#❛ ┈ the disassociation of the self / the discovery of the self ( azure moon )

[knightsdeath]

look : there is the moon, shattered. a crescent in the sky / lonely yet not yearning for the rest for its parts for its pieces for the rest. instead it languishes instead it watches instead it remains silent, mouth split on a soundless wail and his skin stretches tight / over bone and muscle and sinew. here is the carnage of a roll, found, the kitchens rummaged ( drawers opening and closing and cabinets opening and closing and ) as the pit in his stomach seemed to / grow.

the roll, torn to pieces. he realized he wasn’t hungry at all.

images flash and flicker and linger over his vision and he wills them away wills them to recede wills them to LEAVE HIM WELL ALONE because these are waking hours ( they must be they must be they must be ) and he has left the dead / in his dreams. buried : six thousand feet under. as they should be. as they’re meant to be. his fingers twitch. there is a noise behind and he turns / whirls / mouth split open on a snarl misplaced and half swallowed and she’s pale and wan in the moonlight / as he is. what a picture this must make. ❝ what do you want? ❞ as if she had intruded on his space !! as if this weren’t a public area. oh, felix.

@accrsed​ // do you see something else in the mirror, too?

[knightsdeath]

to be attuned to her so wholly and utterly is the result of the acts of a boy who had no notion of the scope of the world and furthermore the tide to which his life would inexorably and absolutely and never endingly turn. for all the distance that he has wrought and all the chasms he has torn there remains : the pair of them / their twin souls / the set that they have made willfully / unwillingly. who was it who had tied them together? what absurd childish wish had intertwined them?

( but the truth of it is that it’s love. agape. as simple as that. as convoluted as that. there is his sister but she isn’t his sister at all but isn’t she still isn’t she anyways isn’t she even without the hold of ——— )

AND? AND WHAT IMPACT DOES THIS CARRY? simply that he knows her and / seeks her out / a subconscious effort. accidental and incidental and it is not merely her who falls privy to his attention but it’s her that he focuses on and scrutinizes and grinds between his teeth. irritation flashes : that irrational thing and he frowns at her / bordering on a scowl in spite of himself. or because of himself, perhaps. ❝ you haven’t eaten today, ❞ a statement that would be bland were it not for how cross he is. ❝ why? ❞ less a question and far more a demand for an explanation to this abnormal behavior.

@sheknightly​ // do you think our life lines , align ? ( they do. )

[knightsdeath]

the sky stretches above them and the grounds all around them and there’s a blade on his lap / a whetstone in hand / the hum of steel sharpening playing all around them. there’s a cat nearby : he can hear it meowing in one bush or another ( at ground level, certainly, paces away ) and half considers bringing it from its hiding place / but discards the thought shortly thereafter / mind instead landing on ashe and his thoughts ( ... ) exhale.

❝ ———— why do you want to be a knight? ❞

@halfknighted // are you washing your hands again ? is your heart weeping again ?

[knightsdeath]

to say that it’s been five years since they last saw each other is a bold faced lie of the highest caliber. it’s far more accurate to say that it’s been five years and then some since they were last in such close proximity / rather than passing each other at a distance / two hikers up high in a snow capped mountain with their magical call lights. regardless of all that : IT’S BEEN SOME TIME and there is still that air with which he carries himself / half-mysterious and half-unassuming and entirely nauseating at length but there’s the crooked smile on his face and the ringing of his voice and there’s felix : with nowhere to flee to at this very moment.

wonderful.

❝ surely there’s someone else you’d rather be bothering, ❞ his tongue has become less barbed in the five years that have stretched since then and until now but that hardly means that he’s open to being APPROACHED BY ANYONE AND EVERYONE and on some levels : he needs to set a precedence. so he speaks with a droll tone and a slip of his gaze without a turn of his head and considers claude von riegan. at length.

@hartsgold​ // you called?

[knightsdeath]

his thoughts linger,  unbidden and antithetically blood—stained ———— of course they do, isn’t it only natural? to linger on that transient moment / that fleeting time / the burst of frost against his mouth lending itself well to the wintry winds that howl ceaselessly. the moment settles as she leaves and he works at the knot of the bandage that she had tied far too tight before pausing / hands falling into his lap as he stands and there’s a RESTLESSNESS TO HIM. as eternal as the winter that he embodies / as she does, in return : far more physically.

pacing does little for him beyond a reminder that he’s injured but there yet remains too much energy seething beneath his skin not quelled by battle nor ———— when mercedes enters the tent he finds himself chastised, as only to be expected / and healed / magic pulsing through him as she checks his wounds and bumps and bruises and et cetera. nothing life threatening. all remarkably minor, in fact, aside from the injury he had contracted protecting saoirse. naturally.

their eyes meet : once or twice or thrice. fleeting.

and then she’s ( which is to say : mercedes ) is gone and silence settles in her absence and he rolls his shoulder / feels its familiar ache / and gazes are her obliquely for a moment. and then another. and then, ❝ you were injured, ❞ as is only to be expected, given that it had been battle, but while his injuries have been tended to : hers yet remain. ❝ sit. let me look. ❞

@srengia​ // what a wonder : your heart encased in ice, beating and alive still. ( cont. )

[knightsdeath]

something like an impasse has been reached / a lull in the fighting / a pause to BREATHE and he finds himself listless, frenetic energy crawling just beneath the surface of his skin. he could train or meditate or train some more but there is the wilderness beyond and an age old compulsion that survived in him through a death / and another / and something like a rebirth.

so he enters the stables with archimedes perched on his arm so very regally and finds himself entirely unsurprised to find someone else there / and how frequently their paths cross, indeed. ❝ ashe, ❞ it’s half of a greeting / far more than most would get in fact / accompanied with a tilt of his head before his gaze roams and settles on one of the horses that the academy keeps for any without a formal mount to utilize at their leisure.

