𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 .

The sauna was a much-talked about place in the Officers Academy. Fair enough, Katarina figured; she'd never gone to a school before this one, but her general impression of them was that they did not tend to have saunas -- the least striking of the Academy's oddities, all told, but also the least worrisome. The advent of a new rumor would hardly change that.

Neither was it her intent to disprove it when she made her way there in the dead of night, though perhaps she could credit the rumor for giving her the idea. It had never occurred to her to go in the moonlight hours, but surely it was less crowded than in the day. Surely...!

And indeed it was. Slowly pushing open the door of the sauna, loathe to make any noise, Katarina slunk through the entryway and closed it behind her. Unsurprisingly, it was dark; a hand touched the wall instinctively, palms gliding over the wood as her eyes adjusted, and the mage tucked herself into the corner. Only after she sat down did she finally spy something odd in her periphery: a faint, icy blue tinge bleeding through the steam.

The rest of the image followed like the unraveling of a dream. The silhouette of something emerged from where it lurked in the mist, but it left its details behind, a swathe of shadow occupying the corner opposite her. More confounding still was the light that contorted in its massive figure, eerily aglow in the darkness.

"...!" The knight retreated further into her corner, back pressed against the wall, the heel of one palm braced against her knee. Static and adrenaline danced in her knuckles, not yet called to the stage but building beneath her calm nonetheless. Was this an attacker? Someone who wanted to take advantage of the rumor to hide their crimes? Or... perhaps just a curious late night visitor like herself?

"...I know you're there," Katarina announced abruptly, fingertips resting against her kneecap. "I know you're real." A pause; though she kept her wariness close to her chest, she continued a bit more softly, more abashedly: "...not... a doppelgänger, I mean. ...Sorry-- if I've... disturbed you..."

The rumor proves itself to be just that: a rumor. No semblance of truth hides in the much smaller shape that follows him into the sauna, nor in its subtle hint of violet peeking through the steam--nor the squeak of its light and airy voice.

"You are not him..." Lif mumbles, "You are not Alfonse..."

Though he does not suspect the invader to recognize the name, he had been waiting for it all the same: a trap, baited and set for the spectre of his past. In truth Lif could not tell you what he planned on doing if his other self had appeared before him, or if he were attacked with the intent to be replaced. Attack it in turn, speak with it--it makes no difference to him. But to see it again, to catch a glimpse into the world of the Askran Prince, he laid in wait. Sometimes curiosity gets the better of those who have moved forward. Rarely may they look back on what has already been discarded.

Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes like hours. It was grains of sand in a shrinking hourglass, broken and set free by the voice of the student.

A voice he, for the life of him, cannot seem to shake.

The woman's words replay in his head. One, twice, thrice. Each time, they become a father cry from the last. But slowly, something begins to tick. A gear spins where heavy fog would block off his mind, like the grand gates of a dvergar cemetery. It scratches one of the many bowels that lay there, enshrouded in darkness.

A memory of the past.

He can't quite tell what or who it is, but the face he makes behind the steam is perturbed. "You have not disturbed me," replies the Revenant, loud enough to be heard this time, "only destroyed both our hopes for this story being true... If you had any at all."

Silence follows. Lif teeters on the edge of continuing to talk or cutting things short.

Inevitably, he chooses the former.

"I want to watch," he says, and eyes the emblem ring. Sure, its magical power may be overwhelming and powerful and everything else. Naesala doesn't really care about that right now. He likes how shiny it is.

( Ravens are such simple creatures sometimes. )

His interest can probably be misconstrued for something else, but he's not of a mind to think about that right now. He's a curious thing at present, and he does not wish to hide away that curiosity for appearance's sake.

He hums as he's commanded to 'be of use'. Typical of beorc to demand so much of the laguz, but in his mind he does think of this as a fair trade. He needs not to put himself at risk, and he might be able to see something interesting in exchange. As such, he begins to set up practice dummies that are spaced apart evenly.

His wings spread and he perches himself up high and away from any danger, content to watch. He looks over at the beorc -- he's not sure he's caught his name, not that it matters -- and for not the first time thinks about how dead he looks. It makes Naesala tilt his head, and he does not hide his expression as he fully takes in the sight of his companion.

