Archive of Our Own ^beta

The kingdom of Nohr had never been particularly favored by the sun’s gaze, but there were times when the gloom withdrew a little and the clouds vanished from the skies. Such days were ideal for studying in one of the few gazebos in Castle Krakenburg’s rough gardens. Which was what Xander had done, after managing to convince his tutors of the benefits following his request would, without a doubt, have.

“Your negotiation skills are developing nicely, Prince Xander,” the said tutor said with a smile on their way there, both walking in the same pace despite Xander’s shorter and still weak legs. “It’s most astounding, really.”

What wasn’t said: they’re useless if you don’t use them outside us, Prince Xander.

Xander gave a hum, pushing back the strands of hair that kept slipping down from behind his ears. The darkness contained inside the castle walls was starting to evaporate as they made their way outside through one of the numerous side doors; the sunshine began its conquest of Xander’s attention when they entered the gardens.

The flowers were beginning to bloom thanks to the gardeners and mages’ hard work, and this year promised more color than the last few ones – as if nature itself felt for the ill Queen Katerina.

Xander spread his books out on the table located at the center of the gazebo, the sun warm against his bare neck his growing hair had yet to reach.

“Where shall we begin?” he asked as he looked up to his tutor, who adjusted their glasses with the same faint smile from before. One of the few tutors that were strict but comfortable teachers who also treated Xander less icily and less fearsomely than most.

“Right where we left off yesterday, my Prince. Page two-hundred and twenty-six, if you need a reminder.”

Mathematics wasn’t Xander’s strongest subject by any means, so his face scrunched up in a matter of moments as he struggled to solve the problems the tutor had him work on. But it was not for lack of trying to understand the subject that he failed, nor could the tutor’s qualifications be questioned.

Under the morning sun in the midst of Nohr’s rough roses and wildflowers, Xander pushed through eventually, even as he grew more and more restless and his focus turned bleary from a mixture of nausea and aching head. As determined as he was, once it hit, there was no way he would absorb anything meaningful from the books or scrolls set before him.

Thus, the session under the kind gaze of the first spring sun came to an end, resulting in Xander being ushered to rest.

He slept in his mother’s room despite being told not to – unquestioning obedience hadn’t stuck with him yet and might never do so fully – cradled in Queen Katerina’s thinning arms that had once wielded numerous weapons with trained ease.

Katerina’s hands stroked at his hair, sometimes halting to rub at the crook of Xander’s neck, and it kept Xander relaxed and sleepy throughout the hours that slowly tilted towards late afternoon.

He loved his father dearly, but he was even more keen on his mother, perhaps because of her developing sickness that took her away from him often.

It was unfair to a child, especially to a child whose life was dictated by strict timetables and rules and never enough time with his family.

When he woke up again, there were no soothing fingers in his hair or familiar fragrance greeting his sensitive nose. He wasn’t even in the royal chambers anymore – he recognized the smell of medical herbs and oils as one of the infirmaries. It was not his first time in these parts of the looming structure that was Castle Krakenburg, but the smell still invaded his senses and made him feel even worse than before.

But because he was stubborn, a trait he was still developing through his introvertion, pushed himself off the bed, and exited the room, led by the childish feeling of yearning for company.

The wide hallways were silent, eerily empty from servants and other people; the flickering flames from the candles lining the walls from the ceiling the only source of warmth at this time, even though the world outside was spring-colored and bright.

From distance, Xander could hear faint sounds of music being played – foreign instruments, definitely not an organ or a regular piano he had been made to study briefly.

Xander rubbed at his eyes with his palms as the world blurred around him once more. The music was soothing, almost sleep-inducing, ancient in a way that contrasted Nohr’s dark ballads of past war heroes and mythology.

The music grew louder the longer Xander wandered aimlessly with sweat forming over his forehead and an uncomfortable twist pulling at his stomach. The few servants he passed were in a terrible hurry, murmuring amongst themselves and paying no mind to the small crown prince.

And then he was face-to-face with a boy of his own age – a rarity in Castle Krakenburg, since the nobles living in the grounds had no children near his age, only teenagers well into their teen years as well as young adults that played their adult roles while wishing to be teens.

Xander blinked, his sight of the boy blurring around the edges – but he could see the foreign fabrics adorning him, the slight differences between a Nohrian face and this one.

The eyes peering hard at him looked darker than they were in actuality, thanks to the flickering flames, but nothing could hide the curiosity the roundish child eyes held.

But Xander, isolated from his peers as he was, felt nothing but frozen fear in his gut, anxiety working its way through his nervous system as he staggered aside from the other’s way. Only then he noted the long hair pulled into a ponytail that did little to tame the boy’s wild hair.

Xander’s meek demeanor didn’t deter this boy nor did it make him overlook Xander’s existence like many nobles did despite his status.

The boy spoke a language that wasn’t Xander’s own but which Xander recognized to be one of the major Hoshidan ones, of common dialect.

Xander had been taught it as a language of trade and diplomacy, although some of his tutors believed it ought to be the high Nohrian variety as the lingua franca. Xander didn’t know why it mattered.

It was easy enough to deduce from the language used that the boy was of Hoshidan heritage – perhaps royal considering the fancy fabrics that boy wore (rather badly; he looked ill at ease in them).

Xander swallowed before replying in the same language, slower and clumsier, “The main garden is to the west from here.”

“Can you take me there?” The Hoshidan’s eyes held Xander’s gaze firmly, steadfast and just how Xander wished he himself could be. The wild-haired boy gave a smile, an afterthought of politeness, which Xander returned.

“Of course,” he said, through the dizziness that spun his mind right round. There was only so much a person could do to distract another from sickness.

But the wider, genuine smile on the Hoshidan boy’s face relieved Xander.

The rest was a blurry collage of events: a cold, early evening in the garden of closing petals and rugged trees, the Hoshidan boy’s forehead against Xander’s (“You have a fever,” the boy informed him like Xander needed to be told that, with a considerable frown tugging at his too-serious child’s face), and Xander’s own laughter ringing in his ears as he listened to the Hoshidan prince’s recount of stories back home.

“My name is—“

Xander rubbed up and down at the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginnings of an ache shuddering behind his temples. The not-yet headache had been there for hours now, as if reminding him of the nonsensical dream of the past and force him into acknowledging it. Not that there was much to acknowledge, other than that it was much less of a dream and more like a mess of memories Xander hadn’t tried to keep with him as he grew up.

He had forgotten, in fact, ever meeting Prince Ryoma before that day in the Hoshidan plains.

It made sense that he would have, although he wasn’t usually brought to the official meetings between heads of states as he had been a sickly child and often in the midst of his studies.

Either way, Xander didn’t have a need for this newly surfaced memory – nor a use, because although they were something close to allies now, a sense of prejudiced wariness still lay strong between the Hoshidan and Nohrian forces. It was especially prevalent whenever Corrin was present – and she always was, being the commander of this ragtag army she herself had gathered with her innocent and idealistic charm.

Clinging to a memory of a time when kings Sumeragi and Garon had been the closest of friends would do nothing to ease the tensions now; wouldn’t remove the black stain of betrayal that Father had left in his wake; wouldn’t remove the truth about Corrin’s past.

The memory-dream only made it harder to accept how far Father had fallen and how obstinately blind to it Xander himself had remained. How he had done nothing but wait. Out of love, of course, but no individual should ever come before the kingdom’s needs. Xander reminded himself of this every time Garon’s name was said, every time his chest felt hollow.

The war council – attended by the royalty of both… no, three kingdoms, as Azura was also there – was marathon-length this time, expanding from the morning long into the afternoon, and at the end of it everyone involved looked worse for the wear. Even Corrin, whom Xander suspected to carry the heaviest burden of them all, worrying over the fate of the world and her own part in the oncoming events.

Xander moved away from the building-infested grounds after everyone had departed to their own errands, in attempt to find a private space to train. Siegfried’s undercurrent of energy kept the sword warm in his hands, but more importantly it gave him much needed reassurance and familiarity when everything else had fallen into uncertain areas.

Such as the tentative alliance with Hoshido. Xander released a breath he had been holding, huffily, as he swung his sword down with more irritation than had been intended; Siegfried’s tip dragged soil up with it as he pulled back.

There was no blood on the blade like there would be if this were battle situation, and Xander, if he were honest with himself, would prefer for it to stay that way. Pacifism had not been the way of Nohr in the recent years, though.

The memory of Father’s incoherent blabbering in the throne room on the day that had sealed the crown prince’s mind prickled at Xander’s conscience as he moved to swing his sword down again, the motion firm and assured as he had repeated it numerous times in the past.

He could put on a stern and stoic face and pretend he was sure he was doing the right thing, but even so, he could not help feeling doubtful, second-guessing himself over the matter of his father. There were few people he had ever looked up to as much as his father – or the man his father had been, once.

Was it not his duty to wait for his father to come back? To serve the kingdom to the best of his ability, limited as it sometimes were? Perhaps Azura and Corrin were wrong – perhaps there was Father left to save.

Xander heaved out a sigh, breaking the steady rhythm of the controlled breathing he had exercised thus far, and let his arms stay down as sweat made its way down his skin beneath the black gold-rimmed armor. Siegfried’s warmth reached all the way through the metal to his palms, soothing away the miniscule aches.

For a legendary weapon coated in similar darkness as Xander, Siegfried didn’t have an ominous aura – not like the weapon Father had given to Corrin all those months ago and which had killed the Queen of Hoshido.

Xander supposed Hoshidans might hold a different opinion on his weapon, given that they were the ones taking the brute of Siegfried’s enhanced attacks. Had been, Xander corrected himself. Xander, too, had once feared the weapon that now sat comfortably in his palm.

Xander rolled his shoulders, the tension in them as severe as ever. Camilla kept telling him to invest in a good massage session one of these days, but…

“Prince Ryoma,” he said in a mellow tone to the onlooker, who had appeared on the side of the field moments ago with a quiet similar to the ninjas that worked as the Hoshidan prince’s retainers. “Came to evaluate my fighting ability, have you?”

Xander frowned slightly at himself, but turned to glance at Ryoma’s standing figure against the dark greenery of the forest. Ryoma held one of his cautious, closed-off expressions Xander had seen on his own reflection rather often, but there was an undercurrent of mistrust evident in Ryoma’s stance, in the way Ryoma’s hand rested on Raijinto. It might have been subconscious. Prince Ryoma had been as determined as Xander about the deal; personal feelings would only act as a hindrance.

“Ah, well. You could say so.”  Ryoma peered at him from beneath the armor framing his face and holding back his wild mane of hair. Ryoma had proposed the alliance himself, but Xander didn’t take him for a fool that blindly trusted people who had deceived Corrin for so long. Even though none of them had had a choice in the matter either. Xander clenched his jaw, the muscles going taut.

It was annoying to be in a situation that was out of his hands.

“You seem rather frustrated, Prince Xander,” Ryoma continued, “so would you not rather have a friendly sparring match to alleviate whatever is bothering you?”

The attempt at playing nice hung in the air for the next few bats of eye lashes that Xander gave, but eventually he acquiesced with a nod as he recalled their first meeting on battlefield, against each other, when Ryoma had exercised great acrobatic ability by jumping up horses and soldiers. Later on Elise had even giggled about it – oh, the naivete of youth; so endearing, yet so dangerous in times like these.

Xander relaxed his shoulders with another sigh as Ryoma stepped up to the field – a clearing, lined with trees – and unsheathed Raijinto.

Xander had caught glimpses of its power in the past few battles they fought together, although not up close; Corrin, ever thoughtful, had dutifully kept the two princes apart in her strategies and often paired them up with their respective siblings.

Ryoma’s movements exuded power in every sense of the word – Raijinto breathed out sparks in the air as Ryoma pulled the famed blade out – and Ryoma’s heavily armored body was the very definition of strength. It was easy to guess Ryoma had, like Xander, spent countless hours training himself under the Hoshidan sun and sky.

Xander shifted into a defensive position, feeling somewhat awkward without his horse beneath him – but no time like the present to train for every possible scenario, he supposed.

Things escalated from there fast, both of them warmed up and raring to go at it. Ryoma was as flexible as Xander remembered, jumping around like those monkeys Xander remembered seeing on Hoshidan territory the few times he had been over the border. It would have been funny if letting his guard down wouldn’t get him skewered and killed by Raijinto. 

Neither of them used their long-distance attacks; neither really needed to.

But it made the exchange of blows that more intimate, their eyes connected to each other as they twirled and struck their swords at each other. The clash of eternal metal forged by one dragon long ago and the surge of magical energy made the air crackle and tense.

Prince Ryoma’s blade spoke of anger, of loss and of healing, even as Raijinto’s wielder shielded his emotions away from his face.

Xander wasn’t entirely sure what his own blade revealed of himself, but he hoped he could at least contain his innermost hesitance and keep it to himself as he blocked the Hoshidan prince’s blow and side-stepped in the next moment, bending his knees when Ryoma swung Raijinto towards his chest plates. He just about managed to duck low enough for the blade to miss its target before he sent a kick at Ryoma’s feet.

Ryoma’s leap to the side was as impressive as ever, if not a little overdramatic, Xander observed coolly, his mind and body somewhat detached from each other as he returned to his offensive stance with Siegfried pulled out and pointed at Ryoma and Raijinto. The sweat beneath his armor was a nasty company at this point, but the accompanying burn in his muscles was pleasant and gave Xander the peace of mind he had been looking for.

There was nothing but him, Ryoma, their legendary weapons, and the strange energy that prickled at the air like electricity during a thunder storm.

Their eyes met, not that they had really strayed throughout the match. Ryoma’s gray irises glinted, the seriousness in them reminiscent of the past, of Xander’s recent dream. Xander could see hints of that child in Ryoma; hopefully the same didn’t apply to him.

Xander exhaled, bringing Siegfried down as he glanced at the small crowd of people that had gathered on the side of the clearing, all watching him and Ryoma. A considerable size, a considerable mix of both Hoshidans and Nohrians. “Perhaps that was enough for the time being, Prince Ryoma?”

Ryoma’s Raijinto went down in an exaggerated swirl as the Hoshidan prince sheathed it, the tension on his face melting away just enough for the smile to be visible in his eyes.

Xander felt his own frown ease into a more relaxed, if not just as blank, expression.

Ryoma nodded, hands pressed up at the back of his neck to ease to probable stiffness. “Indeed – as spontaneous as it was, it went quite well. Perhaps we should make this a habit, if you wish it, Prince Xander.”

Amongst the crowd were both their siblings and Corrin, who was difficult to include in either set of siblings without it being unfair to anyone. Even though Xander kept his eye on the other prince, he could sense the joy and relief Corrin’s face must reflect at her two big brothers sparring together in a not obviously hostile match.

Although they hadn’t settled for wooden weapons –  so perhaps it was not so subtle as that.

Xander allowed a polite smile to pull his lips up, genuine enough, and his words reflected it. “It would be a pleasure.”

The headache made its return during dinnertime in the mess hall where people from both armies had gathered, still segregated into their own groups and with an obvious distance between the Nohrians and the Hoshidans. Xander usually preferred a late dinner at a time when no one else, save perhaps his siblings, was eating, but sometimes he couldn’t help it.

Today, it had been Elise who wanted a meal together at a full mess hall, and while Xander exercised great mental fortitude most times, Elise drove a hard bargain like a natural diplomat.

And, well, he had missed her, but that was unrelated.

Camilla and Leo joined them, both surprised to find Xander with the youngest sibling but not about to complain, not even about Xander’s emotionally distant ways. It had been a while since they had all shared a meal, despite their reunion in the army having taken place several days, approaching weeks, ago already.

It was Hoshido’s turn in the kitchen this time, though Xander wasn’t sure who exactly had prepared the food. Neither did he know what the meal consisted of, for that matter; Hoshidans seemed to have inherent preference for vegetable-based cuisine whereas Nohrian royals had been fed vastly different meals.

Nevertheless, Xander didn’t know what to make of the meal before him (he had scooped a rather good amount of it, despite not having the foggiest idea) but given the dry food packets he would be eating anywhere else at any other time, he was willing to test his limits.

Even Corrin came around that time, and she was notorious for not eating properly or at most random intervals of time. Xander tried to wave her to join with the rest of her siblings, but…

“She seems to enjoy the Hoshidan company quite a lot,” Leo observed, catching the words right off the tip of Xander’s tongue.  Leo’s tone was sour, but his face carefully blank save for the dips of a frown around his eyes.  Xander might be imagining things, but it seemed like Leo’s eyes lingered on the second prince of Hoshido more than their shared sister.

“They are her birth family,” Xander said at length, even though he shared parts of Leo’s sentiment. “They need time to reconcile with their separation.”

“Sweetheart,” Camilla added in, stroking at Leo’s hair much to the mage’s chagrin, “she stills thinks of you as family, too.”

Elise, her innocence and kindness be blessed, wasn’t anywhere as bothered as the rest of her siblings, although that might be because she had few qualms about loudly requesting Corrin’s attention onto herself when she wanted it. More often than not, she was successful at it.

“Mmm, this is really, really good!” was her only proclamation, and of course it was off the topic the rest of her siblings had been mulling over. “Leo, if you’re not gonna eat yours, I’ll do it for you.”

“Elise, darling, you’re going to ruin your clothes if you keep eating this way. Use the knife like this—“ Camilla’s voice was drowned out by an indignant huff from Leo as he scooped up some of the vegetable-rice mixture.

Xander’s eyes lingered on the table the Hoshidan royals occupied, mostly on the way Ryoma and Corrin talked with each other. Ryoma’s mouth had turned upwards at some point, showing off almost toothy smile that made the high prince look a few years younger than what he was. Having one load off his shoulders made the Hoshidan appear warmer, like he was Hoshido himself.

Corrin was smiling too, looking lighter than what Xander had seen of her recently. There had been a lot on her slender shoulders, a weight that could have crushed anyone, and yet she had pulled through, remaining firm in her beliefs, and in doing so had achieved the impossible – a Nohrian-Hoshidan alliance.

Xander was glad to see the burden hadn’t extinguished the bright light of life from Corrin’s face. The little princess he remembered, the sleepy child the servants from the Ice Tribe had to use their powers to wake up, was still – not completely there, but not gone like had feared when she hadn’t chosen Nohr over Hoshido.

Things were setting themselves right, what with Corrin and her blood family finding time to know each other again, and Xander could respect that, even though he found himself worrying even more about all sorts of nonsensical things in relation to Corrin, much like Camilla, although Xander liked to think he was… moderate when it came to his anxiety over Corrin’s well-being.

Ryoma’s gaze shifted just as Xander mulled over these thoughts, their eyes meeting. Their tables were just far enough for Xander to not see the warm foggy gray of Ryoma’s eyes, but nothing could hide the slanted smile that could be interpreted as a smirk if it wasn’t for the timing.

Perhaps their one-time sparring match hadn’t gone to waste, if it enabled Ryoma to smile at him that way, Xander mused as he forked down more of the Hoshidan meal, tasting spices that could only be imported to Nohr.

It got worse immediately after he had made it to his private quarters with no discernible reason to why his temples felt like collapsing in on him. Not that migraines were incredibly rare for him – he had gotten them often when he had been younger and less like the man he was today.

Perhaps stress was catching up to him. Wouldn’t be the first time, and the recent times had been incredibly stressful anyhow.

Xander peeled his armor off one piece at a time, setting each piece carefully down before proceeding further. Usually he would have Laslow or Peri help him, as undressing the armor alone was an arduous task, but for tonight Xander preferred to do it himself, even though his fingers fumbled more than usual.

Prince Ryoma being on his mind might have played a part in his restlessness, though Xander would rather not credit the other prince too much for his troubled feeling. Ryoma wasn’t as confrontational as before, possibly due to their fragile alliance and Corrin, so Xander would play his part, too.

The sparring had put him at ease regarding one thing, at least – Ryoma was willing to adapt to the Nohrian tactics more now.

Xander heaved out a sigh once he finished with the armor, moving a hand over his stiff shoulder to rub at it as he prepared the cot for the night. The astral realm could certain provide proper housing and even beds, as Corrin’s tree house proved, but there was little need for such accommodations in the midst of a war against the true enemy. Comfort could come later.

He lay down on the cot soon after stripping out of his remaining clothes, the simple and thin undershirt and pants. He did not sleep in the nude often, but tonight the astral realm’s air lay heavy and hot, suffocating even, and there was little to do but to take the underclothes off.

Sleep came surprisingly easily once Xander lay down on his side, back turned to the tent’s opening, and his dreams quickly took the familiar route to the past.

A teenaged Ryoma, a similarly aged Xander with anxiously clasped hands, and their fathers in the tension-filled council room of Castle Krakenburg – the perfect scenario if one wished to witness court drama at its finest. Nohrian nobles seemed to enjoy it: the tenser the situation, the more they thrived off on it. Like the leeches at the pond Xander once fell into.

Prince Ryoma, seated beside his father, didn’t speak up but his eyes followed the conversation, his attention shifting between speakers – most often between his and Xander’s fathers.

Xander found himself looking at Ryoma more often than not while the nobles from both sides kept up idle conversation saddled with veiled insults and insinuations. Xander knew it was part of the game – which was only one of the reasons he found his position intimidating and ill-fitting – but the knowledge didn’t cease his unease.

So Xander settled for observing the high prince of Hoshido, and his round cheeks and hair that had been pulled into a ponytail. It was nowhere near the length of King Sumeragi’s, but it was obvious the prince was attempting to grow it out. The long, untangled curls of hair that slipped down to frame Ryoma’s face fascinated Xander, but not as much as the sharp but passively observant look reflected in Ryoma’s brown eyes.

There was more courage in those eyes than in the whole of Xander.

Xander glanced up at his father’s stern profile from his seat, and then at Iago’s on his other side. Both men were terrifying, though Iago considerably more so when he ended up making a fool of himself by stating something incredibly false that even children knew to be so.

It was in the midst of Sumeragi and Garon arguing over something petty – it was hardly calm, despite their polite tones and fake smiles – that Prince Ryoma’s gaze met with Xander’s, and something like recognition lit the high prince’s face up like the fireworks Xander had seen on his birthday night.

And he smiled, he smiled at Xander, friendlier than anyone had been in Castle Krakenburg for some time, and Xander’s mouth lifted in return.

But the smile vanished the next instant, when Father’s hand descended on his shoulder, almost absentmindedly, and Xander looked up to see Father’s disapproving gaze, the lines of his face hard and deep.

It was the face that Father used when he was disappointed in him; the one that didn’t require any words to make Xander feel even weaker and helpless amidst everything that went on.

Father, why—

Xander was woken up by Laslow’s hands shaking him firmly but kindly.

“Milord, milord,” he was saying as Xander’s eyes fluttered open, much heavier than normal, with Father’s disapproving gaze cutting his nerves open as he woke up.

