Chapter Text
Part II | House Fraldarius
Imperial Year 1183
Month of the Red Wolf Moon
Five Months Remain
Felix found himself walking the halls of the Fraldarius castle for the first time in months. Securing it against the assault launched by the Imperial navy had been a taxing endeavor for their army. They likely would have lost this place had it not been for the reinforcements that had come from the capitol and the few spies they had left in the Empire.
They had somehow managed to arrive just before his house’s military force had been overrun. Felix had all but accepted they would lose the castle, but the boar had pushed on with a renewed sense of vigor. Once they had joined the fighting, the battle had eventually turned in the Kingdom’s favor.
The day following the attack had been filled with efforts to refortify their defenses. When nightfall came, it was only natural that their group found themselves inside the home of the late Rodrigue Fraldarius.
Felix’s uncle had been left in charge of the territory while the old man had rushed out to join the Kingdom’s army. His uncle was now one of many soldiers on bed rest after the most recent battle to defend the castle.
Maybe it was cruel, but Felix found himself reluctant to visit the man. They had never been particularly close, and the healers would soon treat him to be as good as new — with or without Felix present. There wasn’t any need for him to see him hurt.
Felix shook his head, trying to clear it of unwanted thoughts as he made his way into the dining hall. Most people had eaten and gone to bed by this time, but there were often leftovers from dishes prepared throughout the day. He had been called a picky eater his whole life, mostly by his father — and Glenn. The old man had supposedly expected him to ‘grow out of the habit’ as he got older, but he never had.
As he entered the room, he noticed a few piles of paper scattered across one of the tables. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be some sort of… musical score? The sheets were covered with rows of lines, each filled with small markings and dots.
He had no idea how some people read this type of thing. If he remembered correctly, he had seen Annette with sheets like these before in the greenhouse back at the academy. She had a good singing voice. He had told her as much, but she seemed to have a negative reaction to the whole thing. Compliments weren’t generally listed highly among his skill sets.
Still, he should check to see if this belonged to her. She had always been losing and misplacing her belongings left and right ever since they had been students together… always so scatterbrained. He should return these to her, if he could find her.
Felix wandered the castle halls in search of Annette for ten minutes or so before he had eventually run into Mercedes. Upon asking where her friend was, the healer had told him that she had passed her here — following Gilbert, strangely enough.
‘It might not be a very ideal time to chat with her, I’m afraid. But I’m sure she’ll-’
‘I don’t need to chat. I just need to give her this,’ he had said, gesturing to the sheets in his hand.
As he walked further down the walkway, he began to hear voices. One of them sounded like it belonged to Annette, the other Gilbert.
What would she want from that man? He thought to himself as he approached. Felix found Gilbert insufferable — the man’s renewed devotion to the boar seemed almost religious at times.
As he got closer, he could make out a raised voice coming from around the corner and stopped in his tracks. He suddenly realized what Mercedes must have been alluding to. Annette sounded… angry.
During past war meetings, Felix had voiced more than a few choice words with the man as well. But what reason would Annette have to confront him? Her tone was admittedly surprising. Felix could have counted the times he had seen her genuinely angry or upset on one hand. Sure, she had raised her voice once or twice — occasionally at him, even — but this sounded intense.
Hesitantly, he stepped forward a few more paces to see if he could make out the words she might have been saying.
“Would you please just stop walking away and listen to me!?” Annette bellowed in a tone Felix had never heard come out of her mouth.
“Annette. Please…” came Gilbert’s perpetually feeble voice. “I do not deserve your company.”
“This again?” Annette scoffed. “What about back at the academy? You would talk to me sometimes… that doll you made me…?”
This was… personal, Felix realized uneasily. That was certainly unanticipated.
Had he known the two had some form of family relationship with each other, he might have listened to Mercedes’s warnings. He had to admit he knew little of the allies here that he hadn’t grown up alongside. He should back off for now, as quietly as possible.
He took an awkward step backward and winced as the floor below him creaked under his weight.
Perhaps staying silent in his position would be the best course of action. The two had seemed to be walking away from where he currently was, after all.
“You are not a little girl anymore,” he heard Gilbert say, “You told me as much yourself. I apologize for my behavior.”
“It’s true, I’m not that kid anymore. I just hoped…” She paused. ”I just hoped that you would come to see me for the person I’ve become. But avoiding me altogether? Again?”
“Please, you must understand.”
“Is it really that you think you don’t deserve time with your family?” She asked, her words slow. “Or do you maybe just… do you maybe just not care about…” The question faded out into silence.
He shouldn’t be listening to this. It was evident enough at this point the two were likely father and daughter. Felix slowly dared another step backward as he mentally focused on moving as gently and silently as he could.
