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Byleth was more than used to watching his own back. In battle, there was never any guarantee of someone looking out for you, never a promise of returning alive. It was one of the earliest lessons his father had taught him; if you wanted to survive, you had to be aware of every opening, every blind-spot. The first man to forget that lesson was the first to die.
Swords clashed. Metal struck metal. Blood scattered across the dusty stones of the little town they called their battlefield. It was easier with Sothis, admittedly. She covered his tracks, played with time when it suited her, gave him the edge when he would otherwise be at a disadvantage. She chortled and sang in his headspace, delighting in their prowess as their enemies left themselves open in disbelief. The Ashen Demon cleaved through their number like a mobile guillotine. There was naught they could do to stop him.
But, Sothis was not infallible. For all her power, for all her majesty, she had her limits. Time could only revert so far; seconds, rather than minutes. It could only stop every so often, and she weakened quickly. Her senses dulled, her insight failed. Byleth was still surrounded, soldiers on every side. She yawned behind her hand. Said, sleepily, “Take them all out. You can do this.”
A weapon was merely an extension of his own body. He swung the sword forward, magic setting the blade alight. Fire trailed through the air, screams following them. Above, storm clouds threatened to unleash their might. The first hints of rain caught Byleth’s cheeks. He turned, dragging his sword with him. Another life, ending at his blade. He did not feel the weight of it like many others in Jeralt’s band did. It was a job. His job.
His sword slid through ribs. Twisting, it caught another soldier across his throat. Fire. Ice. Lightning. He danced with the enemies, heavy and striking, never once letting up on the assault. But then, a gasp, ringing through his ears. Not his shout, but Sothis'. “Archer, south! Move!”
Byleth followed the order like she’d taken control of his body. The arrow bounced from his sword in a perfect deflection, magic swirling about his free hand as he sent a ball of fire straight back. It struck the archer front-on, removing the immediate threat, but Byleth knew that he’d made a mistake. His back was open. For every soldier he’d already cut through, three others were ready to take vengeance.
A blur shot past him, purple tones catching in his vision for only a moment before it was gone. There was no time to look; he was still in the fray, still taking sword blows from the front. His sword parried each strike in turn as a commotion erupted from behind him. Cavalry had arrived, though not on the back of a horse. Twin swords, impossible energy, a back hitting Byleth’s own. Two mercenaries, divulging paths, both converging on this battlefield.
“You’re getting sloppy,” Shez said. Byleth could picture the grin on his face just through his tone. He was free with his expressions, even if Byleth didn’t always understand them. “Good thing I was here, huh?”
“Thanks for the assist,” Byleth said as Sothis scoffed, silently. “We should clean up.”
There was no time for more than that. Byleth flew back into the fight, Shez’s back leaving his own. Magic and weaponry toiled again. Byleth fought freely, now, knowing there was someone looking out for him, knowing he could let loose. It was unlike before, the sense of comradery foreign but not unpleasant. Fighting was never for fun, it was always life-or-death, but this at least made it easier.
The skies opened as the final man slid from Byleth’s sword, as the area grew quiet. Rain plummeted. Shez fell against him, the back of his head knocking against Byleth’s own, his weight leant on Byleth’s back. They stayed there a moment, caught in the rain, taking it slow. Byleth could feel him breathing, rapid and uneven.
“Tougher than I expected.” Shez sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth. “But, hey. We make a great team. Better than I thought we could ever be.”
“The battle isn’t over,” Byleth said. That meant the job wasn’t done. “We need to regroup, move on to the next area.”
“Yeah, I know.” Shez still sounded off, not as energetic as he so often was. “Can we take a sec here, quick? Won’t be a moment. Just, it’s raining. You’re comfy. And I’m…”
His voice trailed. His weight shifted. Byleth realised he was falling only seconds before he did, twisting in time to catch Shez against his chest. His sword clattered to the ground, the other vanishing into nothing. Blood soaked them both; Byleth hadn’t noticed it sinking into his own clothes because of the rain.
“Where?” he asked, cool, calm. There was too much blood to identify the source. Maybe it wasn’t even Shez’s to begin with; just that of their enemy. Perhaps it had just been too much, the battle wearing down at him.
But Shez dashed those hopes with a grim smile, with a mild gesture to his lower abdomen. Byleth looked, spotting the break in his armour, where the sword had found is way in. He pressed his hand to the wound, only to incite a sharp gasp from Shez. “Warn a guy next time, would you?”