Laslow looked flushed, perhaps from running, and his eyes were downcast even as he shook Xander awake. “There are intruders—broken into the castle area— Lady Corrin sent to wake you—“

Xander, as sleepy as he previously had been, immediately pulled himself up, ignoring Laslow’s startled exclamation. The two words intruders and Corrin worked their magic: Xander rushed to pull clothes on under Laslow’s gaze, although the retainer seemed rather flustered as he did so.

“The current situation?” he prompted as he finished dressing his undergarments as well as the thin pieces of clothing that would bear the uncomfortable temperatures of metal for him. “Help me into my armor, so we can get out faster.”

At least Siegfried was within touching distance. He held onto it when he perhaps shouldn’t out of strict paranoia – a habit Father had instilled in him soon after he had started to run a tyranny – and, well, he couldn’t sleep well without it anymore.

Men were all creatures of habit.

Laslow cleared his throat, sounding much more alert than Xander felt for once. “Vallites, it seems, from the western side, where the ore spring and, ah, the fields are. A few statues have been destroyed – that’s what I woke up to, anyway. I don’t think milord’s statue, however, suffered any harm yet…”

Xander waved the last comment off impatiently as he started putting on his armor, starting with his leg plates. “That’s not important. Any injured, do you know?”

“I believe one of the Hoshidan royals may have been caught off guard, but I’m not entirely sure.” Laslow sounded apologetic, at the very least, as he finally moved to help Xander into the larger pieces of the black armor. “Peri’s out there assisting Lady Corrin, though she was anxious to see you safe, milord.”

Xander hummed his acknowledgement as he stood up for Laslow to latch the chest plate on, but his mind lingered on the dream and the surprisingly serious face of much younger Prince Ryoma, who was almost a miniature version of his father. In the dream, at least.

The headache, or the beginning of a migraine, hadn’t gone away entirely in the few hours he had slept, but the promise of action and the threat to the army was enough to distract Xander from the uncomfortable aches that followed.

Laslow did a good job too, as usual.

“Milord,” the retainer began, his tone a touch more playful than what was appropriate between a lord and his retainer, “has anyone told you that you look absolutely ravishing after being woken up?”

“Laslow,” Xander said and Laslow quieted down, but not without a nervous chuckle.

“Just joking around, Lord Xander.”

King Garon’s face loomed in the back of his mind even as he gathered himself and rode on Sieg, his loyal stallion, to the battle. With a bad taste in his mouth as always, Xander pushed himself to where Corrin and the others had gathered, the princess of both nations already handing out commands to the rest whom had gathered at the front of the Records Hall.

Laslow rode with him, clinging tightly onto Xander as he was much less accustomed to horseback as far as Xander knew.

Sounds of fighting had already begun to fill the air, and amidst them, Prince Ryoma’s enraged war cries were the loudest.

Corrin’s worn-out face lit up the moment she saw Xander and Laslow.

“Big brother! Just in time. Ryoma already rushed in—“  she sighed, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe him (but it was a resigned sigh: she seemed to realize there was no stopping him in the first place), before lifting her gaze up to meet Xander’s in the flickering light of the torches set up at the front of the buildings. The plead in her eyes was echoed by the urgent tone of her voice. “Please, help him, Xander!”

Xander eyed the rest of the group, took in the haggard appearances, before his eyes settled down.

Prince Takumi lay on the stones of the Hoshidan-style square, his eyes screwed shut and breaths shallow as the youngest princesses of each kingdom worked on him with their respective healing magics.

The prince still had enough breath on him to tell Elise to not touch him with that grouchy late-teen voice of his, but Elise would not budge from Princess Sakura’s side. Xander smiled at the sight of his youngest sibling before nodding at Corrin’s request.

“How many intruders?” he questioned, feeling Laslow curl his arms around him again with no intention of letting go yet.

“I’m not—entirely sure.” Corrin curled her lips, looking sheepish before her eyes wandered to Takumi once again, concern replacing any other emotions on her face.

Xander suppressed a sigh. “I suppose Prince Ryoma has at least his retainers with him?”

“Oh yes,” Laslow said behind him, arms loose around Xander’s armored midriff. “I believe the scruffy one harrumphed and followed him into the night.”

“Yeah, Saizo did that,” Corrin agreed as more people gathered. “Anyway, please find him… them, and bring them back so they’ll actually have a healer with them next time. Also let him know Takumi’s going to be alright.”

“My hair isn’t,” Takumi’s raspy response startled them, but in the next moment they all chuckled at the Hoshidan prince’s commentary. Sakura’s exhausted face twisted into a small smile that Xander could barely see under the flickering shadows, and her quiet relief set Xander into action.

The torches scattered here and there gave a good amount of light to direct Sieg’s steps, although the horse seemed unusually agitated by the sounds of fighting. His ears twitched, his breathing heavy, and Xander made a mental note to let him rest more with the other horses and pegasi soon. Perhaps Sieg was lonely, being so often separated from company.

Laslow shifted behind him, presumably unsheathing a weapon if the quiet sound accompanying Laslow’s movement was anything to go by. Xander didn’t turn to look. “I won’t stop to pick you up if you fall.”

“Of course not, milord,” Laslow agreed.

Somewhere farther ahead, they could hear Peri’s telltale shriek of celebration for impaling someone. Both of them flinched before smiling, as per usual.

It wasn’t that difficult to find Ryoma, even though the Hoshidan prince had wandered off farther away than Xander had initially estimated. But Raijinto’s sparks of electricity combined with Ryoma’s Time to die! yells were not conspicuous in the least, and so Xander arrived just in time to fend off an attack about to strike Prince Ryoma’s retainers.

In the darkness of night with little light save for the moon and the torches, Ryoma could very well be one of those nightmares children worried lay under their beds. Stealth might be lost on Ryoma, but one didn’t need to be stealthy to wreak havoc and strike a lasting impression on enemies. The poor lighting did wonders for Ryoma’s intimidation: the spiky ends of his hair looked sharper, more demonic in that Nohrian fairytale sort of way that Ryoma would probably hate, and the lightning sparks of Raijinto did nothing to lessen the thunder god impression.

Saizo, the red-haired ninja with a temper, did not appreciate Xander blocking the sword, as his unusually loud grunt suggested, but said nothing to protest. There was no time, really, since more Vallites came rushing in from the bushes.

“Milord,” Laslow’s voice was barely audible over the sounds of weapons clashing, “I’m jumping off.”

Xander grunted in acknowledgement, inaudible over the chaos, but Laslow was already gone, the pressure from his arms vanishing like it had never been there. The removal of extra weight relieved Sieg, and Xander steered him to dodge an oncoming blow from one of the swordsmen.

It was difficult to observe them in sunlight, even harder in the post-midnight darkness, but war had its ways of teaching everyone to pay attention and to predict the attacks that might be coming. It was a lesson Xander had learned before, when Laslow and Peri hadn’t been there and when he had failed his retainers in the worst way a liege possibly could.

It was an old wound, a scar now, but Xander couldn’t forget.

Even with the remaining migraine and pulsating pain behind his eyes, it was disconcertingly easy to fall into the rhythm of battle, to dodge and to strike and to yell about the glory of Nohr even though Nohr’s glory days were long gone and harder to restore than killing people… undead or not.

Ryoma’s loud voice echoed the sentiment, though for Hoshido and not for Nohr, and it sounded like it came much closer than anticipated.

Xander cast a fleeting glance at his side as he pulled Siegfried out of a barely armored chest, face stoic even as his ears registered the wet squelch of flesh. Ryoma was there, and Xander felt marginally less ill with himself as Raijinto’s blade cut another down and sent sparks flying.

“Prince Takumi is going to be all right,” Xander managed to tell him when the worst of the onslaught of enemies calmed in their direction, not that there had been terribly many to begin with. Enough to be troublesome, but not enough to take either of them down.  “It looked worse than what it was.”

Ryoma wiped at his face, but the glistening sweat lingered as he turned towards Xander. His facial armor kept his hair back, but Xander could almost see strays of hair falling to Ryoma’s face – or perhaps, that too was a memory long-forgotten.

Ryoma’s face relaxed with relief. “That’s good news, at least.”

It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was something. Xander nodded. “Corrin worried about you, you know.”

If his complaint was audible in his voice, Ryoma certainly didn’t pay any mind to it. “I tend to lose my head when my sibling’s safety comes into question, Prince Xander. I’m sure you of all people know what that’s like.”

Xander recalled the sinking anger and betrayal in his gut when Corrin had decided to not ally with either pair of siblings; remembered pointing a sword at Corrin and declaring sentiments he did not truly mean but which seemed right in the heat of the moment.

Xander’s heart sank again.

You are you father’s son, Rainbow Sage’s words from years ago echoed, and Xander’s throat choked up and failed in responding to Ryoma.

“Prince Xander?”

Xander blinked, refocusing his gaze on the other prince. Bad time for bad thoughts, he reminded himself. There was a right time for them, but now was definitely not it.

“Yes,” he said, even though the ghost of his father lingered over his shoulders as always. He could almost feel its fingers on him – the cold, metaphorical touch of regret and pressure. “I do understand you in that regard.”

Once he laid his head down on a flat pillow again, Xander found that he could not sleep. Unfortunate considering the long march they had ahead of them in the hostile land of Anankos, so Xander pulled himself up again and dressed himself up. Not in his armor, but into the few casual articles of clothes he had stored away into the astral realm along the way.

The stars were still out on the sky even in a plane of existence different from their original one, and Xander thought he could even see the Northern Star somewhere.

The castle grounds had fallen silent after most soldiers had gone back into their tents or other temporary housing. Corrin was up and about, though, which surprised Xander a little bit – little princess had always loved her sleep.

Not that he was displeased to find her. Quite the contrary.

He sat down beside her at the spring, in which one could see mineral stones shimmering at the bottom if the light shone on it from the right angle. As it was, it simply looked like a regular forest spring, and Corrin was dipping her feet into it, smiling slightly as Xander settled beside her.

Xander hadn’t spent much time alone with her outside of training, not even when she had still lived in Nohr, locked up in the Northern Fortress according to Father’s command. It was one of those regrets that could keep him up at night if he were to think about it.

(He had regained the habit of regret, recently.)

They sat in silence for a while, Corrin’s hand laid over his and him not pulling away from the touch.

It took a while, but eventually Corrin cleared her throat and splashed water with her bare feet. “I’m glad we’re all beginning to trust each other on the battlefield, if nowhere else.”

“It’s all thanks to you, little princess,” Xander said, a smile tugging at his mouth though he didn’t let it spread. “It’s astonishing, really, how bitter enemies ally themselves for your cause.”

Corrin’s eyes twinkled much like the stars on cold Nohrian nights. “You give me too much credit. Ryoma, too.”

Xander huffed, but he couldn’t say he was irritated of sharing similarities with the other prince. At the beginning, yes, but things had taken a wild turn somewhere since then. “As your brothers, we would know your charisma, wouldn’t we?”

Corrin’s eyes glistened, the red of her irises even redder under the pale moonlight. She wriggled her fingers against his until Xander took her hand. “That’s kind of you to say, but I haven’t been able to do anything remarkable yet – and the mistrust still exists. Takumi—“

Ah yes, prince Takumi, the younger prince of Hoshido, and the one Leo seemed to have taken most issue with despite (or because of) their similarities. Whenever they crossed paths, they would sneer at each other or at the other’s back, but it was no use hiding the fact that they enjoyed each other’s company whenever they did things together.

Xander couldn’t vouch for the young man’s personality, but he had seen those archer’s arms in action – certainly capable, certainly a relief to have on their side rather than on the opposite one. (Not only because of Camilla and her wyvern and all the tears that would ensue if her companion were to die from a well-aimed arrow from a lionhearted prince.)

“Trust takes time, little princess – just because you are willing to extend a hand of trust even to strangers,” Xander said, thinking of Shura and Nyx in particular, “doesn’t mean most others are.”

Corrin sighed – a troubled, worried sound. “Still…”

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Xander said. “Leave that to your siblings – both sets of them.”

Sharing Corrin would always feel strange, he thought as he squeezed Corrin’s hand. But it wasn’t his place to reject it.

He glanced at her, and her smile was blinding. Bizarrely, it reminded him of Elise.

The look of relief on Corrin’s face made Xander’s shoulders feel lighter, like some of his burden had been taken away by that single grateful smile of Corrin.

His little sister was good at that, even when she didn’t realize she was doing it.

A couple days later, Xander had the time to sit down and watch the youngest prince of Hoshido train with his sacred weapon. Fumin Yuji, if Xander remembered right – the name didn’t fit his mouth nor his language, but it was awe-inspiring nevertheless.

Takumi set up the targets on his own unless his retainers insisted on doing it for him – and they insisted often, Xander figured as he watched them fuss over Takumi, who shooed them away with a flustered flick of his wrist. Even from this distance, Xander would tell the young prince was embarrassed by the affection.

Once the retainers step aside and go resume their own things (the lancer lady of the duo cast a stare in Xander’s direction, which might or might not have been even more hostile than Takumi’s general behavior), Takumi relaxed and brought up his bow.

Takumi was fast with bow and arrow in the heat of the battle, but he took his time while training. Xander had watched archers before – Takumi’s position wasn’t much different from them, but it was enough to distinguish him as the best archer in the army.

Xander had to pay attention to things like these. Xander had been groomed into noticing things like these by and through war.

But— assessment wasn’t his intention, no, even though he was impressed when Takumi released an arrow he had been holding and setting for a while now. Bullseye, right on the first shot. Takumi didn’t seem impressed with himself as his shoulders slugged and his hands picked out a new arrow.

The injury certainly hadn’t slowed him down, Xander mused, his brow furrowing. He thought back on Leo, Leo’s own insecurities, Leo’s own impatience with himself, and sighed. Leo was, at least, starting to grow out of rushing through recuperation period.

Takumi eventually halted, dropping his arms to his sides, and glanced in Xander’s direction for the first time. Xander gave a small, awkward wave, and Takumi’s low groan was audible enough response.

“What is it?” What do YOU want, was what Xander heard through Takumi’s barely veiled irritation. He only bothered with politeness since Xander was the crown prince – he had heard Takumi use much more forceful tone with Leo or even Camilla.

“Nothing in particular, Prince Takumi,” Xander said. “I happen to enjoy watching archers practice, especially if the archer is as skilled as you.”

He could, however, name a few areas where Takumi could better himself – mainly patience, as formidable as it already was with his bow, and not letting himself get distracted.

Takumi scowled. “Empty flattery will get you nowhere, even if you’re royalty.”

Xander shook his head. “I don’t dish out compliments for those who don’t deserve it. And I certainly do not have the obligation to do so for you, either. Take it however you like.”

Takumi’s scowl eased, just a little, before he sighed. A drop of sweat lingered just above his brows, slowly trickling down the flushed skin. Perhaps the injury still showed, after all. “Must be because your archers are shitty, right? I’ve seen Prince Leo’s retainer handling a bow.”

Well, that was admirably straightforward of him. Xander’s mouth curled upwards. “Leo vouches for his skill, but if you’re unconvinced, feel free to test it out.”

Takumi’s eyes flashed. Xander bit back a smile. He really was like Leo in this aspect too. “Perhaps I will, Prince Xander. Perhaps I will.”

Out of all the opening lines Xander could have expected Ryoma to use when he sat down at Xander’s table in the mess hall, “were you flirting with my brother before” was not one of them.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying,” Ryoma continued, and his lips pulled into an amused smile that showed he was joking, “but I think he’s a little young for you.”

Xander hadn’t yet had a sip of his tea, thankfully, and so he only nearly choked on his tongue instead of burning his throat and nostrils.

“I wasn’t.” If sounding calm and collected was his goal, he failed miserably as he struggled with his words. “Corrin and I had a talk some nights about how he still has issues with us from Nohr. I was checking up on him from that point of view. Although I must admit I find it sad he seems to harbor similar issues as my brother.”

“Ah, yes.” Ryoma sobered as he folded his legs beneath the table, stroking at the back of a porcelain cup with his fingers. “He’s incredibly stubborn in that regard, although he’s starting to melt around the edges. Common enemies would do that to even to the sturdiest of hearts at some point.”

“Speaking of sturdy hearts,” Xander said, “what about you, Prince Ryoma?”

Ryoma raised his brows at Xander’s change in topic, before his lips curve into a crooked grin. “Are you asking whether I trust you, Prince Xander?”

“Responding to a question with another question,” Xander said wryly. “I see.”

The mess hall was quiet this afternoon, hardly anyone around besides them. Which was fine; Xander appreciated the quiet over the rambunctiousness of the army of two kingdoms. The sunlight of late afternoon trickled in and highlighted Ryoma’s strong facial features and the surprisingly soft curve of his nose – yes, Xander thought, a fine sight indeed.

Ryoma’s laughter startled him away from observing the face before him. “I don’t fight side by side with anyone I do not consider trustworthy – and Corrin knows that. Why do you imagine she has been pairing us off in the past couple of battles?”

Xander snorted. “She can be rather forceful when she wants people to get along.”

“You really insist on having me spell it out?” Ryoma’s smile widened, somewhat bemused but amused at the same time. “I trust you, Prince Xander. Gods help me, I even like you as a person, no matter how little I’ve seen you outside the princely duty.”

“It’s nice to have the confirmation, at least,” Xander said, half a smile tugging at his mouth as well. He took a sip from his tea, the heat of it burning at his throat pleasantly but not more than the feeling Ryoma’s words had drawn up in him. “It gives me hope for future that you don’t find my company completely and irreversibly loathsome.”

“I’d like to say I feel the same,” Ryoma said, “but you have yet to confirm your feelings on the matter. On me.”

What is this, one of Camilla’s romantic novels where romance is mostly a disguise for poorly written tryst?

Xander chuckled, leaning his cheek against the palm of his hand that wasn’t busy with the tea cup. He could keep his feelings to himself, but at this point it would be more counterproductive than anything else. Might as well lay his cards out, so to speak.

Though perhaps he shouldn’t mention that he had been dreaming of Ryoma disconcertingly often in the past weeks. That would be too big a liberty to take yet.

“You have won me over, as well,” Xander said, the confession solemn in his mouth, like he was confessing breaking a plate to the staff of Krakenburg’s kitchens. His lips didn’t try to twitch it up into a smile at Ryoma’s softening features, which reminded Xander of a younger Ryoma, once upon a time wandering in Castle Krakenburg. Absolutely not. “My… complaints about Corrin and her guards aside, you have only done us good throughout this alliance, regardless of the mixed emotions on both our sides.”

“Won you over, eh?” Ryoma’s laughter was contagious, but Xander reined it in and settled for a quirk of his lips before sipping at his tea once more. Gods, he was thirsty all of a sudden. “Hearing that pleases me very much; truly shows how far we’ve come since all those weeks ago.”

And, gods, Xander’s heart, somewhere underneath the metaphorical armor he kept it wrapped up in, swelled at that – as if Ryoma’s answer could have been anything but diplomatic and polite, although tinged with warmth that might not be entirely appropriate for business such as theirs.

Perhaps some part of him, the part that he didn’t want to listen to, wondered if they could have saved each other from a lot of heartache if they had pursued a friendship before everything went to, ehem, hell.

Somehow, the next week’s top rumor in both sections of the army was: is Prince Xander trying to seduce Prince Ryoma into his bed?

The rumor made its way through the castle grounds like a forest fire, and there were people vehemently for it and people vehemently against it. The defenders of the rumor’s accuracy said, “Well, I mean, where else would Princess Camilla get her flirtatious ways from?”

These people forcibly ignored King Garon’s womanizing, both out of ignorance and willfulness to not think about it.

These rumors made their way to the ever vigilant leader of the army, and they made her smile because Corrin was nothing if not absolutely supportive of her big brothers and whatever their developing relationship was.

Needless to say, everyone started reading deeply into every interaction princes Ryoma and Xander had in public.

Leo grimaced as he pressed the palm of his hand against his temple, feeling the headache growing stronger with each passing murmur about Prince Xander and his tantalizing seduction. There were many things Leo could tolerate – many more things he had been forced to tolerate – but this… this was worse than Odin after that one incident with mushrooms.

“A headache, my lord?” Ah, there was another source of his headache: Niles. “Shall I prepare blankets for a naptime?”

“I’m not a child,” Leo retorted, flicking his hand at Niles in a shoo-shoo gesture. “I’d be more at peace without these… rumors buzzing around, is all.”

Niles’s smile was unsettling at best, and yet Leo found it almost endearing. Ugh. Getting attached to people outside of his siblings? Imagine that. “There are plenty of rumors, milord, but I presume you mean the one about Lord Xander and his, hm, renowned seduction skills?”

“Please, my brother couldn’t seduce an earthworm if he tried,” Leo scoffed, and Niles laughed. If there was one thing Leo appreciated in Niles, it was that he didn’t shy away from offering true companionship to Leo even as his retainer.

Odin, across from them both, sighed. Heavy-lidded and uncharacteristically glum, Odin crossed his arms and nodded to himself. “A tragedy most tragic has indeed befallen upon my dearest comrade from these disconcerting news – such cruel fates do gods play.”

“A tragedy most tragic,” Niles repeated snidely.

Odin narrowed his eyes at him, lips curling slightly. “Dramatic words failed me, as words often do.”

“Niles, play nice,” Leo chastised the other. “Do recall the shroom incident.”

“Oh, I am recalling it.” Niles’s mouth twisted into another smile – or whatever the expression was supposed to be. “It makes me wonder if he’s not high on questionable forest product all the time.”

Leo snorted, though he kept an eye on Odin, who was still uncharacteristically silent. “Who’s that friend of yours, Odin? The one with the, ah, tragedy most tragic.”

He could only think of two people outside of Niles and himself with whom Odin liked to spend time.

Odin grimaced, waving a hand as if to shoo away any irritating thoughts before parting his lips for yet another melodramatic piece of dialogue. “My lips are sealed! Such a reveal of character is unfit to this part of the tragic play of our lives.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Well, if it’s of any comfort to your friend, the brother I know isn’t exactly capable of seducing even any of the lower lifeforms. They can rest in peace.”

“When’s the funeral?” Niles inquired of Odin, who snorted and pushed at Niles’s shoulder unconvincingly. Leo smiled, softer than in a while, before chortling at Odin and Niles’s ensuing argument regarding funeral arrangements for someone who passed on due to heartache.

Leo tried to not look at over his shoulder, where he would see Xander and Prince Ryoma enjoying lunch together with each other – and Xander’s almost-smile that softened his stoic features.

He did not need to see that.

The seasons didn’t change in Valla like in the outside world. Disorienting in its evergreen state, the kingdom of Valla was playing with their minds as much as its ruler. The scent of pollen hung heavily in air, and those with allergies (Elise, Leo, Takumi, some others) suffered greatly and carried numerous handkerchiefs  on their persons at all times.