“No. I care for you and your mother deeply.” His voice sounded strained, like every syllable caused him great effort. Although frankly, it wasn’t that far off from how Felix had sometimes heard him talk under other circumstances. “Please don’t ever doubt that. You know why I faced exile. I have many regrets about my choices in the past… accepting my banishment was never one of them. But I am… sorry for the way it has affected you.”
Silence followed— even the smallest sound could have been heard. Felix held his breath, waiting for them to move on or resume their argument so he might have the cover of noise to retreat.
“I must go now,” he heard Gilbert’s voice say. It sounded as though Gilbert was now turning away to run off in a hurry.
“Wait, look out!”
What followed was the sound of a rather large crash as something came toppling over. Felix watched as a helmet rolled out from behind the corner, stopping a few yards in front of where he stood. It appeared Gilbert had tipped over one his father’s decorative armored statues… perhaps Annette’s clumsiness was an inherited trait.
“My apologies,” Gilbert mumbled. Felix heard the shuffle of feet as the man seemed to continue his retreat.
“Father!” he heard Annette huff in an exasperated tone.
Before Felix could make a move to bolt off under the cover of the ruckus, Annette was in front of him, attempting to pick up the helmet.
“Are you really just gonna leave it like…” But the words died in her throat as she stood up, helmet in hand, and met Felix’s gaze. Annette’s eyes widened and the helmet dropped to the floor once again.
“Felix!” she exclaimed, brows furrowing in realization. “Were you eavesdropping on me?!”
“No!” Felix exclaimed reflexively, before realizing it was entirely untrue.
She briefly glanced toward the hall where Gilbert had gone off — it seemed as though her father had simply walked away from his mess. Now, Felix found himself under her stern scrutiny as she waited for an elaboration, clearly not buying his response.
“Well, I didn’t mean to,” he tried to clarify before remembering his original reason for looking for her. “I was just trying to find you to see if these belonged to you,” he said, walking up to Annette and holding the papers out toward her. Annette’s gaze fell to the sheets in his hand, her expression softening.
“Oh… my sheet music,” she said in a smaller voice. “I was working on writing a new score during dinner… I must have left them there.”
“You wrote these?” Felix asked. He hadn’t realized it had been her own handiwork — not that he knew how to read this kind of thing, anyway.
“Yeah, I…” She was beginning to smile as she reached out. Suddenly, her hand stopped — and her face fell. “I really shouldn’t be wasting time writing musical scores when we’re at war like this. These aren’t useful to anyone right now… I should just stick to magic books,” she muttered, still looking towards the papers as he awkwardly lowered his hand.
He wasn’t sure what to say in response to her sudden shift in demeanor, but at least she didn’t seem angry. “It’s my fault you had to come looking for me in the first place,” she continued. “And I suppose I can’t exactly get mad at you for walking through the halls of your own castle… it’s not like I tried to find a secluded area…”
Halls of your own castle…
The words echoed through his mind as he realized they were true. He hadn’t officially accepted the inherited role as Duke Fraldarius — not yet, anyhow, but… it was likely an assumed truth to the other nobility.
Felix felt an unpleasant sensation take hold of him as he looked back to his suit of armor, now dismantled on the floor.
“I, uhm…” Felix said in a far-off voice.“Even still, I should have left sooner,” he added awkwardly.
“No, no, I’m sorry you had to hear that… however much you did end up catching,” she replied, a small nervous chuckle escaping her mouth. “Well, I suppose I should clean up after him now.” Her gaze lowered back to the corner where his armor set lay on the floor.
Felix wondered if this would be an appropriate moment to excuse himself from her company. He probably would have, if it weren’t for the mess she seemed to be trying to fumble through on her own. So, he shoved the music sheets into his coat pockets, bent down, and began grabbing a few armor pieces here and there to reassemble.
She probably wanted him to say something in response to her situation. She seemed to be embarrassed about him hearing the argument. He hesitated for a moment before eventually breaking the silence.
“Don’t feel like you have to apologize to me about him,” he said. “At this point, I’m quite used to hearing ludicrous claims from the man,” he added as he pulled the bulk of the armor back up to be propped against the wall.
He heard a stifled laugh from Annette and looked back at her, puzzled. At first, he felt defensive — what had he said to make her laugh at him?
“He can be awfully hard to reason with, that’s for sure,” she said, smiling in his direction. He lowered his guard back down as he realized she seemed to be in agreement with him.
“Hey, Felix,” she started as she brought over a loose shoulder pad. “I know this must seem strange, but I’d appreciate it if you kept that detail about him being my father to yourself. It’s a bit of a complicated situation.”
Ah. So it hadn’t been common knowledge he had simply missed by chance.
