Work Text:
broken sun (broken brother)
“Stop ogling our professor, Sylvain,” mutters Felix. “It’s been ten days, you absolute cad.”
Objectively, Professor Byleth is ogle-worthy. He cinches his waist in that armored belt of his at all times. His pecs are totally obviously defined, completely visible through that very thin shirt. When he speaks, his voice remains soft and secure. He has this way of just setting his ultramarine eyes on something or someone and just…observing. When he blinks Sylvain becomes so aware of how long his eyelashes are.
All that, yet Sylvain is not attracted to The Professor. Nothing about him makes for a potential fuck or even fantasy — instead Sylvain is left with unease.
“You’ve got me all wrong,” says Sylvain. “I’m just getting a sense what he’s about.”
“With you, that’s the same thing.”
“What can I say?” A little bit of Felix’s hair has fallen out of its bun and is getting in his face. Sylvain reaches over and tucks the loose strands behind his ear. “I’m a talented multitasker.”
“Don’t touch me.” Felix elbows him, not hard enough to hurt.
Ingrid shoots them a look from across the aisle and mouths the word, behave. Felix rolls his eyes and goes back to his assignment, but he leaves the flyaways where Sylvain put them.
If The Professor hears them, he doesn’t look up from his notebook. Right now, the Blue Lions are supposed to be working on assignments meant to seek out any ‘hidden talents’ — whatever that means. He handed both Felix and Sylvain a worksheet of magical formulae probably meant for beginners. That gives Sylvain all the time in the world to lean on his arms and watch The Professor work on…whatever he’s scribbling in his notebook.
When the chapel bells ring, barely five minutes later, The Professor startles and slams his notebook shut, like he’s afraid of being caught with it open.
“I will collect your work now,” The Professor announces, standing up. “The rosters for the mock battle will be posted tomorrow afternoon on the bulletin board outside the Black Eagles’ classroom.”
Felix angrily scribbles down another formula before tossing the sheet — half-finished or so — at Professor Byleth’s chest. When The Professor turns to Sylvain, immediately Sylvain leans his elbows on the desk and grins.
“Sorry, Professor, I got distracted,” he lies. “It’s a bit tough to keep track of all these numbers when there are so many gorgeous girls in this class.”
“You should have let me know when you finished.” There’s a full, total awareness in The Professor’s eyes as he rips the paper — formulae perfectly completed — out from underneath Sylvain’s elbows.
Sylvain doesn’t lose his smile, but it’s a near thing. The Professor has yet to look at Sylvain’s face and get stuck — he always sees underneath, somehow.
Sylvain doesn’t like to be noticed.
“If you knew the answers, why didn’t you help me?” demands Felix.
“But Felix,” says Sylvain, shrugging and grinning, “then how could I have ogled our professor?”
Felix rolls his eyes. “Ugh. Whatever. I’m going to train for the mock battle.”
“If you’re picked,” says Sylvain, watching The Professor nod thoughtfully at whatever Ashe is saying.
Felix scoffs as he stands up. “Anyone would be foolish not to pick me.”
***
“He didn’t pick any of us.” Ingrid breaks their long, dumbfounded silence first.
Sylvain has one elbow on Ingrid’s shoulder and the other on Felix’s as he takes a good look at the battle roster. It’s kind of an accusation: Blue Lions: Dimitri, Ashe, Dedue, Mercedes. Even if they weren’t standing together, it would be obvious exactly who The Professor has snubbed. He’s snubbed Annette, too, sure, but that was a bit more expected — and anyways, scanning the other lists of participating students, Annette’s skills in magic won’t be as useful.
“Stop touching me,” says Felix, rolling his shoulder to toss Sylvain away. “Whatever. When the Professor loses, he and the boar can look pathetic together.”
On Sylvain’s other side, Ingrid is deflating. “I thought we performed well in The Professor’s weapon trials.”
“Well I was mediocre,” says Sylvain. It’s true, too — he did better than he wanted in the lance trial, so he let Felix humiliate him in the sword trial and gave Ashe an easy win in the axe trial.
Ingrid and Felix were incredible, though. They’re always incredible.
Something else must be on The Professor’s mind, but Sylvain can’t figure out what. Having someone like Felix or Ingrid on the field would be smarter in almost any circumstance — they’re fast, flexible, and they probably have the most battle training after Dimitri. And if the Blue Lions lose, people might pin the loss on Dedue. Is the Professor confident, or just oblivious?
“I don’t want to question our professor’s judgment…” starts Ingrid in a quiet voice.
Something in Sylvain sharpens, like a knife. “Oh, do you want me to do it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, yeah, but I hear you.”
“Sylvain, that’s not — ugh, don’t cause any more problems.”
Sylvain almost laughs — isn’t that the core of their relationship? Ingrid wants and wants but will never overstep her boundaries. Sylvain is just one big puzzle game, a set of problems to occupy her brain. This routine makes them both happy. Or it makes Ingrid happy, and that…is close enough for Sylvain.
“It’s just a mock battle,” he says, steering Ingrid away from the bulletin board and towards dinner. “It’s not going to matter in a couple of weeks anyways.”
“I know that,” says Ingrid. “I was just excited to test my skills.”
Sylvain kind of has to admit — he was excited, too. Not to mention confident. It seems like a no-brainer, really. Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Dimitri grew up training together. Dedue isn’t a bad choice, for combat synergy — he’s totally in-sync with Dimitri — but people already tend not to treat him well. And does have any combat experience? Does Mercedes?
He glances across the dining hall and sees The Professor taking dinner with Dedue and Dimitri — Goddess, what a stifled conversation that must be. Sylvain doesn’t think breaking into the middle of it will do him any good. But he wants to know Professor Byleth’s thinking. If any thing is clear, it’s that professor is no idiot, far from it. Which means he’s seeing something Sylvain isn’t.
Call it a reflex, something burned into his blood alongside his Crest and his red hair and his rather attractive dimples. But though he’d never admit it to his friends, Sylvain can’t stand being left in the dark.
***
After dinner, Sylvain casually trails The Professor all the way back to his room. He only calls out a, “Hey, Professor?” once The Professor is already unlocking the door to his bedroom.
“Sorry to bother,” says Sylvain, as casually as he possibly can. “I know it’s late, just — I had a question about the mock battle, if you have a minute?”
The Professor turns back to him. Quietly, not looking Sylvain in the eye, he says, “if Felix put you up to this, I already told him my decision about the roster is final.”
Reluctantly, Sylvain files away the idea of getting Ingrid into the battle. “Sorry about him, he can be a real brat sometimes. No, I really was just curious. Not that you don’t have your reasons! I’m sure you do.”
“As I’m sure you had your reasons for lying to me about not understanding Reason magic.” The Professor stays entirely blank-faced through his accusation.
Sylvain crosses his arms. “Honestly, I thought my work was total trash. It really didn’t dawn on me that it could have been right, so I thought it wasn’t even worth checking.”
Professor Byleth shows nothing.
“Oh, come on, Professor — a guy like me, understand all that math and stuff?”
“What advantage is there in pretending to be stupid?”
“Pretending?” Sylvain glances up and down the dormitory row, heart in his throat. “Can we, uh, discuss this in private, maybe?”
The Professor crosses his arms. “Come in. I’ll explain what you missed, and you explain what I missed.”
Oh he has got to stop making things seem equal between them. The Professor is the type of person everybody seems to expect amazing things of; Sylvain is a problem for the others to solve. The Professor is an unknown everyone wants to know more about. Sylvain had better seem fucking transparent.
“Wow, Professor, you really know how to make a guy feel special.”
The Professor’s room is tidy, but not because he’s particularly organized. He just…doesn’t have any personal possessions. A calendar is tacked to the wall and littered with small scraps of paper, and someone brought him flowers that are decorated with a blue ribbon and a doodle of the word WELCOME! perched on the desk. Annette or Ashe, maybe. He hasn’t even unpacked his clothes — they are still in the trunk perched on top of the dresser. Sylvain mostly notes black and grey clothes, though a light pink hair ribbon sits on top, alongside a money pouch. The Professor’s notebook sits open on his desk, but The Professor flips it closed immediately. He guards that thing like it’s his child.
“Oh, what’s this?” Sylvain invites himself across the room and picks up the ribbon, weaving it around his fingers. “Hey Professor, is there a pretty girl that caught your eye?”
“Hm? No. I used to wear my hair longer.”
“Really?” Sylvain puts it down, unsure what to say next. “It’s a popular color with ladies these days.”
“It’s my favorite.”
Man, there is just no give with this guy.
“Are you, ah…planning on leaving?” He pats the side of The Professor’s trunk as he passes.
“No,” says The Professor.
No further explanation. Sylvain wants to ask more, looking around, but he doesn’t quite know how. “You…know you have a wardrobe, right?”
The Professor turns back to him, inscrutable.
“Where…your clothes go,” says Sylvain, “when you’re planning on staying somewhere for a long time. It keeps stuff less wrinkled.”
As he talks, and as The Professor continues staring at him, Sylvain slowly comes to the conclusion that maybe The Professor has never stayed in one place for long enough to make regular use of a wardrobe.
“Uh — anyways, doesn’t matter, uh. So, uh, can I ask about the mock battle now?”
“Have a seat,” says The Professor. He swipes his notebook off the desk moments before Sylvain can ask about it, invites Sylvain to sit in the chair, and then plops onto his bed. “What questions did you have?”
“I just…didn’t get why you picked who you did,” says Sylvain. “I get not picking me, don’t worry, I know I’m your worst melee fighter by far. But Ingrid is incredible with her lance and so versatile as a fighter, and Felix is, you know. Felix.”
The Professor shrugs. “Who would you take out of the battle, if you were to put Felix and Ingrid in it?”
“Dedue and Ashe.” When The Professor tilts his head for an explanation, Sylvain crosses his arms over his chest. “Felix and Dedue are both good on the front lines, but Felix is faster.” Plus, if they lose the battle, no one will unfairly blame Felix the way they will blame Dedue. “And Ingrid just has more experience than Ashe. She knows how to fight with Dimitri and Felix, too.”
“Okay. So what’s your strategy?”
Sylvain stares at him. “My…what?”
“Your strategy.” Reaching past Sylvain to a drawer of his desk, The Professor drags out a piece of parchment and a charcoal pencil. “Draw a formation and tell me how you would take down the Black Eagles and the Golden Deer. Remember: our objective is to infiltrate their strongholds and claim their house banners, which means being the last team with fighters standing on the field.”
