Knoll had never seen the carcino mountain range before, the stone a stark black unlike Grado's brawny rock and lined with snow. He knew somehow from somewhere that weather like this was as normal as theirs came, overcast and grey, shrouded in clouds and air frigid. The plunge he could take simply by leaning forward was enticing in a way he didn't like, he keeps himself planted firmly on a grassy cliff side, hands gripping the earth.
One wouldn't even think him capable of such a feat, as sickly and ragged as he were, scaling a mountain. But this was the closest to an answer he had.
"Stop where you are."
The command comes quietly, but Knoll jumps well out of his skin, having soaked himself in hours of solitude. Was he trespassing, perhaps? It was a wild attempt, but Knoll had sought this place to himself. Somewhere he could think without the sight of Grado's destroyed body just outside his view, and without his ears constantly being filled with the voices of others.
From a path surrounded by damp foliage comes a tall man, draped in cloth of the same colors as this place and of a similarly solemn demeanor. Ah, Knoll recognizes him…
"I have no intentions of jumping."
The temptation is there, and the inhale of cold air makes him dizzier than the height ever could. It could happen, should the wrong thought come. Or should he shift his weight wrong.
The man seems to visibly relax, though his tense expression must be natural. He steps quietly over, stands beside him, and Knoll keeps his sunken eyes on the swirling clouds below.
"You would be surprised how many do." Saleh responds, and makes no effort to meet his gaze.
"Do you keep watch for such incidents?"
The sage nods grimly. "I would prefer some of my days not spent fishing bodies out of our rivers."
There was no shortage of those after what transpired, Knoll is sure.
"It is not of my business," he starts. "But I must wonder why you are here."
Knoll wishes an answer would come easily to him, but he was wondering much the same. "To think."
"To think." He repeats.
"Silence is few when people gather." Knoll offers a light shrug, melting into his own arms, wrapped around himself under his robes. For as many layers as he had, they offered little protection against Caer Pelyn's climate.
"Do you intend to stay?"
A strange question, one that he can't answer. What had he intended here? Did he truly expect himself to find in one day what he couldn't in a year? A year since the recovery efforts began, and only some weeks since he left? He had hoped a moment of tranquil silence, without expectations on his shoulders would yield him an answer to that, yet...
"I don't know what I intend to do."
"Grandmother predicts an approaching storm. You will perish without shelter."
Knoll thinks for a moment that that would be for the better, but follows him silently towards civilization.
He finds himself reminiscing about the incident in bed. Not a day after he settles into an unused room in Saleh's home, the sides are rattled with winds and rain assaults the roof. The windows have no panes, he'd realized, suddenly aching for the stained glass of home, even with its religious theme. It was cold. But the only thing here that keeps one from the elements is two shutters. Knoll watched sleet send mud and stone sliding slowly down the hillside path, much like back then, before he shuts them.
If he'd been out there, he would've fallen to the elements. It's been only a week since he arrived but it felt so much longer. Time flows slower in this strange, liminal place.
The storm calms, though only for a few minutes. The stone fireplace cracks and rumbles, the loudest sound save for the heavy pounds of rain and crash of distant thunder. Through the walls, he hears the faintest sound of clinking dishes, though likely not for food. Saleh preparing herbs he'd collected that morning, he supposes.
Much to his own surprise, Knoll had quickly adjusted to his current situation. He was never completely comfortable, not any more. But this was the closest he'd come, likely because he could pretend in the simple atmosphere here that a war had not just taken place years before. That he hadn't left his allies and country behind him. But moments like these strike too close to home, rain imitating night and a tome of the dark arts in his arms.
To be fair, he had done all he could. The amount of work he had done for the fallen Grado was no less than what it took to climb this very mountain. He'd climbed many before it, metaphorically at least. He healed the sick and injured, offered his hand in what of construction he could. Most tedious of all was sorting out matters of the palace, with no royal bloodline to run it, and eventually left in the Renais Twins' care. Most disheartening was rationing food, and that no matter where they went they left starving people in its path.
