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He ends up voicing it to Ranulf first, somewhere in that fragile hour before they all break apart, no longer dazed and wary of what they’ve accomplished.
Ranulf reacts about how Ike expects him to. He glances at Ike sidelong, mostly lacking in expression, but Ike can see hints of compassion in the slight crinkle of his eyes. “War isn’t easy,” he says, measuring Ike’s reaction as he speaks. “Especially for random beorcs who never wanted it, or its fallout, but just wanted to do what was right.”
The fact that Ranulf understands – even if Ike’s certain he’ll be among very few – causes a bit of tension Ike hadn’t even known he was carrying to leave his shoulders. They drop a little, succumbing more than he usually allows them to the weight of his armor. Relief is the word for it, he thinks, and he musters up a small smile. “Are you going with Skrimir, then?”
“Where else?” Ranulf drawls. He looks away again, eyes turning forward, sweeping over their bedraggled, slowly dispersing army. “He’ll still have plenty of use for me, in the days to come.” His eyes sweep back towards Ike, wary. “…You’ll always be welcome to visit, of course.”
Ike’s smile becomes a little more real around the edges. “Maybe,” he hedges. “Thank you.”
Then Ranulf smiles at him, that quirked, hooked little smile that always makes him look like he’s going to get himself in trouble, though there’s a bit of pure delight in it this time. He moves quickly, gracefully, as usual, sliding to tip-toe and sweeping a kiss over Ike’s cheek, then gliding away before Ike has any real chance to act. Ike doesn’t know what to make of it. He knows he should probably make something of it, but, maybe later. It’s all still a little brittle, right now.
He suspects that Ranulf will be among very few who take it well.
-
A number of the laguz figure it out, or perhaps Ranulf is telling others behind his back. Tibarn twists his face up when they part, obviously debating with himself about asking. Tibarn, Ike thinks, isn’t good at subtlety, and Ike waits patiently, wondering if he’ll ask. He doesn’t, in the end. He wipes the grimace away and gives Ike a broad smile, and a hug of all things, a hug, manly, slap-on-the-back hug from the King of Hawks (And Possibly Other Birds Too) himself. Ike can’t quite process that, either. Maybe later.
Tibarn’s the only one who comes close to saying anything. He supposes it’s because the other laguz feel that he’s a little too untouchable, unreachable for them to ask. It’s not a happy thought.
Skrimir hugs him too, but that’s just Skrimir, and that hug doesn’t have a trace of sadness in it, and Ike can handle it a little better. Skrimir gives him a wild grin and nearly flattens him with a pat on the back, and then they part, and it’s alright.
Lethe looks at him, then turns away with a short, subtle wave of her hand. He pretends not to see it, but he can’t help frowning.
Skrimir, at least, doesn’t care, but only Ranulf seems to really understand, and it’s a bitterness that he carries with him to Crimea.
-
He goes to Crimea because he feels some kind of obligation, maybe.
Twice now, he’s fought on Crimea’s behalf, as much out of circumstance as anything else. It just seemed like the thing to do, at the time. The first go around, it seemed to work out well enough. Ike fought for Crimea, and Elincia, and then asked to leave, and of course, she said yes. Elincia would never be so selfish a queen as to keep him there.
But that first time, he asked as a courtesy, and she knew he would linger, traveling with Greil’s Mercenaries, always close if situations truly became dire. And of course, when matters went south, Ike did indeed come, prepared to help, but he hopes it won’t set a precedent.
He is not her subject. Now more than ever, he doesn’t feel like one. He loves Crimea. He thinks Elincia is one of the fairest queens there could be, and the only reason he doesn’t plainly call her the fairest is because Micaiah has left to take up the queen’s mantle in Daein, too. But he has commanded an army that went up against a goddess, and the borders of Tellius feel so cramped to him now that he can’t bear the thought of being bound by them.
But he did fight for Crimea, and for Elincia, and so he goes with them, trying to find the words.