@halfknighted // this isn’t really fluff but uh

[knightsdeath]

"what do you say," claude worries the tender flesh of felix's neck with his teeth. he'll leave a mark there, no doubt, but he likes that thought. he mouths with his lips, as if they could salve the reddening away. as if that's what he'd like, even when it's not at all. the hand at felix's back pulls their chests flush together, the other squeezes his side. loosely, he leans the bridge of his nose against the slant of felix's neck. teasing, always. "we go someplace a little more quiet?"

teeth on his neck and a hand around his heart ——— no. not quite.

teeth on his neck and hands pressed against his back and it’s warm / too warm / overly warm with heat trapped between their bodies and the layers of his clothes too thick and too stuffy for as much as claude slid them out of the way for moments for shreds of time so transiently. he craves the cold embrace of snow in the here and now / no. he craves the embrace that he finds himself trapped in and the teeth set against his neck ( he’ll find irritation there later and frustration there later and it lingers at the back of his throat with its snapping teeth and gratuitous sighs about the marks that he’s leaving that will remain well hidden by his high necked collars, at the very least ) and he craves. he craves.

a mouth on his neck as if to soothe him and he could roll his eyes at the uselessness of the gesture and finds himself pinching claude’s side nonetheless in a FAUX CHASTISING GESTURE for all that it simply makes him laugh / nose against the curve of his jaw / teasing him. of course. of course.

the hilarity of this situation isn’t lost on him or lost in the wealth of pent up energy that goes beyond immediate gratification that seethes inside of him / IT’S ALWAYS LIKE THIS or it feels as though it’s always like this with their corners and their small dark rooms and the grasp of him and the cornering of him and it’s not a game but it’s SOMETHING and that something is dangerous and lurking and luring. luring. luring. like a tower of smoke in a blizzard ——— or thereabouts.

( here’s the key : it’s not always like this but for when it is but for when they are but for when their eyes meet and something sparks and there’s this and that and a sequence of events that follow / though hardly so structured or organized as this / but rather how they exist in quiet dark rooms split off from the others with the noises of whatever it is happening filtering and a moth to a flame / an endless summer yearning for the cool of winter / et cetera.

which is to say : equivalence. oh, worry not and fret not and judge not, for this is them and there’s little more to say on the subject but the racing of their hearts and the press of their bodies and / the press of their mouths. so quiet. slow, on occasion. rushed, on others. )

someone is ARGUING just beyond their hiding place and felix half considers simply walking away ( for no reason beyond his instinct to run that quiet until it builds to a crescendo pitch until he reminds it that he’s no coward / no coward at all ) and fully considers the proposition, as expected as it had been and as expectant as he had been to have it spoken aloud / by one of them / either one of them / whichever of them cracked first.

his head turns / and their noses bump / and he kisses claude hard for one moment and then another, gaze settled on the sweep of his eyelashes over his cheek for the space of the heartbeat before he pulls back / extricates himself / the cold settles over his body uncomfortably.

and he : adjusts his clothing once more, pulling his collar up and pulling his shirt down and shifting buckles back into place, not quite looking at him but not quite not and heat has long since settled into the core of him, molten and melting and stretching and yawning so, half caught by the redness of his mouth. the mark on his neck that his teeth still remember / he tears his gaze away.

claude is watching him, intent and burning and burning and smoldering and disheveled, collar parted and hair mussed and ———

❝ well? ❞ his voice cuts and if there’s an edge of impatience / that is no one’s business but his own. and claude’s, he supposes, for as much as a smile curves widely at his mouth and hands settle on felix hips and teeth / set against his jaw / scraping.

how tempting.

the arguing gets louder.

❝ ——— do you want to go somewhere quieter or not? ❞ snappish, now, hips twisting out of his grip for all that he kisses him again / firm against that smiling mouth / holding onto that too-open collar / and his face is flushed. he know it is.

❝ lead the way, ❞ claude speaks against his mouth and he’s / alight.

@hartsgold // did you know you burn too brightly for the shadows?

[knightsdeath]

time passes in an undeniable and enviable flow that cannot be stopped nor slowed nor paused ( well, not by mere mortals, that is ) and he / is no innocent bystander in this long and perilous tale. no bystander at all : with blood on his blade and blood on his hands and aren’t they one in the same, in the end? isn’t one an extension of the other? is he not his blade, at the core of him at the soul of him at the heart of his innermost self?

and so on. and so on. and so on.