He knew when things were above him, and when they couldn't be controlled. He'd learned that you can't change fate. That when you attempt to control it, you only worsen it. And once he had expended his use, he left. One who had a hand in destroying a land had no right living its eventual peace, in his mind.
(Dark magic was unique in that it lingers long after the spell is finished. All magic starts at a source, passes through the body, and releases at a target. According to what he was told, there was no risk in using the heavens' incomprehensible powers. And to direct nature's gifts in anima magic required fine training. But dark magic was a matter of trust, a matter of judgement. The entire land knew now how devastating misplaced trust could be. It lingered in your body long after its use.
He still saw them, visions of Grado's bountiful future despite its wounds. The Grado Lyon wanted. The Grado Knoll didn't deserve.)
Perhaps he really had intended to die in that Carcinese mountainside, where none like those he'd called allies could stop him. Most of all he thought on Natasha, whose very blood and tears were soaked into his robe's fibers. He'd held her when it became too much, and even healed in her place when she'd pushed her limits. Guilt gnaws at the bottom of his stomach, running an unconscious hand down where her head had once rested. She wouldn't of approved, would have never let him leave willingly. It was why he left without a trace, because they couldn't of possibly understood his reasons.
But, he'd been rescued again. And he simply couldn't fathom why Saleh had helped him that day. He imagined it would not be an easy sight on the eyes, no matter how used to death, one willingly throwing themselves to their death. With Natasha, he could see why she'd fret so. Knoll knew better than anyone how hard it was to let loved things go.
After all, he still hadn't let his love go, even when this corpse turned to dust in an ancient temple.
But he'd never spoken to Saleh. A few words a few times, and with all due respect, but regardless. Saleh was no friend of his, what attachments would he have? What would he lose by Knoll dying? It made no sense.
(Of course, Knoll knows that he would have done the same if he saw someone else. Any logic he could use to be illogical he would take, though.)
His head hurts quite suddenly. The tome is closed and pushed aside, a hand to his forehead as he lowers himself into a laying position. Thoughts momentarily impossible, he realizes the rain had stopped and he can fear the faint ring of livestock with belled collars and the people going about their business. Not for long, weather was sporadic at best in the land. The storm would return within the hour. It was how Saleh had explained the weather. Little snow, but heavy rain. And monsoons like Knoll had never experienced, had yet to.
Of course, that was if he wished to stay. That wasn't something he could see himself doing.
But he had no other place. He couldn't return to Grado, could barely bear the thought to. He had no purpose anywhere else. And he was only here because Saleh had insisted, and had not let him out of his sight since.
(The Dark Temple, perhaps. With the other fiends, where his love fell, where he could fall too.)
At the very least, Caer Pelyn had an abundance of culture he had never known. For a sage, Saleh's home was astoundingly barren. Shelves held no books, little more than even that. The only tomes Knoll had seen were stacked neatly on a low table, and he was intrigued to learn there was no written language within the rocky walls. Many people recognized the common symbols in Magvel, necessary if you wished to learn magic. But there were no books, no records. In Caer Pelyn, no one read, only spoke. Every legend and event was told through tongue, and Saleh's memory seemed to be centuries long.
Naturally, he was filled with the urge to learn, the same wonderful feeling that started his interest in the dark arts. Met with insatiable curiosity in the face of the unknown, he found himself buried in beautiful knowledge like he hadn't been in years. There's a sudden thrill in the realization, but also dread in that not even something so pure and nostalgic could tear his thoughts away from him. The darkness gave him peace, and Caer Pelyn lacked natural light. But when he was alone and in bed, moonlight filtering onto the floor and insects chirping, his memory gets the worst of him.
He remembers the many childhood nights spent sleepless, eyes set on an ancient scroll. And many times, Lyon was beside him as well. Knoll could read better, but Lyon had a knack for understanding concepts considered beyond his age. Lyon would be put to bed, and wait minutes until he was sure the maids were gone, sneaking to the library in the dead of night to meet. And their habits continued well into adulthood, Knoll an ever faithful assistant, researcher, and friend. He stayed by Lyon's bedside when he was sickly, followed him when he was awake. Anything Lyon needed, he would happily oblige. He could hear the thinly veiled insults of those outside their studies, of Knoll being not unlike a lovesick puppy. But he didn't care, because Lyon wanted him by his side. Because for the first time, Knoll felt loved and needed and necessary.
