POV: Hubert
"You abandoned our sister, Hubert."
Like the petals of a bloody rose unfurling in wartime, they rise from the scarlet soil. Eight flowers as white as corpses, webs of brittle brown hair swaying in an unseen wind.
"Edelgard died because of you," the flowers whisper.
No! She was gone when I got back.
A disembodied white hand crawls out of a wilting rose. It skitters to me, spindly fingers twitching like the legs of a giant spider.
"You chose Ferdinand over your master."
Never! I swear I intended to leave only with Lady Edelgard! I just… I…
A cool breeze grazes my cheek. A night sky sprawls in the heavens, dappled scantily with dim stars.
Everything hurts.
"You are the sole survivor. You stole the right to live from our sister."
The eldest sister's rasp ebbs and flows through the quivering leaves. Slowly but surely, spindles of moonlight push away the shadows gnawing at the edges of my world, ushering forth clarity and color.
Where am I? A forest? The last thing I remembered was that dungeon. Flames. White feathers spraying about like snow…
The pressure on my hand increases, as though something is pressing down on it.
One word bubbles to my parched throat.
"Ferdinand?"
But that tulip-head is nowhere in sight. Just this boy who sits beside me as though he had been keeping a bedside vigil. The tatters that are his clothes fail to conceal the numerous angles protruding out from underneath. An iron collar, singed with smoke and cinders, hangs loosely around a neck that can easily be snapped by a bad look.
I dare raise my gaze—and flinch. How can anyone's eyes be so… broken?
The boy has not blinked. There is nothing to express recognition, not even acknowledgment to my gawking at the fractured kaleidoscope that are his eyes.
I wretch my hands away from the boy's grip. My palm is bruised, my fingers swollen to the size of grapefruits. It aches as though he has been strangling my hand for a several moons.
But for what? I have never met this boy—no, this is no human being. This is a doll. A doll created with the likeness of a human with a shattered soul. This thing has been dragged through gravel, tossed in a well, scrubbed through snow, and waved across the falling ashes of a battlefield. It is too pathetic to even spare a passing glance.
"Who are you?" I bark.
No reply. That unseeing gaze retreats under a curtain of stark white hair.
"What did you do to Lady Edelgard?" My voice rises to the point of being shrill. "What did you do to Ferdinand?"
Those eyes drift up to my shoulder. The doll reaches out a hand, and I instantly kick it away.
Not even a grunt of pain.
"Your disguise is pitiful! Be it Kronya, Solon, or T-Thales, I will not gravel at your feet any longer! You will pay for the atrocities you have committed against my master and my friend!"
Anger surges to my fingertips, culminating in shards of ice as sharp as a dagger. I fire my magic into the doll's heart—
And I freeze. For some inexplicable, irrational reason, I see Ferdinand in the doll's place. Cowering. From me.
But that makes no sense. Obnoxious, boisterous Ferdinand bleeds color into every damn thing around him. At times he is too bright to look at, if not too irritating to ignore. Whereas Ferdinand's plump cheeks are flushed with life, this pale imitation has no qualities that are alive about it.
Gnashing my teeth, I fling the Blizzard spell at a nearby tree, which splinters upon impact. I kick the unresponsive doll aside and storm off into the forest.
I must find Lady Edelgard.
What about Ferdinand?
Not my problem.
Are you certain, Hubert?
Silence!
Where is the Imperial Palace? Enbarr should not be too far from here… wherever here is. Are these the woods which surround Bergliez territory? Varely territory? Am I even in Empire lands anymore?
No, I must be. We had emerged to the familiar, ruined cobblestone streets of Enbarr. The burning flags were emblazoned with the Black Eagle. These two frail feet could've only brought me so far. Unless we flew, which was an absurd prospect, given my… polarized opinions about high altitudes.
I reach a bubbling brook. Glancing into the riverbank, I glimpse a small, haggard boy covered in soot. He reached a trembling, pallid hand to the iron collar around his neck. Magic bounces off the reinforced metal. He might as well grind his fingernails to dust before he can pry this damned thing off.
"What do you think you're doing, Hubert?"
My heart plummets to my stomach. The lake turns black, and from the inky depths emerges a familiar, terrifying smile.
"Dogs must be leashed, Hubert," Lord Arundel rumbles.
Then his skin burns away, revealing the real monster underneath. Thales grabs my neck, claws digging into my flesh. I taste blood. Any attempts to scream has me choking on globs of viscus, liquidized rust.
"Hubert."
I drop to the ground, wheezing and coughing. Lady Edelgard steps out from under Thales's cloak. She approaches me, but does not reach out her hand.
"You left me to die," she says flatly.
