Chapter Text
Claude’s first day at Garreg Mach High School had felt not unlike falling.
Not falling in that he’d been hopelessly plummeting to his death or anything so dramatic. Rather, it had been the feeling of having no sturdy ground under his feet, nothing to his sides to hold on to, and nothing above to look to. He’d felt as foreign in those halls as he had in the country itself—exposed, as if to the elements.
Exposure is not something he’s unfamiliar with, nor is it something he enjoys.
Walking the dappled trails of Garreg National Park with his fate two-thirds in the hands of his greatest academic rivals, who cannot seem to stop fucking glaring at each other despite their previous promise to behave, invokes a similar feeling. Falling.
Claude has never been one to entrust lightly, especially not anything this important with anyone this untrustworthy.
So, while some distant part of Claude wants to try and enjoy this romp through a corner of the countryside he hasn’t seen, most of his brainpower is being dedicated to fretting over the status of Operation: Don’t Get Fired.
The first part of the operation is dealing with Grace.
Grace, their counsellor-slash-trail guide-slash-babysitter, doesn’t seem to be as concerned about group behaviour as Claude does, but he won’t discredit her just yet. While she had waltzed into Aillel Pass forty minutes late like a vision of white veganism, soccer-mom enthusiasm, and too much tie-dye, she seems to be a lot more shrewd than he wants her to be.
“—and that’s why most of the trees in this area are conifers,” she says, “but upriver you’ll find more native trees.”
And a lot more… tree-focused.
“That’s pretty interesting,” Claude lies.
As the afternoon sun rises high above the trees (which are only mostly conifers), the trio and Grace make their way from the trailhead to the steady path into the valley. Grace is an easy talker, so the few hours it takes for them to get to their first rest stop fly by.
As she continues to talk about trees, Claude doesn’t miss her small glances back at his counterparts. Claude follows her line of sight, nervously hoping the invisible storm clouds brewing over the siblings ( Ex-siblings! Snaps a little Edelgard in his head) aren’t as noticeable as he thinks they are.
So far, he’s been doing the heavy lifting in their three-way fake friendship pact, which he’s not entirely opposed to. Dimitri can’t foot-in-mouth disease their way to social banishment if Claude is constantly distracting him, nor can Edelgard belligerently argue the boys into early graves if Claude makes sure she never has a minute alone with them.
Speaking of…
He spins around. “Hey, you two, want to play a game?”
“Don’t walk backwards,” Dimitri warns. “You’ll trip.”
Oh! Boring!
“He’s right,” Grace says because she’s also boring. Claude puts his hands up. “Alright, gotcha.”
Instead, he falls back into step with his fellow house leaders.
“Not even I-Spy?” he asks. He almost hears Edelgard’s eye roll.
“I-Spy is pointless if we’re moving,” she says. “It narrows the range of things we can spot and makes the game too repetitive—” Good point, actually, but Claude will die before he admits it “—Also, I don’t want to play I-Spy with you.” Bad point!
“Boo. I spy something beginning with ‘B’.”
Edelgard shoots him a dirty look and keeps her mouth shut, but Dimitri bites.
“Bird?” he ventures, looking up in the trees where a smattering of chirping woodland creatures watch them walk by with beady eyes.
“Nope,” Claude says. “Nice try.”
“Backpack?” Dimitri tries again. Claude shakes his head.
Edelgard is clearly trying to hold back her anger and Claude knows why. She wants to take this “seriously”, and her version of that is a steadfast monument he, in her eyes, vandalises with every blasé word that leaves his mouth.
He won’t pretend it doesn’t irk him to see her act like it’s ruining her life to see him be a little weird with his. But it’s par for the course; Edelgard had decided to hate him the moment she met him, and he can only respond in kind.
“Ah! Betula papyrifera!” Grace exclaims suddenly. “The paper birch tree!”
Claude meets her eager expression with a grin of his own and she laughs. “Nice choice, Claude!”
“How were we supposed to get that?” Edelgard hisses under her breath.
Claude smirks. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy visibly plotting your step-brother’s murder, you would have learned about it from our dear guide here,” he whispers.
