Von Aegir Literary
To the End of a Dream:
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MIGUEL SOTO
Byleth,
You promise paradise, a field of daffodils singing with the rivers of Fódlan. I abandon my home—a library of topographic maps charting innocent green, shelves of crest design books, rooms to lay for eating peach sorbet powdered with bean flour and sweet buns dripping of albinean berries. I cast Excalibur winds that spread the fires you command. You promise me a turncoat after dethroning the Mad Queen, a renouncement of nations. We eat twigs and grass, like starving calves. You say my highborn disposition keeps me from seeing the goal of your campaign. I know I am only the hand that stretches the Arrow of Indra on your command.
Yours,
Linhardt
Beloved Linhardt,
You are the crescent moon I seek in the midst of battle. Yes, you are the hands of this company—caressing the knots in my back, healing the wounds of our fallen. Know, I never asked to teach students the art of war, or for the power of the exalted to reside in my body, or for our company to eat like calves in the pastures of our waste. I fight for honor. My name forged in the lineage of the Sword of the Creator. May she rest in peace. Yes, I desolate villages. How else do you maintain a system of nobles when the Black Eagle Queen and Those Who Slither in the Dark intend to end you? I am the paradise I promise. I will see that you live to see your castle—topographers redrawing the borders I expand and claim for you, servants to feed you pastries of sweet berries, a library of Fódlan history books with your name beside mine.
Love,
Byleth
Byleth,
I am your crescent moon? The symbol of war—ambivalent reds suffocating the green of maps. My body is an outline of murder, and the earth remembers. For the last of redwoods shiver as we march before I cast my winds. What body of water is clean of blood? Trumpets roar, the snares drum to the march of your skirmishes, and the bards sing your name, drowning the bodies that fall to your sword. What body is clean of Fódlan’s war? I no longer adore you, but who better to share my guilt and shame with?
Always yours,
Linhardt
You promise paradise, a field of daffodils singing with the rivers of Fódlan. I abandon my home—a library of topographic maps charting innocent green, shelves of crest design books, rooms to lay for eating peach sorbet powdered with bean flour and sweet buns dripping of albinean berries. I cast Excalibur winds that spread the fires you command. You promise me a turncoat after dethroning the Mad Queen, a renouncement of nations. We eat twigs and grass, like starving calves. You say my highborn disposition keeps me from seeing the goal of your campaign. I know I am only the hand that stretches the Arrow of Indra on your command.
Yours,
Linhardt
Beloved Linhardt,
You are the crescent moon I seek in the midst of battle. Yes, you are the hands of this company—caressing the knots in my back, healing the wounds of our fallen. Know, I never asked to teach students the art of war, or for the power of the exalted to reside in my body, or for our company to eat like calves in the pastures of our waste. I fight for honor. My name forged in the lineage of the Sword of the Creator. May she rest in peace. Yes, I desolate villages. How else do you maintain a system of nobles when the Black Eagle Queen and Those Who Slither in the Dark intend to end you? I am the paradise I promise. I will see that you live to see your castle—topographers redrawing the borders I expand and claim for you, servants to feed you pastries of sweet berries, a library of Fódlan history books with your name beside mine.
Love,
Byleth
Byleth,
I am your crescent moon? The symbol of war—ambivalent reds suffocating the green of maps. My body is an outline of murder, and the earth remembers. For the last of redwoods shiver as we march before I cast my winds. What body of water is clean of blood? Trumpets roar, the snares drum to the march of your skirmishes, and the bards sing your name, drowning the bodies that fall to your sword. What body is clean of Fódlan’s war? I no longer adore you, but who better to share my guilt and shame with?
Always yours,
Linhardt
Miguel Soto (he/him) is the founder of Not Another Lit Mag. His writings can be found in Olney, [PANK], Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and elsewhere. Find him at www.miguelasoto.com
