You want Ingrid to stop comforting my exes so she can tell my mother I hate every single woman I’ve bedded? It’s only recently that I felt like I don’t have to rip my skin off whenever I’m with Dorothea. What would you have done?”
“I don’t know, Sylvain,” Felix says in exasperation. “But I sure as hell know it won’t be nothing. And if the three of us were aware of the misery Miklan has put you through, or what your father has put you through, we would’ve been in a better position to support you after Conand tower.”
“You would not have been.”
“You wouldn’t even let us try!”
“You wouldn’t have known shit, Felix, none of you would have,” Sylvain says, and he feels bile rush to the back of his throat, anger pressing against his teeth like a beast. “Believe it or not – despite all of the things you’ve told me about your father, or Ingrid with her family, or Dimitri with the parents he never knew – none of you knew hatred the way the Gautiers wielded it like a weapon. Your father loved you. Lambert loved his son. Ingrid’s father, no matter his failings, loved her in his own way. I can’t even tell you the shit my brother did to me – I can’t even tell you what my father is actually like. And now Dorothea is coming with me, and she is going to find out, firsthand, the things I’m terrified of showing to everyone for a reason.” Sylvain laughs. He feels unhinged. “At least she already knows how terrible people can be, having never known comfort all her life until someone saw fit to make use of her. It’s a familiar story, don’t you think?”
Fireworks out in the sky. He can see it lighting the dark in brilliant gold and white-hot blue. It blankets the two of their shadows in the dim light, with Felix’s face in angry relief before him, Sylvain with that unbreakable smile on his face, keeping him at a distance, even know. At a distance, the day-long echo remains repeated again and again, like hundreds of ghosts rising to make a choir: Long live the King! Long live the Saviour King!
Felix punches him.
Sylvain catches his fist in his hand, and firmly pushes him back.
Felix’s jaw is tense, his eyes hard. “We love you,” he whispers harshly. “Like one of our own.”
Sylvain smiles. Feels something making his eyes ache. Feels a lump in his throat that threatens to lacerate his tongue.
“That’s the problem, Felix.” He replies bitterly as he turns away. “I am already forever in your debt.”
He is called to his majesty’s quarters late in the evening, and he goes because he is summoned, and because he is tired, and he is drunk, and he doesn’t want to be himself anymore. Dimitri is no different. In his bedroom, he undresses piece by piece, all his armour in silks and furs, and Sylvain takes his robes and hangs them in his closet.
“How heavy is this blue thing, really?”
“It’s ancient,” Dimitri groans. “It doesn’t even fit me.”
“Is that right?”
“It’s my great-grandfather’s. He’s taller than me. They’ve pinned it underneath my other robes to make it fit me better, but it bunches up whenever I move. I feel like a child.”
“You know, this might be a bit controversial, but I prefer your black armour and furs.”
Dimitri smiles, despite himself. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Sylvain: that armour was rather comfortable to wear.”
Sylvain laughs. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“Has Felix left?”
“Yes. Says he didn’t want to last a minute longer to look at anyone. Ingrid followed after.”
“I wish they stayed.”
“I’m not enough?”
“You know it’s not like that.”
“I’m kidding,” he replies easily. “Let me take that off you.”
He unbuttons his shirt.
Dimitri looks at him. He doesn’t stop him, though he does have to say, out of propriety, “you’re getting married.”
“I am.”
“You’re bringing home a wife to Gautier.”
“I am.”
Sylvain’s hands are pressed against his chest, running down his abdomen. He leans forward and presses a kiss on the side of his neck, his jaw. Dimitri’s eye closes shut in pleasure, and he pulls Sylvain close around his waist.
“But you are mine,” Dimitri says. He tilts his chin and looks at him, and he sees only his devotion staring plainly at him back; hungry to be fed, a wild wolf, this one offering Sylvain can give above everything else. If he is said to be loyal to someone, it was this.
