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lost
“What are you doing?” Felix’s voice is sharper than he intends, but he’s really too pissed to care. “Back there — what the hell was that?”
The look in Dimitri’s eyes is foreign. Felix scans the lines of his face and realizes that he can no longer read Dimitri’s expressions like he once could. The only thing he sees is pain and resentment, carved in permanent marks.
“Get out of my way, Felix.”
“No. Answer me.”
Dimitri grits his teeth. The hold on his lance tightens, and Felix’s hand goes instinctively to the hilt of his sword. “What is there to answer? They were merely beasts clothed in human skin. Rats awaiting slaughter. I brought justice to the dead.”
“ Justice ? Are you out of your mind?”
Dimitri snarls, a vicious thing. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t you dare give me that bullshit,” Felix snarls right back. There’s anger and disgust seeping through his words now. “Don’t think for a minute that you’re the only one who has suffered tragedy. Rodrigue — my old man died for you, Dimitri, but you don’t see me baring my sword at your neck!”
“And he’s just another ghost who will haunt me until I die! I’m going to bring him justice too — I’m going to avenge them all. They’re going to pay with their lives, each and every one of them.”
Felix chokes out a laugh, disbelieving. “Dimitri, the dead are just that — dead. When will you understand that? Corpses don’t care whether or not you avenge them! You think my old man would have wanted this? Wanted massacre ? I don’t like it any more than you, but you have to learn to forgive ! To move on!”
Dimitri spins to face him, his eyes frothing with shadows and storms. Haunted by ghosts. “What in the world do you think my forgiveness looks like, Glenn?”
His blood turns to ice. He enunciates, carefully and clearly, “I’m not Glenn, you beast.”
Felix doesn’t expect Dimitri to go suddenly still. His visible eye goes wide, the pupil contracting until it’s a speck in blue skies. He looks confused, lost.
All there and then gone. He shrinks back, his next words biting and sharp.
“Why do you bother, Felix,” he growls, animalistic. “Spare me your useless chatter. You were the one who said I was a monster, all that time ago. A beast. I guess you were right. I’m only sorry it took me this long to realize.”
Felix watches as he turns, shoulders hunched. He listens to the echo of armored boots clicking away, biting his lip so hard that it bleeds. His hands are white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword, words caught in his throat.
For all of Felix’s insults and sharp retorts, he never could say the truth.
“You’re broken,” he says to the empty air, after Dimitri has turned the corner. A hollow laugh escapes his lips. “You’re so broken , Dimitri.”
monster
His eyes are dull, his gaze digging into the cracks on the floor.
“The sentence is death. The execution will take place tomorrow.”
The words ring like a condemnation. He hears it echo in the chamber, wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“Your Highness — no, former princeling,” Cornelia’s voice is sickening. It sounds like the salt-rock rasp of a serpent, waiting to strike, to poison. “have you any last words?”
He looks up with a snarl. The voices are roaring in his head, demanding blood.
“I hope you rot,” he spits, sincerity dripping from every word. “I hope you burn in the eternal fires, you witch.”
Cornelia titters, tilts her face so the feathers of her outfit hides her gleeful expression. “Oho, how colorful! Bold words coming from a corpse.”
Dimitri sees red. He lunges, the cuffs on his arms and legs rattling — the chains are pulled taut and he’s forced to his knees. The rustle of armor is the only indication he gets as a soldier rears back with a gauntlet and strikes him in the back of the head.
The screams of the dead chase him into the dark.
Somehow, Dedue finds him. Loyal, stupid Dedue, who takes his place and lets himself be guided into the gallows. He doesn’t allow Dimitri to follow.
Later, he hears word that Dedue has been hung. Later, the Kingdom swarms with traitors, soldiers after Dimitri’s head.
Dimitri dares them. He leaves mangled bodies, twisted armor. Cracked bone and spilled blood.
A soldier kneels at his feet. Dimitri watches with empty amusement as he begs, a lance cradled loosely in his hands.
“Please,” he pleads, voice desperate and hoarse. “Please, I have a wife, I have children. I’ll forget I ever saw you—”
Dimitri smiles. His hands are wrapped around the juncture of the soldier’s neck. “You’re a traitor,” he intones, years of vengeance pooling in the cracks. The darkness festers like fetid pools, turning his blood black. “You’ll burn along with the rest of them. There will be no salvation for you.”
He tightens his hold, feeling the bone crack, the neck snapping. It echoes like thunder as the dead howl their promises.
He pries the lance from limp fingers, dead hands. A wedding band gleams in the dark. The man’s mouth is agape, eyes wide and unseeing, tears tracking down his cheeks. Another face to add to the ranks of the dead.
The lacquered wood is damp with blood.
Dimitri pulls in a breath, thick with copper. Steadying himself, he stumbles forward, tracing the outskirts of the Kingdom. The dark welcomes him with open arms, the shadows promising vengeance. His fingers twitch, hands stained with red — he scrubs them violently on his cloak.
He doesn’t think the blood will ever come out.
ghosts
Byleth walks through the monastery, his boots echoing on the cracked stone. He’d never realized how truly empty it seemed until now — five years had done their work.
A distant clatter stops him in his tracks. The sound is like steel against stone, harsh and grating. Byleth pauses, tracks the sound to a heavy door. Dimitri’s room , he notes. He knocks gently.
