FELIX HUGO FRALDARIUS // D2

He dreams about burning alive in his sleep every night, it doesn't scare him anymore, he's accustomed to it. Since Glenn died, he sees his brother's face in the mirror, forming slowly over time in his own features. It isn't the same though as having him with him and his reflection only gets angrier every day.

Sometimes he doesn't know how to feed it, the bitter embers burning slow in the pit of his stomach, so he saves scraps. A dinner with his father is silent but for the scraping of cutlery against porcelain in a room far too large, across a table far too long. They don't say a word to each other because there is no one around to watch their performance. The empty places at the table haunt Felix all the same, first his mother to illness, then Glenn to a fire.

"He died in honour, he gave his life for another, what more could I ask?" were his father Rodrigue's words at his brother's wake. Felix had walked out then, still carrying the weight of their family's treasured heirloom, a shield that should have been Glenn's. He keeps it beneath his bed at the academy and sometimes wishes that it would simply sink into the floorboards of his room and just disappear.

"One day, I'm gonna be stronger than you," he'd promised Glenn from his place in the dirt beneath his foot. He'd felt electric then, everything inside of him alive at once and so happy. There was no one he'd looked up to more than his older brother but he was also the one person he couldn't seem to beat. "I'll train and train until I beat you! Then you'll be sorry."

He vaguely remembered waking in the night, an orange glow having lit up his room. He thought that he was still dreaming though and had just gone back to bed. In the morning, Glenn was brought to them, body charred beyond recognition. Felix had been thirteen.

People don't tell you how everything is different after losing someone like that. Felix couldn't understand what had happened to their taps in the weeks after they buried Glenn. Water tasted different, the air in the house felt wrong on his skin. Glenn's bedroom door stayed shut and they hung his sword on the mantle, just under the family portrait Rodrigue had painted before their mother died.

The household took a few weeks to mourn, but Felix was outside in the courtyard training every morning. He danced slowly in the dirt, feet sliding into each stance that Glenn had taught him with ease, intent on becoming the best swordsman in all of Two. If he couldn't spar with Glenn anymore, he'd just have to surpass him.

He retreated then, while always having been a sweet and careful boy, he grew cold, calculating. Every moment was spent training in preparation for the entrance exams to the Officer's Academy. The Fraldarius account was in good standing, all it would take was a cheque to get in but that wasn't enough for Felix, no. He had to show that he was the best, had to make sure that no one second-guessed him.

Goddess, he hurt. His muscles were bruised and burning, knuckles raw and fresh aches bloomed always. Felix spent almost every night in an ice bath, sunk under the floating cubes with skin mottled in hues of yellows and blues. It was good though, welcome when he trained so hard that falling into bed promised a dreamless sleep, free from burning flesh and helplessness.

But there's always the voice; the piece of him that whispers that it should have been him. Glenn was the better son, the man that everyone looked up to. Felix is messy, so afraid of losing people that he keeps them at arms-length and then some. He rubs his housemates the wrong way with such skill that even when he's trying to be kind they misunderstand him. It's okay, he doesn't need their love to protect them, he just needs to be strong enough that nothing can fell him.

Somewhere in the last four years, he became a little bit less while the aching inside him grew a little bit more.

But he doesn't need their love.