"If you wish to stay out of harm's way," he spits, not so much as giving him the courtesy of eye contact anymore, "you may want to fly farther back. You're in throwing-range of my sword."

At this rate he might just chuck it at his neck, insanity or not.

The ring fits slips around his finger with ease, generating a spark of shock in the Wraith's eyes. He had not expected it to fit a form as big as his--hands as scarred as his--yet it conforms to his bit of still-pulsing flesh as though it was he the trinket was made for. When he removes his second hand from the picture, a flash of red explodes from the gem in its center. A throb of... Something spreads through his hand. Lif cannot say for sure whether it is power or madness--or how potent they feel. But one thing is instantly made certain: it's only skin-deep. The feeling doesn't go past his wrist, like eitr was inhibiting it somehow.

"..."

Quietly, he re-equips himself with his glove, once again careful not to damage the delicate flesh. After flexing his fingers once, he draws dreaded Sokkvabekkr, allowing its flickering edge to taste the air of a living world. Something about its glow seems brighter than usual, but whether that is due to being away from Hel's domain or the power of the ring, he has yet to determine.

He begins.

His sword-dance is an art, splashing over the easel of the sky a rainbow-colored circle made from broken straw and splintered wood. One stroke births two equal halves of the first dummy, and Lif vaults over to keep up momentum. A pair of twin strikes divvy the second to shreds--each piece eerily straight--before he kicks off for the third. As he plunges his blade into its center, the cursed edge erases what it comes into contact with, and scraping up towards its shoulder marks the dummy with a permanent rend. Beautiful destruction is what he carves from these props, no different from a sculptor freeing art from a stone. But as he sizes up the fourth, he stops.

The blade switches hands.

In one dull motion, it breaks the dummy. Theoretically, it should not have the ring's boon. Therefore, men of straw and cloth are not enough to withstand the blade; he needs one of flesh and bone.

So much for a quick rip.

Instead, Sharena is slow with how she pulls off the bandage--meticulous. Had time been allowed any chance to rekindle the fires of what had been lost, she has come to undo that process, surgically unzipping and re-opening the pores of his pain. There is a Sharena--not his, but a--dampening his professorial coat with her tears. Like any younger sister would to her big brother, she cries. But this is not for the same reason. A breakup, a bad day, a scolding from father... Any and all are preferred to the harrowing sense of guilt shooting up his ethereal nerves. Nerves that aren't even there, but can still be felt like thorns growing in between plates of armor. They exist in the gaps between hardened layers over the heart. He abandoned her, turned her away--and even if it wasn't him who hurt this Sharena, he has hurt another.

He wants to laugh. Fate could not be any crueler.

The sheer difference in size makes it easy for Sharena to hug him while seated, but that does not stop Lif from abstaining at first. His hands are poisonous. They grab the hilts of swords designed to cull the living and bleed dry the sacrificial lambs laid upon Hel's--or Thorr's, or whoever's--unholy altar. They are unclean. Lif wonders if they even remember how to be tender anymore. Because after all,

'Even if our world were to be saved, as we wish it to be...'

'It would be no place for us.'

Silence drapes over them like a shadow. Seconds? Minutes? An hour? Lif does not know how long he waits. Only when the slow stutter and mumble of his otherworldly sister comes to a complete stop does he stir.

Perhaps he is right. Perhaps he has no right, not to touch or help or even love her, after soaking his hands in the pool of Askr's demise. Ask anyone sane, and they may say that for once hoping to barter another Sharena for his--another Alfonse's mind for the small trickle of healing his would receive--he should earn her scorn. But the heart is not sane, nor does its beat ever truly stop. Not even in the husk of a corpse.

"... Very well."

A piece of Alfonse remains: his arms. They guide Lif's, slowly encircling them round Sharena's back until her hug is mirrored. His hands give a few gentle taps, before they recede into his psyche and it is just Lif's left on Sharena. Then Alfonse's legs push up against the weight of the Revenant so that he may stand. By circumstance, he's gained a significant portion of height over her, but that changes their dynamic very little. He is still Alfonse, solemn keeper of Askr's peace; protector of those he holds dear. This small part of home walks among him, and so as she always has, Sharena receives his shield.

