Chapter Text
The palace ballroom formed a kaleidoscope of partygoers, festive nobles and their ornate display of house colours blending together in the cool light of the thousand bulbs throughout the chandeliers. Each opposing hue and carefully placed symbol embodied their various disagreements and positions over the many centuries, but together, they formed a united front that acted as a barrier between their world and the real world.
He is born here, out of this blue blood, but he never felt as if he belonged. His entire life, Sylvain Gautier was a passive observer. He stood in the corner of every party and observed their displays of superiority with ill-disguised disdain for the rituals and the people that partook in it.
That particular strain of noble Faerghusi children has missed the mark on sociability. Ingrid did not care for the constraints placed upon her gender, Felix was more interested in fencing than just about anything, and Crown Prince Dimitri walked around the castle as if he would sooner cry if anyone tried to address him. He just followed suit, with his own issues and his own failings.
Perhaps, the redhead considers, his parents secretly thanked the Blue Sea Star for his only proclivities being to lie and to fuck, both of which could be leveraged positively. Alas, they still demanded and demeaned, and off he is sent to another function.
He oftentimes tried to escape, but nine out of ten, he would settle in a certain spot, where he could see and be seen, but never approached, until such time he has locked his target for the evening. Then, the show would be over, and, come morning, he had to sneak out from a too large of a house, meant to keep what is out, out, and what is in, in.
His loyalty bound him to that very spot, present out of obligation but antisocial out of preference. After one too many glasses of whiskey, Sylvain felt this weird pain in his chest. It had been there since his first day at the palace, but he had grown so used to ignoring it that he often forgot it was there.
Beneath his hatred for the aristocracy, he just wanted to be one of them.
To be like Count Gloucester’s child, who pranced around Fhirdiad for one of those years. That polished look, that natural adaptation to this ecosystem, that lack of concern towards any goal in life, that instant acceptance to every group and every gathering in the city. Sylvain would be loved then, his parents would love him, his friends would love him, his dates would love him.
In a way, he did.
He became Sylvain Gautier, the enfant terrible one of the oldest houses in all of Fódlan. The cheap Don Juan, the nightmare of every father, the desire of every girl. He basked on the glory, he lost himself on the débauche, and he was loved. So, so loved, but not enough, not the way he wanted it.
The margrave cannot complain too much. It is exactly these tendencies, his terrible behaviour, that led him towards the greatest thing that has ever come out of his life. It led him to his marriage.
He could still remember the heat of the camera flashes on their wedding day, reporters invading the private moment he had waited for since the day he met Byleth Eisner.
From the first time their eyes met in that bar in Garreg Mach, Sylvain knew that Byleth was special. She was not like the women he had met in the aristocratic circles of Fhirdiad. She did not care about her royal lineage or elevating her social status, and she did not write him off as the screw-up playboy and she did not run away when he raised his defences.
She made him laugh and she could probably drink him under the table given a chance. Instead of looking down on him, she looked at him like a falling star, a wish for something she thought she would never find.
Sylvain brought her into his world, he presented it all to her, because he honestly thought that this was the best part of himself. Byleth, in turn, rose to the occasion, her quiet and severe neutral expression served her well amongst the nobles, her disciplined personality won the begrudging approval of his parents, and his friends had been able to peruse why it was that made him actually fall in love.
Perhaps a little too well. As their college years came to a close, and they begin to settle into their roles in society, Dimitri began nurturing dedicated interest on the woman. Sylvain noticed, but he felt much too weak to say anything about it. In turn, the crown prince was much too timid to say anything about it, as well, and so the tension never resolved itself.
Until Byleth resolved it for them.
“Once upon a time…” She told Sylvain one night, as they lay together in his bed, his ear against her beating heart. “There was this man, the best friend of an Emperor. In a voyage through the realm, he had met a woman, Domitila, who was exceptionally beautiful and intelligent, with whom he fell in love. So much so, the friend brought her along in the imperial carriage.
“Alas, not only he loved this woman. The Emperor, for as long as he knew Domitila, the more he fell for her. The friend, noticing that he had much to profit from this situation, proposed that she breaks up with him and leaves with the monarch, just as long as they share on the favour. He loved her, but he loved the money more, and so did her.
“I’m not Domitila, Sylvain, Dimitri is not the Emperor and you are not the friend, this is not our story. I love you, I want you, and I want for you to remember this, because it is not going to change anytime soon.”
She picked him. When given the opportunity to become a queen, she picked Sylvain Gautier.
The press sold the tale as a beautiful love story, and for once, Sylvain agreed.
“This is too good to be true.” Sylvain whispered underneath his breath on the night he proposed, watching Byleth sleep in his arms as her engagement ring twinkled back at him.
When he said those words, the margrave was full of hope and love. He never could have expected how right he would be.
Their wedding was a whirlwind. The gossip rags ate the story of a love born in a lowly tavern in Garreg Mach up, and their faces were shown in every supermarket magazine from Sreng to Brigid. Moreover, they were happy with it, with themselves, with the future that waited for them.
That honeymoon bliss did not even make it to the wedding.
Soon, they were overwhelmed with external pressure forcing them to conform to the ideal noble couple. Their dream of having an intimate barn wedding was destroyed the moment they opened it up to the public. Slowly, decisions were pulled away one by one until they were just actors in their own ceremony. Without realizing it, they traded their individuality and privacy for the selfish desires of his image-conscious parents.
There were nights when they thought about giving it all up. They considered running away to some mountain and eloping in tee shirts and blue jeans, but the insecurities and the disappointment they were sure to cause would chain them in place.