Byleth looked up. There was nobody nearby, nobody to call upon. Unlike his father, who could command light and draw forth from his faith to cast spells that knitted the skin back anew, he was only attuned with the reason and logic required to understand offensive magic. He’d given his last concoction to Ashe, who he’d seen struggling earlier after he’d been caught in close-combat. It didn’t seem like Shez had one of his own either.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“Sure I can.” Shez slurred the words, stumbling the moment Byleth tried to move. He blinked hard, shaking his head. “Maybe not, actually. Did he get me worse than I thought?”
Byleth wasn’t one for reading body language in an emotional sense, but he wasn’t so dense as to not identify when someone was fading. He sheathed his sword, well aware of the stupidity of such an notion on an active battlefield, and pulled Shez’s arm over his neck. The movement prompted another gasp, followed by a barely audible utterance. “Shit, this hurts.”
Byleth recalled an injury years ago, before the war. It had been like this, an unfortunate happenstance of being caught on the wrong end of the enemy’s sword. He hadn’t noticed, not until Jeralt had ridden over with his fear in his eyes that looked unbecoming on such a stoic man, his name half caught in his mouth. It had been a slow realisation, to look down and comprehend that the blood was his. Like a broken spell, then, the pain had struck, crippling and sharp.
“I understand,” Byleth said, because Jeralt had told him that people appreciated sympathy when they were in pain. Shez snickered, which wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. “Is that amusing?”
“Yeah, ‘cause you say it like it you rehearsed it,” Shez’s grin was wide despite the pain he was in, despite how Byleth jostled him as they moved. “Like you don’t really know why you’re saying it.”
“It’s to make you feel more at ease.”
Shez laughed harder at that, to the point where he choked. His coughs rattled, and he gasped for breath. There was an alleyway nearby, and though Byleth didn’t want to risk the possibility of major infection or unknown quantities, he wanted to risk an ambush even less. Even as Shez struggled, Byleth dragged him there, settling him against the wall, away from the opening where Byleth would keep watch.
Sat against the wall, Shez went ahead and probed at his own wound. Byleth didn’t try and stop him; he knew well enough Shez’s impulsivity and was entirely unsurprised when he hissed in pain. While he kept himself busy with deep breathing exercises, Byleth began to shred his own cloak with his sword, keeping an eye out for any sign of movement in the street.
“What are you doing?” Shez asked him, his voice drifting.
“Making bandages,” Byleth replied. “We need something to staunch the bleeding. I have no medical supplies on me.”
“Thought you liked that cloak, though.”
“I do.” Byleth wasn’t sure what that had to do with him cutting it to pieces in the name of saving his life. He was certain that Jeralt would say that anyone else would do the same. Admittedly, he wasn’t very good at getting the cloak into a workable state; field medicine was not a strong point of his. Sothis had decided it was high-time to take a nap, so there wasn’t any help to be found there.
“Guess you like me more, then?” Shez asked.
“Yes,” Byleth pulled back Shez’s under-armour, examining the wound. It was short, thin, but that didn’t mean it wasn't deep. The sheer amount of blood it gushed made it difficult to see. Shez had gone quiet, so Byleth began to dress it. As he predicted, it brought some life back to him, Shez shoving the back of his hand against his mouth to muffle his shout.
“Damn,” he said, eyes squeezed shut, the rain running in rivulets across his skin. “Hah…can’t believe I rank higher than the Ashen Demon’s beloved cloak. If you told me two years ago that this was gonna happen, I’d have laughed in your face.”
“You have laughed in my face,” Byleth pointed out. “Just now, when I helped you here.”
“Eh,” Shez waved his hand weakly, dismissively. “Point is, you nearly killed me once. Now you’re here trying to stop me bleeding out.”
“After you saved me,” Byleth said, pulling back. The ribbons of his cloak were already dark with blood. He tried not to think about it too deeply.
“After I saved you.” Shez found it in him to laugh again, somehow. Byleth had never had much desire to understand what made others tick, but he wished to know what prompted these amused responses. There was nothing worth laughing about; not that he could tell just by looking, anyway.
The laughter didn’t last long, though. Shez’s strength left him quickly, his eyes turning glassy in the space of mere seconds, his gaze far away. As his amusement died, he rested his head back against the wall, body going lax. “So…hey. What’s the prognosis? I’ve got this annoying voice in my head that’s telling me I’m not gonna make it, that I’m an idiot for risking my life for you. What do you think?”
Byleth looked back out towards the street. Still, there was no-one. “Your voice is right. We need a healer, or you’ll die.”
“Wow. Great bedside manner.” Shez squeezed his eyes shut. “Can’t say I thought today would be the end…not even a big battle either. Or a major foe. Just some random guy.”
