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Sylvain watches as flakes of snow fall into his lashes. He still feels the chill on the skin of his face, which is probably a good sign. He hasn't been here long, despite feeling as though ages have passed.
He can no longer hear the battle raging on around him; not really. All he can feel is the pounding of his heartbeat as the adrenaline of the fight still pumps through his body, trying to keep him alive despite the blood leaking through the hole in his armor. He doesn't dare move, and yet if he were to shift his eyes downward, the shaft of the spear that felled him from his horse would be in his peripheral.
Sylvain does not shift his eyes away from the falling snow. He blinks as snow falls into his eyes, but he wants to keep them open.
Sylvain wants to die with his eyes open.
It is selfish, but he thinks it's forgivable as his last wish. He knows that whichever comrade finds him will close them; even dead, he selfishly longs for their physical touch.
Sylvain wonders how the icy battlefield will paint him. Metal armor in freezing weather can take its toll, lying supine in the fallen snow. Even in Faerghus they do not train for suicide. The Gautier heir can remember the dull lessons his father taught him, lectures on how to win against the Sreng. But Sylvain doesn't particularly care to remember those conversations in his dying moments.
(Sylvain doesn't want his last thoughts to be of red hair and war lessons. Even if the bite of the frost reminds him of time spent in a well, and a brother who was a monster long before he turned into one.)
Looking up into the falling snow, Sylvain remembers a boy.
Sylvain remembers Felix.
Felix was unrestrained in his touch, even as a child. A child who sought out physical comfort or warmth at every opportunity. A child with unrestrained smiles and unrestrained tears, and a loving, teasing, older brother.
Every one of the boy's touches would help Sylvain forget the Gautiers.
(No matter how many times Felix has yelled at Sylvain over the years, he has never once reminded Sylvain of Miklan.)
He remembers huddling with Felix under a blanket after a snowball fight at Fraldarius manor. Felix trying to dry Sylvain's hair before his own,
“Because that's what you do,” Felix had explained. As if that was enough to make it make sense for a boy who grew up in a loveless home.
He remembers Felix holding his hand to drag him to the Fraldarius kitchens, just so Sylvain could have a sweet Felix didn't even like. Made not for a Gautier noble, or a Margrave’s heir, but Sylvain. A boy, a neighbor, a friend.
He recalls attempting to teach Felix to braid his hair, and Felix said---frustrated---”won't you just be there to do it for me?” As if Sylvain would always be allowed to tangle his fingers in long hair, weaving art into the strands pushed aside for convenience.
He remembers—in the aftermath of an incident he has wanted so badly to forget, never able to grow out of the shame of its implications—Felix sobbing into Sylvain's chest, promising that he wouldn't let Sylvain die alone. Getting Sylvain to promise that he wouldn't die. Pinkies out and all.
He remembers running his fingers through the sleeping Felix's hair, and hating himself a little less, just for a moment.
He remembers giving Felix a dagger Miklan had left behind, because he trusted that Felix would use it differently.
(And despite being an older Felix, with tongue as sharp as a blade, he kept it.)
He remembers that the last time Felix slept at his side was the first time Sylvain had seen him as the new Fraldarius heir.
He remembers witnessing post-Glenn Felix and knowing that all his round edges were sharpened. At thirteen, Felix bore that anger and responsibility of grief. Felix did not lose only Glenn: he lost the ignorance associated with knighthood sacrifice. He lost the civilian privilege of not knowing the cost of kingdoms. He lost the naive perspective of having a loving father. Ultimately, he lost his dearest friend to a savage monster – a “boar”.
And he chose to serve him anyway.
Sylvain reflects on his own adaptation of Felix's insult, dehumanizing Dimitri into his future role; never calling him by name, only by title. “Your Highness,” another of Sylvain’s tools to prod at those closest to him and keep them at a manageable distance. The time for childhood nicknames is behind them now, despite the site of Sylvain’s death. Faint memories of children racing across the stone around them, leaking out as Sylvain’s blood does. Are the images distant vestiges of reality, or false ghosts Sylvain conjures in his final moments?
Sylvain reflects on Edelgard's temptation. An offer, while at Garreg Mach. A siren’s call, beckoning him away from Faerghus, with the promise of a Fodlan where crests and bloodlines don't matter…
He remembers being in such a funk over it that he asked the Professor where Felix was. He's sure if it had been anyone besides Byleth, the obvious answer would have been delivered with far more judgment.
He watched Felix at the training grounds until Felix had enough of his annoyance and drew him into sparring.
Sylvain cannot say he held any particular loyalty or love for his birth kingdom when he refused Edelgard's invitation. He can only say that she truly handled it with the grace of an empress.
He remembers antagonizing an adult Felix until Felix chased him and pushed his head into the snow. And although Sylvain was ready to be pissed at the way the cold bit at his face and his soaked hair—that a good shake would have no chance at drying—he was stopped dead in his tracks at the carefree laugh that rang out, echoing through to Sylvain's chest.
Sylvain couldn't help but smile and laugh himself, for that moment. One moment of refuge, in the midst of a war. After, he would be cold, wet, and complain. And Felix would remember the burden of war and grief around him again. But Sylvain was glad he made his friend relieved for this one moment—that one moment, would be glad that they were.
The cold is biting. He knows that even without the weapon pierced through his stomach, survival in freezing temperatures is dire where skin meets metal.
The feeling of frost soaking into his skin is reminding him of water, in the damp darkness of the bottom of a well.
(Maybe this javelin was Miklan's last act of vengeance, for the lance that cut him down.)
He wishes his dying consciousness would forget.
He doesn't care to remember a Gautier in his final moments when midnight hair is the only memory he wants to worship.
Huh. Maybe the goddess does hate him.
Because why does it take a deathbed realization for Sylvain to know love?
He's about to leave his best friend permanently, so now's the time to realize that the love of his life is a man?
That is a good story for the heartbreaking womanizer Gautier: in love with the angry boy next door.
Maybe this death is a mercy: an out for the future Margrave, who will now never have to be best man at the future Duke's wedding.
...damn, that didn't work. Of course he'd love to see Felix so happy. Of course he would love to see who gets grumpy Felix to tie the knot.
Of course he'd love to tease Felix until his dying day.
Well.
His dying day is just,
today.
He's almost sad that he can't cry in this moment.
He's staring up at the sky as snow falls in his lashes. He's in love with Felix.
He's dying.
He feels the edges of his consciousness slipping.
He hopes Luna is okay. He knows he spooked the poor girl. Marianne will likely take care of her for him.
He hopes she forgives him.
[everything fades to black, darker than the blue of the messy bun---]