Snow is falling lightly.
It rains down like ash—no, too holy to be ash, too light and too holy, bearing no resemblance to the lingering wreckage of forbidden heat, to the blazing haze of burning colors and blistering corruption, no, it's too light and too holy and too white…
So very white. It's almost blinding in its radiance, nothing but white, pure and glistening and—
Hector can't help it. He stomps a boot down, leaving his print, marking the gleaming and flawless surface and it shatters.
What does it matter?
"Hector!" cries Lyn, "You've ruined it!"
Too perfect, that's his retort, it was too bloody perfect—
"Please," Eliwood quickly interrupts. He wants no more talk, no more mention of…it, the wet, silky warmth, forbidden, familiar.
The three do not turn around, do not look behind—they can't, all forces push them forwards into the wind that blesses their faces with its bite. Cold. Unforgiving. Looking ahead is all that matters, looking at the promise of the white snow.
Hector gives Eliwood a shove. "Bloody Pheraen. You've gone soft."
"Don't push him!"
Lyn is still angry, dismayed at the gaping flaw. Hector has ruined the snow. He laughs. She dives for him. They chase each other, forwards and sideways and up and down and through each other until the horizon bends into nothing—but never, ever backwards. They kick up snow in every direction, shards glistening in the frosty air like glass—no, too soft to be glass, too soft. Soft and cold. Soft and cold and white. Eliwood follows his friends, striding across the pristine slush—but it is glass, actually, a field of shards of glass that glisten in the sunlight, also white?—and they all know who has earned—mangled—the right to walk the cloudy, slitting softness of the glutted ground. The perfect, untouched field of snow is ruined now.
But what does it matter?
It lands on Eliwood's boots, thrown sugar sparkling. Fresh, clean—in honesty, what does it matter? It's still white.
"You're acting like children," he says.
"We are children."
Lyn is suddenly very serious. She stops in her tracks, looking at him, straight into his eyes, not back—no farther than oceans traveled and battlements keeping blades at bay. The crisp breeze catches her hair, runs its fingers through it, touches her face and lingers after sliding down the length of her, and he can see the way it brushes at her skin, wanting her, silent and pleading and vulgar. She doesn't notice. It is somehow with Eliwood at the same time, tugging on his cape as if reminding him not to stare, sending puffs of snow spilling up like fog or breath or smoke--no, not smoke, it's too white—
"Gotcha!" Hector hadn't seen her stop, heard her words, noted the wind or Eliwood's horror and he barrels into Lyn, exultant. She shrieks and pitches forward onto, into Eliwood; all three crumple to the cold ground.
They don't move for a moment. It might hurt. Their limbs are tangled, invoking an inhalation never released, a head tilted back; a momentary comfort, another body present, a heat against the snow.
It was, after all too perfect to take. The snow, uneven, is everywhere. But it's all right. It's all right.
It's still white.
Lyn is looking at Eliwood, who doesn't believe her. She sees the snow reflected in his eyes is just that—a reflection. Flipped. Unreal.
Lyn whispers, insisting, "We are".
His response comes too fast: "We aren't. This war…it forced us to grow up so quickly. It feels as if I went to sleep a boy, and woke up a man."
"But I still feel like a child sometimes," Lyn protests—admits—softly. She looks up to the grey, clouded sky…snowflakes stick to her hair and light upon her eyelashes, the sheer ideals of purity and hope and peace. Her eyes are wide at the wonder of it—white. Blessed relief.
Can she really still feel innocence? Eliwood wonders. He moves--the shifting starts the chain, gears that turn and can't be stopped, and then they all untwine themselves and pause to remember identity, Eliwood sitting and Hector and Lyn still lying down. Free, the wind stings them. They look forward. They look up. They don't look back.
Still children? No. No, that can't be true.
There are other ways to end this argument, but none quite so quick: Hector moves swiftly, rolling overtop of Lyn, supporting his weight with his arms, staring fiercely into her eyes.
"Lyn," he tells her, "you are not a child."
And then his mouth is on hers, another sought-for warmth, a kiss that's hard and deep and long. He feels her go slack beneath him and she welcomes his proof, the scattered snow, forgetting her words and closing her eyes. Eliwood rolls his own.
"Do you mind? I'm starting to feel like a third wheel."
"Nonsense," says Lyn. Her lips have pulled from Hector's, he groans in protest. "Our wagon runs on three wheels."
"That's impossi--"
Lyn's soft lips are on his cheek, Hector's strong arms drag him back to the ground from the other side. The three are lying in a pile again.
"It's not impossible," Lyn assures him.
Another kiss, a different giver--Eliwood tenderly brushes her bangs away and touches his lips to her brow. His eyes flicker to her mouth, he holds his next breath tightly in his chest, she smiles when she notices, but Hector folds his arms.
"We can't be kids," says the lord of Ostia, leaning his head against Eliwood's shoulder. His friend turns from Lyn, gentle fingers threading absentmindedly through blue hair. "We don't understand how we feel anymore. Kids always understand that stuff."
"We still wonder," Lyn shoots back. "We still marvel."
"But the innocence is gone," Eliwood insists, and quits stroking Hector's hair. "The purity. The truth."
The snow is all over them, flour spilled and scattered and soured into bread that will never be baked. They've run their course through it, traced their patterns into it...
What does it matter?
It's still white.
They don't look back.
They do not speak--they don't know where they stand. They don't stand at all. There is a hand on Lyn's waist but she doesn't know whose, her leg has curled around another's but they make no move to free themselves. They lay there, bodies pressed together, eyes shut tight, blocking out…
It's no use. Hector can't ignore it, the remembrance of soaking, saturated with the sickness and the stinging and the rage. "Something's wrong. You're too warm, Eliwood."
Eliwood shakes his head. "I'm cold," he whispers, the pale vapor of his breath mingling with Hector's.
Lyn's voice shakes. "It's the snow."
"You both feel the same," Eliwood counters softly. They are silent. The only sound is that of the snowflakes, hellfire descending to swallow them up in a wordless apocalypse—no, not fire, it's too cold, too cold and too white…
Eliwood sighs once again—once more the first to stir, the first to sit up. Hector and Lyn follow, quickly, wordlessly. "We have to move on."
They help each other to their feet and don't look black. They glance forward to the blindingly brilliant horizon and up to the soft showers of snowflakes and down. They've messed it up. But what does it matter? It's still…
No.
It's not white any longer—stained by their presence, tainted by their words.
Hector stares at the vibrant sight, can't take his eyes away, moves for Lyn and clutches her to him. She's trembling.
From the snow? he wants to know, anxious and mocking and tender and desperate.
"From the cold," she whispers back. And then, as the seconds crawl past, as the ground never changes and morphs and purifies itself as they keep hoping it will, she adds, "It's not mine."
A reassurance; it falls flat—none of them feel better about it.
"It's none of ours," says Eliwood softly, and closes his eyes. He can't look back, none of them can. They walk away—forwards, blinded by the horizon. "But it's on our hands."
You've ruined it! Lyn's earlier words ring through their minds.
The three lords continue on, fighting ahead--it's all they can do. They fix their eyes on the pure, shining snow. Clean. White.
And behind them, stretching back as far as the eye could see--if an eye had turned back to see it--was nothing but slush and chaos and ruin.
Nothing but red.