Adoration is a simple prayer. Adoration is part of faith. When Sylvain’s back hits the bed he calls his name. In the quiet of his room, Dimitri answers him, fully in his mouth, until Sylvain repeats nothing but his King. Nothing but praise. Nothing but all that can consume him. Sylvain is used, until his bones are picked clean, and he is returned to his arms. What Gautier can’t take away from him he’d already surrendered, quietly won, behind closed doors, nothing that time or death can undo.
He doesn’t leave until the morning. The King decides when the Knight moves. Later on, Dorothea meets him at breakfast and he smiles at her, placing an arm around her waist.
“Didn’t see you the night before.”
“I was with his majesty.”
“Oh, of course.”
“He’ll join us for breakfast if you don’t mind.”
“It’s his castle,” Dorothea says, amused. “But I’d love for Dimitri to be with us.”
Breakfast was short, and warm. Dimitri, worn from last night, makes his way to their table, all smiles. He is pleasant as always. As Dimitri reaches over to pour tea for himself, Dorothea sees the bruise almost peeking out of his collar, his blond hair lightly touching the side of his neck, framing his strong jaw prettily. Thunder reigns in her mind like a bitter coil. Oh, Sylvain. How he must’ve kissed it in the dark. How he must’ve called Sylvain with a single look, and Sylvain, in all of his loyalty, the sincerest of knights, didn’t even question him for a second. Or was it he who initiated? Was it Sylvain who offered himself instead, like a slab of meat, a pound on the grocer’s scale? Her laughter takes a high, sharp note, and she releases his hold on Sylvain’s arm while they were seated, feeling burnt. Her smile is brittle like frost in spring. I must laugh, she says to herself. I must laugh or I will scream.
III. GAUTIER.
They stayed for months in Fhirdiad before Sylvain decided they ought to make the travel up north, a month earlier before winter proper sets in Fhirdiad. Before they left for Gautier, Dimitri had asked the couturiers to take Dorothea’s measurements. As a parting gift for his friends, he had decided to outfit Sylvain in robes of blue and gold to return to Gautier, to let them know who the heir bends the knee to; and for Dorothea she is allowed to choose colours of her own. She picks a muted blue, as if she were truly allowed to choose any other colour. Being with Dimitri has reminded her of roses and thorns. His majesty is a live wire of intent. An overripe fruit in the spring. He would keep them there if it weren’t for Sylvain’s sense of duty to Gautier, she’s sure of it.
Dimitri is also kind enough to offer her furs, more than she can afford to have or to even layer with. She is presented with the very real possibility of cold beyond what they know in the Empire, or Fhirdiad. It’s true that the nights were chilly, Dimitri had said, but they will go colder up in Gautier, with the nights being longer than the days.
“Longer?”
“By the time winter comes, sometimes the sun doesn’t come out in Gautier for months,” Dimitri says.
“… oh,” she says, rather confused and frightened. Trying to imagine nothing but the darkness even in the morning, and only coming up with something profoundly isolated and lonely. “Have you ever been?”
“When I was much younger. I doubt it’s changed since then – Gautier is a place that thrives in being predictable. The castle there is in black stone, and brutish in design ... The rooms are small, the windows narrow, and the ceilings quite low. More of a fortress than a palace, really. And the capital city is … well, it has its own rugged charm. Oh, but you’ll love the mountains. The trees in Gautier are so old, they tower over everything; the trunks are thicker than a draft horse’s body. There’s nothing like it in Faerghus.”
Nothing about what Dimitri had said was appealing to her, though she took great pains not to let it show on her face. Sylvain, after all, didn’t just pick any woman.
Packing was an all-day affair. Sylvain couldn’t be with her considering he was coordinating their move, keeping track of the horses and the carriages and the battalions they’ll be taking back, so Dorothea was left to handle the smaller things: which of his clothes he’ll take back (he doesn’t care, Sylvain had been living off of one duffle bag all this time considering they’ve been moving from camp to camp since), and which ones Dorothea will take back (also very few). The gifts far outnumber their personal effects, and those were truly the ones that she had trouble keeping track of. She had made a list, and with an attendant from Gautier, discerned which ones they were going to bring back; she coordinated with Dedue to figure out which ones did Dimitri want to add last minute: for Sylvain’s parents, for payment to Gautier, and so on.