SHE’S ALIVE / a surprise, to say the least, and he finds himself suspicious of her abrupt reappearance in their lives and the perfection of her timing and THE WHOLE OF HER : THIS WOMAN THAT HE HAD RESPECTED SO. which isn’t to say that he doesn’t respect her anymore ———— it’s simply that she ( ... ) is a surprise. as always. and he’s changed. and she’s changed / or her hair and her eyes and the look about her, at least / for all that he looks at her in his periphery. and when he speaks there is something almost disbelieving in his voice. ❝ so, you’re alive and have returned. after five years. ❞

@timecall // sc.

[knightsdeath]

———— the cats are still drawn to him for reasons that he can’t discern and can’t be bothered to figure out. whether or not he’s truly thankful for it is neither here nor there but he likes cats and therefore doesn’t mind sitting on the grounds / his back against the bench / legs crossed and kittens crawling all over his lap. they mewl quietly as they bump their heads against his bare hand that hovers stationary, no longer attempting to pet them very much at all.

he sees ashe’s approach in his periphery, catching on his movements and the cadence of his steps and his form in the distance. and felix acknowledges him with a bare tilt of his head / a brief shift of his gaze to skitter over that face for all that it doesn’t quiet catch / only for his eyes to lower again as one of the kittens tries to bite at his thumb, teeth scraping against his skin. his mouth threatens to curve at the gesture. threatens, BUT NOT QUITE.

@halfknighted // the stars and the moon are never meant to meet , so who are we?

[knightsdeath]

———— HIS FATHER IS DEAD. HIS BROTHER IS DEAD. HIS MOTHER IS DEAD. quite the mantra that plays in his mind again and again and again / a remembrance / an unholy hymn that echoes again and again and ( ... ) there’s an element of unreality to the world. one that he can’t grasp and won’t grasp and it keeps slipping through his fingers, reluctant to allow him to get a handle on it all. the ring, his fucking birthright with his fucking family crest engraved on it that was taken from his father’s dead body, lays heavy in his pocket as he paces through the darkness / ways away from the temporary encampment and prying eyes and pitying stares.

( there’s a numbness. a distance. and something in him, childlike, wishing for no one but sylvain. sylvain, sylvain, sylvain. and his bleeding heart. and his warm hands. )

stillness grips him abruptly as his gloved hand brushes along the shape the ring in his pocket and / nausea pulls at his esophagus and his hands tremble, once / before he flings the damn ring into the darkness / panic gripping him. a moment passes ———— and then another ———— before he inhales sharply ( far too close to a gasp ) and starts after it.

@heartsruin // is this your heart beating inside my chest , or mine?

[knightsdeath]

‘ i would travel across the world to be by your side, because as long as you are with me, anywhere is a perfect place to me. ’ ——— @gasbardian

peace settles uncertainly.

to call it peace is a BOLD FALSEHOOD in his opinion but ———— he is a man born and molded and crafted for war / to hold a blade in his hand and to fight with it until his last dying breath / and the fact that he lives STILL is nothing short of the miracle of his own skill / with no blessings here ———— the fighting, as it stands, is over in all official capacities. the war is won, and so on and so forth, and they had won it ; or something like that.

yet for all of the celebration and the weeping and the shouts of joy in that the war that has ravaged this land for five years is FINALLY, FINALLY COMPLETE / it settles over them all like snow falling too fast ; building up too thick ; the threat of suffocation.

or : that’s simply him. WARLIKE AS HE IS / CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO FIGHT AND FIGHT AND FIGHT AND : PROVE HIMSELF as if there’s anything left to prove. there’s something left to prove ———— there has to be / there has to be / there has to be / WHAT WORTH IS LEFT TO HIM OTHERWISE?

time has settled him into his skin somewhat and it’s no longer too loose in some places and too tight in others and there are ghosts that follow and shadows under his eyes but he is no longer HALF OF HIMSELF or less : he is himself and that proves to be ( … ) enough. or, close to that, besides. it’s strange, to know that you lived a partial existence for so long within the realm of your own body / but for all that he’s settled and for all that he’s realized and for all that he’s learned there is still the intrinsic heart of him : that beats for the thrill of a fight.

( funny, how he shirks knighthood and ideals of chivalry yet / this part they instilled in him to live to fight and to live to die / lives on within him : eternally. )

peace settles ———— hesitantly.

walking the halls of his alma mater had been strange upon their first arrival back and it’s become strange again to walk along these stone halls and consider, WITH A MEASURE OF CERTAINTY, THIS TIME : that he will never return with any sense of permanence / with any intent to live here once more. garreg mach had been something of a home during his time here and there’s no denying that ( he is not quite so dramatic nor paltry so as to think that it hadn’t served its purpose and taught him something ) and there are ties to this place that are, in a relative sense, impossible to untangle himself from.

and one of them appears : as if called or bidden or expecting him / at the end of this hall that he walks and his steps echo and their eyes meet and there is a smile on ashe’s face that curves at his mouth and brightens his eyes with something like : AFFECTION. how unthinkable, indeed.

