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The dense, still fog had encased the town for the past three days. While fog itself wasn’t unusual to see in southern Hevring territory, especially in a town so close to the sea, this thick and unmoving fog was incredibly strange. The chatter of the citizens seemed to bounce off of it, echoing down alleyways with no answers to be found.
Felix did not partake in any of the speculation and confusion - there were only so many ways to call the fog strange and little point in repeating the words of others back to them - but he was far from comfortable with the situation. He knew fog; he’d watched it crawl over the shores in Fraldarius and move further inland, likely petering out before it could reach another territory. He was even familiar with how heavy it could be, more used to the cold temperatures of the former Kingdom than the tepid air of the former Empire. But regardless of whether the fog rolled over hills in wisps or pushed its suffocating presence through fields, it moved. This fog did not.
Regardless of his disinterest in hearing the same conversation repeated ad nauseam, some whispers still reached his ears. Some thought it could somehow be connected to the source of the javelins of light that hit Fort Merceus during the war which, were Felix not aware of the destruction of Shambhala, he’d consider a decent enough theory. Some thought it was a sign from the Goddess that the dissolution of the three nations into one united Fodlan was a mistake, though very few considered that theory to have any merit.
One person, clearly wanting him to overhear, felt that the blame lay with Felix.
“I mean, think about it,” he said, mowing over his friend’s protest. His voice carried through the tavern with an unearned confidence that could only come from an abundance of overpriced ale. “It showed up the same day he did! And there’s clearly something strange about the man.”
At one point in Felix’s life such a baseless accusation would have been enough to goad him into a verbal spat that would have likely turned physical, but now he ignored it. He chewed through the tough, overcooked meat on his plate without even looking in the man’s direction. The theory, if one could call it that, wasn’t worth dignifying with a response, even as he felt the eyes of the tavern’s other occupants follow him through his meal. He planned to leave in the morning anyway. And if the fog somehow left with him then so be it; it was unlikely he’d ever return to this town and face such a ridiculous reputation.
Felix had been traveling through Fodlan since the war ended. After a brief stop in Fraldarius territory to officially forsake the family name and title he began to wander across the continent, picking up mercenary work as he went. He rarely stayed in one place for long.
The constant movement from one location to the next helped him avoid former classmates and friends who clearly disapproved of his choices. Ingrid, last he saw her, was so angry about his plans she could hardly speak to him. Sylvain, with the formal backing of the Church, spent too much time negotiating peace with Sreng to look for Felix. Annette, stubborn as ever, seemed convinced that the next time she saw him she’d be able to talk him into pursuing something, anything beyond wandering with no purpose.
Felix knew that, should any of them wish to, they could track him down with some effort - one couldn’t breathe in Fodlan without Yuri Leclerc figuring out where and when you did - but staying out of trouble, like a bar fight, might keep them at bay longer.
Thoughts of his fellow soldiers followed him to his room at the inn next to the tavern. He closed the door behind him, pulling it hard to ensure that it would shut and lock properly. The innkeeper had apologized for the crooked door frame, which had apparently needed to be fixed for nearly eight years, but Felix didn’t care. A room with a musty smelling bed and a faulty door was better than the cold, hard dirt. At least it wasn’t as overpriced as the food next door.
He could see the fog through the small window, still easily visible through the darkness. Felix was hardly one to come undone due to some odd weather, but it was starting to make him a bit uneasy. He didn’t know how far the oppressive mist stretched on for, how many other towns were at a loss with this fog filling every nook and cranny of empty space around them. Traveling with such low visibility would be not only inconvenient, but dangerous. If this fog had, in fact, stretched out beyond the borders of the town, then Felix had no doubt there would be news of bodies slain by bandits, only discovered when the mist finally dissipated.
Felix still planned to leave town in the morning regardless. He wasn’t some helpless merchant, desperate to peddle his wares; he was a warrior who could hold his own, even against foes hidden behind fog. The ill feeling in his gut, were it not simply brought on by the mediocre food he’d eaten, didn’t stem from a fear for his own safety. If anything it wanted him to leave as soon as possible, to get out before he was trapped. But, unwilling to be made a fool of by such a base sense of desperation, he would wait until morning.
He slipped under the thin blanket, held his pack containing his remaining worldly possessions to his chest, and double checked that the knife was still hidden under his pillow. While the war had been over for five years, nearly as long as it had lasted, Felix was a creature of habit - and he’d been hiding daggers under his pillow since he’d been old enough to hold one.