Even so, it didn’t stop Takumi from taking part on the casually thrown-in archery competition where the prizes were pride and dignity rather than anything material.

And Takumi did love proving Nohrians wrong whenever possible; petty as it was, his anger had devolved into a sense of rivalry and a begrudging friendship with the younger prince of Nohr. Gods, did he love to prove Leo wrong at any chance.

Some might argue that he just wanted to impress the other, but Takumi knew better.

Still, it was harder to argue against that when Takumi whipped his head towards the audience gathered around the field and attempted to find Leo amid the people so that he could give a righteously smug grin and to witness the hopefully baffled face Leo would be making at twenty bullseyes and five near-bullseyes.

For the record (and in the faces of all the disbelievers), he achieved it without Fujin Yumi. Shit, he hadn’t believed in it himself.

Niles, Leo’s retainer, would be the first to congratulate him by coming uncomfortably close and smiling just as disconcertingly as ever, which Takumi mused might just be Niles learning from his master. He had seen Leo smile before – it was unsettling, in the way it made Takumi’s insides coil.

Ugh, where was Leo?

“A little more to the right, Prince Takumi,” Niles, by his side, said (un)helpfully. Takumi scowled, mostly out of reflex, before adjusting the angle of his gaze.

Unfortunately, his eyes found Ryoma and Prince Xander before anyone else. Ryoma wasn’t looking at Takumi – what a surprise, Takumi thought bitterly – but whispering something at Xander, who in turn was watching Takumi and offered a wave of his hand before saying something back to Ryoma. He was smiling, Takumi could tell, which was mind-numbing itself.

Takumi quickly looked away, chilled to the bone by the happy picture of the two oldest princes and Azura, who was smiling at Takumi’s reactions by the older princes’ side.

Leo was stuck between his older sister and Corrin, in his armor and cape that made him look like the dark lords from the more fantastical books Takumi used to read before the war. Leo’s nose was wrinkled in distaste, probably at something Corrin and Camilla were saying, until his and Takumi’s eyes met.

Takumi’s sweaty fingers curled around the bow, clutching at the wood hard.

Leo smiled.

Takumi’s mind went numb.

Niles’s laughter was as disturbing as his smiles.

Camilla brought it up with Xander afterward, both because she loved to tease her big brother like that but also because, well, she was curious.

“That Prince Takumi,” Camilla started as she went into Xander’s tent, unannounced but unfortunately not walking in on anything scandalous. Tsk, Xander may say it all he liked, but the war did have monopoly over his attentions.

Xander sat on his knees, back straight and turned towards the tent’s entrance, and Camilla could see the tufts of hair curling against his neck, soft and recently washed. The headpiece, the crown prince’s crown, was gone for once.

Camilla faltered at the sight of Xander’s sagging shoulders, a frown pulling at her mouth. Oh, brother.

“What about Prince Takumi?” Xander’s voice was stern as always, with an underlying worry. “I am aware how he looks at Leo, if that’s what you meant to say.”

Camilla blinked before laughing. “Ah, yes. You do look after your siblings – and even his, now, isn’t that so?”

Xander looked at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. The rustling of papers indicated he had let go of them now; Camilla’s smile widened. “Sister, what are you on about?”

“I know you’re helping Princess Sakura with something – isn’t it so?”

“Yes,” Xander said at length, the furrow between his brows deepening, “but that is because she wants to be more confident. In her own words – there’s no more efficient way to train in that than by seeking out the most intimidating person she knows.”

“And getting into Prince Ryoma’s good graces has nothing to do with it?” Camilla’s smile twisted around the edges, but she knew better than to actually believe in her own words. Xander wasn’t like certain manipulative figures in Nohr’s court. “The rumor has it you’re attempting to seduce him into your bed. Cot. Whichever.”

The startled, stunned look on Xander’s face when he turned towards her was the best one Camilla had perhaps ever witnessed on her oldest brother’s face, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep herself from cackling at it.

“Who—what—when?”

“I think you would know when you slept with him, no?” Camilla raised her eyebrows in return. Watching Xander choke up on his own tongue – now, that didn’t happen often, and that suggested there was something worth looking into.

“I have not – and I do not intend to do so,” Xander eventually managed, and it was just as unconvincing as Camilla had imagined it to be. Stern voice and eyebrows aside, Xander’s body language showed enough.  It didn’t necessarily scream I want to sleep with the Hoshidan High Prince but Camilla could read between the lines.

Xander cleared his throat. “Who is spreading this ill-intended rumor?”

“Oh, I’ll keep that piece of information to myself for now, darling. Just,” Camilla’s lips widened into another smile, “know that I and our other siblings support you in all your endeavors, no matter what.”

“Camilla, I love you more than even chamomile tea, but sometimes you worry me.”

Camilla’s giggling laughter probably did not alleviate his concerns, but what was a girl to do when her big brother was being so… charmingly oblivious?

The battles grew more intense the deeper into the Kingdom of Valla they ventured; spilling blood was inevitable, and severe injuries as much so. The bad blood between Hoshidans and Nohrians had evaporated for the time being, save for a few understandable exceptions, and Ryoma found himself more and more occupied by thoughts of the crown prince of Nohr.

The rumor that had been spreading around the army regarding Prince Xander’s intentions with him made Ryoma laugh more than anything else. That made at least one amusing thought in the pile of concerns.

As if Prince Xander had such motivations – and if he did, Ryoma couldn’t say he didn’t understand. War was hard on people; the harsh reality could drive people to each other with better success than most peace negotiations or natural disasters, even.

Sex between people of different stations, of allied nations, was not unheard of.

The most amusing thing about the rumor’s spreading was how heated people got over it, especially those on Hoshidan side, save for Ryoma’s siblings perhaps. Hinoka’s calm was understandable, her being involved with the oldest princess of Nohr and all. Sakura was… strangely taken with Prince Xander, so she would be supportive too, should the princes pursue a relationship of mutual benefit.

Takumi would take issue, probably, but he seemed to be suffering from a severe case of crushing on Prince Leo – if Ryoma had observed the situation correctly.

Regardless, if Ryoma was trying to quell the rumors, he was doing a poor job at it as he hovered at the entrance of Xander’s tent some hours after one of the more gruesome battles that had left several people bedridden. Saizo and Kagero included, as well as Prince Xander from Nohrian side.

Ryoma was about to clear his throat and request entry into the tent when he heard a feminine voice come from the inside. Not loud, but audible enough for Ryoma to catch the words.

“My Prince, I may not know you on a personal level, but I know the stories your eyes speak of. They’re not very pleasant.”

Ryoma halted, the words rousing his curiosity. He was not low enough to stoop to eavesdropping, but Xander’s long-suffering sigh didn’t allow him time to leave.

A poor excuse, that’s what it was. Ryoma halted.

“What, in the name of the dragons, are you talking about, Nyx?” Xander’s voice, usually even and on the firm side, sounded tired and cranky, biting even. Ryoma didn’t think he had heard that tone in Xander’s voice before.

“Oh, Prince Xander.” Nyx’s voice, often tinted with irritation at people who thought of her as child, was faintly concerned now. “Death is a heavy burden on one’s soul – and us who have done so much of it? Our souls shouldn’t be able to carry that burden.”

Ryoma’s conscience agreed with his mind – he really ought to leave – but his legs were one with the devil and remained still. No one around to stop him, to tell him that this was a breach of privacy.

Xander’s voice, when it next came out, was more subdued, exhausted like Ryoma had never heard it before. He had grown accustomed to the steady confidence, if not even the occasional haughtiness as well, and the rare hopefulness that would soften Xander’s vowels and make his harsh consonants less so. Ryoma liked the last one the best, personally.

Especially the accompanying smile, faint as it tended to be, that made Xander’s reddish brown eyes glow.

“Burdens are a crown prince’s duty to carry,” Xander’s voice said again, very far away from the pleasant tone Ryoma admittedly was exceedingly fond of. This one, this one was the overly formal one, meant to create distance. “Regardless of whether you’re right or wrong, Nyx, there’s nothing that will take it off from my shoulders and mind – and, frankly speaking, rightly so.”

Ryoma pressed his lips together, hands clenching as he resisted barging and telling Xander that he was wrong. As tempting as it was, it would do little to convince Xander – and most importantly it would shatter the trust they had steadily grown in each other so far.

“I don’t intend to die, as I said I have my burdens to carry,” Xander’s words brought chills to Ryoma’s spine, “it’s just that I won’t refuse it if it does come barging in.”

“Prince Xander…”

Ryoma withdrew from the tent, having had enough of eavesdropping, but he found himself at a loss in regards to what he should do next.

It was strange, feeling like something was out of his hands; even stranger to understand that Prince Xander of Nohr was, indeed, at heart more vulnerable than anything could have led Ryoma to believe.

The weights they all carried differed greatly from one person to another, between the royalty and their retainers, between the ninja and the outlaws. Some burdens were objectively larger than others, but Ryoma knew better than to underestimate the weight of perceived issues and fears.

(Just looking at Takumi confirmed it – a person could be their own worst enemy.)

Ryoma hadn’t stopped to look at Xander and what burdened him before Nyx and Xander’s conversation had brought those alive and to Ryoma’s ears. And it really wasn’t his business, he acknowledged it, but the worry gnawed at him whenever he had the extra time to mull it over.

Prince Xander’s injury hadn’t been as big a threat on his life as some had feared and so he was up and walking about, a firm frown settled over his features with no ghost of his troubles apparent on that handsome face. Ryoma’s eyes lingered on the man more often, against his own will, and Ryoma became self-conscious of it – a rare feeling after he had reached adulthood.

Sparring with Xander was the same as always, at least, though they had switched from their sacred weapons to wooden swords some time ago. A careful sequence of self-assured steps front and back, slashes of swords, and wood clanking dully against wood while sweat coated both of their skin beneath their light practice armors.

Nyx, the dark mage Corrin had taken in (as he was told), didn’t force her presence in Xander’s life, but Ryoma noticed the few times she gave the Nohrian prince thoughtful, expressionless looks.

Amid his family, Xander was as tender as possible given the work he had. Ryoma had spotted Xander reading a book with Princess Elise at one of the tables in the mess hall, the latter sitting on Xander’s lap and Xander peering over the princess’ shoulder.

The sun, coming from the right angle, made their golden hair glow like the autumn crops Mother had taken Ryoma and his siblings to look at in the past. Xander’s hair curled like plants swayed in the wind.

Ryoma saw Xander less with Camilla, because the latter spent a good time drowning the rest of the Nohrian siblings in her affection – and even Ryoma’s own, he had noted one day when he saw Camilla beckoning a reluctant Takumi. Hinoka was no surprise, what with her being Camilla’s student in sewing among other things.

But when Camilla and Xander were together, somewhere where Ryoma could see them, they looked at each other like people who knew everything about each other, the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows. That kind of bond, in Nohr, could only be forged through hardships – so Ryoma had heard.

Ryoma couldn’t afford to pay attention to them on battlefield, but outside battle their interactions became clearer, and it was easier to notice how dependent on each other Xander and Camilla were. It was in the little things, like Camilla literally dragging Xander out of his tent to have something to eat (Xander looking rattled and his hair in disarray) and in the way Xander untangled Camilla’s hair for her on occasion when she was in a particular mood.

Ryoma only saw the latter event once, but there was no room for doubt it had happened before and would happen again.

Xander and Leo sat close to each other in the war councils, and Ryoma often saw the younger prince peer at Xander as if contemplating if it was appropriate to throw in a suggestion or a comment; it reminded Ryoma of Takumi much, so much that it was strange to witness it as an outsider.  Xander, when he paid attention, would smile faintly when Leo offered particularly good input, as if saying that’s my smart little brother.

And Azura… Ryoma hadn’t actually seen them alone, but he knew it was because of Azura’s habit of withdrawing into herself rather than for lack of effort on Xander’s part.

At the surface of things, Xander looked like a man that had every chance at happiness, although the grim circumstances naturally put it on hold. The harshness of Xander’s face aside, and outside of official duties, Xander was a remarkably kind man.

Corrin had said so, too, when Ryoma had sat down to talk about Xander with her inside her richly decorated treehouse.

“He was really serious about training me,” Corrin reminisced with a soft smile and a faraway look in her eyes. They had never talked about her time in Nohr – for many reasons. But, Ryoma thought, it wouldn’t do to disregard what had made Corrin into the person she was today. A beautifully courageous individual, if not uncomfortably self-sacrificial.

“If he was as serious about it as he is about his own,” Ryoma contemplated out loud, “I can see where the foundations of your strength are.” His lips curled upwards as he sipped at the tea, a strong green brand that Takumi and Corrin both enjoyed.

Corrin hummed in agreement but spent a long moment to think about her response. “He was… very strict, although I doubt he was quite as strict with me as he was with himself. I used to listen to him training at night, sometimes. I… learned a lot about him that way, I think.”

Ah. Ryoma frowned at that. Corrin didn’t seem to notice.

“Don’t tell him I said anything, but,” Corrin continued, “when he was especially upset with Father – er, King Garon, I suppose – it was like he was venting out that frustration, like there was no other way to release it.”

“Training is a perfectly fine way to vent,” Ryoma said.

“Yes, yes,” Corrin said, impatience raw in her voice, “but there’s good and bad kind of venting? And I think—I think there was no other way for him to—since, you know, King Garon and all.”

“That does make sense.” Ryoma had willfully disassociated Garon from his children for the sake of putting old hostilities aside, and he had never tried to imagine how life was for the royal children of Nohr under Garon’s rule.

Well, the current Garon’s, anyway.

If he tried hard enough, he could remember a boy with curly hair and eyes wide enough to show off the reddish-brown irises of his eyes. A shy boy whose face melted into a smile at the sight of his father.

When comparing to the closed-off Prince Xander of the current time, the change was drastic.

(One thing that hadn’t changed – Ryoma would still love to see a smile adorn Prince Xander’s face, from his mouth to his eyes.)

Ryoma’s heart lay heavy in his chest, like a burden, but the encompassing warmth made it lighter again. A peculiar feeling.

“You’re worried for him, then?” Ryoma inquired after the silence had stretched on uncomfortably long, raising an eyebrow at Corrin’s closed-off and thoughtful expression.

“A little bit? I mean, after talking with Camilla, it’s just—“

“Princess Camilla?”

“Do you know any other Camilla?” Corrin’s turn to raise her eyebrows at him. She had her sassy moments, Ryoma had to give her that. Must be the Nohrian influence.

“Fine, fine. Your talk with Princess Camilla?” Ryoma set his cup down as he inspected Corrin and her body language, which shifted between calm and mild anxiety. “She isn’t budging on her idea of a hot springs trip, is she?”

“Well, it wasn’t about that, but she is still firm in her insistence.” Corrin made a face, looking like she would throw another comment on the matter, but held her tongue. “It was, er—“

Corrin’s expression changed again, as if she now remembered who exactly she was talking to. “Oh, right, never mind that. She did mention something about him being at peace around you, big brother.”

Corrin shrugged when Ryoma stared at her in wonder, her Hoshidan-style robes shifting with the movement. “She’s right, you know. I have never seen him… hm, so friendly with anyone outside the family.”

Ryoma’s mouth curled into a dry smile. “I see you have heard of the ridiculous rumor, as well.”

Corrin’s mischievous smile lit up her crimson eyes, reminding Ryoma of what he really should tell Corrin one of these days. Mother might not have wanted things to reach that point, but it was no use hiding the truth either.

“It’s ridiculous only in that the Xander I know wouldn’t do any seduction intentionally,” she said, her hands picking up her own cup of cooling tea. She took a sip, eyelids fluttering even as she studied Ryoma’s face and body language. “I hardly even see him out of his armor. Same to you, by the way. Would it be that bad to take off that chin and facial armor?”

“I have my reasons, he has his,” Ryoma snorted, amused, trying not to think about the man beneath the Nohrian metal armor. Undressing Xander of that, well, that bordered on inappropriate.

Ryoma took a long sip from his cup to calm himself.

Their incursion deep into Valla led them to a Nohrian court mage, whose presence startled everyone that knew that he should, by all means, be dead and rotting. Xander had never liked Zola, and once he had been even scared of him before the realization that Zola’s whole reason of being was continuous bootlicking for whatever purposes.

The battle began normally enough, Xander and Ryoma fighting off the leagues of near-invisible foes as they opened a pathway to Zola, whose eyes glowed in an eerie shade of purple. Princes Takumi and Leo took down foes togethe, as well, or so Xander gathered from the discord of yells and sounds of arrows and Brynhildr’s magic.

Camilla was efficient, her companion making far more noise than her.

Elise, perhaps the bravest of the siblings if Xander were honest, was also making her position clear, busy with healing and destruction of both Faceless and men.

She had grown stronger than she ever should have had to, and for that Xander’s conscience prickled.

Things turned strange when Ryoma and he reached Zola, Corrin and others not too far behind them. The mage looked strange, ragged and clothes frayed and soaked in dried blood, but it wasn’t enough to deter the princes from approaching.

In hindsight, they should have waited.

When Xander opened his eyes again, unsure when he had closed them in the first place, Valla’s evergreen grass and blinding sun had been replaced by Nohr’s everlasting darkness. Castle Krakenburg’s winding hallways dotted with torches and candles a familiar sight to Xander’s eyes, but his other senses perceived nothing of the home he once knew.

The walls normally radiated cool chills, but now the air lay heavy and hot, unmoving and stifling. It reminded Xander of the times when the court mages’ attempts at amusing Father went awry.

The pressure in the air was unnatural, the gloom even more oppressive than usual. Xander pursed his lips and went on the hallway, without thinking heading to the throne room. An illusion, he figured. He had thought only Iago could cast illusions of this level.

The sensations were felt real enough, again reminding Xander of Iago, and the thought soured his mood, which wasn’t great to begin with. The echoes of his footsteps rang across the hall, off the decorated walls. The paintings of past Nohrian kings and queens stared down at him.

The double doors to the throne room were decorated to the point where it ws too much, its door knobs painted with gold, and the heavy oak of the door was as sturdy as the castle itself. Xander used to stand before the doors as a wide-eyed child, hands always itching towards pushing them open in search of Father’s affection and perhaps a ride on those sturdy shoulders.

Xander sniffed. Dusty air. Oppressive regime of childhood memories. Many more things that were stirred by the strange illusion.

The doors opened with loud creaks, and Xander stepped into the throne room covered in darkness and a stench that sent a chill down Xander’s spine.

The windows in the room, even the ones high up on the walls, had been covered with something, curtains most presumably, and Xander couldn’t make out a single thing in the pitch black of the dark.

From the end of the room, a deep, disconcerting groan emerged, steadily growing in volume.

“Father?” Xander grimaced at his own voice, at the unnatural meekness that shone through. The weaknesses of heart were hard to rid oneself of, and Xander recognized that his heart was weaker than he credited it for.

Garon’s pained groan shifted at the locked doors of Xander’s heart, and Xander fumbled onward, hand on the hilt of Siegfried but the other one searching for the source of the sound.

The darkness flickered around him, like a flame touched by a breeze, before dissipating completely and revealing a sight that had Xander nearly loosen his hold on Siegfried out of shock.

“Xander,” Garon choked, blood dripping out of his mouth and staining his whitening beard. “Xander, you—“

Xander watched as Siegfried that he himself wasn’t holding, for his Siegfried was still in his unmoving hand, twisted deeper beneath Father’s chest plates, resulting in a disgusting squelch of blood and flesh.

Garon looked up, his anger meek and astonishment obvious, at the Xander that had pierced him. The Xander, whose face Xander couldn’t see but whose blond hair had been stained with dark colors of blood and grime. He stood firm before Xander, dressed in a perfectly replicated armor, with the crown prince’s headpiece on his head.

Xander’s heart lurched, palms clammy with sweat. Whether from the humid air or the sight of his replicate shoving a sacred weapon into his father’s chest, it was hard to say. Xander couldn’t say a single thing on his emotions if one were to ask right then.

“Xander, you absolute tool,” Garon rasped, much too talkative for a dying man of his age. Xander’s lips curled into a grimace. One thing Zola could better himself in: the realism of his illusions. It was easier to criticize and ignore what was happening before his eyes after years of forceful denial of Father’s true nature. It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be real.

(Your sword, Rainbow Sage said once, is a tool of regicide.)

The replicate of himself said nothing, did nothing to ease his father’s sufferings, but his shoulders remained tense.

“You truly are your father’s son,” Rainbow Sage’s words rang, reverberated in Xander’s mind and bones where they had been etched into a long time ago.

Destiny, Xander had been taught with his mother’s tired yet gentle voice, was something a mortal man could not fight against.

The Xander before him dug the sword deeper, and Garon sighed a groan that would haunt Xander for years to come.

“Wait, don’t—“ Xander reached out, desperation catching up with him, and Siegfried fell from his grip as blood flooded the floor.

Father’s blood.

Father—!

A firm hand on his shoulder startled Xander and the next blink of his eyes brought his senses back to Valla, back to the maze of woods the battle had taken place in. The sun’s harsh glare burned at the back of his head, but Leo’s touch, faint as it felt, was the one that pulled him out of his stunned reverie.

Then the aches registered, presumably the result of falling off his horse when the illusion was cast. Sieg had likely gone off to protect himself; a wise move, Xander thought distantly, if not dangerous for the rider.

Xander exhaled, the breath coming out in a fragile stutter.

Leo’s hand moved to the back of Xander’s neck, the gauntlet’s metal cool and slick against the skin it touched. “Brother? The spell has been dispelled.”

Xander didn’t want to be seen when he felt the way he did now, but there was no escape from the situation now. Xander swallowed, air abrasive in his windpipe.

“I do not think I say this enough,” he murmured, “but you’ve become an impressive mage, Leo. Both your mind and magic have become indispensable.”

He looked up – on his knees, which quivered still – and caught sight of the face Leo was making. Startled, in the tiny details: the raised eyebrow, the minute widening of his eyes. Confused, in equally measured manner: lips parted in disbelief, the glint in the warm brown of his irises.

“I was not fishing for compliments, brother,” Leo settled for in response, and Xander’s lips quirked up at his words. Exhale, inhale. Under Leo’s inspecting eye, Xander hardened himself and threw away the illusion he had seen, the picture of father’s blood staining his—

Under the sun’s glare, Xander felt colder than he had ever since leaving Nohr for the war. His hands clenched, tentatively.

“Siegfried?” he inquired as he pushed himself up, swaying on his feet as the world spun. Leo held onto him, despite the difficulty posed by height difference. Xander gently shook Leo’s arm away, shaking his head at him. Leo’s lips thinned, but he obliged and backed off, gesturing at the spot Siegfried had landed and nearly been covered by moss.