“I don’t see why not. Does anyone else know?” he asked, realigning the strap on a loose piece of armor.
“I think people have their suspicions, but I’ve only ever told Mercie. And His Majesty would know— my father did serve the royal family before the… when His Majesty was younger.”
She had been about to say the Tragedy of Duscur, hadn’t she? Felix had heard talk of the royal family knight who had come back from the Tragedy, only to run off into banishment. In more recent years, it hadn’t been hard to put two and two together and figure out that it had been Gilbert. He had no idea the man had been a father throughout all that time away from the Kingdom, much less a father to someone he knew.
“He went into exile after Duscur, didn’t he?” he asked, back still turned towards her as he placed together parts of the armor piece. The set was coming back into its proper shape now, resting against its support poles.
“Yes… he did.”
A moment of silence passed between them as Felix worked. He turned around to take the scabbard Annette was holding, noticing she seemed to be stiff again.
“He should be grateful he got out of there with his life,” he said, a little more to himself than to her. He took the set piece from her and began attaching it back to the belt of the armored suit.
“I-I think so too,” she said. “You know, it’s nice to hear someone else say that. I know most people don’t outright tell him he should have died trying to protect the former king, but still… it’s hard to come back after something like that.”
Hard to come back?
The phrase seemed to linger in his mind as he tried to tether the scabbard back to its proper place. He had done it a million times before, and yet somehow his hands seemed to be forgetting the motions.
Felix hadn’t given Gilbert much thought before. Yet now— for some reason — he found himself wondering what kind of things had been said about the man’s safe return.
There was something about all of this that seemed to prod at him.
It’s Glenn, he realized slowly. It was making him think about Glenn.
The idea that people may have had peculiar responses to his brother’s return, had he survived, had never occurred to Felix. However, now that the thought was in his head, it seemed strange that it hadn’t crossed his mind.
But…. no, this sort of thinking was pointless. Annette was speaking of her father. And he didn’t pity Gilbert, the man was insufferable.
“Is that sword buckle giving you trouble?” she asked as he turned to see her giving him an expectant look. She fidgeted with the helmet, the final missing piece to the armor set. Felix realized suddenly that she had anticipated some form of response from him about her situation with her father. He’d been absorbed in his own head for far too long… he didn’t know what to think of her words, much less what to say to them.
“No… no, it’s not,” he said, trying to clear his head. “I tie my own every day.” He glanced around at the hallway for a moment, realizing he wanted to leave sooner rather than later. “Let’s just leave this as is. It’s my house’s things, after all. It’s not like anyone can get mad at me for not picking up after myself.”
“I suppose that’s true enough,” she said, placing the helmet down beside the armor set— her expression unreadable to him. “…maybe we could talk again sometime?” she asked, sounding hesitant.
“About?” Felix looked down at her quizzically, caught off guard by the question. It wasn’t as if he never spoke to his allies. There were always tactician meetings to handle. And it was hard to walk through their base without running into at least a few familiar faces.
“Oh,” Annette’s face fell and Felix felt an immediate impression he had done something wrong. “I just…” She seemed to struggle with her words as the thought faded off into an awkward pause. This topic of her father and the situation surrounding it had likely been difficult for her, but he was hardly the person to go to about such matters. Still, she looked disappointed in his answer.
“In truth, I’ve never been told I was a great conversation partner,” Felix said, looking away. “But, I… won’t stop you if you want to come looking for me.”
“Oh… alright then,” she said, seeming to brighten up slightly. “Hope you don’t mind if I take you up on that.”
“I suppose I don’t. I should get going for now,” he said as he walked away from her and the armor set — still missing its final piece.
He found himself replaying the interaction in his mind as he finished off his day and, eventually, as he laid down to attempt to sleep.
Perhaps he was drawing too many comparisons where they didn’t need to be drawn. His brother’s death being celebrated as heroism by a few fools was hardly the same situation as a man feeling shame for the life he still possessed. Both were stupid and dangerous notions, for certain, but that hardly linked them together in any meaningful way.
‘I should have died that day.’
The boar had uttered those words as he stared at his blood-soaked hand. The guilt one could carry after witnessing death wasn’t a foreign concept to him. It was self-inflicted — no one was telling the boar he should have died in Duscur.
Dimitri was the prince, another voice inside his head told him. There’s no one propped up as being more important than him.
Felix sighed as he closed his eyes. This didn’t matter. He hardly knew anything of Gilbert’s reception by the Kingdom other than what Annette had told him and a few passing remarks here and there. He couldn’t waste time speculating on a situation he had little knowledge of, regardless of how oddly familiar it felt to him.
And… anything that drudged up memories of arguments with his father was hardly something he wanted on his mind right now.