Fingers find a latch by her shoulder and brush past her uniform to hold on. A gentle squeeze locks her firmly in place, pushing her tear-damp face against his outfit in the hope that cold steel and colder leather could provide some sort of comfort. What he wouldn't give to radiate some warmth, though--even just a little bit.

But some things are simply unattainable now. He'll have to accept that fact.

"... What would you like to talk about, Sharena? I... Have the time."

Lif grimaces. 

This is all a mistake—some kind of bad dream or mocking stab from the gods. They must be watching him and smiling at his misery, for what despot would birth such a haunting activity? 

He enters the fray, pushing past droves of people merrily performing ‘The Askr’ until he can make it to its center. He’s not here to work out. His eitr does not grow or develop in the same way muscles do, and he would have to show it off if he decided to wear the ridiculous dress code. Instead of a leotard, he has his plate mail. Instead of armbands, he drapes himself with a long coat. The sun would beat down on his body if it could feel the heat, but instead a deep-seated rage bubbles beneath his skin. “You…” mutters the revenant, stepping in front of a man drenched in sweat, “You abandoned us…!” and he has broken a woman’s rhythm by shoving her aside. 

“Askr!!”

But when he finally spots the one running the show, they aren’t him. They aren’t even close, in fact. Their body is nothing like what his home had described, nor do they have a godly aura about them. They are a mere mortal, making a joke out of a deity so self-absorbed to let his land come to ruin. 

It is they who should have died that day, and him. 

He snaps onto the closest person he can, which happens to be a blonde woman no taller than his shoulders. She is puny and he could crush her in a fit of rage, yet his desire for answers has her accosting her for something else instead, “You. Explain the meaning of this! What child’s play are you making of that wretched god?! Is this all an act of worship?!” 

Though she cannot see the corners of his mouth twist in anger, the hard crease his brow pulls into, blood shooting through his eyes, and fierce grip of her shirt should be more than expressive. Lif does not believe the woman responsible for this whole ordeal, yet she is a participator all the same: one liable to having his fury taken out on. If Askr let his realm come to ruin—stood idly by as the scythe of Hel tore through their fields of wheat—then this mortal cherishes that act. Then she would see it done again and again, unceasing in the very same way as the realm of the dead.

In any case, people are starting to notice. This is a public space, after all, and the public eye lets little go unseen. A scene is starting to unravel. 

What he’s staring at is a slap to the face.

An ornery bull, just a head shorter than Lif, snorts at him. It is the mount he had been assigned, being told that the illest-tempered ones ought to go to those with the most commanding authority. He tried to voice that they were wrong for seeing him as such, but for the first time since coming here, the church staff didn’t listen to him. As the stocky, black-furred beast continues to stare—red-hot fury in its eyes—he comes to the conclusion that no one else would have taken it. Neither make a move, yet the line of tension between them is a steel rod. 

He snorts back, with the eitr under his mask, and makes a fatal mistake. The bull takes his act as a sign of challenge, immediately rearing up for a charge. The seconds feel like minutes during those precious few moments of building rage. Of course he would anger it. Of course he, the defamed Askran—dead prince of a nation characterized by such an animal—would stoke its ire. He doesn’t belong. He never did, not after he made the conscious choice to sacrifice them all. These thoughts snake their hands around his neck and pull his psyche down, allowing the mount to ram his plated chest with its horns. 

They do not piece, but the blow staggers him backward. It is only at the precipice of falling that he snaps back to reality and regains his footing, grabbing each of its horns with one of his firm arms. Lif gives some push, proving an unnatural and dreaded strength as he resists the charge, before looking down to examine his outfit. He checks for any signs of tearing or shredding—bits of damage that would reveal his eitr to his church-assigned partner. There are none yet, and for that he can feign a sigh.

As he enters a tug-of-war with his animal, he turns to Marianne. In his moment of weakness, he had almost forgotten that he had another. “How is your experience going?!” he has to shout, for the effort exerted in locking in place with a bull drowns any attempt to make a whisper.

“I take it… Fate was kinder to you?!” 

