Chapter Text
Five years after the millenium festival, the archbishop disappears again. This time, Dimitri is entangled in some succession dispute in Rowe and fails to give the matter any attention when Seteth’s messenger announces it. There was no warning, nor any signs of a struggle. The evidence, improper as the idea is, all points to the archbishop choosing to leave the monastery in silence.
Every month, another messenger from the church arrives with the same notice, written in Seteth’s even hand: the archbishop has not returned, please keep an eye out, open for discussion of reward for accurate news. After three of these - and a strongly-worded letter from Felix demanding the palace at least send out scouts, if only so the church’s believers stop panicking en masse - Dimitri still holds fast to his belief that the archbishop will return.
Whether it’s providence or superhuman determination, his old teacher has never failed them.
But even Dimitri is surprised when Dedue informs him that the archbishop is waiting in the king’s private rooms.
“What do you suppose a goddess is?” are the first words out of the archbishop’s mouth when Dimitri greets him, before Dimitri even has a chance to shut the door behind him.
“Is that a serious question?” Dimitri asks.
The archbishop looks at him, then sits on the chaise lounge set out for guests. He probably disturbs a few years’ worth of dust, for all the guests Dimitri entertains here. “I suppose not.”
“I imagine the goddess is...kind,” Dimitri answers anyway. “She’s benevolent. But powerful. Perhaps she’s lonely, and that’s why she made people. Why she watches over us. Not unlike yourself.”
“Hm,” the archbishop says, his face going blank in that familiar way. Though Dimitri would no longer describe him as impassive, there are still moments where he lapses into the same stony-faced mercenary from that first night Dimitri had seen him – and goddess, save for his green hair, now long and trailing down his sacred white mantle, the archbishop hasn’t changed at all after all these years. “Here.”
He holds out a clenched fist and drops a small crest stone into Dimitri’s palm. Surprised, Dimitri inspects it. The engraving resembles the crest of Dominic, a little, with a small ring in the center, framed by a large jagged mark under it, and a smaller M mark just above. It’s crowned with a dot.
It’s an Alliance crest, Dimitri thinks, or, well, it used to be an Alliance crest.
“Ordelia,” the archbishop says. “That’s where I was. I heard you were looking.”
“Seteth was…displeased,” Dimitri says wryly, closing his fingers around the crest stone. “I knew you’d come back sooner or later. I’m glad it was sooner but you’ve always operated on a different timeline than us.”
“Not too worried, I hope.” The archbishop leans back in the chaise, closing his eyes. He lets Dimitri gaze upon him for a few more seconds before, “Lysithea passed away.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Dimitri says. There’s nothing else really to say; Dimitri knows better than most how few words penetrate grief. He recalls Lysithea from their academy days, brilliant and small and burning fast. She was at Gronder Field, he thinks, had been injured then. After the war she’d simply gone home. He hadn’t heard of her since then.
“She knew she was dying, but she just…” The archbishop opens his eyes again with a slight shake of his head. “Do you regret it?”
“Every day,” Dimitri says. There’s no need for clarification. His answer is the same.
“I buried the relic she had,” the archbishop says. “One of Gloucester’s, I think. But I took that so no one would have cause to unearth it again.”
The crest stone has a few sharp edges that dig into the flesh of Dimitri’s palm. “I’ll put it in the vault,” he promises.
The archbishop smiles at him, long and slow. “What,” he says, and has to pause when his voice fails him for a second. “If you could wish for anything, what would you wish for?”
“Come now. You know the answer to that one,” Dimitri says, finally taking a seat next to him. He leans back, looks up at the ceiling, vaulted high above their heads and yet intricately and delicately decorated. “I wish all of it had been different. I wish I could have saved her. I wish she could have been saved.”
He knows the archbishop had picked the knife up later. Offered it, just once, to Dimitri, and kept it afterward when Dimitri refused. He knows the archbishop grieves the loss of so many students, so many children. A grief different than Dimitri’s. For all that he’s only a few years older than Dimitri, he’s always felt more like a mentor, a guardian angel, than a peer.
“What would you wish for?” Dimitri asks.
The archbishop’s lips twitch upward. “I wish you’d call me by my name.”
Dimitri sighs. “You won’t find it strange? You were my teacher once.”
“It’s not strange,” the archbishop says. “No one’s called me by it for a very long time. It’s lonely.”
Brushing a few stray hairs away from his face, Dimitri relents. He’s weak to these things, of course. Others have commented on the unusual…distance with which Dimitri beholds the archbishop. Dimitri is aware how under the right light, he could be called obtuse; even calling the archbishop “Professor” sounds childish.
