Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Love is a debt.

It is a debt Dimitri will not ask of anyone. Never again.

He pays every day. For his family, his fallen knights, he pays in blood - sleepless dawns and blistered heels and blood, blood, blood that is never enough. It is a debt he will never be able to pay back.

For Dedue, he pays in daphne.

The night they fled the castle sticks in his mind like flesh between teeth. They made it out to the streets of Fhirdiad, close to the western gate. Dedue was a cold weight on his shoulders. The metallic singe of dark magic clung to his skin. He remembers the ground slamming up against his chest, the scrape of Dedue’s armor against stone, the belated realization that an arrow embedded in his calf. Metal flashed as another arrow glanced off Dedue’s breastplate. Dimitri crawled overtop him, trying to gather him in his arms. The weight, the stillness. Looking down into his face, his eyes closed, mouth agape. Mouth a hollow of still air. A grasping blackness.

And from the corner of his mouth, a trail of ash. But… no. Not ashes. The dust of flowers, withered and crushed to powder.

Dead. Even the flowers were dead.

He clawed the flower-ash away from Dedue’s mouth. Shaking hands tilted Dedue’s chin back the way his emergency training taught him, and he bent down to push air into his lungs. The flower-ash was so astringent that it burned even Dimitri's dull tongue, coating his mouth and the inside of his nostrils when he inhaled. Dimitri coughed, his whole body convulsing, yet Dedue was utterly still. Dimitri needed to- to dislodge the remaining flowers, somehow, with chest compressions, maybe, but he had no time to remove Dedue’s breastplate and if he crushed it in Dedue would only be hurt further and he needed to do something, anything, save him, please, Goddess, save him-

Half of Dimitri’s vision vanished. The pain came second. A blind hand reached to find an arrow’s shaft sticking from the side of his face. His dark blood blotted down onto Dedue’s face.

It must have only been a few moments, but in memory, they stretch on infinitely. The fog of Dimitri’s labored breaths clouded his view, the darkness within that mouth was so vast and black. Empty, empty, empty.

So short a time ago, that space had been filled by the word live.

Beyond that is a blur. Arrows and magic scraped his shoulders, his lance splintered, blood and snow and the darkness of the forest where he fled alone, because Dedue told him to live.

How cruel, that for so many years these soft feelings bloomed inside him, and they are only given shape once Dedue is gone. He understands why: he’d always known Dedue loved him. Some silly, stupid part of him always, always believed they would find a future together. One day, we will be together as we are meant to be.

One day.

There is no more ‘one day.’

Now, the petals rend his lungs in moments of weakness. Taking a strike he can’t see coming, without someone to protect his right side. Nights spent with only the company of the dead. The rare times he consumes a cooked meal. Small, pointless petals fall like so much snow, ground under his heel.

In the sparing moments the dead leave Dimitri in quiet, he wonders why Dedue has not joined their phantom ranks. He has as much reason as the rest to lay his unjust end on Dimitri’s shoulders. Dimitri’s weakness and stupidity prolongs his family’s suffering by failing to avenge them, but his weakness and stupidity directly caused Dedue’s death. It is so like Dedue, that instead of speaking in nightmares and anguished screams, he speaks in flowers. Something so irrefutably, horrifically alive.

Live - such a cruelty. Such a steep demand. That he should have to go through the motions of the living, when his heart is naught more than the grave-soil from which winter daphne blooms.

The flowers offer a comfortingly tangible pain. So perverse has Dimitri become, that part of him enjoys it. The slithering, moth-wing flutter of sensation against his insides, nestled in the tender meat between his ribs, a nausea to the point of euphoria. A rightness. He is the soil of Dedue’s grave, and so it is only right he should bloom. More fitting, though, if instead of flower parts, he could be a nest for maggots. He imagines it so, sometimes, on nights he sights cabins through the skeletal trees, lit-windowed and smelling of cooked meat. Homes. The reminder of the existence of such a thing always excites the flowers. So, when he lurks in the dark woods and retches them up, the pinkish-white, curved petals scattered against rotting winter earth, he imagines them moving, writhing, full with the flesh they’d bored from his lungs.

What a joy it would be, to be acknowledged as a corpse.

But they are only petals. And he is an alive thing.

You are the only survivor, his father’s head screams, eyes an agony of firelight. You must avenge us. You must bring us her head, her head, her head-

Dimitri presses on. As one winter comes, then two, then three, he presses on. He loses the right to his name. The right to his personhood. Boar, someone used to call him. So he is, now. It stings in the same sharp, thrilling way the daphne does - the thrill of a just punishment.

The thrill is always short lived. The cheers and relief of the dead is only temporarily assuaged with every Imperial encampment he routs. No sooner does the blood coagulate in the rivets of his gauntlets than their rhapsodic cries meld back into anguish. They slosh together in his head. Jubilation, agony. Praise, castigation. All of it a frenzy. He can hardly tell the difference anymore. Screams of joy and screams of agony, all just screams.

The flowers are a punishment. And they are the most precious of gifts. A punishment and a gift are both a reminder: to love is to destroy, for monsters like him.

-

The Boar haunts the cathedral.

It stands as a worshipper might, staring up at where moonlight spills through the collapsed ceiling like fluid through a cracked skull. But it does not worship. It knows the Goddess will offer neither salvation nor consolation. It is here only because the cathedral, broken as it may be, commands silence. The Boar is of the tangled wilds, and the voices of living people reek of civilization. It longs for quiet.

When the right times come, the Boar is called on to do its violence. The brutality of battle is its purpose. The Boar is reigned in only by a respect not-quite forgotten, and the understanding that these large-scale assaults bring it closer to its prey than picking apart enemy camps one by one. So it goes where the Professor commands, and kills who it is told to kill, and then retreats among the shattered stained-glass with more and more ghosts clawing at its heels.

Sometimes, the more intrepid among the living will watch the Boar from a distance. These people - no. These pests. They think they understand the nature of the Boar, because they were fooled by the mask it once wore.

When the living rest at night, the Boar stands among the dead. Their wailing fills the high ceilings. Their bloodied and burnt bodies fill the pews. The Goddess goes on in indifference, and the Boar goes on in impotence.

This night, one of the living stands among the dead. Perhaps he thinks the Boar does not sense his presence, sheltered in the shadows of a colonnade. But the Boar knows. What it does not know is why. This living person - small, fierce, his dark hair swept away from angry eyes - is one of the few who saw through the Boar’s old mask. The one who gave the Boar this name, when it thought it might be human.

It does not matter. If he attacks, the Boar will kill him. Yes - it is simple as that.

But his eyes bore into the Boar in a different way than those of the dead. The Boar is used to the cold, strangling gaze of glazed eyes. This bright, sharp gaze is a pinprick. Irritating. Reminding it of other times. What it meant, to have someone at his side. To have someone concerned with him enough to scold him.

The Boar’s chest burns as if branded with iron from within. This is no concern - it is only more flowers. They come frequently, still. The Boar retches. The stems and thistles lodge in its throat, choking. The Boar claws at its throat, reflexively, the body trying to keep itself alive regardless of the mind. And just as reflexively, it keels over so its metal-clad knees hit the stone floor.

Footsteps rapidly approach from behind. “What’s wrong?” Panic grates Felix’s voice. “What-”

He freezes. His hands clench on the Boar’s shoulders. His eyes lock on the clump of torn petals and leaves laying on the floor. As if burned, he pulls away. Only when he’s backed up several paces, back turned, does he mutter, “So you do still have feelings.”

The Boar rises to its full height. “Do not be a fool.” It grinds its heel to the mass of flowers and kicks it away.

Felix’s eyes dart after tit, but he quickly re-affixes his attention to the Boar. He, too, draws to his full height - so much smaller than the monster he faces. His stance is stable, hand hanging near the scabbard at his hip. He swallows. “Do you even remember who those are for?”

The question is dipped in sarcasm. But just as Felix saw the Boar for what it is, so too does the Boar see through his mask of sarcasm. His question is genuine. And that - it burns.

The Boar does not answer. Its throat is clogged with brambles, its heart choked with memory.

Felix grows agitated with the silence. “Do you tell yourself your path of wanton destruction is for his sake?”

“No,” the Boar says, even before it scoffs and turns away.

Brazen as he ever was, Felix catches the Boar’s trailing cloak in a fist. He dodges the Boar’s attempt to swat him away. “Then who the hell is any of this for? Yourself? Look at you. Is it satisfying, to tear yourself apart and make all of us watch?”

Satisfying. As if the Boar could allow itself such a sentiment, as long as its prey’s head is still attached to her shoulders. It scoffs. “Then do not watch. Leave.”