What was supposed to be a simple night of guard duty takes a turn for the worse. Lif, being the undead construct he is, sought fit to investigate the rumored crypt on the academy’s behalf. He, who has not seen sleep for an age, would be the perfect candidate for a night in the dark. His body would not tire through the entire ordeal, and neither would his mind cease to stay on alert. His partner could sleep happily without him, knowing that they would be kept safe by the Revenant. 

But his partner is strange. She has yet to catch a wink of sleep, in spite of his protest. He bookended their conversation with a sigh, and some time passed. Now, she remains wide-eyed in the face of the golem, who has sprung to life. 

“It is as the rumors say,” he muses, staring down the fetish. Their gazes—each red, each belonging to an unnatural life—meet for the briefest of moments. They scan one other. The golem likely takes in some information about Lif’s vitals, or lack thereof, and Lif tries to glimpse into its soul. What lays beyond its mask? The face of a man, just barely preserved and hidden in the same way his is? In that sense, is he even any different from the machine? They are both creations, despite having once been born. Their designs are the blueprints of another, and each has given a mortal fright. 

As it moves on to Tharja, he draws his sword. Sokkvabekkr glows brightly in the dim light of the crypt, illuminating the front-facing features of their construct. They match everyone’s descriptions of them. 

“…Very well. Tharja,” he remembers her name from the church’s briefing, but as for whether she was a hero he once met, that much is foggy, “I will put an end to these games. This… Should not exist. It may be the soul of what once was…” 

He steps in front of her, breaking the golem’s line of sight on the mage. That seems to anger it, for its eyes flash and its entire body begins to shake. With slowly measured steps, it lumbers forward. While its arms may have a serpent’s agility, its legs are comparable to a turtle. Slow, sturdy. They give Lif enough time to enter his combat stance and ask Tharja a silent question: will she join? Ordinarily, a companion wouldn’t suit him. But the lack of weaponry and interest in the occult point to one thing: dark magic. 

(Or perhaps, a flicker of the past has put thoughts into your dead mind. Alfonse may very well still live, buried beneath granite slates and hollow bones.) 

In any case, the presence of a wicked witch beneath his back is a small comfort to him. If Tharja fights anything like her, he could coordinate his attacks with her. 

It all, of course, comes down to whether she is willing.

It hadn’t been long since he set out. An hour, maybe two? But every second was filled with rigorous searching, stalking the monastery’s long corridors like a shadow. Lif had been drawn to the rumors about the Bride, believing that the ranks of the living are no place for the dead. They have no right—she has no right—disrupting the lives of mortals and taking yet another world from them. If anything is to be believed, it may mean another has risen to Hel’s power.

And he’ll stop them before they even come close to the machinations of Ganglot.

He enters the church. It is a widely different scene during the dead of night. Without the sun to bleed through stained glass, only moonlight peters in—its pale glow illuminating holy features in a manner more fearsome than reverent. Unlike the sun, it does not cast darkness away, nor does it ward the nighttime demons or exalt the altars it pours itself on. It is an eerie kind of light, tucking every other pew behind the one in front and showing only the good side of Saint Seiros’ face. 

In any case, the Bride is not even here. He would not have suspected as much, given a wedding’s connections to churches and gods.

(But not your wedding. Yours will be sanctioned by dead hands, blessed by spilled blood—adorned with bouquets of thorns. You reject those gods, and their ideals of ‘purity’.)

He exits. Heavy armor clanks against hallowed grounds as it enters one of the hallways connecting the church to its back. Not another sound can be heard—not even the whistle of twilit air—but he spots her. Draped in white hair, she shines almost ethereal at such a distance from the Swordsman: the Bride. She is tall and lanky, and though he cannot make out her face, screams ghastly. Every detail of her figure matches the description in the rumors, save for a black dress instead of white.

How fitting, that she’d be prepared to mourn her own death.

Lif gives no quarter. Mercy may stain the hands of the pitiful, but only blood stains his. Killing is all he has come to know, murder and conflict the only two strings holding a broken mind together. He is a knight whose armor is hollow, filled only with the infectious eitr that aches for agony. He springs forward. Heavyset feet pull into a full sprint before dreaded Sokkvabekkr can fly from its hilt. And Lif’s hand is fast, for the moment its gleaming edge can taste the cool howl of the wind, the blade is surging forward. One simple stab, guided by malice and powered by surprise, launches against the Bride. 