Sleep took him quickly, his body used to taking whatever sleep it could whenever and wherever it could. His dreams were the usual nonsense - a childhood memory that wasn’t quite right, weapons clashing, a forgotten assignment whose consequences were unclear - until the fog invaded even the scenes behind his eyes.
He stood in the middle of a field, surrounded by the cold, damp mist that hugged the ground and stretched through the air. There was a shape in the distance, and while it was too obscured by the fog for him to fully make out he thought it might be a ballista. A hazy memory of Gronder then, he assumed, was the new location his dreams had taken him to.
He was alone. That was much more strange to him than the fog. He was never alone in dreams. There was always some other presence with him, even if he were simply locked in combat with a faceless, voiceless enemy. Yet there was no one in this fog, on this field with him. He knew, somehow, that even if he looked he wouldn’t find a soul. He walked to the ballista anyway, something about it calling to him.
No matter how long he walked, the structure stood unmoving, cloaked in mist and out of Felix’s reach. The scene behind him didn’t seem to change either when he looked over his shoulder, the fog practically a solid wall. While moving forward didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere, he’d rather keep moving than stand still so he pressed onward.
He blinked and a figure appeared before him. The silhouette stood back on to Felix, at about the halfway point between him and the ballista.
And yet, Felix still felt as if he were alone.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
He continued walking towards the ballista, though he nearly came to a stop upon noticing that he actually seemed to be making progress. The stranger, however, remained completely obscured.
There was something else in the fog.
Felix couldn’t see it, nor could he hear it, but suddenly he could sense it. There was something behind him. There was something to his left, to his right. There was something beneath him.
“Felix.”
He looked up.
He was back in the room at the inn. He pinched his arm. After confirming that he was, in fact, awake, Felix looked around the room. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The view outside his window hadn’t changed. It seemed as if his eyes had only been closed for a mere minute.
He shook his head as if to shake off the strange dream and the lingering sense that something was lurking outside. His mind, in his exhaustion, must have latched onto one of the myriad of theories he’d heard over the past few days. He reminded himself that he’d had much stranger dreams than this, and likely would again.
He rolled over to face the wall instead of the window, and slipped a hand under his pillow. He grasped the handle of the dagger once more and tried to get some more sleep.
There was something outside his window.
He woke with the thought in his head, tightening the grip on his knife as his eyes blinked open. The room was lit by the muted light coming from the window. It was silent, save for his own breathing. He was facing the wall as he woke up so there could have been something amiss in the room that he hadn’t seen, but he found himself unable to roll over and look at what was behind him.
Because there was something outside his window.
He tried pinching himself again, but it was no dream; no nightmare his mind had trapped him in. He tried to slow his breathing. He still couldn’t hear anything beyond it. The only shadow on the wall was his own. The air around him felt stagnant. Despite his deep, slow breaths, he felt his muscles tense.
There was something outside his window.
Felix screwed his eyes shut. This was ridiculous. What was he, some child terrified of a monster under his bed? If there really was something outside his window it was probably a bird, or a cat, or some other animal sitting on the ledge. It probably wasn’t even looking at him. It would likely run off once it noticed him.
He rolled over, pushing himself off against the wall with one hand and holding out his knife with the other. He sat up, panting from the absurd amount of effort it took to move.
There was nothing outside his window.
He slowly stood and walked across the room, his knife still raised defensively. Once he reached the window he peered out of it, unable to see anything amidst the still present fog. Whatever presence he had felt, the presence that seemed to immobilize him, was gone.
Felix lowered his hand to hang at his side, and brought his free hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.
“Pull it together,” he muttered.
The rest of his morning passed with little incident. He dressed, brought his things downstairs with him, and let the innkeeper know that the room was free again. He felt eyes on him as he left the building and walked through town, but he knew who the eyes belonged to. None of the townspeople’s gazes had the same crushing weight of the presence outside his window.
The thing you imagined, you mean , he thought to himself.
Felix wasn’t the type to have his dreams linger with him or to see things that weren’t there, so he could not fathom what overcame him earlier. There could have been something outside his window, he supposed, that fled as soon as he began to move, but that explanation still sounded ridiculous to him. That presence felt steadfast, expectant; as if it wanted him and waiting was no issue. It wouldn’t make sense for it to flee so quickly.
He wasn’t sure which would be more embarrassing: that the wild speculation of the townsfolk had gotten under his skin or that he’d imagined it all on his own.
