Chapter Text
“Don’t worry about me!” Sylvain’s smile shone in the early winter sunlight. He hooked his thumbs in his belt; he was old enough to have a sword now, the elaborate thing tied loosely to his hip, but Dimitri had never seen him draw it. “Though winter’ll be less fun without you, Dimitri.”
Dimitri kept regal and somber even as Felix next to him let tears overflow and drip down his cheeks. “Your presence shall be missed,” Dimitri said haltingly, aware his voice was thick. Sylvain cackled in response. There was a tightness in his laugh Dimitri couldn’t quite identify.
“So stiff and formal! House Gautier will feel your absence as well, Your Royal Highness.”
“Mine, too!” Felix insisted, wiping his eyes.
Glenn took Felix’s hand, tugging him with gentle authority towards their carriage. “Come on, Felix,” he said.
“Miss us, too,” Felix called as he was dragged away. “Sylvain! Miss our presence, too!”
“Of course I will, buddy!” Sylvain kept that big smile plastered on his face while Fraldarius brothers remained in his and Dimitri’s sight.
When the carriage rolled away, he and Dimitri were left alone, smiling in silence.
“So,” Sylvain finally said, “Gustave’s taking you back? He’ll be the one to spirit you away from me?”
Dimitri nodded. Something odd lingered in Sylvain’s tone. Something that hadn’t quite made it past his relaxed, cheerful farewell.
“Too bad.” The sigh Sylvain let out sounded a thousand years old. Far too wise and dramatic for a boy not quite fifteen. “I was kinda hoping it’d be Kieran.”
A laugh startled out of Dimitri’s mouth. “Sir Kieran? My father says Kieran’s so lazy, he would rather ride a steed than walk, save the steed would gallop faster than he could sit!”
Father had also made some follow-up joke no one had wanted to explain to him.
Sylvain, however, didn’t laugh with him. Dimitri couldn’t read his expression at all save for knowing that smile had wiped clear off his face. “I know,” Sylvain said slowly. “It’d make running away together way easier, right?”
Dimitri blinked. Tried to understand. Tried to listen.
Suddenly, Sylvain let out another breezy laugh, and said, “Nah, no worries. I’m kidding. Even Sir Kieran’d catch up eventually.”
Before Dimitri could ask him to elaborate, not to keep him from another joke no one would want to explain, Sir Gustave clanked up to join them. “Your Highness,” he said in that solemn voice of his that brokered no argument.
Dimitri remained where he was. Hoping for something—some…clarification, some magical sense of understanding. But Sylvain only smirked, like ice cracking along a frozen pond. “Well, off you go,” he said with a too-low bow. Gustave turned around, satisfied, and the second he showed his back, Sylvain tapped his own cheek and said quietly, “Give us a kiss goodbye? Something to remember you by?”
Dimitri’s heart hammered in his chest. Before he could question what this feeling was, he darted forward, kissed Sylvain’s cheek, and skittered back to join Gustave. He got a frown for his tardiness but no more reprimand than that. “Goodbye—ah, see you next year,” he called.
The smirk had frozen on Sylvain’s face. “Yeah. Next year.” Dimitri could hardly hear him. Gustave walked so fast.
And tardy though he was, coming up behind the Gautier heir, Miklan moved fast, too. When he lifted his arm above Sylvain’s shoulder to wave his own farewell to the Crown Prince, it almost looked like Sylvain flinched. But the icy Gautier fog obscured much the farther down the road Dimitri and Gustave went. Eventually, there was no point in Dimitri looking back. The way behind them was darker than even a bright winter sun could break free.
It was a silly thought, one he didn’t think he should admit to anyone, but Dimitri hoped his kiss could keep Sylvain safe and warm in the winter to come.