It connects. He cannot know for sure if he had gotten the jump on her, but after the wave of momentum washes over him, Lif finds his sword stuck halfway through the banshee’s back. No blood nor ichor, viscera nor marrow can stain his cursed arm. For the construct of Hel is a perfect butcherer, able to eradicate all traces of mortal life; human bodies are its prey, and Sokkvabekkr is the hunter. When Lif’s eyes happen upon his victim’s half-stabbed back, they shut. The deed is done. The ghost is laid to rest. In a world where he can contribute so little, this is all the thanks he can give. He is an exterminator of all the monastery’s supernatural problems. 

“Return to whence you came… and send my regards to the dead. You have no business here, bothering the lives of mortals.”

It said much to be presented with such carnage and not blink an eye, turn up one’s nose, or even wince in disgust. Valter had expected more, he might admit darkly, but then again, it wasn’t an ordinary knight receiving him. He wouldn’t be so bold as to prescribe a cause, but the man opposite him had an aura about himself—that is, there was reason to presume abnormality as his default. As such, the general wasn’t surprised to find that, in the place of speechlessness and a horrified stare, there was just a sharp, unflinching gaze.

And that, Valter mirrored. While his face portrayed one emotion—the most commonly displayed of his, and that is on purpose—his eyes obscured the nuance of the situation. (The ‘truth’, as it were.) In that sense, a mask covered his face as well, emotion pouring only through the oceans of his eyes—and only when they weren’t frozen over as they were now.

The other’s questions are not posited without baggage. Valter can see it in his body language—hostility written into its fabric (or perhaps that was the language he was written in). Nevertheless, the hand on his sheathed sword spoke loudly:

The Moonstone was to tread carefully. Conflict would not suit him here.

The knight begins with a shaky sigh, permeating the image of delusion (of improper response to the slaughter). Tactfully, he chooses his words.

“ We disposed of the bandits. ”

We, as in a collective effort. There was little issue to be had in arriving at the target destination, nor was there in tracking down the thieves.

He watches Líf’s gaze further before spinning his next words.

“ The region is troubled by more than brigands, ”—as I’m certain you know. (The Moonstone bites down the urge to gloat, to suppose such danger was the reason why he was trusted with the task.) “ Monsters have their run of it as well, on occasion. ”

They were given forewarning, cautioned that they may not return. The rest had accepted that risk with a slight chill running down their spines. Valter had believed himself to be above it, and thus, he had no such reaction.

He did not react when the monster appeared.

“ Sometimes, one gets unlucky. ” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. (Although, he was a pretty lucky man himself.) With a smile, he continues:

“ Tragedy is born in those unfortunate rolls of the dice. ”

Lif's features remain fixated on him throughout his performance. His eyes are each a vigilant member of the Moonstone's audience, carefully focused on his features for any hints of deceit, any irregular motions as he dances across the revenant's blade. So far, so good. It all lines up with reality. He is well aware that Fodlan struggles with bandits, thanks both to prior knowledge and recent experience.

At monsters, something within him shifts. No visible change happens, for the slight grit in his teeth cannot be seen beneath his mask. But the way he speaks of them stirs up a whole host of violent emotions. Does this fool not know that it is men who make monsters, who forsake them from society and force them into a desperate life trying to claw back in? Men, and gods, for they are all the more deplorable. Rarely do they ever act out of self-preservation, seeking only to expand their domain.

But which the knight sees himself as remains an unknown quantity to Lif. He speaks so haughtily that he nearly covers his ears as though hearing a shrill scream.

"You must have been incredibly lucky," he answers, allowing his eyelids to fall shut. The lasting impression in Lif's voice is strangely innocent, suggesting for a short moment that he may have truly believed Valter's story. But monster weighs heavily on his tongue. That man hasn't seen a monster yet; that man hasn't met Lif.

"...Or incredibly skilled."

The interrogation continues. Slowly, with hands wreathed in shadow, he pulls on the handle of his blade. And dreadful Sokkvabekkr draws from its sheathe, its naked form shown only for a second before purple energies flicker to life. Ironic, isn't it? That the Blade of Ruin could feel so animated in the hands of a corpse. It hums as it is freed, glows even with the sun at its back, and aches to evaporate the blood of the living. Its existence is proof that Hel never truly died, that her power lives on in its heart and in the hearts of her twisted creations.