they meet / and continue / their elbows brushing as they take a turn and then another and then they’re outside beneath the yearning light of the moon and all the stars that shift above them in their ETHEREAL DANCE and there are the stars / and there are the freckles on ashe’s face ; there is the moon / and there is the quiet that envelops them so softly.

there lies within him a ———— tenderness / like a bruise / like the brush of lips against his cheek / like a bleeding wound that smarts with the slightest of touches / a door thrown wide open into the UNFORGIVING DOWNPOUR OF A BLIZZARD and he, wintertide, stands within the storm / and he’s buried and buried and buried ———— until he’s not. until there are hands reaching for him and brushing the snow from him and pulling him from the depths and he struggles and struggles and which way is he struggling? towards? away from? both, at once? a foolish endeavor. a stupid endeavor. is he goes neither way then he is stagnant and simply allowing those warm calloused hands : to pull him from the earth.

and it’s a tenderness ———— caused by him? a blow to the chest? / for him? a self given wound in the name of something like LOVE?

the word doesn’t smart anymore. something like : growth of the self.

yet, he’s not quite so masochistic as all that, is he?

there is a comfort in their mutual silence and the understanding that they hold for each other at this point in time but there remains within him ———— not quite an anxiety inasmuch as it is simply a burgeoning thought that threatens to grow larger and larger and larger until it’s great enough to CONSUME HIM WHOLE and between peace and living still there is the natural question of : WHAT COMES NEXT? there are obvious answers, of course. and less obvious ones, over all.

their elbows brush / their shoulders brush / and perhaps that tenderness is in the shape of yearning. ❝ have you found a knight who will take you as a squire? ❞ there is, always, that faint note of derision when speaking of the KNIGHTHOOD / but it holds no heat behind it here beneath these stars and this moon and with this man as their hands brush and don’t catch.

there is a pause before ashe speaks, a strange inflection in his voice that inherently raises suspicion in him, ❝ not yet, ❞ his gaze slants and ashe appears fixated with the STARS ABOVE THEM and : yes, suspicion.

❝ surely one will take you. ❞

❝ well, that’s not really the problem… ❞

❝ stop skirting around what you’re trying to say, ❞ rather DEMANDING / and perhaps unfairly so / but at the very least it causes ashe to look at him and their eyes to meet once more and they pause in their stroll / and the sounds of celebration filter distantly to them, the unwitting third party to their entire courtship, if it can even be referred to as such.

moments pass, in a slow crawl as the stars above them shift and turn to bear witness and the moon yawns, as if uncaring. ❝ i wanted ———— to squire for you, ❞ there is a light trepidation in his voice as he states, plainly, what it is that he WANTS and it’s less that it takes him him to register the request and far more that it SURPRISES HIM in such a way that ashe ———— doesn’t, anymore. not since he had, in a tizzy, kissed him so fully and then : RAN AWAY FROM HIM.

( the memory is as exasperating as it is amusing to recall, really. )

❝ i’m no knight, ❞ and his tone is harsher than it should be when speaking to ashe but there is a tenderness in him and IT’S TENDER LIKE A BRUISE / as if a blow to the chest had been delivered by this hands that he knows so well / and ashe’s face shifts in immediate reaction to the scowl that begins to take its place on his face : ugly.

❝ i know !! ❞ there is a certain level of patience that must be had when dealing with a man like FELIX and it’s rather ridiculous when put that way, isn’t it? incredibly so. ashe, whether through exposure or simply because he is who he is ( both are likely answers ), sounds neither placating nor chastising and simply sounds firm / as if he’s settled into his skin, too / and the moon casts its light over him as if in want to be with him. ❝ but i could learn under you as well as any knight. ❞

❝ i won’t be anywhere near gaspard, ❞ it had been a half consideration dwelling in the back of his mind : that GASPARD and FRALDARIUS were on opposite sides of faerghus / near as far as they could be from each other while remaining in the boarders of this damn country. not that he was certain on any level that ashe wished to return there but ———— he had considered it. vaguely. distantly. not quite directly.

❝ that doesn’t matter to me. ❞

❝ why? ❞ twenty-three summers and still he’s diminished to demanding why in such a juvenile manner. impressive, truly.

❝ because ———— because i would travel across the world to be by your side, ❞ the words come out like a torrential downpour that threatens to melt away the eternal snow that dwells within felix’s chest and again and again and AGAIN he finds himself taken aback by this man and his gall and his guilelessness. ❝ because ———— as long as you’re with me, anywhere is a perfect place to be. because i want to be with you !! ❞

ashe’s face is red. felix thinks that his face is turning red as it’s wont to do and they stare at each other for several long moments before his gaze cuts away and he finds himself : OVERWHELMED BY THIS MAN. it’s quiet / and the sounds of merriment still echo their way to them / and he can feel his heart : racing.

there lies within him a ———— tenderness that took root in the eternal winter that descended upon him so flawlessly and it hurt / it hurt / it hurts : the stretching of it and the growing of it and the blossoming of it and against all odds and all probability THE SURVIVING AND FLOURISHING OF IT / he carries it within him. always. in spite of how he tried to bury it / how he tried to uproot it / how he tried to rid himself of it : it persisted. how cruel. how cruel. how cruel, indeed.

