it's hard to define love ; one-shot?
pairings ; lif / thrasir , alfonse / veronica
wordcount ; 963.
content warning ; canon-typical violence, spoilers for book iii of fire emblem heroes, slight suicidal thoughts, slight nsfw implications?
notes ; title from the song 'hug & kiss' by dress ft. fka, lydia paek, miso, sogumm. see end for more details.
00.
It is their fault that their world is dead.
His fault.
01.
He is sixteen when Death Herself steals his father right before his eyes.
His limbs are gangly, and his knees ache at night with growing pains. He is swathed in his father's furred cloak, and although it is clean, it blooms with the fragrance of blood. It's a scent he finds himself quickly growing accustomed to, against his own will. How can he not grow used to it, the tang of iron overwhelming his senses, when the dead begin to march on his home and kill everyone he knew and loved? When his dear baby sister's blood stains his face as she's cut down right before his eyes, unable to even reach out and just hold her hand as she desperately begs him to save himself.
Held back by a bog of ichor, clinging to him like spider silk, forcing him to watch.
And he can't do anything but sob as the world's optimism dies in one quick swing.
Snuffed out, like candlelight before a breeze.
02.
She is thirteen when Death Herself knocks at her nation's doorstep.
She is small, even for her age, and she treats the wars her father started like a game, plays the battlefield like it's simply chess. She pops the heads off of her dolls when she's bored with them, but at the company her Heroes provide keeps the cold feeling inside from completely swallowing her whole. She only begins to realise the weight of war when it is soldiers in her empire's own colours, with greying skin and glowing eyes, that destroy the farmlands. The weight is only added onto her tiny shoulders when they kill commonfolk and soldier alike, when they just don't die— and they just keep killing more and more and more, adding to their ranks.
Loathe she is to admit it, there is only one option for her nation's survival.
So, she shakes hands with her enemy and begins the fight back.
03.
His sister was fourteen.
04.
The summoner retreats into themself after Sharena dies. He doesn't blame them— every little whisper they've said of their world speaks of peace, of a gentleness not he nor their unsteady Emblan ally can relate to. Watching someone you know and care for be slaughtered like a farm animal before your eyes is difficult even for him, so he cannot imagine what it must be like for someone so... naive.
While they cry, curled up in their cloak and clutching their legendary relic tight as though it will defend them from ghosts, he does as (_) does.
He throws himself into seeking out a way to fight back against Death, in finding a way to do the impossible.
05.
They make a horrible mistake.
It really sinks in when the heartbeat pulses.
Once. The breath is ripped from the summoner's lungs.
Twice. Commander Anna's head hits the earth, her hair and blood meshing together in a mess of red.
Eir's sobs are drowned out by the beating. It just goes on, and on, again and again.
And again, and again, and again, and again.
06.
(_) aims his blade at her chest.
His eyes are rimmed red from crying, his voice is hoarse from screaming. He has spent weeks, maybe months, running to every corner of Askr, seeking out survivors from his realm, his kingdom, with warm skin and a still-beating heart, but in the end he finds himself returning to the beginning— here, before her. He seethes, with an anger he can barely contain, one he barely recognises, and pointed his weapon at her.
He is, truthfully, just seeking someone else to blame.
Because the truth has him wishing it was him Death cut down instead.
She puts her tiny hand around the blade, and he watches as it's edge slices her alabaster skin open, a flinch sharply running up him.
"(_)." Her voice is tiny, high and soft, but she's just as injured and tired and sad as he is. Dark circles mar her under eyes, her face is marred by filth. Her robes are torn, stained in dried blood and mud and that black ichor, and all he can do is sheathe his sword and step closer, his head pressing into the crook between her neck and shoulder.
He fall to his knees, dragging her down with him.
07.
(_) puts her head on his shoulder.
Snow has begun to pile up outside. They've taken refuge in the fort that had once housed hundreds of powerful Heroes, but now it's halls echo only with the cold wind's laughter. A fire crackles before them, but it doesn't take the chill away.
He just wraps his cloak around them both.
08.
He can't remember the last time they ate.
He can't remember how many winters have passed.
09.
He sinks his teeth into her skin.
She's still soft, still warm, but when he noses at where her pulse would be, nothing thrums beneath his touch. The taste of her blood, iron like a blade but sweet and still flowing, is what reaffirms to him that she's still alive. The sound of her voice, slightly breaking into a gasp. Her fingers grasping at his cloak. Her hair, grown long and shaggy, bone white and even paler than her flushed skin.
The smell of her blood and the perfume of a native flower from her homeland keep him barely grounded.
Not to sanity, but to... whatever this is.
10.
Death holds her hand out to them.
It's an offer they can't refuse. One he can't refuse.
They abandon their old names. (_) and (_) do not exist anymore.
They died alongside everyone else, all those moons ago.
They are Líf and Thrasir.
To save their world, they will decimate everything and everyone else.
notes ; i started to write this bc i'd been trying to summon lif for like 80+ summons and he finally came home so i figured i'd finish it anyway as an offering to his gf LOL. PLEASE COME HOME HES LONELY but uhh lowkey i LOVE lif & thrasir, they kind of snuck up on me as a ship i got interested in, and then from there it kind of spiralled into me being interested in alfonse and veronica. but holy shit i can't believe that alfonse is 180cm / 5'11" and lif is 199cm / 6'6"... big man! a lot of this fic was inspired by the incredible art by morimiso_v on twitter, please check their art out! anyway i speedran through book iii just to write this LMAO.