"N-No! My Lady, please allow me to explain—"
"You vowed to protect me with your life. But you let me suffer. You let us suffer."
Rotting flowers bloom at her feet. Their petals fall, transforming into mountains of bleached bones on the leaf-poisoned ground. From those bones, eight human beings crawl out, each with missing limbs and exposed organs.
A red tear slides down Lady Edelgard's cheek.
"Uncle was right. Our deaths are on your hands."
Then, like fireworks lighting up the Adrestian skies during a festival, Her Majesty's siblings explode. Boom! Boom! Blood and tissue and viscera splatter the constellations. Boom! Boom! Limbs and muscle and bone erupt like confetti.
An ocean of blood ripples around my knees. Their hands, ravenous with revenge, drag me under. Down, down… down to where no one can hear me…
Suddenly, I can breathe again. The scattered stars twinkle in the quiet night sky. Flesh-and-blood hands are squeezing my own, a sensation so jarringly real that the voices immediately flee from the present.
That patchwork doll has found me. Its white hair gleams like a blade under the moon.
"Touch me again, and your soul with never find the Goddess!" I shriek. "What do you want with me?!"
The doll wordlessly reaches for my hand. I send it flying with a fireball. Yet it crawls back, those blank, unseeing eyes fixated on my face. On the ambition of holding my stupid hand.
Enough. If this thing insists on standing in my way, I will eradicate it!
As a von Vestra, I have honed by magical prowess at a very tender age. Before I walked, I poisoned a man. Before I was introduced to my future master, I tortured and drove a political enemy to commit suicide. Even so, Father constantly berated me that I was falling behind. Woefully so. There was no kindness in his methods.
Suppressing a shudder, I draw out a sigil for Bolganone, Meteor's sister spell. The doll does not react. Not even to flinch. What makes it even more imperative that I incinerate it.
But as fire races down my arms, a stray ember slashes my wrist. My concentration wanes, ever so briefly, but that stall in focus is enough to throw off the entire spell. The flames which sit ready at my fingertips bite back, searing off fingernails and flesh.
Then the spell explodes in my face.
Ah.
It's dark.
And cold.
Why is it so cold?
In the midst of nothingness, a gentle green glow threads its ghostly fingers under the fabric of static, breathing in color and… warmth. A warmth so sleepy and kind that I practically weep for mercy.
Consciousness returns, presenting me with a view of the underside of that doll's treacherous cheekbones. That mesmerizing green light originates from its outstretched palms positioned above my scorched arms. Undulating like the ocean's grey waves, the healing glow envelopes my injuries, caressing them, kissing them ever so tenderly, spiriting the pain away.
An image of Mother, basked in radiant sunlight, flashes across my mind and disappears just as quickly.
Like the first spring bud waking up after a long, harsh winter, I feel refreshed. Rejuvenated. My fingers are whole again. I am no longer a walking matchstick.
I stare at the doll, not out of ire, but shock. Its eyelids lower, casting a veil over its impregnable mask.
"Ferdinand?"
I blurt that out without thinking. No response, of course, but I swear—I vow—that a muscle twitched beneath those rags.
Fueled by unfounded joy, I inhale Ferdinand into my bosom, wincing when our ribcages stab the other.
Ferdinand is real.
He survived too.
"Since when did you learn to use Faith magic, Ferdinand?"
A light rain has descended upon the earth. The loamy smell of petrichor tickles my nostrils.
"Your healing capabilities are quite impressive. For a degenerate. Last time I remembered, you failed to patch up a small scrape you sustained from your futile endeavor of wielding an Iron Axe."
Hand in hand, I tug him down a path bordered by dandelions. It is like dragging a blanket around. He offers no resistance.
"What is the matter, Ferdinand? Too overwhelmed to boast about your holistic inferiority to Lady Edelgard? Or have you finally smartened up?"
We reach a cave tucked behind a grove of wild tulips. Inside, I sit Ferdinand down and run a closer appraisal of the horror that is his hair.
"White does not suit you," I chide. "We'll have to scrub the ash from your scalp without making your hairline as prominent as your father's."
At the mention of Duke Aegir, a faint sigh escapes Ferdinand's lips.
"You killed our sister—"
I toss a dismissive wave at the glaring siblings. "Oh, swallow it. Can't you see that I have company? Ferdinand, do be a dear and annoy them into leaving."
That cloudy gaze lifts, drifts across the cave, passes by Her Majesty's siblings, and crawls back to some unseen point far beyond the present.
As the spring shower transforms to a steady downpour, I sink into Ferdinand's steadfast presence. His hands, limp and dirty, I take into my own, relishing every drop of warmth that he can spare.
And for the first time in a long while, my dreams are empty.