beruka resurges, her spirit rekindled. linhardt watches as she charges, a bloodied mass, and leaps onto the beast. her cry echoes throughout the district’s devastation, resolute. she brings down her axe and, in a blink of an eye, the area is showered in maroon. a splash of liquid splatters itself across linhardt’s cheek as he averts his gaze, stomach twisting as the beast gives its final thrashes. the end is signalled once tremors against rubble still. then, silence.
beruka’s voice anchors them back into reality, the corners of her lips curled. linhardt blinks and stares through falling ash as he feels his heart even, adrenaline calms from his veins and leaves his body still. they did it. the heir’s attention flickers from beruka, to sharena, then back to beruka who had triumphed against the odds. his own lips twitch, his own smile threatening to blossom through his veil of apathy, when the corners of his eyes latch onto the dissipating silhouette of the beast. he watches, until the draconic form shrinks into the visage of a human. his eyes trace upon pale flesh, until they lock onto tresses of familiar viridian.
incredulity is expressed in a hushed note, an instinctive gasp as child recognizes kin. circumstances are forgotten as muscles move on their own, the heir breaks into a jog to where his comrades stood, to where the man laid. phlegm is shattered as he gazes downwards; hevring green is unmistakable.
every child has an innate understanding that a day will come to which they shall bury their parents. it’s the natural order of life, as predecessors become passed by successors, as they are inevitably received by goddess and her blue blood. linhardt knows this well, for it had been burned upon him at an early age: he shall take his father’s place. still, the knowledge does not triumph the impact; the heir feels chills as he stares down at plum depths. they stare back up at him, unfamiliar. once, these very eyes gleamed with indomitable pride, always critical, always seeking flaws in the sole child raised to carry their house’s legacy. now, linhardt does not see the same vanity he’s come to know his father of, does not see the dismay that had become more frequently directed towards him than pride, nor of the paranoia that silently lingered beneath. these hues of violet stare back up towards him, empty.
linhardt comes to a kneel.
fingers twitching, he checks for a pulse that he knows isn’t there.
he never had an ideal bond with his father. in recent years, he can count more times his father had been frustrated with him than the opposite. he can recall more times where they had clashed than agreed, times of which he swore he pettily resented the man and even more times where he swore his father implicitly resented him. inheritance and legacy were the factors that had soured them, but never once had linhardt ever yearned for his death. they were at odds of interest and perhaps he could not honor his father for kinship, but if there was something to remember his father for…
it would be his genuine relationship with his mother.
for his mother was what his father held tighter than legacy, for his mother was the one his father gazed down with eyes full of compassion, for the bond they shared was what ultimately taught linhardt the meaning of devotion. the heir supposes, that will be missed.
what little warmth in his father’s hand is diminishing. linhardt moves, hands coming to the other’s cheek. he stares, perhaps in some wicked sense of denial, as if those very eyes would suddenly blink again. but, alas, they don’t. the heir moves his thumbs over his father’s lids and presses them close. he moves again, taking the prayer beads ‘round the man’s neck. he frees the necklace and adjusts his father’s arms, folding his hands together with the accessory beneath. linhardt flutters his own eyes shut, one hand above cooled flesh, and mouths a final prayer.
as he opens his eyes, linhardt ponders if he’ll feel heart-wrenching misery, as the loss of kin is oft illustrated as. yet, as his gaze settles upon his father’s features, he finds that he feels nothing. it’s pathetic, to think that he could not even bring himself to cry in anguish. perhaps, this was the final way to fail his father as son.
(but the heir reminds himself; this man was not his father, this man fueled a war, that he’s an interloper in matters that belongs to another linhardt von hevring, somewhere.
it’s best if he shows no misery, anyway. the business of house hevring was always kept private, as per his father’s wishes.)
linhardt rises, though he is momentarily unable to peel his attention away from the fallen man. he feels something stir within him, undetectable, but he hears someone shift beside him. the loss of his father aside, beruka and sharena are still beside him. there is still a goal that he must accomplish, people that are in need of his aid. there’s no time to mourn nor is there time to even ponder.
“let’s go.” his tone is brittle, balanced upon threads. linhardt forces himself to turn away, to gaze back at the bleeding sky and the silhouette of fhirdiad’s castle. he takes one step forward, then another. he does not look back; he believes his steps will become lighter with the more that he takes. there is a duty that they have to fulfill;