But, well, he just wants to hold onto that childishness a little longer. For all that the archbishop means to Dimitri…all that he’s done, all that he’s seen and knows…how could Dimitri treat him the same as Sylvain and all the others?
“Byleth,” Dimitri says.
The archbishop blinks once, twice. “Again,” he requests, so Dimitri obliges. But the second time, the archbishop’s smile turns wistful. “Thank you, Dimitri. I have another wish. It’s…almost impossible, I think.”
“I have no room to judge,” Dimitri says, aiming for light-hearted and missing. He rolls his shoulders back. “I am the king of Faerghus. Fódlan. If it’s anything in my power, know that I will not deny you.”
Shifting in his seat, the archbishop lifts a hand and sets it atop Dimitri’s head. The gesture is almost grandfatherly in its tenderness. It’s been a long time since he’s touched Dimitri – a long time since he’s touched anyone, Dimitri thinks, for how the archbishop’s hand lingers. After he’d donned the archbishop’s regalia, even the other Lions had stopped seeking out casual physical contact with their old professor. It simply wasn’t done with someone of the archbishop’s stature, to say little of the responsibilities keeping them apart for so long.
“I wish,” the archbishop begins, “we were satisfied with the way things ended up.” His voice is gentle; the words are piercing.
“…yeah,” Dimitri says. There are no words to describe that pain, made all the more terrible for the knowledge that they share it.
We did what we had to, he thinks. They’re words he’s heard often, from Felix or Ingrid or Mercedes. Now Dimitri is king, his friends lords and ladies, the same as their parents before them with all the same responsibilities. More, even, with the rest of Fódlan under their care. Their old professor guides the faithful, shaping their religion into a fervent belief he does not understand.
They are the Goddess-blessed, sacrificed so much to be called so. But in the end, it seems that the blessing is not sweeter for all that it cost them.
The archbishop’s hand drops to where Dimitri’s hand lies on the chaise lounge between them, still holding the crest stone. Intertwining their fingers so that the stone is pressed against both their palms, the archbishop murmurs, “Forgive me.”
Immediately, the hairs on Dimitri’s arm stand on end. “What? Have you done something?” he asks. He can’t remember a single time the archbishop has ever begged forgiveness. Dimitri recognizes the tone too, the trembling timbre of desperation.
“Not yet,” the archbishop says with another strained smile. “I merely fear that you will be…terribly angry once I do.”
A little wounded, Dimitri says, “After all this time, you think I would hold anything against you?”
“You never forget, Dimitri,” the archbishop says. “So I ask of you: remember me. No matter where you go, I will be with you. And I hope that one day you’ll understand me when I say I’m sorry I can’t be the one to save you.”
“You’re scaring me, Byleth, you sound like you’re going to – “ is all that Dimitri can get out before the archbishop yanks hard on Dimitri’s hand, pulling them flush against each other. He feels the archbishop’s breath against his neck, the archbishop’s heartbeat reverberating around the room – unless the beat is Dimitri’s own, thunderous and rapid and unending like a stampede of hooves – the archbishop is gone and so is the room, whirling around Dimitri like an indecipherable kaleidoscope of color and noise – Dimitri is on his throne and then in the thick of battle and then thrust back into the darkness and – Felix’s abrasive voice cuts loud above the clamor – there’s blood against him and a sword in his hand – someone is beside him, behind him? raising the hair on the back of his neck, which is short now? – he’s back at the monastery, and impossible, impossible scene – and then before any of it actually registers in Dimitri’s mind, he feels his entire being jerk to a stop and then
everything
is
still.
…
He wakes with a jolt.
Someone is inside his room. Though the groggy haze of morning, he knows intimately that it’s someone he cares about. Professor? Dedue? But the person hauls him up bodily off the bed is someone he doesn’t recognize at first.
“Time to wake up, kid,” the grizzled man says. He has light brown hair cropped short on the sides and a respectable beard to match. Small scars decorate his face, like Dedue, but this man has lighter skin and his grip on Dimitri’s arm is rougher than Dedue would ever handle him. “What’s up with you today?” the man mutters.
Dimitri tears his arm out of the man’s grip, rubbing it without thinking. “You, who…?” he starts, but trails off as he gets a good look at his surroundings. These are certainly not the king’s rooms. It looks to be…a small hut in some village. Not Fhirdiad. It’s dark out – early morning, maybe – and Dimitri’s been sleeping in a single bed, with only one pillow and a thin cotton sheet for cover. “Where have you taken me?”