“What.” Dimitri’s voice is gruff and slightly muffled. “If you do not need anything, leave.”
For a second, Byleth considers turning heel. But there’s something in Dimitri’s tone that makes him hesitate.
Stop dawdling , Sothis grumbles in his subconscious. Mortals, always so indecisive…
Byleth sweeps the door open and freezes.
Dimitri’s back is turned to him; he’d shed his heavy cloak and pieces of his armor. The cloak is draped over one of the wooden chairs; the armor scatters itself across the stone floors.
The crevices are filling with blood.
“Dimitri?” Byleth rushes over, kneeling at his student's side. “What happened?”
Dimitri holds a gloved hand over the right side of his face, blood pooling between his fingers and dripping down his chin. There’s a dagger lying haphazardly next to him, the tip covered in red.
His lips are curled in a mockery of a smile, teeth bared like knives. His left eye glitters, over-bright with something like madness.
Not for the first time, Byleth pauses, unsure of what to do. His eyes trace the edges of the room, assessing carefully. Something gleams in the dim firelight; Byleth makes out the edges of white and a sky-blue epicenter.
He tore out his eye, Byleth realizes, something like fear surging cold in his veins. He digs out a vulnerary and presses it into Dimitri’s palm. Dimitri flinches, his gaze empty and unseeing.
“Drink that,” Byleth demands, and whirls around to find a medic.
You can’t let your students see this, Sothis murmurs in his mind. I think there were bandages in the armory.
Byleth mentally thanks her and steels his resolve. When he returns to Dimitri’s room, he shuts the door softly, a handful of gauze and bandages hidden in his cloak. The vulnerary lies untouched in Dimitri’s hand. He’s still huddled like a pool of shadow in the corner of the room. Byleth crosses over in two long strides, pulls Dimitri’s hand away with gentle fingers. The gash tears through his face, from his brow to the middle of his cheek, an ugly river of red. Dimitri doesn’t resist, doesn’t even hiss when Byleth pours iodine onto the gauze and presses it against the wound. After cleaning the blood and securing the bandages, Byleth sits back on his heels and levels a hard gaze at his student.
His voice is quiet but firm, demanding an answer. “Why?”
Dimitri twitches, his breath shuddering.
“They wouldn’t stop screaming,” he says, words heavy in the silence. Byleth waits for him to continue. “They wouldn’t leave me alone. Even now. I can still hear them begging for vengeance. Begging for me to avenge them. They won’t pass on until I do — they’re going to haunt me until the day I die. Each and every one of them, they died because of me .”
“No,” Byleth says softly, carefully. “You know that’s not true.”
Dimitri laughs, but it sounds more like a crumpled copy of a sob. “I kept seeing them. They followed me like they were my shadow. It didn’t matter where I turned, where I ran. Even now. I can still see Dedue standing in front of the gallows, begging me to give him justice. I see my mother wreathed in flames, weeping for vengeance. For the day I will finally avenge her. My father, my uncle, Rodrigue, Glenn — all of them, judging me for eternity.”
Byleth stays silent. Their shadows writhe on the floor.
“Professor,” Dimitri mutters, broken resignation in his voice. The shadows under his eyes are like smudged soot. “I’m so tired.”
Byleth ruffles his fingers through his hair, feeling Dimitri flinch at the touch. His fingers smooth the tangles in the matted hair. And then Dimitri sighs, relaxes. The blood that dries on his hands is like the color of rust.
“Rest,” Byleth murmurs. “You’re safe here.”
king
There’s wonder in his eyes as he glances up.
The crowds are roaring — not for his blood, but in triumph. The sun shines so bright it dares to blind them all, bathing the capital in molten gold.
Gilbert nudges him forward. Dimitri takes a tentative step, rests a hand on the carved ivory of the balcony. People train their gazes on him, eyes bright and wide.
“He’s back!” someone shouts, and their words are drowned in ecstatic cheer, the sound of delirious joy echoing throughout the kingdom.
Dimitri’s heart has never been warmer. “They’re not angry,” he murmurs, and Gilbert makes a noise as if he’s been personally affronted.
“Angry? The people are rejoicing! In a time of desperate need, their king has returned. You are the saviour of Faerghus.”
“Will they… will they accept me? I am,” Dimitri hesitates, swallows. “I carry so many sins. My hands are so bloodstained.”
“You are their king,” Gilbert says with the utmost conviction. “Listen to them.”
He’s right. There’s nothing but the sound of victory, the mirth of the crowd tipping and spilling over the brink. Everywhere he looks is gilded gold, alive.
He doesn’t even notice the pooling warmth at the corner of his eye.
Behind him, Byleth approaches.
“Don’t cry, Dimitri,” he hears Byleth say, gently. “This is a happy time.”
A laugh comes to his lips, unbidden. It’s wet and watery with tears, but Dimitri feels a smile stretching his lips. “It is, isn’t it,” he murmurs, voice light and hopeful for the first time in many years. “Right as ever, Professor.” He breathes in, feels the spring air settle sweetly on his tongue. He knows the blood will never be washed from his hands. The ghosts will haunt him until his next life.
And yet, and yet —
Byleth is watching him curiously, quietly. Dimitri turns, lifts his head, eyes tracing the vast arc of the sky, forever-swathes of blue. His next words are soft and sincere, close to his heart. He didn’t think he’d ever say them — never thought he’d ever be given the chance to do so.
“I am finally home again.”