Sylvain accepts the parchment and pencil with a dry throat. “I…listen, Professor, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you think I was questioning you — ”
“You want to improve your tactical skills.” The Professor nods again at the paper. “So show me the skills you have.”
His eyes narrow and penetrate — he sees Sylvain, finds that invisible man that flickers in and out of existence and pins him, forces him to stay…real. Sylvain’s heart beats faster, like he’s a prey animal — or worse, a boy with nowhere to hide.
“Don’t lie to me about what you’re capable of this time,” says The Professor. A threat.
And then, for some fucking reason, The Professor says, “please.”
All of Sylvain’s thoughts — about how he can just leave, about how he has friends next door, about how he should just stay quiet and charming and he’ll be just fine — stop short.
Please.
Why did he say that? Sylvain doesn’t know what in the world to do with him. He can’t get a read on The Professor at all. He can’t find energy to flirt and drive him away, nor would his normal routines do him any good. He wants to believe the offering of kindness and parity. He loathes the pity — how dare this random mercenary look down on him, or think him weak, or — or — or strong, somehow, or better than he is, or — fuck he doesn’t know.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Sylvain’s voice comes out completely normal.
His hands are still shaking as he turns back to the paper. Thankfully, The Professor turns back to his notebook immediately, and that gives Sylvain the time to focus. To breathe. To turn his attention to the exercise — and it ought to be a fun one, genuinely — at hand. The Professor writes a lot of notes over on his side of the room; a couple of times, Sylvain steals a glance. Those notes had better not be about him.
A few minutes later, he turns to present a plan for scrutiny.
“I think we could set up an ambush. Felix could draw out their frontlines and keep them occupied, and then Mercedes could lay down some spells to pick off their best melee fighter from a distance. Then we just have Felix fall back – ”
“Who,” says The Professor. “Who has Felix fall back.”
Sylvain pauses. “Huh?”
“Who is up there with him? Dimitri? Me? Both?” The Professor nods, eyeing the plan. “I believe this plan might work, if your soldiers were game pieces.”
The backhanded compliment feels a bit like his father’s actual backhand. Sylvain almost guffaws. Well. Maybe this means he’s learning.
“Professor, I know Felix is stubborn, but he would listen to you or his Highness, if you were giving the orders.”
“What about both?” says The Professor. “If I give Felix instructions and Dimitri gives Felix different instructions, who does he follow?”
The answer — to everything Sylvain has been wondering — becomes suddenly clear. “Dimitri — after a few complaints.”
“Yes,” says The Professor. “So now you get it.”
Sylvain sits back in his chair. “Have…have the three of us not been paying attention in class?”
“It has nothing to do with class.” The Professor shrugs. “Bonds can be an asset. Dedue’s training to protect Dimitri will be reliable for the sake of this battle, so I will use it. I do not have the time to drill a chain of command before this battle. Plus.” A faint smirk emerges on The Professor’s face — maybe the first actual emotion Sylvan has seen out of him. “Manuela and Hanneman built their rosters assuming I would select the four of you. They have no idea what Ashe can do.”
Sylvain admits, he hasn’t really been paying attention to what Ashe can do, either. From what he can tell, Ashe has been mostly training with Ingrid and Dedue, mostly. “He’s…good with an axe, yeah?”
Professor Byleth’s smug enthusiasm seems to double. “Among other things.”
“That’s what you’ve been training him in the last few…” Sylvain trails off. He’s missed something else, hasn’t he?
“Ashe got a perfect score in the archery trial,” says Professor Byleth. “I haven’t let him pick up a bow since. As far as the other houses know, Mercedes is the Blue Lions’s best archer. They won’t see Ashe coming.”
The uncharacteristic smirk, the way he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, the way he waits for Sylvain’s approval — it’s so familiar. A little bit of sunlight drips across the icy pond of Sylvain’s mind, allowing the merest glimpse of what lies below. Byleth is just so…he reminds Sylvain of something — it’s the please, the unhesitating long-term manipulation for petty gains, there’s — there’s the touch of warmth against his lips, laughter…this knowledge of how and why people work —
The Professor breaks in: “What have I missed about you?”
Sylvain blinks. What was he thinking about again?
“It is tactical to disguise your capabilities. But I don’t understand why you would.”
“Don’t really know what to tell you.” Sylvain shrugs. “I just don’t think people should expect much of me. Not my style.” He manages to tilt his head in an imitation of The Professor’s normal quirk. Then he winks. “Come on, Professor, you have to admit, I’m fun to be around.”
The Professor purses his lips slightly, evidently confused. “But you are also good at mathematics and logic.” He pauses, then glances at Sylvain’s mock battle proposal. “You have a real skill for tactics.”
“I’m a Gautier,” says Sylvain. “Of course I’m good at tactics.” Never mind the math and reason.
The blank stare he receives brings a real smile to Sylvain’s lips.
“Never mind.” A hand set under his chin, Sylvain basks in the moment of just finally having something over this guy. “Hey, I’d really like to learn more from you, really. It’s just…easier to be the guy people want to be around, not the guy people are jealous of, you know?”
“Jealous?”
“Yeah, I mean, think about it. I’m already the most attractive and charming noble in Faerghus,” says Sylvain. “That’s all I really need to be, anyways, so might as well stick with what I’m good at. No need to toss something else in the mix. Hey, hey, don’t worry your pretty head about it.”
Sylvain reaches out and almost puts his hand on Byleth’s head to ruffle his hair, then freezes in mid-air. Shit, he — shouldn’t be doing that.
“Sorry, Professor, um…” Immediately, Sylvain stands up and bows. “Sorry.”
“It’s — it’s alright,” says The Professor.
“No, it won’t happen again — it’s not like me. I shouldn’t be talking to my professor like…”
Sylvain trails off, because The Professor’s eyes have gotten really big and hopeful. He looks up at Sylvain like Dimitri did when they were kids, like Felix did a few years ago, like Ingrid still does every time Sylvain happens to be holding a plate of her favorite snacks. That look feels like a slap to the face — a more direct one, more defensive than punitive.
Professor Byleth is their age. He’s been traveling with his father all his life, hopping between mercenary contracts. He doesn’t even know how to use a wardrobe. Has The Professor ever had friends his own age?
Maybe he needs one.
“Hey, uh…once we win the mock battle, will you teach me more?”
“If you promise to stop lying to me about your capabilities.”
Sylvain sighs. “Okay, okay. I get it. Just — let’s not make a big deal out of this, yeah? We can make it just, friends hanging out, talking tactics. Is that okay, Pro— uh…Byleth?” He immediately has bitten off too much and backtracks, “Wait, sorry, that — just thought, maybe I could be less formal, but, uh — ”
“You can use my name.” Byleth does that head-tilting thing. “I use yours.”
“Right, but…”
“I’ve never been a professor before,” says Byleth quietly. “I know how to be a commander and tactician, but that’s been different.”
When Byleth keeps giving him puppy-dog eyes, Sylvain puts his hands on his hips and sighs. “Alright. Byleth it is. Except in class, because — you know. Chains of command and all that. Just…don’t expect too much of me, okay?”
“Just do your best,” says Byleth. “That is all I ask.”
Sylvain swallows. “Right, sure, will do.”
Sylvain has drowned a lot of things in his own mind — including what his best really feels like. He’s a little afraid of the work it might take to remember.
***
In those first few weeks of spring, the Officer’s Academy coheres into a singular class, twenty-four strange and talented students picked to rise to command — hopefully in alliance.. They’re all aware of themselves — constantly, constantly aware, of who they are and what they are here to do. When Sylvain fails to strike up a conversation with Marianne von Edmund in line for dinner, he’s frustrated. Yeah, she’s pretty, and he’d definitely court her, but also one day they’ll be negotiating import fees across their maritime border. He can’t push too hard. When Sylvain talks about horse pedigrees with Ferdinand von Aegir after lance training, he thinks of the trade routes they might maintain fifty years from now, which will be kept solid by a friendship and frequent exchange of well-trained yearlings and tea bags.
Byleth…is entirely unaware of all of this.
Logistically speaking, he’s the worst professor Rhea could have scrounged up. His grasp on continental politics is non-existent. Sometimes, he asks questions that are so stupid Sylvain has to save the conversation by saying something stupider. As a teacher, Byleth rarely makes plans for his lectures, and even he struggles to remember the magic formulas he’s trying to teach them. Nonetheless, he excels at three things. Fighting and tactics, obviously, are the first two. Byleth can outpace most of them in any weapon he picks up. In their advanced tactics seminar, he’ll come up with hypothetical scenarios that make Sylvain’s head spin.
Byleth’s third strength is the most vital: he has an unwavering knack for saying exactly what they need to hear.
Byleth spars in the evenings with Felix and the mornings with Dimitri, giving them the practice they crave without forcing them to face one another. Without probing, Byleth slides Sylvain into Annette’s advanced magic seminar and Annette into Sylvain’s advanced tactics seminar, because somehow he knows where they might excel.
Within weeks, all the Blue Lions agree: Byleth is the best professor they could ever ask for.
Halfway through the month, they have a mock battle with the Knights of Seiros, and Byleth rolls out new formations for the occasion. He also assigns Sylvain a battalion.
Sylvain tries to convince Byleth to reconsider, but Byleth insists. The consideration should be flattering, but…all Sylvain feels is a sense of inevitable failure.
Honestly, that’s probably why, halfway through their mock battle with the knights, his Crest activates.
One second he’s racing across the field, cutting in front of Mercedes so she doesn’t get hit by a surprise attack from the side. He goes to sweep the knight’s legs out from under him with his lance to make up from that distance. Then red-orange light blurs across Sylvain’s periphery; for a split second, all he can see is that flash of cruelty, the same one on his house’s front door. Sylvain’s lance connects, exactly where he intends — the poor man crumbles with a scream.
Mercedes whirls around at the sound of that cry. “Oh, Sylvain!”
Right then, Oh, Sylvain! sounds like, what have you done? The knight he’s just mauled — there can be no other word for it — is spewing blood and unable to even rise to one knee. Where Sylvain’s lance connected, the knight’s armor has caved in, slicing into the tender parts around his kneecap. There’s no other explanation for what he’s seeing except for the maimed sun he saw moments ago — the Crest burning through his veins.
Fuzzy edges to his vision, iron in his mouth. Minutes into a battle, and he’s going to claim his first kill.