The man scoffs. “Our next job is in the Kingdom, remember? It’s a long ride so we gotta set out at dawn.”
“Excuse me?” Dimitri says, automatically reaching for his lance even though he knows kidnappers wouldn’t have left him one – and then he’s surprised to find both a dagger and a sword at his bedside. They’re nothing fancy, just common weapons any armed traveler might commission from a blacksmith, but they’re certainly not Dimitri’s.
“Kid?” the man asks, his brows knitting together like he’s worried, and only then does Dimitri place where he’s seen this man before.
Standing before him, looking at Dimitri like he knows him, is the Blade Breaker. Jeralt. The professor’s father.
The professor.
Dimitri flinches automatically at the memory of the archbishop drawing him close in what Dimitri can now only describe as a parting embrace. The archbishop – Byleth had done something, something he feared Dimitri would never forgive him for. What kind of farce is this? Had Byleth drugged him somehow? Brought Dimitri here to face a parade of the dead?
He looks around wildly, searching for anyone hiding in the room, anyone watching them, any hint of green hair. But there’s no one, no one but the ghosts who follow him always. All of them are deathly silent as Jeralt steps into Dimitri’s space again, reaching out with both hands to steady him, but Dimitri knocks his arms away with enough force to break down a door.
But Jeralt doesn’t rear back in pain; he weathers the blow and clamps a solid grip on both Dimitri’s shoulders. “Hey. Hey, kid, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
Dimitri inhales sharply. Was the Blade Breaker really this strong? No, the Blade Breaker was ten years dead. This lookalike, whoever he is, to withstand such a strike from Dimitri…
“Say something, will ya?” Jeralt rumbles. “Did you have that dream again?”
“A dream?” Dimitri repeats weakly. “I…”
This is the dream, he should say. Jeralt is dead and Dimitri belongs ensconced in the impenetrable walls of Castle Fhirdiad. But the words won’t come out, suffocated by a sudden and intense terror that they aren’t true.
“Damn, everyone’s already waiting for us,” Jeralt says, looking out the window at the line of shadows milling outside. More of the dead, Dimitri thinks. But no, he can hear the chatter of their voices through the door. “C’mon, kid, you can wake up on the ride north but we gotta get goin’.”
He releases Dimitri with a loud sigh, then crosses to the door in five large strides and is outside before Dimitri can react. His departure leaves the room still. Still and colder, without Jeralt’s presence. Dimitri takes a hesitant step forward. His body moves, which is almost as relieving as it is confusing.
He is, Dimitri decides, probably not in a hostage situation. He’s been left with weapons, unfamiliar as they are, and can apparently move freely. Besides, the professor wouldn’t kidnap Dimitri, even for whatever unspeakable, unforgiveable…thing he had in mind. Alone, Dimitri can recognize that.
No matter where you go, I will be with you. The professor’s last words. They’re the words people say to those they cannot follow, Dimitri knows that. So wherever he is now, it’s unlikely the professor is here too.
It’s just…Dimitri and Not-Jeralt, then. Off to do…whatever the professor’s unbidden objective was. Dimitri picks up the scabbard he’d been left, wishing he’d brushed up on his swordplay at all recently. The belt beside it is not his either. None of the clothes, as far as Dimitri can tell without a good mirror, belong to him. He’s wearing some kind of long black doublet – well-made, he thinks, to withstand the elements, which was thoughtful of whoever had dressed him. Beside the bed, carefully folded, is a black sleeved cloak; on top of it are a pair of black vambraces and knee plates, as well as fitted waist plates to secure the sword and dagger.
The ensemble together is cohesive, but not something Dimitri would have gravitated towards, and honestly a little eclectic to pick out for someone. But he thinks the style is something the professor might have enjoyed, which sends a spike of loneliness through his stomach. Did the professor choose these out for Dimitri, knowing…whatever he knew?
Dimitri straps them on. He does feel closer to Byleth this way, he thinks. The clothes fit perfectly. By the door are a pair of black boots, which fit Dimitri as well. He approaches the door dressed for combat. When he gives the room a last once-over, the dead stare vacantly back at him: his father and step-mother, Glenn and Rodrigue, the guards who gave their lives for him and the Duscur people who died in their names. There’s a flicker of movement in the corner, and for a second Dimitri is certain he sees the professor’s blank face watching him. But when he turns his head to get a better luck, there’s no one there.
“I remember you,” Dimitri says clearly. “Byleth. Whatever you sent me here for, I will do it.”
Nobody answers him.