Dedue is double-checking her list, tea steadily growing cold on the table as they take a break, when she folds her hands on her lap and says, “I wish I’d asked Ingrid about Gautier before she left. Have you been, Dedue?”
He shakes his head. “There wasn’t any reason for us to go north, when I met his majesty.”
“I see. Have you met the Margrave?”
“No.” Dedue frowns. “Only Miklan, but by then …”
“Ah, that mission.”
“Yes.” Dedue signs off on her list, and hands it back to her. “I’m told Gautier is a difficult place to live. But you will be with Sylvain, and I’m sure he’ll take good care of you.”
“I’m not worried about Sylvain,” Dorothea says with a sigh. “But everything I’ve heard about his home is awful.”
“We do not choose where we are born.”
“So it is.” She leans back in her chair. Dedue pours her more tea, and she smiles her thanks at him. She eats a profiterole and mulls it over. “It seems like a cold and harsh place.”
“You are nervous.”
“Mostly about the people. His family.” She pauses, and quietly, she says, “it shouldn’t bother me as much, but you know I don’t have a crest. He doesn’t care, of course, but I’ve heard about his family. How they absolutely require him to provide heirs with crests. You know Sylvain. He won’t stand for it.”
“I imagine he’ll have to fight for peace,” Dedue says gently. “And he is bracing himself for it as well. It is not easy to change people’s hearts and minds, though Sylvain is eloquent and persuasive. He’ll need you more than ever.”
“… of course.”
He looks at her for a moment, letting the silence warm over comfortably as he drinks his tea, and then he says, “may I ask a personal question, Dorothea?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“… are you planning to have children?”
She has a wistful smile on her face as she considers it. “I would like to.”
“I think Sylvain would be a good father. His majesty always spoke of them as kids, and how he took care of him and Felix alike. Even Ingrid.”
He’s doing a lot of caring for his majesty right now. Desire sharp and keen like the edge of a lance. “He would be.” Dorothea brushes her silks smoothly over her lap as she finishes her tea. “Thank you for your help, Dedue.”
“It was no trouble.”
Dorothea is not superstitious, but she felt that their travel to Gautier was marked by ill omens, like someone was actively trying to sabotage Sylvain trying to come back home. One of the horses that pulled their carriage had its ankle sprained on the ground and couldn’t continue on the travel; the knights dealt with it, in a way that Dorothea refused to learn as she turned her face to Sylvain’s chest. Soon the wind picked up and a most loud howling was overheard through the plains. “That’s the sound of the old north,” Sylvain says grimly as he pulls out furs from their trunk and drapes them over her. “Keep this around you, it’ll get worse.” They made camp in the dark, a few scraggly trees their scant protection against the weather. Their tents rattled in the wind, and Dorothea could feel her breath in the cold. Sylvain sat cross-legged in front of their fire writing a letter to his father; Dorothea was given hot cider by one of the knights, Joseph, who had a giant gash on his face but a cheerful demeanour.
“Not like Enbarr, is it, my lady?”
“No, not at all.”
“It only hurts in the beginning,” he says, laughing. “After that, you get used to the cold.”
Sylvain, seated beside her, shakes his head. “I’ve lived in Gautier most of my life and there’s no getting used to it, Joseph.”
“Not all your life, sire.”
“Most of it. It’s still fucking cold.” The Knights laugh.
They eat a simple meal, mostly stew to warm the body, and Dorothea thought she heard screaming in the wind. The way it groans as it whips through them was fearsome, and she can see why nobody else wants to travel up here: it does a good job of making one feel unwanted simply by being here. The morning was no better: Dorothea couldn’t believe it when Sylvain told her she’d slept for six hours already, himself coming back from the night’s watch.
“Where’s the sun?”
“Nowhere,” Sylvain says, laughing. “Trust me when I tell you it’s been six hours, though. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll need to nap … tired of freezing my balls off out in the dark.”