Edelgard harumphs and Claude doesn’t have to look at Dimitri to know he’s blushing. With his work done, he peels himself away from the siblings and meanders back to Grace’s side.
Claude did not come to Garreg Mach to make friends, which is another thing he’ll never say out loud because it sounds like something a contestant on a bad reality show might say immediately before being eliminated.
Late transfers like him, who enter the delicate ecosystem of public school at the last possible minute, are at risk of falling apart easily. In a school like Garreg Mach, located in a tight-knit city where half the graduating class had known each other since kindergarten, Claude had been fresh-faced, friendless and falling .
He’d been pleasantly surprised, though, at how wholeheartedly the Golden Deer had welcomed him into their fold. He’d soundly found a place with them and their strangeness, so much so that by the end of the year his election as a head boy had been a non-starter among the student body.
The role had been welcome and more helpful to his goals than he could have imagined, but he hadn’t been expecting it, so by the time he’d been thrown into student council he’d done a bang-up job of only ingratiating himself with a third of the school—Edelgard and Dimitri and their cohort had been unknowns, bastions of overachievement and seriousness Claude hadn’t wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole.
He doesn’t know them—his conversation with Dimitri this morning had been enough evidence to that fact—and they don’t know him, either. Edelgard’s stoic demeanour wants so desperately to butt against what she perceives to be his lacking work ethic, and though Dimitri has proven himself to be surprisingly perceptive and far less of the simple jock Claude had initially taken him for, he won’t entertain the idea that Prince Charming isn’t seeing a slacker when he looks at him, same as his sister.
Claude looks over his shoulder, where Edelgard and Dimitri walk as far apart from each other as is acceptable under the dappled light of the canopy above, making the opposite of eye contact with each other.
They’re so caught up in themselves that smiles are enough to fool them into thinking Claude doesn’t give a shit about anything.
But the truth?
The truth is he’s got more riding on this than he would ever be willing to admit… and he’s terrified of fucking it up.
It could be worse, though. At least no one is threatening murder.
Yet.
When they finally get to their lunch spot—a flat meadowed area that overlooks a bend in the valley’s river—it’s only a small consolation for Claude to be able to put his feet up. Edelgard and Dimitri are still stewing, and any signs of civilization have been gone for hours now. It’s starting to feel a little first-few-chapters-of- Lord of the Flies— the bit just before everything pops off and pig heads start going on pikes—which Claude would find funny if not for the fact he’s definitely the Simon in this scenario.
Don’t they get it? He thinks incredulously. Grace isn’t stupid; If her day job is noticing when kids aren’t getting along, she’s sure as shit noticing this.
After distributing very disappointing packed lunches, Grace claps her hands.
“Alright, team!” she chirps. “I gave a small introduction before, but welcome to the program proper! Do you have any questions before I go over our first activity?”
They all shake their heads.
“Great! So just some ground rules…” Grace starts reading from a piece of paper in her notebook. “There will be no physical fighting, yelling, or throwing things during our time together. Got it?”
Claude privately smiles. He can’t imagine this devolving into physical fighting, but it’s a fun mental image to try and think about who’d win a three-way fight between them.
“Everything of a personal nature must remain confidential,” Grace adds. “This is a time for open communication, but that shouldn’t mean you three can head home and tell all your friends things each other said in private. Common courtesy, yeah?”
“What happens in the forest stays in the forest?” Claude offers.
“Exactly!” Grace smiles. “And one last thing, just policy; no weapons, alcohol, or drugs—besides prescription drugs, Dimitri, yes, but I will be holding on to those—are we clear there? I don’t expect you to have any of that stuff but I just have to say it anyway.”
Oh no.
It’s not like she’s going to do a bag check… right?
“Crystal clear, Grace,” Claude says.
She grins. “Okay! So let’s start by going around the circle and—”
Claude blanches, and sees the other two do the same in his peripheral. “Wait, we’re doing circle time?” he blurts out. “I thought this was supposed to be a camping retreat.”
“This is a retreat designed to foster team-building and communication between young people,” Grace says with the air of someone who has had to say this exact thing many times. “So yes, there is ‘circle time’. I’ll be assessing you on how well you all communicate and work with each other and will be relaying that information to your school administrators after the course is complete. Does that make sense? This was all in the brochure.”