Xander suppressed a shudder as he reached down for it. Only then he started to pay attention to his surroundings, to the army who lay scattered here and there in the woods, both pairs of royal siblings at the center of Xander’s field of vision.

Ryoma was the closest with Sakura, the latter looking at the high prince in concern as Ryoma ran an agitated hand down his ashen face. Camilla and Hinoka were the farthest, busy with patching each other up while Elise went around healing the more injured, Takumi assisting her as well as he could while Sakura was checking up on Ryoma.

Xander’s stomach twisted with concern. He knew what Zola had shown him, but he couldn’t be entirely sure what the other prince had been forced to watch. A memory, perhaps?

Leo noticed the direction of his gaze. “Prince Ryoma and you both were pulled into his illusion, brother. It’s— Corrin kept both of you out of harm’s way when we realized something was off.”

“Speaking of our sister,” Xander murmured, “where is she?”

Leo shrugged. He looked exhausted upon closer examination, his skin pale and glossy with a film of sweat. Smudged traces of blood right above his eyebrows, some all the way down on Leo’s cheekbones, had Xander hide away a flinch as the cold fingers of reminder curled inside him.

Facing Father was inevitable, perhaps.

“With Azura, I assume.” Leo’s eyes darted across the scene. “I’ll go check on my retainers. Excuse me.”

Xander hummed. “I’m sure Prince Takumi appreciates your worry for his well-being.”

Leo, flustered from the words, stomped off.

Xander found Corrin with Azura, as Leo had predicted. He had gathered enough information to know that Corrin had killed Zola – or what had been left of him – herself.

Knowing Corrin, she must have been feeling the heavy effect that came from executions. Xander, not for the first time, chastised himself for not being there to guide her hand or to do it for her. If anyone had to bear that burden, it might as well be him.

Corrin and Azura looked like they were in a deep conversation: Corrin seated on what looked like an entirely displaced rock in the middle of moss fields and Azura kneeling and holding Corrin’s hands in hers. Xander halted at the urgency of the sight, lips thinning into a line.

Azura and Corrin both looked up, startled, when they sensed his presence.

Corrin’s face melted, and her hands left Azura’s. Her next words were flat with relief, but sounded like a question regardless. “Big brother, you’re all right.”

Xander gave a featherlight smile at her: the corners pulled too hard, making it almost a grimace, but it was his best attempt. The back of his neck was damp with sweat, and the wind felt cold against the curves of his throat. The fear was still too real, the memory of words spoken years ago stinging him. And yet, looking at his sister now, Xander thought, if it must be done, so be it.

“Thanks to you taking care of things,” he said softly, blinking as Azura straightened herself, her intention obvious on her carefully serene face. He raised his hand to halt her, his smile softening into a natural one. “There’s no need for you to go, Azura; I just came by to ascertain my sisters were all right.”

Azura flinched subtly, the surprise reflected in her eyes that stared widely at him for one short but palpable moment. Xander held her gaze firmly, the smile on his lips fading into a firm line as he waited for her to understand he was serious.

Somewhere, a bird screeched, but Azura didn’t turn her eyes away. A moment later she gave a light sigh, his thin lips curling upwards in sympathy. She had always carried herself like that, with an air of isolated self-loathing and a barrier to keep everyone out. To keep herself safe, Xander also assumed.

“I shall stay, then,” Azura declared, and Corrin linked their arms again after giving Xander a grateful look herself. Then, after a beat of silence, Azura continued, “Are you sure you’re all right, Xander? You do look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Xander said, straining to keep his face neutral even as his mind rewound its tape of memories back to the illusion, the reality of it, the sight of himself as the cause for Father’s demise. “I was—it was a rather strenuous one, that illusion. Perhaps I underestimated the extent of his abilities. You have my thanks, sister. For keeping Prince Ryoma safe, as well.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that the immense relief he had felt seeing Ryoma, rattled as the high prince had seemed, well. Not until now, when both his sisters gave him knowing looks, accompanied with raised eyebrows and all.

Well, then.

“It never ceases to astonish me, brother,” Corrin began, her mouth smiling and her eyes laughing, “how close you and Ryoma have gotten.”

Xander pursed his mouth, cocking his eyebrows in return as the heavy feeling of mortification crept into his stomach. His fingers tapped at the sheathed Siegfried. He didn’t often require reassurance anymore, but there were the rare occasions… “Is that not what you wished for?”

“I don’t mean it’s a bad thing, Xander,” Corrin rushed in to correct herself, coming over to him and gently lifting his hand with hers. Hers had gained more callouses lately, which Xander could feel against his palm. She squeezed his between hers, and gave him a heartbreakingly tender look. “Asides from the two kingdoms cooperating, I’m glad to see you happy more than once in a blue moon. If you’re fond of Ryoma, all the better.”

Xander froze, despite his rigid self-control. “Perhaps not as fond as you’re implying, dear sister.”

“If it matters,” Corrin said, “I think he’s quite fond of you too, Xander.”

Xander could not explain how a single statement could relieve him as much as this one did regarding a subject he had tried to not give too much value: Ryoma’s affections. Xander’s face tried to twist into a smile against his will, but this time his self-control was better.

“You shouldn’t speak on behalf of your brother on the matters of heart,” he chastised, though there was no denying the hope that the statement had breathed into his veins. It made him almost fidgety, and the urge to see Ryoma was ever so strong. He could hear sounds coming from the rest of the army moving about, but Ryoma’s voice was absent as were his retainers’.

Remembering the strange atmosphere around Ryoma and his family back when he had come to, Xander’s worry picked up again.

“If he hasn’t confessed yet,” Corrin said, snorting, “then someone ought to intervene. It’s criminal to keep quiet about these things, you know.”

“How do you know, sister?” Xander raised an eyebrow. “Is there someone you have set your eye on, then?”

Corrin’s face flushed a beautiful red and now it was her turn to stumble over her words while Azura and Xander laughed.

Laslow came to him that night with serious eyes and hands tucked behind his back. One look, and Xander’s stomach fell at the goodbye in Laslow’s posture.

“Not tonight, Laslow,” he said, eyes going back to the sword he had been cleaning. Siegfried tainted so easily, from grime and blood and the physical remnants of magic. Xander had been stalling, himself, keeping his body occupied while his mind wandered, between Ryoma and the memory of seeing himself piercing through the King of Nohr’s armor. His father’s armor.

“Milord,” Laslow said, and the word was charged with much of held-in emotion that the severity of it was enough to cut at people’s hearts. “I—I just.”

Xander listened to the odd stammer in Laslow’s voice, the humiliated shyness that he wasn’t accustomed to noticing in his retainer, and he glanced at him again. An odd flush rode high Laslow’s cheeks, and stray curls of hair fell to Laslow’s forehead, making the man look a few years younger than what he was.

Xander was reluctant to accept a goodbye now, but something in Laslow’s eyes had him disarmed before he put Siegfried down.

“At ease, Laslow.” Xander rolled his shoulders and his sleeves before he gestured for Laslow to go ahead. Laslow blinked at him, and Xander noted the dark circles under his eyes. Sleep didn’t come easy, not even to the most notorious sleepers anymore. “Let’s take a walk, then.”

The castle grounds of the astral realm buzzed with people from both sides and those who fell curiously in-between, as was the post-battle norm. Sakura and Elise and the other clerics were busy, and Xander briefly marveled their strength with some pride and affection that the thought of his baby sister and her dear friend roused in him.

“You’re planning on leaving soon, aren’t you?” Xander inquired as they wove through people to a more secluded corner. Peri had gone off somewhere; perhaps at Laslow’s request. Xander felt naked without his armor as the gentle touch of air met his collarbone, barely visible under his shirt.

Laslow’s sigh was barely audible, but his hands shook as they took hold of Xander’s. Boldly, crossing the borders set up by social class. Xander’s lips fell into a grim line.

They had a reached the outskirts of the grounds, with no people around them. The astral realm changed not with the seasons, nor any other rule that Xander knew, and so the midsummer-y breeze that had greeted them when they had first come played with the sleeves of their clothes once more.

Under the light of the lanterns and torches, Laslow’s back looked wider than Xander remembered it to be.

“Milord,” Laslow said, no trace of flippancy in his tone. It was difficult to get used to that, Xander thought; it was like ripping something off Laslow, something that made him, him. “I apologize for not fulfilling my duty today.”

Laslow turned his head, eyes seeking Xander’s. The dark gray irises spoke of heavy emotions, but Xander didn’t look away. “I should have come running when I heard you had come to, but I…”

“Laslow,” Xander interrupted gently. “I wasn’t in mortal danger, and I don’t require your presence every moment of the day, although I may have given the opposite idea along the way sometimes.”

“Still,” Laslow insisted, eyes half-shut with painful guilt that wasn’t about what Laslow had just said. Xander waited, arms crossed over his chest. Laslow continued, while shifting weight between his legs like he was confessing his sins and unsure how to go on. “We only have so many days left, milord. Not treasuring them to the fullest seems so… silly. And yet, I find myself petrified and anxious, just like when anyone catches me practicing in the woods.”

“Is there a reason for that?” Xander nearly reached out to touch Laslow’s arm, but opted otherwise when he saw the nervous energy glittering in the soft gray eyes.

“Lord Xander,” Laslow gave a crooked smile at that, soft at the corners and fake bravado at the center. “Under these months, years of servitude under you… Along the way, I have fallen for you. It’s. It won’t… stop me from fulfilling my duty when this war ends, but… I was told things like this shouldn’t be kept hidden from the person they involve.”

Somehow, Xander saw one of Leo’s retainers in his head: the blond mage with an impressive vocabulary and even more impressive knowledge in history and mythology. Laslow and Camilla’s redheaded retainer did spend time with him quite often. They made a striking trio, in appearance and in skill.

Xander paused, taking in Laslow’s hastily spoken confession little by little. His half-unbuttoned shirt made him feel more naked than if he were actually naked when he saw Laslow’s eyes trail at the visible skin, the gaze as thirsty as it was yearning.

Xander dearly hoped he hadn’t given away his own situation by looking at Ryoma that way.

“You don’t need to, er,” Laslow’s expression fell as he fumbled with his words, an obvious fear of outright rejection tainting his tone, “give me a response or anything, milord. I know, already.”

“I’m sorry,” Xander said regardless, reaching out for Laslow’s hands. One of them he took in his own and gave it a firm squeeze for comfort. Xander wondered – there had been plenty of reasons he kept himself a distant figure even in the lives of those closest to him, and yet this had happened. Distance hadn’t kept people from loving him, irrational and unreasonable as that emotion was, despite everything he did in the name of Nohr.

Laslow stared at him, eyes wide but less fearful, before chuckling. It wasn’t completely mirthless, and Xander exhaled in relief. “Don’t be, milord. In any case, I… it would perhaps have been more devastating to hear you return the sentiment and then having to leave you behind. It’s… hard enough as it is, honestly.”

Xander ignored the small voice in his own head that wondered if it mattered how devastating Laslow’s absence in his life would feel to him. He had been selfish enough for long enough; it was time to let it go, time to let many things go. (Father, his words, the good memories that kept him anchored to the past when all he should be anchored to was the present.)

“Whatever makes you happy, Laslow,” Xander said at length. It was straining to let someone go, when it would be so easy to demand them to stay. But he didn’t have the power; he didn’t have the right, either. And it had taken much time to figure that out. Corrin, a darling sister, had been a learning experience. “If you feel a stranger in these lands, after all this time, then you will never truly consider it home – and that will bring you unjust misery. I will be happy to think you’ve found your way back home, when you go.”

Laslow’s hand was warm in Xander’s, warm and real, and Xander committed it to memory, determined to remember this much of his loyal retainer.

Laslow wasn’t leaving yet, but he might as well have been.

“Thank you,” Xander added when Laslow’s face twisted with emotion, rendering the retainer unable to respond. “For all your services. For… your commendable assistance in my training, especially.”

At that, Laslow smiled wryly. “Milord, a person confessed to you and your instinct is to tell them ‘you fight good’?”

Xander’s face heated up with rare embarrassment, and he tapped his fingers at Laslow’s hand irritably. He ignored the rustling of grass nearby. “It’s a compliment you would appreciate, no?”

“Well, yes, I suppose.” Laslow shrugged, gently pushing Xander’s hand away. “It does mean a lot from you, whose life centers around strength and war.”

Not as much as mine hung in the air, but the words were left unuttered. It was the Laslow way of handling things: implications without any real intention of touching the subject directly unless it became necessary.

It was irritating, but Xander found himself smiling fondly nonetheless.

Even later that night, Xander lay on the cot in his tent and stared into the darkness that surrounded him, contemplating what had transpired. His body was exhausted, but sleep refused to come as his mind worked through the events. Laslow was a part of it, but Xander’s thoughts had latched onto Ryoma, predictably, after all the implications of impossible distance between lovers.

He had been giddy after conversing with Corrin and Azura, perhaps even hopeful in spite of the grim thoughts regarding King Garon and blood-tainted destiny, perhaps from the feeling that his feelings would be reciprocated if he were to strike up a heart-to-heart with Ryoma.

The thoughts of could-be were replaced by thoughts of the cold and hard reality each kingdom would fact after the war. A world where the two kingdoms and Valla would exist alongside – with no room for Ryoma and Xander to develop anything more than a professional friendship to fulfill the needs of their worlds.

Xander supposed a little bit of selfishness wasn’t always bad. That was what he would tell his siblings, anyway, if they were in his position – but…

Similar to how there was no escaping Rainbow Sage’s prediction, there was no avoiding the other fate for him: the one bathed in duty for his kingdom, life ruled with norms conceived ages ago by the nobility and their propriety. Biological heirs and pretty queens – that was wanted, even if it didn’t suit someone with Xander’s disposition.

Xander stared at the darkness in his tent with these thoughts circling in his head, them arranged in a logical sequence, but the sinking feeling in him wasn’t put at ease. Darkness wasn’t as forgiving to his thoughts as it usually was, and Xander rose to sit with a sigh stifled inside his mouth.

“Xander?” a familiar voice startled Xander to the point where Xander would have fallen off if he had been sleeping on a proper bed. Instead, now his whole body stiffened from the surprise.

“Ryoma?” he said, the incredulity obvious in his tone, try as he might to sound level-headed. Then, it clicked. Surely the only reason for Ryoma’s appearance at such late time was… “Did something happen to Corrin?”

“No, no,” Ryoma reassured him from behind the flaps of the tent as Xander finally climbed to his legs and started pulling on light cotton pants. “This may be sudden, but, ah… I was hoping you would join me for a bath.”

Xander nearly tripped over the legs of his pants. “Excuse me?”

Ryoma cleared his throat, and it dawned on Xander he hadn’t heard the other prince sound so awkward in any of their interactions so far – well, as far as he could tell, anyway. “Hot springs, I mean. My father used to tell me there’s no place like the baths for a good conversation.”

Xander had very few memories of King Sumeragi, but the man and his toothy grins and notable muscles did suggest the simplest forms of enjoyment.

Father had once mentioned something about the healing springs located in the countryside of Hoshido: Xander had been studying geography, tucked safely in his father’s lap, and Garon had offered these kinds of comments while petting young Xander’s fluffed up hair. “Perhaps one day you and I will take a bath at the hot springs Hoshido is so known for.”

It was a soft memory, one that wasn’t particularly meaningful, but it was one of the stronger ones Xander had of the past, the happier times, and now he had to blink away the excess emotion. He cleared his throat. “Very well. I accept your invitation.”

Xander was sure he heard Ryoma chuckling as he pulled a loose shirt on.

The bath house had been a charming addition to the castle grounds, although it was a little ways from the central buildings and closer to the Hoshidan tents. It had been one of the Hoshidan royal siblings that had activated a Dragon Vein for it: Sakura, perhaps, now that Xander thought about it. She was nothing short from immaculate when it came to healing.

The bath inside was large enough for at least twenty men or women to bathe at the same time and leave enough room for comfort afterwards, but Xander had never seen more than three occupy the hot waters at the same time. And now there were only him and Ryoma, surrounded by the soft gurgling of water and awkwardness that came from the awareness that a rather attractive prince was naked under all that water right next to you.

At least, that was how Xander saw the situation. It was that and the steam from the water that had him feel faint.

Xander would take pride in his self-control if it weren’t for the fact that he found himself staring at Ryoma, like his eyes had been bewitched to only look at the fellow prince. He would also feel a little less pathetic if Ryoma ignored it, but no – Ryoma noticed, and offered a crooked smile at him. It reached Ryoma’s usually warm eyes, and made them smolder with… with…

Xander had no words, really, and all his thoughts about the future suddenly ceased to exist. In hindsight, he had underestimated the intensity of the attraction.

They had conversed lightly on their way to the baths, but they had both chosen silence when they had come inside and undressed before entering the baths. That silence continued, comfortable, but there was crackling intensity forming that Xander didn’t know how to disperse.

“You look very different without your crown.” Ryoma’s seemingly careless observation didn’t startled Xander in its suddenness, but rather in its content.

Xander brushed aside the curly strands of hair that had fallen over forehead after he had taken the headpiece off. It was easy to pretend the heat rising high on his cheeks came from the water.

“You look very different without your facial armor,” Xander returned, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips. The soft words echoed into the silence, into the splash of water as both adjusted their sitting positions in the bath. “But I doubt that was the conversation you had in mind, right?”

Ryoma snorted, the sound loud and echoing off the walls. Xander only now noticed the tired lines around his eyes, the slight tension around his jaw. “You’re right, of course. Although I can’t say it would be a waste to spend tonight just looking at you, either.”

“Ryoma, please,” Xander said, exasperated.

Ryoma shrugged and leaned his back on the edge of the bath, eyeing at Xander. “Today, he made me witness the death of my father.”

Xander’s shoulders slumped immediately, wariness settling into his mind instead of the insistent observations on how good Ryoma looked without the armor. His own memories of the earlier stirred, one mental image in particular. “Zola? Yes, he does… appear to bring out the worst in us.”

Ryoma rested his elbows on the edges of the bath, tilting his head back until his eyes stared at the ceiling in quiet contemplation. “I wasn’t present when it happened, of course. I have seen plenty of tragedies on battle field and outside, but this was… too personal.” Ryoma’s head turned towards Xander, an inscrutable look in the eyes.

Xander shifted, his back stiff against the cold surface of the marble of the bath. He didn’t know the details of the event Ryoma referred to, but he was sure enough. Xander allowed himself reprieve by closing his eyes. “I would imagine so. No one wants to see their father killed, especially if it wasn’t due to natural causes.”

But why bring it up with the son of the killer, Xander wondered.

“It occurred to me,” Ryoma said, slowly, “that if a man was ready to kill the closest friend he had, his children wouldn’t be entirely safe either.”

Xander remembered Father telling him to execute Corrin for her disobedience, and his stomach churned nastily. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m,” Ryoma started, but paused, an unexpected vulnerability present on his voice. “I’m saying that I should have been there for you, from the start. Distant as the memories are, I do remember how Garon used to be, after all.”

“We were hardly friends,” Xander pointed out. As children, perhaps, but later on they had forgotten each other, left with nothing but a few stray memories. With a sigh, he continued, “Holding out a hand to the child of the enemy would have been a saintly thing to do – and there are no saints in this world of ours.”

Ryoma peered at him, some spikes of hair curling over his eyes. The prince resolutely pushed them back. “You have a very different view of the world than Corrin.”

“It would be a miracle if I didn’t.” Xander laughed, the sound forced and tense in his throat. Slowly, he turned his eyes to the water and the distorted view of his legs. “I have seen a lot of evil committed in the name of necessity.”

Staring hard at the surface of the water and the outlines of his legs, Xander couldn’t see Ryoma’s face, but the tone of his voice was nothing but gentle, albeit firm. “So have I. Which is why I’m glad to have you on my side now, even though I had nothing but cautious fear at the beginning of this… alliance.”

Ryoma’s hand touched his knee, and Xander finally looked up to see Ryoma smiling that crooked smile of his, which was joined by a glint of concern in his eyes. More spikes of hair had fallen on the sides of his face, framing it messily.

Somehow, the sight reminded Xander of a much younger Ryoma, who had once held out a branch from a cherry tree at him. Many, many years ago. The memory of it was fragile, but Xander recalled the short spikes of hair, wild around the young prince’s face.

Xander found himself smiling through the flutter of nervous expectation and the conflict of his own desire and duty. “I thought we were already above empty compliments at this point, Prince Ryoma.”

Ryoma’s laughter was a pleasant sound, amused and warm as it washed over Xander and echoed in the silence of the hot springs. “It seems you truly are as terrible about these things as Corrin said. Seduction isn’t your strongest suit.”

“Sedu—excuse me?”

Ryoma laughed even harder, if that were possible, and his eyes watered from the force of it as Xander bristled at him, much like a startled feline. Ryoma’s hand lay firmly on Xander’s knee, the fingers pressed into the dips of the skin, and Xander tried to pay no attention to it.

Two people confessing to him the same night? Ridiculous.

“Prince Xander of Nohr,” Ryoma continued, the laughter dying on his lips as his expression sobered. His words were solemn, the honesty in them raw and touching. “Believe me when I say I trust in the authenticity of this feeling.”

And he did. He trusted Ryoma, much more than he trusted even himself – a startling discovery. Xander’s face flushed hot as he said so. The bright light of delight that lit in Ryoma’s eyes was worth the honesty.

“Then,” Ryoma continued, “is it safe to assume my feelings are… reciprocated?” A strange vulnerability crossed his face: surely a foreign thing to the prince, who Xander had assumed to harbor feelings for the wyvern rider from Cheve – his grief had been a tangible thing when she had been found dead.

But she was a topic best not brought up, Xander thought, remembering his own heartfelt grief over Mother.

A time and place for everything.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been very subtle about it,” Xander smiled wryly. “At least, the whole army seems to think so if the rumor is anything to go by.”

Ryoma inched closer to him, then, shifting waters in his wake, and while his expression was too composed to call eager, there was a joyful expectation that made Xander’s skin tingle and his heart thump.

“Kiss me already, you fool,” Ryoma said with that impossibly warm tone that reminded Xander of the warm summer days the astral realm had plenty of but which still felt like a novelty. Ryoma’s hand rose up Xander’s neck, cupping the curve of it over Xander’s pulse.

“Is that any way to ask for a favor?” Xander snorted, amused, but his heart was beating too hard against Ryoma’s fingers for the words to have any effect. He was leaning in already, despite himself and despite what he had told himself earlier – of the impossibility of seeking out a relationship like this.

Ryoma closed the distance between them, and all surrounding sounds along with the rest of the world stopped in that instant. Ryoma’s mouth demanded attention, and his hand gently tugged Xander deeper into the kiss. Xander moved, pushing a hand against Ryoma’s shoulder and the other into the long, still dry hair as they hadn’t washed up beforehand.

