garregmach | (no subject)

A mist settles in over the monastery.

Is it morning? Night? Who can say? Today, the day feels endless. The sun is nowhere to be seen — or had it been at all? Instead, a curious green glow engulfs Garreg Mach, like an eternal twilight settling in. Time seems to be paused almost, though the wildlife in and around the area continues to act as though nothing is wrong. As though this is perfectly normal. As though it is natural for the skies to be dark, with not a single star in sight, and for the sun to be forgotten in the mist that lingers. The paths are at least lit by small orbs of light, fireflies flitting about.

However, should one come into contact with one of those fireflies, a memory of the past will be projected for all in the close vicinity to see. Joyous occasions, tragic events — they don't seem to discern one way or another. Perhaps it would be best to watch your step for now, though.

Of course, after lingering for about a day, the strange ambience will fade into what appears to be a normal night at Garreg Mach. It's as if nothing had happened at all. Did it? Or was it all simply a shared hallucination?

[ ● MEMSHARE POST. Coming into contact with the fireflies will share a memory of your character's with those around them. You can top-level with a memory to start out or have people tag you and determine it then, whatever. I don't make the rules (except I do and I say yolo). Have fun with it!
● Open posts like this one are flipping to a two week schedule instead of a weekly one.
● Because of the above, the last bit is there for people who'd maybe like to play out aftermath threads later on but don't want to wait for a new post or make a new one.
● Settings have been slightly updated. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Unminding of Felix's feelings on the matter, the memory continues to play out like a sick joke.

Except it isn't, and is a reality from the not so far past.

Felix sinks to his knees, right into the sticky pool by Sylvain's feet. Despite shock overtaking his body, he manages to catch Sylvain as he tumbles forward. The hilt of the sword still stuck through Sylvain's chest pushes against Felix's torso, causing Sylvain to gasp, coughing out blood against Felix's neck. Wet, short, and barely there.

Just like what remains of Sylvain's life.

Yet, Sylvain manages a smile through it all, arms shakily wrapping themselves around Felix's back, patting his back like when they were children and Felix just woke up from a nightmare. "It's... okay..."

But the difference now is that Felix is living it, and the person in his arms is dying because of it.

"No..." Felix shakes his head, confusion, pain, disbelief all etched into his face as he starts to wrap his arms around Sylvain in kind. "Sylvain, I..."

The strokes start slowing down, yet Sylvain's smile never wavers.

"Overall... this... isn't such... a bad way... to go..."

Felix's fingers dig into Sylvain's back, meeting the cold steel of his armor as he tries to recall a healing spell, willing it to breathe some life back into the slowly cooling body before him. The shortened breaths against his neck tells him everything he needs to know about how effective the spell is.

"Felix... promise me... you'll live..."

Robbed of their strength, Sylvain's arms slowly fall off Felix's back, coming to a rest by either side of him.

"Just... forget... about our promise... okay...?"

Felix nods rapidly, as if the act would cause Sylvain to stabilize, to sound anything but this broken, dying man in his arms.

"Good. I..."

But Sylvain never finishes his sentence, craning his neck to mouth them wordlessly against Felix's ear before he hangs his head and takes his last breath.

"Sylvain?"

Felix nudges him, and when it elicits no response, he grits his teeth, his chest far too heavy for him to move from his spot. Something awful pools in his stomach as he embraces the body before him, a familiar prickle in his eyes as he casts his gaze to the heavens in an attempt to stave off what is coming.

It doesn't work.

"I'm..."

So sorry.

Amidst the roaring cries around them and the trumpet signaling the defeat of the opposing army's king and highest ranking general, Felix cries like he never had in his life, cradling the lifeless body of Sylvain Jose Gautier in his arms, repeatedly whispering apologies that no longer reach the latter's ears.

...Felix doesn't need to see it to know what's going on. It's a scene that haunts him in his dreams, and he couldn't even forget it if he tried.

And he wants to. For so long, just so he can have some semblance of personal peace after the world has achieved its own. But just like the world's, his own peace is bloody, forged upon the blades and bodies of familiar faces.]

...Now you know.

[Felix says, unable to keep the bitterness off his tone as he keep his gaze downcast.]

[ Strength fleeing him at a rapid pace, he’s about to die face down in the mud like a nameless soldier when instead, Felix catches him. Holds him. And though doing so drives the sword still skewering him further onto its ornate guard plunged and wrests a breath from him -- one of the few he has left, at this point -- he brings arms up and around, and comforts his best friend from his own dying hour.

Just like he did any time Felix seemed even remotely upset, no matter the day, the time, or the cause.

He’d wanted them to fulfill that promise. To die together, on the same day, just so they wouldn’t have to live without one another; but... this is fine. It’s better, actually. Better than the opposite, wherein Sylvain would have to carry around the burden of having killed the one person he cared for enough to devote his life to. Not that he’d wish such a fate upon Felix, but who is he kidding? Felix is stronger. He always has been. He’d be okay. He'd heal. He'd move on. It was important to Sylvain that he do that. Important that he go on, see this country into a new, peaceful era, find love, start a family... all the good things life had to offer that Felix truly, sincerely deserves.

So, this was Sylvain’s choice. His final choice.

He knows the words that were on the tongue of his dying self then. Not because of any level of clairvoyance, but because there’s only one thing his kind of lifelong devotion can really mean, after all. Of the many forms those words can take, and the different things they represent, Sylvain is quite sure he means all of them. He’d want Felix to hear them from him, too, if only just once. To hear that it's always been him, from as far back as he can remember. It's always been Felix.

...Except, death comes for him first. And instead, the scene fades out on a man wailing alone in the mud, still whispering apologies to the cradled shell of someone he once knew, now just another casualty of a revolution.

Sylvain -- the one still living and breathing, standing right before Felix -- takes a breath. He needs to, after all that. Who wouldn’t? And inevitably, the words that next leave him sound far too casual for the situation, and the things he’s just seen: ]

So that’s how it all comes out in the end, huh?

[ In a place where they couldn’t be together, where only one of them could live, Sylvain renounced their lifelong promise, and allowed Felix to break it with his own two hands. It’d be a betrayal, were the circumstances any different; had Sylvain not relinquished that vow of his own volition at the very last second, trading it instead for a promise that Felix would live on without him. It’s... a bit too believable an outcome for them, honestly. To the point where it’s almost eerie. Not that he lets that show, of course. ]

I think that’s exactly how it’d go. [ His hands interlace, linking behind his head as he cranes backward somewhat, weight shifting from foot to foot. ] I wouldn’t hold you to our promise, so long as you agreed to live.

I may joke about it, but... that’s what’s always mattered most to me: You.

[ All that aside, however--]

But either I just saw a dream, or you projected your hallucination onto me somehow, because last I recall, I still don’t remember being a ghost. [ As though in demonstration, he pats his chest here with both hands. It elicits a dull, sturdy sound. ] See?

[ Real as real can be. ]

...And that means that it doesn’t have to be that way, Felix. None of this has to happen.

[ A beat, and he takes a step closer. ]

At least, not here.