They all shut their mouths.
“Great!” Grace claps her hands again. “Let’s go around the circle and tell each other something we might not know about each other! I’ll go first! My name is Grace Chesterfield, I’m forty-one, and I enjoy birdwatching and skiing!”
Claude’s brain takes that moment to forget approximately everything about himself and his hobbies. He masks it quickly with a bite of his sandwich and an elbow in Dimitri’s ribs.
“Hrk.” The motion makes Dimitri choke on his ham and cheese.
Grace, latching onto the small noise like a hawk spotting a mouse in a field, beams.
“Go ahead, Dimitri!”
Dimitri gapes like a fish. Baleful blue eyes look around wildly for help. He swallows.
“I… Hello? My name is Dimitri, I’m seventeen, and...” he trails off and looks at Grace, who is nodding eagerly. He winces. “Uh… I like ice hockey and my favourite subject is Accounting?”
Claude wonders if he should change his mind about liking Dimitri. Accounting? Terrible.
He jumps in to rescue the poor guy, though. “Awesome! Well! My name is Claude, I’m also seventeen years old, and I’m into archery and —if we’re doing school subjects—I love me some Chemistry!”
The group turns to Edelgard.
“My name is Edelgard Anselma Hresvelg,” she says primly. “I am seventeen years old, I enjoy debate club and portraiture.”
“What like… drawing?” Dimitri asks, mouth full of dry ham and cheese.
Edelgard narrows her eyes. Claude tenses.
“ Yes, like drawing,” Edelgard replies, barely restraining herself from spitting the last word.
“Then why didn’t you just say drawing?” Dimitri asks.
Grace frowns.
Holy shit. Claude is going to kill both of them. He’s going to take five minutes to set up the fucking bow he’s accidentally smuggled on this trip and then he’s going to shoot them in their dumb faces with it. Did anyone back at school bet on that outcome?
Too bad he’s also an idiot.
“Anyone want to insult my hobbies while we’re at it?” Claude snarks before he can stop himself. He definitely deserves the death glares Dimitri and Edelgard send him. Grace is taking notes. Fuck.
He takes another bite of his sandwich and shuts up.
Don’t kill the mayor’s daughter, Khalid, Godfrey had told him earlier in the week, and leave the Blaiddyd kid alone, won’t you?
It had almost been funny, a little joke at his expense, delivered under the false assumption Claude was going on this trip willingly. He’d felt a little bad, lying to his family, who had been nothing but accommodating, but the reality was too embarrassing.
The reality that his fate is as much in his own hands as it is Dimitri and Edelgard’s… and at this point? He doesn’t quite know which is worse.
No murder, though. At least that’s something.
He hopes it holds.
The walk from their lunch spot to their camping spot gets a little harder. Dimitri gets a little nervous.
The river crossings the trail is famous for begin in earnest near mid-afternoon as the valley thins and the rocky terrain closer to the imposing mountain saddle they’ll climb tomorrow rise up on either side like walls. The path zig-zags across the water to avoid steep, awkward climbing, creating a steady stream of river crossings, ranging from barely-getting-your-feet-wet to knee-high flow.
Dimitri knows Edelgard is having a bit of trouble keeping up with them, even on the relatively flat valley floor, so about half of his mental faculties during the walk are taken up by an absolutely gripping internal argument.
We should just ask her if she wants help, says Nice Dimitri, who sounds like an odd mixture of Dedue and their former head girl, Mercedes. Sure, she’ll get mad at us and Claude will probably tease us, but at least we’ll be making her more comfortable.
Don’t bother, says Mean Dimitri, who sounds exactly like him but has an eyepatch for some reason. If she’s going to be stubborn she can suffer in silence. We’ve been nothing but open and receptive to her at every turn.
Or I could do nothing, Regular Dimitri says, sandwiched between them.
Dimitri has no problem with hiking, especially not here; the entire day has been a trek across the valley floor, sticking close to the river. Tomorrow is projected to be harder, with a gradual climb up to a saddle and steep climb down to their second campsite, but he’ll be fine with that too.