The lich brings it to his side, and his eyes finally open again. Swirled inside pools of crimson is the raw, unfiltered intent to kill. He's offering Valter the first strike as a matter of official business, but intends to rip into him once things begin.

"We shall see which you truly are..." A test, then. Either Valter proves his prowess in combat against those less than living, and is revealed to be a liar--or he dies. In either scenario, that shit-eating grin is removed from the picture. His lack of sadness has made one thing clear in Lif's mind: he cares only for himself. Not even a genuine frown mourns the loss of his platoon. Until he loses all he holds dear--his very self--he will not know the meaning of 'tragedy'.

It's the kind of winter that eats you from the inside. The thought comes to Phila unannounced as she stares down her target, her deer. Unawares, it nuzzles a few blades of grass, gaunt and shivering. She can't help it, she hesitates, stares. Almost drops the arrow.

This was a disembowling sort of weather, one that makes it hard to distinguish the inside from the out. All equally frozen. All equally dead, blanketed in the sort of quiet that only accompanies corpses. And here, amongst the corpse-silence, Phila hunts.

Her breath curls out from her lips, and she almost wants to close her eyes, turn away. She still can't quite accept such blatent evidence of her survival. But, as always, her body plays traitor; the next breath always comes.

She draws back the arrow. The feeling of a string taunt against her fingers like a vein, like a harp string, is beginning to grow familiar. The thought makes her swallow thickly, push down on-coming nausea.

Was it such a surprise? These were experienced hands. They used to play for her Grace, on friendlier cold nights. They'd sit indoors, and the Exalt would hum along sometimes, in and amongst the harp. Now, knee-deep in snow, she turns her practiced fingers to their destructive, inevitable end.

Such mockery, to suppose the hands of a solider could ever do more than bring pain. Bows, for all the sympathies they share with the tools of cellists and violins, can only produce symphonies of pain.

She was certain that before… her return, she hadn't been quite so introspective. Death was all about hindsight, she supposed. Still, this was a poor example to set. Familiar lines of disapproval deepen between her brows, albeit, self-directed. Soft-hearted Phila, too caught up in her own misery to care for her students.

This was a winter that eats you from the inside. But blood, blood is always warm.

'Gods!' The curse flies alongside the arrow, which goes wide. Her fingers shake. She pretends the trembling is the cold.

Inevitably, the arrow's point still finds flesh and she is well aware of the rest, so she tries to turn away, but the deer, startled, turns and leaps towards the monastery, desperate. She watches it leave.

There's something about the snow that seems to invite blood, and it embraces the stream that erupts from the deers flank like a mother, unfurling a stream of red across the white as if it was the newest market fabric. Haphazard, unavoidable.

She turns and trudges back, her body heavy with the weight of its own, utterly bewildering humanity. Funny how the painful stuff is the most grounding, the most undeniably alive. She knew she was living the second she felt that familiar tightening in her head. Welcome back, Phila, here's a headache. Gods, her back aches. She's so tired.

As she turns into the monastery, seeking someone to aid the search for her unfortunate prey, she almost walks into someone. 'Ah, apologies…' Her eyes, red like the centre of a flame, meet rusted, cooled embers. Charcoal, practically, mere whispers of a life.

Before her, a man of ice and snow, exiled straight from the winter itself. The biting winter wind could flay the powder-snow flesh from his bones, and leave nothing but cool jagged points, icicles in its wake, if it pleased.

Gods, she had grown far too fantastical in death. This was ridiculous, she was being ridiculous. 'I don't suppose you noticed a deer around here?' She is Phila, captain of the Pegasus Knights. She does not slouch, she is not tired, and she doesn't feel a wave of sickness every time she uses a bow.

Only, he is not among the living, and has no warmth to take away.

The dead cold of his home never bothered him. To the Revenant, it was all just an extension of himself. Blue eitr reflects the frigid hues of the skies that rain down snow, and the desolate, long-spilled innards on ruined soil. The bits that he exhales from his mask are a graveyard fog, adding to the chilling ambiance of this winter day.