❝ felix ———— ❞

❝ i’m yours, ❞ he speaks FORCEFULLY, eyes turning back and up and up and the fact that ashe is taller than him, now, is both an irritant ( or it was one when he first realized ) and something else for all that there are mere inches that separate them and he’s : consumed. by this tenderness / for this man. ❝ in any way you want me. ❞ it’s ( … ) far more embarrassing than he would like to admit but the words are as honest as can be for all that they are yanked from the gently bleeding core of him / alongside that need to fight and that need to battle and that need to LIVE TO DIE / but perhaps that, too, can be unlearned.

perhaps he has already begun to unlearn it : gradually.

those green, green eyes go wide and soft and they’ve both turned red in this moonlight and it’s SO FUCKING STUPID that felix almost wants to take it back for all that he knows he can’t and doesn’t wish to do that whatsoever and the smile that splits across ashe’s face is like the coming dawn / the stars shining down on them / the first gust of AUTUMNAL WIND after a long and slogging summer.

this is a PAINFUL TENDERNESS and a YEARNING DEVOTION and, perhaps above all else, A TOILING LOVE THAT THEY HAVE NURTURED SO VERY CAREFULLY and it hurts / it hurts / it hurts : looking at him, and wanting. ashe’s moves as if to speak and felix reaches for him / knots his hand into his tunic / and pulls him close : slotting their mouths together with far more care and gentility than a great deal of unknowing souls would think him capable of.

it’s a closed mouth kiss so sweet that it coats his tongue / as ashe’s hands frame his face so very gently / and his head tips back as the clench of his fingers release the fabric and slide to his waist / and his mouth parts.

and the moon : sighs, gently / and the stars : yearn, quietly.

( it sounds like : i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you. )

[knightsdeath]

claude takes tremendous care in running a hand through felix's longer tresses. it's beautiful like this, where the moonlight might creep in through the nearby window should they only let it. he could bury his face against the nape of felix's neck, could disappear in the pleasant scent and fall asleep in the makeshift peace. ( but he supposes, peace can only last as long as they will it to. and felix deserves peace. ) "you're beautiful. i know you hear this often, but that's because it's true." // @hartsgold​

there is the lull of his warmth / and the settling of it on his skin / another layer atop the frost and ice and snow that threatens to melt the rest : and where would that leave him, then?

night carries with it a figment of imaginary peace but for the nightmares that plague him ( both of them, he’s sure / both of them, he knows ) and his hair is loose and heavy and long and brushes against his middle low back and it occurs to him, as it always does : to cut it. he won’t. he know he won’t / the length of it a figment of memory / a far off thing / a comfort that he dares not admit less out of fear of ridiculous and more out of UNCERTAINTY of the legitimacy thereof.

his posture is near perfect as it always is / legs crossed and breathing steady as he stares off into frank nothingness, not quite meditating but somewhere in between. claude breathes beside him, quiet and not watching him / until he is / until his gaze falls on him and then there is a shift and a hand in his hair and fingers combing and there is something about the INTIMACY OF THE GESTURE THAT BEGS FOR A SHIVER for all that he doesn’t give into the compulsion and instead remains steady / and steady / and steady.

it is dark and the weak light of the moon peaks in through the slats of the window but there are long shadows that are cast and the gentleness of claude’s hand in his hair and the sickening nature of it all / the beloved nature of it all.

and he speaks : his voice soft and deep and dark as the shadow that stretches over their bed / broken up by a mere sliver of light / and felix wants to scoff. does scoff, in fact, a quiet and almost disdainful noise that’s ill-fitting for this place and this situation and the intimacy that they share. ❝ i’m not beautiful. ❞

but he hears it often.

less often now that he’s grown and hardened and severe more often than not / yet in his childhood and in his dawning years and in days long gone he had been cooed over for his BEAUTY / for how he was a near reflection of his mother / with her face and her hair and her mouth and oh, how pretty he was, indeed. the fall of his hair and the thickness of his hair and he isn’t OBLIVIOUS and he isn’t ARROGANT but he knows that he isn’t bad-looking. in his teenage years he had been noticed more than enough ( by claude himself, in fact, that singular and fleeting and lingering kiss ) / and in his early adulthood had been propositioned far more than enough ————

felix is far more self aware than most would like to think.

but to hear the words from claude ( ... ) there is that compulsion to shiver all over again : that itch just beneath his skin at the words not out of DISCOMFORT but rather out of ———— out of what? out of embarrassment? out of pleasure? no. no. not that one. not that one.

and that’s only a partial denial.

❝ why deny it? you’re beautiful. ❞

he turns and there is the warmth of him and then there is the light of him and he bleeds light from his very pores / burning brighter than the moon outside / burning brighter than any candles they could possibly light / than any light source they could possibly conjure. there is the scent of him ( like sunlight, somehow, and spices and something like ———— ) that envelops him so completely and surely and there is the thawing of the layers upon layers upon layers of ice on his skin.

if i’m beautiful then what are you he doesn’t say aloud but his eyes trace over the jut of his nose and the curve of jaw and the shape of his eyes and the set of his mouth and it aches. it hurts. how brightly he burns and how he, eternal wintertide, cannot survive in this proximity for very long. and there’s a faint smile on his face but a solemnity in his eyes and that ———— oh, that.