Nephenee gets it, surprisingly. She approaches him with a shy smile and chats him up (the way very few have, lately). She talks softly about the farms back home, and how she’s looking forward to seeing them again. She’s going to meet Heather’s mother, she mentions, cheeks pale-pink and smile wide. She thinks she’s going to retire from the army, for now, anyway. She’ll probably fight for Crimea again someday, though truthfully, she hopes she doesn’t have to. She has a horse back home, a beautiful mare with russet hair and a blind eye that kept her far from the warfront, and Nephenee's looking forward to seeing her again.
It’s an unexpected boon from Nephenee. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her talk this much, to anyone, never mind him. But he finds he can speak quietly back, and open up a little, more than he has so far.
He talks about the unknown lands east of Tellius, feeling his features creeping into a smile. He tells her about this one legend he heard, as a child, about a temple by a lake and a priestess who lived there, and wonders what the truth is – after all, so many legends have lately been proven wrong and right, and there are so many more stories he knows nothing about, in languages he probably hasn’t even heard of before.
Nephenee shares his excitement, grinning at him.
He thanks her before they part, and she accepts the thanks gratefully. He wonders how she found out, or if she figured it out, but maybe it doesn’t matter.
Mia winks at him later, challenging him to a (last) fight, and he accepts with a smile that says he knows he has friends.
The day before they arrive at Castle Crimea, Mist hugs him tight around his middle. She doesn’t give a reason. She smiles at him and teases him until he’s forced to give her a relentless noogie. He messes up her hair and she deserves it, he tells her. Mist scowls at him, trying to finger-comb it back into place, telling him she’s much too old for noogies.
Ike reminds her that he’s her older brother, and therefore, for him, there is no such thing.
She’s happy. Ike thinks she’ll probably stay with the Greil Mercenaries. She might even take the reins from Titania, after a few years. She could make a good commander, someday.
-
Elincia takes it well.
Honestly, the alternative would almost have been better. If she’d taken it badly, then she might have raised her voice at him and shouted him straight out of the country and onto the road. That would have been easier, in some ways.
This way, he has to watch the shock drain from her face, replaced by so much sorrow he can hardly stand to look her in the eye. His stomach churns a little. It’s too much for him.
“Are you sure?” she says. Then, babbling, she adds, “You’ll always have a place here, you know, a home you can come back to, or you can go with the Greil Mercenaries, or… Really?” She stares at him a little longer, and then drops her eyes. “Yes, I see. I’m sorry. I will do for you what I can.” Still not looking at him, she gathers his hands with her own. “I do hope,” she says, her voice breaking a little, “that we can remain – remain friends.”
“Of course,” Ike says roughly. He feels anger at her flickering to life in his chest, and he doesn’t want it there. “I’m sorry too,” he says. He squeezes her hands in quiet farewell, then flees, before he says something he regrets, or before she says something that makes him want to take it back.
He doesn’t want her sorrow. He doesn’t want her sympathy. He just wants to leave, now more than ever.
Ike packs quickly, lightly, ditching a number of items he’s had for years now. He keeps Ragnell. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think to pack beforehand, when he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t want to stay afterwards. He lets his tumultuous feelings propel him, riding out the anger while it lasts. It lasts him a long while – it’s been festering for days now, waiting for the spark that would set it off, and now it’s burning him, and he wants to get out of there before the tinder runs out.
It’s still early in the morning. Only guards see him as he leaves, and those that spot him quickly look away.
Past the castle gate, he sees a figure, similarly laden down. Ike slows his footsteps, waiting for the figure to take notice.
Soren hears him and turns to look, impassive. And Ike should’ve figured that, as always, Soren would be thinking five steps ahead of him.
“Where to?” Soren asks softly, not quite breaking the quiet of dawn.
The question makes something swell up in Ike’s chest, though he can’t really place it over the roar of the fire and anger still simmering there. “East, I think.”
Soren nods. “East it is,” he says, as though that’s a proper destination.
He falls into step alongside Ike, silent.
Ike thinks, somewhere beneath the numbness that begins to settle into him, that he is thankful.
