Work Text:
"UNDERLING LINHARDT!" a young Caspar boomed from his spot on the dinning table.
Six-year-old Linhardt looked around nervously. "Caspar, you're not supposed to be standing on the dinning table. Father will get mad."
"WHO IS THIS 'FATHER' YOU SPEAK OF?" he asked, grinning.
"Keep it down, Caspar," Linhardt whispered harshly. "If Father finds you standing on the dinning table, he's going to go crazy!"
"FATHER? I AM YOUR FATHER!"
Shoot, Linhardt sighed to himself, I'm stuck with a pyscho as a playmate.
"LINHARDT! GET OVER HERE!" Caspar beamed down at him, holding up a pillow. "We're going to build a fort!"
The green-haired (future) scholar sighed a long sigh but complied. After all, who else was going to follow this boy's antics but him?
Not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s not-
“OF COURSE IT’S YOUR FAULT!” sixteen-year old Caspar yelled, looking ready to rip the hair off of his scalp.
Linhardt remained as calm as ever. “Explain."
“Explain?! Explain?! What is there to explain?!"
“Explain why it’s my fault when you cut in line for lunch, when you decided that you were better than everyone, when you made a ruckus when somebody cut in line when you just did the same, when you bumped into me, when you spilled your tray on the floor. Explain why it’s my fault."
“Oh...” Caspar at least had the decency to look ashamed. “If you put it that way..."
“Exactly. Now help me clean up."
Shrugging good-naturedly, he bent down to assist with wiping the milk and soup off the floor. “Hey, Linhardt?"
“What? I don’t need an apology."
“No, not that. Just... in my defense, I didn’t see the line, okay? I wouldn’t have cut if I saw it. It’s not manly at all. But thanks, Linhardt! You're a good dude!"
Linhardt hummed quietly, telling him that he understood.
It was times like these when people really saw that the only one who could keep Caspar in line was Linhardt. After all, who would just carry on with their business after hearing that they couldn’t see the line that was right there?
It was times like these, Caspar agreed, that he was lucky to have a friend like Linhardt.
“That’s not how you do it, Linhardt!” Caspar exclaimed loudly, much too loudly for the morning.
“Oh? Then pray tell how you do it,” the green-haired scholar yawned, not really caring whether or not he was doing it correctly.
“You need to shave the apple bald first before cutting it up!”
Shave the apple bald?! “I don’t think people ‘shave apples bald’, Caspar."
“Sure you do!” He gently - gently in Caspar’s eyes, anyway - pushed his friend out of the way and grabbed the apple peeler, spinning it in his hand. “Watch and learn, Linhardt."
Linhardt... wasn’t so sure if he wanted to watch or learn. But he stayed there because who else would follow the guy around and nod sleepily at his rambling? Nobody but Linhardt, of course.
“Watch and learn,” he repeated again, smirking arrogantly.
A few minutes later, though, the apple peeler helped reveal Caspar’s true nature. He didn’t know how to use it.
”Watched and learned,” Linhardt said sarcastically, smirking.
“Hey! Don’t make fun of me!” the older boy pouted. “Not my fault!"
He snorted, stealing the apple peeler and pushing Caspar away much like the latter did just a few minutes ago. “It certainly is your fault."
“Well fine then! If you think you’re so great, why don’t you try it?"
“My pleasure."
Within the hour, Caspar and Linhardt were seated across from each other in the dining hall, the older one chomping angrily at the fresh and juicy apples while the younger ate in a much more civilized manner.
“I don’t get it!” Caspar complained loudly after miraculously making all the apples disappear in a mere few seconds.
“Get what?” Linhardt asked pleasantly with mock interest.
“You’re better at everything! You’re smarter, you’re a genius, you’ve got good grades, you even peel apples better!"
His response was another snort. "Don’t beat yourself up. It’s just as you said; all I have are the smarts. You’re much stronger and you’re much rasher braver than I could ever be. Besides, it’s not like the inability to peel apples is a life-threatening thing or something you’ll never learn. You’ll get it soon enough.” Glancing up, Linhardt pondered for a second whether or not he should sacrifice his ears to boost his friend’s confidence.
“You... really mean it?"
Why not? “I’m certainly not exaggerating when I say that you’ll go far someday."
Ah, and here it was.
“LINHARDT!!!!!!” Caspar cried, bawling his eyes out. “YOU’RE THE BEST, MAN!!!"
“I am the best, aren’t I?” Linhardt chuckled, smiling quietly at the other boy. “But it’s the truth."