Felix’s face screws up. Not just in anger - there’s an extremely rare hesitation there, as if he’s deciding if he really wants to utter the words twisting him up inside. The words win. “Do you think he would want this? Want you to be this?”

The Boar’s lip curls up over its teeth. “What do you know of what he would want?”

“Nothing! But you do.”

The Boar barks out something like a laugh. Of course Felix doesn’t know - the Boar’s debt to that man is to live. Only to live. And it does so the only way it still can.

“Is that funny to you?” Felix growls. He’s wound like a frightened cat. “And here I thought the dead were all-mighty in your eyes.”

The Boar’s breath stutters. It grows tired of this prattling. The bone-rattle whispers of his family and fallen knights claw at Felix’s heels, yet he is deaf to their cries. Such blithe ignorance.

“Silence.” The Boar advances. “You know nothing of their will. Nor of their agony. Leave this place.”

With every one of the Boars’s echoing footsteps, Felix seems to shrink. But he does not back away. He and the Boar stand chest-to-chest.

“This is your will.” Amber eyes are reduced to a pinprick of moonlight in the darkness. “No one wants this but you. If you care for the dead so much, don’t use them as stooges in your play.” The Boar looms over him, so close that even that dots of reflected moonlight in his eyes is swallowed by its shadow. He is afraid. And still, he says. “The only one punishing you is yourself, Dimitri.”

That old name is the stab if a searing brand. The Boar flinches back - and just as quickly redoubles in fury. The crest of its black armor pushes Felix back, its footfalls unsteady but inevitable. The Boar says, “I exist to punish the wicked. Those who trample the lives of the weak, reveling in the suffering they inflict upon others. Tell me. Am I not one of the same? You said so, yourself. You were right. Are you not satisfied?”

Felix’s heel catches on the step up to the dais. He digs in to try to stand up against the Boar’s slow and unwavering advance. He topples backward, turns the fall into a roll away. The Boar stills, standing over him while his question festers in the air like flies.

In a flash, Felix is on his feet, several paces from where he fell. “Hopeless,” he hisses, and it melds perfectly with the susurrus of phantoms encircling him. Ever heedless, Felix strides straight through the ring of spirits, disappearing into the darkness long before his footsteps fade.

Once again, the Boar is alone with the dead. Their eyes jealously eat up the puffs of fog that mark the warmth of its breath. Those pale and hollowed sockets trace the Boar’s movement as it stoops to the stone floor. Black fingers scoop fragile pink petals into cupped palms. The Boar peers down at its gathered quarry. The petals are dry. Withered before they fully bloomed.

The Boar’s breath comes more rapidly. The fog leaves tiny beads of moisture clinging to those dead flowers. How are they so withered? They should have been alive when they grew in his lungs, at least? Unless, he’s so rotten on the inside that he can no longer be a haven even for flowers.

There’s a burning in his eye sockets. Fire, scorching, waiting to boil the fluids in his remaining eye until it bursts, until his face is only dark holes for worms to writhe, fit not even as grave soil, and the fire keeps building in his sockets and maybe he is already blind because the dead are all a blur and even the ones who should have eyes no longer do and maybe the flowers really are maggots only when he scrapes the petals between his fingers they don’t wetly rupture but instead grind down into a fine withered dust, like ash. The Boar’s hands shake. The black gloves are coated in white ashes. Bone ashes. That man’s ashes.

The Boar presses its hands to its mouth. Its tongue is coated in the bitter powder. It laps up every last speck.

The dead watch, hungry.

-

The Boar is once more beckoned to battle. This time, the target is a bridge, wider than any city street and thrice as long, every step of it packed with enemies clad in red and black. Demonic Beasts that could fill a chapel with their immensity further blockade the way. But across this bridge lies the path to its prey - so the Boar blitzes forward. It weaves through slashing claws and stabbing blades, cutting down flesh as a farmer cuts wheat. It only barely heeds orders to stay out of range of the masked mages, its blood bursting with the need to take their heads.

There are faces among the enemy ranks that the Boar might once have recognized, if it were still human. It tears them apart just the same.

At the end of it all, the Boar’s lance is staked through the throat of a horse, the red-clad rider in two halves by its feet. A swathe of viscera trails from the Boar like a red cloak. The dead are still excited, hungry, their lust wriggling through the Boar’s veins like parasites. The victorious living are laying down their weapons, sighs of relief a mere murmur beneath the dead’s cries for more blood.

“Your Highness,” a voice calls from behind. The Boar bristles. A man approaches him, his kind face and dark hair stirring a miserable pinch of relief. The man wisely does not draw close enough to touch, but brings his hand to his chest in a stately bow. “I am relieved to see you unharmed.”

“What do you want?” The Boar growls. It tugs the spearhead from the horse’s neck.

“Only to see that you are alright,” the man says, and the Boar hates that it believes him. His face is so kind - it always has been, even in the Boar’s earliest memories, when it was not yet lined with age. Rodrigue does not look down at the spear, red to the socket with blood both human and equine. He looks up at the Boar’s face, with enough warmth to make it want to turn tail and flee. He continues, “The Great Bridge of Myrddin is won. Our path to the Empire is open.”

“Do not waste your breath stating the obvious.”

“Of course. If you would walk with me, Your Highness?” He motions back to the other end of the bridge. He must be here to ensure the Boar does not stake out across Gronder Field on its own. It has a mind to - the song of bloodlust still rings loud in its ears, and waiting for the army to strategize and reform will waste precious time. Rodrigue says, “Our victory is not the only joyous news.”

The Boar does not acknowledge him. Whatever news he has, it will not change a thing.

Unperturbed, Rodrigue presses on. “An old friend has come back to us. I’m sure he wishes to see you.”

“I do not care,” the Boar says.

Rodrigue, with a hint of knowing to his tone, replies, “You may. Meet with him before you decide.”

Reflexive anger makes the Boar repeat, “I do not care.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Rodrigue says, like he’s speaking to a grumpy teenager. He’s used that tone with his own son many times. It makes Dimitri feel - silly. Chided.

Rodrigue waits patiently while the Boar wars with itself. In the end, it follows him back over the bloodied bridge. They walk around the slain mass of a demonic beast. Their forces are gathering on the far shore, preparing for the journey back to Garreg Mach. There is a small cluster of people still standing on the bridge, far enough away that they’re only sparks of sunlight on metal.

As he draws closer to the cluster of soldiers on the bridge, they take on familiar forms, voices tripping over each other in excitement. The smallest among them are Ashe and Annette, closely bunched in by Mercedes and the Professor. Sylvain stands a bit farther away. And, in the center of all of them, is someone tall. Markedly taller even than Sylvain. He is encased in plate, the sun glaring off him like needles. But he does not wear a helm.

The Boar’s footfalls slow to a glacial pace. A phantom - in broad daylight. Only, it cannot be a phantom. The others clearly see it, and when Annette leaps forward, her arms go around it like it’s something solid.

“How dare you worry us like that!” Annette shouts. She bangs her forehead on the breastplate with a series of hollow thuds. Each one of those thuds reverberates in Dimitri like a knock on a door.

Dedue smiles as their old friends crowd around him. Such a subtle thing, like sunlight on a mild spring day, like river rock warmed in summer.

“I still can’t believe you’re alive,” Ashe cries. He frets as if he’s not sure if he is allowed to move closer - Dedue extends an arm, opening himself for a hug. Ashe jumps at him, joining Annette.

Dedue folds his arms around them both. “It was a near thing,” he says. His voice. It is exactly as Dimitri remembers. Even from such a distance, under the din of a recently-won battle, it is unmistakable. And with how Ashe and Annette cling to him, how Mercedes rests her hand on his arm, how Sylvain reaches up to pat his shoulder - he’s really there.

The world moves as if veiled in cotton. Their old classmates each exclaim their disbelief and joy, and Dedue soothes their worries. It is as a scene from another world, torn and pasted into reality.

Rodrigue stays at his side. After a moment, he asks, “Will you not go to them?”

The Boar is seized with terror. Yes, it must be terror - what else could prevent its limbs from moving? Arrest its total attention, so the world narrows to this single, bright scene? He dares not approach. If he does, it will shatter. The Boar breaks everything beautiful.

Only, then, Dedue looks at the Boar. Suddenly, it is aware of itself. Its hunched shoulders, unwashed hair, the blood caked down its arms. Such a tide of shame rushes down its throat that it cannot breathe.

Those warm green eyes regard it from a distance. Traitorously, the Boar’s heart races with elation. It’s utterly torn between wanting to flee, and wanting to rush forward.

The others follow Dedue’s line of sight. Ashe and Annette are still pressed close to his side. Mercedes looks up at him and says something. As she does, Dedue’s expression changes.