-
It takes a few days before they talk in more than chopped, three-word sentences. All they speak of is practical concerns. They pick up supplies together at the first small town that comes their way. Ike feels almost itchy, aware of the stares that linger on him, and on Soren, to a lesser extent. He hopes Soren understands. He thinks Soren understands. At any rate, Soren is rarely chatty, and often sharp-tongued. Ike hopes Soren will forgive a bit of reticence on his part.
They cross the border into Daein in less time than Ike had hoped for, and they slow down a little. They still stand out here, but the land is torn up, dying, and the people are too concerned with reviving it to give a pair of strange and weary travelers more than a passing glance.
A burnt-up remnant of a house, being put back together slowly by a mother and her child, is the first thing to successfully tug on his conscience in days. He makes a motion, nearly striding over to offer assistance, but Soren stops him with a hand gripping his shoulder, firmly holding him back.
Ike turns back to him, puzzled. Soren waves towards an inn he spots down the way, perhaps promising an explanation there. Reluctantly, Ike follows him in, and Soren politely asks the innkeeper for a room while Ike waits, uneasy. He thinks it’ll be nice to sleep on a bed, and they can easily afford it. They could have afforded many inns, really, but Ike hadn’t wanted to.
They end up in a cramped but warm room with a pair of beds. Soren puts his belongings down without bothering to touch them and sits on the farther bed, claiming it as his. Ike follows suit, still feeling distant, still waiting.
“Ike,” Soren says, breaking the clipped near-silence they’ve maintained. “You don’t have to help them. They’ll be fine. You’ve done enough.”
“I know,” says Ike, though he’s not sure that he does even as he says it. “But, it isn’t fair. They shouldn’t have to… They shouldn’t have to pay for a war that was waged by… others,” he says weakly.
“Nothing in life is fair,” Soren says with familiar, sour practicality. “Don’t expect it to be.” He kicks Ike lightly in the shin across the space between the beds. “You’re not responsible for this. And anyway, you helped put a queen on the throne who cares about people like that. They’ll live. And you aren’t responsible for them.”
Ike’s uneasiness grows, but he thinks it’s because he knows Soren is right, even if it feels wrong. His emotions are all twisted up, trying to argue with his logic. “I know,” he says again, but it’s not enough to know. He puts his head in his hands. “Can’t we,” he begins, hating himself a little, “just do something?”
“No,” says Soren.
Long ago Ike learned that empathy doesn’t come naturally to Soren, though he’s far from heartless, and he can muster compassion to make up for it once in a while. He’s thankful for this fact right now. A more kind-hearted person would probably let him do something, and Ike isn’t sure that’s what he needs right now.
Ike wonders what Soren needs. It’s enough of a different thought that he loosens his fingers, takes a deep breath, and collects himself. He looks Soren in the eye, properly, for the first time in a long while. “Are you alright?” he asks.
Soren swallows. “Don’t be a fool,” he snaps. “Neither of us is alright.”
“Did you want to come with me,” Ike presses, “or did you just feel like you had to?”
With a long sigh, Soren rubs his forehead. “I want to,” he murmurs, glancing away. The deliberate use of present tense isn’t lost on Ike. The words are sincere.
Ike wonders if he should thank Soren, but that doesn’t feel quite right. He can’t figure out what to say, so he sits there in silence for a while, looking for something else to mention. “Sorry,” he says eventually. “I’ve probably been a bit of a jerk since we left.”
Soren snorts. “So?”
“Well, I mean, it can’t be fun to deal with...”
“Ike,” Soren says, giving him a pained look, “Shut up.”
The admonition draws out Ike’s first smile in days. He settles back into the bed, which creaks and whines underneath him, but holds steady, and proves comfortable.
-
As they move towards the east, they get more wary looks from Daein’s people. The south-east part of the country seems to have fared better than the country’s outskirts, leaving the citizens with a little more time to gawk. In a way, Ike is thankful. The attention bothers him, but so did the evidence of misfortune scattered everywhere. At least getting stared at again is a change of pace.
