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When, commencing Grima's defeat, Chrom offered Henry a board in the Ylssian castle, he intended it as a temporary arrangement at first.
For many, this would be a great honor. Their services in war would be rewarded with an experience of royality, of indulging in the luxuries that came with having a King-sized canopy bed, a dedicated cook, a personal maid, and an expansive landscape of flower gardens. For Henry, however, there was an vulgar smell of guilt about the while thing that turned him off.
The only person Chrom had only approached with the offer was him, so Henry couldn't shake the suspicion that it was less out of a genuine feeling of debt to his achievements in war, and more out of a feeling of responsibility to his (now) late wife.
It prompted him to politely refuse, but Chrom must have expected it, because he didn't back down.
"It's just until you land on your feet,"' he assured him, and it only took a little more convincing after that for Henry to comply. It wasn't like he had any other plans apart from walking in one direction until he got bored, anyway (or at least until he knocked up the courage to cut ties with history all together), it was just kind of a pain to act prim and proper. But either Henry was still not quite 'on his feet' two years later, or Chrom had no intentions of kicking him out from the start, because it never quite happened.
Two years later Henry, was still free to weave in and out of the castle to his heart's content.
At first, the rest of the staff were awkward about having to share their land with a Plegian mage. It was Chrom's religious intervention that forced them into submission, rather than anything Henry said or did. Whenever the King saw someone trying to rile him up (not that it ever worked, Henry took no pleasure in starting pointless, bloodless fights), he'd come - and with the same recycled words, would break up the tension. Henry could hear the words even now.
“He was trusted deeply by someone I would have given up my life for."
Truthfully, relations with other troops had always been a little tight around the edges for him, but the tactician's sacrifice drove a wedge in between all of them. No-one wanted to talk about her death, so even relationships between troops that were very close disappeared and thinned like aged thread, snapping and sending couples and comrades flying in different directions.
Sometimes, if Maribelle or Ricken visited, he'd make an effort to talk to them, but he did so reluctantly. In most cases all they had to offer him was pitiful looks and concerns, and he had plenty of that already.
Henry was being treat like a child everywhere he tried to look for conversation, so as the first few months of his life in the castle passed, he began re-living his life as a recluse. The forests that surrounded the castles proved to be a shelter for him, and he spent the majority of his days walking around and talking to animals, much like he used to do before the Plegian army recruited him for their ranks.
He started being invisible, because walking into a room where people would whisper pitying words of how his wife sacrificed herself and he was left alone left him with a sour taste in his mouth.
“Here," he said, as he took a slice of bread he had plucked from the lunch halls and handed it to a boar that nuzzled her nose against his robes. “You know, you really lucked out with this one. I was gonna put it near the fox hut.”
His fingers grazed over the top of the boar's head and he gently stroked her bristly hairs. Once the boar was done eating, Henry watched as she wrestled herself out from under his hand before sniffing about and running off in another direction.
He stood up, thinking that despite the fact he was not in the mood to eat, dinner was probably being served at the castle and he should go there, if not only to take more food to later hand out to the animals. The walk was slow and peaceful, until he heard clamorous thumps and bending branches from three or four dozen metres away.
There'd been no war for a while, but he readied his hand at his tomes anyway; whatever creature was moving through the woods was not doing so efficiently, and probably had no qualms about being spotted.
He only relaxed once he saw his king's heavy posture dry-heaving through the undergrowth. Once Chrom noticed him in turn, he called out to him and sprinted in his direction.
“H-Henry--” He seemed to be in a hurry. His palm was pressed against his chest as though it would steady his breathing.
“What's eating you?” Henry asked playfully, watching as Chrom attempted to regain his composure. He was still struggling when he spluttered out his next sentence.
“I've been looking for you everywhere, where in Gods graces have you been?”
It wasn't often the case that someone came specially for him, so to tell the truth, Henry was slightly on edge about the whole situation. Still, he did his best to laugh it off, because there was little Chrom could say that would inspire genuine interest in him.
(To tell the truth, not much at all could spark his interest nowadays.)
“Just hanging out with the animals," he said, with a thin veil of amusement.
Chrom didn't seem very interested in maintaining a conversation however, because he blanked Henry's response completely, and instead, gestured to the castle tower, plucking up breath for another few words.
“We've found her, " he said, and Henry's smile disappeared almost entirely.
The mage had never took off so quickly in his life.
Once he was in the castle, adrenaline was pumping through his system faster than it had done on any battlefield in his life. He skidded along the hallways, leaving prints of mud and moss and heading straight for where he heard Lissa's hushed whisper. He followed its direction until he saw both her and Frederick standing outside of a closed door to the King's chambers.