Before the accident, Dimitri had been intensely involved in sports, and physical rehab afterwards had only attached him more firmly to a regular gym routine. It also helps that ice hockey is less of a sport and more of a competition to see how much heavy padding you can carry around while still maintaining fine motor skills, and Dimitri is pretty decent at it.
Which is all to say he’s probably the fittest he’s ever been. This isn’t much of a challenge at all.
Claude doesn’t exactly look like someone who is particularly strong but Dimitri knows he at least cycles, so he has some endurance. He’s kept up well with Grace today, drifting back and forth between their guide and his classmates like a buzzing bee whenever conversation dies on one end to pick it up on the other.
But Edelgard… she’s fallen into a silence born less of negative emotion and more of fatigue. She hangs at the back of their group, and though she tries to hide it her breath is becoming more and more laboured as they continue. Dimitri can’t help but worry for her—he knows tomorrow is just going to get harder, and so far she hasn’t asked Grace to slow down even once.
Is it a pride thing? Probably.
Oh well, he’s always been one for poking sleeping bears.
“Edelgard?” he asks quietly. Claude is busy prattling to Grace about poisonous berries, so Dimitri is confident he won’t be heard.
Edelgard looks up, blowing a strand of pale, sweaty hair out of her eyes as she does. “Yes?”
“Would you like me to carry anything for you?”
Edelgard all but scowls. “I’m fine,” she says, tugging the pack higher on her back and pushing ahead. Dimitri sighs.
Worth a shot.
They walk for a while longer before coming to a swing bridge. The river up to this point has been relatively wide and flat, but the character has steadily changed. Now, the river in front of them is rock-filled and roiling with the foamy residue of swift rapids. The forest encroaches right to the edges of steep, rocky inclines that dip down into the churning waters. On the far side of the swing bridge, Dimitri can see the path continue to wind deeper into the trees.
Dimitri isn’t scared of heights on normal days, but this mismatched thing of rope and wooden slats might just change his mind.
“Alright,” Grace says, peering up the valley to the sinking sun. “Our campsite is about a thirty-minute walk beyond this bridge. We’re going to take it slow, alright? These things are quite old.”
Edelgard is the only one who doesn’t nod. Dimitri turns and catches sight of her pale, drawn expression. She’s staring down at the water with wide eyes. She doesn’t move.
Are you alright, El? The words stick to his tongue. He says nothing.
“Edelgard?” Grace calls. “Are you okay?”
Grace drifts to the back of the group and puts a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder. Edelgard jolts. Grace says something in a hushed tone and then turns to the boys.
“You two go on, we’ll follow after.”
Dimitri shoots one more unanswered, lingering glance at Edelgard before Claude tugs him up onto the bridge.
The thing creaks under their combined weight, and Dimitri feels the tread of his boots slip a little on the mesh grip bolted to the slats—it seems the spray from the rough waters underneath leaves the bridge perpetually slick. Great. Excellent. Awesome.
“Is this safe?” he ponders aloud, testing his footing. No unexpected bending… so... it seems steady enough?
Every step Claude takes bends the bridge a little and is horribly mistimed with Dimitri’s steps. The result is an uncomfortable, stumbling experience for both of them.
“Think of it like this,” Claude says, moving steadily forward. “We either die here or we survive.”
“That applies to most things,” Dimitri mutters, gripping tight to the sides and willing himself not to tremble. Claude stops and looks over his shoulder.
Dimitri doesn’t like the look on his face one bit. Those conniving green eyes dart to Grace and Edelgard, still talking on the trail, to Dimitri, then he smiles.
Before Dimitri can stop him Claude grips the ropes tight and jumps, bringing his feet down hard on the planks of the bridge. The motion jerks the entire contraption, almost knocking Dimitri’s feet out from under him. Dimitri yelps, gripping onto the ropes for dear life, and Claude cackles.
“You boys alright!?” They hear Grace shout.
“We’re fine!” Claude calls back. He shoots Dimitri a wink and keeps moving.
“You know,” Dimitri grumbles, hauling himself forward, “for all your preaching about being friends during this, you seem to be looking for trouble.”