Nevertheless, Ike finds his cloak and draws up the hood, and Soren follows suit. It helps.
Soren brings out a familiar old map he brought with him. He spreads it on a table, his fingers moving to point even before he fully unfurls it. “We’re about here,” he says, jabbing at a little dot in southern Daein. “We have a few choices for heading east, assuming you want to cross over the mountains. Any idea which way you want to go?”
He makes the question sound light, so Ike doesn’t pick up on what he’s really asking at first. He figures it out as he peers at the map, and grimaces. They could head north, past Nevassa, but that comes with its own barrel of troubles. Closer to Nevassa, he thinks they’re more likely to be recognized, and there’s a chance Micaiah will be there and want to meet with them. It’s a slim chance, and he’s more concerned about recognition, but it’s there.
The other way lies south, past Talrega. Ike feels slightly ill, remembering flooded fields and suffering people. Still, it’s been a few years since then. Perhaps Talrega has recovered, at least a little. And the thought of running into Jill is slightly more appealing than the idea of running into Micaiah. It's not that he doesn't like Micaiah. It's that she reminds him a bit too much of what's happened.
Ike shrugs, slowly. “You’re the tactician,” he says. “What do you advise?”
Soren half-smiles. “Talrega,” he replies. “It might not be pretty, but it’s a little quicker, and I hear the Queen intends to give that region to the daughter of its old ruler. She’ll make a fair lord, and I expect we’ll pass with little trouble.” Or, in other words, Soren slightly respects Jill.
“I trust your judgment,” he says, nodding, though he feels like Soren should already know that and it doesn’t need to be said.
To his surprise, Soren turns the slightest bit pink. “Of course,” says Soren, but his slightly flattered expression contradicts the confidence in his voice.
Ike feels a tiny piece of the numbness chip off and fall away.
-
The night before they head into Talrega, Ike wakes up in the middle of the night, gasping, grasping at the fleeting memory of a nightmare.
Stumbling, adjusting to the dark, Ike gets to his feet, leaving their tent in search of fresh air. He only recalls glimpses of the horror that woke him, though it’s not hard to piece together the bulk of it. He’d been drowning. He saw Petrine – and with a pang, he considers that he hasn’t thought about her in a very long time. Yune was there, reaching for him. Soren was nowhere to be found.
Shakily, Ike breathes in and out, waiting for the feeling to pass. This isn't the first time he’s had a nightmare, and it won't be the last.
He hopes he hasn’t woken Soren up. Soren needs the rest as much as he does. Ike picks idly at the grass, settling down, and he lets himself think. He’s been trying to avoid that lately, but now seems as good a time as any to get back in the practice.
Soon, they’ll be in lands rarely visited by those from Tellius. Soon, they’ll be in a place where hardly anybody knows his name. He finds that that’s what he’s looking for. The fame, the awareness… Perhaps with the Mercenaries he could escape it for a little while, but he’ll always be known in this land, now. Some people would find it an honor. Ike finds it suffocating. He did what he felt needed to be done, that was all. He saved lives. He put the memory of his father to rest. He helped.
Deep down, he knows not everyone could have done what he did, but to him, he feels like he doesn’t deserve or want any accolades or titles or any of that. To him, it was simple.
The idea of being fawned over the rest of his life bristles at him. The idea of being pitied, or slipping into a relaxed, sedentary life, feels wrong. He feels restless. He feels a little broken, but he knows stopping now isn’t going to fix that part.
But leaving, finding new people, new adventures… That might. Even if it hurts to leave the people he cares about, he knows that if he stayed, it would only break him more. That’s part of the problem, he thinks, with becoming a hero. You’ll be expected to stay one. It’s a kind of pressure Ike knows he can’t deal with, not now.
He hopes Mist is okay. He hopes Elincia forgives him. He hopes Ranulf is doing well. He’ll come back one day, quietly, when the buzz has settled down and only the people who care about him will be able to see who he is through the difference those years will make.