❝ stop talking, ❞ they’re close enough for their noses to touch / they’re close enough for their mouths to brush / they’re close enough that he can see each and every last eyelash and fleck of color in his eyes and there is this false peace that trembles around them : frenetic and waiting to crumble.

and then there’s them.

there’s them.

( when this war is over / if he still yet lives / what becomes of them? oh, nothing, certainly. )

[knightsdeath]

[ lean ]

i won’t die here. i won’t die here. i won’t die here. WHERE’S MY FUCKING WEAPON WHERE IS IT WHERE ———— his his hands are covered in mud / and blood / and he claws at the ground : seeking.

it was a miscalculation, theoretically. theoretically because he had succeeded in what he set out to do ( protect / protect / protect / protect / pro ——— )but fell short and there is pain radiating through his body threatening to go numb but for the way that his nerves scream and scream and SCREAM / and it hurts. of course it does, a blade sticking through your chest and exiting your back and breathing / hurts. living hurts. living has always hurt.

the sounds of battle quiet and it may be the perception thereof but it may yet be that dulling of all senses as he focuses primarily and heavily upon THE PAIN THAT RADIATES THROUGH HIM and he won’t die here. he won’t die here. he won’t die here but for the fact that he might and there is blood in his mouth / his own? likely not. blood in his mouth and mud in his hair and it’s : raining. of course it is.

there was a time in his childhood when it had snowed and snowed and snowed and / snowed and he, child of wintertide, had run out into it day after day after day, glorious and overjoyed and shrieking as he would run from his brother / and his father / and his mo —— mother. mother. mother. there was a day when he had stepped, energetic and unsuspecting, into a snowbank that had collapsed beneath him and he had been BURIED BENEATH IT, the cold embracing and the cold holding and the cold frigid ( the foretelling of his future / if he were partial to believing such things ) and seeping. seeping. seeping. until the hands that pulled him from his snowy grave ————

his hands. his hands. the hands which grasp him now and they aren’t so small nor gentle as they had been, then / but they’re his hands nonetheless : a fact that he knows without sight nor sense nor acknowledgement. the shape of his hands. the shape of him. the feel of him / something that he would know in death and life and at the ends of their world and all of the spaces in between : AN INTRINSIC KNOWING INNATE TO THEM. oh, how he used to run with him. never after him. with him and with him and wishing to be with him and do everything with him and time and the changing of identities cannot wear away the knowledge that he holds for this man / this beast.

❝ will you fight me? ❞ his voice, rough and low and entirely unlike the boy that he used to be / his hand on his shoulder / holding onto him so tightly. as if such a thing will anchor him to reality.

❝ you ask that of me now, boar? ❞ the impulse to be recalcitrant in the face of imminent doom is rather ridiculous / and he speaks into the earth and holds sodden grass in his hand and he won’t die here. he won’t. or he might. or he may, indeed.

death is no great journey / it is merely the end. is this his end?

to die in the service of a KING TO BE ON HIGH ———— oh, the end that his father wished for him, surely. the very same end that his dear brother had met. the very same end that his dear mother had met / and for all of his frustration and all of his rage and all of his BURNING ANGER WITH THIS MAN he has long since accepted that this devotion / is one that he’s chosen / and one that he follows, still. dimitri alexandre blaiddyd does not bring him to his knees nor pull on the nonexistent collar binding him so / he’s simply a man. a monster. the amorphous and unknowable and inconceivable shape of his love.

become strong ———— to protect those who matter. stupid. foolish. YET HE’S THE FOOL WHO DOES IT STILL / and perhaps he’s the greatest fool of all.

and those hands : pull him from the earth and in and in and in / settling felix upon his lap and ah. there’s the sky above : grey and pouring and / weeping, perhaps. but for that the world doesn’t FEEL nor WEEP and it hurts. it hurts. a breath hitches ( realization of the extent, perhaps ) / his own / or dimitri’s? and finally, finally, there is that face above him that he used to know so well / dusted in snow or bright in the sunlight or leaned over a book / different, now. older. marred. his face falls in a short curtain about him as he looks down and / that expression. terrible. horrible. wretched.

felix’s hands scrabble / instinctive / at the lance piercing him ; before dimitri takes his hands in one. squeezes them, tight.

❝ don’t look at me like that. with that pathetic expression, ❞ that he can summon irritation even HERE AND NOW is something that’s truly typical, isn’t it? dying and dying and dying as he is, bleeding and unable to breathe properly around his collapsed lung and he wonders of the cyclical nature of devotion. how foolish it was of his family, the whole of them, to devote their lives to this one man. yet he chose this. he knows that well / this deep set loyalty that he carries for him withstood the test of time and the turn of seasons and it’s infuriating, in some ways : to meet his end like this. yet, above all else, UNSURPRISING.

he knew. he’s always known. always.

