Chapter 8: The Falcon Who Flew Against the Storm

Summary: Sylvain comes to rest at Gautier.

Notes: A very quick and dirty chapter. I will probably go back through this and previous chapters soon to rework them as the plot develops 3

The Black Eagles were gathered around as the Blue Lions began to haul a coffin up the hill. There were a great many coffins for as many graves, but this one was the one at the top of the hill, one for their fallen comrades.

Dimitri was at the head of the funeral precession, carrying as much as Sylvain's final weight as he could. It was a somber thing, the sea storm hadn't let up in days, and the mud sank beneath his boots.

The town's music players had fled or died in the occupation, but Petra knew how to play one of the violins they had left behind. She offered to sing a few songs in the Brigid tongue, but warned that her people's songs tended towards cheerfulness and joy.

"I can sing something," Dorothea offered. "But I think everyone should speak first."

Petra played on her violin as the coffin was hoisted into position, and Dimitri set it where it would be lowered down forever now.

How in the hell had it come to this?

—

"No!" Dimitri had cried that night when he met with Sylvain. "I-it's… a girl. From the Academy." He was fleeing from that pretty girl with brown curls who had become infatuated with him, who had fallen so utterly for the dashing Prince.

He couldn't face her down.

There was some deep uncertainty in him as he saw a girl chase after him, realizing how he could not love. How he had failed so utterly, how he was haunted by the past and stained in blood. How could love find a monster?

"You invited a girl to dinner and now she's chasing you around?" Sylvain had asked, and Dimitri nodded solemnly. "What's the big deal?"

"I clearly underestimated the difficulty of the task." The prince had been young when he admitted to such, a deep shame gripping him.

Sylvain had smiled that winning smile. "Relax, your majesty. I'll sort all of this out, easy."

"It was my naivety that brought this about." He mourned. "I cannot place this burden on your shoulders, my friend."

"This is no job for an amateur!" He had laughed. "You need a professional's help, Dimitri. Trying to do everything yourself will never work, so just leave it to me." He sat next to Dimitri. "It'll be okay, your majesty. You're talking to a master of these things!"

He had smiled that winning smile again, and the memory brought Dimitri agony.

—

It was in place, and Byleth spoke a few words. Sylvain's father was here, in a deep grief over what ending the siege had cost him, and people had tripped over themselves to offer condolences to him.

When her words failed, Byleth turned only to memory. Once Sylvain had taken a nasty scar in her service fighting against Edelgard in the tomb, and he had only laughed and shrugged it off.

"I got this scar fighting for you!" He bragged. "It's almost like a medal." She had scolded him, but he only smiled. "C'mon, I can't help but look up to you!" He paused to fix his bandages. "Thanks, professor."

"Thanks?" She had asked back then.

"Before you, I thought I would spend my life being bound to my path." He had smiled. "Now, I'm getting to save the world next to a beautiful woman."

—

It had been Dimitri that had kissed Sylvain first.

It had been building up for months during their time at the Academy, even if Dimitri wasn't good at speaking his feelings. Once Sylvain had driven off the girl, they had become inseparable, to the point that Dimitri would occasionally send Dedue away while the two spoke, sparred and spent time together.

He couldn't even remember what the moment had been. Syvlain's lance had cut through his defense, snapped his wooden training lance in half, then rushed to pin him up against a wall.

Sylvain had frozen, and then kissed him back twice as hard. It had been a beautiful moment, one that tasted like poison now.

"Now there's the Wolf Prince." He had teased when the kiss broke. "Kissing a boy at the end of a spear."

Dimitri had flushed, but then his partner had kissed him back, melting the prince into his arms.

—

As Byleth gazed out onto the sea as the service continued, she couldn't help but think of father, of the knife who had felled him. She had died and come back to this world in order to seek revenge, but she heard the voices of the damned as much as Dimitri did.

"Hey kid," His words echoed in her skull as she thought back to those times he had been a true caregiver to his daughter, no matter how enormously difficult that task had been for him throughout her life. "You okay?"

She had been young then, maybe fifteen. They were in Enbarr, fishing by the docks on a long winter's night where no mercenary work could feed them and their gold had run out.

Byleth had made a non-committal noise, so Jeralt had simply chuckled and cast his line. "C'mon sweetheart, I can tell something's wrong." He had ruffled her hair and she had made a grumpy noise at him.

She had thought back, unsure of what to say. Byleth had been an unusual girl, what with being a cold, Ashen Demon even back then, but she had begun to learn unusual feelings ran through her as she looked out on the river.

"Well…" Jeralt had taken her to a free singing and dancing competition the night before, one of their few comforts here. She had not competed, but she had watched, and seen the girl who had swept the competition. It had stirred things in her and…

"Dad," She had asked. "Is it… okay to like girls?"

Jeralt for his part had simply laughed. "That's what's going on, huh? Well, I got news for ya, kiddo: I do, so I guess it's okay for you too." He smiled warmly. "Why are you even asking?"

She had looked out on the lake then, deep in thought. "That girl, the other night…"

"The opera star?" She looked at him, confused. "She works for that one place downtown. I know her." He smirked. "You like her, huh?" Byleth had nodded. "Well, maybe the next time you see her, you should talk to her."

She had thought a moment. "How?"

Looking back on it, the look she had seen in Jeralt's eyes was the one he always had when he thought of mother. "Just… chat. Find little things that make her laugh, or smile."

Byleth in the present fiddled with the ring she kept in her pocket. It was all that was left of father now, now that he was just bones. It ached in her heart to know that he was gone. And it ached worse when she pictured all the dead she had failed to save since.

Petra was playing the violin, and Dorothea was singing now as the gathering sat in solemn contemplation, as Sylvain's body was lowered.

"I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war. Well, I wanna horse in the volunteer force that's riding forth at dawn, please save for me some gallantry that will echo when I'm gone. I beg of you sarge let me lead the charge when the battle lines are drawn, lemme at least leave a good hoof beat they'll remember loud and long."

—

Sylvain had never understood what had happened to Dimitri. He had lost himself completely, and utterly, to bloodlust, to avenging the dead. The boy Dimitri had lost his innocence to had tried a thousand and one times to win him over, to make good on a dream he had denied.

"Dimitri, nothing good is going to come of any of this!" He had insisted. "I know just how much you want revenge, but listen to me!"

"Enough." Dimitri had hissed at him. "Go away."

"I need to drag you back from the edge of madness." He had insisted. "Please, Dimi. These people you torture, the dead you leave behind you. Edelgard has to be stopped, but I'm not fighting to install another tyrant in her place."

"So you think I'm exactly like her." He muttered bitterly. "You too."

"It's not like that, Dimi!" He had insisted. "Please. Don't do this."

Dimitri had looked up at him with his one good eye. "You of all people betray me too, Sylvain. Well go on, compare me to the witch that swallowed my half-sister whole."

"Dimi." Sylvain had muttered. It had been raining back then, as it was now. "I-I love you. Please, come back to me."

Dimitri had said nothing, and Sylvain had never spoken to him again.

—

Dorothea sang deep in the night as the coffin hit the dirt below, her voice carrying throughout Gautier.

"I'll be first in line if they'll let me ride, By god, you'll see my starch. Lope back o'er the heath with the laurel wreath underneath that vict'ry arch. Let 'em play their flutes, and stirrup my boots and place them back to front. Cause I won't be back on the rider-less black, and I'm finished in my hunt."

Her voice had broken, the violin stopped, but she finished the song.

"I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war, I wanna be in the cavalry, but I won't ride home no more."