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Guts. The word, the namesake. There is something about it that teeters close towards the realm of uncertainty, but that cannot be true, for you were the most decisive man I knew. The demands of destiny are consuming, but is it not cruel to sever our own so brutally, without a trace of remorse? What sweet betrayal, that you would have done to me what I would have never done to you. You said, once, that the brighter the light, the darker the shadows around it. My long reminiscing on this statement has produced a final theory: It is you, Guts. You are both the light and the shadow, the interweaving of good and evil. It lives within you as an entity, fluctuating forever, never tasting freedom, as intoxicating as the longing I have for you.Mayhap it started soon after your initiation into the Band of Hawk. I wanted you, truly - you could say I even needed you. Your strength would be a promising asset, as was my original deduction from your arrival. But asset alone would not suffice; in subtlety, you were a warrior, and in truth, you were my friend. My only friend. The only person I could ever consider a friend.I can still remember our first duel, long ago as it was, and how you outwitted me by biting my sword. I still chuckle whenever my mind wanders towards the recollection. I recall how you smiled at me through the crowds of nobles, as if to congratulate me, humbly, for finally achieving what we had: how we won the war, and in turn our nobility. These are the memories that bite into my heart fleetingly, threatening to overwhelm me with its evocation. It is not as if I had wished for resolution; no, rather, it is my own doing that had caused this fatal mistake. It finds its way to me now, and I lament only further the impending fact that there is nothing I can do. It is laughable, and yet I cannot not bring myself to express any emotion separate from the cold void that now fills my psyche, festering itself in acute nature as languid as the state of my current mindsake. Come tomorrow, I am unsure how I would continue to live having absorbed such a blow, bearing the loss I had experienced in surfeit. Would I end my journey altogether, or would I continue living, purposeless and broken? This I do not know, but what I do know is for certain. Out of the thousands of soldiers that fought alongside me, you were the only one to make me forget my dream. You, out of everyone, mattered to me. To us. We were something, together. Why are you leaving me? I cannot accept this. You cannot leave. I cannot allow you to leave.I still have not moved. I am frozen upon the snow, and my sword lies near me, broken in two, recently defeated by his larger blade. It is a mutual shock; the others are also aghast, not daring to speak a word in the moment of tension that passes. Perhaps it was better that no exchanges were established, as any dialogue that passed their lips would have been forfeit.Guts takes this as a cue to leave, and privately within my tumultuous, racing mind, I cannot blame him. He looks back, sparing one last glance at us - the Band of the Hawk, and I. Deciphering him has always been an easy feat, but as he looks at me, I wish for absolution, as I realize that now, to read his expression would be impossible. My body will not obey me; I desperately wish to go to him, to bring him back, and persuade him otherwise of his decision. In the end, I betray my dignity.
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“Guts!” I am breathless, flushed, and suffering deeply from an ailment of the mind, as I drop my presence and run towards him, hoping that he may falter for even a second. Show me that you care, I demand indirectly. Show me that I am something to you. That our past exchanges were - and still are - of meaning.He stops, and I wish he would stay there forever. With me, and only me, throughout the breadth of time and beyond what is fathomable. You are the only one that matters. This should have occurred to me earlier. I would sever my dream for you, Guts. Anything for you.“Leaving us would be an unwise decision,” I continue, regaining my composure.I speak nothing but the truth; my heart is being poured out to him, and I am abandoning all my devices in an effort to acquire his companionship once again. It is against all that I have stood for: my conscience tells me to stop now, to let him go, to retract my lack of dignity, but I cannot do as it commands. My buried feelings have emerged henceforth, reigning my psyche in its entirety, controlling my actions in a manner I would never have predicted. It is almost severe, with how it is manipulating my emotions.Should I attempt to appear coherent, I would need to calm the havoc that burns within me.A dry laugh. He turns, and says, “Do you truly believe your words will change me?”I choose not to reply. It is rhetorical, the way with which he directs his phrases. As much as I am willing to sacrifice my stateliness, I do not desire the after effects of his verbal venom. His ignorance regarding my feelings toward him is something I lament deeply, and yet I cannot find it within myself to change its course. Mayhap it had been fated this way; that there was no way to prevent what had already been ascertained. And yet, I can only survey my own sanity, for something as trivial as this does not deter me.“I know you, Griffith. I was only a burden to you; you should not mind at all that I am to leave.”How laughable it was, to limit the tendrils of hope that had nearly ensnared him. With irony, it was through the same aspirations that assumed the lack of care that betrothed himself. Simple phrases have never swayed him, particularly those had been spoken from my own tongue, yet it was with these choice of words that I sought to persuade his procured resolution. My motive had been assessed so many times within a single moment that it had fallen into the realm of void, having become completely and utterly unadulterated. “Believe me when I say that losing you would break me completely,” I respond, truthfully.I attempt to withdraw my feigned exasperation, with little success. He seems to sense this, for he gives his signature sigh and faces me, fixing his gaze upon my own. The gravity of this action heightens my heartbeat, beyond what I would have ever envisioned, and I muster all my self control in an endeavor not to crack now, to weep, to hold him forever, until the end of time and beyond.I could have denied so many things - that I longed to touch his shoulders and back when they had glistened in the weak moonlight with that vicious sheen I’ve seen in so very few; how I loved the stoic of his demeanor and the ruggedness of his form. All of this I could have denied. And I believed my denials.“Do you consider me your friend?”At last, an opening, and cause for an otherwise unattainable opportunity; I take it upon myself to respond instantly, not bothering to obscure how desperately indigent I am. God may have forsaken me, but I do know this much: he does not care for the brevity with which I indoctrinate my own state of mind.“Yes. Yes I do.”