Mercedes steps past Sylvain, drawing her hands through the motions of a spell. Healing light floods the knight — Sylvain remembers only then.
Practice. It’s just practice. They have healers. No one will die.
“Sylvain!” calls Byleth, from across the battlefield. “Connect with Ingrid and Annette!”
It’s a relief, to be able to turn and run from the evidence of his monstrosity.
Afterwards, Sylvain can’t stop shaking. Mercedes assures him that it was an accident, but Sylvain doesn’t reply to her. He can’t even watch as they carry that poor knight away from the battlefield. Even with her magic, Sylvain has left his mark.
“You look troubled.” Dedue is the unlucky volunteer to be stuck with Sylvain to return the practice equipment to the training fields, once the battle ends.
“Didn’t you see what I did to that guy?”
“It was an accident, as I understand it,” says Dedue. “But you are a powerful warrior.”
“Yeah, well.” Sylvain almost feels like laughing. “It isn’t like I had a choice about it. Just the Crest.”
Dedue makes a meditative noise, typical of him. It’s not the type of sound that encourages conversation, and yet, Sylvain’s mouth is filled with this acidic iron taste. He’s tasting the words he has to say.
“It’s crazy,” he says. “It’s like, sure. Felix’s Crest slams straight through armor and leaves these huge bruises, and Dimitri’s Crest makes him so stronger, and hey, Ingrid’s just makes her really, really good at finding weak points. Great for just, being really strong, I guess.
“And then there’s mine.” He feels like laughing.
“As I understand it, the Crest of Gautier likewise increases your power on specific techniques,” says Dedue.
“You’re such a good student,” says Sylvain. “I mean, sure, but also…you saw that guy. It’s…it destroys everything it touches. Corrupts it. Turns it against you. Wooden weapons can become splinters really quickly. Or armor can become a knife against the person wearing it.”
Or little boys born to withstand the coldest of winters can become cruel men with venomous tongues and empty hearts.
“This upsets you,” says Dedue. “I believe I understand.”
“You can’t,” says Sylvain. “Actually. You can’t understand.”
He isn’t surprised that Dedue says nothing further to him. Good call, probably. They complete the rest of their task in silence. Afterwards, he does not eat dinner. He slips into town. Let him find a pretty girl to lure into his bed, so that he can live in someone else’s heart for a few days, and then tear down yet another home he’s cheated his way into.
Destroy and be destroyed. That’s probably all he’s meant for, anyways. He might as well have fun with it, while he can.
***
“Have you ever played Hero’s Shuffle?”
Sylvain knows the answer is no; he sets two decks of fine, decorative playing cards on the table. One sits significantly more worn than the other — his own deck — and the other he wrapped in a nice pink ribbon he’d bought for…some girl, doesn’t matter which. Now the ribbon is for Byleth, to go with his other pink accessories. The more important gift is the playing cards anyways.
Byleth, obviously tired from the day of teaching, shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“Makes sense,” Sylvain admits. “The cards are expensive — tends to be a noble’s game. Still, I think you’d like it.”
It’s late; they met in the Blue Lions classroom because Sylvain’s head has been aching for days, and loud spaces are just not what he wants right now.
“Alright.” Byleth sits forward, clearly intrigued. “Show me how to play.”
“Guess I’m the professor today, huh?” He winks and slides Byleth’s set across the table. “Yours is a beginner’s deck, mostly, but I nicked some special and rare cards from Ingrid’s deck.” Ingrid won’t play Heroes Shuffle anymore. Not since the Tragedy.
Byleth reluctantly accepts the card deck. “These are…unusual playing cards.”
Sylvain spreads out a set of cards, face-up, and Byleth mirrors him. The base deck is always very carefully decorated and vary depending on the artisan that made them, which also makes the rare cards stand out. Sylvain’s are a little worn down — they were an eighth birthday present — but still he likes the motif of sunlight bleeding through creeping vines on each card. Byleth’s new deck is a little simpler, designed to feel like a fortress, with stones and towers on each card. Still, the core cards of the game remain largely the same and have since Sylvain’s father was a child, at the very least.
“It’s a war game,” Sylvain explains. “You’ve got a deck of soldiers and so do I. See, they’re grouped and given abilities based on the same certifications we can get here. Each of your units have different abilities, and some of them are just okay, and some of them are pretty good, right. These cards, the ones with the fancy outline here, are called heroes...”
He slowly explains the game, pointing to each symbol and color. Slowly, the teaching-related exhaustion on Byleth’s face vanishes, to be very obviously replaced with excitement. He really would have loved to have this game growing up. Not only that; he’d probably have loved growing up as a Gautier, forced to play the game with plenty of difficult scenarios and restrictions and imbalanced rulesets thrown on top of the basic rules.
Man. Sylvain wishes Byleth had been there. But then, maybe, he’d secretly resent Sylvain, too. A few years seems to be all anyone can take before they turn on him or start to see him as a burden to be dragged along.
He and Byleth play a first round of Hero’s Shuffle, then a second. Sylvain wins both, but he can see the mechanisms working behind Byleth’s focused gaze. Sylvain will be lucky if he gets more than five more victories before he and Byleth become even players. Byleth will likely outpace him in a few rounds. He’s just too good at this kind of thing.
“I notice,” says Byleth, part of the way through their third game, “you only seem to go after women in town.”
“‘Go after’ is a little crude, isn’t it?” says Sylvain. “I’m on a search for love.”
“Yes,” says Byleth, “you’re making a strategy to find the right person.”
Sylvain laughs. “Any pretty girl is the right person, the way I see it. At least for that day.”
“But your…um, relationships don’t seem to last.”
“You don’t have to be nice,” says Sylvain. “You can call them flings. Trysts. Affairs. Whatever.”
He feels his hackles rising and forces himself to take a deep breath, as Byleth carefully lays out his cards. That’s right. Byleth’s tactical genius isn’t simply knowing the cards or picking the right order to play them in; he’ll also be using the conversation to throw Sylvain off.
“What are you getting at?” Sylvain asks. “I think it’s fun to be in love for a bit here and there. Girls are great, you know?” He sets out one of his favorite cards, which could, if left unmitigated, gobble up one of Byleth’s best cards. “Or do you not know?”
Byleth takes his turn a little quickly. “You flirt with your friends, but you wouldn’t actually…”
“I don’t sleep with my friends.” Sylvain executes his plan. He feels smug when he can just reach across the table and tap his trap card to remind Byleth of its purposes. He takes Byleth’s best card off the table, which will probably disable the whole array of Byleth’s other cards.
Byleth doesn’t react, though. “Is that because most of your friends are men?”
“No,” says Sylvain with a wink, “I thought you might know this, being a mercenary and all, but guys are pretty good choices for sharing your tent. It’s just that they’re my friends — I don’t sleep with my friends.”
Byleth wordlessly turns over his next set of cards. A tepid play, Sylvain thinks; maybe his better cards just got unluckily buried at the bottom of his deck, and he hasn’t drawn good ones recently. Either that, or he’s got something else planned.
Sylvain presses his advantage and racks up as many points as he can. It’ll be hard for Byleth to come back from this, really. “Besides. Girls I’ve never met before are a lot more fun. They don’t know me, really, so I get the chance to figure out what it is they really want from me. You know. If we’d be a good match, all that.”
It’s usually all the same thing, though. Money. Power. A flirtation with a beautiful nobleman. To get pregnant with that nobleman’s Crested child and be thrown into some fantasy of privilege and luxury.
“What do you get from these encounters?” asks Byleth.
“Fun, that’s all.” Sylvain shrugs. “Nothing holding me back, nothing keeping me there…”
“What happens when you become friends with a woman?” asks Byleth.
Sylvain laughs out loud.
“You know,” he says, unable to stop grinning, “I think next time I go out, you should come with me. I’ll help you get a taste for women and get a sense of how much you have in common with them.” It would be fun, he thinks, to watch Byleth flounder. Or, maybe Byleth would be a big hit with the ladies, as earnest and powerful with the Church as he is. He’d be something of an easy target. Sylvain would have to protect him, really.
“I’m not interested in women,” says Byleth. “Not in the way you are.”
He sets down his next move, showing Sylvain that he has no intention of fighting out the rest of this hand. Sylvain wins again — and yet, there is no satisfaction of victory whatsoever. Byleth nods graciously but doesn’t meet his eyes. It kind of is starting to feel like Byleth lost that round on purpose. Sylvain can’t help but hate him for that.
“So guys, then?” Sylvain says, as he reaches to gather his own cards.
Byleth weighs the question and gathers his own cards back into his hand.
“I am not thinking about ‘tent-sharing,’ really,” he says, “but…”
Sylvain shuffles his deck and sets it face down, like they might start again, but then neither of them actually move.
“Sorry,” says Sylvain. “I was being crass.”
Byleth shakes his head.
“You can call me on it,” says Sylvain.
“Hm.”
“Well if you want to go out some time,” says Sylvain. “I’m sure you can find a nice guy while I’m busy with the ladies. We’ll split them down the middle.”
He knows — he knows — he’s making things worse, taking their awkward conversation and just digging a bigger hole to bury it in. He should take his leave.
Sylvain does, then, waiting in the awkward silence until it becomes very clear that Byleth won’t interrupt him. He clears the deck off the desk and smiles, awkward.
“I’m getting hungry,” he says. “What do you say? Hit the town with me?”
Byleth frowns. “I should prepare,” he says. “Our mission to track down the bandits is approaching.”
Thank the Goddess.
He makes his way down to Garreg Mach town and finds a sweet girl who is easy to sweep off her feet and get a drink with. She’s shy, and sweet, and she would have looked good in the pretty pink ribbon that Sylvain gave to Byleth. She tells Sylvain about her travels here, how she’s in Garreg Mach on a pilgrimage; and Sylvain finds, halfway through her discussion, that he simply does not care.
They have to go on their mission soon. They have bandits to hunt, to punish, for having the audacity to go after people with power and fail. The Church failed. Byleth was the only reason that Dimitri and the other house leaders got out of the situation unscathed. Of course that temporary peace can’t stand. Of course Byleth needs to be deployed to right the injustice — and to prove that the Church rectifies its failures immediately by putting anyone stronger than it under its thumb.
Sylvain draws in a breath and turns to the pretty girl he has beside him. Her name is…uh. Well, it doesn’t matter.