All of the others are smiling, but the joy and affection washes from Dedue’s face. He stares right at Dimitri, and his eyes - they’re full of dispassion.

Annette takes Dedue’s hand, and starts trotting towards Dimitri. He cannot make out what she’s saying - all sound is a blur. Why… why is Dedue looking at him like that? No happiness, not even grief or anger. Just - nothing.

Dimitri is rooted to the spot as the group walks closer. He’s seized with the urge to tidy his hair, or wash off the months’ old stains in his cloak. The flowers stir in his chest.

Dedue stops several paces away, leaving a still-chattering Annette to be jerked to a halt as well. She falls to silence. No one says a words. Not until Dedue, with the blandness of unimpressed curiosity, asks, “You are the Prince of Faerghus?”

-

Dedue does not remember him.

He remembers all the others. He treats their old classmates with his usual gentleness. He tends to the flowers of the greenhouse and the old black-bottomed pots of the kitchen as if they are his old friends. His new scars have not changed him.

But with Dimitri - no, the thing that was once Dimitri - he is an unreadable wall.

It is exactly as you asked for, a gleefully sharp part of him reminds. You told him to forget you, and he has. What hypocrisy, to sulk over it now. What selfishness, to wish otherwise. Is it not better this way? Now, he can’t see exactly how far you’ve fallen. Now, he has no obligation to care. His life will be infinitely better, without you to drag him to hell.

All of this, with the persistent, needling, confused joy of it. It is not something that should be allowed to a monster such as himself. But it crops up unbidden, like weeds in dead soil, stubborn in its will to grow.

Dedue does not remember him, and he is this… thing. This non-self.

Perhaps it is a mercy, to be forgotten.

He returns to the cathedral, far from the weight of those calm green eyes.

Just because one of the dead has returned does not mean the others found rest. Their clamor only grows: avenge us, save us, bring us her head.

The flowers, too, stay dead. Withered, rattling things, shriveled white skins slick with phlegm. It should be odd, perhaps, that Dedue’s return neither revives nor removes them.

One night, the Boar treads the graveyard. Grand white flowers, grown in the greenhouse for this very purpose, adorn the memorials to the fallen. So many, after Gronder. No matter how pristine these flowers may be, they are a pointless token. The grandest ceremonies and finest flowers won’t keep the dead at rest.

He cannot say why he left the cathedral and made his way to the graveyard that night. When he sees that some of the floral displays had toppled in the wind, his body takes to the mindless task of righting them.

A sound snaps him to attention. A figure approaches - Dedue.

The Boar wants to run. But the graveyard only has one entrance, and Dedue is blocking it. He says, “Prince of Faerghus.”

It is the worst thing for him to call the Boar, because it is a reminder that he would rather be called by his name.

When Dedue does not get a response, he crosses his arms behind his back, and waits. His expression is unreadable. He does not show his fear, but he keeps a guarded distance.

Of course he’s afraid. He should be. I am a monster.

“We have not spoken,” Dedue says.

There are so many questions; How did you survive? Where were you? Why did you finally choose to forget me?

Why, having forgotten, did you still return here?

“You threw your life away!” The Boar bursts, unbidden. It’s a wound torn open at the slightest nudge. “You are never to do so again. Never.”

Finally, Dedue shows some trace of emotion. A small huff. It’s the gentlest of chastisements, but it sinks in deeper than teeth to an undefended neck.

“Is that amusing to you?” The Boar moves on him. “Does your life mean so little? Do not laugh. That you- that you did such a thing, despite everything-”

“I find it odd that you show concern for my life,” Dedue says, glacial. “On the bridge, you rushed ahead without a thought for the lives of your soldiers. And after the battle, you did not stay to rally or console them. You are not the man I expected to find.”

The Boar freezes. Of course. Of course he knows he’s a disappointment, a pale shadow of the man he should be. He is not even a man at all. But for Dedue to look at him with such disappointment -

What humanity is left in him cannot withstand it.

He pushes past Dedue and flees.

Dedue catches his arm.

All the animal instinct of the past five years makes the Boar want to tear that arm from its socket. But Dimitri does not. He could never.

“I despise Faerghus,” Dedue says, flatly. “Nothing can repair the damage the kingdom has done to the world, to me. I would see it razed to ash a thousand times, and still not be sated.”

Dimitri holds still as a spooked rabbit. He does not meet Dedue’s eye.

“And yet,” Dedue continues, “I endured Faerghus for years. Fought for its future with my life. Because of you.” He says it as neither compliment nor condemnation. “My countrymen who saved my life told me I was your vassal. I scarcely believed them at first, but I had to seek you out, to see for myself. All of my friends here confirmed that we were rarely apart.”

The grip on the Boar’s arm is firm, just shy of painful. Dedue looks down at him, the moonlight a sharp pinprick in his eye. “Was I was a fool, for putting my faith in you?”

Dimitri is speechless. Yes, he immediately thinks, but - Dedue was never a fool. It was only… Dimitri had not lived up to what he should be. Dimitri had failed. He had not been worthy to command Dedue’s trust for all those years.

“It’s as you said,” the Boar rasps. “I am not the man you thought I was.”

Dedue releases his grip. An odd, horrible peace washes over the Boar. Yes - it really is best that Dedue has forgotten him. He won’t be bound by his misplaced faith in the weak, deceptive promises of a failed king. Won’t be burdened by the stupid, helpless daydreams of a romantic boy. Like this, he is seeing Dimitri as he truly is, and he will finally, finally forsake him.

Dedue asks, “Then, who are you?”

The question is flat and harsh. Yet, it is flat and harsh in a way so achingly familiar. It’s how Dedue asked his first stumbling questions in the language of Fodlan, the sound of a question he isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask.

A prince. A boar. Nothing.

Dedue’s eyes burn into the Boar’s back as it flees.

-

Dedue does not approach the Boar again.

-

The ways that the Goddess weaves the threads of fate often make a cruel loop. And as it was that Dimitri first witnessed Ingrid’s love sickness at Glenn’s funeral, she first witnesses Dimitri’s at the funeral of his father.

Rodrigue will be buried on Fraldarius lands, but they hold a ceremony of remembrance at Garreg Mach before the procession to see his body home. After the ceremony, Dimitri lingers alone in the cathedral. The casket has been carried out, and the mourners scattered. Dedue did not attend. It makes little sense, then, that this is the time the flowers choose to bloom in full fury.

The petals are dewy and soft. So similar to the white bouquets still resting on either side of the altar.

“Your Highness,” a voice entreats from behind him. He turns to face Ingrid. Her black mourning clothes turn her ghostly. But, out of respect for Rodrigue or something else, the dead do not show themselves, now.

Her eyes drop to the round bunch of flowers cupped in his hand. An unexpected smile twists her mouth. A too-human twinge of curiosity lances Dimitri’s heart, and he makes a questioning sound. Ingrid shakes her head haplessly. “Could you not have gotten Love Sickness when we were young? Back when things weren’t so dire, and we all could’ve teased you about it?”

The levity catches Dimitri perfectly off-guard. He answers, “It hardly would’ve been fair. We never got to tease you about yours.”

This exchange would’ve been unlike them, even when they were comfortable in the other’s company. It’s precisely this strangeness that lets Dimitri forget his self-pity. They’re both changed people, now: no need to pretend otherwise.

Ingrid uncrosses her arms. “You could have. Not my fault you never did.”

No need to state the obvious: those first few weeks, the illness had her on her deathbed. It was always a heavy thing in the heart of their friendship, never acknowledged unless it impolitely forced itself to the forefront. Perhaps now that they’ve carried so much, it feels light by comparison.

“I… When they first began to grow, I… was relieved.” Dimitri admits. He examines the white petals in the light streaming through stained glass. “For years, after the Tragedy, I wondered… No. I resented. I resented that I had no flowers for my family, or for Glenn. For all of my love, and my grief, I had nothing beautiful to show for it.”

Ingrid’s eyelashes lower. “Now that you have flowers of your own, do you still think them beautiful?”

As if sheltered behind the curtains of a confessional, he says, “Yes.”

“So do I.”

Dimitri was not expecting a confession in turn. Ingrid looks as dissatisfied with herself as Dimitri feels with himself.

He mutters, “I suppose that’s why we still have them, after all these years.”

Ingrid slowly nods. “Do you remember, Your Highness, back at the Academy? You walked in on me and Felix arguing in the training grounds.”

“I remember.”

“He was right, partially. Not about how I should forget Glenn, but that my remembering was for my own sake. I used to think the flowers were for Glenn. The last thing I had of him. But they’re for me, alone. I think, back then, I was too young to understand what romantic love really is. But Glenn was everything I aspired to be, and he made me believe I could become it. He was the promise of a fulfilling future.”

