[ Whether it's Danaca or the monastery, Sylvain is one of the few people he can actually rely on—even if it does just amount to scaring off a starry-eyed girl. ]
My body may be stronger, but you're resourceful.
[ Obviously, considering he's managed to figure things out far past what Dimitri's discovered. So they can call it even. He trusts him—and surely nothing they could see would ever shake that.
But despite their childhood memories together, both of them get something very different.
It has been two years since your 'execution.' The day when Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, last of the royal line, was killed for his trespasses.
And, well—you consider yourself a corpse, too. A prince executed for murdering his own uncle, the king regent, in a fit of rage. Some people question it, but most don't, and you quickly figure out why they simply do not care: their lives are too saturated with their own suffering to speculate on royal affairs.
And you cannot blame them. You've lived in the poorest corners of Fhirdiad now, hiding under the enemy's nose in your own capitol city, practically invisible because no one wants to turn an eye towards the destitute. The citizens in the slums never knew what you looked like. They do not question why your eye is missing, or the reason behind your sour expressions, the drawn and haunted look that you wear so well now.
You see their suffering. You experience the plight of the common people. You do not speak to anyone, have not in years, but you listen to them as they gripe outside of taverns or in the streets as they do their back-breaking work to earn mouthfuls of bread, not even a fistful of coins. And Faerghus nobility does not live a life of extravagance, but you realize how lucky you were anyway. Your thoughts turn distantly to fixing these things, the good you could do if you fought for your throne. The thought makes your chest ache in a way you can no longer decipher.
But.
For all that you listen, the voices of the dead are louder. They buzz in your ears until the noise makes your entire head ache to bursting. So great are their regrets that they claim your dreams, your waking moments, your idle and active thoughts both. They clamor for vengeance. Ask why you have yet to achieve it when you have lived for so much longer than they have, now. At the height of your madness, you can see their shapes in the night, trapped in the twilight between worlds until you ease their suffering. You loved them. And they cannot rest, so neither can you.
So instead of vying for the throne, you do this: you learn the forests and live off the land. You know exactly where you can catch a battalion of Empire troops on their way to another province. You take them by surprise and kill the soldiers to the very last, either with your bare hands or their own weapons; you catch a captain of the Imperial army with a lance through the gut after the rest of his men are dead, littering the dirt path in assorted, bloody pieces.
It takes time to die from a wound to the stomach, so you speak to him as he dies. Or mock him, really. You tell him of the atrocities that his armies have committed, the innocent lives they have ruined, the lands they have tainted with Edelgard's ambitions. Whenever his pain is not enough for you, you twist the lance.
He has the strength to speak around a mouthful of blood and call you a hypocrite. A worse monster than they will ever be.
But you knew this already. And after he finally passes on, the dead do not quiet at all. ]
mood
My body may be stronger, but you're resourceful.
[ Obviously, considering he's managed to figure things out far past what Dimitri's discovered. So they can call it even. He trusts him—and surely nothing they could see would ever shake that.
But despite their childhood memories together, both of them get something very different.
It has been two years since your 'execution.' The day when Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, last of the royal line, was killed for his trespasses.
And, well—you consider yourself a corpse, too. A prince executed for murdering his own uncle, the king regent, in a fit of rage. Some people question it, but most don't, and you quickly figure out why they simply do not care: their lives are too saturated with their own suffering to speculate on royal affairs.
And you cannot blame them. You've lived in the poorest corners of Fhirdiad now, hiding under the enemy's nose in your own capitol city, practically invisible because no one wants to turn an eye towards the destitute. The citizens in the slums never knew what you looked like. They do not question why your eye is missing, or the reason behind your sour expressions, the drawn and haunted look that you wear so well now.
You see their suffering. You experience the plight of the common people. You do not speak to anyone, have not in years, but you listen to them as they gripe outside of taverns or in the streets as they do their back-breaking work to earn mouthfuls of bread, not even a fistful of coins. And Faerghus nobility does not live a life of extravagance, but you realize how lucky you were anyway. Your thoughts turn distantly to fixing these things, the good you could do if you fought for your throne. The thought makes your chest ache in a way you can no longer decipher.
But.
For all that you listen, the voices of the dead are louder. They buzz in your ears until the noise makes your entire head ache to bursting. So great are their regrets that they claim your dreams, your waking moments, your idle and active thoughts both. They clamor for vengeance. Ask why you have yet to achieve it when you have lived for so much longer than they have, now. At the height of your madness, you can see their shapes in the night, trapped in the twilight between worlds until you ease their suffering. You loved them. And they cannot rest, so neither can you.
So instead of vying for the throne, you do this: you learn the forests and live off the land. You know exactly where you can catch a battalion of Empire troops on their way to another province. You take them by surprise and kill the soldiers to the very last, either with your bare hands or their own weapons; you catch a captain of the Imperial army with a lance through the gut after the rest of his men are dead, littering the dirt path in assorted, bloody pieces.
It takes time to die from a wound to the stomach, so you speak to him as he dies. Or mock him, really. You tell him of the atrocities that his armies have committed, the innocent lives they have ruined, the lands they have tainted with Edelgard's ambitions. Whenever his pain is not enough for you, you twist the lance.
He has the strength to speak around a mouthful of blood and call you a hypocrite. A worse monster than they will ever be.
But you knew this already. And after he finally passes on, the dead do not quiet at all. ]