“Hey,” he says, “we should go out sometime for real, but tonight…I think I should head home. Don’t get it wrong — I’m having a great time, just…tired tonight. Let’s give it another shot some other night, okay?”
He kisses her hand and dips out of the bar, immediately remembering how hard his head has been hurting. No wonder he couldn’t focus on the girl. Has nothing to do with anything else going on in his life.
The summer air surrounds him, a little wet, but pleasant. Overhead, the stars are sparkling. Gorgeous night, really.
Everything is always taken from Sylvain.
What isn’t taken, he ruins himself. So of course it’s bandits — of course they’re dragging him along to punish people who have stolen from others, as if it should be some catharsis for him. As if stealing life will make any of them better instead of inserting them into this wretched cycle — kill and be killed, take from others and take revenge on those who take from you, defend your honor and punish anyone who slights it, steal the normalcy from other people’s lives to remind them that they are owned. That they are nothing but a weapon for a cruelly enacted vengeance upon those who don’t know their place.
***
Sylvain was six when his mother bundled him up in his winter clothes and brought him along on her annual trips to bring supplies to the small, remote places in Gautier’s territory. He watched frozen fingers lobbed off, dehydrated and malnourished bodies set to a final rest, funeral pyres that doubled as a way to keep other homes warm.
Several different people asked the question, some less tactfully than others: “Are you sure you want your son to see this, my lady?”
“Sylvain is to be the Margrave Gautier one day,” said the Margravine, not even bothering to look back at Sylvain. “This is his inheritance.”
Death was his inheritance, a natural part of Gautier made both inevitable and his responsibility.
But death in the cold is different from what they are asked to do at Zanado, when Byleth leads them upon their first mission. Sylvain didn’t understand why it was called the red canyon at first, but now, as blood slides down Sylvain’s forehead and over his eyelashes, he understands.
He took his lance and killed a man, because Byleth told him to, because Lady Rhea told Byleth that this death was needed. A simple command — and that’s the only reason the stones are flowing red today.
There was something so vulnerable about the first to fall beneath Sylvain’s lance. He was a man guarding stolen loot, sure. Yet, he was younger than Sylvain. He probably could have made something of his life, had some asshole not lured him into the path of attacking the Knights of Seiros. Instead he looked up at Sylvain with utter horror as the realization hit him, that he had nowhere else to go but whatever afterlife existed for those that the Church had ordered to die.
Sylvain pierced him through, and then he died.
Sylvain shouldn’t be troubled, by the warmth on his face and hands. It’s so familiar. Isn’t it?
//
He was nine, the first time he felt this sensation. Ages ago, really.
It all happened so fast. A shadow against the window of Sylvain’s bedroom, a scream ripped from Sylvain’s throat as he woke up just in time to dive out of the way of an assassin’s blade. A blur of a short-sword, cold dark eyes. The cold dread, in Sylvain’s stomach, as he realized that he was going to die all alone.
But the door slammed open. Another shape appeared, and an arm came right around Sylvain’s mid-section, holding him tight. Another arm swung a curved blade into the air before him, cutting the assassin’s throat. Blood splattered across Sylvain’s face — hot like tears, but stickier..
Only when Sylvain’s savior kicked the assassin’s body out the window, did Sylvain realize that his savior wasn’t a guard. Instead, his life had been saved by the hostage who lived down the hallway.
Leif — his full name was Leif Tuer Egilson Nge-Dajkusa, but the Margrave said to just call him Leif Egilson — had been with them only a few months, since the agreement that ended the Sreng Invasion and brought Sylvain’s father home again. Leif was clever and observant, like Miklan. He didn’t speak their language very well yet, but he trounced Sylvain at chess. Sometimes, Sylvain saw him holding back, especially when he played games against the Margrave. Sylvain knew the importance of pretending to be small and weak. Maybe that made Leif a little like Sylvain, too?
Sylvain pushed Leif away from him, now, and backed away from the window. His legs quaked, making it difficult to stay. He finally reached for his bed, frustrated that he was shaking. Miklan would have been able to stand. Was Sylvain really just that much weaker?
“Okay, ‘vain?” Leif held up his hands. He was only fifteen. He had blood on his face, too. “The killer is gone.”
Sylvain wiped the sticky red liquid off his cheek. “I’m okay.” His voice was shaking harder than his body. He wished it wouldn’t.
“I will write to my father,” said Leif, wiping his knife on his pants.
“Why?” whispered Sylvain.
Leif raised an eyebrow. “If a Clan seeks your blood, it will stop.”
Right. Perhaps the assassin had come from Sreng — someone sent for revenge, or to steal Sylvain in the night as exchange for Leif.
“Why?” Sylvain repeated. “Don’t — don’t you hate me?”
Leif gave him a measured look. “I seek not an end of peace.”
“R-right,” Sylvain murmured. “That makes…sense.”
Sylvain sank to sit, exhausted on the side of his bed. After a moment, Leif sat beside him.
“Look here,” said Leif. When Sylvain refused, he heard a sigh. Then Leif said something in his own language.
“What?”
“I said you are…like an ox,” said Leif. “I know not the word. Look here.”
Sylvain turned, vengeful, and Leif caught him by the chin. He had no blood on his hands, somehow. Instead, his hands were clean, soft, and gentle. Even gentler was the way he smoothed a handkerchief over Sylvain’s face.
“All is well,” said Leif. “Safe.”
Sylvain could count on one hand the people who had ever touched him like this. All of the others were servants in his household doing a duty. But Leif smelled like fresh spilt blood and below it, some sort of lemongrass oil. Leif had eyes the color of the sky when it was about to rain, or the low waves that built in the Whitehorn sometimes, brutally freezing but so, so powerful. Leif must have had violence, so much violence, inside of him, but none of it was for Sylvain. For Sylvain, Leif offered something…else. Something new. The moment seemed like caramel — sticky, sweet, salaciously long, warmer than it should have been — and then the guards arrived, and it vanished.
After that night, Sylvain stuck close to Leif’s side whenever possible. Just practical: when Leif was around, Miklan left Sylvain alone. And yeah, maybe Sylvain idolized Leif a little bit. Yes, undoubtedly, Sylvain would hold tight to the memory of Leif’s hand on his cheek and the smell of his lemongrass hair oil, mixing with the blood. Later, too, Sylvain watched Leif cleave a training dummy in half and then turn to apologetically laugh to his training instructor, which caused the violence and the care to finally find the third strand of a braid of feeling — desire, which at the time Sylvain had no outlet for.
But in the wake of the Tragedy, Leif left Sylvain to handle the long shadows in the night. Sylvain still thinks about Leif all the time — how he both wanted Leif and wanted to be Leif and how Leif was the person who taught Sylvain what blood on his face feels like, and —
\\
— there’s blood on his face now, because of the boy-man-bandit-innocent-thief-citizen-enemy he killed. Frankly, he’s not sure what’s blood and what’s sweat anymore. Why did it have to be bandits of all things? It could just as easily be Miklan’s troupe of bandits out here, a bunch of lowlifes so hurt by the world that they take out their anger on everyone else. He wonders sometimes if someday, an order will come from the Margrave to cut Miklan down and prove himself.
“Sylvain — can you cover me?”
Ashe’s request brings Sylvain right back to the battle. Sylvain rushes over the stones and spins, commanding his battalion to stand in-between Ashe and the oncoming bandits. Ashe has gone for their treasure and will pick through it to find anything valuable for future battles (or that might catch the Church’s interest). While Ashe works, Sylvain readies his spear, glancing around to check if Byleth has any more orders for him.
He finds Byleth on a lower layer of the canyon, fighting with Dimitri and Dedue. His sword comes down, slashing an attacker’s hand cleanly off, and then he spins on a dime to take on another one. A bright flare of white-gold light illuminates him, and for a second, an emblem of heart-shaped fire sears into the air.
The world slows down around Sylvain.
A Crest. Byleth has a Crest.
Sylvain’s throat burns. He kicks a man in the kneecaps, puts his spear right through the point between his shoulder-blades. One of the members of his battalion screams; Sylvain slides to the left to cover for them and help beat down the attacker coming at them.
A Crest. Why didn’t Byleth mention it?
Ashe scrambles back to his side. “Got it all!” he declares.
“Good,” says Sylvain without thinking. “We should reconnect with the others.”
Why didn’t he mention a Crest?
The battle ends not long after Sylvain and Ashe finish with the treasure horde. Their task should be to load the weapons and treasure they found back to their convoy, but Sylvain marches across the battlefield to their commander. Byleth stands off to the side, eyes scanning the ancient structures and sleek stones.
“Hey,” Sylvain says, as he squares off behind Byleth’s shoulders. “You okay there?”
“Mmm,” says Byleth, not looking back at Sylvain. “Killing thieves is only a job for me.”
“Yeah,” says Sylvain. “Not all of us are new to this.”
“That…is some reassurance.”
Yet he still stares over the various structures of the canyon, ignoring Sylvain.
“I’m pretty familiar with bandits, you know,” says Sylvain. Living with them, kicking them out of their homes…
Byleth says nothing. Sylvain balls his hands into fists, then opens them, then squeezes them tight again. What could be so important that Byleth won’t even acknowledge Sylvain coming to see him? Isn’t he supposed to care about them?
“So.” Sylvain’s voice sounds normal, doesn’t hold the bile growing in Sylvain’s throat. “Your Crest. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Sylvain’s laugh, however, does comes out toxic. “No, really, Byleth. What is it?”
Who is he, really? Why is he here?
“I don’t know,” Byleth repeats. “Professor Hanneman is looking into it.” He rolls a shoulder. “I only started noticing it recently.”
“Look, I get that your life was outside the church and all, but…are you serious? You have a rare Crest, and nobody told you about it until…until now?”
Byleth shrugs. “It was never important.”
Never important. Sylvain yearns for a life like that. He hates that he didn’t have it. He hates that he’s standing here thinking about how many times a damn Crest has saved his life and ruined his life and complicated his life and ruined his life some more and ruined countless more lives through him.
“Hate to break it to you, but Crests make a big difference in your strategy,” says Sylvain, crossing his arms. “If Dimitri’s goes off, he can crush a man’s skull in his bare hand. Ingrid’s Crest directs her blow to a weak spot.” There’s a horrible, sour taste in his mouth as he mutters, “mine likes to take a careful strategy and make it…brutal.”
Finally, Byleth turns. His eyes gleam — with excitement. Excitement.