He pushed his questioning thoughts down. He had no time to deal with them. He needed to leave this town and its strange weather behind. Even if he had no real destination in mind, he refused to spend another night there.
He went about his business, stocking up on some food for the road - mostly the rock hard bread that the bakery would sell at a discount. He could hunt or forage for anything else. He could probably do with some new boots as the soles of his current pair were starting to wear thin, but he decided to save that for another town. Once his pack was reasonably full, he crossed the town’s borders and stepped into the wall of fog surrounding it.
As he followed the trodden path beneath his feet, surrounded on all sides by dense mist, he felt as if he were back in his dream from the night before. There was no ballista in the distance though; no strange figure standing in the fog. There was some sound - a sign that life was around him, just out of sight. The rippling of a stream he’d passed on his way into town. A squirrel ran past him, appearing and disappearing before he even fully registered what it was.
It was normal. It was fine. But Felix didn’t trust it.
Whether that was the strange turn his mind had taken that morning still talking or his wariness of normality hiding traps within it from the war reappearing in the wake of it, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he didn’t like it.
“Felix.”
Felix whipped his head around, trying and failing to find the source of the voice.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
No response. The water moving through the stream sounded louder.
“I said, who’s there?” he repeated, with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
More silence, save for the water.
Felix began to draw his sword. “Either show yourself or speak again.”
Still nothing. The stream sounds muted once more.
After another moment of stillness, Felix shook his head and slid his sword back into its sheath. He kept his hand on it as he turned back around to continue his journey, thankful for the odd shaped rock on the ground that helped him re-orient himself. He couldn’t sense anyone or anything nearby - not even the sound of a scurrying rodent reached his ears - but he kept a wary ear and eye out as he resumed walking.
He knew that voice. And there was no way its owner was speaking to him now. It must have been some trick of his mind.
It wasn’t the most comforting thought, but Felix repeated it to himself regardless.
The fog stretched out far beyond the town. By the time the light dimmed past the point of it being safe to travel, Felix still hadn’t escaped it. He did come across a cave to take shelter in. He’d nearly stumbled through the opening. He’d put more weight on the hand he used to keep track of the rock face than he’d thought.
He got a small fire going with the pieces of wood he’d picked up on his way. He’d settled for simply taking whatever he found along the way rather than risk getting lost by stepping off the path. He resigned himself to eating some of the firm bread instead of hunting for something more appetizing for the same reason.
Once he’d eaten, he moved two of the larger rocks within the cave towards the entrance, blocking it as effectively as he could. He doubted he would get much sleep, but having some sort of barrier between him and the outside world made him feel as though he might at least get some .
He wasn’t sure how much time he spent lying there, staring at the ceiling, trying to sleep through sheer force of will. He rolled onto his side at one point, resting his head on the crook of his arm, and stared into the dying embers of his fire. Though he did not feel at peace by any means, at least his mind was quiet.
The next thing he knew, he was staring at the open mouth of the cave. The rocks he’d placed there were nowhere in sight, and what little of the sky he could see looked clear.
He rose, slowly, and took cautious steps towards the entrance. He had the belated realization that he didn’t grab his sword, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to care.
The fog was nowhere in sight. The cool night air flowed freely, and the stars looked down upon the earth below. Any relief Felix might have felt was stamped out by the question of who moved the rocks.
“Felix?”
Felix turned his head from side to side, trying and failing to tell where the voice came from.
“Where are you?” he demanded, his patience long worn thin.
“Felix!”
The figure from the night before appeared directly before him, making Felix jump back. He looked up. A familiar face, one he couldn’t forget no matter how hard he tried, looked down at him.
He blinked.
He was back in the cave, the small boulders back in place, and his fire long since reduced to a pile of ash.
He stood, grabbing his sword, and marched over to the cave mouth. He shoved the rocks aside and stepped outside, into the fog. It somehow seemed even worse; he could barely see a foot in front of him. He looked around regardless, and strained his ears to see if he could pick up the sound of any other person nearby. Nothing.
He clenched his fists. He knew there was no point, knew he would get no answer, but he spoke anyway.
“Dimitri?”
Silence.
Felix shook his head and muttered, “Get a grip.”
It still sounded too loud amidst the suffocating silence.
It felt like the fog was taunting him. A truly ridiculous notion, but one he couldn’t shake.
