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[bestswordmaster]

Kink Konnection

FELIX HUGO FRALDARIUS | 24

Leave a message and I'll get it to Felix when I feel like it. Or just go talk to him yourself. What do I look like, your errand boy?

Love,
Zoltan

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text | @fraldarius

[bestswordmaster]

I assume this is about Glenn.
where are you?

[luinknight]

The little place I've taken over, in the city.

And it is. If you want to come over, I'll make tea.

[bestswordmaster]

on my way.

[And he is, wasting no time in heading out. It's not too long before he's knocking on her door.]

It's me.

[luinknight]

[ She's not the mess she was a little while ago; she's had time to sit, to talk with Lioriley, to have tea, to clean up. She still looks a bit pale and drawn, though, and her eyes are still reddened from her crying. ]

Hey, Felix.

[ She gestures him inside. ]

Come in.

[bestswordmaster]

[Felix steps in and glances around idly, though he's not really seeing any of it. As usual, he sees no need to beat around the bush awkwardly, but his tone is quiet, not harsh.]

He thinks you hate him, apparently. Which is obviously ridiculous. What happened, exactly?

[luinknight]

It'd be easier if I did hate him.

[ Ingrid sounded tired and she settled into one of the chairs she'd managed to scrounge for furniture with a low sigh. ]

...we talked. He mentioned wanting to protect me from becoming a knight. From being... influenced from those ideals, which I thought was ridiculous, but...

[ She lifted a hand to rub at her temple. ]

Then he essentially told me that if I wanted to try and pick things up again, he'd respect that choice, even if he didn't know how I felt and when I said that I might be interested and told him how much I'd cared about him when I was younger he told me he'd never thought of me as anything approaching bridal. That he'd never actually cared about me the way I'd cared about him, even though all that time ago he'd always seemed so happy about our match - but now he doesn't know what our relationship is? Or should've been? He wanted to "give me a choice" as if I hadn't made it already.

[ She groaned and dragged her hands down her face. ]

...and he left without a word.

[bestswordmaster]

He told me the same thing. He's a hypocrite...but I understand what he means. You've always listened to my father and your storybooks too much.

[Felix sits, too, and listens to the rest. He's been deliberately avoiding thinking about their betrothal, but now that he has to, it's giving him a headache already. He folds his arms and looks down at the table.]

He was happy about your match because he didn't know any better. None of us did. It was foolish to arrange a marriage the instant your Crest manifested as a young child. My father should have known better, even if yours didn't.

[He shakes his head.]

But Glenn's not the person he was anymore. I...figured that out the other day on the training grounds. He's not your fiance, he's not my older brother. He's not the knight who did his job to keep Dimitri alive. He's younger and far less experienced than we are. He's never fought in a true war. His betrothal to you at such a young age meant that he never had a lover. He knows nothing about what he wants, or what any of us want. Or who any of us are.

[luinknight]

Thank you, Felix. I'm incredibly happy to know that all of my happy memories with Glenn are entirely because we were too young and naive to know better and I should've been suspicious and cynical, like you are.

[ Ingrid snapped at him. ]

If that's all you're going to tell me, why are you here? Are you happy, knowing that I've had my heart broken a second time?

[bestswordmaster]

Ugh, that's not what I said. And no, obviously I'm not.

[Felix massages one temple with his fingers.]

My point was that you shouldn't blame yourself for being happy then, or for thinking he was for the same reasons. We all thought the same.

[A vague feeling of deja vu creeps up on him. He's had this conversation, or one very like it, before - with Ashe.]

Knowing someone well does not mean you know how they feel. Whether family or friend. To know someone's sorrow and turn blindly from it... That is the act of a fool. But pursuing your ideals was not foolish. Neither was finding contentment in the anticipation of a future planned for you before you could possibly have understood it.

[The way he says it, the way his brow furrows and he looks away from her, makes it clear that he's not only talking about her and Glenn and her dreams of becoming a knight.]