There’s such a mantle of loneliness over her. He is used to seeing Ingrid’s shoulders clad in shining armor. Draped in these thin blacks, she looks wan and small. Still, her eyes are bright. “I didn’t want to admit that, for the longest time. It made me feel selfish, and pathetic. I… I told Rodrigue of my worries.”

Dimitri is taken aback at the informal address. But, it is not so odd - he was meant to be her father-in-law. It’s another sharp reminder of how far beyond his edges this grief bleeds.

Ingrid looks to the window above the altar. “He gave me a different perspective. It may be true that grief is for the benefit of the living, but that does not make it selfish, or even a weakness.”

It sounds like something Rodrigue would say. If only Dimitri had listened.

Dimitri mirrors her thin smile. “I wonder what Felix would make of that.”

“I doubt he’d find it compelling,” Ingrid says. Her fingers lightly trace the stone where the casket so recently lay. “Though, now is hardly the time to bring it up to him. I… I just keep picturing Lady Fraldarius, alone back home…” She trails off. Thin tears wet her cheeks. She wipes them away. “Maybe now I understand how you felt, when Glenn died. It seems unfair that the flowers don’t bloom for family, no matter how deeply we love them.”

Dimitri’s hand joins hers on the altar. “Most cases of Love Sickness are far more temporary than death.”

She smiles ruefully. “Perhaps. Though, you sound resigned to keep the flowers for the rest of your life. This may be impertinent to say, but…”

“More impertinent than the way I’ve been treating all of you? I would hear your thoughts, Ingrid.”

Her fingers move closer to his, nudging the fresh petals he’d kept loosely in his grasp. She says, “Isn’t it still possible to cure your Love Sickness? I have not even seen the two of you speak, since he returned.”

Dimitri’s hand reflexively clenches. It’s somewhat sad, somewhat amusing, that she apparently does not even need to clarify who these flowers bloom for. Noting his strained reaction, Ingrid adds, “I know that his memories of your time together… Ah, Your Highness, I’m no good at this. It’s only, I’m ashamed of how I treated him in the past. I thought, surely, he must despise me. He would deserve to. But, when I went to apologize, he… he forgave me.”

She says it wonderingly, as if surprised at a prayer being answered. “He said that, as much as he despises Faerghus as a whole, he well understands the way grief works on the heart. If I believed Duscur was responsible for Glenn’s death, it was only natural for a child to turn that grief into hatred. I had no one to teach me otherwise. And that he had someone who… Well. He got quiet, then, and the look on his face was so…” Her hand delicately comes to rest over his. “It might not be futile, to go to him.”

The contact is startling. Dimitri can only shake his head. “You say you’re not good at this, but you certainly get right to the heart of the matter.”

“Forgive me.”

“There’s no need. I see the sense in your words.” He takes a breath, and the flowers tremble in the base of his throat. “But, I am…not worthy. I made a promise to him. A promise I hold more dear to me than my life. That I would see Duscur restored to its full sovereignty and glory, and that I would clear their name of any wrongdoing. I have utterly failed to live up to that promise. I cannot approach him.”

Perhaps if this was someone else, Annette or Mercedes or even… even Rodrigue… they would tell him that he is worthy. But Ingrid says, “Then become worthy.”

“Become…”

Ingrid squeezes his hand. “The tide of this war is turning in our favor. Fhirdiad is on the horizon. So much can change, still.”

Hope is terrifying. It asks so much of him.

It asks so much.

But… isn’t his promise to Dedue worth that much? Isn’t his duty to his people, to Rodrigue’s memory, worth the price of opening himself up to that terror?

Love it a debt. It asks for grief, and pain, and most of all, hope.

He is unworthy to ask this debt of anyone. He can only, each and every day, dedicate his every breath to repaying it.

Live for what you believe in.

Rodrigue left him with those words. The Professor reaffirmed them.

But… what does that mean? What does he believe in? Can he still, after all this, believe in a fulfilling future? Does he deserve to? The Professor wants him to believe so, but… it is not so easy.

But, he does know what Dedue deserves. What the people of Duscur deserve.

He has spent so long failing to repay his debt too the dead, he forgot what he owes the living.

-

As expected, Felix is not interested in his apologies, and even less interested in his promises. “What, you weren’t planning to reclaim the throne until my old man bit the dust and guilted you into it? Typical.”

So he goads, but his heart isn’t in it. The corners of his eyes are red, his shoulders tensed as a hunched cat. He’s often locked in his room. So Dimitri apologizes, and he makes his promises, and he accepts that for now, he isn’t the one Felix needs. Even if Dimitri is frantic with the need to make amends, it will take time. He has to get used to the idea that he has time.

Besides, it is not as if Felix is alone. Sylvain is a steady presence at his side, and the Professor checks in on him in her quiet, almost priestly way. And…

“You’re the worst, Felix!” Annette whips him with a rag.

“What? For preventing you from burning the entire cafeteria down?”

“For distracting me! Plus, it was just a little fire! No need to get all freaked out over it.”

Felix gently - gently - flicks a bit of ash from her nose. “I suppose it was little as far as you’re concerned. If you wanted to, you could reduce the monastery to cinders in a heartbeat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?”

“It means your magic is very impressive.”

Annette motions to the stacks of only half-blackened pots. “Oh, and my cooking isn’t? Now get out of here before I set your hair on fire next! Shoo!” She whips him with the rag again for good measure.

As such, the new Duke Fraldarius is summarily exiled from the kitchen. Dimitri watches this exchange in baffled silence. How long had this… thing… between the two of them been building? True, Dimitri hadn’t exactly been paying attention to his comrades since the war began, but…

“Your Highness! Professor!” Annette cries as she notices the two of them in the doorway. Felix appraises them cooly as he makes to move past them, but… his shoulders are slack, his eyes clear and dry, and his scowl isn’t so harsh as usual. Loud enough that Felix is sure to hear, Annette says, “Professor, you really can’t put him on cooking duty with me again. He doesn’t even appreciate a good sear.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the Professor intones, in that way that Dimitri learned to recognize as a joke. Her flat sense of humor is quite similar to Dedue’s. She turns to Dimitri and asks, “Do you appreciate a good sear?”

A little terrified, Dimitri replies, “As much as anyone, I suppose.”

“Good. Then, you help Annette with the rest of the dinner preparations.” The Professor makes to follow Felix away from the kitchen.

Now fully terrified, Dimitri asks, “Is that…wise?”

The Professor waves on the way out. “Hold out until reinforcements arrive.”

“It’s ok, Your Highness,” Annette says. “I’ve got it covered. You won’t even have to lift a finger.”

It is at that point that Dimitri knows they are doomed.

“…The Professor commanded me to help, so I will help,” he pleads.

Annette shrugs. “If you want. I guess these tomatoes still need to be chopped.”

It’s unsettling, almost, that Annette regards him with neither reverence nor fear. Most of the soldiery has been on eggshells around him, especially since he started joining in on the war council and taking on errands around the monastery. As soon as he was willing, the Professor wasted no time in getting him to care for the horses and pull weeds along with the rest of them. Truthfully, it made him immensely grateful. Having a common task makes being around other people easier.

So, perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised that she decided to put him on cooking duty, too. If anything, he’s shocked that Annette is able to chat at him as easily as she ever did when they were students.

“Really, what is Felix’s problem? He’s so rude to everyone. Though, I guess he has been a little nicer lately. Should I have been nicer to him? I mean, with his dad…” She’s elbow-deep in suds, scrubbing one of the pots of whatever she burnt earlier.

Dimitri is wholly unable to speak on Felix’s behalf. Though part of him still stings to admit it, he hasn’t understood Felix’s heart in a long, long time. So, he can only venture, “He may not mind being shooed away.”

“You think so?” She grimaces as soap splashes in her eye.

Dimitri decides the tomatoes can wait, and takes up a rag to help with the next crusty pan. “I can’t speak for him, but… heh.”

Annette grins up at him. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you laugh! It’s nice.”

“It’s nothing. Only, I remembered… When we were children, the two of us would often play together with his older brother. Glenn used to say that the way I eagerly stuck to his heels was just like a little dog, and the way that Felix would feign disinterest while inching closer was like a little cat…”

“A dog!” Annette exclaimed. “Heh heh, that’s pretty hard to picture, now. Aren’t you a lion? I guess that’s technically a cat. But Felix really is like a feisty feral cat, huh. Mercie might be a cat, too, but in the opposite way? Like one of those really fluffy, pretty ones. Hm, I think I’m a dog, myself. So is Ingrid, and Ashe… and Dedue, too. I dunno about Sylvain.”