“Tell me more,” he says. “If we use these things to our advantage, maybe…”
He keeps talking, but Sylvain tunes out his excitement. He’s thinking of that Knight of Seiros who is still on bedrest because Sylvain destroyed his kneecap with a single blow.
Byleth turns to him and says his name, and Sylvain snaps, “I’m sure Professor Hanneman can tell you everything you need to know. Can I have the payment for my battalion now?”
Taken aback, Byleth hastily nods and places the fee in Sylvain’s palm. “Are you alright?”
Sylvain waves a hand. “Never better.”
By now he should be used to being a walking tactical asset instead of a person. No matter who it is, his utility is his Crest.
Sylvain marches back to where his battalion has gathered. Its leader, Evie, pulls off her helmet and shakes out long brown hair. Maybe she’s flirting. Maybe she genuinely didn’t see him coming. She’s a few years older than Sylvain, maybe. Pretty in exactly the ways he wants right now.
“Hey, lovely lady, thanks for your help today.” Sylvain holds up the sack of gold. “I’ve got your pay here, but looking at it now, it doesn’t seem enough for all the help you gave us today. How about I take you to dinner when we get back? Something nice before your next assignment.”
Evie eyes the gold in Sylvain’s hand and gives him a cursory look, up and then down. Oh, he loves it when they do that. They’ll see whatever they want in him. He’s so fucking transparent.
“That’s a nice offer,” she says. “Sure, let’s do it.”
Sylvain knows he’s smiling. He hears himself laugh and say something mildly flirtatious, so he can reinforce her desires for him, whatever they are. He’s good for whatever she wants, anyways. He’ll pull her hair when he fucks her, tell her she’s got curves and muscles like no one he’s ever met, bite her hip to leave a mark and then eat her out, fuck her again and again however she’d like until she tells him he’s an Excellent Lover. Then he’ll call her by another girl’s name, flirt with someone else in front of her, twist her heartstrings between his fingers until she tells him he’s a Horrible Person. He’ll go to class and hand Byleth her resignation letter with a shrug of his shoulders.
Factor that into your strategy, Byleth. Sylvain’s every calculated move becomes savage; nothing he touches is left intact.
***
Sylvain is a monster.
Sylvain destroys everything he touches.
After Evie, he rakes through women like he’s trying to build a new battalion out of spurned lovers. Five days before the moon turns, he convinces a girl to bite him so hard he sees stars, and then he meticulously counts the days and sees how long that bruise lasts. He has no idea why the idea is so compelling to him, but damn, if watching teeth-shaped bruises turn colors against his skin doesn’t light every nerve ending in his body on fire. Part of it’s the sex appeal, part of it’s the violence, part of it is something else he doesn’t even understand, a memory dangling just beneath the frozen surface of his mind.
It isn’t enough.
Ashe starts being near tears constantly, confused by the news of his adoptive father staging a revolt against the Church of Seiros and upset that his friends have been requested to stop him. Sylvain should intervene. He should talk to Ashe, explain how people are not who they seem, how family seems to love you but never really does, or how friends protect you once but then leave you alone. He should tell Ashe without hesitation that the Church will kill Lord Lonato when they finally ride to meet him. They might even make Ashe responsible for it. Shouldn’t Ashe be warned? Or would Sylvain just be ruining another already fragile thing?
He brings two ladies into his bed at the same time at one point, because physical pain isn’t doing enough. When the third lady finds out about the other two, on Friday, she cries in the middle of the marketplace. She slaps him across the face, too. In the resounding snap of that noise, Sylvain finally feels something.
It has nothing to do with the slap, either — rather, it’s because Byleth is watching this encounter from a few steps up the market path. It’s not as rewarding for Felix or Ingrid or even Dimitri to yell at him about his behavior. They wallow in shame on Sylvain’s behalf, but they’ll forgive him. He’s insatiable, unable to be respected, unable to practice moderation — and though they may yell at him, they also pity him enough to stand by him.
But Byleth thinks he’s Sylvain’s equal. Oh-so-clever Byleth, oh-so-insightful Byleth, how can he be so deluded about Sylvain? He needs to get serious and acknowledge Sylvain’s potential as a weapon against others, even others he claims to want to have and treat nicely and love, even. Death is his inheritance. Ruin is his blood.
When he turns, Byleth is indeed standing in his path, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed. It’s such a subtle look, but Sylvain can’t help but recognize it — concern, maybe a little frustration. Maybe he’s getting to know his stoic professor well after all.
“So, do you enjoy spying on people?” Sylvain says. “You look like you’ve got something to say. Go on. Say it.”
Please hate him. Please denounce him. Please ruin him.
“That girl…” Byleth nods in the direction of her retreating back. “You broke her heart.”
Sylvain feels an involuntary twitch start up in his jaw. “Hey, that was between me and her, not you.” He shrugs. Maybe, just maybe, he wants Byleth to watch him with disgust. It would finally make their feelings for one another mutual. “You know how it is. Most relationships, they end in heartbreak. Anyways, I don’t know why she’s so upset about me dating other girls. She didn’t care before she found out — why does she care now? I really do hate seeing a girl cry.”
“Is that a fact?” says Byleth.
Who knows. He shrugs again. “Believe whatever you want, but I’m honestly not sure if I can ever love again.”
And that, he knows, is a fact. It has been for years. He kind of remembers what it feels like — soft hands on his face, mocking laughter, daffodils tucked behind his ear — you broken thing, my sad little sunshine — but only in submerged memories and ash-strewn nightmares and teeth marks on his palms and —
No, no. Those things belong to a much more complicated guy. Sylvain isn’t complicated at all, which makes Byleth’s current confusion so funny. For such a smart guy, their professor is so…dense.
“Well! I figure the best way to mend a broken heart is to head out on the town. Why don’t you join me?” Sylvain offers a hand towards Byleth, who is still frowning. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find love. I mean, I know I will.”
Another possible future, sweet sugar satisfaction. Another soft pair of hands and sweet-tasting lips, another set of words to memorize and recite. Whatever it will take to make it hurt. It won’t last, but Sylvain can pretend, while it does, that one day he’ll find a woman who would please his parents’ expectations. At least there’s that.
Byleth opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. Then he turns away. Then he turns back towards Sylvain, like he has something to say. Is he angry? Does he hate Sylvain? He must, by this point. Why, then, does he just look kind of sad?
“Calm down — it was only a joke.” Sylvain takes a step away from him, not sure what Byleth wants from him anymore. “You’ve really got no sense of humor, you know that?”
“Sylvain.”
“Yes?”
Byleth makes a little noise, neither a hiccup or a groan, and just says, “Why?”
Why. What a stupid question.
“Look. You can do what you want. I’m not here to stop you.” Sylvain sighs, brushing off his uniform. His palms ache; his fingers itch. Maybe that slap wasn’t enough after all. “See you in class.”
“Sylvain,” calls Byleth again.
“What?”
For the first time, Sylvain meets the gaze of his friend — no, no, his professor, really, he won’t want to be Sylvain’s friend anymore — and sees how viscerally upset The Professor looks. If Sylvain knows one thing, it’s that The Professor can always find the right response. For him to seem lost makes Sylvain feel like he’s won a game. What game, he doesn’t really know. The feeling of winning is a pretty nice one, or whatever.
“Be back at a reasonable hour, please,” says The Professor, in a pleading tone. “I don’t like that I’m hearing reports about you.”
Sylvain ruffles the back of his hair. “Reports? About little me? Whatever for?” But he gives a suitable bow. “I’ll be good, Professor. Promise.”
The Professor doesn’t seem to know what to do with him, so Sylvain doesn’t wait any longer. He flips around and returns right back into town, but not for food.
Let’s see what other sort of ruin he can conjure up before the day ends.
***
A rebellion. Killing Ashe’s adoptive father in cold blood, watching revenge spill out on a misty forest floor. The excommunication of the Western Church, as if that will do anything to help the instability in Faerghus. No, no. There’s been a rot at the core of Faerghus for at least a decade, and finally it seems to be spreading through the rest of Fódlan.
When Byleth and Dimitri tell them about the assassination attempt against the Archbishop, Sylvain agrees with them: it’s too obvious a ruse. Yes, it’s a shame that Ashe’s father was dragged into any of this, because he was so clearly used by the Western Church. The whole western half of the kingdom has been pulling these increasingly bold moves in the recent years, emboldened by Archduke Rufus’s utter incompetency and use of the powers of the throne for self-enrichment. An excommunicated Western Church still has power, as Lord Lonato proves: they have embittered nobles seeking a way to follow Rufus’s lead. If Faerghus is to collapse, the Central Church will be its most secure pillar standing.
Maybe there’s rot within the church itself. Frankly, there must be. But there are ways to go about purging a structure of rot other than tearing down the ceiling and crushing every unfortunate soul who happens to be in the proximity.
He doesn’t like any of this. Not someone throwing lords against the Central Church, and not the implication that it isn’t actually just Rhea they’re after.
Of course, what they really are after, is a place of mourning, a place of peace and respect, and the ancient things entombed below the earth. Sylvain goes with the rest of his class to chase down the Western Church members when they infiltrate, all the way to the tombs they seek. But it isn’t corpses they rob from the grave — it’s a singular sword.
That sword fits perfectly into Byleth’s hand. When Byleth swings it to fend off the final enemy remaining, the glow from the sword dyes his eyes the color of blood. Of course it fits just right in his palm. Of course it sings righteous chaos for him and him alone.
Once the battle ends and the Church arrives, Sylvain finds himself standing off to the side with, Ingrid, Ashe, and Ignatz Victor, from the Golden Deer house, who Byleth dragged along on this mission for whatever reason. They’re all a bit too tired and confused to do anything except watch as Catherine and the other knights crowd around Byleth, helping him to his feet and taking control of the mildly glowing bone-plated sword in his hands.
“It’s a Hero’s Relic,” murmurs Ignatz, fluffing the feathery end of his arrow against his lips. “It must be.”
“How are you so sure?” Sylvain says.
Ignatz jumps. There must be loathing in Sylvain’s voice. “O-Oh, I — j-just that it’s beautiful, and it resembles the great weapons in paintings of the Elites, and…ah, w-well, I could be wrong. I’m sorry.”
Beautiful. What a word to pick.
“Oh, I don’t think you’re wrong,” says Sylvain.
It’s definitely a Relic. Sylvain would know.