"Is she in there?" he asked, with a voice that tattered at the edges, maybe out of excitement, maybe out of desperation.
"Oh, Henry!" On closer notice, Lissa's eyes were glazed, and the skin of her cheeks was damp with tears. Had Henry not been in such a hurry, he might have picked up the indecisive way her fingers tangled together.
"Is she there?" he repeated. His voice was teetering on some odd edge between ecstatic and in tears, and he wasn't entirely sure which direction it was more likely to tip into.
"Hold on! She's there, but um - Henry?"
The handle was turned and the doors were already open.
Henry saw her awake and beautiful. Stretching, like a bear raised to life after a long and icy winter, he watched her muscles stretch upwards to catch the sun around her, and feel the afternoon rays on her skin like a sunflower rising upwards to the sky.
"You're back," he said, almost numbly. She turned to face him, lopsided smile dimpling her cheeks. He ran up to her with fervour and complete recklessness, putting his arm around her body and just squeezing.
"You're really really back." Feeling returned to his voice. A lot of feeling. Two, long years of it. "I thought you were done for.” He was laughing. "I really thought I would never see you again."
He couldn't stop laughing.
Lissa and Frederick tensed, and the tactician leant into his armour. Waiting. She pat his head softly, and trailed her fingers down to his shoulders - before pulling him away and smiling gently at him. She pat the space beside her, and Henry took it almost immediately.
"I understand that you care very deeply for me." Her expression looked pained. "But I'm afraid, that when your friend um, Chrom I believe, found me on the fields - I hadn't retained any of my memory."
There was no way.
"I'm sorry. But, would you mind telling me what your name is?"
In the same way that the innocence of her voice was pure and childish, so was the carelessness with which she tore and trampled his joy unconscious. It was nothing more ceremonious than being trampled upon by a passer-by who would never realise the damage they had done.
A bug under her shoe.
He laughed.
“Come on it's Henry, who else could it be?”
He wanted to lurch forward and press his lips to hers in a shameless reunion. He wanted to wind his arms around her like a boa constrictor, tightly gripping the ends of her hair and running his palm through her scalp to see if it was still as good as he remembered it was two years ago.
“Sorry.” She seemed woozy still, and her voice came out drawled and unconscious. “I don't remember you at all.”
In the background, there was absolute silence. Neither Lissa nor Frederick dared to speak.
“You really don't remember me?” he asked, and the natural grin he had somehow grown unaccustomed to over the past two years chipped itself away, like dry paint coming from an old wall.
She shook her head.
Henry was sat beside her when the army had a celebratory supper. Everyone was invited, and everyone who could, came. The Shepherds were half torn between mourning and celebrating, but it didn't show on their smiling faces and the drink spilling from their cups. Olivia was on his other side, and she was the only one who saw him tremble.
He was shaking like a child lost in the dark.
Olivia could only touch him on the shoulder and feel sympathy, because she could imagine what it felt like to watch someone you used to whisper confessions to late at night, with their warm breath giving your skin goosebumps, and realise that it may never happen again for the second time in your life.
Henry felt the pads of her fingers on his shoulders. There was a distinct temptation to pile his body into Olivia's and cry, until his lips were swollen and he would barely be breathing. But his muscles barely flinched. The only person he wanted comfort from was sat beside him, clueless smile on her face, watching as people took shots in her name that she didn't remember she deserved.
'She doesn't know I love her,' he wanted to say, but his lips did not even twitch.
“So who exactly was I to you?” The tactician spoke amidst the shouting and the drunken camaraderie later that night, and caught Henry off guard.
He wanted to reply and say she was his wife. He was known among the Shepherds for his honesty, and he had never really felt the need to lie, so he was confused as to why the words didn't just tumble out of his mouth like they usually did. More so, he had felt a resistance. A genuine need (as opposed to a temptation) not to tell her the truth.
“Someone really, really important to me.” He said, and he felt unsatisfied, but felt he could not say any more.
“Ah, sorry," was all the tactician replied with.
The only emotion that felt right at that time to her was guilt, although she wished it could have been something else, like whatever he felt for her. She didn't know what exactly that encompassed, and she didn't dare ask, because in reality she knew she'd probably never be able to return it.
Henry wanted to spend lots of time with the tactician. There was no longer a war going on, and neither of them had any particular responsibilities, so lazily walking around the forest and spending time together was something that they could both afford to do.