Ike glances back at the tent, his mind turning to Soren. He lets those thoughts tumble gently around in his mind for a little while.
There are no words he can put to it, but something shifts. Has shifted. He smiles a little to himself. It’s good that Soren has come with him. He could have made this journey alone, but it’s better for his company, even if his company is as sharp and worn around the edges as Ike feels.
He knows Soren doesn’t see him as a war hero. Soren just sees him as a kid who gave another kid a sandwich once, a much smaller kind of hero. That’s a little easier to deal with.
Perhaps an hour has passed when Ike gets to his feet again, stretching his legs out of their slightly cramped position. He slips back into the tent, glancing briefly at Soren to make sure he’s still asleep.
Ike knows he’ll probably be a little grumpy in the morning. Midnight nightmares can do that to him. But he’ll make it up to Soren later, somehow.
-
They pass through barren, water-swept fields in grim silence, both of them shadowed by the ghosts that follow them here, and don’t come out of their shell for a long time.
Eventually, the fields start to look a little more cared for. Soon, there are some crops growing – small, brave little sprouts that have only just worked their way up through the soil. Slowly, Ike relaxes. Soren is subtler about it, but Ike can tell that it affects him too. They find Talrega smaller than it had been, but nevertheless, it bustles a little, more full of life than Ike could have imagined, and it gives him a bit of hope.
Life goes on. The more Ike sees, the more he feels his heart lighten. There are pots with flowers in them on some window sills. Houses which had wood bases that rotted with the water now sported new wood, bright and unstained, or sometimes little walls of stone that would hold up against water in the future. One or two buildings seem completely new, including what looks like some kind of town center.
The places Ike has seen torn up by war will recover too, he realizes. People don’t give up easily. People rebuild their homes and move forward, pushing through disaster to make something new. Maybe it’s good that they came here, he thinks. Maybe he needed to see a real-life reminder that this land, his home, will be okay, even if he leaves it.
Ike looks at Soren and smiles widely, catching a spark of relief in Soren’s solemn gaze. Soren looks back at him, raising a curious eyebrow, and Ike looks away, still grinning.
They stay at the inn, both of them quietly happy to provide the town with what income they can. Rather than moving on quickly after a single night, as they’ve done in other towns, they stay for a little while. Passing over the mountains won’t be an easy trek, Soren points out. They’ll need to be prepared for anything if they want to make it across unharmed.
To tackle their goals, they split up. Soren seeks out shopkeepers selling the kind of gear they’ll need – protection against the cold, ways of diverting snow, that sort of thing. Ike socializes a little, looking for anyone who might have been across the mountains before. He finds a woman whose brother has been across a few times. He’s currently on the other side of the mountain, she says. Still, she has plenty of tips she’s learned from what her brother has told her, last time he visited. They talk for a while, Ike gleaning what he can with gratitude, though when the woman starts talking about her daughter with a gleam in her eye, Ike backs out of the conversation as gracefully as he can. Turns out, he's more graceful than expected. Maybe he's learned a thing or two from the nobles and royals he's been stuck with as of late. Ike still feels a little stuffy, though.
He heads back to the inn to grab a meal. He isn’t really surprised when Jill swings down in the seat in front of him and tilts her head. “You didn’t think you were going to be able to stay here without saying hi, did you?”
There’s nothing demanding about the question, it’s just teasing. Ike smiles at her. “Not really. I was going to stop by before we left.”
“I could’ve given you the inn room for free, you know.” She isn’t wearing armor, for once, and it’s strange – but not bad – to see her in civilian clothes, with a sturdy pair of trousers and a simple (but bright) crimson shirt. Ike considers that he's not wearing as much armor as usual, either. Maybe she thinks that’s strange, too.
“I wouldn’t want that,” Ike says, catching back up to the conversation.
Jill nods. “I guess you wouldn’t. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Am I being too harsh if I say you could leave me alone?” Ike says, a little too tired to muster much tact.