“I…” Ignatz sounds like he’s about to cry. “Okay.”
Sylvain has the strong urge to roll his eyes or to groan exaggeratedly and ask Ignatz not to take things so seriously. He also has the weaker urge to laugh this exchange off. He does neither, because that’s when he catches sight to Byleth, who remains holding the bone-sword in his hands. Byleth stares down at the sword as though it is a fragile thing. Sylvain’s skin crawls.
There are horrors in that sword. Does Byleth feel them, maybe?
“We should return to the monastery,” says Dimitri, emerging from the other side of the hall and bringing the others with him.
Still, as the knights finish their sweep and dismiss the class, Sylvain ducks behind the others to join Byleth.
“Hey, Professor,” says Sylvain, and then he amends, “Byleth. Are you alright?”
Byleth looks up and nods once, not even meeting Sylvain’s eyes. Then he walks quickly away, ostensibly to rejoin Dimitri at the front of the party.
Of course Byleth would turn away from him. Today all he’s done is snap at one of the meekest people in the Officer’s Academy and demand to know how Byleth was feeling, unsolicited, just to make himself feel better.
More likely, Byleth doesn’t feel anything at all — why would he? He has never experienced a single cost to his Crest, only the benefits, the advantages, the glories. He has never paid a single thing.
Sylvain stands in the tomb for a few seconds too long, watching the others walk away from him. It is starting to feel like everyone else belongs on the surface and he belongs somewhere just like this.
***
There’s a very delicate balance Sylvain has been walking, lately. He has to go to class enough that his friends pay attention to their own problems, and not to him. But seeing Byleth makes his hair stand on edge, and Byleth has power to command where he goes and how. It would be pretty difficult for Sylvain to say no, after all, when Byleth is not only a teacher, but also the commander who holds their lives in his hands.
“Sylvain,” says Byleth, Thursday, just before lunch. “I would like…there’s something I…”
Sylvain isn’t interested. He flashes a smile. “Sure, Professor. We can talk in our lesson on Friday, right? Unless it’s something urgent?”
A nod. One thing about Byleth is that Sylvain just can’t read his face.
“Of course,” he says simply.
Each of Byleth’s officers has an individual lesson with him at some point in the week, and Sylvain has the lucky assignment of Friday morning, just after his Lance training. He’s expected first thing in the morning at the training yard to do his exercises. It’s too easy for Sylvain to let himself fail miserably so he can have an excuse to crawl back to his room for a bandage or a clean set of clothes without incurring the wrath of Ingrid or Felix. Then he can very simply just not show up to his lesson with Byleth.
In the past, often their meetings had led to lunch in town, or a few rounds of Hero’s Shuffle, or a long match of the latest board game Byleth found in the market. Now…well. Sylvain just isn’t going. He hasn’t gone for weeks. Their relationship is like Byleth knocking on the windows of Sylvain’s room because Sylvain locked the door. Byleth reaches out — after their tactics seminar, in-between classes, during dinner — and Sylvain slams the windows shut so hard that all the glass shatters. He gets to be covered in shards of broken glass, bleeding, and wide open for the next attack.
It isn’t fair. No one pretended to like this mercenary’s child, growing up; no one shoved him down a set of stairs or tied him to the rafters by his ankles. No one laughed at him behind his back, because undoubtedly Byleth has been perfect from the first day he opened those big blue eyes and stared unfeelingly at the world around him. A year from now, Sylvain will go to the border and learn how to freeze, and a year from now, Byleth will be the exact same as he is now. Byleth will not go to the worst parts of the earth for duty or responsibility. He can simply…walk away.
Sylvain can’t let that stand, is the thing.
To make matters worse, Byleth keeps showing up at the worst of times; he’ll appear in the Entrance Hall right as Sylvain is trying to wrap his arm around a new girl. He’ll frown disapprovingly if Sylvain kisses a girl’s hand. He’ll raise an eyebrow and pointedly look the other direction if Sylvain walks by with a girl. This whole treatment feels intentional, hypocritical, absurd. Sylvain wants to have fun. That’s the whole point of going to the Officer’s Academy — who cares about the politics, anymore, when everything is falling apart. They just need to hold out long enough to put Dimitri on the throne. Sylvain has put everything he has into battle, just like Byleth wants; how dare Byleth keep giving him these surveying looks, these critical frowns — when his life will never be as constrained as Sylvain’s.
Finally, as Byleth confronts him — actually confronts him, actually walks up to him and disdains him in front of the whole world — over breaking a girl’s heart in the marketplace Sylvain strikes at the core of the thing:
“You never knew you had a Crest,” he accuses.
Byleth doesn’t visibly react; Sylvain’s fury grows. How dare it mean so little to him. Of course it means nothing to him. Of course, Sylvain sits within this prison of his life, and Byleth — Byleth…
“You were free,” spits Sylvain. “Nobody pretended to like you. I kind of hate you for that.”
For the first time, a stroke of hurt on Byleth’s face — and Sylvain closes in, his finger extended in accusation, standing close enough to nearly stab Byleth in the dawn-pink on his breastplate.
“You were a spoiled brat who should pay for that Crest,” Sylvain says. “Maybe I’ll collect the debt.”
He doesn’t quite know where the threat comes from; he didn’t mean to make it outright. The problem with Byleth is that he makes Sylvain leap out of his skin — and apparently, with his skin separated out, Sylvain’s core sounds just like Miklan.
He watches Byleth’s eyes get wide, when he made that vague threat. Maybe that’s how Sylvain looked, every time Miklan threatened his wellbeing out of jealousy of the Crest: like a scared boy uncertain why his brother was turning on him.
Feels good. He’s slowly understanding why Miklan got so much excitement out of the cruelty.
To cover up the monster inside, his skin acts for him, mocking Byleth, turning the encounter into just one more of Sylvain’s big jokes: “Wow, you shoulda seen the look on your face just then!”
Life has to be just a series of jokes. Why wouldn’t it be! He has two options: he’ll burn up, flashy, with the world watching, or he’ll spend his life slowly freezing into his place, just as his father did, and his grandmother before, and his great-grandmother before her, and his great-great-greatuncle before him. That is what it means to be a child of Gautier. The ruin runs so hot that it is like holding the entire sun within. If they don’t blow up, they return to the snow in which they were born to. Then they can be balanced: freezing on the outside, protected by the unquenchable destruction burning deep within.
Byleth trying to reach out to him is the same sort of folly as running into fire. It’s probably a good thing, that Sylvain keeps running away.
***
Three things — a letter from Sylvain’s father, orders from Lady Rhea, and Rodrigue — arrive in the start of the Verdant Rain Moon all bearing the same news:.
Miklan took the Lance.
All Sylvain’s life, he’s been hoping that Miklan would take the Lance, but not like this. He wished that Miklan could just — just suddenly manifest a Crest, so he could have what he wanted and leave Sylvain alone. Of course Miklan deserved to be Margrave, to have the status and fame. His fall to petty banditry and destruction could have been avoided so easily, if he’d just had that stupid Crest.
But instead, he took the Lance without finding a Crest, so they need to force Sylvain to take it back.
“Truthfully,” Rodrigue explains to Sylvain, as he and Dimitri and Dedue sit down in the Knight’s Hall, “the Margrave is reluctant to leave the territory at present. As you may expect, word should not get out to our northern enemies that the Lance of Ruin has been stolen.”
So he’s going to be up there posturing. Strategically correct, but annoying.” What about my mother?”
Rodrigue frowns. He doesn’t seem to know what to say.
Sylvain doesn’t want to know what his silence means. Should he just assume that his mother just handed Miklan the Lance, then? He wants to think her smarter than that, but then again, she’s only ever protected Sylvain when his survival —to be precise, his Crest — was at risk. She can claim she’s too heartbroken to go between her beloved sons, but Sylvain knows perfectly well she’s only really loved one of them, and it’s not Sylvain.
“Her Excellency is hardly a battle commander, Sylvain,” says Dimitri, which saves Rodrigue from having to clarify. “It would do her little good to leave Gautier simply to inform us of the details. I am glad you came, Rodrigue, truly.”
Well, that makes one of them. Sylvain would have preferred just the letter.
It’s not that he hates Rodrigue — he admires Rodrigue, theoretically. But he hates everyone around him at the moment. Since Rodrigue arrived, Felix has been rotating through hiding places like he’s been accused of murder and is evading capture. According to Mercedes, Ingrid has been telling people not to talk to Sylvain about Miklan. Hypocrite — Ingrid herself has asked Sylvain how he’s doing about three times a day. Comparatively, Sylvain prefers the company of Dimitri and Dedue, who are at least taking Miklan as the threat he is and strategizing the mission.
Byleth doesn’t approach him until Sunday. Sylvain skipped their one-on-one lessons on Friday, but he’s been doing that. Apparently, the Miklan issue will make him breach their gap.
“Hey, Professor.” It’s easy for Sylvain to let his face speak for him — apologies, performative sadness, everything needed to promise he isn’t a dead man kept walking by a hateful rotten core.
Byleth doesn’t respond to the platitudes Sylvain’s mask offers. Instead he says, shortly: “I was actually going to ask if you wanted to get dinner.”
“Not afraid people might talk anymore?” Sylvain’s mask winks all on its own.
Byleth stares at him.
“Oh, you want something, then?” says Sylvain. “What can I help you with, Professor?”
“Your company at dinner,” says Byleth. “Or tea, if you would prefer that.”
“Yeah, I got that,” says Sylvain. “But isn’t ‘dinner or tea’ a ploy for something else?”
Byleth stares at him some more and then says, “I would like to speak to you.” He clears his throat. “As ‘friends hanging out talking tactics,’ I believed you suggested. If, of course, you’re done threatening my life.” He fidgets, drawing Sylvain’s attention down to the bag he’s holding over one shoulder. Byleth is always carrying something — he has a knack for finding things that people have lost, and he’s always generous about spending his allowance from the Church on things they would enjoy, not just things they might need for battle. The bag today looks to be nearly empty except for a small pouch about the size of one-or-two playing cards.
Cruel as Sylvain has been, and Byleth still went out and spent his hard-earned money on cards for Sylvain’s Hero’s Shuffle deck.
Sylvain winces.
“Hey, hey,” says Sylvain, but his voice sounds as raw as he feels. “It was just a joke. A joke, Professor — man, you take everything so seriously, you know that? Fine, fine. Tea, then, okay?”