❝ open your eyes, ❞ and there’s that monstrous severity, twisted as it is by something that felix has no desire to acknowledge or dissect beyond that it is pure unadulterated emotion ; something out of his nightmares. half of him is tempted to keep his eyes closed for the sake of difficulty if nothing else / but he opens them uncertain of when they had closed and there it is again : that vile expression on his face. ❝ you are not going to die here, felix ———— stay awake. ❞

❝ you’re a bigger fool than i thought, ❞ it hurts / it hurts / it hurts. is he speaking? the air is cold. dimitri’s chest is warm / and he leans his head against it / a weakness at last. ❝ if i become one of the graves you watch ———— ❞ if and if and if and. when.

have his words become jumbled? slurred?

is there shouting? screaming? from beyond?

it hurts less, now. with his eyes closed.

❝ felix, ❞ is that desperation in his voice? or a figment of a NIGHTMARE? ❝ fe——— ❞

dimitri’s arms are warm.

( he loved him. he loves him. he’s known that, all along. from when he had sworn his blade to him. from when he had feared him. to now. to now. to now. )

———————— it doesn’t hurt.

@hlycrwn // NONSEXUAL ACTS OF DOMINANCE.

[knightsdeath]

“ hm— you know when you smile, you don’t look scary anymore. it makes me wonder why i’m even scared in the first place !! ”

her fascination with his smile is rather strange, all things considered. that she managed to make him smile is rather IMPRESSIVE to begin with, though he would have difficulty admitting it, to say the least. ( how are you meant to tell someone that you so rarely smile anymore that the act thereof is STRANGE in such a way that it feels as if it contorts his face into an impossible form / as if he dons a mask / as if he isn’t himself at all. how are you meant to tell someone that she makes you smile in a far more genuine way that most can even begin to draw out of him? how are you ———— ) 

she stares at him with such wide and guileless eyes which so utterly lack in the fear that often lurks in them. the anxiety. the nervous energy which she tends to radiate is gone and it is the pair of them and no one else and he finds himself : confounded by the sheer improbability of this woman and her bravery and her cowardice and how she, of all people, DRAWS NEAR HIM AND SPEAKS WITH SUCH FRANK HONESTY.

and it’s her strangeness that begins to pull at his mouth and he’s more aware of the contraction of his muscles into a smile, now, but still uncertain how to STOP IT. this reflex. as sure as the jerk of his knee / as sure as the rapid movement when an attacks falls on him. it’s a closed mouth smile and it feels so different from the customary smirk / from the vague tilt of his mouth / from MOST ANYTHING ELSE : attributed, largely, to her.

odd. so very odd.

❝ you’re such a strange woman, ❞ if you were to listen hard enough there is, perhaps, a HINT of fondness in his voice intermingled with the baseline dryness which he consistently embodies. and he : slants his gaze towards her / looking at her obliquely / and she is SMILING AT HIM and hardly looks a thing like her usual frightened and shrinking self. it’s ———— not a bad look on her, certainly.

❝ you didn’t have a reason to be scared in the first place, ❞ his gaze skitters away from her and he pushes his hair back the strands are falling out of the messy low bun he had put it into and he feels : flustered. for some damn reason. fuck ———— he turns away from her.

@introverdt // ♥

[knightsdeath]

it’s more of an INCONVENIENCE than anything else ———— this bag in his hand that he tosses up and down and / up and down : a repetitive motion that he doesn’t bother to follow with his gaze, instead focusing on walking down the hall with a bag of his blades slung over his shoulder / his original intent being to settle down somewhere to sharpen his weapons. and yet, a girl had chosen to waylay him, giving him a bag of sweets for no feasible reason / and the idea of ingesting even one turns his stomach.

and then : he spots her and where their paths convene and slows his stride, catching the bag with a sweep of his hand. ❝ professor, ❞ the greeting is simple and singular ( despite the fact that she isn’t his PROFESSOR any longer but that’s neither here nor there ) and when she slants her gaze towards him and he : throws the bag at her before even deigning to ask if she likes sweet things. ❝ here. ❞

@timecall // uh...

[knightsdeath]

🤝 + 21 (in a rush of adrenaline)

some could argue that there’s a certain level of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE to him. some could further argue that there’s a point of no return ———— this drive to fight and this motivation to battle and better himself can only be curbed by the deeper wish to help the innocent and protect those he loves so much. some could furthermore drag into light that the steadiness of him in battle is perhaps more terrifying than the total loss of control ( to which he would staunchly disagree, for good reason ) and if they were to peer into his mind and his innermost thoughts during these times ————

he doesn’t know when it began. when he began to hear her voice, carrying and high and light and clear as sunlight stretching over an early spring morning, radiant over the frost ridden grass. it’s rather silly, in the end. when her songs pop into his head at the strangest of times. in his sleep ( her song the cries of war and her voice a siren’s song bringing those to slaughter and to the killing floor and to their deaths by his hand / or his hand / or another’s hand ) and in battle and in the small spaces in between.

he doesn’t know when it began. he can’t begin to pinpoint when he started to hear her voice outside of hearing her and seeing her in those strange and random occurrences where he would simply stumble across her and there she would be : singing and dancing with her energy radiating and light sloughing off of her in layers upon layers upon layers.

does it begin with death? does it begin with disassociation? does it begin with the perils of mortality? or does it simply begin with her and how she lingers in his thoughts every now and then without so much as a by your leave on his part?

