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When a letter for aid arrives from the Alliance, asking for assistance, Dimitri does not hesitate to rally his army for another fight in less than a heartbeat.
They arrive at sundown the next day, and see the ships with citizens out on the sea, protected by Claude who is completely surrounded and he himself only defended by Hilda’s small battalion at the edge of the bridge leading to the docks.
Claude does his best to hit as many soldiers as possible, Failnaught’s string drawn impossibly tight as he fires from far away. Hilda herself does her best to avoid every sword, every lance and every arrow which is aimed at her tiny frame, and expertly swings Freikugel in the few openings that she receives.
Dimitri sees the way their faces light up when they see his banner appear at the edge of the city and how Hilda starts to swing her axe with renewed energy. His army razes through the imperial troops from behind as they advance toward Claude and Hilda to assist them and ensure their safety.
His own heart skips a beat at the thought of reuniting with Claude and all of his friends. There is much he has to apologise for, much he still needs to tell Claude, much he still wants to do. Considering how thin the Alliance’s numbers have become it is an impossible situation for them, but Dimitri believes they can push through the Empire’s main force before their line breaks.
The next thing he knows, an arrow pierces Hilda’s heart and she falls at the bridge.
She falls and all Dimitri can do is watch as Claude screams her name in horror, as Freikugel clatters across the stone, as the life fades from her eyes. He can only watch as an imperial soldier stabs her through her heart again, ensuring that she may never stand again.
It feels like a thousand tiny needles have been wrenched into his heart.
Dimitri remembers Hilda well. She had always been the first to skip out on training or to push her chores onto a willing victim should the opportunity arise. She had been the first to leave Garreg Mach after Edelgard had declared war on the church under the notion that she didn’t understand how anyone could give own their life to protect someone else’s.
And yet, her body lies motionless on the ground and on her face is a smile while the last of her tears run down her cheeks. In this moment, Dimitri knows that Hilda had not thought that way anymore and that she had been happy to die here, protecting Claude, protecting someone she loved.
It was not something Dimitri had thought her capable of, and belatedly he realises that exactly that had been his mistake from the very beginning. How he had misjudged the people around him and how he had lost sight of what was right in front of him.
Later, when the war is over, he will make sure that she will be honoured properly for all she has done, even if it does not benefit her in any way anymore.
However, with her gone there is no blockade between Claude and a dozen of imperial soldiers, only a bridge that leads straight to him. And like a pack of hungry wolves every single one of them streams towards him, ready to take their prey apart.
But Claude makes no move to fly away on his wyvern and instead readies his bow once more. Dimitri can feel his heart clench painfully in his chest. He wants to scream at Claude to move, to get away, to come towards him and abandon this mission of certain suicide.
No noise leaves him, because he knows Claude will defend Derdriu until his very last breath.
His legs burn as he forces them to run faster, and his arms ache as he swings at soldier after soldier with a ferocity as if he were the man about to meet his end at a lance’s blade and not Claude. He calls to his soldiers to form up behind him and push forward with him, he calls to Byleth to watch his back and take care of the remaining troops to the west and to Mercedes to keep healing Claude across the battlefield.
While he bursts through hordes of enemies, he can only glance at Claude in the distance who is desperately trying to shoot all who come towards him, but it is an impossible feat. It is a battle he can only lose, and if Dimitri does not hurry Claude will lose his life as well.
There are only a few steps left between him and the bridge when Arundel urges his horse across it, a smirk stretching across his face when he catches Dimitri’s terrified expression. Claude is overwhelmed at this point, barely hanging on as it stands, and with his injuries will be unable to draw and aim at Arundel before the spear will strike him.
It is now that Dimitri feels all of his regrets grip him by his throat and choke him.
He remembers happier times at the academy when Claude would come to tease him, and Dimitri would blush like the mad teen in love that he had been and still is to this day. It had been easy to like Claude. He had been a handsome young man with a charming smile and radiant green eyes with a mind as sharp as the tips of his arrows.
It had been unfair how easily Claude had invaded his mind. How easy and yet gut clenching painful it had been when he had thought of someone to share his life with after all was said and done. It had been unfair how he would think of Claude late at night, and it was unfair how embarrassed he would get whenever unholy thoughts of him would cross his mind.
Still, he had held strong to their friendship for many reasons. Especially the political issues had made his stomach churn and had nagged at his mind, forcing him to keep his affection to himself. He had thought that he had the time to think things over and to wait until they were both older, but oh, if Dimitri could go back in time right now, he would punch his younger self in face.
And therefore, Dimitri does not think twice before he throws Areadbhar with all his might in a last, desperate attempt to save Claude’s life.
It doesn’t matter. Dimitri is too late.
Arundel’s spear pierces Claude’s stomach a second before Areadbhar thunders into his side with such a force that it brutally drives the tip to come out on the other side of his body and takes him straight off his horse. The spear slips from Claude’s stomach and drops to the ground, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.
Claude drops from his wyvern right along with it.
“Claude!”
Dimitri barely catches him before he hits the hard stone of the docks. Claude is limp in his arms, and even through all of his armour and thick layers of clothing Dimitri can feel his warm blood trickle in through the cracks. Slowly, gently, he turns Claude around as if he were made out of glass and is met with a remorseful expression that must be reflected by his own.
“I’m sorry… your Princeliness,” he laughs hoarsely and instantly coughs, blood spilling from his lips like petals from a red rose, “seems like I… miscalculated…” It feels like the world is crashing down around him once again.