Warm. Ryoma was warm, from the bath water but in general as well, and Xander pressed into the warmth Ryoma’s body offered.

Ryoma smiled against him, and Xander couldn’t help smiling back even as he peppered that mouth with attention, completely stripped of his awareness for duty, anchoring himself into the moment that didn’t require heavy thought and consideration.

Impulsive, in the moment feeling that fresh love was, Xander found it difficult to control himself enough to part – and so he didn’t, staying in the taste of Ryoma’s lips and the touch of Ryoma’s hand against his neck.

If his forever could be a single moment, perhaps this would have been it.

They were approaching Anankos’ castle more and more each day, and the atmosphere in the army shifted accordingly the tougher the opponents became – as if half-visible soldiers weren’t hard enough already, now battle exhaustion became a prevalent symptom. Xander’s nightmares grew in number, though they were still infrequent enough to give him the pretense of being somewhat at peace.

Nyx, whom the most disturbing rumors had always painted as a wicked witch, kept coming up with difficult conversations that felt like his soul was being peered into and judged. His most personal thoughts weren’t safe from her – the horror at the bloody legacy of his father, the silent death wish that lingered as an insistent itch.

Xander found that her listening to his woes helped more than he could have imagined – he had been a skeptic at first, so he hadn’t thought it would help at all. So used to holding things in he had been, before Nyx and Ryoma and Corrin. Though, admittedly, he hadn’t shared his darkest thoughts with the latter two – nor the perpetual feeling of being lost in a maze of his own tangled duties.

Though, Xander often thought in the company of the other prince, Ryoma likely knew it already, what with the looming rise to kinghood in his future. Not to mention Ryoma was troubled over something regarding Corrin, if the way he looked at the princess of both kingdoms suggested anything.

Something that Ryoma wasn’t comfortable sharing with Xander, apparently, although Xander couldn’t find fault in that – especially with everything else going on.

While their travels across the Kingdom of Valla were nearing their destination, none of them were quite prepared for the spectacles that were to occur.

It started with Queen Mikoto and her appearance, which – gentle as it was – had been nearly devastating to their army. Morally and physically: the Hoshidans and Corrin had all worn twin looks of astonishment and fear when they had realized, eventually changing into deep grief when they had to say goodbye with the former Queen of Hoshido again.

Her goodbye was to Corrin, her eyes only on her daughter, but everyone around felt her enormous love, the kindness that had protected Hoshido from Garon – from Anankos, even – for so long.

Ryoma held onto Xander’s shoulder tightly throughout the whole thing, and Xander spent most of the time eyeing for Ryoma’s expression, which varied from deep grief to concern for Corrin and even to total blankness, the most concerning of them all. The rest of their siblings, as well: Camilla held onto Hinoka, whose stern features had softened and cracked into a messy sobbing fit, while Sakura and Elise tried to heal the Queen with no success. Takumi, well. Takumi’s grief was the loudest in the way that he verbalized everyone’s wishes in a broken whisper: don’t go, Mother.

Xander had seen Leo reach out to Takumi – but he had retracted his hand before it could touch Takumi.

Leo had never looked so lost, not even when he and Xander had been contemplating what to do in the absence of all three of their sisters.

There was no relief when it was over, even though this time Corrin and the rest had gotten the chance to bid their farewells. Twice the death, twice the sorrow – twice the trauma.

Next up was Sumeragi, the former King of Hoshido: a battle ruled with brute strength and tears from the King’s children. The man truly lived up to his reputation as one of the strongest rulers of Hoshido – his physical ability itself was astounding, although not above Ryoma’s as Sumeragi had many more years into his belt than the said son and it showed.

But not far off: and he hadn’t been spending months of fighting this war, which was as useless as Xander used to think himself to be.

And by a twist of fate – cursed as it was – it had been Takumi-Ryoma combo of archery and Raijinto that finished the job with the sounds of crackling lightning and the whistling of win in the wake of an arrow. Sumeragi’s Hoshido-styled armor had been pierced and broken, but his spirit was as rambunctiously well-spirited as Xander remembered in the distant past.

The Hoshidan royal siblings as well as Corrin, who was in truth one of theirs as much as one of Xander’s family, gathered around for the very last farewells, the Nohrian siblings watching from not too far off at the heartfelt moment between a father and his children.

As grim as the situation was, Xander felt envious, as suppressed as that emotion was. He could tell Camilla felt the same from the way she held herself, facing slightly away from the scene as if she was sickened, her face pale and worn-out. Xander silently wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her against himself in attempt at comfort.

Sumeragi was kind to his children – proud of them, even, and with plenty of vocalized apologies that had the Hoshidans in tears. Xander thought he saw one of the ninja retainers crying, even, but that might have been nothing more than an illusion, a trick his mind played on him. Xander didn’t look around again to find out.

After a short relapse of silence, Sumeragi’s hand holding Corrin’s like a truly loving father’s would, Sumeragi coughed. “Prince Xander, do not think I forgot about you. Come here.”

Silence fell, naked from all emotion but confusion. Xander felt everyone’s eyes on him. Once it would have made him incredibly awkward and shuttered, but now he barely registered it, numb and weary from battle as he was.

Xander let go of Camilla and gently ushered Elise away from his side, giving her head a kind pat, and walked to the scene with the siblings and the fallen King surrounded by blood and grime and, no doubt, remnants of whatever magic Anankos had cast on the corpse of the Hoshidan ruler.

Ryoma’s eyes connected with his, the gray eyes dark with grief. Xander returned the look as he settled beside the other prince and leaned closer to the former King of Hoshido.

“Here I am, King Sumeragi,” he said, bowing his head. The simple act brought back childhood memories: memories of warm days spent in Castle Shirasagi that had passed too quickly and of rambunctious laughter between kings Garon and Sumeragi. Much younger Ryoma’s tiny hands gesturing at something.

Sumeragi’s laugh was dry, self-deprecating almost. “There is no one worth of your bows here, boy – especially not a relic like me.”

Xander resisted a snort before responding solemnly, steadily ignoring the trail of blood trickling down Sumeragi’s jawline, “I believe you are owed much more than bows, but it is all I have to give right now.”

Sumeragi peered at him, truly inspected Xander like he was a man of his own and not his father’s son. (“It’s your destiny, Prince Xander.”) Xander didn’t turn away, even though he felt a familiar heat creep up his neck. Ryoma’s hand on his arm kept him steady.

“The Garon I once knew,” Sumeragi began after a pause, and watched as most of the people around either grimaced, shuddered, or frowned, “would have been… was… and is proud of the man standing before me today.”

“Technically, crouching,” Prince Takumi muttered on the sidelines. Xander tried his best not to laugh at that. So very like Takumi. Sumeragi’s lips twitched as well, a brief glimmer of amusement at his son’s remark. Xander felt Ryoma’s chuckle in the slight slackening of the hold over his arm rather than heard it, and it relaxed him.

“He and I, we used to be friends,” Sumeragi said solemnly then. His breathing was labored, his words sluggish, but it was impossible not to listen. Half-lidded eyes peered up at Xander’s stiff face. “It would be a lie to say I don’t have any regrets when it comes to him.”

Xander had heard the stories: as young princes, Sumeragi and Garon had gained fame – Sumeragi with his brute strength, Garon with his strategy-based mind – and their spars had been a sight to witness at the shared festivals between the two kingdoms. Katerina, Xander had heard, had met Garon at one of those, a participant in a tournament herself.

Ironic that it was the Hoshidan capital where Katerina and Garon met for the first time.

Sumeragi shifted, a hand clutching at Sakura’s, which couldn’t heal him. The remnants of Anankos’ power in him kept him alive still, though it looked incredibly uncomfortable. As a fate, Xander mused, it was worse than death – worse than what anyone deserved regardless of their crimes.

“We had dreams as young lads tend to,” Sumeragi continued, his other hand gesturing Xander to get closer. Xander knelt, and Sumeragi’s fingers met the metal of his crown. A look of nostalgia passed over his dirtied face. “Dreams of making the world a better place. For our children. For Katerina and Ikona – though both died before their time.”

Xander adjusted himself on his knees awkwardly. The memories in the wake of his mother’s death were one of the most painful ones he had endured, perhaps because of how young he had been. Death had been too complex to understand, too overwhelming to handle.

…It had never truly stopped being overwhelming.

“I see conflict in your eyes, Xander.” Sumeragi inhaled painfully. “No doubt, it is because of Garon; much of what used to be my dear old friend has withered away.”

More than you even know, Xander mused as Sumeragi’s fingers twitched against the crown. The longer the touch lingered, the more uncomfortable it was, but Xander could not deny the dying man his nostalgia for better days.

“The crown prince’s burden is the hardest,” Sumeragi murmured. “Garon learned it the hard way – after his elder brother passed, the crown was given to him.”

The silence that followed could have choked a person.

“Father had… a brother?” Xander voiced the question he felt coming from his siblings, the shock having rendered all of them speechless. The nameless uncle that none of them had known struck them with an odd sort of feeling: the knowledge that there had been grief in their father’s life that they didn’t know of before.

“Garon grieved him a great deal,” Sumeragi said, sounding pained. “I think he only truly came out of it when Katerina told him she was pregnant… with you. My Ikona had carried Ryoma a couple months by then, as well.”

Xander’s breath hitched from surprise – and saddened fondness for the father he used to know. He had yearned for proof that the righteous man he had known had been real: there it was, spoken by the king Garon had slain and Anankos revived.

Sumeragi looked up at Ryoma, then. “The friendship between you two truly makes me glad – the things Garon and I once wished for are coming true, despite the circumstances.”

Ryoma snorted, although his voice was stiff as he suppressed his tears. “Prince Xander is a good man, Father. I…”

Sumeragi hushed him, gently, perhaps gentler than a man of his stature was expected to. Xander’s heart ached, then, not for the first time. “Your judgment is sound, my child. There is no mistake in placing your trust in a man that believes in justice.”

Ryoma’s hold on Xander’s arm loosened, and Xander heard a choked gasp, a sure sign of tears. Xander wasn’t far off from tears himself: his throat felt raspy and thick with something he’d rather leave unnamed.

“The men who have the strength to carry that justice out,” Sumeragi continued, his eyes now scanning the crow around him, “yes, those men are before me – the Crown Prince of Nohr and the High Prince of Hoshido. And the princess that unites both: yes, you, Corrin. The mistakes Garon and I made – impatience, grief-driven madness, betrayals – cannot be made up for by anyone else.”

Sumeragi smiled faintly as his skin began to peel away with flickers of blue: Anankos’ magic wearing off after long and many years of control. His voice grew fainter and fainter, but the pairs of siblings heard him well enough still. “Children, mine and Garon’s – how glad am I to see not all of our dreams were lost.”

“Father,” someone cried out, but Xander couldn’t make out who it was. Not through the ache in his heart, through the memories of this man that had been used for so long, the man that had once smiled at Xander fondly across the table in Castle Krakenburg’s dinner room and asked for food recommendations.

The man who little Prince Ryoma had come with.

The current Ryoma would soon bury his face into Xander’s shoulder – despite the armor – when nobody else was looking, and Xander would stroke at his hair wordlessly. He knew it well: there were no words that made a loss this tangible any easier.

The final battle was fast approaching, and the atmosphere fluctuated accordingly, somewhat drastically given the emotional goodbyes to the former royal couple of Hoshido. For Corrin, there was the extra weight of the realization that she wasn’t blood-related to the Hoshidan siblings either.

“I thought you would also act out upon hearing the truth,” Ryoma confessed during one of the more peaceful moments between the preparations for taking on Anankos. They had set up a proper camp in Anankos’ castle instead of crossing to the astral realm this time: the end was near, they thought, surely there was no point anymore.

“You did make a big deal out of blood relation and real family, if I recall correctly,” Xander said wryly after a sip of tea made from the leaves available in Valla. A little too sweet. In the privacy of Ryoma’s tent, conversation like this was possible, and Xander found he enjoyed the honesty of it.

Ryoma had the decency to look a little embarrassed at Xander’s words, at least: a slight flush crept up Ryoma’s face, barely noticeable if one wasn’t looking for it like Xander was. Sumeragi’s final death was carefully pushed aside from the high prince’s mind, so bound to his duty and mission he was.

These casual moments were small blessings, truly.

“At that point, I’ll admit I was desperate,” Ryoma said, nursing his own cup between his calloused palms. A small smile tugged at his mouth. “Saying anything, anything to convince her to choose us seemed right in the moment – and, well… I’m sure you can relate. You did let her live in the fantasy of being your blood-related sister.”

Ryoma looked at him in the eye, no accusation but a deep understanding in the gaze. As well as… Xander felt his own face flush under the scrutiny, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. Why were first loves this difficult?

“For all that it’s worth,” Xander said, “we really do consider her our sister.”

“Oh, I know.” Ryoma glanced down at Xander’s hands, eyed them with an unspoken desire to hold. Without gauntlets, the skin contact would be there – but Xander couldn’t figure out why Ryoma didn’t just do it. “I have seen the way you and your siblings interact with her. It’s quite reassuring, in fact.”

Ryoma was most beautiful when he was at ease – as breathtaking as his form on battlefield was, Xander found himself entrance by the softness on Ryoma’s face when it wasn’t contorted into a frown or another similarly intense expression. And now, Ryoma was… relaxed, which was strange when their most difficult fight still lay ahead of them.

Xander’s fingers itched to touch the pretty image and make sure that for once his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

Gods, he didn’t have time for this – he should be doing something, anything to help Corrin, but…

But this could be the very last time he had Ryoma with him like this, and Xander was willing to make time for that much. This was a selfish love, he thought, with roots deep in their youth.

“Xander?” Ryoma’s brow furrowed then, ruining the sight of beauty just a little. Xander started, welping when he spilled some tea on his hands. Lukewarm liquid didn’t burn his skin, but Ryoma was quick to grasp his hands anyway to inspect them. “Something on your mind?”

The touch of Ryoma’s hands had Xander splutter, as foolishly embarrassing as that was, and sent his heart into a futile race against itself.

“You,” Xander said.

It was Ryoma’s turn to gape at him, and it was immensely more satisfying than anything else Xander had felt in a while, save for their shared bath times.

“And then they say you’re not a master of seduction,” Ryoma managed to mutter, eyes ridiculously wide as he clutched at Xander’s hands a little too tight. “Gods, that surprised me.”

Xander laughed. “Trust me, I’m only good at surprise attacks in battle and nowhere else.”

“If what my brother reads by himself sometimes is correct,” Ryoma murmured, giving Xander a pointed look and a slanted smile, “not to mention all the haikus Mother used to write…. Love is a battlefield all on its own.”

“…I’m not sure if I want to know what Prince Takumi reads on his spare time.” Xander curled his fingers, which were starting to feel numb. “Ryoma, please. You’re cutting off my circulation.”

“Oh. I apologize.” Ryoma eased his hold, still with a flustered expression. He looked at Xander earnestly, silently pleading Xander to believe his words. If High Prince ever did plead for anything. “I—I will admit, I’m pretty new to… this. Although you have taken up much of my mind as well, and this… Well. In all honesty, that night I had prepared for a ten-minute speech to convince you of how I feel.”

“A ten-minute speech?” Xander felt his eyebrows rise on their own volition. “I know I tend to think too much about things, but...”

“Confessions of affection should not be taken lightly, Prince Xander.”

Gods, what is he—

Ryoma held his gaze, steady and firm like the roots of an oak. His face and hair were framed with the pieces of facial armor, bringing focus to his eyes, nose, and lips. Xander returned the stare.

“I used to dream of a boy with petals of sakura in his hair,” Ryoma started softly. He adjusted himself on his knees on the other side of the low portable table, hands still. “I used to remember who that boy was.”

Ryoma’s smile widened, and his eyes eased into it as he brought Xander’s hand up to press a kiss on the back of it. Xander didn’t stop him, though his fingers wriggled nervously as Ryoma murmured against the knuckles, “I’m happy to say I have found him again.”

It had been an early spring when the young prince of Nohr had gone with his father to Hoshido for one of the less official meetings between the ruling families. Cherry trees were pink and in bloom by the time their carriages arrived in the Hoshidan capital, but Xander had been distraught for not having his mother with him as she was down with another one of her worse spells of sickness.

King Sumeragi and his wife were waiting for them, both dressed up in pastel-colored robes fit for the season. Yukatas, Xander thought he heard someone call them, but his attention was mostly on the boy beside the royal couple, similarly dressed up in the nation’s traditional ceremonial clothing.

“Garon, my old friend!” Sumeragi’s voice was booming and warmer than the spring weather of his country. “I hope your trip went well – no Katerina, again? Please, I have long since stopped chasing her skirts…”

Xander didn’t need to look up to know his father’s face fell at the mention of the absent Queen, but the level, raspy voice betrayed nothing. “She has been preoccupied by her illness, I’m afraid, but she sends her regards and love.”

“Truly a polite woman, to do so even when she must be so tired—“

“…Her regards go to Ikona alone, I’m afraid. She’s still angry with you, old friend.” Garon’s laughter was the background sound while the young prince Xander peered at the other prince, whose face was as stoic as before, when they had met in Castle Krakenburg. Xander’s heart sunk, already intimidated as he clung to his father’s leg. It was an intimidating leg, but it was his father’s nonetheless.

Sumeragi’s huff startled both princes. He was a rather loud man, although stories claimed him to be much calmer than in his youth. “That lady carries a grudge like a weapon, I swear.”

Ikona, the red-haired Queen of Hoshido, snorted, all un-ladylike before she managed to hide her mouth with her hand and pretend she hadn’t done that just then. “You know so little of the hearts of women, dear husband.”

From there on, after a round of bickering was over and done with, the mixed group left for a tour across the capital of the much wealthier Hoshido. Xander got the chance to give the gift he had prepared to Ryoma as well when they boarded one of the royal carriages led by two flightless pegasi. It was nothing special by royal standards: a simple child’s drawing of a typical Nohrian scenery, and a proverb scribbled on the right side of the paper in Hoshidan characters.

Ryoma’s stoic expression melted away when Xander handed it to him awkwardly, delighted surprise taking over his face. They were seated next to each other in the carriage, Queen Ikona at Ryoma’s right and Xander at Ryoma’s right, and the two kings on the opposite side to them.

“What is it, son?” Sumeragi asked when Ryoma stayed stunned. “Remember your manners – say thank you.”

“Right, Father,” Ryoma said, embarrassed as he looked at Xander, who was anxiously fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “You draw really well. My calligraphy tutor would like your writing, too.”

Ryoma scrutinized the drawing. His growing hair had been pulled into a ponytail so none of it fell over his eyes as he glared at the world, but his gaze was softer, much more child-like as he looked at the received gift with fascination. Xander’s face melted into a grin as well, delighted from the other’s acceptance of his gift.

“It shows some of the flowers that Mother and I have been dry-pressing—er, press-drying, whichever Mother called it?—and. They always say my handwriting is nice,” Xander said, all in one rush of words, some which stumbled awkwardly together like his and Ryoma’s elbows as the little princes were pressed together on the cushioned seats.

“You do that with your mother?” Ryoma looked at Xander. Something like envy threatened to reach the surface of the distant, gray eyes.

“When Mother felt better,” Xander confirmed. “She loves flowers, but there are so few in Nohr…”

Ryoma pushed his shoulder against Xander’s frailer one, announcing as solemnly as any determined child would, “You will go home with your carriages brimmed with flowers from here.”

Xander would understand the fluttering feeling Ryoma’s words roused within him later, but as it was, he mistook it for a heart-gripping anxiety.

In the Hoshidan capital’s castle Xander discovered the cherry tree gardens. The pink petals set the scene a dreamy look, like a heaven on Earth, and the crown prince was immediately taken in by the sight.

Queen Ikona watched over them with a smile on her face and a hand on her swollen belly as she sat on one of the benches at the front of the garden. The two boys walked around amidst the trees and the flowers, the colors of each plant competing for the title of the most breathtaking.

“I’m no good at this,” Ryoma complained as he tried to wring tangled flowers into a wreath for Xander to return the gift. “Sorry, I should have gotten this ready before you got here.”

Xander didn’t say he was having a great time watching the other prince struggle with the flower crown; that’d have been too mean. And he was far too giddy for proper speech anyway.

“Is it okay to use flowers in the garden?” he eventually managed, voice and shoulders subdued as he looked at the slowly building wreath and the twisted petals. “Someone must have put effort into growing them.”

“It’s fine,” Ryoma said. “The gardeners can grow new ones easily.”

Xander blinked, mystified. Flowers grew with difficulty in Nohr, even under experienced hands, and ones that did grow plentiful in the cold climate were not known for outward beauty. Ryoma didn’t notice this confusion and continued working steadily, although with a wrinkled brow and pouting mouth.

A passing breeze brought in numerous petals from the cherry trees, casting the air pink from them. Soft, tender color that it was, Xander felt warm from the sight and the smile on his mouth was without any strain, wide with delight, his usual anxiety absent.

And when Ryoma finally looked up from his handiwork, there was no helping the laugh that rushed through his mouth and body as he gazed at Xander, who laughed with him. Petals from the cherry trees had swept over him, clung to his soft hair, and there they stayed as the breeze died out.

Ikona watched over them with a smile on her face – smile which only widened when Ryoma ceremoniously crowned Xander with the broken-looking wreath twisted from flowers.  The young prince of Nohr looked radiant with the cheap crown put upon his head: gone was the stiff gloominess Ikona had detected in the boy when the Nohrians had first arrived, and a full smile had replaced the confused frown that tugged at Xander’s face. Pink petals stuck in his fair hair and paler cheeks, Xander looked like he was enjoying himself.

Ryoma, sitting so close to him, got a good view of the sight. It would be a long time before he would meet another Nohrian with a hair so fair and a laugh so soft as Xander’s.

[“Gods, I remember now,” Xander said, startled to discover that he did indeed have a memory of Ryoma grinning at him like he wasn’t a stranger to his land, someone that would become an enemy later on. “I remember you, from before, but…”

“Vague memories, right?” Ryoma chuckled, a nostalgic tune swaying his intonation. “There was a time when I doubted my recollection – and I didn’t even recognize you, in the end.”

Xander curled his fingers in Ryoma’s hold, their tips brushing at Ryoma’s skin with affection. Xander spoke carefully, with a distant tone, “I did change a lot from those days.”]

Ryoma had seen him again before the dinner, but this time Xander wasn’t smiling: in fact, he was frowning to himself and clutching at his slender chest like he was in pain, Nohrian dress shirt rustling under those fingers while Xander stared at the training grounds with unseeing eyes. He flinched every now and then whenever the soldiers sparring at the sandy training field clashed their weapons against each other.