If it meant helping his childhood, best, and possibly only true friend, Linhardt would gladly sacrifice his ears, not to mention his own life.
“You need to study more."
“No I don’t!” Caspar replied indignantly.
“But your opponent has the height advantage."
“I already told ya, Linhardt! Height advantage doesn’t matter!"
Rolling his eyes, Linhardt sighed. “I already told you that it does matter."
“Here! I’ll prove it to you right now! Fight me, Linhardt! You’re taller, right? Let’s go!”
The scholar's clear disgust was to be expected. Linhardt, after all, didn't just go around challenging - or accepting offers from - others to fight. (Caspar did.)
"Come on! What're you sitting around for?"
"I'm sitting around because I don't want to fight," he answered flatly, although that was a bit of a lie, since he was fighting back an Obviously, dimwit.
"You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" Caspar asked, suspicion clear in his voice.
"No." Dimwit is the word I was thinking of, but thank you for calling yourself an idiot. Because you are.
"Yes."
"Maybe."
"Hey!" Caspar complained, slumping over his desk and making the countless workbooks and pieces of paper with stuff he couldn't possibly comprehend flutter onto the ground.
"Well, you clearly are one when you won't even admit that height advantage does have something to do with winning and losing. But of course, if you will study maybe you'll learn how to overcome the height difference and level out the playing field. If you'll study, that is."
"I'm studying!" he huffed.
"Oh? Really. I find you yelling in my face not exactly the definition of 'studying'," Linhardt said, his voice flat and definitely making Caspar annoyed.
"You think you're so smart!"
"I do, unless you can prove me otherwise."
"Oh, I'll prove you otherwise!" the older boy promised fervently. "I'll study so much, I'll become even smarter than you!"
Linhardt rolled his eyes and sighed out a quiet, "Okay".
Yup, the only one who knew how to fake Caspar into studying was the one and only Linhardt.
"DUDE!"
Linhardt was silent.
"DUDE!"
Linhardt tried to ignore the loud noise.
"DUDE!"
Linhardt continued trying.
"DUDE!"
Linhardt was good at trying but-
"DUDE!"
"Yes? What do you need help with, Caspar?" the sleep scholar asked, exasperated. (-but it was hard ignoring Caspar.)
Dancing in front of him, nothing except the words "childish five-year-old" could be used to describe his energetic - way to understate - friend right now. "Dude, you know, during the ball yesterday, I met Petra in the goddes tower thing!"
Linhardt arched an eyebrow up, feigning interest as he scanned the textbook in his hand. "Really now?"
"Yah! And you know what they say!! When a boy and girl meet on the day of the ball their paths become, like, one or something! Isn't that super cool?!"
"Superbly cool," he answered absentmindedly.
"WAIT A SECOND!" Caspar gasped, stopping in his tracks. "Wait, does that mean Petra and I are one now?!"
A smile played on the corners of Linhardt's lips. Of course Caspar would only realize what it meant now. "It's said that the goddess tower is where lovers meet. I think they're blessed... or cursed. I don't really remember."
"DUDE! That's so awkward. Oh, speaking of," the boy started again, once again resuming his skipping, "I didn't see you during the ball. Where were you?"
"I wasn't there."
"Why not? They had, like, the best food I had in years. Like, there was snacks and drinks and the best part - it's all free and all you can eat!! You shoulda went, Linhardt! We coulda went and raided the snack table together!"
Linhardt waited patiently waited for his friend to finish his tandem before sliding a sheet of paper across the table. "I was creating the formula for success."
"Formula for what success?" Caspar asked, picking up the paper and inspecting it carefully.
"How you can overcome height advantage. Study it and you'll win."
"Oh, wow!" he exclaimed. Narrowing his eyes, he pointed at a spot on the paper, showing it to Linhardt. "What does this part mean? And while we're at it, this part too! Oh, and this part... and this one... and this one... oh, also this part... and-"
"Give it back and let me just explain the whole thing," Linhardt sighed.
Sleep? Exhaustion? Apparently that didn't exist in Caspar's world. And Linhardt... well... let's just say that by this time, he's just glad that he's still sane. And even if he won't admit it, being friends with him was a pretty interesting case. Why else, after all, would he stay up without any naps to write out the formula for success?
When the war stared, Linhardt and Caspar were by each other's side, as always.
Linhardt sighed upon hearing the news. War was bad and all and it also meant less napping, more killing, and a whole lot more blood. If anything, he was exasperated. Why have war when you could talk it out? Humans really were irrational.