[luinknight]

[ Ingrid mirrors his gesture, rubbing at her temples and slumping back into her chair as she tries to clear her mind and think. ]

...it was a future I wanted. None of it was a mistake to me. That's... that's the point I'm trying to make. Maybe it was foolish of me to think Glen felt the same, but he always did. He loved me - or he acted as if he did and not just as a sister, but someone who was going to marry him one day. And maybe that changed - maybe death made it too much. I don't know what changed. I just... know that it has.

[ She shakes her head. ]

Maybe I didn't know Glen's heart. Maybe I never can. It still hurts.

[bestswordmaster]

...I know.

[It's quiet, and meant to cover more than just the last thing she said. When he was younger, all he wanted was to follow in Glenn's footsteps and become a great knight, a protector, and stand by Dimitri's side just like Kyphon once stood by Loog's. It seemed meant to be, like they were born for it, and to some extent they were. And back then, Felix liked it that way.

Hearing her talk like this takes him back, a bit. To those first few months after the Tragedy, when Felix felt so alone. Glenn was dead, Rodrigue had gone to Fhirdiad to take care of Dimitri, whom Felix hadn't seen since before Duscur. Ingrid had shut herself away and wouldn't respond to any of his letters. And Sylvain...well, Sylvain tried, but Felix's uncle insisted that now that he was the heir, he needed to focus on learning everything he could, not 'gallivanting about with the Gautier boy.' In the span of just a few weeks, his entire life had turned upside down and shattered, and he was left alone to cut his hands on the pieces as he tried to pick them up.

And then it happened again, just as he was beginning to adjust to the new normal. He was so excited to squire for Dimitri in their maiden battle. It was the first time he was able to spend so much time with his prince in so long. And as Ingrid had with Glenn, young Felix saw a future for himself with Dimitri - perhaps not in the same way, but staying with him regardless. Until they stepped onto the battlefield and his Dimitri vanished, eaten alive by the cackling monster wearing his face.]

I despise living with regrets, but...there are times when I regret having seen him here at all. We are who we are now; there's no going back. For years, we both lived in his shadow. Your father wanted you to accept a new betrothal as though such things are interchangeable, while you wanted to follow in Glenn's footsteps to honor his memory. Mine, and all of Faerghus, wanted me to be my brother and could never understand why I couldn't and didn't want to be.

...they've never let us step out of that shadow, and we ourselves never learned how to move on. This place...it feels like an opportunity to figure out who we are without him.

[luinknight]

[ It had been much the same for her. She had had a future that she was looking forward to. Training, possibly becoming a knight. Glenn as a future husband - handsome, gallant, wonderful Glenn. And then it had all collapsed. Dimitri had been isolated, she hadn't wanted to talk to Felix - too painful - and Sylvain... she didn't know about Sylvain. Her secure future was gone and instead she had a parade of potential suitors. She was just fortunate that her father, at least, wanted to make sure she'd end up with someone she at least liked.

Small favors.

And now she was almost reliving it, just in a different way. Her heart torn out again. That future she might have had, well and truly gone because the person she thought she would have built it with had told her that it wasn't wanted, defying all expectations. It felt cruel - like the world and Glenn had dangled the idea of it in front of her one last time before yanking it back. ]

My father wanted to secure our future.

[ She sounded tired. ]

I understood why. I didn't like it, but I understood... and at least he let me reject them.

[ She felt the need to defend her absent father. He had been coping as best he could as well. She took a deep breath. ]

You're right. Kind of. The shadow is still there - was still there... but at the end of the war, I knew who I was and where I wanted to be. I still mourned, but I wasn't - I wasn't defined by him. This place... I can't agree with that. We were already becoming ourselves. We were.... moving on. Doing what we could. If anything, him being here throws that shadow even darker.

[ She frowned. ]

...and then reopens the wound all over again.