POV: Hubert
Deep in these woods, there exists a waterfall. Though my feet are securely planted on the ground, my stomach churns at the mere sight. I need not physically be at the top to envision the long, painful descent.
Regardless, I edge around the embankment and dunk my head into the lake. I suck up so much water that my lungs burn.
Beside me, Ferdinand watches. I shove a fistful of water into his cracked lips. It trickles down his chin like saliva.
"Get a hold of yourself, Ferdinand!" I bark. "If you father sees you now, what would he think? He will disown you for being an embarrassment to the nobility!"
Aside from a stiff inhalation, no recognition dawns on those unseeing eyes. Not even a lick of shame.
Hmph. If Ferdinand wishes to sit around like a vegetable, then so be it. I am not his mother. Nor am I his friend. He can fall down a waterfall and break his neck for all I care.
Wading into the lake, I peel off what remains of my clothes and set it aside. The icy water stings, so pleasantly so that I let out a faint moan.
"I can smell you from here!" I shout.
Why do I even concern myself with him? Right now, I must focus on self-preservation. First, I wet my hair to soften the oil-hardened strands. Next, I scrub my body of the soot, the grime, the dirt, my piss, Ferdinand's piss, Lady Edelgard's waste, and all the shit that I've rolled around in for many moons.
Ah. I feel as though I have shed half of my weight. I emerge a new, revitalized von Vestra, ready to die for my master's destiny. Why, I might as well hum a condemned man's last laments.
Alas, my relief is killed when I return to the riverbank and witness Ferdinand in the exact position that I left him in: half-slumped on the grass like a plucked turnip.
"You are pathetic!" I say.
Patheticness is infectious. And deadly. Heaving a loud, disgruntled sigh, I drag Ferdinand by the arm, throw him into the lake, and plant my fists into my hips.
"Well? Do you expect me to bathe you?"
One can hear a speck of moonlight breathe in the basin.
I pride myself as a devoted servant with abundant patience. But as of this moment, my temper is thin enough to prick a finger. If the Goddess does exist, then she lives off the misery of her believers.
So I begrudgingly roll up my sleeves and tear the rags off his hide. Under the moon's undulating glow, the scars left by the Agarthan's sadistic experiments glimmer like blood diamonds. Grafted onto his skin are carnal canals that have hosted needles, saws, anything that can be dug and wiggled into flesh.
Given our captors' meticulous nature, they cut into Ferdinand's blood with the precision of a drunken surgeon. This laceration swerves like a fish hook. This one sprints up his back, pierces through his spine, and loops around to complete a disfigured circuit of dead tissue.
They treated his body like a plaything. Like a rubbish bag to be prodded, vandalized, and discarded.
Heat surges up my throat. I turn and heave out the contents of the distended stomach. Blinking away the red blossoms, I grope for breath, straighten, and try again.
"You are hopeless, Ferdinand von Aegir! Utterly hopeless! This is why Lady Edelgard will always be wholly superior to you!"
Keeping my eyelids protectively lowered as to only glimpse a sliver of what I have to see, I cautiously pour water down his hunched back. A devilish part of me conspires to scratch open a lesion, just to elicit a verbal reaction, but that scheme turns my stomach inside out, so I abandon it.
Next, I move to the horror that is his hair. I have heard tales of an ancient city buried in ash so shockingly white that rescuers mistook it to be snow. The same rain of ash must have settled on Ferdinand's scalp. How else can one explain how all traces of pigment vanished seemingly overnight?
What an ungodly color, all this white…
However, despite how viciously I attack his hair, the stain refuses to erase. I only stop once I draw blood on his skin.
"Doesn't it hurt?" I snap. "Yell. Scream. Cry like you always did! I made you bleed!"
A curious wind lifts the hair above the nape of his neck, revealing the oh-so revered Minor Crest of Cichol. Those fortunate enough to bear Crests carry such evidence on their bodies. Since Crests survive off their host's blood, they manifest themselves on their vessels as well. Like parasites.
The Minor Crest of Seiros sits on the back of Lady Edelgard's hand. She often wore gloves.
"You used to boast about your Minor Crest," I spit. "'Observe, Hubert! Behold, Hubert! As the legitimate son of House Aegir, I, Ferdinand von Aegir, am the sole proprietor of Saint Cichol's legacy! Huzzah!'"
My woefully sadistic impersonation fails to incite even the most pitiful of retorts. It is like arguing with a sack of flour! The old Ferdinand would've parried blow for blow, not absorb it without a flicker of emotion in his mask…
As quickly as it came, my anger evaporates, leaving behind a heavy emptiness.
"What happened to you, Ferdinand?"
I move to brush away the stray strands—only for him to flinch as though I had rammed a hammer into his jaw. Whitened knuckles fly to cover the area above his heart. The very place where Solon had injected that sinister fluid through that bizarre needle.
"I am not going to drive a silver stake into you," I say softly.
His shoulders are taut. If I run a wand across his nerves, they will sing. The sudden possibility of being maimed by those gnashed teeth hits so suddenly that I find myself unable to do anything except stand there with my mouth open.
Since when has noble Ferdinand von Aegir last growled?
When his hair dries, it poofs up like a dandelion flower. A fragile blossom in a field of ash.
"I preferred you better as a wet dog," I sigh.
When I finish blinking, I have a fistful of grass in my mouth. I have fallen over without realizing it. My limbs are leaden poles. Moving is an exertion reserved only for flight-or-fight.