“What? Can’t have a little fun before Seteth throws us in the Gulag?” Claude whispers, barely audible over the rushing water below. “You’re not exactly carrying your weight here, Princey.”
Dimitri grits his teeth. That sort of nickname isn’t exactly uncommon around the school, usually directed towards him and Edelgard—but just because he’s used to the sentiment doesn’t mean he likes it.
“Don’t,” he says warningly. “Take this seriously.”
“Take it seriously?” Claude challenges, suddenly not smiling. “Think I’m a clown like your dumb sister does, then?”
There’s something odd in his tone that Dimitri can’t identify, so he elects to ignore it.
“I don’t think you’re a clown,” he says, cutting through the verbal barbs. “I think you’re nervous, and you’re trying to get a rise out of me to deal with that.”
Claude stills and Dimitri simply stares at him before he starts moving again. He’s slower this time… less energetic.
They reach the other side and Dimitri breathes a sigh of relief when his feet meet the sturdy ground. They step back from the bridge and settle on the side of the track. They are silent for a while.
“Sorry,” Claude says finally.
“It’s alright,” Dimitri replies easily because it is. He looks over his shoulder, where their stragglers are yet to get on the bridge.
“What do you think is wrong…?” He hears Claude ask behind him. “Do you think she’s scared?”
Probably, Dimitri thinks, though the Edelgard in his memory would have never been scared of something like this.
“Maybe,” he says, turning to level a stern glance at his classmate. “I don’t see how that’s our business, though.”
“Relax, man.” Claude rolls his eyes and kicks a loose rock on the ground. “I’m just a bit worried. As much as we don’t get along I don’t want to see her freaked the fuck out this whole time… we have a lot more river crossings to go, too.”
Dimitri hums in agreement but says nothing more. He looks out to the trees surrounding them, watching the birds flit from branch to branch, knocking together in gathering wind. The silence only lasts for a moment.
“Hey, subject change,” Claude says suddenly. “Because I hate being quiet—”
Dimitri can’t help the snort that draws out of him.
“—you know how I was talking earlier about how I’m cursed with an incessant need to ask questions?”
Dimitri’s lips twitch. “Yes?”
“Can I ask you a question? You can ask me one back.”
Dimitri hesitates, dragging his eyes to Claude for the first time in a few minutes. The other boy is leaning against a tree trunk in a show of nonchalance but his shoulders are tense. Dimitri, an expert on being nervous, recognises the gesture immediately.
Olive branches, he reminds himself.
“Okay.”
Claude might look a little shocked, if Dimitri's eyes aren't playing tricks on him, but he recovers quickly.
“Have you guys always been at each other’s throats like this?” He asks. He doesn’t need to say who. “I just… I want to be caught up.”
Dimitri remembers Claude’s face back at his house, when he’d revealed his lack of knowledge about the siblings’ history. He doesn’t like to be uninformed, Dimitri thinks, he likes to have all the cards.
“No,” he admits. “When… when our parents were still alive and we all lived together… we got along really well.”
“Oh. And then… after…?”
He trails off, letting Dimitri fill in the blanks. Dimitri just hums, even though the assessment isn’t entirely accurate. The truth is they’d started growing apart before the accident, starting when Edelgard’s father regained custody—when she’d started spending less and less time at their little house on the hill. Less time with him.
“Yeah,” he says. “It was… a lot to deal with. Plus, I was in the hospital for a long time after the accident.”
He doesn’t say what kind of hospital. He’d rather let Claude assume something benign and comfortably tragic than… explain. Claude likes to have all the cards, but that doesn’t mean Dimitri’s just going to hand them over.
“Accident? Like a car accident, then?” Dimitri nods and Claude bites his lip. “She didn’t visit? Sorry. That might be out of line to ask…”
“It’s alright,” Dimitri sighs. “No. She didn’t—” Not that he could remember, at any rate. “—but she had moved in with her dad at that point and he didn’t really… like my family much.”
“Messy, huh?” Claude notes, sounding slightly amused. “I can relate to that a little.”
“Oh?”