The entire situation is harmless, so harmless, and yet Dimitri’s stomach drops. It isn’t even at the lighthearted mention of Glenn, but at the comparison of Dedue to a dog. Of course Annette doesn’t mean it in the same way as the bigots who called everyone from Duscur curs, or the soldiers envious of Dedue’s position that would bite out half-whispers of The Prince’s loyal dog.

Annette has already moved on to pondering if Sylvain is more of a tomcat or a hound-dog when she’s interrupted by Dimitri coughing.

“Whoa, you okay?” She thumps his back.

He wipes his mouth, surreptitiously tucking a white petal out of sight. “Only a tickle in my throat.”

“That’s a big tickle. Anyway, are these pots clean enough? I want to get back to cooking.”

Dimitri knew only that Dedue would’ve polished them to a shine before letting any more food touch them. A thought which does not abate the ‘tickle,’ and in fact leads to another coughing fit.

“Did I accidentally make some sort of poison gas?” Annette frets, until Dimitri isn’t quick enough to catch one of the half-formed flowers that flutters to the floor. She stares at it, pale against the soot-stained floorboards. “Oh. Ohhh. Oh!”

Why does she sound so excited? Her hands are clamped to her mouth like a child seeing a kiss for the first time. She grabs Dimitri’s arm and excitedly shakes him. “Who are they for!? How long have you had them!?”

Dimitri is so caught off-guard that he automatically answers. “Dedue.”

“Gosh, that’s so cute! Is it because you finally reunited again after so long? Did your heart flutter when you saw him on the bridge?”

…Had his heart fluttered? Well, even in his half-bestial state, he certainly felt… something. A lot of something. Among the shock and ache and guilt, there perhaps had been something akin to a flutter. Though, he redirects by answering her other question. “The flowers have been with me longer than that.”

“Really!? How long!? Oh stupid me, please don’t tell me it’s since you thought he died!”

“… Since I thought he died.”

“Gah, I’m so sorry! I’m being so insensitive! Stupid, stupid me!”

“It’s quite alright, Annette. I actually find your good cheer about the situation rather refreshing.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, right?”

“Not at all. I have been so caught up in myself, I haven’t appreciated what a miracle it is, that we can meet again.”

Yes… Even if Dedue does not remember him. Even if Dedue rightfully resents him for failing to live up to the promises between them… Dedue is alive. He’s here. It is a miracle the scale of which Dimitri never dared pray for. That he is no longer obligated to Dimitri as his vassal, or even as his friend, is doubly a miracle. He can be free, to return to his home and continue his family’s smithy, or travel, or become a farmer. He does not have to be bound here.

“Wait, but…” Annette scrunches up her nose. “Since he’s back, what are you still coughing up flowers for? Don’t tell me you still haven’t told him! He’s been back over a month already!”

The situation is not nearly as simple as Annette makes it seem, and yet… the way she’s speaking, as if this is nothing more than a gossip session among friends, makes it seem so easy. He wants to try to return her openness with his own, no matter how it makes him squirm. He admits, “I don’t know how to approach him.”

Annette grins. “Aww, you’re shy? Though, I guess it makes it pretty tough, that his memories are messed up. You’ll have to make him fall for you all over again!”

“…Pardon?”

“I mean, he was totally head over heels for you before, right?”

“He… Well… I suppose?”

“Right. Sooo, if he fell for you once, why can’t he fall for you again? Oh, that would make such a good story! I actually think Ashe told me about a novel like that once…”

Dimitri can’t help it. He laughs. Annette pouts, but what else is there to do? It’s just… so absurd.

Make Dedue fall for him again? A good story? Truly, a bad joke…

There’s some sense in what she’s saying, though. Dimitri has wasted enough time. He needs to make himself clear. Dedue should know of his commitment to restoring the dignity and sovereignty of Duscur, regardless… regardless of anything else.

Dimitri is beset by another, extended, fit of coughing. Annette frets about, trying to help however she can - which is unfortunately quite unhelpful in itself - until suddenly, the door of the kitchen opens.

“Is everything alright?” A deep, river-rock voice asks. The burning itch in Dimitri’s chest quells to sleepy softness.

“Dedue!” Annette calls, before slapping a hand over her mouth. Could the looks she’s shooting between them be any less conspicuous?

“I was told there is help needed for dinner preparations,” Dedue relays.

So by ‘reinforcements,’ the Professor meant him? Is it simply because Dedue is a skilled cook, or was the Professor purposefully forcing them together? Dimitri doesn’t know what to say. The easy, warm atmosphere of Annette’s chatter stales.

“Oh, it’s just me and his Highness, haha!” Annette says. “Um, though we’re getting a late start because I messed up the first batch. Entirely my fault, his Highness wasn’t even here, I was supposed to be partnered with Felix but then I got, um, distracted, and… Yep!”

“I see,” Dedue says. He could be a miser when it came to wasting food, but the faintest crinkle at the corners of his eyes says he’s more amused than annoyed. Dimitri, unbeknownst to himself, mirrors his expression with the huff of a laugh. This faint noise makes Dedue turn his eyes down on him. “If you are ill, it’s best that you rest, away from the food.”

“Oh, he’s not ill!” Annette chirps, before Dimitri can stop her. It’s all he can do to position his feet overtop the scattered petals and pray that Dedue does not notice them.

Dedue doesn’t look convinced, but thankfully, Annette finally notices the desperate plea in Dimitri’s eye and does not mention the flowers. Dimitri says, “I will stay away from the food, if that’s what you think best. Still, with the time… May I at least help with the cleaning as you two cook?”

Dedue’s expression would come off as perfectly neutral, to one who did not know him. But to Dimitri, his face falls open in surprise. It’s clear that, never in a thousand years did he expect Dimitri to offer his services as a dishwasher. That… hurt. In the past, it was all Dedue could do to keep Dimitri away from the domestic chores. Yet, with how Dimitri had been behaving since his return, of course he would be shocked.

Dedue truly… Goddess. He truly remembers nothing of their years together.

Dimitri is suddenly struck stupid, slow and unskilled as if he were a toddler. He turns to scrub at the half-clean pot, the sensation of water and soap barely registering on his skin.

“…What are you making?” Dedue asks.

Annette goes along easily. “Sweet and salty whitefish sauté! With sweet buns for dessert, if we have time.”

They get to work. Dimitri draws more water to wash the cutting boards and knives before Dedue flays a Teutates loach. He keeps Annette in the corner of his eye as she slices a slew of tomatoes. Dimitri desperately wishes Annette would fill the dead air with her usual vibrant chatter, but it seems she’s just as struck by the awkwardness as Dimitri.

After an uncomfortable stretch, Annette announces, “Ok, all chopped! Just let me light the stove-”

“Wait,” Dedue interjects. “Perhaps we should have… Hm. Perhaps we should have you light the stove.” He pointedly turns to Dimitri.

Both Annette and Dimitri are gobsmacked. He doesn’t even remember what an utter disaster Dimitri is with magic…

Dedue shifts uncomfortably. “I apologize. I don’t know how I should address you.”

“Oh! Pffbt…” Annette pats Dedue’s arm. “That’s not the problem. The only person more likely to blow up the kitchen than me, is His Highness. Um, if it’s not impertinent to say!”

“No, you are quite correct,” Dimitri laments.

Annette puts in, “And, you always used to call him Your Highness.”

“No,” Dimitri says, staring down into the sinkful of suds. “For most of the time we were together, you called me by my name.”

“Oh,” Annette says. “I didn’t know that. Was’Your Highness’ just a school thing?”

Dimitri’s heart beats against a splintering of brambles. “Since we came to Garreg Mach, you decided it was… more appropriate, to use my title. Now, though, you may call me whatever makes you most comfortable.”

“… I see,” Dedue says, kneeling by the stove to set up the kindling. It seems he means to light the fire without magic at all. The set of his shoulders and spine tell that he is troubled. “I will not address you as Your Highness.”

“That’s perfectly alright,” Dimitri says. What a dark irony. In their school days, he all but begged Dedue not to refer to him by that title. But now, like this, could he withstand it if Dedue called him by name? For such a familiar and beloved word were to pass his lips, without a trace of the knowing that made it meaningful…

He wants Dedue to have a free future. He wants Dedue to live happily, unburdened by any debt he perceived himself as owing Dimitri. If he is serious about those wishes, he won’t ask anything of him. He won’t ask anything…

“Actually, I,” Dimitri starts, a welling in his throat coating the words with unease. “I think perhaps… another title would be suitable. Before, you called me Prince of Faerghus. Is that amenable?”