Caspar, on the other hand, was... well... he treated it differently than from what everybody else thought he would. Linhardt himself thought that Caspar would only get more fired up and perhaps act even more childish. A late night meet-up proved him wrong.
"Hey, Linhardt," Caspar started quietly one day, when the stars hung in the sky, twinkling for the whole war-torn country to see.
"Mm?" he hummed in response, always looking at his book.
"What we're doing... is it... is it... right?"
Linhardt didn't show his surprise. "What do you mean?"
"I mean... Edelgard... she's the Flame Emperor, right?" he whispered, voice soft and hollow, eyes playing copycat. "She's the Emperor and we're her subjects."
"Yeah."
"Edelgard's doing this for Fódlan. She's doing it because the Church is wrong and corrupted; self-righteous. She's doing it for the world. She's trying to do the right thing so that's why we're following her. Because she's the Emperor and we're her subjects."
"Mm-hmm."
"Edelgard's trying to make the world a better place. A-And... and she didn't force us to join or follow her. We chose to. She's doing the right thing," Caspar said, eyes squeezed shut. Why were tears rolling down his cheeks? "She's doing the right, thing... right?!"
Why couldn't Linhard speak?
"She's doing it for the world! She's doing it so the next generation can have a better future!" Caspar all but screamed. "She's doing it for the good of everyone!"
"She is," Linhardt managed weakly. He looked up from his book, eyes moving to Caspar.
What a mistake.
He was full-on sobbing now, his chest heaving, his shoulders shaking. His hands covered his broken face. "Then why," he choked out. His voice could barely be heard. "Then why-"
"Don't."
Caspar didn't listen. "Then why did I kill the professor today?"
A note was found on Caspar's tent the next day.
Ferdinand had been the first to find and Linhardt had been the last to hear of it.
When he did, he dropped his pile of books, eyes widening.
Hey Linhardt, it started,
I'm leaving. I dunno where I'm going. Don't try to come after me; I'll be long gone. Sorry I yelled at you and forced my emotions on you yesterday. I dunno what's right or wrong anymore. So I'm going to find it. Find my purpose (How cheesy) and find the purpose of this war. Hey, sorry for putting you through all that trouble when we were kids and even now. You were the best friend I could ask for and I hope you don't die anytime soon. Next time we meet (If we do) you'll probably have to kill me since I'm deserting and everything. S'okay if you have to. I'm not so sure I want to live in a world like this anyway.
Brothers for life?
- Caspar
"It would appear that the heavy burden and guilt that he killed the professor in our latest raid got to him," Ferdinand said quietly from Linhardt's side.
The scholar didn't reply.
"Do not worry, you probably won't meet Caspar again. You will not have to kill him."
He was silent.
"There is no use moping about it!" Ferdinand announced, in hopes of cheering up his friend.
"Then why," Linhardt muttered, moving away, "are you also crying?"
Leaving his classmate to his misery, he moved to his tent, sitting down on the cot with a heavy sigh. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. Cry like Ferdinand and Bernadetta? Put a mask on like Petra and Dorothea? Dismiss it like Hubert and Edeldard? Lying down on his makeshift bed, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the noises around him.
Petra's mask had broke and he could hear her sobs resonating from the tent next-door.
"You're still causing everybody so much trouble, Caspar," Linhardt muttered, surrendering himself to the cold but relieving clothes of sleep.
The next day, they were planning another raid and Linhardt was still on his bed.
When Edelgard herself came in to ask if he would participate, he got up, eyes hard. "You don't need to come," the Emperor called after him. "I'm ambitious, not heartless. Caspar was my friend too. I know it's hard, but we're going to have to continue on without him. If you want though, you don't have to go for this time."
I'm sure you told the professor that you were her friend before you made Caspar kill her. "It's okay," Linhardt replied curtly, one foot already out his tent. When he looked back at her, mixed feelings of pride and regret swirled in Edelgard's mind.
"Kill with no regrets, right?"
The two met again solely by chance.
On a war-torn battleground in a war-torn world, two war-torn soldiers faced off. The battleground, once a fighting arena for rivaling Houses, now served as a field of blood, corpses, and grief-stricken faces. It also served as a pitiful, pathetic reunion for two young men, one named Linhardt, the other Caspar.
"Wow, I didn't know we were going to meet again," Caspar joked heartily. His smile didn't reach his eyes.