Claude makes a seesaw motion with his hand. “Let’s just say the two sides of my family don’t really like each other either.”
Dimitri blinks. “Your uncle seemed nice though,” he says.
“Oh they’re all nice,” Claude laughs. Dimitri gets the feeling it’s not entirely genuine. “They’re just not nice to each other.”
“Rodrigue said your parents are overseas,” Dimitri says, because what are conversations if not you spewing every useless fact you know about a person to them to seem normal? When Claude gives him a look he continues. “He, uh, didn’t say where, though.”
“Ah!” Claude grins. “Comrade Rodrigue! Protecting my reputation as an international man of mystery, I see!”
Dimitri smirks a little, feeling the tension from earlier slowly dissipate.
“Is that your question?” Claude asks. It’s Dimitri’s turn to offer a confused glance. Claude smiles. “Do you want to know where my parents live?” he elaborates.
“Uh… hmm… no,” Dimitri decides. “Uh, not that I’m not interested, I-I just—”
“It’s cool,” Claude assures, waving his hand. “Have another idea then?”
In truth, there are a lot of things Dimitri is curious about regarding Claude, now that he’s finally been forced to look at him as more of a person and less of a strange, uniformed entity he’s compelled to throw paint at. But he’s not sure he knows exactly what yet.
“Can I save it? My question, I mean.”
Claude’s smile is unreadable.
“Sure.”
“Alright, boys!” Grace announces, having crossed the bridge with Edelgard in tow. “Let’s get going, it’s almost dinnertime!”
Edelgard walks briskly ahead, her silvery hair snapping behind her and her fists balled. She doesn’t spare the boys so much as a glance.
There are some questions Dimitri has for her, too, though he’s quite sure she won’t be as willing to answer them.
They put their tents up with only minimal hassle—but Dimitri isn’t stupid enough not to realise that’s mostly because the most volatile combinations of their trio are working on different tents. While Edelgard is sleeping in the “ladies tent” with Grace, Claude and Dimitri are left to set up their two-sleeper by themselves on the other side of camp.
Dinner preparation, similarly, goes sort of smoothly. Claude and Edelgard start bickering a few times over how to correctly cook rice and beans, but a stern look from Grace silences them each time.
In the end, they manage to set up everything just as night falls. Dimitri isn’t… entirely pleased with how they’re doing.
Saying he was going to play nice turned out to be a lot harder than he thought it’d be. There’s something about Edelgard’s attitude that’s pitted the side of him that just wants to survive this and the side of him that wants to confront her against each other like starving wolves.
He’d decided to just shut up for the most part, in the end, because that was better than nothing. But he’s pretty sure their guide is catching on to them.
She wants more participation, that’s for sure. Dimitri, conversely, wants to die at the thought.
“So! Does anyone have any ideas for a game to play over dinner?” Grace asks later, spooning a hearty spoonful of beans into Dimitri’s plate.
But, of course, the universe won’t just let him die, will it?
“Circle time…?” Edelgard ventures in a weak voice. Grace nods eagerly.
The three of them stifle sighs. However different they are, at least they can all agree on hating this particular part of the trip.
“How about two truths and a lie?” Claude tosses out. “That could be interesting.”
“Good for conversation starters,” Dimitri adds uselessly. He takes a bite of his beans. Edelgard adds nothing.
“Alright,” Grace says. “Who wants to go first… Claude?”
“Hah! No!” Claude blurts out a little too quickly. When Grace raises an eyebrow he goes a little pale, and Dimitri can only watch from outside his own body as he swoops in for a clumsy save.
“I-I can go first,” he says.
Grace nods contentedly. “Alright, go ahead!”
Two truths and a lie… fuck. When was the last time he played something like this? What does he even say?
Dimitri looks down at his beans.
“I have no sense of taste,” he begins. “I ate grass in my first year of high school on a dare. I chipped my tooth falling down the stairs when I was eight.
Claude gasps. “Okay. I know the grass thing is true so… uh… the taste—”
“You were nine,” Edelgard says suddenly, “You didn’t chip a tooth, you lost the whole thing.”
Everyone falls silent. Only the crackling of the fire breaks the quiet of the space.