“In the classroom, perhaps,” says Byleth mildly, “in case it rains.”
It isn’t going to rain, and they both know that.
“Sure,” says Sylvain. “You go get the tea.”
***
Miklan was very nice to Sylvain, in private. When no one was around, he mostly left Sylvain alone. Even when he wasn’t leaving Sylvain alone, he was trying to get Sylvain to be strong and ready to protect Gautier. He’d help Sylvain with training exercises. Yes, he’d push Sylvain past the limit of where a training instructor might have, but that was because Miklan wanted Sylvain to get better. Miklan didn’t lie to him, either. Most people lied to Sylvain to keep him on their good side; they would be kind, until they didn’t need to be.
When Miklan said they should practice their swordplay in the woods together, Sylvain perked up and agreed happily. When Miklan joked that Sylvain probably couldn’t keep his balance long enough to walk around the perimeter of the abandoned well, Sylvain needed to impress him. Miklan was almost never kind, so Sylvain knew he was being honest, and he wanted that approval.
So of course Sylvain got up on the well’s stone exterior. Maybe he could prove his good balance, and Miklan would tell him he’d done a good job — or maybe, at the very least, not a bad job. That was the kind of compliment he got from his mother, sometimes, and she loved him, didn’t she?
He never considered that Miklan’s challenge was dangerous; he never thought he might fall into the well. When Miklan smacked the hilt of his sword into Sylvain’s ankle, right at that most tender spot, Sylvain didn’t scream. He did, however, buckle under the blow and reach for his brother. Miklan’s arm came around Sylvain’s waist; he would never let Sylvain get hurt, he really did care about his little brother, he would protect Sylvain, he —
Let go.
Easy as knocking a pail into the well, Miklan dropped Sylvain. The world that remained was dark, damp, and lonely.
Maybe the Crest went off and lessened the blow of the stone walls or the floor, or maybe Sylvain just got lucky in how he fell. Either way, when Sylvain woke up, everything hurt from his knees to his shoulders, and his neck was bleeding a bit, each droplet warm and horrid down his spine. A droplet of rain hit Sylvain’s cheekbone; he flinched.
“Miklan?” he ventured, looking up the long, long way up to the top of the well.
In response, there was only a roll of thunder, and the rain picked up.
There at the base of the well, shouting until his voice was hoarse, slowly losing consciousness, Sylvain realized that he was going to die. He was going to die, because he was weak and clumsy and a useless little brother. Of course Miklan had discarded him in the well. He hadn’t been good enough after all. He cried for a while, and then he lay there and let the water come up around his body, all the way to his neck. At last he screamed with every bit of his waning energy. The most frightening thing in the world wasn’t death, he realized. It was having a death that went unwitnessed.
Someone rescued him, he supposes. He doesn’t remember that part.
Leif saving his life was a murder attempt that had been bloody and visceral, the only one of its kind. Otherwise, it was always a lonely death that Miklan prescribed for him. Miklan kept leveling challenge after challenge to Sylvain — if you deserve that Crest so badly, prove it. If you deserve to have anyone love you, prove it. If you deserve to live, prove it. No one is coming for you.
No one wanted him. They wanted his Crest, or his power. But if he died, no one would grieve Sylvain.
When Miklan was cast out of the household, it was because Sylvain had done what Miklan had always wanted: finally, he’d knocked Miklan halfway across a town square with a Crest activation. Enough people saw the scene to verify that if Sylvain hadn’t defended himself, Miklan would have killed him. Not even Sylvain’s mother could defend Miklan after that.
Secretly, Sylvain still wonders if the townspeople really had seen Miklan’s murder attempt clearly. Maybe they’d just seen a fight and decided that the Crested heir must have been the innocent party.
It should have been Sylvain, really, that lost the fight. Or really, it should have been Sylvain that had died in Duscur — not that he’d have been posted to the Lion’s Guard at fifteen. Even without a major spinal injury hindering his fighting development, Sylvain was just a broken, pitiable little thing. The sun at the end of the day, right when it was about to die.
Miklan taking the Lance might be Sylvain’s opportunity to pay up — maybe losing this fight, crumbling to Miklan after all this time, will set everything right.
***
Byleth pours tea gracefully for someone permanently wearing gauntlets. When Sylvain picks up his cup, he relaxes instinctually at the scent. Leave it to Byleth to pick out a good tea.
“I have to say, you have excellent taste,” says Sylvain. “This is great tea.”
“Is it? Good,” says Byleth. Without any pause or pretense, he says, “Why have we been assigned this mission?”
Sylvain has been asking himself the same question. He shrugs a shoulder, taking a sip of tea. Bright, citrusy, colorful, almost — just the way he likes it.
“That Lance has been in my family for generations,” he says, “all the way back to the Elite Gautier.” When this earns him a blank stare, Sylvain has to chuckle. “It’s old, it’s valuable, and it’s in the Church’s interest to keep an eye on it. It’s in all of Fódlan’s interest, really. That thing is our best weapon against Sreng.”
“But it’s a weapon, like any other?”
“Not like any other,” says Sylvain. “It’s a Relic — like Catherine’s Thunderbrand. Or your new sword.”
“I see.” Byleth draws in a breath. He asks again: “And why have we been assigned this mission?”
Ah.
Sylvain drinks his tea. It’s significantly less tasty, all of a sudden. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Byleth frowns. “If that were true, Ingrid would not be trying to tell me not to speak to you.”
Of course she’d do that. Typical Ingrid.
“Ah…well.” Sylvain shrugs. “To be honest, I…would like to hear what you think.”
“I would say that it’s specifically a problem from Faerghus.”
“Maybe.” But the other classes have gone to other places, not just their own homelands, and everyone knows it.
Byleth reaches for a third cup of tea. The sound of tea splashing nearly drowns out his voice as he replies: “We killed Ashe’s adoptive father two months ago. I thought that was good enough. But maybe not.”
“That was just a test,” says Sylvain, tapping his fingers on the edge of the mug. What it was a test of, he can’t exactly say. Was Lonato’s rebellion just part of the ruse to go after the Sword of the Creator? Maybe. Was Lonato just a test to see what Rhea might do in response to an uprising? Was Rhea also testing the rest of them, to see how far she could force Dimitri to go, to protect her interests, to see if Dimitri would still see the importance of the Church?
“Then…” Byleth pushes.
If Lonato’s rebellion was about binding together the Church’s interests with the next generation of Kingdom rulers, maybe this is something similar, just getting the Church to defend the Kingdom’s interests. If not, then…it’s personal.
“I think…” Sylvain says, drawing his finger around the rim of his cup. “I think, this time, it’s not the Church asking us to take on this mission. We’d be requested by my father’s request.”
One last chance for Miklan. One last chance for Sylvain.
“How so?”
I’m going to have to kill him.
“Miklan’s my brother,” says Sylvain. Worst person I’ve ever met, but…family anyways. I wanted to say that he’d never take the Lance, because he cares about our people, too, and he knows that the Lance protects them.”
He didn’t answer Byleth’s question, but he can see Byleth putting together enough pieces.
“He was disowned a while back, and he’s been causing a lot of problems for everyone since. He’s got a group of bandits that follow him around, and he just makes problems, waiting for my father to either re-inherit him, or…put him down.”
“It isn’t just the lance, then.”
“No.” Sylvain stares into his cup. “Not really.”
A long pause, a long silence. Sylvain closes his eyes in it. He can no longer avoid the point.
“Ordinarily,” says Byleth, every word slow, “as a mercenary, I follow my orders. My orders, as I see them, are to reclaim the Lance and return it safely to Garreg Mach — your family, I assume, from there. But…leaving behind open threats means endangering all of my students.”
“I don’t want to kill my brother.”
Byleth nods and says nothing.
“I don’t want to,” repeats Sylvain. “I…don’t want to.”
“Should I?” asks Byleth.
That’s the only thing worse than doing it himself.
“No,” says Sylvain. “I think I have to.”
Byleth draws in a large breath, unusual for him. “I leave it to you,” he says, “but I want you to remember that you aren’t a game piece.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Sylvain snaps before he can even realize it’s happening. He’s been operating in a total state of numbness for too long. Maybe it’s the tea, but he can’t stay cold anymore. “You can say that to Ashe or Ingrid or whoever, but I am a game piece, actually, and honestly? So are you. I’m sick of us all deluding ourselves. There’s no choice about how this goes. If there was, don’t you think I’d have left?”
Byleth moves so fast he shakes the table. Sylvain almost attacks, hesitating because Byleth just…reaches for his hand? Suddenly they sit facing one another, Byleth pressing a finger to Sylvain’s pulse point with one hand and drawing Sylvain’s hand to feel Byleth’s pulse with the other hand.
Sylvain can hear his own heart beating. On Byleth’s end, however, there is nothing. Sylvain searches, for a second, not quite understanding. He watches Byleth breathe. He watches Byleth blink at him. He even watches a little twitch pass over Byleth’s face — fear, perhaps?
Sylvain feels his own face twitching as he tries to find the right thing to say. There’s…not going to be a pulse in Byleth’s wrist, is there?
“Should I ask the obvious question?” says Sylvain.
“Even if you do, I don’t know the answer,” says Byleth. “But I thought you might listen.”
“There’s uh…kind of nothing to listen to,” says Sylvain. “Except you’re kind of echoing me right now.”
“Then — then listen to yourself,” says Byleth.
Sylvain sits there and listens to his own beating heart, alone in the room. It’s strange. It’s such a bizarre experience, to feel like he’s sitting in the room with a friend, and yet...to be here with someone who is so completely unlike him.
He feels so…lonely.
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
Byleth seems…unsure. Like maybe even he doesn’t know what he was hoping to achieve. Sylvain frowns at him for a moment, watching Byleth’s expressions change ever slightly. Ah. Maybe…well, having no pulse is a strange thing. So maybe he’s trying to be…vulnerable, with Sylvain. Man. Sylvain really shouldn’t be so hard on his professor — no, wait.
Byleth is trying to be his friend. He’s been trying, in his awkward, uncertain way, to be a good friend, but he doesn’t know how, because he’s never had a friend before. Shit. Sylvain keeps forgetting that. Maybe everyone does lie to him, or leave him behind. Maybe he just doesn’t want to lose Sylvain, too. And Sylvain knows how that feels very well.
“If you do not want to,” says Byleth, “then don’t.”