Sylvain lays on her chest and she pulls their blankets over them in the carriage as they ride once more, slower this time because the morning gale brought with it the snow. For hours they tried to fight with nature as they made their way to Gautier, every inch of it slow and tiresome. They lost another horse due to the cold. Once, or twice, their entire party was stopped from moving because they couldn’t tell which direction north was from south. Dorothea herself was busy casting healing spells to the party for those of them whom the frost was not kind to. This went on for what seemed like days, watching her husband-to-be’s face become grim in the face of the cold as he tells her we move now while the wind is silent or we can’t move now, the wind is blowing strong from the north and we stay where we are. Every movement towards Gautier seemed to her like a game of chess, and Sylvain, who had grown up with it, is fond of such games.
Not Dorothea herself when she feels her hands and toes cold from the weather. Sylvain’s body is warm, at least, and when she seeks his warmth he’s eager to provide, seating her comfortably in his lap as he rubs her hands together and leans his chin on her shoulder. She shivers despite her layers of clothing, the blankets over her. Not for the first time she thought of whether or not she should’ve stayed in Fhirdiad, and often chided herself for being so despairing when everyone else around her is busy keeping up their spirits, whether with gin or humour, or have set their faces hardened like the frost as they bore with the cold. Even Sylvain had a similar look on him, his normally jovial face affected by his responsibilities, the reality of coming home, and for that reason Dorothea decided she, too, would make the cold her armour. If they can do it, so can she.
For days they were on the road fighting the cold, until one dark morning, Dorothea wakes up to Sylvain shaking her awake gently. “We’re here in Gautier,” he said.
Dorothea rises carefully. He brings her water from their skins, and she peers from the window of their carriage as she drinks, her throat dry from the cold – “I can’t even see anything.”
“Well, not in this dark,” he says, amused. “But we’re here.”
“How can you even tell?”
“I just know.”
That seems to be the way people find themselves to Gautier, Dorothea thinks quietly. Against the frosted glass, cold towards her face, she tried to wipe the glass with her sleeve, until the shapes of houses make it distinct in the distance: wood and stone and smoke, and orange-tinted windows where the fire peeked through. Gautier houses were small and squat, formidable with the kind of black stone they were built from. The sound of the carriage becomes less harried as the wheels find the roads again, and Dorothea sees up in the sky the trees that Dimitri had spoken of: old, ancient, swaying in the gale with their mighty trunks seemingly reaching up to the stars. Gautier’s roads were unlit in the dark, especially with weather this bad – “no point in trying to fight the cold,” Sylvain says. “But when the weather’s better the roads will be lit again, mostly so anyone who needs to dig out their house from the snow can see. Over there is the library …. Past that road, this bar I’m banned from … city hall is right there, that squat building with the three chimneys … that there is a very small theatre, don’t get too excited, we don’t use it that much … the knight’s hall, it’s a huge residence for the knights who will serve Gautier but also for those who’ll be serving at the wall – ”
“- The wall?”
“Bordering Sreng. And of course – Castle Gautier – these are the gates of Gautier we just passed through – hold on, they need to see my face.”
Sylvain gets out of the carriage briefly, letting the wind in his wake and Dorothea shivering in cold. He’s there for a minute and she hears the men laughing, and welcoming him back, before Sylvain returns again.
“My father’s home,” he says. “From the hunt. And my mother waits for us.”
“Good? Bad?”
He shrugs.
“They’re my parents,” he says. And he adds nothing more to that. Dorothea looks ahead, not really seeing anything as she empties the skins of water, and readies herself for Castle Gautier.
In Fhirdiad, Sylvain gave her a brief course on Gautier and Gautier politics in Gautier. Holding a book about the history of Gautier in bed, Sylvain pointed to her the important players: his father, the Margrave. His mother, the Margravine. His brother, the dead. His father’s retainer. The knights of Gautier, who answer only to the strong and the one who wields the lance. His grandparents, long dead, who’ve fallen to the lances and arrows of the Srenge during one of their many raids.