Edelgard stays as still as stone under the scrutiny, but Dimitri can see a small smudge of redness on her cheeks in the firelight. On the other side of her, Claude’s face breaks into a disbelieving grin.
Edelgard ignores Claude, her eyes slipping to Dimitri’s with nowhere better to go. He just blinks. He hadn’t expected her to remember that—it had been so long ago and such an inconsequential thing. A trip to the dentist and a cap later and it had been like nothing. But she had been there, hadn’t she? In the back of their parent’s car with him as he cried.
“Right,” he says weakly. “Uh, yeah… that’s right.”
The accident had driven a wedge between them… God knows how exactly, but one minute they’d been so close in Dimitri’s eyes and the next Edelgard had felt an ocean away… he’d been lost from himself for so long after. Had it been too much to expect her to be there when he returned to shore?
She made no effort, says Mean Dimitri.
But she remembers, he thinks.
“Well done!” Grace says. “Point for Edelgard.”
Edelgard, despite the awkward air, looks pleased with having received points. At least she was still herself.
“Well go on, show us,” Claude urges. He points to his teeth when Dimitri gives him a confused look.
“Oh.” Dimitri grits his teeth and points to his left canine. Claude leans forward in his seat to ogle at the tooth with an open curiosity Dimitri hasn’t ever seen on him before.
“Damn, so that’s fake?” It takes Dimitri a second to realise the question is aimed at Edelgard and not him.
“Yes,” she says simply, then, “I… didn’t know you had no sense of taste, Dimitri.”
“I lost it… relatively recently,” Dimitri says, skirting the topic, but Edelgard’s eyes widen in comprehension anyway. She looks away.
“Ooh. Lotsa unspoken implications here,” Claude notes, breaking the tension in his typical way. He shovels a forkful of beans into his mouth and grimaces at whatever the taste is. “Loving it, loving it—Edelgard, your turn.”
Edelgard thinks about it for a moment.
“Okay,” she announces, straightening up. “I cannot swim, I hate musicals with a passion, and I used to have pink hair.”
Claude looks like Christmas has come early. “I so badly want the pink hair to be real. I vote for swimming.”
Dimitri knows the truth though. Of course he does.
“You love musicals,” he says, because it’s true. In the time they’d shared a house show tunes floating down the hall from her room to his had been an inescapable facet of home life. “Musicals is the lie.”
Edelgard’s eyes are wide as she stares at him.
“Yes,” she admits.
She looks exactly as surprised as he just had. Dimitri wonders why he’d been shocked to find she remembered these small things about him when he obviously remembers so much about her. It hasn’t been that long since the two of them were family… this should be expected, right?
Why are they so surprised?
Edelgard looks away first.
“You can’t swim?” Claude asks incredulously, drawing Dimitri’s attention back to the present.
“No,” Edelgard mutters.
Dimitri is unsure if Claude is being obtuse on purpose, or if he’s genuinely interested in all of these things. He thinks it might be the former because he looks nervous.
Oh, Dimitri realises suddenly as Claude and Edelgard devolve into a nice, if strained, conversation about her lack of swimming skills. He doesn’t want to risk us talking to each other.
Maybe that's a good thing. In the end. No matter how much he wants the opposite.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Grace interjects, pointing to Edelgard and Dimitri in turn, “are you two friends? I was under the impression the three of you… weren’t close, but has there been a mistake?”
“They’re step-siblings,” Claude reports through his beans.
“Ex-step-siblings,” Edelgard corrects.
Dimitri grips his fork tighter and stares down at his plate, but not before catching the affronted little glance Claude shoots in his direction.
Welcome to the shitshow, Riegan, he wants to say. It’s been a while since he’s been in a personal, casual situation with Edelgard, but her detachment is a familiar thing. He plasters on a nice smile and looks over at Grace.
“Yes, sorry,” he says. “That probably wouldn’t have been in our files, would it?”
“No!” Grace assures. “It’s just surprising, though, not a problem. We get lots of siblings in our programs.”
“Ex-siblings,” Edelgard adds quietly.
It’s full of so much conviction, Dimitri almost feels like agreeing with her.
They end the game there for the night.