“Enough,” Byleth said, surprising even himself. The way Shez spoke incited something deep in his chest, something he didn’t quite understand. It made his ribcage ache. “You’re hidden here, which means you’ll be safe. I’ll go and find someone to help.”
He went to stand, only for Shez’s hand to catch on his wrist. Byleth looked back to him, unsure of what to say, to do. Was he supposed to pull away? Draw closer?
“Don’t go,” Shez said, voice a wispy, thin sound. He pulled on Byleth’s wrist with little strength, and Byleth let himself go in that direction, dropping back to his knees in front of him. “If I bleed out while you’re gone, that’d be a lonely way to die.”
The blood was watery, spilling onto the stone beneath them. Byleth looked at it, then at Shez’s face, raindrops dropping his hair into his pale face. There was nothing for it; he tried to pull back. “If I don’t go, then you really will bleed out. I…don’t want that.”
Shez’s laugh, this time, was breathy and empty. He still had his fingers wrapped around Byleth’s wrist. “Stay,” he said. “Please?”
It felt hideous. Final. Cold. Byleth had felt helpless before, but this was different; caught between what he should do and what was being asked of him. As he searched Shez’s face for an answer, Shez let go of his wrist, only to grab something from the pouch where his concoction should have been. “Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just,” Shez gritted his teeth, wincing. “Give it to me.”
He gave it willingly. Shez put something cool and thin in his palm, closed Byleth’s fingers around it. “For you,” he said. “Just in case…”
Byleth pulled his hand back, looked down at what he’d been given. It was silver, dulled with age, but he knew its shape. A whistle, but he didn’t understand. There was no instruction given with it, no indication of its purpose. What was he meant to do with it?
“Why—?” he asked, only to cut himself short when he heard the sound of hooves, harsh against the stone. Byleth snatched his own sword from its sheath, the whistle held tight in his other hand. He was on his feet in seconds, marching out into the rain with blood cascading from his armour. He would hold the area even if it killed him. He had no choice but to.
But it was not the enemy. “Jeralt?” he said, half-disbelieving. Yes, it was his father, spear in hand, strong atop his horse. Fortune favoured them. Maybe the goddess herself, though he'd never considered himself much of a believer until recently. “Jeralt!”
His father's head snapped towards him, and there was the expression that Byleth recalled from years ago. Fear, panic, fleeting but undeniably there. He rode over in an instant. “Kid, what the hell happened to you—”
“Not my blood,” Byleth said, looking back at the alleyway. “Shez’s. We need immediate assistance, or he won’t survive.”
Jeralt nodded. Didn’t ask, didn’t waste time. He was like that, always had been; practical and calm, even in the worst-case scenario. “Got it. Leave it to me, kid, you carry on the fight.”
Right. The mission. Byleth knew his father would fix things, knew he could trust him, so he ran; to the next battlefield, to the next fight, the next unfortunate man to fall from his sword. But in his other hand, he held the whistle tight.
In battle, there was never any guarantee of someone looking out for you. But Shez had still looked out for him.
~x~
The ground outside the infirmary was drenched and dusty, but Byleth sat there anyway. It was busy, as to be expected after an operation, and he’d been turned away at the door when he revealed that he wasn’t actually injured, just looking to check in on someone. “Come back later,” Manuela told him, though her rushed tone hadn’t matched her gentle expression. “There’s no room for you right now.”
Time stretched onwards while he was outside, like Divine Pulse had lengthened the space between seconds. It had since stopped raining, the clouds lingering, but filtering some of the dying sunlight through the gaps. He held the strange, dull whistle up towards it so that he could have a better look, but nothing revealed Shez’s intentions in giving it to him. It made no sense.
“What’s that you’ve got there, kid?” Jeralt asked when he came by. He didn’t ask why Byleth was hanging around outside the infirmary instead of in the mess hall, or in his tent, or anywhere else where his time might have been better spent. “Someone lost something again?”
“No,” Byleth said, turning the whistle to see if it would reveal a secret or two. He came up empty. “It was given to me, but I didn’t get to ask why.”
“A gift?” Jeralt crouched down to get a better look at it for himself. “Looks handmade, if you ask me. Kind of old. Little crochety, just like your old man. Who gave it to you?”
“Shez.” Byleth’s hand in his. Words trailing. That glassy look in his eyes. “While we were in the alleyway. I was trying to go and get help, but he wouldn’t let me. I don’t understand why, I was trying to save him. If you hadn’t come when you did, he’d be dead.”
That thought troubled him. He’d lost allies before, of course he had; it came with the work. Why, then, was this different?
