Community Zine

Warmth
Writer - HapSky / @HapSkyScribbles
Artist - chickentocino / @chickentocino
Missed
Time was a stringent mistress.
It hadn’t been three full years since Felix last stepped foot in Garreg Mach, but
already its once diligently maintained halls had fallen to disrepair. He supposed it
didn’t help that a lost battle was the last thing it saw before it was abandoned. There
was more rubble than wall where he entered, and weeds grew around and through the
cracks in the stone.
Felix came here on a personal whim, even though his attention was being demanded
by the search parties sweeping furtively but fervently across Faerghus for the missing
prince. For once in a long time, Felix agreed with his father: Dimitri didn’t die in
Fhirdiad. However, Felix thought they were looking in the wrong places.
Sunset rays in frosty air, winter basked in orange light. It’s cold, in every sense of the
word, yet Felix feels warm. His lungs fill with crystal clearness, and when his chapped
lips ache from talking he simply stops. So does Dimitri.
Blond streaks in black ones, foreheads touching gently. It’s warm, this feeling in his
chest, yet Dimitri feels cold. His nose sniffles with frozen drops, and when his numb
hands shiver from chillness he simply holds them out. And so does Felix.
Call it a gut feeling, born of and honed by a literal lifetime of being side by side with
the boar, but instead of avoiding the Empire patrols, he had followed them. And he
had seen… truthfully, he wasn’t certain who or what he had nearly encountered, and
judging by the corpses it left behind, it may well have been a beast. But Felix wasn’t
afraid of beasts; he was looking for one.
His instincts led him here. He didn’t like it—he didn’t like being where the memories
of his old friends turned enemies reverberated off the walls. He walked through
the ruined courtyard where the tables were overturned, and the chairs were filthy
with grime and old rainwater. Ferdinand’s obnoxiously bright voice greeted him, inviting
him to tea. He ignored the scent of Almyran pine needles lingering nebulously
in his imagination as he passed.