“Are you lost?” Ryoma asked and took in the jolt of surprise that went through Xander, which nearly had the Nohrian stumble forward. His father had sent him to look for Xander once the Nohrian prince’s absence had been noted at the dinner table. It had taken a while, but he had found Xander now.

But the only response he received was a meek noise, not quite a whimper but something close to that. Like scared kittens when Ryoma ventured too close too suddenly – though Xander didn’t bristle and hiss.

“I’m not,” Xander sniffed, but his eyes darted wildly over the field and not once landing on Ryoma.

“Our fathers are waiting,” Ryoma said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

The growling of Xander’s stomach, only audible as the sparring soldiers took a break on the sand fields, had the prince flush even as he shook his head with stubborn determination.

“I’m,” Xander started, still clutching at his chest. “I’m just scared. It’s stupid.”

Ryoma watched the boy quietly for a moment. Under the evening light of Hoshido, the dark pieces of Xander’s clothes looked even darker, especially the blacks and purples, while his hair glowed brightly, more golden than the sun.

Ryoma liked his own spiky, rapidly growing hair well enough, wouldn’t change it since he got it from his father, but the other prince’s hair was soft and wavy like the ocean’s waves.  The curls of gold stroked at Xander’s face from both sides, hiding away the roundness of his cheeks.

But they didn’t hide the anxious look that Xander wore on his face, which was what Ryoma wanted to dispel. No one in his father’s kingdom should have that kind of look.

So he swept aside Xander’s hair and pressed his lips on the chubby cheek. It was more like a smack than the cheek kisses his mother gave, and Ryoma’s face heated with the vague sense of failure that he felt.

Pulling away, he saw Xander stare at him with raised eyebrows and widened eyes. The brown-tinted eyes looked impossibly purple under certain light, somehow.

Ryoma grinned, banishing his own embarrassment. “Mother said cheek kisses heal all sorts of things! Nerves and so on, especially.”

Xander gawked at him more openly then, his thin lips parted open as he searched for words.

“You’re welcome,” Ryoma added cheekily, the grin tugging his mouth wider, and at that even the shy prince of Nohr couldn’t help but laugh with abandon, though no joke had been told.

They would return to the inside of the castle with linked arms, both deep in a conversation about each other’s favourite things. Their fathers cast off any potential chastises the moment they saw the two children entwined so.

Ryoma and Xander both slept in Queen Ikona’s room that night – one of the only sleepovers either of the boys would have for many years, and the one both would forget eventually until their memories of each other were stirred and shaken by the unfolding events in the war, the forgotten almost-friendship fragile and so precious once they realized they had shared moments together.

“I don’t want to go so far out of my way to say that this was meant to be,” Ryoma said slowly once they were finished reminiscing the past visit to Hoshido, which now seemed all the more precious than ever and not even entirely because of Ryoma’s presence in the memories.

“But?” Xander looked up from their entwined hands when Ryoma didn’t continue immediately. The face he saw was one of contemplation, tinged with an unexpected edge of apprehension that pulled his mouth down. Xander cleared his throat. “Ryoma?”

Ryoma didn’t jump at the call of his name, but his mouth twitched as his focus returned to the present. “But,” he continued then, “fate certainly works in strange ways. I had forgotten, for the longest time…”

“Fate,” Xander murmured, “or Corrin.” For as much as he believed in concepts of fate and destiny, he believed in his little sister more, as he believed in the rest of his family. The faith in his father was another thing, as it had been tested with fire and despair too many times already.

Xander leaned into Ryoma’s personal space over the small table, freeing a hand so he could bring it to Ryoma’s shoulder. The world outside the tent was nowhere near silent, filled with sounds of footsteps and shouts and conversation, but within the closed space it felt that there was no room for the outside reality.

Ryoma’s attention was on him fully then, his distinctly gray eyes glancing down at Xander’s chin or something else before rediscovering the eye contact.

“Corrin as well,” he relented with some amusement in his voice. “There is much to thank our sister for.”

Xander rubbed his thumb against Ryoma’s pulse point against neck, the steady throbbing of Ryoma’s heart a pleasant feeling that made Xander warmer and fonder. A lifetime in darkness hadn’t left him as cold as he had imagined. “I couldn’t agree any more with that even if I tried.”

They sent scouts around Anankos’ castle: Saizo, Kaze, and Niles had gone in search of any unexpected hostile groups of enemies. Frankly, Xander had expected that Iago might even turn up, given the man’s ability to materialize out of thin air. For better or for worse, the illusionist didn’t make an appearance, and the scouters reported only occasional sightings of wandering half-visible Vallites – living corpses, like King Sumeragi and Queen Mikoto had been, without a purpose of their own. Only the purpose of a mad self-proclaimed King drove them, Kaze had said, and that influence was stronger than in any of the platoons they had faced before in their march through Valla.

They tried to formulate a plan accordingly so that the army would have enough energy for Anankos, whose power was an unknown factor in their strategists’ calculations. Leo especially seemed troubled after his discussion with Corrin and the actual war council. Leo’s silence at dinner table, now shared by both quartets of siblings and Corrin, only showcased how deeply focused in his task the young prince was. Not to mention, this time Leo didn’t freak out over his collar, which was inside out again, although Prince Takumi brought it up with false snide to his voice.

Eventually, after a run-in or two with the wandering Vallites, Corrin decided that the army was as ready as they ever would be. She spoke with great conviction of a better future, of a lifetime of peace between Nohr and Hoshido, of all of them.

Ryoma and Xander listened to the speech, both enraptured by the strength in their sister’s voice and posture, their siblings not far from them but not closer than they were to each other. Standing by Ryoma’s side before battle was natural now to Xander, even though the opposite was a far more accustomed way.

But something nagged at Xander, and he was sure similar thoughts occurred to his siblings as well: where was Father in all this chaos? He tried not to think about it, perhaps clinging to one shred of hope that Azura was wrong and King Garon of Nohr still existed in the shell of the man. Perhaps Father was still at the castle in Windmire. Perhaps he would still be there when the siblings returned.

These thoughts were useless in the face of upcoming battle, though, and Xander fully ignored them whenever they tried to resurface. His retainers and them fussing over him – Laslow especially, perhaps trying to overcompensate now that his departure inched closer with the approaching end – to the point of distraction, for which Xander was thankful.

They were in the central building of the castle grounds after battling in several other parts, but it was in a worse condition than the rest. Rubble and dust reigned over the castle, and human bones lay around, strewn carelessly over the floors and stairs. The building reeked of death and madness, and Xander grew immensely more conscious of it when they began their march towards the throne room, where all expected Anankos to lay in waiting.

Leo kept sneezing through the ordeal, and Niles offered teasing remarks regarding Leo’s dust allergy. Some of the comments made Xander’s lips twitch in mild amusement when his ears caught them. Leo’s irritated snorts flaring the feeling even further. It was easy to hear them since they were close to Xander’s position, whereas he knew Camilla lingered in the back of their group with Hinoka, both on their respective mounts. Xander could hear the occasional flaps of a wyvern’s wings, however, even over the sounds of feet and chatter. It was supposed to be march for battle, he thought, not a social outing.

Ryoma and he exchanged no words, but they wouldn’t be able to as Corrin marched between them, her three retainers right behind her by Xander and Ryoma’s. Corrin remained silent as well, her face stiff from the strength of her will. Azura trailed behind her as well, unwilling to take her place between the siblings even after all this time. Xander noted he should have a heart-to-heart about that with the young woman later, when everything would come to a close in this never-ending saga of war.

The atmosphere changed the closer they got to the throne room: the air grew heavier and chatter fell flat into silence as everyone readied themselves. And then they heard them: the sounds of heavy footsteps as someone paced in front of the heavy oaken doors leading into the room they had searched for.

And then there was the laughter, one suitable for a madman, one that Xander used to picture Hans with when he had first arrested the man. It was bone-chillingly familiar only because it had been the last thing Xander had heard before he had resolved himself to join Corrin’s forces.

King Garon had come, without any of them noticing his presence before.

When they rounded the last corner separating the army from the Nohrian king, they all paused as they heard the wheezing, uneven breathing from the man, whose large build trembled almost violently, the trinkets of his royal attire clinking ominously in the deathly silence.

Xander’s best and worst attribute had always been loyalty, and now it made his heart ache all over inside the coffin that was his armor. But he knew better, now: this shell of a human did not deserve that loyalty, did not deserve to rule his and his siblings’ lives like a game of chess.

Utterances of similar nature to those Leo and he had heard back in Norh bubbled past Garon’s lips, like foam in the wake of raging waves, Garon’s voice unsteady like a boat stuck in the storm. “Destruction for both Nohr and Hoshido… only then… will everything become true once more…!”

It was as difficult to listen and watch as it had been the first time, but this time none of them had the option of escape. Xander inhaled, pulling his lips tight and keeping his posture straight. He felt Corrin’s eyes flicker towards him for the briefest moment, something akin to sympathy, before she stepped forward.

Ryoma didn’t look at him, which was for the best – for surely he would be able to look through Xander’s facades and see the bottled-up fear for what it was.

The army came to a halt when Corrin cleared her throat and pointed her Yato, in spite of the great distance, at Garon, whose attention snapped to them with a disconcerting laugh.

“So you have come, you bastard child,” Garon wheezed, the rumbling voice of his like stones clashing together, which the walls and the ceiling of the wide hall echoed.  “You will never make it out here alive.”

It was Xander who stepped forward, then, his steps sending loud echoes in their wake as his hand unsheathed Siegfried. The words came to him easily now, as he had practiced them for a long time – since his departure with Leo, in fact. He spoke loudly, with an even voice that he didn’t have in the past, back when he had let his fears and anxiety rule him, before he had decided to rule them instead.

“You have destroyed enough – and yet you seek even more destruction still,” he said, looking straight ahead with a frown that nearly hurt his face. “You punished many for disloyalty, but it is clear you are the most disloyal of them all – as the Crown Prince of Nohr, I cannot stand still. You, who would sell your country and children.”

His throat constricted around the word children, but that was the only flaw Xander could find as he pointed his sacred sword at the enemy, his and his siblings’ father who had ceased to be a father a long time ago. There was no point of return for the good days: there were only the memories.

Xander had accepted that on their way through the invisible kingdom, but even so, his chest ached with a pain deeper than any physical wound.

Garon only laughed the same disgusting, deranged cackle as before – and then, spitting out the words and sentences with huffy exhales, “Xander! You dare intervene when you’re nothing but a pawn to be sacrificed to the greater god? You dare to spout nonsense in my presence? Very well, Xander… let death be your punishment, then.”

There had never been so much venom inserted into the breath of his name before, and it took Xander by surprise, as much as he refused to admit it.

In response, he simply held his sword higher. Siegfried, the sacred weapon that had been long used for slaying kings and queens alike, felt warm through the gauntlet, the hum of its power seeping into its owner like the heat from a fireplace.

After an agonizing moment of silence, someone else stepped out from the formation Corrin’s army had assumed. Xander didn’t look back, and he didn’t have to, as that someone already began speaking with cool, collected words that held forced contempt.

“Death would be preferable to living under your thumb again, Father.” Leo came to a halt beside Xander, Brynhildr at hand, ready to be used. Up close, Xander could sense the slight quiver of Leo’s body, the slight crack at the end of Leo’s sentence, which might as well be attributed to puberty – Leo was a late bloomer, after all.  Xander glanced at his side in time to witness the deep sneer pulling at Leo’s mouth. “To hell with your chaotic gods.”

“Lord Leo, the language,” Niles cackled gleefully somewhere in the background, but he was promptly silenced by someone.

Garon responded with nothing more than condescending laughter, which now hurt Xander’s ears more than any other sound ever had and ever would, impossibly more than Iago’s faked courtesy and Zola’s groveling combined. Xander ground his teeth together, steeling his resolve again as Leo’s gaze burned at his cheek.

Over the sound of Garon’s distorted noise, a wyvern flapped her wings, followed by softer flaps from a feathered pair. While the horses had been left at the abandoned stables in the castle yard, the pegasus and wyvern riders hadn’t left their mounts behind – aerial battle, it had been argued, would save their asses. And Camilla couldn’t bear to be apart from her partner, in the first place.

It was her voice that pierced through the echoes of Garon’s irritated shuffling and arrogant sneers. “We won’t let you hurt our darling Corrin any longer, Father. And not us. Not anymore.”

“You tell ‘im, darling,” Xander heard Hinoka murmur under her breath, not meant for anyone’s but Camilla’s ears. He smiled tensely but in relief: the proof of each of their bonds with the Kingdom of Hoshido existed, and it was right there.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Elise’s bright voice joined in next, and Xander heard her run to his side before she gripped his arm, the one not extended forward to point at Garon with Siegfried. Xander glanced aside and saw her “You’ll never be mean to Corrin and my big brother again!”

“Elise,” Xander said cautiously. “Be careful now.”

Elise looked up at him, her stave shoved between her arm and her side as she clung to his arm for a moment longer. Round, violet eyes that had given Xander more strength than he himself had on many occasions now peered at him with endless love and fierceness that was typical to Elise, whose bright spirit even Nohr’s cruel courts couldn’t diminish.

She had grown stronger, stronger than there should ever have been a need for, and that made Xander’s mouth thin into a grim line as he turned his focus back to where it should be.

“Big brother…”

Except now it was Corrin’s voice that demanded his attention, soft and concerned that it was. Her face reflected the emotion, mostly her eyes that bled out her love for him and the rest of her families. Her jaw clenched, a ripple shivering through her face, before she said, “We’re all in this together now, brother.”

“For better or for worse,” Ryoma’s steadfast, deep voice beside all of them agreed, and when Xander glanced at him, Ryoma looked back, his eyes narrow but holding a flicker of kindness, “we will bring an end to it today.”

“For Nohr,” Xander said, Ryoma joining in, “For Hoshido.”

Corrin smiled, and her divine weapon shone in the gray light of the hall aged by death and sorrow, and her voice carried even through the sounds of Vallite soldiers marching forward from where they had concealed themselves to ambush them.

“For everyone.”

The battle was strenuous and it quickly tore the army apart into smaller formations, sometimes even pairs of fighters, which was how Xander lost his precise estimation regarding the locations of his siblings. There was no time to search them out, and Xander had his own agenda to fulfill anyhow: to rid himself of the self-wrought pain of his sacrificial loyalty to a father no longer alive, and to ease off the remnants of Corrin’s anxieties.

To keep her hands pure, as much as he still could. Her eyes might be the color of blood, which stories painted as an omen for evil, but the Corrin he knew was soft and idealistic around the edges, naïve at times when it came to extending trust to strangers.

Xander blocked the strikes from the enemy soldiers with relative ease as Laslow had his back for him, the blind spot covered for the Crown Prince. There never was room for thanks on battlefield, but Xander counted on Laslow to recognize the trust the retainer had earned from him.

The spacious hall and its archways were soon full of smoke in the wake of the explosions of magical fire, some which were from their side and some from the enemy mages – but the only screams to be heard were the screams from Corrin’s army as the enemies remained as eerily silent as always even in their second deaths.

Xander was tired of the smell of it, tired of the splatters of blood spilling on Siegfried’s heavy blade, but he dutifully cut the enemies down when they came for him while keeping at the steady path forward towards the carcass that was King Garon, who had made no move and simply watched the unfolding chaos. Whatever he had come there to do, he put aside to watch the death of his children and the Hoshidans.

Xander fought through the enemies that came at him – although many more went after Laslow, picking what they thought to be an easier, less armored target: well, Laslow’s dance-like switch from parrying to countering did them in, in the end. Somewhere on the right side, a crackle of lightning burst out, flickering across a wide area with Ryoma’s shout marking the way.

In that passing moment right after Ryoma’s voice faded under the sounds of battle, Xander’s heart calmed and his determination had him move on faster. He wasn’t quite as swift on his feet as the other prince, who had leapt into the thickest group of the hostile forces the first moment he saw fit, but as the story of the hare and the tortoise said, the ones victorious were not always the speedy ones.

Not that there was any competition between them, now, and Xander only had one goal as the Rainbow Sage’s words, spoken in what could be an entirely different age itself, echoed in his mind, thumping along his heartbeat.

You are your father’s son, he had said, and the old man’s smile had been as kind as it was pitying, heavy with the knowledge of what fate had written for his saga of life.

Legends spoke of Siegfried as the instrument of regicide. Xander used to pour over the books and old scrolls that spoke of the sacred weapon, which had a tendency to linger in the hands of Nohrian nobility, and he had learned many a thing of his currently trusted weapon. A sword imbued with black magic, emitting purple aura that sent trembles down the spines of the ones unprepared for it; a sword sturdy enough to have even a trained knight stumble under its weight.

Its history was a bloody one. Monarchs had died with Siegfried piercing their hearts – princes and princesses, too, as Siegfried had been mishandled and used for injustice in the times of civil wars and revolutions.

Xander had studied its history in great detail, knowing Father had always intended for Xander to handle it while Garon himself had a preference for axes and Siegfried had never accepted Garon’s touch.

It had been Queen Katerina’s once, and her time with the sword had never seen a usurp or felling of a king – a rarity in and of itself, but Katerina of Cheve was an exception in the sacred weapon’s history, as Xander concluded in his studies.

it was with his mother’s courage and his mother’s sword that Xander rushed in to close to remaining distance between the once righteous ruler of their kingdom, coming to a halt only when Siegfried’s blade clashed with the sharp edge of Garon’s trusted axe, Bölverk. Xander’s teeth ground together from the ferocity of the impact, his knees nearly buckling under the pressure as Bölver pressed against Siegfried.

Garon’s sunken eyes glared at Xander, and perhaps it was due to his growing awareness of reality and his slow acceptance, he could see that any trace of the just father he knew before was gone, truly dead.  Xander’s breath stumbled out, his muscles tensing and twitching for that one unnecessary moment that Garon needed to gain the upper hand over Xander and Siegfried.

Bölverk overwhelmed, and the friction between Siegfried’s hilt and Xander’s hand burned as he struggled to hold onto the sacred weapon and battle the axe away.

“You see,” Garon hissed, “you were never good enough for that blade of yours.”

Bölverk pushed down until its blade met Xander’s armored shoulder, eliciting a screech as it overwhelmed Siegfried and cut into Xander’s armor. A chunk of the black metal fell, hitting the stone floor with no echo to follow, and Xander’s teeth ground at one another to keep the pain at bay.

Siegfried’s magic intensified, blaring a bright purple light that dissolved Garon’s self-satisfied expression in that instant, and Xander adjusted his hand and its position before thrusting forward, ducking under the axe’s weight on his shoulder—

He thought he heard someone scream his name – an agonized scream, which pleaded him to stop but which Xander had no time to listen to.

--and pushing Siegfried between Garon’s worn-out chest plates, which were even older than Xander himself, and continued until Siegfried pierced into Garon and the discomforted groans turned into wheezing screams, Garon coughing and splattering blood on Xander whose shoulder burned not quite as much as his heart in that instant.

Bölverk didn’t fall until Xander twisted Siegfried inside Garon’s stomach some more, which sent Garon down on his knees, red liquid running from his parted mouth down to his whitened beard.

Xander swallowed the taste of sadness in his throat, and drew Siegfried out as the sounds of battle around them came to a close with a final crack of lightning. Even if the world were in flames, Xander would still hear nothing but the pained breaths of his father at his feet and see nothing but the quivers that wrecked Garon’s thick frame.

Droplets of blood fell from Siegfried’s blade to the sandy stones of the ground in a quiet drip-drip sound that should have been inaudible, especially when Garon collapsed onto his knees, the metal of his armor clashing down hard. On his knees Garon stayed, blood gushing from beneath the chest plates, much darker than that of human blood.

It reeked, the smell burning at Xander’s eyes – either that or tears he had promised to keep to himself.

Garon’s eyes peered at him, watching him, and Garon’s thinned, droopy lips curled upwards – and not out of malice. Xander’s eyes widened, and his stomach dropped, when Garon rasped out his name like only a dying man would.

A dying man with a lifetime’s worth of regret.

“Xander,” Garon began, and there was a softness in his eyes that had never been there after Elise’s birth, though that softness was eclipsed by the weariness that suddenly showed in the deep lines of his face.

“Fa—“ Xander struggled with the word as he stared down at the man. “Father? Is it really…?”

Siegfried fell from him with a loud clang as it hit the floor, but he ignored it as he whipped his head around and yelled out to his siblings to come over. The pain in his bleeding shoulder was yet to register through his shock as Garon’s hand had moved to clutch Xander’s wrist, the grip strong and familiar.

“It’s me, son,” Garon coughed, which had Xander hastily kneel to keep his father from overexerting himself in this state. But, Xander knew, there was no saving him. Instead he held Garon’s hand, unlocking the tight hold of the fingers around his wrist.

“Father,” Xander said, reverence seeping into his tone as he heard the rest of his siblings rush in. Without tearing his eyes away from Garon’s wrinkled and tired face, he said, “He’s finally back, Camilla. He’s…”

Camilla had descended from her wyvern without making a sound, but she didn’t come closer to Garon than to stand behind Xander, one of her hands on Xander’s uninjured shoulder. “Yes,” she said with a soft voice and a grim tone. “I can see that he is.”

It was Leo and Elise who came closer, Elise squeezed between Xander and Leo’s sides. Leo huffed at her, irritated as always, and Xander caught a glimpse of ashen gray ends of Leo’s hair, frayed from magical fire from the battle.

Garon watched them all, and Xander watched him in return, catching that glimpse of awe that shone in the deadened eyes that made Xander’s chest constrict. He had been prepared for no farewell all this time, or at least one with hurtful words and promises of death, but now…

“My children,” Garon murmured, his voice as rumbly as ever, even when it took effort to speak. The blood loss hadn’t taken him yet – one thing Xander would give thanks to Anankos for: at least they got more than just a moment.

Garon reached out for Elise first, with the hand Xander wasn’t holding onto like it was his lifeline in his story sea of emotions welling up within him.

Elise was scared stiff against Xander’s side, which didn’t look comfortable in the least but it had once been Elise’s favorite spot to linger at. Garon stopped short of touching her, and Elise stared at him, eyes wide and even more purple in the dim lighting than usual.

“My youngest, and the one I knew the least,” Garon sighed, each word carrying a heavy weight. “I wasn’t there for you, at all.”

Elise’s flush could have burned Xander through his armor, so hot and red it was. Xander smiled slightly, committing himself to making the most out of these last moments. “I-it’s okay, Father! Xander was there for me all the time before—well, before this awful war.”

“Your mother,” Garon murmured, distracted, “was a cleric as well, wasn’t she?”

“Uh-huh!” Elise’s countenance and demeanor brightened like the sun at the mention of her mother, who had been a rare one amongst Garon’s lovers as she had dedicated her time to her daughter and not the raging concubine wars that only settled down when Elise had learned to walk and talk properly. “But I wanted to be one ‘cause I wanted to help my siblings.”