"Hubert."
I glance up so fast that my eyeballs briefly vibrate. Ferdinand returns my gawking with his own unblinking stare.
"Hubert!"
Lady Edelgard bursts out of the nearby thicket. Thorns protrude from her bare, bleeding soles. As she runs, the rags unravel, exposing more and more of what House Hresvelg had fought so hard to protect.
"Hubert, help!"
Time stands still. Lady Edelgard reaches for me… and a hand shoots out of her mouth. It tears off her jaws to make room for the legs. Dripping with puss and opaque fluids, the eighth eldest sibling worms out of Lady Edelgard's disfigured corpse.
Who screamed just now? Was it Ferdinand?
A bouquet of writhing limbs splits open the eighth sibling's throat. Seventh sibling. Sixth sibling. Coming out in succession only to be destroyed by the next of kin.
Oh Ferdinand, stop screaming. You are drawing unnecessary attention from our audience in the shadows.
The trail of bloated corpses sinks into the earth. Rancid flowers bloom from unholy grounds, sprouting flesh-colored petals which ooze scarlet sap.
What a sickly pungent stench, this smell of death. It smells black.
Lord Arundel grabs me from behind. My heart explodes and sprays the world with blood.
"Hubert?"
"Aaah!"
I bolt up—and smash my nose into a mass of pillowy dough.
"Ow! Hubert…!"
Blood drips down Ferdinand's nostril. He fumbles for a handkerchief, glances around, and shoves two embroidered sleeves to his bruised nose.
"My father will not be happy by me soiling my clothes, but blood does not show on red fabric," he mumbles.
"You can speak!" I gasp.
"Of course!" Irritation creeps into his whining nag. "My linguistic abilities greatly surpass Edelgard's."
I sandwich his plump cheeks between my palms. Jiggle it. Indeed, I cannot feel a ghost of his cheekbones!
"Your hair!" I exclaim. "It's not white!"
"Hubert, you are worrying me. If you are feeling unwell, I will accompany you back to Edelgard's residence."
A dove soars over the brilliant blue skies. In the distance towers the Aegir estate, stiff and foreboding. Duke Aegir was never fond of me, that much everyone knows. But his disrespectful son had no problem sneaking in a von Vestra to the garden behind the family stables.
"Why are you laughing?" Ferdinand huffs. "Hubert, you are scaring me now."
Indeed, I am laughing so hard that I am in convulsions. "Where is Lady Edelgard?" I wheeze.
"With her siblings, meeting with some distinguished guests from Faerghus. We were playing Crypts and Cryptids until we were dismissed from the property. Do you… recall, Hubert?"
Ah! So Lady Edelgard is alive! Everyone is… alive…
I throw my arms around this oblivious idiot. He heats up hotter than an oven stocked with rising bread.
"I am tired," I say.
"P-Pardon? I-I mean. Yes! Yes, I shall keep my voice down. My apologies."
"No. Don't ever be quiet."
The poor buffoon is about to combust from confusion. Then he brightens.
"Shall I sing for you?"
"Do whatever it is that your noble heart desires."
And he sings. His silly humming spirits me into the country of sleep. As the crackling of a waterfall recedes into the expanse of white, I am acutely aware of fingers running through my hair. Tender, gentle, slender fingers belonging to hands warmed with kindness.
"Lady Edelgard is alive!"
The most Ferdinand does to acknowledge my sudden outburst is to exhale quietly through his eyelids.
"You survived," I continue. "I survived. Lady Edelgard must have survived as well!"
Yes, that is the most logical conclusion! The laws of this universe forbids me to die before her. If I do perish, let it be as a requirement for her ambitions to become reality.
I sag against the cavern wall. The ground is floating. Like earthen clouds. The buzz of our reunion makes me lightheaded.
"Emperor Edelgard," I whisper in awe. "One day, I shall no longer call you My Lady. Nor Princess Edelgard. You will be Your Majesty, my Lord and—"
A well-intended slap brings me back to the throes of reason.
"I will not thank you," I grumble as Ferdinand tends to my swollen cheek, "for something that I could have accomplished by myself."
At last, we leave this godforsaken cave. Our search for my—our future Emperor has begun. The only problem is…
"Where the hell do we start?" I huff.
Ferdinand looks to the sky. To the sun that perches on its heavenly throne.
If I had been more grounded to the present, I would have noticed her. And eliminated her. Yet here she stands, the blade of an arrow primed to pierce my throat.
Then she lowers it.
"What the—They're children."
"Should we tell the Captain?" someone behind her says.
"Keep Alois away! That idiot will take in every stray that he crosses—"
"Shamir!"
"Speak of the devil," the woman hisses.
A large, unshaven man with a sock on one foot and a mitten on the other waddles up to our quaint little conversation.
Ferdinand squeezes my hand. I feel myself returning the trepidation.
"No," Shamir snaps before anyone can put oxygen in their lungs. "Our resources are limited as is. What is to say they won't run off with our supplies like the last strays you picked up? You are too trusting, Alois!"
"Which direction to Enbarr?" I bark. And wince, because I loathe how weak my voice sounded. Squeaky and scared.
The adults stare at me as though I have decided to bathe myself in the corrosive springs of the Valley of Torment.
"Enbarr?" Alois wheezes. "My boy, we're in Alliance Territory."