Jeralt hummed thoughtfully. After a moment, he asked, “You want me to explain why?”
“Why he gave it to me? Or why he wouldn’t let me go?”
“The latter. Don’t have a clue why he gave this to you, and I’m not one for guessing that kind of thing. You’re better off asking him outright.” Jeralt sat down next to him properly, knees up, hands resting on top. “He’s just a kid, like you. I want you to think about it this way; if it were you out there bleeding and he was with you, what would you want him to do?”
“Get a healer,” Byleth said. “I’m no help to anyone if I’m dead.”
Jeralt snorted. “Yeah, okay, maybe I should have expected that. Okay, let’s adjust the scenario a bit. Let’s say you’re wounded, and it’s not looking good. No allies around, no real chance of being saved, it’s just you and him, just like it was today. If you think you’re going to die, do you really want to be alone? Or do you let him go on the off-chance that someone might miraculously be around to save your life?”
Byleth clenched his fist around the whistle. “An off-chance is still a chance.”
“Are you angry?” Jeralt asked curiously.
“No.” Byleth knew what anger was, logically. He’d seen the rage of enemy commanders when their forces were on the losing side, remembered Jeralt snapping at members of the band when they screwed up, had been on the receiving end of many a furious lecture. Once, he’d asked Jeralt what it meant to feel so strongly, and Jeralt had told him that often, he felt it in his chest. Like his ribcage might split open with the intensity of it, anger, hate, love, joy, sadness, pain. Byleth still didn’t understand; the space in his chest that was supposed to contain those feelings was empty, and always had been.
Except there had been something, out on the battlefield.
“What is it?” Jeralt nudged his shoulder. “You can talk to me, kid.”
“I think I was…frustrated.” Byleth didn’t know which word he was meant to assign to that brief ache he’d felt, not really. It hadn’t made any real sense to him. “He was speaking like he was already dead. I didn’t know what to say to him.”
Jeralt listened. Nodded. “You wanted to help him, but he wanted comfort. If you were frustrated, then it’d make sense to me, especially when I know you can be stubborn.”
It wasn’t usually like this; Byleth was the one who listened, not the one who spoke, but this time, he needed it. “So, what you’re saying is that he didn’t let me go because he was scared to die alone. Is that it?”
“Probably,” Jeralt shrugged his shoulders, made to stand. “Can’t speak for him, but sounds the most likely to me. You don’t have to agree with what he wanted, I know you don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t understand it. Sometimes, you have to look at things from all the perspectives, not just your own.”
His father left him with that, heading off in the direction of the mess hall, most likely for a stiff drink. Byleth returned his attention to the whistle. Stared at it like it might give him answers if he intimidated it into speaking. It didn’t, of course, but he wished it could be that easy.
He was still there hours later, when Manuela popped her head out and nearly shrieked at the fact that he hadn’t moved. She lectured him for several minutes on how he could better be using his time helping out around the camp, and then finally softened, inviting him inside. “Who were you here to see? We’ve got everyone patched right up, so let me know and I’ll send you on your way.”
Shez was right at the end of the row of beds, awake and laying on his back. He tried to sit up the moment he spotted company, though Manuela swatted at him and left them with a sharp warning to not make any strenuous movements. Byleth stood awkwardly at the foot of his bed, the whistle held in his hand while everything he’d wanted to say made a quick escape from his mind.
Sothis rolled her eyes from her throne, but he made the elective decision to ignore her.
There was no hesitant silence. No strange tension, never was, with Shez. “Glad you made it out okay,” he said, like he wasn’t the one who’d taken the sword, like Byleth was the one who’d ever been in serious danger. He looked paler than he did normally, his shock of violet hair contrasting starkly with his skin. “I thought I was a goner, for real. Was a relief to wake up here, let me tell you.”
Byleth held the whistle out to him. Jeralt had been wrong; it wasn’t a gift. Shez had said, just in case before his voice had trailed off. He’d meant to keep it safe, to prevent it from being lost on the battlefield. Byleth was his method of doing so. “I think this belongs to you.”
Shez’s eyes widened a fraction as he realised what he was looking at. Then, he smiled, soft and sweet. “Nah, it’s for you. I meant to give it to you at some other time, but it never came up.”
Jeralt had been right? Byleth retracted his hand, looking back down at it. “Why?”
“You’re so good at open-ended questions, you know that? I never know what I’m answering.” Shez yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Too exhausted for this, I swear…it’s my old merc whistle. I made it years back, but it means a lot to me. I figured I’d give it to someone who was important, but then I thought I lost my chance, so I had to be quick about it.”