“A noble desire,” Garon mused, closing his eyes as he coughed and retracted his hand from Elise, whom it hadn’t even touched. “I wonder where you got that from.”

“Xander, duh.” Elise glanced up at Xander, tears hanging from her eyes. “He told me all about you too, Father.”

Garon’s smile was as content as it had been on the day he and Xander had traveled to Hoshido to meet his long-time friend.

The whole hall had fallen into silence to give the Nohrian family time to say their goodbyes, Xander dimly realized as he watched his father’s eyes wander to Leo next. His time left in this world didn’t allow for long farewells.

Leo reached out for Garon’s hand himself, his own shaking just enough to be seen. “Father.”

Garon looked at Leo fondly, no doubt recalling something pleasant from Leo’s early childhood. Xander wouldn’t be able to tell what exactly it was. “Did you ever find out what it was that the cuckoos sang for, my child?”

“It hasn’t been on top of my things to research list, Father,” Leo said, clearing his throat in what sounded like embarrassment. “I’ll look into it, if you wish.”

“You should not do things if it is only to please someone,” Garon said. His voice was quiet, and if one listened carefully, there was an edge of fragility to the words. “There is diplomacy and then there is running yourself ragged for someone else. I put you all through the latter, I’m afraid.”

Leo sighed. “Yes, yes.”

“Is your collar inside out?” Garon asked after a beat of silence, coughing some more. Blood came gurgling out, and Xander instinctively held Elise closer to hide her from the sight.

“It is not,” Leo insisted hastily as his hands flew to the mentioned piece of clothing. “You’re imagining things, Father—er.”

Leo’s face paled at his outburst and he bit at his lip. “I… apologize, that wasn’t…”

“As I told Xander in the past,” Garon grunted, “a father and son should be able to talk honestly. No apologies needed here, Leo.”

“He always tried to encourage me into having deeper dialogue with him when I was a child,” Xander said to Leo, half a smile tugging at his mouth as nostalgia struck in. The pain in his shoulder turned the expression into a deep wince, but no one commented on it. “You used to sit on his shoulders when I started practicing talking with him.”

“The good old times,” Garon agreed roughly, chuckling with some difficulty. “Little Leo tried to talk over his big brother, if my memory serves me right.”

“Anything that I don’t remember can’t be held over my head,” Leo said huffily, familiar irritation in his tone. “I don’t even remember brother ever being shy about expressing himself, anyway.”

Camilla cleared her throat for the first time through the last conversation they would ever have with Garon. Her voice was stiff but gentle as she addressed Leo: “Darling, you missed out on much if you never listened to the stories around the court. Little Xander was such a shy little darling, he’d cling to Father’s legs when Father took him to visit neighboring countries’ leaders.”

“Camilla,” Xander grumbled, “you were not present either. Courts are only good for baseless conjecture.”

Camilla’s snort-like giggle did nothing but bemuse him, but Garon was contented to hear his daughter laugh and his face smoothed into a more peaceful expression, one that Xander didn’t remember ever seeing on his father.

“Camilla, my daughter,” Garon began, which brought the soft giggling to an abrupt end and Camilla’s guard back up.

“I don’t need it, Father,” she said, voice soft but undeniably distant, and Xander glanced over his shoulder at her. She smiled sadly in return. “You need it far more than I, brother.”

“Sister,” Xander began to chastise her but Camilla gave her patented, firm sisterly look that left no room for arguments. She usually saved that one for Elise and Leo, but it affected Xander as well and had him clench his jaw shut.

She wasn’t wrong, though, but Xander wouldn’t say he deserved closure more than she did, despite their different circumstances within the royal family. Despite their different relationships with the King of Nohr.

“Xander,” Garon called for his attention and so he gained it. Xander numbly noted it was the gentlest utterance of his name that he had ever heard, excepting occasional moments between himself and Ryoma, whose presence right behind the Nohrian siblings’ gathering was tangible and hard to ignore if there weren’t more pressing matters at hand.

“Yes, Father,” Xander said out of habit. The words came out garbled thanks to the lump that had formed in his throat. But it wasn’t the time for tears yet, and so Xander swallowed it down. It came with ease after many years of suffocating his own feelings on significant matters.

Elise eased off her hold over Xander so that he could hold onto Father’s hands. They had once been kind but had later been tainted with unnecessary war as well as pain and fear of his children. Xander bit down his apprehension and looked at their father, heart heavy in his chest.

“Xander, my firstborn,” Garon began, and for the first time ever Xander detected mild fear in his father’s voice. Garon’s wrinkles deepened, the lines of his face ever so obvious. “You carry so much on your shoulders. Much more than you should have to.”

“I have no doubts that such is the duty of a crown prince,” Xander said and held onto the once strong hands of his father a little tighter. The responding squeeze was weak and didn’t last long. “Regardless of… the circumstances, I would have had to grow into my role one way or another.”

“No father wishes for their child to grow up as you did,” Garon pointed out with a dry, humorless chuckle. His eyes narrowed, a deep bitterness darkening them once more. Garon looked away, perhaps to hide the anger at his situation from his children. “I wasn’t able to provide after I gave in to him, but it is not suitable to use the dragon god as an excuse for my weaknesses.”

The following silence was tense as Garon gritted his teeth, the blue sparkles that had accompanied Mikoto and Sumeragi’s final deaths beginning to dance in the air.

“I always,” Xander broke it, slugging forward as he let go of Garon’s hands, “always hoped for your return, Father.”

Garon gestured for Xander to lean forward, his eyes watching Xander with devout affection that had fallen into unfamiliarity over the years. Xander bowed his head stiffly, a little slower than he usually was in following orders.

Xander gritted his teeth together as the pain flared up in his shoulder, traveling up his neck as well. He would have this much, even if it killed him. One last show of respect to the man that had raised him, the man that had taught him the importance of composure in the face of adversary.

Garon’s hand fell on top of Xander’s head, sturdy fingers curling in the curls of blond hair. Xander’s heart paused in tentative hope.

“Father…?”

Garon hummed a tune, distinctly familiar but which Xander couldn’t place. His hand gently caressed Xander’s head. “More than power and more than gold… you were all my treasures, children.”

“And you, Xander – my beloved first love’s child, you were the brightest light in my life.” Garon choked on his words, coughing them out with unclear enunciation, but Xander heard them alright.

The power of words was truly incredible, he thought dimly as his eyes began to water, vision dimming into a blur. If a heart could break from a hope fulfilled, then his was in thousands of pieces.

“Father, please,” he said. He wasn’t sure what he was asking for – perhaps for the impossible thing: give them their childhoods back, and me a reason to breathe easily. Foolish of him.

But they deserved better than a possessed father and scattered goodbyes; deserved better than bruises on their faces and bitterness in their hearts; deserved more than they would receive from Garon at the end of his life.

Then again, it had been only Xander who had had time to form any sort of coherent relationship with Father, what with Camilla’s mother guarding her like a hawk throughout her early childhood and preparing her for the role of the crown princess once Xander would pass on. He never did, though, because Camilla loved him more than her mother had anticipated. And Leo and Elise had been so young when things had gone awry. Not to mention Corrin.

Garon’s fingers stopped around the edges of Xander’s crown, and Xander glanced up to see his father’s grim face directed at someone behind him.

“Mikoto’s child,” Garon rasped.

“King Garon.” Corrin’s voice was wary, apprehensive.

“Perhaps it was you,” Garon muttered as he brought his hand down from Xander’s hair, “that truly saved my children.”

“They saved themselves,” Corrin said confidently. “Just like how they saved me from loneliness.”

Garon laughed, but it was not the sickening cackle that had haunted Xander ever since his departure from Castle Krakenburg. “I see. But I know that it was your conviction that led Xander back to the path he was meant to tread on.”

Garon’s face turned almost mirthful as he looked at Xander. The blue flickers grew in number still, and Garon’s skin was starting to melt away. Xander couldn’t turn his eyes away, not when his father was smiling like this. “I also sense that Sumeragi’s eldest had his hands involved in this.”

“I haven’t steered his way,” Ryoma’s voice came close behind like Corrin’s, and Xander twitched in surprise. He had forgotten the presence of others. “He is the captain of his own choices.”

“Smooth,” Prince Takumi’s voice broke through from the crowd looming not as close as Ryoma and Corrin, but still close enough. Someone laughed.

“He’s an admirable man,” Ryoma added in, clearing his throat after a beat of silence passed. Xander assumed he had thrown his little brother A Look, and it made him snort under his breath. But Ryoma still had something to say. “You’re leaving Nohr in capable hands.”

Garon sighed, reaching his fingers out to sweep them down Xander’s cheekbone. His oddly colored skin flickered blue until it melted into blue, his voice echoing as he disappeared in the blinding light. “I am aware, Prince Ryoma. He takes after Katerina, after all.”

When the light died, King Garon was gone – only his crown remained where Garon had died on his knees – and Xander’s yell of Father! would never reach the king’s ears.

Camilla was the first to curl around him, her arms draped over his shoulders and around his neck to shield him from his grief. It was not possible, but Xander appreciated the gesture nonetheless. Although she did press into his injured shoulder a little too hard.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “Of course you injured yourself with Father. Elise, darling, if you would…?”

“No problem!” Elise was quick to fling her stave over Xander’s shoulder, and the warmth of the healing magic particular to Elise washed over him in a wave of calm. Elise smiled, hesitant, as her gaze flickered away. “That should do it.”

The pain didn't fade away entirely, but Xander would ignore that.

“Elise, what’s wrong?” Xander cocked his eyebrows at her. Emotionally, he wasn’t sure he could throw much sympathy around right then. The shout for his father had drained him from everything.

Elise peered at him warily, her small hands fumbling with the stave, until her expression changed into one of determination. She lunged herself  into Xander’s side, her arms not quite long enough to reach all the way around him as she hugged him.

“W-what are you--?” Xander looked down at his little sister, at the top of her head as she buried herself against his armor and the decorating cloth.

“You look like you need a hug, Xander,” Elise mumbled. She looked up, her large violet eyes full of sympathy for him. “I never knew Father as he was, but you did, didn’t you, big brother?”

Sometimes he forgot how sensitive to people’s emotions Elise was. Xander brought a hand on top of her head and stroked her hair, wearing a small, strained smile. The emptiness in his chest from before had transformed into a gaping hole, but it was easy to hide the hurt in the warmth of Elise. “I have told you all the stories, Elise. But there’s much I don’t know about him myself.”

But Elise willfully ignored his words as she was already gesturing at Leo to come over. “Come on, Leo! Let’s hug till big brother feels better!”

Leo’s face wrinkled with distaste at the idea of physical affection, but he made no arguments after throwing a look at Xander’s face. He just said “Make room then” and wriggled his way into the hug cycle, holding onto Elise with his other hand and wrapped the other tentatively behind Xander’s back, knocking his knuckles against Camilla’s arm.

“This is unnecessary,” Xander said, shifting on his quickly numbing knees as his siblings leaned onto him from all sides. Camilla squeezed him from behind, and the pressure on his shoulder had him wheeze.

“Let us take care of you for once, darling,” she murmured, her breath tickling at his neck along with her tears.

Let it go, she meant.

In the end, they huddled together for perhaps longer than the army had time for. Corrin joined them – “he’s my brother to comfort too, isn’t he?” – and pressed her head below Xander’s chin like in the old days. His family around him, for his comfort, finally undid him.

Tears came without shame, and they dampened Corrin’s long hair as he buried his face into it. Silently they fell, as Xander had grown up to repress his weaknesses.

There was no time for grief now, but he could afford these tears for a man he had looked up to his whole life, the man who had endured all the way until his breaking point. Nothing could make up for the lost time and the consequences of the possession, but there was only one path to take – the path of peace Corrin had walked all along.

Xander exhaled softly, releasing his hold over his younger siblings when faintness struck him, the wound on his shoulder now fresh on his mind again as he slowly collapsed onto Corrin.

“Xander? Xander!”

“Oh, right,” he heard Camilla murmur. “He did stand in the receiving end of Father’s axe…”

“Elise, if you would,” Leo sighed. “He’s crushing my arm.”

“On it!... Wait, didn't I already do that...?"

"It was deeper than it looked," Camilla's voice rang clear, concern tangible in the syllables. "Do it again, darling."

"Okay!"

Ryoma and he managed to sneak in a moment for just the two of them when Corrin returned to the main army to make sure everyone was alright and their equipment unbroken. She worried so much, and yet the weight of those worries never seemed to crush her spirit.

No one was within hearing distance when Ryoma finally heaved out a sigh and took a good look at him. Exhaustion clung to his face as well, but it was easily swept aside by the concern that flooded his eyes as he studied Xander’s face.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked, hands grabbing Xander’s shoulders. Xander tried not to smile; it made a humorous scene as Ryoma was noticeably shorter than he, even with the spiked up hair.

“I have been ready for a long while,” Xander said. “Do you doubt me?”

Ryoma cocked his head to a side as he peered at Xander, gray eyes narrow and piercing as they tried to see into his soul. Xander didn’t look away, although he disliked the feeling of vulnerability that Ryoma’s stare awakened.

“No, I don’t,” Ryoma said, his sigh flaring his nostrils. Soft affection lingered in his eyes. “I am merely worried. Your father was… important to you. And we have no time to rest before Anankos.”

“I have time to grieve later,” Xander waved Ryoma’s concern off but not unkindly. He brought his hand to Ryoma’s strong jaw, let his fingers brush underneath the strong jawline. Late nights at the bath house came to his mind, and with it the many indulgent kisses.

Xander cleared his throat, flushing as he realized the route his thoughts had taken, but Ryoma beat him to it.

“I didn’t mean… that,” Ryoma started with difficulty unnatural to him. He frowned, at himself or his words. “I overheard your talk with the dark mage once. Nyx, I think her name was.”

Xander clenched his jaw, recoiling away from Ryoma’s hands. “Eavesdropping is hardly princely demeanor.”

Ryoma’s brow wrinkled and his lips twisted, but Xander didn’t know what the emotion behind such a face was. “I did not intend to do so, if that matters. But I can’t ignore what I heard, either. So I ask you again – are you sure you--?”

Xander sighed, and looked away from the intrusive eyes of Ryoma. “I intend to see this through, regardless of how worn out my spirit may be. I can worry about the bloodstains in my hands later.”

Ryoma fell into a brief silence after that, and Xander stiffened as he waited for him to respond. In the background, he could hear Prince Takumi laughing loudly – possibly with Leo or at him. Elise’s undefeated giggles also rang cleanly. Xander wondered where she had gotten the kind of tenacity to go through numerous bloody battles and come out not only unscathed but with joyful hope for better.

Xander saw Laslow hovering a respectable distance from them, arms tucked behind his back, but his nervousness and worry radiated off the man like black magic. Not for the first time, Xander thought back on the other’s confession and the tragedy of having to leave a loved one behind.

How his retainer would be able to do it, Xander had yet to find out.

“I hope you know I will always lend an ear to whatever is on your mind,” Ryoma finally said, directing Xander’s attention back to him. The sharp narrow-eyed glare had left, and a gentle smile replaced it. “You are dear to me, after all.”

Xander stared at him. The words had struck the part of him that felt deeply, the part of him that had always been aching when he or any of his siblings had been mistreated and coerced into evil.

There was no condition for this kindness Ryoma was offering so freely, and that alone left Xander flabbergasted.

“Gods have been kinder than ever for them to have given you to me,” Xander settled for, clearing his throat as he glanced slightly away from Ryoma’s face. It was hard to face the sentiment of unconditional love after a lifetime of hardship. “I never imagined it would come to this.”

Ryoma’s flustered countenance and the way he opened and shut his mouth several times in his search for words brought a smile to Xander’s face, wide enough to hurt despite the ache and the emptiness that came from knowing that one era had come to its end.

Xander smiled fondly as he leaned in closer to Ryoma’s face and just a breath’s away from his lips, Xander murmured, eyes half-lidded, “There is nothing that could keep me from coming back to you, Ryoma. I promise you that.”

When Xander and Ryoma returned to the main group, their siblings were already waiting for them, Corrin in particular. She held out her hands, the crown of Nohr’s King in her hands.

“The kingdom of Nohr needs a new king,” she said. Her bright smile betrayed the solemnity of her voice, the twinkle in her eyes much clearer than the faked tone. “Elise and Camilla as well as Leo talked it with me and we decided we should crown you here and now.”

“This is ridiculous, little princess,” Xander said. “There’s grieving to be done and a war to be won first.”

Looking at the crown Corrin held in her war-hardened hands was physically painful, despite Xander’s determination to shove off the grief until later time.

Corrin looked back at him, still with her kind but determined smile, and said, “Brother, Nohr needs you more than ever. Think of it as a practice for the real thing. We’re sweeping off the past mistakes with this – I know Father would have wanted you to wear it now when the end of this war is so near.”

“Practically speaking,” Leo said from Corrin’s side, smiling wryly, “such a thorny crown is annoying to carry around. Take responsibility, brother. It is yours now.”

“Et tu, Leo?” Xander clicked his tongue in mild annoyance, but sighed to give his surrender. “Your attendance at the actual coronation ceremony is mandatory, I hope you realize that.”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweetheart,” Camilla laughed, her and Princess Hinoka’s arms entwined and so the poor redhead was dragged around by the Nohrian princess. Xander felt sorry for her, though it was increasingly harder to feel sympathy when Hinoka didn’t seem to mind her situation at all and just playfully pushed at Camilla in return.

Xander sighed and knelt when Elise enthusiastically gestured him to do so. He could hear Peri and Laslow both cheering enthusiastically, which was entirely out of place for the solemnity of the bigger picture they were in. Corrin stepped forward before halting suddenly.

“Xander, your current accessory needs to go,” she said, feigning a frown.

“Consider it done.” Ryoma’s fingers slipped into Xander’s hair without warning, tugging the crown prince’s crown from his head. Xander pursed his lips at the loss of sensation around his forehead. It always left him a little vulnerable, as he had been relentlessly teased about his large forehead in his childhood. He kept his eyes down and closed, hands on the one knee not in the ground.

His heartbeat refused to slow back into normalcy, even when Ryoma’s hands no longer touched his hair and the man had already backed off a couple steps from the scene.

This might be the last time before they both would succumb to the reality of their lives.

Corrin’s voice lifted his heart from the realistic but rather sad thought. “Xander, my big brother.”

That was not how any coronation ceremony usually began, Xander mused and opened his eyes to offer Corrin an amused glance upwards.

“Just play along, geesh,” Corrin huffed at him, puffed out cheeks and all. She had clearly been spending far too much time with Elise recently.

“Yes, yes,” he said, a fond smile playing on his lips.

“Do you swear that from this point on you shall rule your kingdom with a kind, just heart and mind?” Corrin finally took the appropriately solemn tone, but nothing could wipe the grin off her face. Which was fine. Xander knew the heaviness of her responsibilities well.

“I do,” he said, his eyes settling on the crown between Corrin’s hands. He had suppressed the feeling before, but now the intimidation crept upon him and dug its claws into him.

“Will you seek out the path of peace, and do you promise to make peace with Hoshido?”

Xander tried not to laugh at the hopefulness in her tone. Silly princess, they had already promised. “I will, and I do.”

“I, as well,” Ryoma joined in.

“Aren’t you already at peace with Hoshido?” Xander hummed, unable to stop amusement from coloring his voice.

“That is not what I meant,” Ryoma huffed in return, and Xander could picture the straight-backed Ryoma with arms crossed over his chest perfectly even without looking to his side.

“Brother please,” Corrin sighed. “You’ll have your own coronation later!”

It was a well-known fact among the army that if there was a chance for Ryoma to heartily agree with Xander on something, the high prince of Hoshido was sure to take it.

Not that Ryoma would admit that himself, though now he sounded embarrassed as he beckoned Corrin to continue.

“As you have promised,” Corrin said solemnly in the dead silence of the abandoned hall of ancient rulers of Valla, “you shall lead Nohr to a new era of peace and bring your country peace with Hoshido and soon-to-be King Ryoma. “

Future, Xander realized. She was giving him hope for future.

Or forcing him to take on the daunting task by the horns, as if he wasn’t already prepared to do so.

Corrin’s face melted into another brilliant smile as she brought her hands down and set the crown on top of Xander’s head, adjusting the position until it fit perfectly.

“May your rule be blessed with good fortune and mutual understanding and love,” Corrin continued, putting her best effort into not smiling like a fool but failing at that, “and may you and Prince Ryoma support each other in sickness and in health—“

“CORRIN.”

Everyone’s laughter rang in the air for a solid few minutes, Xander’s face tingling from his blush the whole time.

The excruciating realization of loss would hit him sooner or later, but for now – for now he could soak in the novelty of the friendships forged between the two sides of the army and the warmth that those relationships birthed in him.

If future could be like this, all the struggles that came with it would be worth the price.

The final battle was as difficult as any of them had feared, what with the longevity and near indestructible nature of the Dragon King. Elise and Sakura were kept busy as they ran and rode all over the battle field healing their allies, driven by their shared sense of responsibility over the whole army’s wellbeing. Both were doing much more than what was good for their own health and safety, really, and Xander would give both a stern talking to.

They felled Anankos together, with Hoshidan-Nohrian cooperation that would go down in history as something unique even though the two countries had shared friendly relations in the past before.

The war to end all the wars, some dared to whisper when they didn’t see the royals listening. Through everyone’s exhaustion, a childish hope festered and came to life like a candle’s flame.

And with hope came laughter and joy, one that was much less forceful than anything throughout the army’s long travel to the heart of Valla.

The very first thing Xander went to do after post-battle pats on the back for his retainers and siblings was finding Sieg. The poor horse had injured one of its legs in one of the decisive battles in getting to the castle, and Xander worried if he should walk the poor animal the whole way back to Nohr.

Unless Leo still had his warp tomes with him.

The air outside of the castle was warm, suffocating, but far less dusty than the stagnant air inside. For the first time since hours and hours ago, Xander took in a deep breath – and let it come out in an exhale that made his lungs quiver and his eyes water.

The weight of the crown on his head settled over him once more, now that the distractions had been cast aside. At times, it had felt impossible that things ever should end peacefully, and Xander had worried constantly by himself. And yet… there they were, at the beginning state of peace between two deeply wounded nations. The beginning of something new, but also the end of an era ruled by kings Sumeragi and Garon.

Sieg’s greeting – a loud whinny that Xander took as “hello, pay attention to me, human” – startled and halted Xander and his thought process. Sieg stood a little away from Elise and Leo’s mounts, never having been a very social horse for whatever reason. Elise had once said, with a giggle, that he took after Xander.