And Lyon is gone, and there is nothing that can make him feel that way again. For once he wished he wasn't so rational, that he could go on and blindly think that anything he'd find would ever compare to Lyon. His Lyon. The Lyon who fell victim to his own weaknesses, weaknesses Knoll had been blind to. That even Ephraim and Eirika were blind to.
And how the prince would go on and on about those two, and Knoll listened. Because Lyon deserved an open ear, and he loved his liege's voice. But it did nothing to stop the jealousy that swelled inside him at every sung praise.
Oh, how Knoll wanted to blame them, for not seeing the pain his liege was in. For not realizing how deeply Lyon loved them, loathed them, wanted them. Like he would never want Knoll.
But he felt somehow that they shared his feelings, to some extent. That they feel the loss as much as he. And they were both so kind, kind enough that Knoll understood how Lyon had fallen so deeply. He would never bring himself to truly hate them.
He could try anything, pain or pleasure, but nothing would ease the ache it left him. Never once was Lyon's gentle eyes not on the back of his mind. And this night is much like his others, laying trembling in a strange bed feeling empty and raw. Head pounding. Hands grasping uselessly at the sheets. Tears welling up and threatening to fall but not yet leaving his eyelids.
He was weak. So pathetically weak. Too weak to see Lyon's pain before his own. Too weak to stop Lyon from shattering Grado's Sacred Stone. Too weak to even face those he'd known ever again after abandoning his responsibilities like a fool. Was that all this was? A futile attempt to free himself from the damage he's caused? The damage he cannot fix? The pain he and Lyon caused so many? What did he wish for in the end, anyway? To be innocent? To see Lyon again? To be reborn? To cease existence forever?
"Knoll."
Thoroughly shaken, head in his hands and eyes wide, the sound of his name comes distorted and blurred. Having always had no choice but to wait for the overabundance of emotions to become too much and force him into a deep sleep, he finds himself disorientated and confused when a gentle hand attempts to shake him from it. Feeling like waking from a nightmare where you're falling- eerie given just why he was here -and his body made impact with the bed despite not moving, the room around him becomes stable and real too quickly.
Saleh stood beside him, looming and broad. But there's a small comfort in that, for as meek as Lyon was, his royal robes gave him much the same demeanor. But it hurts, still hurts, the way he can find Lyon in everything. He was at all times by Knoll's side and lost to him all the same. Just close enough to remind him of his likeness, but too far for him to touch.
"I'm sorry." Comes creaking out in a voice he thinks is not his own, wishes wasn't his own. He's snapped back to reality, but his body still shivers and every inch of his body is filled with a phantom pain. His voice almosts emits a hushed, pathetic Lyon Lyon Lyon Lyon Lyon Lyon . The only sound that comes out is a creak, and his perception is evading his senses yet again. His breathing hitches, and he can't stop as scorching tears rolls from his eyes, down his nose onto the sheets. Gods, he was so pathetic. So absolutely pathetic.
"Knoll...?"
Knoll is surprised he makes out the voice at all, given Saleh was so soft spoken.
"Try to calm down."
He had tried that possibly a million times now. It was never so simple as "calm down", he simply couldn't. Knoll had grown accustomed to this, knowing well that he couldn't do anything but wait. Suffer until his body had no energy left to and puts him to sleep. He just tries to breathe and let that one act alone take up his thoughts, given it took every ounce of his strength to fill and empty his lungs. The feeling of suffocating was nothing compared to what his memories could do.
There's a long period of disappearing and reappearing consciousness. He finally starts to calm, or his body gives way. Likely the latter. He grows still save for a tremble of his lower lip, and his breaths turn shallow and slow. He keeps his eyes closed for the longest time, but sleep doesn't come. When he opens them, Saleh is sitting beside the bed, chair facing him. How much time had just passed? Seconds or hours?
Knoll tries to think of what to say, to see if he can say anything. He can't.
"Are you okay?"
Alive, his brain quips.