He hears the battle quiet down behind him and knows they’ve won, but it doesn’t feel like a victory at all. Not when Claude heaves for breaths in his arms and his blood is pooling at his feet, clinging to the life that’s left in him.
“Mercedes!” he calls to her by twisting around and catches sight of her running along the edge of Derdriu’s docks. Having been at the backline she is still quite far away, but maybe, maybe she can make it in time, maybe-
“- you know very well… that even she cannot… fix this,” Claude says and leans his head on Dimitri’s shoulder.
“Please, stop talking. I know Mercedes can do this. I know she can.” He takes his coat and presses it to the wound to stop the bleeding, but he knows, he knows that it won’t stop death’s approach and that’s the worst thing about it. Because he has to watch again as another person that he loves dies right in front of him, and he is unable to change their fate.
“We can still save you,” he chokes out helplessly.
“Stop… lying to… yourself.” Claude fixes him with a hard stare and it would have been more intimidating if he didn’t look like he might pass out any second, like he might slip away any second and Dimitri would miss it if he blinked.
“Please, you cannot leave me too,” he begs, feeling tears prick at the corners of his eyes, “you cannot become another voice that haunts my every move. If only I had been faster.” Dimitri squeezes his eyes shut and the tears fall freely from his eyes without his consent.
“I won’t… you’ve done all that you could… the fault is my own…” A trembling hand touches his cheek, caressing it softly and wiping away his tears. Dimitri opens his eyes and sees Claude’s bright smile, but his eyes grow ever emptier by the second. “I want you… to have something.”
Claude’s hand falls from his cheek and clumsily reaches into the collar of his bloodied jacket below his tie. What he pulls out is a thin, golden cord and attached to it is a small medallion with a foreign sigil on it.
“What is this for?” he asks when Claude hands it to him, confused. But Claude only blinks a few times and breathes in as deeply as his wounds allow him to, grasping Dimitri’s hand in a weak grip for support. It takes every ounce of will in Dimitri’s body not to panic when Claude’s eyes drop closed for merely a second.
“You’ll need it when… the Almyrans come… show it to the… commander… he’ll know… what it means…” He can feel Claude’s grip on his fingers slip and with every second that passes, Dimitri grows more and more desperate.
“Claude, what do you mean?” He needs Claude. Dimitri needs him so much that it hurts. It hurts so much that for a moment he feels his throat constrict around the guilt he cannot swallow, feels himself suffocate because he cannot breath around all the things he had wanted to tell Claude being stuck in his throat.
“Promise me… that you won’t… fight them… that you’ll change Fódlan… and that you’ll offer those… who have nowhere to turn to… a home.” Dimitri nods fervently and Claude takes one last shuddering breath, smile slowly fading. “…Dimitri… I… lo…”
Claude’s eyes close and his breathing stops, forever.
In a rare moment of vulnerability, Dimitri cradles Claude’s lifeless body in his arms and lets his forehead fall to touch Claude’s. It does not concern him that his army can see him, in fact, he wants them all to know what Claude means- had meant to him because it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.
People had always said that Claude was different. That he wasn’t to be trusted. That he wasn’t fit to be a duke or a leader. That he didn’t belong in Fódlan.
But that’s not true. Because he can see no difference between his blood and that of every other soldier who died today, can see no difference when his own blood intermingles with Claude’s.
On the field, when one drop of blood joins another to form a river of regret, they will all look the same. At the base of their existence, they are all equal in death.
Claude protected Fódlan’s citizens until the very end, and Dimitri will make sure that all of Fódlan will remember it.
“Dimitri.” It’s Byleth who approaches him and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Their voice sounds hollow and empty, and Dimitri is sure his won’t sound any different when he speaks.
“I’m coming,” he says and slowly rises to his feet, carrying Claude’s lifeless body. Before he leaves for Enbarr, Claude will receive a proper burial, Dimitri guarantees it.
Byleth swipes Claude’s hair from his eyes with a tender hand and after a moment of silence, leaves to retrieve both Failnaught and Areadbhar from his uncle’s corpse.
The Alliance is his, Judith tells him, Claude had planned to give it to him from the beginning. If Claude had also planned this consciously with the thought that he might die that day Dimitri doesn’t know, and if he were honest, he doesn’t really want to for a multitude of reasons.
He refuses to join the celebration the night after their victory, mind occupied with Hilda, with Claude, and with each and every other failure he has made so far in his life. Byleth brings him food, but he refuses to eat. It is only when she reminds him that the war isn’t over just yet and that Claude wouldn’t want him to starve himself for him that he eats, albeit reluctantly.
In only a few months’ time, they defeat Edelgard and she chooses death over life. Dimitri loses another person he cannot save.
Once he is crowned king, he asks that two memorials are built to honour both Claude’s and Hilda’s sacrifice for the people of Fódlan. Claude’s monument stands in the middle of Derdriu, a statue in which he points down Failnaught’s arrow and reaches out his hand, surrounded by purple hyacinths.
When the Almyrans poke at Fódlan’s throat with the intention of war, Dimitri steps forward and shows the commander- the king of Almayra the necklace Claude had handed him, just like he had wished. The commander immediately orders his troops to lower their weapons.
As he later finds out, the thin golden cord with Almayra’s symbol on it is given to every Almayran heir and is to be presented to their chosen partner as a declaration of love. It’s a proposal, he realises. A proposal from a dead man.
Despite the surreality of the situation, Dimitri finds nothing more than wanting to accept it. And when he returns to Claude’s memorial, still surrounded by thousands of purple hyacinths, he finds a single red tulip in the midst of a small circle of white ones.