Thankfully, Jill takes it in stride. Ike is a little impressed. She’s grown much stronger since they first met. “Only a little,” she teases again. “Let me know if you need anything. Are you crossing the mountains?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Then, um, good luck,” Jill says, briefly slipping out of her war-born confidence. “I wish you well. Pass that along to Soren for me, will you? I’ll tell Mist you said something nice about her.”
Ike smiles very genuinely at her. “I’ll tell him. Thanks. I wish you well, too.”
Jill gives him a quick smile and moves to a different table, off to do… Whatever it is Jill is off to do these days, he supposes. Probably something good, though. He’s sure of that.
Ike picks at his food, lost in thought, until Soren shows up with a small plate of food and a small sack of items, grabbing the seat at Ike’s side without a word.
-
When they leave, they go very early in the morning, reaching the edge of the thin little mountain trail by dawn.
At its base, they stop for a moment or two, sitting on the trail and resting. Ike stares up at the mountain. He and Soren are the only people around. On other roads, carts and travelers had passed from time to time, but this place is empty. To Ike, it feels full of promise, ready for the start of something new. But trepidation still tugs at him, for some reason, holding him back.
He wonders what they’ll find on the other side. They’ve heard stories, but stories aren’t always the truth.
“What do you think it will be like?” Ike asks Soren.
Soren gives him a look. “About the same as anywhere else, but with different people,” he says dryly.
“You’re no fun,” Ike complains. He looks back up at the mountain.
“Ike?”
“What is it?”
Soren hesitates, catching Ike’s attention. He looks at him, a little worried, as Soren gathers his words. “…You won’t leave me, right?” Soren says, in a very, very small voice.
There are other ways he could say this, but Ike just goes for the simple version. “No.”
Soren breathes out, lowering his head. “Okay. I – I know I’m not easy to deal with –”
“And I am?”
“Maybe not these past few days, but usually, yes. But, I mean – you’ve just been distant, and I know you asked me if I wanted to come, but I never asked – do you want me to come?” Soren asks, peering up at him nervously.
Ike closes his eyes, sorting out a sudden storm of emotions flooding him. “Soren, I couldn’t imagine coming with anyone else.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Soren says with frustration.
“No, I mean, it’s not your fault that I’ve been – distant, I guess,” Ike stammers, opening his eyes but unable to meet Soren’s. “It’s just – it’s been a lot. I don’t know how to feel about things or what to do, Soren. I need to sort myself out. To get away from everything. I just – I think I need to be selfish for a while, to do what I want.” It clicks into place then, with that sentence. He does need to be selfish. And he does need to take care of himself, and do what he wants to do. And there’s at least one thing he’s been wanting to do for a while, but because of the war, because of himself, he’s been holding back.
Soren is looking away from him with a statuesque expression, maybe a little hurt by what Ike hasn’t said yet. Ike scoots over and taps Soren’s shoulder, catching his attention. Soren turns his head, and Ike kisses him, very quickly, because he has no idea what he is doing. Ike feels a flush spread into his face.
“I – I definitely want you to come with me,” Ike says, embarrassed. “If that’s okay. I know it won’t be easy, but it wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t.”
Awed, Soren stares at him, before he, too, becomes flustered. “You – you really mean that,” he says, and it isn’t a question, and it’s not very surprised, either.
Ike doesn’t reply. Of course he means it.
They sit together in silence for a moment, each sorting their thoughts out, though Ike feels like his thoughts are less thoughts and more some kind of panic, or something.
“I think I need that too,” Soren says finally. “Although, for different reasons.”
“Sure,” says Ike. He doesn’t know what Soren means by that, but he’ll probably find out, eventually.
“Should we go?” Soren says, looking up at the trail. “We probably want to get as far as we can before sundown comes.”
In place of a response, Ike rocks himself up to his feet, swivels, and offers a hand to Soren. Soren takes it, and Ike hauls him up to his feet. They pick up their packs again, ready to leave Tellius for a very long time.
Ike grabs Soren’s hand when they start walking, and keeps it. Soren doesn’t complain.
Ike realizes, sometime later, that he’s grinning.