Dedue strikes a tinderbox. “…That is amenable.”

Dimitri avoids looking at the confused hurt on Annette’s face. Meekly, she says, “But, you two were so close…”

Neither Dedue nor Dimitri responds. What could Dimitri even say, that would not be forcing his own feelings onto a man who sees him as a stranger?

-

Dimitri tries to let go. He cannot see a fulfilling future for himself, but he can imagine one for his people, his friends, and for Dedue. He can imagine him, once this war is over, tending the flowers of his homeland, tending a community, a family.

He pictures this on the long nights when the dead refuse to leave him. They cry anguished rebukes that Dimitri turns his army’s blades away from Enbarr and towards reclaiming Fhirdiad. Why are you forsaking us? Why do you still want us to suffer? Why are you so weak, why-

Dimitri closes his eyes, curled atop the blankets in his old dorm room. Everything around him is darkness and noise, but in his mind’s eye, there is a quiet meadow dappled in sunlight, a lit stone hearth, the scent of spices and greenery and open sky.

These ruminations of Dedue’s future without him bring him peace. It truly brings him peace, and yet, the flowers are relentless. Where they were so recently dried to dust, they are now full of life, plump and posh and alive. He tries to be quiet, and yet each morning, he has to sheepishly apologize to Felix and Sylvain for keeping them awake with his coughing.

Felix only ever scoffs and tells him to get himself together, while Sylvain tries to laugh it off and succeeds only at looking deeply troubled. Only once does he pat Dimitri’s arm and say, “Let me know if I can help, yeah? I know romance isn’t your specialty.”

Dimitri declines the offer, but Ingrid and Annette’s words still niggle at the back of his mind. Ingrid’s simple suggestion that he become worthy, Annette’s make him fall for you again. As if he has any idea why Dedue fell for someone like him in the first place. But, despite his best intentions to explain himself, Dimitri still has not worked up the gumption to actually approach him for a serious talk. Oh, there are excuses, so many excuses; recovery of their forces after Gronder Field is demanding, and planning their reclaiming of Fhirdiad even more so. There is always something to do. Dimitri can rest assured, at least, that Dedue will be safe at Garreg Mach when the battle is waged.

Until, the night before the march, the Professor tells him that Dedue requested to be placed in the vanguard in the battle for Fhirdiad.

“But why?” Dimitri asks, a crack in his voice betraying him. “He didn’t participate at Myrrdin or Gronder. Why now?”

The Professor shakes her head. “He didn’t tell me why.” The implication: ask him yourself.

Dimitri seeks him out. He isn’t the greenhouse, the dining hall, the training grounds… Even Ashe and Mercedes say they haven’t seen him all day.

That leaves Dimitri no choice but to stand outside Dedue’s dorm room door, his hand awkwardly hanging in the air. During their school days, he never intruded on Dedue’s room. Some guilt, perhaps, from being unable to secure him his own chambers back in Castle Blaiddyd. He either had to share with the pages or with Dimitri himself. Even if it was only a dorm room, he wanted Dedue to have a space all his own.

Everything he needs to say, though, is suddenly too pressing. He steels himself, and knocks on the door.

There is the rapid shuffling of papers on the other side before Dedue calls, “Yes?”

“It’s…” It’s me, was all Dimitri would’ve needed to say, before. He massages the scratching flowers in the base of his throat. “It’s Dimitri. The… Prince. Of Faerghus. I hoped I could have a moment of your time.”

Goddess, maybe he really should have asked for Sylvain’s help, if he can’t even muster a greeting without sounding as graceful as a particularly inept goose.

There is a longer time before more papers shuffle, and footsteps approach the door. It slowly creaks open.

Dedue looks down at him, his expression unreadable. He’s dressed down in a light tunic and trousers. New scars lace his neck and forearms. They’re unusual, less the marks of a blade, almost like the twisting knots of an old tree. It’s twilight, early-summer moths fluttering about the lit lanterns that line the dorm building. There are lanterns lit within Dedue’s room, warming the small space with its neat stacks of books and papers. There is a new blanket on Dedue’s bed, woven with the same pattern that adorns his scarf.

“I have a moment,” Dedue says. His inflection says he only has a moment.

“I won’t take long,” Dimitri promises. Suddenly, there is all too much he needs to ask. Are all of these scars from that night? Who healed you? How long did it take? Did you come for me, as soon as you were able?

Why are you still here at all, seeing what a failure I turned out to be?

He tamps these down with a heavy breath. He’ll only allow himself one question. “The Professor tells me you requested to be stationed in the vanguard in the upcoming battle. I want to know why.”

Dedue shifts on his feet. He seems to be wavering on whether or not he should invite Dimitri to sit in his room. In the end, he doesn’t. He simply answers, “Vengeance.”

It is the last word in the world Dimitri expected to hear, and yet, somehow, it immediately makes sense. So, Dimitri replies only with, “I understand.”

One side of Dedue’s mouth pulls taut, a quirk that speaks both to confusion and irritation. “What exactly do you understand?”

Why did that response upset him so? It’s the last thing Dimitri wants. He says, “I’m sorry, I should not assume… It is only, the wretches behind the tragedy are still at large, and many of the soldiers that carried out massacres in Duscur are now fighting for the Dukedom. I know you have deeply personal stakes in this battle.”

“If you know all this,” Dedue asks, “then why come here asking after my reasons?”

“I don’t mean to upset you.”

“I am not upset.”

The lie is so blatant that Dimitri flinches. Dedue’s voice is mellow, his posture carefully neutral, expression trained - it’s clear he’s trying not to be upset. So why is so clear to Dimitri that he is? Perhaps it’s only the slightest tension in his jaw, or the way his thumb presses to his forefinger, or some set to his eyes so minute it can’t be put to words, or… it doesn’t matter. Dimitri knows him. He knows him in a way no other living person does.

Stop with these selfish thoughts, he reprimands himself. These past five years, someone healed him after you left him for dead. Someone tended to his scars, someone made that blanket.

Dimitri is sorely tempted to abort this endeavor altogether, but he promised himself he would make his intentions clear. It’s the least he can do.

He says, “I should have started this differently. Rather than questioning you, may I share my own thoughts?”

Dedue turns this question over for several long moments before replying with a nod.

Dimitri nods back, but finds the words he wants to say warring with those he needs to say. Wants: I’m so afraid that you’ll be hurt. I couldn’t take it, if you died. I want you to be safe and happy and far, far away from this war. Needs: “Once I reclaim the throne, I will make the restoration of Duscur my top priority. Of course, we must bring this war to an end, first. But, I promise you, I will root out for those responsible for the tragedy and prove the innocence of the people of Duscur.”

Dedue looks over him slowly. “I do not need your promises. My countrymen and I will restore Duscur, with or without your cooperation. If I had truly died, would you still say the same?”

“I would,” Dimitri says, and finds it untinged with shame. “I am only sorry that I neglected my purpose for so long. It is my greatest regret, that I was unable to prevent the pillage and slaughter of your people. If returning Duscur’s land and sovereignty is the only undertaking I accomplish as King, it will be a reign well-spent.”

Dedue assesses him. He closes his eyes as if fighting off an unwanted memory. He says, “Our goals are aligned, then.”

“Yes.” As were our hearts, our very lives… Dimitri tries to shake off this maudlin sentimentality, and instead feels a miserable clot of petals welling in his throat. Ah, it’s likely that, no matter how he tries, he won’t be able to reign in his emotions when he next speaks. “Even if I can return land and plunder, I cannot return the lives that were lost, or the culture and traditions that made Duscur what it was. That can only be accomplished by the survivors. Including you. Which is why I ask you to reconsider taking part in this war.”

Dedue folds his arms and leans against the doorframe. The twilight is now only a thin wash of violet over darkness, so his silhouette is ringed in flickering candlelight. He asks, “Is that your true reason for asking me to withdraw?”

With this great distance now between them, Dimitri never expected to be seen through. He does not want this conversation to be about his own feelings, but he will not lie. He admits, “It is one of my reasons.”

Dedue lets a long breath out of his nose. “And the others?”

“They are more selfish,” Dimitri mutters. The other soldiers have begun to return to their rooms for the night, and their words of parting drift like cotton-soft moths in the cooling air.

“Then, I was…” Dedue starts, but does not finish the sentence. With only lamplight, it is difficult to make out his expression. Instead of whatever thought he cut off, he declares, “I will still fight.”

Dimitri looks away. It is meaningless - it’s dark enough, now, that Dedue cannot see his expression either way. He presses down on his chest as if that can placate the flowers, and says, “You have already lost so much, and been hurt so much...”

