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All that Guts could do was watch. That is, watch from the other side of the small shack that he and his companions took temporary residence for the night as Casca dotted on the small boy that she found earlier on the beach. She kept to what her insane mind felt was a safe distance away from the man in the black armor, who was currently sharpening his throwing knives as busy work, whom her instincts always told her was a threat. Every once in awhile, she would cast a weary eye from Guts to the little boy who she was holding in her arms, and would move an inch or further away from the swordsman if she saw it necessary. As sad as it made him feel to be further away from her with each day, Guts was fine with her cautious arrangements so long as she was comfortable.
So long as this thing is in me, I won’t touch you, Guts thought somberly, reassuring himself that he would keep her safe, even if it meant never going near her. For how long, he didn’t know.
As the evening persisted, the little boy, like all young children, grew increasingly less active, and he gave yawns that were as quiet as any other expression that he gave. Noticing him growing tired, Casca commenced to rocking the boy, lulling him with soft murmurs and coos as the others watched on in interest.
“It’s almost as if she’s singing to him,” Puck remarked from atop Isidro’s head. For once he was not in his chestnut form.
“Never knew that Casca could be so… motherly,” the fiery redhead added, not quite as brash as his usual contributions to conversation were.
Seeing the mysterious boy falling asleep caused a contagious feeling of weariness to fall upon the others, so the group began laying their bed rolls on the dirt floor surrounding the hearth. Serpico and Schierke placed their rolls closest to the door, with Farnese taking her place at Serpico’s side. Casca naturally took her place next to Farnese, but laid the little boy down on her bedroll before she did herself, cuddling next to him under their blanket. One by one, everyone was content in sleep - save for Isidro, whose face was being smothered by Puck, and Schierke, who glanced a fatigued eye at Guts, who was propped against the wall underneath the open window.
The cold sea air won’t be good for his wounds, she worried. He shouldn't sleep like that.
She prepared to sit up and recommend to Guts that he ought to sleep laying down by the fire if needed, but before she could, he said, “Don’t bother. I’m okay right here… I’ll only be up for a few. Just need time to think and all. Just go back to bed.”
Hesitant to argue with him, especially at this hour, Schierke surrendered to sleep and lay her head on her hat again, Evarella close by. Guts, throwing his black cloak around his massive shoulders to protect himself against the chill, continued his vigil on his comrades, paying special attention to the sleeping, dark-haired woman.
Casca looked so peaceful in slumber, something that her instincts allowed her to go under since Farnese’s arrival in the group. Before that, Casca was just as likely to be as fatigued as Guts was during the daylight hours, never allowing herself to go to sleep around him and trying to escape whenever Guts fell victim to sleep before she. Guts couldn’t help but stifle a pathetic chuckle: was it not he and Casca’s original plan to travel the world, living their days together as husband and wife to some extent, before everything went to hell two years earlier? What made Guts laugh was that this eventually came to pass after the events at St. Albion, though under the wrong, twisted circumstances. It was not suppose to happen this way.
His eye then fell on the child cuddled next to her. Aside from the collective question that was on the minds of everyone present - who was this little boy and where did he come from? - Guts couldn’t help but feel that feeling of sickening grief in his belly that he tried has damnedest to repress, ever since he heard it from the Skull Knight on that hill two years ago.
“Your woman was with child - your child.”
As much as he hated hearing it, hated hearing how the misshapen being became the way it was after what he did to Casca, or how much he wanted to hate the little monster so much so that he wanted to kill it on the spot, Guts still couldn’t process the simple fact that it was his child: a child that he and Casca created during that one night of bliss, the one time in his life that he felt true happiness with someone, a night that just wasn’t long enough. If he and Casca were allowed to go their own way, she would have carried that child and given birth. It was hard for him to fathom, he and Casca being parents, especially given their career and lifestyle, not even mentioning that he wasn’t the best with children… Could they have done it? Would they have been happy? Would Casca have wanted it?
From the memory of that mournful wail that Casca gave as the child disappeared from their hands at daybreak, he knew the answer.
It was not the last time Guts would see his malformed son, however, as he would occur to Guts in both dream and reality. Each time, Guts would curse at him, wish him away, or try to kill him himself. This time, looking at the little boy sleeping next to Casca, Guts couldn’t help but think a somber memory of the demon child, crawling toward him in a way that a normal babe would toward its parents.
The last time I saw him, Guts began thinking back on the events at St. Albion, was at the Tower of Retribution. It was only for a split second… but I’m sure of it. So busy was Guts fighting that monolith bishop in order to save Casca that he barely noticed the form of an embryo on the ledge of the tower from the corner of his good eye. A thought that Guts never imagined himself thinking traced his mind, as if he were a worried parent:
Is he still wandering the night, somewhere by himself…?
Presently, a light breeze swept in from the ocean, curling itself among all who resided in the little hut, causing a ripple of tension as everyone adjusted to the cool in temperature. The little boy, however, continued to shiver lightly, a silent whimper escaping from his lips. Before Guts could act - not that he had thought of anything that he could have done for the boy - Casca instinctively pulled the boy closer to her body so that his head rested just above her breast, allowing him to listen to the soft thrum of her heartbeat, warming and soothing his tiny body.
He remembered being held like that once, by Sys.
Sys. He never thought about her much. He wondered why.
Guts might have credited Gambino, his brute adoptive father, with teaching him his best - and most horrifying - lessons in life, but he couldn’t totally disregard that it was Sys’ tender arms that cradled his frail, infant body from the brink of death, after his own birth mother had expelled him under the most cruel condition. Though he was brought into this world of death and violence, it was as if just having Sys at his side made everything right in the world again: Sys hugging him tightly to her breast (almost as if she expected the infant Guts to protect her against the world), playfully throwing him in the air on breezy spring days, helping him take his first steps on cool summer grass, casting protective glares toward all of the other mercenaries who acted too hawkish around her adopted youngling - including Gambino…
A sad smile found its way onto Guts’ face as he thought of these lost memories from his childhood. Those were happier times indeed.
Sys’ only sin was leaving him in this cruel world alone, at just three years of knowing her. Guts’ last memory of her was how her hand slipped lifelessly from his as he held it fearlessly, her plague-stricken body finally succumbing to the illness as she whispered his name, one last and loving time.
Why didn’t he think of her more often?
She was a good mother, he thought tenderly, returning his eye back to his sleeping lost love, still holding the tiny boy who held an uncanny resemblance to Casca and himself. The sad smile tugged on his lips once more, thinking of the likeliness that she and Sys shared.
She would have been a good mother.