It at least seemed to be moving, but Felix wouldn’t say it was behaving normally. It thickened and dissipated like a slow pulse. One minute he could see a good eight feet in front of him and the next he nearly walked directly into a tree, unable to see the trunk of it until his nose was nearly touching the bark. The brief patches of visibility frequently came at crossroads, though there was never enough of it to tell where the diverging paths led; just that there was a choice to be made. It was a small mercy that he didn’t have any particular destination in mind.
Time dragged on. There wasn't a single sign of life to be found, human or otherwise. Just Felix, encased in fog and trapped with his thoughts, trying to forget both of his strange dreams. It wasn’t working.
Dimitri was dead. It was a fact Felix didn’t spend much time thinking about. Grass was green, war was cruel, Dimitri was dead. Rivers contain water, Felix sided with the Church, Felix didn’t go to Gronder. There was no use in stewing and pondering, in following “what ifs” to their inevitable end point: “But that’s not what happened”. One just had to accept it and keep going.
But the professor saw him once.
The thought came to him unbidden. Felix scowled. He kicked a pebble in front of him as he walked.
The professor had never told him directly about the incident, likely in some foolish attempt to spare his feelings or other such nonsense, but people talked. Most agreed with Seteth’s prognosis on the matter: the professor, ragged with exhaustion, fell asleep without intending to and their dream blurred the lines of reality. At the time, Felix agreed. It made the most sense. Even now, he still agreed - to an extent. His own dreams were far from their normal fare, yet he wasn’t particularly exhausted. The only change in circumstances that surrounded him was the damn fog, which only grew more suspicious with each passing hour. He still believed that the professor’s vision of Dimitri was a dream, but now that explanation bothered him. Were the professor’s dreams anything like his? Were they having dreams like it again, since the fog appeared? Maybe Felix should go to Garreg Mach.
Felix rolled his eyes at himself. What happened to not partaking in fruitless speculation? The fog would pass eventually, as would the dreams. For that was all they were: just dreams. Dimitri often made an appearance in Felix’s dreams; he just tended to be younger than this most recent appearance.
Yet this appearance was unfamiliar to Felix. He never saw Dimitri, despite his best efforts, after the Monastery had been invaded. He’d heard news of his execution and searched for him in a frenzied denial, but to no avail.The next time he heard anything about the man was from the reporting scouts describing the beastly way he tore across the battlefield at Gronder. They had no description of him - of his black armor, the length of his hair, his missing eye - yet Felix saw a version of Dimitri that he’d never seen before, that he’d never heard described.
They never found his body either.
“Tch. This is stupid,” Felix muttered to himself.
He reached another crossroads. He turned right without thinking about it.
He found another cave somehow. He must have ended up taking a mountain path somewhere along the way. At least he didn’t stumble into it this time.
He’d been at war with his own mind for the rest of the day, circling the same points before shutting that line of thinking down. He knew better than to get caught up in speculation for speculation’s sake, but he’d realized over the course of the afternoon that he didn’t have much else to think about. With no set destination in mind, no goal driving him forward, what else should he expect his mind to do but aimlessly wander? Were he not asking himself questions he didn’t have the answers to about a dead man, then he’d simply be asking himself questions he didn’t have the answers to about the living friends he left behind. The sharp tug in his gut when he thought of them was something he’d been avoiding for some time now, and at least the pointless internal debate about Dimitri had some sort of connection to his current problems. That didn’t make it any less annoying.
As he sat on the cold, hard ground and stared into the dimming fire he struck up a new debate with himself: should he even bother trying to sleep?
On the one hand, obviously he should. If he didn’t then he would have to later anyway, so it would only be delaying the inevitable. Plus the idea of trying to navigate under already disorienting circumstances on no sleep was far from appealing. On the other hand, he did not care to see what strange dream he’d be subjected to were he to sleep. The entrance was covered, his weapons were easily within reach, but none of that could guard him from whatever unsettling tricks and visions his sleeping mind could concoct.
His eyes began to close. He brought his hands up and sharply tapped them against his face to wake back up.
Thank the goddess he was by himself. These waves of indecision were enough of a struggle without someone else being there to witness it. Felix prided himself on being a decisive person, but this whole day seemed dead set on proving him wrong. He’d had more than enough of that stupid fog, those stupid dreams, and his own stupid mind.
Putting his proverbial foot down, he decided he would fight off sleep for as long as he could. Even if sleep was inevitable, that didn’t mean he had to go down without a fight.