A part of him doesn't want to be.
He hears dishes clinking against each other, and open his eyes again to Saleh's hands by his face, a cup of tea in hand. His throat is dry and he feels much the same. He wishes he could drink, but he can't find it in him to move. He doesn't think he could make his throat work.
"I can't."
The sage nods, putting the cup aside and looking back at him. "...Anything I can do?"
You could kill me. Knoll thinks, but doesn't say. "...Why?"
Saleh spoke with his eyes more than his words, Knoll had noticed. After he says that, they widen a bit, roaming a tad. Confusion, Knoll assumes.
"Why are you helping me?"
"Why would I not?"
Obligation, just as Knoll thought.
"Would you not do the same for someone else?"
"Depends." His voice is returning, slowly but surely. Coarse as sandpaper. "I know when to leave well enough alone."
'But you're not well enough' he's sure Saleh wants to say. He doesn't. He's looking to the floor, thoughtful.
"...You are like me."
Knoll knew little about Saleh, to be fair. He respected the man, as one magic user to the other. But Knoll was hardly social, and Saleh was a very quiet man, he knew not a thing about him. He failed to see what he meant.
"Perhaps not exactly, however...I can see myself in you."
"...How so?"
Saleh fumbles with his hands. "...Do you regret? Is guilt what ails you?"
"...Unbearably so..."
"Then...We are alike."
"Is that what you drove you to help me, then?"
"I would rather see you alive than dead."
"...I still don't...understand."
Wrong answer, he knows. But Knoll had no reason to lie. He'd learned that holding back, however cruel the action, did nothing but harm others.
"I cannot understand how one could wish for death."
Knoll wishes he couldn't either.
"...But I want to understand. I...wonder what could drive someone to such a...decision."
"Pain." It was a simple answer with a more complex meaning, but it got the thought across well enough. He finds him able to manage full sentences, though not without some struggle. His vocal cords sting. "Unbearable pain."
"...I see." Saleh mutters. "...I have known considerable pain, but no one hasn't."
"Not after everything."
"Of course."
A minute or so of a silence, Knoll still foggy and catatonic yet somehow awake and perceptive.
"...I want to understand what it was that made you stop me." Knoll says, feeling the air grow too stale for his liking. "I would think war makes you accustomed to death."
"Accustomed to, yes. But I would rather prevent it than allow it." Saleh closes his eyes. "I cannot imagine your life is of so little worth."
"And how would you know?" Knoll replies, feeling a strange emotion he can't name. "You know not what I've done."
"Perhaps not. But..."
"I've killed thousands of people, Saleh."
Knoll was aware enough to know what he had been implying, knowing fully well Saleh didn't, couldn't of known the extent of what caused the war. But Knoll could tell he wanted to know, and finding there was no use in hiding it, he would tell him.
"I had a part in starting the war, it's because of I that the continent was thrown into chaos. And those in Grado who didn't die in battle drowned, starved, or were consumed by the earth in the events that followed."
It was jarring, the extent of which he found himself able to suddenly talk. And how he flaunted this sudden ability so. How coldly he could state his wrongdoings. Perhaps it was the sound of every wall he'd built cracking under growing apathy. He wasn't proud of his actions, and voicing them only drove his point home. He wasn't a good person, and would never be. He had no reason to live, he didn't even deserve to.
And what would Saleh do about it? He can't do anything. No one could. The only one that could give Knoll a purpose was gone, and never coming back.
"...I too have killed many in battle...Perhaps not to such an extent, but I too am guilty of taking another's life." Saleh's brows furrow, a rare occurrence of visible emotion. Knoll doesn't doubt that whatever he's about to say truly pains him. "A friend of mine...He was once an enemy. I faced him and his," he stops, struggling for the right word. "... Companion on the opposing side.
Thunder struck too close, and I'd used a magical veil to deflect the attack ...Redirecting it straight into the man. He died the second it hit."
Knoll listens, intrigued by the story.
"To this day, it haunts me. The pure hatred that seethed in my now friend's eyes still appear in my dreams. He has long forgiven me, but I cannot. I don't know what made it so different from felling any other soldier, but it's a memory I can't shake...I ask you, Knoll,
Do you blame me for what I've done?"