Xander smiled, the watery feeling in his eyes fading away as he went to pat Sieg’s neck. “Hello there, old friend.”

A gift from Father on one of his birthdays in gloomy October, and perhaps that was why Xander treasured him so much. Thinking about it now, Father hadn’t been himself then either, but Xander had clung to the proof that Garon was still there, underneath the stern and bitter exterior. But he had… been gone, much like Hoshidan presence in Nohrian court.

The diplomatic visits from Hoshido had ceased in number not long after Queen Katerina had died, but it was only after Queen Arete was gone that everything went into ruins.

Xander hadn’t met Ryoma after the few childhood visits.

“It’s a real pity,” Xander murmured to Sieg, who gave a whinny if Xander ceased patting and showering him with affection. Xander shook his head, exasperated but fond. “We could have understood each other sooner.”

He had gathered many regrets in his life, most of which were related to the grimness of death, and he hadn’t learned to let go of some of them, but this one he could fix with the power entrusted to him and his siblings.

Sieg peered at him, the flicker of light in the animal’s eyes resembling something like understanding. Xander had vented his frustrations to the horse before, especially back in the days when he got increasingly more frustrated with his inability to convince Father to steer away from the war path he had taken.

Or, well, the fake Father.

Gods, it was over.

“With something lost, something was gained,” he murmured as he moved his hand up Sieg’s neck absentmindedly. “However, I must admit it is a bitter feeling.”

The clearing of someone’s throat caught him off guard, but he simply turned his head to see where the disturbance came from, unperturbed when he saw the second prince of Hoshido stand a few meters off.

“Yes?” Xander raised his eyebrows. Prince Takumi looked both tired and awkward as he shifted his weight between his feet, obviously contemplating whether to comment on Xander and his horse-whispering or not.

“Brother sent me looking for you,” Takumi eventually settled for, sounding every little as grumpy as Leo on Monday mornings. It made Xander’s mouth curl up fondly. Takumi just scowled harder, though his underlying happiness over the end of the long string of battles betrayed his superficial irritation.

“Ah, then we mustn’t keep him waiting,” Xander said. Takumi wasn’t his brother to tease, after all. For the time being, anyway.

It didn’t take long until the booze and the musical instruments were out once they had found still unbroken tables, chairs, and benches and had lifted them out into the central yard of Valla’s castle grounds. Fetching things from the astral realm took a bit of time and management, not to mention great effort on Lilith’s part, but eventually the yard had been transformed into what looked like a traditional drinking and singing celebration straight from Xander and Camilla’s childhoods, though with a lot more Hoshidan influence present than back in the old days.

The dainty-looking lanterns scattered around in the branches of ancient trees that hugged the sides of the broken castle walls added in a gentler glow, Xander had to admit. Torches really didn’t do so nicely.

“We’ll treat you,” Xander insisted when Ryoma tried to suggest that Sakura join them with her koto, an instrument Xander had heard of but hadn’t had the chance to witness it in actuality. Xander gently pushed Ryoma back down on his seat at the end of the main table. “Consider it a peace offering from my kingdom.”

That had left Ryoma speechless, or without argument at least, and he settled back down but not without smiling at Xander, eyeing at Xander’s clothes that were looser and frillier than what Xander had worn in a long time. Very nice was the evaluation Ryoma’s eyes gave him, and Xander himself bit back a smile as he went to discuss things through with Camilla, Laslow, Azura as well as Elise.

They had all changed out of their armors, at least the ones with heavier material. In the storages of the Vallite castle, Corrin and Azura had found some moth-bitten gowns but those had been cast aside and Nohrians had returned to the astral realm to change while the tables and benches were being set and food made. Wine and beer had been brought as well – “what’s the point otherwise?” Niles, Leo’s rather infamous retainer, had stated the common opinion when it had been discussed briefly. From the Hoshidan side, sake was added into the mix.

“It’s been a while,” Xander mumbled to Camilla moments before the Moment. “I don’t think I remember perfectly how it goes.”

“Improvise, dear brother,” Camilla laughed, elbowing him in the ribs in her affectionate way. Gone were the tears from her face and voice; instead she was absolutely radiant in her traditional Nohrian folk dress that she had sewn together herself months ago. She smiled at him, encouraging and kind in the face of the insecurities he couldn’t ever hide from her.

“Imagine it’s Prince Ryoma you’re trying to get into your bed.”

…Or devilish, as the case was here. Xander scowled at her.

“You’re just so adorable when you’re like this,” Camilla cooed, her mirth unfortunately contagious as she wrapped her arms around him in a one-sided hug and his scowl left his face. The music had started, a lone drum played at the center while Leo led the flutists with his example.

“Perhaps I preferred when you still thought all I paid attention to was the war effort,” Xander said as he detached himself from the warm embrace, swatting her hands gently. “You certainly didn’t tease so much back then.”

Camilla looked at him softly, then, the descending sun’s light pronouncing the purples of her hair and the curve of her mouth. “It’s harder to tease when you’re trapping yourself into your duty, brother. Now, at least, you’re free from those shackles that kept you grounded.”

She broke the eye contact for the moment, whispering, “You no longer have to worry your hair gray over father, either.”

Xander exhaled at that before stroking at the back of Camilla’s head. “None of us have to.”

Camilla smiled when she met his steady gaze again. “That’s right.”

Xander took her hand then, giving a smile that fell askew on his lips, “Let’s get this started, shall we?”

Xander couldn’t say he was particularly gifted at singing like Azura was, but his mother had taught him to carry a note and stay in the rhythm well enough to the point where he could be called good. He had always been more a writer than a singer – but he was confident enough in having a voice that didn’t irritate people’s ears.

Gesturing at Camilla, standing some meters away, he began with a strong voice and a drumming heart that was lost beneath the sounds from actual drums: “Ach komm du schöne bring den Wein zu mir, bring den Win zu mir—“ Xander wildly, dramatically gestured at the bottles and buckets of wine standing at the tables. “—ich verdurste hier.”

Camilla danced – twirled – to the closest table and went to pour wine into a goblet. Her voice rang clear, even the teasing lilt of the words came through as she answered: “Ich schenk dir ein nur wenn du tanzt mit mir, wenn du tanzt mit mir, dann komm ich zu dir.”

Camilla’s gaze swept the crowd around them until it met with the burning curiosity of certain princess’. And that was where everything started to deviate.

“Ich schenk dir ein nur wenn du tanzt mit mir,” Camilla crooned at Princess Hinoka, her back bent as she leaned close into her personal space, “dann bekommst du Wein und Weib.”

Hinoka stared at her blankly, but with a vibrant blush burning her cheeks. Unable to tear her eyes away, Hinoka cleared her throat and tried her best not to stammer. “Corrin, what is she saying? Er, singing?”

Corrin sat across from her sister, and so she had a good view of Camilla flirting with Hinoka with nothing but her eyes and smile. Corrin saw the goblet between Camilla’s palms, held out like an offering.

“Isn’t it obvious, sister?” she hummed, leaning into Takumi’s shoulder and ignoring her brother’s grumbles about her overly affectionate ways. “She’s telling you to dance and she’ll pour wine for you.”

“it would be easier to just take that from your hands, you know,” Hinoka huffed at Camilla, but her voice was warm despite its rough quality.

“Oh no,” Camilla spoke in their shared language again, turning to look at Ryoma with a sly grin. “This one is a gift from Xander to his, ah… friend, shall we say…”

“Ugh, everyone knows they’re fucking each other already,” Takumi groaned miserably, this time leaning into Corrin to save himself from the current situation. Much too sober, Corrin deduced as she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“Excuse me?” Ryoma sounded startled, and his face, when Corrin looked at it, flushed red at the slopes of his cheeks. There were only a few times she had seen him that flustered, and the sight made her snicker into Takumi’s hair as she politely looked away.

“There’s a reason we don’t go to the bath house at night anymore, alright?” Takumi muttered, barely loud enough for the royal siblings to hear him over the music.

“We haven’t—we didn’t—“

“It’s all right, Prince Ryoma,” Camilla chirped as she set the goblet down before him at the end of the table. Ryoma gripped it tightly, looking at it like he was considering how quickly he could conceivably drink the liquid. “We know you and Xander have needs. It’s very natural.”

“Princess Camilla—“

“Let’s go now, Hinoka, darling. I’ll pour you some later.”

“Sorry, big brother. You know how she is.” Hinoka waved awkwardly before being dragged off to the center of the yard by Camilla for a dance or two. Or fifteen. Corrin knew her sister’s habits.

Ryoma was left with a goblet filled with red wine, but even the drink’s dark shade could not compete with the rare shade of embarrassment still obvious on Ryoma’s face.

Like any half-decent sister would do in such a situation, Corrin laughed so hard she nearly choked on her tongue. To distract herself and to avoid Ryoma’s peeved gaze, she turned to look where Xander was. More Nohrians had risen up to dance, but Corrin could see the crown prince through the people and hear his singing over the breathless giggles of people.

“Oh, komm du schöne auf den Tisch hinauf, auf den Tisch hinauf,” Xander’s strong voice rang through the celebrations as he held out hands for Laslow to grasp. Corrin saw the retainer take them, but the rest was lost from her eyes as the pair twirled into somewhere her eyes couldn’t follow.

They re-emerged soon, but not where Corrin had been looking for them: instead of the grassy yard, Xander and Laslow were climbing up to a table farthest from the royal families’ one. Laslow was the one that started dancing across the table, Xander clapping and singing with laughter stumbling over his syllables.

Corrin had never seen anything like it from her big brother, and so she was unable to look away.

“Oh, komm du schöne auf den Tisch hinauf, den es soll uns jeder sehn…”

When Xander came back, he had two goblets of wine with him and a decent flush gained from both dancing and singing in font of so many. Public speeches were fine, but singing… not even imagining the onlookers as carrots or bunnies had helped. But he hadn’t needed to rely on it, not once Laslow stumbled in to share a dance, no matter how flustered it made him.

Xander’s eyes first landed on Ryoma, whose face was scrunched up in dismay but which was especially beautiful now that his facial armor was off. Xander took a sip from one of the goblets. He needed to ignore that, as much as he wanted to let Ryoma know that.

“That’s not a face you should be wearing right now, is it, High Prince?” he said as he settled down where Hinoka had once been. She was still dancing with Camilla on the yard, he saw them from the corner of his eye.

Ryoma looked up from whatever thoughts he had been having, fingers curled around a full goblet, and his eyes blinked a couple times before they settled on Xander’s face.

“Your face is unacceptable,” Ryoma declared, sounding unreasonably irritated. Whether it was with him or not, Xander honestly couldn’t tell.

“Excuse me?” Xander raised an eyebrow. Surely he had misheard.

“Your face haunts my dreams,” Ryoma said, and his voice might have been lucid but his eyes were slightly unfocused. “Gods, your face. I want to kiss it.” Ryoma paused. “I shall kiss it if it’s the last thing I do in this life.”

“He’s very dramatic about his feelings for you, apparently,” Corrin piped in cheerily across the table. Xander cast her a glance; even her cheeks were a tad flushed. “Who’d have thought it’d take a bit of overly sweet wine to open him up, huh?”

“This is serious,” Ryoma deadpanned, still sounding unreasonably agitated by the whole ordeal. Xander’s face grew hot simply from the intensity of it. Another sip before he sat down on the bench, left from Ryoma who apparently had much less control over his mouth than usual.

Ryoma’s stare was as piercing as it had ever been when they had stood on the opposite sides, and it burned at his skin as Xander took a long sip once more.

At least Princess Sakura wasn’t there to witness her eldest brother’s meltdown. Even Prince Takumi had taken off.

“Prince Ryoma,” Xander stole a glance at the man, meeting the piercing gaze head-on for a brief moment until his nerves failed him, “are you all right?”

“KISS ME, YOU FOOL.”

For one long minute, every sound in the world ceased to exist as Xander stared at Ryoma and Ryoma stared back at him, as serious as ever. A curl of hair had slipped free from the ponytail Ryoma’s hair had been pulled into.

Corrin broke the silence as she started to giggle into her hand, uncontrollably so, and tears sprung to her eyes as the music went on after the musicians regained their senses (starting with Leo, who gave a long, exasperated sigh that Xander heard distinctly).

Even Xander’s most stern look couldn’t keep Corrin from laughing and Ryoma from staring at him with sharp intensity that was ill-fitting for a drunk man.

“There is a time and place for everything,” Xander said, nose pinching as he frowned, but his face relaxed into a smile soon after. “I hope you’re ready to receive what you asked for, Ryoma.”

Perhaps it was the new atmosphere of freedom and its intoxicating after-effect – the removal of the weight on Xander’s shoulders – that explained Xander’s lack of inhibitions in closing the distance between his and Ryoma’s faces and in his hand curling against Ryoma’s cheek to steady the movement.

Xander closed his eyes into the closed-mouthed kiss, and definitely ignored the excited whooping that was coming from somewhere behind him and which sounded distinctly like Laslow. Ryoma’s breath smelled of sweet wine, but his lips were much sweeter than that. Not in taste, but in the slight smile that pulled them up when Xander’s mouth lingered.

Corrin whistled. “Brother’s got game.”

…How much had she drunk…?

The evening shifted into night and music continued on, Elise taking up violin while Leo took a break from the flute. Sakura and Takumi had re-emerged from wherever they had disappeared to by then, both a little flushed and Takumi a lot clingier than usual, which was only really notable when Leo came to sit down on the patch of yellowed grass where the siblings and some of their retainers had moved. Takumi shifted from leaning onto Sakura to leaning heavily against Leo and Leo’s shoulder instead. Or he would have, had Niles not squeezed himself in between just in time.

“Now, now,” Niles drawled over Takumi’s grumbling, “don’t go inconveniencing Lord Leo now. How is he supposed to enjoy his beer when you’re hanging onto him like a love drunk, hmm?”

“I’m not druuuuuuunk,” Takumi argued.

Leo, in return, was not impressed. “Niles, please.”

“Milord, I am merely protecting you from Prince Takumi’s… lewd intentions,” Niles said, enunciating lewd very forcefully and pointedly, smiling from ear to ear.

“FucK yoU…”  

“Gods, there is not enough beer in this world to shut you up, Niles.”

“On many occasions, you have praised me for my skills with the mouth, Lord Leo,” Niles quipped as he slung an arm around the prince, who hid his face behind a huge pint of beer. Nodding to himself with solemnity, he continued, “I will also have Prince Takumi know I am fairly willing to share. Compromises are a fact of life.”

Hinoka and Camilla had returned, as well, both sisters doting on half-sleeping Corrin: Camilla by holding her head safely on her lap and Hinoka by stroking the long silvery hair rather roughly, at which Camilla gave a rather stern look. But not before humming at Niles and the rest of them, “Oh, do be careful with my baby brother. He’s surprisingly fragile when it comes to the matters of the heart.”

“Sister…”

“Shush, darling. If they hurt you, I will hunt them down,” Camilla said cheerfully.

“I don’t know how to feel about you threatening my brother, Camilla,” Hinoka piped in dryly, but just a smile from Camilla dazzled her away from her concerned big sister mood.

(Loving a woman such as Camilla? Not many survived the intensity of the feeling.)

Corrin giggled woozily against Camilla’s knee, at which Sakura couldn’t help but laugh a bit herself as she searched for Elise and her big brother in the crowd from which it was hard to recognize as just as groups of Nohrians or Hoshidans as it consisted of both in equal measures, each side entangled with the other one way or another.

Sakura sighed happily – now, if only her best friends were here, then it would all be perfect…

And if she knew where her brother and Prince Xander had gone off to. The thought pulled her out of her reverie and had her redirect her gaze in attempt to find any glimpse of the long spikes of hair belonging to her brother or of the golden waves of Prince Xander’s hair.

Prince Xander should be hard to miss with his height and his presence…

In truth, princes Ryoma and Xander were nowhere to be found on the site of dancing, drinking and other shenanigans. They had discreetly left and taken a considerable quantity of wine and beer with them after Xander had unwittingly participated in a drinking game with Saizo (who hadn’t been keen on it but Ryoma had encouraged him with a magnificent five-minute speech), Laslow, Charlotte, and Scarlet.

Scarlet had been delighted when she found out he was the son of Queen Katerina. "You been to our parts then, big guy?" she had asked, flashing a toothy and drunken grin. "It is your grandparents' homeland." 

Xander hadn't, not outside of war. 

Scarlet down her beer. "A darn shame."

Nyx hadn’t participated, but she had been nearby, offering her commentary by rolling her eyes whenever something particularly stupid happened. The group had dispersed once Xander had started giggling, a sound none of them had expected to associate with the Crown Prince and soon-to-be King of Nohr.

“Lord Xander,” Laslow had said, drowsily and not at all better than his liege, “Prince Ryoma really brings out the best in you.”

That single sentence had sobered Ryoma up, though not to the point where he’d have any thoughts of refusing when Xander suggested that they take off away from the noise and the crowd.

Or perhaps it was as some people said: the beginnings of love were the most intoxicating, the most impulsive.

(And Ryoma believed, wholly and fervently in his heart, that theirs was a road after a choice had been made at crossroads: a beginning for a deviation from the previous travel.)

Neither of them were avid stargazers, not when their worries had kept them grounded in reality for far too long for the majority of their days. In spite of that, Ryoma found himself and Xander lying on their backs on a faded field of grass just outside the castle grounds, where the edges of traditional Nohrian music (mixed in with some Hoshidan by now) barely reached.

Though Ryoma still wasn’t watching any stars.

Xander was looking up to the sky from where he was, but Ryoma suspected he wasn’t seeing the stars either, his mind perhaps as full of Ryoma as Ryoma’s was of Xander.

There was no wrinkle on the bridge of Xander’s noble nose, there was no careful caution in his shoulders, and there was no crown on his head to pull him down from the moment.

Xander at peace was a precious sight, Ryoma thought, not realizing that the same thing could be said about him. That Xander would say the same about him.

The night sky might have been beautiful, the moon might have been even more beautiful, but there was nothing like their light gently casted on Xander’s fair hair and even fairer face.

Xander’s head finally turned after a prolonged moment of silence and Ryoma’s increasing awareness of grass stains on his yukata, and dark eyes that would bleed red under certain light peered at Ryoma as curls of blond hair moved along with the movement.

Ryoma brushed the hair aside, tucked the strands behind Xander’s ear, and watched Xander take a deep breath.

The flush of Xander’s cheeks was hard to notice in the dark, but Ryoma felt it against his fingers when he pulled them away. They briefly touched upon the corner of Xander’s smile, breathtaking in touch as it was as a sight.

Ryoma wanted to kiss it until it would become his, until they both would smile that beautifully.

Xander sighed, and reached out. But his hand hovered over Ryoma’s cheek, hesitant. “I would like you to know,” Xander said, his hand staying in mid-air, voice softer than the breeze that touched their hair, “it was you that set my heart free when it had been caged and trampled on for so many years.”

“I had my siblings, of course,” Xander continued, the underlying drunken tremor in his voice never gone, “but even with them, I never could… I was too entrapped in my own head and duties, with no one to share the task.”

“I understand,” Ryoma said, eyes narrowing gently, “and it must have been lonely for you.”

He had tried to imagine Xander amongst people like Iago and Hans, and he had never come up with a complete picture where Xander would be at ease around those types of people.

Xander looked at him like no one had ever sympathized with him before. Ryoma silently marveled how open Xander was when drunk. Was this why he had never witnessed such an occasion before?

“I have always been alone,” Xander said, dismissively. He turned himself completely to face Ryoma, finally setting the hovering hand down to cup Ryoma’s cheek. A thumb moved up and down, and Ryoma shivered from undeserved affection. “Before my siblings and I were brought together, I was alone. Tutors and servants could only offer so much. Camilla… Camilla helped me quite a lot when she and I finally got to interact.”

Xander’s lips trembled in his smile. “Corrin and Elise were both little sisters to dote on and train. And Leo was young, too. Studious but young. I always worried…”

Ryoma nodded, remembering the days he had spent with Mother and Yukimura. Her love had been unconditional, poured all over them, and Ryoma had never been alone in watching over his siblings.

“Nohr, as well.” Xander closed his eyes and took a breath, cradling Ryoma’s cheek with his hand. “The food shortage, Faceless, the nature itself… Everything piled on, and there was no escape and no chance for the relaxation of the heart.”

“At the heart of it, Father’s expectations burned the most,” Xander mused, “but he is gone now. A new age begins with you and I, whatever that may be.” Xander looked at him then, both eyes open and wide. “If we never get the chance to be like this again, I will treasure this moment for all its worth.”

Ryoma blinked, and brought a hand over Xander’s, fingers entwining to Xander’s and squeezing. Gently, but forcefully enough to drive in his surprise. “What do you mean, if we never get the chance to be like this again? I have made no plans to abandon you now that I know you.”

“Duty and desire do not mix well together, Ryoma,” Xander said, sighing. The heaviness in his voice roused an ache in Ryoma’s heart. “The rules of court, and everything sick in between. Kings of two nations sharing a bed is hardly convenient for either country.”

“Perhaps.” Ryoma inched closer, until there was no distance between and he could see clearly the slip of naked chest underneath Xander’s half-open shirt. Xander’s hand fell to Ryoma’s hair, the softer spikes on his shoulder. Ryoma stared at his love hard. “But neither you nor I are the type of people that can stand dishonesty in the longer road of life.”

Xander blinked at him, eyes wide when the lashes no longer fluttered. When he spoke, there was no bitterness; instead a yearning Ryoma couldn’t understand remained. “Only a person showered with light would say that.”

Ryoma brushed his hand over Xander’s face, his fingers stopping at Xander’s tight, clenched jaw. “I did not expect you to give up on this before giving us a chance, Xander.”

Maybe it was unfair to say things like that to an emotional drunk, no matter how well they tried to mask it away, but Ryoma wouldn’t coat the truth with sugar, not to Xander who was able to face it head on once done with whatever insecurity it was that held him down.

“I know what I want,” Xander said, words slurring as he rushed them past his lips. he pulled himself closer to Ryoma, till their chests bumped and only a breath’s width between their hips remained.

“It’s already yours,” Ryoma said. To demonstrate his conviction, his lips engaged Xander’s, though not in battle. Instead, it was a gentle union, a promise as innocent as they both had been as boys. Xander breathed in sharply through his nose, his hand tight in Ryoma’s hair as he nudged at Ryoma’s mouth for better angle.

Xander pressed until Ryoma felt his smile, the one full of relief and a strange gratitude that Ryoma thought ought to be redirected to Corrin instead. Not the kiss, though. Never the kiss.

Ryoma smiled back, torn between kissing Xander and thinking of everything he needed to tell this beautiful man.

He could make a speech out of it.

And if their vows at the hilltop the following day sounded like confessions of love, well, they wouldn’t deny that.