Still, as his armor-clad feet crush--not crunch--the debris they walk over, Lif's mind cannot help but wander. Were he to find a difference between ash and snow, it would be that winter always has an end.

And no spring shall come for the deceased.

The patrol is long and tormenting with thoughts like these. Winter is cruel and ugly, a metaphor for death. It is the time he would most feel like himself, when the only privilege of his unfeeling body would come to light. But mortals find a way to take even that from him. They fill their frigid days with merriment and festivity, fires upon hearths and smiling faces huddled before pots of soup. And he, poor Lif--poor Alfonse--can have none of it. He would crush their joy in the palm of his hand, had he just a bit less self-control.

And had another of their ilk not interrupted his thoughts.

His face remains stoic even as Phila's arrow whizzes by. Only a light sigh escapes him, despondent more than it is frustrated. For the lesser half of a minute his patrol had been paused at the sight of that woman drawing back her bow. He knew things would have gone this way, had he entrusted a mortal with the task of killing. Why even bother leaving it up to them? His is a form molded by violence, crafted for the hunt--made with wholesale slaughter at the core of its design. It does not hunger nor grow tired, need sweet breath nor special remedies to heal its wounds. Only time. Alfonse was turned into perfect machine capable of waging an unstoppable war.

To chase and behead a lone deer with his own two hands would have been nothing, if still he had the gift of stealth. If her feelings fell beyond the scope of his caring like some meal scrap or other form of worthless trash, perhaps then could he have barreled for the beast and split it in twain. But now the cover is blown, shot open by the pegasus knight's bow. Any chance Lif might have had is gone--slipped through his hands in the same way everything does, like grains of sand. He doesn't have it in him to insult her.

"I witnessed the entirety of your... Struggle," he states, as though telling the weather. The voice beneath the mask carries only purity with it--not bogged down by disappointment nor uplifted by excitement to offer her aid. It tells the hunter that not only had she missed, but she had been seen--that she failed to watch her actions, and he had watched them in turn. No more, no less. It sits perfectly on the edge between friend and foe.

The lich walks past, the blood of his eyes seeking that which has stained fresh snow. Though the skin surrounding them looks worn and tired, their clarity has not once faltered. Drawing closer, he kneels before the trail, picking up some red from the biggest and oldest splotch of blood on the ground. It was from when the deer had the most in its body, and so contains more vitality than the rest of its dribble.

Scanning the horizon reveals that the path grows narrow with distance, but that the gaps between stains are proportionally as short. With every leap that it made, it lost a bit of its energy--a bit of its blood. The leaps get shorter as a result, and tell a tale of moments soon to be its last.

"We march," Lif commands, half-turning his head so that Phila can only just hear him. No room for protest is offered, no chance to back away made clear. As much as a knife to her throat would, his offer goads her forward. "Unless you wish to forfeit your arrow and your kill, stay close."

Every corner, no matter how dimly lit, buzzes with the life of this place. It is the closest she has been to how it felt before her heart had stopped beating -- a time when the hearts that beat around her were not an objective, not something to destroy.

Only then hers had been one of them. Now it is as lifeless as the body that she stands before, her only company in this twisted afterlife.

Thrasir frowns, but not at him. Her eyes linger on the dusty window, watching as it filters in moonlight. There had been no easy way to answer questions about personal quarters. Neither of them required sleep, nor even half of the maintenance of mortals, and yet that is what they were making a miserable attempt to pass for.

So they stand, with no material possessions but their weapons and the clothes on their back, in a room that has been deemed theirs.

"It's better than..."

Witch shuts her eyes, paces towards their empty dresser, and feels her frown deepen. She doesn't have to say it, doesn't need to scrape at old scars with the word home and the reminder of what it meant for them, now.

Even if the swell of life here is something made foreign by time, even if this is all they have left to make of themselves. It could be worse. They're together still, the only mercy that death has continued to afford them.

Fingers knead the fabric at her palms. What other choice did they have?

"...we will make do."

"As we always have."

Swordsman watches his Witch trail their room with practiced eyes, the skin around their sockets widening to take in the breadth of her form. Her image is one he has seen more times than Spring has kissed the earth, made regular and bearable by the fate they share. He could stare for hours. She has that effect on him.