He was somewhere between sleep and awareness when Dimitri appeared in front of him.
“Felix.”
“What?” Felix replied. “What do you want?”
He felt more awake at the sight of him, yet there was something subduing him. It felt as if he were in a dream, aware of the limits of the world around him yet unable to surface.
“Come with me,” Dimitri answered, pleading.
Felix crossed his arms. “Where? Why?”
“You’ll see when we get there. I cannot explain it, but you’ll understand.”
“Oh, will I?” Felix gestured to the cave entrance where the fog still lingered. “And will that suddenly make sense as well?”
Dimitri didn’t take his eye off Felix. “Yes, it should.”
It took more willpower than he’d care to admit to stay put, to not stand and agree to follow. He repeated to himself, like a mantra, that this was not a Dimitri he ever knew. If his Dimitri had not died in Duscur with Glenn, then he most certainly did at the hands of Cornelia. The raging husk that had marched to Gronder was simply a ghost encased in flesh, soon to be released from its physical trappings. This was a phantom that, had Felix stayed, would have led him to his own death. Why should it be any different now?
And yet, this was the Dimitri he knew. The single eye that stared back at him, drinking in the sight of him as if he knew he would never see Felix again, was undeniably familiar. The hands that reached for him, yet knew better than to touch him, and hung in the air between them were an eerie mirror of the same, smaller hands reaching out and hesitating, not knowing how to comfort a crying friend. The way he said his name was…
“Felix?”
Felix blinked. He shook his head, trying to physically shake off the strange trance he’d been in. This wasn’t Dimitri.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he accused.
“They never found me,” Dimitri argued.
“It’s been five years,” Felix countered. “How could no one have seen you?”
“No one was looking.”
Felix scoffed. “You’re not exactly easy to miss.”
“Come find me then.”
Felix squinted. “What does that mean? You’re right here.”
He reached his hand out and placed it on Dimitri’s knee. It felt solid beneath his palm. Cold, but that could easily just be the armour.
“What do you mean ‘come find you’?” Felix asked again.
Dimitri’s grave expression didn’t budge. “I can’t explain.”
“Why not?” Felix demanded. “What exactly is keeping you from telling me?”
“Felix, please.”
For a moment he was five, then six, then eight, then ten, then all of them at once, again. Dimitri asked him to do something. Who was Felix to deny him?
His instincts were pulling him in two directions. Nearly every fiber of his body screamed that there was something horribly wrong, that he was in danger. But… could he really forsake the chance of saving Dimitri again? Could he lose him to his own fears again?
Felix sighed. “Fine.”
Dimitri finally touched him in return, placing a gauntlet clad hand on his shoulder. There was no smile on his face, but there was one in his eye.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Felix retorted. “I haven’t even done anything.”
“But you have.”
Dimitri’s other hand came up to Felix’s face. He could just barely feel the ridges of the gauntlet brushing against his cheek.
“You’re already so close,” Dimitri continued. “You might have even come to me on your own.”
“Come to you ? You’re the one who’s been following me.”
Dimitri snorted - a quick, quiet exhale through his nose. “In a sense.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Stop being so vague. Just take me wherever you need to take me so I can finally make sense of this.”
Dimitri stood without a sound. He held a hand out for Felix to take. Felix moved to stand up on his own. Dimitri moved his hand closer to Felix’s face, insistent.
“Ugh, this isn’t necessary,” Felix grumbled, taking Dimitri’s hand.
Dimitri pulled him to his feet with ease. He shifted his grip on Felix’s hand, but didn’t let go.
“I know,” Dimitri told him, a smile once again in his eye but not on his face.
Felix wanted to tug his hand away. He wanted Dimitri to never let go of it.
“Well? Are we going or what?” he asked.
Dimitri led him out into the clear night air. Well, mostly clear. The fog was off in the distance now, rolling over the hills and valleys Felix had walked through before resting in the cave. Felix had no idea how much ground he’d actually covered that day, just the knowledge that his legs and feet were more sore than they’d ever been before.
He followed behind Dimitri in an odd mirror of their childhood years. Back then it was Felix who would lead Dimitri around by the hand, brazen where Dimitri was cautious. Whenever Dimitri wanted to lead him somewhere he would be sure to slow his pace to walk beside Felix. That wasn’t the case now, but Dimitri did keep looking back at him over his shoulder, as if to make sure he was still there.