The wall, a dark, imposing thing made of the same black stone Castle Gautier was made of, which chokes their land and makes a line: what is, what isn’t. The centuries of fighting that marks their position as the stewards of the north. The way Sylvain describes it, Dorothea imagines an altar overflowing with blood instead of a wall: here the current Gautier heir, next year another heir for the taking. If they worshipped a god it was violence and war, because that was all that gave Gautier its purpose and meaning besides the burden of the king: wherefore Gautier, in its capacity as a subject of the crown, maintains the peace in the north by keeping the Srenge threat contained in its own desert …
“But you don’t want this to continue,” Dorothea says, looking at him.
Sylvain shakes his head. “No. Of course not. Years and years of fighting and nobody even remembers anymore why we started in the first place. Why continue this cat and mouse game that’s caused so many of my family members to lay their lives on the line for … what, peace? This isn’t like the empire with the way it presses against the Kingdom’s doors or whatever, demanding unification. The Srenge have a right to peace. And we must give it to them because for far too long we have denied it with the acceptance that we have a right to exist beside them and they must cower for it.”
Dorothea looks at him thoughtfully. “You sound so different when you talk about your home.”
“More adult, I guess?”
“Well, that, but also, just a lot more serious.” She leans up to kiss him on the cheek with a smile. “I like it. I think it’s good for you, that you’re invested in something bigger than yourself.”
She remembers such memories now when their entourage meets Gautier’s, a strange affair on the cold plane before the castle covered in snow. She comes out draped in the furs of Fhirdiad, her red hood peeking from the collar of her cape, and Sylvain in his armour and red fur lining around his neck, reminding her of how the skin folds behind a fox’s head when it tosses its head to laugh. His parents were there to greet them. His father, the Margrave, in good health and terrible spirits, though Dorothea thinks that’s just how he normally is: a severe face towering over the rest of his men, his long hair braided down his back as it drapes over his shoulders like a red snake. His mother, a woman with piercing eyes and hands pale over her front, faint wisps of hair peeking from her hood in dark blond.
In her younger years she would know such a couple with the severity of their pose from miles away, rich people who would never deign to look at her if not for the fact that she was pretty and memorable for her voice – when cleaned up. They would’ve been the dolls she would fashion herself from, because they carried themselves so impeccably that it was hard to think of them as anything else but a guide: Dorothea the page, them as the straight rule, stainless steel, her entire personality a faint graphite line from beginning to end. That was from the confines of the stage and social settings intricate enough to establish its own labyrinth of rules with interacting from one class to another; like this, with only the cold to keep the two of them from herself and Sylvain, she feels that there isn’t enough space.
Sylvain walks with the assurance of an heir who has never been questioned and the victor of a war he never asked to participate in, which serves them well now considering who he was speaking to. She lets him handle the introductions. Not one to usually take a backstage role, Dorothea allows Sylvain because she doesn’t know the lay of the land: any seasoned general would run reconnaissance missions first before settling in for her command, and Dorothea is no exception.
“I return,” Sylvain says with a slight bow. “On behalf of the King, who has provided for Gautier several gifts as a reward for loyalty and courage.” He gestures towards her. “With me is Dorothea Arnault. Mage for the Kingdom, with me during the war to the siege of Enbarr. I have chosen her to be my wife.”
Dorothea bows. In the cold she can’t feel her toes, nor her fingers despite the gloves and layers she’s wearing, but she is peerless in her artistry and doesn’t flinch against the howling of the wind. I am steel, she whispers in her mind. I am thunder.
There is a slight, awkward pause as his father watches her and evaluates everything about her: the angle of her bow, no doubt, as well as the upturned curves of her smile as she graciously introduces herself to him and to his wife. The Margrave looks like he doesn’t so much as want to touch someone without a crest, because Arnault is certainly not one of the nobility he’s familiar with. His wife is a bit easier to read, confusion on her face writ in fine print, though it’s difficult to tell whether it’s because of mage for the kingdom without her name being tied to any of the notable students or families that have contributed to the school of sorcery or I have chosen her to be my wife given Sylvain’s reputation and their multiple efforts – she doesn’t doubt it – to secure one for him by force. Where the former is concerned, Dorothea feels she’s probably drawing parallels to another outsider of a mage she knows, or at least he most famous one that everyone knows: Cornelia, dead in a ditch somewhere after his Majesty (long may he live, Dorothea thinks with resignation) had killed her.