Dedue does not remark on the tremble in those words. He angles his face as if looking to the far, far distance. With the heat of sparks struck off metal forged to blade, he says, “There is rage in me with nowhere else to go.”

Ah, so at least, he trusts Dimitri enough for this. Far be it from Dimitri, to deny him. Even if his own rage had guided him in the wrong direction, Dedue always had better discretion.

Dimitri says, “If this is your heart, I will accept it. Still, If you are in the vanguard, we will be near each other.” This much, he can say with calm. The rest, though, is frail and bare as petals plucked from the bud. “Dedue… I know that I am a stranger to you, and this must be terribly strange and presumptuous, but… on the battlefield, please, let me protect you.”

The winds blow, and the flames flicker, and for some time, Dedue’s only answer is the rattle of long-held breath. Then, turning so the light from within his room catches a spark in his eye, he says, “For the sake of the man I must have been, once… I will stay near you.”

-

The night after Fhirdiad is reclaimed, when the celebratory fires are lit and the cheers and singing of the living glut the castle halls, Dimitri ventures to the graveyard of the royal family.

The Professor offered to accompany him, but he declined. She is a steady and soothing presence, and one he associates so strongly with Garreg Mach that seeing her in his childhood home makes the walls feel off-kilter. She has seen him at his most angry and desperate and heedless, but she has never seen him at his weakest. These walls hold the suppressed sobs of a child too terrified even to set foot near the graves of his forbearers. Perhaps because of her stolidity, or perhaps because he admires her so, he does not want her to witness this fear. There are only two people who truly have. One perished at Gronder Field. And the other…

Dedue took part in the celebratory feast. He was tucked in a corner of the great hall with Ashe, Annette, and Mercedes, a spot of calm in the frenetic celebrations. Dimitri did not want to disturb him. Still, he wants to ask if the battle helped to settle his heart. It had been quick and decisive, thanks to the Professor’s tactics - underwhelming, almost. As soon as the battle begun, the vanguard surrounded Cornelia. Dedue fought with the staunch ferocity that was his signature, his movements melding with Dimitri’s as seamlessly as if they had not been apart even a day. The body remembers where the mind does not.

With her dying words, Cornelia confirmed his suspicions that she had first-hand involvement with the Tragedy. Pathetic, to waste one’s final breaths on mocking him, spewing lies about his stepmother of all things - he only hopes that, as quick as it was, her death helped to alleviate Dedue’s rage.

…Still, vulgar as they may have been, were all her words lies? His stepmother…

He makes it to the graveyard. He knows this gesture is meaningless to the dead. He’s unsure if it can be meaningful for him. He doubts they will ever leave him, even if he meets their demands. Perhaps they are not spirits at all, but only manifestations of his own cruelty and self-loathing. He doesn’t know. His stepmother’s voice has been with him all this time, and if she truly did not die that day, then…

Should he still pray for her? Apologize to her? Uphold his vows to her? All these years, his duty to her kept him going, step after step, and if her soul was never with him, if this was all a farce of his own making…

In the end, he says the prayers he should, and he offers the flowers he should, and he leaves without knowing even his own thoughts.

In the empty hallway streaked in moonlight, a large silhouette melts into distant shadow. Even in his home, even after victory, Dimitri should be wary of assassins. Yet, even as the silhouette lurches unnaturally to the side, his heart’s only response is concern. Even in the distance, in the darkness, the deep part of him that might be called instinct is not afraid.

As Dimitri approaches the figure, instinct turns to knowing. Before Dimitri can make out his face or physique, he knows it’s Dedue, and he knows he’s in pain. They’re far from the festivities. What brought him out here, alone? He has to lean on a banister to keep his feet.

Has he been stabbed? Poisoned? Dimitri runs to him. “Dedue! What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Dedue minutely turns his head to him, but both his hands are braced on a balustrade with his back steeply bent. He stares out over the courtyard. He isn’t bleeding, at least, and his breaths are steady, but-

“There is no need for concern,” he says.

“You’re clearly unwell,” Dimitri says. “Please, let me take you to a healer, or perhaps a physician.”

Dedue straightens his spine. His gaze over the courtyard is steady, yet his resolve seems to flicker, as a candle in the wind. Still, there is no waver in his voice as he says, “Neither a healer nor physician will help.”

Dimitri is well familiar with being pushed to seek meaningless aid for ailments that cannot be helped. So, he does not push. Instead, he offers, “Are you dizzy? Would it be better to sit down?”

Dedue looks at him carefully, without turning his head. He doesn’t seem angry, and yet there is something almost fearful in his slow movements.

Dimitri says, “I’m sorry to overstep. Would you rather be alone?”

“No,” Dedue responds. Then, he does something quite uncharacteristic: he sighs. “I find it uncomfortable, that you know how to read me so well. When I do not know you. Yes, I am dizzy.”

“Ah… Yes, that must be quite a disturbing sensation,” Dimitri says. He understands intuitively that Dedue isn’t talking about this moment in particular - is that why he was upset, whenever they spoke at the monastery? “I’m sorry. I grew quite accustomed to reading your mannerisms, so… If you’d like, I will act as if I can’t?”

Dedue considers this. He leans heavily on the railing, no longer watching over the moonlit gardens, but judging Dimitri’s sincerity. Finally, he says, “No, that would only add artifice to an already strange relationship. It is uncomfortable, but hardly the most uncomfortable side-effect of my missing memories.”

Relationship? Can what they have now even be called such? It’s more a one-sided intrusion.

“Now you seem uncomfortable,” Dedue observes.

Dimitri leans over the balcony. Even in summer, the evening breeze is cool. He says, “Yes. It is strange for me, too. To be… not remembered.”

Oh Goddess, he already cried once today, happy tears at returning home. Don’t let those tears turn to grief so soon.

After some time, and with some gentleness, Dedue says, “We should sit down.”

Dimitri lets the breeze cool his cheeks for a few moments more before nodding. He offers Dedue a steadying arm. “There is an alcove this way. Not far.”

“I remember,” Dedue says. He winces and sways slightly. “My memories of this place are… confused. But I recall the layout.”

Dimitri doesn’t know what to say. How uncanny and frightening it must be, to somehow remember the bones of a place while the memories that took place there are missing. After all, in the four years Dedue lived in Castle Blaiddyd, how many days - how many hours, seconds - was he without Dimitri by his side? Of course they were supposed to sleep separately, and Rufus did all he could to apart them during lessons and meals, but the two clung together like flesh clings to bone. And yet, even with Dimitri close as his side to step in, he was often subjected to bigotry of the worst kind. So in the moments Dimitri was not at his side…

“What memories you have here must be truly atrocious,” Dimitri says. “It cannot be easy to return.”

“…Indeed,” Dedue says. And, mercifully, tortuously, he accepts Dimitri’s arm. The two make their way down the hall, one of Dedue’s hands holding fast to the railing, while his other hand rests over Dimitri’s arm as tentatively as if he is a crumbling foundation that will give way at the slightest weight.

When they reach the alcove, Dedue sits. He breathes deeply, his brow knit and streaked by sweat. Dimitri sits opposite him and says, “Can I get you anything, even water? The vertigo must be unbearable.”

Dedue minutely shakes his head. “I occasionally experienced this at Garreg Mach. It seems the only cure is time.”

“Making new memories?”

“Likely, yes.”

“…What does it feel like?” Dimitri asks. Impulsive and impertinent, perhaps, but he hates having to watch Dedue suffer in a way he can’t comprehend. He adds, “If you do not wish to talk about it…I’m sorry.”

Dedue kneads his brow, and yet something almost a smile sneaks into his grimace. “Do you always apologize so much?”

“I - hm. I hope not. Maybe?”

Dedue’s face shifts slightly closer to a smile, before it drops. He says, “I can try to describe it. Though, I do not know if it will make any sense to you.”

“I would appreciate it, if you would try.”

Across the alcove, Dedue looks over him with skepticism that never gets less painful. And yet, for the first time, though it’s only the faintest drop of his shoulders and shift in his eyes, Dimitri knows Dedue believes him.

“It’s blurry in patches,” Dedue starts. He leans forward, hands resting together on his knees, fingers slowly stroking his palms. It’s a gesture he uses when lost in thought. It’s so familiar that it ricochets in Dimitri’s ribs like shrapnel. Dedue isn’t looking at him, anymore, his eyes tracing the close walls of the alcove as if weary of wandering too far. He continues, “It’s like when a word is at the tip of your tongue, but you cannot reach it. Only, that sensation is… everywhere. Everything. Here, at least. At Garreg Mach, there were some places that were whole and solid. The greenhouse, my bedroom, the kitchens.”