( it could well be curiosity, as well. the oddity of them and the strangeness of them and the stories that they tell and how he cannot begin to piece together what she’s trying to tell him, which may well be THE POINT, though he’s of a mind that a song is meant to tell a story and tell it wholly and fully, but. i digress. )

speaking and wondering and questioning in circles. shall we start again?

THERE’S HER VOICE AGAIN / the clarity of the early morning sun / as the final enemy falls at the other end of his blade. a flash and then a big boom ———— he’s gotten separated from the others again, dragged away from the thick of it to a smaller throng of enemies which had seen it fit to not quite ambush him, though the idea was certainly there. dispatching them had proven to be simple enough and, from the sounds of it, the rest had been felled by the rest.

the preternatural silence of a battlefield quelled lingers over his head and he gazes up at the sky which is steadily going orange above them as he wipes his blade on his trousers, caring little for the smear of gore that’s left behind. he breathes ————

a flash and then a big boom, suddenly the deed is done !!

and twists as there’s a movement behind him and, ah. it seems he hadn’t fully finished the job, or otherwise this one had been good at PLAYING DEAD before he could do another pass over the enemy to ensure that they were all well and truly dead and saw it fit to act now, in this moment of garishly false peace. felix’s blade lifts and he’s ready to behead this man in one fell swoop / before there’s a burst of wind and / he’s torn to shreds.

blood splatters and felix’s hair is caught up in the brief wind storm, whipping around his face as he watches as the foolish bastard is summarily and quickly killed and / he knows without seeing and knows without knowing who had conjured this magic. the impression that she leaves and the energy that she resonates and the peculiar uptick of her wind magic ———— he knows it near as well as he knows her voice, humming through his mind / and there she is !! rushing towards him from over the small hill, looking no worse for wear aside from her hair being tousled and her customary braid being slightly undone / and something like relief unravels in his chest.

❝ you’re alive !! ❞ exuberant and overflowing with light and the sheer intensity that she carries, she closes the distances between them rather quickly / he takes no more than three steps towards her before she’s all but crashed into him, her hands grasping at his elbows and her feet skidding along the ground and she is / a clear spring day, after all.

❝ yes, ❞ a rather lackluster response, truly, though he responds to her primarily because he feels compelled to and furthermore because THIS IS ANNETTE and the remnants of battle remain on her ( her axe hanging from her belt, now, secured and tucked away / blood splattered over her clothing and a smear over her cheek / a jagged rip in her sleeve that may or may not be hiding an injury beneath it ) and within her, the adrenaline that thrums through his veins practically diminished in comparison to HER.

❝ you almost wouldn’t have been, ❞ and here she sounds aggrieved, frowning up at him as she so customarily does / the difference between their interactions and her interactions with the vast majority of their classmates had once been BEMUSING TO HIM if nothing else ———— but he’s grown predominantly used to it, by now. to the exasperation that she treats him with far more often than not. ❝ i can’t believe you got distracted on the battlefield, after all the grief that you give everyone else about it. ❞

❝ i know, ❞ felix is able to own up to his mistakes, if nothing else, though he knows it’ll do little to nothing in alleviating any of annette’s frustration with him / alight as she is / glowing as she is / all but vibrating still with the aftermath of battle.

( how muted she had been, appearing at those crossroads. changed by time and changed by circumstance and changed ———— she had been overbright, still. but somehow dampened / as if a cloud had drifted over her in its meandering path / but she burned, still. and burn she did. and burn she does : light leaking from every last one of her pores. too saccharine? too over-sweet? his teeth ache in her presence yet he wants to be close to her, still ———— and what does that meant, precisely?

oh, he knows. he knows. do you? )

❝ i was foolish, though i had the situation under control, ❞ he had, to be entirely fair. killing that final straggler would have been as easy as breathing. ❝ the enemy was a minor threat. ❞

❝ felix, you ———— ❞ irritation makes itself further known in her tone and the twist of her mouth and her hands tighten on his elbows / a silent demand to accompany her verbal one, before he cuts her off swiftly.

❝ but thank you, ❞ speaking over annette is no easy thing to do, but he wishes to make himself infinitely clear. at all times and at any time / but especially with her. annette, who’s alight and glowing and leaking light and luminous in the face of the sun about to set. has she always been this way? even back then? ❝ if you hadn’t intervened, i likely would have sustained an injury. ❞

a pause, before she squeezes him briefly, fingers firm along his bones. ❝ you’re welcome. just ———— listen to yourself for once and keep a look out. ❞

❝ i will, ❞ her voice in his head as quieted itself / as if in deference to the reality / as if knowing that she’s all the better to listen to properly and fully and with his absolute attention. looking at her. gazing at her / the fall of her hair around her face / and the furrow of her brow / and the set of her mouth / the blood on her cheek.

he wants to wipe it away.

he doesn’t. for now. for now.

@srcellerie​ // my mind is an echo chamber for you , for you —— touch.