“Will you answer any of my questions or is it pointless to even ask?” Felix kept his eyes on the cloak draped over Dimitri’s shoulders. Something about the way it moved didn’t look quite right.
“That depends on the question, I’m afraid,” Dimitri replied. He squeezed Felix’s hand, likely in some foolish attempt at reassurance. “And I may not know the answers, even if I wish to tell them to you.”
Felix tore his eyes away from the cloak, looking instead to the ground below him. “Tch, I see you’re still incredibly unhelpful.”
Dimitri hummed. “I see you still enjoy complaining.”
“I do not enjoy complaining,” Felix argued. The sight of the ground beneath his feet started to make him feel dizzy. It seemed to shift and move, expand and contract.
“As you say,” Dimitri said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
Felix closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe he should have tried to sleep after all. Walking again with no real rest in between was messing with his head.
He briefly quickened his pace to catch up with Dimitri’s long strides. Dimitri didn’t say or do anything in response, but Felix could tell that he approved. Goddess, this man was annoying.
“Do you still wish to ask your questions?” Dimitri asked.
“Yeah.” Felix closed his eyes again, and fought to open them as he spoke. “Was that you outside my window? Back in that town?”
“In a sense.”
Felix gave him a moment to continue, but he didn’t elaborate.
“Stop saying that. What does that even mean?” Felix asked.
He’d successfully opened his eyes again, but the world around him was dizzying and distorted. He looked down at their joined hands and found that much easier to look at then the trail ahead of him.
“I was there,” Dimitri said, clearly choosing his words carefully, “but it wasn’t me.”
Felix groaned. “Stop speaking in riddles and give me a straight answer for once.”
“It’s something you should really put together yourself. You won’t believe me if I simply tell you.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Felix snapped. He looked up at the back of Dimitri’s head. “None of this has made a lick of sense to me, and none of it will if you refuse to help me. Any explanation would be helpful at this point.”
Dimitri turned his head to look down at him. “And if I said it was you?”
Felix blinked. He pursed his lips in thought and then shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
Dimitri raised his eyebrows at him before facing forward again.
“Oh, don’t give me the ‘I told you so’ look. It doesn’t make any sense,” Felix insisted.
Dimitri came to a stop and Felix nearly walked straight into him.
“What?” Felix asked.
Dimitri nodded to the land ahead of them. “We’re here.”
Felix looked around. His relief over the lack of dizziness was quickly replaced by distress at the sight of Gronder Field stretched out before him. There was no earthly way he’d been close enough to Gronder to walk the rest of the way there within only a few minutes. The fog was back, obscuring the ends of the field. There was no ballista, like in his dream, just rows of crops and piles of farming equipment. He’d heard the soil had been deemed usable again sometime last year, and that certainly looked to be the case. There were stacks of logs just outside the forest, though no axes in sight. It was hard to believe such a deadly battle had taken place there, but it had. The Empire’s forces took a harsh blow, the leader of the Alliance disappeared in the chaos, and the only known Kingdom survivor vanished shortly after his brief appearance in the Empire.
Wait… Dedue.
No one was looking.
Felix slowly removed his hand from Dimitri’s.
“Why here?” Felix asked.
Dimitri resumed walking without answering. Felix followed at a cautious distance behind him.
“You said it would all make sense once we got here,” Felix continued. “Was that just another lie?”
Dimitri still didn’t respond; he just kept walking. He seemed to be heading towards the forest.
“Why did you bring me here?” Felix demanded.
“You wanted me to.”
Felix felt burning anger rise up his throat. He picked up his pace, storming after Dimitri.
“I did not! You’re just a strange dream I’m having.”
“Oh, I’m a dream now, am I?” Dimitri replied, each word dripping with the barely restrained anger he’d displayed at the end of their school year.
Felix clenched his fists. “You’re dead. Dedue said you were.”
Dimitri laughed, humorlessly. “And you’re only just now taking his word for it?”
“You’re dead,” Felix said through gritted teeth, as he followed Dimitri deeper into the trees. “You’re not here.”
Dimitri sighed. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive, Felix,” he said. Calmly, as if he hadn’t been angry mere seconds ago.
Felix opened his mouth to retort, but he cut himself off when Dimitri stopped in his tracks. Felix followed his line of sight to a lumpy patch of dirt. It was long and wide and clearly covering something up. There was nothing of note around it, nothing to signify its purpose, but Felix knew what he was looking at.
“No. You’re not here.”