"I thought that you had taken a last chance hope dive off the roof somewhere," Linhardt muttered. His hollow voice didn't match the immense relief and regret he was feeling.
"Never! I was walking along the streets when I happened upon the Alliance! Ol' Claude took me in cheerfully!"
"So you're part of the Alliance now."
"Yup! Funny how the three Houses are facing off again! Just like in the old times!"
"Funny," Linhardt repeated.
A beat of silence skipped by before the quasi-smile slipped off Caspar's face as he dropped his axe. "Hey, Linhardt," he started slowly.
"Yeah?"
"Kill me."
Linhardt didn't flinch.
"I told you in my letter, didn't I? When we meet again, I want you to kill me."
"Be quiet."
"Kill me, Linhardt."
"Would you be quiet for a-"
"Linhardt, kill me."
Oh, how Linhardt wished they could go back to the times of laughter and joy.
"Kill me, I'm begging you."
Linhardt's hands began to glow in a faint white light spread across his palms.
LINHARDT! GET OVER HERE! We're going to build a fort!
He took a small step forward.
But thanks, Linhardt! You're a good dude!
Caspar closed his eyes, waiting for the final blow.
I’m certainly not exaggerating when I say that you’ll go far someday.
Another step.
Oh, I'll prove you otherwise! I'll study so much, I'll become even smarter than you!
He was an inch away from Caspar now.
We coulda went and raided the snack table together!
The light spread across his hands was brilliant, radiant. Beautiful. It shimmered brightly, letting the whole world to see. On the war-torn battleground, one light shone vividly, dazzlingly. Too bad it was the same beautiful light that was going to kill his childhood and best friend.
But it went out.
Linhardt collapsed onto the ground and for the first time since he was a baby, tears blocked his eyesight. "I can't kill you," he choked out. And before he even had a chance to look up, his world changed forever.
A dark sphere of nothingness, its energy and malicious intent swirling around in circles, hit Caspar straight on the chest. With a burst of blood and a cry, the solider fell onto the ground, dead. Linhardt had no time to comprehend what was happening before he felt the sharpest of spears invading in his territory, its point stuck in his chest. Blood, blood, blood. There was too much blood to even tell whose it was. He didn't have to look down to recognize the pure hatred that belonged to Areadbhar. In war, people died before they could even blink.
Linhardt and Caspar couldn't kill each other, but Hubert and a revenge-crazed psychopath certainly had do qualms killing their former classmates.
The last thing he saw before he blacked out was Caspar, his face so peaceful and serene it made the corners of his lips twitch up.
Asante had always been known as a quiet child, someone every parent longed for. He was obedient, compliant, and willing. He spend his free time studying and always seemed to have a thirst for knowledge. And yet - nobody could deny the fact that Asante was also a sad child.
His eyes were always longing, always looking at the horizon, always seeming to wonder, What if? or Why?
His parents friends would always ask, "What't the meaning of his name?" It certainly wasn't Japanese; he was told it was of African origin. His parents always answered the same way: "He looked thankful when he was born." Thankful of what? they would ask. His parents couldn't answer that. Asante himself was curious as to what he had been thankful for. Was he thankful to be alive? Thankful for his mother and father for bringing him into this world? Thankful for what, exactly? he always asked himself.
Peers around him would say, "What happened in your last life that made you so gloomy?"
Asante never had an answer.
So the years passed by, him longing, aching for something - or someone. When he turned sixteen, he went to a newly built school. It was a boarding school and his parents were unsure if they wanted to send him there, but he had insisted. Something about the name... sounded familiar, warm. Its name?
Garreg Mach.
The school let them into their dorms a few weeks earlier to unpack in their dorms. Though they never met, Asante began to learn more and more about his roommate with the things that he brought in every day.
He liked eating - or at least ate a lot of - smoked meat. He had a hunting knife. He probably worked out. He was fond of collecting owl feathers. He's most likely afraid of lighting, given grounding charm. He got into a lot of fights, or so his tattered clothes proved.
It wasn't until the day school started and he retired to his dorms did he finally meet this "Eiji".
He had an enthusiastic smile, a beaming face, and shining eyes. "Yo!" he greeted loudly, much too loudly for Asante's taste.
Instantly, the quieter boy's eyes widened. Something like a weight seemed to fly off his shoulders, making him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
"You're Asante, right?"
He nodded slowly.
Eiji grinned. "I have a feeling we're going to be really good friends!"
"That's weird," Asante whispered, not really knowing for the life of him why tears were running down his face, "I feel the same way."