Griffith didn't sleep. His eyes were open and the glare from the fire was beginning to burn them. He stared into the partial darkness. Her limbs were sprawled over his. The blankets were down around their ankles. Charlotte was warmed by him and he was seared by memories.
They burned with the intensity of a fire. Memories kept him going as much as they crippled him. They flickered like flames, changing shapes and playing out of order in the dark recesses of his mind. Memories, the sweetest and the most painful alike, faded. But not Guts. With heavy feet and downcast eyes he left him. Not even the outline of his broad shoulders, his torn, bloodstained cape, and ridiculous sword would burn out to an ember in his mind.
Griffith died on the field of snow. He stared at his pale hands, his thin fingers. They weren't strong enough to hold onto what he wanted. He knew what he must have looked like: on his knees, his hair in his eyes, his breathing shallow. Their looks of pity pinpricked his shivering skin. He could have cut open their throats for that alone. He knew he still could even with his hurt pride and broken sword. When he stood he was someone else, something else.
He didn't breathe his name when his flesh was lashed away, when his tendons were slashed, when he was touched in ways he hadn't been since he was a boy, when his tongue was severed. When he wanted to speak his name he couldn't. There was ownership in a name, identity. He put his hand on his throat. His fingers trembled against his skin. He thought about drawing letters on his skin, but all the words he wanted to spell out were as starved and rotting as he was. There was a place and a time for them and that was long ago. His fingers pressed against his windpipe, but it must have felt like nothing to Guts. All his strength was gone.
After a fight they would collapse into such a state of exhaustion they would just lie with their backs to the cold grass and their eyes to the starry sky, less than a foot away from each other. Guts smirked (that smirk imprinted itself on the back of his eyelids) when he caught Griffith watching him. Griffith had the strangest look on his face. It was the closest he ever got to feeling content. Griffith was resting on his side, an arm under his head acting as a pillow, and even with his long eyelashes shielding his pale blue eyes Guts knew he was awake. He was waiting for Guts to fall asleep.
It seemed as if the world had turned on its head and their roles were reserved. Griffith lay in the carriage, a shell of his former self and Guts sat watchful beside him. But Griffith didn't sleep. He had all his best dreams when his eyes were open. Guts put his hand over Griffith's. Griffith's hands had always been small compared to his, but now they were minuscule. Tears stung at his eyes and there was an ache in his throat. Griffith hadn't felt this before, this weakness he saw tear apart the world. Guts brushed his fingers over the much smaller, bandaged ones in apology before pulling his hand away.
Griffith wondered if this was what Guts felt like…this heaviness and something akin to guilt when he walked away from him. He looked back over his shoulder at him. He was looking back and running forward at the same time. His legs had grown strong from climbing the mound of corpses. They were stacked so high now, almost high enough to reach his castle. He remembered how Guts hadn't looked back at him. That cold certainty echoed through Griffith. It had plagued him. Still he had come back. Guts had come back to him, for him (too late). There was no coming back from this. He said the words.