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"Was this always his plan, do you think? Carve up the Alliance before sauntering off to Almyra?" Dimitri wonders, staring down at the draft map his cartographers had prepared. In the aftermath, borders had to be removed and redrawn, territories needed redefining. Now an unfamiliar Fódlan spreads forth beyond him in paper and ink, and he finds himself paralyzed by a hope he hadn't ever considered.
He feels Edelgard shrug against his side. "Who's to say? Unification had always been part of mine, at the very least."
"But not quite in this manner, I take it?" He sneaks a glance at her face, but she isn't looking at him. No, she's glancing down at her callused hands, the thin band of silver around her finger.
"No," she says, softly. A smile takes its chances on her lips. "But plans can change. And I can't say that I find myself- displeased by the circumstances."
Dimitri looks back as his own ring. Adrestian gold, the same pale shade as Edelgard's hair. "Neither can I," he says.
A boyish impulse he had thought he had forgotten how to indulge sweeps over him, and he takes her hand, lifting it so that he can brush his lips against her knuckles, against her ring. "My Queen."
He looks up just in time to catch a flicker of something in her eyes, a new angle to her smile. They're gone before he can take the time to even wonder what it was. "Not yet," she says with a fond roll of her eyes. "We're yet to be wed, after all. No patience, Dimitri, has nothing changed?"
Some days it feels like everything has. And other days, it feels like nothing has, and they are still young, shy Dimitri and headstrong El, as carefree as they could ever be.
Edelgard shakes her head, and sighs. But she keeps their fingers laced together even after he is done, and she does not let go.
Edelgard is staring at him. He raises an eyebrow at her but she continues to watch, the faintest hint of amusement on her face. Has he gotten something on his face? He suddenly feels self-conscious, and drops his fork to wipe at his face.
That earns him a giggle. It rings crystal clear in their chambers.
"What is it?" he asks.
"It's nothing," says Edelgard, blatantly lying. He continues to stare at her. Her talent for deceit normally far outweighs his ability to pick up on it; it’s one thing among many they've been working on. Honesty does not come easily to Edelgard, like forgiveness (for her, and for himself, too) still hasn't settled fully into his soul. But they try, and they improve, and slowly, miraculously, things are being made right.
"Oh, fine, fine." She shakes her head. "There's nothing on your face. I was just... imagining something."
"Very specific," he says dubiously, visible eyebrow raised.
"Sapphires," she finally admits, stabbing her fork into her slice of cake. "You would look good, wearing a crown set with sapphires. To match your eyes."
"I- suppose?" He knows his eyes are blue. In his youth he had gotten a few comments on them, about how much he resembled his father. "Is there any reason in particular that you're thinking of that now?"
“Jewelry is the traditional gift for someone marrying into the imperial family,” Edelgard says. “Crowns and tiaras, necklaces, rings, hairpins, brooches… To show that the imperial family can provide for them. My mother never wore her gifts often, not all of them, at least. But sometimes I would stumble upon my father braid golden clips into her hair, slide rings on her fingers and act out their wedding day again.”
Her smile, that has slipped into something dreamy as she recounts old memories, takes on a faintly wicked tilt. “Would you let me shower you in gems?” she asks. “Weave rings and bells in your hair? Necklaces of southern pearls, pendants of lightning-glass from Brigid’s shores, hand-carved wood clasps from Adrestia’s finest craftsmen. Say the word and you shall have all that, and more.”
“I don’t have need for much,” says Dimitri. “Not when I have you.”
It’s gratifying to have Edelgard speechless because of him. It happens rarely enough that he savors every time he catches her off-balance. When she’s flustered, it shows on her every part of her: her pale eyes widen; the blush that sweeps across her entire face; the way her sudden vulnerability startles her into stillness.
He takes another bite of cake and leaves Edelgard the space to compose herself. She does not like to be pushed in these moments, and he’s far behind on finishing his cake, anyway.