So that leaves the two of them with this mage, powerful enough to be part of a battalion under his Majesty’s orders and cunning enough to survive the war, and yet not adhering to any tradition that his parents are familiar with, to bear Gautier children in the way that Sylvain would no doubt prefer: without the primacy of a Crest.
Sylvain is impatient beside her. After a heavy beat of silence in which only the wind was the response, Sylvain says, “well don’t be too shy, father.” In which the Margrave turns to him with a slight lift of his eyebrow and his mother gives a soft sigh, her breath a fine mist in the cold.
“It is good to see you, son,” the Margrave says in a flat voice that makes it very difficult to believe that he’d meant it. “And we welcome his Majesty’s favour to Gautier. But have you brought home the lance?”
“… oh, stupid of me to not even start with that.” Sylvain turns so that nobody else has to see him roll his eyes. Dorothea would laugh but she doesn’t, she keeps her face impassive. The lance is shortly presented to the Margrave. He takes it in his hands, and his fingers delicately inspect the spine of the blade for additional damage. It writhes in the strange way that it does. Sylvain allows this to pass without much question, just a look of resignation on his face as his father meticulously inspects the edge while his mother murmurs quietly some of her own observations: “we must take it to the smiths, look at that heavy use … I am not sure we have enough umbral steel.”
“We’ll need to import a few tons more,” the Margrave says in response to her softly. “I’m sure Fraldarius would understand. The ports are finally opened, after all. I’ll send a message.”
The Margravine turns to Sylvain. “Does that boy even use the shield?”
Dorothea thinks she means Felix, and Sylvain just shakes his head. “No.”
“So you act as his shield.” The Margrave sighs. “That brat hasn’t changed. Why the heir of Gautier should work tirelessly to secure Fraldarius’ own … it is too much.” His mother, beside him, looks disappointed at that. Sylvain just shrugs.
The lance is given to the Margrave’s retainer with instructions to put it back carefully in the case for delivery towards the smiths. The delicate way in which this is handled makes Dorothea laugh, because on more than one occasion she knows very well that Sylvain hasn’t been so precious with the lance. Any chance he gets to break the offending thing in battle, he does. Dimitri is no different, though he has his ridiculous strength and Crest to blame that on; at least Dimitri doesn’t feel much towards the Blaiddyd relic, but Sylvain genuinely dislikes the lance.
With all that out of the way, the Margrave sees fit to address her: “we welcome your lady. Dorothea, this is castle Gautier. Not much to look at unlike Enbarr or Fhirdiad’s palaces … but we are not made for such frivolities.” The Margrave has a wry look on his face. “I suppose his Majesty disagrees with me, however, because my son returned with his gifts and not the letter I was seeking from him.”
“Your excellency, I am honoured to finally meet you and the Margravine,” Dorothea says in her lilting voice, sweet and tempered. Sylvain smiles at her and she feels emboldened with the gesture.
“Honour has nothing to do with it,” he says curtly. “But we will finish with our talks inside. Come, then. The cold will kill us if we stay here but for a minute longer. As my son returns victorious, and you have supported him in this war, we must have a feast to celebrate such achievements.” The Margrave turns to move with the Margravine in his arm, and he looks thoughtful. “Why, it is only proper. And it’s been so long since Gautier has tasted such excess.”
Sylvain bows after his father. “I thank you, father.”
They watch them leave. After such distance, the two of them follow, and a roiling pit of clenched frustration makes itself keenly felt in Dorothea’s gut. She holds onto his arm, the way she sees his father take the Margravine through the halls. Sylvain, perhaps sensing her discomfort, winds an arm around her waist casually instead. “Don’t fall for it,” he murmurs with a grin to her, kissing the side of her cheek.