Everything was so far out of their hands that they lost their way…
“Is that Sylvain Gautier?” A noble whispered to another.
His ears burned at the sound. It had been so long since he had been heard his name whispered about in the confines of a ballroom, but it was hardly the first time.
Deciding to marry that woman was the easiest decision he ever made, but the consequences proved to be the greatest challenge he had ever faced. The media may have loved them as the booze-drinking, commoner-and-noble couple, but the aristocracy did not share their sentiments.
Tasked with penetrating into the Faeghusi aristocracy and running a large tract of agricultural land, Byleth and Sylvain were forced to take into account the nobles’ usually stupid opinions. They had to change. They traded jeans for couture and cheap whiskey for vintage champagne. Their parties were formal affairs instead of casual gatherings with friends and a few drinks.
Byleth, as she was prone to do, rose to the challenge. She engrossed herself in becoming a successful and helpful margravine, and Gautier business prospered under her careful guidance. Even when she wanted to punch a noble and tell them to go to hell, she knew what to say, and he watched in awe.
Sylvain seldom knew what to say. Even when he learned the dances and the jargon, he felt like he was a step behind. Unlike his wife, the court knew him. They had seen him in the corner of parties for all of those years, despising them from behind his bottle of booze, hitting them up and discarding them in the morning, and they were unlikely to let him in because he was now required to be restrained.
At events, they whispered about him and wondered how on earth Sylvain Gautier convinced someone like Byleth Eisner to marry him.
She was still the one ray of delightful sunshine in the raging storm of their responsibilities, though. No matter what pressing function faced them, she was his wife. She was the same college student and dive bar enthusiast from Garreg Mach that he fell in love with, and she loved and supported him through everything. Through every blunder and insult, The man thought about her and found peace. He would do anything for her, even if it meant losing himself.
The first two years were magical. They were beautiful and special, and Byleth and Sylvain held onto them with everything they had.
Losing one’s way is not quite noticeable at first. It is just a few more steps off the path and then a few more, but once lost, the tracks and foundations upon one builds up their lives becomes less and less defined. Sometimes, the journey meets once more and reunites people that were dearly missed, but other times, the path just gets farther apart until the fork in the road the two-face look nothing alike.
Sylvain does not know when it happened, and neither did Byleth for that matter, but it changed. He stopped looking at her and seeing his wife. He saw Margravine Byleth of Gautier. She stopped wearing those beat up tennis shoes that he liked so much, and she stopped sneaking away from parties to share a flask and tease the other nobles.
She was not the college girl full of wanderlust and adventure. She was a noblewoman with responsibilities and a fief to promote she had to do the job that fell under his purview but he refused to play that role. He resented her for that, he resented the fact that he went to the trouble of finding her, when she turns out to be just like every other girl in the city.
Byleth stopped looking at him and seeing the cool kid from campus, easy-going but opinionated. She saw Margrave Sylvain of Gautier, a man forced into his worst nightmare because he had the unfortunate fate of loving someone like her, who seemed incapable of lending him the strength of breaking them both free. He stopped trying to tell those jokes that used to make her laugh at events, and he stopped sharing the intimate secrets that bound them together in the first place.
He was not the man who tore down his walls to let her in anymore. He was the reluctant Margrave who craved for freedom.
In a way, being uncharacteristically generous and candid, the redhead can understand why it was so. Byleth, again and again, misunderstood him. She thought that “bringing her in” meant having her conform, and placing upon her the traditional burdens of a margravine. She was so, so wrong, so many times, and it killed him.
On the other hand, he never managed to actually and directly tell her that he did not want any of it, that he did not want her to pick up the slack where he left off. He wanted for both of them to be free. The only thing that he could ever tell her is of his admiration for her talent in the role, how much of a good job she was doing.
In this almost intentional maze of misunderstandings, they held on to the love they felt for each other. They held on so tight their fingers turned white, but they only found rope burns.
Year three began with a fight on New Years’ Eve, Sylvain and Byleth so caught up in screaming at each other that they missed their New Years’ kiss. Now, they do not remember what the fight was about, but they remembered the sinking feeling they both had when they looked around and realized every other couple was sharing a kiss while they were farther apart than ever.
The arguments did not end there, either. For months, it felt like they were just a ticking time bomb waiting for the next disagreement.
Byleth would lament that he did not support her at some function or another, while Sylvain would complain that he was forever being forced into uncomfortable situations. The woman would grow tired of his ridicule of the aristocracy and remind him that they were now a part of it, and the man would scream that they would both always be outsiders.
They would yell at each other about the big things like when a family would ever fit into their lives, but they would also bicker about the small things like whether or not they should always drink whiskey when Gautier was full of lovely wines.
The arguments were not the painful part though. They were founded in passion and love after all. No, it was the resentment that burned, and it was the silence that killed.
On that third anniversary of their wedding, they sat across the table from one another and felt like they were staring at strangers. Even when standing next to each other, they were lonely. They longed for the beginning of their relationship, but they never seemed to get it back.
Sylvain remembered year four with painful accuracy while Byleth found numbness in the ordeal.
The day he moved out was silent. Byleth sat on the bed, watching her husband pack his things, out of the house that was lawfully his, but she did not try to stop him. To others, they said that he was going to spend more time at the home property up in Gautier to perfect their new venture into fishing farms, but they did not say it to each other. They did not explain his leaving at all.
Instead, they just knew.
Gone were the days of following their lover to the airport or the train station and declaring their love and commitment. After everything they had been through, their passionate love affair ended quietly. There was no explosion, just a dull and melancholic fizzle.
The papers arrived on Sylvain’s doorstep six months later.