@solupine said: "Heh... Look at me now. Going and dying like a knight... How foolish." ;)))
blood splatters the ground surrounding him & there’s a sickening squelch, a pained noise, a thump, & dimitri briefly wonders if he’d finally been properly run through, another wound to accompany the first. but in his acceptance of such a fate, his head raises & he finds that this was no out - of - body experience at the cessation of his heart’s beating. that girl, she --- that girl ---
he sees red, but it is not a tint placed upon his vision. it is blood on a sword, blood on his hands ( it won’t go away, it won’t go away, it won’t --- ), blood pooling from a body --- but who is it, who is it --- black hair, a sword slipping from his grip --- not a shield, not a shield ---
glenn --- not again, not again ---
but this was not glenn. this was not some hallucination played on repeat in his mind, as he slept, as he stood vigilant. the utterance of the name, either way, his lips betray. he knows he is not glenn. but the scene, it sends him back; the scene, it simultaneously roots him in the moment. a limbo, the presentation of an anachronism. he is not glenn. he is felix hugo fraldarius. he is not glenn. he is not, he is, he is not, he is ---
❛ FELIX ! ❜ his cursed weapon is left at the wayside as the wayward king forgets himself. he does not spare that girl a glance as the byleth ends her life. he does not hear her dying scream, a sound that may have once brought him joy if not for the state of the one before him. his childhood friend, his constant critic --- glenn’s little brother. he is not, he is not, he is not --- he cradles felix as close to him as he can manage. too close, maybe, for all he’d done, but he would not want for his loneliness now.
❛ heh ... look at me now. going and dying like a knight ... how foolish. ❜
❛ y - you fool, you ... ❜ dimitri feels something within him break for, perhaps, the fourth time in his life at felix’s words, at his beaten & battered visage, at the blood that flowed & flowed & flowed --- ❛ you’re not supposed to be my shield ... ! ❜ that was not the fate he’d sought, it was not the fate that dimitri had wanted for him. that was rodrigue’s role in this, if dimitri should relinquish it to anyone. not felix’s. never felix’s. he’d lost too much.
speak of the devil --- the swordsman’s father was upon them now. dimitri wonders, had it been his wails that had drawn him here or the silence that soon followed. the choking of the king --- no, the beast --- upon the bones of his loved ones ? the tremor in his voice, the shattering of the world around him ?
❛ felix, just hold on. i’ll call for a healer, i’ll --- ❜ the rightful king snaps his head up & around & he searches & searches & searches. ❛ WHERE ARE THE DAMNED HEALERS ?! rodrigue ! send for one --- we must --- ! ❜ but there’s something about rodrigue’s expression that silences him. the utter defeat of it, the resignation. NO ! he would not give in yet. he would not give up on felix. and then there is a hand on his, & he does not speak, & there’s a look in felix’s eyes, & dimitri can still hear the words as if they’d been spoken aloud --- shut up, you boar.
❛ no, no, no, NO ! ❜ it was so easy to give in to anger like a mad beast. the pain was made manageable in the rampage, never in the quiet when there was nothing to cover it up & he would break, break, break --- ❛ i can’t lose you, felix ! ❜ as he’s about to turn to them, the professor steps forth to try, but their healing magic was not made for this & it only drains the hope from dimitri’s being. someone else was going to die & it was his fault.
his fault, his fault, his fault, his ---
❛ i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m ... ❜ ire gives way to true sadness. it washes over his face, drags down his bones, & turns his entire being limp as if their roles were reversed & it was him bleeding out. distant & forgotten memories make their way to the surface. the four of them --- sylvain, ingrid, felix, & dimitri --- together, inseparable, carefully watched over by the dutiful glenn. felix had been so carefree, stumbling along behind the others, & now, instead, he lay in the dirt, just as his brother before him, any inch of innocence died --- dyed red long ago. what was he going to say to sylvain & ingrid ? how could they forgive him ? how could his father, rodrigue ? another fraldarius, dead in service to his king. this time it was not the shield. it was the sword’s breathing that grew shallow & began to ease into the silence.
but he was gone, & nothing could be done to change that. and dimitri could’ve sworn that out of the corner of his eye, he could see that cheerful boy running with his friends once more & that knight looking on from the distance.