All at once, Sylvain’s defenses crumble. He pulls his hands away and squeezes his eyes shut. His throat feels like he’s tried to swallow fire, or a particularly spicy bite of food. When he opens his eyes again, even the desk surface swims in and out of focus.
He’s close to crying, he realizes. He never wanted his teacher and friend to see him cry — and for no reason, really.
He takes a slow breath and speaks to the blurry desk. “I can’t help but wonder if this is just…one more of Miklan’s attempts to kill me,” says Sylvain. “I think I need to make sure that it’s the last.”
“You will not be alone,” says Byleth.
Sylvain wants to believe him so badly it hurts. He wants to believe in Byleth — in this person who feels so amazing most of the time, but has also let Sylvain see this uniquely vulnerable side of him. He’s so sharp, but sweet, and…just…he’s just so vaguely reminiscent.
“You remind me of someone,” says Sylvain. His voice seems to echo. His head swims. “Which is funny, because you’re nothing alike.”
“Who?” asks Byleth.
But Sylvain can’t even call to mind a face. Never mind a name.
“I don’t remember right now,” Sylvain whispers. “Sorry.”
When Sylvain looks up, he finds Byleth watching him, relaxing out of confusion.
“I have a lot of trouble remembering things lately,” Byleth confesses. “Sometimes it feels like my life is in a fog. I remember some things, but so much feels lost to me. There are details of my own life just starting to emerge.”
Sylvain’s mind is a watery graveyard of things that once made him happy. A big frozen lake and a murky fog — they make a good pair, really.
“Well,” he says, “if it turns out you have any older brothers lingering in that fog who want to kill you for a life you didn’t choose, I guess I’ll offer to kill them for you, too.”
“Apart from you?” says Byleth.
Sylvain doesn’t think Byleth meant to imply that Sylvain is actually like his older brother, but…the thought, oddly enough, is kind of sweet. Sylvain would be the worst older brother in the world, of course. Well. Maybe second-worst.
“It was a joke,” Sylvain insists. As light as he can, he adds, “unless you want me challenging myself to a fight to the death?”
“No, thank you,” says Byleth. “I have a feeling…this is all just beginning. And I…will need you.”
Sylvain doesn’t know why Byleth would consider him an ally, in the fight against whatever’s coming. Sylvain’s got enough corruption in his soul to damn the whole continent. But the idea of being there to guide Byleth through the political situations he doesn’t understand…well, it’s a nice thought. He might like to be useful now, and not just when it’s time to go encase himself in the border’s ice.
“You’re always right,” says Sylvain. “Yeah, I’m…I’ll work on that. And I am sorry, for being such a pain. I tend to do that to my friends.” Not that he usually threatens his friends. “I’m extra-sorry I threatened you, too.”
Byleth shrugs. Cocky man. He knows he could beat Sylvain in any fight.
“Thank you, though,” Sylvain says. “The others are…you know. I’m so used to disappointing them that we’re all just in this routine, where I don’t try and they don’t expect me to try.”
“But…you want to try,” says Byleth, “don’t you?”
//
On a riding trip when Sylvain was fourteen, Miklan had sliced at Sylvain’s horse so hard it pushed both boy and horse right over a cliff and into a ravine. The horse died on impact and fell onto Sylvain’s body. For hours, Sylvain lay beneath her, unable to feel anything below his waist, barely able to keep his eyes open. It was the first time he thought to himself that hey, he might want to die here. Except then again, it would be the worst thing possible — yet another lonely death.
But he didn’t die there. He pried his horse off of him by carving into her with his sword until he could wiggle free. That poor, innocent creature — he’d tarnished her in death, just so he could retain the use of his legs. Even still he was on bedrest for almost a year.
It’s funny. He doesn’t really remember why he wanted to live so badly. He just remembers a wide open lake, frozen over, reflecting the wide, beautiful moon. Someone, perhaps, was beautiful enough to fight for. Not a girl, either — he wouldn’t have cared so much if it were just that. He dragged himself on his stomach out of that ravine with a gifted daffodil-embroidered handkerchief tied around his wrist. Somewhere, back home, he still could be guided by the moon.
The smallest little sun I’ve ever seen, honestly. But I guess you still shine.
\\
Stark and sudden, Sylvain remembers: Byleth is like if Glenn had been kind.
“Yeah,” says Sylvain. “I do.”
Byleth nods. “I will hold you to it.”
“You gotta let me slack off a bit, though,” says Sylvain. “That’s the whole point of coming to the Academy. Slacking off, finding the prettiest girls on the continent, and so on.” He winks.
“Well,” says Byleth, “if that is what it takes.”
“And…thanks, for talking to me about this,” says Sylvain. “It means a lot, that you’ll trust my call on it.”
Byleth nods. “Know that I will not let him kill you.”
Sylvain looks up in alarm. He knows Byleth’s normal speaking voice, and he knows The Professor’s Voice, but he’s speaking now in a way that is harder, colder. Battle commander Byleth has come onto the field.
“It isn’t going to come to that,” Sylvain promises.
He tightens his hands into fists under the table. He is done with letting Miklan ruin his life over something that had nothing to do with him. None of this is his fault. He is going to win this battle. He must. He still has Dimitri to protect. He still has Felix and Ingrid to endlessly disappoint and drive crazy and keep safe. His inheritance may be death, and his blood may be boiling with destruction, but he has things to fight for.
There might even be parts of himself worth fighting for. Maybe, anyways.
**
In the end, Sylvain does not kill his brother in an old fortress in Fraldarius territory. Miklan kills himself.
Sylvain has to think of it that way. Better to believe that Miklan died from his stupidity and arrogance than to wonder if the Lance made the decision of who would live and who would die.
Miklan is charred but so recognizable, when the monstrous form unravels to deposit Miklan’s corpse on the ground in a weird backwards birth. The Lance rolls out of his hand and comes to rest at Sylvain’s feet. He wants to step over it and go to his brother and shake him, maybe to see if Miklan has any last words for him. An apology perhaps.
But he can see from where he stands that he has heard his brother’s last words already. They were not dignified enough to remember, really. Miklan was smiling in that way he always did when backed into a corner, all the way until the darkness took him. That’s what Sylvain will remember him by, really: the eternal denial of his situation and the eternal insistence that his failures were everybody else’s fault.
“Sylvain,” says Ingrid.
“Give him a second,” says Felix, voice low. “Come on.”
Sylvain will have to thank Felix later. He’s almost flush with relief, when he hears their footsteps retreat down the tower stairs, leaving Sylvain alone at the top with his brother’s corpse.
First, though, Sylvain bends and picks up the Lance of Ruin. His father has let him hold it, let him even spar with it once or twice. Touching the Lance always made Sylvain feel more alive, in the worst possible way — vulnerable in his mortality, really. The Lance was hungry for him, ready to turn him into someone addicted to its destruction.
He’s probably imagining it, but the feeling he gets from the Lance of Ruin is…pleased, almost. Satisfied with its recent murder, maybe, or just relieved that Sylvain has rescued it from an unworthy owner.
Sylvain wants to kneel at his brother’s side and cry and wail and beg Miklan to give Sylvain just one more chance to earn his approval. He wants to give his brother a proper, respectful burial. He wants to use the Lance to disconnect Miklan’s head from his shoulders and watch the corpse be broken beyond recognition.
He feels sick.
Sylvain should have ended things earlier. It shouldn’t have come to this horrible, pathetic way to die. Miklan shouldn’t have had to die at all.
Sylvain can’t speak. There’s nothing to say.
He turns around with the Lance of Ruin in his hand and finds Byleth there, lingering in the stairwell where the others have departed. Byleth fixes him with that blank stare he is so well known for. Under its familiarity, Sylvain feels…relieved.
“You don’t have to be ready,” says Byleth, walking into the room slowly, “if you aren’t.”
Sylvain is never going to be ready. That’s the problem.
Sylvain pounces; Byleth tenses.
There’s a span of about fifteen seconds where Sylvain holds Byleth in his arms and sobs silently. He gasps for air, unable to breathe fast enough to steady his body. He shakes so hard he can hear his teeth chattering and the metal clasps on his uniforms rattle against Byleth’s breastplate. The Lance of Ruin is on the ground again — one of them rejected the other. He wanted to have all the right words, to be prepared for Miklan’s demise, to strike the final blow himself. He wishes he could handle this — any of this — alone.
Byleth’s arms close around him, and like a spell, Sylvain no longer wants to be touched. Still, he’s panting, when he pulls away from Byleth.
“Close his eyes for me,” whispers Sylvain. “He should rest.” And he won’t, really, if he knew Sylvain was the one to grieve him last.
“Of course.” Byleth looks at him blankly, and simply, and with acceptance.
Byleth’s footsteps are light as he steps past Sylvain and crosses the room. Sylvain hears him kneel. He closes his eyes as he imagine Byleth closes Miklan’s. In the silence, Sylvain can only hear his own heartbeats, his own breathing. It’s like he’s the only one in the room again.
“I am sorry,” Byleth says, when he returns. When Sylvain flinches, Byleth continues, “that you could not choose how it would end.”
“Heh.” He can’t help but let out that little laugh as he presses back his tears. “He really never let me choose a single thing for myself.”
Sylvain picks up the Lance of Ruin again. It wiggles in his hand.
“Well,” says Byleth, “now he can’t stop you.”
Sylvain kind of feels like his choices are meaningless, frankly. Even with Miklan gone.
“Thanks,” says Sylvain. “I’m okay.”
“Sylvain, I...” But maybe seeing the look on Sylvain’s face, Byleth pivots: “I want to say again that there is much more to come. I will need your friendship, if you would give it to me.”
Over Byleth’s shoulder, Sylvain catches one more glimpse of his brother’s corpse. Miklan looks innocent, oddly enough, and tragic. He is neither, and yet…it’s sad, to die as he did, clawing for a chance to lock himself even further into a system that wanted to kill him from the moment of his birth. Sylvain has feared so much dying alone, unnoticed, but it’s maybe sadder to die in front of people, stubbornly refusing to be cared for.
Sylvain sucks in a breath and tightens his grip on the Lance of Ruin.
“I’d like nothing more,” says Sylvain. “Now let’s go find the others, huh?” He offers a wink and gives Byleth a friendly little shove. Byleth looks up at him, confused, and Sylvain slings an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get out of this place and go do something fun.”
Sylvain is kind of down a brother right now. If he’s really allowed to choose a new one, well. He’s going to do a better job this time.
Fin.