To better make their room a home, he decides to expose a vulnerability. Such is always the case with them; it is only with Thrasir that he can unveil what lies beneath his mask, his unflinching layers. Gloves are the first to come off, slow and measured. Their removal reveals hands that have killed--hands that are stained--but hands that can still hold all the same.

In a world where they have so little, the gift of holding seldom goes unappreciated.

"The lives we lead are pointless," he continues, flexing his fingers and stretching his skin so that it might shine against the pale moon, "but we are still not alone. No matter what fate befalls us, Veronica..." her name is a ritual to his tongue, invoking feelings wrapped by wraiths of the past, "I will have you... You will have me..."

Gauntlets lay against the side of their shared bed. They are soon joined by Lif's mask, which unhinges from his jaw with a high-pitched hiss. The escaping eitr is allowed to dissipate before he rises, and the man beneath the monster is shown to the wicked woman. His cheeks are long gone--unfeeling--but still they move, and still does his upper lip feel.

He pries Thrasir's gaze from the dresser by taking her hand into his. Careful not to rip, tear, or so much as scratch, he slips off her glove. Skin begets skin, needs it like the sun needs the moon and the sky needs the stars.

In a world where they have so little, the gift of holding seldom goes unused.

Thumbs knead into a bleached palm. He could read the stress in her voice, all the words gone unsaid and painful memories swallowed. He eases her, pressing away her burden with the reminder that they still exist for one another, can still feel one another, and will not stop until they can have each other in entirety.

They pry his eyes from his work. Lif can be seen, at almost any hour of the day, with a feather in hand, musing at some paper or another as he scribbles curtly written notes in its margins. It isn't that he's diligent, but rather that a broken mind is an unfocused one. Life--or rather, death--makes no shortage of interruptions for him. And at times, he wanders, alone and in his own darkness. He dreams of dreary days, often, but sometimes a brighter one floats on by. The bright ones are rather painful, like laying in a bed of roses. The Order of Heroes, his dearly departed family--sometimes an idea said by a student will remind him of them, and he has to choke down tears his body can no longer shed.

But that is that, and this is this. Someone begs for entry; the gatekeeper sighs.

"It's unlocked!" he calls, barely raising his chin to project his voice. In an effort to look more presentable, he drapes his long coat over his armor--tugging wherever he can to ensure that no eitr shows. It is a baseless and ultimately unnecessary ritual, but one he feels the need for all the same. It reminds him, that even though he makes the steady steps toward progress, Lif is less than half the man he once was: a negative integer, existing on the flipside of life he never thought possible.

"But do make your questions quick," he adds, his gaze returning to whence it was. Common sense tells him he would not have that luxury for long, so he is intent on making use of it while he can. He corrects a minor spelling error, docs a full mark for it, and leaves a note about the worth of a human life on the writeup he's marking before Claude can turn the knob and enter.

"I hold these office hours because I must, not for the sake of seeking companionship."

A necessary defense, pulled high to his chin to protect him from losing more than Lif already has.

A pair of red, glowing eyes spots a lone woman.

"It is not safe to be here," speaks its frigid and raspy voice. It steps closer, once twice--each motion measured carefully to emerge without raising alarm. Much of its body is difficult to make out, what with jet-black armor hiding it in the darkness. But the woman is in luck. A few paces to her left, the embers of a still-lit lantern flicker and dance. They cast their light onto the ground, illuminating cobbled street and the beginnings of a garden.

It is her only safe haven, if she believes light capable of warding away ghosts.

One step more, the armor clanks. One step further still, its forearm becomes visible. It stops, just on the cusp of the lamp's reach--as though any closer would evaporate the darkness enveloping its form.

"You should go. There are things that lurk these grounds, wishing to bring harm to the living."

And it remains motionless. With its warning issued, it would be content to turn back around, head into the throng of shadows, and disappear until the early morning. For it is in search of the phantom, the sword at its hip ready to tear it asunder. It believes it a specter of its past, or perhaps just an enemy needing to be felled.

Whatever the case may be, it has been long since it last hunted. Its sword yearns to be pruned by ripping into something.