“Felix -”
Before Dimitri could finish, Felix went to the ground. He clawed through the earth. He barely even registered the dirt caking his fingers, crawling under his nails. The cold, damp ground felt freezing against his knees, even with the barrier of his trousers. A sharp pebble hit his cheek. A small line of blood dripped down his face. None of it mattered.
“Felix,” Dimitri pleaded, “slow down.”
“Shut up!” Felix didn’t even turn to look at him, his gaze solely focused on the makeshift grave. “You’re not here!”
The dirt grew heavier the deeper he went, the soil more firmly packed together. He hissed at the feeling of another small rock slicing open the side of his finger, but he didn’t stop digging. He couldn’t stop digging. Some force greater than his own compelled him to keep going, to push beyond reasonable limits and dig.
“Felix, please.”
“You brought me here!” Felix retorted.
Dimitri took a deep, shaky breath. “Not for this.”
“Then for what?” Felix demanded as he threw more dirt behind him. “Don’t lie to me and say some nonsense like ‘closure’. If that’s what you thought you were doing then you’re even more dense than I thought.”
There was silence, save for the sound of Felix’s fingers moving through the earth. Felix scoffed.
“How did you think appearing as a ghost to lead me to your body was going to bring me closure?” he asked.
Dimitri still didn’t respond. Felix was tempted to finally look back over his shoulder at him, but the grave still held his focus. His arms were sore and tired. His legs were going numb. He had to keep going.
“I missed you.”
Felix barely heard him. His fingers grazed against a protruding piece of armor. Most of it was still buried, but he knew what he would find.
“Felix!”
That wasn’t Dimitri’s voice. It sounded like Annette. Felix uncovered another section of the armor.
“Felix.”
Ingrid. Felix didn’t notice when the side of his finger was sliced open, but he watched his blood mix with the dirt.
“Felix…”
Sylvain. Felix leaned forward, lowering his face into the unearthed grave.
“Felix, I’m sorry.” Dimitri, again. “This is not what I wished for you.”
“You have no right to take this from me,” Felix said through gritted teeth. “My choices are my own.”
His hands found flesh. He pushed the surrounding dirt away, his movements frenzied.
Dimitri’s face stared up at him, his remaining eye open and lifeless. When he focused on the empty socket, the eye began to rot in his periphery. His eyes raked over the corpse’s face, taking in each pristine section that decomposed as soon as he wasn’t focused on it.
“Found you,” Felix breathed, barely above a whisper.
He looked over his shoulder, not moving from where he was hunched over the body, only to see that there was no one behind him. He whipped his head around, but there was no one in sight.
“Figures,” Felix muttered.
He turned his attention back to Dimitri’s vacillating corpse. He unsheathed his sword, held it above his head, and stabbed it down in the ground above Dimitri’s head. A makeshift grave-marker was better than none. He planned to bury Dimitri again. His body should by no means have been as intact as it was, but Felix wasn’t about to leave it out in the open for carrion animals to consume.
Exhaustion washed over him with such force that he nearly collapsed. His limbs were sore, his bones were sore. He doubted he’d be able to stand, let alone cover the body and leave Gronder field.
He lowered himself into the ground without even thinking about it. The frigid armor dug into his side. The smell made his head hurt and his eyes water. He laid his head down all the same, his ear resting against the blue cross on Dimitri’s chest plate. His mind felt blissfully empty, silent. He felt cold, hard arms move against him, holding him.
And then, nothing.
The small town in Hevring territory spoke for years about the swordsman who’d taken the strange fog with him. One of the tavern regulars proudly proclaimed that he was right to anyone who walked past. Whenever fog briefly rolled back into town, the baker stared out the window and wondered if he’d been the last person to see that swordsman alive.
Rumors flew about the sword in Gronder field. People had their theories, but no answers. The first person to find it thought it prudent to wait, that its owner would come back for it. The second enlisted help and dug up the surrounding area, thinking it a marker of some sort, only to find nothing. Within a week, it disappeared in the dead of night. Most blamed the rogue who’d briefly stayed in town, also gone by dawn. The sword re-appeared on Margrave Gautier’s doorstep some weeks later. The Margrave refused to speak on it.
Ghost stories spread about the sword and the fog, about cliff paths and holes dug by hand. The truth in the matter lies in older tales; of following loved ones into the grave, of sleep and death being twins. But stories can only tell so much and some truths stay buried, together, in slumber beneath the world of the living.