Gradually, things had been getting easier for Henry. Although it was always a little awkward, he enjoyed telling the tactician dramatised and detailed stories of their exploits, and with great vitality he described remnants of the most bloody battle scenes, and the bodies and gore and whatever was left once the entire group of his friends and soldiers were through with it. She liked it, because they were things most others would not dare to edge into a conversation.
“That sounds lovely," she would say, amused and slightly disturbed.
Henry wanted another war. It was selfish, and he knew that if she had retained her memory, she would have slapped him upside the head for even considering it. But he wanted to do this with her again. In his head, he could remember the times where the brave tactician led them into battle and helped them overcome even the toughest of defences as the happiest moments in his life. He felt the most needed and appreciated when he was following her orders to cut down troops and clear the battlefield.
He wasn't sure how to tell her that in entirety, so he spent his days hoping and wishing she would just suddenly know.
“Henry, could you bring my memory back with a hex?" the tactician asked, with a curious shine in her eyes as she glanced over at Henry. They were sitting on the fallen trunk of a tree, a few hundred yards into the forest surrounding the castle.
“Nope. I could put some of my memories into you though.”
Moss and flowers gathered at the foot of the log, and a single peacock butterly flitted around a patch of violets before settling on a daisy that looked upwards towards the sky.
Henry watched it, settling the rocking of his foot as not to scare it off. “And even then," he continued, as a breeze tugged at his cape. "I can't pick which memory it is. You'll just get a random one.”
“I'd like to try it, regardless," she spoke after a while, with some fragile form of conviction. “Maybe it could trigger some sort of reaction from me or -- I don't know.”
She seemed unsure, so Henry made the decision for her.
“Sure I'll do it," he said, and she seemed grateful. He fiddled with his fingers in preparation, almost as if warming them up, so the tactician shifted in her seat to give him some space. He grabbed a rock and roughly scratched sigils into the forest floor, moving leaves and twigs from the earth to make space for detailed patterns and spirals.
“Now I need to look into your eyes," he said, wiping his fingers off on his robes. She complied.
Gently, he took her fingers into one hand, and lightly rubbed the top of her palm with his thumb. His grip was firm, and she had felt that even if she wanted to, she wouldn't be able to slide her hand out without any force. He proceeded by drawing patterns into the air, and she watched as his hand moved with a joyful carelessness, as small wisps of smoke and purple lining traced the lines he made with his fingertips.
“And… that's it!” he finally said. The last of the wisps of smoke disappeared into the air and floated upwards, towards the trees.
“I don't feel any different," she mused, pulling her hand out of his. He wanted to pull it back but decided against it, instead using his hand to prop himself up from one side.
“Neither do I, to be honest.” He laughed; he was always laughing. The tactician found it nice.
She was about to thank him for trying before a sudden realisation sent heat to her face and tightened her throat. She kicked her legs against the tree and looked to her right, avoiding eye contact at whatever cost.
He cocked his head to one side. “You look like you're choking," he laughed, but his smile was a little rough on the edges and forced. His whole body seemed tense.
“Not at all. I just think I've found the memory that that I got from you.”
He relaxed again. “Ooh, you gotta tell me what it is.”
Her legs started kicking against the side of the trunk, erratically and out of pace. “Well, erm. We're together, in my tent.”
“Yeah?”
“And then I say I'm stressed, so you…” her voice wavered, and she found it quite hard to continue. “You know what happens next right?”
Henry shook his head. “Nope. I gave that memory to you. It means I don't have it any more.”
“What?" There was genuine offense in her voice. "Why didn't you tell me?”
“Cause if I did, I knew you wouldn't let me do it!" Henry laughed again and the tactician melted into it, stress and anger running out of her chest like water running out from a crack in a rock. He knew her better than she knew herself, and sometimes that scared her, but sometimes she found it comforting. The thought that none of her own personal experiences were her responsibility to have and to hold meant that she could let go of any things that were tied in with them: like status, or social standing, or embarrassment.
“Soo, you wanna tell me what that memory was?” he asked again.
She laughed, and for some reason the rigidity of her words became non-existent. Like the wisp of the hex Henry had cast, it disappeared somewhere where she couldn't care enough to look. “Well, we went to bed together.” The embarrassed and strained expression on her face was replaced with a content and comfortable smile.
“Aw, that's one of the best ones," he said, smiling up at her and leaning back to look up at the sky.
“Do you want it back?”
“Nope. I've got loads like that.”
The smile was on her face again, and she followed Henry's cue and leaned back to stare at the clouds, where the sky was an encompassing and serene blue that swallowed the entire earth.
There were a few beats of silence.
“I love you,” Henry said.
“I know,” the tactician replied.