It doesn’t take long for Edelgard to recover. “Ever the charmer,” she says. “And what of Faerghus? I’ve had lessons about the traditions of the Kingdom, but I’ve never had much cause to brush up on this one in particular.”
Weddings in Faerghus, even royal ones, had always tended towards the simple. Function over form, better the sin of being too sparse than too ornate. He realizes that he can’t even name what present--if any--his father had given to his step-mother upon their marriage. And knives and hand-crafted daggers have always been the traditional gift for early courtship, but that’s hardly appropriate for their circumstances.
"Would my lady accept half a slice of cake for a dowry?" he asks, offering her his plate. Every dessert tastes the same to him, just some measure of blandly sweet, but Edelgard delights in trying the variety of cakes and pastries that they can afford to indulge in, nowadays. Once a week she brings them both something new to try, and though food has never quite become anything more than simple sustenance to him, he eats with her because it makes her happy.
She purses her lips when Dimitri inches the plate closer to her. “This is bribery,” she mutters.
“Perhaps. And what if I added half my plate of every cake from now on, too?” he asks, unable to help his own smile.
“You’ve turned into a shrewd negotiator.” She takes the plate from him, her stern facade cracking at last. “It’ll do, for a start.”
"I'm sorry," Dimitri says, wincing as Edelgard shakes the pain out of her foot. Again. This is the third time in as many minutes.
“I should have expected this,” Edelgard says. “I thought that your dancing had improved. Do you remember the ball at Garreg Mach? You were a good enough dancer, then.”
“The stakes were different,” he says. Because it’s true, but also because it’s easier than admitting how all thought of memorized steps flee his head when she steps in close for a twirl, how his reflexes falter and his feet feel like leaden weights when it’s her. “And clearly, I was not a good enough dancer to compete in the White Heron Cup so I can’t have been that proficient.”
Edelgard laughs, no doubt remembering what a mess the competition had been that year. From what he had heard, Dorothea had taken a while to forgive Professor Byleth for recommending Ferdinand for the cup over her. “Well,” she says, “we’ve been practicing a while. Come, let’s take a break.”
Dimitri isn’t about to complain. Dancing, particularly in the stiffer, more formal styles, leaves him with aches in muscles that he hadn’t thought he had. Perhaps it’d be easier to think of them as the familiar burn that a good spar leaves behind. But there’s something else about dancing, especially dancing with Edelgard, that leaves him worse off than any brawl could.
They make their way over to the bed to sit. Edelgard stretches, and rubs at the foot he had stepped on again.
“I am sorry,” he says again. Edelgard’s gaze flicks up to him. “I know this isn’t complex. And I want to do this right, I just…”
He trails off, unable to quite articulate his frustration. He’s supposed to be better now, isn’t he? Not just at dancing--though that is part of it. He’s not supposed to be ruining everything again, to be dragging even the best things in his life down with him. Sometimes he feels stuck, like he’s still the ghost of a man in the ghost of a tower abandoned by even hope, and that scares him. He doesn’t want to lose everything again.
“Dimitri,” Edelgard says, softly. She takes his chin in one hand, guides his face so that he must look at her. “It’s all right. We have time.”
Then she stops, wonder settling on her face like drifting snow. A smile slowly blooms across her lips, tremulous, as if she were afraid the world would take away her happiness if she dared express it. But she wears even this small joy luminously; she's beautiful like this, radiant, something close to half-divine. Dimitri wants to see her like this again, in every moment of every day to come.
She curls a hand around his neck, a wordless invitation eagerly accepted, and Dimitri brings his forehead down to meet hers. Her eyes have slipped shut but her smile is still there, and the two of them sit there just a while, marveling at their closeness.
Edelgard says again, slowly now, but certain: "Even if things are not right now, we will make them right. If it takes us the rest of our lives, we’ll find our happiness. We have time."
From her lips, it is edict. It is promise.
A vow for a vow, Dimitri thinks. "Time and more," he swears, and leans in to kiss her.