It didn’t seem right. Shez had plenty of people that he surrounded himself with, people who’d been with him for far longer, people who made him laugh, people who looked up to him, people who hadn’t torn through his entire band of mercenaries and gone for his head too in the name of a job. Byleth didn’t understand, but he longed to. He wanted to know the meaning of it in the same way that others managed implicitly.
“But why me?” was the question he truly wanted the answer to.
“Same reason I jumped in front of ten swords for you,” Shez said, like it was easy, because for him, it was. “Same reason I drag you along for all those expeditions, too. And why I cook you food all the time.”
Admittedly, Byleth did favour those expeditions. He liked drinking tea on mountainsides or by lakes, liked answering whatever questions Shez decided to ask. He enjoyed sampling Shez’s cooking too, giving comments on the flavour, the texture. “Because we’re allies, is that it?”
“Guess so, if that’s what you want it to be.” Shez sighed. Closed his eyes. “I’d have said friends at the very least. For now, anyway. But you’re important. Can’t believe it ended up this way, but it’s true. I like you, Byleth.”
Byleth nodded, regarding the whistle again. There was another question burning in his mind, something he thought he now knew the answer to, but wanted confirmation on regardless. Before he could ask it, however, Shez beat him to it. “Oh, yeah, when I held onto your wrist…I thought I was imagining it, but I wanted to check. Can I have it again?”
He moved, sitting on the side of the bed, offering his hand to Shez. Shez took it, but in a deliberate way, his calloused fingers pressing into his skin. They were both quiet. Byleth rolled the whistle in his other hand, and finally, Shez said, “Knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Your heart. I thought I couldn’t feel it before, but now I’m sure. There’s no pulse. Am I right?”
“You’ll never guess why,” Byleth said, thinking of Jeralt and Alois, how they joked and played with words when it suited them. Shez found amusement in everything, but he wanted to be the one to make him laugh.
“Wait, seriously? It doesn’t beat?”
“No, because I don’t have one.”
Shez didn’t snicker, as he expected. His mouth didn't so much as twitch in the faintest sense of amusement. Instead, something shifted in his expression, something so unbearably tragic that was entirely at odds with what he’d been going for. Byleth tilted his head curiously. “You’re not laughing.”
Shez blinked. “Wait, was that a joke?”
“Yes. Because people say I’m heartless. Don’t you get it?”
“No, I get it, I get it, but…” Shez pressed his hand to his forehead, a groan slipping past his lips. “That wasn’t even funny! I couldn't even tell you were making a joke. And, hey, you’re not heartless. Your face goes brighter than one of Ferdinand’s holy spells when I get you cake!”
Ferdinand’s spells were bombastically bright, Byleth strongly suspected that Shez was exaggerating. “Alright. I have a heart. At least, I think I do. But you’re right; it doesn’t beat.”
“Yet somehow, that’s still the least weird thing about you.” Shez shrugged, wincing when he apparently managed to pull at his wound with the movement. “Ow. Ouch, okay, I need to keep still. Guess I'll let you have that, seeing as I'm not much better. What were you gonna ask, by the way?”
“Hm?”
“Before I cut you off. I could tell you were about to ask something.”
Byleth hesitated. The whistle felt heavier than before. It was so small, yet it carried with it so much weight, unsaid words and unusual feelings. He knew he was meant to thank Shez for the gift, but there was something more he needed to know first. “I…wanted to know why you gave it to me then. At that moment. What made it right?”
Some of the colour returned to Shez’s face, his cheeks faint red. He covered his eyes with the back of his arm, and said, “It had to be then. I thought that I wouldn’t get another chance, and that whistle...I wanted to give it to someone as kind of a symbol. That I’d always be watching their back, you know?”
Like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place, Byleth understood. He’d intended it to be a keepsake, if he didn’t survive. Just in case had meant, just in case I don’t make it out of here. Something to remember him by, if he was gone.
The thought hurt. Byleth’s breath snagged in his throat. He caught Shez’s other wrist in his hand, just like Shez had grabbed his in the alleyway. He was warm, where Byleth ran cold. Full of life, still. Possibility, too; trips to the forest, food shared over the dinner table, battle side-by-side.
“Don’t go,” Byleth said, echoing Shez from hours before, understanding now why he’d said that, why he’d held on so tightly. “I think I need you.”
Shez raised his arm from his eyes, eyebrows a fraction higher than usual, mouth parted in surprise. But then, there was his smile again, and there was his laugh, everything where it should be, soothing the pain in his ribs.
“Yeah,” Shez gripped his wrist back. “I think I need you, too.”