Saleh looks straight to him, through him. It freezes Knoll in his place- not that he had moved, but his limbs had grown limp, given time - it's so sudden and startling. He closes his own eyes to think, torn. It was Saleh's fault, he wouldn't deny that. But it was an act of pure coincidence, he had no control over such a thing.
"I think...That what happened was indeed by your hand...However, an accident that would not normally result in death...I would not hold it against you."
Saleh is as stoic as ever, but he sees a speck of what he suspects is relief.
"...Knoll, you weren't the one to break Grado's sacred stone, were you?"
"...No." Lyon had done it, of course. And Knoll would never deny it, but he would also never deny his liege's innocence. He's sure Saleh knows, but he can't make Knoll say it. "But I failed to stop it."
"Then what happened is none of your fault."
"I had part in it."
"You could not have predicted that outcome."
"That doesn't erase my guilt."
"It's Fortimiis who wrought this, not you."
"And we helped free him."
"It was Prince Lyon who freed him."
Knoll's eyes widen, and against his better judgement, he feels the rare sensation of anger boil in his stomach. Only a small, fluttering thing, but anger nonetheless.
"None of this is his fault."
Saleh looks unfazed.
"Was it not by his hands?"
"No. He-" It was, and it was branded into Knoll's memory, his pale fingers wrapped around the glimmering stone. He'd tried to stop him, to dissuade him. Lyon knew what he held in his hand, that much had been true. But he was overcome with emotion. He would have never done such an act in his right mind, and Knoll would not let anyone believe the lie of anything but.
"Wasn't himself?" Saleh finishes for him, and all the words that Knoll had prepared fell back down his throat, feeling suddenly empty. How could Saleh read his mind so? Was he such an open book, no longer as secretive as the dark arts? When had he become like this? "The act was done by his hands, but it wasn't his fault. Is that right?"
"Yes." Knoll hisses, though not with malice. "I would not allow his name to be soiled so."
"Then why," Saleh's tone is strained. "Do you blame yourself?"
"Wh...What-"
"You don't blame me for a situation out of my control. Nor Prince Lyon...Then why do you blame yourself?"
Knoll looks, stunned, to the wall across from him. Perhaps a part of him did think he was indeed innocent, or able to recognize his own hypocrisy. But it mattered not in the end, right? So what if he could relieve his guilt. He was useless, aimless. Empty without Lyon to dedicate his life to. Even without guilt, he would never return to Grado, not wanting to be reminded of his lost love. (And that of itself was a conflict. The thought of Lyon brought with it unbearable pain, but Knoll would not give up those memories for the world. He had a poor sense of time and an even poorer memory. Yet, his life by his liege's side was as vivid as if it were just yesterday. Lyon's face, Lyon's smile, Lyon's touch...).
Regaining his senses, Knoll's body gasps out a wavering, bitter hybrid of a laugh and a whimper. "So what? I may not be guilty, but that doesn't solve anything. I have no purpose in Grado, no purpose here...No purpose anywhere. No matter where I go, I would not be of any use. How can I expect to live? When I have nothing to live for? When every night is this reality?"
No response comes. Knoll was right, after all. He could repeat as many times as he wished, but not a thing would ever change.
"I don't know..." Comes a mutter. "I can see from your position- my life belongs to the Great Dragon. However, it is merely my duty...Were it to ever end, I have matters beyond it."
"But are those matters of any vital importance? Do they mean anything other than passing time? Lyon...He was magical, ethereal. When I served him, I had a greater purpose. A belonging I can never recreate."
"...They have only what meaning I make of it...Knoll...Perhaps you may not have a purpose...not now..."
It seems, somehow, that "we are alike" ran deeper than Knoll thought.
"...But I do not think that means you never will...The only one who can decide your purpose is yourself."
His head hurts. His head hurts so much. Enough thinking. Enough loathing. He just wanted to sleep. But his body and Saleh won't let him.
"You said you live to fulfill Lyon's wish...I had never met the actual prince, but if he is as you say...wouldn't he want you to live, Knoll?