“I’m not much a green thumb, or a cook,” Dimitri says, trying to keep afloat. Ah, so there were places Dimitri didn’t stain. That much is…. A relief.

Dedue takes several moments before speaking again. “At Garreg Mach, there were holes. I would recall a conversation in the classroom, but parts would dissolve into a void. And, regardless if I try or not, my mind tries to patch those holes, without having enough fabric or thread. It… pulls.”

“I’m sorry,” Dimitri says, again, before he can stop himself. He can only say, “It sounds horrible. I wish you did not have to endure it.”

“It is inconvenient, yes. But not beyond the point of endurance. At least, where there are solid places to rest. At Garreg Mach, I had enough memories without you that I could find respite. But here…”

“…We were rarely apart,” Dimitri concedes. Why does it feel like confessing to some great crime?

Dedue, again, leaves a long silence, and Dimitri cannot bring himself to break it. There are far echoes of noise, music and footsteps and merriment, but it hardly reaches them here. For Dimitri, there are other noises, too, scratching and howling out from under the pressure he exerts to keep them quiet.

“You taught me this language,” Dedue says. It is not inflected as a question, and yet Dimitri knows it is.

So, he answers. “Yes.”

Dedue nods, as if affirming some long-held supposition. “It was strange, to be able to speak this language with no memory of learning it. Yet, when we first had a proper conversation, in the kitchens, I recognized my own speech in you. I knew then that you must have taught me personally.”

“You were my friend,” Dimitri bursts, and the regret follows sharply after. Not only at his impudence, but how naturally the words came in past tense.

Dedue truly looks taken aback. “The others told me I always referred to myself as your vassal.”

“You did. You were. I… We needed some justification for you to live in the castle, and for you to come to Garreg Mach. But, I never thought of you as such. Until you asked me to, and I tried to abide by your wishes.” A helpless sound slithers out from Dimitri’s throat, and he tries to squeeze it into a laugh. Keep afloat. “I hated it. I wanted for us to be equals, friends. I wanted…”

Goddess, no, he can’t cry. Not when Dedue is suffering so much more. He can’t burden Dedue with this, when Dedue can be free of him soon. Yet, when Dedue looks at him that way… He can’t stop all his weakness from scuttling out into the light. It’s too deeply ingrained in him, that this man is his safety.

He can only turn his face away. He can make some excuse to leave. He stands.

“Please, wait,” Dedue says. It’s so quiet that Dimitri always misses it beneath the rushing din in his ears. But it is a living voice, Dedue’s voice, and so his body instinctively clings to those two fragile words. Dedue looks… so lost. Dimitri has never seen him look so lost.

As if he has to extract each word as detritus from a wound, Dedue says, “I know I was in love with you.”

It’s so distant, said through so many layers of time and disjointed memory, yet the words hit Dimitri like a thunder spell. Dedue never used those words before. Dimitri knew, in some fluttering and helpless way, that Dedue felt as such. Why does hearing it spoken plainly hurt so much?

Dedue continues, “I know the reason my memories are distorted is because I had Love Sickness, and to have Love Sickness, I must have been in love. When my saviors told me I was your vassal, yet I could not remember even your face, I knew it must have been with you. I hated myself for it.”

Dimitri’s eye squeezes shut. It can’t stop a hot stream from cutting down his cheek. “Yes. You did.”

Dedue looks up at him, confusion a storm in his eyes. “Even before I forgot? And you knew?”

Dimitri nods. “I wanted us to be together. You did not. You were always wiser.”

Dedue’s gaze drops again, his hands tightly clenched together. Slowly, they relax. His expression, finally, turns to something like peace. “I see.”

That something like peace settles in Dimitri, too, a dusting of snow over still-living flowers. Still, there is a little more he needs to say. “Dedue, I want you to know… I begged you to forget me. I am glad you chose to.”

“I didn’t choose to forget you,” Dedue says, sudden and solid.

The floor swims beneath Dimitri. “What?”

“I didn’t choose to remove the Love Sickness.”

The words coming from Dedue’s mouth all make sense, and yet they cannot be. It’s impossible. He can only stupidly repeat, “What?”

Dedue lets out a harsh breath. “My countrymen found me in the streets of Fhirdiad, and took me to their safehouse. By that time, the flowers were already gone. I had a chestful of ashes.”

Ashes… Ashes. Yes, Dimitri remembers. There had been something dark pouring from Dedue’s mouth, darker even that the vail of night. He always assumed that in his panic and discordancy, he had imagined it or remembered wrongly. But… “If you survived, though, surely the flowers survived, too? And then, once you realized how I failed you, you finally had them removed…”

Dedue shakes his head. “I was healed by a Duscur refugee well-practiced both in medicine and in magic. By the time we reached her, I was on my last breath. She did not understand how I was still alive. She said wounds from dark magic are the most difficult to heal, because the flesh is not injured, necessarily, but withered. Sapped of all vitality. My extremities had dire damage from the spell, and yet, the organs in my chest were far less damaged. She could only come up with one theory as to why.”

A long-ago lesson in the Professor’s voice says, Dark magic eats the essence of life directly, not just from humans, but all living beings.

All living beings…

Dimitri strains to keep his balance. “But… what are you saying? The flowers…”

Dedue reaches out to steady him, his touch grazing the underside of Dimitri’s arm. “Yes. That spell consumed the flowers in my chest. If they had not been there to partially absorb the blow, I would be dead.”

There is a ringing silence in Dimitri’s ears. Whether he means to or not, his body tips into Dedue’s touch. Why is this the revelation that robs him of all words? Why can he not stop shaking? What does it mean, that even this was not Dedue’s own choice? Tears spill hot down his neck like blood from a slash.

“Still, it was a sacrifice I am not worthy of,” he cries, unbidden. “I’ve caused you so much harm. Please, I only want you to live happily. You owe me nothing.” His words, for what little meaning they hold, dissolve into hitching sobs. He doesn’t understand this, why his body is doing this, only that some armor within him that could stand up to any amount of suffering cannot withstand tenderness stolen from this person who is so dear to him. And yet that tenderness comes anyway, in broad hands catching the wetness under his eyes.

In the moonlight, sheltered from the chill wind, Dedue’s gaze lingers on the curve of Dimitri’s cheek. His thumb traces the heated skin there, over and over, as if seeking something just beyond reach. “Whatever you are punishing yourself for,” he murmurs, his voice a soothing of waves, “do not let it be for me. I do not remember what hurt was between us, but I do not want you to endure such pain, no matter the reason.”

Ah, he really is the same, despite everything. So kind.

This kindness allows Dimitri to regain himself. He cannot be ashamed, when Dedue’s face is also marked with tears. Dimitri takes a deep breath, lets the air rattle the leaves in his lungs, lets it back out. “I do not want it to seem that there was nothing but hurt between us. I was proud to have you at my side. You saved me, in so many ways.”

“You saved me, as well,” Dedue says. Finally, his hand drops from Dimitri’s face. “And I do not only mean the flowers.”

Some miserable spark of hope worms its way up in Dimitri’s chest. He asks, “What do you mean? If you don’t remember…”

“I do not see how I could have survived those years, otherwise,” Dedue says. “The pain, the rage, the utter loneliness… the hatred. I can still feel it, as if it were fresh. And yet, I survived. Some purpose kept me going. I must have felt there was a future worth fighting for. And it must have been you that helped me believe that.”

Fresh tears fall down Dimitri’s face, and yet, their taste is not bitter. “It is the same for me. Vengeance for the dead, and my promises to you. Those two things alone let me survive this far.”

And now, one of those reasons has given out beneath his feet. He knows, with burgeoning certainty, that his duty to the dead was a fabrication of his own mind.

Quietly, and yet uncompromisingly, Dedue asks, “And how will you survive from now on?”

“My promises to you are not yet fulfilled.”

Dedue softly shakes his head. “I release you from them.”

“You…” Dimitri’s heart beats into the brambles in his lungs.

“I release you.”

“But-!”

“I trust you,” Dedue says, and lightly grasps Dimitri’s arm, “to work for a just future. I will, as well. Each for the sake of our own beliefs. Those old promises let us survive until today, but the man I was, who made those promises, is no more. To speak on behalf of who I used to be… whatever was unfulfilled, I forgive.”

“Forgive? But I have not done anything worth your forgiveness!”

“Forgiveness is my choice,” Dedue says, and truly, there must be something other than memory that knows Dimitri, because these words are the only thing that could set him free.

A just future, his own beliefs…

Forgiveness. Acceptance.

Perhaps… these things have far more to do with love than duty ever did.

Can he receive them, deserving or no? Can that be his new purpose? Is he strong enough, for that?

The flowers are still and quiet as if sleeping beneath a blanket of snow.