One's worth is not how useful they are to someone else...I want you to understand that."
It was true, wasn't it? That Lyon would never let him do such a thing? That he'd reason that no matter his pain, life was more precious above all else?
...Lyon, so cruel. Though Knoll would never truly think of him that way.
But Saleh was right, Lyon was right. If he could push his own stubbornness aside, perhaps there was something more for him. Something- someone, anything -to devote himself to that won't end in collateral damage.
"If you would have me...I would ask to help you, if at all possible...You need not carry this all on your shoulders."
Perhaps he was right. If Knoll hadn't been so stubborn, had let someone help him...
Had he been falling in his lord's footsteps this whole time?
Saleh meant it, he could tell that much. Perhaps...He could follow the other's ways, see life how he saw it.
It's an odd sense of optimism, of hope that races through his mind, though his body is still devastated by aftershocks.
He isn't given much time to think on it, body crumbling and succumbing to darkness, but he does so with a strange calmness.
Knoll wakes up feeling dead and weighted, body feeling heavier than stones though he was horribly light. It's with a great effort that he lifts himself up on his elbows, looking around with blurred vision and confusion. Even after days of staying here, it's still disorienting to wake up in an unfamiliar bed.
What time was it?
There's soft breaths beside him, and he looks to his left, seeing Saleh upright in the chair. His head and chest leaned forward, arms crossed against his torso, eyes shut.
Asleep...Had he stayed by his side the entire night?
The untouched tea is still on the bedside table, semi-evaporated and cold.
Preferring not to look into it too closely, Knoll stands, legs threatening to buckle under him. It was only back in the war when Knoll would not lay there for another hour or several, stuck in a state of depression much like last night's, even if to a minor extent. But there's some unknown, new underlying determination that makes his degenerating muscles move.
On the table, clothes sit folded in a neat square. Saleh had given them to him, claiming that as much as they covered and as many as he had, the thin fabric of his shaman robes wouldn't keep the cold out. It had been true, but Knoll had never parted with his clothes before. He burns with shame when he admits it, that he rarely bathed his clothes or even himself. It took too much energy he didn't have. His hair was much the same, oily and long bangs hanging loosely in his face, and uncut hair almost reached his legs. It'd been in a braid for about a year, almost never taken out of it. In fact, he can't remember when he last untied it. Would it be forever stuck in that shape? Would it break off the second he touched it?
His hands reach for the tie, but stop. He can't. Not yet.
But he does pick up the clothing, heavy wool in greens and blues, and carry it to where a partially cracked mirror stood, collecting dust in the corner. It's with hesitant hands that he undoes the bindings of his robes, falling into a heap at his feet. He never recognized his own reflection, the image of a malnourished, gaunt skeleton of a man paler than any Gradan should be. Ribs, hips, spine, all eerily easy to make out their shapes, almost as though his skin hadn't grown with his body. He felt slimy, disgusting. For once, a bath seemed an enjoyable idea.
He steps into the first article of clothing, and pulls it slowly up his legs, the wool feeling itchy and unfamiliar but clean. The clothing he now had on provided a comforting heaviness that would need adjusting to, as his robes had been thin to suit Grado's heat. Knoll stares at the dark articles and sighs, willing himself down to pick them up. Their age is clear, covered in stains and seams sewn shut poorly, ready to rip at any chance.
He misses their surrounding him immediately, but with bated breath, begins to fold them. He hated that being free of them was in some way refreshing, but to put them back on would feel too much like giving up. And to throw them away would be to live ignorant of his past, though such a feat was definitely impossible. No matter how much he sought peace of mind, he would never let himself believe he was completely innocent. The threads of those robes held all of his memories, good and bad, wonderful and horrific. They would live as long as he does, he'd make sure of it. The essence of those he'd been close to sat within it.
("You need not carry this all on your shoulders.")
Saleh's words echo in his mind. Knoll tries to promise to himself, then, no matter how conflicted he may be, that he will keep Saleh to his promise once he is awake. It won't be easy, even though his first tasks were as simple as a haircut and a bath.
But for now, it was enough.